A Tale of Two Brothers
IMPORTANT! Read this! DL, DR!
Pairings: NaruMai. My one and only Ghost Hunt OTP.
Genres: Supernatural & Romance
Disclaimer: I will never own Ghost Hunt, 'kay? All rights reserved by all concerned parties.
File 3:
Doppelgängers
"I missed you…" Eugene Davis was saying, his voice every bit as melodious as Naru's. I wondered why I didn't notice that when he telephoned the office that Monday. Then I answered my own question by reasoning out that somehow, telephones are not really the most perfect conductors of the human voice. "Noll."
"What are you doing here." Naru's eyes are as hard as steel as he spoke in good Japanese. It wasn't anything like a question. More like a demand.
"I don't even need a reason to come see you, you know," Eugene Davis said with a slight pout that made all of the three females in the room blush. Ah! His Japanese is also good. "You're still such an insufferably cold idiot…"
I slumped. If he already thought that the impossibly smart Naru was an idiot, what would he think of us? Let me refrain from answering yonder question.
"But you know what?" Eugene walked over and engaged his rigid yet still unyielding twin into an embrace. "You're an idiot, and I still want to get stuck with you. So I guess that makes the two of us stupider than necessary."
Naru smirked at Eugene's shoulder. "You aren't supposed to let me join the club, you know. I'm better than that." I glared at him. Such a narcissist to the end…
"Very charmingly said," the other replied dryly, letting go of him.
"Why, thank you," Naru said sarcastically. I was wondering if sarcasm runs in their family, when I suddenly noticed that Eugene Davis was looking at me with amusement, his dark blue eyes looking like warm tropical seawater in contrast to Naru's icy azure ones.
Bou-san coughed. "Er, excuse me, but—"
"Eugene Davis!" Mori-san, who we had forgotten for a while since Eugene Davis's entry had eclipsed her own enigmatic arrival, had suddenly screeched, which made us all cringe. I noticed with amusement that Eugene had swiftly stepped behind his twin, his soulful eyes wary. "What was this all about, acting without your superiors' permission? You could've gotten yourself lost here!"
"But I didn't!" Eugene said earnestly, his face so identical yet so different from Naru's because of that natural smile that I had to pinch my arm instinctively to see if I wasn't dreaming one of those dreams again. It hurt a lot, so I immediately concluded that I was, unfortunately, awake.
"Then explain yourself!"
Eugene Davis put a hand on his forehead wearily. "All right, it was my fault, but I called Luella and Martin right after I got out of the plane, and I also called Professor Jansen on the way to Shibuya. So I'm, uh, solved! I guess."
"That does not cut it, young man!" Mori-san put her hands on her hips and assumed a stern look, which I recognized as the look that she had only used on Naru when she had first introduced herself to us. How… nostalgic. "Really, you two! You keep on going your own ways as if nobody's going to get worried over you!"
"Ah! So not true!" Eugene burst out in English. I think he forgets everything whenever he gets agitated, huh? "I meant," he continued in Japanese, his brow slightly crinkling in thought, "that we're not. It's just—"
The door opened again for the third time, and a slim woman of about twenty-five years of age stepped in through the doorway of the office of Shibuya Psy—I meant, SPR. She was pretty and very tasteful in her choice of clothing, her soft features accentuated with the color of her clothes. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail and secured with a silver clasp.
"Um… Is this a bad time?" she asked softly, apparently referring to Mori-san, who was still in her intimidating posture. With a squeak, Mori-san had Eugene pull her away to a corner and bade her to stay silent. Meekly, since the newcomer was apparently a client, she obeyed.
"May I speak with the director?" the client added, a faint look of amusement gliding over her youthful eyes before fading out again and giving way to her natural seriousness.
"Yes. I am Shibuya Kazuya, the president of SPR. What can we help you with?" Naru immediately put in, smoothly occupying his customary seat. I was accustomed to see clients look a bit surprised whenever seventeen-year-old Naru introduces himself as "the president of SPR", but to my wonder, the client didn't even look twice as I offered her a seat on one of the two sofas around the coffee table. When I served her some tea, she smiled her thanks at me quite graciously and sipped a little before speaking.
"Well, I have a case that I would like you to look into," she began self-consciously, perhaps abashed at the pairs of eyes looking at her around the table. "First, here is my name card." She produced a card holder from her purse and slipped out one of the cards inside before sliding it on the table towards Naru. He examined it minutely, before slipping it inside the black notebook that he was holding.
"So you are…"
"My name is Satō Asami," our client said. "I teach piano music in Maebashi as a profession, but I'm also a volunteer worker in an orphanage in Takasaki."
"I see. From Gunma Prefecture, then? So, Satō-san, what seems to be the problem, to cause you to go to Tokyo just to get our help?" Naru asked with a calm, clinical tone, a pen immediately slid out of the breast pocket of his coat and its tip pressed against paper as he prepared to take down anything of interest.
"Well, actually I've been sent here by the administration of the orphanage in which I am working part-time. There has been many disturbing events there, and it would surely give the children and I some peace of mind if all of those are fully explained and expelled from the place."
"Disturbing events? Such as?"
"Well, five boys had already reported sightings of a ghost in the first-floor boys' lavatory," Asami-san said, looking as if she was expecting us to laugh at her story. "There has also been sightings of different ghosts, one each in the playroom and also in the dinner hall. The maintenance staff has also told me that an eerie piano music would play whenever the grandfather clock in the library strikes four in the early morning. I'm sure that all of them are pretty shaken-up by now because of the happenings, but it's only now that they've decided to take the case to a specialist. Clearly, these events are not to be taken lightly since just last week, a boy has been possessed by what the children had claimed was the lavatory ghost. I was there when it happened…" Her voice cracked, and she took another sip of her tea to divert herself.
"I see," Naru said yet again, his pen moving in rapid strokes over the paper and producing notes in neatly written characters.
"Oh, so you're accepting the case already, Naru-chan?" Bou-san said with a grin.
"Well, I'm still undecided," Naru frowned. "Are there any more prices of information that you may have overlooked, Satō-san?"
"Er, I don't think that it's terribly necessary to add this, but at the orphanage, there was also a pair of twin kids who were claiming to have communicated with the ghost in the playroom, but I'm not sure if they are to be believed or if they are just looking for ways to steal some of the attention while these phenomena are going on," Asami-san said with a worried tone. "But if you can, I would like you to also examine them. If their stories are true, they might have information that we do not have. You won't lose anything by asking them. They are both very bright, and are very mature for their ages…"
Naru glanced up at Asami-san, a faint glimmer of surprise in his eyes that was quickly snuffed out. "Very well, this certainly catches my attention. I think I shall accept your case. When can we get started, Satō-san?"
"Ah, maybe this Saturday would be preferable," Asami-san said with a grateful look that would have smitten any man's heart except for Naru's. She hastily took out a notebook and scribbled something on it before tearing out the page and handing it to Naru. "I've written the address of the orphanage, and also their telephone numbers just in case." She rose from the seat. "I have to go. Thank you for your time, Shibuya-san."
She finally went out, the door closing behind her with a gentle shutting sound.
"Hum," Eugene remarked from the corner with a frown. "Certainly, this case poses some unusual elements right from the start."
"The client herself is an interesting study, don't you think?" Mori-san said, looking thoughtful.
"Yup," Bou-san agreed solemnly.
Naru stood up and put the pen back in his pocket.
"Well, that's finally over." He glanced at Eugene and pointed at the door that led to his private office. "However, Gene, you and I are going to talk. You have committed a grave violation of company policies by acting without your immediate superior's permission. Madoka, you too. Come."
Gene. Naru called him Gene.
April, Saturday afternoon. 12:11 pm.
We had decided to go to Gunma after lunch, since Ayako had insisted upon coming over with us in the car, and and her Saturday shift at the hospital ends at one. So when I arrived at the office after a filling lunch that consisted of a lot of fish and various pickled vegetables, I hadn't expected myself to see someone already there.
However, the sight that greeted me was that of Eugene Davis curled up like a black cat on the sofa, his shoulders gently rising and falling as he slept soundly. I was so surprised at the sight that I accidentally knocked the coat stand over when I went over to hang my bag. The crash immediately woke him up, his body involuntarily jolting upright at the noise. My face was screwed up with fear as I waited for Naru to come flying out of the office and tell me off with his sharp tongue, but another surprise—no one did.
Eugene was blinking at me, his blue eyes still disoriented with dreams as he shrugged off the black coat that was draped over him and flinging it carelessly over the back of the seat.
"Oh…?" He frowned at the coat that he hadn't realized he had taken off, and looked at me. His head was cocked to the side like a curious pigeon. "This isn't mine…"
"Maybe Naru put it over you?" I suggested awkwardly, going to the kitchenette to prepare some—
"Um, can we please have some… coffee?" he said with a really hopeful look that made me suddenly want to hide in the cupboard and blush like crazy. "I—I—am still… so…" He hid a yawn by burying his face in the black coat, making me smile and immediately regretting it when he looked up with a mischievous grin and saw me.
"Of course. Luckily, Bou-san also drinks coffee, so I keep some here," I said casually, turning away in the pretext of pulling out some from the cupboard. I set to boil some water in the well-used steel kettle while I felt Eugene curiously watching me move about. I do have my own fair share of ESP powers, so maybe that enhanced my natural senses too.
"It smells nice," he said cheerfully as I finally set down a mug of the fresh, steaming black beverage in front of him on the coffee table. He picked it up and seemingly stared into its depths before taking a tentative sip.
"I guess so," I replied.
"Well," he made an impressed face, "thanks?"
"Why the question mark?" I said with a sigh, and sat on the couch.
"…I'm not quite sure what to tell you, so it came out like that."
"Huh…"
We looked at each other, then I turned awkwardly away. His cheerful face was just… too startling to look at. Naru hardly makes faces like that. In fact, he hardly does make any kind of face other than the smoothly arrogant one.
"What is Naru really doing here?"
The question had come unbidden from my lips, surprising us both. He was staring at me with rounded eyes, his long eyelashes casting little shadows below his eyes because of the light overhead. Just like Naru's, I guess.
"Well, Oliver went to Japan for a mission given to him by the Society for Psychical Research," he finally answered, a thoughtful look on his face. "His objective was to study about the view of the Japanese on the paranormal. Strategically, he decided to build this office in the very center of downtown Tokyo, amid many hundreds of people. I think he's done a marvelous job of collecting sufficient data."
"Maybe that's why he turns down cases way too often?" I asked, watching him pensively as he took another sip of his coffee.
"I guess so," he agreed, genially.
"But wasn't it strange for SPR to send the famous Oliver Davis to Japan just to gather data for a thesis?" I mused.
Eugene smiled widely. "I'm glad you've seen that one. I do think that he's just suggested this task to use it in the pretext of an investigation to accomplish another, more personal objective, though."
"And what's that…?"
"Has Oliver never told you?" he wondered. "We're British citizens only because we've been adopted by Martin and Luella, who are both British. But we are also technically American because we were born in the States. And at least three-quarters of our blood is Japanese by ethnicity. Our mother was pure Japanese, our father half-and-half. He was half-American, half-Japanese. We inherited his eyes, see?" And he smiled, his dark blue eyes brightening.
"You're really Japanese?"
"At least three-quarters of our blood," he repeated, enthusiastically.
"That's… uh…"
"Unbelievable, right?" He laughed.
"Yeah…" I remarked uneasily. "But what of his true purpose here?"
"Well…" Eugene sighed. "Our parents were killed when we were still kids, so I guess that did motivate him to go back to his motherland and go search for his roots. Right? I mean, it was kind of unsettling to think that you've got no one but your annoying twin to call as your own blood relative…" His voice trailed away self-consciously. "So, um, yeah…"
I quickly changed the topic. "Um, about Naru… was he really that, you know… proud? Or was he somewhat different when you were younger?"
"I'm sorry to say that Oliver has always been cynical and proud even before our biological parents' deaths, although their demise did had a lot to do about his present attitude," Gene said with a sigh. "He's now as stubborn as ten mules, yet equally determined to prove himself worthy of the title as the youngest senior parapsychologist in SPR."
"And you…?"
"Ah!" Gene leaned back and smiled at me. "I just snuck off and went here all by myself. That's why my mum and Madoka were so pissed. And Prof Jansen too, although I've taken care of him already by telling him that I've come to check on Oliver and that I'm really, truly sorry to have not gotten his permission but that I'm not going to do it again."
That's a looooooong sentence.
"I can try to get my mum's permission, yeah yeah yeah," Gene continued with a sarcastic undertone, "but still, I knew that Luella won't accept that I'm leaving for abroad, not unless I'm already gone. 'Cause that's just Luella Davis for you."
I scowled. "You're always one step ahead, aren't you?"
"Not always," he replied, and we shared a smile. I'm afraid I'm getting quite comfortable talking with him. Why not Naru? I've known him for far longer. "Anyways, why do you guys call him Naru? I mean, Noll told me that you didn't even know his true nickname and stuff when you started calling him that…"
"Ah, Naru is short for narcissist," I said with a quick blush, and he laughed. Such a carefree guy!
"Well, when I first heard you guys call him 'Naru-chan', I was like 'what?' and stuff…" Gene snickered uncontrollably, the hand holding the coffee mug trembling, and I immediately concluded that I shouldn't have made him that coffee. It apparently drives him nuts. Hyperactive nuts.
The door suddenly opened, and Bou-san came marching in with the case of his bass guitar slung on his back.
"Oh, when the cat is away, the mice will play, huh?" He smirked, making me blush deeper.
"Bou-san!" I protested indignantly. He ignored me and sat beside Gene, glancing at the coffee mug resting comfortably between Gene's pale hands.
"So you're more of a coffee person?" he asked curiously, nodding at the mug. "I shoulda figured. Twins are usually polar opposites."
"I wouldn't want to call us exact polar opposites, though," Gene said cheerfully, and he would have raised and splashed his mug about if he hadn't remembered the coffee inside. "We mostly agree on many things, and we rarely get into serious fights..."
"I see," Bou-san said with a delighted smirk. I think he's rather refreshed by this mirror image of Naru. "Quite proud of the fact, aren't we?"
"Isn't that a bass?" Gene asked enthusiastically, eyes automatically fastening on the guitar case that Bou-san had set against the wall. "You can play?"
"Well, there's no point in carrying it around if I can't," Bou-san told him jokingly.
"That's what I said!" Gene said with a deceptive wide-eyed look, making me laugh.
Moments later, Naru and Lin-san walked in to find the three of us talking quite animatedly. I was finding Gene's weird mannerisms and gestures oddly endearing.
"Oh, Noll!" Gene had looked up at the door in the exact moment that Naru had opened it, almost as if they sensed each other's presence. Naru let out an annoyed sigh, while Lin-san watched us with a queer expression of quiet surprise seldom seen on his face.
"Gene, about the case," Naru began, making us all go on alert. "We will be going with an original complement of six, including me, Lin, Bou-san, Matsuzaki-san, Mai, and you. I have briefed you about their jobs in every case, so I think you can see which of them will be useful to your work in the investigation."
"All right," Gene nodded. "I think the arrangements just fine."
"However, we have to give you a new name first," Naru mused. "It wouldn't look good to use your foreign name in a case."
"I agree, but what?"
Naru stared at Gene for a while as if searching for inspiration, then caught sight of the door, wherein 'Shibuya Psychic Research' was written in inverted script on this side of the wall. His eyes brightened.
"I think I know what."
"Hm?"
"Kazuo. Shibuya Kazuo."
"It sounds nice with 'Kazuya', seeing as you two are twins," Bou-san agreed. "And weirdly fitting too. Didn't you say that Gene is your elder brother?"
"What about it?" I asked.
"Well, 'Kazuo' means 'first-born son'."
And yeah, from that day on, we shall call Eugene Davis by his alias. Shibuya Kazuo, associate director of Shibuya Psychic Research, is now part of the team!
A/N:
Wah! Good grief!
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