#soulphrxse

@soulphrxse

Maruki had dealt with some interesting cases before, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary for someone to be mandated by their physician to see a counselor. What was strange, however, was the track record of the young man he would be seeing today; one Minato Arisato, whose hospital record was... concerning, to say the least. It was no wonder that he was ordered to a counselor, but it made Maruki wonder if he’d seen other counselors and it just didn’t work, or if the hospital failed to make him see anyone after discharging him.

Either way, Maruki figured he had his work cut out for him, but he would try his best to help this young man. After all, no one deserves to be unhappy or stressed. If Maruki can help even a little bit, that would’ve made him overjoyed.

Finally, a knock at the door. “Come in!” The door opened and in stepped a blue-haired young man. Maruki gave a welcoming smile to the youth and gestured to one of the couches near the chair Maruki was sitting in.

“....”

Now, Raymond had seen some weird things in his day, and this didn’t even remotely rank in his Top 3, but it was still... well, weird. He’d done his usual routine of getting up at six in the morning, getting ready for work, going to work, and then finally getting off from work. He normally exited through the front like a normal person but the janitor had just mopped the front and he didn’t want to be an ass so he decided to go through the side. 

Now the building he worked in was a rather tall building with five floors in total. The building didn’t solely belong to his place of work but was rather rented out in floors. His job wasn’t big enough to have their own five story building, but it was big enough to rent out an entire two floors and those happened to be at the very top of the building. The elevator was always jam packed with people but the stairs were empty and so he generally liked to leave later than everyone else because that meant more elevator alone time. What he didn’t like was exiting through the side because the dumpster was located back there and it was dark and.. He’d already had enough experiences in a dark alley to last him a lifetime at this point. 

At least it wasn’t a thug. No, it was a sleeping male. He looked too clean to be homeless.. Had bad luck struck him in the form of a robbing?! Or perhaps a murder?! He wasn’t a drug addict was he? He didn’t want to get mixed up with that so.. maybe he should have just let him be. 

“Hey. You can’t sleep here. If.... you are sleeping.... Hello?” He didn’t receive a response so he knelt down and poked at the other. He noted the rise and fall of the blue haired male’s chest as he breathed calmly and slowly. It appeared he wasn’t dead. Raymond was thankful for that at least. “Hey, I’m serious. Wake up. They might call the pound on you. Happened to me before. Wait, scratch that. I meant the cops. I mean, no the vet thing for me was real I just mean.. Oh nevermind.” 

Raymond exhaled deeply then tried a series of different methods to get him to wake up. First it was clapping really loud and hard, but then his hands started hurting right away. Second came the shaking, but his shoulders were stiff from working at a computer all day so that didn’t last long either. Third came looking for ravenous dog sounds on youtube and playing it full volume which also didn’t last really long because passerby’s were starting to point and stare. Ahem.

“Are you in a coma or something?!” Finally he decided to just give up. He didn’t look like a bad guy... He didn’t want to get the cops involved then have to explain to his boss why he had to phone them but he just couldn’t leave him here either.. “Fiiiine..” he relented, deciding he’d just take him back to his apartment. “But you owe me.”

Raymond wasn’t exactly strong or weak by any means. Sure he spent most of his time working but prided himself on exercising in his free time. He was sure he could manage some scrawny looking guy and lo and behold said male really wasn’t all that heavy. Actually he was kind of boney which presented a whole other matter of discomfort. It really amazed him how he hadn’t stirred throughout that whole process. Or any of the other processes to wake him up really. 

He sauntered, somewhat hunched over as he carried the male on his back. No one batted an eye as to why an office worker was casually carrying around some unconscious guy on his back but that was in part thanks to his ability to alter others perceptions. Heck, he could rob a bank easily if he wanted to, but he had too much pride for that. Digging into his pocket for his apartment key was a struggle and once he had made it inside he casually dropped the male onto the large, cushion-y gray sofa. Maybe that’d wake him up. Maybe not. Either way he had a surefire way to wake the dead.

@soulphrxse​

Neko had just gotten out of the shower when it all happened. She was content to just clean herself the normal way (which was only normal for an actual cat and not a human girl) but both Kurosuke and Shiro had insisted she start taking showers or baths. Something about how she was starting to smell like saliva. She didn’t get it but if it’s what Shiro wanted she’d do it! Now was the time when she got one of the two to towel dry her hair. “Shiro~!” she called out as she stepped out of the shower room and into their room clothed in nothing but a towel.

All it took was one step and the ground seemed to cave in under her feet and then gobble her up. Her eyes widened as at first she fell into a black scenery and then suddenly was surrounded by the blue sky. Naturally, her towel went flying off as the wind whipped her hair around her. Was this some new way of getting her hair dried? “Wheeeee!” She shouted, giggling despite the fact that any normal person would have worried over what would come at the end of their fall. 

When she turned her head to look she noticed someone falling beside her. “Heeey! Are you getting your hair dried too?” Falling was fun she decided but it seemed like their trip was about to end. Thankfully she wasn’t entirely stupid. She swam over to the blue haired boy just before they came crashing down, wrapping her arms around him from the side. Her body emanated a silver glow and their fall ceased as they floated down safely to the ground. 

She soon let him go then pranced around on top of the building, thrusting her fists into the air. “I’m dry! Yay!” She celebrated cheerfully, seemingly unbothered by the fact that she had no idea where she was. At least Kurosuke wasn’t here to scold her for not having any clothes on but at least this time it wasn’t on purpose. She ran over to the ledge of the skyscraper and peered down to the bottom. They were so high up!

Today just wasn’t her day. She hadn’t eaten in days thanks to slacking off on her deadlines, there wasn’t a single thing in the house to eat because everyone hated her and wanted her to starve, and she never bothered to charge her mobile phone because, let’s be real, who really wanted to talk to her other than her editor? And none of the contacts in her phone did she even want to speak to.

So here she was at the small ramen shop here in Shizume because it was the nearest food place that didn’t require her to look better put together than she was. Touko armed herself with her wallet and braved the streets, preferring to walk to her destination rather than take an uber or taxi. She saw the way those drivers looked at her.. she wasn’t about to become the next main character for another Taken movie. There definitely wasn’t going to be a badass father to come save her.

When Touko entered the shop there wasn’t really anyone inside save for a male that sat way in the back far from everything else. Dang, that’s where she wanted to sit! She ground her teeth as she slung a few silent curses his direction. She could have ordered her food to go but she was hungry now. If she didn’t put something in her belly she was sure she wouldn’t make it home.

“I’ll take... the basic ramen set...” she mumbled to the clerk, avoiding his gaze and then fumbled with her wallet awkwardly to hand him her credit card. “Thank you, ma’am. We’ll get your order right out to you!” This guy was way too chipper.. Was he planning on spitting in her food or something?! Touko turned her stare back into the room and decided to take the seat on the opposite side of the room where that one jerk sat but before she could take one step forward the dinner rush began. 

Maybe everyone else had the same idea of getting a quick meal but the place was suddenly packed! The spot that she’d reserved for herself in her mind was taken in the blink of an eye. Actually every seat in the whole place was, leaving a despairing Touko with her arm outstretched as if symbolizing her failure to grasp what she should have in a timely manner. Of course this had to happen to her! Now there wasn’t anywhere else to sit but..!!

She reluctantly shuffled over to the male’s table, fumbling with her hands awkwardly as she avoided his eyes, not that she was shy or anything but because she knew if she looked at him she’d give him the most murderous stare she could muster. “Um.. Can I... sit here... Everywhere else is full...”

@soulphrxse

“Arisato-kun?” Date came to a stop as he neared a kid with dark blue, unkempt hair. He certainly fit the profile he’d been given, but he really was young, wasn’t he? Besides that--

“Ghosts, huh?” This question was directed inward, so that only his AI-Ball partner could hear these doubtful thoughts, though he didn’t really expect much of an answer. It was just that the ability to see and talk to ghosts… Frankly, could something like that really exist?

I know it seems unlikely, but the intel source was credible. Not to mention, if such an ability really is authentic, it could provide just the help we need for this case.

Aiba’s response was, as always and as expected of something like an artificial intelligence, sensible.

“Yeah, that’s true. I still can’t imagine how the guy could have killed himself like that, but if there was somebody else there to perpetrate the crime, how did they do it and get away without a trace of evidence?! Definitely being able to talk to him would go a long ways…” Theirs was really a classic case of a locked-room mystery, and unfortunately, they’d hit a dead-end already in the investigation. The corpse had been found hanged with a rope attached to the ceiling fan in his bedroom. That itself wasn’t terribly strange, the only strange part was how he’d done it. The distance between the floor and the ceiling was much taller than the man himself, and there had been no sign of a stool or anything by his feet or anywhere on the floor to clearly indicate how he’d been able to reach up there. Hence the mystery.

Then, around that time, they’d gotten a tip about a kid, Minato Arisato, who possessed a unique ability to speak with the dead. Or rather, their ghosts. Still, Date had not been prepared to see someone so young. But if he was key to solving the case, there wasn’t much else to be done.

Understood! The three of them will be on semi-hiatus until October 14th. Good luck with school!

Echidona, the white haired, pale skinned woman adorned in a funerary dress sat upon her white, ornate tea chair, her hands folded in her lap as she gazed with interest to the scenery in front of her. She sat as though she were watching a movie, only the scene unfolding before her looked real as though it were happening right in front of her. The scenes before her seemed to play out for a moment then stop abruptly, switching into a different scene.

At first, the world was cast in an eerie green haze, coffins littering the ground as a lone, solitary male wandered through them. His expression was empty, but Echidona noticed the subtle changes. The slight parting of his lips and the the way his eyes widened as he drank in the scene around him. It was such an interesting reaction to being faced with a scene most would find unnerving but so far only mild surprise laced his features. 

Just as if someone had dipped their hand into water, the scene rippled before Echidona and changed. The world was no longer cast in an eerie glow but was now dyed the color of night, with skies dotting the sky. She sat in a car next to the male from before only he was much smaller and less aged. He chatted with the adults in the drivers and passengers seat without giving the white haired witch a single glance. The car then abruptly crashed, coated in a fiery blaze. While all passengers were whipped around by the impact, Echidona remained perfectly intact as if the laws of gravity did not apply to her. 

Her only reaction, other than the perpetual smirk adorning her lips, was to reach into her lap, lifting a saucer and teacup. Bringing the teacup to her lips, she took a sip and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was greeted with the familiar surroundings of her Citadel of Dreams. A vast, hilly, grassy landscape with blue, cloudly skies that seemed to stretch on forever. A pleasant breeze billow through which ruffled the grass as well as her hair and dress.

Echidona sat the teacup back down onto her saucer with a soft cling and slowly opened her pitch black eyes, the only color was of her thin, white pupil as she looked in front of her. In front was a small, ornate tea table, a white lacy parasol was erected to shade her. Seated in the chair in front of her was the male with the deep blue hair and she gazed into his one visible eye, her smirk widening. 

“Welcome to the Witches Tea Party.” She greeted him, setting her saucer and teacup back onto the table. There also was placed a saucer and teacup in front of the male as well as a plate with different types of cookies. The tea carried a strange fragrance that wasn’t good nor bad, much like the contents of the tea itself. Echidona leaned forward, propping her elbows on the table and resting her chin atop the bridge of her hands.

Hewwo OwO

Akane Maruyama is on hiatus until 9/1.