Before You Sleep || Cake (boyxboy) EDITING

•Ten• {This is How I Disappear}

[Song for the chapter is This Is How I Disappear by My Chemical Romance]

At school on Monday I went by my normal schedule of sitting in the back of classes and hiding in the library with Ashton for lunch and free period. The two of us had gotten along pretty well from the start and were slowly becoming friends.

"Shit I forgot!" Ashton yelped, snapping his comic closed. "You didn't meet Michael yet!"

"Who's Michael?" I asked.

"He likes to hide as well. He's just a lot harder to find. Sometimes he goes entire days without being found." Ashton explained.

I furrowed my eyebrows and marked the place in my book. "Don't his teachers care?"

"They're used to him being gone. Have been for a while now." He waved me off. "We just have to find him now unless he comes to us. Usually all you have to do is call. He's probably somewhere in here already."

We stood in awkward silence for a whole before Ashton nudged my shoulder. "Well? What are you waiting for? Call him already!"

"I don't have his number!" I defended. "How am I supposed to call if I don't even know his phone number?"

"You're so stupid. You call him like this, dumby." He said, putting his hands around his mouth to make his voice louder.

I copied him reluctantly and called quietly at first and then a bit louder. "Uh, Michael?" I dropped my hands and sighed. "This is stupid. Is this some sort of form of humiliation, like, do you do this to all the new kids?"

"I hope to god I'm not humiliating." A voice directly behind me said in a sarcastic tone, like the kind of tone that makes you want to punch the person for just opening their mouth.

I jumped forwards and squealed girlishly. "Jesus fuck you scared the shit out of me." I mumbled under my breath, trying to sort myself out again. "I'm guessing you're Michael. Where do you hide back there anyway? We're literally in a corner."

"Around." Michael said mysteriously, twirling a loose string on the hem of his shirt carelessly. "I have ways of getting around without being noticed."

"But, how do you avoid, like, classes and stuff without being caught?" I asked, leaning against the table behind me. I somehow felt like I needed to be cooler around Michael to fit in with his seemingly hostile personality.

Michael burst into laughter, doubling over and slapping his thigh. He made me jump again at the sudden outburst. That seems like a common theme when he's around. "You've got to be kidding me!" He laughed, wiping a fake tear from his eye. "You haven't explained to this kid yet, ash?"

"Who are you calling a kid? You're like, fifteen." I interjected.

"I'm technically almost twenty- We'll get to that later. Ash, please tell me you've at least told this kid something." Michael interrupted himself with a wave of his hand.

Ashton groaned and tugged his own hair. "I totally forgot, okay? We hit it off so well at first and I kinda overstepped it and didn't come around to it again." He explained worriedly. "Damn it. I thought I made an actual friend."

"I'm so lost!" I yelled, despite being in a library. "Just tell me already!"

"We're both dead, Ashton and I." Michael said abruptly, spreading his arms. "It's kinda sad to be honest, you humans have to live such unfulfilling lives when you could just off yourself and stay young forever. It's fun being dead. You know that saying 'I'll come back to haunt you? Well I can actually do that!"

"You've got to be kidding me." I laughed. "You're joking. You're pranking me right now aren't you?"

"Sadly, no." Ashton said, hanging his head. "You can go ahead and scream and yell at me now."

Michael laughed and started to grow a pale blue aura around him, his feet suddenly weren't touching the ground and the air around him was freezing.

"That's- that's actually pretty cool." I said slowly.

"You're taking this awfully well." Ashton gaped. "Are you sick? Did you hit your head?"

I shook my head and took in the high ceilinged room around me. "It kinda makes sense. This place always makes you feel like you're being watched."

Michael sighed and propped his feet up on a table, the rest of his body floating effortlessly in the air. "Glad that's out of the way." He chuckled, picking at the string on his shirt. "This damn thing. I just had to die in this shirt didn't I? Now I can't get rid of this fucking thing."

I leaned forward and rested elbows on the table. "So how did you guys die?" I asked like it was just a normal conversation. (This for sure is something I definitely need to get used to)

"Ash? You wanna go first?" Michael offered, and Ashton sighed deeply.

He looked down at the table. "The library caught on fire and I was trapped under a fallen bookshelf. I obviously didn't make it." He said quietly. "Mike? Your turn."

"I was sitting in that chair you're sitting in right now." Michael smirked, pointing at the chair I was sitting in. "I hid in the library from this guy who had gotten into the school somehow. There was a rumor that he had a gun on him. I thought I was safe in here, but five minutes later- bang. Brains on the wall."

I looked down at the grey carpet and noticed the red-rust colored stain on the floor next to my chair. "Yep," Michael said with an evil smile. "That's me."

[quick question

Who do you guys ship me with? (1D or 5sos or both since they're both in this story)]