♡ ghost of you ──
જ⁀➴ a sae itoshi oneshot. 5.1k words
warning: contains elements like grief, loss, trauma, miscarriage, and more. recommended for 18+. if you feel uncomfortable, please read away — not for the lighthearted
synopsis: in which sae itoshi is haunted not by loss, but by erasure—forced to remember a girl the universe has already decided he doesn’t deserve to keep.
instead of dying in a single moment, you begin to disappear from sae’s life slowly, piece by piece,
at first, your texts go unanswered. then your voice fades from the voicemails. photos lose your face. his memories blur—what color your eyes were, how your laughter sounded, the way you said his name—until all that’s left is an aching void where you once lived.
it’s not death.
it’s erasure.
and sae is the only one who remembers you.
he tries to chase the truth—desperate, furious, breaking—but no one believes you ever existed. not rin. not your friends. not even your name brings results when searched.
but somewhere in his apartment, under a loose floorboard, he finds a page—your handwriting.
“if one day you forget me, i hope it hurts. i hope you feel it in your bones.”
because it wasn’t the world that forgot you.
it was him.
and the universe is giving him what he deserves:
a lifetime remembering the girl he let fall apart while he was too proud to love you right.
it started with a silence,
not the kind sae liked—the comfortable, empty sort that filled his apartment after a long game, where nothing was expected and nothing was given. no, this was thick. unsettling. like the air had forgotten how to carry your voice.
he noticed it in the smallest way: a missing message.
you used to text him every time he flew out. just three words.
‘come back safe.’
simple. stupid. sweet. he never replied. didn’t need to. you always said you didn’t mind.
but this time, there was nothing.
he sat in the back of a black car rolling through tokyo rain, phone in hand, screen blank. no notification. no missed call. he scrolled through their thread—it was still there. he’d never deleted it, even after those fights, even after he told you to stop being “so fucking needy.”
he didn’t know what he expected.
maybe some part of him thought you’d be waiting when he walked into the flat. arms crossed, eyes wet, pretending you didn’t care even though you always did.
but when the lock clicked and the door creaked open, he stepped into darkness.
no light. no music.
your shoes weren’t by the door.
your coat was gone.
his throat tightened.
he checked every room like a man searching for a ghost—bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, terrace. empty. but clean. too clean. like you had been erased with intention.
he collapsed on the edge of the bed.
there was a note.
just a yellow sticky, clinging to the mirror like a dying leaf.
don’t come looking for me. i know you won’t anyway . i just needed you to know i waited. i waited as long as i could. —y/n
he stared at the writing until the letters blurred, the words twisting into shapes he no longer recognized. then, with a trembling hand, he tore the paper down and threw it into the trash. he told himself you’d be back. you always came back. you were just dramatic, just hurt, just trying to punish him for something you chose to feel.
but for the first time, a small, awful part of him whispered—
what if you don’t?
the next day, he called you.
voicemail.
he called again.
still nothing.
he texted.
no response.
he tried a third time, a fourth, until the line didn’t even ring anymore.
disconnected.
three days later, he called rin.
“hey, do you know where y/n is?”
there was a pause.
“who?”
“y/n.”
“i don’t know a y/n,” rin replied blankly.
“you met y/n three times, at least. you came to dinner with us. that café near shibuya—”
“i think you’re confusing me with someone else,” rin said. “you don’t… date.”
sae stared at the screen. the call ended. he checked his contacts. no y/n. searched for your number. blank.
your messages? gone.
photos? erased.
his camera roll was full of game highlights, food, old travel shots—but no trace of you.
his hands began to shake.
no. no, he knew you.
he remembered the way you used to hum while brushing your teeth. how you always chose the pink chopsticks even though you said they were “too childish.” how you cried when the two of you watched grave of the fireflies together and he pretended not to be watching you more than the movie.
he remembered the way you kissed him.
soft. careful. like he might break.
he remembered fighting with you in the kitchen—screaming things he didn’t mean, stonewalling you with that deadpan look.
he remembered everything.
so why couldn’t he find proof?
he grabbed his coat. tore through the apartment. overturned drawers. ripped open closets. scanned every dusty corner.
no clothes. no photos. no perfume.
only a single sock caught in the dryer.
pink.
with pink hydrangeas.
the only thing you left.
two weeks later, itoshi sae stopped sleeping.
he didn’t toss in bed or drift in and out of half-dreams; he simply didn’t lie down anymore. the mattress remained untouched; its sheets still folded from the last time you made the bed—the day before you disappeared. the couch became his orbit, the walls his confession booth, and the darkness his only witness. he stopped answering his phone, ignoring calls from his brother, his agent, and coaches screaming about his “unstable behavior.” they didn’t understand. no one did.
the first night, he just whispered your name into the silence.
y/n…
the second night, he shouted it.
“y/n. please. come back. i’ll do better. i swear to god, i’ll do better.”
the fifth night, he began hearing your voice — not memories, not echoes — but fresh. clear. like you were standing behind him, just out of reach.
“you never listened.”
he spun around. nothing.
he clawed at his scalp. punched the wall until his knuckles cracked open and bled down his wrists like penance.
he dug out the sweater you left behind — the one you used to wear when you curled up beside him, when your world still revolved around him. he held it to his face and screamed into it.
“i’m sorry.” the words were salt in his mouth.
“i know i was cruel. i know i shut you out. i thought that if i let you in, you’d see how hollow i really was. and you’d leave.”
he started laughing. it was high-pitched. borderline hysterical.
“but you left anyway, didn’t you? not because you stopped loving me, but because i never said it back. not when it mattered.”
he stood, stumbling into the kitchen. he pulled open the drawer, his hands trembling as they hovered over the knives. not yet.
instead, he staggered to the bathroom, stared at himself in the mirror until the world warped.
‘this is what you left’, he whispered.
a ghost in the shape of a man.
the tenth night, he wrapped your sweater around his face and pressed a pillow over it. laid on the floor. hands gripping tight.
he tried to suffocate himself with the last thing that smelled like you.
“let me go where you are”
he said it like a wish. like a secret. like a coward’s final prayer.
but his body betrayed him. his lungs gave in. he gasped, sobbing, choking on your name.
“i can’t live in a world where you don’t exist.”
he curled into himself. rocked back and forth like a child abandoned.
“i made you leave. i pushed until your heart had nowhere left to live.”
silence.
always silence.
he crawled to the box of memories you left behind. letters. photographs. the sock you used to wear on rainy days because he teased you for how mismatched it was.
he clutched it like a lifeline.
like a noose.
“i deserve this”, he whispered. “all of it. the silence. the emptiness. the never knowing.”
he tried to sleep for the first time that night on the cold tile. then, the dream came—but it was different this time. it didn’t begin with your presence; instead, it began with a smell.
sterile. metallic. cold.
he stood in their old apartment, but everything was… wrong. dim. silent. the air smelled like hospital sheets and dried blood.
the clock on the wall blinked 3:07 a.m., frozen.
then he heard it — the sound of something falling.
a glass? a bottle?
then a muffled gasp.
he followed it down the hall. each step grew heavier, like the floor was swallowing his feet.
when he reached the bathroom, the door was open just enough for him to see you — crumpled on the floor. blood soaked the back of your thighs.
your hands were trembling, red-stained. clutching her stomach like she could hold something in.
you were crying, but not loudly.
no. that would have been mercy.
you were sobbing into a towel, trying to muffle yourself. because he was asleep in the next room. because you didn’t want to bother him.
“it’s okay,” you whispered to yourself.
“it’s okay. it’s okay. i’ll clean it up. i’ll… i’ll fix it. he doesn’t need to know. he’s got practice.”
and then you vomited from the pain. he tried to move. to run to you. to scream. but he was locked in place. just a ghost in his own guilt.
then—flash. the scene shifted.
you were at the doctor’s office. alone. your hands were fidgeting with your sleeves. the nurse tried to hand you a clipboard, and your fingers were shaking too hard to hold the pen.
“is the father not coming?” the nurse asked gently.
you smiled, that brittle kind of smile that breaks you if you look too long.
“he’s busy,” you replied. “he… he has a match today.”
cut again.
now you were home. staring at the ultrasound photo on the kitchen counter. crumpled. useless now. you stared at it for a long time before finally whispering,
“i wanted to tell you so many times. you kept saying you weren’t ready. that love made you weak. that it was ‘bad timing.’”
you wiped your eyes and laughed—laughed, but it sounded like it hurt.
“so i waited for the right moment. i thought if i held onto it long enough, maybe you’d hold it with me.”
then you looked up—straight at him. even though it was a dream. even though it couldn’t be real.
“but you never even saw me, sae.”
the walls around them bled into another memory.
he was standing by the front door, duffel bag in hand. you held the miscarriage report like it weighed as much as a planet.
“i lost it,” you had said again. your voice didn’t even break this time.
he watched himself nod. not look at you. say nothing.
“i’m bleeding, sae.”
still nothing.
“i haven’t slept. i feel like i’m dying.”
silence.
“can’t you just—can’t you just hold me? for a second?”
then, dream-sae—the one who didn’t know what he was destroying—muttered,
“i can’t deal with this right now.”
you sat down on the floor like your knees gave out.
“okay,” you whispered. “okay.”
he watched himself leave. the door shut. and you curled into yourself like you wanted to disappear.
he curled into himself on the floor of the bathroom.
“i remember,” he whispered. “i remember it all.”
the tiles were cold against his cheek. his knuckles bled from punching the wall. he didn’t care.
he had no tears left. just the echo of a name. a name he’d never speak aloud again without it tasting like rust. for three nights, he didn’t sleep. he didn’t eat. he didn’t breathe properly.
because now, every time he closed his eyes…
he saw you in pain. on the floor. in a clinic. alone.
he saw the pieces of your life that he had stepped over like shattered glass. he had called it love—love—while you bled in silence and begged for warmth he never offered.
and now?
now all he had were the words he never said:
i’m sorry. i should’ve held you. i should’ve come home sooner. i should’ve asked. i should’ve listened. i should’ve stayed.
each sentence pressed into his skull like a branding iron. each breath a punishment.
then came the eleventh night.
he stood in front of the mirror and whispered, “she’s not gone.”
it wasn’t denial. it wasn’t hope.
it was certainty.
because someone like you couldn’t just vanish. not without the universe cracking in half.
“she didn’t disappear,” he said to the empty apartment. “i just wasn’t looking.”
so he started looking.
he tore his place apart first. found your old socks under the couch. one earring beneath the sink. a sticky note on the back of a photo frame that read:
‘buy toothpaste. and tell sae he’s being mean again.’
he stared at it until the ink blurred. then he went into the city. train stations. bakeries. bookstores. that little café near shibuya that you used to love — the one with the over-sweet pastries and piano music in the mornings. he asked every barista. showed them a photo. well, not a photo.
a drawing.
he drew your face from memory; dozens of versions. dozens of scraps. eventually one stuck, and he printed it—posted it on community boards.
missing person y/n. age 22. last seen in minato. please call if you’ve seen her. (favorite color is dusk.)
he didn’t list a phone number. just an email.
he couldn’t stomach the sound of a stranger’s voice asking, "was she yours?"
strangers gave him pitying looks.
a teenager asked if it was for a school project. a man in a suit told him it was unhealthy to hold onto “ghosts.”
but one old woman, pausing outside a shrine, read the paper and touched his arm.
“she must’ve really meant a lot to you.”
he nodded slowly—voice rough and hollow.
“she did.”
but the truth, the ugly, unforgivable truth, was that he hadn’t realized how much until the moment he lost you. and now?
he would scour every alley, every whisper, every corner of the city. because some part of him believed you were still there.
just around a corner. just beyond his reach.
and maybe, if he looked hard enough, broke himself open wide enough — he could finally say the words when it mattered.
a month later on, he visited a therapist.
they told him it might be stress. grief manifesting as delusion. a product of burnout.
“you travel a lot. your schedule is brutal. it’s not uncommon to invent comfort.”
“i didn’t invent her,” he snapped.
he stormed out.
but not before he saw it: a note tucked under his wallet when he got home. the handwriting was different. slanted, softer, familiar in a way that made his stomach drop.
your handwriting.
if one day you forget me, i hope it hurts. i hope you feel it in your bones.
he dropped the note like it burned him. and for the first time, he started to wonder—
maybe this wasn’t grief—maybe this was punishment after all.
sae stopped playing for a while.
he told his coach it was a groin injury—something about overextension and tight muscles. they nodded without question. after all, he was itoshi sae. no one dared to ask more. but the truth was far darker: every time he stepped onto the pitch, your voice haunted him.
“you always look loneliest right after you score.”
he’d never understood why you said that before. now, it carved through him like a knife. the field felt hollow, stripped of its noise and cheers, because you weren’t in the stands.
his life, too, was silent—except this silence was no longer peaceful, no longer a quiet refuge he craved. it was a low, constant hum of absence, a gnawing rot beneath every surface, spreading and eroding everything he once held dear.
that emptiness consumed him, spiraled into obsession. he scoured surveillance footage from convenience stores near their old apartment, scanning for any glimpse of you. he lurked through internet forums, desperate for a scrap of information. he tracked down the café manager you adored, asked for receipts, loyalty card points, your usual order.
the answers were always the same: apologetic, confused looks, and the words that tore at his sanity—
“no record of anyone named y/n.”“no one ever sat at that table for two.”
it was as if you had never existed. his mind frayed at the edges.
he wasn’t sure if he was losing himself—or if he had already vanished inside the shadows of his grief. he even tried to return to the national team as a distraction. he flew to the next friendly, stood stiffly in the tunnel while rin passed by with a cold, cutting nod.
“still chasing your imaginary girlfriend?”
rin spat, the bitterness in his voice like acid.
sae’s fists clenched so tight his nails bit into his palms.
“don’t say that,” he hissed, but rin didn’t relent.
“she never existed, nii-chan.”
sae’s voice cracked, a desperate tremor breaking through.
“she did. i laughed with her. i ate her cooking. i told her she was the only reason you weren’t completely insufferable.” rin’s eyes flickered with something close to pity.
rin’s eyes flickered with something close to pity.
“i think you need help.”
sae didn’t step onto the pitch that day.
one night, his phone rang.
unknown number.
he picked up, heart stuttering.
“hello?” static.
then—your voice.
“i kept trying, sae. i really did.”
his blood turned to ice.
“y/n?”
“but you were never really there.”
click. silence. he redialed again, heart pounding, but no answer came through the void. desperation drove him to check his call log—only to find no trace of the call, as if it had never happened. he replayed the moment over and over in his mind, until the memory stretched thin, fragile as a whisper on cracked glass, slipping further and further from reality.
then—three months in—he found it.
a floorboard in the bedroom was loose.
beneath it: a box.
not large. just enough to hide the things the world had forgotten.
inside had: – a necklace you used to wear. – a crumpled movie stub. – a polaroid of the two of you laughing on the balcony. – a note.
written in ink smudged with tears.
if you’re reading this, it means i finally did it. i finally left. i wanted to wait until you changed. but people don’t change unless they lose something they thought they could always take for granted. you always thought i’d be there. you said love made you soft, and you didn’t want to be soft. you wore your cruelty like armor. but i was never trying to break you. i was just trying to hold your hand. and you wouldn’t let me. so i made a deal. i asked the world to forget me… except for you. because i wanted you to feel it. the full weight of what you threw away. a thousand lifetimes of it. i hope you remember me even when no one else does. i hope i haunt you like your own name. and i hope, one day, when you reach for me in a dream—you wake up alone. goodbye, sae.
he didn’t cry. he just sat on the floor, shaking, for hours.
from then on, everything became about you—shadows lurking in every reflection, half-formed whispers chasing him through crowded streets, the faint, haunting scent of your conditioner clinging to the elevator air. sleep abandoned him completely. the nights stretched endlessly, hollow and cruel. doctors handed him sedatives with hopeful eyes, but he flushed each pill down the sink without a second thought. forgetting you would be mercy—and mercy was a grace he believed he had long since forfeited.
then he started writing letters. he wrote thousands of them;
in the dark,
in the silence, because silence was all he ever gave to you. he didn’t write for you as if you were still there, able to read his words and respond. instead, he wrote for your ghost—the lingering presence that haunted every corner of his mind and heart.
dear y/n, you told me you were scared, and i told you to be quiet—like your fear was something i could simply ignore. you came to me crying, desperate for comfort, and i told you to wait until after training. i was cruel beyond words. that night, when you bled and whispered, “i think i lost it,” i asked if it was even mine. i’ll never forgive myself for that question. you begged me not to leave for spain, but i left you there—crying in the hallway, clutching the ultrasound photo—and i never once looked at it. you asked if i still loved you, and i called it childish. but the truth is, i did love you. i just couldn’t bring myself to say it. i heard you sobbing in the shower and turned the tv up louder to drown out your pain. you made dinner and waited for me, and i ate in silence without a single word of thanks. you reached for my hand in bed, and i flinched—not because i didn’t want you, but because i couldn’t bear the fact that you still wanted me. when you left, you didn’t slam doors or scream. you simply vanished—knowing i wouldn’t chase after you. i thought i had more time. i thought you’d wait. i thought love could survive neglect. but it can’t. you were real. i treated you like a shadow, like something that could be ignored and forgotten. if i had held your face that night you said you were tired—maybe you would’ve stayed. if i had said, “i’m scared too,” instead of, “you’re being dramatic”—maybe our baby would’ve had a name. i want to believe you’re out there somewhere. but deep down, i know you’re gone. the girl i loved would never have let go unless she had to. and i was the one who made her have to. i speak to your empty chair every night and say, “i miss you,” even though it means nothing now. i love you. i love you. i love you. i only wish i had said it while your hands were still warm.
he stopped writing only when the ink ran out. then he tried writing in blood.
one day, weighed down by everything he couldn’t undo, he found himself by the river—the very place you once whispered about:
“if i ever disappear, this is where i’d go. like fog over water.”
he stood there, watching the currents swallow the light, until night fell like a shroud around him.
clutching a white hydrangea.
then two.
then seven.
he dropped them into the river one by one.
he dropped the flowers into the river not because it eased the pain, but because the hurt was the only thing that still felt real, raw and undeniable in a world that had otherwise gone numb.
the third year was the cruelest.
sae moved through life like a ghost himself; playing games, giving interviews, signing jerseys, but none of it belonged to him anymore. his smiles were thin masks; his eyes held no warmth. every victory felt even emptier, every cheer a lie.
he carried a small box under his pillow, fragile proof of her existence. each night, he’d pull out the worn letter, trace the faded ink, memorize the trembling curve of her handwriting.
he used to cry. now, he only stared. hollow.
and then, on a rainy evening, as he walked through a quiet town far from tokyo, the rain was relentless, drowning the city in cold gray. sae barely noticed. his world had been drowning for years.
and then—
you were there.
not a dream. not a memory.
it was you.
you stood under a flickering streetlight, drenched and fragile, the groceries slipping from your hands.
his heart shattered in the silence before he called out your name.
“y/n.”
your eyes met his—empty, distant—but still you.
“you shouldn’t be here.” the words fell like knives.
“why not?” his voice cracked, desperate and raw. “why did you leave me? why did you disappear without a word?”
you shook your head, voice trembling.
“i didn’t leave. i was lost. i chose to vanish.”
“vanished? you think that makes this easier? you think i stopped searching? you think i stopped needing you?”
swallowing hard, you looked away.
“i wanted you to forget me. to move on. to heal.”
and suddenly, sae laughed—it was bitter, humorless.
“move on? heal? i’ve been bleeding, y/n. every day without you is a wound that won’t close.”
“i asked them. i begged them to erase me from your world.”
“who? who did this to you? tell me!”
shooking your head again, tears spilling down.
“some things are meant to stay buried.”
“don’t do this. don’t shut me out. i’m here. i’m broken—but i’m here.”
you took a step closer, voice cracking with sorrow.
“you were already gone when i left. you never saw me. not really.”
“i was scared,” he whispered. “scared that if i let you in, i’d lose myself. so i built walls. so high, you couldn’t climb.”
you looked at him—pain and love tangled in her gaze.
“and i waited. i waited for you to break them down. but you never did.”
his hands trembled as he reached for yours.
“i was a coward. i thought needing you made me weak. but i see now that without you, i was nothing.”
you squeezed his hand gently.
“love isn’t always enough, sae. sometimes, it’s the cruelest kind of poison.”
he swallowed the lump in his throat.
“i’d take that poison a thousand times if it meant holding you once more.”
your eyes searched his, filled with memories of a love that never got to bloom.
“do you know why i asked to be forgotten?”
he shook his head.
“because every time i looked at you, i saw the man you could be without me dragging you down.”
“i wanted to be better—for you. but i was too broken to try.”
“you broke me too,” she said softly.
he closed his eyes, the weight of those words crushing him.
“if i could rewrite everything, i would. i’d tell you i love you. i’d fight for you. i’d never let go.”
“but you didn’t—and now it’s too late.” you stepped back, voice barely a whisper.
“—goodbye, sae.”
he lunged forward, desperate.
“no! don’t leave me again. please.”
your figure blurred, fading like smoke in the storm.
he screamed your name until his throat bled, but only the rain answered. sae collapsed on the cold pavement, clutching the spot where you had stood—as if holding it could somehow bring you back. he screamed again, the sound raw and empty, echoing off the indifferent walls of the city.
but there was no reply. no figure rounding the corner. no warm hands never gonna pulling him up. just silence engulfing him—thick, suffocating, and endless.
when he returned home, drenched and shaking, he burned the box you had meant to left behind. all the memories he couldn’t bear—photos, letters, the hoodie that still smelled like your shampoo. he watched it all turn to ash, hoping the fire would consume the ache, the guilt, the impossible longing. but even as the last flame flickered out, the emptiness remained.
but he kept one thing. a single, soaked sock. pink hydrangeas — the last piece of what used to be a life shared.
no one knew the hollow man on the field.
no one understood the man who whispered to empty rooms.
every year, on a rainy november night, sae stood on that rooftop, staring at the city lights, whispering:
“come back to me.”
months later, sae vanished.
no goodbyes. no trace.
some say he’s still out there—chasing ghosts. others say he’s trapped on that rooftop, waiting for a love that was already gone.
and in the dark between heartbeats, the only truth left is the cruel weight of a love
that came too late.
“some ghosts don’t haunt from hate. they linger in silence. in love. a love too heavy to carry. a love lost before it could be found.”
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