Disclaimer: (I need to think of a more clever way to say this…) Monk-San, Lin-San (jeez, I'm so used to calling him that—I need to drop that honorific), John, and Naru don't belong to me (no matter how much I wish they did…). They all belong to Shiho Inada and Fuyumi Ono.

Read and Enjoy (and then please review—it only takes a few minutes!)

~Monk-San's POV: 2:17 hours~

I was not sleeping.

I was still not sleeping.

I think part of the problem of my not-sleeping was centered on the fact that I knew I was not sleeping. My "watch-the-computer-monitor's" shift had ended at midnight, and now I was lying in the guys' room trying to catch some z's before Naru had us all working like slaves again tomorrow.

Nah, not like slaves. You had to give the kid some credit. He knew how to manipulate people into wanting to do his work for him. Stupid teenagers.

Speaking of…I shot a glance at the not-so-big boss himself. He was sleeping fine. He usually did.

Jeez, he just looked so…..young. It was really creepy to see him without a frown or a sadistic smirk on his face. He actually looked seventeen, as opposed to his usual middle-aged self.

As I watched him, he rolled over onto his side, sighing lightly. Whatever. I just hoped to God he didn't start snoring, or some little narcissist would be waking up with a black eye to match the rest of him.

To my left, John was totally passed out; dead to the world and drooling a little onto his pillow. I would tease him about that in the morning. Lin was out watching the monitors at the moment, and Yasuhara hadn't been able to make this case. Lin and I were probably the only ones awake. I debated going out there to talk to him, but it wasn't like he would say much back. And my bed was cozy.

Naru moaned softly in his sleep, flipping onto his back again. He didn't look so peaceful now; a tiny frown was creasing his face and his emo hair had flipped across his face in his tossing and turnings. Suddenly, his pale arm shot out of the bed covers, reaching for something that wasn't there. He moaned again; louder this time.

"Keep it down," I whispered. He didn't hear me. How could he? He was asleep.

His arm flopped back down onto the bed covers, and I wondered if the worst was over. Maybe he had a nightmare or something. Or it could have just been a reflex. Who knew?

I pulled my blanket over my shoulders and settled back down to try and sleep again.

Naru cried out suddenly: a sharp sound that, again, made me realize how young he really was. It was a pained sound.

"Naru?" I hissed, crawling reluctantly from bed again to see the kid curled in the fetal position, holding his head as if to protect it from something unseen.

What the heck?

"Oh jeez. Naru?" My hand inched towards his shoulder, but that just seemed a little too weird, and I paused, awkwardly crouched over the kid, wondering what the heck I should do.

"Get out of my head!" he screamed suddenly, his voice higher than I had ever heard it. He shouted something else too, but it wasn't Japanese. It almost sounded like English. Naru knew English?

I was pondering that when John snapped up in bed, his hair sticking up all over the place.

"Wha's goin' on?" he asked in garbled Japanese. As if he wasn't hard to understand already…

I was about to answer him when Naru screamed again, grabbing his hair and trying to curl in on himself more. I hoped the girls couldn't hear him, or they'd all come running.

"I think he's possessed," I said grimly. "Get Lin. I'm going to try waking him up."

"Takigawa-San," John said nervously. "Do you understand what he's saying?"

"Course not. It's Eng—" I looked at him, and then remembered that I was talking to an Australian. They spoke English there, right? "You understand him?"

"Yes," John said. "I understand. And I don't think he is possessed. What he said was…different."

"What'd he say?" I asked, really curious despite myself. Nobody, I don't think even Lin, really knew how Naru ticked.

"He said, 'I wish I saved you.'" John said softly.

"Go get Lin," I said firmly, filing that interesting info away as I gave the priest a little shove to get him out of bed. "So he's not possessed. I'm still going to wake him up."

John stiffly detangled himself from his blankets and padded towards the door.

"Hey Naru?" I tried again, finally grabbing the kid's shoulder.

"DON'T!"

His voice was so….scared (for lack of a better word)that I nearly let go of him. But he had to wake up!

"Naru!" I shouted, abandoning all attempts to wake him up gently. "Wake up! C'mon!"

"Let me go!"

"WAKE UP!" I shook his shoulder, wishing I could have hit him. But then Lin'd be annoyed…

"Stop! PLEASE!"

He was losing it. I seriously wondered what he was seeing. I mean, this guy had seen worse stuff than I had, and nothing seemed to bother him. Spirits trying to kill him; no problem. Dead children wanting his soul; whatever. Semi-decomposed corpses? He barely even blinked.

So what the Hell was this…?

"Naru! DANGIT! Come on!"

His eyes suddenly flew open, wide and bright and incredibly blue, despite the darkness of the room. The sort of eyes girls got lost in.

"….Monk-….San?" he breathed, his voice back at its normal, calm-albeit-slightly-confused tone. "…What happened?"

"You had a nightmare," I told him.

His eyes widened marginally. "What did you hea—?"

Lin suddenly burst into the room, practically shoving me out of the way to get to Naru.

"Hey!" I snapped, crawling to my feet.

"Lin…?" Naru asked, still confused. "What's going on?"

"Brown-San said you had a nightmare," Lin said. "Are you alright?"

Naru just stared at Lin for a moment, and then covered his eyes with his hand. "Yeah…um…I think I'm fine….I apologize for waking everyone."

"It's no problem," I said seriously. "Do you remember anything? You looked pretty freaked out."

Lin shot me a fierce look, but I pretended not to notice.

Naru looked at me blankly. "No. Nothing."

I raised an eyebrow. "Nothing at all?" It was impossible to know if he was telling the truth or not. The guy really should have taken up poker. He'd have made a fortune.

"No," he said again, then gently brushed Lin off of his shoulder as he stood up. "I need a drink."

He made for the door, but I stood up, blocking his path. I noticed that the top of his head only came up to about my nose, yet I still felt intimidated and a little scared to be standing in his way.

"Yes?" he asked, a touch of his usual tone coming back into his voice.

"Are you really okay?" I asked. I had to. As much as I didn't want to admit it, I had grown kind of attached to the little narcissist. Like the obnoxious little brother. Sort of like that.

He broke eye contact, glancing down at the floor for a second before looking back up at me. I wasn't sure, but he almost looked a bit guilty. "Look, I'm okay. Really. Alright? You don't need to worry about me."

With that, he shoved past me, almost roughly (although Naru was never really rough…). I don't know if he did it on purpose or not, but he ducked his head as he walked from the room, preventing me from seeing his face.

But as he passed, I could have sworn I heard a sob.

"…Naru…?" I asked disbelievingly. Was he….?

But he was already gone.

Soooo…there's your dose of deep/angsty-ness for the day. Betcha don't hear much from Monk-San's POV, do you?

Sorry if Naru was OOC. I'm awful at writing him…

About the Japanese honorifics: I'm basing them off of the manga. So Monk-San's on a first-name-only basis with everyone, John doesn't call anyone by first name only, Lin only calls Naru by first name, and everyone who calls Takigawa (aka Monk) by his nickname adds a polite –San to his name. I think it sheds some light on their relationships with each other that you don't quite get if you take them out, so I left them. I just wanted to explain all that in case people who've only seen the anime are reading this and are like "why does she keep adding a –San after Monk?" I hope that makes sense.

Please let me know what you think. Hit the magic blue button and make my day! :)