Chapter 6: Double the trouble
Gene slowly walked away from the shadows under the barren tree. It turned out that he was able to move away from the tree within certain boundaries. Each day he tried to test the limits and every time he was able move further and further from where he started. Once he reached the "border" his hands and feet faded away at the tips. He didn't dare to discover what happened if he crossed the border.
His brother's mirror experiment had a negative result. With any type of mirror left at home, Noll theorized that Gene had become attached to the tree for a certain reason. He suggested that Gene unconsciously started to use the tree as a source of spiritual energy. Possibly as a means of "survival". It also explained the decrease of sleepiness which he experiences when a "spiritual realm" closes at the end of a case. Even though he must have other theories, that was all he said to Gene after that 'dance incident'.
But why was Gene's "area of mobility" expanding?
Noll spent most of his breaks theorizing why it had such an effect on his brother. Sometimes he seemed disappointed that he let it go on for too long. There certainly was one negative effect: Gene was stuck here and not able to join Noll during cases. Gene worried about that quite a bit, but Noll and the others seemed to cope well.
"Why don't you just say that you want to see me?" He muttered as he looked back at his brother's sleeping form.
He knew that Noll went to the park more often than he initially let on. Noll even said that he saw Gene more asleep than conscious during the first couple of weeks. That meant he must have made a trip to the park nearly every day. Gene was right. These days he was more often awake than asleep. He would even wait for Noll and see him come from afar.
Was Gene bored? For now, he wasn't.
Luckily, Yoyogi park was huge. According to Noll he only had "access" to about less than a quarter of the entire park so far. That didn't include the nearby Meiji Shrine which Gene visited when he arrived in Tokyo for the first time. He had skipped Yoyogi park back then. Gene sighed. Almost five years had passed.
Although he wasn't here by choice, it could have been worse given his situation. In fact, he rather enjoyed being here in the park. Being among the living so to say. Among those living he included the small white bunny wearing a brown waistcoat in front of him. It sniffed near his feet. He looked around. There was no caretaker in sight. The dressed-up bunny wore a red bowtie. Gene decided to call it Lewis for convenience's sake.
"Hey Lewis, heading somewhere?"
"Lewis" ignored him. Or rather, the bunny didn't hear the pouting young man.
When the bunny drew closer, he crouched down to look at the small creature with his cold blue eyes. The bunny appeared to be unfazed and twitched its nose. Then he tried pressing the tip of his finger against its nose.
Wiggle.
Gene nearly squealed, "So cute!"
The bunny ran off into the opposite direction after the apparent cold touch of his finger.
"There you are."
He noticed a recognizable figure in the distance and squinted. A short young man with blonde hair, blue eyes and wearing casual clothes.
Wouldn't that be John?
It looked like the bunny was in his care. John came over to pick up Lewis who presumably escaped.
"There, there girl. What're you so frightened of?"
So Lewis was female after all? He sighed a little and inwardly apologized to the bunny.
"Father, father!" A girl's voice shouted behind John. "Have you found Alice?"
John turned around and faced the girl. The girl wore pigtails and looked about ten years old. She had a serious expression on her face. A smaller boy clung to her shirt. They looked like siblings.
"Yes, I did. But she seems a bit frightened. I wonder what happened?"
John stared into his direction and the girl did too. Gene looked away and whistled innocently.
"Well, there isn't anything there."
The priest sighed and said: "Kanna-chan. Can you tell the others to stop searching?"
"Of course!"
Kanna nodded and ran off. John crouched down and showed Lewis, err, Alice to the other boy. He happily looked at the bunny. Ah, how nice it is to be young, Gene wistfully thought. He preferred dogs over rabbits, but the fur looked so nice and the ears were so cute.
Soon, a group of nine children joined John and the boy. Gene's jaw dropped. Is John a babysitter or a priest? When everyone of the group seemed to have gathered, John signalled the kids to follow him. They all tailed after him. What an adorable and innocent bunch, Gene thought.
But then he remembered a certain someone and had an idea.
He ran over to John's side, made sure to keep up with his pace and stretched out his hand to the bunny.
"I'm sorry, Alice. This won't take long."
He never possessed an animal, or a human for that matter, but at least he wore a waistcoat and a stupid bowtie.
John yelped when the bunny, or rather, Gene struggled out of his arms. Gene dropped down to the grass and tried to make his tiny limbs move.
This was more difficult than he expected it to be.
"Alice! Alice!" The kids shouted as they frantically tried to pick him up.
Gene attempted to confirm his location. Everything looked so high from down here. But there was one tree that couldn't be missed.
Somewhat disoriented, he ran as fast as he could into the direction where he came from. The barren tree was there, where he would be. He hoped he would still be there, or else it was all for naught.
He spotted Noll, who was fortunately still out there, asleep.
Sleeping beauty, wait for me!
He crawled into his brother's lap (in retrospect he found that a very awkward thing to do) and attempted to wake him up.
It didn't take long before Noll stared him down with the look of absolute horror in his eyes. Gene was inwardly pleased with his brother's reaction and left the bunny at once. He immediately flew up back into the barren tree and overlooked the situation.
His brother didn't move.
The bunny twitched its nose and seemed very confused.
John stood meters away with his jaw dropped.
Around ten children charged at Noll while screaming, "ALICE!"
One of the boys took Alice from Noll's lap and gave it to a girl who presumably owned the bunny. She seemed rather relieved. The other children hovered over Noll's face. They all looked at him curiously. Noll stood up quite immediately. As expected, he didn't seem very comfortable with the presence of the bunny and the children.
Noll noticed a horror-stricken John.
"John," Noll started, having recovered himself.
John blinked and tried to make his mouth move.
"H-hello sunshine!" He blurted out.
One of the girls looked at John and cheerily repeated after him: "Hello sunshine!"
Then all children kept repeating the phrase to Noll.
"Hello sunshine! Hello sunshine!"
Gene laughed.
A boy went to stand next to him. He looked about ten years old.
"Oy, Sunshine-san. Are you a ghost?"
Noll looked aghast. "No."
"Really? You should get tan, Sunshine-san."
John couldn't possibly look more horrified than before.
"Ryo- Ryousuke-kun! Please don't say that!"
One of the girls nodded and pushed Ryousuke out of the way. She was Kanna, the girl Gene saw earlier with John and the little boy.
"Yeah, that's rude," said Kanna, and looked at Noll.
"You look like one of the idols my older sister really loves. Is Sunshine really your name?"
"No, it's Shibuya..." John explained for Noll, who couldn't dignify her an answer.
Another girl joined in. "No, Sunshine-san must be giving you a fake name."
Kanna glared at her.
"Hey, don't bother me. I'm trying to pick him up!"
Gene widened his eyes. Why was she trying to pick his brother up? He's not worth it despite the looks!
She explained, "He's cute. Cuter than my sister's idol."
Gene twitched an eyebrow. No, he's not cute. He's handsome or cool. But not cute.
"And smarter."
She pointed at the book Noll was reading before he dozed off: Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism. It was a translated edition of a book which Takigawa liked and recommended to his brother.
"He can even read English books."
Gene facepalmed. "Kid, that's his native language."
Ryousuke huffed, "So what? He still looks like a creepy ghost. It doesn't matter if he's smart or whatever."
Kanna glared at the boy.
"You really don't get it, huh?! If I take him home, he can help me with my English homework."
Right now, Gene really wanted to take back what he said about them being 'an adorable and innocent bunch'.
Understandably, Noll looked very irritated and quickly moved past the children.
"Noll!" Gene shouted.
His brother glared back.
(I know you did that all of that. Now leave me alone.)
Author's note
Hey all, it's been a while since I last updated. In the mean time I completed the translation of the last Ghost Hunt novels "Akumu no sumu ie". You can find it on spr at dreamwidth. Please check it out if you haven't already!
In chapter 1, I mentioned that I didn't have much of a plan. Well, I decided to inject more plot into this thing. I also have a pretty good idea where it's heading to. You may have noticed in this chapter: More mystery. A little more drama. …I will keep the humor though.