When Rasu was alive, there had been no CD players or MP3s. The radio was a new invention, but there was a war going on and he had been poor, so he never got to listen to one until after his death. Many years later he had gotten himself a cassette player, and he recorded songs that were on the radio in the living world. Maria gave him a walkman, a portable cassette player, years later, but still before CDs were the fashionable thing.

He loved listening to it, and would curl up in his bed with the headphones on. Headphones were swapped when they broke, but he stuck to his old walkman, even though computers and the internet were widely preferred. There was something nostalgic about the old songs, and he would play his cassettes until the tape broke.

Now Hokuto was lying next to him in bed, and the volume was on loud enough to have the headphones lying next to them and they could still hear it.

He had never had anyone to listen to it with before. Many of the newer spirits found cassettes ridiculous, unless they were the spirits who had grown up with it. The younger ones didn’t understand it at all. But that was okay.

Hokuto had died years before Rasu had, and he had seen the technology advance. He hadn’t kept old things like Rasu had, wasn’t as sentimental, but now he found himself liking the old cassette player. His hand was slung over Rasu’s narrow hips, his fingers playing with the ends of the assistant nurse’s wild curls.Their faces were close to each other’s, and they watched each other through half-lidded eyes.

Rasu’s fingers traced Hokuto’s face, like they had so many times. He still found it hard to believe that Hokuto would want to be with someone like him.

As if sensing Rasu’s thoughts, Hokuto leaned in to give him a kiss. Before Rasu, Hokuto hadn’t kissed anyone. That was something you only did with those you liked the way his parents had liked each other. It was a light, soft kiss, and Rasu’s eyes slid closed.

He loved kissing Hokuto. The man always seemed so cold and scary before, with smirks and edges all over, but his kisses were warm, filled him up with happy little butterflies.

He kissed back, his fingers wandering from the vice principal’s face to his hair. Hokuto’s eyes closed as well, and to the sound of Little Willie John’s Fever he pulled Rasu closer, until their bodies were flush against each other’s and they kissed until they couldn’t breathe anymore. They only parted when they had to, lips brushing and breath mingling as they were lulled to sleep by the crackling of an old recording.

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