Soulmate AU in which your soulmate is the only person in the ghost world whom you can touch.
Warnings: this story will contain mentions of suicide, so if that upsets you, I advise you not to read. Other than that, only slight angst that I promise will be fixed with some fluffiness and leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside :)
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After being trapped in the ghost realm for almost a month now, Daichi understood the rules of the world to which he felt to be damned. A cold, loneliness cursed his entire being, leaving him feeling as though he was destined to an eternal emptiness. He'd been roaming through the real world yet hadn't been able to communicate with a single person whose heart continued to beat and whose body was still full of warmth. At certain times of the day, he'd learned that he'd be able to walk along those who still lived, completely unbeknownst to them, and at other times, he was cut off from those who lived and was only able to see other inhabitants of the ghost world.

It was strange. It was like some unknown entity would flip a switch and then all those who lived would disappear, revealing the other ghosts who had been walking in amongst the crowds.

Even after his tragic death a month ago, Daichi continued to roam Karasuno High School, walking down the empty halls during class time, watching the living students eat, looking in on the volleyball practices he was missing. The entire school and team had mourned the loss of one of their beloved students and players after his passing, but they were all moving on now. Sugawara led the team now, and everyone who didn't know of Daichi had already left him behind.

As Daichi watched the school students rush through the gates after the final bell, he suddenly saw the world change. All the students disappeared, leaving behind a few ghostly stragglers of students who didn't make it out of high school alive either.

He hoped that those who were still alive were getting home safely. As he thought about that, he relived the journey he'd made back home one day after school that had led to his untimely demise. On his way home, he'd been attacked by a group of guys around his age. They hadn't intended to kill him but their relentless and hard hitting attacks had beaten the life out of him. It took forever for someone to realize what was happening and call for help, but by the time an ambulance had arrived, he'd died of severe brain trauma.

Reliving his last moments once again brought him immense pain. That seemed to be the only thing he could feel.

He couldn't stand to be at Karasuno any longer, so he too began to head towards the gates, but he stopped when he noticed a figure sitting on a bench underneath a familiar tree. (H/l), silky (h/c) strands of hair framed her face, which showed an expression of hopelessness and emotionlessness at the same time. When he saw your (e/c) eyes slowly move up to meet his own brown eyes as he stared at you, Daichi immediately recognized you.

"(F/n)?" he called as he approached you and sat down beside you.

Your eyes instantly welled up with tears as soon as you realized you weren't as alone as you'd been feeling the past week and a half. "Daichi..." you responded softly, your voice barely a whisper.

"(F/n), what happened? Why are you here?" Daichi questioned urgently.

He resisted the urge to put his arm around you since he knew how cruel the ghost world was. Here, you could only touch the person who was your soulmate, and he didn't want to risk seeking human comfort and be left feeling more alone than before, as he had in the past when he'd tried to console his mother in the living world.

"I couldn't take it anymore..." you sobbed quietly as you pressed your fingers into your eyes, willing the tears to stop flowing.

Daichi felt his eyebrows knit in confusion as he tried to connect the puzzle pieces. He'd seen you at his funeral and you were alive. He'd seen you visit his memorial outside the school gates multiple times a day, and you were alive. He eventually started to wonder where you were when he failed to notice you around school or around the neighborhood where you lived at all.

You were his best friend, and yet you'd slipped into the ghost realm somehow without him even noticing.

"After you died, everything felt so much more difficult," you continued, "My classes became so much more challenging, I was drowning in work, and the abuse from everyone else here was too much for me to take. People kept bullying me about you not being around anymore. My ex... the one who you protected me from all the time... he started unleashing his fury on me once you'd been killed. He abused me in such terrible ways and I just couldn't take it anymore."

Daichi balled his hands into fists. That bastard.

"How?" he asked quietly.

"I overdosed. I didn't want to make too much of a mess."

Knowing that life had gotten so challenging that it had pushed the strongest girl he knew to suicide made Daichi's ghostly being fill with a conflicting mixture of rage and sadness.

"I'm so sorry, (f/n). I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you."

You looked up at him and could clearly see he was hurting just as much as you were. "It's not your fault. At least you're here now."

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Upon reuniting with you, you and Daichi had become more inseparable than ever. In life, you'd always been together and were seen as the dynamic duo by all of your other friends. In death, you spent all of your time together as well, helping each other ease the pain of the strange transition into lifelessness.

The more time Daichi spent with you, the more his feelings for you returned. While the two of you had still been alive, he'd started to develop feelings for you in high school that became so strong during his last year that he had been chomping at the bit to confess to you. He hadn't, however, because he was afraid of rejection. It was ironic how someone as brave as he was could be so scared of being turned down. But that fear only showed how strongly he felt for you.

He had always been curious as to whether or not you felt the same because of the fact that you'd been dating other guys. He'd thought so much about dating but he couldn't imagine himself with anyone who wasn't you. He was so madly in love with you it was ridiculous, and he hated himself for not expressing his feelings to you while you two were alive.

Now, a week after the two of you had reconnected, he felt his love for you fill his mind and body all over again, as well as regret for his stupid decision not to tell you before you'd both died. As he sat in front of you on the grass in a park you'd frequented back while your heart's had still beat, he wanted to face his biggest fear. Before he could open his mouth to speak, however, you turned your attention from the cherry blossom trees swaying in the breeze to his eyes, making him freeze yet again.

"Daichi," you began with a soft yet somewhat spiteful smile on your face, "I was such an idiot. I don't know why I kept dating other guys when I've had you by my side all these years. You've been the only one who's deserved my love, and yet I never gave it to you. And I'm so sorry that it's taken me so long to tell you this, but I love you."

Hearing your confession made Daichi's entire being ache for yours. He wanted nothing but to hold you and kiss you and do everything with you that he'd always dreamt about.

"I've been meaning to say the same thing to you, (f/n), and I'm sorry it's so long overdue, but I love you so much and I promise that now that we're together again, I will continue to be by your side," Daichi responded.

After hearing both of your confessions, the two of you simply stared at one another both lovingly and anxiously. You'd both refused to touch each other in case you hadn't been soulmates and your search for comfort in the lonely ghost world backfired, leaving you feeling even more alone and heartbroken than before. But now, with emotions and sexual tension running so high between the two of you, you needed to know the answer.

Daichi tentatively moved closer to you and his hands slowly reached towards you to touch your face. When his hand didn't go through you, and he felt the warm skin of your flushed face instead, he caressed your face with both of his hands as a smile formed on his lips. Your hands gently came to rest on his arms before snaking around his neck as he pushed stray strands of hair out of your face and pressed his lips against yours. As his hands moved down to your waist to pull you into his lap and bring you closer to his warm and comforting body, your grip around him tightened.

The passionate love behind the kisses you shared was everything Daichi had wanted and more. When the two of you pulled away for a moment, panting slightly from the intensity of your display of emotions, you gazed into each other's eyes with a knowing look.

When you suddenly blushed and broke your gaze away from his eyes, Daichi asked what was on your mind.

"Do you think ghosts can have sex? I mean, since we're soulmates we can touch each other and everything," you whispered sheepishly.

"I don't know," Daichi responded, "Do you want to find out?"

"Yes, please," you begged, shocking Daichi slightly with your determination. "But where are we going to go?"

"Anywhere."

"Are you kidding? What if someone sees us?!"

"What are they gonna do? Kill us?"

Despite the morbidity of the joke and the fact that you had both been struggling to accept the fact that you were dead, the two of you ended up laughing, and Daichi planted more kisses against your lips as he picked you up and whisked you away to do what you should've done together a while ago.