Work Text:
Hallucination
"What's wrong, Masako?"
Masako realized she had halted her step in front of the window. She stole another glance at the garden below, only to find it empty.
She involuntarily put her sleeve in front of her face to hide her troubled expression.
"Did you sense something?" Mai inquired with this annoying, everlasting concern of hers. That only served to worsen Masako's mood.
"No."
The answer was as cold and confident as it needed to be, but Mai didn't seem convinced. "Eh? Why did you stop so suddenly then?" she asked with a frown. "Are you sure there's nothing?"
Masako hesitated a second. The dark silhouette she had seen in passing, she was almost certain it was him, but… no, especially because it was him, she wouldn't tell her.
"Yes. Nothing." she replied curtly. "Let's continue."
Mai looked irritated by her icy tone, but shrugged nonetheless. "Okay then. Let's go."
Masako laid still on her makeshift bed, replaying the scene again and again in her head.
After that they had gone straight to base, where Naru was sat, watching the monitors with his usual stern expression. She had had a hard time hiding her confusion at seeing him here, when she had been so sure she had seen him in the garden not a minute before.
This could have been an honest misunderstanding, a minor incident, and could be easily overlooked if it had happened only once. However Masako couldn't deny that she regularly caught a glimpse of what she thought was Naru, only to find later that it hadn't been him.
But the details of her memories were so vivid, so accurate, that she could only accept her brain had forged them. The way his black vest clung on his frame, the soft way his hair caught the light, even the particular angle he held his head...
Hallucinations?
She forced a deep breath through her nose. It wasn't the first time she had questioned her sanity. With an ability like hers, it had to be expected.
But it scared her all the same.
The image of her own parents whispering the dreaded question, as they argued about her over the kitchen table, still haunted her to this day. Hallucinations, her father was saying, his face grim and his eyes tired behind his spectacles. An imaginative child's delusions, her mother was reassuring, her tone hopeful despite the worry in her gaze.
Then there was the guilty look they harboured when they noticed her venturing sleepily in the kitchen for a glass of water or a last goodnight kiss.
The feeling of being inadequate hadn't left her after that.
Still, she had proven to herself, and to rest of the world, that she wasn't crazy but gifted. She had even become famous, her talents recognized by her peers. Of course ghosts were real, she was reminded of the fact everyday in her field of work! She had shown them!
But what if, was the nagging thought at the back of her mind, what if, amidst real ghosts, there was something else?
Could she even trust herself?
Masako closed her eyes tightly in a futile attempt to push an onslaught of bitter memories away. The voices of her former classmates were ringing in her ears.
She's a liar. She's weird. My mom told me not to play with her. She only wants attention. She's not normal. She's scary.
She's crazy.
Masako's heart was hammering savagely in her ribcage, threatening to burst out of it, as doubt seeped deeper into her mind.
Was everything she'd seen so far a product of her imagination?
Was I truly crazy all along?
The shadows playing on the pale ceiling in the obscurity of the room, the dark, still forms of her coworkers sleeping next to her, now everything felt like an illusion. Uncertain. Oppressive. Masako found she had a hard time breathing.
I am not insane, she repeated in her mind like a mantra, trying to stop her anxiety spiralling out of control.
I am not insane!
She wanted to scream.
Mai suddenly mumbled something in her sleep and rolled in her bed, shattering the overwhelming stillness of the room and breaking Masako from the endless circle of her thoughts.
Relief washed over her like a soothing wave.
Heart still thumping loudly, she focused on Mai's slow and steady breathing and tried to match it. After a while, her taut muscles started to unwind, and the hazy fog of fear clouding her mind started to dissipate.
The situation now appeared before her eyes with evident clarity.
Masako let a wry smile twist her lips. She was not insane.
But she was probably crazy.
Crazy enough to fight a losing battle to get Naru. Crazy enough to stoop so low as to use a secret of his to get closer, only to earn his contempt in the process.
So crazy that she was seeing him everywhere.
She had lost her senses indeed. It seemed she was desperately in love.
A cynical chuckle passed Masako's lips. Who would have thought being crazy could be so perfectly logical?
She sighed and looked at her rival's quiet form with an ambivalent mixture of camaraderie and jealousy. She wondered if Mai was suffering from a similar ailment. Was she dreaming about Naru? Was she also obsessed with him to the point of having her brain play tricks on her?
Probably not, Masako thought sourly. Mai didn't have to resort to illusions, after all.
Masako closed her eyes and wished for sleep to claim her. In her dreams, at least, she was able to forget about Naru, or to have him all to herself.
But once she woke up, she knew the harsh reality wouldn't let her forget the truth.
Hallucinations were all she had left.