One Fine Day (Ghost Hunt) (NaruxMai)

Chapter 5

One Fine Day:

Chapter 5:

The following evening, when the blue sky had faded to black and the moon had replaced the sun, the club members tiptoed around the school with flashlights and met the monk in the music room. Naru had spent the daytime asking people about the toilets and had gleaned a fair amount of information.

"You didn't encounter the security guard?" Takigawa verified.

Mai gave him a thumbs up. "Nope. It was a clear route."

Naru ignored them. The facts were the following: the noises were only heard after lessons had officially ended and were heard by people participating in after school clubs on the third floor when they entered or were close to the toilets. The nearest classroom was the Art classroom where the Art club took place and the first reports had been from its members. As a result of the noises, no one had properly entered the toilets for a month.

When the facts were added together they suggested something. Naru had an idea as to what was going on, but wanted to investigate to verify his theory and find evidence. Whilst it was fun to be proven right, the investigation itself was enjoyable.

"Takigawa-san, can we call you "Bou-san" instead?" Mai requested. "It feels strange to call someone that helps you sneak into school "sensei"."

"She's right," Michiru agreed. "You're a member of our club now."

Takigawa held up his hands in surrender. "I don't mind at all. In fact, I welcome it. It means that you actually believe I am a monk. People have trouble believing me when I say that I am a monk for some reason..."

"Maybe it is the ponytail," the narcissist muttered under his breath.

Hearing light hearted conversations like that made him realise how lonely and dull his life was. Granted, he had Gene for company and enough cases to keep him satisfied, but sometimes it did feel lonely. He had never managed to make any friends and it had never bothered him greatly until now.

A poke to his arm brought him back to reality.

"I heard that, Naru-chan," the monk reprimanded him playfully. "You'll be speechless when you see me in action."

Naru snorted and didn't speak again until they walked up to the third floor. On his way up he ended up walking next to Mai.

"I had the strangest dream last night," she blurted out randomly. "It was about cats."

"Mai-chan, you do have the most random dreams," Keiko said from behind them.

"Remember the time you had a dream that the class fish died in middle school and when we got to school we found it had died during the night," Michiru reminded her.

Naru looked sharply at Mai before deciding there was nothing in it. Her seemingly precognitive dream in middle school has simply been a coincidence. He needed to stop looking for paranormal phenomena everywhere. Not everything had a supernatural explanation.

They reached the entrance to the toilets and listened carefully. All the stories were true. Mai could hearing an echoey screeching noise that made the hairs on her arms stand on end and she felt a strong desire to stay away from the toilets. Obviously Naru and Bou-san weren't experiencing the same feeling as they strode straight in.

Mai took a deep breath and covered her ears to lead the similarly scared Keiko and Michiru in with her. Watching scary ghost movies and telling stories was one thing, experiencing it in real life was another. The fact that they only had flashlights as a source of light made even more creepy.