A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.
Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai
Pairing: NaruxMai
Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.
Disclaimer: Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.
Author's Notes: Fifth attempt at part 3… this is the best I could do already, so… just live with it eh. Can't do any better at this already.
Reply to Hikari Reizumi: Thanks for the review and the correction of the errors I made in there. I think the only names I keep on messing up is Ayako's. However, Mitsuzaki seems a little weird to me according to my knowledge of Chinese – Japanese translation of names. So I did a search on the web, and the internet listed the name of Ayako as Matsuzaki Ayako …I hereby decided to follow what the wiki-pedia listed. Thank you for Yasuhara's name too
Either way, a big big thank you for your review – it brighten up my day, really I'm glad you enjoy the fic so far, aside from my structuring errors and all… I hope this chapter is alright too.
Chapter 7 - Haunting at the Yukai Karaoke Suite 3
Mai was slowly sipping on her cup of lukewarm tea which Naru handed her after her recount of that particular traumatic dream of a 'rape' when the door to the base creaked open. Snapping immediate eyes towards the incomer, Mai was genuinely relieved to find the solemn Chinese man instead of the other members' of the SPR entering the room.
In particularly, Mai do not wish to have the monk and the self-claimed priestess finding her at this point of time. They would, no doubt, be kicking up a fuss when they see her puffy red eyes and then jump straight into the conclusion of blaming her current emotional distress on Naru.
Koujo Lin took in the sight of Mai's slightly puffy eyes from crying, and then slowly shifted his gaze to his 'ward' – Naru.
"She has a dream, that's all." Naru said, matter-of-factly.
"I see…" Lin responded.
"Lin, don't bother with the laptop. I've already gotten the information down from her recount just now, before you returned." Naru said.
Mai, having calmed down significantly from her recount of the dream plastered a smile back on her face as she made a move towards the table where the thermo flask was. Knowing that she has a tea-addict boss who cannot survive a day without the daily dosage of tea, upon receiving information about the water tasting weird on their case site – Mai had taken on the approach to boil water and make tea in the office on daily basis. Storing them in the thermo flask container, and bringing it over for Naru's consumption.
A quick glance at the time reflected on the laptop of Lin informed Mai that it was nearly time for dinner, and Mai decided to bring the thermo flask back to the office for a refill of tea as well as getting them dinner on the way.
"Taniyama-san…?" Lin started, when he noticed the brunette making a move to leave the base room with the bag containing the thermo flask that was running low on tea supply.
"I'm heading back to the office to get a refill of the tea; I might as well get us dinner on the way back. Was there anything that you would like to get for dinner, or I could pick on random whims?" Mai asked.
"There are a total of seven of us here, are you sure you can handle it all alone?" Naru eyed his clumsy assistant with skepticism, and ended up receiving a glare in return from the brunette.
"Exactly, there are only seven of us… I am quite certain I could handle both the tea and dinner sets for everyone even if I go out there alone with no helpers." Mai throws back sharply, her insecurity of passing through the hallways of the karaoke suite totally forgotten as she stalked out of the base without a backward glance.
"…" Naru stared at the now closed door of the base room, and shifted his eyes promptly to his other assistant.
"Lin…" Naru started; there was no need for him to finish that sentence because the Chinese man was already making a move to follow Mai down the hallway after receiving that 'look' from him.
Koujo Lin really had to hand it in to Naru; that boy really had no common sense in him. It has been eighteen months since they first started working with the brunette, and yet Naru's attitude towards Taniyama Mai still had not changed in the slightest bit. On the other hand, Taniyama Mai was another matter entirely.
Before Naru met Mai, he was empty without emotions. One could jolly well says that he was feeling lost without his twin's presence by his side. The first time Lin had seen any form of emotion in Naru was during their first case at Mai's high school, the look of surprise that flashes in the boy's eyes when the brunette commented on his smile being fake and followed by the decision to name him 'Naru the Narcissist' that brought a slight curl to his lips. Granted, it was due to Naru's musing over the irony of the situation that brought on the 'smile' or sort… it was still his first display of emotion since his twin' demise.
As time goes by, Lin could see that Naru had taken on to the idea to care for the brunette in a very special way. However, he knew Naru would definitely denied having any sort of feelings towards the brunette at this point of time – because they are only here in Japan on a particular quest. That is, to locate the missing body of Naru's twin and once they managed to find the body; they would have to leave Japan then.
Initially, Naru was quite focused on the quest but recently Lin noticed that the teen was focusing more on the cases than on their quest to search for Eugene's body. While Naru had claimed that he took up the cases to prevent being nagged by Taniyama, Lin wonders how true could that be.
"Taniyama-san…please waits up." Lin called out to the brunette, as he hurried to catch up with the girl.
"Lin-san…you are going to come along with me?" Mai blinked in surprise, she was half-expecting to see the monk or John catching up to her pace but definitely not the Chinese man.
"Naru just told me to pick up some documents from the office, so I figured I might as well come along with you." The Chinese man said, while Mai snorted inwardly knowing for a fact that Lin was lying through his teeth.
This case was a new one, and if her memory served her correctly. Naru haven't even started on the research work for this case yet. The SPR in Japan has only been around for one and a half years, and she has been there with them since their first case. There have been no similar cases prior to this, so there would be no archives records of case which they can get a referencing to. Where on earth could Lin retrieve those documents that are practically non-existent as of current? However, she decided to leave things be. Whether or not was Lin acting on Naru's orders matters not, what matters was that the members of the SPR do cares about her well-being and that is good enough for her now.
"Naru-bou, where's Mai?" Takigawa Houshou, the monk who had been going around the shopping centre to chat with other stores owner at other level came back from his trip to find his favorite brunette missing from sight asked.
"She went back to the office with Lin to get more tea, and also to get us dinner." Naru replied flatly, and promptly start grilling the monk for information.
"So what did you find out from the other stores owner?" Naru prompted.
"The store-owners on level three claimed that the flooding of the toilets were kind of common down here, especially over the recent twenty years or so. Apparently, the public toilets on other floors of this shopping centre also had mini-flood every now and then. I had double-checked with the janitors and they say every morning they have to do a major clean-up in the toilets. Somehow, during the night water would gushes out mysteriously flooding the place. At times, when it was severe – the corridor pathways for patrons to walk would also be affected."
"Owners of the level two stores says the same thing too, maybe the flooding problem isn't only limited to karaoke suite but the whole building in general." Matsuzaki Ayako, who was in charge of interviewing the level two shop owners, came in with more or less the same results.
"Shibuya-san, according to the store vendors on the ground floor…they says that business owners on the fourth floor always suffered the most loss. Most of them folded up the business within the period of two to three years due to tremendous loss. Apparently the Yukai Karaoke is the seventh businesses that set up their branch on level four of this shopping centre and most of the other stores-owners are keeping check on how long it will last down here." John Brown, the priest of Australian descent piped up then sharing his own share of information collected.
"What about the molesting and sexual assault issue? Did anyone else suffered from that phenomenon?" Naru questioned, looking at the trio.
The self-claimed priestess, monk and exorcist shared a common look between them before shaking their heads in unison and said. "No, the possessing phenomenon that led to the sexual assault of females has only taken place in here thus far. No one else had experienced that in this shopping centre."
Naru mulled over the information received from the trio for a moment of time, before he note down something in his black note book.
"Hara-san, did you managed to get anything from the spirits?" Naru voiced his doubts across to the kimono clad medium then.
"No…I can't get any decent emotions or words from them. However, I did sense a male spirit lingering in the western part of this karaoke suite. Something about him seems to be 'off', I wouldn't want to have anything to do with him at all." Hara Masako responded.
"I see…and what about the spirit responsible for the flooding, are you able to distinguish anything about it?" Naru asked.
"Sad to say aside from being able to tell that the spirit is a male, I can't get anything else from that spirit. The presence is too vague and faint for me to judge accurately, but I can't detect anything too malicious from it though. I get the feeling that he was trying to make a point, to get a point across to the public – I think." Hara Masako eventually concluded.
"The spirits were both males, you say?" Mai piped up from the entrance way to the base room, catching everybody's attention.
"Yes, they were both males – why?" The kimono clad medium raised an eyebrow up in question as she regarded the brunette critically.
"Nothing… just that…in my dream, there's a lady present in it. I simply wonder what happened to her, that's all." Mai managed with a tight smile.
"What…? You had a dream, Mai?" Matsuzaki Ayako and the monk both shifted their eyes onto Mai in surprise.
"Well…yes, I have one earlier on." Mai responded meekly.
"Why didn't you let us know?!" Ayako pressed on, frowning at the brunette in concern.
"Anyway, it's nothing – it wasn't a death dream." Mai responded, hoping that Ayako would leaves things be and stop pressing her for details of the dream.
"It wasn't a death dream, are you sure?" Ayako questioned, eyeing Mai critically as though judging if her words could be trusted.
"Yes, Ayako – it wasn't a death dream. I am quite sure of it, don't believe – you can check with Naru." Mai emphasized, flicking her glance over to where that narcissistic boss of hers' sat.
"Fine, I'll take your words for it…this time around." Ayako relented eventually, after losing her 'staring' match with the brunette.
"Jou-chan, where have you been?" The monk hurried over to shower Mai with another big bear hug that has her coughing and choking from the lack of air.
Irritated by the monk's actions, Mai used her elbow and rammed into the monk's stomach hard and successfully freed herself from the suffocating hug. Once she regained freedom, she glared at the monk for a while until the monk apologize for choking her, again before turning away from the man.
"You imbecile fool, I thought I told you more than once that if you cannot control your strength…don't go around hugging her. Are you trying to choke her to death?" Matsuzaki Ayako fumed as she rolls up a magazine she found on the coffee table in the base room and hit the monk on the head with it.
"Well, I apologized already. Didn't I? Some times I just forgot about it, and by the way can you stop hitting me with that? It hurts when being hits consecutively on the same spot, you know?" Takigawa Houshou throws back at the self-claimed priestess as he had taken to address as a hag on more than one occasion as he darted behind John to use the blond as a shield or sort against the infuriating woman.
"Matsuzaki-san, that is quite enough already. Don't you agree?" Lin cut in bringing a stop to the bickering couple antics, before he started to hand out the dinner bento sets to the occupants in the room.
Day 2 – Monday
Monday, being a regular school-day…Mai had been excused from the morning investigation by Naru. She was told only to report to the case site after she went through her routine lessons, since this case wasn't the usual out of town types. According to Lin, it would appear that her chemistry science teacher had ringed up the SPR office days after their last case about her low attendance and grades issue. The teacher had emphasized on the fact that she is a graduating student this year, and would appreciate if she did not missed out too much of her classes within the same month.
That was the ultimate reason behind Mai's current plight of sitting through a boring lecture on chemical reactions. Triple science subjects was Mai's subject combination for this year, suddenly she found herself envying Keiko and Michiru. The other two girls only have to do a combined science subject which happens to be Physics and Chemistry, while she on the other hand was going to do triple pure science subjects.
'Damn…what on earth possessed me to pick such nightmarish subjects combination, anyway? Triple Science, Accounting, History and a combined Humanities subject of Geography and Social Studies. Topping it off together, there is still the core subjects of English, Mother Tongue (Japanese), and Elementary Mathematics…' Mai could not help but wonders.
A total of nine subjects, whereas Michiru and Keiko only needed to do seven of them… no wonder when her subjects combination were first known to the SPR team. Naru had wasted no time in expressing his skepticism on her brain capacity level, while Yasuhara patted her on the shoulders and told her 'good luck' with the choice she made in a tone that half-irritate her to no end.
The calendar on her student's handbook informed her that today's the 10th October, which meant it was term three to the school year already. In another six months or so, she would be required to sit for her year end papers and to decide on her future pathway to take. Up until now she has not been giving her future any consideration, and now as she stared down at the form surveying on their future prospect upon graduation… she felt lost.
Stuffing the form into her clear file holder, Mai packed up swiftly as she ready herself to leave the class for work.
"Taniyama-san please waits up for a moment."
Mai was halfway down the corridor-way that would takes her towards the staircase that led to the school's front foyer when she heard the sound of her homeroom teacher calling out for her. Turning around to face that former so as to not appear rude, Mai waited patiently until the lady teacher caught up with her by the side of the stairs.
"Yes, Yamanaka-sensei…?"
Yamanaka Miyako, a twenty eight year old freshly graduate from the Tokyo University, with a degree in Educational field was a recent addition to Mai's high school. Having been new in the school, she took pride in her work and was genuinely honored to be presented a graduating class as her form class this year.
She had taken the effort to get to know each and every student in her class on a personal scale, and over the past six months she had noted the way Taniyama Mai was often distracted or missing out on lessons. That worries her greatly, because she honestly believed that any students taking graduating examinations should be placing their studies as the top priority in life. She has been meaning to track Taniyama Mai down for a talk over the past month but was always unable to do so. However, today she was not going to let the brunette escaped from her 'talk' again. The discussion has been long over-due for some time now, in her opinion to say.
"Taniyama-san…I believed you and I have a lot to discuss about." Yamanaka Miyako cut straight to her point, eyeing Mai with intent.
"…Sure, let me just give my boss a call to explain the reason behind my delay. Will you?" Mai asked, but without waiting for a response on the teacher's part…she was already pulling her mobile phone out from her skirt pocket and dialing the number of Lin's mobile.
"Lin-san…I'm sorry to say that I will be late for today's work. My homeroom teacher was not going to let me leave without giving me her 'talk', do inform Naru about that – okay? I can't speak any longer; she's giving me looks of annoyance already." Mai said, and with that she hung up.
Over at the investigation site, Naru had just gotten his hands on the sales records of the past previous business owners who had their businesses sets up on level four of this particular shopping centre. Just like what the other business owners on lower floors says, the businesses usually cannot last through the third year. Usually, they wind up the business before the end of the third year due to the high amount of loss incurred during their operation period here. In order to do a more accurate cross referencing check, Naru had dig into the records of businesses conducted here on the fourth floor about thirty years back.
The sales records of the past seven business owners, excluding the current Yukai Karaoke Suite had quite a vast difference in them. Thirty years ago, there was only one business using this level and that is the 'Pesky Night Club'. It was set up in the 1950s and lasted all the way till the year 1989 before it winds up the business. The whole level four was then put up for lease until 1991 whereby a well-known franchise of music school decided to set up their branch here.
They operated here for about eight years, until the year 1998 that they folded up the business and shifted to the Mazuka Mall that was situated down the road. According to the staff who had worked at the branch here during that period of time, they suffered minor mishaps on their music books and scores carried in from abroad.
Somehow the water from the 'flood' would occasionally seeps into the stores wetting new scores that were on the lower shelving of the display cabinet. Otherwise, their instruments on sale here would be damaged by the water, but they chucked it up to the possible leakage of the pipes as it only happened once in a while. They never thought it to be of a haunting effect because they operate on short hours, and only from day time till evening hours.
The second business that operated their business here was from the period 1998 to 2001, it was a giant bookstore supplying textbooks to local schools. Seeing as books were their primary assets to the business, the flooding problem was indeed a very big headache for them to be dealing with. It started minor, the incidents but then it gradually grew to a point that the business owners can no longer stand it. Especially, when they would close the store for the night and comes back in the morning to find half of their books in the storage area wet. The damaged books in store put a huge dent in their profit figures, because it would mean they would have to sell those books away at real cheap price in order to fetch in money from it. Eventually, the owner was so sick of the happening and decided to shift.
The period 2001 to 2004 was empty, as probably nobody wanted to set up business here anymore after hearing the rumors about the piping leakage problem. It was until 2005 that the management of the shopping centre conducted a revamp on the interior of the whole shopping centre that business owner finally came back to set up branches here. The first company that set up business in here on the fourth floor was a gaming centre, but it wind up the business within the same year due to the management license being revoked by local police authorities.
Naru ran a check on the internet regarding the gaming centre and found some information that might be of use to their current case. Within the one year spend of the gaming centre operation here in Shibuya Shopping Centre…there has been over ten cases of teenagers brawling incidents, and two cases of raping issues. The public chucked it up to the work of rowdy and rebellious teenagers, and the two poor girls of the rape cases weren't even sympathize in any manner. Instead, they were being criticize by the public for being 'wild' because of their rebellious streak and if they want to prevent such incidents from happening, the least they could do was to stay home and behave properly instead of staying out late in the streets.
In addition to it all, the owner was found with possession of restricted drugs like the Ecstasy Pills. When consumed, would cause one's adrenaline level to go high and create hallucinations. The police managed to find the 'rapist' in possession of the pills, and simply assumed the rape incidents to be done under influence of the pills.
In 2007, a ladies' fashion boutique set up their business here and lasted until 2008. The reason provided by the owner was that they were unable to breakeven, and leave it as that. Anything else, they refused to reveal but according to the words of a staff employed by the said business then… the daughter of the owner was placed in a mental asylum after they ceased their operation of the business here. The reason behind the girl's mental instability was not revealed.
The fifth and sixth business owners were unreachable, and so Naru did not managed to get any clear information about the reason behind their decision to wind up their branch here. Next, Naru analyzed the sales figures of Yukai Karaoke Suite and noticed that this particular branch had indeed been incurring losses over the past year since their establishment. But it seems that they had quite a fortune behind for support, and so they were not threatening with the danger of folding up anytime soon.
The decision to approach SPR was decided by the manager – Yamamoto Kyousuke, himself. Apparently, he was well-trusted enough by the rightful owner of the business to make arrangements as he deemed fit.
Pinching the sides of his nose bridge wearily, Naru was about to call for tea when he realized Mai was nowhere in sight.
"Lin, where's Mai?"
"She called five minutes ago, and said she was held up by her homeroom teacher for a 'talk'." Lin responded, without shifting his glance away from the monitors.
"Call up Yasuhara, ask him to run a check on the Pesky Night-Club and its' owner. Dig through the records of the old newspaper for anything that happened during the year 1989." Naru instructed, deciding that the entire phenomenon started after the winding up of Pesky Night-Club so whatever that was haunting this place must have had something to do with that clubhouse, in one way or another.
"Also, call Mai and let her know she can have the rest of todays off. I'm calling it a day for today's investigation work, since the rest of them would not be able to come in due to work commitments either." Naru added, before making a move to leave the base.
"Naru, where do you think you are going?" Lin questioned, narrowing his eyes at his ward.
"Nowhere, I'm just going back home for a change of clothes then I will be back to watch the monitors with you for tonight." Naru responded dryly, he knew his 'guardian' must be worrying about the possibility of him running head-on into danger in order to gain useful information. However, the older man seem to have forgotten that he would only do that when he had a clear idea of what was happening, which he don't – at this moment of time.
Date started: 3/2/2013
Date completed: 5/2/2013
P.S: I swear this chapter kills my brain cells… I nearly yanked my hair out while working on this chapter, 5 total attempts in order to get it out.
