Màu nền Màu tối Mặc định Xám nhạt Xanh nhạt Xanh đậm Vàng nhạt Màu sepia Vàng đậm Vàng ố

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Kaizo had never been close to Solar. 

Sure, he had saved the boy's life once, but that was it—no heartfelt conversations, no lingering camaraderie. Just the occasional professional exchange, crisp and impersonal. Their relationship was defined by duty, not care. 

Which was why Kaizo was completely unprepared for the sight before him now. 

Standing in his office—translucent, glowing faintly at the edges like a malfunctioning hologram—was the unmistakable figure of Solar. 

Or rather, Solar's ghost. 

Kaizo wasn't the type to panic, but his grip on his datapad tightened to the point of near-cracking. 

"...This makes no sense." 

And yet— 

The spectral Solar tilted his head, examining Kaizo's desk organizer with detached curiosity. "Technically, no. But you're seeing me, so..." 

"I'm not talking about ghosts existing," Kaizo snapped, voice low. "I'm talking about why me? We barely know each other!" 

Solar shrugged. "No clue. But I guess you're stuck with me now." 

"What?" 

"Well, I'm stuck with you," Solar corrected, floating slightly higher. "But I won't be bothered, so... yeah. You're the victim here." 

Kaizo groaned. 

Because Solar wasn't wrong. For some unfathomable reason, the ghost couldn't wander more than ten meters away from him. 

"Anyways," Solar mused, poking at Kaizo's weirdly shaped clock (a gift from Fang), "nice clock." 

Kaizo ignored him, striding out of his office and heading straight for the medbay—where, according to the higher-ups, Solar's body had been recovered. 

"Hey, slow down!" Solar called, drifting after him. "I'm trying to catch up!" 

The medbay doors hissed open before Solar could say more. 

The scene inside stole Kaizo's breath. 

Solar's brothers—Duri, Blaze, Halilintar, the others—huddled around a still, sheet-covered form. Their grief was a suffocating weight in the sterile air. 

And then there was Solar, standing beside Kaizo, very much not under that sheet. 

"This is awkward," Kaizo muttered under his breath. 

Solar, meanwhile, floated over to his own corpse and curiously poked at the toe tag. "Huh. I look terrible." 

Kaizo resisted the urge to strangle him. 

He watched as Solar tried—and failed—to comfort his siblings, his ghostly hands passing uselessly through Duri's trembling shoulders. 

"They can't hear you?" Kaizo murmured. 

Solar's usual smirk faltered. "...Yeah." His voice was quieter now. "Weird, huh? I spent years trying to get them to stop crying over stupid stuff, and now—" He cut himself off. 

Kaizo did something unprecedented. 

He waited. 

Solar exhaled (purely out of habit). 

"Tell them I hid the good snacks in the ceiling panel above my bunk." 

Kaizo blinked. "That's what you want to say?" 

"And that I swapped Dad's favorite tie with an identical ugly one. He never noticed." 

"And the code for my mission logs is—" 

"—not something we discuss in an unsecured medbay," Kaizo finished automatically. Old habits died harder than people, apparently. 

Kaizo rolled his eyes. "I didn't know you were such a prankster."

"A never-got-caught prankster~" Solar corrected smugly. "You should try it sometime."

Kaizo sighed. 

This was going to be a long afterlife. 

——————

One Month Later

The world had moved on. 

Solar's brothers had adjusted—as much as they could—to the absence of their light. Missions resumed. Life continued. 

Kaizo, however, was now permanently accompanied by a ghost with zero sense of boundaries. 

"Kaizo." 

"No." 

"I didn't even say anything yet!" Solar floated upside down in front of him. 

"You were about to ask me to do something ridiculous." 

"Okay, fair. But hear me out—what if you just lightly pranked Taufan?" 

Kaizo didn't look up from his report. "No." 

"He's been so gloomy since I—y'know." Solar gestured at himself. "He needs a laugh! And you need to loosen up!" 

Kaizo sighed. "What's your idea?" 

Solar's grin was downright mischievous. "So, you know how he always leaves his cap on the table when he eats? What if you just... nudge it into the soup?" 

Kaizo stared. 

"...Too much?" 

"Yes." 

Solar pouted. "You're no fun." 

Kaizo rubbed his temples. "You're a ghost. Shouldn't you be haunting someone else?" 

"Nah," Solar said, stretching out midair. "You're stuck with me. Literally." 

Kaizo groaned. 

But if, in the quiet moments, he found himself smiling at Solar's antics—well. 

No one else had to know. 

—————

Sometimes, when Kaizo woke from a nightmare (not that he'd admit it), Solar was already there, smirking. "Wow, you snore like a dying engine." 

Sometimes, when Solar thought Kaizo wasn't looking, his grin would fade as he watched his brothers from afar, silent and wistful. 

And sometimes—just sometimes—Kaizo would catch himself not minding the company. 

"Hey, Kaizo." 

"Hm?" 

"Thanks." 

Kaizo glanced at him. "For what?" 

Solar shrugged, smiling. "For not freaking out. For putting up with me. For... not being alone." 

Kaizo looked away. "...You're annoying." 

Solar laughed. "Yeah. But you like me." 

Kaizo didn't deny it. 

And if that realization settled warmly in his chest—well. 

That was between him and a ghost.

—————

Kaizo sat stiffly in the mess hall, mechanically eating his nutritionally balanced meal. Solar floated cross-legged above the table, poking at Kaizo's broccoli.

"You know, if you just—"

"I'm not letting you possess my food," Kaizo muttered under his breath.

Solar gasped dramatically. "I wasn't going to suggest that! ...Okay, maybe a little. But think how funny it would be when your spoon starts moving by itself!"

Kaizo's eye twitched. "No."

"Fine, fine." Solar drifted over to where Gempa was eating nearby. "Ooooh, Gempa's having pudding! What if I just—"

Kaizo stood abruptly, his chair scraping loudly. The entire mess hall went silent as he marched out, muttering to empty air, "Don't you dare."

Gempa blinked after him. "Is... Kaizo talking to himself?"

Fang shrugged. "Stress, probably. You know how he gets about protocol violations."

—————

Solar had discovered the joys of being an unseen menace.

When Captain Kaizo entered the briefing room, his usually immaculate uniform now had one stubbornly untucked shirttail that kept coming loose no matter how many times he fixed it.

Solar floated nearby, grinning as he flicked the fabric again. "This is the most fun I've had since I died."

Kaizo clenched his jaw, whispering through gritted teeth, "Stop. It."

Across the room, Ying nudged Yaya. "Why does Kaizo keep glaring at his own shirt?"

Yaya adjusted her glasses. "Perhaps he's developed a personal vendetta against laundry?"

The situation escalated when Solar started making quiet "boop" noises every time Kaizo reached for his datapad. The stone-faced captain's increasingly strained composure was starting to worry his team.

"Sir," Gempa ventured carefully, "are you feeling—"

"I'm fine," Kaizo snapped, then immediately winced as Solar blew in his ear. "That's it. Meeting adjourned."

——————

The final straw came during an important training exercise. Kaizo was demonstrating proper sparring technique when his left shoe suddenly came untied mid-kick then came his belt loosened and worst of all—his perfectly secured tactical vest began unstrapping itself.

The recruits stared in shock as their notoriously strict instructor's gear started falling off mid-demonstration. Solar floated behind him, grinning as he tugged at another strap.

"SOL—" Kaizo caught himself just in time, taking a deep breath. "Everyone. Take five minutes."

As soon as they were alone in the equipment room, Kaizo whirled on the ghost. "That's ENOUGH!"

Solar blinked innocently. "But your face was priceless! You should've seen—"

"I can't take this anymore!" Kaizo hissed, re-securing his vest with sharp, irritated motions. "You're dead! Why aren't you doing dead people things? Floating through walls? Moaning tragically? Whatever normal ghosts do!"

Solar crossed his arms. "Boring. And technically, I am floating." He demonstrated by bobbing up and down. "See?"

Kaizo groaned loudly enough that Ochobot poked his head in. "Uh... everything okay in here?"

"Perfectly fine," Kaizo said through clenched teeth, glaring at the empty space beside him where Solar was now pretending to do push-ups mid-air.

——————

That evening, Kaizo sat in his quarters, finally having regained his composure. Solar floated nearby, uncharacteristically quiet.

After a long silence, Solar sighed. "Okay, maybe I went too far with the vest thing."

Kaizo didn't look up from his reports. "Maybe."

"...You're really no fun, you know that?"

Kaizo set down his pen. "And you're the most irritating ghost in existence."

"Also the least expected one to have that nature." He added nonchalantly.

Solar grinned. "But you'd miss me if I was gone."

Kaizo opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. After a moment, he muttered, "Don't push your luck."

Solar's smile softened. "Wouldn't dream of it, Captain Grumpy."

And if Kaizo left an extra pudding cup out the next day that cup mysteriously disappeared when no one was looking... well, that was between him and a certain invisible prankster.

—————

Fang frowned at his empty tray. "By the way, has anyone seen my pudding?"

Kaizo remained impassive, but Solar's translucent form shimmered with excitement. "Wait...you actually—"

A barely-there smirk tugged at Kaizo's lips as he raised one discreet finger to his lips.

The floating pudding cup above Fang's head answered all remaining questions as our poor carrot boy looked up. Fang's alarming scream then made Ochobot short-circuited from overloading...

P/S: The pudding was dropped and splatted because Solar wasn't careful, how sad :(