“No one remembers me.”

“And I don’t remember anyone.”

“That doesn’t help. Let me go now.”

“No, no, I think this is great. I think we can get somewhere.”

“Where in the world are you trying to get to, with a ghost?”

“I think you being a ghost just opened up a whole new world!”

Park Chanyeol, a tall boy with hair too red for the eerily dark night and the sickly white hospital room, was on the edge of his bed, grabbing onto a pale arm that belonged to a dull appearance of a ghost boy.

The ghost couldn’t seem to budge with his forearm caught in the strong grasp of the fiery live human, and he was utterly upset about it.

Technically, it wasn’t even possible for a human to “catch” a ghost, though he did hear about other ghosts gossiping over how it was possible, but he forgot what the condition was.

“Look, I don’t know how this works, maybe this is just a lucid dream I’m having, but I think you can help me, and I think I can help you,” gibbered Chanyeol. The ghost stopped struggling with his arm and stared at the redhead in disbelief.

“That’s a lot of thinking coming out of an airhead,” the pale boy commented, “and none of them interest me at all. Now let me go.”

Chanyeol whined. “Are ghosts supposed to be this unfriendly?”

The pale boy snapped back, “Yes, and in fact, we’re supposed to be pretty hostile. Now let me go or I swear I will stab you to death.”

Chanyeol winced. “Well, that sounds a bit horrifying despite your originality.”

The ghost rolled his eyes. Chanyeol noted how big they were.

“By the by, my name is Chanyeol. What is yours?”

The white boy gave him a good long glare. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why? Some ghost society propriety?”

“Something like that.”

“Can you give me something I could call you, for the meantime?”

“No.”

“I’ll call you D.O. then.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’ve just named you, if you don’t mind.”

“I totally mind. Please don’t call me that.”

“Aren’t you even curious to why I’m calling you D.O.?”

“No. You’re dim-witted. I’m sure the explanation wouldn’t amount to anything. Now please let go, or I’ll curse you.”

Chanyeol looked down at his bare feet. The moonlight that shone through the open window, filtered lightly by thin curtains, made them look like they were made of marble. That made him shiver even though it was quite a hot summer night.

“I’m already cursed with amnesia, remember?”

D.O. bit his lip.

“But that’s okay.”

D.O. looked down.

“I might have lost everyone and everything else. But I can make new friends, right? Starting with you.”

D.O. looked away.

“Besides, didn’t you say no one remembered you? I’ll remember you. I swear I will. It’s hard to forget an encounter with a ghost anyways. I think I’ll even remember you in my next lives. I’ll probably be a giraffe but I’ll still remember you.”

D.O. couldn’t help but smile briefly. He wasn’t facing Chanyeol though, so only the moon knew his secret.

“Fine. What is it that you want to do?” D.O. muttered uneagerly, but not entirely reluctantly.

Chanyeol pranced from his bed to cuddle D.O., and the latter was expecting him to just plunge to the floor through him, as it was a fundamental fact that a ghost were intangible, but instead, he found Chanyeol able to touch him, grab him, bring him forth and give him a very suffocating hug.

“What are you—”

“Please. Just let me hug you. I haven’t had a hug since a while. In fact, I… can’t remember my last hug.”

Chanyeol’s voice started to tremble a trifle; D.O. did not miss that.

“I … can’t even remember my last hug,” Chanyeol repeated in a whisper that only a ghost could hear.

D.O. relaxed his shoulders.

“It’s okay,” he hushed too gently, “you can remember this one.”