Chapter Text
The White Forest
One foot after another. That’s all Niko had to think about, one foot after another. Her steps left deep prints in the snow, and yet she knew from past experience that if she tried to retrace her steps she would only get more lost. She tried watching the stars, and following the constellations, sometimes getting mesmerized by the auroras that swirled around her like a heavy fog, but the sky that was above her was an unfamiliar one. No matter how far she walked, all her paths led her to one place.
The message had become clear. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t leave the white forest. At least not yet.
She huffed in annoyance, quickening her pace. She didn’t know where or how she got the warm clothes she wore in whatever realm she had landed herself in, but she was certainly grateful for them. The chill in the air was biting, and her eyelashes had become filled with little snowflakes that clung to her cheeks every time she blinked. She had been walking for hours at that point, and felt herself grow curiously hungry.
She gripped her bear totem tight with both hands, and brought it to her lips, whispering, “Please please please help me!” She topped off the plea with a firm kiss to the little figure’s head.
While it seemed that whatever bear spirit was listening to her may not have understood that she wanted to go home, she couldn’t say it didn’t help, as she saw the familiar sight of her igloo; Or at least what she was coming to think of as her igloo. She marched through the snow as it started to thin out the closer she got to her icy sanctuary, eventually the snow disappeared altogether, leaving light patches of fresh grass and thick, tall trees surrounding the frostbitten dome.
She ducked through the entrance, greeting the dandelion sprites with a bashful smile and a wave. She threw herself down onto a seal skin with a thud before she blew out a big breath, and flopped backwards with her arms spread. “Well, that didn’t work.”
Litty gave her a look that would have spoiled milk, “Yeah, no shit! It never does you titless bitch!”
Kingham placed a hand on Litty’s knee with a smirk, “Hey, don’t discourage her. If the pervert wants to go on ‘little nature hikes’,” he added a mocking voice over ‘little nature hikes’, “then I get a few hours of pervertless peace.” The two sprites laughed together for a moment.
“I’m not a pervert. My manga have sweet romance plots, and lots of yearning. Besides, the other stuff is . . . educational, even though I’m not sure how accurate it is.” Niko half-heartedly mumbled from her place on the ground.
Her comment was quickly forgotten though as the sprites began to argue again. They would always grow louder and more aggressive until one of them would get upset and pout for the next few hours, before the cycle started again. Niko tried to block out the sound with thoughts of her life to no avail.
She thought of her mother, her father, her home back in Osaka, all of those things felt distant in her mind. She also thought of her life in America, of Charles, and Edwin, and Crystal. Those memories were fresher, but she had the creeping suspicion that those memories too would soon fade. All she had left was to deflate against the seal skin with a long sigh, before she whispered once more into her totem, “Please please help me!”
Crystal’s Visions
“Niko!” Crystal bolted upright from her bed with a scream, a white haze surrounding her mind as she emerged from her sleep. She breathed in harsh breaths as her body calmed down. She began to shudder as the memory of a bone deep cold left her, and was replaced with the reality of her cozy London flat; The snow that had felt so real in her mind, and seemed to have left an imprint on the inside of her eyelids, but the only real snow was falling gently outside her window.
Winter had recently arrived in London, and it had been snowing everyday for the past two nights. Luckily she had a nice furnace she could afford to keep going through the night. She knew she should stop, that it was bad for the environment, but she never took to cold well. She always preferred warmer climates.
She wondered if Niko had preferred the cold, her friend always seemed to be dressed in a thousand layers. She would have bet that Niko liked to be warm and cozy too.
That thought had the cold creeping back in, along with much more menacing thoughts.
She needed to know what that dream was about. She had had dreams about Niko before, the death of a friend will do that to you, but they had never felt so real, like Crystal was right next to her. The environment of the dream felt real too, the cold of the snow clinging to her skin, her lips had felt cracked from the dry air, and she could smell the fresh scent of the trees in the forest, and the salt of a nearby shore. Dreams like that didn’t just happen, not to Crystal.
It had to mean something, right?
Or . . . she was just reading into things, getting her hopes up. She knew logically that her dream had only felt real because she had woken up from it so suddenly, and that if she brought this up to anyone else, she would just be rubbing salt in her other friend’s wounds.
“Fuck!” She sighed out harshly, rubbing her eyes so hard she saw stars. She really needed to get a grip. She huffed out an aggravated noise, and slowly got up from her bed.
Getting ready that morning was a nightmare all on its own; her hair wouldn’t cooperate, her muscles ached from where she had slept wrong the night before, and every time she closed her eyes she still saw the remnants of those soft snowflakes. She shook her head quickly to clear the images from her mind as she left for the agency that day, her springing curls whipped her face as she shook like a wet dog.
She did her best to forget about the dream as she made her way to the agency, keeping herself occupied on the tube ride with mindless tiktoks. She even did one of those ‘what will my soulmate be like?’ quizzes. Apparently she was destined to have someone with a sensitive, yet bubbly personality, who was a good listener as her future partner. She tried not to think about how that sounded a little bit like Charles. She really didn’t think of him that way anymore, besides he was very happily taken. By the time she was climbing the stairs to ‘The Dead Boy Detective Agency’ she had a mostly clear mind. Although she knew she would feel off the rest of the day.
As she approached the door she could hear some of Charles’ music playing from their record player inside. She would never get his love of ska, but she didn’t want to judge something that made him happy, even knowing that the old version of her would have jumped at the chance. Instead she opened the door with a smile, and waved at the boys as she entered.
She saw Edwin first, he sat at his usual spot by his desk flipping through some of his notes with a furrowed brow. Charles however, was setting things up around the office, he danced and hopped around from place to place. Edwin looked up from his notes and gifted Crystal a small smile when their eyes met. She blew him a kiss in return, right on queue he rolled his eyes with a scoff. Charles finally spotted her and pulled her into a quick hug, a normal greeting for him, before pulling back with a curious look.
“You alright? You look like something's bothering you, and you got these big circles under your eyes!” He spoke with the tone of a worried parent, or what she imagined one would sound like.
She just shrugged off his concern, “Wow, thanks Charles! You look like shit too!” She pushed him off jokingly, and he laughed in response.
“Oi, piss off!” He tried to ruffle her curls, and she yelped and darted out of his reach: She had spent waaaaay too long on her hair that morning! She batted him away, and he gave her one of those gummy smiles, they were interrupted by Edwin clearing his throat like a school teacher. When they turned to him he was looking meaningfully at the clock on their wall.
It read eight o’clock, the agency’s opening hours.
“Oh bullocks!” Charles jumped to go flip their sign to the open side. Crystal took her usual place on the couch, and brought out her laptop. She thought she might as well use the downtime to finish her homework. She was half way through her first year of sixth form, and really couldn’t afford to fall anymore behind in her studies.
While Charles was at the door, Edwin looked at her for a long moment before he spoke gently, “You do look awfully tired Crystal. Are you sure you are fine?” He spoke softly and kindly, and for a moment she considered sharing her dream.
Then she thought about how silly it was to dwell on a nightmare, especially when she had had so many, and especially because she couldn’t be the person to get Edwin’s hopes up about Niko. She attempted an easygoing smile, and gently shook her head, “Nah, I’m just tired. Slept like crap, but don’t worry about it. I probably just had too much coffee.” He raised his eyebrow at her, but thankfully said nothing.
The rest of the morning went by normally, well normally for The Dead Boy Detectives, there were a lot of creatures and magical mysteries for the average person. Like the ghost of a man who wanted to know if his living wife was seeing anyone, because if she was ‘then she would be cheating’. It was easy to guess that he wouldn’t have reacted well at all to Crystal pointing out that death did them part so she was in the clear. She did it anyway.
Then there was the faerie who wanted the name of the mad man who was trimming her rose bushes. She angrily described how her poor babies had been mutilated in their prime. All three members of the agency agreed she should definitely not get her hands on the poor gardener she was after.
Finally at about noon they had a client who Crystal vaguely recognized. She was a ghost from the dark ages that the agency interviewed when Crystal was under a love spell, and apparently was pretty jealous and unhinged towards the girl while under the influence. She cringed inwardly as the hazy memories came to mind, and she shuddered hard as guilt hit her.
“I’m really sorry about last time you were here! I don’t remember it well, but you deserve better than to be treated like that when trying to get help!” Crystal blurted out the apology. She felt like her life recently had become a parade of apologies, but all of them were necessary.
The ghost just looked at her in confusion for a second before a look of understanding passed over her face. “No belādiende. The gemynd of that is smudged.” Crystal was pretty sure that meant the client couldn’t remember either.
Edwin cut in with little tact as usual. “I apologize for my associates past unprofessionalism.” Crystal scoffed at that, the Edwardian ghost just shot her a bitchy look back, “Now that that is settled, I would like to conduct our interview, miss.” After they got past the initial awkwardness they sat the potential client down with Edwin leading the way as usual.
The client talked animatedly about something involving a demon, and she seemed scared, which would normally grab a hold of Crystal’s attention like nothing else, but for some reason she just couldn’t focus. Every time she started to tune back into the conversation happening around her she would feel far away suddenly, like she was being slowly pulled from her body. She numbly wondered if that was what dying was like, and guessed she could have asked one of the boys, but thought that might be insensitive.
She tried her best to summon some focus, and was about to ask a follow up question that was probably already asked and answered, but she just wanted to feel like she was involved, when she let out a sharp gasp as she was ripped from her body suddenly. She could hear the voices of her concerned friends fade as she found herself in a dimly lit room.
She looked around the room, it was sparsely lit with candles, with pictures hung on the walls she couldn’t quite make out, and it was deeply unfamiliar to her. “Hello?” She asked and it echoed in the darkness. She listened carefully for any sound, and heard a muffled noise eeking around her. The noise was grotesque even in its quietness, and sent shivers up her arm. If she didn’t know better she would have thought it sounded like chewing. Then, more clearly cutting through was the abrupt sound of sobs. She turned towards the new noise, and saw a middle aged Japanese woman crying over a body.
Niko’s body.
Crystal didn’t understand what she was seeing at first, but she quickly put together that she was watching Niko’s mother grieve the loss of her child. Fuck! Why was she being shown that? As she looked in horror at the scene in front of her she realized that the room was filled with an overwhelming stench, she might have guessed it was that of decay, but it wasn’t. A potent evil mingled with the grief and filled the room like steam. She gagged against it, yet it only became more suffocating.
She blinked her eyes at the scene through the tears in time to see some shadow lurking over Niko. Its hunger was palpable, and Crystal felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand tall. Before she was unceremoniously flung back into her body with a force that made her fall to the side.
Charles rushed to catch her before she hit the floor, and she looked up to see two sets of eyes staring at her with deep concern, and poorly disguised panic. She also noticed the client was gone. How long was she out?
“Where’s the client?” She muttered as she righted herself.
“We sent her away!” Edwin said with so much exasperation he was almost shouting.
“We were more worried about you.” Came the sweeter reply from Charles. He looked her up and down with a frown. “What’s going on Crystal? Be honest! ‘Cause that wasn’t fine, was it? Is it David? Do I have to have another go at that wanker?”
“No it’s not David. He’s . . . still inactive I guess.” Edwin and Charles looked at her, obviously expecting her to continue. “We need to go to Japan.”
What is TripAdvisor.Com?
The light’s chain swung aggressively over Edwin and Charles’ heads from where Edwin had pulled it too harshly. His beau looked unusually perplexed by his foul mood at Crystal’s declaration. Which was understandable as he had all but dragged Charles into the cupboard, which nowadays almost always meant snogging was soon to follow. That was obviously not the case this time though, as Edwin had grit his teeth and huffed before he took Charles firmly by the shoulders, and guided him in, cutting off Crystal’s explanation for her utterly mad idea to fly to Japan based on visions.
“Can you just calm down and hear her out?” Charles said before Edwin had even gotten a word in. He could tell his beau knew he had made a mistake in doing so as he gently placed his hands upon Edwin’s neck and rubbed soothingly before he spoke again. “I know thinking about Niko still hurts, but don’t be mad at Crystal. She can’t control the visions she has, can she?”
Edwin was not sure how to respond to that. He was not angry with Crystal, not really, he just thought the whole exercise was a waste of time, and that Crystal needed to accept the reality that Niko was gone. He knew that accepting that fact was hard, it had been very painful on his part, and he deeply sympathized with his friend, but he just did not want to dwell on Niko’s parting anymore than necessary.
He breathed out a slow breath to calm himself before he spoke. “I’m not angry. I simply want to move on from all this. It is not a pleasant subject, and it would be best for all of us, including Crystal, if she learned to accept Niko’s passing. I have handled my grief, I merely want to teach her to do the same.”
Charles immediately grimaced in response, but was slow to actually answer. When he did it was with a wince and an apologetic tone. “Have you though? Handled it I mean. Because you get all tetchy whenever Niko is brought up. I don’t think that’s healthy either.”
“That’s absurd! I am completely capable of processing emotion in a reasonable way!” He shouted back as he felt his heckles rise. He ground his jaw together so firmly his teeth would have cracked under the pressure if he were living.
His love stared back at him with wide eyes like a spooked dog, and Edwin felt himself freeze at that. Quite suddenly he was made aware of his own words and actions, of his whole demeanor in truth. He had reacted poorly. Perhaps Charles was right and he had not processed the loss of his friend. That would explain why he couldn’t bear to think about her.
However, that did not mean he wanted to get his hopes up about Niko. It all seemed like a recipe for great hurt to all the parties involved. Although he supposed he could ‘hear her out’.
Edwin folded his arms in front of himself defensively, and held his head high. “We will hear her out.” Charles moved to hug him excitedly, but Edwin stopped him with a raise of his hand. “But that does not mean she is onto anything, and we are all to remain skeptical of any optimistic visions she has.” Charles sighed deeply, but continued to look at Edwin as if he was the first glimpse of the sun after a cold night.
The two left the cupboard to find a pacing Crystal wearing down their floorboards. Despite the fact that they made no noise when they phased through the door, she still turned to them with a rapid speed as if they had slammed it behind them. “Look I know you don’t believe me, but I saw her. I don’t know where she is, but she is in danger.”
“Well, let’s go over the facts shall we?” Edwin offered with as little superiority as he could manage. Crystal merely let out an exasperated noise, like that of an elephant, but he continued undisturbed. “Firstly, Niko is dead. Secondly, her soul was most certainly not damned to hell. Thirdly and finally, she has moved on, and therefore can not be destroyed. So we shall assume that she is not in danger, as there is no way she can be.”
“Did she move on?” Crystal screamed with spit flying from her mouth, and her eyes going wide. “Because there was no ghost, no light, no death showing up!” Her voice began to crack in several places, and Edwin felt as if he was a flame being doused with water just looking at her. “Face it, we don’t know what happened to her! It’s been eating me up, and you can’t deny it’s been eating you too.” She pinned him with those words, that and her eyes that seemed to penetrate him at the moment. He had not seen her this cracked open since the night at Esther’s. “Now we have a chance to find out. So why won’t you let me try?”
“Crystal.” Charles muttered sadly as he attempted to approach her for a hug, but she only shrugged him off.
Edwin felt oddly vulnerable in the face of her emotion, and it made him deeply uncomfortable. He tried to speak more gently. “I simply don’t want to reopen the wound. It would be best if we all moved on, and tried to put what happened to her behind us.”
She gaped at him with wet eyes for a moment. “How can you say that? Don’t you care?”
“Of course I care!”
“Well you’re not acting like it!”
“Enough! Both of you!” Charles cut in. He looked between both of them with a disappointed look that had Edwin feeling rightfully scolded. Charles turned to Crystal. “Crystal, you know that he cares. You know. And you” he then turned his attention towards Edwin. “You said you would listen. You’re not being very trusting of Crystal, our partner . You’re just dismissing her.”
Edwin hung his head in shame, murmuring a quiet, “I’m sorry.”
Charles seemed satisfied with that as he turned back to the psychic. “Ok Crystal, why don’t you explain a little more calmly this time? Take as long as you need.” Crystal nodded fiercely and wiped moisture from her cheeks. She composed herself rather quickly when all things were said and done, which Edwin rather admired.
She began to explain these dreams she had been having, and about the one from the night prior, and how it lingered in her senses afterwards. Then she again went over what she saw in her vision. She looked frustrated when she was finished, and she sagged against the wall and slid down to a crouch.
Charles rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “Alright, visions, not a lot of details, and almost no clues. What can we do with that?”
“Can’t you guys mirror over to where she lived in Japan, and you know, check on her mom? Check out her grave? Do some ghost snooping?” Crystal words were muffled by her knees.
Charles chimed in again, most likely not trusting Edwin to do it after how he had acted. “We don’t know where the Sasaki’s live, or if they’ve moved since Niko died, or where she was buried, or if they cremate in Japan, actually do we even know her mum’s first name?”
“It wouldn’t be her first name. In Japan, given names come last.” Was all Edwin could think to offer, before an idea struck him. “Crystal, could you use your internet to find information on the Sasaki’s? A dead, Japanese exchange student might narrow things down, don’t you agree?”
Crystal let out what could only be described as a sniffly giggle in response. “It’s not my internet, but yeah, I can do that.” She took a large breath that sounded incredibly unsteady before pushing herself to standing with her hands on her knees. She moved slowly to her portable internet device, the large one, and climbed slowly onto the chaise lounge. She started typing away, he was always amazed at her speed, though he would never admit.
Though perhaps he should. He leaned over to look at the screen, “You’re very good at that. The, um, typing I mean.”
She looked up at him with her brows raised in judgement, “Thanks for the high praise.” Was this what it felt like to be on the other end?
He shook the thought from his mind, and sat next to her, Charles sat on the other side. She typed away, clicking through images, and moving past things with what appeared to be little to no discernment, yet her confidence never wavered. After about a half hour had passed she perked up, and clicked on something quite rapidly.
She had located an article on unexplained medical cases from around the world. There was a quite recent case from Osaka, Japan. A teenage girl was discovered to be alive at her Otsuya, which was what they gathered to be a sort of wake. She was taken to the hospital, and had no brainwaves, and no response to any medication, yet her heart still beat. Further puzzling was how long she had gone without food or water before her Otsuya, and yet her body did not wither. The article had many ridiculous theories, and some more grounded ones, but most importantly, it had the name of the girl.
Niko Sasaki.
Niko was alive!