Ryuuji was on deep thought as he sat on the plane, he's now going to England. He was invited personally by Dr. Olive Davis, the person who Mai previously worked for. He wanted to see him personally too.
Ryuuji sighed and closed his eyes to sleep, strange... he immediately starts dreaming the day he met Mai, when she was still a scared first year in the university.
Mai took the vacant seat as she starts telling her story.
"I... I was brought back to life thru necromancy. It was a demon's spell that was keeping me alive."
"What?!" They all exclaimed.
"Three years ago... I was killed by a vengeful spirit in a dark alley not far from my work place." She started. "The ghost pierced my heart and I died."
They all gasped. Hakuren immediately stood up and grabbed Mai. "Show me the scar." He demanded.
Mai opened the buttons of her shirt and showed it to them. There is no scar, but rather, a sigil with goat's head inside an inverted pentagram tattooed on it.
"This is... the Sigil of Baphomet." Hakuren gritted out. "Baphomet the Necromancer?" The others gasped in fear.
Mai closed her shirt and continue her story. "I don't know what happened after I died, I just remember waking up in the same alley, and a person with black wings and a goat head appeared before me, it talked to me via telepathy. It said, he already got the payment, and he will let me live, until my thirtieth birthday, until then, his sigil will be my heart. I am going to live as long the sigil is still visible."
"B-B-Baphomet took your heart?!" Aizen stuttered.
Mai nodded. "He did since its already in tatters."
"Wait!" Ryuuji interjected. "What payment? What did you gave him?!"
Mai shook her head. "I don't exactly know, he only said he already took the things that makes me alive."
"Your soul and emotions." Hakuren said. "Those are the things that make and feel you alive. Baphoment made you an apathetic soulless person."
Everyone was silence before Kannon gasped in disbelieve.
"So in short, if the sigil faded on your chest… you will… will die…?"
"Yes." Mai nodded. "And it fades every year. The first time I have it, it was darker than this."
"Don't you have a family?" Aizen asked.
"I am orphan since middle school." She answered bluntly. "But during my first year in school, I worked in SPR for almost a year, I made a makeshift family, but they eventually left me too."
"Did the vengeful spirit suddenly attacked you out of nowhere?" The leader asked.
Mai shook her head. "Days after my former boss closed SPR, I already felt that something is weird, so I tried to call the miko and a Buddhist monk in the group to ask for a protection charm, but I couldn't reached them. Even the Catholic exorcist in our group."
Ryuuji clenched his hand hearing her story. "Did your friends know that you are a ghost magnet?" He asked.
"Yes."
"And they still leave you like that?!" He exclaimed in anger.
"Calm down, Ryuuji." Aizen scolded.
"So... am I accepted in the club?" Mai asked.
"Yes, of course." Hakuren smiled. "Welcome to the Profilers of the Unknown, I am Yomozuki Hakuren, the president, or rather, the leader, since we are an underground and unofficial club. I am a spiritual medium, a fourth year student majoring in Criminal Profiling minoring in Toxicology."
"I am Sato Aizen, fourth year student. I am a normal person who depends on my intelligence, medical knowledge, and resourcefulness. Majoring in Forensic Psychology minoring in General Physiology." The bespectacled man smiled.
"I am the stylish miko of Yasukuni shrine, Fushimi Kannon. Nice to meet you~" She grinned at her. "Third year~ from the College of Psychology majoring in Abnormal Psychology and minoring in Music~"
Ryuuji snorted beside her. "You're just a rebellious miko." Kannon's fist landed on his jaw. "Ouch! Not on the face, stupid!"
"Who the hell you called stupid, ugly?!" Kannon exclaimed. She grabbed his collar. "Hurry, introduce yourself!"
"I am Suzui Ryuuji." He grunted. "Third year, majoring in Literature and minoring in Psychotherapy. I am an aspiring detective-horror-thriller novel author. Nice to meet you."
"I am Taniyama Mai, nice to meet you." Mai introduced with a straight face.
Ryuuji yawned and stretched his body, he felt numb after long hours of sitting in the plane. He's not really excited to attend the seminar, he don't want meet the person that caused Mai's sadness. He's not really sure why he was invited, he can understand Hakuren, but him? Nah.
He called for a taxi and went to his house and rest.
After an hour and half, the cab parked in front of a detached bungalow in Girton village in Cambridge.
Ryuuji opened the wooden the gate, and walked to the bricked pathway. It was his dream to own a bungalow in one of the history-rich country. The home of paranormal, Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, and many notable figures in literature. And that's why when he saved up enough money, he immediately the bungalow that he's been eyeing for years.
It has three bedroom, kitchen, and gardens, it was perfect as vacation house.
He was whistling a happy song, when his peripheral view caught something in the garden. His jaw dropped when he saw Hakuren leisurely having a cup of tea while reading a magazine in the flint garden.
Hakuren looked up when he heard a soft thud. "Oh, you've arrived."
"What are you doing here, idiot! This is my house!" He exclaimed. "Since when are you here?!"
"I arrived hours before you." He calmly answered.
Ryuuji sighed in defeat. "You have your own place."
Hakuren stopped momentarily before flipping the magazine to the next page. "I don't want to go home. My brother was there, and the seminar tomorrow starts early, I don't want to take a three-hour drive to Cambridge."
Ryuuji grumbled before entering his home, to change into casual shirt and shorts. The maid prepared another cup of tea and sandwiches for him when he went back to the garden.
"I'm considering buying a house either here or in London."
"Oh please, look somewhere else, I don't want you to become my neighbour." He rolled his eyes and stuffed his mouth with delicious food.
"By the way, the others said that they will follow us here, together with Mai."
He coughed, and reached for the tea. After regaining his breath, he gasped. "Are you serious?! What if she will meet Oliver Davis?!"
"If they are destined to meet, then they will meet. How many times Mai have been here?"
"A lot...?"
"Right, but none of those times she meet Oliver."
Ryuuji was still in doubt. "But still... I don't want Mai to meet him... He left her." He pouted.
Hakuren reached for his tea. "Maybe Mai... will show any emotional changes when she meet them."
"Right, and its pure anger."
Ryuuji was sleepy throughout the seminar, they are talking about the achievements of BSPR throughout the years after Oliver came back from Japan. Ryuuji narrowed his eyes at the man in the stage.
So that's him huh... He huffed and crossed his arms.
"Hey, I want you to pay attention." Hakuren hissed.
"No way! I didn't understand anything. And I'm already hungry..."
"There's an after-party after this."
Ryuuji perked up. "Food!"
Hakuren slapped his forehead, shaking his head, wondering how this guy still managed having toned and physically fit body despite of being a glutton – who eats six times a day, plus snacks.
Six in the evening arrived and the guest went to the function hall, where the after-party that begins with a cocktail reception was held. Hakuren shook up hands with people he knew and previously met.
They talked about business and the like.
Ryuuji went the buffet table when he saw someone approaching him.
It's Oliver Davis!
He control not to scowl at the young man.
"Suzui Ryuuji, I'm glad you made it." Oliver said in Japanese.
His lips twitched and forced a smile. "Ah, thank you for inviting me Dr. Davis. Although I didn't know why I am invited here in the first place, I am not even associated with paranormal."
"I've read your book." He said.
Ryuuji raised an eyebrow. "You read fiction?"
"Only your book." He affirmed. "Your book has sense, as if, it was inspired by true events."
"It is inspired by true events." Ryuuji corrected. "It was mostly based on the cases that I took."
"Cases?" He asked curiously.
"I am a profiler in MPD." He proudly said.
"I see..."
"Naru! There you are!" A woman glad in kimono approached him, together with other group of people. She lift her sleeve to her mouth. "You must be the author that Naru took interest in."
"Eh?! Really?!" The others exclaimed behind them.
"Yes."
"Hara Masako." She introduced. "I've start reading your book, and I must say, it was interesting."
"Thank you." He said. "Are they BSPR's employee Dr. Davis?"
"Yes. They are my team."
"Oh, I never thought BSPR hired Japanese people." A new voice joined them. "Yomozuki Hakuren, nice to meet you."
Oliver's eyebrow twitched hearing the name. It was the name that he frequently read in ASPR's website. He is one of their excellent mediums and psychologists. And he heard some BSPR's employees comparing the two of them.
"We are already Naru's team in Japan." Ayako stated, batting her eyelashes at the handsome man. "Matsuzaki Ayako, I'm a medical doctor and a miko."
Ryuuji and Hakuren slightly widened their eyes.
"Japan branch? SPR? You are all the SPR team?" Ryuuji questioned.
"Yes." Oliver answered.
"Since when did you transfer your team here?" Ryuuji was now interrogating them.
"Seven years ago." He answered. "It was a week after I left Japan."
Ryuuji was clenching his hand, he can clearly saw that they intentionally left Mai alone in Japan!
"Naru was already comfortable working with us, and we already used to his bossy attitude." Bou-san chuckled. "I forgot to introduce myself, Takigawa Hoshou at your service."
"Hmm. But I expected your team having several people. Is it really all of them?" Hakuren inquired.
The team was silent. They were avoiding his gaze, and no one tried to answer.
"We left someone behind, for her own good." Oliver said.
"How is it for her own good?!" Ryuuji raised his voice.
"We wanted her to live a normal life away from paranormal. She's a trouble magnet. It was her, working with us that trigger her latent psychic abilities to occur." Ayako explained.
"If she will not be exposed in paranormal any further, she will have her normal life back from before she met us." Bou-san seconded.
"And besides, she hasn't really contributed in the team, aside from her dreams, but now that her spiritual guide being gone, I doubt if she still have retro-cognition dreams." Masako mumbled under her kimono sleeve.
"Bullshit!" Ryuuji cussed. "I'm going home. I'm no longer in the mood to party." He stomped on his way out, leaving Hakuren to deal with them.
"I apologized about him." Hakuren glared at them. "But I am quite disappointed of you, Dr. Davis."
"Excuse me?" Oliver asked in disbelief.
"Hey, do you know who you are talking to?" Bou-san asked sharply.
He sneered at them. "You said that she's a trouble magnet and yet, you left her alone? Latent psychic ability is not an automatic switch that will turn off when not in use. We can't turn off our instincts." He narrowed his eyes at him. "You're the one who said that, in one of your research about Intuitive Abilities."
Seeing Oliver Davis trying to hide his shock, Hakuren scoffed. "This is ridiculous! Oliver Davis is not sticking up on his research?! That's unheard of!" He sneered at him. "I don't know why they are overestimating you, really." He heard someone called him from the distance.
"Excuse me, I have to go, it was nice chatting with you." He curtly bowed before turning his heels.
Naru broke the glass of champagne on his hand, it was not his PK, it was a sheer force.
Oliver Davis was deeply insulted.
"I told you don't follow us here in England, stupid!" Ryuuji was exclaiming on his phone.
"Who the hell are you ordering me around, ugly?!" The female voice on the other line yelled back. "I want her to have a vacation before formally starting her job."
"If you want to follow, fine! Just don't bring Mai along!"
"Tell me the reason first!"
"Olive Davis and the whole SPR id here!"
Kannon gasped. "What...?!"
"That stupid guy brought his whole team here." He grumbled. "He brought them all except Mai." He stuffed his mouth with food. He was so hungry and angry after leaving the party and ordered several boxes of pizza, and Beef Wellington "I don't want her to see them. She might feel abandoned again, do you understand?! If you want a vacation, go somewhere else except here."
"Fine! We will go Italy then." Kannon huffed. "Don't forget to buy me souvenirs."
Ryuuji burped on his phone, which made Kannon sputtered curses on the other line, he giggled before ending the call. He continue eating his take out foods while watching TV. It was then when Hakuren arrived.
"So, how's the party?" He asked.
"I just insulted the high and mighty Oliver Davis." Hakuren smirked in satisfaction. "He was so stupid."
"Right?" He reached for another slice of beef. "By the way, I asked Kannon not to bring Mai here and she agreed, they will go to Italy instead."
Hakuren was in deep thought. "No, let Mai come here and see them."
Ryuuji snapped his head to him. "HAAAAAA?! No way! Think of what would she feel if she will see them!"
"Mai is devoid of emotion, remember?" He said. "But, what if something will change?"
He narrowed his eyes. "I won't agree to it."
"It's not like they will have a reunion, we will just let Mai see them from the distance, and observe her reaction."
"It sounds like you wanted to use her as a guinea pig."
"You are not totally wrong... but I am just curious, can a demon really void someone's emotions? What if he only repressed it and needed a trigger?" Ryuuji listening to him as he was chewing his food. "It took some time, but Mai learned to smile and laugh with us."
"Right, but she never told us that she's happy either." Ryuuji retorted. "I can even smile and laugh even though I am not happy. And besides, she only learned it due to Kannon and Aizen's persistence. And Mai's laugh sounded like a robot, 'Ha-Ha-Ha' like that." He imitated.
"That's that am I saying, maybe some kind of trigger will help her." Hakuren tossed his phone at him. "Now, call Kannon."
Ryuuji widened his eyes, remembering his earlier mischief. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no! You call her instead!"
He gave him a look. "Did you… pissed her off again?"
The raven-haired man sheepishly grinned.
"Kindda~"
Author's Note:
Happy Birthday to my beloved partner in crime, BlueSkyOfLove!
I wish you a happy, happy, birthday~ to all her story followers, she can't update for awhile 'cause she's cramming for her exams in Foreign Language classes, and she will be touring in Europe after~
- POTU