Work Text:
Of course Korekiyo knows he’s supposed to be gently dusting artifacts… bent over his workspace, humming an ancient song only recently transcribed from stone, dug out of the past. Unafraid. As ordinary and unhaunted as he knows how to be.
Of course Korekiyo knows he’s luckier than lucky to have this job, especially considering his history. How many young men who’ve killed for the sake of their ghostly sisters in high school make it out of prison, out of hospitals, out of the reverent salt circles drawn around their beds? The seals of protection, to keep more ghosts from lifting their arms, from folding their fingers around sacrificial knives, from spilling blood.
For a long while after he woke up out of his haze, the consuming conviction that killing one hundred friends for his sister to clutch tightly in the afterlife was the only thing that mattered, the only way she’d ever be at peace, Korekiyo wouldn’t have been able to make it out to work like this at all. He would only speak to his friend Shuichi from Folklore Club, and then only with plenty of riddles and passwords to be sure he wasn’t possessed. He’d had something else inside him, something that used to be his sister but clearly, clearly wasn’t human anymore spilling her emotions all through his, changing them. But look at him now!
Yes, look at him now. Earlier today, Korekiyo strummed an ancient, freshly-translated-to-modern-sheet-music song on an old lyre, the first soul to play it, to hear it, in thousands of years. And now, he’s bent over himself in a museum supply closet, tracing little protection sigil after protection sigil on his pale scarred palm. He should be back at his desk. He should be dusting artifacts, humming, reveling. This should be a truly good day.
But it isn’t. The fear of her came again, when a bit of cold air brushed his neck, rustling his long ghostly black hair. When he heard laughter that sounded like hers in the hallway, behind him. When he saw his coworkers whispering and thought, oh, oh, they’re telling the story of me. Of us. It isn’t over and it will never be over. They said I only killed twice, but what if they’re wrong? What if I got so much closer to one hundred, one hundred friends like I promised her, before Shuichi called the exorcist. I searched the old house and the ravine and the storage shed, but there are so many other places I might find bodies, someday. So many places I haven’t looked. All the world is made for hiding bones.
Korekiyo should heave himself out of the closet. He wants to dust artifacts, pry out their secrets, find their place in the shifting canvas of humankind; he wants to assume the best of his coworkers and their laughter. For the moment, though, he finds himself frozen. His hair clings to his cheek with silent, frustrated tears, and still his mind churns back and back and back. Imagining what secrets he might yet have that could make even Shuichi from Folklore Club give up on him, if they get unearthed, dusted clean. Shuichi who called the exorcist, when it mattered… who paid her with money he made finding people’s lost pets and jewelry. Shuichi who helped Korekiyo get this job, a dream job, and patiently listened to him enthuse and analyze as he worked through his Anthropology degrees.
“It’s nice. It’s you coming back to life,” Shuichi said, about that rambling, that storytelling. Maybe Korekiyo could call Shuichi, now. Or maybe that exorcist… her name’s Angie, and she’s in all kinds of different time zones from week to week. He left his phone at his desk, though. If he could drag his stretched-thin bones up well enough to amble over and grab it, he could fold himself back into the desk chair. Hum softly. Pick up his tools.
After a while, there’s a light knock on the supply closet door. Korekiyo’s supervisor calls, “Hey, Kiyo? You in there? I’m letting myself in!”
This has happened before. Kokichi Oma’s a considerate boss, like dealing with people comes easily to him. He knows how to pick locks when supply closets get jammed; Korekiyo originally met him as Shuichi’s admirer, something like his unofficial boyfriend. Any day now their “adventures” are likely to become “dates.” If this were still high school, Kokichi probably would’ve forced himself in to become the third member of their unpopular Folklore Club. He did snatch up this job for Korekiyo’s sake… truly, for Shuichi’s sake… or so Korekiyo’s always suspected. Apparently, Kokichi has a lot of supervision experience, but his only formal training involved a clown school. What else would he be doing here, except maybe planning a museum heist?
Kokichi eases the closet door open slowly, because he knows Korekiyo’s been sitting in the dark on purpose. If his sister’s spirit were here in this darkness, he would see her like a shiver of light, like a smiling moon of a face, leaning close. Or, that’s how it used to go, except when she was wearing his face. So, Kokichi is careful with the light. He comes into the closet, too, and they sit for a moment in the dark until Kokichi clears his throat.
“Do you wanna go home? You’ve got lots of sick time,” Kokichi says. No one in his department ever seems to run out of sick time, actually. Strange, isn’t it? Strange, and probably not exactly above-board, but he covers his tracks well enough. He would do it for the whole museum if he could, Korekiyo suspects. And still, Shuichi has to drag him away to take sick time, occasionally.
“Hmm. I may… I may…”
“That’s okay.”
“I don’t want to abandon everyone. The artifacts.”
“I’ll pack ‘em up. Call Shumai to come get you. This stuff’s waited a million years, it can wait a little longer.”
“Not a million years, Kokichi. You’d best be prepared, if anyone official tries asking you what we do here.”
“Nee-heehee! You think they’ll figure out I faked my resume?”
“I wouldn’t want them to doubt you, let’s say.” Korekiyo’s voice is gaining a little strength, volume. Behind his usual mask, his lip spasms like a smile. He asks Kokichi if he heard the song they found, earlier today, the song that was sleeping in stone. He didn’t, but he’s curious enough. Wonders if it’s any good. Kokichi asks about the other projects Korekiyo has going, and they talk a little while. The whole time, Korekiyo is tracing that protective sigil on his palm, until he stops. Until his hands are able to calm, still shuddering. Until even the shuddering is gone.
Sometimes, on days like this, Korekiyo skulks out the back and Shuichi picks him up in his small, unassuming navy blue car. Smells like spilled ink, old coffee. There are so many places to hide bodies, you know. Should he go check more of his high school self’s other haunts? Should he scour the internet, stalk back through his memory again and again? Shuichi says no… often tries to distract him. Other times, Korekiyo’s able to feel relieved enough… unhaunted enough… to go back to his work. On rare occasions, they discover a bug in the supply closet or wherever else, and Kokichi asks for something like rescuing, in turn. He might shriek if a spider drops down into his flippy purple hair; he’ll resist the urge to dart away from Korekiyo and out into the bright hallway as well as he can. When a special preserved-insect exhibit was featured in their museum, he avoided it at all costs. Even climbed in a third-floor window to reach one of his meetings. With that and his pranks, it’s a wonder if he hasn’t been fired.
This time, Korekiyo goes back to work when he’s ready. He plays the ancient song he just learned, and Kokichi quips that it sounds a little like an old-timey cover of something from those Danganronpa video games. Huh. Maybe.
There is laughter in these back-of-the-museum hallways, but it isn’t Korekiyo’s sister’s laughter. Her grabbing spectral hands are long gone; her exorcism was as complete as it could rightly be. If Korekiyo ever meets his sister again, he hopes it will be as herself, not as whatever death made of her. He still tries to remember his sister as herself, when he can stand to try.
Korekiyo dusts artifacts gently, studying their patterns, the fingerprints in their clay. He is part of something, of humanity… his breathing is steady… this world is for bones and heartbeats, the living and the dead. Always in the shadow of the dead. His shift will be over soon enough.
Tomorrow will be better.