Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

[Saturday, September 17^th, 20XX]

Mai laughed as her friend Keiko bemoaned how she had yet again failed at ensnaring the cute new part-timer working at the convenience store near her house.

“You know,” she pointed out, “you might actually get somewhere if you do something other than stand in the aisle and twirl your pigtails at him. Something like, oh, I don’t know, talking to him?”

Keiko folded her arms and leaned back in her chair, puffing her cheeks out in a cutesy pout. “…I’m trying to see if he’ll make the first move,” she mumbled.

Mai gave her a pitiful expression. Keiko’s pout became a scowl.

“And how far have you gotten with Kazuya-kun, hm?”

Mai stiffened immediately. “How many times do I have to tell you that it’s not like that—”

“—Even though both he and Ichirou-kun so loyally helped take care of you while you had crutches…what I would give to have a pair of handsome twins waiting on me hand and foot—”

Naru, waiting on me hand and foot? I think he’d sooner wear a tutu to work. A black one, like his soul.

Mai snorted at the thought. Keiko immediately realized Mai had stopped paying attention to her and opened her mouth to whine a little more, but was interrupted by Michiru, the third member of their group, who had been silent up until that point.

“…Speaking of Kazuya-kun…” Michiru began, with an uncomfortable expression on her face. Mai nodded, prompting her to continue. “…Is there any way you could ask him to look into something?”

Mai blinked. “Eh? There’s something you want him to investigate?”

Michiru folded one of her arms over the other, as though she were half-hugging herself. The other arm clutched lightly at the fabric of her skirt, and as she tilted her head downwards, the curtain of her dark hair slightly obscured her face.

“Un. It’s…about the date I went on last week, at Yoyogi Park.”

Mai recalled that Michiru had been going to several group dates in the last two months, and the week before last, had finally found a boy that she seemed to genuinely like. Mai hadn’t met him, but from Michiru’s description, he was a chic, sporty boy—the type to go with the flow. While she wasn’t sure how well that matched with Michiru’s more dominant personality, she figured it didn’t matter—she didn’t think it would last long.

After the successful goukon, Michiru had brought up the boy to Mai and Keiko, and Keiko had suggested they go on a simple date just to see how it felt.

“It was going really well, to be honest,” Michiru said, “but as we went to walk through the park after we’d eaten, suddenly—water dropped down on us, out of nowhere.”

“Water?” Mai asked. She didn’t think that warranted a whole spiritual investigation.

“That sounds like some kind of prank,” Keiko said, reaching out to pat Michiru’s hand.

Michiru accepted the gesture but shook her head. “The sky was completely clear, and there wasn’t anyone else around…”

Mai’s eyes met Keiko’s eyes and both of them reached forward to cling to Michiru’s arms.

“No one else around?” Mai asked mirthfully.

Keiko grinned and continued. “What were you guys about to do when no one else was around, hmm?”

But Michiru continued to look upset, and Mai’s teasing smile faded. “…This really is bothering you, isn’t it?” she asked, her tone softening.

Michiru nodded, looking dejected. “…I really like Tomoya-kun, you know. It was really going well…and I’ve always had good luck with dates in Yoyogi Park, but for some reason…now it’s just too creepy to go near there.”

Mai pulled away from her and met her gaze. “It’s a place that means a lot to you, then.”

Michiru nodded again, not saying anything this time. Mai held a hand to her chin, considering how Naru would respond to the request.

…He probably wouldn’t take it. Genji, on the other hand…

“I can try asking,” Mai said, and blinked in surprise as Michiru threw her arms around her in a hug.

“Thank you!” the other girl exclaimed fervently.

Mai laughed a little awkwardly, patting her friend on the back. “Well, I can’t make any promises, though…”

…I can try to see if I can do something about it myself.

Mai slipped off her backpack and lilac cardigan in one smooth movement as she walked into the Shibuya Psychic Research office and headed into the kitchen. She was unsurprised to see no one sitting at the desk of her fellow assistant, Lin, given his penchant for treating the data room as his own personal office, but she was surprised to see no one at Genji’s desk either, given that usually at least one of the twins who were technically the managers of the office could be found in the open area to greet potential clients if Mai wasn’t present.

Once in the kitchen, she decided to quickly make herself some tea before going to ask Naru if she could go out for a bit. She pulled out the Earl Grey, which she had gradually realized was actually his favored drink—a blatant attempt to butter him up, but even if he knew what she was doing, that didn’t mean it didn’t work—and once it had steeped for just enough time at just the right temperature, mixed in milk and half a teaspoon of sugar.

Perfect. She set the teacups in their respective saucers and organized them on the tray. Then she blinked in surprise.

…There’s enough for three. Why did I make three cups…?

She sighed. She supposed one cup could be an extra for Naru—at least, if he didn’t just tell her to go remake it, but she’d realized fairly quickly that when Naru was lost in work, he pretty much entirely forgot whether the tea had gone cold or not. He’d drink it on autopilot. Sometimes it didn’t even matter if you put tea or coffee next to him when he was in that state—he’d sip away as though nothing was amiss.

The door to Naru’s office, she realized with surprise, was already slightly ajar. She tapped it lightly with her foot as a greeting and didn’t bother waiting for a response as she nudged it open—only to be surprised by the sight of no Naru, and Genji sitting on Naru’s desk, grinning.

In an unbuttoned plaid shirt and jeans, Genji looked extremely casual, as usual, in direct contrast to his twin. Mai was a little surprised by the bright blue shirt with what seemed to be like little cartoon ghosts on it. It was uncharacteristically cute for the other boy.

He seemed to be lightly tapping at the keyboard on Naru’s open laptop to his side. Mai wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what he was doing, but at least now she had a better idea as to why she’d made three instead of two cups of tea.

“Genji!” she greeted with enthusiasm. “Tea?”

She set the tray down on the other side of Naru’s desk from where Genji was sitting, hearing his response of, “Oh, Mai—thanks.”

He didn’t hesitate to take a sip, and immediately set the cup down with a clang and a yelp. “Ach, hot! Mai!”

“Genji!” she scolded in turn. “You do this every time! Honestly!”

He looked at her pitifully, like a kicked puppy. Mai felt little sympathy. She did wonder how Genji burned his tongue every time, but Naru seemed to drink piping hot tea without even registering the burn of it.

After a moment of huffing lightly as he tried to use the cooler air around them to sooth his tongue, he asked, “What’s the occasion?”

Mai tilted her head in confusion. “The occasion?”

“You only ever make Earl Grey when you’re trying to get my brother to listen to you. I’ve told you it isn’t really necessary, you know—you’re just spoiling him.”

Mai flushed slightly and said, “I don’t know why you and everyone else thinks Naru’s…I don’t know, treating me special or something…but I don’t see it, okay? Anyway!”

Genji snorted as she paused for a moment.

“I have a case!” she announced pridefully, setting her hands on her hips.

He raised a brow. “A case?”

“A case!” she repeated with the same enthusiasm. “See, it’s what my friend Michiru told me—you know Yoyogi Park? It isn’t too far from here.”

Genji shook his head. “I mean, I might have been there, but I don’t really know the names of things around here…”

Mai nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, it does get a little annoying, right? But anyway—Michiru said that something weird happened to her there.”

Mai explained the incident where Michiru’s date had been ruined by a random rainfall in broad daylight on a sunny day, with no one else around.

Genji looked thoughtful for a moment. “…Well, I guess that could be a case. My brother’s definitely not taking it, though.”

Mai nodded. “I thought the same thing, so I was planning on asking him if I could come in late tomorrow to go look into it myself.”

He raised a brow at her. “Yourself?”

Mai clasped her hands behind her back and lightly kicked her foot into the carpeted floor. “Well…I just thought, since last case, I could see the…the spirits, by myself…I could, you know…”

Genji’s expression became stern. “You put yourself in extreme danger, last time. You could have died, you realize that?”

“But I was fine!” Mai protested. “And I’ve been talking a lot with Masako, and she says I might have a little bit of—”

“—ESP?” Genji finished. “It’s more than a little bit, after what you told us about that case, but that’s not the point—it’s not safe for you to be running around doing this kind of thing on your own, you know.”

“But don’t you do it as well?”

Genji sighed. “That’s a little different, and you know it.” He gave her a meaningful look, and Mai remembered how he’d healed her on the last case. Right…but!

“Then you can just come with me!” Mai suggested, feeling as though this were the perfect solution.

Genji immediately rejected this proposition. “And have my brother kill me on the spot? Absolutely not.”

“Naru wouldn’t care!” she objected. “He—”

“—will be extremely annoyed if you continue to have a conversation in his office uninvited. Genji, get yourself off my desk.” A cold voice cut into their conversation like the thin edge of a knife.

Mai whirled towards the door in Naru’s office that was almost always closed—the door that led into the data room. Naru stood there, in the now open entryway, leaning against the wall, wearing a navy blazer, button-up, and slacks.

Mai could help but blurt out, “Do you two color-coordinate your clothes or something?”

She immediately reddened at the identical deadpan expression she received from both brothers.

“Sometimes,” Genji said, expression becoming amused. “Today wasn’t intentional, though.”

She blinked. “Speaking of that, your shirt…”

“Ah, this shirt…” He looked down with an awkward expression. “It’s, uh…”

Naru snorted. “As fascinating as my brother’s fashion sense is—Mai. What were you saying about going to investigate a case on your own?” He raised a brow at her.

He was listening!?

“I, uh…” Mai laughed awkwardly and scratched the back of her head. “…Well, I don’t even know if it’s really a spirit…”

“You don’t,” Naru agreed. “I expect you at the office at the same time as usual, tomorrow.”

At that moment, however, the door outside chimed, signaling that a guest had arrived at the SPR office. Mai took the escape for the lucky turn of fate that it was, and abandoned her teacup, still half full and mostly warm, on Naru’s desk, rushing out of the office to greet whoever it was.

To her surprise, it was Hara Masako—television medium, beautiful Japanese doll, and Mai’s occasional mentor when it came to discussion on how to interact with the spiritual.

“Masako!” Mai greeted cheerily.

“Mai,” the medium greeted back with a hint of a smile, in a far more sedate manner. Mai was surprised to see her wrapped in a vibrant magenta michiyuki, with the kimono underneath appearing to be peach-toned, patterned with miniature fans. “Is Kazuya-kun in?”

Despite Mai’s fairly good relationship with the medium, there was one thing Mai did not quite understand about the medium, and that was her insistence on trying to get close to Naru, who seemed to intensely dislike her despite respecting her, and the fact that Genji had a very clear, very unsubtle, affection for her.

Mai was of the opinion that no one could really control their feelings, but she honestly didn’t understand why Masako liked Naru at all. Mai certainly didn’t see the appeal, despite her taste in fiction.

“He is,” Mai responded, “but, um, you might want to wait a little? He’s not…uh…”

Genji came out of the office as Mai trailed off, with an enthusiastic greeting of, “Masako-chan! What brings you here?” He came up to the doll-like girl and seemed to be about to swing an arm around her shoulder before thinking better of it and simply offering her a nod.

“Business, actually,” Masako responded, bringing a sleeve to cover the lower half of her face. “Ah, Kazuya-kun. It’s good to see you.”

Naru, who had come out behind Genji, simply nodded with a return greeting of “Hara-san.” He didn’t say anything further, and an awkward silence settled between the four.

After a few minutes of standing in a weird semi-circle, Mai broke the silence, unable to deal with it. “So! What kind of business?” she asked, directing the question at Masako.

The girl inclined her head slightly, and then said, “A friend of mine from the TV station I work with has made a request of me.”

“A request?” Genji asked.

“They’re trying to film at a nearby park, but for some reason, every time the main leads are acting out a scene, they’ll suddenly be drenched in water. There are no signs of the water coming from anywhere, and with the weather turning cold and the frequency of the occurrence, it’s also starting to have an effect on the actors’ morale…”

Mai’s eyes widened. “That—That’s at Yoyogi Park, right? My friend Michiru—the same thing happened to her!”

Masako looked at her with surprise. “So you know of it? Then, you’ll already be…”

Naru interrupted. “There is no proof this isn’t merely some sort of prank, regardless of any evidence.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to go check it out anyway,” Genji countered. Mai narrowed her eyes at him. So when Masako asks all cutely, you’re immediately ready to take her side, huh?

“I’m planning on going,” Mai said boldly. “We can go together, Masako—and Genji, you’re coming too, right?”

Genji suddenly shifted uncomfortably, and Mai ignored Naru’s fierce glare at her. She wasn’t sure why he had suddenly become oddly protective of her after the last case—it wasn’t as though her injuries had been any worse than what she’d experienced in the past, after all.

“We won’t be alone,” Mai continued.

“You don’t even know the history of the phenomenon—you said it happened to your friend last week? And how long has filming been going, for this movie—”

Masako, to Mai’s surprise, interrupted Naru. “Actually, I do know. It’s been happening for six months, almost exclusively to couples, and there have been police reports about it as well. The location cannot be changed, for reasons related to the script, and the actors’ schedules don’t allow for further adjustments.

“There’s always the possibility that someone could be doing it from a distance,” Genji offered, despite himself.

“And such a thing could easily still be supernatural. Will you not look into it?” Masako asked Naru. Naru looked excessively irritated.

Mai blinked slightly as Masako’s eyes slid delicately towards Mai. Her gaze was complicated, and Mai couldn’t quite read what the other girl was feeling as she said, “…Well, I suppose if you won’t, Mai could easily pass as a boy…”

“Hey!” Mai was offended. Just because I have short hair—!

Genji snorted. Naru sighed and held a hand to his temple. “Fine.”

Chapter Text

[Sunday, September 18^th, 20XX]

Mai had felt the chill of the lower temperatures as soon as she’d woken up. A warm cup of sencha kicked off the morning and warmed her up as she had a quick breakfast of reheated rice from the night prior, and miso soup.

She slipped on thick brown tights and a long-sleeved collared shirt, then a black vested dress over that for good measure. The weather was starting to become rather chilly—she’d rather not catch a fever at a time like this.

She clipped her bangs back with a recent purchase—teddy-bear themed hairclips. She’d often been told that her hobby of clipping hair bangs back was rather childish, but cheap hairclips were one of the few things that she could buy in bulk and have fun with. She’d even considered making her own, at some point, but couldn’t honestly say she’d had the time for it.

Keeping the weather in mind, she topped it all off with a brown coat and woolen winter hat. As she tied the laces of her fur-lined boots and got ready to leave, she realized that she had no idea whether to head straight to the park or to the office.

Thankfully, she did have the office number saved on her phone, despite having yet to acquire the twins’ cell numbers. Admittedly, she’d been too much of a coward to ask them, despite having glimpsed their cellphones multiple times.

The answering machine was all that responded. “This is Shibuya of Shibuya Psychic Research,” Naru’s smooth voice intoned over the line. “Leave a message at the dial tone, and an assistant will respond to you at our earliest convenience.”

Well then. To the park it is!

Upon her arrival, Mai was greeted by the sight of Genji and Naru, already standing a slight distance from the entryway. Today, however, seemed to be one of the rare occasions where she actually couldn’t tell which twin was which. Both were expressionless, and their postures rarely made it easy to tell them apart—Naru, for all that he spoke in a rather stiff manner, could be as casual in his gestures as Genji was.

One wore a brown trench coat over light-wash jeans, while the other wore a dark blazer jacket with a grey scarf and black jeans. Mai frowned and paused near the giant map display beside the entrance.

…It’s usually Naru wearing the suit jacket, right?

Footsteps sounded beside Mai, and she turned to be greeted by the sight of a surprising pair of figures—Bou-san, wearing a jacket that looked as though it ought to belong to a park ranger, and John, in a brown jacket.

“Eh? Why are you two here?” she exclaimed in surprise. In the periphery of her view, she realized her shout had attracted the attention of the twins.

“Ichirou-san called us,” John explained with his usual smile. “He explained a bit about what was happenin’ here—seems as though it’d be better t’have more people t’cover more ground, wi’ such a large area.”

The twins were now walking in their direction.

“I have to say, though—” Bou-san started. “—couples? Really? A phenomenon that happens only to couples…it sounds like an urban myth, honestly.”

Mai considered this. “I guess, but even urban myths are based in truth, aren’t they?”

“Yes, though I’d hesitate to agree on that when it comes to legends of, say, cryptids or some such,” John said with a nod.

“Ku-rip-chi-do?” Mai repeated. She had no idea what the word meant.

“Ah, it’s—” John was interrupted by the arrival of yet another figure—Masako.

“Hello, everyone,” the medium said. Mai could see a green and yellow floral-patterned kimono peeking out of her michiyuki, the same one she’d worn the day prior. With a frown, Masako asked, “Is Matsuzaki-san not here?”

One of the twins, who had made their way to where everyone was gathered—the one in the blazer—opened his mouth to speak and was promptly elbowed by the other one. Mai blinked in surprise.

Bou-san, not noticing them, responded to Masako. “Ah, well, she’ll probably show up in a minute, saying something like, ‘This is obviously the work of a chirei!’ or some such.”

He placed his hand on his hip, jutting it out slightly, and flung his other hand out as though he were explaining something to someone particularly stupid. Mai couldn’t help but snicker at the imitation—it was fairly accurate to Ayako’s exaggerated gestures sometimes.

Masako cracked a hint of a smile, and even John laughed. The twins, however, remained blank-faced to Mai’s confusion. What kind of weird game is this? I didn’t even know they could do that.

Heels clacked against the pavement not a moment later, heralding the arrival of the topic of discussion herself. Ayako, with her hair half up in a bun and a long tan coat, authoritatively declared—

“This is obviously the work of a chirei!”

—and Mai, John, and Bou-san immediately bent in half with the force of their laughter.

“Bou-san, it was perfect!” Mai exclaimed, tears in her eyes.

Ayako frowned at the three of them, and then looked at Masako, whose sleeve was held delicately over her mouth. “What kind of greeting is this?”

“Never mind that,” Masako said. “I’m sure you all know what exactly is happening here, yes?”

Mai was surprised that she was taking the lead, but, seeing as neither of the twins had said a word up until then, and Masako seemed to know the most about the case, it made sense.

Bou-san, John, and Ayako all nodded. Bou-san frowned slightly. “I’m not sure I want to be doing an exorcism in a place like this in the daytime, though.”

Ayako seemed to be in agreement. “It would be a spectacle, for sure.” John seemed discomfited by the idea as well.

But Masako shook her head. “We will not be exorcising the spirit. I would like for us all to act as decoys—” And she promptly grabbed the twin in the blazer, with a hint of a coy smile. “—so that we can draw out the spirit.”

Mai did not get to hear the rest of what Masako would have said, because a strong grip on her wrist was dragging her away, while a hand over her mouth muffled her protests. In the blink of an eye, she’d been swiftly separated from the group by the twin in the trench coat.

She was pulled not down the paved road, but slightly off of it, near a copse of trees that only just obscured both her and whoever had dragged her from the members of SPR.

“Finally,” a male voice muttered, as the grip on Mai was released. She spun around at the familiar voice, ready to unleash her anger on the figure, when she realized exactly who it was.

“Naru!?” She could now distinguish which twin this was, because that irritated expression was something she’d never seen on Genji, even at his most annoyed. “What are you—”

“Using preconceived notions to my advantage,” Naru said drily.

Mai blinked, eyes widening. “You…you guys haven’t done this at the office, right?” Please tell me you two don’t just do this every other day.

Naru tilted his head slightly and smirked. “Have we?”

Mai felt oddly nervous at the expression. She was surprised when Naru huffed in a semblance of laughter. “Let’s go, Mai.”

…But you didn’t answer the question…

Genji resisted the urge to cheer as Masako-chan wrapped her arms around him, though his enthusiasm was slightly diminished when she called him by his brother’s name.

“I, of course, will be going with Kazuya-kun,” she said, seemingly proud of herself. He double-checked before he responded to this, making sure that his brother had dragged Mai away. Just as planned.

Genji grinned and looked down at the tiny girl clutching onto his arm. “Actually, I’m Ichirou…sorry, Masako-chan.”

Masako-chan blinked up at him with wide, stormy eyes. Stormy in multiple senses of the word, as she realized that she had been duped, and the silvery grey hues in her irises became both fierce and embarrassed by her faux pas.

“I see,” she said, tone cold. Genji knew that the trick had probably hurt her feelings and did feel somewhat apologetic. But, in his defense—today’s ruse hadn’t even been his own idea. It had been his brother’s, because Naru had immediately seen through Masako-chan’s plan when she’d invited them on this case.

Of course, his brother would never admit that his intention from the start had been to get Mai alone—no, he only said that it was ‘to make it clear to Hara-san that I am not, nor will I ever be, interested in her in that way.’ Nor would his brother admit that it was also a gesture of goodwill to Ichirou, and his own rather helpless feelings.

Bou-san laughed at the scene. “Oh, I get why you two weren’t saying anything now. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think that uptight kid would play this kind of prank.”

Ayako-nee-san looked amused as well. “Twin boys actually acting like the twins you are for once. You seemed pretty used to this trick too, hm, little prince?”

Genji laughed awkwardly. “We’ve done it once or twice, when Naru wanted to skip class and had me sub in for him.”

John looked surprised. “Kazuya-san, skipping classes? That seems rather out of character—he seems rather scholarly.”

“You’d be right, then,” Genji said. “He skipped classes in secondary to sneak into university classes instead.”

Ayako-nee and Bou-san both broke into laughter. “Only that brat—ha—would skip classes—just to go to harder classes!” Ayako-nee managed to gasp out.

Bou-san abruptly paused, though, and asked, “Past tense? Shouldn’t you two still be in high school?”

Shit. “We skipped a few years,” Ichirou said casually. “Genius twins, you know how it is.”

Bou-san snorted. “Humble, aren’t you.”

Ayako-nee looked over to Masako-chan. “Well, Masako? Seems like your plan isn’t going exactly how you intended…little prince, how about you come with me instead? You’re a bit young for me, but you’re taller, so you’ll pass off fine.”

…You’re nice, nee-san, but uh…

Genji didn’t know how to reject this proposal. Thankfully—and to his absolute shock—he did not have to.

Masako’s small hands tightened their grip on his arm. “I think I will stay with Ichirou-kun. I fear going with Bou-san would make it appear as though a crime were soon to be committed.”

Bou-san scowled in offense. “I prefer mature women, thanks!”

Is that you admitting you’re into Ayako-nee, then?

Ayako-nee didn’t take Masako-chan’s bait, and instead said, “There’s always John, here, you know. He’s a priest, so it isn’t like it would be wrong in any way either…”

Genji didn’t trust the smirk on Ayako-nee’s face, nor did he trust the way she gave him a quick wink.

Masako-chan merely thinned her lips. “That would be offensive to Brown-san.”

John looked a little awkward, and quickly glanced between Bou-san and Genji. Bou-san gave the slightest shake of his head, and John nodded back. Ichirou had the vaguest feeling they were trying to help him out.

“Ah, well, I suppose that’s fine then,” Ayako-nee said, with a dramatic shrug. “I suppose I’ll take these two off your hands, then.” With a great sigh, she grabbed both one of both Bou-san and John’s arms and dragged them off. Genji noted that she’d specifically gone in the opposite direction from where his brother had dragged off Mai.

She noticed, huh.

He looked at Masako’s slightly hunched form, still gripping onto his arm. He was trying extremely hard not to move or bring her attention to it, because he was sure she would let go of him the moment he did.

He did not want to let go of this warmth just yet.

…She’s so cute.

Masako spoke up once more. “…Kazuya-kun planned this, didn’t he?”

Genji winced. “How’d you know?”

She gave him a disdainful little huff. “He was the one who hit you when you were about to give it up earlier.”

Oh, right. Genji gave an awkward little chuckle.

“Does he dislike me so much?” Genji would absolutely not answer that honestly. Instead, he asked a question of his own.

“…Why do you like him so much?” He hoped it didn’t sound as though he were jealous. Of course I’m jealous, but I really don’t…get it. Even Mai, who obviously likes him, spends more time trying to talk to me…and he’s never been nice to you at all.

“Because he is similar to me,” Masako-chan responded promptly. “In the same way that you resemble Mai—you two would be good together, I think.”

What a thing to hear from the girl he liked. “Whatever happened to opposites attract?” he joked weakly.

“That kind of thing would never work in reality—two completely different people would clash too much,” Masako rejected as she released his arm. He felt the loss of her warmth keenly, despite not actually feeling all that cold.

“My brother and I seem to do fine,” he pointed out. “And it seems like you’re well on your way to becoming friends with Mai.”

“You two were raised together,” she objected. “And Mai and I are merely student and mentor—we are amicable at best. I’m sure Mai doesn’t see me as any more than that.”

I think if Mai heard you right now, she might get mad. Ichirou didn’t realize he’d spoken his thoughts aloud, when Masako’s lips curved downwards.

“I told you, you and her are alike. She calls me Masako, and yet only ever communicates with me about things related to the paranormal…and you behave as though you are so fond of me, and yet still refer to me with an honorific. Kazuya-kun, at the very least, is honest about his feelings.”

My brother? Honest about feelings? He barely understands his own.

“You’ve never given me permission to call you anything but Masako-chan,” he said.

Masako-chan—Masako flushed slightly. “Must it be said?” she asked. He could not help but think, again, that she was adorable. She looked like the doll that Mai had once compared her to—the Ichimatsu doll. Admittedly, after the last case they’d been on, perhaps the doll comparison wasn’t the best…but Masako, pink-cheeked in spring colors, surrounded by greenery, was a rather lovely sight.

“Masako,” he said. “Can I call you that?”

The blush darkened. “You may.”

And then a rush of cold water was dumped on them both.

John smiled lightly to Takigawa-san as he was dragged away by Matsuzaki-san. Takigawa-san grinned back.

“Being young sure is nice, isn’t it?” He said, looking pointedly at Matsuzaki-san.

The redheaded priestess snorted. “Sure is. We all saw the brat going over to grab Mai, right?”

“Pretty sure the only one who didn’t notice was Masako herself,” Takigawa-san, with a huff of laughter. “Could you tell them apart, though?”

John responded with a shake of his head. “Not at all, ‘til I saw Kazuya-san movin’ towards Mai.” Truthfully, he had felt a little bad when he’d seen the look of panic on Mai-san’s face out of the corner of his eyes, but he was also fairly sure that the boy would never actually hurt her. That, and she’d been working for him for several months now—he was sure she’d been fine.

Perhaps even a little happy, once the surprise wore off. John was not as oblivious as he seemed to be—he was simply not as blunt as the rest of their group. Still, he felt that unmannerliness was part of their charm, even if it wasn’t valued in most circles.

…We are a bit of a team of misfits, aren’t we?

“I’m more surprised by the fact that he’s the one who planned it,” Matsuzaki-san remarked. “I really was sure it’d have been the prince’s idea.”

Takigawa-san shook his head. “No, no—Genji-bou’s not the type. The most he’ll do is act like a persistent puppy—Naru-bou, on the other hand…”

“He’s a go-getter, isn’t he?” Matsuzaki-san said drily. “Even if he’s got no clue why…you saw him with Mai, when she was injured? I never thought I’d see this kind of fairytale teen romance play out in reality.”

“Which one? The ‘cold-hearted rich boy falls for the cheerful normal girl’ or the ‘sporty guy pulls shy privileged girl out of her shell’?”

“Both,” Matsuzaki-san said. “I didn’t know you were such a romance aficionado. Anything you’d like to admit?”

Takigawa-san looked embarrassed. “I’ve got two sisters, alright? Hard to avoid that kind of talk.”

Matsuzaki-san’s eyes sparked with interest. “Sisters? I didn’t expect that. You seem like the type to roughhouse with a bunch of noisy, bald, little brothers, to be honest.”

Takigawa-san snorted. “Oh, there was plenty of that too. Not by blood, but brothers all the same—you? Only child, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“You’re kidding, right? Everything about you screams spoiled princess.”

John winced, readying himself to interrupt in case the priestess blew up at him. But Matsuzaki-san only laughed. “Born and raised. You’ve already seen my family’s hospital—I’m the only heiress. Well…at least, it looks like that for now.”

She clicked her nails together at John’s surprised expression. “I’ve been called princess a thousand times over—I own the title. I don’t dress like this daily just for fun, you know. I’ve got an image to keep.”

Takigawa-san laughed and turned to John as well. “And you? I really can’t tell, you know—sometimes you seem like you’ve never known what a rowdy house is like, and other times it seems like you’ve been dealing with other people’s arguments your whole life.”

John thought back to his past. This was something he could easily be honest about. It wasn’t as though he were trying to particularly hide it.

“That’s about half-right, I guess. I do have a lot of siblings—but I’ve never met most of ‘em. My family, see, we have a tradition of givin’ kids over to the church fairly young. I hardly knew my parents.”

Takigawa-san and Matsuzaki-san’s expressions both turned abruptly uncomfortable. “That’s…”

“Ah, don’t get me wrong! I’ve got family—it’s just not by blood, like Takigawa-san said earlier, ya know?”

Takigawa-san nodded slowly. “I can get that, I suppose.” Matsuzaki-san still seemed distinctly upset, but nodded, opting not to say anything.

“In any case, shouldn’t we be doin’ something to draw out this spirit?” John said, trying to divert the topic away from his past. Though he knew their reactions were in goodwill towards him, it did not stop him from feeling somewhat dispirited. He had never felt as though he were missing anything in his life, even without his parents.

He sometimes felt as though he might even have been better off without them—especially since he might never have met SPR, otherwise.

“Fairly sure that the kids will do something to draw it out sooner or later, whether they plan on it or not.” Takigawa-san said, waving his hand.

Not a moment later, the sound of a familiar, high-pitched yelp and an equally familiar startled shout echoed through the park. The three of them looked at each other and ran towards the noise.

“Hara-san,” Naru began explaining, “intended for us to split off into couples as decoys to draw the spirit. Genji should be with her at one of the high-activity spots, right now.”

Mai blinked. “Couples?” Then…Naru and I, right now…we’re…

She blushed. She couldn’t help it. Naru looked over at her, noticed her expression, and gave her the same, almost playful, expression that he had earlier. She realized at that moment that the hand on her wrist had migrated to her hand, and that they were currently walking hand-in-hand.

Is he—is he teasing me? This isn’t fair!

“Yes. I’m sure Matsuzaki should be off with Bou-san right about now—though I suppose John is with them to make sure they don’t kill each other in the process of trying to pretend their sexual tension is murderous tension.”

Mai’s face turned an even deeper shade of red when she heard the word ‘sexual’ come out of Naru’s mouth. Why. Why this. I’m not going to be able to stop thinking about that for days…

—No, wait! I don’t like him like that!

“In any case, I have no intention of drawing the spirit to us in that manner.” Then why are we still holding hands? “Instead, I’d like to test something, if you’re willing.”

“…Test something?” she asked warily.

“Your ability to perceive spirits, namely. This is a rather benign haunting to test it on, if it is, and if it is not…well. Hara-san will be able to resolve things, in that case.”

“Didn’t you want me not to try anything like that?” Mai pointed out, a little annoyed.

“Without supervision,” Naru stressed. “Mai, you were hospitalized. Consider that for a little longer—you were injured enough that you required crutches for over a week.”

“Not the first time,” she muttered, still irritated.

Naru sighed. “…That can be discussed further later. For now—we’ll go towards where my brother and Hara-san should be at this point, and you will inform me if you hear or see anything out of the norm.”

Mai nodded, letting go of her annoyance. She could tell that this was one of those times where Naru was, in fact, acting more out of concern than being controlling—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a little aggravating that he thought she couldn’t take care of herself. She’d been doing so for years, after all.

Mai looked around, trying to see if she could perceive anything. Oddly, though, all she seemed to sense was the faintest scent of flowers, and a hint of…some sort of incense. Her instincts were telling her to pay the smells no mind, and that they had very little to do with whatever was happening in the park, though.

Naru noticed her confused expression. “Mai. Tell me what you’re perceiving right now.”

“Um…it’s got nothing to do with the spirit, though…”

“So, there is a spirit,” he muttered, then said, “tell me what you sense anyway.”

“…The smell of flowers, and some kind of incense…” Mai trailed off at the expression of understanding on Naru’s face.

“Of course. It would be natural for there to be nature spirits in a place like this…but your instincts are telling you that this isn’t the work of seirei, and thus directing you away from a potentially dangerous interaction…interesting…” Naru brought a hand to his chin.

Oh. Sometimes I wish I could connect dots as fast as he does—it honestly feels like I’m just putting numbers into a calculator. Naru the calculator. Mai stifled her giggle. Naru, still deep in thought, did not pay her any mind.

A sudden pair of startled exclamations reached their ears and were immediately familiar to Mai as the voices of Genji and Masako respectively. Naru seemed to have the same realization, and headed towards the pair with increased speed, hand tightening around Mai’s as he pulled her along.

They reached the scene where Masako and Genji were both drenched in water at the same time Ayako, Bou-san, and John arrived. All three looked entirely dry, and Bou-san didn’t have purse-shaped markings on his cheek, so Mai supposed John really had been there as a buffer.

Genji was helping Masako remove her michiyuki, having already taken off his own scarf and blazer. All three items were soaking wet, and Mai didn’t hesitate to go over and offer her own coat to the girl. Her kimonos were thick and multi-layered, but there was no doubt in Mai’s mind that she must be freezing with the collar of it so damp in this chill.

She was surprised, though, when Naru, in turn, slipped off his trench coat and set it around her shoulders. She blinked up at him, but he had no particular expression on his face—he didn’t even seem to be looking at her.

She was suddenly startled by a white blur jumping onto her shoulder, claws digging in deeply, before leaping off and propelling her backwards—straight into Naru’s arms, where she and him were both promptly drenched in freezing water.

All of you can just go—!

Mai didn’t hear the rest and didn’t get to say anything to Naru before she noticed a sudden blurriness around Masako, whose head was tilted downwards. A low chuckle emanated from the other girl—Mai had never heard her chuckle before.

“What the…” Ayako stared, baffled.

Genji’s expression was odd. He looked somewhere in-between angry and exasperated. Mai noted that she’d been right earlier—the twins’ expressions when annoyed really weren’t exactly the same, not really. She didn’t know if it was on purpose, or simply the way they naturally emoted, though. And clearly they could pretend to be each other if they wanted to.

“She’s possessed,” Genji said.

Naru looked at her. “What do you see, Mai?” Is now really the time for that?

She answered anyway. “There’s a sort of haze around her…it almost looks like an older woman?”

Naru nodded. He turned to look at Masako. “Why have you been dumping water on couples in the park?”

The low chuckles stopped. In an eerie, deep tone, the possessed girl responded.

“They can all go die…”

Genji took the reins of the conversation. “Why?”

Masako’s dark expression suddenly turned into a miserable pout. “How dare they all flirt in front of me…especially when I’m so miserable!” She suddenly seemed to register the presence of Genji hovering around her, and blinked up at him owlishly. “Oh, aren’t you handsome! If I were a little younger…”

Genji turned pink as ‘Masako’ wrapped her arms around him. “Uh, why are you so miserable?”

Beside Mai, Naru snorted as Bou-san and Ayako both snickered in amusement.

“You would listen to my story? Oh, what a kind, handsome young man…Then let me tell you.” ‘Masako’ held a hand to her cheek. “Oh, it was at this park that I first met him…”

“Him?” Mai asked.

“We met when I stumbled into him and dropped my groceries…it was love at first sight, when he picked up the leeks and handed them to me!” The medium’s hands were clasped together as she swooned.

“That’s…so cliched…” Bou-san trailed off.

“…Something like that still works?” Ayako looked pityingly at the possessed girl.

“It was all going perfectly…until I saw him with another girl.” Her tone lowered drastically in pitch near the end of her sentence.

Mai gasped. She couldn’t help but get sucked into the drama of the story—the spirit’s dramatic gesturing was oddly compelling.

“I was sure it was just a mistake…so I went to confront him. And then…and then…do you know what he did? What he said to me, while that other girl was standing right there…?” ‘Masako’ leaned forward, as she slowly whispered the last part.

“What did he do?” Mai asked with anticipation.

“He—he! He poured a bottle of water on my head and told me I was ‘Disgusting’! Can you believe it? How devastated I was!”

Gasps were heard all around.

“That explains the water,” Naru, who had not gasped, said drily, looking down at his drenched shirt. Genji was directing an equally tired expression at his own water-logged clothing.

 “What a piece of—gross!” Ayako exclaimed. “No wonder a guy like that was using such outdated tricks!”

Bou-san nodded along, folding his arms. “Probably didn’t have any natural charm to speak of.”

“How dishonorable,” John said with a frown.

“Then what did you do?” Mai asked.

“I…I couldn’t bear it! Of course, naturally, I decided to end it all—in this beautiful place, where it all began—”

“Don’t tell me you ki—” Genji started sharply.

“I tried…I tied a rope around a tree branch to hang myself, but the branch broke…I bought a bottle of pills to swallow, but it turned out they were just digestive medication…and finally, when I decided to throw myself over a bridge…the water was too shallow to drown in…after that, an officer found me and told me to go home…”

Everyone’s expressions slowly became more and more awkward as the girl narrated each of her failed suicide attempts. It was almost akin to a Greek play, in terms of tragedy and comedic error. Mai couldn’t even laugh, because the girl in front of her actually was dead, even if she was extremely funny to watch.

“Then, finally, on my way back home...! A cat jumped in front of me, and I fell back and hit my head on the pavement! Just like that…I bled to death…when I opened my eyes again, I was looking down at my own body…”

Everyone, bar Naru, winced. Bou-san spoke up. “It’s, uh, not exactly great, but—you haven’t tried haunting the guy?”

John immediately frowned. “That kind of thing…”

Ayako interrupted him. “Forgiveness is a virtue and all, but that kind of guy doesn’t need it.”

The girl wailed. “Of course I have! I stood at the foot of his bed for a month and cursed him non-stop, but he slept like a log! I played haigorei for another month—he said his shoulders felt lighter! Writing words in the fog of his windows and mirrors—he thought it was a roommate’s funny prank!”

“Insensitive, isn’t he?” Bou-san remarked.

“I’m more stunned by how persistent she is…no wonder she’s on Masako’s wavelength,” Genji mumbled quietly. Mai eyed him sharply, but thankfully, he wasn’t heard by the girl, who was still speaking.

…Masako, huh? I guess they made some progress.

“So then…I gave up. I decided I would just stay here, at the place where I made such beautiful and terrible memories and haunt all the happy couples here instead of him. Why should they be happy when I’m not?”

She lifted Masako’s sleeve and twitched it lightly at Ayako and Bou-san, who were immediately drenched by water.

“Oi!”

“We aren’t even a couple!”

The ghost snickered. “Serves you right!”

Mai frowned as she stepped up to the girl and set a hand on her shoulder. “But that isn’t fair to you, is it? You’re still hurting, even as you hurt others, and you’re stuck here.”  The girl looked at her, tilting her head. “In the end, won’t you be the one who’s hated?”

“…I suppose you have a point…”

Ayako nodded. “If you stay here like this, you’ll become a jibakurei, you know.”

“That’s right,” Bou-san nodded sagely. “Better to just pass on now.”

“You still remember what it was like to hurt…there’s still time for you to pass peacefully,” John added.

The girl looked at them all oddly. “Are you guys…psychic otaku?”

Ayako and Bou-san’s expressions turned into odd grimaces, while John and Genji merely looked confused.

“Uh, not…exactly…” Mai said awkwardly. “But that aside, wait. It doesn’t seem right for you to just pass on like this, without anything at all happening to that guy!”

The others turned to her with wide, baffled eyes. Naru’s gaze at her was narrowed. “Mai, what are you doing?”

“If that guy’s still two-timing, he’ll get what’s coming to him eventually,” Bou-san said. “It never works out, you know—”

“—there’s no point in keeping her here over such a worthless man,” Ayako finished.

“You’re ready to pass on yourself, aren’t you?” Genji said to the girl, who looked awkwardly to the side.

Then her eyes widened.

“That—that’s him!”

Chapter Text

[Sunday, September 18^th, 20XX]

Everyone immediately turned to look in the direction the possessed medium had pointed at. Sure enough, a little ways away from where they were—near a fountain in a slightly grassy area that was not too far from the main paved pathway in the park—a man was walking down the road.

Mai honestly couldn’t say that he seemed particularly handsome, though maybe her sense of aesthetics had been somewhat spoiled by the people she was surrounded by.

Whether it was Bou-san or Lin, John or the twins—all of them were quite handsome in their own ways. Well, John was definitely more cute than handsome, but the point still stood.

He had close-cropped hair, bleached brown, and wore a camouflage-patterned jacket with jeans. While he was taller than Mai, she didn’t think he could really be considered tall—he appeared to be just slightly around the twins’ height.

Also, everyone she knew was taller than her. Mai was five foot one and had been since she was thirteen. She was holding out for a sudden growth spurt, but it was looking more and more unlikely as time passed. Even an inch or two would be alright.

Masako—or rather, the ghost lady’s—eyes were focused intently on the man, and tears welled up in the corners. Mai was sure they weren’t out of sadness, but rather, anger, and perhaps a bit of resentment at the unfairness of it all.

“I…I…It’s not fair! That he can just go around, grinning like an idiot, after…!”

Mai nodded firmly in agreement. “It’s not!”

“And what exactly do you plan on doing?” Naru asked drily, folding his arms. He promptly grimaced as he remembered his shirt was dripping wet and unfolded them immediately. Mai steadfastly did not pay attention to how his shirt clung to his upper arms.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty clear this guy’s…well, whatever the opposite of a medium would be called, I guess,” Bou-san said, snorting slightly. After being splashed with water, he’d untied his hair—luckily for him, though, it seemed his jacket was waterproof, and covered enough that nothing under it had gotten wet, so he hadn’t bothered taking it off.

Ayako had not been so lucky, and she was scowling with irritation at both her wet clothes and the man in the distance. “Seeing as she’s currently possessing someone, I don’t see why she can’t just give him a good kick in the—”

Every male member of the team winced—even Naru’s eye twitched slightly—as John interrupted with a nervous smile. “I think jumpin’ ta physical action without clear cause might be worse for us than him.”

Genji nodded. “Yeah, if we’re going to do this, we should be smart about it, at least—Mai, what’s that look on your face?”

Mai grinned. “Ayako…I think you’re right. But you two are right too…so I have an idea.”

The sound of crows cawing was not an abnormal sound for the man to hear as he walked through his favorite park for picking up girls, though it had been one he’d been hearing more than usual as of late.

He whistled idly to himself. While Michiko had been a fun lay, and the cash from Eri had yet to run out, both had gotten rather boring to string along as of late. He supposed that was the price of picking up girls that fell for the easiest lines in the book.

He walked by a drenched blond guy without taking a second glance at him. He’d been seeing a lot of drenched people in the park as of late—maybe it was some new trend? He wasn’t getting involved in any stupid shit like that.

Then, he heard a low voice speak.

“You should pay more attention to your surroundings.”

He stopped and looked back. It was the blonde man speaking, back turned in his direction. He realized that the guy had weirdly long hair, and actually seemed a little creepy from this vantage point.

“…Huh?” he asked.

“Seems you’ve done something to incur the resentment of another, recently.”

What the hell is this guy talking about? What a weirdo…

He was ready to ignore the guy and keep walking, when another voice spoke up on his other side. This time, it was a blond foreigner—a genuine blond—with piercing blue eyes that were honestly a little terrifying. He’d never met a foreigner with blue eyes before, even if he’d seen them on TV.

It was…more than a little uncanny.

The blue-eyed teenager stared at him and said, in a soft voice, “I sense an extremely unlucky aura. This man is destined for misfortune…”

 “What the hell? Who are you people?” Maybe he’d accidentally intruded on gang territory or something? Wait, in that case, shouldn’t he act a little more subservient?

Another voice spoke, yet again from a direction that he wasn’t facing. “Haunted by the grudges of so many women…no wonder. The karmic debt you’ll have to pay off…”

He whirled around again, and this time was greeted by the figure of a drenched redhead in a trench coat, reminiscent of the myth of the drowned woman. He instinctively felt a chill run through him.

There’s no way…

“Have you already forgotten her?” The blond man asked, now turning to face him.

“She hasn’t forgotten you.” the redhead said, facing him as well.

“If you repent now, perhaps you’ll have time…” The foreigner trailed off ominously.

He stared at them all. “…Are you sure you have the right—”

He blinked at the figures that had suddenly appeared in front of him. A short girl in a kimono that resembled a doll, and like a pair of creepy bodyguards behind her, dark-haired twins with equally creepy foreign eyes.

For some baffling reason, they were also all drenched in water. He was starting to feel somewhat afraid that his earlier thoughts about ‘drowned women’ might have had more accuracy to them then he’d afforded them.

And then he realized the kokeshi doll girl was actually familiar to him. He’d seen her on TV before.

“Hara—Hara Masako!?”

Hara Masako smiled at him, eyes dark. Her straight-cut bangs hung just so over her eyes, making them seem oddly shadowed. She looked disturbingly pale in the sunny daylight.

The twins stood behind her, expressionless, both looking at him as though he were dirt under their shoes.

Somehow, it pissed him off. But his terror at the presence of Hara Masako, combined with the words the other three gang-like weirdoes had said, stayed his anger.

Instead, he asked nervously, “…Is this some kind of TV prank?”

Hara Masako tilted her head at him. “You think you’re worth that much?”

Then she raised a single, small hand, and flicked it in his direction.

Something wet dripped onto his head. He looked up to see a thin stream of water, pouring down on him from…nowhere. There was no source.

He looked back at Hara Masako. Her smile widened, and suddenly, it seemed as though her appearance were twisting, changing, shifting…

…And he looked into the eyes of the annoying girl he’d dumped six months ago. The one whose portrait he’d glimpsed in an obituary in the newspaper the very next day.

Terror filled him.

“They talk about men who are dripping with good looks, don’t they?”

He screamed.

Mai watched from behind a nearby tree as the rather cowardly man fell to the ground and begged for forgiveness. She giggled to herself.

It was a fairly harmless prank, and as he swore that he’d never lie to a girl again—they’d see how long that lasted, Mai knew several of them would probably be coming by the park in later days—she felt a bit of satisfaction.

When Genji stepped out from behind Masako and kneeled beside him to whisper something in the man’s ear, he immediately whimpered, stood up, and ran away screaming. The grin on Genji’s face was far more menacing than it had any right to be.

Mai stepped out from behind her tree and went up to where the rest were gathered.

“How was it?” she said with a grin towards the ghost girl.

Masako’s face smiled widely at her. “It was great! Ahhh—I feel so refreshed now!” She stretched her—well, Masako’s—hands up into the air, this way and that, as though relieving muscle cramps.

Mai looked at Genji, who was still half-kneeling on the ground. “What did you—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Genji said, waving his hand casually. “Just know that he probably won’t be showing up here again, at the very least.”

Ayako raised a brow at him. “Mysterious, aren’t you two?”

Mai turned as Naru spoke directly to Masako for the first time all day. “Do you feel as though your business here is complete, now?”

Masako nodded. “Yes. Thank you all so much…”

Mai couldn’t help but ask, “Wait!”

Everyone around her groaned, including Naru.

“—I just want to ask—What’s your name?”

The possessed medium tilted her head at her and smiled brightly. The eerie aura that had been surrounding the girl since the possession had begun had faded, and she now seemed to glow with a golden light.

It was a familiar color, to Mai. She remembered seeing the same light surrounding Tomiko and her mother.

“My name…is Misaki. Thank you…”

Her words trailed off as she looked up, and Mai saw the spirit—Misaki—exit Masako’s body. She was a pretty young woman with wavy hair that reached just past her shoulders, and long-lashed eyes that sloped delicately downwards.

As she floated skywards, Mai found that her gaze followed the woman until the golden light was so bright her eyes hurt, and she had no choice but to squeeze them shut for a moment. When she opened them again, Misaki was gone.

Mai realized that everyone was staring at her—and that Genji had caught Masako, who had fallen to the ground the moment the possession had ended.

“…Why is everyone staring at me?” Mai asked awkwardly.

“You were staring at thin air, jou-chan.”

Ayako and John nodded in agreement. Noticeably, neither Genji nor Naru agreed, but neither did they come to her defense. In the end, Mai simply said, “Misaki passed on.”

“Our medium duo strikes again, hm?” Bou-san teased.

Mai shook her head. “Masako said I’m not a medium, I just have some similar abilities—”

“Meaning you might as well be, especially if she’s teaching you,” Ayako said with a wave of her hand.

At that moment, Masako, who was still cradled in Genji’s arms, startled awake, and immediately turned bright red. “Wha—wha—”

Genji looked down at her with concern, tugging her slightly closer. “Masako, you’re okay? You’ve been possessed for a while now…”

Masako, however, seemed to only be half comprehending the situation she was in. Meanwhile, Ayako and Bou-san’s eyes had lit up as though they were cats who had spotted nearby birds. Mai was sure they’d noticed the same thing she had earlier—that was, the decrease in honorifics.

Teasingly, Mai couldn’t help but say, “You’re embarrassed now, after how long you spent clinging to him while you were possessed?”

As thought immediately understanding her intentions, Ayako chimed in and added, “You even gave him a kiss…”

“…And boldly declared that you wanted nothing more than to be with such a handsome young man.” Bou-san finished off.

Mai saw Naru’s lips flicker slightly into a smirk. He didn’t say anything to contradict them—she had a feeling he was probably enjoying this particular show as much as the rest of them.

Genji turned red. “—Lies! They’re all lying, Masako, you didn’t do any of that—well, you did some of it, but…”

Masako looked as though she would die of embarrassment. She lifted her kimono sleeve and used it to cover her whole face, and in a tiny, pleading voice, requested, “…Please put me down now.”

Genji obediently did so, and the medium immediately turned around.

“I am going home,” she said, in a very weak version of her usual prim, confident tone.

“Wait, not on your ow—” Genji protested. The others simply continued to watch the show.

“I,” the medium repeated firmly, pulling out her cellphone and flipping it open, “am going home.”

Genji wilted. Mai was sure the others shared her disappointment as he didn’t make any further protest. To her shock, however, Naru spoke up.

“Hara-san. You may reconvene with us later at the office.” The ‘may’ in his tone sounded more like ‘will’, but Masako, to Mai’s mild irritation, lit up at the acknowledgement and nodded. Genji wilted further, while Mai felt—not saw, but quite literally felt—irritation emanating from Naru.

…give it a rest already…

She blinked. She’d thought that mental link had worn off at this point, but evidently not, as she still picked up things here and there.

The others seemed to be making their own preparations to quickly go home and get changed—save, she supposed, John, who hadn’t been soaked at all and in fact was probably the best off this time around. Come to think of it, he hadn’t really had any difficulties since the case at the schoolhouse, had he?

Mai felt a little jealous, but she knew it was deserved. John was a sweet young man, like a honey cake. It was only fair that he wasn’t attacked, she supposed.

“Mai-san?” John suddenly asked her. She realized she’d been staring at him and reddened slightly.

“Ah, it’s nothing! It’s just, you’re the only one who got out of this dry—pretty lucky, I think.”

He laughed. “I guess I am!”

From beside Mai, Naru spoke up. “Mai, let’s go—my brother and I will escort you home.”

Mai turned to frown at him. “You don’t need to do that—it’s not even sunset yet, you know.”

“It’s common courtesy,” Genji said, coming up beside his brother. “My brother’s trying to be a gentleman, Mai—savor it while it lasts.”

Naru scowled. Mai snorted. “Alright.”

After being ‘escorted’ home, Mai had quickly changed out of her soaked clothing into a pink and tartan sweater under a long, purple cardigan, and beige camo cargo pants—some of the few clean items she had left. So sue her. It was laundry day, and she had yet to actually do the laundry.

She felt as though Keiko and Michiru would tell her something along the lines of ‘Well, it’s not as though that makes a difference in how you dress anyway, Mai…’

Mai ignored her internal voices and headed back out towards SPR. She considered buying a drink, but decided in the end that it would be better not to waste money, given that she could just make tea at the office instead.

While going up the street slope leading to the office, however, one of the stores caught her eye. Inevitably, Mai bought herself a little snack—she hadn’t stopped to eat earlier, despite having glanced at several of the stalls in the park—and feeling a bit whimsical, decided to reward the twins for their ‘escorting’ as well.

When she entered the office, she was unsurprised to see most of them already there. After all, everyone but her had access to some form of private transport—or the money to afford a taxi in Shibuya. Though, John probably had come straight to the office.

She headed straight to the twins, now respectively in a purple sweater and a dark green hoodie and handed them her treats.

“This is how positive reinforcement works, right?” Mai had just barely remembered the term from one of the many books in the office. She vaguely recalled it had something to do with giving someone a reward when they did something to make them keep doing it.

“…Mai, if you think giving my brother a cookie every time he’s nice to you is going to make him keep doing it, I think you should count your days.”

Bou-san snorted from his seat to the side. Ayako hummed. “I don’t know, it seems like tea might very well work.”

Mai was surprised to see that Naru wasn’t even scowling. He only looked mildly amused at the cookie in his hand. He looked up at Ayako’s statement and asked, “Why should I be nice to an employee for doing their job? Mai, tea.”

Mai decided to take the generous out in the spirit it was meant and went to do her job—that was, make tea.

Behind her, several other calls came out.

“Oh, and an iced coffee for me, jou-chan!”

“Coffee for me too, Mai, but make it hot!”

“Sencha, please, Mai—the strong flavors are unpleasant.”

“Koucha is good for the skin, Masako—if you’ve got any Darjeeling in there, Mai, I’ve been trying out something new…”

Mai fumed. She breathed deeply, once, and breathed out, before unclenching her fists. “Am I just a café waitress to you all?” Then she turned to John, the absolute angel, who hadn’t made any requests of her to date, and asked, sugary sweet, “What would you like, John?”

John froze on the spot as everyone turned to look at him. “I…uhh…”

Mai’s smile widened. “It’s okay to ask. Since I offered.” Unlike these ingrates, who take me for granted…Naru signs my paychecks, but why do I have to make drinks for the rest of you all?

“…then, perhaps whatever Kazuya-san is having?”

Naru’s eyes narrowed in John’s direction. The priest quickly spoke again. “Ah, um, never mind…I haven’t had sencha in quite some time. How…how about that?”

Mai nodded. “Thank you for being so considerate, John. Next time, you can just tell me what you want, okay?”

She turned around without another word and went to busy herself with her ‘orders’ in the kitchenette.

She was surprised when partway through making the drinks, footsteps followed her in. When she turned to look at who had joined her, she realized that it was Masako.

Mai raised a brow at the other girl, who did not look at her, but instead began to help Mai prepare the drinks.

“Masako?” Mai asked. “Is everything alright?”

The medium’s hair was tilted slightly downwards, covering most of her face, but Mai could see the downward tilt of her lips.

She hesitated for a moment, and then spoke in a small voice.

“…Did I really kiss him?”

Mai realized that this had possibly been weighing on the other girl the whole time. She suddenly felt bad for teasing her earlier—though she hadn’t been the one to flat-out lie like Ayako and Bou-san had. In the end, even if everyone was rooting for her to get together with one brother, it didn’t change that the one she liked was the other one, and it must hurt even more to know that he didn’t care for her at all.

“You didn’t,” Mai replied firmly. “You did cling to him a little bit, but Bou-san and Ayako were just exaggerating—I didn’t think they’d take it that far.”

She heard a soft exhale of relief from the other girl. Mai couldn’t help but ask, “…Why don’t you like Genji?”

Again, Masako didn’t immediately reply. After a moment, she said, “…Kazuya-kun is safe to like. He’s…distant. He is like me. How…how could Ichirou-kun genuinely like me?”

Mai tried to read between the lines of her words. “Someone like me?” she repeated.

“…Someone as unsociable as myself.”

“Masako, you’re…quiet,” Mai paused, trying to figure out the right way to put it. “…but you’re a good friend, you know. A little mean, but aren’t we all?”

The other girl looked at her with wide eyes and tilted her head slightly to the side. “You consider me a friend?”

“Of course!” Mai exclaimed immediately. “Even if you’re sort of mentoring me, we can be friends as well, can’t we?”

Masako’s lips curved up slightly. “…Yes, I suppose we can.”

They both brought the drinks back to the table, and then found their own seats and joined the bustling conversation.

“Yo, Genji-bou,” Bou-san started. “So how long have you known Masako here?”

Genji blinked and tilted his head back in thought. “I guess…it’s been about a year and a half, now?”

“Really?” Mai asked, curious about how whatever odd relationship the medium had with the twins had started. “How did you guys meet?”

“We were investigating the same area,” Masako said. Her lips twisted downwards. “I was attempting a jourei exorcism near the grave of an elderly woman when I saw a pair of boys bumbling through the cemetery, dressed entirely in black.”

“I think bumbling is an exaggeration,” Genji said, sounding somewhat embarrassed. “And we did apologize for that…”

“You were about to dig up a man’s bones and set them on fire,” Masako said flatly. 

Mai however, had turned to Naru, unable to imagine him in this sort of scenario. He studiously did not meet her eyes. No way…

“Come to think of it…little brat, your arms weren’t anything to sneer at earlier, when that ghost lady—”

“Misaki,” Mai corrected.

“—Misaki, dumped water on you…so even a nerd like you works out, hm?”

Genji laughed at this. “We’ve both trained with Lin since we were little—we’re stronger than we look.”

“Oh ho?” Bou-san looked amused. “What about a little competition, then, hm?”

Naru spoke up at this. “I’m not participating in something so juvenile.” Mai was admittedly a little disappointed. “I will, however, volunteer this idiot.” He motioned to Genji, who pouted and then grinned.

“Fine by me!”

Naru stood as Bou-san and Genji began discussing how exactly such a competition might work. “Mai, in my office.”

Mai blinked. Ayako and Masako were both looking at her with raised eyebrows, though Masako’s eyes also held a hint of jealousy. Mai wanted to reassure the other girl that despite Mai’s own occasionally confusing emotions, Naru definitely didn’t feel like that towards her.

She didn’t have the chance to as she followed Naru into his office.

“Close the door behind you,” he said, as he went to sit at his desk. Mai did so, and then went to sit on the couch at the side. He frowned at her for a moment, and then taking the papers sitting on his desk, went to sit beside where she was as well.

Mai again looked at him with surprise. She didn’t even know why he’d called her in here alone.

“Misaki,” he began. “You saw her pass on; what did it look like to you?”

Oh, he wants to know about the case…but couldn’t he have asked about this in front of everyone too?

Mai thought about it for a moment, thinking back to earlier in the day. “It was a bright light—she kept floating up until she sort of faded into it. It made my eyes hurt, so I closed them for a second, and then she was gone.”

Naru scribbled away in his little black notebook, and then asked, without looking at her, “Does that match what you recall of your experience with Tomiko and her mother?”

Mai’s memories of that moment were extremely hazy, but she nodded. “…I feel like I remember somewhere with white arches, or maybe golden lights…it’s all fuzzy, since right after that…”

“…You sustained a head injury, along with several others. Yes, I vividly recall.” Naru looked up from his notebook and met her eyes, indigo gaze sharp. “Do not try to recall that memory.”

Mai tilted her head. “Why not?”

“Your description makes it seem as though it is not a place living eyes should be perceiving. Put it out of your mind—I only meant to confirm your perception of what ‘passing on’ looks like.”

Mai nodded slowly, and felt a twinge of fear run though her, mixed perhaps with awe. So what I saw…

“Put it out of your mind,” Naru repeated, his voice filled with command. Mai blinked several times, startled by the hint of anger in his tone, but nodded quickly once more, and tried to stop thinking about it.

Instead, she looked around the room as she tuned out the sound of Naru’s writing. Her eyes caught on the calendar hung up on the wall, covered in little notations of various colors and post-its. She squinted.

She stood up and walked over to get a better view of the calendar, trying to read what was within the big red marker circle on one of the days. As she neared it, she read the date within as the nineteenth, and inside the circle, in what she recognized in Genji’s handwriting, she read the words—

“Naru! It’s your birthday tomorrow!” she exclaimed.

She heard a sigh from behind her. “Yes,” he said shortly.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mai wasn’t hurt, per say, but she was surprised that not even Genji had thought to bring it up.

“I dislike useless clutter, which is what most gifts are.”

She turned around and scowled at him. She realized he hadn’t even lifted his head up from his writing to respond to her. Instead, he was tapping his pen against his chin, looking intently at whatever he’d written earlier. He flipped back a few pages and made another note.

“I’ve given you several gifts, and you didn’t seem to hate them,” Mai pointed out.

“You give me food, as though you feel that I am malnourished, or perhaps a cat that you have to feed lest it wither away without your attentions,” Naru said in a tone drier than the desert. “I’m not entirely sure what has given you that impression.”

Mai…couldn’t really answer or deny that. “It’s not really that…Is it?”

“I’m aware. You are the type that perceives the giving of food as a show of affection.” He smirked slightly. “I wonder exactly how much affection you unintentionally lavish upon me, then?”

Mai blushed, before realizing that he was attempting to distract her from the subject of his birthday. She really was getting better at this. “If you think gifts are a waste of time, then what do you like—that isn’t food or tea?”

Then she blinked.

Wait, tea…

“Oh. Never mind—I’ve got the perfect idea. And it’s two birds with one stone, too!”

Naru clicked his tongue. “You having a ‘perfect idea’ fills with an emotion almost akin to fear.”

…I’m going to hit him.

Do your best, Mai! Mai scowled at Genji’s mental voice.

“I’m going back out!” she snapped.

“Maybe one day you’ll have the confidence to make good on that threat—” were the words from Naru that followed her out before she slammed the door shut behind her.

When Mai went home later, she denied everyone’s offers to take her back. If they did, she wouldn’t have any opportunity to get the presents that had come to mind.

She stood in the kitchenware aisle of the home goods store she usually passed by on her way home, looking at the items that had come to mind when she’d been thinking about potential gifts for the twins. Taking down the items and making her purchases, she left with a bag mostly full of crinkled paper and a smile on her face.

Chapter Text

[Monday, September 19^th, 20XX]

Mai sighed once more as she entered the school grounds. Another Monday, another school week—she didn’t even want to think about her upcoming assignments after yesterday’s ‘adventure’ at the park and the little get-together at SPR afterwards.

As she made her way to room 1-F, she considered how she would discuss the events of the day prior with Michiru. Her job was something she usually handled delicately as a topic with her two friends—she told them about the day-to-day, but she hadn’t told them about Naru’s assigned readings for her, nor had she told them about her regular meetings with Masako.

She hadn’t even properly explained the spirits she’d seen, her abilities, or why she’d actually been in the hospital at all—she’d just said it had to do with falling down a well because of faulty architecture. She did not consider this a lie, because frankly the fact that the only thing that had been covering the well was wood that could rot at anytime was definitely faulty architecture—it should have been filled in with cement a long time ago.

…Well, that’s what Genji said, anyway.

She decided she could be a little more candid about this spirit. After all, it hadn’t been just her that had seen it, and thus Keiko and Michiru likely wouldn’t think about her along the lines of Kuroda—as they might have, had she told them the full truth about the case with Minnie and the other ghost children.

Also, Masako’s name would probably give a considerable amount of credence to the story.

“Wait, there really was a ghost there? Moreover, it was the ghost of a jilted woman?” Michiru exclaimed, looking shocked.

The three girls were sitting around Mai’s desk, Michiru and Keiko having dragged their chairs over to form a little circle, eating their bentos.

“What a horrible guy!” Keiko exclaimed, looking genuinely upset. “And he wasn’t even that good-looking! Imagine dying over a guy like that!”

Michiru and Keiko shuddered, before Michiru looked back at Mai. “But did you guys really put on a play to scare him?”

Mai folded her arms and pointed her nose up in the air proudly. “It was all my idea—and it worked perfectly! He’s definitely never going to try to pick up girls there again.”

Michiru wrinkled her nose. “He might try it out somewhere else, you know…”

Keiko tapped a finger on her lips. “Did you get a picture of him, Mai? Then we’ll know who to look out for.”

Mai blinked. “I should have…” She sighed. “I suppose I can just point him out the next time we’re there, if I see him…”

“But really, to stay after dying in such a way because of a guy…” Michiru repeated the sentiment that Keiko had brought up earlier. “Honestly, it seems like it would have just been better to move on.”

Keiko nodded. “She was miserable, and so was everyone else…it’s really sad.”

Mai could not help but think of Yuuri, who had also died in an unjust manner. If Yuuri had known the reason behind her death, would she have stayed behind to torment Kuroda as well? Her eyes involuntarily flickered towards the girl, who was a few seats away, talking to a boy holding a rather creepy doll in his hand.

She felt an instinctive twitch as the memory of Minnie came to mind.

…That…is not my issue.

Her instincts weren’t reacting to the doll, so it was probably just the appearance putting her off.

…I guess it’s better this way, like I thought before.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of another of their classmates interrupting the conversation between Keiko and Michiru—Ayazawa Ruuri. “Taniyama-san?”

Mai blinked up at the girl. She’d spoken to the other girl a few times before—mostly about styling short hair, as there wasn’t much you could do with it, and they were the only two short-haired girls in their class.

“Ayazawa-san. What’s up?”

The girl smiled. “You mentioned that you collect a lot of hair accessories, right?”

Mai nodded, as Keiko said, “Yeah, she has so many of them—some of them are really weird.” Mai scowled at her friend. The girl only shrugged. “It’s true.”

I can’t deny that I guess…

“There’s a flea market that opens up on weekends near me…would you like to go together?”

Mai grinned. “Of course! Tell me when to meet up, and I’ll be ready—I just got my paycheck too, so I’ve got money to spend.”

Admittedly, it hadn’t been the best idea to carry around her purchases from the day before in her bag until she got to the office—maybe it would have just been better to buy them today? But what was done was done, and thus she lugged her heavier-than-usual schoolbag with her to the office and opened the door with a cheerful greeting of “O-hayou, everyone!”

She was surprised to immediately receive a response of “Mai!” and “Ah, and who’s this?” The first voice was Genji, who wasn’t always in the office, but the second was not one she recognized, and spoke in what sounded like English.

She set her bag on her desk and took a second to observe the unusual scene playing out in the area where they usually took clients. Naru sat at the head seat, his preferred position of honor, wearing a tan blazer and a cozy-looking maroon turtleneck.

Genji sat adjacent to him, wearing a sweater as well—except this one had something written on it in what seemed to be large, extremely stylized, English font. Mai could only describe the sweater as somewhat childish, but on Genji, it only served to make him seem boyishly cute.

The voice that Mai had not recognized, speaking in what she assumed what probably English, belonged to the blonde woman sitting on Naru’s other side—who seemed to be somewhere in her late thirties, with curling hair just past her shoulders, and vivid green eyes that clearly marked her as anything but Japanese, as if the hair wasn’t already doing so.

On the table between the three was an opera cake, which Mai only recognized as such because she’d spent quite a bit of time staring into the windows of bakeries as a child. She blinked as the fancy patterning atop it in surprise.

Truthfully speaking, she could not imagine Naru even wanting a birthday cake. But here he was, sitting with a plate and a slice of some of the fanciest cake Mai had ever seen in front of him, clearly having taken at least one bite.

She realized she’d spent far too much time staring at them and the cake and had simply not responded to them.

“A—ano, her-ro, I em Mai Taniyama. Nai-su chu mee-chu.” She was thankful that she remembered that names were spoken in reverse in the west. Unfortunately, the somewhat amused expressions she was greeted with—save Naru, who only looked mildly annoyed—told her that her attempt was probably not the best.

The woman waved her hand. “No worries, no need to try so hard for me. I can speak some Japanese.”

Mai blinked in surprise. “Ah, okay…may I ask what your name is?”

She smiled. “Call me Luella. I’m…I suppose you could say that I’m a sponsor for SPR. I’ve known these two for many years, so I couldn’t just miss their birthday.”

Mai took that to mean that she was something like a family friend, or a well-meaning aunt. That must be why Naru was unusually well-behaved—she supposed even he would show some deference to family, if he cared for them. She bowed quickly and began to offer thanks to the woman but was quickly refused.

“No, no, stop that—you don’t need to be thanking me for anything. Rather, I should be thanking you for brightening up this place—I hear N—Naru is in a much better mood after you’ve made tea?”

Her eyes flickered to Naru, who did not look at her and simply took a bite of his cake. Genji snickered.

“Um, I’m not sure, but I can make some now if you would like?” It was only after saying that that Mai recalled—the gifts! “Ah, please wait just a moment—there’s something I have to get first!”

She quickly went back to her schoolbag and tugged out the plastic bag she’d stuffed within, which held the items she’d carried around all day. She didn’t take them out immediately, instead taking both her schoolbag to put it in her locker in the kitchenette, and the plastic bag so that she could properly present her gifts.

This was, naturally, because the gifts she’d gotten for the twins were mugs. Useful items that even Naru couldn’t hold a grudge against, able to contain larger amounts of tea than a teacup—though naturally Mai would still use those for when clients came—and, in her heart, just a little bit, something that would make the twins think of her.

They matched as well and came with little grooves in the handles that held tiny teaspoons, which had come with the mugs. One was painted black on the outside and red on the inside, while the other one was blue on the inside. But the real treat was the little decals carved into the outside—a little vampire bat on the first mug, and a mischievous ghost on the second.

What could be more perfect for those two? See, Naru? I can be a genius too.

She began to prepare the tea. This time, she chose to make Ceylon tea, which was one of the tins of loose-leaf that she had bought recently. She had looked up the black tea and knew that it went well with milk or lemon—but seeing as she was fairly sure there were no lemons in the mini-fridge of the kitchenette at the moment, it was with disappointment that she decided milk it would have to be.

She made a note to buy lemons at some point. Or maybe just bring some of the ones she had at home.

…I could just buy lemon juice, right…?

Having finished the base, she considered her two options—adding sugar and honey, or bringing the jars to the table so everyone could add to their preferences. She decided to compromise—everyone would get a tiny spoonful of honey, and she’d leave the sugar jar on the tray for those who would still claim it wasn’t sweet enough (Genji).

Mai grinned as she went back out, tray loaded. She was greeted by a smiling Luella, who said, “Oh, that smells lovely—is that Ceylon? I see you two can’t help but get the expensive brands…”

Mai shook her head. “I usually stock the tea in the office,” she said, still smiling. “But I know what everyone likes, and I’m a pretty good judge of taste, so it doesn’t really make a difference I guess?”

Luella raised a brow. “Oh? Tell me, what have you found that these two like, then?”

“Ah,” Mai felt oddly uncomfortable under her piercing gaze. “Well…Naru likes koucha, but he’ll drink whatever you put in front of him if he’s tired enough…”

Luella nodded in agreement with an exasperated sigh, while Naru scowled at her. She continued anyway, feeling as though this woman was trustworthy for reasons she couldn’t explain. “And Genji likes coffee, but really I think he just likes caffeine and sugar.”

Luella laughed, and Genji was the one that pouted at her now. “I have more discerning taste than that, you know!”

“You just added four spoons of sugar into your tea,” Mai pointed out. “It’s more sugar than it is tea at that point.”

“Speaking of spoons,” Genji started, “are these our gifts, then?” He gestured to the mugs.

Both of Luella’s brows raised this time, and she took a closer look at the mugs. “How cute! Don’t tell me you bought these yourself?”

Mai nodded. “I didn’t know it was their birthday until yesterday, so it was kind of a rush purchase…” She trailed off awkwardly.

“No, no,” Genji said quickly. “They’re great, Mai—my brother’s definitely a vampire deep down, you’re right. He sucks the warmth out of any room.”

Naru took a slow sip of his drink, despite the fact that it was steaming hot. Mai didn’t even wince internally, as she was entirely used to this. Then he spoke.

“Utilitarian.”

It was all he said.

But Mai understood what he meant. It was the closest thing to a complimentary statement she’d get from him on the topic. She smiled. “I hope you know I’m only going to be giving your tea to you in that mug, from now on.”

“Be my guest.”

“He means that he likes it,” Genji said.

“I said nothing of the sort,” Naru denied.

Luella laughed at both of them, and then smiled at Mai. “You really are a diamond in the rough, aren’t you?”

Mai flushed. “I’m not really…”

“No, dear, I mean it. I haven’t seen—”

She was interrupted by the sound of the door chime, followed by the entrance of Lin, who up until that moment Mai had assumed was holed away in the data room as usual. Mai was also surprised to see a smaller figure enter behind him—that of Masako, in a mint-colored kimono, who had in hand a bag that was clearly celebratory in pattern.

Idly, Mai wondered at what point on the way to the office had Masako and Lin encountered each other, and just how awkward it had been for them to walk in the same direction, knowing their end destination was the same, in what was likely complete silence. She’d never seen them speak directly to each other.

“Masako!” Mai greeted. “Did you come because of—”

“Masako!” Genji exclaimed almost simultaneously. “You remembered—”

“I remembered last year as well, if you’ll recall,” Masako replied dryly. “Hello, Mai.” Then she turned and bowed politely to Luella. “I am sorry, but I do not recognize you.”

Luella nodded, seemingly assessing the girl. “I am Luella, a sponsor to SPR,” she offered. “I do know your name—I’ve seen a bit of your show.”

Masako smiled in a polite manner, looking pleased. “Thank you for your kind words.” She set down her bag on Mai’s desk.

Lin, as Masako had been introducing herself to Luella, had seemingly speedwalked towards the data room, but just as his hand had landed on the doorknob, Luella sharply called out, “Koujo! You aren’t even going to greet me?”

Her eyes were narrowed at the tall man. Lin stiffened, and then awkwardly turned to meet Luella. “Hello, Luella. It is…good to see you. Prior notice would have been appreciated…You haven’t…brought any…companions with you…by any chance?”

It was the most Mai had ever heard Lin speak, and she goggled at the way he paused nervously between words. She took note of the smirks on both Naru and Genji’s faces. They were clearly enjoying seeing Lin cowed, despite regularly ordering the older man around themselves.

What a weird dynamic…but Luella-san is really strong, isn’t she?

Luella smiled, seeming almost mischievous. “I haven’t. Are you disappointed?”

“…Not at all. Good day.” With that, Lin swiftly entered his lair and shut the door. Mai presumed she wouldn’t be seeing him until it was closing time.

“Wow,” Mai said. “I’ve never seen Lin-san with that expression on his face.”

“You just need to know the right buttons to push,” Genji offered. I think if I tried to push those buttons, I would be incinerated on the spot.

Actually, I’m fairly sure Lin’s got a soft spot for you. He’s a lot like my brother, you know.

Mai blinked in surprise at the clear and direct thought that entered her mind. It was followed by another. The only trait Lin and I share is our efficiency, something that you lack in immensely.

I don’t know, I think you two also have a thing for girls who are che—

“Masako, what did you get?” Mai said loudly, interrupting the mental dialogue that she could still hear. She had no desire to learn what types of girls Naru liked, and also did not think it was fair for her to learn it in this manner. Also, she was fairly sure Genji was entirely talking hot air, but she didn’t want the thoughts to haunt her.

“Wakoucha leaves and a tin of Colombian coffee grounds. I hope they are pleasing, Ichirou, Kazuya-kun?”

“Wow,” Mai remarked. “Actually, I think it goes perfectly with my gift—I got them mugs! I’ll be sure to make good use of both…unless—”

“They can remain in the office,” Naru said.

Genji nodded. “We spend more time here, anyhow.” His voice was calm, but Mai didn’t miss the wide smile on his face at the honorific Masako had dropped.

“Well, seeing as you’ve both brought gifts, I daresay you’re both entitled to a slice of cake—come sit, Mai, Masako.”

Genji eagerly made room for Masako to sit beside him, which Mai was surprised to see that the petite girl accepted, and Mai sat down in the single seater beside the one that Luella was already occupying.

She was surprised, after accepting and taking a bite of the cake, to realize that it was peppermint dark chocolate. Perhaps that was why Naru was actually eating it, rather than respect—it wasn’t extremely sweet. Masako didn’t seem to enjoy it much, but Mai loved trying new and novel flavors.

She finished her slice fairly quickly, ignoring the commentary from the peanut gallery, and offered a genuine thanks to Luella for letting her have some. Afterwards, Luella smiled and said that she did have a bit of touring to do and left in a whirlwind.

Mai blinked in surprise, then turned to Naru. “She seems really nice! Is she like…family to you guys…?”

“Something like that,” he said blandly. He took a sip of his tea, and then stood. Without another word, he brought his tea to his office and shut the door behind him. Mai stared blankly at the plate he’d left behind. She looked at Genji.

“Don’t tell me I’m supposed to wash this for him?”

Genji laughed awkwardly. “No, don’t worry about that—I’ll do it.”

Mai nodded, and then went to her desk, leaving some room for Masako and Genji to talk on their own. She could at least try not to listen in on what they were saying—and it would be much easier if she got some reading in. Initially, she’d planned on going straight to her guilty pleasure reading, but upon looking down, she realized that she actually had several bits of leftover paperwork from the previous day’s case.

Naru had asked her to write down how things had gone down in her perspective. She sighed and sat down to finish up the writing that she had started yesterday and then completely derailed in favor of talking to their usual office irregulars.

As she finished up, she almost instinctually tuned out what Genji and Masako were saying to each other in hushed whispers, and nearly missed the chime of the bell as the uninvited guests made their entrance.

“Hard at work for once, eh, jou-chan?” Bou-san laughed, hovering over her.

Thankfully, Mai had just written down the last word, and grinned. “Not anymore! I just finished—I’m going to take this to Naru, you guys can go sit.”

Naturally, she noticed the way the three were looking at the two already sitting on the couches with interest. Ayako’s “Oh ho!” was the last thing she heard clearly before she closed the door to Naru’s office behind her.

“It is customary to knock before entering a space that does not belong to you,” a cold voice sharply informed her.

Mai held up her completed report. “I finished the thing you asked me to do yesterday!”

Naru sighed, and then nodded. He opened a drawer behind his desk, then pulled out a file folder. “Add it to this.”

As Mai did so, Naru pulled yet another item out of his desk—a dark blue notebook—and handed it to Mai. She took it, setting down the file folder, and blinked at it in surprise.

“What’s this?”

“Your new dream journal,” he said flatly. “You will record all of your dreams in this journal, as well as any supernatural experiences you have while awake.”

She looked at him. “Um, do you mean…like, every dream I have, or just the ones that are—”

“Every dream. You clearly cannot assess what dreams are supernatural or not until later events come to pass—thus, all dreams must be accounted for. In truth, it is admittedly a failing of mine for not having encouraged you to do this earlier—but regardless.”

Mai absolutely did not want Naru to know about every single one of her dreams. “…Are you going to be reading them?”

“Only if they are case-relevant.”

She felt a twinge of relief, but the mortifying sensation remained. Journal in hand, she nodded and went back out to see what everyone else was up to.

The rest of the evening passed in a fuzzy haze of cheer, and a moment of terror when everyone barged into Naru’s office to wish him a happy birthday as well as Genji, before he told them to get out and cease making nuisances of themselves as his birthday present.

After it all, Bou-san offered to drop Mai off at home as well as drive John back to where he was staying, and Mai took him up on the offer.

Naru is talking to me. “Hara-san intended for us to split off into couples as decoys to draw the spirit. Genji should be with her at one of the high-activity spots, right now.”

Eh? Hasn’t this already happened? “Couples?” I ask, just as I did then. Something isn’t right.

Naru is holding my hand, as he was then. He’s smirking at me, but I already knew he was going to do that…

“Yes. I’m sure Matsuzaki should be off with Bou-san right about now—though I suppose John is with them to make sure they don’t kill each other in the process of trying to pretend their sexual tension is murderous tension.”

Why am I reliving this? What kind of weird dream…and then next, he’s going to say—

“Acting as a lure should be easy enough, in any case.”

—Eh? Wait, that’s not right, that’s not what he said—

“Mai?” I look at him. His face is too close. Why is he so close? “Your face seems to be turning red—what are you thinking of, Mai?”

“N—Nothing! I’m not thinking about anything!”

Why is he smiling like that? “Good girl.” W—What does that mean? He’s getting even closer—

Suddenly, I’m wearing the clothes of an office worker. It’s late—I went out to drink with the others, but nobody lives in the same direction as me, so I had to go home alone.

I’ve been having a lot of bad luck recently, so I was a little worried, but today’s been going perfectly! Taji-kun from the accounting department even smiled at me!

Eh, wait, what’s that—a motorbike!? What’s it doing on the st—

—ugh…it hurts…what…

Mai woke with a start. She groaned as she sat up in her futon. Her head ached, as did her stomach and her chest. She felt as though something massive had rammed into her and thrown her back into concrete.

The memories of the dreams she’d had came back to her.

…I don’t care what it takes, I’m never letting Naru hear about that first dream.

Chapter Text

[Sunday-Monday, September 25^th-26^th, 20XX]

Mai slipped on a purple cardigan over her light blue, flower-decal hoodie, and paired it with dark grey tights and a blue skirt, prepping for the day.

She didn’t have work today, for whatever reason—apparently, Naru and Genji were busy with other circumstances, and Lin, as their…Mai assumed guard, but she felt as though ‘watchdog’ might be more accurate…would be with them. Thus, the office was closed, and Mai could finally take the opportunity to go to the flea market that Ayazawa-san had mentioned—of course, with her classmate.

She filled a thermos with lemon-accented sencha and packed a bento for later in the day, slipped on mismatched blue hairclips, and set out towards Ginza, where Ayazawa-san had asked her to meet up at the station.

The trains, thankfully, were not as packed as usual, seeing as Sunday was a rest day for most people. At one point, Mai had wondered why she worked even on Sundays—she didn’t really get regular days off, so to speak, as most people did, but rather sporadically would be informed if there was no need for her to come in.

This didn’t particularly bother her—her job wasn’t very strenuous, she regularly saw people she’d come to consider as close friends, and it far beat staying at home alone and doing homework. She’d much rather spend time at the SPR office.

However, it had quickly become clear that the office staying open on Sundays was entirely due to the fact that Naru was a workaholic. It figured, really.

Mai heard her stop announced over the speakers and rushed off her train, quickly getting lost in the crowd of people that had suddenly popped up—well, she was in a busy area, after all. She looked for Ayazawa-san, and found that she could not find her.

Mai lamented not getting the other girl’s cellphone number. She decided to exit the station and look for her—that might lend her more visibility as well. As she looked around the busy area, she looked around at the blinding sunlight—despite how cold it was—reflecting off the white pavement, and the equally lightly-colored buildings in the area.

It’s cold, but it’s sunny…

The thought of Naru came to mind for a second. She shooed it away.

Suddenly, she heard her name being called in the distance. She turned around and saw Ayazawa-san speedwalking towards her from a distance with a smile, waving her hand wildly. The short-haired girl, whose hair was slightly darker and straighter than Mai’s own, was wearing mint-colored high-waisted trousers and a pale-yellow trench coat, beneath which a grass green turtleneck could be seen peeking out.

“Taniyama-saaaan!”

“Ayazawa-san,” Mai responded as the girl neared, waving her own hand in greeting. “Ah, you made it before me! I’m sorry for making you wait!”

“No worries, no worries! I was just holed up in the conbini over there—it’s so cold today, isn’t it?”

“It is, it is!” Mai nodded. “I was wondering if I should add another layer, to be honest!”

“Well, you can buy one where we’re going if you need to!” Ayazawa-san laughed. “But also—you can just call me Ruuri, you know?”

Mai smiled in turn. “Then Ruuri-chan can just call me Mai! I didn’t get a chance to look at the location properly, and I don’t really know this area all that well…”

“I’ll lead the way, no need to worry—I haven’t been able to do this in a while, so I’ve really been looking forward to it, you know?”

“It’s the same for me—and I brought food, too, so if you know anywhere to sit and eat…”

“I definitely have the perfect spots—but Mai-chan, you’re a little different from the way you are at school, nee? I never realized you were the onee-san type…but I guess with a friend like Yamamura-san…”

Yamamura was Keiko’s surname. Michiru’s was Nakano. Mai hadn’t used either in a while, and so it took her a few minutes to realize who Ruuri was talking about.

“Ah, well, I’m used to cooking a lot…”

Ruuri nodded, seemingly understanding. “Hmm. Mai-chan, are you planning on buying anything specific today?” she asked as she led Mai around a corner.

“I haven’t really thought about it—I just thought I’d look around and see what I like.”

“Let fate decide, right? I think that’s cool too—ah, okay, it’s just past here…”

The pathway opened into an area full of stalls that had all sorts of items on them. Though it was a rather clustered together area, the items that were being sold varied from what seemed like antique items to rather modern-looking clothing, even to little accessories and keychains that wouldn’t be out-of-place on a cellphone.

The stall nearest to them was selling antique vases. Mai could, at a single glance, tell that this was something she could never afford, even at her current financial stability. Yet she stood at the stall for a while, ooh-ed and aah-ed at the patterns and pretty colors with Ruuri, and laughed at one particularly stubby looking vase.

The next few stalls followed a similar pattern, including one that was selling maneki-neko—Mai was almost tempted to buy a black-and-white set that reminded her of a certain set of twins—and one that was selling puzzle boxes. The elderly woman manning the stall had one that she’d offer to all of her customers to try to solve.

Ruuri and Mai, even working together, could make neither heads nor tails of it. Mai wondered if anyone she knew could.

Probably…

At one point, they passed a stall selling cardigans. Mai ended up buying a matching pair with Ruuri, as a sort of commemoration of the trip—hers was yellow and patterned with sunflowers, while Ruuri’s was blue and patterned with violets.

Finally, Mai found one that was selling the item that she knew for sure she’d be buying—a display of miniature hairclips. She picked out several—flower-patterned, simple designs, one that resembled a snowflake—and thought for a moment, before she decided to buy a few scrunchies as well. She’d been considering growing her hair out a bit.

Not too long, but long enough that it would probably soon need to be tied out of the way if she didn’t want it to be blown all over her face.

She found herself pausing at a stall selling mirrors. Ruuri stopped behind her as she did, given the crowd’s path way one-way and if the person in front stopped, then those behind them could not quite pass.

The other girl nudged Mai towards the stall so they wouldn’t obstruct others, and then asked, “Something caught your eye?”

“No…well…” The thing was, something had caught Mai’s eye. It was a rather small, copper-colored, pocket mirror, simple in design but with ornate lattice patterns at the edges, set with the lid flipped open on the table. Without a thought, Mai picked it up, and felt the grooves on the back.

She turned it. She realized that there was a pattern of birds in flight—what looked to maybe be sparrows. Mai wasn’t exactly well-versed in differentiating birds. It was…pretty, was the only word to describe it.

But something about it was odd. Yet in Mai’s mind, she could not reject the thought that she absolutely needed to buy this mirror.

She turned over the mirror once more and looked at her reflection in it. There was nothing wrong with it—though Mai noticed that her lips were a bit chapped. Ruuri spoke from behind her.

“It’s pretty cute—you’re going to buy it?”

“Yes,” Mai said distantly, and looked at the person manning the stall.

It was a middle-aged lady, who smiled at her. “A good choice—though that mirror has quite a bit of history behind it…” She trailed off, almost ominously. “…For you, the price will be…”

Mai blinked at the odd phrasing. But the cost wasn’t nearly as much as she’d expected it to be for such an item, so she decided to go ahead and not second-guess her instinct. Purchase bagged and in-hand, she and Ruuri both decided that they should sit down for a bit and eat before continuing to look through the market.

Lunch had gone fine, but Mai had spilled still-burning hot tea on her cardigan. Ruuri had taken it with grace and said that they could meet up other times at other markets, but that she should probably get home before the spill became an uncleanable stain.

Mai, with disappointment, had agreed. Yet, as she’d boarded the train, she’d nearly tripped over the gap between the platform and the train—something she had not done in years. Well, I did walk a lot today…I must just be tired.

She came home and nearly choked on the smell of incense. It took her a second to realize that the smell wasn’t coming from her apartment, but the neighbor’s—and yet because of it, she’d inadvertently knocked down her coat stand. She sighed.

She’d tripped nearly three times on the cracks on the pavement on the way home, and at one point had bumped into a rather crotchety older man that had ranted at her as she’d quickly dashed away.

She looked at the fallen coat stand, as well as the coats on it that were now spread across the floor, and then began to lift up the furniture and set the item back on it, praying it wouldn’t fall again.

After finishing her leftover classwork, she decided to perhaps simply eat the leftovers she had for dinner, and avoid anything that might result in more unfortunate accidents—like, for example, the microwave or the stove.

Memories of the fire at the stove during the case at the Morishita’s came to mind.

Realizing that she’d had two different memories of the place brought back to her by events in recent times, she wondered if she should give Ayami-chan a call soon. It was rather late today, but surely sometime during the week…

It was with these thoughts in mind that Mai went to sleep.

I am smiling at the most handsome man I’ve ever seen—my soon-to-be husband—and he is smiling back at me, brown eyes soft and tender.

He’s wearing his wedding hakama, and he looks ever so handsome in it…I am worried that I am not nearly as beautiful in my shiromuku, but he assures me that none could compete with my loveliness. I blush.

The sake cup is passed to him, the fluid within it bobbing slightly as it is jostled in movement. I see my reflection in it, and his reflection in my own cup, as we exchange them.

I open my mouth to speak, but I realize I have been hasty—the liquid is choking me now, even though it already burned to swallow.

It hurts, it hurts so much—the sake in my throat, going where my breath should go rather than where my drink should go, the horrified look in the eyes of my beloved, the choking—

This dream, too, Mai wrote down in her journal. The man she had been marrying in the dream had not been anyone she’d known, nor had the person whose memories she seemed to be reliving at any point said the man’s name.

At the very least, she had seen a vague impression of ‘her’ appearance, and quickly understood that this was definitely not the office lady she’d dreamed about the night before.

The style of the way the woman had thought was entirely different, almost somewhat archaic, and the man she was married evoked entirely different emotions in her than the thought of ‘Taji-kun’ had a week ago.

What disturbed her the most was the ending of the dreams—the way they made it seem as though the person living them had died at the end, except that Mai felt very strongly that they had not.

But as Naru often said, evidence should be considered first. She had no evidence the women were dead, just as she had no evidence that they weren’t dead—so she would simply keep seeing what was happening, and investigate on her own until it became urgent.

On the way to class the next day, she tripped over the gap between the platform and the train again, both while getting on and while getting off, stubbed her toe twice on the cracks in the sidewalk, and had a puddle splashed on her when a car had driven by in a rush.

It hadn’t rained in days. Mai had no idea where the puddle could have even come from.

Michiru and Keiko had looked at her as though they were looking at a new oddity in a store.

“Mai, you look like an angry cat,” Keiko had said, restraining her laughter. Mai glared at the other girl.

“You should change into your PE clothes,” Michiru had suggested. Mai’s uniform had gotten not just water, but mud splashed on it. Where the mud had come from when the place she’d gotten splashed at had nothing but concrete for miles, she had no idea.

She steadfastly refused to acknowledge it was anything other than mud. The very thought was disgusting. Ugh, so gross…

In the girls’ locker room later, she had changed into the standard PE uniform for her school, dreading the fact that she’d probably be asked all sorts of questions throughout the day. Looking at her regular uniform, she’d also known it was probably a bad idea to just stuff it in the locker—hopefully, the teachers wouldn’t say anything if she just left it out to dry.

She should have known better, because the uniform was gone when she arrived at the end of the day to collect it. After asking around, apparently one of the teachers had thought it was a lost item and sent it to the lost-and-found.

At the very least, there was no trouble in collecting it, and now that it was dry, Mai could probably drop it off at a laundromat on the way to SPR and collect it when it was done—she’d be in the office, so it wouldn’t be too much trouble to go and get it quickly.

On the way to the office from the laundromat, from above, just at the last minute, she sensed that something was about to fall on her and moved out of the way.

With a clang, on the ground next to her landed a stapler. Wha—out of the sky? A stapler?

She looked up. She was besides a sleek, glass-walled office building, and there was an open window not too far above her. From it poked out the head of a salary woman with bobbed hair, who called out a distant apology.

Mai slowly nodded and kept walking, speed increasing just a little bit. She was starting to feel as though something…might be a little off.

When she finally reached the sidewalk down which the building that the SPR office was located on the second floor of could be found, she heaved a sigh of relief, and practically ran to her destination, just barely avoiding bumping into anyone.

She raced up the stairs and shoved open the door, calling out a triumphant, “Taniyama Mai, success!”

She was greeted by Genji and Lin, sitting at their respective desks—shockingly, for Lin—and staring at her as though she’d gone insane.

“…Mai, what’s with the tracksuit? Didn’t you have class today?” This was rich, coming from him, as he was simply wearing a teal hooded sweatshirt.

She remembered what she was wearing and looked down at the red and black tracksuit. She sighed. “I got water splashed on my uniform this morning—these are my PE clothes.”

Genji blinked. “You have PE uniforms here too?”

“…Is there anywhere that doesn’t?” Mai tilted her head in confusion.

“…I guess not. Anyway—how badly was it splashed that you had to change clothes entirely? Must’ve been a mess.”

“Don’t get me started,” Mai groaned. “I’ll have to get it back from the laundromat later…since yesterday, I’ve been having so much bad luck. A stapler nearly fell on my head on the way here!”

“A stapler?” Genji’s eyes widened. “Oh, wow…you’re okay, though?”

Mai waved her hand. “I…I guess you could say, sensed it? Yeah, I sensed it, sort of, before it landed, and moved out of the way—it was fine.”

“I guess it’s going well with Masako, then?”

Mai nodded. “She says I might not really need her help at this point, since we don’t really have the same abilities.”

“Ah…and we still don’t know entirely what your abilities are…”

Mai nodded, and then held up her schoolbag. “I’m going to go put this away, and then I’ll make tea—oh, is your brother here by the way?”

“In his lair, as usual,” Genji said, nodding towards the closed door to the director’s office. “He’ll probably be in a better mood after tea.”

Agreeing internally, Mai went to put her things away in her little locker in the kitchenette, and then began to prepare the tea. The last thing she expected was the hot water to splash against her hand as she poured it for the tea, and she yelped in distress as it did so.

“Ah!” She stared in betrayal at the kettle, which had, up until now, always poured so smoothly it had been dreamlike. She was hesitant to continue pouring, but couldn’t just keep holding it in limbo as she was—in the end, she very carefully finished pouring the tea, and then separated it into two teacups, and the mugs she’d gotten for Naru and Genji.

She felt an instinctive unease.

…Four cups…It’s an unlucky number…

But it could also be considered two mugs and two teacups, couldn’t it? Still…better safe than sorry.

She poured some into another teacup. There.

Five was a somewhat auspicious number, wasn’t it? She would keep the extra cup for herself, as a treat for all the misfortune she’d undergone in the past few days.

She took the tray of tea out of the kitchenette and set it on her desk. Without a word, she took Genji’s mug to him, then took a teacup to set in front of Lin.

Genji offered her a thanks, to which she nodded before heading to Naru’s office. She knocked on the door, and as per usual, entered without waiting for a response.

Immediately—she tripped.

Why? Why does this keep—

She instinctively held Naru’s mug up and balanced to try to avoid spilling it, but was surprised when she was caught by warm, solid arms, and a firm grip held her wrist in place, preventing any of the tea from spilling.

Mai breathed in, without meaning to, the scent of the soft fabric that her face was now buried against. He smelled like the black tea he so dearly enjoyed, freshly washed laundry, and just a hint of something smoky. It was oddly soothing.

Then she realized she was nearly rubbing her face into her boss’s chest—his shirt! His shirt! Immediately she pulled her face away, but the grip around her waist prevented her from moving too far back.

The hand gripping her wrist released it, and instead moved to take the mug from her hand.

“You’re clumsy, but this is worse than usual, Mai,” Naru informed her, brow raised. He took a sip of the tea he’d just saved.

Mai couldn’t even rouse up the energy to get mad. She was too mortified. It was made worse by the fact that Naru was nonchalant as usual, and that she’d just remembered the recent dream she’d had that had featured Naru trying to flirt with her.

“I—I—I’ll be at my desk,” she stuttered, and robotically turned out of the office and stiffly walked away. She could feel Naru’s eyes on her back, probably suspicious, but ignored them. She also ignored Genji’s questioning gaze from his desk.

The moment she tried to walk around her desk, pain shot through her foot. “Agh!”

Mai realized very quickly that she had stubbed her toe against the side of her desk.

She fell into a crouching position, and banged her head against the side of her desk as she went down. She yelped once more in distress, hands still reaching for her foot.

It was a struggle to not break into tears at this point—she felt as though nothing were going right for her today.

A hand reached down and ran gently through her hair. Mai looked up, expecting to see Genji—maybe Lin would let him heal her—but instead, she met the unreadable eyes of Naru, who was frowning at her. Genji, however, was at his side, also looking down at her with concern.

“Is something up, Mai?”

She merely moaned in upset and buried her face in her hands. “Tired,” she whimpered. I hate today.

She was taken by surprise when a hand on each of her arms gently tugged her up, and she was guided to her chair behind her desk.

“There are burn marks on your fingers,” Naru said, still frowning.

“That’s from the kettle earlier…” Mai mumbled.

“You should have said.” Even when concerned, Naru still sounded like he barely cared.

“Ah, but Mai doesn’t like talking about her problems, remember?” Genji sounded somewhat tired. Mai looked up at him, lifting her face from where she had folded her arms and slumped down in them. “She said a stapler nearly fell on her head today.”

“But it didn’t…”

“And what if it did, the next time?” Naru paused. “…Have you had any dreams, recently?”

Mai felt herself freeze immediately. “Um, we don’t have any cases right now.”

“Unfortunately, Mai, that is not an answer to my question.” Naru’s eyes narrowed. “Give me your journal.”

“I left it at home,” Mai lied.

She hadn’t noticed that Genji had gone into the kitchenette while they were speaking. He came out with a familiar blue notebook in hand. “Here it is!” He held up his prize.

Mai stared at the item in hand for a moment, and then scowled in realization. “Hey, you went through my stuff!”

Naru snatched the book out of his brother’s hand before Mai could even try to grab it—not that she had a chance, with her meager height in comparison to theirs. “This is an item I gave to you, and thus I considered its ownership shared between the two of us. As for what else Genji may have found in your bag…”

“—Don’t worry, Mai, I didn’t pay attention to anything else!” Genji held his hands up in surrender. “I promise!”

But Mai no longer cared about his betrayal. She was instead looking nervously at Naru, who didn’t hesitate to start from the latest dream she’d written down rather than the earliest. She’d only had the notebook for about a week, after all—it wasn’t as though she dreamed every night, and if she did, she didn’t recall all of them.

After skimming through the pages of the notebook, his indigo gaze met hers. “My office,” was all he said.

Mai felt as though she were going to her execution as she followed Naru into his office. Genji had turned and walked back to his desk, and merely whistled—badly, at that—when she tried to meet his gaze.

Lin’s desk, of course, was empty of its owner. He must have disappeared into the data room at some point during the interaction between Mai and the twins. Mai felt that Lin was probably the type who avoided drama like the plague as a teenager, despite not being unattractive.

Mai left the door behind her open as an escape route.

“Shut it,” came Naru’s voice from in front of her.

She promptly obeyed.

Naru sat not at his desk, but on the sofa in his office. He didn’t look up at her or make any sort of gesture, but she knew there was an implicit command to sit next to him. She did so, but tried her best to leave space between the two of them.

Space for the buddha, like Bou-san would say…

Naru didn’t comment on this, thankfully. Instead, he began to interrogate her on her dreams. “Your most recent dream, it was of a woman getting married?”

Mai nodded. Then, realizing he was not looking at her, she said, “Yes,” out loud.

“You’ve described it as traditional.”

Nodding again, Mai explained, “It’s usually western weddings these days, but her husband was wearing a hakama, and from what I could see of her reflection and what he was saying, she was wearing a shiromuku.”

“…It was in first person perspective? You, as her?”

Mai nodded. “Is that weird?”

“Make sure to note that down next time. The dream ended when she choked on the sake?”

“Yes, but I don’t think she died or anything.”

“Is that your intuition at work?” Still holding her notebook in hand, Naru took out a pen and began to jot down notes in the notebook that he’d given for her to use. Mai sighed internally. It felt as though a teacher were grading her, except the teacher was about to give her marks on a dream she’d had about them.

“Yes.”

“And is this also the case for the office worker in the prior dream?”

“Yes, she was definitely really hurt, but I don’t think she died.”

“…Tell me, did you see any connection in their thoughts, when you saw through their perspectives?”

“…I guess, they were both thinking about the people they liked? That’s the only thing in common, really.”

“I see…” Naru paused in his writing. “The dream prior to this, you were quite vague in your description of.”

Mai knew very well that she had been vague about it. She had simply written down, ‘what happened at the park, but it wasn’t the same as what actually happened’. “I think it makes sense enough.”

“You should be detailing what exactly happened in the dream, in the same way you did in these other descriptions. I assume you mean the case that occurred in Yoyogi Park the day before, which means that you must have been reliving those events in this dream as yourself, but something diverged?”

Mai nodded and suppressed the rising blush at the memory of the flirtatious dream Naru who had called her a ‘good girl’. The dream wasn’t even that bad, as far as dreams in that direction went, and yet it was remembering the last part that made her knees weak with embarrassment every time.

“Well?” Naru was looking at her expectantly. His dark eyes made her immediately want to turn away, but she knew that would make her seem even more suspicious. “What diverged?”

“Um,” she stuttered. “Well, uh, it was…”

“It was?” he repeated, raising a brow. He set the notebook down beside him, and folded his hands over his crossed legs, focusing entirely on Mai.

“It…it was…a dream…with…when we were alone…”

The eyebrow rose higher, and its compatriot was joining it now. Stop looking at me like that! Mai’s squishy teenage girl’s heart screamed, pounding rapidly.

“…And you…didn’t say…didn’t say the same things as you did then…and then it ended!” she finished, feeling as though she’d finished an extremely difficult test. Please let that be good enough.

“From what point did our dialogue change? Discussing the case? The absurd behavior of Matsuzaki-san and Bou-san? Or…” Naru read her expression instantly. His lips curved up slightly. “Ah, I see. I presume this dream version of me followed Hara-san’s plan?”

Mai shook her head so quickly she felt a twinge of pain in her neck. Her hair whipped across her cheeks. “No! It—it ended before that! You just said you would…”

Naru still looked amused. “I imagine you must have been disappointed.”

“Who—who would be disappointed! A narcissist like you—! Even if you say things like—!” Mai clapped her hands over her mouth, cursing her loose lips. I’m too honest when I get upset! You don’t need to be this honest!

“Even if I say things like?” Naru repeated again, goading her. Even so, Mai felt that his voice was still unfairly attractive, smooth and silky as it was. It was not immensely deep, but that didn’t seem to detract from the draw of it—rather, that made him only sound more elegant.

Mai knew her face was burning. “Like nothing!” Like ‘good girl’…

She had completely forgotten the unfortunate fact that she had a mental link to the twins, because the twins so often shut her out of it and had their own mental barriers preventing thoughts from passing through most of the time. It was their mutual courtesy to her, and also, neither of them had the desire to hear other people’s thoughts at all times.

“Good girl,” Naru repeated, tone softening slightly, as he looked intently at her. “I suppose it must be a subconscious desire for praise from me, then?”

“I don’t have anything like that!” Mai scowled. “And you said you didn’t care to read my mind…!”

“How can I ignore it if my shields are down, and your thoughts just happen to be screaming at me?”

“Y—you…Anyway, it didn’t mean anything, it was just a weird dream!”

“I’m sure,” Naru said, tone full of skepticism. He still seemed more amused than annoyed.

Mai stood up, finally having had it, and held out her hand for her journal. “Now that I’ve told you, can I have it back?”

Naru stood as well, and picked up the journal, handing it to her. Mai snatched it out of her hands and whirled around, ready to stomp out of his office.

“A moment, Mai.”

She stiffened and stopped. Slowly, she turned back around and once more met that indigo gaze, far closer than it should be. She felt a sense of déjà vu.

Before she could say a word, a large hand settled on her head. “Good girl, Mai, for telling me your dreams.”

She blanked out.

The rest of her time at the office, for that day, had passed in a haze empty of any sort of reasonable thought, and several other instances of stubbing her toes, as well as at least two paper cuts and another instance of burning herself on the kettle.

Somehow, none of these things managed to overwhelm the stupid memory—that was no longer just a dream—that played on loop in her mind. Stop it, you idiot! Idiot!

She did not even register the twins ushering her into Lin’s van to be driven home, seeing how accident-prone she had been that day. Nor did she properly register being escorted down the block to her apartment by Lin until she was at home and the door was locked behind her.

She slumped against the door and slid to the ground, burying her face between her knees.

…What’s wrong with me…

I can’t believe Okamoto-kun invited me on his bike! It’s going to be so much fun…!

“Nee, Okamoto-kun, how should I sit?” Okamoto-kun shows me how to properly sit on the back of the bike, and then wraps my arms around his torso. I resist the urge to squeal.

It’s so solid…! I‘ve never been this close to a boy before! Take that, Sumie-chan!

Ah, Okamoto-kun’s starting to move the bike…Oh, wow! The wind feels so nice in my hair…and even though it’s a little cold, Okamoto-kun is warm…

The sunset is really pretty—eh? What—a cat?

“Okamoto-kun, watch out!” Okamoto-kun swerves the bike, but we’re on a hillside road!

Everything’s moving by so quick, I barely have time to register that I’m falling before my head hits the dirt and all I can see are flashing lights—

Chapter Text

[Tuesday, September 27^th, 20XX]

Mai was beginning to tire of this sort of dream, despite the fact that she’d never had these kinds of first-person dreams before this. She’d just woken from yet another dream of a romantically-inclined girl getting into an extremely painful incident after a moment of bliss—Mai wondered what exactly the dreams meant, or what they were trying to tell her. Naru had been no help on that front—he had said that there wasn’t enough information to draw any conclusions, despite the overarching commonalities in the dreams.

Mai had an uncomfortable inkling that the dream she’d had about Naru wasn’t entirely just any ‘secret desires’ or whatever that she might have, but somehow connected to whatever all the other dreams were showing her.

She dutifully wrote down the rather short dream in as much detail as she could in the accursed little blue notebook and sighed.

Thankfully, the jarring end to the dream had shaken her out of the haze that Naru’s words had put her in the night before. She knew he liked teasing her—she was well aware of it from the start. It was a mutual activity for them—he would needle her, and she would needle him back. It was a part of their friendship.

Yet he had toed the line, then. That had been borderline flirtatious, and Mai had not been able to compute it.

She had also never thought that this would be the type of thing she was into. Sure, her fictional tastes were a little…suspicious, so to say, but fiction did not necessarily equal reality, right? Surely Mai wasn’t the type to become weak-kneed for someone with a personality like Naru’s just because of a few complimentary words?

Yet Mai knew that Genji considered the banter between her and his brother as flirting from the very start. He was not subtle, though Mai had initially believed that he too was just trying to get a rise out of her.

Now, though, she was very sure—that Genji was genuinely trying to play matchmaker between her and Naru, and even worse, that Naru was definitely entirely aware of it, since these were a pair of ‘super’-powered twins that could quite literally read each other’s minds.

This was not something she wanted to dwell on. She’d begun to develop the fear that thinking about either of the twins might broadcast her thoughts to them or invite them into her mind—it wasn’t as though it hadn’t already happened several times, after all.

Thankfully, thoughts of Genji led to thoughts of Masako. She thought back to her lessons with the medium. Though they had decreased in frequency as the other girl had less to impart upon her, Mai had taken to heart what they had discussed in their initially frequent and now infrequent little meet-ups.

The medium’s perception of spirits, she had described, was as presences that were clearly visible to her. She saw spirits as though they were people, though her senses could differentiate between the two. That, however, was only true in the present—when Masako had been younger, apparently, she had often spoken to thin air. That was, she had spoken to the spirits that only she could see and hear.

However, there were also times when she was able to sense spiritual presences in a location without necessarily seeing or hearing them. There were also times when she could hear them, but not see them, though this was only true when the spirit was in a location but not necessarily in the same place that Masako was physically.

Mai knew her own experience was not precisely the same as this. Her sensing of spirits was sporadic—at the Morishita house, she’d been able to sense when a spirit was present, but not always been able to hear or see it, and most of the times she had, the spirits had been intentionally broadcasting their presence, or trying to speak to her.

In that same vein, since July, Mai had, with regularity, sensed spirits here and there. She had asked if Masako could take her on one of the medium’s own exorcisms, but the medium had firmly denied her, telling her that it was risky, and that the twins would be extremely unhappy with her—it was bad enough that she had divulged as much about them to Mai as she had.

Mai, of course, didn’t think what Masako had told her was even that revealing. She had pretty much instantly been able to tell that the twins weren’t of solely Japanese descent, so learning that they might be from overseas wasn’t too much of a stretch, really—they were rich, after all. They probably had…what were they called…summer houses, or whatever.

That brought up thoughts of the twins in beach shorts, potentially shirtless…Mai was reminded of the soaked Naru’s arms at the park. She shook her head rapidly, clearing it of worldly thoughts. What’s that thing Bou-san says again? Naumaku…naumaku…

…Let’s just consider the spirit thing again.

In any case, Mai knew that she could sense the presence of a spirit, but she could do little else. Hearing or seeing them intentionally was pretty much a pipe dream, and being able to communicate with or host them?

…She was essentially banned from the latter after what had occurred with Tomiko. She felt it was a bit unfair, but had acquiesced because she could acknowledge that she probably hadn’t been correctly assessing the danger factor at that time either. That, and the ban was out of concern for her.

Mai had always found it hard to reject genuine concern.

With the dreams, however, there was no spiritual presence to be found—whether it was in her home, or following her around. Mai wasn’t stupid—the first thing she had done upon waking up this morning was grab the mirror that she had been oddly compelled to purchase at the flea market two days ago. She knew what a context clue looked like, alright? She did read!

But nothing felt wrong from the mirror. In fact, it seemed to be completely unassuming, just a pretty little antique. Even Mai’s instincts weren’t blaring—so she’d felt a little embarrassed after the fact. Obviously, the sudden streak of bad luck in her life wasn’t caused by the mysterious purchase she’d made from a mysterious figure at a little known stall in an outdoor market.

Even though that would explain it in any story…! With a sigh, she acknowledged that while her life might be story-like, it definitely wasn’t a story. If it were, maybe I’d already be…

An autumn leaf blew into her face, distracting her from her thoughts. The cherry blossom trees around her school had turned red and orange and gold as the leaves began to change color, heralding the season that was Mai’s best.

Warm colors, without a doubt, were her cutest colors according to Keiko. This counted for little, given that school was school and there was only so much that could be done with a uniform, even if theirs was on the cuter end. Michiru said that this wasn’t even Mai’s greatest issue—

“It’s your fashion sense, Mai. You’re lucky your smile’s cute enough to keep the boys from looking downwards.”

I’m not trying to get any boys anyway! Mai sniffed at the imaginary Michiru. Her eyes darted around, taking in the pretty sight. In the haze of deep thought that she had been in, she’d gotten to school early—and surprisingly, with no incidents.

It was somewhat lamentable that only a day and a half had passed and Mai had already begun to consider bad luck the norm rather than out of the norm.

Her eyes fell upon where the old schoolhouse had once rested. Now, it was where the new gym building of her school resided, as the pamphlet she’d received prior to entry had once advertised. Mai felt both nostalgia and melancholy. Buried underneath that new building were the memories that had…well, it could only be put one way.

The memories that had changed the trajectory of her life.

Snatching another errant falling leaf out of the air and stuffing it in her pocket, Mai headed to class.

Mai walked out of the school building with a groan. Michiru patted her shoulder beside her. “Don’t worry, Mai, you know Sano-sensei is a generous grader…”

“I didn’t know we would be having a quiz today!” Mai bemoaned. “And on the exam we got back…I put all of the answers one box off…!” She buried her face in her hands, still mortified.

“Well, at least Kazutani-sensei noticed and graded you as though you’d put them in the right place…” Keiko pointed out, patting Mai’s other shoulder.

“He didn’t need to point it out to the whole class!” Mai whimpered. Several of their teachers had a penchant for mild public humiliation as a form of punitive measure, and Mai very much wanted to shrivel up when she fell victim to this.

It was a fairly common experience, given that she was often late to class for all sorts of silly reasons. Today had been a lucky break for her, especially in light of her recent streak of bad luck, but clearly she had been hoping for too much. Her bad luck had simply gone into her academics instead.

English is my worst subject…! Why a surprise quiz…!

Mai vowed to force Genji to tutor her in English if she had to. She knew both twins were fluent in it—had received snippets of their thoughts in English that she could actually understand, because the intentions behind the thoughts had also been conveyed. Unfortunately, this did not actually translate to her learning English through this ability—if she tried to speak it, she could only convey the message in Japanese.

“Oiii, Mai-chaaan! Mai-ojou-chaaaan!” Mai immediately pulled her head out of her hands at this mortifying call of her name. She recognized the voice.

“Wha—? Bou-san! What are you doing here!” Mai exclaimed.

Bou-san stood a little way away from the entrance to Mai’s school, wearing a silver duster, a grey fedora, and a silver, glittery shirt underneath combined with leather pants buckled up with a shiny gold buckle. His hair was loose and untied. The level of secondhand embarrassment Mai felt sky-rocketed as she saw that he was surrounded by a crowd of seemingly adoring female students, and a few awe-struck male students.

“Here to pick you up, on your Naru-shachou’s orders,” Bou-san replied, grinning. “Apparently you’ve been a little jeopardy friendly as of late.”

The crowd of students looked at Mai with a mixture of impressed and jealous gazes. Mai didn’t even want to think about what tomorrow morning might look like for her—she simply wanted this to end as soon as possible.

She marched up to Bou-san and hissed, “Get in the car, right now!”

Bou-san’s car, which he was leaning against, in contrast to his current appearance, was a fairly normal, olive-colored car. Mai whirled around to Michiru and Keiko, cheerfully called out a “Jaa nee!” and ignored the way both of them were clearly restraining their giggles at her situation—the betrayal—and then ran around the hood and slipped into the passenger-side seat as quickly as possible.

Once she was in the car, Bou-san started it up without a moment’s hesitation, but she saw his amused glance at her in the rearview mirror. It was clear that her plight was merely a comedy to him. Mai folded her arms and turned to glare angrily out the window.

“Are you angry, jou-chan?” he asked. If there was one thing that Mai could say that was reliable about Bou-san, he was at the very least a good driver. His eyes didn’t waver from the road, and his pace was neither bumpy, jarring, overly fast, or overly slow.

Mai humphed. “You didn’t need to call me out like that! What are you even wearing?”

“My band clothes, of course! You didn’t notice all the students around me?”

…Come to think of it, those girls were fangirling…

Mai’s anger was temporarily forgotten in favor of curiosity. “You’re in a band?” How come I’ve never heard of you?

“We’re a bit niche, still in the indie scene really, but yes. I play bass and do a bit of singing and songwriting.”

“Bou-san, you can sing?” Mai was a little impressed, begrudgingly.

“I’m alright at it, I’d say,” he responded, but he was clearly pleased by her response.

“Hmm…and your clothes are western, aren’t they?”

“Mostly, but they’re not really authentic—it’s just for the image.”

Mai turned to look at the clothes. She didn’t really know what authentic western clothes looked like, so there was nothing she could assess to tell the difference. Instead, she asked, “You said you’ve been to America before.”

“I have, yeah. In my university days…good times…took a semester gap to go overseas.”

Mai remembered that Genji had also said something along the lines of currently taking a gap year, while she knew half of the work Naru did while cooped up in his office was classwork. It was weird, because when she’d taken a glance at his work, it was so far from anything within her own realm of classwork that it might as well simply be another dimension altogether.

“So…could you help me with English?” She put on her best pleading voice, combined with big, puppy-dog eyes.

“…Probably not,” Bou-san responded, albeit apologetically. The puppy dog eyes were useless, of course, as he was entirely focused on the road.

Mai scowled. “Why not?”

“My English is more along the lines of a casual speaker—it’s not what’d get you good grades in class. I could teach you to curse, but I’m not going to be the one to taint our jou-chan’s innocence.”

“Who’s your jou-chan,” Mai muttered, crossing her arms once more. “I can be bad if I want.”

Bou-san snorted. “Of course you can, jou-chan.”

Bou-san dropped her off at the office and drove off, citing that he had a show to prepare for later—which explained why he’d been dressed like that at her school in the first place, despite the explanation of being in a band. In one of the outdoor chairs outside the lobby area of the building the SPR office was located on the second floor of, Genji could be seen sitting in a green jacket, casually sipping at a warm drink.

He waved when he noticed Mai. “Maiiii! I’m heeere!”

I can see that, she thought derisively towards him, in part curious as to whether he would receive the message or not.

And I see you! Genji’s cheery response blared into her mind with the energy of someone who was definitely a morning person. Mai, typically, was the same, but today was not a good day for her. She sighed.

“I’m walking with you upstairs, since we don’t want you tripping down the stairs or something silly like that,” Genji said, and offered her an arm, as though he were a knight escorting her.

Mai did not accept it and stomped right past him, heading into the building. This is too much! The case at the Morishita house had given her far more free reign, and just because of one mistake…!

Mai suddenly realized she’d forgotten about her plan to call Ayami at some point. She would do so when she got home tonight—not too late, hopefully, so she could at least get Noriko’s response.

As she went up the stairs, distracted by her thoughts, her foot slammed into one of the steps, having lifted high enough over the next step, and Mai yowled in distress. Genji immediately set a hand on her back before she fell backwards, and lightly nudged her forward.

But Mai was not about to set that foot down just yet, not with the pain that her toes were radiating. She grimaced, restraining yet another distressed whimper.

Abruptly, the world flipped sideways, and Mai found herself looking up at Genji’s face.

“Your knight is here!” he announced, far too proudly for the situation, and then proceeded to carry her up the stairs and only carefully let her down in front of the office door when Mai smacked his shoulder.

“What knight! You’re a jester!” she retorted. She was absolutely not in the mood for any of their usual antics, but couldn’t help quipping back the way she usually did. She sighed as she opened the office door, Genji’s laughter following her into the room.

As he had been yesterday, to Mai’s surprise again, Lin was at his desk. Unexpectedly, Naru was also standing in front of Lin’s desk, wearing his navy blazer and dark grey slacks.

Both looked up when the door chimed as she walked in. “I heard you injure yourself again, Mai,” Naru said, immediately setting off Mai’s internal ticking time bomb of anger.

“I don’t need you to remind me!” she snapped again. “It’s not like I’m doing this on purpose—you didn’t need to send—”

“Mai,” Genji said from beside her, setting a hand on her shoulder. “Hey.”

She stopped talking. She took a breath in and reminded herself to calm down. Taking out her irritation on others was unlike her, and for all that Naru was annoying at the best of times, he hadn’t actually done anything to warrant her yelling at him at this moment.

She looked at Genji, then at the hand on her shoulder, then back at him. Taking the hint, he released her, and held both hands up in surrender.

Mai turned to Naru. “I’m—”

“—under stress. Don’t bother.” Naru did not seem upset by her outburst, nor was he any colder than usual. His focus was on Genji, for whatever reason.

It was at this moment that the most silent resident of their office chose to make some use out of his daily allotment of words. At least, Mai had a secret hypothesis that Lin was cursed to only be able to speak a few words a month, and that he chose to use them very carefully.

It was silly, but she did get bored in the office sometimes. And a curse would explain the hideous ties he wore sometimes. They contrasted with his general aura, but somehow didn’t make him any less terrifying. If anything, the jarring contrast only made the typically silent man scarier.

“Taniyama-san, you have an item in your bag.”

Mai looked at him with confusion. Um…yes, since it’s my schoolbag…

“I don’t understand what you mean, Lin-san?”

“It is not an item that you’ve brought here prior to this.” Mai blinked a few times. It seemed like the air around Lin was flickering, in the way that it sometimes did around iron that had been under a lot of heat. After she blinked, though, the illusion was gone. Maybe I’m dehydrated…?

She suddenly realized what he meant, and swiftly slipped out from under the strap of her schoolbag, set it on her desk, and took out the antique pocket mirror. “Lin-san, do you mean this?”

Both of the twin’s eyes were immediately focused on the item. “I don’t sense anything from it,” Genji said.

“Neither do I. It isn’t malicious,” Naru said. It was news to Mai that Naru could sense things at all, but with his personality, it would make sense that he could only really sense malicious intent. No wonder he’s always in a mood.

“Neither of you would sense something weak like this,” Lin responded, standing from his desk.

He came over to Mai and held out a hand for the mirror.

Mai dropped it into his hand with some hesitance.

He looked down at it, scrutinizing it carefully, and flipped it open, turning it over a few times. Mai again saw the flickers in the air, this time combined with the illusion—or mirage—of flashing, faint, lights.

…I really need to drink some water.

After a moment, he spoke once more. “This is a very, very, young tsukumogami.”

Mai blinked at him in surprise. “…Eh? Then it really is the thing causing my bad luck?”

“Not in so many words. It is intentionally bringing you minor misfortune, but it does not seem to be an inherent harbinger of misfortune.”

Mai tilted her head in confusion. “How does that work?”

Naru took the chance to explain for Mai, as he usually did. “It means that the tsukumogami of that mirror was giving you bad luck on purpose, but it was a choice that it made, not something it because it was in its nature. It’s not an evil object, but—” He turned to Lin. “How does that work?”

“The intentions of this minor spirit are…” Lin’s lips quirked slightly. “…silly, at best. It does not have the power to seriously injure you or cause you true, major harm. That was why that stapler missed you, your instincts aside. It likely wouldn’t have landed either way.”

Mai blinked. She felt a little disappointed—she was certain that she’d avoided a major injury, but to find out that it hadn’t been all her own power…admittedly, it was a little disheartening.

“Do not mistake my words. Your instincts are still respectable,” Lin said, as though understanding what she’d been thinking. “Regardless, it seems this spirit believes that feelings of affection lead to misfortune and has been trying to demonstrate this to you via purposeful changing of your fortunes and imparting upon you the memories of its previous owners.”

Mai’s jaw dropped. “You mean this thing is the reason I kept getting all those dreams?” Her anger was back in full force. “Give that to me, I’m going to throw it out!” Throw it out the window!

“Wait, wait, Mai—” Genji began.

“Remember the intentions of the tsukumogami,” Naru interrupted. “The spirit believes that affection leads to misfortune…”

Mai suddenly realized something. This mirror…this mirror thought that she had a crush on Naru! Moreover, by the look on Lin’s face, he seemed to know exactly what dots she had connected and had connected them a long time ago.

She met Naru’s eyes, unintentionally. Please don’t remember.

I believe it’s a bit too late for that.

Mai thought of what Bou-san had said about her innocence, and filled her mind with the worst curses she knew as she turned back to Lin. “…I can’t throw it away?”

“It is young. You could educate it—teach it, perhaps, that not all affection predisposes one to getting into accidents. It has already begun to listen and learn…” Lin seemed fascinated by the mirror in his hand.

 “Can’t I just let you have it, Lin-san?” Mai wondered.

“As much as I would appreciate it, Taniyama-san, this mirror is not very fond of men. It would quite like to be returned to its proper owner, now. I have a feeling that even if you relinquished it, it would still return to you, as your ability to potentially communicate with it is what drew it to you in the first place.”

Lin held the mirror out to her. Mai took it, and for a moment, heard the faint sound of a bird’s happy morning chirp in her mind.

Oh, that’s interesting. Genji’s voice.

Stop listening in on my head! An angry squawking noise accompanied Mai’s shout, and Mai startled, blinking in surprise.

Both Genji and Naru reacted the same way. Lin looked between the three of them, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Mai realized, suddenly, that Lin must not know about the psychic connection that she’d been let in on, even if he knew that the twins had one with each other.

Demonstrate the intelligence you claim to me, Mai, and try to keep it that way.

Mai hummed awkwardly and said, “Uh, do any of you know what these birds on the back are?” She held up the back of the mirror to the three males in the room.

“They’re bullfinches,” Naru said. “They often symbolize positive emotions.”

“Very like Mai,” Genji added.

Mai observed the mirror in her hand in the same way Lin had, flipping it a few times. Finally, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Oddly, her eyes gleamed ever so slightly in a way that she was sure was unnatural, and her lips had the barest hint of a curve to them she knew that they did not have in real life.

Kagami no uso-san, sorry for thinking you were a suzume-san. Please stop giving me bad luck. I don’t have any affection for any boys, and I plan to keep it that way for now. There are more important things.

For once, she hoped both of the boys heard her as well. She was speaking the truth. Keiko and Michiru might have the time for romance, but Mai somewhat had her hands full with school and SPR, and truthfully, she didn’t even feel ready to be dating anyone. She was happy with her silly fictional romances for now.

She heard a soft chirp resound in her mind, ever so slightly disbelieving, and then another coo, as though accepting her request. The sensation of feathers brushing against her cheek passed over her, but only in her mind—it was the oddest experience, as though a bird were trying to offer her some form of comfort.

It seemed the mirror had decided to try to understand her perspective. Relief washed through her.

She ignored the inscrutable looks from the twins, and looked back up at Lin. “Thank you—”

But any friendliness Lin had displayed was gone. His expression was as stiff and unreadable as ever, and Mai was back to feeling as though she should not speak in his presence. He turned and went into the data room, without speaking another word.

Mai was left with the distinct feeling that perhaps the only thing that had kept him out for that long was his interest in her mirror tsukumogami.

“Don’t take it personally,” Genji said, as Naru followed in Lin’s footsteps and went into the director’s office. “He’s just…”

“It’s okay,” Mai said. “I don’t mind.” She didn’t know what Lin’s problem was, but she knew that she had done nothing to warrant the treatment, and so did not feel bad—either he would tell her what his deal with her was, or they would simply continue to ignore each other unless work necessitated that they speak. Mai was fine either way.

Genji smiled awkwardly at her. “…Now that this is settled, do you want to get some lunch?”

“Didn’t you just eat?” Mai asked. “You had a drink…”

“That was just some hot chocolate, I didn’t get an actual meal. Come on, my treat.”

“Doesn’t someone need to man the office…?”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, we don’t have anyone scheduled and the chime will call the bat out of his cave if anyone comes. What are you in the mood for, sushi?”

“Mhm, it has been a while…” Mai followed after Genji as they left the office.