The first night, they're kissing the way Mai runs down dark halls—hearts thrumming, muscles loose, clumsy, gasping. Close.

Naru's hands are, as usual, solid on her waist, fingers splayed over her sides. Restless, Mai shifts and settles and resettles over his lap, so God knows it's best he steadies her lest she tumble off of him again. In contrast, Naru's stock still save for his pounding chest and his mouth, which keeps finding its way back to Mai's without rest.

In the haze of movement, Naru—thoughts distracted and thus dulled—concludes that his behavior is affecting Mai's directly. She's reading the signs like they're pasted straight from a teen magazine. If Naru kisses back in such a way, if his fingers twitch on her skin and if his lips press just so and if he doesn't break contact, then…

Then it's like they've graduated from mechanic reluctance and rigidity, and Naru is content (as close to happy as he gets) and Mai is finally inside the infamous Davis barrier, lodged in his heart enough to touch him a certain way. Except that things are not that simple. Even something as mundane and as supposedly natural as kissing, as making out, is just not simple. Or at least, not so straightforward.

It's not a matter of crockpot emotional walls and who's inside of them. Because if it's anyone, it's plucky, passionate Mai, but…

At twenty-one, Naru is steeled enough to show zero reaction when she sets her soft palms to his cheeks, regardless of the visceral pang of aversion rumbling in his gut. The intimacy is unprecedented, not asked for, and thereby against his express rules.

Perhaps a bit hypocritically, he decides to press his mouth against hers and shuts his eyes tight, tighter as soon as Mai makes a sound he's not sure he's alright with. Noisy, she's so noisy. Relief sloshes about in his chest as soon as she draws back and takes her calloused, lovely hands with her. But his thought processes are inadequately slow like this, and for a moment, even sharp-eyed Naru doesn't realize what she's doing.

Mai's taking her shirt off, of course.

He doesn't reflect on this. She stops, the fabric pulled up just below the swell of her breasts, as he tightens his stone hold on her wrist. His reaction had struck like lightning, clearing the air of all motion and leaving just two uncertain people breathing out of step. Slowly, she drops the hem of her shirt, and Naru drops her wrist like a dead rat.

"Naru?"

"No." He lifts his hand to his forehead as if warding off a headache, and suddenly wants Mai off of him and as far away as possible. "Don't do that. I didn't tell you to do that."

In the dim light, he can see the crease of her forehead and the downturn of her lips—she's indignant, of course, thinking kissing is not a command-and-obey sort of deal, you idiot! Make out with yourself then! Damn narcissist!

But moreover she feels guilt and shame, so there's no visible flare of struck pride. And as usual, Oliver can't get an accurate reading on the hurt she is bearing. He hasn't a clue. He shot her down like he always did, and like always she took up the place of the scorned fool, still loving and wanting by some masochistic impulse beyond comprehension.

Under his searching gaze, she is wordless. He draws his mouth into a thin line.

"Sorry," she mutters. "I didn't mean to make you…" Uncomfortable? Angry?

He sighs.

"This is why this isn't a good idea, Mai."

Her hurt and indignation hits boiling point. She slides off of him, straightening herself out with that emotionally vulnerable haughtiness that he typically could only smirk at. At least he has the good grace to glance aside this time. He holds his tongue with the legendary Davis restraint—he isn't sure what to say, anyway. Mai has already zipped him out of his comfort zone by leagues.

"Oh, really? Well, excuse me," she says, her words wavering with thinly veiled frustration. "You seemed to be liking it! It wasn't like-" She lowers her voice. "It wasn't like it was out of the blue. I just thought after something like a whole year, maybe…"

He crosses his legs like a gentleman. He flinches like a whipping boy. "Why are we even having this conversation?" he says calmly, in a tone that leaves no room for response. "I don't plan to dwell on it either. So just don't do it again." He wishes he had some tea to sip to punctuate this statement better. Mai draws herself up to her full height, folding her arms as she glowers at him.

"You think I'm an idiot," she accuses him.

"Have I not made that clear since day one?"

"Oh, real mature, Naru." She snaps her eyes shut. "I'm sorry, alright?"

She isn't sure how to explain it to him—how to say, I love you, I love you so much that it disarms me and leaves me aching and bare—literally bare. I love you even as you do this to me, even as I run out of things to offer you, even if I had nothing to offer to begin with.

He saw it as lust, and maybe part of it is so; she doesn't see the harm in that even if it is a bit embarrassing. Mai only wants to share her bed with the person she loves. But Naru insists on separate beds, separate rooms, downright puritanical measures, and it takes so much doing just to get him to touch her.

She can see he cares somewhat, and she thought it would ease the pain. But Naru would never, ever love her like she loved him—not in the same way, not with the same volume or force or devotion. Not with the same tears. It isn't his fault. He doesn't have the capacity, he was reserved for magnificent, unworldly things from birth.

"I don't mind," he says flatly, the sigh in his voice again, and stands up. "You don't have to dwell on it."

She wants to ask if he'd ever feel any of that. His kisses had seemed so wanting. Her knees had felt weak.

"You make it hard to understand you," she says uneasily. "You want to stop doing this?"

He can just barely be heard as he moves to leave the office. Mai takes a hurried step after him, but stops—it's just like Naru to walk away when he doesn't want to deal with something! Still…

"I never said that. Now, good night, Mai."

The door clacks shut behind him. Yet another cool-headed escape by the impossible Oliver Davis.

Mai, left standing still with her fingers knotted in the hem of her shirt, is thoroughly confused.

A common side effect of dating-not-dating a workaholic parapsychologist, she supposes, and tries to dismiss the ghost sensations of his mouth on hers.