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thosequiethours · 2 years

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Extended Author's Note, 3rd edition

Oh my god, it has been a long time since the last one! Uh...hello?

In this one, I wanted to talk about deleted scenes. Every writer wrote stuff that they decided didn't make sense with the story.

So, what didn't make the cut in Those Quiet Hours?

Between the end of the first case (The Haunted Store) and the beginning of the second one (Nightmare Hotel), there were supposed to be two chapters for Takao's training and Max would play a huge role in it!

Wait, what? What would Max do? I spoke about the influence Ghost Hunt by Fuyumi Ono had on me in writing this story and there's this character:

John Brown, a 19-year-old Australian catholic priest. And I thought, hm, I also have a blonde baby-faced boy who speaks a bit funky in canon. Come here Max, you're a catholic exorcist now!

He would intervene in these two chapters to teach Takao basic ghost hunting stuff and he would contextualise a lot of things.

Why didn't it make the cut, you might ask?

I think this character would be cool but it would have been a shame to introduce him just so he would disappear in the latest chapters. Also, the first three chapters to my story are already a big ass intro to the ghost hunting world, I didn't want the story to drag.

Okay. I know you're curious. So here's a little bit of what I wrote (under the cut).

The phone ring was muffled by the closed door at Hiwatari's office. It was impossible to tell who he was speaking to or what he was saying. But whatever that phone call contained, it finally pushed him out of his messy den to address me without any snark.

"Kinomiya, you’ll be undergoing some training for the next case." It was all so sudden that I almost got whiplash from the switch between boredom and urgency.

I stared at him, puzzled. There was a slight shadow of irritation in his eyes when he stared back at my apparent dumbness.

“Training for what? Professional paperwork guy?” I had to admit. Aside from transcribing, writing and compiling paperwork I had no idea what I was doing there. Hiwatari looked as if he had to do some internal gymnastics not to come at me with his usual snide. The guy was using all his energy to be nice for once. I had to admit, I wanted to push him a little over the edge. After all, I still hadn’t forgotten what transpired a week ago.

“This new case has much higher stakes than your convenience store trapped girl. ” Hiwatari replied. “You’ll need to behave professionally and to know what you should be looking for.”

“And using me as bait is in the professional paranormal investigator books?” I wanted it to come out as friendly banter but I was still sore from what happened. My voice shook with animosity.

There was a flash of that same heated energy on his eyes, but he closed them slowly before continuing. Heh, gotcha. “It’s for your own safety.” He was trying his best not to spit sarcasm on me, but he definitely wouldn’t be able to keep it on him. “Don’t forget you’re my employee and required to abide by any training I deem necessary to you.”

Yea, there it was. The impulse of having my fist against his perfect know-it-all face. “Are mediums rare in the market or something? Why hire an untrained guy for the job?”

“There’s a lot of people who claim to be mediums out there. I don’t want to waste time with those.” He explained, to my surprise. “Although you’re very inexperienced, you have quite a vivid perception of ghosts.”

It was odd receiving an almost-compliment from him. It took me a bit to process while I stared at him with a stupid expression. I managed to shake myself out of it quickly. “So how will this training go?”

“I was contacted by an old friend.” He said. “I usually don’t take these simple jobs, so it’s all yours.”

A chill went down my spine.

---

The man standing in front of the house didn’t look at all like I expected him to. He looked young, maybe even younger than me. He looked almost like a renaissance painting, with his golden curls sitting in the perfect state of purposefully messy the angels in those paintings. What threw me off the most was his catholic priest attire. A huge golden cross gleamed on his chest. His huge blue eyes scanned me up and down, maybe thinking that I was young and odd too.

I haven’t met many priests before, but in my mind, they were probably older than the baby-faced blonde in front of me.

“So you’re Kogorou’s Daitenji recommendation, Max Mizuhara.” Hiwatari started the conversation, to my surprise. He even extended his hand for a brief handshake.

“Just call me Max. I’m an apprentice exorcist, so he connected the dots on having me here with your…” he searched his words while looking at me. Max had a thick American accent coming through. “...trainee.”

Hiwatari nodded lightly to acknowledge what the priest said.

“I head a lot about you, Kai Hiwatari.” the blonde continued. “You could say I am a fan”

We were standing in front of our next case site. It was an ordinary family home, it didn’t even look particularly old as most haunted sites are. But as I came to learn that even your local convenience store may be home to some ghosts, I didn’t doubt the presence of some unsavoury ghouls in there. The windy night added an eerie sensation to the neighbourhood and the cold was unwelcome.

“Thank you for taking him in.” Hiwatari bowed politely. He turned around to leave. I grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

“Wait, you’re not staying?” I asked. How did he expect me to handle a haunted place by myself?

“I am busy with something else at the moment.” He replied, continuing his way to the car. I wondered what an evening for Hiwatari looked like since he was totally the workaholic type. He probably continued whatever he did while he was locked inside his office.

I looked at Max awkwardly.

“Don’t worry, you’re in good hands.” He boasted, winking at me. “Got your equipment ready?”

I lifted the strap from the very heavy backpack, the electronic equipment inside clacking against each other. I gulped. “As ready as one can be.”

---

My hands were shaky, but I tried hard to not let my fear show through. I had just finished installing the last camera in the master bedroom. Mizuhara’s attentive eyes watched me with little commentary. “Ok, all cameras are correctly positioned.” I stated, taking a few steps back to contemplate the room.

Most of the house was either empty or had very little furniture since the owners planned on selling it. However, many of the potential buyers reported some odd encounters in the house. They would hear footsteps in the attic, objects would fall mysteriously, they would trip on the air and the worst ones: someone got pushed down the stairs by something they couldn’t see. Just the thought of it made me shiver.

“You look very tense.” Max observed.

After my last ghost hunting experience, I was surely uneasy about how a case usually unfolds. While Hiromi wasn’t dangerous, the spirits in this house seemed to be quite unfriendly. And I knew, as a medium, that they could do much worse to people who could see them.

“I just don’t like interacting with ghosts.” I answered, sparing him of any details of what truly happened last time. And since Max seemed to admire Hiwatari, I wasn’t about to crush his impression of him.

His eyes were directed at my trembling hands. “How odd for a medium.”

Max’s bright blue eyes kept staring at me with curiosity. I think I was the next best after Hiwatari and he was indeed eager to know more about the newbie my boss hired.

I shrugged. “It wasn’t exactly my intention to work professionally with ghosts.”

“Oh?” His eyes opened wide as if he just struck gold. Shit, me and my big mouth.

I answered before even thinking if this was information I should be sharing. Something in his demeanour just eased me into talking. “Well, you see, I owe Hiwatari a favour.”

“Oh, that’s fascinating.” He said, his hands clasping together while his eyes shone. “You would think it’d be every medium’s dream to work for a famous investigator like him.”

Wait, what? “He’s famous?”

“You didn’t know? He’s a total celebrity in the paranormal investigation field.”

Okay, that was unexpected. How does a guy like Hiwatari, full of shady methods to solve his cases, get to celebrity status? “My previous jobs were all retail. I’m not necessarily informed on this line of uh… business.”

“He has been on TV and everything” Max kept going. “A few years ago, he solved this disappearance that happened in the eighties, it was a cold case. The media was all over it.”

Whoa, I had no idea.

“Since then, the chief of police seems to want to keep him close. I guess he owes him a big favour too since he was directly responsible for his promotion.” He said, seeming way too eager to share all the details. Max was apparently Hiwatari’s biggest fanboy. “He’s the one who contacted put us in contact, Mr Daitenji.”

I was glad that the priest was as talkative as he was. First, to fill in the silence that could be a space for ghostly whispers, and second, to get a better insight into who Hiwatari was. My boss wasn’t the most talkative person on earth, so there was no way that I could have learned those facts directly from him.

“Can we start now? I just want to get this over with.” I finally said, dreading my next tasks.

“Of course. Run me through your plan.”

I had skimmed through the notes that Hiwatari gave me about how to conduct a proper investigation earlier, so I tried my best to pull from my memory what I had to do. “So, cameras have been installed in the reported active areas. This room, the kitchen and… one pointed to the door to the attic. I also installed temperature detectors to look for any temperature changes.”

I didn’t want to think about the attic and whatever was walking around in there, but my mind started giving me glimpses of what horrible spirit could be living there. I didn’t feel nauseous, which meant no ghosts were manifesting themselves yet, but I felt observed.

“We’ll check the attic as the last step since we still don’t know the nature of what we are dealing with.” I pointed out. Mizuhara nodded in agreement with my strategy.

“And what equipment are you carrying with you?”

I pointed at the small camera secured to my chest. “This camera and I have a voice recorder to capture the… Voices-thing?”

“You mean the EVPs, electronic voice phenomenons.” He corrected me, gently. What a relief that Hiwatari wasn’t there, I could feel him rolling his eyes at me even if he wasn’t there. “Well, I also have something of my own that might be useful.”

He showed me what looked like a small radio with a microphone attached to it. “What is this?”

“It’s called a ghost box. It scans through radio frequencies rapidly and allows spirits to manipulate the sound to communicate with us.” He explained as he pressed the power button.

The loud sound of radio static invaded the room and I jumped, startled. What in the world was this? I swear that the sound alone was capable of freaking anyone out. “Uhm, why do I need this if I can already see them?” I said as he pressed the off button to end the auditory torture.

“I’m not a medium, so I have to rely on this to communicate with those poor souls.” He pointed out.

Now we had to move on to the real deal. My first official ghost hunt.

My palms were sweaty as I pressed the record button on the voice recorder and made sure that the camera attached to me was on.

“I’m reaching out to whoever is in this house.” I said, with a wavering voice. “My name is Takao Kinomiya, can you say my name back to me?”

Complete silence.

We waited for a few minutes before I had to change strategy. Max turned on the dreaded ghost box. The initial loud sound cemented on me that I hated the ghost box.

“Hello, reaching out again. Is there anyone here with us?”

The ghost box kept skipping loudly through the channels. But then a very clear sound came out of it.

“Yes.” The sound was broken into two different radio voices. I wasn’t sure whether I should take it as evidence or not. I pressed on.

“My name is Takao, can you repeat it for me?”

There was a pause before the radio voice said it back to me. “Ta…kao…”

I exchanged looks with Mizuhara, who had a very stern expression on his face. “Could you tell me your name?”

“Get… out…” it answered in a guttural voice. I was completely frightened, but the evaluating look coming from the priest kept me from sprinting out of the house.

“We’re not here to harm you.” And how would I know if it didn’t want to harm me? I wanted to just leave whatever was in there locked inside the house, but I knew I had a job to do. “We will leave if you talk to us. Could you tell me your name?”

“Tenmaru.” the radio voices said my name, sounding nothing like the threatening “Get out” from moments ago.

“Tenmaru… Is there anyone else in this house?”

“Big brother…” it answered on the radio. But I also heard a voice coming from the ceiling. “Stop. He will hear us.”

“Did you hear this?” I asked, pointing up. He shook his head. Cool. I spoke to the radio again. “Where are you right now?”

“Get out.” and with that, the loud sound of the radio static came back. I guess the ghosts didn’t feel like making my day easier. Max turned off the loud ghost box.

I didn’t exactly know how to proceed from there. The ghost didn’t necessarily feel friendly. “How do I proceed from here?” I asked.

“Well, you’re the medium. Aside from what they said, what else do you perceive?” Max asked me, with a patient smile on his face. My main focus had been the voice on the radio. But maybe if I focused enough I could get more information.

“The voice I heard seemed to come from the ceiling, which tells me they might be in the attic. But it’s hard with ghosts, the sound is not exactly… Directional” I told the priest. I closed my eyes for a bit, trying to focus on how the room felt.

For a while, it was just that, silence in an empty room. As I tried to dive more and more into this state of immersion, I started to perceive little details. Mizuhara’s breathing, the light rain starting to hit the windows, the vibrations in the air…

I chased them with my mind. There was an energy in the house. I focused on the attic. It’s weird, I could tell that there were three people in there. One was small and non-threatening, the other one was a lot more emotional and aggressive, its energy encompassing the smaller one. And there was something else…

“I think Tenmaru is a child.” I finally said, words spilling out of my mouth before I even thought about them. “His brother is trying to protect him. And there’s a third one.”

“Can you tell what it is?”

“I just feel a very strong negative emotion when I try to focus on it.” I hesitated before saying the next words. “I think we need to see the attic.”

#thosequiethours #beyblade fanfiction #ghost hunting au

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