Hauntings

CHAPTER 5

The next time Hiroshi floats into my room (two hours after I started rethinking my life), I wave him over. This surprises him, which it would, as we prefer to insult each other instead of saying "hello".

"What do you know about the people in this neighbourhood?" I ask, looking up from my notebook.

"Um...why?" He furrows his brows, and I see his grey eyes reflect some amount of concern. Usually I'm either irritated at him or at someone else when he's around, and at this point, I seem quite okay. So his reaction isn't unexpected.

"Just wondering," I say.

Now, the issue with anyone saying that they were "just wondering" something is that they were not. Clearly it's been the same since Hiroshi was alive, or he knows only too well that this is the case, because he narrows his eyes. "Really?" I can hear the sarcasm in his voice, and barely hold back a groan. I like sarcasm, just not when it's used against me. "Being civil to me and asking for help in the same breath? Are you sure you don't have a fever?"

"Oh shut up." I'm tempted to throw another pillow at him, but it'll just pass through.

"Yes, ma'am," he mutters, but he's smirking, and now I want to throw something at him even more. I don't know why I'm even asking him for help. I should've just waited until tomorrow to meet Shou at school and ask him. Why did that idiot's phone conk out anyway? There's no way I'm calling his home phone!

"Answering your question, yes, I know a few of the old families who live here. I got bored about fifteen years ago and helped the record-keeper of the graveyard keep track of the living families. Well, the dead keeper, anyway."

"Why would you need to keep a track of the living?" I wonder aloud.

"So that we know whose family members die, and if they've been given the proper rituals and things like that," he answers. "That way, it's easier to figure out ghosts from here and elsewhere; we just need to contact dead keepers from other towns. It's gotten us a few more details on Miyuki, by the way."

"Oh, is that so...anyway, do you recall a boy whose name started with Yu, from about fifteen years ago? He was probably seven at that point."

"Why? Was he your childhood sweetheart?" He's smirking even more now, and I don't know what's stopping me from punching him myself.

"He's not!" I say, going red. "I was two years old when we met!"

"You can still have childhood sweethearts then," he points out.

"Don't assume any boy I know was my love interest," I warn him. "Or else some day I'll say that Miyuki's your next girlfriend."

That shuts him up. He'd better get it into his head that assuming two members of the opposite sex are always a couple gets people nowhere. They may have done that in his time, but it's different now. The last person I saw make that assumption got a sound thrashing from my friends.

"See? It's not nice, is it?" I'm the one smirking now.

"Anyway," Hiroshi changes the subject, eager to avoid getting into another argument with me, "I don't recall, but I'll check the records. The problem is, there are so many that it might take months to find out. I'll need more details than just the first syllable of his name."

"I can't remember anything else...oh! I remember he had brown hair and eyes." Some of the memories are coming back to me. I shut my eyes and try to dig it out from the deepest parts of my memory. Yu was my first friend, before Satoshi was born, before I met Shou, before I met anyone from kindergarten or elementary school. I'd like to meet him again, even though I can't remember much of our time together.