A Tale of Two Brothers Chapter 1: Revelations, a ghost hunt fanfic

A Tale of Two Brothers

Full Summary:
Alternate Timeline, revised edition of Angel's Smile: The Day You Went Away. Taniyama Mai receives a phone call from a mysterious person, one that Naru had least expected to call. And from then on, she is introduced to a topsy-turvy chain of events ultimately leading up to her attempt to answer the hardest question in her life.

Well, it can't get any worse, right? But with Eugene Davis's entry into SPR, everything goes awry—and a little bit more about Naru is starting to reveal itself as Mai's world tumbles into pieces.

IMPORTANT! Read this! DL, DR!

Pairings: NaruMai. My one and only Ghost Hunt OTP.

Genres: Supernatural & Romance

File 1:
Revelations

I thought that the Naru in my dreams is kind—because the real Naru is kind.

Or at least, that's what I've always believed.

April, Saturday.

The world seemed truly at peace, or so I have thought at that particular moment in time as I stood in the midst of the fog of my hazy dreams. I won't have to associate myself with Shibuya Psychic Research at the moment, was what ran in my mind as I stood in a meditative trance in the middle of my la-la land. Maybe even if Naru had insisted, I wouldn't have budged from the serenity in my current world.

I rounded a corner with all the lightness of a spirit. Then, and then, I see him. Him!

"N-Naru?"

No way, absolutely no way in hell will I deny myself from looking at those exotic and straightforward blue eyes, those wonderful eyes dyed with the color of the lightest midnight. And look at that slightly arrogant upturn of his aristocratically proud nose! His pale lips were in a straight, unceasing line as he glanced at me carelessly, as if I was a mere statue at that particular moment, in that particular place.

I so badly wanted to shout at him, to tell him that I am here, that I am alive. But how—? I can't move any part of my body… let alone…

Then, with an ethereally gentle expression, he gazed directly at me… and smiled.

Yes. He smiled. Ah, this is a dream, after all!—Mai-chan, why look so disappointed? H-hey, stop showing that face!

He finally walked away, and vanished off in the foggy haze of my sleep. And that's where I realize that maybe, just maybe, I'll never really get to see him smile like that in real life…

April, Monday after school.

I pulled open the heavy door of the office of Shibuya Psychic Research in downtown Shibuya, Tokyo. As I pulled my bag off my shoulder, I immediately spotted Matsuzaki Ayako, also fondly called by SPR members as "Miko-san" due to her secondary profession, sitting on one of the black couches that surrounded the small, serene coffee table. I was rather surprised at this impromptu visit—traditionally, Ayako doesn't like to visit the SPR office unless personally asked to by Naru himself because of the rather reasonable fear of running a large risk of meeting my boss in one of his surlier moods. The kind of mood that makes you shrivel up when he just enters the room. Yeah, I love that. Absolutely.

"Good afternoon, Ayako," I greeted her, and as was custom, tacked the magical additional word at the end of my sentence. "Tea?"

"Tea'll be nice, but I'm also looking for Naru and Lin. Do you know where they may be? I have received a rather unusual case concerning one of Naru's most obscure areas—music."

"Well…" I prepared some tea while I thought carefully. Naru and Lin-san's plans were not of the kind that they'll want me to meddle with, not that I'm particularly interested in them, though. "I just came here like yourself. It's not as if I had any idea. Maybe they went out for a bit? They left the door unlocked, after all..."

"I see…"

While I was pouring some of the tea I made for Ayako in a cup, the phone rang. I handed Ayako her tea hastily and turned to the phone, and for a moment, hesitated to pick it up since Lin-san was usually the one assigned to answer the phone. However, under Ayako's slightly accusing glare, I finally relented and picked it up, cursing my job at times like these when everyone just seems to think that they have ghosts in their houses when—

"Hello, this is Shibuya Psychic Research." Gotta focus on the call first, y'know? I'll get back to you on that topic later.

"Oh, hello," a pleasant and mellow male voice answered me. I noticed a slight foreign twang as he spoke (his "o" sounds were slightly rounded on the edges), but other than that his mastery of the language was astounding.

"What can I do for you sir?" I said, just like what a polite and well-trained desk receptionist would do.

"Well, I'd like to schedule for an appointment with Shibuya-san. He's the president of this agency, right?" I had a rather strong mental image of an obvious smile on the speaker's face when he said Naru's surname, but I declined to comment. It would have seemed rude.

"Appointment?" I said in a surprised tone. "Well, I could, sir. But as a matter of fact, you could easily walk through the doorway of our office and demand for a consultation. Clients of our agency often do that since there is usually no great demand for agencies which tackle paranormal activities, so there's no need to check for a vacancy."

"Yeah, I see," the mellow voice on the other line said. "Well, I would like to set an appointment date and time, all the same. I don't like to rush things into an unsystematized way, you see."

"It's okay, sir." I thought of a date when Naru will be most likely present. "How about Thursday this week, 8 am?"

"That's fine. I'll be there right on the dot. Well, goodbye."

"Wait just a minute, sir! What is your name?"

"Oh sorry. That was a bit dumb of me. Just write Eugene Davis down, please. (So he is a foreigner, I thought.) You got that right? Well, than you for the time. I'll go now."

There was a click on the other line, then silence.

"Who was that?" Ayako asked.

"I don't know. A client asking for an appointment with Naru." And I was right, I didn't really know him… yet.

April, Thursday morning.

It was an unusually warm day. My eyelids were already drooping. As in, droooooping… Whaa—!

Taniyama Mai, steady yourself!

Uh, even lecturing myself didn't bolster my eyelids to keep themselves awake.

Oh no… If Naru catches me at it again, I'll really get it. Not that he really assaults me physically or anything… the only times that our skins had actually come on contact were when he tried to rescue me from a manhole in a past case (I say 'tried' because I accidentally dragged him after me) and when he tried to rescue me (again with the "tried"… how many times he had tried!) from the room that caved in when we were in the Ryokuryou High case. The problem was that the ceiling had crashed on us then. Well, at the very least he successfully shielded me from the ceiling…

Why am I thinking like that? Arghh!

I prepared a thermos full of tea. Naru was partial to tea rather than coffee during days like this when we were just passively waiting for further clients.

Then my nemesis entered the main office almost immediately after I had filled a mug for him. Shibuya Kazuya (fondly called Naru, and if in an angelic state of mind, Naru-chan) is not really the first person that would come to my mind if someone mentioned the word "humble." Is he humble? Oh no, my readers who are new to Shibuya Kazuya's extreme and rather shameless narcissism. But at first glance, he really has every right to tell the world that he's handsome, that he's a notch smarter than we are, and that he's undoubtedly the most deceitfuljerk the world has ever seen.

Hurray for narcissistic Naru-chan!

"Mai," he called me in the gorgeous voice that I had come to be endearingly irritated at, if not despised. "Tea."

Okay, he's not exactly a man of few words when it comes to describing himself, but still.

"I know," I said sardonically, automatically handing him the mug that I was filling lately. As his slim white fingers grasped its handle firmly, the door opened and in came Takigawa Houshou (aka "Bou-san", again because of his secondary profession, or else "Takigawa Norio" if you're one of the fans of his rock band), Matsuzaki Ayako, Hara Masako (affectionately nicknamed "Doll-san"), and John Brown.

Naru's eyes, which were unnervingly cold like steel at that moment, settled on them.

"Hiya, Naru-chan," Monk-san said with his usual tact. "We thought we'd come and, you know, uh, see you."

Masako and Ayako stifled a giggle each at the contrast in Naru's and Monk-san's expressions. I was also fighting hard not to laugh. John, however, put in.

"I know it's not the best day in the week, Shibuya-san," he said hesitantly. "But it's been a while since we heard from ya and Mai-girl."

He smiled at me, his wide blue eyes innocuous. I smiled back. Twenty-year-old John was too much baby-faced to be seriously considered as a priest.

I poured tea for all of them as they sat on the couches surrounding the coffee table. John was right, I haven't heard from them for quite a while now. It had been almost a month already from when we solved the Yoshimi case, and this is the first time that we're going to be together since that incident when Naru was rushed to the hospital.

At first glance, the SPR members when all together might seem to the casual passersby as a big family. I've always thought of that myself. Monk-san, as the brotherly figure in our group, is the father. Then Ayako can be the mother, nagging yet caring. Lin-san is the quiet and ever-ready uncle. Yasuhara-san is the reliable, mischievous oldest sibling. John is the next brother, who is gentle and kind. Then that must make Masako and me the sisters in the family—we are both sixteen. And Naru, even though technically older than me by about a year, is the much-spoiled youngest son.

You must be laughing by now at my imagination. Yes, if we really are a family, we must be the funniest family for miles around.

"Yasuhara can't come at all," Monk-san was saying as I handed over mugs to each of them. "Total bummer."

I saw Masako smile at Naru indulgently, which made my blood boil as a distinctive murmur settled on the office as they got absorbed into their own little conversations.

"Why are you all here?" my boss said coldly, shutting the folder he was holding with a vicious snap. Or is that my imagination working again? "I didn't remember inviting you for a chat." Oh yes, the bliss of listening to Director Shibuya's sharp tongue. It's an unwelcome bonus for his workers—or for me at least.

Bou-san, however, smiled at Naru in a highly mysterious manner. "Come on, Naru-bou. I have an important business to talk with you about. And I dragged them all here because I want them to hear with their own ears. There's something that I had badly wanted to ask you. Can I have some of your time?"

Naru stared at Bou-san, his eyes very like two chips of ice in their coldness. "…Right now?"

"Yeah." Bou-san's eyes sparkled with satisfaction as Naru showed signs of unwillingly giving in. "My question is really urgent, and the sooner you can answer me, the better it will be for all of us."

I wondered what Bou-san was planning to do at that moment.

"—Well, it won't hurt anyone if I hear you out for a while, at least." Naru said this with a sigh. I got up to prepare him some tea, but to my utter surprise, Bou-san beat me to it, the teapot in his hand as he smirked at Naru, not very much unlike with how a naturalist smiles at the new addition to his butterfly collection.

"Sorry, but the question is a little bit complicated and you'd need to remain seated for quite a while. So which tea would you want to drink? Maybe some Earl Grey or Darjeeling Black?"

"Bou-san." Naru looked slightly confused at Bou-san's actions, and no doubt we were all as mystified as Naru finally obliged Bou-san and sat on his usual couch that was turned away from the window. "Maybe we should get straight to the—"

Bou-san laughed. "Just humor me, on this one, Naru-chan. I promise I wouldn't annoy you. Well, which one? Hot, or maybe you'd like it iced? With milk, or with lemon perhaps? Or maybe you want Cambric Tea or Chai? Scented with apple? And then, maybe some cookies to accompany it, or butter cake? Or maybe you'd like both? Nah, it's complicated, isn't it?"

Naru's face held the slightest hint of annoyance, but he stayed put and just sat back to glare at Bou-san. "…Whatever."

"Well, you seem to hate my beating around the bush, so I'll ask my question right away." Bou-san paused to study Naru's eyes, which had both become very defiant. "What will you do after this Yoshimi business? Since we have personally witnessed that abnormally huge energy stored up inside you?" Bou-san eyed Naru's right arm, and I saw a hint of bandage still peeking under his sleeve. "And you still haven't fully recovered from its aftereffects, I see…"

Naru's face switched back to its usual expression: annoyingly impassive. "I do not think that it has anything to do with you, Bou-san."

"Eh? Come on now, Naru-chan." Bou-san sighed. "Of course it's got something to do with me. And not just me, but with the entirety of SPR. We're all friends, aren't we?"

"If this is another thoughtless farce, which is certainly getting quite usual these days, you've chosen the wrong person to talk to. So, are you deliberately calling me for this absurdity?"

"It's neither an absurdity nor a farce, and you know it, Naru-chan." Bou-san's dark eyes were suddenly bordering on the serious. "We're wondering what you and Lin-san will do after this. This matter ain't something to be taken lightly! It's a very serious topic that should be discussed whether you like to or otherwise!"

Naru scowled. "Bou-san, I assure you that it's not your place to worry about it."

"But isn't it natural for us to get worried about you?"

Naru's voice was sharpened to an edge. "Then, Bou-san, don't bother about worrying about me. After all, no one is requiring you to do that."

Bou-san seemed to want to snap back upon hearing Naru's infuriating reply, but held back. "It's up to me to worry about whoever I want."

"Then I guess what I will do after this case is also up to me, Bou-san."

I finally reached bursting point when he said that, so I put in, "Why are you like that, Naru? All of us are concerned about you!"

Naru turned his intense blue eyes upon me. I didn't flinch as I stared back. "Well, that's what I call 'nosing into other people's business', Mai."

"Nosing? Naru!" I was quite taken aback at his answer, but plowed through anyway. "Are you really so insensitive? Why can't you just accept everyone's good intentions sincerely? Moreover, why do you think are they all here? It's because we were worried about your condition! If it is not a concern, then what? You're an even bigger idiot than me if you can't accept these good intentions of ours!"

"I had never asked for any of those so-called 'good intentions'." Naru was staring at me so hard that it almost hurt me physically.

I opened my mouth for a rebuttal, and tears began pooling in the corners of my eyes from sheer anger as I said, "How about, at least, you show us some gratitude for at least thinking of you?"

Naru scoffed. "Seriously, Mai… what is it that makes you that angry? Do you really have to be so attached to everyone else?"

I bristled. "I don't have to have a reason to get attached to anyone, Naru! But your cold, high-and-mighty attitude—that aura that tells us to stay away from you because you do not want our attention? It irritates me, and you should know it!"

Bou-san, however, quickly interfered before Naru could deliver a stinging reply. "Alright, alright… I do understand. So, calm down… Naru certainly has his own reasons."

"But, Bou-san—!"

"The point is that I'm here and I have invited you all to clear something that was on my mind for quite a while. And will you finally understand once all of this is cleared, Mai?" Bou-san fixed me with a stare before turning back to Naru. "Ne, Naru, wouldn't you care to explain?"

"I don't think it's important."

Bou-san sighed again. "Still so stubborn… If that is so, if I had something to ask you, would you answer?"

Naru frowned. "Frankly, Bou-san, this matter is a waste of my time."

Bou-san chuckled. "Naru-chan, you have to realize that sometimes, something like wasting time is also necessary."

Naru stood up sinuously, the black folder in his hands promptly opened as he started to go, but Bou-san immediately blocked his way.

"Get out of my way, Bou-san."

"Ne, Naru-chan, it's not good if your injury gets worse, hm? And I assure you that I'm not going to hesitate to use force if it's necessary to keep you here. So, what? Would you stay here in peace for a little while and clear my query?"

Naru hesitated, then said, "—Fine. I'll give you five minutes."

"How stingy. What about thirty minutes?" Bou-san certainly looked as if he was enjoying this. The rest of SPR, which included me, all looked mightily confused.

"Fifteen minutes."

Bou-san didn't look as if he was too satisfied, but he nodded and ushered Naru to his former seat. "Alright, fifteen if you must."

Ayako suddenly spoke and voiced our concern. "W-wait a minute! I still don't understand what you guys are doing!"

Bou-san smiled mysteriously. "We are trying to clarify something that'll confirm everything that I've gathered. Well then, let's straight to the point, Naru-chan… The first query that came across my mind is about… his name."

My eyes rounded with surprise when a faint shadow of a smile manifested itself upon Naru's lips. He looked as if he was strangely satisfied with the statement that Bou-san presented him with.

So I felt obligated to speak up. "Er, what's with his name, Bou-san?"

Bou-san looked at me exasperatedly. "Shibuya Psychic Research is located in downtown Shibuya, Mai. And its president has 'Shibuya' as a surname too. Don't you find this fact strange?"

Ayako frowned thoughtfully at Bou-san. "Well, isn't it just a coincidence or something?"

"It might be," Bou-san agreed. "There are three possibilities. Firstly, maybe it is just that, a pure coincidence. Secondly, maybe the loation was purposely chosen for the office because of the prestige associated with the name. And lastly… maybe the names of either the office or the president are pseudonyms."

"Pseudonyms?"

Bou-san looked as if he had just won the jackpot at the lottery. "Yes. If the concerned is anyone else, that might be. But, it is not something that our Naru here would do. So, the most possible scenario would be the first. But there is something which still doesn't add up to our deductions so far."

I looked confusedly at Bou-san. "Wh-what is that?"

"Do you remember what Naru said to you the first time we all met at your school, Mai?"

"Ne, Naru-chan. What do you want me to do today?"

"What did you call me…?"

"Uh…"

"Did you just call me Naru?" His face had registered pure shock at the time. I hadn't missed it, but I took it as a reaction for something that was entirely else.

"S-sorry, I—"

"Where did you hear that name?"

"Oh, so 'Naru' must be your real nickname! Just as I thought… Other people must've had the same idea! Well, Naru-chan… short for narcissist."

Naru had looked highly confused at my reasoning for calling him 'Naru' back then, but he had continued to speak. "Hm… Well, there has been no reaction from the spirits, so there's not much that we can do at the moment. However, Mai's senpai—"

"You just called me by my first name!"

Naru had this smug look at the time. "In case you've forgotten, you just did call me by my first name too, didn't you?"

I was quite shocked when I did remember. "Well, yeah…"

Bou-san smirked. "I remembered it because it was just weird. Notice: Mai just called him with a nickname which was derived from the word narcissist. In Japanese, narushisuto. So, there's no way in hell that it can be a first name for somebody, right? And the other strange thing is that why Lin-san also calls him like that. Isn't that also quite weird?"

"Why is it weird?" I asked curiously.

"Mai, you're so naive." Bou-san sighed. "Is Lin-san the type of person who normally calls his boss 'Naru, the narcissist'? Even if the nickname 'Naru' came from the word narcissist, Lin-san is certainly not the type who will call his boss as simply 'Naru'. Am I mistaken?"

"Well… if we think about it…" I was astounded at the concreteness of Bou-san's argument.

Even Ayako looked surprised. "You might've hit it right this time…"

Bou-san smiled at Ayako. "Well, we shall only know the truth by asking the concerned one directly. Then, this raises another question: What if 'Shibuya Kazuya' is his pseudonym, and 'Naru' is his real name?"

"…'Naru' is his real name?" I glanced at Naru as I was saying this, and to my surprise, he was smirking.

"You're starting to understand, do you?" Naru said, the smirk widening when the rest all turned around to look at him.

Bou-san rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Fufu~ Starting from here onwards will be more interesting." He pointed his right index finger at Naru. "If your real name is 'Naru', it won't be as strange if Lin-san also calls you by it. Moreover, while going over it, I'm trying to remember something, and the fact is I had never found of any evidence that will tell us that the real name of the person sitting before us is really 'Shibuya Kazuya'."

"Then… what—?" I looked beseechingly at Naru for an answer, but Naru just smiled.

A/N:

Yeah, got the volume 12 scene translations from vipassani's blog. Thank you, vipassani! And I do not own the translations or volume 12 itself. I just added the translations to add a solid background to the actual fan fiction story because I want to establish the fact that Mai now knew who Naru really is. Please don't, um, flame me for that. After the confirmation of the truth of Naru's real identity, the rest of the chapters will be my own work.

Quote at the beginning of the chapter is from Ghost Hunt volume 10. Flashback is from Ghost Hunt volume 1.

Please do review!