Disclaimer: Ghost Hunt and all of its characters belong to Shiho Inada and Fuyumi Ono. I do not own any of them. You can tell, because if I did, Naru would do things like THIS more often.

This is my first published fanfiction. Please Read, Enjoy, and then Review.

Mai's POV

"You're such a jerk!" I spat, slamming Naru—stupid Naru!—'s office door shut. Why didn't he ever listen to me! He could at least acknowledge me or something! But just sitting there…! It annoyed the heck out of me!

And then (oh yes, there's more!) when I sort of cleared my throat and very-very oh-so-sweetly said "you're welcome," (I mean, it was his ninth cup of tea that day that I had to ferry to his bat-cave!) he totally snapped and told me to clear the heck out of his office because he was doing uber-secret secret-ghost-ninja schmancy stuff that a total idiot like myself obviously wouldn't understand!

Okay fine, maybe he didn't say that exactly word-for-word, but that was the basic idea.

But still! It was the principle!

I threw myself into one of SPR's comfy chairs and debated just ditching the rest of today. I mean, I didn't think I'd be able to stay civil if Naru happened to try to speak to me.

He was such a conceited jerk! How the heck could someone so nasty be so...I don't even know! How could he be like that and be so…perfect! It's like he never did anything wrong; he made everything feel like it was my fault! Which it wasn't!

Fine, maybe sometimes it was but…

GAH! He was doing it again! I was bashing myself for his stupidity without even realizing it! He was brainwashing me!

So why did I delude myself with thinking about him all the time? What made him worth my valuable thought-space? Why did I think I liked him?

I clutched a pillow to my chest and glared down at the carpet, wishing that I had thrown his stupid tea in his face. That would have knocked him down a few pegs. Of, even better, if I had PK instead of my silly dream-power-thingymajigger, I could have thrown his stupid tea in his face without even being in the room. HA!

But…being Naru…he's probably figure it out. It wasn't like Lin would do that. Or maybe he would. Maybe endless-hours of Naru-exposure were actually driving the poor man insane.

Why were the jerks always so smart!

I heard Naru's office door creak open slowly behind me. Or, I guess it could have been Lin-San's, but seeing as he had been locked in there all day and showed no sign of requiring basic bodily needs, like the bathroom (the guy must have the bladder of a camel!), I wasn't expecting him to emerge until closing time.

My "amateur deductions" (as Naru would surely call them) were confirmed when I heard a borderline monotonic voice call my name gently.

Gently? Please! Naru never did anything gently! He's the sort of guy who'd rather rip the whole band-aid off at once.

"Mai?" he asked again, and I heard his soft footfalls indicating that he was—oh no, was he actually going to sit next to me? GAH! What was he thinking?

But no, he didn't. Instead, he sat across from me, which was almost worse because I knew that if I looked up, I'd have to face his dark blue eyes that I couldn't seem to look at without losing my train of thought and saying something stupid….

For a moment I entertained the amusing idea of throwing my pillow at him, but that wouldn't help his often-voiced opinion that I always acted childish, so I stopped myself.

After a long awkward silence, Naru finally broke it, saying "I'm sorry if I was a little harsh to you a moment ago."

"'A little?'" I echoed incredulously. "You told me to 'go find something else to amuse my obviously smaller-than-average brain!'"

"I didn't say that," he snapped, his eyebrows coming together angrily (except Naru rarely got truly angry—usually just annoyed). "I asked if you could possibly find something else to do because I was busy."

"But the way you said it…" I protested weakly, trying to avoid eye contact at all costs.

He leaned back and crossed his arms. "How did I say it, then?"

I made the mistake of looking up. "Huh?"

"How did I say it?" he repeated, and I noticed that there was something different about his expression. "I don't mean to be…"

"Mean?" I completed, smirking a little despite myself.

His mouth twitched; about as close to a smile as the guy got. "Yeah, pun unintended."

"You were just extremely condescending," I said, answering his original question.

"Aren't I always?" he asked nonchalantly.

I blinked. So he knew he was acting like a jerk? Yet he did it anyway? "Well…yeah. I mean, would it kill you to be nice once in a while?"

He frowned again. "We can't be nice all the time, Mai. Look at yourself."

"That's mean!" I cried, feeling myself getting worked up into 'sea-monster-Mai' mode. "Why don't you ever take me seriously? You treat everything I say like it's a joke, or like it's so stupid you can't believe I said it, or you don't say anything about it at all! I hate that! I hate you! I hate you, Naru!"

With those harsh words, I finally caved in to my childish impulses and flung the pillow at his head.

It hit him right in the face with a very satisfying 'thwack' sound. Then it landed in his lap.

I just started at him for a moment, wondering what he would do. He would probably get mad. Maybe he would shout at me.

I was startled to realize that I didn't really care. It had felt good. I had wanted to do that for awhile.

To my surprise, he started to laugh.

I raised an eyebrow, wondering what the heck had happened to the Naru that I knew. The Naru I knew never laughed, barely smiled.

Yet here he was, his quiet chuckles shaking his shoulders as he looked down at the pillow on his lap. After a moment, he regained his control and looked up at me, something making his eyes sparkle.

"Feel better?" he asked lightly.

"Uhhh…." I deliberated. "Yeah?"

I didn't even see his arm whip around. I just felt the pillow hit my face.

"Are we having a pillow fight now?" I asked seriously as I peeled it off of my stinging nose. Jeez, on top of everything else that Captain Wonderboy was able to do, Naru could also throw a pillow pretty hard.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, something that sounded a lot like genuine concern in his voice.

"No, but…" I was confused.

"Then an eye for an eye," he said as he stood up and pulled the creases from his shirt. Just like that, he was back to the Naru I recognized. Perfect, refined, sporting the biggest 'holier-than-thou' attitude I had ever come across.

Yet now I suspected that it was all more of a façade than I realized. Underneath all of his suits and smart-ass remarks, Naru was only a year older than me. He was still awkward, he still smiled, he laughed…and he goofed off. He actually did have feelings. He could be really nice and sweet and…cute, when he wanted to be.

Wow. There was a real eye-opener.

"Oh, and Mai?" he said as he was about to close the door to his office again.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry if I ever treat you unfairly," he said slowly, as if making sure that he didn't offend me. "It's just teasing."

"Oh…" I said slowly, trying to decide if I was going to still be mad at him or not. I mean, after all, he had just almost broken my nose with a pillow!

"And you're cute when you get mad," he blurted, as if he hadn't meant to say it, and then closed himself back into his office, leaving me wondering what had gotten into him. It was like the tea had driven him temporarily out of his mind.

Surely Naru, Naru the Narcissist who only loved himself, didn't really think that.

He thought I was cute?

Did he?

Please review! It will make me happy, and then I'll write more fluff like this! Please tell me what I should improve on/what I did well on!