Encounters of the Ghostly Kind

Chapter 1:

It was a normal day at Shibuya Psychic Research. Mai Taniyama was working her way through a pile of unnecessary paperwork given to her by her boss Kazuya Shibuya, or Naru as he was mostly known.

The SPR team had not had a case for over a month now and all of those in the office were beginning to feel the effects of it. Talking had become non-existent, though for Naru and Lin that was hardly strange as they only spoke when necessary. But for the rest of the team to be more or less silent every time they turned up, was very odd indeed. Since there had been no new cases for a while, the team had become disheartened and distant.

The office began to feel stale; Mai even began to feel stale and the paper cuts from the endless files she was given were beginning to get their own paper cuts.

She looked out of the window at the late afternoon sun. Its orange hew began to turn the office walls from stark white to a boring beige. Looking up at the clock, she sighed, realising she still had an hour until she could go home and even then she had homework to do. Sighing again she returned to her work and all that could be heard in the silence was the tapping of Naru and Lin's computer keyboards, with the occasional turning of a page. It had been the same every afternoon…up until this very moment.

The door to the office swung open with such ferocity that it nearly came off its hinges and all Mai saw was a human looking blur run in and fall to the floor in front of her desk. Peering over feeling slightly scared, she saw that the blur was her good friend and colleague Takigawa. She breathed a sigh of relief this time, not despair.

'What in the world is wrong Monk? What are you doing running in like that? Is Ayako chasing you again? Come on, what did you say to annoy her this time?'

The monk looked up at her, dazed and bewildered from his fall but soon regained his composure just enough to make sense of what Mai had said.

'No I haven't annoyed her again Mai! Jeez, do you think that's my main goal in life?'

Mai paused and looked into space pondering Monk's retaliation. He did seem to like teasing her quite a bit, so…

'Mai!' He chirped interrupting her line of thought. 'Where is Naru? I need to speak with him. I think we have a case!'

At that moment, a large crash was heard resonating from Naru's office. The door swung open to reveal the big boss himself on the floor and his chair lying next to him. In listening to Monk, Naru had been so un-Naru-like and fallen out of his chair in shock and excitement at the prospect of a new case.

'Err, Naru are you ok? What is with people and the floor today?'

'Mai, tea now. Takigawa, sit. Tell me of this new case' he said regaining his breath and getting up from the floor.

By this time, Lin had already wandered, gracefully as always, over to the couch with his laptop, ready to take notes with a renewed look of hope in his eyes. Mai, returned from the kitchenette with tea and Monk began to explain.

'So, what do you think Naru? Is it a case worth having? It'd be doing my mate a great favour. And of course, we will be well paid with this one. It is for the great Tohma Seguchi after all.'

'Oh my god! Please Naru! Please? I love Nittle Grasper and Bad Luck and going to NG Studios is my one big chance to meet them!' Squealed Mai excitedly.

'Mai, we will be there to work. Not to stalk your idols.' Naru said calmly with a hint of arrogance.

'Oh please can we take it Naru? It's a case still. And we've been twiddling our thumbs now for over a month!'

'I should hope you haven't. I've been paying you to do paperwork. Not twiddle your thumbs.'

Mai looked at him, realising he hadn't understood what she meant. Lin just rolled his eyes and Monk gave Naru a dumbfounded look.

'I was joking Mai.' He said deadpan.

'Don't do that again. It's scary when you try to pull off humour.'

'I agree.' Said a now slightly scared looking Monk. Lin simply stared at the ceiling; a smirk quickly graced his lips and shortly faded.

'Anyway…back to the case. I don't think so. It's too close to media attention.' Naru announced trying to change the subject.

'Don't you worry about that Naru. Tohma can control the media. We won't have any problems.' Monk piped up looking pleased. Naru thought for a moment.

'Oh ok. Go and tell your friend that we will take his offer immediately. Get him to organise enough rooms for all of us and our equipment. Lin and Mai, you should start packing the equipment ready for tomorrow morning. I will ring the others and get them to meet us there. We will start at seven o'clock on the dot.'

'Yes Sir!' Mai and Monk chimed together, saluting Naru cheekily. He ignored them as usual and returned to his office to finish his work, or pretend to at least.

And so it began. The start of possibly one of the most interesting cases SPR had ever conducted…well, in Mai's opinion anyway.