A/N: The first new arc differentiating Refraction from WTLE. I'm super excited for this one. It came out super cute and I really rather love it, but hopefully it's not to cheesy for you all. As far as trigger warnings for this arc, you won't see too much action in this chapter, I'll be more specific as it goes, trying to balance between responsible warnings and not ruining the foreshadowing.

Reviews are love-love-love.

Not my sandbox, just my sandcastle.

Case Two: Souls Like Fireflies Part One.

"I'd like to walk with you there to find out whether we look at things the same way."

- Vincent Van Gogh

"Geez, Mai. You didn't have to wear a yukata like the rest of us, but you could have at least dressed up a little." Aoi scrunched up her nose at Mai's denim capris and tshirt.

Mai flushed, looking down at her outfit self consciously. Then she shrugged. "Sorry, guys. I don't own a yukata."

She actually owned a rather lovely kimono that had been a gift one year from Masako, but it was winter weight, far too hot for the muggy July heat.

"Well, couldn't you have rented one for the night or something-"

Shiori bumped her shoulder into Aoi's, probably trying to be discreet as she shot their friend a glare. "It's fine, Mai. You're probably going to be more comfortable than the rest of us anyway. I hate these sandals already." Her smile was warm as she gestured to her geta, but Mai read between the lines nonetheless.

"Stop giving Mai grief about her clothes, you know she doesn't have a lot of money."

Mai could hear the words in her mind, even if Shiori was too well bred to say something like that out loud.

"I think you look great." The boy across from them smiled at her warmly as his two friends sniggered from behind him.

She felt another blush spread across her cheeks as Shiori and Aoi shot her telling looks.

"Hey Ren. I haven't seen you since break started, are you having a good summer vacation?" Mai smiled at her classmate.

"Better now." He said simply, with a confidence that had her eyes widening as her friends giggled behind her.

That was kind of…flirty?

"Uh, yeah. Um, shall we?" She stammered, shooting a glare over her shoulder at the girls.

"Stop it." She mouthed as threateningly as she could while being surrounded by happy families.

"Sure." He smiled easily again, tipping his head towards the entrance to the park.

"Wow, Ren, you're pretty good at that." Mai said, smiling as he handed the yo-yo to the beaming child.

"Thank you so much." Her mother gushed. "I'm awful at these things and her father couldn't make it this year. You've saved me from a lot of tears later."

"No problem. I hope she enjoys it." Ren said, obviously abashed and Mai had to admit, it was kind of cute.

He looked over at her. "Did you want one too?"

She shook her head, "Thanks, but I don't need one. If we're not careful, you'll clear the guy out."

Sure enough, the game vendor was shooting Ren sour looks.

Without looking at the man, Ren made a face at her, crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out. A surprised giggle burst out of her mouth. It was something Yasu would do, and it put her a little more at ease.

"How about a goldfish instead?" He asked, coming to stand next to her. "I saw you looking at them earlier?"

She felt her smile waver a little as her gaze followed to where he was pointing to a stand a little ways down the promenade. A group of kids were gathered around the goldfish scooping game, indulgent parents standing around watching.

One of the few memories she had of her father was of attending a summer festival like this one near her childhood home. Her father had won her a goldfish that she had kept all the way up until her mother's death. The teacher she had stayed with had a cat, so she'd been forced to give it away when she'd left her childhood home.

She frowned suddenly. One of the girls was giggling as she'd reach out, viper quick to flick the scoop of the child currently attempting his luck. The little boy cried out in dismay as the goldfish flopped off of his paddle and back into the water. The girl snickered again with a malicious look on her face, and Mai took a step forward indignantly. Why weren't any of the parents scolding her?

"Mai, are you ok?" Ren asked, touching her arm lightly. She blinked, glancing back at him.

"Yeah, it's just that that kid over there is picking on the others and no one is doing anything about it…"

She gestured back towards the goldfish stall, but to her surprise, the girl was gone. "Huh. I guess one of the parents must have got onto her after all."

"Well, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Everyone looks like they're having fun now." Ren said with a grin.

Yeah, I guess…" May said, pushing away her feeling of unease.

"Are you hungry?"

"I could eat."

"How can you eat that?" Aoi asked, scrunching up her nose. "That's way too bitter."

"Really? I always thought the melon was too sweet." Mai shrugged, looking around. The guys had gone to grab takoyaki but the three girls were tired and had perched on the wide concrete railing of a low bridge that spanned the wide pond of one end of the park where the festival was held.

"I'm glad you finally got to come at least once before we graduated." Shiori said with a grin.

"Me too." Mai said, looking around at the colorful vendors and bright lanterns strung everywhere. It felt like a party, with the smells of delicious food everywhere, and kids running around laughing.

Festival nights always ended up being busy at the tea shop, packed with parents who didn't want to walk around the festival but also didn't want to be far from their kids when it was time to go home. Middle schoolers especially liked feeling "adult" enough to go by themselves, but she'd seen more than one parent get a call at their table from a kid who was ready to be a little less grown up as the night waned.

She'd been pleasantly surprised when Naru had given them a few days off after the hospital case. Since she, Yasu and Masako were at the mercy of their universities' schedules, she'd expected him to pack their summer vacation full of cases.

Suddenly, loud wailing could be heard from the far end of the bridge, near the shaved ice stand.

A toddler, only three or four by Mai's guess, was standing in the middle of the path crying, fat tears running down their cheeks as they pointed to the ground near their feet. From her perch, Mai could see where the child's shaved ice was melting into a pink colored puddle while her tired looking mother rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"Poor thing." Shiori said with a rueful grin.

"The brat or the mom?" Aoi asked, scrunching up her nose again.

Mai frowned. Just behind the mother and child, she recognized the same girl from earlier, the one who had been teasing the kids at the goldfish game.

"What is wrong with her?" Mai whispered indignantly. Had she purposefully knocked over the younger child's treat?

"Right? She dropped it, she should stop her wailing. Next time maybe she'll listen to her mom and not run around with her food." Aoi said.

"Not her, the other one. The one in the purple yukata." Mai said, jumping off her perch. "I ought to find her parents…"

Though now that she looked closer, she realized the girl only looked like a little kid at first. Studying the girl's face, Mai guessed she was actually more like twelve or thirteen.

Old enough to know better, anyway.

"What girl?" Shiori asked, peering to where the mother was now kneeling to soothe the screaming child.

"Seriously? She's right there…" Mai's words petered off as she looked around in confusion.

The girl had run off again.

"My cousin said this is the best spot in the park to see the fireworks from. They shoot them up right there from the edge of the pond, and they go up, over the water." Ren and his friends were leading the girls towards a hill facing the pond. Several blankets were spread on the grass and Mai noticed they weren't the only ones taking advantage of the view.

"Do you guys not realize how hard it is to sit down on the ground in a yukata?" Aoi complained.

Mai smirked to herself as she sat easily on the blanket Ren had gestured to, meeting Ren's laughing eyes.

"Capris for the win." She whispered to him.

All around them, people were sitting down in anticipation of the fireworks show.

"I'm glad you could make it tonight." Ren said.

Mai glanced at him. "Me too, I've wanted to come to this festival for years now."

"It's too bad you work so much. But I heard you left the tea shop to intern at another company. Is it related to your major?"

"SPR?" Mai paused, unsure of what exactly to say. She'd never hid SPR's focus in high school, but then again, SPR had literally investigated their school, so it hadn't really mattered.

But after SPR closed, towards the end of her highschool career, she'd begun to hear the occasional whisper or rumor about herself. It hadn't helped that her powers had been more in control of her life than she had been at the time. It had led to some people having a less than ideal opinion of her, and had made her remember the famous "kazai panic" from early in her SPR career.

She'd wanted to avoid anything like that in college, and since she had thought at the time that her ghost hunting days were over, she had never mentioned anything about ghost hunting, SPR or even her powers to her college friends. Sure, some of them knew of her "party tricks", like her ability to win card games or know when company was coming, but they considered it the same level of "fun" as Yasu's ability to hypnotize people, or do crazy math problems in his head.

"Well, I guess in a way they are customer service focused. But mainly they do research." She hedged. "The company is based in England, so it's actually more tied to the English classes I took.

"Like market research?" Ren was a business major. They had both ended up with English as second majors, so they'd met in class.

"Not quite." Mai waffled. "It's more like they're brought in to resolve issues."

"Fixers? Efficiency experts?" Ren said with interest.

"Well, Naru is definitely efficient…" Mai said.

She wondered if her reticence was just because she feared a witch hunt, or because a part of her was still waiting for Naru to change his mind and disappear on them again…

"Hey, the fireworks are starting…" Shiori said happily.

Mai felt a smile curve over her lips as the sky lit up in dancing blazes of yellow, pick and white.

"It's so pretty." She said, smiling at Ren.

"So are you." Ren said, a blush stealing over his face.

Mai stared at him, shocked. Aoi and Shiori had teased her that Ren had a crush on her, but he'd never said anything, so she'd never given their words much credence. They hung out on and off for years now, usually group things like this. Sure, earlier he'd been pretty effuse about being happy to see her, but she forgot his earlier comments in her consternation of trying to figure out what to do about that bully teasing the other kids.

"Ren?" She could hear the question in her voice, but she wasn't sure what she was asking.

"I like you. Will you go out with me?"

It was simple and direct, and with the fireworks going off, quite romantic.

And yet, all Mai felt was confusion.

She didn't feel like that about Ren, did she?

A vision of Naru's face flashed before her eyes, but she pushed it away ruthlessly. She certainly liked Ren. He was considerate and friendly. He got decent grades. He was nice looking.

But was she interested in him? Didn't the fact that she had to ask herself that question mean she wasn't?

She opened her mouth, unsure what to say, when suddenly screams rent the air from across the pond. Mai gasped as a series of explosions engulfed the makeshift platform across the water being used to set up the fireworks.

"Oh crap!" Aoi called as they all surged to their feet. Around them, the other families were also making sounds of alarm and children were crying. Some people closer to the platform were beginning to panic and shove others out of their way.

"Come on guys, this place is going to be a madhouse once the fire department shows up." Haru, Ren's friend said.

"Come on, Mai, let's get out of the way." Ren said, a hand at her elbow.

"Do you think people are hurt?" Shiori asked worriedly.

Mai didn't see how they couldn't be. It looked to her like several of the explosives had triggered at once instead of in order. The flames were reflecting on the water, and men were scrambling everywhere, trying to render aid to the injured. She could see one man holding his arm, likely burned. Another looked like he'd been knocked clear off his feet. A third had his head tilted up as another poured what looked like water into his eyes.

A gasp escaped her, and she took an unwitting step closer.

Was that the same girl from earlier? It was hard to tell, the flames made for uneven light, and now safety officers were swarming the scene, flashlights bobbling here and there in jerking movements that made the crazy scene even more chaotic.

But Mai was certain that for just a moment, she had seen her again.

The girl in the purple yukata, staring at the carnage in grim satisfaction.

*****Stinger******

Lin looked up from his notes. "Davis-sensei was able to procure the original office space for us, as you requested. However, the realtor did mention that there were several other locations available that might be more suitable..."

Noll shook his head. " There are clients from the past who made need to contact us again. This will make it easier for them to find us. Have the files I requested arrive?"

"Several boxes came just this morning. Which clients are you expecting to see?" Lin asked quizically.

Noll sighed. "I can't say for sure. It's just a hunch. Last time the cases we took all had alternative purposes. This time, research and resolution are the goals."

He looked around the space. It was the same office from four years ago, though minor changes had been made to the inside over that period, depending on what company was housed there at the time.

The space had been sufficient last time, and he hoped the others would find it familiar.

That wasn't his primary reason, of course. But most of his team were still somewhat skittish about coming back. If a simple thing like location could work in his favor, only an idiot wouldn't let it.

"We'll take the same two rooms as last time as our offices, and set up the waiting area just as before. We'll need a desk here, for John, one for Yasu to use, and by the window we'll put Mai's desk."

"You want three desks instead of two?" Lin asked.

Noll nodded absently. "Yes, with John coming on full time, and Yasu's desk having a computer for research, Mai will need space as well."

"I imagine she can sleep anywhere." Lin said drily.

But will she?

That was the question that had Noll wondering.