Chapter 3

Cherry head girl wasn't there to greet us when we pulled up in the SPR van outside yet another college dormitory. Instead, a very familiar bespeckled face was.

I launched out of the van. "YASU!"

"Mai!" He cried with equal exuberance, catching my embrace and spinning me around. "Hello hello!"

"I can't believe we get to work with you, it's been forever!"

"Yeah! I know! We've got some serious catching up to do!"

And, of course, Naru just hates it when people are having a party on any other day besides their birthdays—if that. "Do your family reunion later. You're on my clock and have a job to do."

Yasu made something of a jokitive angry cat noise and said, "Jeeze, I thought you would have had him tamed by now."

"Taming has nothing to do with it," I said, flashing Naru a smile I hope he'd find cute enough to cut me some slack. It must have been, for he gave me the job of checking in with head of the university's housing management for our quarters rather than lifting the heavy stuff out of the van.

She was waiting for us in the common room of dormitory 2-B just as she had promised. Mrs. Kodachi was a plain middle-aged woman of all sinew and bone. Despite her somewhat fragile appearance, her grip on my hand was firm when we shook, and she had no problem helping Yasu with his especially heavy load (really, Naru? Really?). Only a few students were about on the black sofas, though two rushed to open the doors for us.

"I managed to reserve you one of our specialty rooms usually kept aside for dorm meetings or, dare I say, parties. It was the only thing I could find big enough," she said as she turned herself and Yasu down the hall, her fingers taunt on their shared tote. "Unfortunately I haven't been able to get you any beds."

"That's fine," I said. "We're use to bringing our own sleeping gear along with everything else. It's so nice of you to set up this room for us!"

"All the conditions of our arrangement should be in the contract," she continued, all business, completely untouched by my attempts to be friendly. "But I'd like to emphasize the importance of obtaining a written agreement from any student or staff member before any questioning, or should you want to include them in any kind of video or report."

"The President made sure we knew that. Don't worry, we've worked on a college campus before. You should hardly notice us here."

"Perfect." She seemed to have found the door she was looking for. After calling for one of the boys that had been circling us like carrion to take her position with Yasu, she shook her fingers and took a key from her pocket. The door squeaked a bit when she opened it.

"Quiet time is at ten, no alcohol, no smoking, no loud music—oh! Almost forgot." From her pocket she pulled out another key and handed it to me, since I was the only one unloaded. "There will be a fee should you lose it. And I advise you keep your room locked at all times. We won't be held responsible for any items that are stolen."

"Do items often go missing around here?"

She raised an eyebrow at Naru's voice, which came around a computer tower. She gave him a dry smile.

"It's a college. No matter how high we keep our admission standards, there will always be those who treat college as the place to experiment on everything your parents told you not to. Better safe than sorry. Is there anything else I can do for you before I head off on my inspections?"

I looked to Naru, but since he just walked right on into our new base, I told her we were good and she said to let her know if there was anything we needed before heading off.

The second guy who had jumped up from the couch to help us stood their awkwardly, leaning around me to get a good look on what was inside before turning his attention back to me. He was a decent enough looking guy with narrow eyes and curly dark hair. He wore gym shorts and a shirt with the logo of some rock band I'd never heard of.

"Um, do you need any help carrying stuff in?"

"Don't say that so casually," I said with my usual friendly smile. "Naru's always looking for more slaves."

He seemed to give me a second look after I said that, as though debating whether or not I was serious or if he should laugh at that. I started to wonder why exactly he went to this university.

"Better not talk to the commonwealth, Mai-chan," said Yasu as he came out from the doorway. "Don't want big boss to get jealous." He gave a nod to the kid. "Heya, Swii! You up for some heavy lifting?"

"Don't go volunteering people to handle my equipment," came a cool voice from behind us. "Head back with Mai and get some more."

"Yes, boss," we said in time with each other, before exchanging looks and laughing.

Poor Swii just looked at us with that same confused look on his face. Despite being spurned by Naru, however, he shyly trotted after us as we left the building and made our way back to the parking lot.

"Are—are these guys for real, Yasu?" he asked.

"Only real ones I know. They're the ones that investigated my high school."

His eyes widened. "No way. You mean with the dog phantoms and the bad smell and—"

"Yep. One and the same. Mai here is actually clairvoyant, though she's shown a fair bit of other talents too. Probably just gotten better since we last met."

"No way," the kid's awestruck eyes turned to me and I instantly felt myself blush and threw up my hands.

"I-It's no big deal! Naru—I mean, my boss is the one you should be impressed with. He's a prodigy."

"Don't worry, I heard." But even once we got to the van and I got to work handing Yasu—along with Lin who had trailed after us not too long after we left, Swii didn't leave, and it was more than comfortably obvious that he was staring at me.

"Do you really see visions?" he asked.

"Yasu," I groaned, realizing at the last second that the tote I had been taking down was heavier than I thought. Yasu jumped to put down the monitors he had, but it was Swii who jumped up and saved me from the inevitable toe mashing as I was about to get. He smelled odd. It wasn't like any cologne I had ever found, and while not unpleasant it wasn't exactly nice. It mixed with a light scent of body odor, as though he simply had yet to take his shower for the day.

"Nice save, Swii!" crowed Yasu, as he renewed his grip on the monitors. "I'll just go on ahead and open the door for you." And he jogged off after the tall, quiet Lin.

"Thanks," I said, smiling across the tote.

"No problem," he flashed me a mirroring smile, which upped his handsome factor just a tad, but not enough to dazzle me. I, after all, had been working with Naru for the past three years. "What's a little lady like you doing hauling the heavy stuff anyways?"

"It's my job."

"I'll step down first. I can probably take this, actually."

"No can do, Naru will harp on me till my ears bleed."

"That much of a nanny goat, eh? Then I'll just help. Though you didn't answer my question."

It took me a bit of backtracking before I remembered what it was he had asked. "Oh, yeah. My dreams sometimes, uh, show me stuff."

"Like what kind of stuff?"

He stepped down first, as we had planned, and I kicked the back doors closed just to discourage anyone who thought about swiping up something while we weren't looking.

"Um, it's kind of hard to explain. It might be an experience in a spirit's past, or it might be a view of the place we are investigating on the spiritual plane. Though I've also had visions of the present too." I stopped, as his jaw had dropped and his eyes widened. I wasn't really use to this kind of attention. Usually Masako was there to attract the majority of it, being a world popular medium and all. I never once took the initiative to share my talents with a client before. Why should I?

"That's…wild."

"It's no big deal."

He made a noise of disbelief. "You've got to come to my party tonight. Maybe do a reading or something."

"Reading?" I squeaked. "No no, I only get visions while I'm asleep and…sometimes I see spirits, but that's not on demand or anything."

"You see spirits?" It was like he hadn't heard a single word. "That's it, you have to come. We're going to be holding a séance with candles and everything." His voice dropped and he gave me a mischievous grin I did not find comforting in the least. "Maybe we'll hear from the girl in white."

I tried to push down my discomfort as I heard that. This could be a chance to get some useful information on our case. "What do you know about the girl in white?"

He gave me fair warning before the sidewalk rose up into the steps to the dormitory, and only then did I allow him to take the brunt of the tote, but I picked my end back up at the top.

"Well I ain't done it myself, but my pal went back behind the library where they say she killed herself and got this big glowing 'lie' on his forehead. She sure dumped him quick after that, but the legend says if you get that kanji on you when you walk back there with your girl, she'll come kill you in three days. So, since three days are about up," he flashed that smile at me again. "Some guys in the dorm thought it might be fun to pull together a séance, maybe ask her not to kill him. Just for laughs. Who am I kidding, it's all for laughs. You should see him, he totally thinks some ghost is going to come kill him."

My opinion of Swii dropped. Anyone who found that much pleasure in their friends suffering couldn't have that deep of a personality.

"Why do they even go back there?" I asked.

He snorted. "Why not? It's great bragging rights to say you braved the white girl's turf. Though, if you ask me, most who go back there are just dragged there by their girls who think their two-timing them."

"Has anyone ever died yet?"

We were coming to the doors now, which Yasu held open. It was him who answered my question.

"Because of the white girl, it's hard to say. College students die in accidents every so often, and no one bothers to ask if the kid did a stupid test of bravery or fidelity behind the library before."

The front doors hissed close behind us. More students had filled into the common room to catch a glimpse of their ghost hunting visitors. All were boys. But, then, that made sense. Universities didn't have co-ed dorms, did they?

"But they're saying some kid who OD last week actually saw her before he died," said Swii in a low voice, probably hoping to spook me.

"OD?"

"Over-dosed," said Yasu grimly. "His girlfriend dumped him before hand as well, saying she saw the kanji."

"In bright, blood red," added Swii, sweeping a hand over his forehead in his 'ghost voice.' Then his grin was back on. "So, what do you say? My room at ten? Come on, you'll only have to go up one floor, I'm right above you."

"Um," I glanced at Yasu with his monitors, but he wasn't really looking at us as he had taken the lead. I had to jerk my head when Swii almost passed the hall Yasu went down to get to base, and he corrected himself, still smiling at me, waiting. "I'll have to ask my boss."

"Aw, come on, sweet, you're an adult, aren't you? Can't you make your own choices? Look, I promise it will only be a few minutes. In and out."

A little alarm went off inside me. The growing discomfort had climaxed, ringing off every one of my warning instincts. There was something about this guy that I just didn't trust. Maybe it was his weird smell. Or perhaps it was the fact he kept smiling at me like that, as though thinking I would be charmed into following him to his room with a bunch of boys I didn't know.

I opened my mouth to refuse him along with a well placed excuse (Naru would want me to watch the monitors or something like that), when Naru suddenly stepped out of the room we were just about to enter. Swii bumped into him with a startled curse.

"She'll go," Naru said. "On one condition. Would you allow her to take a camera?"

"Sure, why the hell not—"

"And I thought I said I didn't want strangers handling my equipment."

Swii shrunk away from the tote like it was on fire. It started to fall out from my hands—but was caught by Naru, who gave me his usual leveled 'you're a moron' look over the top.

"Great," he said. "I'll send her up at about…ten did you say?"

Swii scratched the back of his head. "Man, you must have some killer ears—"

"Which you should keep in mind should you try to do anything funny," and as Naru moved his gaze to the now somewhat flustered college boy, it hardened to something like ice.

"Dude, really! That's a bit rude going around—"

"Ten?"

"Uh…yeah, ten."

"Alright. You can go away now."

Swii more or less scampered, shooting angry glances over his shoulder.

I sighed, readjusting my grip on the tote as Naru then walked us into base. "Could you have handled that with just a little more tact?"

"Men between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five have to be reminded of their place or they'll try to rut with any attractive girl they find."

Heat poured into me faster than boiling water. "I am not a dog!"

"I didn't say you were. I said he was."

But I was too offended to sew together two words let alone a sentence. Jaw clenched, I abruptly dropped my end of the tote, hoping it broke all of his toes. Naru cried out as the impact sprayed cords out from the popped lid.

"Mai!"

But I was already on my way out of the room, ignoring the stares of Lin and Yasu.

Because it was one thing to volunteer me for something as though I were an object that didn't have an opinion, but then to talk about me and a guy in the same sentence as the word 'rut,' as though he had just walked in right as the guy was about to start humping?

Ugh. I needed chocolate.

Just a quick side note, there's only a week left to get your free copy of either one of my books ("Erase Me" or my debut novel, "Out of Duat"). So go to Inkitt and check them out! Just look them up. My pen name there is the same as it is here. LoweFantasy. I can't put any links here because will erase them. It's their anti-spam machine.

Anyhoo, thanks for all the wonderful reviews! I hope you enjoy this story. Don't worry, it's going to pick up quick.