Reflect
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Oliver Davis was bored. In his hand was a book he had already read several times, and it was as if the words were mocking him for it. The words swirled in his head, creating an incoherent typhoon of jumbled metaphors causing him to—
He snapped the offending book shut, abruptly ending the premature thought. He thought that it was a rather amusing notion that even a no-nonsense person like him would be swayed into the sphere of idiosyncrasy, sufficiently pushing him to create erratic distractions. Still, he supposed that if he was bored enough to daydream, how bored would his lively assistant be?
"Mai!" he called.
The girl did not respond. Huffing, he pushed himself up from his worn chair and sidestepped his cluttered desk to reach his door. He found his assistant on her boxy desk, snoozing as comfortably as she could manage. It seemed that she was quite comfortable since she had a trickle of drool across her cheek. How predictable.
There were no clients coming in and it was a rare warm day despite winter already making its way, so he understood his assistant's undeniable urge to take a nap. Even he, a renowned workaholic, knew that it was a perfect afternoon for rest. He was still tired from the long plane ride from Britain after all. A normal person would have rested for a day or two, but no, not him. A belief that he had ingrained into his soul was that Time waited for no one; therefore, he wasted none of it with lollygagging.
It made him almost giddy that he had one less warden who would boss him around, or as Lin said, 'keeping him in line'. Oliver's guardian, Koujo Lin, had not come with him this time around as he had much to do back at the main branch of the Society for Psychical Research, or SPR in short. That, and Oliver made sure to be free of babysitters since he was already of legal age. He might not show it, but he had been deathly embarrassed with himself when his parents appointed him not one, but two chaperons. His mother coming with him had even been up for debate. Thankfully, that frivolous idea was in no way pushed through.
However, there was nothing he could do with his mentor, Madoka Mori. She was the one who took over his office while he was gone, so it was going to be hard to get rid of her. Don't even get him started on her perpetual obstinacy.
Madoka was out on a 'business trip' at the moment. It was a questionable business trip, but a business trip nonetheless. She left Oliver the moment he landed on Japan saying that she was "going to take care of some business related things so just go on ahead to the office and get settled, I'll be back later". She buggered off leaving him with one flying kiss, one key, and one suspiciously nonchalant assistant.
It was a peculiar experience, seeing Mai again after what seemed like years, though they were only apart for a couple of months.
"Mai," he called again, crossing his arms as annoyance clouded his vision. He tried again with no such luck. A ruler entered his peripheral and it gave him an idea. He took the innocent measuring stick and flicked it in the air once, twice.
Without any warnings, he poked Mai's head once, twice, thrice.
"W-what the—" she stammered, squirming in her seat and falling ungracefully from it. She raised her bleary eyes and locked gazes with a cold and calculating pair. She knew instantly that Oliver was somehow responsible. "You—!"
"Make me a cup of tea."
Oliver turned away from her, an amused glint manifesting in his midnight blue orbs as he sauntered back to his office. Mai's grumbles of complaint and outrage muffled after he shut the door.
As he sat on the armchair beside the only window in the room, he brooded over on how... normal they still were in spite of the crude rejection he answered her with when she admitted that she had feelings for him. He thought that they would have been shrouded with awkwardness, at least for the first few days or so, but it was hard for Oliver to resist the temptation of teasing her. It was just too easy. And with the way Mai was acting, it was as if that hushed confession in the middle of the forest never happened.
To prove a point, just a few hours ago at the airport, Oliver was at a loss when Mai greeted him as if they had only seen each other at work a day ago. To add to his confusion, she even volunteered to keep him company while Madoka was away.
The contemplative young man sighed, raising a thumb and a forefinger to fold them around the bridge of his nose. Even for him, sometimes it was better not to over think things.
A duplet of staccato beats knocked on the wooden door and permeated through the still air. "Naru, may I come in?" Mai asked from beyond the divider.
He didn't respond because he didn't need to anyway. The girl never failed to enter his sanctuary uninhibited.
"There you go," she said, handing him a cup with a suspiciously nonchalant smile embellishing her features.
Oliver stared at her openly, scrutinizing her scrupulously to see if he could catch any indication that her queer smile would falter.
It did not. In fact, it got more suspicious the more he kept his eyes on it.
"You know, it's rude to stare," she playfully admonished. "And it's rude not to say 'Thank you'."
Oliver's eyebrows slowly creased toward their middle ground. "Thank you," he echoed, still distracted.
To say Mai was surprised would be the understatement of the millennium. The tray she was holding almost fell to the ground as she gaped at her boss, wondering if he had been possessed somehow.
"You're, um, welcome..." she said, looking at him as if he'd lost it. An idea came to her and she snapped her fingers before she asked, "Hey, Naru, mind if I borrow that book over there?" She knew that he would go ballistic when books at the top shelf were so much as touched, let alone borrowed. They looked absolutely ancient. If he approved of this idea, she would consider the possibility that she was hallucinating all the while.
"Sure," Oliver said, lost in deep thought as he fiddled with the rim of his cup.
There was an imaginative boom of an exploded fuse, then there went Mai, leaving the realm of coherency. Dazed, she moved away from Oliver and started towards the bookcase.
On the other hand, Oliver took a sip from his tea and stilled, controlling himself as he tried not to voice his inward curses.
What does she not understand about dipping a bloody packet for just two and a half bloody minutes into a cup of bloody hot water, and add just one bloody teaspoon of bloody honey?
Nevertheless, he tried hard not to spit out the tea she made, whether it was so bitter that his eyes started tearing up, or if it was so sweet that he literally felt waves upon waves of shivers crawling down his spine. Mai's personal mix of tea was the only recipe capable of keeping him awake and alert.
Although, constantly drinking Mai's god-awful tea had the irritating side effect of numbing his tongue, thus rendering him unable to speak for about a minute, three minutes tops. Oliver was astounded that Mai was enough of an idiot to actually botch a simple task such as simply dipping tea packets into hot water. It was a true wonder.
He thought that Mai was crazy to think that he actually enjoyed her tea, but he realized long ago that he was as much of a barmy as she was for drinking and finishing each and every poisoned cup of tea without even thinking about it.
The first time he drank a cup, there was no doubt that he wanted to hurl, and then he instantly thought of possible ways to attain revenge. It was petty and idiotic, yes, but the poisonous tea was why he always ordered her around harshly, as if it was a roundabout form of punishment.
He could almost hear his older brother's amused disapproval, but he was nowhere to be found, there was only a tsking Mai here.
Oliver has always been amazed at how similar Mai was to his departed brother. They had similar abilities, almost the same personality and beliefs.
And they both had the knack of grating on his nerves.
Perhaps their similarities guided Mai's heart to Eugene. Sure, it was Oliver she confessed to, but it was a common blunder to mistake him as his brother—his kind and gentle brother—for their outer looks were one and the same. But then, they were polar opposites on the inside. One was a benevolent angel and the other was a destructive devil. Only a fool would choose the latter.
Oliver did not have it in him to resent Mai for her choice anyhow. He knew that it was only natural for good to be with good, while the bad stayed lurking in the shadows.
Nonetheless, it was painful for Oliver sometimes because he saw glimmers of his older brother in Mai. He saw them in instances when Mai's cheerfulness shined through hopeless situations, when her puzzling obligation to help someone in need appeared even as she herself were in a bind, and especially when her thick head would get in the way of common sense just to save her shriveling faith. It was frustrating and painful.
Yet, Gene and Mai were different.
Different... Exceedingly different...
"What'cha lookin' at, Noll?" whispered the familiar sly tone of his manipulative mentor. Oliver didn't know how she got there, but Madoka was suddenly beside him, sporting an unreadable, unpredictable twist on her lips.
Mai had finally settled on what book she was going to take and was reaching for it at the highest shelf. Oliver snapped himself out of his dubious lapse and realized that he had been gawping outlandishly at his assistant's exposed midriff. The realization propelled his subconscious to push out a not-really-forgotten, not-sure-what-to-make-of, exceptionally embarrassing memory.
Of Oliver catching a sight of Mai's... panties.
But that was an accident! he thought, furiously denying his own misgiving. He recalled that moment clearly. It was a time when Mai tripped over her own feet, and Oliver had been walking behind her. He couldn't move for his muscles teemed locked with shock, and he didn't give her a hand when he usually would have helped her up. Oliver had still been frozen when Mai finally stood upright, though she was thoroughly confused when he avoided her for the rest of the week. Not once did he even ask for a single drop of tea.
The diminutive heat that pecked the back of his neck when Madoka had caught him before flushed into full splendor. Try as he might to stop the transformation, but Oliver was now a tomato impersonator.
He spied an obvious hint of Madoka's pointed smirk and knew right then that the mischievous woman would never let him live this down.
"I can't wait to tell the others," she mouthed mutely, the rest of her face stoic but her eyes alight with dancing conspiracies.
Bloody hell.
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A/N: The muse is feeling rather gallant these days. I wonder if it has something to do with the big test I haven't studied for yet. Oh well. It's my first time writing in third-person, and I'm kinda nervous. Do you like it? Hate it?