"What do you mean they are with your brother?" Iris asked. She was a little frustrated that her brothers weren't with her. Also, he was dead. How can they be with him?
"Aether's here." Alek smiled softly. "We can talk to him but not touch him. He said he has been with us all the time. We never noticed him."
"That's insane." Lake commented.
"Can we talk to him?" Panacea asked with pleading eyes. She couldn't remember the last words she had told her son. She wanted to hear his voice or at least see him.
"I'm not sure but, I can take you to him." Alek told her mother. Since they thought seeing Aether was insane, she guessed they couldn't see him.
"Please." Panacea told her daughter and, she lent her hands to help her stand. Because of the collision with the wall, she hadn't recovered fully. Unlike werewolves and lycanthropes, they didn't have that much healing ability. It was twice or thrice faster than the average human, and because they were one of the leading clan members, the tolerance of pain was higher.
Alek put her arms around her mother and walked towards the room she was in a moment ago. The rest of the group, especially the Minazuki and Mutsuki, were curious and had little hope for meeting him. Bia and Kai got nervous. Is this it? Is this the time to meet their brother?
"I'm back. Everyone is." Alek knocked and asked the people inside. She knew her cousins were emotional, and maybe they wouldn't want to be seen crying.
"Come in." Alek heard her brother and smiled before she put her hand on the nob and turned.
"Hey, they haven't replied!" Astraea chapped in when her niece smiled and opened the door, not waiting for the reply.
"He did." Alek told her and continued to open the door. "I'm glad that you are still here. I've brought them." She spoke. "Can you guys see him?" She then looked back and asked the group of people that followed her.
"He is here? I don't see him." Lake looked around and even moved around in a circle but didn't spot his nephew.
"The same goes for me." Junto spoke. "I only see you guys sitting on the chunk." He then looked at the twins, who were currently having a talk with ghost Aether on cracked debris of the roof and walls.
"Anyone else?" Alek asked but, they all shook their head. "Looks like no one apart from three of us can see you, brother." She told him with a sad face.
"I guessed that." Aether told her with a sad smile and approached his family. He always stuck around his family but, this feeling was new. Today, they knew he was here. This somehow made him nervous if ghosts are capable of feeling that way.
"You are always right." Alek smiled down at his brother.
"Where is he? What did he say?" Panacea looked around to spot her son's figure.
"Here." Alek held his nonsolid hands. His hands felt like air. But, as long she was seeing him, she would hold it like she was really holding him. "He said he had guessed you guys can't see him. Right now, I am holding his hand."
Panacea looked at where her daughter's hand was. It was stretched out slightly and looked like it was holding onto something invisible. She reached out her hand to touch Alek's hand to hold her son's invisible, ghost hand. "Aether..." She then smiled at where she remembered his face was before he died.
"Hi, mum." Aether looked at his mother and smiled. The feeling was surreal and mind-blowing. "Could you tell her for me?" He asked his sister and, she nodded. "It's been a while. I miss you every day. Sometimes I feel like I am alive when I am with you." Panacea broke down when Alek spoke what Aether said instead of him.
"I miss you too. Everyone do." She broke down and, immediately, her husband rushed to her. Unlike her, he wasn't hit on the wall so, his damage was less.
"My love." He held her up again and looked at where she was looking before. "My son. I miss you too. There has never been a day I forget about you."
"Dad..." Aether smiled when his father talked to him. "I still remember that day when you told me you were going buy me a rocket if I ate the pickled plum. I ate it, but you still haven't bought me one. You promised." Aether told his father jokingly and, Robin laughed. Pickled plum was one of the things that weren't on Aether's favourites and, it was hard to make him eat one because he would take at least two hours to eat one. Alek usually ate it for him because she liked it. And to be honest, Robin had forgotten the promise he made with his son.
"I'll buy one and put it your room." Robin told him, even though he couldn't see him.
"I want it to be red with three windows on the side." Aether told him like a kid and made everyone smile.
"Umm, Aether?" Bia spoke to her brother after the laughter. She was used to saying out his name but not calling him.
"Bia. My sister. You know we have the same nose." Aether let go of his sister's and mother's hands and stood in front of his other sister. "You were so tiny back then. You've grown and, you are maybe the same height as Alek?"
"We do?" Bia asked back. Sometimes when she looked at the pictures of him, she felt there was something similar to him and her, but she couldn't point it out. Now that he mentioned, she would compare their noses when she went back home. "e are almost the same height."
"Eyy, there is a one-centimetre difference between you and me. It's a big difference. We ain't the same height." Alek squinted her eyes and warned her sister with not scaring gaze. To her, that one centimetre was big.
"I never said we are. I said 'almost'." Bia retorted back. "And your puberty stopped, I guess."
"Oh! Just ait until I become like dad or Jin or Rin or uncle Lake, then we'll see." Alek told her sister. The men in her family as tall, starting with their grandfather Johan from Mutsuki. All the tall genes were in the family may be apart from Alek. Maybe it skipped her and went into her sister and brother.
"We'll see about that." Bia told her sister.
"No, you will see." Alek told her and did the hand gesture for 'I'm watching you'.
"Yeah, yeah. Enough with the quarrelling." Jin and Rin held back their cousins so that they wouldn't start to bite one another. "Who wants to talk to him next? We don't know how much time we have left." Jin told them.
"Me." Kai stepped forward. "Hello, brother. I wish I could see you. I think we have a lot to talk about." He felt weird calling him 'brother'. He was definitely not used to it.
"We do. I wish you could see me too." Aether tried to touch his brother's face but, he couldn't. So he just kept it where he guessed it would be. "Mirror. Alek could you bring a mirror?" He remembered there may be a chance for his family to see him.
"Is there a mirror in this room? Alek asked Minaki.
"Why?" Kai asked his sister.
"I want to try something." Alek replied to him and turned back to the former head of Nagatsuki. "The bigger, the better."
Yukari didn't say anything but, she tapped her husband's shoulder and pointed in a certain direction.
"There is a big mirror hanging in the second living room in the west. Would he be able to... walk until there?" Minaki glanced at where the ghost maybe.
"I can walk." Aether smiled. "Shall we go?" He asked.
"Can we use the mirror for a bit? I swear I'm not going to break it or anything." Alek raised her hands and, Minaki nodded.
"Follow us." Minaki looked back and, his wife did the same. They walked to the room, side by side. Meanwhile, Alek kept on looking at her ghost brother.
"You walk surprisingly normal. I would believe if you were real if it isn't for the lack of shadow." Rin was walking behind Aether and, he was staring at him like Alek. Actually, even Jin did the same from opposite Alek.
Aether giggled when he heard his cousin. "It's kind of weird, isn't it?"
"It is." Jin kept on staring at the place where Aether's feet landed. There were no shadows indeed.
"It's here." Minaki spoke and opened the door of the second living room. It looked pretty much the same as the main living room, apart from being a little small. "There is the mirror." He pointed at the wall that reflected the sunlight from the outside. The main living room didn't have a mirror and, this was one of the things that were different.
Aether practically ran to the mirror and stood in front of it. He didn't appear. His smile was gone but, he still looked back and told them to join him. Maybe his reflection wasn't visible to him but, maybe, others could see it. The undead people.
Kai stood in the mirror where he was told to and stared into it. Aether didn't appear. "Alright, that's it." He spoke and faced away, brushing his brother's hand.
"Wait, what was that?" Astraea asked when she saw a flash of a human figure in the mirror apart from Kai. It looked small, and it was all white.