Kei didn't come to school for three days.
Ezra tried calling from the school payphone. No answer.
He went to the back courts, the library, even the cabin—empty.
Then on the fourth day, Kei appeared in Ezra's backyard at dusk. He looked like hell. A fresh bruise bloomed across his cheek. His eyes were dull, his smile cracked.
"I messed up," he said simply.
Ezra pulled him inside.
They sat in his room in silence. Kei traced the spines of Ezra's books with trembling fingers.
"My stepdad found the poem," he said. "The one you wrote. He thought it was a joke at first. Then he didn't."
Ezra felt like something inside him was curling in on itself.
"I told him it wasn't true," Kei added. "I lied. But it didn't matter."
Ezra sat beside him, unsure what to say.
"I can't stay here," Kei whispered. "Not in this town. Not in this skin."
Ezra looked at him. "Then don't."
Kei turned to him, eyes red. "Come with me?"
Ezra didn't answer right away. But he took Kei's hand.
It was enough of an answer.
They left on a Friday.
No notes. No bags. Just the clothes on their backs, the money Kei had hidden in an old shoebox, and Ezra's notebook—filled with poems no one would ever read.
They took the train south, toward where the sea met the cliffs, where the map went pale and roads ended in silence. The station was nearly empty. Kei wore a hoodie too big for him. Ezra had a cut on his hand from climbing out the window.
They said nothing during the ride. Only the hum of the train and the soft rattle of loose change in Kei's pocket.
At dusk, they arrived in a forgotten town with only one streetlamp. The air smelled like rotting leaves and the sea. They found a half-collapsed summer house up a wooded trail. The windows were broken, but it had a fireplace.
They built a small fire out of damp wood and pages from Ezra's old English textbook.
Kei looked at him across the flickering light. "We're ghosts now."
Ezra smiled, sad and soft. "Then let's haunt this place beautifully."