Lost in the Echo

Can you call it a reunion if you've never met before?

Word count: 2452, finished 7-28-15

Story assumes you know the full plot of Ghost Hunt – If you've only seen the anime you might be confused.

…

He did not know what caused him to look up and meet eyes with the woman that had sat down a few tables away. It was an early morning in July, and though the coffee house was busy as usual, there were only a few people sitting outside due to the humidity rising in the air.

Normally an accidental eye contact was quickly brushed off, with a downward glance and a small smile, so when her eyes widened in recognition and she held his gaze, his interest was piqued. There was nothing in the way she dressed that should have caught his attention. She looked like she was wearing a waitress uniform, though it was hard to say if she was on her way to her job or had just gotten off of a late shift. She was pretty but not beautiful. She looked like she was around his age of twenty-seven years, but there was deeply set fatigue in the skin around her eyes and the way she held her mouth that looked like it had not developed recently.

Something about her was familiar, but Oliver was certain he had never met her before.

He looked back down at his notebook, added a sentence, and as he took a sip of a cup of coffee that had gone lukewarm – though he couldn't remember if it had started as hot or iced – he found she was still staring at him. He set the cup down and leaned back in the iron wrought chair, not above playing that game.

Through his psychometric skills, he was used to suddenly recognizing someone without having met the person. It was a type of constant déjà vu that he had learned to suppress; otherwise he spent too much time trying to place the person's face. Normally, the person went on with their business, because they had no attachment to him. It was this woman's unfaltering stare – tinged with something akin to horror – that was unnerving.

He closed his notebook and got up with the intention of starting towards her, but was halted when she shot out of her chair, almost knocking it over in the process. She hastily caught her purse and backed out of the remaining tables and chairs. He was sure she was mouthing, "No, no, no," even as she turned away. He watched her retreating back, and then, her legs and feet, as she melted into the crowd on the sidewalk.

She was soon lost from sight.

Oliver stood there, knowing he looked awkward to the few other patrons. They soon went back to their conversations as he drifted to the table and sat down in the chair she had occupied. The only reminder she had been there at all was the lone coffee cup, where a faint amount of steam tried to compete with the moisture in the summer air.

He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. He now knew who she was, and he had let her walk away. But did it really matter? He simply had no proof to give to anyone, and it was so long ago.

The desire to be able to offer Martin and Luella some type of closure stirred him. He had left his own cup at the other table, so when he set his notebook down and absently encircled the cup in front of him, no one paid him any mind.

The energy residue she had left was light, so he closed his eyes and focused on her face, and then, her legs and feet. They were the only part of her he had actually seen in the vision when he was sixteen.

The impression left by her played in his mind and her thoughts became his. She drew him deeper and further back into her memories than he ever expected, because the memory of that incident was always on her mind, too.

…

Atsuko held her breath and counted to ten, trying to calm, or at the very least, hold back the sobs that kept rising in her chest. She turned on the faucet full tilt in the girls' bathroom in her school. She needed to look acceptable before lunch was over, and the water running muffled the sound of her crying.

Yesterday had been her seventeenth birthday, and her parents had given her the announcement of their divorce, albeit accidentally. Actually, knowing her mother, it wasn't an accident; she just wanted to call out Atsuko's father one more time. Atsuko examined the ruined makeup on her face. She wanted to splash water on her swollen eyes but she knew that would smear her mascara and eyeliner even worse than it already was. She didn't trust her shaking hands to fix it and she didn't dare ask any of her so-called friends for any touchups. They had made it very clear by their upturned noses that their friendship ended if she was really going to drop out of their private school and move. Apparently they thought she should side with her father. When had they all decided it was her mother who had cheated? Just because the money came from her father's side, he was the innocent one?

Atsuko tried to fix her long black hair, gave up, and walked out of the bathroom as confidently as her blotchy face would allow.

Tsuyoshi was passing by at that moment. Tall, dark, and handsome – it was cliché, but it fit.

Atsuko's mother had outright said if her daughter was going to go to a private school, it had to be co-ed, so she could be making the right connections. Atsuko wasn't sure if her mother would consider Tsuyoshi a right connection. Looks and money, maybe, but he had also been voted by the yearbook committee to most likely not graduate due to being hung over from a party the night before.

Tsuyoshi paused in mid stride, coming closer as he took in her appearance. "Hey Atsuko-san," he said, "What's wrong?"

Tsuyoshi always used given names with girls unless he got slapped for it, which had happened before in front of many witnesses. Atsuko didn't mind him using her name – the fact he remembered it made her heart jump – but she still stiffened as his arm went around her shoulder as he had spoken. She almost shrugged him off, and at first didn't know why, then it dawned on her – she wasn't supposed to show interest because one of her friends was after him. Former friends, she thought, leaning into his arm and feeling safe for a moment.

She was suddenly reminded that she was going to move, and her tears flowed over again. She buried her face in her hands. He held her and didn't push.

"What would you do," she said after she had composed herself again, "if your world was falling apart?"

"Hmm," he murmured, leaning down and wiping a tear from her cheek. "I guess I would do something to prove I still had control over something in my life."

She wondered what had happened to him to cause that shadow to cross over his face as he said that.

He straightened up and turned her to face him. "So, what I'll do is invite you to a party tonight. Very special invitation and I'm not just saying that. It's out of town, which makes it all the better – less likely to run into someone you know. I'll supply my father's car. Interested, or are you one of those good girls?"

Why do the good girls go after the bad boys? she wondered as she told him yes, she would go.

I have no idea, Oliver thought as he maintained a fragment of his own self.

Atsuko's memories of the party were just shreds and tatters. She could not remember who she had met, or how much she had to drink, or how many times she had kissed Tsuyoshi and other boys whose faces she could no longer recall. This wasn't a normal part of her lifestyle, and a high tolerance to alcohol was more of a curse than a blessing.

She was too young to drink, and she was too young to have a driver's license. It was never legal to do both, yet she found herself behind the wheel of Tsuyoshi father's car, with Tsuyoshi passed out in the back seat. He was clearly confident that she could get them home. She wasn't so sure.

At least it wasn't dark, but it had been dark when they arrived at the party…what time was it anyway? Atsuko looked down at the clock: 1:48 pm. She was so lucky her parents thought she was at a girlfriend's house. If they even noticed her absence, of course. When she looked back up, she found she had crossed over the middle line. She jerked back to her lane.

The scenery is pretty, she thought as the road seemed to rise and fall, swelling to meet her. So it was no surprise that when the pedestrian appeared in front of the car, she thought he would rise over the car as she continued forward.

The impact jarred her out of her surreal state of mind. She was out of the car in a moment, afraid of what she would find.

Deep within, she knew exactly what she would find.

The boy on the ground looked to be the same age as her. He was breathing shallowly, with his head turned so one cheek was level to the ground. She couldn't meet his eyes; all he could do was stare at her feet as if she was an empress and him, simply a peasant.

She knew she was screaming. She dove into the car, certain she needed to pull the car off of the road, and wake Tsuyoshi to see if they could safely move the boy to the side. He could live if they could get him to a hospital, she was sure of it.

Atsuko felt like she had sobered up from the shock, but when she really thought about it, maybe her list was mixed up: she should have awoken Tsuyoshi, moved the boy, and then moved the car. As these thoughts crossed her mind, she threw the car into gear to back up.

But the car was in drive.

Atsuko now knew the true gut wrenching sensation of your world ending around you as she unintentionally hit the boy again. And to think, her parents' divorce had been the worst thing she thought could ever happen to her.

She had killed someone, and she was going to go to jail.

Unless no one knows what happened, her panicked and drunken mind cried. Tsuyoshi was her only witness, and he was passed out cold.

She found she could move the body when she put her mind to it. Surprisingly the alcohol running through her veins helped instead of hindered to set aside her revulsion. She placed him – it – in the trunk, then shook Tsuyoshi awake.

"Is anyone home at your place?" she asked.

He blinked, bleary and unfocused. "No, got the whole place to myself for the weekend."

"I need directions again."

He guided her, with intervals of falling asleep. She pulled into his garage, and he abruptly said, "Oh, but how are you going to get home?"

"Ah," she said, unused to a lie on her tongue, "Your home was closer, and I needed to get out and stretch my legs for a moment before I dozed off. Afterwards I'll drive home, then you can take the wheel. Sleep until we get there, okay?"

He nodded and stretched back out again. She started searching his garage, and found a large silver tarp that looked almost new. She didn't know what Tsuyoshi's father did for a living and hoped he wouldn't notice its disappearance. If he did, Tsuyoshi could take the blame.

She opened the trunk, shuddered, then wrapped the body in the tarp.

What she was doing came with a structured ease she could only attribute it to having watched many cop shows and murder mysteries when she was younger. She had often wondered what it would be like to be a detective.

Atsuko had never imagined what it would be like to be the criminal.

She knew where to take it. Her family had camped by the lake many times. Maybe it was a final farewell – they would never camp there again as a family, and she would never return there without a burdened heart.

It was easy to rent a boat and park the car in an isolated place as she loaded her cargo. The location was quiet at first, and then slowly the wildlife restarted their songs, reverberating through her body.

Tsuyoshi was awake when she returned in the boat. He was leaning on the car hood, watching the water, watching her.

He didn't ask what she was doing, and she didn't offer anything.

He dropped her off about a block from her home, and they never saw each other again.

…

Oliver pulled away from the vision as she skipped the memories that comprised of the rest of her life and saw him in current times. Atsuko didn't know if he was a ghost, a complete stranger, or maybe, somehow, he was the boy she had killed, alive and well. She would never know since she had run away. A long time ago, he was concerned about how dangerous Gene's killer could be, but Oliver at this point would have actually been interested in talking to her.

"Naru."

He blinked and looked up at Mai sitting across from him.

"You're late, Mai," he said.

"I was waiting at our usual table. I know, I should never assume and maybe should have actually looked around the place." She paused and took in the expression on his face. "Are you all right?"

He could still feel the girl's presence at the back of his mind, and some of her jumbled thoughts, like she had never done anything she had wanted, though she didn't specify what it was she had wanted to do. Quickly the tide returned to the murder, and how it shouldn't have worked like it did in the movies, someone was supposed to have caught her. She would have confessed, but that was then and she didn't know what to do now. The supposed freedom she gained didn't out weight the guilt she carried on her back, which would have her bent and curled too soon for her age.

She had lost her life by carelessly taking another's, and would never forgive herself.

Gene would have told him to let her go, so he nodded to Mai.

"I am."

...

…

Author note:

Do you like reading author notes, or do you just ignore them? I generally like reading notes, but at the bottom, after I've read the story, so that's where I'll stick this. I like reading notes at the bottom because I want to know the author's thoughts but I don't want them to taint my first impressions.

Someone once asked me pretty early on when I was writing Wishing Well to write who Gene's killer was, and at the time I couldn't even imagine. Gene's killer is the biggest mystery in the fandom with many speculations. The only thing that Fuyumi Ono could allude to was that Oliver was very concerned that if he showed his face in the media, the killer would come after him, too. However, not that long ago I thought of an unknown woman staring at an already older Oliver and I wondered who she was. And that's the great thing about fanfiction, the option to explore every angle.

On a lighter note, on a website when I was exploring names I saw that Kazuya and Mai were both popular Japanese names in 1985. So we know how Fuyumi Ono named them, but I'm a little confused. Shouldn't you be picking names from the era the character was approximately born in, instead of the timeline the story takes place? Just a random thought.

Thanks for reading,

Radio