A/N: A baby chapter here, that will be familiar to many of you, as far as general content. Still give it a read please, as it contains numerous small changes, particularly in that I'm trying to better flesh out my characters. It felt like in WTLE I had missed some in-depth characterization, and that's a goal for this story. Reviews are writer candy, you lovely people. It was surprisingly difficult to amend this chapter to the new timeline. Please forgive any typos.
Trigger warnings for this entire case: Suicide, minor violence, depression/mental illness.
Refraction Case Four Part One:
The Weight Of Heavy Things
"What cannot be said will be wept." -Sappho
Yasu pinched the bridge of his nose, knocking his glasses slightly askew as he sighed. Slouched against the van, he looked so much smaller in the flickering red and blue lights.
"Does anyone else miss the good old days? You know...when the spirits hesitated to act out around outsiders when they first got to the scene." He finally asked, running a hand through his hair. The shadows were deep under his eyes, law school was running him close to ragged, and this hadn't helped.
Mai could only shake her head, staring down at her clasped hands. She was still shaking a little.
"Taniyama-san, we're ready to take your statement now. I understand how upsetting this must be. We'll try to make it quick." The police officer looked down at her apologetically, notepad at the ready.
"Uh... Okay. Well, like I said earlier, I only saw the beginning of...it. Naru, That is, Shibuya-San, covered my eyes at the last second. So, I didn't actually see the...impact." She finished on a whisper, swallowing. Or at least, she tried to, but her mouth was sandpaper dry.
Looking up, she saw John where he leaned resolutely against a car, staring down at his worn sneakers. She stilled as he looked up, meeting her eyes.
He looked as bleak as she felt. How devastating must this be for him?
"And why were you even on the scene in the first place?" The officer asked quizzically.
28 Hours earlier...
Mai sat at her desk, trying to discretely email Masako without Naru catching her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Yasu doing what appeared to be a crossword in the local newspaper. He really was a little bit like an old man sometimes. At least that meant his homework must be done, unlike hers. She wasn't a bad student, but tourism was nowhere near as interesting as languages had been….
Lin and Naru were behind their closed office doors, respectively.
John was dutifully working on the stack of notes from the previous case. Naru still wasn't keen on paperwork written in Kanji, but John had gotten quite good at reading it in the time he'd spent in Japan. So one of his tasks was helping Mai translate the others' notes and reports to English for Naru and the European offices to read.
She tried to study him discreetly, thinking back to Ayako's remark during the lantern festival. She supposed he did look a little better, physically at least. Cleaner, less tired. Better fed. A stable address had helped him. And then there was the job. This job let him help people, which was important to him even without his faith.
Even without his robes, he was still John after all. But she wished he would talk to her more. But then, she supposed he thought the same thing about her at times.
But his eyes were still so sad.
"Everything's set up for my next show at the end of the week. Want to come sit in the audience?" Mai's phone dinged quietly with the arrival of Masako's latest mail.
Mai grinned to herself, shaking off her melancholy.
It had been over two months since Masako had freed herself from the spirit of Dr. Shiro. While some people might have been further traumatized by the event, Masako had used it as a turning point.
A few weeks ago she had gotten back in touch with her manager, agreeing to start scheduling TV appearances again. She'd also enrolled in college courses, offered through the same program that had helped her complete high school. As a celebrity, she had attended a special high school program for students like her, in the spotlight who often had to miss school for work. The school had recently partnered with a national university to start offering some college coursework also, and Mai knew Masako was secretly thrilled.
Years ago, Mai had come to realize that Masako's snobby exterior was the result of many factors, such as she was excruciatingly shy. Added to the fact that not only could she see dead people, but that her money hungry parents had jumped at the idea of having a famous child, and Masako had been forced to grow up too fast.
Her blackmailing Naru when they were teens was just one example.
Having grown up in the dog-eat-dog world of show business, where everything had a price, even people, it hadn't even seemed strange to her to blackmail him to do the things she had wanted. As she had spent more and more time with the team, however, it had started to become clear to her that she wasn't going about things the right way. She had once admitted to Mai that what she had found most appealing about Naru wasn't, in fact, his good looks, but the fact that he seemed so in complete control of himself and his life. To a girl who had grown up as nothing more than a meal ticket to money addicted parents and managers, that control had seemed extremely attractive.
Four years later, however, Masako had grown leaps and bounds. She had cut the purse strings, so to speak, with her parents and found herself a manager more interested in her own goals. She had started doing pro bono work with the Tokyo Police, though only certain divisions were willing to work with her. Suspicions about gifts like theirs naturally ran high, as Mai knew all too well.
She'd also started hanging out with Mai and Yasu and their friends, getting a chance to experience some of the "normal" things she had been forced to miss out on as a kid.
Mai was thrilled to be on better terms with the girl. Masako was a genuine professional when it came to her abilities, and had helped Mai through more than one difficult episode. Plus, she was actually pretty nice when she loosened up. After Yasu, Mai now considered Masako to be one of her closest friends.
"So... are you going to wear a kimono?" Mai typed back mischievously. Glancing slyly back over at her best friend, she wondered how hard it would be to get a second ticket for Yasu…
"Mai!" She heard Naru call from behind his closed office door. "Is the new equipment sorted out?"
New equipment had been coming in spurts for the last few months now. Last time around, the Tokyo SPR has been a secret, of sorts. This time around, the European branches knew everything, which meant better funding, a bigger staff, more equipment, and a lot more paperwork.
"All taken care of!" She yelled back, sighing. She caught herself toying with the end of her braid and forced herself to toss it back over her shoulder. Sometime during the process of growing her hair out she'd developed the back habit of playing with it, and she'd find herself redoing her hair a half dozen times a day because her restless hands would pull at it.
Naru had been keeping them busy setting up the equipment to his extremely exacting standards. She had her own desk next to a window though, which was actually quite nice except for the half dozen times a day her boss caught her daydreaming out it.
At least she'd put her foot down about the stupid tea. She'd been adamant she wasn't going to be Naru's tea jockey this time around. If she wanted to be making tea every twenty minutes, she'd still be working at the tea shop. She did still make tea of course, usually once or twice a day for all the staff, her narcissistic boss included, as well as when clients came.
But no more "Mai, Tea!" every time she walked in the door.
If she were honest with herself, a tiny (teeny-tiny-microscopic) part of her missed it. It had seemed at the time to be almost a private joke between the two of them. Even Masako had remarked on it, as teenagers, before she'd outgrown her crush on Naru. Naru had preferred the tea Mai made over anyone else's. It had been a (extremely lame) source of pride.
But Mai was determined to be more than just Naru's "Yes Girl" this time around. She would stand on her own two feet and become a valuable member of the team. Even her title was different. John and Lin were assistants, Yasu's paperwork coded him as a part time researcher, and Mai's own title was "Investigator (part-time, thank you college).
Ayako, Bou-San and Masako we're officially back on the books as consultants.
Additionally, there were a few more rules and regulations in place. They'd all had to get certain vaccinations and a clean bill of health from the hospital (Ayako had taken care of Mai's). John had gotten his license, so as to be able to drive the van. They had all gone through background checks.
Naru had explained that their work this time around would be providing data used in studies and possibly referenced in scientific articles and papers that could be read by numerous people in the Psychic Research Community. Their findings (and therefore, the investigators themselves) had to be above reproach.
Mai stood, stretching her sore muscles. Though the guys never really made her lift heavy stuff anymore, especially with her ankle just finally on the mend from their case at Whispering Pines. There had still been a lot of smaller equipment to move and get sorted though.
A lot of shelves had been built. At least she was a lot quicker at it then she used to be. Even Naru had only managed to find one or two things to complain about.
One or two things an hour, that is.
This time around, they had extra cameras and thermometers, two-way radios, as well as a bigger unit that would sit in base for all the smaller radios to communicate with, and a ton of new, fancier microphones. There were even some handheld camcorders that Mai was pretty sure she was bound to drop and break at some point, but surely Naru had insured them….
She cocked her head, smiling a little half-smile as a feeling washed over her. Then she headed over to the office kitchenette to start a pot of water boiling.
Company was coming.
"Excuse me... is this Shibuya Psychic Research?" A pale women had quietly walked in just as Mai was finishing setting up the cups.
John and Yasu both looked up intently, but they allowed Mai to take the lead. Naru often preferred Mai to be the client's "first contact" when possible because she supposedly had a "calming personality".
Mai was pretty sure it was just an excuse to have Mai get the client settled in with a cup of tea (which naturally became a round of tea for EVERYONE), but since Naru could definitely be off-putting at times, she didn't really mind. She was good at dealing with people. It also gave her a chance to gather her own impressions.
"Welcome. I'm Taniyama-San." Mai greeted politely, smiling gently. Naru had asked her to use only her last name when first meeting a client. She wasn't sure if it was simply a matter of professionalism, or caution (curse dolls and crazed stalkers came to mind).
"Allow me to get my boss. Would you care for some tea?" She asked, already setting the tea tray down.
The woman smiled shakily, and Mai could tell she'd been crying. Her eyes darted here and there, reminding Mai of a frightened sparrow.
"Please." The woman agreed quietly.
The story was dramatic, even by SPR's standards.
'A haunted church...' Mai thought in trepidation, watching John out of the corner of her eye.
Talk about the worst luck….
He'd sat in stoic silence while the woman had explained her situation. His expression was unreadable, the light in his eyes completely extinguished. He was little more than an empty shell of his former self. Though he'd been doing better than a few months ago, he still seemed less….substantial somehow, a ghost of the young man she'd met nearly six years past. All the progress she'd thought she'd seen only a half hour ago now seemed lost as he sat, listening to the woman's story.
But she had to believe he was still in there somehow. They just had to find a way to bring him back.
"My brother was thrilled when the Bishop agreed to renovations on the old Cathedral. It hasn't been used for Mass in decades. It's structurally sound, but it needs some major overhaul before it's ready for use. He'd dreamed of "tending his own flock" for years, ever since he became a priest. He moved into the living quarters onsite right away, to personally oversee the work. But less than a week later, he killed himself. He threw himself off an upper balcony." The woman began crying again.
Mai started to hand the woman a tissue when she suddenly wrenched her head upright, meeting their eyes earnestly.
"Not only was my brother NOT suicidal, but suicide is considered a mortal sin by the church. They won't be able to bury him in the church cemetery. His soul will be stuck in limbo." More tears were making their way down her cheeks, and Mai succeeded in handing her a tissue this time.
Their (potential) client reached a shaking hand into her purse, drawing out some crumpled pages that looked like photo copies of newspaper articles. Mai took them gently, smoothing them out curiously before handing them to Naru.
He glanced through them quickly, looking up at the woman. "Your brother wasn't the first suicide at that location?" He queried, quickly looking back down at the articles.
She nodded, swallowing. "My oldest son was especially close to my brother. He refused to accept the police's ruling of suicide. He began doing research and found that over the past eighty years, four other men have jumped from that same balcony."
"It could simply be a coincidence." John said, not unkindly. It was the first words he'd spoken, and Mai had to force herself to look away from him and focus on the client.
"I know. But my son, he's adamant. He claims all the men fit a "victim profile". Men between the ages of twenty five and forty five, with no evidence of depression or other outside reasons for suicide, like money trouble or the death of a family member. It's never a woman or an elderly person." The woman explained, gesturing at the pages still in Naru's hands.
"Your son sounds like quite the researcher." Yasu said, impressed. He met Mai's eyes, quickly flicking them in John's direction, a silent question that let her know he was worried about the man as well
The client nodded. "He wants to go to law school someday. But he's determined that this cathedral is haunted. He swears that there is a pattern of some sort. He thinks a ghost or spirit is possessing these men, making them jump." She finished, wiping her eyes. "If it can be proven, within reason of course, the church has agreed to offer a special dispensation, allowing my brother to be put to rest the way he deserves."
There was silence for a moment as the SPR members looked at each other warily.
This woman obviously had an agenda, but none of them could really blame her. The problem was, even though it sounded to Mai like her son might be on to something, it was also just as possible that their findings wouldn't be what she hoped. Sometimes clients didn't take that well. And she was basically betting the state of her brother's soul on their findings….
"John. Have you heard of many haunted church's or cathedrals?" Naru asked, leaning forward to place the articles on the table.
Mai winced internally. While it made sense for Naru to ask John about that sort of thing, Mai could only imagine it opened old wounds.
While she had negotiated John's return to the team, she hadn't exactly filled in Naru on all the details of John leaving the church. She honestly only knew the bare bones of the story herself. She had never wanted to push John on the details, afraid he would cut her out of his life the way he had their other friends. She honestly thought he might have anyway, except that he had always worried more about her because, as an orphan without any biological family, she was by nature in a more vulnerable situation.
She had hoped John would begin to open up himself after working full time with Naru and Lin, but it apparently hadn't happened yet.
John paused tellingly. "Unfortunately, neither Churches or Priests are immune to possession." He finally said quietly. "A haunting is certainly a possibility."
Watching his sad face made Mai want to cry, but she swallowed hard, forcing it past the lump in her throat.
'Silly little girl.' Ruthlessly, she pushed down the unwelcome voice in her head. It was only a memory, after all. She had more than enough to worry about in the present.
"Has the Church agreed to the investigation? I would have thought they'd have preferred to handle this internally?" Naru asked, handing the papers to Lin.
The woman nodded. "They weren't thrilled, if I'm being completely honest. But they said if I could get your group to do the investigation, they would allow it. Apparently you are known for your discretion."
Mai's eyes flew to John, but his face gave nothing away. She wondered if John's superiors had learned he was now working here full time. She knew they hoped he would someday return to the church.
"Mai, what are your thoughts?" Naru asked suddenly, startling her.
"Uh...me?" While Naru had become better at listening to her "instincts", he'd always maintained the final word about whether or not they took as case. She understood that as a teenager, his first priority had been to locate Gene's body. She hadn't known it at the time, but he had purposefully been taking cases in certain areas, methodically searching for the crime scene.
This time around, she wasn't sure if he was asking what her instincts were telling her, or asking for her input because he knew she knew more about John's past with the Church than she had shared with him.
Either was honestly a little alarming. Naru trying to take other's opinions into consideration was obviously a good thing...
It was just... not something she was expecting.
But it was even more unusual for him to take employees' feelings into consideration….
"Mai?" Naru prompted again and she flushed in embarrassment, feeling the eyes of her teammates on her.
Closing her eyes, she tried to listen to her instincts. She didn't have time to visit her Tea Shop.
But did she really need Gene's help anyway? She already knew the right thing for the team to do. It was just John she was worried about. But if he wasn't going to complain, she couldn't exactly complain for him...
And her instincts told her something at this church was worth investigating.
She looked over at John one last time before nodding at Naru. "I think we should investigate."
Naru glanced over at Lin and Yasu. Both men nodded their agreement.
"We'll take the case. Please tell your contact at the church to be expecting us tomorrow sometime. John, please contact Bou-san and Ayako."
It was still strange to hear Naru refer to the others so familiarly. Before, she and Lin had been the only ones he addressed as such. This time, she realized, he had started using the same names for the others as she did, whether it be a nickname, like she did for Bou-san, or a first name, like she did for John.
She wondered whether he was doing it on purpose, part of his effort to rebuild the team? Or perhaps it was simply more natural to him, as they often used first names in England?
He seemed so different sometimes…
"Mai, I assume that since you've been spending the afternoon emailing Masako instead of doing your work, that you can let her know about the case?" Naru said, smirk in his voice if not on his face...
Mai flushed again.
Nope. Same old Naru.
************stinger*************************
Noll watched Mai from his office doorway. She was staring out the window introspectively, and he wondered what had put that look on her face.
Or, more likely, who had put it there. He'd seen who read her phone (that would no doubt be Masako), saw her glance at Yasu, downright stare at John.
So, basically anyone in the office but he, himself and Lin. She didn't even seem to realize he'd opened his office door.
He toyed with the box in his pocket, unsure of how to go about things. Now that it had arrived, he was surprisingly….torn.
Deciding there was no time like the present, he opened his mouth to call her when she suddenly cocked her head to the side, smiling a little.
As he watched, she stood up and walked over to their kitchenette, putting water on to boil.
Swallowing down his words, he accepted his plans were on hold for a few hours.
Mai only did that when a client was coming.
