✔️𝐦 𝐚 𝐠 𝐧 𝐨 𝐥 𝐢 𝐚 - ||𝐥𝐮𝐤𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧||

𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

 So, you could only imagine the torment his mind buzzed through, the corner he had put himself into when she wasn't there, the pain and lonesome talks he had to put up after Dr. Lim had told him Magnolia could hear him. He had put it to the test himself, pushing himself to talk to the ghostly pale version of his older sister, the shell of her that was lifeless and cold, not the warm and crazy one he had grown to know. For the first time since her demise, he spoke...

Unknowingly being listened by her spirit, making up the other half of the conversation with her own tear-streaked face. He could hear the faintest bell of her, like static playing over in his hearing aid that had made him think that was really her, that the whisper was his Guardian Angel telling him that he needed to be strong.

To be strong for her.

The voice he spoke in was quiet and timid, one that was far from different from the person he knew today, telling her about his day and what he had seen. He promised her that first day that he was going to see the world for her, report back to her on every little thing until her mind painted the picture he was describing. Maybe that was why he adored photography so much, growing into the hobby in a way to show his sister the world when she couldn't see it for herself.

Every single time he saw her, he would leave a stack of photos by her bedside with each location scribbled in Sharpie on the back, hoping that they would one day see those places for themselves. To sneak out of their chaotic household on their darkest of days out at the dead of night, away from their screaming and petty arguments to the Beverly Hills Train Station, or maybe the Corner Cafe where milkshakes were two dollars for two, listening to the music from a little jukebox at the corner of the room.

He didn't realize how important those moments were, how she would drag him out to get fries at four in the morning, both armed with pepper spray and tasers in case some creep were to approach them. Some days, they would go grocery shopping at the nearest Walmart, or take a trip down to Los Feliz in a near-empty train car. He didn't want to do those kind of things alone, he didn't have the confidence to.

Ethan Nakamura knew the beauty of the night of the neon signs and the starry sky, how adrenaline pumped through their veins when they would pull their hoods up and scurry past police cars, giggling like maniacs as he tore down the streets of Beverly Hills on his sister's old bike, Magnolia wearing a pair of roller skates that he would have to hold onto her hand every time she fell over in the snack aisle of a gas station.

If he could go back in time to live in those memories, to remember the laughs they would share as a pair of siblings that needed to make up for their lose of time, that told the rules to go screw themselves. If he could go back to remember what it was like to no longer be alone, to no longer fear the fine line between life and death and choose to simply live, he would.

Ethan Robert Nakamura wanted to look his sister in the eyes and tell her he loved her, to stop her from going to the damned performance. As selfish as it sounded, he wished those nine months of fending his parents and the peering eyes of his high school off would disappear. He wanted to resume without the fear of missing anything.

The Nakamura boy had woken up with his eyes red and puffy, an array of lights dancing behind his eyelids as the morning sun creeped through the blinds of his bedroom. It made the room look a lot more lively, the dark green contrast of his bedroom walls seem as though it were out of a jungle, the number of guitars and posters hung up on his walls like fruit to the never ending seed of disaster. Unlike the rest of the Nakamura manor, his room was quite disorganized and frantic, like he was out of time to clean the mass of laundry that sat in its basket, or the collection of homework sitting on his desk.