Title: The Woman on the Corner.
Rating: T/T+.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt, the anime, or any of its affiliates. The original book series belongs to Fuyumi Ono. Applies to all chapters.
Summary: Naru and Lin have returned from England, and the SPR has a new case. Mai, on the other hand, has been stuck fighting with college entrance exams and worrying about her future. While snowed in at a onsen in northern Hokkaido, she has some big decisions to make...and some issues to figure out. MaixLin. Onesided MaixNaru, onesided MaixGene. Semi-sequel to Fingerless, though can be read solo.
Yet another holiday gift!fic, this time for my lovely friend and roommate, fluffydono. Love you, darlin'; have a fabulous time in Japan!
This fic is a 10-parter, because I have too many LinxMai feels to make it a oneshot. So fluffydono should be damn happy and get me stuff from Japan and for once I won't be feeling guilty if she gives me stuff. (Though honestly darlin' you give me stuff all the time, so regard this as one big thank-you.)
On with the show!
Chapter soundtrack:
"Grief," from Fate: Zero.
File A-63: The Woman on the Corner
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
—Edgar Allen Poe
January, present day
Her fingers felt like bones.
Mai cupped her bound hands over her mouth and breathed, slow, deep, from her core, trying to get some heat into her palms again. Even with her gloves (which were, unfortunately, fingerless; she hadn't thought she'd been going outside, after all) her hands were totally numb; she couldn't feel anything, no matter what she touched. The stone wall. The dusty floor. Lin-san. Her ankles ached from the zip-ties. Her feet had gone dead from lack of circulation a long time ago. If she had to run, she'd just fall on her butt and get captured again, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Lin-san was still asleep, or unconscious, or whatever it was that happened when someone whacked you on the back of the head with a marble statuette. Mai hesitated, and then tried to take his pulse with her swelling fingers, but they were too cold for her to feel anything other than a vague tingling. She debated about using her nose (which was only moderately less frozen) but then she had a sudden image of what would happen if he woke up to find her basically nuzzling his throat (his wrist was covered, and thus out of the question) and flushed wildly. He was breathing, she reassured herself, even if it was shallow, and he hadn't turned blue. The watch on her wrist read 2:56AM. They'd been here for nearly three hours. He had to wake up soon. He had to.
The cut on her throat tingled. Mai took a breath and let it out, trying very hard not to cry. She'd cried enough over the past few hours, and if someone came in to rescue them and found her all snotty and gross she was never going to live it down. Masako hadn't cried, not really, not even when Urado had taken her. Not where Mai had seen, anyway. She took a deep breath and hid her face in her knees for a moment, trying to keep her heart from pounding. There was no point in trying not to shiver. The cold was too much, the fear was too much, and she wouldn't be able to stop no matter how hard she tried. They'd been here for hours, no hint as to how whoever had stabbed a needle in her neck and whacked Lin-san on the head had managed to get them here. The chain around her ankle kept her from going so far, even if she hadn't been all done up with zip-ties, and the screws that kept her chain in the wall looked new. There was no way she could just wrench her way free, not without breaking something critical.
Mai rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. If she sat very still (well, as still as one could while shivering themselves to death), and kept very quiet, she could hear Lin-san breathing. In the dull yellow light of the hanging lantern, shadows danced on the walls. She wanted to kill Naru. We have another case, he says, she thought bitterly, kicking her feet against the floor to try and get the feeling back. We're going to Hokkaido, he says. It'll be nice this time of year, Ayako says. You can build a snowman, Bou-san says. Hah. You can get kidnapped and left in a crypt to die, says the ghost! You can totally do that, Mai. That'll be fun. The zip-ties had left bruises on her wrists. If ghosts could set zip-ties and use syringes, then she'd eat her own boots. Which meant that whatever had brought them here was totally human.
Panic bubbled up her throat again, and she squeezed her eyes shut and started reciting the first thing she could remember: a poem from the Hyakunin Isshu. Oto ni kiku/Takashi no hama no/Adanami wa/Kakeji ya sode no…something. Something. Nure mo…something. She took a breath. English. Make it English. "While some avoid the…the famous waves of Takashi so they…don't get…wet?" She glanced at Lin-san, automatic, waiting for critique, and then took a deep shuddering breath and forced her eyes away from the dark bruise on his forehead. "I'm gonna guess that's right…While some avoid the famous waves of Takashi so they don't get wet, I…dodge? Your….I dodge your…cunning? Cunning words to…to keep my sleeves dry."
So I don't cry over you, she thought, and hid her face in her knees again. That was what dry sleeves meant in old poems. No tears. No sadness. Mai took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. On Lin-san's suggestion, she'd started using the Hyakunin Isshu again to work on her translating skills. Though frankly, she had to translate the poems out of old Japanese before she could get them close to anything in English, but it did make her think. And she knew the meanings of the karuta poems as well as she knew nursery rhymes, anyway. Her mother had run a local karuta club when she'd been a child, and she could remember the slow, rhythmic wavering of her voice as she sang out the poems to local friends. Mai licked her lips. Her mother's favorite had always been Hear the Haunting Cry of a Deer, even though Mai had always thought that one was depressing. She'd always liked Swift Waters Parted by the Jagged Rocks. She licked her lips, and pulled her knees up tight against her chest. Her toes felt swollen in her snow boots. Mai leaned her head back, staring at the lantern hanging from the ceiling, and sang under her breath.
Though the stream
May be divided by a boulder
In its swift flow
I know
That the two
Will soon reunite
Again
There was an eerie echo in this place, this crypt they'd been dumped in. When her voice finally died away, she glanced at Lin-san again. He'd shifted, just a little, hair falling away from his face. He looked very young, she realized, though he had to be twelve or thirteen years older than she was, easily; the hollows under his eyes and in his throat reminded her of a sleeping Naru. She checked to see if he was breathing again, watching his chest rise and fall under the blood-flecked shirt, and then gave into temptation. She sidled closer, easing his head off of the cold stone floor (no bone moved under her fingers; she wasn't sure if that was because of her hands or because nothing was actually broken, but either way it reassured her) and then stretched her legs out to rest his head on her thigh. She knew that as soon as he woke up, he'd glare at her for doing such a thing, but frankly her need for human contact and reassurance (even if it came from a currently-unconscious Lin-san) mattered more than her fear of his wrath at the moment.
His head had stopped bleeding a while ago. She thought that was a good sign. Mai leaned back, staring at the lantern again. She hummed under her breath. Her eyelids felt heavy. She'd cried too much, wasted too much energy. She clenched her feet a few times in her boots, clenched her hands a few times in her gloves, and then closed her eyes. The only weapon she had right now was her brain. Her abilities. If she could dream her way out of this, then maybe they weren't going to die.
She leaned back against the mossy wall, and tried to force herself to sleep.
In the dark stable, something else moved.