Chapter Text
Mai feels as though she’s in a dream as she walks through the woods.
…This is weird, she can’t help but think to herself. It’s the same woods she was walking in earlier today. She wonders if it really is a dream—if she might be able to see Gene again, one last time, and give him the final goodbye that she couldn’t.
Her heart aches at the thought that she had deprived him of his identity for so long. She’s determined to properly speak to him. Except…
Except it doesn’t feel like she’s in a dream, for whatever reason. There are no lights around her, and though she’s in a realistic setting, she isn’t playing the role of someone else or watching a part of someone else’s memories. She’s just reliving her own.
When she looks ahead, she realizes that Naru is standing there, leaning back against the tree. Suddenly, a sense of déjà vu washes over her—didn’t she make this mistake earlier? That isn’t Naru.
It’s Gene.
“…Eugene,” she says aloud. Her hands fold behind her back as she walks towards the boy, who gives her a calm look. His expression is still, unsmiling, an exact copy of Naru. “Is this a dream?”
Gene shakes his head. “Just Gene is fine.”
I was right that it was Gene, then. But what does he mean that it isn’t a dream?
Her eyes well up, her train of thought quickly redirected as she remembers the last thoughts she’d had before going to bed. “…I’m sorry for calling you Naru, for so long. I…I didn’t even know…”
Gene shakes his head again. “…I didn’t tell you the truth. You couldn’t have known.” He pauses for a moment. “…I’m sorry. For calling you Mai without ever asking.”
She can’t help but laugh a little, despite her sniffling. “It’s okay. None of the others ever asked either—I’ve never minded.”
She looks at him. “If…this isn’t a dream, then what is it?”
Gene’s face becomes apologetic. “…I…It’s my fault, Mai. I did something stupid, a while ago…Just remember that you aren’t dreaming, okay? Right now—none of it is a dream.”
She blinks, her eyes drying up slowly. “…What do you mean? And—Gene. Naru…he told me…he asked me, when I confessed, if it was him or you—”
“—Think on that by yourself, Mai, before you let that idiot scientist decide for you. He’s always been terrible with feelings, even though he’s great at understanding motivations.”
Mai is confused. “Huh? Wait—”
Gene is gone, vanishing in the next instant. She can’t help but stare at where he was. She reaches out with a hand and presses it against the tree.
…What does that mean?
When she hears the grass crinkling with footsteps from the other direction, Mai isn’t surprised to turn around and see Naru walking towards her.
“Naru,” she says. She looks back at the tree. “…Maybe I’m going crazy,” she mutters.
“What’s wrong?” Naru asks. Mai wonders if the events of earlier were the dream all along—maybe, Gene had given her a vision of the future, and let her see all the things that would go wrong so that she could do it properly this time?
Except Naru had said that ghosts only knew as much as they knew in life. But Gene was a medium, so surely he’d know more?
Yet his answers to her questions were often vague and unclear, and Naru is clearly the expert, when it comes to theorizing anyway. Gene had been the one who sympathized, which both of them seemed to agree with.
…And nothing either of them had ever said implied Gene could see premonitions of the future. What is going on?
“…Naru,” she starts, considering how to phrase it. She turns and looks back at him. His head is tilted slightly in confusion. She remembers the anger she had felt, in earlier’s—she’ll assume that was a dream, since this isn’t, according to Gene. The anger that wasn’t really his fault at all, but her own. “…You can’t leave your body, right?”
He looks at her with slight confusion. “No.”
“…Your brother, did he look like you?” Mai already knows the answer to this—she just needs to make it look like she didn’t already know. Like she’s just figured it out, or perhaps just been told.
“…Mai, why are you asking this?” Naru’s eyes narrow. “…Have you seen a spirit that looks like me?”
She can’t help but laugh ruefully. “I’ve seen an exact copy of you smiling at me in my dreams for months,” she says helplessly. “And he just told me the truth. Standing against this tree, just a minute ago.”
Naru looks stunned. He staggers back in shock. Mai feels bad. For her, this shock was something she’d just worked through—for him, it was the first time. There were perhaps better ways to phrase it.
“…Months,” he says slowly. “How long?”
“From the beginning,” she says, softening her tone. “From the very first case at my school, back in April last year.”
“He’s been in your dreams…all the time?” Naru is starting to regain his bearings. His brows crease as he begins to think. Mai can practically hear the gears turning in there.
“Not always,” Mai answers honestly. “But he’s shown up on most of our cases. I haven’t really…seen him outside of that.”
“…When you had that dream, the memory of a person who had their neck slashed.” Mai shivers involuntarily at the memory. “Was there something strange about that dream?”
Mai recalls this part of the conversation from her earlier dream as well. “Are you asking if Gene was in it?” she wonders. “He wasn’t.”
She’s surprised when he doesn’t explain the psychometric vision to her, but perhaps it’s because her own response changed, so there’s no reason to explain that part. It’s not like it matters, though. I already know.
Naru holds a hand to his chin. “I’ll rephrase the question. What was Eugene’s job in your dreams?”
She repeats what she had said before. “He said that he showed me the way to the dream. And he also taught me how to go into a trance state.”
“To pay attention to your breath and relax your whole body?”
“Yeah,” she answers as she nods.
“That idiot,” Naru growls. “What the hell is he doing? Getting lost on his way…”
Mai can’t help but register the way little things have changed, just because so much of their conversation changed. She smiles placatingly, holding her hands up. “Well…wasn’t he just worried about Naru? Since he’s Naru’s aniki, after all.”
Naru gives her a flat expression. “I’m not so desperate that I need him worrying about me.”
Internally, Mai cannot help but feel the same sentiment as she had in the dream.
…Gene-onii-san, your concern really is wasted on this guy…
“…So what?” Mai asks, trying to follow along the mental script she barely remembers at this point. She’d cried herself to sleep, after all—her memories of the conversation aren’t exactly crystal clear, even if she’s not as forgetful as Naru likes to assume.
Naru sighs with an annoyed expression on his face. “Apparently that idiot is acting as your spiritual guide. He probably noticed you had potential when it came to spiritual powers, so he stayed around you to bring them out.”
Well, even if that’s the case…why is he still here? And what was he trying to tell me, earlier?
He continues to explain, “Gene often used the technique of going into a trance. He also had the habit of seeing ghosts as lights and letting the landscape around be a little transparent. And he would also connect the line.”
Oh, is he going to explain the vision thing now? “Line? What’s that?” Mai tilts her head, genuinely trying to seem oblivious.
“There was a hot line between me and Gene,” Naru says, voice becoming distant. “A direct connection.”
“Like telepathy?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t useful at all to others, but apparently, he was able to connect to you. I saw the same vision you did, earlier in the day, when I did psychometry on an item in the mansion.” He sighs once more, looking irritated. “He should hurry up and cross over.”
Instead of trying to convince Naru of Gene’s kindness, recalling how it had entirely been a lost cause, she feels the urge to ask about something else. “…Is it possible to control that? Seeing ghosts as lights, and whether the landscape is transparent or not…?”
The realization that everything Mai had done had been solely a result of Gene’s help was a little disheartening. Is it possible…for me to do it on my own?
Naru looks thoughtfully at her. “Perhaps…perhaps once he’s found…”
Mai realizes he means that she might have more control after Gene passes on. So…when Lin comes, after that? Since his body will be found, and reunited with Naru…
She tries to recall the next part of the conversation. Something about how she and Naru are both orphans? There’s no point in making Naru talk about something like that, not when she already knows the whole truth.
She realizes Naru is looking at her, jolting her out of her thoughts. “What are you thinking so hard about?” he says. He seems almost amused. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
She scowls. “The fact that we’re both orphans.” She winces internally immediately after.
…I should learn to control my temper…
“Did Lin tell you?” Naru looks upwards, folding his arms again. “I suppose you’re wondering…”
“It’s why you hired me, isn’t it?” Mai interrupts.
“Is your intuition levelling up?” he shoots back. He sighs. “…Some sort of self-identification, I suppose. Maybe pity.”
She nods. She doesn’t prompt him to explain further—there’s no need to needle him when she already knows, anyway.
He seems surprised when she falls silent. “You aren’t going to ask further?”
“I kind of get it,” she answers. “And I’m thankful. Thank you, Naru.”
He nods awkwardly.
“…Your brother, Gene. Why did he come to Japan?” She changes the topic, leaning back against the tree.
Naru looks away, and walks past her, pressing a hand against the tree. “There was a request for an exorcism. And because Japan uses an old-fashioned kind of exorcism, he wanted to investigate that as well.”
Mai turns a little and tilts her head at him. “And your parents were okay with that? Weren’t you two…only fifteen?”
“This coming from the girl living on her own at that age?”
Mai blushes a little. “That’s different. I’m still in Japan, after all, and I don’t have any parents, adopted or not.”
“…They weren’t okay with it,” Naru finally says. “But he wanted to do it, and they wanted to support him.”
And then he died here, in a tragic and unnecessary accident, Mai thinks, feeling a sense of unfairness well up inside of her.
“You were both ghost hunters?”
“We were.”
“And you both experimented…”
“Yes.”
“What…was he like?” Mai wonders if the answer will change.
“He was kind of like you.” Naru gives her a side-eye. “Lin said it as well—he would sympathize with the client and cry or laugh with them. But he was much quieter.”
“…So it’s not just the orphan thing,” she murmurs absentmindedly. “…Like me, but quieter…Or maybe I’m just like him, but louder…” She thinks aloud.
She blinks in surprise when she realizes Naru is standing in front of her, looking mildly cross. When did he move?
“If you’re thinking something idiotic like, ‘Was I a replacement for him?’, I assure you—not even remotely.”
Mai laughs awkwardly. “No, of course not—I look nothing like you, after all,” she jokes. “Masako could be your sister, though. And she’s also a medium.”
She feels a little guilty for throwing Masako under the bus as he wrinkles his nose. She decides that maybe, at this point, enough has been said. There’s no need to make Naru relive Gene’s death, and no need to talk to him about the killer—and she definitely won’t be confessing to him again.
She steps forward and walks around him. “I’ll…leave you alone. Maybe Gene will appear again?”
“Unlikely,” Naru says from behind her. He’s leaning against the tree now, looking at her. “If he’s only appeared to you, it means that he must have been unable to reach me.”
“Then maybe he’ll contact me when I’m on my own?” Mai suggests.
“Perhaps,” Naru admits. He’s still looking at her. Mai feels as though there’s something he wants to say, but she doesn’t know what. In the end—she decides to take another step back and see what happens.
The moment she does, Naru speaks up. “Did he…talk to you? Earlier…”
“He did,” she says slowly.
“…About his death. Did he say something to you?”
Mai is about to shake her head, but then she realizes something. She’s the one who is always, always, asking questions about something. If she says that he didn’t and then doesn’t ask about it, it will be odd. She curses her own lack of knowledge.
She hates lying. But lying to save someone else’s feelings…she can do that much, at least. “…He did. A little.” She hopes it doesn’t show in her expression.
“Then you know,” Naru says. His eyes are narrowed, arms folded.
Mai nods. “And I understand why you can’t…tell the authorities and get her caught.” Even though you had to spell it out for me. But since it was my dream, I can take the credit now, right? It’s kind of nice not feeling stupid, even though it feels a little like cheating.
He raises an eyebrow. “Do you, now? He must have given you quite some detail.”
It was you, actually.
“Um. Yes.”
He looks at her suspiciously for another moment, before his head slumps down. “I…see.”
…It feels like something isn’t right, but I don’t know what. “Um…Naru, what…what kind of girls did Gene like?”
He stares at her as though she’s lost her mind. “Do you recall why exactly we’re at this lake?”
Right. Mai, you’re so stupid—why would you ask that at a time like this?
“I hope you haven’t discovered a sudden fondness for nec—”
“No!” Mai shouts immediately. “No, no, um—it’s just, he was really nice to me in my dreams, and I wondered if it was because maybe I was his type? Because, see, Masako saw him too, I think—but just the once, on the case with Urado—”
Naru’s expression becomes an odd mixture of baffled and bemused as Mai rambles. “I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention to that sort of thing—and I’d assume that he only connected to you both in the afterlife because you were the only ones receptive to his spirit.”
“…I guess he always got the girls, huh?” Mai says awkwardly. She cringes. I get a second chance and somehow I blow it up even worse than the first one.
“It was quiet, so I was happy,” Naru says simply. He looks away. “…Same face, same power; one has a good personality, the other has a bad personality. Which one would you choose?”
She remembers vividly how she had answered to this before. In light of recent revelations, she can’t help but respond with a question of her own. “…Does having a bad personality mean that they’re a bad person as well?”
He blinks at her. They stare at each other for a moment. The silence stretches on. Finally, Mai says, “…I want to say the good personality. But everyone in our group has a pretty bad personality, you know? Even me. So…I don’t feel like that’s right.”
The next few moments are spent in an awkward silence avoiding looking at each other, again. Naru says, “I see.”
Then footsteps come from behind Mai, both of them turn to face Lin, and the next few moments are the same as Mai’s dream—Gene’s body is found, Naru looks over the yellow cloth with no emotion, and confirms that it is his brother.
Mai finds herself again in the room with Ayako and Masako and explains the truth about her vision of a smiling Naru to the other girl. Then, she goes to bed, feeling successful.