I See You

I.

"Shiranui-san …"

Genma felt it more than he heard it, his name a chill whisper in the dark that raced up his spine. He sat up, heart hammering in his throat. The sound, or whatever it was, had woken him from a deep middle of the night sleep. He looked around his room, wondering if Raidō already came from his mission and had somehow wandered in. All he saw was darkness and silence. No movement. Nothing. He tried to detect any presence in the room, but the it was empty except for him. Of course it was. He felt like a total idiot.

'Okay, no more hearing Yamato's ghost stories after dark.'

Apparently his imagination was just a little too active. He was wide awake now, adrenalin pumping through his veins. He looked at his clock. 'Midnight. Damn!' He'd just fallen asleep an hour and a half ago and he had a mission at eight. He was annoyed with himself and his overactive dreams. There was obviously no one in his room. He was just punching his pillow and getting ready to lie back down when he heard it again.

"Shiranui-san ..."

This time it was distinct. Genma hadn't been imagining it. He tugged a kunai from his pillow and looked around his room. Someone was there whispering his name, but he couldn't see a damn thing. Where the hell were they hiding?

"Whoever is there is better come out."

He waited, the seconds stretching out. There was no answer other than the pure silence that could only come in the smallest hours of the night. He sat up in his bed, stock still. He was listening for breathing, shuffling, anything that would tell him that this was some dumb prank from Raidō or even Yamato. The ANBU liked to play pranks with the other ninjas after telling one of his scary stories.

"Shiranui-san..."

The whisper broke the silence once more. If anything it was more pronounced. Genma could feel a slippery coldness work its way through his body. He couldn't see or hear anyone else in the room but he could feel someone there. He was feeling it…and it wasn't a living human presence. There was something in his room that wasn't supposed to be there and for the very first time, Shiranui Genma, special jōnin from Konohagakure no Sato, was scared.

'I have to get the hell out.'

He grabbed his pillow and comforter and headed for one of the lumpy beer stained couches in the second floor common room. He wasn't going to sleep well and his back would hurt like the devil in the morning, but it had to be better than this. As he was about to turn the doorknob, he heard a final whisper.

"Shiranui-san, don't leave. I need you..."

Genma felt a tingling again, like the feeling when people know someone is watching them. 'No freaking way am I staying in here!' He shut the door quickly, and had to force himself to walk instead of running like hell down the hallway to the common room.

He lay for hours on the old common room's couch, trying to fall asleep. He couldn't even get his heart to calm down, couldn't get that whispering voice out of his head. He was still scared by whatever had just happened in his room. 'If this is a prank, someone is going to get their ass kicked tomorrow.' He didn't even want to think of another possibility.

..👻👻👻..

Genma practically crawled into the kitchen the next morning. He was tired as hell and his body was aching from the hours spent on the couch. He needed some food and a major jolt to his system if he was going to make it through his mission.
He heard the quiet shuffling of feet coming over the threshold onto the cold tiled kitchen floor. He jumped a little, then called himself an idiot under his breath. He turned and saw Raidō, his best friend and housemate, eyeing him strangely.

"Genma what happened to you? you look like shit." Raidō said with a very relaxed voice.

Genma sighed. "Rough night. I couldn't sleep."

The scarred jōnin gave him another strange look. "You're in the corner room right by the back stairs, right?" He asked.

They had just moved in a few weeks ago, and none of them had gotten used to new apartment yet. "Yeah, why?"

The way Raidō had asked made the hairs on the back of Genma's neck stand up. Was he being paranoid, or did his friend knew something?

"No reason," Raidō answered quickly.

"Seriously Rai, what?" After the night he had, Genma didn't need any more strangeness.

"Before we bought this house, didn't it belonged to a chūnin..." Raidō pause for a while as he was remembering something. "Akira...yeah, Akira was his name. And wasn't that his room?"

Akira was the chūnin who sold them the house and after that he'd moved in with his girlfriend somewhere else two weeks later.

"I think it was, why?"

"Never mind, Gen. Just go to your mission."

Genma shook his head, basically at his limit for weird creepy events. First, last night, now this cryptic conversation with Raidō. 'Whatever. I have a mission to do and then teach those brats. I don't have time for this crap.' He thought to himself as he picked up his senbon off the kitchen table, sticking it in his mouth and rolling it around with his tongue a little until it felt comfortable.

..👻👻👻..

The special jōnin had plenty of time to think at work while he was teaching five and six years old kids how to hit the target with a kunai. He tried to rationalize the night before, think of a reason that he could have heard someone whispering his name. His last name furthermore. He didn't want to include the obvious but impossible explanation. That someone was in his room whispering. Someone invisible. A very skilled ninja perhaps or maybe a…ghost? 'Don't be ridiculous, Genma. Ghosts don't exist...' He shook his had and let out a smile.

He dismissed his class and went to the mission desk to hand in his report. He didn't want to but he was still thinking about the thing that happened in his room.

But honestly (and here was where he really started to feel nuts) fairly often in the past few weeks he'd come back from the academy or from a mission to find his stuff in slightly different places. Like someone curious had come in and looked through it while he was gone. Nothing was ever missing, so he hadn't said anything, but he could swear someone had been in there. And that feeling was there. Not as strong, but it was there. A milder version of that 'I'm not alone' chill he'd gotten the night before. 'Yeah, right Genma. You have an inquiring poltergeist.' He shook his head again, and handed his report to a beautiful chūnin who was working in the mission desk.

"Thanks Shiranui-san," She purred, smiling at him.

Genma hated the fact that she knew him only because he was a jōnin. It was kind of atrophy thing for a girl to end up with one of them. Not that he was bad-looking. Genma was actually pretty handsome. His honey coloured shoulder-length hair, and his brown eyes always called girls' attention. But he wasn't interested in anyone.

She stamped the report and gave it back to him, his tired brain was still sorting through all of the slightly weird events that had happened in his room since he moved to that house. His books moved, scrolls shifted through, his bed being made (which he never did). That last one was really creepy. He was starting to see why Akira had found his girlfriend's apartment so appealing.

By the time he was done with his day, he was worn out, and his mind had been spinning in circles for hours. He hadn't had a chance for a nap earlier, and he was so desperate for sleep he nearly curled up in the stock room. With he left the mission desk and headed home.

..👻👻👻..

"Shiranui-san..."

And there it was again. Genma looked at his clock. 'Midnight. Again.' He groaned. 'You've got to be fucking kidding me.'

"Leave me alone," He said to the general darkness. He felt like an idiot, but he needed sleep. He didn't feel like dealing with whisper boy again tonight.

"Shiranui-san, I need your help."

'Oh my god. What part of 'leave me alone' is confusing?' This time he felt the presence getting stronger. He grabbed the kunai under his pillow and threw the sharp weapon at the intruder. He sat up in bed, more angry than scared. His eyes focused slowly in the dark. That's when he saw him.

Genma nearly jumped out of his skin. There was a boy sitting calmly in the easy chair that Genma had squished into the corner of his room. He was watching the special jōnin patiently, as if waiting for him to wake up. Genma frowned, he couldn't feel any chakra presence in the boy. 'It doesn't look like a clone,' he thought, 'Body flicker? no he looks too young to know this technique. Maybe he's...A ghost.' Genma gulped.
Genma noticed he was a definitely ghost when he could see faintly his kunai on on the wall of the room through the boy's tan body.

"Who-who are you?" Genma asked, not really sure if he should consider the boy a ghost. It could be a ninja. A very skilled one.

"Umino Iruka," the boy answered, as if Genma should already know that.

"Ther-There's no one named Iruka living in this house." Genma wasn't not sure why he said it. It sounded kind of stupid even to him.

"I live in this house. This is my room. It has been for...what year is it?" The boy looked slightly confused. Genma pointed to the calendar that was hanging on the wall. "Then I guess it's been five years."

'So if it has always been him in this room...' "What did you do to Akira?" Genma asked. He wanted to be prepared in case this Iruka tried it on him too.

Iruka looked sheepish. "I didn't like his girlfriend's perfume. They couldn't see me, not like you can. I just played a few games."

"What do you mean, they couldn't see you?"
Genma was now curious. Not afraid at all. He was starting to notice things about Iruka, like Konoha's shinobi uniform but no hitae-ate, the brown shoulder-length hair, his huge dark-brown eyes, and a scar across the bridge of his nose that made him somehow cute and... 'Jesus! I'm cruising a ghost.'

"In all my years in this room, watching, learning, seeing the lives of the people who came here, you are the first one who has ever heard me. Believe me, I've tried. I don't know what it is. I decided tonight that I would try to let you see me. Obviously that worked too."

"Why me?"

"I told you. I don't know. Maybe because it's exactly five years...wait what day is it?"

"October first."

"Well, not exactly five years yet, then." Iruka cocked his head to the side as if considering something.

Genma noticed the long line of his neck, arched as his head turned. An image of him sucking on that soft skin flashed into his head. 'What the fuck? What's wrong with you Genma, you can't touch him! he's a ghost, and even if he wasn't...What the fuck?!'

"...five years since..." Iruka prompted, snapping Genma from his thoughts. "...five years since I died. In Halloween…at midnight..."

"And I'm the first one who can see and hear you. For whatever reason."

"Yes."

Genma thought of something Iruka had said a few minutes earlier. "You said you didn't like Akira's girlfriend's perfume. You can smell?"

Iruka grimaced. "Yes. Much better, as far as I remember, then when I was alive. Smells are very overwhelming to me. But not you. You smell nice." He blushed, as if realizing he had said a bit too much.

'No way. A ghost, blushing?' Genma literally couldn't believe this was happening. Either he had completely gone crazy or he was really sitting in his room talking to a ghost who liked how he smelled...'And blushed? Fucking blushed?'

"Iruka, you said you needed help. What happened to you?" Genma felt like he wanted to do something for the boy. It must suck to be stuck in the same room for that long.

Iruka gave him a disappointed look. "I don't remember. That's one of the bad parts. I guess I need to fix something, to get closure. You know the typical story…To find the light and all. But, like I said I don't remember what happened. I do remember everything about my life since I died. But hardly anything before."

'Well that is no good. How do you help when he doesn't even know what he needs?' "I guess I have to do some research, then?" Genma said it like a question. He really had no idea what he was going to do. Iruka looked so hopeful that the special jōnin's heart broke.

"I'll help you. I promise. I'll start by learning as much about you as I can find. You were a ninja, right? so there must be reports about you. But I will warn you, it might not be much."

"I know." Iruka whispered sadly. "I was just a seventeen unskilled chūnin. A nobody. Thank you so much for even trying, Shiranui-san."

Genma sighed and then it hit him. "How did you know my name?" He asked. There was that sheepish grin again. 'So cute...' He shook his head to stop his thoughts before it becoming something else. Iruka pointed at his mail pile. "You're the one who’s been looking through my stuff aren't you?" Genma raised his eyebrows. Iruka blushed again. He couldn't believe a ghost could actually look embarrassed.

"Just a little bit. I wanted to know who you were."

"So you can touch things."

"Sort of. It's hard, and I have to concentrate, but I can move things. That's how I freaked out Akira's girlfriend." Iruka grinned as if remembering a good joke.

'Wow. A pprankster' Genma smiled. "Hey Iruka?"

"Yeah?"

"Listen, I promised I was going to help you, and I will. But I got to get some sleep. I have things to do tomorrow, and if I'm going to try to figure out who you are, I can't be falling asleep during the day."

Iruka nodded, and stood. Genma was curious suddenly as to where he would go. The chūnin actually came towards him, hesitated for a second like he was concentrating on something, then brushed Genma's cheek with his halfway translucent hand and whispered. "Thank you," Then he disappeared.

Genma's cheek tingled where Iruka had touched him. Chills swept up and down his spine, but not unpleasant chills. Amazing chills, like when someone first kisses the person they love and they are totally into it. The special jōnin could feel all his body trembling with an unexplainable happiness. 'All from one little touch? Impossible!'

He had his silent room all to himself, but not too surprisingly, he couldn't sleep. But not because he had a face-to-face encounter with a ghost. His reasons weren't quite what he even would expect. Instead of lying awake afraid or unsettled, he stared at the ceiling and thought about Iruka's tan skin, his shiny brown hair, and those big black lashed dark-brown eyes. Iruka had looked so sad and vulnerable, adorable when he grinned. Genma was totally infatuated. 'Oh my god Shiranui Genma. You've held it together for two years, both feet planted solidly in the closet, and now this? You want a boy...who's dead? and who is now a ghost?'

During his twenty-seven years of life, Genma never actually dated anyone. He messed around on his teens years with some girls and sometimes boys, but he never thought about starting a relationship with anyone. Simply because he never found someone who would make his heart beat faster...Like now.

Unfortunately, there was a problem. Iruka the friendly (and cute) chūnin who was making him feeling things that he didn't want to feel was a damn ghost. A ghost that needed his help but didn’t even know what kind of help he needed. Genma promised to help him and even worse...He was totally attracted to him. A ghost. 'You're really fucked up, Genma.' He thought to himself, before turning to his side and falling asleep.

Tbc