If Mai was having a baby…

For the first time in his life, Shibuya Kazuya (or whatever the hell you want to call him) was having trouble concentrating on a case. He was hiding it efficiently from the rest of the team, but he was fidgety. Mai should be there.

For one: She just should.

For two: Madoka was driving him crazy.

Everyone (except Mai) had agreed that she shouldn't be allowed to work on cases during her ninth month. Or eighth or seventh, for that matter. She was going to fall into something, or get possessed by something, or mysteriously leave her room in the middle of the night during a dream and end up ten mils away on top of a mountain, and chances were she'd go into labor then. Madoka had, of course, offered to fill Mai's place. It had not been unanimous, but no one listened when Naru argued that the only real thing they needed from Mai was her intuition.

No one expected them to actually get a case. What were the odds? No cases for two months, but now...! Everyone -- especially Bou-san -- was perfectly to content to smother Mai. They had nearly murdered Naru when he took the job.

The bad thing about this case was that it was important. It wasn't the kind of thing he could ignore for a week or two -- or three, or four. So they were trying to get it over with so everyone could go back to mobbing Mai when she tried to move a muscle.

This presented another problem; there was serious activity in this building, but they couldn't find the damn ghosts. They had already been here for four days and had nothing but a lousy little scream at night.

Then Naru's cell phone rang once, and time stopped

Anzai Hiromi was very confused. He had hired a team of people to look into the ghosts at his hotel. They had come in with some impressive equipment, and the president seemed very efficient. He didn't understand why the president was now running out of the front door.

"Excuse me, Shibuya-san, but I --"

Naru didn't even pause, just ran past the poor man. John was following him at a serene pace. He bowed, and gave him a perfect smile. "Excuse us. One of our teammates is having a baby right now."

"Oh -- oh, that's nice, but why is Shibuya-san --"

John had just walked out, but Madoka bounced after him. "It's his wife," she explained happily.

"Okay … Takigawa-san? Matsuki-san? Where are you --"

"WE'RE THE GODPARENTS!" They yelled happily (a little outraged, on Ayako's part) and ran out the door.

Masako walked out slowly and calmly, not even bothering to say a word. Yasuhara at least paused, and explained himself.

"My sister." Well, he lied.

By the time Lin reached the door, Anzai-san had had enough. He and Lin argued for a minute or five, until Lin saw his van disappear from sight.

Dammit. Someone had to watch the monitors.

Haha, poor Lin...