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Mafuyu frowned. Something felt off; they weren't sure exactly what it could be, but nevertheless, they were certain that there was something abnormal about the room they were staying in. If they closed their eyes and listened, they could almost hear the wind, though their window was rarely opened and their door was always closed. They hadn't been living at Shiraishi-san's place for too long, but no one had ever mentioned that there might be a ghost on the premises, nor had there been any signs of paranormal activity in any of the other rooms. While this happened to be the room where the kamidana was housed, Mafuyu had never thought that it could summon deities or ghosts, as the one in her own home had never done such a thing.
Slowly, she spun around in the chair she'd been given. At the window she saw a faint glow, almost imperceptible due to the sunlight basking the ghost in its warmth. Whoever this person was, they seemed to know how the window worked and wanted it open, so Mafuyu coughed to make their presence known and then opened it for the... former resident of this house?
They seemed grateful once the wind was whistling through the newly opened crack.
Mafuyu sat back down in their chair and observed the ghost. They'd moved to sit on the floor cushion by the table, and it was much easier to see what they looked like now. Curly red-brown hair that went down about six inches past her shoulders, eyes a more defined shade of brown, cropped jacket only slightly buttoned up, looking like it was about to fall off her at any moment. The shirt she had underneath sort of reminded them of what Shiraishi-san wore when she wanted to make Kohane blush furiously. Her nails were done, painted a colour that Mizuki would kill to emulate. She watched Mafuyu expectantly.
So they sat down across the table from her, their real smile rising on their face. "Hello," they whispered.
The ghost shook her head and gestured to her ears.
Mafuyu took out a notebook and wrote down the words Can you hear me?
Another shake of the head.
Well, then. They'd have to get creative.
My name is Asahina Mafuyu.
The ghost nodded. Mafuyu was not particularly good at reading lips, but they managed to make out the words, Hi, Mafuyu. My name is-
"Kohane, why do I have to study for that English test?" An said. She must've been walking past Mafuyu's door right at that moment.
"Your grade's only a fifty-five," Kohane answered, her voice getting quieter as she made her way down the hall.
The ghost perked up when she heard An's voice.
Mafuyu held a hand up as if to say You really shouldn't. And though they were getting a better picture of the ghost's identity, and they knew that someone their age had no authority to tell a thirty-something-year-old woman to not do something, still, the ghost did not move.
She seemed sad. Mafuyu pulled a photo album out of their desk drawer. Shiraishi-san's father had been kind enough to say that it didn't matter if they looked through some of the older albums, and so Mafuyu had done so to see what a... happier, well-put-together family looked like. They flipped through the album and found an image of Shiraishi-san as a young child. She was sitting in between two adults, one of whom Kohane had said was a drunk man she'd seen on the streets a few times, and the other who was sitting in front of them. They pointed at the woman in the picture, then at the ghost.
Kotaki Nagi, the name on the picture was.
Judging by how enthusiastic the nodding from the ghost in front of them was, Mafuyu had found the right name. Now all they had to do was find a way to communicate with Nagi.
Regular speech wouldn't work. Writing was good for one-way communication, but if Mafuyu needed to ask a question that wasn't a yes or no, everything would quickly fall apart. They didn't think that Nagi could hold a pen right now, either, so finding another notebook was out. Unfortunately, they didn't believe in psychic links, and they doubted that sort of thing would work even if it was real. Sign language... well, Mafuyu wasn't good at it, but they did know a few basic things.
Can you sign? they wrote in their notebook. Nagi bit her lip, fiddled with her hair, and eventually shook her head.
Interesting.
Mafuyu figured it was worth a shot anyway. They weren't going to use anything standardized, though; an unofficial set of commonly understood gestures would work better.
They pointed at themself, then at their laptop, then mimed singing. Nagi seemed to get the gist of what they meant and the point of this exercise. She pointed at the kamidana – specifically the microphone – and then mimed singing. Maybe they did have something in common, Mafuyu thought. They really wished that she could talk, or at least hold a pen, because then this relationship wouldn't be as difficult to work with.
Next thing. Mafuyu pointed at a young Shiraishi-san in the photo book, then pulled up a picture of Kohane on her cell phone, and drew a line between the two of them before blowing a kiss. In response, Nagi laughed, or at least she tried to, because no sound was made. It must be so difficult, Mafuyu thought, for a singer such as herself to suddenly be unable to even speak.
She pointed at An's picture, a look of concern on her face, then pointed at the microphone.
They sighed, and shook their head with a look of apology.
Nagi's expression went from relatively joyous to upset within a very short period of time. Mafuyu was unsure how to comfort her, and so they simply reached a hand out in sympathy, and eventually she wandered off to read the contents of an envelope on the kamidana, which only made the tears worse. They responded by placing a hand over where her shoulder would have been had she been a tangible human being and not a translucent shell of one.
I'm sorry, Mafuyu typed in their notes app. I don't know what happened to you, but if I can help in any way, try to let me know.
They were fairly certain that they meant it.
When the time came to tell Shiraishi-san about their experience with the ghost, Mafuyu lied to her. Just a little. Enough so that she could come to the conclusions she needed to find on her own and have a conversation with Nagi though neither of them were saying anything. Maybe psychic links were real. Either way, Mafuyu needed to figure out a better way to communicate with her, because the sign language was getting much more difficult now that the ideas they needed to convey were complicated.
Their next idea for an improved communication tool was much worse than anything they had come up with before, but it was so ludicrous it might just have had a chance at succeeding: using a hiragana and katakana chart to spell out what they wanted to say. Mafuyu was going to write out everything to check that they'd understood it, and though they knew this wasn't an efficient plan, it was the only chance they had.
It thankfully didn't take long to explain the plan to Nagi.
Mafuyu believed that it would take too long to spell out some of the words they'd need for this over and over again, so they wrote out the necessary ones on a strip of paper and taped it to their laptop. The first few sentences worked well enough – though things like I ate an apple today weren't all that difficult to communicate in their regular hastily-put-together sign language – so Mafuyu decided to move on to more complicated things.
What's wrong? They pointed to the five corresponding hiragana on-screen, then moved away so Nagi could explain.
An thinks everything is her fault.
That was simpler than Mafuyu would've thought, but their interpretation was ruled as correct anyway. While that was obviously an issue, the root of it still wasn't clear. Why does that matter to you?
God, they sounded like a therapist.
Because I know An. When she's that upset, she tends to hide it until she reaches a breaking point. I can't remember a time where she would instinctively reach out for anyone after she turned five. She's probably thinking she's a disappointment right now. Or she's trying to move on, but her tone didn't sound like that.
Mafuyu would have pointed out that three years was a long time for a teenager and that An could have changed quite a bit during that time, but they refrained. Would you like me to remind her of anything?
None of it was her fault. No one's to blame, but if she needs to lash out, she can blame me. I didn't do enough to protect her from the truth. I should have...
I don't know what else I could have done.
She was crying again.
Mafuyu wrapped her arms around the air as if to give her a hug. I'm sorry, she spelled. I'll tell her.
Thank you very much.
It's no problem, they wrote. I sort of wish there was an easier way to communicate.
Nagi had a tiny smile on her face then. Can I have a pen?
Mafuyu took one of their unused writing utensils out of their bag and provided her with a notebook to write in. After a couple of minutes of trial, error, and ink stains on the pages, one full sentence proudly rested on the pages, more befitting of having been written with a brightly coloured pen than the deep blue ones Mafuyu preferred. If I focus enough, I can write.
This was an excellent development. Can you hear me if I talk?
A shrug. Mafuyu called Mizuki so it wouldn't seem that they were talking to themself.
"Heya, Yuki! Dare I ask why you called me now?"
"I am testing to see if the ghost in my room can hear me," they said, which sort of made calling Mizuki irrelevant, but oh well. "How was your day at school?"
"It was so boring," they drawled. "Enanan wouldn't even text me until lunchtime! Do you know how difficult it is to not talk to your girlfriend every day?"
"Ena needed to sleep, and I call Kanade often enough, thank you very much. Also, we are not dating."
Nagi was practically out of breath with how humorous she was finding this exchange. Apparently she could hear what was being said. Excellent. "Yuki, you know you're in love with her!"
"Amia, I told you the same thing with regards to Ena, and you denied it so vehemently that it was immediately obvious you were lying."
"Aww, can't Yuki be nice to me for once?"
"I am doing my best."
More hysterical laughter. Though Mafuyu was aware that Ena did find these sorts of situations amusing if not annoying, they were unsure as to why this was especially funny. Maybe she just hadn't found many reasons to laugh recently. If they found something humorous in the future, would they be nearly reduced to tears from how funny it was as well?
"Can't argue with that," Mizuki said. "Hey, can your ghost friend hear me?"
"I'm fairly certain she can, yes."
Mizuki seemed to get an idea. "Um, whoever Yuki has on the other side, just so you know, they're really good at writing lyrics, and so down bad for our friend Kanade that they're practically married to-"
Mafuyu hung up.
Nagi was still laughing.
They did feel a little embarrassed about it, but if it made someone smile, wasn't it all worth it in the end? "I assume that made you feel better," they said, and the only response was frantic nodding. "Shall I go and tell Shiraishi-san now?"
A thumbs up. Mafuyu took their science homework with them to look busy and waited for Shiraishi-san and Kohane to get back from... whatever it was that they were doing again. Singing on the street, Mafuyu assumed.
They did end up conveying the required information to Shiraishi, and then went back to inform Nagi about this (after sending Mizuki a picture that could only really be used as blackmail). Something seemed to have changed about her, though, which was only confirmed when- "Thank you," she said. Her voice low, but melodious all the same. Mafuyu understood why everyone had been saying she was such a great singer.
"You can talk now," she muttered.
"Did An go out to sing with her partner?"
"I believe that's what they were doing. They were also flirting with each other when they came back."
"Do you think she'd talk to me if I did want to... explain everything?"
"It'd be pretty hard," Mafuyu answered. "But I think she'd be more accepting of it now that she knows it's not her fault."
There was silence for a second. "Do you think... if I sang something and recorded it, could you pass it off as an unreleased album?" There was a devious grin on her face now. Something like what Mizuki would display before escorting Mafuyu to the mall and buying them a ludicrous amount of clothing.
"Oh, absolutely."
They had to work in silence, which was proving to be more difficult than Mafuyu could have imagined. Normally, if they had to record something for Nightcord, they would just hop to Sekai and set up their microphone there. But when they tried to take Nagi with them – even though she would look at Mafuyu's phone and listen to Untitled – it never worked. Apparently, Nagi would get sent to a street near a business called Crase Cafe that served excellent coffee and shock the living daylights out of the people there – who were named Miku, Rin, Len, Meiko, Kaito, and Luka, much like in Mafuyu's Sekai – and when Mafuyu hit pause, both of them would be back in their room. That in itself was a fascinating concept: did it mean that there were other Sekai? Was Sekai one entity that looked wildly different to different people, and so Nagi had gone to the right spot but seen the wrong thing from Mafuyu's point of view?
Either way, they couldn't record there. Mafuyu chose a different solution: they could always go to Mizuki's or Kanade's homes, neither of whom would be opposed to having a ghost recording music in their living spaces. Ena was out because Mafuyu was sure that they'd seen her brother wandering around Vivid Street before and they did not want to risk having him realize that ghosts were real. Likely that would not end well.
But that wasn't guaranteed to work, either, and though they did get a few songs done, it was harder to lug everything around. Mafuyu decided it would be a better backup plan.
So they switched gears again: they would record at Shiraishi's place, but only when no one else was there. This proved to be less challenging than expected.
For one, Yuka-san often went out to grocery shop or even just to mark in a less... chaotic place. Having three teenagers around was certainly not making her job any easier. An and Kohane were going out more often to practice or for dates, and Ken-san was at Weekend Garage quite a bit. With cram school out of the way, Mafuyu suddenly found themself with the free time they needed to make this very haphazard dream a reality.
Nagi's voice was... impressive, though she likely hadn't had much time to practice in years. Mafuyu vaguely remembered listening to street music with one of their more rebellious cousins at the family reunion a few years prior and realized that they had heard it before.
They had to make sure that all of the music Nagi was singing had been released before her death because it was paramount that An not realize that this was a completely new recording. As such, Mafuyu had also done research on production techniques commonly used during the five years before the very unfortunate event had occurred and modified their own mixing style to match.
A few weeks later, Mafuyu had all the recordings prepared and a track order set. They'd worked quite a bit on it, neglecting their studies just enough to finish everything while Nagi would sneak around the house: stealing food, teasing the snake, messing around with the dishes just a little bit, and putting sticky notes with little doodles on them up everywhere. One time, after Mafuyu had spent a good three hours working on the mixing, they'd gone to get a glass of water and discovered that someone had put a drawing of a hamster wearing headphones on the fridge, then about twenty others of constellations dotted around the living room, including some on the ceiling. Mafuyu took out a sticky note of their own and scribbled out, I didn't do this.
Slowly, An had realized what the sticky notes meant and had started collecting and moving them to her room, which had only led to an exponential increase in the amount of sticky notes plastered on the walls and an exponential decrease in the amount that Mafuyu owned. Eventually they ran out, and though she couldn't prove it, they were sure that Nagi had gone and stolen them from somewhere. Oh, well. At least she seemed to be content.
"Hey, Mafuyu, do you have any siblings?" she asked one day as Mafuyu was finalizing the tracks for the CD.
"No. I do know someone with a younger brother whom she considers to be incredibly annoying. And some of my friends can act like siblings to me at times."
"How would you tell them you were a ghost and could still talk to them?"
Mafuyu considered this. "If they had moved on, I would say nothing and allow them to live their life as they wished. If not, I might slowly find ways to drop hints."
"Excellent. I've heard my older brother Taiga is back in town..."