Prologue
Location: Tokyo, Shibuya Street. “Shibuya Psychic Research”.
After opening the door, the autumn wind rushed inside. Outside by the cherry blossom tree, the smell of red tea wafted through.
I (Taniyama Mai, 16 years old, student) am working at “Shibuya Psychic Research”, a paranormal investigation office. This office exists to perform scientific investigation of paranormal phenomena, ghosts, and extra-sensory perception. Even though I say it’s a team, and only the director, his assistant, and the part-time assistant work here, there are three outside people who help too.
The staff is exceptionally small here, and the details of this office are kind of suspicious. The office is located in the Shibuya district of the city center and was newly built there. At a glance it looks like a coffee shop or an easygoing office. Outside, the air is very nostalgic. The trees on the streets are changing color. Movie ads for “An Unbelievable Story” had been pasted everywhere on the opposite sides of the street; I’m not sure whether or not it’s a good movie.
Every Saturday, I come here to the office and do paperwork. I’ve organized the old issues of a Psychic Research Magazine by date.
Assembling things, registering things, transcribing table of contents, and ordering books. In other words, I do manual work. I guess the level of my job will only be this high. And now, we’re not doing any ghost hunting. Because now things are moving slowly, and there’s no other way to go about doing this. But every day, I continue to do who knows how much meaningless work.
The sound of the doorbell ringing.
Right. It’s a guest!
The client who just came in looked like a girl in high school.
“Not here. I heard that this is where they do investigations on ghosts, but.”
“Yes. That’s right,” I said.
But then
the two girls looked at me with their round eyes. They were about the same age as me. They looked surprised.
“What kind of situation are you in?”
One of them answered in a timid voice. “It’s about this headstrong girl. The one…who was possessed by a fox spirit. Can you help her?”
Oh, so it’s about spirits. My office deals with spirits. “Is it a fox spirit?”
“Yes. …My friend. A doctor looked at her, but she just seems to be getting worse. A spirit showed up too. Is the director here?”
I directed them to the sofa.
“Please, call the director now.”
I knocked on my boss’s door.
“…Boss?”
A bored voice responded, and I opened the door.
The director of “Shibuya Psychic Research” had a map opened wide on his desk. His beautiful, deep, pitch-black gaze fell on me. My knees felt weak.
“…A client?”
“Yes, it sounds like someone got possessed.”
The director frowned slightly. This map was quite an obstacle to him, because he kept thinking about it. At this time, don’t even bother mentioning anything about spirits to him. Because then, he seems to dislike people unrelated to the paranormal field even more. My boss replied, saying that clients only come during office hours.
Reluctantly, the director stood up. He has been looking at the map all day, so it’s no wonder he was in such a bad mood.
The girls sitting on the sofa were all uncomfortable, sitting so closely together that their shoulders touched. When I left Naru’s office, I noticed they were tense and pale. Looking at them, I opened my mouth.
The director walked calmly to the sofa, as his head tilted down slightly as he spoke.
“Nice to meet you. I’m the director, Shibuya.”
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