There was mild chatter through the supermarket with a gentle lull of the latest pop music echoing through the speakers as Wilfred begrudgingly picked up a basket. He then placed it back down, shaking his head and yanking a trolley from the side and pushing it down the first aisle and scanning the items.
"Why are we here?" The irritable voice beside him piped up, her eyebrows scrunched together to further emphasize how confused she was due to her hollow eyes revealing no emotion except utter emptiness.
"Well, I need food." Wilfred sighed, glancing at the fresh vegetables that were practically illuminating with a heavenly aura or just from the water sprinkler beside it, "I was so caught up in the whole ghost thing for a while that I realized I have no food."
"Yeah, well you have practically nothing in your apartment anyways." She snorted, averting her gaze when she felt his piercing gaze.
She then mumbled, "I'm not apologizing for telling the truth."
Wilfred didn't acknowledge her.
More of refused to acknowledge her.
After ignoring the sinister repercussions, he realized that she wasn't as malevolent as he initially thought. She made annoying quips, laughed at everything and anything, made the occasional kissy-face behind any attractive person who Wilfred looks at - just being a child, overall.
After spending a few days with her, he got used to her agitating yet age-appropriate behaviour. However, he couldn't get used to one thing – the incessant number of voices and figures.
He could handle ghosts on the street. He could handle ghosts in his workplace. He could just about handle ghosts in the comfort of his own home, scarcely handling them waking up right next to him. Yet he had to draw the line somewhere – the bathroom.
Wilfred had to accept the fact that he could see ghosts and step into the bathroom but... they didn't know he could see them. Many disfigured, transparent ghosts just stumbled through his bathroom door and curtains, causing him to rush with a burnt face. As he wrapped a towel around his waist and place his foggy glasses on, he'd feel eyes on him and uncomfortably whirl around, shooting a glare to an old lady with a hunched back and no hands. Despite that, she raised her eyebrows and grinned flirtatiously at him with absolutely no teeth causing him to let out a quiet whimper and swear to himself that he'd only go to the bathroom if his bladder were on the verge of exploding or if flies literally dropped dead at his stench.
He shuddered at the thought of that woman's face, turning his attention to Sarah who was waving a grey hand in front of his face frantically.
"Hello? Anyone in there?" She practically yelled in his ear, causing him to step backwards and shoot her a baffled yet agitated expression, to which she sighed, "You've been staring at the vegetables with such a… weird expression."
Attempting to mirror Wilfred's previous expression, which was immense mortification at the prospect of showering beside an elderly lady sending him flirtatious looks, she laughed loudly.
"Okay, okay, we get it." Wilfred burned bright with embarrassment, turning his trolley away and going down another aisle with his head shaking wildly.
"E-eh? Where are you going? Aren't you going to buy some vegetables?" She hovered beside him, peering over to examine whether Wilfred was annoyed. Looking up, Wilfred smiled lightly which dispelled her concerned attitude.
"I…" He trailed off and then coughed lightly, "Can't cook."
He adjusted his glasses, squinting his eyes slightly to read the different flavours of instant noodles he could purchase that were within his crippling budget, which ended up with him shrugging and pushing various types of it into his cart. He often did this and regretted later, something he lived by.
Sarah proceeded to contort her face from confusion to utter bliss as if she just discovered the holy grail.
"What? Lots of people can't cook." Wilfred defended, his face proceeding to burn with further embarrassment when realizing there was an old woman strolling down the aisle who shot him a confused look, then shaking her head as she reached a trembling hand to pull out five bags of the Tesco branded cat food, and hurriedly stroll back out.
'I should avoid talking to her in public.' Wilfred thought to himself, 'I can see them, but everyone else can't – I must look like a psychopath.'
After collecting his noodles, he whirled his cart down a random aisle, jumping backwards as a reflex since a figure was about to crash into him.
"Ah, fuck." He whispered to himself as a cold shudder danced down his spine, causing goose bumps to decorate his arms and legs despite throwing his navy parka jacket on before he left his apartment.
After getting acquainted with a few ghosts, he had assumed he would be used to the cold spots by now, but it had only been a few days. How long would it take to get used to this? Possibly a few weeks or months. He didn't expect to keep this 'ability' for that long, so he shrugged it off.
"You okay?" Sarah chuckled once spotting his frown.
"Can't get used to walking through you guys." Wilfred responded with his frown dispelling, looking up and meeting her curious gaze.
He peered down at the other items he wanted to purchase and cringed a little bit at the prices. The problem he faced was that no-one warned him that a university degree never came with a guaranteed, well-paying job in the field he chose. Instead, he has a job that would just about pay the rent in a crappy, unfurnished one-bedroom in a rather… questionable part of town.
He didn't have the luxury of spending excessively, yet had to purchase the blue tac, sticky notes, tape, a stack of plain paper and red wool.
"Why the red wool? Solving a conspiracy, are we Sherlock?"
Wilfred pursed his lips shut into a thin smile, an unfamiliar sparkle glinting from underneath his rectangular rimmed glasses.
"Well, you wanted me to solve your mystery, it would be a waste if I didn't dedicate myself to it," He laughed lightly and dropped the wool into his trolley, "My Sherlock moment has finally arrived."
Sarah nodded solemnly, watching as he hesitated on picking up a cork board, muttering to himself 'can I actually carry this home?' and 'I can stick these on my wall, can't I?', eventually sticking to placing the cork board back down. Sarah mocked him momentarily for being too weak to carry a cork board, with Wilfred proceeding to stick his tongue out at her.
To those who were watching, they just witnessed a man yell at the air, 'Oh shut up,' and stick his tongue out in childish mockery.
Wilfred steered his cart down to the self-checkout, thankfully getting there first since the store was partially empty due to it being a Saturday.
He bit his tongue when he had finally scanned all the items, the final price appearing on the monitor and hesitantly placing his card into the reader. Breathing out a sigh of relief when it wasn't cancelled, he placed all his items into the bags he brought with him (his mum always pestered him to keep bags at home since she watched a documentary on recycling and realized what global warming was) and placed the trolley back where he got it, finally walking out of the supermarket.
As they stepped out, Wilfred peered down the not-so bustling street to the police station that he noticed on the way in. A few officers streamed in and out, indulging in conversation or just frowning at the annoyance of drug users nearby. Detectives in formal clothing seemed to be there too, one even glancing at Wilfred from down the street with an unreadable expression due to distance, whilst tipping his fedora and walking back inside.
Wilfred was slightly disappointed at the detective's response to his gaze, but then again, he realized that if he were on the receiving end of a weird, longing gaze from a man down the street, he'd want to step inside immediately too.
"Speaking of which, I wanted to ask," Wilfred began as soon as he tore his eyes away, "Why hasn't the police cracked down on your case yet?"
A gush of wind hit his face, causing him to grit his teeth slightly as he attempted on pulling his parka closer to his body whilst balancing two bags. Despite it being the afternoon, the sun was beginning to set, and a selection of various colours were splattered across the sky as a few cars whizzed down the slightly desolate street. Wilfred was in awe at the sunset, attempting to recall his way home as Sarah strolled alongside him, somewhat guiding him to the apartment complex.
Her nonchalant aura dipped into a freezing one. Wilfred shuddered at the sheer tension she was radiating.
"The police…" She trailed off and gritted her teeth, eyebrows knitting together, "… are unreliable."
"Woah, what's with the anger?" Wilfred coaxed, unfamiliar with her resentful expression after spending hours with her annoying one, "Surely your parents filed a report."
"They… they did." She mumbled, "But after a year with no news, what do you think happened?"
Wilfred stayed silent.
"Are you okay?" Wilfred enquired, tilting his head upwards to the grey figure hovering slowly beside him with an unreadable expression strewn across her light grey face, hair sticking out in various directions yet not entirely outlined, like a cartoon.
"Huh?" She muttered, hollow eyes widened as if she had been snapped back to reality, her hands now resting in the pockets of her sweatpants.
"You alright?" Wilfred chuckled, his glasses tinting white from the random streaks of light of the afternoon sun, "You look…"
He was torn between saying 'sad' and 'angry', unable to find a word that could accurately describe the feeling she radiated.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." Her voice was lowered, nonetheless more light-hearted than the previous few seconds, causing a sense of relief to wash over Wilfred, followed by, "What? Were you worried about me?" Her mocking tone caused him to shoot her a glare.
"Of course not, I-uh just needed to make sure you weren't dying... again."
"Aw, you were totally worried about me!" She exclaimed, pointing at him accusingly as he pushed his glasses up, attempting to send her six feet under with a mere look.
"I was not! I don't even like you." He shot back, huffing slightly and turning down a smaller lane and sending her a pointed look.
"Sure, you don't." She sarcastically drawled on, narrowing her empty eyes in his direction as if she were gazing into his soul.
Wilfred couldn't help but grin. All his life, he was a people pleaser and always said what he was meant to say, what people wanted him to say. But despite only knowing this kid for a few days, he had said more of what was on his mind than ever before and that filled him with a ridiculous rush of adrenaline. He genuinely liked it.
He wanted to press on about the case to figure out what happened to her, but pure resent on her face when it came to the case made it increasingly difficult. He didn't have the heart to press on, so he decided that she'll tell him in due time, or he'd find out on his own.
After being so wrapped up in his thoughts, he turned around to see her standing still at the top of the lane.
Confusedly, he asked whether she was coming.
She laughed.
"You're going the wrong way, dimwit."
-
As soon as they stepped inside, Wilfred kicked his worn-out Nike's onto the shoe rack, threw his jacket lazily onto the peg and switched on the radiator. He placed the bags on his kitchen counter, rummaging through them to place the stationery on the side of the counter and the ramen stacked in the cupboard. He shuddered as he tried to wipe away the cobwebs that littered the cupboard with his hands and closed it, glancing through the drawers on the side.
"Ugh, this place is disgusting." Wilfred murmured to himself whilst realizing he was so caught up with balancing work with fathoming this new world of interacting with ghosts, that he couldn't do something as simple as unpack the boxes left from moving nor could he clean.
He should clean.
He should definitely take some time to clean.
But as he bore his eyes into the cobwebs at the corner of his kitchen with a spider laying still, he pondered over the cleaning aspect until he came to a reasonable conclusion – he'd live that problem to future him.
Future him would likely be seething.
Retrieving the remaining bag full of stationery, he threw it onto the living room floor and thought for a moment.
"Which wall do you think is more convenient? The one near the door or in the corner?"
Sarah's hollow eyes flickered over the gloomy and unkept living room, strewn with Wilfred's belongings and empty boxes that he swore to clean out eventually, and she clicked her fingers with a brightened expression after a few moments.
"The one in the corner seems better."
"Of course you chose the side with more boxes." Wilfred grunted, attempting to push the larger boxes to the other side of the room to make some more space at the corner wall. He muttered to himself continuously 'I'll sort this stuff out tomorrow.'
"I mean I'm all for it, but why're you putting it onto a wall?" Sarah curiously asked, watching Wilfred stack the empty boxes with the energy of a turtle on the verge of death.
"It helps connect evidence… once we find evidence, that is."
His response was sensible, as if he had just ripped it from 'The Idiot's Guide to Criminology', but Sarah squinted her eyes in disbelief.
She bore her hollow, judgmental eyes into Wilfred, who began to fervently flail around whilst stacking boxes before sighing in defeat.
"Fine, I saw it on an episode of Law and Order."
Nodding in smug victory, Sarah laughed.
"What's so wrong about that?" Wilfred mumbled to himself with a pout, "I'm living out my childhood dream of solving a murder… in the worst way possible, admittedly."
Wilfred shrugged, sweat beading from his face as he stared triumphantly at the now empty region of the room. Sure, the other side was cluttered with boxes, but he couldn't see it over his inflating ego. He stood on his sofa to yank open the curtains, so the room seemed a little brighter, despite it being ridiculously dark outside.
Wilfred placed the stationery on the floor and scribbled down 'Sarah Brown' onto a bright green sticky note (she didn't like the pink one at the top of the stack) and placed it in the centre of his wall, using tape to hold it down since he found that sticky notes aren't as sticky as they claim. The wall seemed so empty, but Wilfred was determined to fill it.
Sarah couldn't help but let out a childish grin, a hint of life within her hollow eyes that Wilfred savoured for a little longer, feeling joy swell up inside him like a fatherly instinct.
Wilfred could no longer recall what he was so worried about. From what he's seen so far, ghosts were more intimidating than they were horrifying (except for the one he woke up next to). He played it off as if this situation were miserable to him.
But solving a murder? Conspiracy? It was his dream as a kid (he was horrifyingly interested in Sherlock Holmes) and doing this revived a childish spark in him again. This was the most enticing this he's ever done, but he'd never admit it.
As he passed a sideways glance to the ghost beside him, he couldn't help but smile warmly.
He was determined to help her.