Yeah, still story still... exists, I guess.

Apparently Shinichi returned to the old graveyard a lot sooner than he wanted. Not that he ever wanted to go back there.

Someone died from the police – heart attack, found by his wife. Again, Shinichi didn't know him that well, they worked together only once, on a slightly difficult murder case. He was only there to pay respect. Thus he stood at the back, and… as careful as he tried to be, the crowd (because there were an alarming amount of people in there) pushed him to THAT obelisk.

"Please don't let him find me, please don't let him find me, please don't let him…" he chanted to himself under his breath. He didn't know what he expected, but the funeral nearly ended, and no ghost approached him so far. Good. He kept chanting, just in case, but kissed his paranoia goodbye. For a while, that is.

They were lowering the coffin when Shinichi felt a shiver run up his spine, and that strange, warm feeling from the time when the ghost walked through him. His face paled as he turned his head and saw a white hand on his right shoulder. Seconds later the ghost was right next to him. He didn't look at Shinichi, but watched the ceremony with a solemn expression as he asked:

"Did you know him?" His voice lacked the cheerfulness that could be heard last time, instead it was quiet, but tense. His fingertips passed through Shinichi's shoulder, as if he tried to squeeze it.

"Just barely," came the croaked answer. The ghost's hand relaxed a bit, and his face looked calmer too.

"I see. I was worried…" He turned towards him slightly, as if he wanted to look at Shinichi. He couldn't be sure though – he still couldn't see the spirit's eyes, they were hidden behind his hair and under the shadow of his top hat. "It's been only two weeks since the last funeral you went to, it's… too soon. But if you don't know him that much, then it's better, right?"

"Whether I knew him or not, someone still died," he murmured. He glanced at the crying daughter of the man, before he looked back at his unwanted companion. "It doesn't make it less tragic for those who loved him."

"I'm sorry." The ghost bowed his head. "It was insensitive of me. We, ghosts, are… numb to death already, you see." Shinichi couldn't help but snort at that, which earned him a few disapproving looks.

"Yeah, I can imagine. Floating around a cemetery all the time would make me numb to it, I think."

"Aren't you already numb to it, though?" The ghost asked him. For a moment Shinichi saw a searching blue gaze directed at him, before it disappeared again. He couldn't think about it for too long, though, as the question sank in.

"What are you saying?" he hissed. He put some distance between them, taking one step, then another.

"Your eyes…" the spirit started quietly. "They are so cold and sad, as if you've seen too many things you shouldn't have. You're still so young… And still alive…" Shinichi could hear the slightest hints of envy in the ghost's voice, or rather, yearning. As he tried to look at him, he quickly understood why. Beneath the sickly pale colour, his face looked awfully young, like he was around the same age as Shinichi when he died – the guy had his whole life ahead of him when he passed away.

They stood next to each other in silence for a while, watching the funeral. It slowly came to an end, and the crowd around the grave lessened. Shinichi got ready to leave too, but before he could take a step, he felt a hand on his shoulder again – or rather, the shiver that came with the ghost's touch.

"Hey… couldn't you stay here for a bit? To talk?" His voice wasn't anything if not painfully hopeful, and, if his eyes hadn't been hidden still, they would've probably shown the same emotion. Shinichi remembered the last time he saw the ghost, and how dejected he looked when he left – he felt a twinge of guilt as he walked away anyway.

"Sorry, I don't have time for this now."

He wasn't going to have a tea party with a ghost.

There was something odd about the fact that the ghost named Kaito managed to haunt Shinichi even when he wasn't even near the cemetery. In fact, he wasn't even in Tokyo anymore. He was staying in an old mansion in Nowheresville instead, because for some reason, even after experiencing countless murders in isolated old houses, somewhere in his mind he still thought that visiting strangers was a good idea. Apparently his name was enough as a reason for random people to invite him everywhere to sniff around.

This was the case with a certain Kisaragi Haruko as well, who currently laid right in front of him, while her blood slowly painted the cold tiles under her body a dark and grimy crimson. Her daughter, Mami, still couldn't stop sobbing. Or at least making that irking, high pitched sound that sounded like sobbing according to her. She was obviously faking it, Shinichi thought to himself – thus she became one of the suspects. Then again, everyone in the house was a suspect.

So, disregarding who looked suspicious and who didn't – since looks hardly mattered in here -, he knelt down next to the late Kisaragi-san and examined the body. His mind was on autopilot: signs of struggling, rigor mortis, murder weapon… He didn't even realize it at first.

But then, an awfully familiar voice seemed to reach his ear, like a whisper, as he asked:

"Aren't you already numb to it, though?"

"Numb to death…" Shinichi muttered to himself, earning a few curious glances from the others behind him, but he didn't really pay attention to them. No, because his mind was filled with images now, memories of a certain ghost and his obelisk, and that warm feeling paired with shiver that should be sickening, but…

That was the moment when Shinichi promptly slapped his own cheeks with both hands, while an annoyed growl left his mouth.

"The nerve some ghosts have…" he grumbled, and secretly hoped that the spirit of the late Kisaragi Haruko would bother Kaito a bit.

"You are pining away, son…" whispered a weak voice. It was almost carried away by the whistling winds of the cemetery. The owner of it, the ghost of an old lady who couldn't remember anything about herself except for the fact that his friends called him "Ami", floated gracefully just a feet above the green mop of grass, and watched another spirit with a sad look on her face.

"Me? Pining away?" The other spirit, the one named Kaito, asked lazily while he was hanging upside down from the top of his obelisk. Or at least, this is how it looked like. In reality, he was floating as well, just a tiny bit above the cold stone.

"And because of a living one, at that…" Ami sighed. "This is not good, son."

"I'm not, though…" he pouted. The lady just sighed again – the boy was the personification of pining away. "It's just that…" He paused, and stood on the top of the obelisk instead, gazing at the moon. The moonlight made him look transparent, his white clothes even more so. He chuckled softly, and turned to the old lady. "He can see me. Only me."

"That's strange… Is there a reason for that? You're not stronger than us, you surely can't be more visible than the others."

"There is." Kaito nodded with an unreadable expression.

"You…" Ami floated closer to the obelisk, and her hands hovered above its surface. "That boy is…?"

"I recognized him right when I saw him."

"Just when you were about to forget him…" Ami sighed, and withdrew her hands. When she looked up, Kaito was gazing at the moon again, like it was an old friend of his. She glanced at where her hands were, the carvings on the marble, once numbers, now odd lines. An old friend indeed. A very, very old friend. Ami grimaced as she spoke again. "You should give up, son. He wasn't happy to see you anyway." Harsh words, but true nonetheless. Kaito didn't seem to mind them, though.

"Give up?" he laughed with disbelief. "When I found him? One of them? You know I can't do that!" Ami just shook her head, and decided to float back to her own grave.

"I know."