One Fine Day:
Chapter 10:
Mai's statement had completely thrown Naru. Either it had been a dream or she had been mistaken. It could have been a lookalike or... Gene. Was it Gene?
His twin had always been fond of feeding ducks in parks at home in England. He himself would simply sit on a bench nearby and pull out a book whilst Gene cooed over the ducks.
That said, it couldn't have been Gene. His brother was back in England and had been the one to get him sent to Japan. If he had wanted to send him to Japan so badly, Gene wouldn't have followed him here. There was no probable motive for Gene to be around.
It couldn't have been Gene.
"Mai, can I talk to you after school?" he hissed in her ear and she accepted.
Bou-san coughed to get their attention.
"Now that you two have stopped whispering in each other's ears, we can get on with it."
Mai flushed in embarrassment and snapped to attention.
"What were you saying, Bou-san?"
"I was talking about returning to the school house on another night to see if any spirits have become accustomed to having human presences around or we could place some monitoring equipment there."
Naru nodded in approval. Takigawa may look the opposite of a typical monk, but he knew some things about ghost hunting. It was fortunate that Lin had brought a good selection of equipment from England with him.
"I have a few cameras and microphones," he said. "I got the idea from Dr. Oliver Davis' book."
"Are they infrared or ultra high sensitive?"
"I have both," Naru answered smugly. The Society for Psychical Research did things properly.
"Excellent, Naru-chan," Bou-san clapped him on the back. "We might solve the mystery sooner than I expected. Matsuzaki-sensei, what do you have to contribute?"
Ayako who had been focused on checking her red painted nails came up with what was a ridiculous suggestion in Naru's opinion.
"The Seven Wonders are clearly the work of an Earthbound spirit."
Naru sighed. He did not see the purpose of adding her to the group if she was going to be like that all the time. On the other hand it was always useful to have a doctor around and he didn't want her to get annoyed at being left out and tell anyone else about the investigation.
"When is everyone else free to go to the school house again?" he asked.
"Shibuya-kun, don't you remember that pile of homework we got in Biology and Maths?" Keiko complained. "It's going to take at least three nights to finish it all."
Naru felt a small amount of pity towards those that weren't as smart as him and couldn't do homework as quickly as he could. He wanted to investigate the school house again as soon as they all could so he offered his help.
"If you like, we can meet after school tomorrow so we can help each other out," he offered. "We can all be free on the following night."
His mother would be proud of him. In his opinion he was becoming more considerate the longer he was in Japan.
"I like that idea," Michiru agreed. "Shibuya-kun is top in everything except from Physical Education so it would be great if he could help us."
Naru inwardly sighed at the Physical Education comment. It wasn't the end of the world that he wasn't the best in the class at Physical Education. Everyone had their one weak subject.
He and Mai stayed behind after everyone else had left.
"Mai, can you describe the circumstances under which you saw someone that looked just like me?" he requested.
Understandably Mai was a little confused. Wasn't it him that she had seen? Or was some trick to make her believe that she hadn't seen him feeding ducks? If so, he really was going to great lengths to hide his kinder side.
"I was on my way home from school after telling you the best place to buy tea. I stopped off at the park to see the ducks and I saw someone that I thought was you feeding the ducks. I saw their face and he looked just like you," she related the story. "When I called your name out, the person ran away. Are you saying that the person wasn't you?"
The fact that Mai had seen the person's face and still thought it was him clinched the matter for Naru. It had to be Gene. The only other person with his rather good looking face was Gene.
"No. It was not me. What was he wearing?"
"Jeans and a red jumper, I think," she scrunched up her face as she cast her mind back.
If Naru recalled correctly his twin did have a red jumper. It had to have been him.
"Ah!" Mai said suddenly. "Of course, it couldn't have been you. Even if you had driven home, changed clothes and driven to the park you still couldn't have been there by the lake when I arrived. I'm sorry for believing it was you."
She bowed her head and Naru couldn't help but smile kindly at her.
"As long as you don't tell anyone else about it, I'll forget that you ever believed I was the type of person to feed ducks."
"Thanks, Naru," she cheered up instantly. "Why did the person run away?"
That was a sensible question. Gene would have had no reason to run away from Mai. He was a sociable person unlike him. Why was Gene even in Japan? Like the Seven Wonders, there were facts that didn't add up. However he could provide a plausible answer that would keep Mai from wondering.
"Mai, you called them a narcissist. They didn't know you so they thought you were strange and ran away to get away from you."
Three days later after a session of homework and snipes from Naru about Mai's intelligence, they were standing outside the school house again waiting for the monk to unlock the padlock. The differences this time were the lack of rain, the presence of Ayako and the equipment they were all carrying.
Naru wished that Lin could have been with him to help him carry the equipment and set up, but it would cause too many questions to be asked. Instead he had arrived early and he and Lin had lifted the equipment out the van and placed it in a pile on the pavement outside the school.
Bou-san opened the door and held the door open for the rest of them to enter. The equipment was dumped in a mass by the door.
"The important things is to set up those powerful lights that Naru-chan brought. It would be great if we could see properly in here," he said.
"We need a base too," Naru reminded him.
The equipment was carried in to the most empty classroom. Mai and her friends helped by dusting the bookshelves along the back where the equipment was going to be kept. Ayako half heartedly joined in just as they were finishing.
"Do we set up the equipment now?" the doctor asked with the most interest she had displayed all evening.
Bou-san waggled his finger at her, clearly enjoying having more knowledge about ghost hunting than her.
"We don't actually know where to place the cameras and microphones so we can't start. We need to guess where the likely epicentre of ghost activity will be."
"We also need to make a floor plan," the narcissist added. "Have you not done anything like this before?"
Ayako glared and retreated into a sulky silence.
"To do this quickly we need to split into pairs and each pair takes a floor," Naru ordered. "I'll go with Mai. You can argue between yourselves for the other pairs. Ideally there should be one adult in each pair."
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Keiko and Michiru play a round of rock, paper, scissors. He understood the purpose when the loser, Keiko paired up with the priestess.
Mai and Naru took the first floor again due to their familiarity with it. The developing psychic wondered why Naru had chosen her. She had started to think that he wasn't as bad as he had appeared on his first day. His genuine smile that she had seen a couple of days ago when she had apologised had been very pleasant to look at.
They started at one end of the floor and counted the number of classrooms on each side of the corridor. Naru came up with a rough drawing once they reached the shoe lockers by the entrance and they continued along the other corridor in the same fashion.
When they reached the science labs Naru debated which one would be the best to place a camera and microphone in. Under ideal conditions with his usual supply of equipment, the answer would be all of them, but the amount of equipment was limited. He would have to make an educated guess or ask someone with psychic abilities. His eyes fell on Mai.
"Mai, which of the science laboratories would have the most spiritual activity?"
Even in the dim light he could see that Mai was giving him a strange look.
"Shouldn't you know that?"
Naru decided to rephrase his question. "Close your eyes, spin around on the spot three times and point randomly."
Mai obliged him and spun around with her eyes closed. Her arm ended up pointing at a lab four doors down. Naru noted it down. If there weren't any results he would just move the camera somewhere else. He definitely knew he was going to put a camera and microphone in the prep room where the bent spoons were.
"We are done here. Let's go back to the base," he said and they returned to the designated classroom together.
The room was empty and Naru assumed that none of the other pairs had finished yet.
"I was going to bring a kettle and make some tea, but there was enough equipment to carry so it can wait until another time," he said after realising he was craving some caffeine.
"Did you get hold of your foreign tea then?" Mai questioned.
Naru had sent Lin into Shibuya to find the shop in question and buy the tea. Lin had complained about being squashed in a train until Naru had made him some tea. Lin liked his English tea as much as he did.
The narcissist was about to answer Mai when he noticed that her eyes had gone wide with fright and were focused on something above him. He looked up and saw something glowingly purple permeating through the ceiling. As he watched, it became clearer that it was a feminine spirit with long hair and threatening red eyes.
He pushed Mai behind him and she gripped his arm tightly in return. He didn't complain about being touched, instead his attention was on the spirit whose body was now visible. He followed the spirit's gaze and observed that it was focused on Mai and not him.
Mai was the target.