Full Summary: Kuwabara couldn't have guessed how chasing demons might affect his ability to sense ghosts - in fact he'd never would have even thought about it to begin with, if he hadn't joined a college paranormal club. When he drags Yusuke along on a practice case, three things are obvious: 1) Oh boy is he rusty, 2) There's no use in denying what he knows is happening and 3) the most important thing is that the spirit gets to move on.
Originally posted to Ao3 on 11/5/16. This is a Kuwabara centric slice of life friendship fic but does include the mention of the death of a child, light swearing, and I swear to god I pulled Botan's use of 'heaven' from the official US release of the manga.
I also appreciate any patience while I rediscover this sites idiosyncrasies.
o0o0o
Head high, she swept out of the room. A second later, head even higher, she swept back in, snatched up the money and was gone again. Kuwabara blinked, rubbed at his eyes, and muttered,
"Well that works; we weren't supposed to get paid anyways." The college student leaned back in the cafe's chair, groaning as laughter floated from the cafe's display case. He shot the most withering look he could muster from between his fingers at his college upperclassman, one Tanaka Yuuya. He was still laughing several minutes later, after retrieving their ordered drinks and confectionaries - Kuwabara took the spare time to bundle up several napkins, take aim, and bean the male in the face as he neared the table. The wadded up napkin took a dive into his cup of coffee and Kuwabara snatched up his while biting back a grin.
"You're just lucky we have another one." But the college third year was a smiling anyways, doctoring up the spare coffee, bought for the woman who had stormed out minutes prior. He sipped the drink and looked at the spare cake piece.
"Wanna split it?" The answer to that question was yes, obviously. What college kid turned down cake?
"You're not even going to say it, are you?" Tanaka turned his attention from splitting the spare cake, mouth already full of a bite of his own cheesecake. He took one more thoughtful chew and answered,
"Nope." Finally, despite his own annoyance at himself, Kuwabara cracked a grin. Tanaka finished divvying out the cake before talking again.
"That was definitely not your fault. We were upfront about everything." The broader of the two men hadn't exactly been feeling guilty, but let the other continue regardless. He was simply more frustrated with recent events. Apparently, so was Tanaka, given the deep, bone rattling sigh that left his lips a moment later as he stirred his coffee for no real reason. He shrugged and gave Kuwabara an awkward lopsided smile as if to say 'what else can you do?' Kuwabara looked down at his own coffee cup, still untouched. He had wondered if joining a self-styled paranormal group in his second year of college was a smart thing to do. It was certain that the members were great company, which was often sorely needed. College classes had rampaged through his free time more than he had expected. Though it was likely he could take some of his classes as easy as his classmates did, Kuwabara had gained too much respect for what he could do if he gave his studies his all to allow himself to back down now. The unfortunate trade off so far though had been a lack of time to see any one – between the class times of old friends like Okubo or the work schedules Yusuke or Kurama maintained, the college's distance from his old stomping grounds, everything together had worked him into an unexpectedly lonely corner when he pulled himself out of his textbooks.
That was the state the group had found him in when they had come to him midway through his first year of college. Predicting an earthquake in high school had made Kuwabara notable to several people he wouldn't have expected. After all, it had been an earthquake, not a ghost (and he couldn't think of any specific time he'd gone after ghosts in high school). But of course, he'd been feeling a little isolated after moving closer to his college and keeping up with his studies, and Kuwabara had figured a couple visits to their meetings couldn't possibly hurt. It seemed, however, that these kinds of moments, a so-called client storming out the door in a huff, were growing more frequent lately.
At first his joining had been something of a boon to the group – years with the relatively undeveloped sixth sense and the subsequent years spent dealing with creatures he was skillfully working around in stories to the group had given all of them some new ideas concerning the group's goals and practices. A year later, none of that really seemed to matter.
This was, to date if Kuwabara remembered between the fog of his last midterm and the beginnings of a caffeine rush, the fourth individual to walk away from them unhappy with their methods since the start of term. He was fairly certain people were usually more taken in by psychics than garbled noise recordings, but then again, he wasn't one to mince words on possible ghosts. Nada was still nada after all. And animal ghosts, which Kuwabara had never found particularly threatening, were more like triple nada. He stretched and settled back into his chair before giving in,
"Guess I need to learn how to function with a video camera." Tanaka hummed around the dessert fork before speaking,
"We kinda all do," he acknowledged, "if we're not just going to work for our fellow classmates anyways." Kuwabara took a sip of his cooling coffee with a hum. They had been mostly working with other college students, stuck in housing that was a little more 'active' than they were used to (or willing to get used to). Their success had led to a few recommendations off campus, which had led in the end to several people unhappy with their reliance on rather unscientific methods. Kuwabara wasn't really sure what they were expecting – he'd tried for months to get Tanaka to stop introducing him as the club's resident psychic and never succeeded, so it was no secret how they operated as a tiny college club with a 'weird' hobby.
"You know what? You 'n, me, and Fujimori, we'll find some place to give it a shot. Someone'll have something on campus, no problem." Kuwabara chuckled and started eating his own treat. Tanaka smiled and added,
"I mean, all we have to do is find a way to glue the cameras to our hands so we stop putting 'em down, you know?"
"We'd have better luck gluing it to Fujimori's forehead." Tanaka nearly choked on his coffee.
o0o0o
Three weeks later though, and the group of them had gotten nowhere. It wasn't for lack of location, as he'd gotten a tip from an absolutely wonderful girl in his math class (whose shared apartment had been the victim of what was mostly a ghost with too much time on their hands and rather worn out grim reaper on their heels). No, it just seemed that as much as they attempted, they couldn't get their small group free at the same time. After being the reason for two aborted attempts in the last week, Kuwabara found himself in the most unlikely place to get the proverbial show on the road.
"Not happening."
"Dammit Urameshi, you didn't even let me finish. Don't gesture at your pots, I am literally your only customer right now." This didn't stop Yusuke from squinting at him through the steam said pot was vigorously producing. Kuwabara hadn't yet touched his ramen, and instead was intent on getting its wayward maker to join him in some 'normal' paranormal sleuthing. However, Yusuke was never exactly easy to convince, no matter how many train stops Kuwabara had gone through just to ask him.
"I know the stand is closed on Mondays. This is on a Monday. I don't have classes until the afternoon on Tuesdays. Works perfect for both of us."
"You know Keiko made Monday date night."
"Do you have a date with her?" Yusuke was silent for far too long.
"….no, she's got a project."
"Then that's not a reason."
"I do more than just run this stand, you know, I don't take a break from that!"
"What, gotta get more autographs? C'mon Urameshi, we both know if you had something big, you'd've started talking about when I sat down." Yusuke went to rustling around behind the counter, noticeably grumbling about his own transparency. Kuwabara sighed, picked up his chopsticks and began to eat. Even if the stand was less front and more honest business most of the time, he had to say Yusuke had really picked up on this whole 'make-a-good-bowl-of-ramen' thing. He was half done before Yusuke stopped his rustling about with an exaggerated huff, and leaned on the partition between the counter and his cooking station. The S-Class human-turned-demon attempted to look annoyed, but his sentence came out more petulant.
"I haven't seen you in a couple months." Kuwabara grimaced around his chopsticks, swallowed and scratched at the back of his head.
"Yea…the first half of this semester kind of hit harder than expected. Not what I meant to do." It wasn't what he'd meant to do last year either. They sat in silence for a moment before Yusuke nicked one of the leftover bamboo shoots in the broth. Before Kuwabara could point out he could have just asked, dammit seriously Urameshi, Yusuke started talking again,
"Fine." He drew it out with an obviously faked defeated tone. "When and where?" Kuwabara grinned and Yusuke matched it before moving back to check his pots.
"This coming Monday, it's an old building, I was told it had been apartments or maybe even a something of a clinic? We've got permission, but it's gonna be torn down soon. We don't have ta be there all night - no longer than you usually run the stand anyhow." Yusuke nodded along before asking another question.
"Shouldn't your paranormal whatsit be doing this?"
"The other three who wanted to get used to the cameras and stuff are going on Saturday – but I got thrown a paper today and I'm not gonna be able to make it. I turn it in on Monday or I'd have a little leeway. I didn't want to hold them back anymore and this professor is a little, uh, crazy about their paper assignments." Yusuke nodded absently, far too used to his friend's study habits by now. Satisfied nothing was wrong with his broth and noodle water, he shot Kuwabara a megawatt grin,
"One night in an old abandoned building with some cameras and a dude looking for ghosts? Probably better than any night I was gonna have anyways." He laughed. Kuwabara shook his head.
"Y'know I was starting to think I was gonna have to black mail you." Yusuke squawked.
"With what?!"
"Oh I dunno, that time this summer you managed to lose Keiko's anniversary present in your fucking spotless apartment." Kuwabara disguised his shit eating grin by draining the broth in his bowl as Yusuke reiterated that he had "…absolutely not lost it okay, I just hid it too well!"
o0o0o
"This is bigger than I expected." They were outside the building the following Monday around eight at night. It had already darkened considerably, though there were a couple of street lights down the way that were giving the area a little bit of a glow. While Yusuke carried nothing but his jacket and the wallet he was stuffing back in a pocket from leaving the recent tram, Kuwabara fixed the straps of the backpack he wore. Inside he had a couple fairly decent video cameras (just previously used) as well voice recorders, for whatever they would be worth. Fujimori had shoved it into his hands late Sunday, only mentioning the barest of the contents before rushing off to deal with his ditched homework. In a moment the two of them would deal with it, but for now he took in the sight before of him.
The old building, certainly one that had seen some better days, was a full six stories tall, long and in the shape of English L and, if Kuwabara could see properly enough in the dim light and through a broken window, had once sported a courtyard or something to that effect on the side not facing the street. Though the building was scheduled to be torn down, he hadn't expected the exact amount of destruction it had clearly been through just by standing unattended the last several years. Quite a few windows were broken, though two or three were boarded over and one rather remarkable one on the second floor appeared to be covered in tape. The little of the grounds in front that could grow anything were overgrown and the parking spaces were cracked and pitted with holes. If Kuwabara hadn't known better, he'd have thought it prime for a low budget haunting horror film. As it was, it sure didn't feel active in any sense from the street.
"Didn't your college buddies tell you anything about their night here?" From the corner of his eye, Kuwabara knew that Yusuke was surveying the place himself with some kind of grimaced set to his face. The college student shoved his hands into the pockets of his light jacket, giving the building another quick once over before responding.
"I didn't get to really talk to them over the weekend. I got a couple of messages," Kuwabara paused to take out his phone, "but it took them a good part of Sunday to go through their tapes and stuff. They didn't really get anything, I mean it was kind of an equipment exercise, so if you're hoping for a show…," he cast his friend a look, but the other was still staring at the building with an unreadable expression.
"Earth to Urameshi," he waved a hand in front of the ramen maker's face. He startled, but bit back a grin and took a fake swipe at Kuwabara's arm in retaliation. An additional side glance to building, though, and Kuwabara decided against letting the distraction drop.
"Seriously Urameshi, what's up?" Yusuke shifted and shrugged and it wasn't until he looked at Kuwabara's unrelenting stare that he gave in.
"Nothing, place just reminds me of some stuff I've heard," he gestured aimlessly at the building. Kuwabara's brow furrowed,
"What kind of stuff?" he quirked an eyebrow because Yusuke's roundabout gestures didn't seem normal.
"Eh, you know, trying to figure out how you'll explain finding a makeshift camp of low level demons on camera." They were both quiet for several moments, Yusuke the only one shifting around, craning his neck and looking down the building now openly, as if looking for some kind of evidence.
"…please tell me you didn't just suggest that we're going to run into demonic squatters in there." Yusuke shrugged with a noncommittal noise.
"I dunno, maybe." Kuwabara blinked at him, glanced at the building and then back to him, before rubbing a hand over his face. Yusuke raised an eyebrow at the movement but cracked something of a smile when his friend just began to chuckle. He gestured at the building and then back to Yusuke,
"When did you start hearing this?" Starting to really smile at Kuwabara's flabbergasted movements, Yusuke shrugged one shoulder,
"Just this weekend actually."
"Any other interesting things coming from your demon customers?" Kuwabara asked over his shoulder as he headed towards to building with a resigned 'stranger things have been said' set to his shoulders. He heard Yusuke shift on the pavement before walking after him.
"Nothing else that has anything to do with old abandoned buildings. That said, your classmates should stay away from one of the rivers by your campus." Kuwabara blinked at him, having turned to duck under a rather useless chain.
"Okay yea, when we're done, you're explaining that one." He waved Yusuke under and they went into the main entry way to set up. Kuwabara caught sight of one of the streetlamps flickering out as they did so, and gave an unimpressed snort. The universe was going to have to try harder than that horror movie cliché.
o0oo0o
So far there had been no other universe attempted tries at horror movie clichés. Unless annoying sidekick counted? Was that a horror movie cliché or was that just an action movie cliché? Kuwabara was no longer sure. Either way, Yusuke was clearly hamming it up. Plenty of quick conversation (if bad jokes were conversation), two separate accounts of hiding behind walls and the stairwell to jump out, 'accidentally' blinding him with a flashlight. If there had actually been anything happening, Yusuke's antics would have been annoying. As it was, Yusuke was instead the biggest entertainment of the night.
The backpack had contained exactly what Fujimori had told him it would – a couple of video cameras and some audio recorders. All were clearly borrowed, each with a tape label stating Nagasugi, and to Kuwabara's relief had full battery power (with the video cameras even having a spare battery pack each). Additionally, there were a couple of flashlights from the club's stash and loose batteries as well. After checking the devices for enough memory to record, and throwing fresh batteries in one dead flashlight, they had randomly picked to go down the right hall from the old entrance.
"Didn't you say this place was like an apartment building or something?" Kuwabara looked back to Yusuke and smirked a little. Despite being initially annoyed with the prospect of carrying around a camera for the next several hours, Yusuke was having the least problems using one. His camera was, as it always seemed to be when Kuwabara turned back to him to check or hold a quick conversation, trained right where the somewhat retired detective was looking. Kuwabara realized belatedly that his had dropped, yet again, to stare at the ground upside down.
"Yea, apartment building, clinic," he righted his camera so that it was again taking in the area rather than the dirty floor, "the owner wasn't specific but it's been a lot of things, I guess." Yusuke only turned his head to him, leaving the camera to be trained down the hall they'd come from.
"Doesn't look like any of that." They continued to shuffle down the way, holding another somewhat useless (and bound to be short) conversation as they had been off and on for the last hour. Though the place didn't feel like it held even so much as the spirit of a particularly upset rat, Kuwabara knew that attempting to hold any long conversation would end up being counterproductive. It was, to date, the biggest reason he, Tanaka, and Fujimori had been so poor with the cameras, forgetting about them as they instead talked about classes, or in a place actually worth the time, the activity they were very much not recording properly.
"Well, it has been abandoned for a while. And you know we got that unusually strong typhoon last year." He could be imagining it, but he did think he saw some water damage on the walls and ceilings when they let the flashlights linger here and there. They hadn't been using them much though, just to double check areas that seem unusually rickety in the darkness. They hit the corner of the building, and Kuwabara called over his shoulder to Yusuke,
"We going up again? `Cause we've hit this end's staircase." Kuwabara regretted not walking in here with a plan. Yusuke didn't answer him. He turned around, expecting the shorter man to be behind him, waiting to scare him out of his boredom, only to find that Yusuke was several paces down the hall still. Kuwabara couldn't make out his expression in the darkness, but he did seem to be looking into one of the many opened rooms on the floor, and certainly hadn't heard him.
"Oi, Urameshi." He could sort of see Yusuke jump, and Kuwabara flipped on his flashlight and flooded the hall with light.
"Hah?" Yusuke squinted back at him, the camera still trained on the room. "What the hell Kuwabara?" The red head let the flashlight's obnoxious glow hit the floor, letting Yusuke blink away spots from his vision.
"I asked you if we were going up," he started to walk back to him, "you see something?" Though Yusuke made an odd face at the question, he shook his head.
"No, the room is just really messed up. They must have shoved a bunch of the junk in it at some point." Kuwabara reached the room and let the flashlight shine in, taking in the peeling wallpaper and excess plaster on the ground, as well as parts of furniture that had been left behind. Well, he couldn't deny Yusuke that one. He was still making an odd face though, when Kuwabara turned back to him to continue their walk. In the end no more questions were asked and they headed up the stairs.
o0o0o
They had stopped on the fourth floor to look around another room a half hour later. It was still slow going and Kuwabara was getting bored. The building was far too big for its lack of interesting moments and their conversations had petered out again. He wasn't the only one bored though, as a pebble hit the back of his head again. He heard Yusuke snicker.
"Did we really trade conversation for you throwing things at the back of my head?" he glanced at Yusuke. The other chuckled again and shot him a lopsided grin.
"Oh come on, like two have hit you."
"More like four, your aim isn't that bad." Yusuke snickered at him again as another piece of plaster knocked into his forehead, daring him to retaliate with a lift of his eyebrows.
Kuwabara wasn't sure how he was going to explain wasting ten minutes of footage on their feet as they pelted each other like schoolchildren with whatever was loose and small. They left the room in better spirits though and he supposed that counted for something. He did spend the next few minutes as they went down the hall, Yusuke in front this time humming to himself absently, rubbing at the back of his head. Yusuke's aim was really on point tonight.
o0o0o
"Oh whatever, if I was starting all of them I'd take credit for it. Just admit you're bored too." Yusuke shot at him as they walked into the other half of the six and final floor. They had opted to go all the way up and then back down the other side at some point in the first hour. Now they were finally in the part of the building that faced its neighbors rather than the street. Kuwabara rolled his eyes.
"Yea, fine, I'm bored. There is literally nothing here; I swear the building isn't even creaking. But why would I start that many pebble wars?" Yusuke stopped abruptly in front of him leaving Kuwabara only enough time to stop and leverage the camera upwards before he would have knocked him silly with it. The dark haired man turned around with a baffled expression on his face.
"Like nothing nothing?" he asked with an extra quirk of his eyebrow, as if he needed to do more to express to Kuwabara how weird that was. Kuwabara certainly didn't need the help. He knew how weird it sounded.
"Yea, like nothing nothing," he admitted while they were paused. He looked away from Yusuke feeling uncomfortable, and wandered into another of the rooms. This one was less cluttered by debris and to his amazement the glass in the window was rather clear. He sighed at the darkness outside of it before turning around and leaning on the windowsill. Yusuke had followed him in, but was staying nearer to the doorway. He didn't prompt Kuwabara to continue on but Kuwabara knew he was annoyed at the situation, and himself, for no good reason. He only paused for a moment longer before talking again, letting his camera scan the room for lack of anything to do with his hands.
"I knew this place wasn't exactly a hotspot." Yusuke leaned on the doorframe and prompted him to continue with one hand. Kuwabara rolled his eyes, "I mean, this place has tons of little local stories, that's why they suggested it. It's just that there's nothing actually here. Like so little of anything it's just creepy that way. I mean, there are places like that but…well, …when you're not looking for something, anything, it just makes it worse. It's leaving me with this weird feeling like I'm missing something. We haven't even seen anything that explains why any of the stories exist. Nothing's moved and there was nothing in the windows. I mean, we haven't gone through all the floors yet on this side so maybe we'll see something. Anything." Kuwabara shrugged, "I'd take figments of our imagination right now, it's so dead in here."
Yusuke scanned down the hallway again from the doorway with his camera as Kuwabara went silent. It made Kuwabara wonder, again, how he'd ended up being so good with the thing. Before he could suggest moving on though, Yusuke turned back to him.
"Why would you miss anything?" Kuwabara winced, leave it to Yusuke to not miss that. He ran a hand through his hair and decided it wasn't worth dodging the question. It was unlikely anyone but him would see any of this video anyhow.
"So back in the spring, when the school year restarted and I officially joined the group, we went out to this shared apartment a girl had rented with a couple friends to save the cost. They'd been having all the stereotypical ghost problems, you know? Things moved, stuff in the corner of their eyes, thought they heard someone talking to them at night. Fujimori, he's the one who started the group? We got the cameras thanks to him. Anyways, he knew one of the girls pretty well so we went over there." Yusuke blinked at him with a confused expression.
"Didn't you tell me about that one? Some ghost a ferry girl couldn't get to leave, right? You helped her out didn't you?"
"That's just the thing," Kuwabara started, "We were there for like half an hour before anything started. And then when it did, stuff moving, the whole bit, I still needed like ten minutes before I knew it was a ghost and not someone screwing with us. Or a demon. I seriously thought it was a demon before I thought it was a ghost." He paused before muttering, "They even said they'd been there the entire time, Urameshi. I completely missed them at the start." Yusuke crossed the room and leaned against the window frame with him.
"I missed a ghost and that was my thing. I mean that had been a constant forever." Yusuke gave him a weird, apologetic look.
"I guess we made you too used to demons or something? Do they even feel the same? You know I suck at that."
"It's not like we ran into ghosts after you came back. It was just one demon after another. I'm not even sure right now - I was kind of out of the game, remember?"
"Maybe running around with these guys'll help. It's only been, what, a year? How many big things have you actually done?" Kuwabara's lips quirked into a smile.
"Not that many really. I think we've found a few more plumbing and window problems than ghosts. Also, one asshole roommate." Yusuke chuckled and clapped Kuwabara on the back roughly. He stood back up and faced Kuwabara, crossing his arms and for the first time letting the camera leave its trained position on his own personal perspective.
"You're rusty. It'll be fine. It's kind of like how you're all doing this, isn't it? Because you all suck with the cameras and stuff? Maybe the ghost difference will come back the more you really run into them too." Kuwabara snorted at Yusuke's attempt to be reassuring – it sounded so odd all of a sudden. Maybe ghost sensing wasn't the only place he was rusty… He was moving to get up and find a way to thank Yusuke for being there, when instead Yusuke interrupted him.
"What is this supposed to be for anyways?" He was staring at the small voice recorder, turning it around as if to glean something from it in the dark.
"Oh, that was Tanaka's idea." He pulled out his own from his coat pocket. "The idea is to record anything a ghost might say. Basically, turning it on and asking questions to an open room, or moving around with it on and stuff like that. We haven't really done anything with it before." Kuwabara paused and frowned at the device, thinking. "Well, I haven't. I think Tanaka was trying to use 'em before I joined."
"You gonna try it?" Kuwabara looked around the room, debating his options.
"Sure, why not? Why don't you go stand by the door again and turn yours on. I'll stay over here with mine. I think Fujimori and Tanaka did theirs outside in the courtyard, so at least this will be a different spot." Yusuke nodded absently with a hum and moved back to the door. They turned on the recording devices and began what Kuwabara felt was going to be the most awkward moment of the entire night.
The first problem with it was that he was self-conscious really. Since he didn't sense anything, and they had even just talked about it, it was even worse to talk to dead air than it would have been. Additionally, Kuwabara hadn't thought of a list of questions for this kind of thing. They had been so focused on cameras that he'd never thought about the possibility of doing a voice recording session in the building as well. As such, the college student started with the expected (as he had picked up a little from Tanaka, he was happy to realize) such as "is anyone here?" and "can you give us your name?" and then promptly stumbled after. What did you ask dead people when you wouldn't be hearing their answers for twenty four hours? What did this accomplish if he was just going to leave and the building was going to be torn down so soon? The needed silence between questions was also unhelpful.
But he did so anyways, bolstered by the thought that doing this might help Tanaka in actual club cases. It would certainly give them all something else to try if his own ghost sensing stayed off key due to all the excess demon interactions he'd had. They would really be able to do something again, instead of him feeling like he'd taken over the club with misunderstood abilities. None of this, Kuwabara noted part way in, prevented Yusuke from falling into his own pit of boredom and attempting to relieve it, of course.
"Did you live here?" Kuwabara asked, fairly certain he wasn't repeating himself. He had been using the resulting moment of silence to think of his next question, but in that moment Yusuke decided to beat him to it.
"Did you die here?" He shot Yusuke a look, though what one he was settling on, he wasn't sure. Was that even a good question to ask? Was there etiquette to this? Did you ask ghosts about their deaths like this? He caught Yusuke's shrug shadowed by his flashlight, pointed out in the hall though it let them get a general sense of each other. The silence lingered before Kuwabara gathered up the nerve to ask the next question, knowing it was one that Tanaka would have asked by now.
"If you're here can you give us a sign?" The entire sentence felt wrong on his tongue. Yusuke snorted across the room before pulling himself back under control. Kuwabara couldn't really blame him, and he had been very quiet for the first several questions. Another obligatory question from Tanaka floated to mind.
"Why are you here?" the red head bit his lip to hold in his own snort at the question, as Yusuke failed miserably and ducked into the hall for a second to laugh. Kuwabara covered his mouth to keep from laughing himself. He wanted to ask the former ghost if he had any good suggestions, or even to lead the entire thing given his clear experience, but Kuwabara had also been planning to have Tanaka listen to this to help coach him. Talking to one of his oldest friends about the time he was a ghost would probably derail the club for the next….well it would be a year and half until Tanaka graduated, so probably that long. Yusuke came back in with a cough to clear his throat, but still chuckled a little through the first couple words of his next question.
"Are you bored?" Kuwabara leaned his head back against the window and smiled. Right, Yusuke had been bored out of his mind as a ghost; he remembered the other mentioning it once or twice when someone plucked up the nerve to ask about those months.
"It's a lot of waiting around isn't it? Or a lot of hurry up and wait? God it was a lot of hurry up and wait." Kuwabara somehow managed to turn his laugh into clearing his throat. He waved a hand at Yusuke, hoping to cut him off from that particular line of thought. Yusuke seemed to smile and changed tactics,
"Your turn over there wise guy!"
"Oh, um…" Kuwabara blanked for a moment, "did you like having the other group come in here?" Yusuke gave the minimum amount of silence before launching into his next question.
"You meet the world's friendliest grim reapers yet?" Kuwabara blinked. Around here that probably was a good question. Another beat of silence. Kuwabara's turn again, Yusuke waved him on.
"How long have you been here?" Another beat.
"What does a bread maker make?" Kuwabara groaned. He shot Yusuke what he hoped was a clear 'what the hell look'. He thought he saw a shit eating grin.
"If you think my friend is an idiot, turn off his flashlight." Yusuke stuck out his tongue for a moment.
"Have you met ghost animals?" Yusuke sounded a little too excited at that one. Kuwabara frowned. He'd thought he had ran into the ghosts of animals before, as a kid, and yes he'd even mistaken Yusuke for a low level raccoon or something (he hadn't lived that down for years). He actually hoped for a moment his senses were on the fritz. He wanted an answer to that one.
"If you have, what kind?" he piggybacked off of the prior question. When the silence dragged on for longer than before, Kuwabara braced for a stupid question.
"Are stars and planets the same thing?" Kuwabara bit back a groan at Yusuke's decision to delve into bad attempted word play.
"I think that one only works when you read it," he called out. Yusuke shrugged. Kuwabara paused for a moment trying to think of a decently relevant question. Yusuke decided to fill the gap.
"How do you spell worstests?" Kuwabara barely let that one have a pause
"I'm going to revoke your question privileges. How old are you?" Yusuke was clearly about to retort before he realized the question was directed at their nonexistent guests. It made Kuwabara grin. They both paused before Yusuke asked another question with a little more wonder in his voice,
"Did you know that people have been on the moon?" Kuwabara didn't realize he'd made a face until Yusuke defended his choice in question, "Hey, what if they've been dead for a really long time?"
"Okay, good point I guess." Kuwabara paused again before thinking of another of Tanaka's standard questions. "Are you male or female?" Kuwabara shot a momentary look of confusion at Yusuke as he tagged on, "Or neither. Or both." Yusuke shrugged at him and looked to be mouthing 'demons'. Kuwabara paused with a thoughtful look on his face.
"My bad – male, female, neither, both?" he fixed. They paused again and Kuwabara didn't react fast enough when he saw Yusuke's next shit eating grin.
"If Zelda was a girl would she marry Metroid?" Kuwabara did groan.
"I know you've never played those games, now you're just trying to annoy me." Yusuke laughed. Kuwabara gained a thoughtful look.
"Did you play video games? Did you like to play games with people outside?" He asked two as if making up for Yusuke's rampant inability to ask decent questions. During the pause he made to look at his watch and realized he'd never put it on. He couldn't read the screen for the voice recorder in the dark to see how long they'd been going either.
"Hey, Yusuke," he started before noticing that Yusuke was staring down the hall with a confused expression. Kuwabara stood up properly from the window sill.
"Yusuke?" The other startled and looked back into the room like he couldn't remember what they had been doing.
"What? Oh, um, my turn? Uh, what's your favorite ice cream flavor," the half retired detective rapidly fired off. Kuwabara chuckled.
"I was going to ask you what the screen said for recording time." Yusuke's eyebrows shot up and his mouth made an 'o', though he didn't bother to voice it. He looked down at the screen after fixing his hold on the flashlight to aid him.
"Um, …about thirty five minutes? You think we're done?" Yusuke looked back up at him. Kuwabara thought about it for a moment before he nodded.
"Yea, I think so, we weren't asking the best questions anyways." He went to stop the recording before thinking better of it. He addressed the room again,
"We're going to keep walking, but thank you for hopefully talking with us," he augmented Tanaka's usual end of case spiel, "if you still have anything you want to tell us, move something around to get our attention, okay?" he paused for another second before he nodded resolutely and turned the recording off. Yusuke walked back out into the hall, shining his flashlight down the rest of the corridor they had yet to walk down. Kuwabara paused for a moment to scoop up his camera, which he had put down at the start of the recording session, and then followed him out.
Kuwabara looked down at his camera as they made to move on. The screen was dark and the recording light was off. He knew he hadn't shut it off, but couldn't remember if he'd left it recording or not. Though he pressed the button a couple times, the screen refused to light back up and continue recording. He looked it over for a couple minutes as Yusuke wandered slowly down the hall ahead of him. Eventually he had no choice but to call Yusuke back so that the other could hold the flashlight as he dug out the spare battery packs from his borrowed backpack.
"Guess you didn't pay enough attention to the battery?" Yusuke muttered as the screen turned back on finally. Kuwabara hummed in agreement and double checked the memory card. Things seemed fine there.
"How's your camera?" he asked, looking at the one in Yusuke's hand. Yusuke looked at it for a moment before reporting back,
"About half battery?"
"Okay, just keep an eye on it, I guess? It should catch the rest of the building, I don't think we're gonna take that long." Yusuke nodded before starting down the hall again, with Kuwabara trailing just slightly. He gave the camera in his hand one more long look before lifting its view from the floor.
"Weird..."
o0o0o
The other half of the building was actually less exciting than the first half and the first half hadn't exactly been interesting. More of the rooms were empty, with only a few more of the windows broken than before. Yusuke picked up kicking a rock down the fourth floor rather than throwing it at Kuwabara's head. He had an oddly concentrated look on his face, though Kuwabara mostly missed it. The night and his classes from the day were catching up to him and so his mind wandered on to long deadline lab homework and the fact that he should have stopped for a coffee before coming in here. As they hit the stairs to return to the third floor however, he heard Yusuke stumble behind him. Before he could turn around and see if his friend was alright, however, Yusuke's kicking rock beaned him in the back. His shoulders slumped as any worry that had begun to build up escaped as quickly as it had come.
He turned around to a surprisingly innocent looking face.
"Really Urameshi?" he laughed and Yusuke gave him a kind of awkward shrug before looking around again for the rock. Kuwabara shook his head with a chuckle and started down the stairs.
"Three more floors Urameshi, just three more! Hold your boredom or at least tell me we're having another pebble war." The rock whizzed passed him on the stairs. Yusuke had the decency to call out a choked 'sorry' this time. The rock continued to ping around the third floor as well, only once running into his feet. As they started down the stairwell to the second floor, rock beating both of them down the stairs, Yusuke stopped suddenly.
"I've got a low battery warning." Kuwabara paused and moved his flashlight up towards Yusuke. He thought for a moment before he spoke again.
"We only have like two more floors, but I don't know if they'll be worth going through. This stairwell is closer to the entrance…you wanna just call this done?" Yusuke looked at the camera again before he nodded.
"Yea, why not. Let's wrap up before this thing goes dead." They went down the stairs and continued on to the first floor, Yusuke still kicking the small rock along the way. Kuwabara shook his head, and quickly surveyed the entrance, double checking that they had set nothing down when they had first entered some hours before. He turned to Yusuke, who still had his camera up,
"I've got everything if you've got everything." With a quick pat of his pockets, Yusuke gave him a thumbs up and a grin. As they headed out the doors and under the chain, Kuwabara's stomach grumbled a little.
"You know, I'm hungry, you think there's a Famima or a Seven around here somewhere? " The rock whizzed passed him one more time, happily landing after a couple bounces in one of the many pot holes in the pavement of the old parking lot. Kuwabara blinked at it twice as Yusuke came up to stand beside him.
"Seriously Yusuke?" Yusuke pursed his lips,
"Yea about that-," he started. At the same time the chain link behind them rustled and a happy, though not terribly loud, little girl's voice said,
"Thank you for playing with me! Bye-bye!" They whipped around just in time to see, for a moment, a small girl standing by the old chain, waving at them with a small smile. Then she was gone. They stood in silence for what felt like several long moments.
"You are rusty."
"Shut up." Yusuke's camera, still pointed at the entrance, beeped three times, and powered down.
o0o0o
Though initially miffed by Yusuke hiding his game of kick-the-rock with a ghost, the more Kuwabara went over the video tape and voice recordings of that night, the more he realized that the ghost girl had simply gravitated to him. It seemed Yusuke had accidentally started playing with her somewhere on their way up and things had simply grown from there. He'd started going through the evidence as soon as he could the following day, and a little bit more every time he had a chance to sit down between homework and classes. Her direct manifestation had not been the only time she'd interacted with them that Monday night.
When they had parted that evening, talking for nearly an hour outside a conbini with half eaten food and drinks in their hands, Yusuke had promised to get a hold of Botan for him. So far, he hadn't heard back from either, but he could imagine that everyone's odd hours weren't helping. In the meantime, Kuwabara kept an eye on the vague time schedule they'd been given for the building's demolition (they had, as of that Thursday, just one more week) and listened to the audio recordings again. They were by far the most interesting part. Kuwabara had had to ask Tanaka for help initially, both with the video and the audio, ending up with a crash course in what was dust versus an orb and at what frequency they would likely hear voices in either. In the end they had both been far more impressed with the voice they could hear from the audio recordings once their volumes were up and headphones hugged their ears.
It wasn't that the video wasn't interesting, but it certainly didn't help that it was far longer than the seventy minutes of combined audio from their thirty five minute session. Where the video showed off a few moving shadows that Kuwabara couldn't outright say were actually anything more than their own, as well as rocks that had startled Yusuke's video feed on several occasions (and indeed, appeared to be the reason for a couple of their pebble wars) and other sudden movements down long halls or into darkened rooms that had caused Yusuke's varied moments of staring off (but told them essentially nothing), the little girl's voice appeared on the recordings of each device, depending on who had asked the question. It beat the excessive scenes of the buildings flooring by a long shot.
Kuwabara's initial greeting in the EVP session went unanswered, as well as the first question asking if anyone was there. Soon after however, the answers picked up, after every question and no matter how silly or strange. Tanaka had been almost positive after hearing the tale, with dark eyes damn near sparkling, that the little girl had stolen the power out of his unattended camera to speak with them. Considering he didn't know when it had lost power, it was as sound a theory as any (or at least any until he spoke with Botan or Yusuke again). But as he listened to the recording for the third time since his first review, sipping on the coffee that was supplementing the fact that he'd given up some sleep to get through the footage over the last couple days, he couldn't help but feel that the voice sounded awful sad and lonely when it first picked up.
"Can you tell us your name?" This answer was on his recording.
"My name is Rinna. Ooishi Rinna…" it trailed off, sounding almost uncertain, but then again only a few were very boisterous to begin with.
"Did you live here?"
"No, my friend did." He switched to Yusuke's recording, already queued up.
"Did you die here?"
"No…" the voice trailed off. By this point, Kuwabara knew the time stamps of each question on each recording, and he moved between them to create a nearly seamless conversation between two idiot living boys and the little ghost girl they hadn't even realized was there.
"If you're here, can you give us a sign?"
"I'm trying!" the little voice wobbled from his headphones, almost teary sounding.
"Why are you here?"
"….the building across the street was torn down…"
"Are you bored?"
"….yea" the little voice hiccupped, as Yusuke's voice started to carry on, momentarily reliving his own ghost days. There was a short giggled at his exasperation.
"Oh, um…. Did you like having the other group come in here?"
"They were nice." There was a pause before the little girl spoke again, just before the next question, "they talked to me."
"Have you met the world's friendliest grim reapers yet?"
"…They're nice?"
"How long have you been here?"
"….I don't know anymore," the little voice sniffled.
"What does a bread maker make?" Kuwabara grinned as the silly questions started.
"...heehee, bread silly!"
"If you think my friend is an idiot, turn off his flashlight." The request only garnered laughter.
"Have you met ghost animals?"
"Yes!"
"If you have, what kind?"
"I've seen doggies and kitties!" Kuwabara smiled, the little girl was very happy at this question.
"Are stars and planets the same thing?" The poor little ghost let go a confused,
"No?" as he had told Yusuke his word play wouldn't work.
"How do you spell worstests?"
"That's not a word!" but she giggled.
"How old are you?"
"I'm seven!"
"Did you know that people have been on the moon?"
"I wanna go to the moon too!"
"Are you male or female?" The little girl answered quickly over top of Yusuke's interjections.
"I'm a girl!" but she paused and spoke again after Kuwabara had altered his question with "You can be both?"
"If Zelda was a girl would she marry Metroid?"
"…..but Nii-san said Zelda was a girl?"
"Did you play video games? Did you like to play games with people outside?
"Oh! I like playing Onigokko and Kakurenbo with my friends!" Kuwabara smiled sadly, she was just a child. How long had she been there? The audio was wrapping up as Yusuke asked the final question,
"Uh, what's your favorite ice cream flavor?" The most boisterous answer of them all was this last one,
"Chocolate and caramel!"
His speech thanking her for talking with them played out, with a soft sad sound underneath. Try as he might, he couldn't figure out if she had said anything, or had simply been sad.
"If you still have anything you want to tell us, move something around to get our attention okay?" The little girl asked a final question before the recording stopped.
"Will you still play with me Yusuke-nii-chan?"
Kuwabara rubbed at his eyes, sinking down in his desk chair. It was almost like he was torturing himself, going over what they had captured so much. He hadn't sensed her. He had never sensed her. So instead, when Yusuke had been playing the fool, jumping out at him and tossing rocks, she had latched on to him. Yusuke had played with her, unconsciously until the final floors of the building, when the rock had begun to bounce around on its own as he watched. But of course he'd been too busy thinking about school and keeping his eyes open, he hadn't noticed a thing more than the bouncing rock. Kuwabara got up, disentangled from his headphones, and went to his sink to splashed water on his face. Looking himself in the eye through the mirror, he spoke,
"You can't change what happened." He couldn't change that she was dead, or that she'd been alone. He couldn't change that he hadn't sensed her. He gripped the edges of his bathroom sink.
"But you can do better next time." He nodded once forcefully. While there was no reason to think that the little girl's power hadn't also simply been minimal, hard to sense when used to a higher threshold, Kuwabara doubted that was the only problem. He was going to have to retrain himself to sense for ghosts and other entities without malicious intent. It would probably take time; he'd only recently started seeking that out again. He had only just realized that he couldn't seem to sense that. But he stubbornly refused to wallow in any kind of self-pity over what had already happened. How was he to know, how were any of them to know, that years spent fighting for his life or others' lives against demons and misguided humans would fine tune his senses away from what he'd grown up with? Kuwabara had already made the decision that he would go with Botan; make sure for both him and Yusuke that the little girl, that Rinna, moved on from that building before it was torn down.
He wiped the excess water off his face and returned to his desk, looking for a moment at the programs open on his computer. What he needed to do now was double check that he had the papers, books, homework for his next class. But just one last thing first…
He made sure to save the recordings and some of the footage to his computer, especially the final part of Yusuke's footage, which showed, just barely, the bright outline of Rinna. Much of what she said, minus her goodbye, had been too hard for the device to record, but for one glorious moment, the camera had known she was there. One snippet he titled especially to make sure he showed it to Yusuke, however - a part where he had jumped out to blind Kuwabara with a flashlight. In the few second silence between the initial scare and Kuwabara's own angry yelling was the only other piece of unexpected audio – a small girl laughing.
o0o0o
Saturday was the day. He'd gotten the message late Friday afternoon – he was to meet Botan at the old building and they'd get things straightened out for the little girl before the building came down the following Thursday. And that was where he was, about sunset on a Saturday night – waiting for one of the world's friendliest grim reapers and staring at a rundown building, seeing if the old tickle feeling would kick start. Before, when he had been young and the tickle feeling hadn't had a name let alone a cause, it had always started up his lower back, dragging its way to the base of his skull in a movement that started painfully slow and ended so fast his head had been sent reeling. Dealing with demons had never been like that; sensing them always seemed to sit like a cloud around his head alternating between irritating and oppressive.
The worst he got standing on the side of the back road was a slight shiver as a breeze ran between the buildings.
Kuwabara scrubbed his hands over his face in irritation. There was no reason to expect that things would just click into place on his next visit or ghost encounter, but that didn't mean a traitorous little part of his brain couldn't wish for it. He left his fists pressed against his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. And then several more to lull him into a calmer state. His own issues would not help tonight. Tonight was about a little girl who needed to leave this plane and go somewhere better and less lonely. A warm presence wrapped around his shoulders and his dropped his hands with a small smile.
"Botan, it's been way too long." She had hardly hopped off her oar by the time he addressed her. The feeling was largely unique to her, he thought as she took the moment to launch herself at him with a laugh, and had probably become unique due to contact he'd had with her over the years. It was still wonderful to feel.
"Kuwabara, it has been fair too long! Last I talked to Yusuke or Yukina, it sounded like college had completely stolen you away!" she laughed and gave him another hug as if to make up for the span of time since she had last seen him. She looked the same as ever, pink kimono spotless and clean, hair held up in a high ponytail, and an ever optimistic disposition. He probably looked like hell in comparison. Then again, he couldn't think of a single student in any of his classes who didn't – it was a trying time for sure. He laughed,
"God, it feels like it!" They stayed like that for a moment, her asking about his classes and him attempting to answer fully without either boring her or confusing her (or himself, some of the stuff was still settling down into his memory). She laughed, nearly doubling over, at the story from one of his professors, one Watanabe Yukihiro, who had been steadily regaling them with every time he'd ever accidentally burned his eyebrows off. The fourth in the line of stories was currently ranked number one among his lab class. She grasped his hand tightly afterward, giving him another smile, before returning to her oar. Botan looked to the building before speaking,
"I do wish this meeting was over slightly happier circumstances…" Kuwabara looked at the old building as well.
"I guess ferrying kids doesn't really get easier?" Botan hummed softly, playing with the hem of her sleeve.
"It's never easy when a spirit has been forgotten." She began to float towards the building and Kuwabara followed steadily after.
"What do you mean forgotten?" She cast him a sad look before moving through the door. He ducked under the chain and rejoined her in the entry way.
"In Spirit World it's actually fairly difficult to look up some ghosts and files – one thing or another happens and they get shuffled off when no one meant for them to. Yusuke couldn't give me a whole lot to go on, but I think your little girl ghost got lost in a shuffle at some point. Basically, we let her down and forgot to come for her." Botan paused and looked between the two halves of the building, lingering slightly on the side that faced the neighbors.
"We got her voice on tape on the top floor on that side," Kuwabara provided. Botan nodded resolutely.
"We should go up there; she might be more comfortable if we go back to a place where you two were talking to her." Botan continued talking on their way up the stairs.
"We don't ever really mean to leave a ghost in the living world like this. Yusuke could tell you that, he ended up helping me get a fixated ghost to move on while he was waiting around." Kuwabara turned partially to look at her, passing the third floor.
"Fixated ghost? I don't think he mentioned that one." Botan nodded.
"It's one kind of ghost we have to go back to over time – they get so fixated on a place that you can't get them to move on and leave for the spirit realm instead. She was supposed to meet her boyfriend at Christmas but got too sick to go – eventually dying – but in death she sat there at the station waiting for a year hoping to see him one last time and apologize. Her feelings about it were so strong a fair number of us couldn't get to her budge." Botan giggled sweeping passed the fourth floor, "Of course Yusuke didn't play by the rules and ran off with her. Eventually I brought her to Spirit World."
"So this isn't normal and you wouldn't normally leave a ghost to their own devices," Kuwabara responded absently, thinking back to the ghost causing a ruckus for the classmate that had suggested the old apartment building and his exasperated ferry girl shadow. Botan made a non-committal noise as the moved passed the fifth floor,
"Not entirely, some we have no contact with until they can move on – some souls have to atone for their passed actions first. But to be honest, even those souls Spirit World tries to watch out for. And here we shuffled by a little girl without even realizing it for far too long." Botan paused at the top of the steps, having reached the sixth floor.
"You can't change what happened," she whispered, "But at least now we can set it right." Kuwabara smiled and walked passed her into the hall.
"Room is over here," he gestured to the door-less opening. Botan floated passed him with a soft smile on her face. In the middle of the room, she looked at him again.
"Let's get started."
Kuwabara nodded once sharply, and cast a look around the room again. There was still lingering daylight, and the run down nature of the entire place showed through even more now than it had that Monday night. He only had one plan for getting things started, since simply running into the ghost or sensing her outright had seemed like unlikely scenarios. He let himself relax, and spoke to the room.
"Hey, Rinna, it's us again. Well, me – Yusuke had to work. But I have a friend here, and we're gonna help you out of here, okay? She's that friendly grim reaper Yusuke talked about, she really does exist." They stayed quiet for a moment, Botan looking around. Rinna hadn't been making herself known and Kuwabara supposed Botan was afraid of scaring her off if she went directly to her. Scaring little girls was not on the agenda. He spoke again,
"My friend is pretty special you know, she'll be able to see you no problem. Not like me and Yusuke, we're blind like bats aren't we?" For a second he thought he heard a giggle.
"She's going to bring you some place you can play with other ki-" he paused a moment before Botan held a finger to her lips. In his brain's couple second reboot it came to conclusion that his ghostly awareness must be functioning just fine if it felt like the ghost was touching him. Kuwabara curled his fingers slowly, as if to hold her tiny hand. He looked down to his left and smiled.
She was a blurry outline, but the more he focused on her the more that pulled in to something more distinct. She wasn't very tall for a seven year old, though her hair was long and loose. A silky black wave down her back and some color flooded her. It helped define the sundress she wore, pink and purples, perhaps flowers he thought. She looked at him and her eyes were the sharpest, clearest thing of all. Between the touch and her eyes, he felt like he could read her every emotion. Right now the little girl was apprehensive – nervous about Botan most likely and maybe even because Kuwabara had come back with her. He looked back to Botan for a split second and caught a smile on the blue haired woman's face. She lowered her floating height but didn't move closer yet. Feeling far more empowered about the situation, Kuwabara smiled down at Rinna.
"There you are, are you okay?" Rinna smiled at him, or so he thought through her foggy complexion. She nodded enthusiastically at him, reaching to grasp his hand with both of hers.
"I don't know if I can hear you," Rinna's eyes grew sad, "But I can see you this time! So let's sit down and then maybe my friend can help us out." Rinna nodded, the black mass of her hair bouncing. She let go of his hand and for a moment she flickered in his vision. No way in hell that was happening, the thought raced through his head and he wouldn't have been surprised if sheer resolve alone allowed him to watch her sit down in a flurry of pink and purple and look at him expectantly. He smiled and sat down cross legged beside her. After a moment of thought, he offered her his hand again. She took it eagerly and she again sharpened into a better focus. The carrot top nodded once, mostly to himself, before he pointed to Botan.
"Is it okay if my friend comes over here?" Rinna stared at Botan then, causing the ferry girl to wiggle her fingers in a wave. She smiled softly, but was continuing to let Kuwabara lead, he noticed. Rinna's assessment took a long moment, but eventually she looked back to Kuwabara. He thought he saw her lips move, a flicker in the lower part of her face, but distressingly he heard nothing. For a brief moment she flickered in his vision as a wave of worry went through him. The college student stamped it down and she kept her place in his vision. She nodded when he didn't beckon Botan over. He did so with a jerk of his head and a grin,
"You wanna join us over here?" Botan floated over with a smile and silently got off her oar. It disappeared in much the same fashion he'd ever seen her materialize it, and she sat down with a quick sweep of her kimono to keep the clothing in place. She smiled brightly at Rinna,
"Hello sweetheart, my name's Botan! I've been friends with Kuwabara here for a really long time and he and Yusuke didn't want you to have to sit here all alone any more. Can I ask you some questions? You can ask Kuwabara or me any questions too, okay?" Rinna nodded shyly.
"That's wonderful!" Botan said with a smile crinkling her eyes, "Can you tell me your name and where you live?" Kuwabara let himself tune out Botan's one-sided conversation. He figured, as she continued to ask the little girl about herself, that she was getting information they'd need to make sure she got where she was supposed to go or perhaps to locate whatever kind of file Spirit World had for her, so that the paperwork could be done correctly. Regardless, Botan asked the questions with ease and any pause for thinking she did seemed to be play acting, her expressions and hands playing things up for the child. It had never really occurred to Kuwabara that his friend was used to ferrying souls of all ages – it was interesting to see her interact with a lonely child like this. He let them talk, eventually allowing Botan's voice to become white noise in the otherwise silent building, and focused instead on the energy from the little girl.
Ghosts had really always been a sharp feeling, which lingered in the tickle it had gotten its name from. Thinking about it now, he wondered if that came from literal contact, as the girl's hand still in his made his palms feel ticklish and slightly itchy. So far, what had learned and could file away for later use was that touch could jump start his senses. Dulled and unfocused as they were from being unused in this manner, he had been relieved to see her outline so clearly once she had touched him. Now, with Botan's voice in the background, Kuwabara let himself relax and tried to open his senses further, watching the girl peacefully without attempting to force things.
Rinna was a soft feeling, perhaps because she was no longer trying to get his attention –she already had it. It was warm but it was also feather light. It would be so easy to get caught up in something and lose it if he let go of her hands or got distracted somehow. Kuwabara didn't imagine she was a very strong ghost in the scheme of things, though he mentally noted to talk to Botan about that later. It did tell him over all, though, that most ghosts would probably slip under his radar, soft pulses that didn't drag his awareness into play like bigger, stronger entities did – like demons did. He'd hedge a bet, even against Yusuke, that a more malevolent spirit would grab his attention easier. He was fined tuned against energies that meant danger. He made another mental note to ask Botan if ghosts could hide their energy like demons or humans could – at least the powerful ones, the ones that may mean him or others harm.
He looked down and focused on the little hands in his, one of her fingers covered in a multicolored Band-Aid. The edges of the little girl were no longer quite as fuzzy and her skin had picked up a healthier, real color rather than a sort of radiating fuzzy light. He looked at her face and smiled. Black hair passed her shoulders, her bangs were held up and out of the way in a common childhood style by a pink hair tie. She was missing one of her front teeth. Her sundress was indeed patterned in pink and purple flowers. Rinna's face was bright and happy and she spoke to Botan animatedly now, with Botan returning in kind. Kuwabara let his analysis of the situation go, instead focusing on the conversation and the feeling of a small, gentle ghost, committing it to memory.
He was content with what he'd figured out – the important thing about the night was Rinna moving on.
o0o0o
"Strawberries," Botan answered with a wink.
"Me too, me too!" the little girl laughed, echoing a favored fruit. She had let go of Kuwabara's hand with one of hers at some point in the prior twenty minutes to occasionally latch on to Botan's or to enthusiastically wave it around as she talked. From the point where Kuwabara had relaxed and decided that the night was about Rinna's safety and future, he had slowly, and at first very faintly, started to be able to listen in to the conversation. For the last few questions, he'd been able to hear not only what Botan asked but also what Rinna answered. She had been a vibrant little girl in life, he could see now, and even her time alone didn't appear to have dampened that.
"Well, I like peaches," he added into the conversation. Botan looked at him with momentary surprise but then smiled. Kuwabara smiled back. He would have to ask her later for possible reasons for why her voice had eventually began to come through, but for now he refused to jinx it by thinking about it too hard (in the back of his mind the idea that not thinking was the answer also kept him from overthinking). Rinna looked at him for a moment in shock before bursting into laughter and grasping his hand with both of hers again.
"You can hear me?" she asked, her eyes taking on a pleading look.
"Yep, very slowly, but I started to hear you. It's good to hear you again," he squeezed her hands and tried not to think about how he shifted through them. Hopefully the gesture wasn't too lost. She gave him a wobbly smile before turning to him fully again and started questioning him.
"How old are you?" Kuwabara smiled.
"About 20." She gaped at him for a moment.
"Wow! Do you still go to school when you're twenty?" Kuwabara chuckled.
"Well I do, I'm in college. My friend though, Yusuke? He makes ramen at a ramen stand instead." Rinna bit her lip, thinking.
"Do you like dogs?"
"Dogs are nice but I love cats." She giggled.
"What do you like to do?"
"Play video games and listen to music. Or reading my science textbooks," a small white lie at the end, that was more studying really. She gave him a large smile.
"Do you have brothers and sisters?"
"I have an older sister. She could probably see you too." Rinna looked so excited about it, it made his heart ache. She frowned suddenly.
"Nobody could ever see me here…" her little crestfallen face fell to the floor.
"You've been here a long time, huh?" Rinna nodded.
"The other building got torn down so I came over here because it was scary." Kuwabara shared a look with Botan. She bit her lip before talking.
"Rinna sweetie, this building is going to be torn down too." The little girl whimpered and ducked closer to Kuwabara, hiding her face. Botan summoned up a warm smile for her.
"You don't have to stay here though, that's why we came here!" Rinna peeked out at her.
"That's what I do; I make sure kids like you don't have to stay in these old, creaky buildings all by themselves. And I'm so sorry you've had to stay here at all. We should have come for you so much sooner." Rinna sniffled,
"But where would I go? I can't go home; I don't remember where it is." Botan smiled and launched into what sounded like a well-rehearsed but no less sincere answer.
"Did you mom ever tell you were people go when they pass away?" Rinna blinked at her. "Well, I know where I can bring you - it's a nice place and it has a lot of people. People like me and you and Kuwabara here too. All kinds of people! And I know for a fact that there are plenty of kids just like you who are looking for another little girl to play with. Some people call it Heaven - but its name isn't really important. You're a good girl," Botan ruffled her hair, "so I know there are people there waiting for you. But if you're worried or scared, I can keep you company for a while. We can float around the city and see all kinds of things for a little bit. And that way you won't be here when the building comes down either. It'll be you and me and everything you can possibly see from the sky and when you're ready, we can go. I'll be with you all the way." Rinna looked down to her hands in Kuwabara's.
"I guess I have to say good bye now then?" she had a sad little smile.
"Yea, I still have stuff to do here. But Botan's a really good friend of mine. She won't let anything happen to you, I know it. A little kid like you shouldn't have to stay in this old building anymore." She gave him a happier smile. Without warning she popped up on her knees and gingerly gave him a hug, careful as if she was just as aware as Kuwabara that too much pressure would cause her to slip through him.
"Thank you," she whispered. Rinna pulled back and rocked onto her feet, clasping her hands behind her back. She was smiling widely, revealing a second missing tooth.
"Can you thank Yusuke-nii-chan for me? For playing with me?" Kuwabara chuckled.
"Of c-"
"You know..." Botan spoke over him. She had a thoughtful look on her face. She paused for a moment longer before nodding, her blue ponytail bouncing. She smiled at both of them with a gleam in her eye.
"If the two of you can wait here a moment, I think I have a way you can thank Yusuke yourself. What do you say Kuwabara?" Rinna's little face was hopeful at the prospect; Kuwabara knew there would be no way to deny her.
"Sure, we can wait here," Kuwabara hauled himself upright and then leaned down some to offer Rinna his hand, "We can go downstairs or outside or something. Maybe I can find us a stick outside and we can play tic-tac-toe in the dirt. Or I can tell you a story. We'll be fine, won't we?"
Rinna nodded enthusiastically. As they headed down the stair case moments later, Rinna talking excitedly to Kuwabara, Botan rematerialized her oar and took off for Spirit World.
o0o0o
Yusuke had his back turned when they got to the stall – having just bid his only customer of the moment farewell – and plopping down onto the stool to see him jump was well worth the tongue lashing he would have normally gotten. Instead Kuwabara cut him off before he could get too far.
"Hold this." Yusuke didn't really have much of a choice but to take the hand mirror looking object, as Kuwabara had more or less shoved it right into his face. The stand owner leveled Kuwabara a glare over the mirror before bothering to look at the object itself.
"What kind of mirror is this?" Yusuke flipped it and turned it around at all angles, much as Kuwabara had done fifteen minutes prior when Botan had passed it off to him as they neared the stand.
"Well, it's not a mirror." The carrot top reached out to straighten Yusuke's grip on the handle, leaving the object trained between the two of them. Yusuke didn't look convinced, still eyeing the patterned metal frame.
"Stop looking at the edge and look through it, will you?" Yusuke stuck out his tongue at him but finally humored him. The comically large way his eyes widened was also worth shoving the object in his face.
"Holy sh-"
"I'd look at the next stool before you finish that," Kuwabara rapidly spoke over him. Even as Yusuke panned over to the other stool, Kuwabara could hear Rinna giggling. A quick glance behind him confirmed that Botan had been happily making bunny ears on him while waiting for Yusuke to use the object as it was intended. Now though he was focused entirely on the little girl.
"Hey there," it was incredibly soft, and Kuwabara was reminded, not for the first time, that Yusuke was better with children than his personality would indicate. "These two got you out of the building, huh?" Rinna nodded happily. Botan floated from behind Kuwabara to touch Rinna's shoulder. Yusuke's furrowed eyebrows reminded Kuwabara that he could only see them for the moment.
"Botan wants you to hold still for a second, she's gonna recalibrate the mirror for you a little." As Botan moved forward to lightly infuse the mirror with her own spirit energy, Kuwabara continued to talk,
"I'm not sure where she pulled this from but I guess its main function is refocusing your energy awareness to actually see spirits? Either way, it's got a bonus feature..." Botan pulled back and looked at Rinna,
"Okay sweetheart." Yusuke jumped. Rinna's grin grew and she looked at Yusuke happily through the mirror.
"Hi, Yusuke-nii-chan!"
"Hi there yourself," Yusuke replied with a startled laugh.
"Your friends said you wouldn't be able to see or hear me but they found a way! Isn't that great? I wanted to thank you! I was really happy when you played with me the other night!" Yusuke's face softened into a warm smile.
"No problem kiddo, it's a good thing we had all those pebbles, huh?" Rinna giggled. She looked down and started to play with her fingers, kicking her feet back and forth before she spoke again,
"Nobody had seen me or played with or talked with me in a really long time. I was so excited when you noticed the pebbles I could move! So I followed you to the top..." she trailed off almost sheepishly.
"When you guys stopped up there and talked and then started talking to me, I really, really wanted to answer you. And you asked me funny questions too! The other group never asked me about ghost dogs or ice cream." She smiled. "Then you kept playing with me and you even heard me when you left! And you and Kuwabara brought your friend to me and now I don't have to stay in that building anymore and be alone." She stopped fidgeting and fixed Yusuke with an even larger smile.
"I really, really, really wanted to thank both of you and Botan-nee-chan found a way for you to see and hear me! So thank you!" Rinna looked between both of them, "Both of you, thank you so much!" She sniffled, a little over come.
"Don't worry about it kiddo," Yusuke side eyed him quickly," I think we're both happy you're not gonna have to stay there any more, right Kuwabara?" Kuwabara smiled, leaning on the stand's counter.
"Definitely," he affirmed, watching Rinna relax.
"So you're gonna get to on to Heaven now, huh? I was ghost myself once you know, I never saw Heaven though." Yusuke winked at Rinna's wide eyed look.
"I can tell you though that there's this little girl about your age up there who would be happy to be your friend," Botan nodded enthusiastically behind the girl and Yusuke smiled, "Her name's Sayaka and I bet you'll have no problems finding her."
"You really think so?"
"Definitely." Botan put her hands on the little girl's shoulders, gaining Rinna's attention.
"When we get there, I'll give you a hand, okay?" Rinna smiled and hugged the ferry girl. "You've said your thank yous, are you ready?" The little girl nodded and Botan slid Rinna into her lap and onto the oar.
"Botan-nee-chan is going to show me the city with all the lights on!"
"Is she?" Yusuke laughed. Kuwabara cut in,
"Oh yea, they hashed it out all the way here. She's going to see the city tonight and the sunrise tomorrow and then they'll move on, right Botan?" Botan nodded and winked at Yusuke.
"I'm taking a leaf out of someone's book - we're going to see a bunch of things she couldn't see in the building before we go." Yusuke smiled widely.
"Now that sounds perfect." Kuwabara smiled and nodded in agreement.
"Okay?" Botan whispered to Rinna. Rinna smiled and nodded once. As Botan took off towards the sky, the little girl called back to them one more time,
"Bye-bye Kuwabara-nii-chan, Yusuke-nii-chan! Thank you!" Both men watched them leave, Yusuke not putting down the mirror until they were out of sight. The dark haired man chuckled and Kuwabara looked back towards him, still leaning on the stand's counter. Yusuke was leaning back on one of his prep counters, a fond look on his face.
"You know," he started, eyes darting out to catch Kuwabara's, "If you got any more of these things you need an extra pair of hands on," Yusuke stretched and move to his pots, leaving the mirror safely behind on the counter, "I'd be game." He pursed his lips with a shrug, as if he was trying to play the whole thing off. Kuwabara smiled and turned fully back to the stall.
"I'm holding you to that." Yusuke laughed. Kuwabara let his friend check over his food and pots, letting the events of the night wash over him. He was just mentally declaring a job well done when one of Yusuke's last comments hit him again.
"Wait, who was Sayaka?" Yusuke blinked at him, confused.
"I never told you about Sayaka? She was a little girl I ran into while I was a ghost. Tried to get to the Spirit World by herself and almost dragged a living kid with her." Yusuke busied himself behind the counter, moving down the line to some used bowls. Kuwabara blinked at him and then promptly followed him down the line.
"Okay yea, no, explain all-", his stomach growled. The ensuing pause was broken by Yusuke smothering his laughter into his shoulder, putting down his bowls before he dropped them. Kuwabara sat on the closest stool heavily and rubbed his eyes.
"Okay, new deal. I'm going to order a bowl of ramen and you tell me that story." Yusuke grinned.
"Deal!" He dropped a batch of noodles into the boiling water and started talking,
"You see, this all started because we caught this kid crying over his dog and we helped him out..."