Naru Gets Jealous Too... after all, he's only human! Here is the sequel to 'Naru's a Pervert!'
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Normal POV:
It had only been one month since the klutzy assistant and her boss started dating and already they reached their first hurdle to jump over.
The members of SPR watched nervously as the tension that was thick enough to cut through with a knife settled in the office as the month-old couple moved around, both with scowls on their faces though each one for a different reason. Bou-san, being the most impatient member of SPR leaned across the sofa towards Ayako with a puzzled and concerned expression.
"Ne, ne, what's going on with those two? They were happily lovey-dovey at long last just two days ago. How did they go all the way back to square one again so quickly?" Bou-san asked her with a whispered tone so as to not attract the arguing couple's attention.
"I have no idea, but for Mai to have gotten so angry, it must've been something real bad." Ayako murmured back with a shake of her head.
"Ne, ne, John, do you think you could talk to Mai and find out what's wrong?" Bou-san leaned towards the young priest this time, hoping to find out something with regard to why Mai and Naru looked ready to kill something.
"I will try, but I cannot promise anything." John replied with a small hesitant nod. Truth be told, even the usually carefree and happy-go-lucky priest was concerned about the situation.
Calmly, he made his way towards the young assistant, intending to ask her what was wrong only to be interrupted by an unexpected exuberant guest.
"Konnichiwa!" a cheerful voice chirped as the auburn haired guest burst into the office seemingly without a care in the world.
"Madoka!" Lin gasped, startled by her appearance and instantly worrying about her unintentionally worsening the situation. As much as he respected his mentor, he knew that sometimes her constantly bright attitude heightened tensions.
"Lin, good timing. Get Naru out here, I have a case for SPR," she chirped, not noticing the tension just yet as she'd only just burst in.
"Perhaps now isn't the best time..." Lin trailed off, gesturing with his eyes at the not-speaking couple who every so often sent each other death glares.
"Ara, ara, have they started fighting already?" she whispered to the Chinese assistant.
"Unfortunately, and none of us have any idea what it's about."
"Well, it was a matter of time. As well suited as they were as a couple, they fought like cats and dogs." Madoka sighed with shake of her head.
"Madoka-san, can I get you anything?" Mai asked politely, pushing away her anger towards her boyfriend and boss for the moment.
"Tea please, Mai-chan, if you wouldn't mind."
"Not at all." Mai shook her head.
"Tell me about the case you mentioned, Madoka." Naru stated curtly.
"Naru! Manners!" Mai yelled from the kitchen, having heard the tone he used towards his former mentor.
"I am not a child, Mai. I know how to speak."
"Well if you'd stop behaving so immaturely and started showing some manners, I won't talk to you like a kid."
"The last I checked, you were the assistant and I am the boss. I don't remember paying you to backchat on how I handle people."
"Last I checked, you were on the way to becoming halfway decent when you suddenly transformed back to being a narcissistic jerk."
"I have no manners? At least I have better control over my emotions and don't go blurting out everything I think and feel like a senseless idiot."
Mai gasped, storming out of the kitchenette and took long strides towards him. "How dare you?!" she hissed.
"Madoka must be in a hurry, let's hear what she wants from us and let her be on her way. Where is the tea, Mai?" Naru asked her curtly, blatantly dismissing their argument.
"Don't you change the subject, Naru!" Mai screeched.
"Since when did they revert back to calling each other like that?" Ayako asked Bou-san quietly, too scared to raise her voice to a normal speaking tone.
"I have no idea, just now, I guess..." Bou-san replied hesitantly.
"And to think that they finally took a step forward..." John sighed, shaking his head in dismay.
"And now, they've taken ten steps back..." Ayako groaned. "This is ridiculous."
"Tell me about it." Bou-san grumbled in agreement.
"Mai, let's go have tea." Madoka suggested chirpily. Before the young assistant could give a response, Madoka grasped her arm and dragged her out of the office and down the flight of stairs.
Naru watched as Madoka dragged his girlfriend away and gave a sigh. It realised that it was probably for the best, before the two of them killed each other. He knew that if they'd kept going at the rate they were, he would accidentally say something that he would regret and hurt her. It had a tendency of happening whenever Mai was involved and he didn't know why. He was so used to being in charge of any given situation but she just seemed to throw him off his pace so easily and so effortlessly that sometimes scared him.
Suddenly, he could feel several pairs of eyes settle on him and he returned the narrowed gazes calmly, the way he always did.
"What?" he asked flatly.
"Don't 'What' me, Naru-bou. What happened with you and Mai-chan?" Bou-san asked impatiently with a chastising tone. "You guys looked like you were ready to kill each other. I haven't seen you two like that for a good while."
"Nothing happened." Naru replied curtly.
"Oh don't give me that!" Ayako snapped irately. "Something clearly happened to have gotten the both of you so strung up."
Naru stayed quiet for a moment and simply turned away from them, not wanting to face their interrogation any longer.
"Naru!" Lin reprimanded. He rarely raised his voice against the youngster, but there were times when Lin was simply far too exasperated by his cool attitude to be able to put up with his idiocy and stubbornness. "We want to help you, so tell us what happened."
Naru remained quiet for a moment longer before finally relenting and turning to face the others once more. "Why aren't I enough? Why does she have to spend time with other boys when they clearly want nothing more than to get her in bed?" Naru told them everything at once with such a monotonous voice that it stunned them.
The others just stared at him for several heartbeats before all of them except for Lin burst into laughter.
"What's so funny? I told you what happened, and you laugh at me? And you wonder why I never tell." Naru scoffed indignantly, turning to head back into his office before Bou-san stopped him.
"No, it's just... we were just surprised." Ayako choked out through her giggles.
"I mean, come on, Naru-bou! That's all?" Bou-san chortled.
"Yes." Naru told him stiffly.
"That doesn't really tell us what happened though, Naru-san." John commented with that polite tone of his. "You told us how you felt, but not what happened."
Naru glanced at the priest before realising his mistake and his eyes widened a fraction which for him was a lot. "I picked Mai up from school and found boys surrounding her and inviting her to something."
"And? What did you do?" Lin asked, brows arched.
"I told them not to waste their time and that it wasn't necessary for Mai to spend time with idiots like them." Naru told him bluntly.
"Mai being Mai must've gotten angry at you for refusing them for her like that." Ayako sighed, shaking her head.
"How could you speak like that to them? They could've been her friends." Bou-san reprimanded.
"They weren't. Mai doesn't have friends who are boys outside of SPR." Naru stated.
The others blinked and stared at him for a moment. "Naru-bou, how do you know something like that for sure?"
"This is Mai, of course she doesn't. And I know."
"Naru, did you stalk Mai?" Ayako asked incredulously.
"Don't be ridiculous." Naru snapped indignantly. "That girl does almost nothing but go to school and then come to work. Besides her three female friends, the rest are merely acquaintances and classmates."
"Naru has a point." Ayako agreed. "Besides, if she did have any male friends outside of SPR, we would've known about them by now."
"That is true..." Bou-san nodded in agreement.
"Did you apologise to Mai?" Lin asked.
"Why do I need to apologise? I was saving her from being harassed by those boys."
"You need to apologise for being rude. You know how kind Mai is. Regardless of the boys' intentions, it was wrong for you to cut in like that on her behalf."
"No."
"Naru."
"No."
"Naru-bou. Do you know why you're behaving this way?" Bou-san smirked.
"Oh, please do enlighten me," the young boss said mockingly.
"Jealousy, my dear friend. You've been swallowed by something called jealousy." Bou-san told him simply, smirk still occupying his face. He watched with building amusement as the realisation then shock settled in Naru's eyes. Without saying a word, Naru turned on his heel and marched into his office before slamming the door shut behind him.
"Way to tell him, idiot." Ayako chastised, hitting the monk across the back of his head.
"What? I was merely stating the obvious. It's clear that he's got it bad for Mai-chan and that thanks to his pride, he's easily consumed by jealous and because he's so socially inexperienced it's obvious that he hasn't realised it until now." Bou-san complained defensively.
"Now you've got him locked up in that office of his." Ayako scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"He'll be normal soon enough." Lin told them with a shrug. "Now that he knows why he behaved the way he did, he'll be less irritated."
"That's what had him on edge? Because he didn't know?" Bou-san asked incredulously.
"As you'd mentioned. Naru is very prideful." Lin stated. "If you'll excuse me, I have work to finish." With that, Lin returned to his office after retrieving a file from Mai's desk.
Mai's POV:
It was a little hard to keep up with Madoka-san's footsteps since she was moving so fast and decisively and I stumbled a few times and nearly tripped but she righted me each time and just kept on walking.
"Ano... Madoka-san?" I called out to her nervously. "Could you slow down a little? I can't keep up very well..."
She slowed down to a normal walking pace and smiled at me apologetically. "Sorry, I'm used to walking alongside people with long legs and lengthy strides."
"Don't worry. Thank you for pulling me out of the office just now."
"Oh, that's alright. Knowing you two, one of you would wound up saying something you don't mean and end up hurting each other. As much as you get on, you two really do know how to strike where it hurts."
"If he wasn't so unreasonable almost all the time, things like this wouldn't happen." I complained as we walked into a coffee shop.
"What would you like?"
"A mocha, please."
"One mocha and one cappuccino, please." Madoka-san ordered. "Mai-chan," she said patiently. "You need to remember just how socially inept Naru is sometimes. He's very underdeveloped in that respect because he'd closed himself off completely after Gene's death and even before that, he was pretty anti-social to basically everyone."
"That doesn't excuse him from being rude."
"No, it doesn't. But he just doesn't know how to be any other way yet. He needs time and patience, Mai-chan, and you give him that. When you aren't so angry, you understand his reason for being irritated. You forgive him and help him through it. So tell me about what started all this."
We found a table to sit at and settled down comfortably into the plush seats. "I was just leaving school when some of my classmates tried to invite me out. I told them that I was busy but they just wouldn't relent. And then Naru appeared, overheard what was going on and basically trampled on them the way he does when he doesn't particularly like someone." I explained.
Madoka-san seemed to ponder for a moment before speaking again. "Were your classmates boys, Mai-chan?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
She gave me an all-knowing smile and laughed merrily. "Oh, Mai-chan. Naru was just being jealous and then irritated afterwards because he didn't understand what he was feeling."
I stared at her in disbelief for a moment and spluttered. "Wh... what?"
"Naru was being jealous, it's as simple as that."
It sounded ridiculous, Naru being jealous, but somehow, it did seem to make sense. "And Naru, being Naru would've taken his frustration of not understanding on those around him." I grumbled in exasperation.
"Exactly. So now we know." Madoka-san giggled.
"Now, we know." I agreed with a nod. "I can't believe he was so irrational just because he was being jealous."
"Jealousy does that to people, Mai-chan. You were the same back when you and Masako-chan were fighting out for Naru."
I blushed at the reminder of the early days back when I didn't understand why Masako didn't like me.
We spent the rest of the time drinking coffee and mainly discussing about Naru. On the way back, I thanked Madoka-san for the enlightening conversation. When I got back to the office, I found Yasuhara perched casually against my desk.
"Yasuhara-san!" I beamed in greeting. "It's been a while."
"Hai, indeed it has, Mai-chan," he greeted chirpily in return, giving me a tight, teasing hug the way he usually did. Out of nowhere, a file flew out and smacked him in the face, forcing him away from me. In the back of my mind, I had a suspicion as to who threw the file. I noticed the others sniggering while I picked up the file.
"Are you alright, Yasuhara-san?" I asked worriedly.
"Ne, Mai-chan. Has anything happened since the last time I saw you?"
"Eh? What'd you mean?"
"Anything interesting at all?"
"Well..." I trailed off nervously.
"Mai! Tea!" Naru called out and I sighed.
"I'll get back to you on that." I told him before disappearing into the kitchenette. Once I'd made the tea, I headed to Naru's office, all the while noticing the others except for Yasuhara-san giving me thumbs up of encouragement.
"Close the door behind you." Naru instructed and I did as he requested.
When I got close enough, his hand reached out, grabbed my arm and tugged me towards me. He set me onto his lap and his arms curled around my waist. "I'm sorry for being rude," he told me honestly.
I smiled at him and kissed his nose. "I'm sorry for taking so long to understand."
His hand reached up and tilted me head as he dipped down and kissed me. At the precise moment when our lips met, we heard a loud yell of shock and the door slammed open. I would've fallen off had Naru not been holding onto me.
Normal POV:
"You two finally started going out?!" Yasuhara exclaimed in a mixture of shock and delight. Mai squeaked at the interruption and hid her reddened face in the nape of Naru's neck.
"Yes, Yasuhara-san." Naru confirmed bluntly. "Now please shut the door. You're interrupting."
"Yes, sir!" the college student laughed.
"And another thing."
"Yes?"
"Please refrain from unnecessarily hugging my girlfriend."
Yasuhara stared at Naru for a moment before breaking into laughter and shutting the door behind him as he left Naru's office and headed towards the rest of the gang.
"Man, he really does get jealous easily!" Yasuhara commented with a teasing voice.
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Please RxR! Any comments would be appreciated!
Lyn xx
