The Ordinary Haunting

23. The Close Friends - Part 3

"I'm sorry about the pictures," Joss said breathlessly from my left.

I didn't dare look up from my can-only-rely-on-hope-and-luck whisking of my green tea powder and water, so I shook my head into the ceramic bowl with embarrassment.

"Please don't worry," I said, feeling giddy at the sight of some tiny bubbles. "I don't know what happened, but it wasn't your fault."

"What did happen?" Joss asked. His voice, still not quite stable, lowered an octave closer to his usual tone. A passing waiter leaned over to check my bowl and then held up an 'OK' sign with her pointer finger and thumb. She'd been impressively accepting of her ghost customer, I had to gratefully applaud her on that.

I balanced the bamboo whisk on its handle on the table beside me and turned the bowl slowly in my hands, observing the cool green froth. "I really don't know, Joss."

"That was your first time teleporting?"

"Telep-- Oh, no, I've done that plenty of times. I meant the stuff before that. The nausea."

"Teleporting doesn't make you feel nauseous?"

"Hmm, I guess it used to, the first few times, but I figured out how to deal with it. Besides, it never felt like that. That kind of nausea. I've never been that close to throwing up before."

I slid the bowl over to Joss, satisfied. He picked it up in his hands and held it to his lips. When he lowered it once more, there was a little line of green atop his mouth, barely noticeable in the dark room lit only by projections of fluorescent white fog and fat koi fish undulating on the horseshoe table before us.

"Not bad. Slightly too bitter, but good." He dabbed a napkin at his lip and adjusted his chair so that he was facing me more directly. "What do you mean you 'figured out how to deal with it'?"

I took the bowl back and tipped it around to check how much froth remained on the surface. "Mostly I bite my tongue. It's like pinching your leg while you're getting an injection, you know?"

Joss's stare was heavy. I could sense he wanted to take a very different pathway to the original date he'd planned. I passed the bowl of tea back to him, trying to show an encouraging smile on my face.

"You can ask me whatever you need to, Joss."

I wanted to help him, if I could. I really did. However, there was a part of me, let's call him Selfish Tay, who suspected that whatever it was that Joss needed to interrogate a ghost about, it might end up being similar to what I hoped New would one day feel comfortable enough to ask of me. I was curious, terrified, and eager all at the same time.

Joss clenched his fist on his thigh for a few seconds before eventually opening it and raising it to his neck. He undid the chain of his pendant and laid it on the table between us.

"This is Zee," he murmured. He opened the casing to show a young man with strong but pretty features, who was giving a small smile as afternoon sun highlighted his pink cheeks.

There had certainly been enough cues to tell me so, but I still found it unsettling that I was once again looking at the photo of a person and was one-hundred percent sure that they were dead. I wondered if that old man Leo knew of any other ghosts who could only pick up on spirits through their pictures.

"Hi, Zee," I said. Joss's body jolted, and then piled down on top of itself until he was a lot smaller next to me.

"He wouldn't have liked you much, at first," he chuckled. He closed his eyes and nodded when I went to open my mouth. "At first. He never took too kindly to friendly people on first meetings, but over time he was easy to wear down."