Leave Me
Only two words. But, oh, she wouldn't listen.
.
Five
.
"It's going to be another late night," he tells her when she brings him a cup of tea. "Go home without me."
"That's okay, I'll wait."
He sighs in exasperation, gesturing toward the pile of paperwork on the desk. "It's going to be hours, Mai. There's no sense in you staying. Why don't you just go ahead and leave—"
She interrupts. "Why don't you bring it home?"
His lips twitch in a smile. "Are you asking me to bring work home with me? Because the last time—"
"I know, I know," she grumbles and flops heavily into the plush chair in the corner. "Last time I said never again, right?"
"You threatened me with bodily harm."
"Well, that shouldn't be a deterrent. You never listen to me anyway."
"And now you're just being unfair," he mocks.
She rolls her eyes and sighs loudly. "Suit yourself. Stay here all night if you want. But I'm not leaving without you."
"Mai, you're being—"
"Stupid. Illogical. Irrational. I know."
"—I was going to say difficult, but—"
"But?" She smiles.
The smile crosses the room, from her lips to his own. "I suppose stupid will do."
"Hey—" She pushes her lips up in a pout, closing her eyes as she curls into the chair. "That's the thanks I get for making your tea?"
The room is quiet but for the scribbling of his pen against paper. It stills and she affords him a peek through half-lidded eyes, only to see him gazing at her with an open, sincere expression.
"Thank you for the tea, Mai. I..."
She opens her eyes fully in anticipation, and she can't help herself from rising toward him eagerly.
He smirks. "I would appreciate if you brought biscuits next time, too."
He ducks the pillow and laughs, turning back toward his paperwork.
.
Four
.
The room is bright, too bright. The first thing he sees is the blinding white; the second is the worried look on her face, swimming into focus. It's too painful, the brightness of the room and the redness of her eyes. He closes his own even though he knows there is no escape. The humming of the room oscillates his skull. Her anguished expression is already burned into his mind.
He hears her inhale sharply and speaks before she can get in the first word. "Why are you here, Mai?"
She sniffs. "Because you just had to go and get yourself hospitalized, you big dummy. Why oh why did you have to do that on your own? You should have waited for Lin, or Madoka, or me—"
He sighs and she can't bring herself to continue on with the accusation. "That's not what I mean." She grips his hand and he tries to open his eyes. To no avail; he can't face her. "What are you doing here, in England, following around an idiot like me?"
Her hand relaxes and he can hear the smile spread across her features, even before she speaks. "Your brother's the only one who gets to call you an idiot. As much as I would usually delight in you finally admitting you're not completely infallible—"
"I'm being serious, Mai."
Now her fingers trace patterns against the back of his hand. In the silence he imagines her tipping her head from side to side, even though he can't fathom what she's contemplating. "Then I will be, too. I'm not following you. I never once thought I was following you. Just because you got here first doesn't mean I'm following you."
She still isn't being serious. Or is she? "You wouldn't be here if it weren't for me."
"No." She squeezes his fingertips. "But aren't we going together?"
He feels the wet on his cheeks before he even realizes he is about to cry. "This shouldn't be your life," he manages. "You could have so much better."
"But I chose this life. I chose to be here with you."
"You shouldn't have to be here. Leave me in my hospital bed, leave me to my books, all that bloody research—"
"But I want to be here." She smooths his hair away from his forehead. Warm lips against his skin, laying a calming kiss upon his brow. "It's true I wouldn't be here without you. But then again, neither would you."
He swallows the lump in his throat. She's right. Somehow, she's always right; when he can admit it and even when he can't.
"We said we'd do it together, remember? Do you trust me, Naru?"
He does. With every fiber of his being.
.
Three
.
It's been a bad day. When she finally faces him, that evening, both are tired and at the end of their wits. They've both been stretched too close to breaking, for far too long.
"Naru. We need to talk."
He can tell she's been crying. Part of him aches to comfort her but he can't risk touching her. After that exhausting case, he can't handle her emotions on top of everything else. He just can't take any more.
"Now is really not a good time for this, Mai."
"If not now, when? There will never be a good time," she snaps back. Her voice is trembling. "Naru, you can't keep going like this. I can't keep going like this. Something has to change."
"What do you want me to do?" The question is honest, genuine. As easy as she is to read, he has no idea what she wants from him.
"I—I don't know! Be honest with me!" She sputters, expecting a rebuttal instead of a question.
"I am," he growls.
"No, you're not!" Her hands are clenched into tight fists. "Naru, you tell me you're not using your psychometry but it's clear that you are! You've been having nightmares but you won't tell me when I ask. I know you're not sleeping well and I can't sleep either—"
"I will sleep on the sofa from now on if that will help."
She shrieks in frustration. "Listen to yourself! That is not a solution!"
"Why not?" He snaps. "My nightmares bother you. Therefore, I will spend the night on the sofa. Hence, my nightmares will cease to interfere with your sleep—"
"I did not move in with you just to make you sleep on the sofa! Naru, you need to talk about what you see, you can't just bottle it up inside any longer! Look at us, we're both exhausted and miserable! If you won't talk to me, fine, but you need to talk to someone!"
"If you are so unhappy here," he can't stop the words from coming out of his mouth, "no one is making you stay. Leave me. You're free to go back to Japan whenever you want. Your family will be happy to have you back."
He thought she was angry before, but the fury that ignites in her eyes surprises him.
"Naru," she hisses, rising on her toes and sticking her finger into his chest. Jabbing him so hard it hurts. Once, twice. Three times. "I don't want you to ever say that again. Only say it if you really mean it."
She doesn't want to hear that he really did.
"Because if you really mean it—I will go."
She deflates then and steps away from him, but her jaw is firm. Whatever caused her to cry before, it's not going to make her cry now.
"You're right," she mutters, turning away. "Now is not a good time."
He watches her stalk off with dull eyes. Can't stop himself from flinching when she slams the door behind her.
He can't bring himself to tell her. That he'd meant it, even if he'd take back the delivery if he could. It was a truth said too harshly in the heat of the moment, but he is not so unkind to ignore her suffering. He knows she is homesick. He knows how much she misses her family. He knows he can never replace them. More than anything, he wants her to be happy.
But in the end he's selfish, and he'll never say it again. Because more than anything, he doesn't want her to go.
.
Two
.
The cafe downstairs is noisy, bustling with people and conversation and the typical sounds and aromas of a coffees hop assaulting his senses. He detests it—but even this is better than the silence upstairs. Without the dull hum of the air conditioning unit, without walls lined with books and papers to muffle the sounds around him, the office is so empty and bare that even the silence echoes sharp and painful in his ears. He hates standing in empty rooms, unable to stop the sound of his own heartbeat moving blood through his veins. He prefers a quiet room but he hates the silence. Even noise is better than silence.
She comes from behind him, her footsteps unheard in the noisy room as she crosses suddenly into his field of vision. He doesn't let the surprise show on his face at her appearance—because, after all, it isn't that unexpected she should come here. Even when he gave no indication this is where he would be.
She sets a small ceramic plate on the table in front of him, smiling sheepishly as she slides into the seat opposite him.
"Lemon scone," she explains, in response to his unspoken question.
He raises an eyebrow and she averts her gaze. If he didn't know better he might think her embarrassed.
"Madoka said something about you not eating breakfast," she mumbles, picking at lint on her sleeve.
"How considerate of you." He extends a hand toward the table but it is the teacup he selects instead. If she didn't know better she might think he was making fun of her, but he knows she knows him better than that.
"So you're really closing the office for real this time, huh?"
His lips twitch in what might have been the beginning of a smile that doesn't quite come to completion. "For real this time."
She sighs. Elbows to the table and her chin on her hands, she still won't meet his gaze. And he waits.
"I've been thinking," she finally begins, lacing her fingers together and drumming her thumbs silently against the table. "Thinking about my future, about what I want to do moving forward."
There must be something captivating on the other side of the room, the way her gaze is held so firmly in one place.
"You closing the SPR office is a good chance for me to do something different. I thought being out of a job would be difficult, but you've been very generous with your severance pay."
He shrugs. "It's the least I can do for someone who's worked for me for five years."
Her eyes narrow and she snorts quietly. "It's not the least you could do." It is only now she turns her eyes toward him. "I want to go to England and work for BSPR."
He takes a drink of his tea, keeping her gaze as she stares him down adamantly, daring him to contradict her.
He sets the teacup back on the table before she speaks, impatiently. "Don't you have anything to say?"
"You think you've thought this through, I presume?"
"There it is." She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, suddenly defensive. "I knew you'd say something demeaning like that."
If he was so inclined it'd be his turn to roll his eyes. "Working for BSPR will be nothing like SPR was."
Nostrils flare. "I know that. I'm not stupid, you know. Different country, different co-workers, different clients—it couldn't possibly be the same."
He runs his hand through his hair, frustrated. Why does she always have to contradict him? Why doesn't she just see what he already knows? "You won't like it. Why go through all this trouble—leave your home, your friends, everything you know—to relocate to a foreign country for a job you wouldn't even like?"
She'd been surprised by his outburst, so unlike him, but recovers almost instantly. "Why do you think I won't like it?"
"I know you won't."
"Why?"
"Because I will too." She's demanded an answer and he offers her one, and now it's he who can't meet her gaze.
"Then why are you going?"
He can see she instantly regrets her retort. He's told the staff it's a lack of funding, but it's more than that. After Luella's diagnosis, even he couldn't leave his father to support her alone. He hasn't told her this but somehow she still knows. She always does.
She fidgets in her chair. "I can be useful, you know." Approaching with another tactic—she has thought this through.
"You're a real pain in the ass to work for, you know. How are you going to find someone to work for you over there? You'll need an assistant."
He feels his lips twitch but he doesn't want to respond to the barb. "I'll manage somehow."
"I might not be as great a medium as Masako, but I'm getting better. You like to call me dumb but you know what I'm capable of. And I know your work over here better than anyone."
He doesn't want to admit she's right. "Leave my research out of this."
"When everyone's being noisy and annoying you can complain about them to me in Japanese." She offers. Bargaining now. "No one would ever know. Well—except Madoka and Lin."
"You're usually the one being noisy and annoying."
For a minute she doesn't answer. Stares at the untouched lemon scone, sitting on the table between them. Slowly, he reaches toward it and pushes the plate toward her.
"Here."
Of all the things, this seems to throw her and her face contorts in confusion. "But—"
"Whatever Madoka said, I already had a scone here this afternoon." She opens her mouth to accuse him of lying and he tilts his head toward the counter behind him. "Don't believe me? Ask the waitress with the pink bow in her hair. And it looks like you could use it more than me."
She pushes her lips out in a pout. "You noticed what color the bow was in her hair?" she mutters, annoyed.
It's not the retort he was expecting and he can't help the small smile from creeping across his lips. "I can be observant when I want to be."
She's folded her arms across her chest again and glares at the scone, annoyed her offering has been refused.
"What do you want me to do?" She finally asks. "Is this really what you want to say to me if you really think this is our last conversation face-to-face? Are you going to make me say it again?"
He closes his eyes then, turning his head away. No, don't say it.
"Because Naru, I—"
"I want you to do something for yourself for a change."
She's looking at him with a surprised look on her face, lips still parted from his interruption.
"You've been very loyal." He doesn't like having to say these things to her. Things she should already know. Things she should understand. Isn't she the intuitive one?
"I appreciate that I'm generally an asshole. I understand it can be difficult to work for me. To work with me."
"You threatened to quit in the past, but you never did. You've been the one constant of SPR and the one constant for me in Japan. And I appreciate that."
"But you don't have to be." He clears his throat. It's hard to say these words but he doesn't understand why. "You can move on. Leave me and find something new. Do something for yourself and yourself alone."
Her wide eyes slowly soften. Surprise turns to astonishment turns to wonder and finally—another look in her eyes he can't quite identify, but if anything he'd say she's happy.
"Oh, but Naru," she finally whispers. "Don't you understand? I am."
He doesn't.
He doesn't understand, not in the slightest.
.
One
.
She doesn't listen to him. Not when he tells her what to do for her own safety, not even when he orders her as her employer, her boss, her superior.
It shouldn't have surprised him. He knew she was stubborn from the very beginning. Most likely it was part of the reason he hired her.
Stubborn, just like him.
He'll admit he's gotten used to her presence, noisy as it may be. He pretends to be annoyed but if he were to be honest with himself it's all a facade. There is comfort in the familiarity of her sounds, something about knowing she is there, by his side, that sets his mind at ease. Perhaps it is complacency. Perhaps it is weakness, this dependency.
But for some reason, he doesn't mind.
Today the rest of the team has cleared out early, leaving only the two of them. She's tending the reception desk—or she's supposed to be, since instead she's here in his office—and he's reading—or trying to. It's hard to concentrate when someone keeps asking inane questions. First about the weather, next about some musician he's never even heard of, what he's going to have for dinner, and now this.
"Naru-Naru, whatcha reading?"
He turns the page. This typical Japanese mannerism of repetition, applied to his name as if trying to encourage his response. She won't relent until he answers, but he likes to make her wait a little. When she starts to get visibly agitated, he speaks. "It's probably beyond you even if I tried to explain it."
She crosses her arms in a pout. "You don't know that."
He holds up the book for her to see, lifting an eyebrow as he sees her face drop at the sight of a foreign language. He doesn't say I told you so, that would be childish and immature. But they're both thinking it.
"How can you always be reading books in English?" She shudders and makes a big display of being horrified. "Those books you have in Japanese are bad enough, but to try to read all that scientific-whatsit in another language..."
This interests him. "You've read some of those books out on the bookshelf, then?"
"Well, yeah, a little." She twirls her hair around her finger absently. "Only when the filing's done and there's nothing else to do."
He turns another page. "I'll have to make a list of texts for you to read, then."
"Are you going to give me assignments?" She stares, aghast.
"Are you objecting to that? It may make our investigations more expedient if I don't have to repeatedly explain everything to you."
A strangled sound comes out of her throat. "You hired me knowing full well I didn't know anything about—"
"And now I'm giving you the opportunity to advance in your position. I could also have you read each manual for every one of the cameras..." He turns another page with the threat. "Your choice."
She looks dissatisfied and changes the subject. "Did it take you long, learning English?"
"With practice, even you could pick it up." Her face brightens and he smirks. "Probably. For you, who knows. There are monkeys with a higher IQ than yours."
She sulks over the insult for a little while before trying to make conversation again. "What's that book about, anyway? Ghosts? Exorcisms? ESP? Witches' familiars? Psychic twins?"
She's hit the mark again, somehow. Anyone else would laugh. He picks up a pencil and notes the page he's on, the paper beneath the book covered in scribbles before closing the volume to pick up another. "Aren't you supposed to be doing something else right now?"
"But Naru," she sings his name even in the middle of her complaint. "It's so boring out there when no one else is here. When I'm all by myself. I don't like it."
"I'm not paying you to be entertained."
"C'mon, let me sit in here with you. I'll even—" she holds up the gigantic file folder she brought in with her for good measure "—I'll work on organizing Yasuhara's research from that last case—"
"You've been in here for twenty minutes and you haven't started." He rolls his eyes. "Even being in the same room as me too distracting for you."
"You're not distracting. You're just..." she smiles sheepishly, clearly trying not to laugh. "A welcome diversion."
She's making fun of him now. "I should have kicked you out a long time ago," he grumbles.
"Naru, you've been sitting in here by yourself all day. You didn't even come out to say hello to John when he came in. Even you must find it nice to have some company every once in a while—"
"I'm reading, Mai. Leave me alone. I don't need anyone's company." He asks her—tells her—even knowing she won't. She's not convinced.
She ignores him and opens the folder instead. She holds the papers on her lap precariously as she tries to shuffle through them, balancing another stack on her knee. It doesn't take long before she abandons the chair for the floor and she begins her task in earnest, separating the papers into stacks and piles.
He sighs as he sees the mess she's making of his office. Soon, there are papers everywhere as she sorts through the records, text and photographs and charts they'll include in the final report.
But he doesn't say anything to stop her. Doesn't tell her to take it back to her desk. He can't bring himself to make her leave.
They both hear the door to the office open and close. The tentative Hello? as it echoes in the main room.
She's already on her feet and he watches her go. "Coming!"
The comfortable quiet of the room, so easily broken. There's a strange tightness in his chest as he sees her leave. He won't admit he's disappointed, or that she was right—he does find it nice to have someone else's company every once in a while. Even when he can't explain why. They've only just met and he doesn't know how much longer he'll be here, for how much longer their paths will cross like this.
And maybe that's why he allows her to stay. Because how much longer will they be able to be together? He knows all too well how how quickly someone can disappear.
It is only then it occurs to him it might be because she reminds him of the one other person he pretends desperately not to miss. That when she's here it's almost as if he's still here; not dead and gone as he knows he is. It's not that he thinks she could ever replace him—he's not so foolish to believe such a thing. But she is a distraction, a diversion all the same to that unpleasant truth. Because he has left him behind. Because without her it would just be him, sitting in an empty room. Alone. He has always preferred his solitude, and yet—
Don't—
Don't leave me, he pleads silently.
Her voice echoes from the reception, greeting their visitor. One of the regulars—or irregulars—he's never quite sure what Mai calls them.
He pretends not to miss her just as he pretends not to feel that warmth, spreading across his chest, when she returns to his doorway.
"C'mon Naru, you slowpoke. What are you waiting for?"
He doesn't know why, but—for some inexplicable, unfathomable, absurd reason—he follows her.
.
.
.
end
hello and thank you so much for reading!
tbh sometimes I forget about this story, which has been jostling around my wip folder for over two years. Like all my one-shots, it was written in a flurry in a day, which meant after the initial momentum disappeared revision was harder than it should have been and nothing ever seemed quite right. But every once in a while I would open it up, read and revise a little (and revise and revise), and finally this time I think it's time to toss it out into the great wide open. Hope you enjoyed!
if you follow me this is probably not the alert you wanted to receive, but I promise (I do I really do) I'm working on those other pending wips. I told myself I was going to devote May to Beneath the Lilac Tree but ... First Return Date has kinda gotten stuck in my head, so it's a battle of which one wins my attention. Either way, I am deadset on making some progress this month and putting a chapter out. Which one will it be?
anyway~ until then! :)