Chapter Text
Mizuki is 90% sure the house is haunted.
She's only been living with Date for 2 months, so at first she just thought it was paranoia. Just because she wasn’t staying with her parents anymore. Her daddy has visited a few times, to make sure she was ok, he says, and her mommy’s just called a few times. She thought it was just loneliness, but she’s getting convinced there’s an actual ghost in the house now. But she hasn't brought it up to Date, because...
She can't really explain it well. Kaname Date is an enigma, who started hanging out with her daddy a year ago, and that had apparently been enough for him to trust Date to take care of her. Mizuki only vaguely understands when her parents had said that they couldn’t take care of her anymore, but it still hurts. But she can’t keep thinking about it, or else she’ll just stop working.
Surprisingly, Date helps keep her mind off it somehow. She wouldn’t have thought it from when her daddy had introduced her, but he manages to take care of her. He listens when she talks, and he seems to genuinely care about her, and he never raises his voice.
But he's still a creepy old man, who always reacts a second too late, and gets a little too excited about speaker systems. And besides, he never talks about himself, she knows nothing about him except his name, and it fits how they’re just roommates, nothing more.
The haunting started small. Once, she woke up to find breakfast ready, even though Date always wakes up after her, and another time, the stuff in her backpack had changed overnight, even though she doesn't pack for school until the morning. Though when she asked, Date swore that he hadn't touched anything really suspiciously, so that one might have actually been him.
But the incident that got her to (almost) believe in the possibility of ghosts had happened only yesterday. She'd been woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of pots clanking. When she'd registered that it was still dark out, and definitely not a normal time for anyone in their household to cook, she'd immediately turned on the light. Date had groaned from the couch, but she ignored him and got up to check the kitchen. Weirdly, there was just a pot of stew, sitting innocuously as if it was supposed to be there, still faintly steaming.
When Mizuki shook Date awake (somehow he'd managed to fall back asleep despite the deeply important stew crisis, stupid old man), he'd frowned and went silent for a long time. Finally, he said, “Well, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. We'll try it for breakfast.”
He'd gone to cover it up, and Mizuki managed to say, “How can we just... eat that?! Do you even know where it came from?”
He turned back to her and had the gall to smirk at her. “Don't worry, kiddo. I've got a feeling it'll be good.”
And then he'd switched the light back off and impossibly fell back asleep in seconds, despite her “Don't call me that!”
(He'd managed to get her to try it, and it was actually good. Just like the one they’d had together the first time they ate out together.)
Mizuki still doesn't know how he just accepted it like that. A pot of stew just appeared. Maybe he knew the house was haunted... but why hadn't he told her? Sure, he barely told her anything, but this was important. She was living here too now.
But she doesn't want to risk this. Her mommy already hated her, and her daddy couldn't raise her, she was already stuck with this random person she didn't even know. What if Date got pissed off and kicked her out?
But that was a stupid question. Yesterday, she'd snapped at Date for the stew and he hadn't said anything, he'd just taken it and went to sleep. He wouldn't do anything to her, right?
She must have made some complicated noise over her eggs because Date perks up and asks, “There something on your mind, Mizuki?”
She asks the question before she can psych herself out. “Date, is your apartment haunted?”
He freezes and quickly says, “No. Definitely not, I think I would know if it was.”
Mizuki narrows her eyes and squints up at him. He definitely looks suspicious now. “Why would you?”
“Just don't like ghosts, is all.” He wipes his forehead and frowns. “Why do you think my house is haunted?”
So he really is a stupid old man. ”The stew? It just appeared. This literally happened yesterday, how do you not remember?“
Date says “Oh,” and then lapses back into a silence. Her entire face crumples. He keeps doing this. She's starting to get worried about him, though she would never admit it. Maybe. Finally he says, “Seriously, Mizuki. Don't worry about it.”
“What do you mean, don't worry about it? I live here too, I should be worried.” Her mind starts to wander. Is Date covering this up? Is he going to kick her out for this? But he looked genuine when he said he didn't like ghosts, and was even spooked when she suggested it. He looked the same way as when she'd crawled into his massive speaker to explore the apartment the first week and accidentally stumbled upon dirty magazines that were way too old for her. So it can’t be ghosts. But what else?
Date sighs deeply and stares at the wall above her, like he's choosing his words carefully. She hates that, hates him walking on eggshells around him. Then he says, “Mizuki, this isn't up for debate, ok? If the apartment is… haunted, I'll take care of it. So don't worry too much.”
She's about to argue but there's something in Date's face. It looks like he's not just arguing against her, but a group of Mizukis, and the strength of his gaze bores into her. So she immediately backpedals and says, “Ok. Sorry.” Her gaze drops to her lap, and she slowly wrings her fingers.
“Why are you sorry?” Date's voice has lost all its edge, sounding genuinely confused. She looks up and he's squinting with his mismatched eyes, waiting for an honest reply.
Mizuki feels like she's been dunked into a vat of cold water. This has never been how it is. Her daddy didn't really care but her mommy would expect apologies for anything she did, even if she wasn't in the wrong. Her reply feels thick on her tongue. “Um, I'm sorry I pushed you.”
His gaze seems to soften, a tentative smile forming on his lips. “Mizuki, you have nothing to apologize for.” He continues as if that sentence hadn't blown the gates wide open in her head, “I understand why you want to be involved, but I'm the adult and I own this house. I want you to worry about other things kids your age have to worry about, not about whether your roommate has ghosts.” After a pause, he adds, “Which I don’t. By the way.”
Later, when Mizuki will feel like she has nothing left, she'll push, because the situation will be much worse and she doesn't want to lose Date too, and she'll get involved and sometimes take a bullet for Date and sometimes he takes one for her. But right now, for something so comically banal as theoretical ghosts, she accepts and smiles back at him, wiping away the pinpricks of tears forming behind her eyes.
He still seems to feel bad though, but Mizuki has no idea why and when she asks, he just says he has to treat her because he's her roommate and she's only 8, and her frustration at Date's double standards gets wiped away by the unagi they have.
The moment where she pushes doesn’t come for a long time, so instead Mizuki opens up to Date, and she mercilessly bullies him, and in 4 years she's basically a different person around him. And though she harasses him for his videos, and the cabaret girl he’s half in love with, she doesn't ask about the ghost either.
She's now 95% sure that the house is haunted. And she's 100% sure Date's involved in it somehow. Even if he really does hate ghosts.
As Date's sleep schedule becomes increasingly eclectic and he starts waking up before her, she can feel something tuck her into bed, even though she’ll wake up in an hour, even though Date doesn’t seem to be in the same room. The kettle goes off with no warning, even when she's sure neither of them has set it, yet he never seems to realise this. Alarms she definitely didn't set tend to go off, even on weekends.
It's always at night, like the ghost simply can't come out in the morning. She entertains the idea that Date has settled a deal with the ghost, that it only comes out when no one else is awake. It’s really stupid but this was her main presiding theory, until one day when she's 12. Mizuki pushes open the door, with a loud “I'm home,” and immediately she sees Date scramble about around her bench and tense into what he thinks looks normal. Weirdly, he’s scrunching one of his eyes close, the one that’s a little brighter than the other. She’s always assumed he has some kind of heterochromia, though he’s never told her outright.
He manages a “Hey! Welcome back!” but his eye darts around desperately all over the apartment. He must be really spooked, she thinks, just like when he'd bought her Adorabbit. After a tense silence, Date adds, “I thought you were going to be hanging out with friends today? I wasn't expecting you back so soon.”
At this, she sighs. “Iris had to cancel on me last minute, and then the others couldn't make it either. I think it's their high school schedules.”
Date adopts an intensely familiar pout as he says, “I really think you should start getting friends your age. It'll be good for you.”
Bleh. She's heard this a million times, and she's repeated her response a billion times. He definitely remembers it, so she just puts down her backpack and starts to unpack. Instead of answering, Mizuki asks, “What’s got you so worked up?”
He freezes again, and looks anywhere other than at her. To push in the knife a little more, she adds, “Is your eyeball missing or something?”
That really messes with him. He full-body flinches, and then brings a hand up to his already closed eye. It takes him a second to get himself back, a second where she starts to feel bad, and he just says, “Mizuki, can you just go take a shower?”
The reaction is decidedly weird. She’s used to a Date that just fires back, uncaring that he’s now arguing with a grade schooler, or a Date that gets defensive, like whenever she calls him a pervert. But now he looks so shuttered, so angry…But she knows Date well enough to know that he isn’t angry with her. It’s like he’s angry with himself. It’s a first, and she doesn’t know how to react. So she backs down.
In the shower, she can hear a faint murmuring, like he’s talking to someone. The volume goes up then down, but she can’t bring herself to eavesdrop on whatever he’s going through. She’s used to him talking out loud to himself, answering his own thoughts, and it’s too similar to his bouts of silence that she can’t assume they’re unrelated.
Afterwards, she apologises and he just smiles, and his other eye is back, almost shining with how bright it is. So, she thinks, just like with the ghost, she’ll let Date explain it to her. Eventually.
Though she really does wish he would just do it already. She just wishes he’d trust her by now, even if she’s just a kid in his eyes.