Work Text:
H-E-L-L-O-!
Tsukasa screams and instinctively flings himself away.
The ouija board in front of him flips, landing upside down in his haste to scramble backwards. To his left, Nene's also leaned back with a terrified shadow over her face, her yelp having only been covered by his own scream. To his right, Rui leans in, already muttering up a storm as he moves to right the ouija board back up.
Tsukasa points a shaky hand at the board. "I-i-i-i-it moved! No, no, no. Who was it? Nene? Rui? Which one of you moved the slider?! Rui! It was you! Wasn't it!"
To his left, a frantic chant: "Ghosts aren't real ghosts aren't real ghosts aren't real-"
To his right, a maniacal chuckle: "Hehe! Hehehe! Oh, but what would be the fun of that! On the contrary, would it not make the most sense for a ghost to haunt the halls of this ancient manor?"
And then, to Tsukasa's absolute, complete horror, Rui promptly whips out a small robot and holds it out in the air, a crazed glint in his eyes to match the crazed grin spread on his face. "Oh ghost of Otori Manor! Come, I have brought you a medium to possess!"
"No!" Tsukasa and Nene shriek simultaneously, lunging towards the robot-
A flash and an explosion of sparks push them back. Tsukasa groans when it fades, slowly peeking out from where he's thrown his arms in front of his face.
In the middle of all the chaos, the robot sits on top of the ouija board, not unlike a queen upon her throne. Somewhere throughout it all, however, the robot had changed. No longer is it the boring, generic humanoid that Rui had fashioned it to; instead, it now has pink hair tied into two circular braids and is clad in a light green dress, with a green hat to top it all off.
And then, it opens its eyes.
Bright pink hues stare directly at him. "Hello, Tsukasa!" The robot chirps.
Tsukasa faints.
Ugh... what...
"... And then he went all blam, boom, woosh! as he swung the stick around! You should have seen him, he was so zingy-zangy when he did that!"
"Ghost!" Tsukasa shrieks, promptly bolting upright.
"You're so loud," Nene complains, grimacing.
"102 decibels," Rui remarks brightly, holding out the sound measuring device he loves to carry around with him for times like these.
Tsukasa ignores them both and points at Nene. "Nene. You are holding It. Please stop holding It."
"Hey, she has a name, you know. She's not an it. How degrading," Nene snaps, cradling the robot in her palms gently. "Don't listen to him, Emu," she tells it soothingly. "He's a bit of an idiot. Our idiot, but an idiot nonetheless."
"I don't know! And oi!" Tsukasa huffs in frustration. "All I know is that there's something there that shouldn't be- wait."
Tsukasa blinks at the robot, which blinks back with bright pink eyes. "... Did you say Emu?"
"Hi!" The robot chirps. "That's right! I'm Otori Emu!"
"Haha. Hahaha. Hahahaha. No way," he laughs jovially. "This is surely one of Rui's pranks."
"How quick you are to wound, Tsukasa-kun," Rui places a hand over his heart with his eyebrows furrowed upwards, as if his sad attempt of puppy dog eyes could even begin to mask the crazed gleam in them. "I had nothing to do with this."
"But Otori Emu is dead," Tsukasa says plainly, throwing his hands up. "There is quite literally a gravestone dedicated to her at the back of this manor."
"Right," Rui smiles back peacefully. "The gravestone of which you recite lines and dedicate soliloquies to, correct?"
Tsukasa flushes instantly. "You, how did you-! No, as I thought, it must be a prank that you're pulling-"
"He knows because I told him!" The robot chirps, suddenly up in his face.
"Gyah!" Tsukasa screeches as Nene unceremoniously drops it into his lap. It takes this in stride, waving around its little hands towards him.
"I know that you come here every day to practice! I know that you've been practicing real hard to audition for Phoenix Stage, and that you're going to be the world's shiniest future star!" The robot beams up at him, enthusing with levels that a robot should in all accounts not be able to.
He scoops up the robot and eyes it, unimpressed. "Rui, I know it's you. Don't bother."
"Oh for heaven's sake," Rui mutters with a sigh. "Emu-kun, do the thing."
"Roger!" The robot chirps. And all of a sudden, the robot's eyes turn lifeless, and it fades back to the generic humanoid Rui had created it to be. But there's a sweet breeze inside the room, running through his hair and caressing his cheeks. Soft arms of air wrap around him from behind, a familiar embrace blanketing him gently and lovingly.
"Oh," Tsukasa breathes. It's the same breeze always accompanying him whenever he steps foot into the manor. "It's you."
The robot whirrs to life again, with pink hair and bright pink eyes. "It's me!" She beams up at him. "The ghost of Otori Manor!"
"Hmm... a little more bling, blam, would help!" Emu, still in robot form, calls out from where she's sitting on top of her own gravestone, bathed in the golden light of sunset. Rather morbid, in his opinion, but she seems to have no qualms with climbing all over the signifier of her own death.
"Again, I have no idea what that means," Tsukasa grits out. "Rui, translate."
"She means that you should move your right heel back by two centimeters and puff out your chest more," Rui informs, not looking up as he continues tinkering frantically with whatever he's making. He's brought along a whole portable soldering kit, apparently. "And then raise your head by another nine degrees, which will help you project your voice further."
"You're making it up," Tsukasa calls his bluff. "No way you got that from bling blam."
"Ooh, Rui-kun got it right!" Emu cheers.
"How?!" Tsukasa shrieks.
"Just pay attention," Nene sniffs. "Are you even listening to what she's saying?"
"Nene. You would take his side on this?" Tsukasa jabs a thumb sideways at Emu. "This is not comprehensible by regular means."
"Here," Rui calls, finally done with whatever it is, and throws him something. Tsukasa catches it and glances at it.
"A earpiece?" He questions, putting it on.
Rui nods at Emu. "Here, Emu-kun, try giving him some advice again."
"Okay!" Emu chirps. "Tsukasa, after you bling, blam, you just gotta zing, boom, and zam!"
Tsukasa blinks. "Oh, really? I just have to raise my right hand at a thirty-nine degree angle, legs poised together, and recite my line at fifty-six decibels?"
"Yes!" Emu chirps.
"I see now!" He enthuses. "How brilliant!"
"Your friends are really nice," she comments, her tiny robotic legs swinging off the side of her gravestone. "I'm so happy you brought them here."
"They followed me here," he grumbles. "They were curious as to where I'd been disappearing to all these months, then Rui dragged us into that room and forced us to use that ouija board."
"That was my bedroom!"
Tsukasa blinks. "Your bedroom?"
"Yeah!" Emu props her chin with her arms, her little body swaying gently in the wind. "My bedroom. It's on the first floor and is right next to this super pretty part of the garden."
Tsukasa glances to his left at the manor. Through the dusty window, he can vaguely make out the shape of a bed. "I didn't want to intrude inside the house. It felt rude."
"I don't mind!" Emu chirps, before her smile turns wistful. "It'd be nice for someone to revisit it again. Our manor used to be bustling all the time, you know."
"Mmh," Tsukasa hums.
Emu's eyes stare at him, wide and shining.
"Mmh," Tsukasa exhales.
Emu's mouth contorts down into a pout. It's a robotic face, so it's a very convincing downwards angling pout.
"Mmmhhhh," Tsukasa breathes in and sighs. "Emu, would you like to explo-"
"Yes!" She shouts.
And that's how three humans and a ghost in a robot find their way into an abandoned manor past dark. Nene is clutching to Rui's clothes, who is waving his phone's flashlight all around and lecturing them about the architecture of the house like a tour guide. Tsukasa, forced to take the lead, jumps at every creak of the wooden planks as he cradles Emu in his hands.
"So your family lived a hundred years ago, hm?" Tsukasa inquires to distract himself from the shadows cast by the cobwebs and the grandfather clocks as the flashlight beam passes by. "What happened to this manor?"
Emu hums noncommittally, and with much less enthusiasm than before. "They went bankrupt."
"Bankrupt...?" Tsukasa tilts his head questioningly.
"Mmh," she hums again. "They couldn't sustain their main source of income, the Wonder Stage theater. Their funds were being drained."
"Wonder Stage?! That famous historical theater that set the stage for the arts in this country?!" Tsukasa shrieks.
"Yeah!" Emu beams proudly, before it begins to dim again. "Yeah..."
"May I, Emu-kun?" Rui interjects gently. At her reluctant nod, he takes over.
"As you likely know, Wonder Stage is a famous historical landmark in the history of our country's theater," Rui begins. "The Otoris were the family behind it, particularly Otori Rakunosuke, who was the primary driving force behind the theater."
"Grandpa is the best!" Emu perks up.
"Indeed," Rui smiles. "However, not two decades after, the Otoris were unable to continue funding the stage, and decided to sell off the land, where it was thereafter reconstructed and rebranded into the Phoenix Stage we are all familiar with today."
"Why did they sell it?" Nene pipes up, still clutching on to Rui's clothes.
Rui sighs gently. "Rumour has it that the Otori's youngest daughter was sickly. The Otoris spent a lot of money and resources trying to find a cure, especially when her health deteriorated all of a sudden. And the result..."
Three pairs of eyes land on the robot in Tsukasa's hands.
"... Was that she died anyways," Emu breathes, the smile on her robotic face still fixed in place. "They sacrificed their beloved stage for nothing."
"... I'm sorry," Tsukasa murmurs, patting her head with his finger gently.
Emu nuzzles up to his finger. "It's fine!" She chirps with forced cheer. "It was a hundred years ago anyways. It's history at this point."
She clamours up to her feet in his hands. "That's why, Tsukasa, I really hope you get into Phoenix Stage!"
"Me?" He asks, stunned. "Why?"
"Because... because you're the first one to have visited in so long," Emu beams at him. "You have no idea how zingy-zangy you were when you came in and practiced in front of my gravestone! You brought back a piece of the theater I love so dearly. So I really hope you'll get into Phoenix Stage! I'll help you too!"
"You'll help me?" He murmurs.
"Yes!" She grins. "I spent a lot of time in the Wonder Stage watching shows and practices. I know a thing or two!"
She lifts out a tiny hand, and Tsukasa taps his pinky against it. "Alright then," he smiles. "I'll accept your advice."
They continue on with the manor tour, Emu and Rui providing a nonstop stream of commentary. Tsukasa, on the other hand, can't help a nagging feeling of familiarity when walking through the house. He'd peeked into the windows too many times, he supposes.
Eventually, they reach the room where they'd first used the ouija board, Emu's bedroom. Moonlight streams through the dusty window to illuminate the large bed filled with half-rotting stuffed toys crammed right next to it. Around the room, numerous dusty vases with long wilted flowers lie scattered around haphazardly, filling the entire room.
"You sure like flowers, don't you?" Nene comments.
"Ehehe! The gardener always used to pass me flowers through the window," Emu giggles. "Even when told to stop, he would secretly sneak them in anyways. So I would have lots of them all scattered around my room!"
"How nice of him," Tsukasa notes idly.
"Yeah," Emu smiles at him, drawing her tiny legs to her chest. "He was really nice. He would always entertain me through the window when I was sick in bed. He was my best friend!"
Rui hums, turning a calculating eye towards them. "... Emu-kun, would you like to recreate that scene?"
"Oh, good idea," Tsukasa catches on, gently placing Emu down onto the bed.
"Awa?" Emu tilts her head in confusion, but Tsukasa is already flinging open the dusty windows and climbing out of it.
Now in the garden, Tsukasa turns around to scour the area. It's been long overgrown with weeds, having been untended to for over a century, and the moonlight only hinders his vision even further. Undeterred, he searches on, until he finally comes across a patch of flowers growing in the wild.
Picking some, he hurries back to the window. Emu's tiny body has been propped up on the windowsill, and stares at him with wide eyes.
Clearing his throat dramatically, Tsukasa presents the impromptu bouquet of flowers with a flourish. "Lady Otori," he starts, and she makes a tiny, wounded noise, "would you do me the honour of looking favourably upon me and accepting this bouquet of flowers?"
"Blue mistflowers," she murmurs in muted shock. If a robot could tremble, then Emu certainly does as she leans forward. "Thank you, Tsukasa-kun," she whispers.
The moment her tiny, robotic hands grasp the stem of the bouquet, brushing his fingers, a bright flash of light and a great burst of static has Tsukasa yelping and flung to his back against the grass from its force.
Groaning, he has to blink the stars away from his vision. "What..."
And as his vision clears, there's a girl standing over him, face furrowed in concern.
Tsukasa stares, then blinks rapidly again. "Oh great, I'm hallucinating."
"It's me!" Comes a now-familiar voice. Tsukasa reluctantly cracks an eye open, still sprawled over the grass.
The hallucination in front of him is slightly translucent, the moonlight faintly shining through the figure. The figure is clad in a light green dress and a hat, with pink hair tied... into braids... and bright pink eyes...
"Ghost," he says extremely calmly.
"That's me!" Emu, now full-sized, says cheerfully.
"Guh," he says extremely calmly.
"Hahaha!" Emu laughs unhelpfully.
Tsukasa gets to his feet. She's smaller than he'd expected, a whole head shorter than him, but translucency aside, the way her wide eyes stare up into his has him scratching his neck and looking away with a flush settled on his ears. "So. How did this happen?"
"Dunno!" She chirps. Tsukasa glances down at her in instinctive exasperation and immediately looks away again. Her clothing might be rather antiquated, but there's no denying that she – objectively, non-subjectively, by conventional standards, for sure agreed upon by ten random participants picked from the streets, a gamble of which you would bet your inheritance upon, an outcome so clear and obvious that you wouldn't have to think twice – is an individual that people would call cute.
He clears his throat. "In any case, it's nice to properly meet you, Emu."
"And you, Tsukasa-kun!" Emu beams at him. It's rather bright. "Your audition for Phoenix Stage is coming up soon, right?"
"Yes, in a month's time," he replies. "Why do you ask?"
Emu's hands go to her hips then, a smug little smirk spreading across her face. "Hu hu hu! In that case, it's time for Otori Emu's Super Wonderhoy Awesome Fun Acting Boot Camp!"
"No, you gotta first fwoosh, zing, boom, and only then woosh, vshh, fwomp, fwomp, bam!" Emu floats around in dissatisfaction.
"I understand your point, but I'm finding it particularly difficult to smoothly transition between the third position and the fourth." It's been two weeks since Emu's Super Wonderhoy Awesome Fun Acting Boot Camp has begun, and Tsukasa has been learning much more than he'd expected under her tutelage. It seems that sickly or not, growing up in a household centered around theater means you pick up a thing or ten.
Emu drifts into his vision and scrutinises him. She'd changed her clothes too – and he's not going to be the one questioning the logic of that – into more modern day clothing. Except, her only frame of reference is their clothing, so she's dressed in Nene's long skirt and his own jacket, the latter of which has been sized to be oversized on her. It's not disconcerting at all.
Some days, it's easy to forget that she's not just a regular girl hanging out with the rest of them in an abandoned manor. Save for her translucency, of course.
"Let's take a break," she declares, and he flops down onto the grass to catch his breath.
Emu sits next to him, the evening light shining through her figure. "If you die here, will you haunt the manor with me?" She asks conversationally.
"You say the most morbid things at times," he says fondly. "What even is the criteria to become a ghost?"
"Unfulfilled promises, probably," she shrugs with a little too much certainty. "Don't die, Tsukasa-kun! You have to fulfill your dreams."
"Wasn't planning to, but sure," he drawls.
She hums. "You're scared of bugs right, Tsukasa-kun?"
He blinks at the change of topic. "What- GYAAAH!"
Butterflies, all around. Tsukasa springs to his feet and trips over them as he backs away as fast as he can.
"110 decibels!" Rui calls down from where he’s in the attic of the manor with Nene.
"Hahaha!" Emu laughs down at him beatifically. "You're always so funny, Tsukasa-kun!"
"W-why are there so many?!" He shouts, scrambling backwards on the grass.
Emu floats towards the butterflies, smiling prettily at each one. "The flowers! Blue mistflowers, the ones you brought to me, are known for attracting butterflies!"
"Again, why are there so many?" He grouses, glaring down at the large patch of blue mistflowers he'd inadvertently flopped down onto.
"The gardener planted them here," Emu sings, ghostly fingers passing through the petals of the flowers. "I mentioned in passing one day that it'd be nice to see butterflies outside the window. Then he planted these!"
Tsukasa studies her face, wrought with nostalgia and affection. "... I see."
"Do you know, Tsukasa?" She turns her bright grin at him. "He was also afraid of bugs!"
His brows shoot up. "And yet he was a gardener?"
"Yeah," Emu giggles. "He had a sickly sister, so he had to make ends meet. Our family paid him pretty well."
Tsukasa watches as Emu floats towards the window, staring through the freshly cleaned window into her bedroom. "I think I reminded him of his sister at first. But the more time he spent with me, the more he put on those shows through the window to cheer me up, the more we... hehe!"
Emu's cheeks are rosy. Tsukasa shifts uncomfortably on the grass and asks, "That gardener... how old was he?"
"Hmm?" She peers at him, patting her cheeks like a smitten maiden. "A year older than me!"
"A year?!" He yelps, the mental image of an elderly grandfather gardener completely shattered. His hands flail around, flustered. "T-then... the flowers, the time spent-?"
"Hehe," Emu giggles again a little dazedly, drifting away from the window to do languid aerial backflips. "He was my first love!"
Her. Her first love. Something heavy wells up in Tsukasa's stomach. "Oh. I see. Your first love, hm? I see. Yes. That certainly must have been nice. For you. I see."
"Yes!" She beams all bubbly and happily, her eyes sparkling brightly in a way he's never seen before. "He made me feel like a normal girl, and I constantly caught him off guard, apparently. We had lots of fun together! I loved him very much."
And here her smile dims. "He wanted to become an actor, you know. He wanted to perform on Wonder Stage."
Tsukasa doesn't need to ask further. The look on her face says everything clearly enough, to the decidedly unhappy knot in his chest. Instead, he clears his throat. "Shall we continue?"
Emu smiles down at him indecipherably. He shifts uncomfortably. She sticks her head upside down into his vision, pats his cheeks with hands he cannot feel, and says, "Okay!"
His own hand rises by itself and his fingers pass through hers rather pathetically as she floats back to right herself. Maybe if he was that gardener, his hand would have made contact. Maybe he could have slipped her a flower or two. Maybe he could have hooked the tip of his index finger to hers, slowly tugging until his middle finger brushed hers, then hooked onto hers, until his ring finger brushed hers then their pinkies then their thumbs and then their hands would be fully intertwined. Maybe he could have been the one draping his jacket over her shoulders to drown her in his scent, and maybe he could have finally succumbed to the urge to draw her in and tuck her under his chin when she directs that glaringly beaming smile of hers straight at him.
But he's a hundred years and a lifetime too late for pointless daydreams such as those. Tsukasa gets to his feet and stretches as she enthusiastically yells, "Otori Emu's Super Wonderhoy Awesome Fun Acting Boot Camp, continue!"
"So what happened to him in the end?" Tsukasa asks a week later. He doesn't even need the earpiece to translate her speech any longer.
"Have you been thinking of that this whole time?" She asks with a giggle.
He scoffs. "No. It just crossed my head just now. Right just now. Ten seconds ago."
"Mm hmm." Emu floats to sit next to him on the ground, her translucent fingers sitting inside of his tangible ones. His heart stutters a little. "I dunno what happened to him. I can't leave the manor grounds, after all."
"Oh," he says. "I could help you search, if you want."
She smiles at him, her eyes doing that thing where they crinkle at their corners with an inexplicable weight he doesn't quite understand other than the way his stomach flips at the sight. "No need. I'm sure he was well. I don't think he ended up being an actor, though."
"Sorry," he tries, unsure what else to say.
"Don't be," she replies. "It's not your fault."
Tsukasa shifts a little closer, closer, until her bright pink eyes fill his field of vision. "Emu..."
"Yes?" She breathes.
He leans in closer an inch. Her eyes cross a little as her gaze fixes downwards. His hand twitches on the grass, resisting the urge to push back a stray lock of hair behind her ears that he knows he can't touch.
"Sometimes..." He murmurs.
"Sometimes...?" She exhales.
Her head tilts a little, and his own follows instinctively.
"Sometimes you... make my heart go zing-zang," he whispers, own eyes fixed on her lips.
Emu's breath hitches, and scarlet blossoms on her cheeks. "Oh...!"
He breaks the moment then, looking away and rubbing his neck with an uncharacteristic red on his own cheeks. "Maybe we should continue your boot camp."
"Hehe! You're so cute, Tsukasa-kun," she says, flipping upside down into his field of vision anyways despite his effort to look away. And if that isn't a metaphor of their relationship he doesn't know what is; no matter how hard he directs his thoughts away, his mind always finds its way back to the manor and its ghost like a compass to the north, righting itself on its axis, aligning itself back to its most base state.
"Emu-" he starts before he can blurt out anything else rather stupid, but she hushes him with an ah-tut-tut-shush-shh!
"When your audition is over," she smiles once again with that inscrutable look in her eyes, "and you've successfully passed, then, I will tell you how you make my heart go zing-zang too."
Tsukasa falls into an uncharacteristic speechlessness. She seems to be rather good at pulling out uncharacteristic characteristics out of him.
Emu falls back and spreads her arms grandly to match the wide grin on her face. A pleasant breeze blows a few leaves through her body. "Shall we? You still need to get the zzip-zzip whooosh down!"
"Okay," he says helplessly, lost, and stands up to follow her, because he never seems to know what else to do these days other than to get swept up in her rhythm of life.
A month has come and gone, and Tsukasa auditions for Phoenix Stage. The halls seem grander and more imposing somehow, now that he knows the history behind these walls.
His turn comes and passes. As it's an audition in batches of groups, he performs his heart out in front of the judges and a few fellow hopefuls.
"You were amazing," a girl gushes to him after it's over. "What's your secret? Do you have any advice you can give?!"
Tsukasa looks at her seriously. "Listen carefully. You have to whooosh, fwoom, fwoom, bam. Only then will you be able to zzing-zam kaploom!"
She scowls at him and leaves. This scene repeats with a few other people. He huffs, offended. Utterly ungrateful, the whole lot of them.
The next two weeks pass by in a blur. The four of them hang out in the Otori manor nearly every day. The garden's begun to tidy up thanks to Rui's careful touch, and Emu's smile dips into a ragged honesty every so often.
She also likes to laugh at him a lot. Rui's been pulling an infuriating number of pranks on him over the duration of the two weeks, but it's a vicious cycle since Emu's unfiltered laughter always manages to ebb away most of his frustrated indignation.
Nene sings, Tsukasa performs, and Emu reveals that she likes taiyaki and she'd always eat it from the middle; she thinks the current Phoenix Stage they've shown her from pictures is cool, but the warm wonder of Wonder Stage remains unmatched; she had two brothers and a sister; she’d always wanted to raise a dog but wasn’t allowed to, so the voice-controlled dog raising app Rui has wired up for her gives her inordinate amounts of joy; her favourite stuffed toy is one her grandfather gave her as her fourth birthday present, a plushie of Wonder Stage's mascot Phenny; she was born a burden and died a burden and ruined her family thereafter; she was affectionately nicknamed the Ghost of Wonder Stage while she was alive due to how often she haunted their practices and plays when she was able to.
Tsukasa learns from observation that she bites her lower lip despite slapping her hands over her mouth whenever she's trying and failing to stifle a bout of laughter; her eyes consistently take on a certain hue of yearning when and only when her grandfather is brought up in conversation; she looks unfairly adorable when she's imitating dog noises to arf at the voice-controlled dog raising app Rui wired up for her; she tends to do slow floating backflips whenever she turns all dreamy and dazed when recounting memories ever so rarely of that gardener of hers, to his irritation; her outfits switch to various combinations of their articles of clothing but she always keeps his jacket sized to oversized wrapped around her, to his satisfaction; she knows exactly what she's doing whenever she lets her feet drift upon the floor to be a head exactly shorter than him to stare up at him with sad, pleading eyes and a jutted out lower lip. He's weak, too weak, and folds far too many times in the face of a long-passed ghost.
It's good. It's really good. Tsukasa's heart constantly goes zing-zang around her and he's rarely been more sure of anything in his life. He doesn't know how the logistics would work out, be her a ghost and all, but he'd make it work, he's sure of it.
She's unusually adamant on waiting until his results come in, though. He doesn't know why, but every time he opens his mouth to speak, Emu seems to know exactly what he's about to say and tuts him into silence.
And when the letter of his results finally comes in, he grabs it, texts Nene and Rui, and rushes to the manor.
"RaaaaahhhhHHHH EMU!" He screeches to a halt just past the gates of Otori Manor.
She manifests in a swirling breeze in front of him. "Uwa?!"
Tsukasa waves the unopened envelope rather aggressively. "It's here! The results!"
"And so are we," Rui pipes up, him and Nene popping out behind him, carrying equipment upon equipment.
Tsukasa tilts his head in question. Nene snatches the envelope from him. "A party to celebrate your success!" She says, tucking the envelope neatly into her pocket.
Tsukasa's nose twitches. "Nene. I do not yet know if I have passed. Please return the envelope so I can check."
"Don't worry, you definitely passed," she reassures with too much conviction. "I'll let you check the results later, m'kay?"
And she prances off to help Rui rig up some sort of party contraption or something in the garden. Tsukasa stares incredulously. "Unbelievable! What is going on?"
Emu giggles down at him. "Let's just party then, Tsukasa-kun! Congratulations!"
"Uh, thanks?" He says, bewildered as he gets roped into an impromptu party.
There's gadgets and gimmicks all rigged up to voice control so Emu too can participate. There's music - theater soundtracks, of course - and there's lights, there's games and there's food and there's all sorts of things that Emu likes. It's not like she can eat the food or drinks, but she seems content with flying next to the stacks of taiyaki nonetheless.
Is this a party for me or for her? He thinks to himself dryly, but lets himself get dragged in anyways. He's certainly not going to say anything, not when she looks this happy.
They play their hearts out until the moon hangs high in the sky. Emu's still floating around doing various aerial acrobatics, the giddy smile on her face that's been there all night still stuck firmly on her face. It's really cute, Tsukasa has to admit to himself as he sips from his juice. It doesn’t help that she’s dressed entirely in his clothes today. Not at all.
Rui sets up a fire pit – safely, he reassures – and the four of them gather round the flames. Tsukasa clears his throat. "Thank you for the celebration, Nene, Rui. In any case, might I finally check the results now?"
There's a beat of silence from the other two humans. He arches an eyebrow. Slowly, almost reluctantly for some reason, Nene draws out the envelope from her pocket and places it hesitantly on his waiting palm.
Yes! Tsukasa snatches the envelope and removes the seal.
"Before you open it," Emu starts, and he glances to his left at her. "I'm... really proud of you, Tsukasa-kun."
"...! Thank you, Emu," he smiles back fondly at her.
Tsukasa opens the envelope and unfurls the letter, his heart in his throat. He's this close to fulfilling his two dreams right this instant.
"Dear Tenma Tsukasa..." he mumbles, eyes furiously scanning the page, then his eyebrows shoot up. "... Congratulations! You have been accepted as a performer of Phoenix Stage!"
His head shoots up, and he immediately turns to his left. "Emu! I passed-"
Emu's outline is glowing faintly.
"I knew you would do it, Tsukasa-kun!" She beams brightly at him. "Congratulations!"
The letter drops out of his hands, forgotten, and Tsukasa reaches with trembling fingers towards her softly shining figure. "Emu... what..."
"My first love was the gardener outside my window," Emu says fondly, eyes fixed on him. "He was scared of bugs, but he became a gardener anyways to support his sickly sister at home. He would stand outside my window and pass me flowers and tell me stories and put on these one-man shows for me. He would chat with me and play with me and open my eyes to a world that ran in time to the beat of my heart."
His hands pass foolishly through her arm. She smiles sadly at the lack of contact. "He wanted to be an actor on Wonder Stage. I begged my siblings to let him in. But when he got the offer, he rejected it."
"Why did he reject it?" He whispers softly.
"Because he didn't want to leave me alone," she murmurs. "I only found out he rejected it long after that fact. And that day I promised him that no matter what, I would make his dreams come true. He would be an actor on Wonder Stage.
"And then I died, and Wonder Stage closed down. He never did become an actor, and my promise went unfulfilled. And that's how I came to become a ghost." Emu props her chin on her palms, smiling up at him, her figure growing fainter. "You know, he had this lovely blonde hair with pink ends and these beautiful, passionate golden eyes. His name was Tsukasa!"
Tsukasa stares at her, rattled. Her figure glows ever so brighter as she reaches out to cup his cheeks. "Be it Tsukasa, the gardener who brought so much colour to my life, or Tsukasa-kun, the reincarnation who came back a hundred years later to repaint my world in your palette once again... both of you make my heart go absolutely zing-zang!"
And Emu beams at him then, so full of love and joy that a few tears fall unbidden from the corners of his eyes. She swipes at them, but they fall through her thumbs and land on his lap. "I'm glad," he chokes out, "I'm so glad I met you. In both my lives."
She giggles, but he's not done. He pulls closer. "I really do mean it," he murmurs shakily through his blurry vision. "You, too, dyed my world in your colours. I never knew my heart could pound so fast until I met you."
Tsukasa brushes the air where her cheek might be. "You're the most beautiful person I've ever met," he confesses, low and raw, each word pulled out from deep inside his chest. "I've never met anybody more vibrant than you."
"You'll be the world's shiniest future star," Emu breathes with a serene and content gaze. She's almost completely faded. "Thank you for letting me leave a legacy that's more than just the girl who ruined her family. I'm so happy I could have been part of your story!"
"I love you," he chokes out desperately.
Emu beams at him one last time, bright and cheerful and her. She opens her mouth and speaks, but no sound leaves her lips.
There's a blinding glow, and a sudden wind whips around them so hard the fire snuffs out. When Tsukasa opens his eyes again, all that's left are three humans sitting by a put-out fire in the middle of the weed-filled garden of a long abandoned manor.
And there's a sweet breeze running through his hair and caressing his cheeks. Soft arms of air wrap around him from behind, a familiar embrace blanketing him gently and lovingly.
I love you too, Tsukasa-kun, the wind whispers in his ears, before the air goes still at last.
"There's a lot of people I need to thank," says Tenma Tsukasa, twenty-three, when accepting his award on stage. "My sister Saki and my parents, for kickstarting me on this journey. My friends Nene and Rui, who've supported me on every step of this journey."
Tsukasa closes his eyes and inhales. A gentle breeze runs its way through his hair. He opens his eyes. "And of course, last but not least... the ghost of Otori Manor, of whom this journey would not have been possible without.”
He bows to the cameras, deep and honest. “Thank you all so, so much!"