Kchan: Yet another story about crime and such, but with a more supernatural twist to it! About a small private investigative agency and its two employees. Yes, two. I did a bunch of research for this damned story about private investigators and such, just on a side note. I feel that it paid off in the end though XD Funny, it was originally supposed to be a one-shot with only Daniel, but it kinda grew after I created his partner. Each chapter is a new case, unless one single case becomes too long, in which I’ll split it into two chapters. Enjoy!

Warnings: The usual...cursing. Oh, and a very flamboyantly gay coworker. Yay!

Without Flowers

Chapter 1
Goodbye, Dolly!

.::What does it mean to live without flowers?::.

"The Paranormal PI Agency. Daniel Matsuo speaking" a man in his mid 20's said in monotone into an old, white phone.

"Uhh...I thought this was The Fish Bowl" the speaker on the other end said, confused.

Daniel growled into the phone, "They went out of business four years ago, since I started working in this poor excuse for a job. Don't you people get that?!" and slammed down the receiver. It was always the same. People kept calling to order fish and chips from a place that had been at the outskirts of London. That didn't exist anymore, thank you very much. He ran a hand through his neatly trimmed jet-black locks in frustration and wished that he had never left his home country when he was younger. These Englishmen were just too dense for him.

But what had there been back in the Land of the Rising Sun? A life as a monk perhaps? He scoffed at the thought. Or a policeman. He'd been well on his way for a career in that field too. One simple phone call had changed his life forever, dooming him to an existence on another island, except this time off the mainland of Europe instead of Asia. Yes, one phone call and he had been asked to go overseas to work in what his employer had called, "an opportunity of a lifetime" and that he'd been selected for this because of his almost perfect English, physical fitness, and training for a law enforcement officer kind of helped a lot too. He had skills needed for the job like persistence, assertiveness, quick thinking, calmness during a conflict, and a good head for logics. The only thing he really lacked for a job such as this was communication skills, which he was currently working on. Not working hard enough obviously, as he usually scared his clients.

The investigative agency he worked for was surely not a normal one though. ‘Paranormal’, as the company name implied was exactly what it was and what it investigated into. The supernatural. Everything about the agency was a little off, even his own employer, which he’d never gotten the privilege of meeting. He didn’t even know her name; she insisted on just being called “Ma’am”.

He surveyed his small office with distaste. It had been a fish and chips place, and it still very much smelled like one. He had saved up enough money on several occasions to have someone come in and clean the place out and he swore that it still smelled like fried fish. The counter and tables were cleared out and replaced with his small wooden desk (which held nothing more than a computer and a phone). At the back of the room were filing cabinets filled with information on past cases, both solved and otherwise. The once white tiled floors were ripped out for a cheap, gray carpet that was already worn. He kept the windows covered with blinds most of the time. He really didn’t care to see the people outside as they walked by. On the outside, the building still held a misleading sign that read, “Fish Bowl- Great Fish ‘n Chips at a Low Price!”. This irked him to no end.

The occupant of the strange office was a man named Daniel Matsuo, 25 with short dark black hair and even blacker eyes if that was even possible. He was built taller than some and slightly muscular, both of which came in handy during some of his cases; one of which included being a bodyguard. His face would have been considered handsome if he didn’t always have a scowl or a sneer plastered on it. That and he usually just dressed plain, much to the annoyance of many women; a solid-coloured shirt and dark pants. Today it was a white shirt and tan pants.

The phone rang again, interrupting Daniel’s silent thoughts. He glared at it and yanked the phone off its holder. “What? This isn’t the bloody Fish Bowl”

“That’s no way to talk to your employer, Mr. Matsuo” a melodic, feminine voice said over the other end, “I don’t know if you realize this, but over here in the Western Hemisphere, people generally try to suck up to their bosses to get in their favor”

Daniel groaned. “Sorry, Ma’am. Been getting those calls again. I really wish you’d hire someone to fix that sign outside”

Ma’am giggled and said in her sing-song voice, “Oh, that? I think it’s charming. That’s not what I called about though. You’ll see a couple of schoolgirls in a minute or so for another case. Oh! And I’m assigning someone to work with you soon! Isn’t that nice of me? You won’t be working alone anymore! He’s a really nice guy. I think it was Aaron or something like that”

The man resisted the urge to let a string of curses out at his boss, as it would have been a poor decision. Instead, he said, “Find. How do you know the girls are coming though? Did they call you first?”

Ma’am giggled again, “You know I can’t tell you that! Just do the job. There might be a raise in it for you!” and with that she hung up on him. He highly doubted the promise of a raise. She said that every time. After the first, 5 times he lost hope and resigned himself to a life of the low wages he got. He wondered exactly how low-budget the agency he worked for was.

“Very low-budget” he thought as he looked around at his dingy office with disgust. All the female clients told him the office needed a woman’s touch. He always told such clients to go bugger off and mind their own damned business.

Sure enough, just as he had put the phone back in its holder, two high school girls came in, wearing the green pullover sweaters and black skirts of the local school. They both had dark brown hair, though one had tried to dye it blond and had failed miserably. They giggled as they saw Daniel and went up to his desk nervously.

The pseudo-blond said quietly, “Umm…someone told us about this place…you do research in ghosts and stuff”

Daniel rolled his black eyes heavenward, “Yeah, something like that”. Ghosts were just one of many things he dealt with.

“Well…we’re from the drama club at our school… and…”

“…and were think the theatre’s haunted!” the brunette piped up excitedly, “its like this 18 year old guy!”

The blond nodded in agreement, “He just sits on the stage and recites some lines from some play…then he kinda looks around for some reason and just disappears. Can you help us?”

The man rubbed his temples and watched the girls carefully. “This ghost probably isn’t a harmful spirit. Why don’t you just leave him the hell alone?”

The blond looked at the brunette and shook her head, “See? I told you he was probably a phony. Probably just trying to scam us out of our money or something. Want to try that other place we saw inside London? I think it was the Brites PI Agency or something”

“I’ll do it” Daniel snapped, pounding a fist on the desk and glaring at the girls. The agency she had been talking about was his only competitor in the area: Brites’ Paranormal PI. He growled at the thought; they had stolen the ‘paranormal’ part of that, but he couldn’t prove it. Plus, he didn’t necessarily own the word. He didn’t want to lose a client, especially not to that company.

He’d never actually seen Brites’. He pondered this for a second and decided he’d have to make a trip to London one of these days to check out the competition. The only thing that really held him back was the thought of actually seeing them and finding they had a much better facility and more employees than he had.

“I’ll do it” he repeated, “Just give me the address for your school and what time do you normally see this ghost? Is there anyone who’s seen him first hand?”

The blond girl nodded and reached into her backpack for a pen and paper to write her school address on. “I’ve seen him” she said levelly, “A couple other girls have too. He only appears when there’s no one else in the theatre. Brown hair, tall, blue eyes, and freckles”. That said, she handed him a piece of notebook paper with her school’s address written in neat letters.

“ ‘Riverside, huh?” Daniel read and tucked the paper away in his pants pocket, “I’ll see what I can do”. The girls nodded and said their thanks before leaving him alone once again. He glanced at the circular clock on the wall. It was about 5:00 or so, give or take a few minutes. He had plenty of time to hit the school before they closed it for the night; they usually stayed open until 6 for detentions and after school programs.

He heaved a sigh and pulled himself up from his chair and headed outside, much to his annoyance. He flipped the sign on the door to “Closed” and locked the door. It was growing dark outside, and the rain clouds overhead only served to make it darker. It was England; it always looked like it was going to rain. Daniel cursed as he realized he’d left his umbrella in the office once again, but didn’t feel like going back in to get it now that he’d gone outside. He strode down the streets lazily and turned the notebook paper over in his hands as he walked.

The small shops and houses that were cluttered together seemed to thin out until he reached a red brick, one-story school with a small field for football and other outside sports. No school was complete without a football field here, he noticed. The soccer goals were bent and dented everywhere from heavy use and abuse. The walls of the school were decorated with graffiti; some just a simple name scrawled on the wall and others a bright and colourful “F-you”. Daniel said to himself for the thousandth time that he hated the city, even if he was on the outskirts of it.

Inside, the state of the school wasn’t much better than the outside. Halls that had probably been a spotless white at one time were covered with gum, more graffiti, and stuff that he suspected was urine in some of the darker corners of the hall. He walked on and searched the hall for a sign of the theatre. He found it; a piece of paper taped to a battered wooden door that read “Auditorium/theatre”. A few other things were scrawled on the paper by students, which he promptly ignored.

He yanked the door open and stepped into the dark theatre, to find the door he’d walked through led right onto the stage. The only light was a spotlight that hit the centre of the stage. The stage itself was probably the only thing that was untouched in the school. The drama students obviously took care to make sure it stayed in good condition. The floor was painted in a solid black with a few scuffmarks here and there. The walls were also black, with no signs of spray paint anywhere. On either end of the stage, half of the large velvety curtain had been pulled back.

Daniel squinted his eyes towards the centre of the stage and stared into the lighted area the spotlight provided. A man, or an older teen, was standing there wearing a black suit, a black hat in one hand, and a cane in the other. His brown hair was slightly matted down from wearing the hat. Other than that, Daniel couldn’t make out much about the ghost, but remembered the blond girl’s description. He stared out into the empty theatre and was saying something to an audience of no one. No one except Daniel, but the man obviously hadn’t noticed him. He listened intently to try and hear the other.

“…It's so nice to have you here where you belong. I never knew Dolly, without you, Dolly life was awfully flat, and more than that was awfully wrong”. Here he looked around as if lost. He searched around the theatre desperately with his eyes, and stopped dead on Daniel. He gave the “audience” a worried look and ran to Daniel and whispered in a frantic voice, “Dolly! Where’s Dolly?! She missed her cue!”

Daniel stepped away from the ghost and smoothed back his black hair. He stared back into the others freckled face and shrugged, “How the hell should I know? Look, kid, you’re dead. So be a nice little ghost and go away”

The other looked back at him sadly, “Where’s Dolly? I really want to finish the show. I’ll be graduating this year and I won’t be able to do any more plays. This is the last one. Won’t you go backstage and see if you can find Dolly?”

The ghost was reliving the night of his last performance and his death. He probably saw Daniel as another actor from that night. The man signed and shook his head, “Sure kid. I’ll go get her” and turned to leave.

“Stop!” the ghost cried suddenly in a terrible voice that rang through the whole theatre. Daniel felt his skin crawl at this. He looked back at the boy and saw that he was staring, horrified, at some invisible object above him. Then, without warning, he crumpled to the ground as his he’d been struck by something and disappeared. The death scene honestly spooked Daniel a little.

He looked back at the stage and saw the wispy figure of a woman with pale skin, black hair, and black eyes. She wasn’t part of the play or any of this case’s nonsense. He knew here very well from back in Japan. Yet still, even after death, she followed him around. And only he knew why, but he didn’t have it in him to rid himself of her. She was a constant reminder of why he took this job.

The woman glared at him threateningly from the shadows. He couldn’t understand why she was here. She had only appeared in the past when he started opening up to someone or getting close to someone. Yet here she was.

“Kale…” he whispered, knowing the woman would hear him, “I only wanted for you to be safe. I tried my best. I hope that some day you can forgive me and move on”

He heard her voice, a raspy sound. Or maybe it was closer to the sound of a cat that was hissing? He couldn’t quite make out the words, but he got the general idea: she would always haunt him, through life and death. “Please try to move on, my rose” he pleaded, before turning away.

He closed the door to the theatre and left, feeling the presence of Kale follow him until he was back at the office again. There, she seemed to leave him alone for the time being, though he knew she’d be back. In the mean time, he turned on his old computer. This was no easy feat as it took forever to start up and had a tendency to shut down without warning once it had. Daniel allowed himself a small grin as the old piece of scrap metal finally loaded up and he successfully opened a typing program. Here, he began writing up all the information he’d gathered from his little outing.

Just as the clock on the wall hit 6:00, a young woman (probably no older than 19) entered the office. She was fairly tall, like Daniel, but very slim. There were barely any curves on her (if any at all), but didn’t at all look anorexic or a sickly kind of thin either. She was also obviously a fashion nut by the looks of her bright outfit. A low-cut white tank with lace trimming peeked out beneath a clingy pink corduroy jacket, and a robin-egg blue skirt barely hid the woman’s long legs. She had long, blond hair, and (after removing a pair of dark sunglasses) Daniel saw she had the brightest pair of green eyes he’d ever seen. All together, everything about the woman was either sensual or cheery. An odd mix.

She offered Daniel a wave and said enthusiastically, “Hey-lo! How’re ya doing there, love? Daniel Matsuo, wasn’t it?”

Daniel raised an eyebrow at the woman. “This isn’t the whore house, nor is it a street corner” here he pointed somewhere outside, “Both of them are a few feet down that way”

She pouted at this. “Aww…who says I’m a hooker? Do I look like one, love?”. She paused, waiting for Daniel to say she didn’t. She’d have to wait a long time. Instead, she continued, “Ma’am hired me to work with you. Nice to meet you, I’m Erin Sterling. Spelled E-R-I-N…not A-A-R-O-N”

“Daniel Matsuo, and…Wait!” his eyes widened, “Ma’am hired you?!”

Erin nodded.

“But…she said my new partner was going to be a guy...” he said thoughtfully and eyed the cheerful woman. Maybe Ma’am had gotten her facts mixed up.

Erin smiled pleasantly at this and laughed, “And she was right! I am I guy, can’t you tell?”

Daniel watched the so-called man doubtfully. Sure, Erin had no curves to speak of, but surely, it was a woman. No man in his right mind would dress like that. Or at least that’s what he thought. He/she undid a few buttons of the pink jacket and pulled down the white tank a little to reveal a flat chest. Too flat for any woman, no matter how lacking she was in the breast department.

“My parents really wanted a girl so they raised me as one. They even gave me a girls name” Erin explained and added jokingly, “You can refer to me as a guy though if you want. It’s a nice reminder which gender I really am”

Daniel watched the man, horrified. This was his new partner? This was the ‘man’ he was supposed to work with? The ‘great guy’ that Ma’am had been talking about?! He sank down into his chair further, avoiding the sight of the other man.

Erin however, didn’t seem to notice Daniel’s discomfort and kept on talking. He twirled around once and watched in fascination as the short skirt flowed gracefully around his legs. “Plus, I rather think that guys should be able to wear skirts and whatnot too. Why not? Women wear pants and shorts, so why can’t guys wear dresses and skirts? Besides, I’m too pretty to wear men’s clothes; I look like a tomboyish girl or something”

Daniel had to hand it to Erin on that account; he really wouldn’t look right in men’s clothing. But just the fact that any man on the planet naturally looked that feminine creeped him out. The replayed death-scene he saw earlier was nothing compared to this in his mind. He’d seen many things in his few years as a PI, and this was labeled as one of the more disturbing ones.

Finally, Erin stopped babbling about his appearances and started back onto business, “Anywho, Ma’am said that I was perfect for this case specifically. Can I see the report on you’re findings so far?”

“Sure…” Daniel said hesitantly, “I just finished typing it”

The blond man walked around the desk and leaned over Daniel’s shoulder to read the words on the screen with interest. Daniel was a little more than irked to find the other smelled heavily of some kind of fruity scent. There was some kind of irony there. Finally, Erin pulled back, grinning.

“This is perfect! I know exactly what play it is!” Erin declared and read the address on the screen again.

“What?”

Erin didn’t answer him, but instead took the black-haired man’s hand and proceeded to drag him out of the office. All the while Daniel snarled and yelled about how he needed to lock the office, though there was nothing in there anyone would really want to steal.

.:---------------------:.

Once again, Daniel was back in the theatre. He waited at the far end of the stage while Erin paced back and forth across the centre of the stage. He had insisted on wearing a ridiculous plumed hat, saying that it was integral to the case. Daniel just thought it made him look like a dumbass. The spotlight was still on. He dimly wondered why a student would be careless enough to leave it on; it would run up the school’s electricity bill.

Finally, a familiar ghost slowly appeared on the stage and said his part. The brown-haired boy once again faced the audience and didn’t seem to notice anyone else, not even Erin who stood right next to him.

"...Without you, Dolly, life was awfully flat and more than that was awfully wrong”. Here, the ghost turned, and was surprised to see Erin standing there.

Erin took off the ridiculous hat and sang with precise words, “Here's my hat, Horace! I'm staying where I'm at, Horace! Dolly will never go away...”

The boy smiled and continued, “Wonderful woman!”

They took each other’s hand here and once again faced the audience with a new enthusiasm, and sang the final song of the play, “Hello, Dolly! Well, hello, Dolly! It's so nice to have you back were you belong…”

Daniel watched them, amazed. Erin really had fit the part easily. He could almost believe that he was some actress at this school playing the part of Dolly.

“Take the someone whose arms you're in, hold onto her tight and spin. And one two three, one two three, one two three look, I'm dancing!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kale again, but turned his attention back to the two on stage.

“Dolly'll never go away again!”. On the last note, they took a deep bow towards the empty audience and ran off stage, panting.

Kale gave Daniel one last look filled with seething hatred and disappeared into the shadows to return another time.

The ghost looked up at Erin in amazement, “We did it! That’s it! No more rehearsals and staying up late!”

Erin grinned back at the freckled ghost, “Yeah. Hey, speaking of staying up late, why don’t you get some rest?”

The boy nodded, “Yeah, I do feel tired. If my parents come looking for me, tell them I’m taking a nap on stage, okay?”

“Will do!”

The boy yawned and curled up on the floor. As his eyes closed, he slowly started to fade away. Daniel felt that this time, he wasn’t going to be back. He was gone to the afterlife finally. The black-haired man looked at his new partner with one eyebrow raised.

Erin shrugged and said simply, “I used to be in a lot of play in high school. One of them just happened to be Hello, Dolly!. Can you guess which part I played?”. Daniel groaned, knowing the blond man had probably played the female role for many a play.

“So, Let’s get going home then! I’m beat after all that singing!”

Daniel laughed sarcastically at this, “You think you’re done? Oh no, we have lots of paper work to do on this case still. Ma’am and the people in the afterlife won’t be very happy if we turn it in late”

---

Kchan: Here, I’d just like to add in some details about the Paranormal PI agency Danny and Erin work for! Yay for extra stuff!

First off, Ma’am does work in the afterlife ( in between the world of the living and the dead). Its not clear exactly what she does yet, but that’s where she works! Here, the souls of the dead are judged before a legal court that assesses all their deeds during life, after which they move on to either Heaven or Hell. Other supernatural beings (vampires, werewolves, etc.) also go here when they commit a crime. They’re usually sentenced to Hell for a certain amount of time, depending on the crime they committed.

The PI’s like Daniel and Erin research and solve cases their given, but unlike real PI’s, they don’t present their findings before a court. Special lawyers already in the afterlife take care of that since living humans aren’t allowed in the afterlife. And that’s it for now! Any questions? Well, hope you liked it! I'm a little nervous as to what you all think, as usual! ::Laughs:: Until next time! Love!

.::Kyande::.