Chapter 60: 'Who's the Spook?'

"So, are you still gonna quit?" Achika asked him bluntly over crossed arms. Leaning back against one of the innumerable, enigma's the good professors myriad domains had to offer. Nobuyuki wondered briefly if the creature contained within could see either of them. Not that its clairvoyance particularly mattered. Or, as if anything could make Achika more attractive ... the slightly cross expression succeeded however. "Leave our family without guidance?" She finished reproachfully.

"Now who's kidding themselves?" Nobuyuki asked, a tad grumpier than he intended, watching Ayeka comforting Mayuka. "They don't need me!" He paused looking back at Achika speculatively.

"Say, if I didn't know better..." His eyes narrowed. "I'd swear your trying to get rid of me!" Achika cultivated demeanor vanished in a look of utter shock.

"I-It's not anything like that!" She gasped.

"What's his name?" Nobuyuki asked, as his spine visibly stiffened.

"WHAT?"

"Tell me the name of the spook who's been sniffing around my wife!"

"You have got to be kidding me!" Came the startled reply.

"So! gonna hide 'Casper' from me?" As Achicka's eyes widened even further, Nobuyuki started actually 'looking' around. "Come out here and face me!" He announced defiantly.

"You are out of your lid pick'n mind!" She swore utterly astonished. With a gasp Achika then made her way over. Startling Nobuyuki with the apparent solidity of her touch when she grasped his face in her hands.

"Nobuyuki?" Achicka asked him directly. "Do you still love me?" Suddenly aware as well, of how long it had been, for both of them.

"That's cold!" He sniffed averting his eyes.

"Then believe me!" She told him evenly. "There is, no one!"

"Then why can't I stay here with you?"

"Your time isn't through!" Achicka replied passionately. "And." She added, smiling that same smile he used to see every Christmas. "Someone, waits for you!"

"Waits?" He struggled with the concept. "For me?"

"Yes." Achicka gently whispered.

"Well ... Who?"

"I'VE GOT A PULSE!" Washu Exclaimed. On the medical slab, Nobuyuki's eyes fluttered open.

"God damn it!" He seemed to mutter. Before he again passed out.