Confused Memories

[madimpossibledreamer]

From what I’m reading Halloween wasn’t really a Japanese thing until about 2000.  Kindaichi Case Files is roughly set around the time it was written.  In either case, the Halloween episode is set in 1997.
The bit about recognizing your hands more than anything else is from Jojo’s.
honestly this song title was kind of what inspired everything, after which I was like...yeah, writing Kindaichi could be a lot of fun. and here we are.

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/The Case Files of Young Kindaichi
Summary: Kindaichi is very much in the building, and Xander is not.  (also, Miyuki does not appear, but he does talk about her a lot.)
Word Count: 1060
Rating: Teen

 

        Kindaichi rejoins the land of the conscious suddenly and stumbles a little, because he’s not lying down, he’s standing up in the middle of a deserted street.  He didn’t fall asleep here, and the complete lack of awareness of how he’d even gotten here doesn’t bode well—that’s usually accompanied by a concussion, which, as much as it sucks, usually is also accompanied by a trip to the hospital and Miyuki scolding him about how he’d scared her.  He feels his face and winces.  Yep, someone beat him up.  If only he remembered where ‘here’ was, even, or where Miyuki or Ossan are.  He doesn’t even remember owning this hoodie, though it’s nice and soft.  Miyuki probably put it on him, worried.  She does that a lot.  Really, he makes her worry too much, but he can’t always help it.  The bigger thing is, if she’d done that, where is she now?  The most likely, knowing himself, is that something related to the mystery had occurred to him and he’d wandered out to look into it without telling anyone.
        Well, there’s no use wondering about it.  If your memories aren’t helping you here, maybe look at the clues.
        He takes a closer look at his surroundings, and—
        That’s just more confusing.  Because from the looks of things, he’s definitely not in Japan.  This does not look like a Japanese town.  He could have sworn he’s seen it before, though, and casts back his memories.  He’s not getting anything, until he spots the pumpkins and skeletons, and that jogs a memory.
        America, right?  A foreign holiday—Halloween, was it?  Mom liked watching things about that, but then, she really wanted to travel.  Miyuki shivered and thought it was creepy, and Hajime privately agreed.  He’d taken the opportunity to scare her, to which she’d promptly hit him.  It wasn’t the supernatural parts that bothered him, to be fair—those didn’t exist except in the imagination, and anyway, so far in the far-too-many murders he’d had to solve, none had required the supernatural.  It was more just…he’d seen, far too often, what humans were capable of.  And true, most of the time they were pushed into it, or thought it was their only choice, and regretted it afterwards, but none of that could help the people who ended up hurt (Miyuki, far too often, and sometimes Reika-chan) or dead.  He didn’t need to see any more, even if the death wasn’t real.
        But the bigger question is, how did he end up here?  He doesn’t remember traveling to America, with or without his mom.  And he’s pretty sure Ossan definitely couldn’t afford a trip here, if he couldn’t even manage a nice boat to Okinawa…
        “Xander!” a girl’s voice yells desperately, and he turns, about to offer his services to help find this person with a foreign name, because it’s the right thing to do and maybe she can help him too and maybe even she’ll be grateful enough to kiss him on the cheek, when his brain just kind of…whites out.
        It’s not quite a bikini, but that’s a really skimpy outfit, and what messes him up more is that part of his brain is insisting this is Miyuki, class rep with great grades and childhood best friend, despite the fact that she’s clearly not Japanese and clearly not Miyuki.
        “Thank goodness you’re okay!” she babbles quickly (in English, when did he—) and hugs him tightly.
        Or, well.  She tries.
        Her arms go right through him.
        He shrieks and falls on his butt, staring but not quite comprehending.  Projectors—projectors aren’t that good.  A mirror?  Maybe, but why?  And would it be good enough he could see her arms around him like that—?
        Slowly, he realizes that she’s babbling at him, still in English, and he makes an effort to try to respond, because she’s clearly concerned.  “You’re a—” Yurei.  English, Hajime.  “Ghost?” he tries, and watches the understanding cross her face.
        And then she continues to babble and he’s definitely not picking that up.  He might be understanding more English than he remembers picking up, but not that much more.  “Slower, please,” he requests, accent unfortunately obvious (he’d gotten scolded in English class about that, but hadn’t really bothered), and she definitely looks like she’s about to cry.  Which he hates, that he caused it, that he’s not sure he can help, but he’s definitely going to try.
        At least she seems friendly enough, and seems like she has her memory intact.  She’s certainly acting like a human, unlike the spooky stories he’s heard.
        “You’re not Xander,” she says, slower, and he frowns and shakes his head.
        “Sorry, I haven’t seen…”  He pauses and goes with his gut.  “…him.”
        She definitely looks hurt at that and gestures at his hands.  “You aren’t you.”
        A ridiculous statement, but then he actually looks, really looks, and—she’s not wrong.
        Those aren’t his hands.  Not that he makes a habit of staring at his hands, that would be weird, but he does see them every day, and the skin tone is different, and they’re more scarred than his hands, in different places.
        “What is going on?” he asks faintly.  He’s not having the panic attack right now.  That can wait, as this probably isn’t the best time or place.  But he can’t keep it together completely.
        “I think you’re possessing him,” she answers easily, like it’s something that happens all the time.  Maybe it does.  She’s not panicking about the supernatural, like would be natural if she hadn’t dealt with that before.
        A chill runs through him.  “Am I…dead?”
        “N-no, of course not, Hajime-chan!”  But she had hesitated.  She knows his name, and that’s kind of a familiar manner of address, which might mean she’s trying to distract him from that.  Which might mean she actually knows—
        He’ll be really upset if he has to solve his own murder.
        He puts a hand to his chin, thinking.  “…Are you dead?” he continues, because, well, no matter what’s going on, he’s here and he’s not alone at least.
        “No, I left my body that way,” she points, and that’s just weird to hear.
        He opens his mouth, but a scream interrupts him.  He flinches, but starts to run in that direction, because either he can help or he can get some answers.