“If I said yes would you leave me alone?!” His voice came in somewhat of an echo as he watched the other. Granted, his threatening aura at the moment was a bit ignored by the soft noises to call over the cat, that of whom obediently followed the sound. Making himself seen once again, he was holding onto Bitters tight as the initial mood went from him being angry to being scared and even a bit testy-eyed.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he warned, acting quite similar to Nyle at his empty threat, “I just want to be left alone. W-Why does no one understand that?! I just want to be left alone and... I-I dunno, I find my ways of entertainment.”
 
"Clearly this isn't a fucking TV show, I... I'm not sure they could do this sort of shit without camera trickery a-and effects and stuff, so... so yeah, this isn't... I didn't... nobody t-told me that you were-- I don't-- don't fucking hurt me, I... I haven't done anything wrong except buy a damn house!" He loudly exclaimed, though the sudden turn in the pitch of his voice didn't mean he was anymore brave or confident. He'd effectively realised that the boy in front of him wasn't really alive, though he refused to even think the word 'ghost' - that would have him totally freak out, even if he knew that was the truth of the matter.

He wasn't brave, nor was he particularly convinced he would be okay at some point. He was terrified beyond compare, but also refused to leave the spot he was sat in, purely because he didn't know where the hell to go if he did get up.

"What are... What are you doing here, like... what do you want?!"
 
“This is my Home. They didn’t even let me settle before selling off the house. I paid for this place all on my own, worked hard to make it comfortable for me. I-I mean, all my friends talked to me while I was here! I didn’t even get a word in the price, o-or anything. A part of me knows it’s what I deserve for doing what I did b-but... I just want to be alone here,” he admitted, his tone softening a bit as he ran a hand across his wrists anxiously, more qualities of his past life making an appearance.

“I’m not going to hurt you,@ he admitted eventually after a moment of silence and contemplation. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just... I want to talk to my friends again and have everything go as it did before.”
 
"...Nobody told me that someone had... died here. I'm... assuming you're dead, I mean-- this sounds bullshit. Like, it sounds crazy and I can't... I'm struggling to believe I haven't just lost my mind, y'know?" He laughed, however humourless the sound itself was. Nyle was known for his constant positively and an almost permanent smile on his face, but it was hard to muster up a genuine smile when he had to take into consideration that he was having a conversation with a dead person. Or at least, the soul of a dead person.

"...This is... I didn't... nobody told me anything. I don't think I'd have moved in if I... knew it was... haunted? Is this, like-- are you haunting the place? That's... I mean... look, you're not like the ghost from Paranormal Activity are 'ya? So I... guess I... I'm okay. I'm not gonna burst into t-tears or have a breakdown, I'm... alright."
 
“Never saw it,” he admitted as he gripped his shirt anxiously. “I can try to hurt you if I want but... I don’t want to kill you. You look nice but incredibly stupid. Rosie - the realtor - was very adamant that if she couldn’t sell the house in five years that it would be mine. You bought it three months before the deadline. Do you know how frustrating that is?” He grumbled bitterly, his form fading a tad as his confidence did as well.

“”No one would want a buy a house where some loser killed himself,” he explained flatly as he desperately tried to hide his wrists shamefully. “I thought that I was pretty set since everyone did their research... but you, apparently.”
 
Being insulted and judged by a ghost was a new experience, and one he really didn't appreciate. Now, he was used to being insulted - he was ridiculously naive at times, so it really wasn't a rare thing to be insulted because of it, but he didn't like it... especially when it came from someone who was dead.

"...Yes, well, I'm an idiot, aren't I? But I fucking fell in love with the place and I didn't think to research. It has a great garden, a nice community-- I just got excited and went ahead without... thinking all that much," he snapped back at him, lowering his head to stare at his laptop screen, just to give himself something to look at that wasn't the judgemental ghost in front of him.
 
“That’s a lie,” he replied flatly as he let Bitters go, his lips pursed tight. “Why? Why did you ‘fall in love’ With this place? There’s nothing here, everyone is ignorant and everyone with push you out of their lives. I came here to be alone, and that’s what this place is for. You look like some kid who craves attention.”

Moving closer, he closed the laptop with enough force to make a clap but not enough to break it in hopes to possibly use it himself. It would be hilarious to see his own friends reacting to his sudden presence after five years. Granted they would be as old as 34 and as young as 25, so they probably just abandoned him and moved on with their lives. It was a sad realization that he tried not to think on a daily basis. Even when he was alive did he wonder whether or not his friends really cared about him when they logged off. Some of his friends lived as far as Japan and, while it probably wasn’t as serious to others, he was always giddy to know that there was always someone to talk to during his often sleepless nights.
 
"That's precisely why I loved it! It's quiet, it's small, it's... everything I'm not used to and I needed to fucking escape my city, so don't-- don't fucking presume you know me, alright? I had to move away. I had to get away from my ex, I needed a totally new... experience. And I'm here and I... I'm not going. I don't... I'm not getting pushed out," he mumbled, pulling his laptop closer to himself in an effort to protect it. This was not how he wanted his first day to go, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he was at least proud of himself for being so vocal and defensive, rather than run away and hide as he assumed he'd do.

Granted, he had no idea how he was supposed to live with the spirit of a dead person who wanted him gone, but he was determined not to get pushed out.

"You're going to deal with me being here and I... I'll let you take your cat and do whatever, but try to hurt me and I'll... I'll call a fucking priest and have this place cleansed or whatever," he muttered. That knowledge came from movies, obviously, but he felt the threat was enough, even if he wasn't so sure it was actually a real thing, and not just fabricated for entertainment in movies.
 
“Don’t you think they’ve tried? You don’t understand that I don’t want to be here, but I have no choice. If I have to suffer being in this... this shit-hole, I want to be alone!” He angrily explained. In all of the interactions he had with the living, there was something particularly frustrating with Nyle. He was too optimistic, it wasn’t fair.

Clutching his head, the now tearful and and shaking spirit seemed to suddenly disappear, leaving just Bitters to lick his leg casually.
 
"Y-Yes, well... you can't, okay? You can't be alone and I'm not going anywhere so... so get used to it. I don't w-want to share my place with you, but I can't fucking help it either, o-okay?" He managed to -somehow- blurt out despite his fear and the growing rage building up inside him at the audacity of the other. Was it his house first? Sure-- but he'd paid a substantial amount to live here. It was cheap, definitely, but it was still a lot of money for a college drop-out to afford. He wasn't prepared to lose all of that because of some tantrum-inclined ghost.
 
Leo’s reaction was nothing less than childish as the large, rather elegant mirror above an arm chair was shattered. The pieces of mirror littered the polished wooden floor, causing Bitters to hiss in response and run out of the room and out the door, that of which had just swung open and smashed closed once the cat was gone. The plus side to the door, though, was the fact that the ghost seemed to go with it, leaving the house to be quiet.
 
With the ghost presumably gone, with Nyle assuming the smashing of the mirror signified his dramatic exit, the human had time to drink in what had just happened-- but it wasn't easy to absorb the fact that he had a ghost refusing to leave him alone until he left. If he had been told of the paranormal activity surrounding the home, or even of the tragedy that happened, he probably would have extended his search to other states and to other homes.

Now he knew why the realtor was so sheepish when he asked a brief question about the history of the house, and why the house itself was so cheap. But he was essentially stuck here. He could leave, but that would -in his eyes- cast him out as a failure. After dropping from college, he didn't want the failure label to be stuck to him again. He was determined to stay as long as he possibly could, and if his life was genuinely in danger... then he'd consider going home.
 
Luckily for Nyle, Leo seemed to seemingly disappear - at least for a few hours. Within the first hour of silence, though, there was a light knock on the door of the cabin.

On the other side was an older women in her fifties, a plate of fresh cookies in hand. Everyone knew that another young man had moved into the home and the town always felt guilty not getting involved with Leo. To try and make up for it, Gigi was willing to take the first step to welcome him in their lives, hence her cheery disposition and home baked goods.

“Is anyone home?” She asked curiously, shivering a tad from the chilly Wisconsin air. “I don’t bite, sweetie. I can leave these at the door if you’d like, I know this might be overwhelming.”
 
It had been an hour since he saw Leo or experienced any abnormal activity, and Nyle genuinely believed that he'd imagined it-- until he glanced at the mirror shards he failed to clean up and realised that it wasn't some bewildering hallucination. It was real, and whenever he remembered that, he buried his head back under the pillow on the couch to try ad block out the world around him. It wasn't the most mature of solutions, but it was what helped him deal with things when it got tough - avoiding everything helped him a lot.

At least until he heard the faint knocking and the woman's voice. He didn't want to answer it, especially not when he realised he was probably a mess at the moment, but the prospect of sharing company with a living, breathing person was tempting... and he eventually gave into that.

Blinking at the sight of the woman and the cookies, he hesitated a moment or two before opening the door a little wider with a smile. "Sure, sure, come on in, I... I was having a nap," he explained, hoping it would justify his messy hair and darkened eyes. "Sorry, I... didn't expect neighbours to pop on over, not this soon anyway-- but it's nice! I, uh... I'm Nyle."
 
“GIgi,” she replied quietly as she took a step in, immediately taking in the new house. When Leo’s body was found, everyone and their mother scoped our the house out of curiosity. Leo was some weird hermit, after all, so seeing just how he lived was a big need amongst the other citizens. To see the house repainted, refurbished and generally given life, the older woman couldn’t help but smile. Not to mention meeting Nyle and learning he wasn’t some strange kid looking to block the world out was pleasant.

“Yes, well, it’s been a long time since we’ve gotten a new neighbor and the other’s got word of you coming,” she explaine, her Wisconsin accent thick as she set the cookies down on the kitchen table. “We heard from Rosie that someone finally moved in a few days ago and I wanted to be the first to say hello. The others want to hold a potluck and invite you to welcome you here, but... I dunno, I wanted to lead the way,” she admitted as she glanced down at the broken mirror warily.
 
Being around people was where Nyle came into his own. He adored meeting people and interacting with them, getting to know them and their ways of thinking. He couldn't imagine being like Leo, for example, shutting himself off from the world and living in almost total seclusion. It was his desire to continue to socialise with this woman that led him to quickly lie about the mirror. He didn't really want to start rambling about the ghost of Leo and scare her off, or make her think he was a troubled lunatic.

"Ah, don't worry about that. I tripped. It's typical of me, really. I've broken a tonne of bones in my body because of how clumsy I am," he grinned, able to laugh it off as he wandered through to the kitchen. "Do you want a cup of tea or coffee? I haven't really got food yet, but I have milk and I can make a great cup of coffee-- thanks for coming over, by the way. I... did plan on heading out and meeting people, but I didn't realise how exhausted I was until I sat down and just... drifted off."
 
“Oh, don’t worry about it. You’re so young, I’m sure this is a big step for you, huh?” She asked politely as she took a seat, smiling thankfully at the mention of coffee. “I hope you don’t mind the weather. It gets mighty cold here so you better stock up on some more coffee than what you have. Rosie told me this place has a fireplace now, ain’t that fancy?” She asked, a hint of jealousy in her tone.

After a moment of silence, the woman hesitated. Being the closest neighbor to the house, she blamed a part of Leo’s death on herself, insisting that she should have made it clear that he could have talked to her. She wasn’t going to do the same with Nyle.

“I know this can be stressful,” she began slowly, hesitant in her words. “You’re a young kid moving to a dying town, I just... I want you to know that you can come to me whenever you need help, okay? I don’t want you to think you’re alone. Gosh, that sounds cheesy, don’t it?”
 
Silently placing the coffee down in front of her, he moved to sit at the table opposite the woman as he absorbed everything she was saying. Whilst he didn't know the ins and outs of what had happened with Leo, he was smart enough to know that her offering of company and advice, should he need it, might be a response to the tragedy that had occurred in the past. Again, while he didn't know what happened to Leo, he realised that he'd died - it wasn't too difficult to work that out.

"Hey, I'm not gonna be stuck in here, I'll come out and meet people and stuff-- but I appreciate it. It's... totally different to where I'm from," he laughed weakly, running his finger along the rim of his favourite mug, one he'd been given by an ex-boyfriend that he'd refused to throw away, even after their break up. "So, there's not much to do around here, huh? No bars or clubs or anything?"
 
“There’s hiking?” She offered weakly, desperate to at least add some excitement to the sleepy town. “It’s mostly outdoors stuff and community get-togethers. There’s an old bar further north of the town ran by Jimmy, if alcohol is what you’re looking for but... no, it takes a half hour to get to any ‘clubs’. I don’t know why you young folk come here, to be honest. My daughter left the moment she graduated, headed to college and hasn’t looked back. I don’t blame her.” She admitted as she took a sip of the coffee, exhaling a tad.

“I think the youngest person here is Cherry’s son who just turned eight,” she thought, her lips pursed in contemplation.
 
"I needed to get away from Philadelphia, really. I dropped out of college and then my boyfriend went to jail and I just got fed up with the stress of everything, y'know? So I bought a house and moved on out here-- and it ain't so bad. I like it. It's quiet and peaceful and... it's what I need. Shame about the clubs, though. I always liked partying at a club until 3am and then heading home with some greasy burger," he laughed, resting his head on his closed fist as he examined the woman opposite him, smiling a little more once deciding that he liked her. He had three sisters and most -if not all- of his friends back home were girls. It was no surprise that he took an immediate liking to Gigi.

"You're pretty young though, right? You can't be older than 35," he playfully smiled, a flirty tone to his voice. He was a natural charmer, especially with women... despite the fact he was obviously gay. "And I'm not that young, you know. This place is perfect for me."