Chapter 12

March

Day 2

The next day, I woke feeling pretty tired. After seeing that spirit by the operation rooms, I sort of had a nightmare about it. It freaked me out, so I didn't get much sleep. But that wasn't going to stop me from being excited about this case. I couldn't wait to get to school to talk to Moriko, Natsuki, Hata-senpai, and Sakaguchi-senpai. I wanted to get as much information out of them as I can. Hopefully they will agree to go see Naru today after school. I had my breakfast and got my things ready for work so I didn't have to get them together in a quick fashion when I got home later. I'm pretty sure I'd forget something important. I grabbed my school bag and after locking my front door, Mai is coming down the stairs. "Good morning, Aki!" She greeted me.

"Good morning, Mai! Are you ready for today's mission?" She giggled.

"I'm psyched up for it actually. You look like you didn't get much sleep last night." I ended up telling her about the nightmare. "That's terrible. You should've called me."

"Then neither of us would've gotten any sleep and it won't be good if we're both half asleep trying to talk to Moriko, Natsuki, Hata-senpai, and Sakaguchi-senpai." I said rolling my eyes. She rolled her eyes at me.

"Yeah, but I would still like you to call me and tell me stuff like this. We're friends, remember?" I sighed.

"I haven't forgotten that we're friends. It's just I haven't had much of an experience with friends before, but I'm better now than I was before. You've got to admit that." I said the last part smiling. She smiled back.

"Yeah," We walked the rest of the way to school in silence. We were both okay with that, since it was still pretty early. We stopped by the Star Café to get some coffee on the way. That'll wake me up in no time. I thought grinning. Honestly I could've slept more since I've been pulling some all-nighters recently, but I had an important mission today. It was crucial that I get every bit of information that I can from these witnesses. I would like to find out what is keeping those spirits from leaving that hospital and more importantly keeping them from passing over, but in order for me to do that I have to go into those operation rooms. I really don't want to, but it has to be done, otherwise I'll go crazy if I don't find out. Now that I'm more awake, I'm ready to talk to Moriko and Natsuki. I figure it'd be much easier to talk to them first since we're all in the same homeroom. "Are we going to talk to Moriko-san and Natsuki-san first?" Mai asked as we walked into the school.

"That's the plan. I figured it'd be easier to talk to them first. Then we can talk to Hata-senpai and Sakaguchi-senpai at lunch maybe. I'm sure we could ask Aiko what class her brother is in and I bet Sakaguchi-senpai is in the same class as him." Mai nodded.

"Mai, Aki, good morning!" We looked up and saw Keiko and Michiru. I grinned.

"Good morning, Keiko and Michiru!"

"You look like you're in a good mood this morning." Keiko said grinning.

"Am I ever in a bad mood in the morning?"

Michiru giggled and said, "Well you're not much of morning person, are you?" I stuck my tongue out at her.

"Hey, just because I'm not a morning person, it doesn't mean I'm always in a bad mood in the morning."

"Still, we can tell you're excited about something, so tell us already!" Keiko said grinning.

"Well, we're investigating that abandoned hospital where those people have gone missing." Mai said smiling. Michiru gasped.

"Didn't Akemi-chan go missing in there?" She asked wide-eyed. I nodded.

"We're going to talk to Moriko and Natsuki when we get to homeroom." I said adjusting my bag. For some reason it seemed heavier than usual. I checked it just in case, but there wasn't anything in there that wasn't supposed to be in there. Huh, that's so weird. Maybe it's because I'm just really tired today. "Wait, how do you know her? She goes to a different school."

"Well, Mori-chan and Natsu-chan have been keeping to themselves since it happened." Keiko said looking worried. 'Mori-chan'? 'Natsu-chan'? "I grew up with Mori-chan and Natsu-chan. We're not exactly friends anymore, but we used to be really close. When they met Akemi-chan, well they sort of just pushed me aside. I don't mind though because I have Mai, Michiru, and you, Aki." Keiko explained when I looked at her confused. I nodded.

"So would you say they're usually really talkative, but since Akemi went missing, they've closed themselves off from everyone?"

"Right," Keiko said nodding. I nodded. I just wanted to figure out what kind of people these two girls are.

"How do those two know Hirota-san?" I was so curious.

"I think they met her at the mall. Mori-chan said that the three of them got along really well. They were planning on going to see Akemi-chan's kendo match next weekend." Keiko said frowning. I nodded.

"Okay, thanks."

"How do you know she went to a different school?" Michiru asked curiously.

"One of my co-worker's twin brother and sister go to her school." I said shrugging. I should get a hold of Ryuu and ask him about Hirota-san. "My co-worker told me about it yesterday morning."

"Oh, that explains that." Michiru said grinning. I stuck my tongue out at her. Once inside the classroom, Mai and I headed over to Moriko and Natsuki's desks.

"Good morning," Mai greeted them. The two stopped talking and looked up at us confused.

"Good morning," Natsuki greeted back.

"We have a few questions for you concerning Hirota-san." I said smiling apologetically at them. I really felt bad for them having to go through this again. The two frowned.

"Do we have to talk about it in here?" Moriko asked looking around at the other students in the class. I shook my head.

"No, we can go talk on the roof it will make you feel better." I said smiling at her. She and Natsuki shared a look before nodding. All four of us headed to the roof and once we were sure we were alone, Mai and I started asking questions.

"Will you please tell us what happened that night?" Mai started. Natsuki nodded.

"We were having a sleep over at my house. We decided to play truth or dare and I dared Akemi-chan to stay for an hour in that abandoned hospital by herself." She sniffled. "I didn't know she was going to disappear."

"It's okay, it's not anyone's fault." I said sympathetically.

"We stayed at the doors for the whole hour, just waiting for her to come out. Akemi-chan wasn't happy about the dare, but we heard her saying that it would be a piece of cake and other things like that." Moriko said sniffling too. "When she didn't come out, we got worried and went inside to look for her. But we never found her. We were too scared to go any deeper into the hospital than the entrance. So we went straight to the police, hoping they'd find her."

"Did you hear any unusual sounds or voices in there?" Mai asked curiously. The two looked thoughtful for a moment.

"I thought I heard some footsteps following us around until we left." Natsuki said shuddering. "Mori-chan didn't hear them though, because I asked her if she did and she said she didn't."

"I heard a scream from the back of the hospital, but it wasn't Akemi-chan. It freaked me out and that's when we ran out of there." Moriko said frowning. That must have been the spirit in the operation rooms. I shuddered, thinking about the nightmare. "The next day, we called Akemi-chan's cell phone and she didn't answer and we also called her house. Her parents said they hadn't seen or heard from her."

"Why are you asking us about Akemi-chan?" Natsuki asked, frowning too.

"We're with Shibuya Psychic Research and we were asked to look into this." Mai said smiling.

"Oh," Natsuki said rubbing her arms nervously.

"Also, if it's okay with you two, our boss would like to talk to you two about this after school. Do you mind coming with me?" Mai asked them. She looked like she was inwardly cringing as she said that. I don't blame her. I would cringe too. The girls shared a look before nodding.

"Yeah, you want us to come with you today?" Moriko asked curiously.

"Yes, please."

"Okay, we'll meet you by the school entrance then." Then the four of us headed to class before we were late. I have a bad feeling that we won't find any of the people who went missing in the hospital. I wonder if there are any kidnappings connected to the hospital. Maybe whatever is keeping those spirits trapped is a spirit who died there keeping someone hostage or something and that spirit still thinks it's alive. Or maybe it's also stuck in an endless loop? That would be difficult. We'd need Masako to try and convince it to move on. It might make her nauseas if she gets too close to it, though. I feel like if any of us go in there, we're just going to open a can of worms that is better to be left alone. But it's our job to get to the bottom of this. Lunch time came quicker than I thought it would, so we went to Aiko and asked her which class her brother was in.

"Why?" She asked confused. After explaining to her what we were doing, she nodded and said, "He's in class 2-C."

"Thank you, Aiko-san." Mai said smiling. She nodded once again and we left her to her lunch. We went to class 2-C and found Hata-senpai and Sakaguchi-senpai sitting at a desk and eating lunch.

"Hata-senpai, may we talk to you and Sakaguchi-senpai?" I called out, since Mai was too embarrassed to do so. They looked at us weirdly before getting up and meeting us outside their classroom.

"What can we do for you?" Hata-senpai asked us.

"We work with Shibuya Psychic Research and we're investigating that abandoned hospital. Do you mind telling us what happened the night Kinoshita-senpai went missing?" I asked hoping they would.

"Sure, but can we talk about it somewhere else?" Sakaguchi-san answered, smiling sheepishly.

"Of course," Mai said smiling. I guess it makes sense that they're not comfortable with talking about this out in the open. We ended up going back to the roof.

"Sorry, we're not really comfortable with talking about some of the things we heard while we were at the abandoned hospital." Hata-senpai said shrugging.

"Understandable. Now please tell us what happened." I said getting a little impatient. For some reason I didn't have a good feeling about them. Yes, one of them is a brother to our classmate, but that didn't mean anything.

"Well, we dared him to stay the night and left as soon as he shut the door. When he didn't come to school the next day, we called the police." Sakaguchi-senpai said shrugging.

"And did you hear anything out of the ordinary before you left?" I asked, feeling like we were just wasting our time.

"No. Now, then," Hata-senpai said before he and Sakaguchi-senpai tried to pin us against the wall. I say tried because I elbowed Hata-senpai in the stomach and quickly kicked Sakaguchi-senpai where the sun doesn't shine. I wrote down the address to SPR and threw it at them.

"Be at the address after school and seriously, don't try that again." I said glaring at them. They just groaned and rolled over. I rolled my eyes and grabbed Mai's hand and dragged her back to our classroom. "Are you okay Mai?"

"Y-yeah, that was scary. How'd you do that?" She answered, looking a little shaken up.

"Do what?"

"You elbowing and kicking them." I grinned.

"Well, before my brother went all psycho on me, he taught me a few self defense moves. They turned out to be pretty useful."

"Do you think we should tell Naru what Hata-senpai and Sakaguchi-senpai tried to do us?" Mai asked thoughtfully. I shrugged.

"You can, but I doubt those two will be alive by the end of Naru's questioning." She giggled.

"I don't think that will be a problem." I laughed.

"I'm a bad influence on you, I swear." I said shaking my head. She just shrugged.

"I'm okay with that." This is why she's one of my best friends, seriously.