The Voice(s)...

Voice of Seven

'Sup! It's been a while, huh, since I didn't update this book? Missed the story already?

ーoOoー

The first time Riku saw one is when he was staring down from the hospital's room to the mini fountain below. Since his room was located near the hospital's garden-the place where he would occasionally goes with his beloved big bro when his health are a bit better-he could view the garden from the window easily.

Riku has been watching the old man for a few minutes but the old man did not budge from his position. Heck, he did not even move a single muscle. If someone else were looking at the old man who's sitting alone at the fountain and looks like he's just daydreaming in the middle of the night, they would surely assumed him to be a some sort of statue. And Riku knows he was not because yesterday the old man was not there, sitting on the spot he sees.

Shrugging, Riku moved away from the window, quickly adding some mental note to greet the old man when the morning comes. If Riku were a tad bit patient enough to stay on his spot, he would see the old man stretching his head up and eyes focusing on the one particular window, the same spot where Riku was standing.

The tomorrow morning came quickly as his everyday routine started to roll. His Tenn-nii visited him today and helped him to get over with the medicines. Riku suddenly remembered about the old man and wanted to tell his brother about that but seeing his brother needs to go to school, he postponed it until Tenn come again in the late afternoon.

After Tenn has left, Riku walked towards the window and beamed when he spotted the same old man still sitting there, at the same spot, like a real statue, staring at nothing in front of him.

Before Riku would think any further about the old man, he quickly slipped away to the garden. Avoiding being caught by the nurses and the doctors, if it is happen, he will get long lectures from them for attempting to sneak out as what he had done constantly in the past.

That is a story for another time.

Upon arriving safely at the garden, Riku quickly walked towards the mini fountain in the middle of the garden. The old man did not look up at him even though he is standing a foot away in front of the old man. For an attention seeker, Nanase Riku being ignored, of course he was not happy about this. Therefore, he tapped the old man's knee gently.

"Ojii-san? Are you okay?" Riku started albeit a bit hesitates to speak to a stranger for the first time without his big brother around.

Riku grinned when the old man looked at him, missing the shock filled face of the old man, as Riku was busy making a victory dance in his mind. However, was mercilessly forced to snap out when the old man said something that confusing him like he was just being asked a high-level mathematics equation.

"Y-you could see me... child...?"

After the whole event, Riku told his brother about the old man. A bit worried when Tenn making such a weird face that he assumed, close to bewildered. Then, Tenn told him that, the old man he was just meeting was dead yesterday due to a heart attack.

Meeting them here and there, Riku now used to have the ghosts' presence wandering around him. Sometimes, he would mistake them to be a human and casually talked to them. Nevertheless, that was in the past since he could now make the difference between the living and the dead-so obvious when the dead were not using their legs to walk around and face palmed himself when he did not even realized that sooner.

Now, at the present, Riku was not expecting to meet a ghost that he sees in the vision when the group were having lunch at the rooftop.

At his new, school...

The place that he was-they were casually spent their leisure time...

The vision he got when looking down to the ground... below...

Riku sighed when the ghost looking at him, eyes looks like he was ready to kill him in any moment. Riku raised both of his hands, a gesture of he is harmless to the ghost. He knows that the ghost might felt confused towards Riku since Riku could see it and no one else could.

"Who are you!? How can you see me so easily!?" the ghost growled at the redhead.

Riku looked at his surroundings. It is a good thing that i7 was not with him as they are in the classroom. He got the teacher's permission to go to the restroom and never expecting to meet the ghost on the way back.

At first, they were just walking-floating for ghost-towards each other but it cannot be help. Riku recognized the ghost-boy-and accidently, they stared at each other. Eyes shone with life and eyes blank in dead. The ghost noticed that Riku was staring straight to his eyes; quickly glare heatedly at the surprised ruby eyes.

Looking around once more, making sure, if no one was near them, Riku smiled reassuringly towards the other, trying to ease the tension.

"I could see spiritual beings since I was a child, so don't worry."

Now, he really hoped that no one-especially i7-caught him talking to the thin air since they cannot see him.

The dead boy looked at him from head to toe-shoes-before nodding and relaxing his posture. Suddenly he smile that sent shivers down the redhead's spine. Riku gave the boy a confused look but were shrug in return and then, it smirked... albeit a bit off from the previous character. Riku feels uncomfortable around it so he starts making some excuses in his mind to get away from it.

However, before he could even open his mouth, suddenly the ghost move towards him, faster that he could not react or defending himself.

The last thing the redhead saw was the dark smirk on its face before everything went black.