A few months passed since the mystery dinner case and Akihito-kun and Hyungwon kept in touch, frequently mailing each other. It was now summer vacations and the heat was rather scorching. Hyungwon, busy playing computer games in his room suddenly got a call from Akihito-kun and the katter saying he just arrived at the Shinjuku terminal with his childhood friend and if Hyungwon and Emrald could come pick them up. Baffled by this sudden surprise, Hyungwon quickly got dressed and woke Emrald up, told her the situation and rushed downstairs to tell Mrs. Kaizen about this.
"Ara! Invite them to stay over while you're at it. They are your friends afterall and Emerald's friends. Afterall the more, the merrier." Said Mrs.Kaizen cheerfully.
"But, aren't we imposing..." And before Hyungwon could finish, Mrs.Kaizen cut him off by saying "Don't think you are imposing, we have enough room to board two more highchoolers. Children should have fun together as much as they can before they become adults. Once you become adults, you will not find enough time for hanging out with each other. I'm more than happy to have more guests this summer. Go get them and come back for breakfast together, okay?"
Hyungwon just nodded and went to fetch Akihito-kun and his childhood friend with Emrald in a cab.
"Wow Tokyo hits different!" Exclaimed Akihito-kun who was wearing sun glasses, a pair of white knee length shorts and a short sleeved black shirt, acting like a tourist in Tokyo. "So will you introduce us to this charming lady now and tell us why you suddenly showed up here?" Asked Hyungwon.
"Right, this is my childhood friend Hattori Kotoko, the daughter of Superintendent Hattori Heiji of Osaka. When I told her about my encounter with you and Emrald-chan and the case of the Rosencreuz mansion, she insisted on visiting Tokyo for summer vacations and to meet you two. Isn't that right Kotoko?" Explained Akihito-kun and Kotoko nodded her approval.
On arrival at the Kaizen household, Kotoko was led to Emrald's room and Akihito to Hyungwon's room. There, they unpacked and freshened up a bit before heading downstairs for breakfast. The table was laid beautifully with delicious food such as dorayaki pancakes, fresh strawberries, butter and cheese grilled sandwiches, pear and vanilla flavoured black tea with sugar and milk and chocolate crepes rolls.
"Whoa, mama, you went all out for today's breakfast." Said Emrald who took a seat and gestured for the guests to take their seats too.
"Afterall, we have guests today, you must be famished from this long overnight journey from Osaka, please, help yourselves and make yourselves at home." Said Mrs.Kaizen who sat down too and had breakfast together with them and Mr. Kaizen as well.
After breakfast, Emrald and Kotoko helped Mrs. Kaizen in the kitchen, then Kotoko went to rest in Emrald's room, meanwhile Akihito and Hyungwon took a stroll in the garden ro digest the scrumptious breakfast they had.
"You don't seem very pleased to see me here..." Said Akihito-kun.
"It's not that I'm not please, believe me, I'm rather glad to see you but I can't help thinking whether it's bad omen. I mean if we come across another case again then I'll call you a grim reaper, son of the right hand man of a superintendent." Said Hyungwon.
"Hey, you almost sound like you actually want to come across a case. And who are you calling grim reaper? You could be one as well, grandson of the great detective Dazai Ron."
"Anyway, where do you plan to visit first?" Asked Hyungwon.
"The famous crêperie in Harajuku... Cafe acorite...Tokyo tower and Akihabara...and we'll see more. Ket us taste the local Tokyoites delicacies!" Said Akihito-kun all excited.
"Akihito-kun, you're acting like a grade schooler... Could it be, these places..." Said Hyungwon.
"Yes, Kotoko wanted to go to these places. Hey, you and Emrald-chan have to come to Osaka for the next school holidays, got that? You have to taste Osaka's Okonomiyaki! Ah right while we're here, we'd like to go to the summer festival at the mountain shrine and watch the fireworks together. That's not too much trouble I hope." Said Akihito-kun.
Hyungwon smiled and tapped his shoulder while saying "of course not bro, no trouble at all, we shall ask Mr. and Mrs. Kaizen about visiting Osaka, would be glad to. Come on let's go back in, get some rest then we can go out to Tokyo tower tonight!"
Unfortunately for them, it started raining heavily in the afternoon and it didn't seem like it would stop anytime soon. So they decided to wait until tomorrow to start their sightseeing. Supper was spicy curry-rice and iced lemon green tea as Beverage.
They stayed home and played board games together until there was a sudden powercut.
The candles were lit and brought to the living room, Mrs.Kaizen made them some hot chocolate and some late night snacks before calling it a night herself. It was rather late so Mr. Kaizen was already asleep.
"Don't forget to wash, dry and store away the dishes once you're done kids!" Instructed Mrs. Kaizen before heading upstairs with a candle holder in her hands.
The young students gathered around the round coffee table and started sipping their hot chocolate and munching on their Madeleines and chocolate biscuits. The atmosphere was perfect for telling scary ghost stories. "Hey do schools in Tokyo have ghost stories?" Asked Akihito-kun.
"Sure, our school has some unsolved mysteries. Emrald only transferred there so she wouldn't have heard about them yet. But the rumours are that every night, when the school grounds are quiet, a zashiki warashi (child spirit) would appear and run along the hallways and laugh happily. Actually one night the school's security officer went on rounds, checking if every windows and doors are properly locked and that's when he saw her, the zashiki warashi walking in the hallways and humming happily..." Said Hyungwon.
"Oh come on a zashiki warashi? In our school, one day, two female students stayed late in the classroom, the security guy heard something strange in that particular classroom and oeeked inside to see the two girls sitting around a magic circle, illuminated by candle light, saying some weird incantations and promising to be each other's best friends for life, then all of a sudden a window sudden broke on its own in the classroom and the wind blew outbthe candles, the two girls fell unconscious and woke up again, as if they swapped bodies and personality completely reversed. The security guy said they definitely swapped bodies and ran back outside." Said Kotoko.
"Mnnn there were stories like that at my previous all-girls' school. The thing is our garden club found human skeletons after digging and ploughing the soil to prepare for agriculture. Well they say it's human skeletons but then the previous garden club members keft a diary saying they burried the bones of meat and chicken to make the soil richer in calcium. So the maths teacher stayed late one day, correcting test papers and heard something weird coming from the field, she went to cjeck and saw hens, roosters and lambs floating about." Said Emrald.
"I see, in my previous elementary school there was the story of a girl named Sachiko. Of course the story happened in the old abandoned school building. Sachiko was a bright girl, loved by all teachers, always had the best grades and was great at sports too. She was rather popular and one day she suddenly died. Everyone in her class was sad and didn't want to accept this. Until one day, a student suddenly said "Sachiko is not dead, look at her sitting here at her desk" the student pointed to Sachiko's seat. Then the next day a student brought a ball jointed doll that resembled Sachiko and make the doll sit at Sachiko's seat. From that day the students and even tecahers pretended that Sachiko did not die. Then on the day of graduation, a class photo was taken and weirdly enough, Sachiko was in the photo, not the doll but the real Sachiko appeared in the photo." Said Akihito-kun.
"That's giving me chills right now. Oh we finished the snacks and hot chocolates. Emrald, let's clean up and head up to sleep now. I'm having goosebumps all of a sudden." Said Kotoko as she got up and started collecting the dishes. Emrald shivered and nodded. About thirty minutes later they headed upstairs and went into their respective rooms. Itvwas a silent night and all that could be heard was the clattering of the raindrops on the roof, the ground, the leaves, against ghe window panes. A rather peaceful sound to listen to while sleeping.