Chapter 4

Mai woke up with a start. Realizing that she had forgotten to set her alarm clock the night before, she panicked and jumped right out of her bed, bolting straight to her tiny closet and smartly picked out her outfit for the day. In times like these where she had to be a little sportier than normal, she decided to forego her newer, mature fashion style and instead went old school-the good old green hooded cardigan and cargo pants combination. She parted her hair and twirled them into a tight bun on each side of her head and as soon as she finished the rest of her morning preparations, rushed out of her apartment and sprinted as fast as she can towards the train station where thankfully she managed to still catch the 7:40 train. For the entire ride she sat anxiously, tapping her foot silently and repeatedly looking at her watch. Finally when the voice overhead called out "Shibuya station" and the train doors opened, she jumped right out and tried her best to beat the others to the front of the line for the ticket scanner. Once that was finished, she resumed sprinting toward the SPR office, determined to make it on time or die trying.

Unfortunately it was five minutes past eight by the time she arrived. Breathing heavily she opened up the door and hoped that Naru wouldn't be right behind it with his stern look; to her surprise instead she saw Houshou Takigawa, Ayako Matsuzaki, Masako Hara, Osamu Yasuhara, and John Brown sitting on the sofa and chatting idly with each toher. They all turned towards her.

"Good morning, Mai-chan," the cheery voice of Bou-san called out. The others said their greetings as well.

"G-good morning, everyone. But what are you guys doing here so early?" she asked as she closed the door behind her, furrowing her brows and puzzling over their presence in the office. Usually the group never came together like this until the afternoon when everybody had already finished with their own work. Suddenly a low, silky voice cut through the air somewhere to her right, making her jump.

"Perhaps the better question is to ask what you are doing by being late." Naru was half standing, half sitting on the edge of her own office desk, holding a notebook in his hand. Evidently he had been tuning out the rest of the rabble while he looked over his notes, but now he was looking at her with his piercing dark eyes. It was not a question. Mai could tell he was severely annoyed with her. And she had promised him before they parted on Sunday morning that she wasn't going to be late today, of all day, too! With Lin-san out sick, who would have taken the tedious role of note-taker if the client had arrived earlier than their designated meeting time? Naru would not have stood for that. But this line of thought was soon forgotten when she recalled her two-day stay at his place. She had meant to go home on Saturday night right after having dinner with him as they originally planned, but she embarrassingly ended up dozing off again until it had gotten way too late. That meant she got to stay another night and only left after breakfast the next day. It was the longest she ever got to hang out with him, alone.

"S-sorry... I had a long night and apparently forgot to set my alarm..." She cast a quick glance at Yasuhara and found him smiling at her sympathetically, which she returned sheepishly. In order to appease her angered boss, she immediately skipped toward the kitchenette and said, "I'll prepare everyone's tea! Oh, also there are sweets here for everyone. From my trip to Okinawa."

Upon hearing this, the others let out an excited murmur and were about to head for the offerings but stopped when Naru snapped his notebook shut. "You people need to stop treating this place as a cafe. Get ready; the client is already here." And sure enough, there was a knock on the door. Everyone remained standing up and waited expectantly as the door opened. A middle-aged man in a business suit stepped in and inquired without a hint of timidity, "Good morning, is Shibuya-san in today?"

"Yes, I am. Please, come in and take a seat, Sugiyama-san."

The man nodded and closed the door behind him, stepping in and curiously eyeing everyone around him. Mai assumed he must be wondering who they were, as Naru and Lin-san were the only ones he saw in the office when he had come in last week. As Naru walked away to sit down at the sofa with the others, Mai tiptoed to her desk and picked up her notebook and pen, ready to do her part as an assistant. She found a spot to sit in beside Yasuhara and settled in as Naru started introducing the group one by one, pausing to allow them to say a few words to the client in order to explain their specialties. He then quickly introduced Mai and Yasuhara as his assistants. As soon as the introductions were complete, everyone sat down, looking at Naru to hear his next words.

"Based on the details you gave me during our interview last Thursday, Sugiyama-san, it would seem this case might be very dangerous. I have requested the others to be present during this interview so that they may hear the case facts for themselves and let them decide whether or not they will be willing to accept the case." Mai and the others shifted anxiously in their seats; Naru hadn't told them anything related to the case yet so they were all feeling the suspense. "Please let us hear the details, as much as you can provide us."

Mai opened her notebook and prepared to write down the case information.

Sugiyama-san gripped the suitcase he'd been carrying, probably to mentally prepare himself, then lowered the bag to the floor beside him. He said, "I began to work for Mitsui Real Estate agency about six years ago. I suddenly found myself in charge of the Kitaibaraki estate in question only a few months after joining due to my senior quitting his job. His wife had gotten a job offer at Nagano and was deliberating whether or not they should move, and since he was having a very difficult time selling the house and didn't want to deal with the burden anymore, they packed up and left.

"From his files I learned that before it passed to our company, the estate had been constantly in and out of the market for decades. The then-owner of the house decided that the easiest way to sell it was through the help of our agency. Curious, my senior took a tour of the house and found absolutely nothing wrong with it so he agreed to take the case. It was a mansion in European style, beautifully situated in the countryside, and had spacious grounds; he couldn't believe that it would be difficult to move in the market. But before he knew it, the house was sitting stagnant in the market for three years. It's not like there were no good offers, though. Plenty came to take a tour of the house and appeared to heavily consider buying it, but strangely, although nothing out of sorts happened during the tour everyone would eventually have second thoughts and decide not to go through with it. With the previous owner desperate to rid of it and our higher-ups constantly hounding him about finding a buyer, it's not surprising he felt pressured to quit."

"And how have you coped with the issue so far?" Naru asked.

"Not well, though better than he, I should say. I was able to finally coax a first buyer into purchasing the estate, but it was not easy. They were a family of five: husband and wife, two kids below ten years old, and a teenager. They were hesitant at first, but I knew they really fell in love with the place so I didn't need to push them too hard. However several months in they started phoning me and hinting that they were regretting getting the house. Of course I felt guilty and tried to ease their worries so I would entertain them, ask them what was wrong, but they themselves would make light of the situation and tell me that they were just hearing strange noises in the night, nothing too serious. I suggested they install a burglar alarm to help them feel better and I thought it worked out since they didn't call me up again until months later."

He cleared his throat, getting parched from talking. Right at that moment, as if on queue, the water that she had put on earlier started boiling. Mai paused from her note-taking duty and hurriedly went to the kitchenette to pour their guest some tea. She smiled as he took the steaming cup from her, looking at her gratefully. He continued, "As time went on their calls became more frequent, more urgent. Suddenly they were complaining of feeling unsafe in their own house-seeing shadows, hearing voices, heavy footsteps, general feeling that something was watching them... but nothing would trip their burglar alarm. I thought they were just being paranoid, but they were serious enough about it that they decided to sell it back to the market and left the premises even before they locked-in a buyer. They were willing to take the loss, which was not a paltry sum, mind you."

Bou-san spoke up. "How long did they endure the place?"

"Three years," answered Sugiyama.

"You were then able to find another buyer? How long?" it was Naru who pressed for details this time.

"I found a buyer after six months-"

"Hmm..." Mai studied him. Sugiyama-san looked to be in his mid-thirties, his face still youthful and his jet black hair neatly slicked back. Although at the moment he seemed to be tired and suffering from anxiety, she could tell from the way he carried himself that he was a usually confident man; there was no denying that he was very eloquent, charming, and even tempered, all characteristics that are useful in his field. It was no wonder he was able to do what even his senior couldn't do. Caught in her thoughts, she suddenly realized she hadn't been listening to what he was saying. "Crap! I'd better double down and focus."

"-Family of four: husband and wife, and two teenagers." Sugiyama's face betrayed the shame he was feeling. "I pushed the house to them even after I noticed that they were also hesitant about it. I should have seen the similarities in the way they acted when they were still deliberating. But I guess at the time I cared more about myself and my job more..." He took another sip of his tea. "The second family didn't last as long. After a year they were gone, complaining of the same things as the previous owners.

"The last buyer-the current owner..." his voice trailed off. "He is a younger man about my age, thirty-five years old, without his own family. It was just him and his younger sister-she's in her late twenties-they came to check out the place and I was a little bit more attentive to their concerns this time. I made up my mind that I wasn't going to push them as hard, but to my surprise, they overcame their own apprehensions and decided to purchase it." The man stopped here and his features tensed up, but it was obvious he wanted to say more. To Mai's surprise, Naru waited patiently until the man gathered himself and resumed, "They lasted only five months. It seems whatever the other families have been afraid of finally lashed out."

"Lashed out? How?" asked John.

"Hoshimi Saito-san, the man who purchased the estate, had his left arm badly mangled, barely hanging on by the skin. From the police reports it was said the injuries looked like it had been done with a hatchet or something brutish. It couldn't be saved and had to be amputated." Everyone (with the exception of Naru) let out a horrified gasp, but Mai thought she noticed something strange with Sugiyama's eyes in that moment. "Additionally, he went crazy and had to be sent away to a mental institution, presumably over the severe trauma he went through." There was definitely something off about him right now, she could feel it. But what? She looked around at the others and realized they had not picked up on anything, making her question herself. Still, she wrote the feeling down on her notepad.

Masako, who was currently wearing her kimono, covered her mouth behind her sleeves and looked particularly ill. The others didn't look well either. Yasuhara observed, more to himself, "It sounds like it escalated pretty quickly for Hoshimi-san."

"You said suspicion first fell on his younger sister?"

Sugiyama-san shifted and turned his gaze toward Naru who had just addressed him. "Yes, Hoshimi Yukina-san. There was no sign of intruders or any break in and as she was the only one present with him in the property during the time of the attack, the police assumed it must have been her. But there was no way she could have done it. Not Yukina-san; you'd know what I mean if you saw her."

Naru raised his brow. "You seem awfully sure."

"Yes, I'm sure. And eventually the police realized it was impossible for her to do it too, since they eventually released her after detainment due to lack of evidence."

"Were you aware if they had any sort of misunderstanding between them right before the attack?"

"What makes you think I'm privy to that information? I'm just a real estate agent they consulted," Sugiyama-san countered. Mai couldn't shake off the strange feeling and questioned herself whether she should bring it up to the others once the client leaves. She mentally shook her head. "Without Gene to guide me, I can't be sure. I haven't been useful at all to the others during our cases with Madoka... I shouldn't get too cocky and start spouting off my own ideas now..."

Sugiyama-san grabbed a folder from his suitcase and stood up, bowing low to everyone. "Please, this folder holds all the pertinent files I can legally share regarding the estate. I cannot give out any information regarding the clients other than their names due to privacy agreement, so I hope you will forgive me for that. If there's anything else you'll need, I will do my best to help you out somehow. Just please... I humbly beg all of you to consider this case." He kept himself in this humble pose, waiting for an answer.

Bou-san became uncomfortable and begged him to straighten up, saying, "Well I have to say it is a very interesting case for me, but it sounds really bad." Sugiyama-san finally raised his head and looked at him, afraid of his refusal, but Bou-san reassured him. "It sounds really bad, so I feel like I have no choice but to help out. Well, of course I can't do it alone, so although I would like to do so..." he looked around.

John and Masako met his gaze and they seem to be thinking along the same lines as him. Ayako was strangely quiet and kept glancing at Bou-san but said nothing. After a few seconds of uncertainty, Naru grabbed the folder that Sugiyama-san was holding out and finally spoke, "We will take the case. Please prepare a room for us that we can use as a base. We have lots of equipment we will be bringing in, so a spacious room will be best. We can begin the investigation tomorrow."

Sugiyama-san's joy and relief was palpable. He bowed sincerely once again and profusely thanked everyone before leaving. As soon as his footsteps died away, Ayako spoke up.

"I hope you guys know what you're doing. This sounds like really bad news. I mean, mutilation? That could end up happening to one of us."

Bou-san answered her, "It is dangerous, no doubt about that. Really, if anyone else doesn't want to come, now is a good time to say so." He looked around first before letting his gaze fall on Ayako, his eyes not showing any derision nor mock; he was being sincere. "It's okay if you don't want to go, Ayako," he said softly.

The red-haired Miko's face scrunched up. Mai could tell she was really afraid (in fact, so was she), but eventually Ayako sighed and murmured, "Well if you're going, then of course I'm coming."

Naru cupped his right hand to his chin and bit the tip of his thumb. "Lin will definitely have to come along despite his illness. This is not something we can handle without him. Mai, Yasuhara-san," he called out to them. "Will both of you be able to take some time off from school?"

To her right, Yasuhara cheerfully answered, "No one takes attendance in universities after all. It will be fine on my end."

Mai gulped when Naru shifted his gaze toward her with his raised eyebrow as if saying, "Well?" She took a deep breath and nodded. "I just have to let my school know. I'll ask for a week off."

In reality, Mai dreaded having to go. Not just because college entrance exams were right around the corner and she was not even close to being ready, but mostly because she's been having this nagging feeling inside her that she couldn't place. "Strange," she thought, "even though I should be extremely excited since this will be our first case since Naru's return." Nonetheless, she trusted in everyone's abilities and decided that she wasn't going to back out. "Just excuse me for a bit then; I will call the school and ask for permission."

She went to get her cellphone and stepped out.

A/N: Everything I knew about Ghost Hunt was only based on the anime and the last few chapters of the manga. Now that I found the translation of the light novels, I'm realizing there's a wealth of information I did not know about! I will try to incorporate relevant information so that it feels like it's part of the GH universe, so if I had missed something, I hope to correct it in the later chapters. Thanks again for reading.