Only Human
Psychic Detective Yakumo
Chapter Two: Vengeance of the Dead ~Fear~
Haruka had to admit that sleep didn't come any easier for her the day after she left the club room. She knew that Yakumo had trouble coping with the fact that he couldn't help the spirits that he could see with his left eye, he had admitted this to her before. But Yakumo, who was rarely bothered or shocked by anything, was visibly shaken yesterday morning when he told her this. What could have happened to him to make him act that way? Haruka could only imagine that whatever had troubled Yakumo Saitou was something an inexperienced person like Haruka herself didn't want to encounter for as long as she lived. Even so, she wanted to help him somehow, in any way she could. Seeing Yakumo in that state had left her frightened and even slightly disturbed and she was rendered unable to get his quivering hands and pale complexion out of her mind, no matter how hard she tried not to think of it.
Haruka ventured out of her bedroom to her small kitchen and pulled open her fridge, examining its meager contents. Her stomach growled and she groaned in contempt, realizing she had forgotten to stock up on food yesterday when she left the club room. Suddenly, her phone began buzzing, which nearly jolted Haruka off of her feet with the shock of it. She hurriedly pulled it out of her pocket and answered it without looking at the caller ID, longingly hoping it would be Yakumo on the other end.
"Ozawa Haruka speaking…," Haruka answered in a definite tone as she closed the fridge door.
"Haruka-chan? It's Miki."
Haruka held back her sigh of disappointment at the sound of the distinctly female voice of her friend. "Oh, Miki-chan. Hi. How have you been?" She asked, finding herself slightly glad that Miki had called instead of Yakumo. Maybe Miki can help get these things off my mind, Haruka thought. Haruka and Miki had become significantly closer after Miki had been possessed by the ghosts of murdered girls. It was because of this that Haruka met Yakumo; she sought him out after hearing a rumor that he could help her friend. Lo and behold, he did. With his help, they tracked down the real murderer and put the souls to rest, saving Miki's life, to which she had been eternally grateful. Miki even admitted on one occasion that she felt like a "Cupid Angel" of sorts for causing Haruka and Yakumo to meet, her deepest wish being that the two would fall in love because of her.
"I've been doing well, actually. What about you? How is Saitou-kun been doing these days?" Miki added the last part simply to tease her friend.
Haruka paused, taking her friend's question seriously. She sighed into the mouthpiece. "He's acting strangely lately," Haruka admitted.
"Oh? Are you two on the outs?" Miki laughed lightly, trying to remove the damper on her friend's spirit, but to no avail. "Hey, why don't we go out for coffee? There's this cute little shop that just opened up… we should go! Besides, you need to get out more," Miki suggested.
Haruka perked up at the suggestion, remembering that her refrigerator was deprived of food. She agreed to meet her friend downtown in an hour. As Haruka washed up and readied herself for the outing, she wondered if she should give Yakumo a call just to see if he was doing any better, but she later decided against it, thinking that if he was in the same mood, she would wind up visiting him instead of going out with Miki.
Within an hour, Haruka met up with her friend at the said destination. The two greeted each other warmly and decided to journey to the quaint new shop on foot so that they could catch up with the latest campus gossip and the like. Haruka was so easily caught up in the all the news that Miki had to offer that her worries over Yakumo nearly slipped out of her mind. Well, at least they started to until Miki brought the subject back to Haruka's attention.
"Did you and Saitou-kun have a disagreement, Haruka-chan?" Miki asked after a moment of silence passed between them as they walked. Haruka glanced over at her friend, plastering an easygoing smile on her face.
"No, of course not. He was just acting peculiar, that's all. Even I don't know the reason behind it…" Haruka's eyes fell downcast as her heart constricted ever so slightly with hurt. Yakumo was not one to talk about his feelings openly, nor was he willing to discuss if something was ever bothering him, which tended to make Haruka feel extremely helpless and left out.
Suddenly, Miki stopped walking, which jolted Haruka to an abrupt halt. "Haruka-chan, look!" Miki gasped, pointing ahead of them. Haruka looked toward where she pointed and every muscle in her body froze. An icy pit developed within her stomach and her breath caught in her throat.
A brick wall of one of the old alleyways had been vandalized, but that fact wasn't why Haruka reacted in such a way. Her name was written on it with what appeared to be a thick, dark red paint. The two stepped closer to it for closer inspection and Haruka reached out to touch the still-dripping H of her name, only to be stopped by her friend.
"Don't touch it, it's blood!" Miki exclaimed, her voice shaking with fear. "Oh, who would do such a thing? Should we call the police?" Haruka shook her head and swallowed the lump in her throat, managing a stiff smile despite herself.
"Don't bother. It's obviously just a prank, and it could be meant for anyone. Lots of girls have the name 'Haruka'." Even though this much was true, Haruka had a rather dreadful feeling about it. The whole ordeal felt portentously strange to her.
Miki was skeptical. She felt the same bad feeling just as Haruka did, but Miki felt that something like this should be reported to the police instead of being simply ignored. One does not commit a harmless prank by writing someone's name in blood. She had a feeling that it had something to do with Haruka as it was, despite the fact that Haruka herself denied it by stating that it could be about anyone with that name. Nonetheless, Miki nodded, unsure of what else to do without further upsetting her friend.
Haruka took her friend's arm and began to lead her away. "Come on, let's make it to the shop before it gets any later."
The duo arrived at the shop and ordered their coffee without uttering another word about the blood-ridden wall. They carried on simple conversation, but the two eventually trailed off, having run out of things to converse about. The ominous name written in blood nagged at the back of both of their minds until Haruka was forced to excuse herself from the table with a small smile and headed to the bathroom.
Once she had closed herself inside an empty stall, she retrieved her cell phone from her pocket and dialed Yakumo's number, listening anxiously to each ring. After each ring came and went, Haruka's hope that he would answer dwindled and finally dissipated when the voice mail picked up the call. Despite the warring feelings of anxiety and fear that boiled within her, Haruka managed an exaggerated sigh. "Jeeze, you never pick up your phone!" She chuckled lightly, but the icy uneasiness soon welled up inside of her again and her buoyant attitude extinguished like the flame of a burnt out candle. "Yakumo-kun… I wish you would have picked up. Something … something kind of spooked me. You never talk!" She rapidly shut her phone and proceeded to flush with color when she realized what she had just said. Gosh, what's gotten into me? What's he going to think when he listens to that…?
Haruka leaned up against the stall and closed her eyes, clutching her pink cell phone to her chest. Something was fluttering inside of her and Haruka's cheeks remained tinted with vibrant. How embarrassing … I'll never be able to show myself to him now. She remained in that position for a long while before she brought herself to return to the table where Miki sat waiting for her.
"Sorry about that, I had a phone call," Haruka explained and Miki nodded in silent understanding. The pair finished their coffee and before they knew it, it was time to part ways. Haruka waved goodbye to her friend, insisting on catching the train home this time, saying that her feet hurt from the long walk earlier, but in truth, Haruka was too afraid to be left on her own to make that same journey again, especially if it meant passing that wall again.
After she exited the train, Haruka mounted the stairs to her apartment and decided to call Yakumo again to apologize for the awkward message she sent him. The voice mail picked up just as Haruka reached her door, only to notice that it was standing wide open. She hesitantly stepped inside and twisted the handle experimentally, discovering that the lock had been broken. Something tipped over and shattered on the linoleum in her kitchen and Haruka jumped sky high, completely forgetting about the message she was recording.
"Who's there?" She called out in a timid voice, her fear-frozen legs restraining her from moving any closer. Silence answered her and Haruka extended her hand toward her wall to flick on the light, only to reveal a shadowy figure slowly heading toward her from the kitchen. Haruka gasped, her eyes wide as she attempted to take a step back toward her door.
"Haruka Ozawa," stated a distinctly feminine voice. The shadow stepped into the light to reveal her face to the now-terrified girl. Haruka nearly dropped the phone she held in her hand. The woman's beady black eyes were eerily distorted and her face was marred by a fresh gash underneath one eye. Hair as black as coal fell messily in her face when she moved, nearly obscuring the cut.
"W-who are you? I'm on the phone with the police!" She did her best to sound brave, even though her stomach was doing flips and cartwheels and her throat refused to take in even a single breath.
The woman's pale lips slid into a malicious smile as she stepped within an arms width of her. Haruka's finger hovered over the 'send' button on her phone, hoping that when she sent it, Yakumo would listen to it and know she was in trouble. But before she had a chance to react, the woman suddenly struck her over the head with something solid, causing her to cry out and tumble to the floor in unconsciousness. The woman retrieved Haruka's still recording phone and laughed as she intentionally pressed 'send'.
-x
Yakumo sat in the university's silent and nearly empty library, gazing intently at the computer screen he was seated in front of. The page was a Missing Person's report that had been filed a little less than a week prior with a picture of the girl that had been the star in the surveillance footage.
"Found you," mumbled Yakumo as he printed out the page of information and left, heading toward his uncle's car. Before he stepped in the car, he turned his phone back on after he had been forced to turn it off when it rang noisily inside the library, earning him a nonverbal threat from the librarian. He flipped it open, noticing two new voice messages from Ozawa Haruka. Narrowing his eyes in curiosity, he pressed the phone to his ear and listened.
He was greeted with an overdramatic sigh that could only belong to a certain airhead that he knew all too well. "Jeeze, you never pick up your phone!" her recorded voice chided him, followed by a small laugh that sounded oddly strained to Yakumo. She paused for a moment. "Yakumo-kun… I wish you would have picked up. Something … something kind of spooked me. You never talk!" The call abruptly ended and Yakumo's eyebrows shot upward.
Jeeze, that girl. He sighed and pressed delete before listening to the next recording.
This time, he didn't hear her voice right away. He heard her obnoxiously loud footsteps as well as her breathing on the other end and was a second away from shutting his phone, thinking it was a misdial, when he heard her gasp. His attention pricked and he turned the volume up, listening hard. Something that sounded like glass broke in the background.
"Who's there?"
Haruka's voice sounded absolutely terrified. He heard her gasp again as well as another set of footsteps and he finally realized what she was doing. She's recorded this on purpose, knowing I would hear it later…, he concluded, feeling his insides churn.
"Ozawa Haruka," said another female voice in the room. Yakumo strained his ears as he tried to identify the voice, only to draw a frustrating blank.
"W-who are you? I'm on the phone with the police!" Haruka said, obviously hoping that would scare off whoever else was in the room, which was actually rather smart on her part. If only she had been on the other end with the actual police. Seconds later, a sickening smash resounded through the earpiece followed by an outcry that came from Haruka. The phone must have tumbled out of her hands for all he heard was static for a moment. Yakumo heard the sound of a feminine laugh just before the message disconnected.
Without wasting another second, he shut his phone and drove off, speeding toward Haruka's apartment. Once he arrived, he skidded to a stop and took the stairs two at a time. He raced toward her apartment only to find that the door had been smashed open and the place empty.
"Haruka!" Yakumo called out as he looked around the eerily dark and silent room. Suddenly, he looked down, noticing a spot of what appeared to be blood on the light tan carpet. He stooped over and ran his fingers over it, finding it to be dry as dust. Yakumo cursed as he stood back up and rushed out of the apartment, fearing that he had been too late.
-x
Haruka slowly came to and groaned as her head furiously pounded within her skull, threatening to implode at any second. Her eyes were greeted by a dim, yellowed light, which was almost too much for her to bear and only increased the pain in her head.
What …happened…? The question had barely finished forming itself in her mind before everything rushed back to her with frightening intensity. She had returned home after having coffee with Miki, only to find it had been broken into by a strange woman. What happened after that…? Haruka wondered when she failed to remember. She tried to move, but quickly realized that her wrists and ankles had been bound tightly with rope that was starting to furiously dig into her skin. Panic began to set in as she looked around, desperately trying to find out where she was. She was obviously indoors, but couldn't tell much more than that.
Out of the corners of her eyes, Haruka spotted a figure standing beside her and she gasped, craning her neck to get a good look at her. It was the woman who attacked and abducted her. Contempt rose within her like bile in the back of her throat. Haruka glared at the woman and struggled against her bindings, never breaking her gaze away from her. The woman, however, seemed oblivious to Haruka almost entirely. She examined her hands and arms as if she had never seen them before.
"What a solid body this is … I'm glad I chose it…," She said to herself, almost wistfully.
Haruka was caught off guard by the woman's comment. "Are you a spirit?" She asked before she could stop herself. The woman's smile slid off of her face and her eyes slid toward Haruka, narrowing to dangerous slits. Before Haruka had a chance to brace herself, the back of the woman's hand struck out and smacked her across the face. Hard. The sound of it echoed through the empty house and Haruka cried out in pain, tears welling in her eyes.
The woman smirked, seeming satisfied. "Yes, I'm a spirit. My name was Aiko when I was alive. Sound familiar?" The woman –Aiko- leaned in closer toward Haruka with a wicked grin on her face. "It rhymes with Saitou, does it not?"
Haruka's eyes flew wide as Aiko revealed this to her. She … she knows Yakumo?
Aiko backed away from Haruka and tilted her head upward to gaze at the ceiling. "Now … revenge can finally be mine." Her dangerous eyes slid back to Haruka. "Revenge against the one who abandoned me."
-x
Yakumo silently set the papers he printed from the library down on the table in front of Gotou.
"Kuroyuki Toshi?" Gotou stated as he read the boldface name next to the picture of a dark haired girl on the paper without a smile.
Yakumo merely nodded with a stoic expression resided on his face. "She went missing about a week ago. She matches the girl in the footage. I'm quite certain she is the one that the ghost possessed." Yakumo's fingers traced one of the papers. "According to multiple sites, she was obsessed with the dead and seemed to have stirred up the ghost intentionally. Because Kuroyuki was compliant, the ghost gained total control of her body, no questions asked."
Gotou watched Yakumo carefully. "The ghost being Aiko Yoshima?"
Yakumo's hand stilled to a halt and he grew silent.
"You still haven't told me what your connection to her is yet. You rushed off before you explained," said Gotou, willing for Yakumo to evaluate.
Yakumo looked over at him, suddenly very serious. "Aiko Yoshima went to the same Senior High School as me." He paused for a moment. "She wasn't very outgoing and grew embarrassed at the littlest things. She always told me … that her first name sounded like my last."
Yakumo turned away and closed his eyes, his eyebrows pinching together. "She left my side when she saw the true form of my left eye and learned what I could do with it. I didn't see her again until a year later when she came begging for my help, claiming that she was regularly attacked by a spirit." Yakumo closed his eyes, his hand involuntarily covering his right eye. He could remember the day in perfect clarity, as if it had happened only yesterday.
"Saitou-kun, please. I'm begging you."
For a long, silent moment, Yakumo gazed at the desperate girl who stood in front of him, wringing her trembling hands around the hem of her dress. She had obviously dashed her shy and timid demeanor since they last saw each other, as well as the kind aura that always used to emit from her.
"I see no spirits in your presence," he told her simply and began to close the door. Aiko stopped the door with her hand.
"You think I did this to myself?" She asked in a voice that cracked with each syllable as she pointed to a vicious scab under her eye and to the bruises that resided under her jaw line and feathered across both of her wrists.
Yakumo couldn't deny the urge to do what she asked, yet he had the undeniable aspiration to turn away from her like she turned away from him. "Yes, I do actually. A spirit is merely a bundle of emotions and cannot interact with the physical world."
Aiko visibly flinched, as if he hit a nerve. "Saitou-kun, I'll pay you whatever you want. Just please- please make it stop. Please help me." Yakumo could see the desperation in her eyes as she pleaded with him. Finally, he sighed.
"Even if I do agree to help you, I can do nothing but talk with the spirit. If it's harming you as you say it is, then talking may prove effortless."
Aiko took Yakumo's hand between both of her cold and shaking ones. "Please. At least try…"
He removed his hand from hers and reached up to remove his green contact lens, revealing his bright red iris. Aiko's breath caught and her gaze shot directly to the floor, refusing to look at up at him. "You want my help, yet my eye repulses you. You can't even look at me."
Aiko's hair obscured her face and she cupped her hand over her mouth as silent tears streaked down her dirty cheeks. She once again claimed Yakumo's hand and slumped to her knees, her frame quivering with sobs.
Yakumo replaced his contact and closed his eyes, feeling as if he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Finally, he succumbed. "Fine. I'll help you."
The light came back into Aiko's eyes as she looked up at him, finally returning his gaze. "You promise?" Her voice was so filled with newly restored hope that Yakumo couldn't help but answer her.
"I promise," he told her before he realized he had just sealed his fate.
Yakumo recounted this story to Gotou who sat nearly motionless for the duration of it. "I take it you couldn't help her?" Gotou asked, stating the obvious.
"No. There was nothing I could do for her." Yakumo crossed his arms.
"Well, what happened?" Gotou prodded.
Yakumo's patience was wearing thin. He had been waiting in Aiko's home in silence for the past three hours with nothing happening.
"He'll come, he always does," Aiko constantly insisted as she stared blankly at her hands which were neatly folded in her lap.
Finally, after what had seemed like an eternity, Aiko's head snapped back and she uttered a single, strangled noise from her throat. Yakumo, fully attentive to her actions, instantly went to her side. But instead of actually physically harming her, the spirit –who Yakumo deducted to be male- latched onto her body and possessed her.
He tried speaking to it, but nothing he seemed to get through to it. It completely ignored him.
Aiko suddenly screamed and began to thrash about. Her own hands clawed at her face and Yakumo grabbed her wrists, trying to restrain her from further harming herself. Her eyes flew open and tears cascaded down her cheeks.
"Do—something!" She screamed at him in a distorted, her face contorting with anger and fear.
Before Yakumo could work up a reply, the spirit passed out of her and disappeared. Aiko went still, breathing heavily. She finally began to cry as she covered her raw face with both hands.
"Aiko-" Yakumo began, trying to reach out to her.
Aiko sat up and glared at him with such a fiery hatred burning within her eyes that even Yakumo himself was taken aback. "You lied! You lied to me!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, her entire frame shaking with rage.
"Aiko-san-"
Aiko was on her feet, her contorted face just mere inches from Yakumo's. "You said you'd help me! You promised! Why? Why didn't you do anything?"
Yakumo stood as well and backed away from her, preparing to leave, being as the girl was bound to refuse any form of reason he had to offer.
"It's because you don't like me. You've never liked me! That's why you won't help me!" The girl rambled on in a broken voice with tears pouring down her face like a geyser had erupted behind her eyes.
Yakumo opened the front door and stepped out into the chill of the night. Aiko focused on him just before he shut the door. "You are a liar, Saitou Yakumo," she hissed.
He closed his eyes and shut the door behind him. Just before he walked away, shrill screams accompanied by sobs came from behind the door.
"Don't leave me! Please!" Aiko cried, but Yakumo ignored her and walked away from that house, leaving Aiko and her screams behind him.
Yakumo scraped his hand over his weary face. "She committed suicide a few days later by setting her own house on fire and burning within it."
Gotou swallowed hard. "And you think she's back … as a ghost … to … to do what exactly?"
Yakumo locked eyes with him, his hand covering the bottom half of his face. "Most likely to get revenge on me for what I did to her."
"What does this have to do with Haruka-chan, though?" Gotou asked, still perplexed. He failed to find a link between Yakumo's story and Haruka's disappearance.
Yakumo's eyes hardened. "I don't know," he answered through grit teeth. He, too, couldn't figure out what Aiko could possibly want with Haruka, which deeply bothered him. Yakumo suddenly thought of the spot of blood on her carpet and he winced.
Two solid taps resounded on the door and Ishii strode in, harboring a grim look. "Detective Gotou-san, I found something that involves Haruka-chan." Ishii sauntered clumsily over toward the television and placed a VCR tape in the outdated player and pressed play. Yakumo and Gotou sat up as the tape began rolling.
It was more surveillance footage, but this one was taped just hours earlier on that very day. The street the camera had been placed on was obviously regularly busy and congested with foot traffic. Yakumo's eyes narrowed as a young woman stepped out of the crowd of people and began to write on the brick wall with her fingers. Not one person seemed to take notice of her, which was definitely odd. The girl stepped away, revealing what she had written. Gotou gasped.
Haruka's name. Written in blood. Just like Yakumo's had been.
The girl turned and faced the camera, seeming to look right back at Yakumo. It was Kuroyuki Toshi, or rather, Aiko, who had possession of her. She smiled mischievously just before she vanished within the hoard of walking people. Seconds later, he spotted Haruka walking with a friend and nearly lost his composure. The girl's noticed that wall and Yakumo closed his eyes, unable to watch anymore. He suddenly realized that that was what Haruka's first call had been about; that had been what had spooked her. If only he had answered the phone…
Just then, something clicked in place in his mind. He suddenly realized exactly what Aiko was up to with Haruka.
"She's doing this to get my attention," Yakumo said at last pulling his hand away from his face. "She wants me to feel everything she felt when I deserted her. And she's using Haruka to get that out of me."
-x
A/N: So it seems as if the anime has ended with episode 13 and it looks highly unlikely (unfortunately) that there will be a second season. It had a dramatic albeit sad ending, but I thoroughly enjoyed the series, which hasn't happened to me in a long while. With the ending of this chapter marks the halfway point of my story and I hope you're enjoying it so far :)
As always, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please post a review letting me know what you think.
P.S., at the end of every story I write is a FAQ page, so please gather some questions you want to ask me about this story! You can leave them in a review or PM me and I will answer it on the FAQ page!
~Moon
-x
