Hello! This is my first Ghost Hunt fanfic, and my first fanfic about an anime/manga.
This story will mainly draw from situations in the anime, but some events from the novels/manga will be referenced, such as Naru returning two months after bringing Gene back to England, Hirota Seigi's involvement in SPR, Mai's first exorcism, and etc. If you haven't read the novels/manga, don't worry. I'm going to try to have as much backstory about these parts as possible, and there will be a portion in the AN at the end to explain any Japanese vocab used and anything from the manga/novels that might not have been included in the anime.
I hope you enjoy!
Taniyama Mai woke with a start, her eyes flying open and her throat instinctively tightening to prevent a scream from waking up her neighbor. It's okay. It was just a dream, just another one of those dreams. It's okay, she repeated to herself as her hands lifted of their own accord and traveled her chest and abdomen to soothe the ache of phantom injuries and assure herself that they weren't real. Remembering Ayako's advice for whenever Mai was in a panic, she breathed in deeply through her nose for six seconds then exhaled through her mouth for the same amount of time, repeating four times.
When Mai's heart finally stopped racing, she sighed and buried her face in her pillow. Tears escaped her eyes and her shoulders shook as the horrors of her dream settled into her consciousness. The residual terror, betrayal, and deep sense of regret weighed heavily in her stomach, making it difficult for Mai to think of anything else.
After a couple of minutes, she took another set of deep, calming breaths until her tears stopped. The young woman then rolled onto her back and sighed. She didn't even bother to look at the clock, because she already knew that it was around 5 AM. It had been many, many months since she'd been able to sleep until a decent hour, since she'd been able to sleep without dreaming of a spirit's death or of whatever emotional or physical torment that occurred during their life which left them unable to move on. At least she'd gotten better at stifling her screams and tears so that she didn't also wake Madoka.
They'd been neighbors for almost a year now. Due to business picking up at Shibuya Psychic Research, or SPR, The British Society of Psychic Research, or BSPR, invested more money in their Japanese branch and bought the whole building that the SPR office was located in. It was decided that the lower level of the building would serve as SPR headquarters and that the second level would be constructed into apartments.
Madoka knew that Mai had been struggling financially since she'd enrolled in college, even after receiving a scholarship, so she offered the teenage girl one of the apartments. Mai initially refused because she didn't want to feel as if she were taking advantage of Madoka or SPR, but Madoka was even more stubborn than Mai. Mai eventually caved, but only after Madoka assured the young woman that living above the office would allow her to work as much as possible and after agreeing to let Mai pay rent, though Madoka wouldn't budge on the low price.
Mai grinned at the thought of the pink-haired woman. Madoka was relentlessly kind, and Mai had learned so much from her in the last couple of years. She was endlessly grateful for everything that her mentor had done for her, which was why she felt so guilty when her dreams had started occurring outside of cases. Her boss would hear Mai's screams then insist on staying up together until they had to go to work or until Mai had class. This left the both of them exhausted, until Mai finally managed to hide her nightmares better. Madoka thought that the dreams had stopped a long time ago. Mai felt guilty for lying to her boss and friend, but she was comforted by the fact that, at the very least, Madoka was able to get enough sleep.
Mai groaned softly as she pulled her sore body from the tangled sheets and climbed out of bed. She couldn't quite pinpoint when the pain from her dreams had started to linger after she'd woken up, but it seemed as if, every day, it remained a bit longer than the day before. She shuffled tiredly to the floor-length mirror that covered her closet door, lifted her shirt, and examined her torso for any marks or injuries, finding none.
Seeing that there was no physical evidence of her injuries helped her brain sync up with her body, which caused the pain to slowly subside until it was gone. Mai figure that because her brain believed she had actually endured the trauma in her dreams, the pain manifested itself while she was awake. So all she had to do was convince her brain that she wasn't actually hurt and the pain went away. She'd gotten the idea from one of her psychology classes, after learning that a similar process is sometimes used to help amputees overcome phantom limb sensations.
Once the pain faded, Mai went to the bathroom to complete her morning routine. She emerged a few minutes later, dressed in athletic leggings, a loose tank top, and running shoes. She grabbed her phone, earphones, and keys and then set off for her morning run.
This was a habit that she'd picked up when Naru and Lin were still in Japan, after Lin had started training her to control her powers. Lin's training regimen consisted of both physical and mental routines, and although their training had only lasted a couple of months, his lessons stuck with her through all this time. In fact, her control of her powers had grown exponentially under Lin's instruction, something that even Naru had noticed.
After Naru and Lin left, her control over her powers had stagnated, but she'd maintained the control that she'd gained from Lin's lessons so she was able to help out a lot on cases. In fact, Madoka had been sending Mai to investigate small, relatively easy cases on her own for the past year and had recently suggested that Mai start taking on more complicated cases.
At 20 years old, Mai was much more confident in her abilities and in herself now. After pouring her time and energy in her studies to ensure that she'd get a scholarship for college and maintain that scholarship, she was able to piece things together fairly quickly during investigations. She had grown and flourished in Naru's absence, though some things would never change, such as her quick temper, compassion, and propensity for running headfirst into danger.
At the thought of Naru, her quick steps against the pavement faltered before she regained her footing and her pace. Despite all of her efforts to forget the man and how she felt about him, she still thought of him often.
Two months after leaving for England to bring Gene, his deceased twin brother, home to be laid to rest, Naru and Lin returned to Japan. The handsome narcissist said that he'd returned because of the amount of paranormal activity in Japan, but Madoka always insisted it was something else, though she'd never told Mai what she suspected his reason was. The gleam in Madoka's eyes, so much like Yasuhara's when he was up to no good, made Mai reluctant to ask whenever the topic came up.
Naru had only been back in Japan for a year when he'd gotten a call from Cambridge University, demanding that the illustrious Oliver Davis, Naru's real name and identity which he hid while he was in Japan, return to continue his guest lecture series and his studies for his traditional doctorate degree.
Her boss had been unbearable for weeks while he tried to negotiate with the university and with his parents to stay in Japan. However, there was no escaping the contract that he'd signed for the guest lectures, and Cambridge had threatened to withdraw his acceptance into the doctoral program if he didn't return to his studies.
So he had left again, with Lin in tow. He hadn't closed SPR this time; he instead left Madoka in charge while he was gone. At first, Naru had visited every couple of weeks to check up on SPR, to which Mai would tease him for being a micromanager, but his visits slowly trickled to nothing as he grew busier and busier. After that, the only updates that Mai had gotten on his wellbeing were through Madoka and the rare visit from Gene, who had yet to move on for reasons still unknown.
Naru had been gone for three years now. She wondered if Naru had changed as much as she had and then giggled at the thought of the stubborn Oliver Davis ever changing much. She was sure that he'd given the university three years of pure hell after forcing him into a position where he couldn't make his own decisions.
Last she'd heard from Madoka, Naru was close to finishing his degree and he was focusing much of his attention on bullying the Cambridge administration into speeding up the process. Her giggle turned into quiet laughter at the thought of Naru throwing his version of a temper tantrum. From what Madoka had relayed to her, she was a little surprised that Cambridge hadn't frozen over from Naru's terrible mood. If her boss's emotional state was anything like it was when he'd left for Cambridge, she was sure that his PK would have been acting up, causing the temperature around him to drop.
Warm affection for the cold man swelled in her chest, but Mai was quick to stop her line of thinking. It had taken her some time to work out her feelings and decide that they were, in fact, directed towards Naru and not his dead twin. Once she had worked out her feelings, she'd had no idea how to convince Naru that her heart belonged to him, and to be truthful, she didn't think she could handle him rejecting her again. Then everything with Cambridge happened and he was gone before Mai could say much of anything.
While he was gone, Mai dated here and there, at the insistence of Yasuhara and her other friends, but she was never really into it. The guys that she was set up with just didn't interest her, so she had never gone on any second dates. She hadn't been able to admit it to anyone else, but she didn't have to. Everyone already knew that she still loved Naru.
Shaking herself from her thoughts, she found herself nearing the SPR building again, having finished her 5 kilometer loop. She checked the time and saw that it was only 6. I could always finish the paperwork from the last case early, which would leave me more time to study and do homework, she thought to herself with a sigh.
With renewed determination to be productive, she jogged to the front door of SPR headquarters. Mai pressed a hand against the door to steady herself as she stretched her legs. The door creaked open and the young woman froze. She explicitly remembered locking up last night with Madoka before they climbed the stairs up to their apartments.
Mai quickly examined the locks and the door, observing that there were no signs of forced entry or of someone trying to pick the lock. Her mind raced, trying to remember if anyone had said that they'd be coming to the office very early that morning but came up empty. Mai removed her keys and phone from her pocket, clutching the pepper spray tightly in one hand and holding her phone in the other, one tap away from contacting emergency services.
She tiptoed into the lobby, listening intently for the sounds of criminals ransacking the offices for valuables but heard nothing. Mai tilted her head to the side curiously. Usually when she or anyone else was in danger, her instincts would be more insistent, nearly screaming at her to get away or get ready to fight, but instead, they were whispering quietly to her and gently steering her towards Naru's old office at the end of the hallway. The young woman relaxed slightly but kept her grip on her pepper spray.
She was just outside the office now and she could hear a low, quiet male voice from inside. Mai hesitated for a moment before flinging the door open, her hand with the pepper spray outstretched in front of her. It took a second for the sight before her to register. Two dark-haired men stood beside the desk, one of them at least 6 feet tall and the other reaching the taller man's shoulders.
Mai blinked owlishly as she realized that she knew these men. It took her an extra moment because she hadn't been expecting them at all, and it seemed as if they were taken aback by her presence as well, because no one said anything at first. Of course, the silence was much more likely to be attributed to the men's personalities rather than shock.
"Lin?" she finally asked quietly. "Naru?"
Naru remained silent and expressionless, though his intense dark blue eyes were trained on her. She noticed that he had gotten taller, his shoulders and chest had grown broader, and his jaw had sharpened. The muscles in his arms and legs seemed to gently strain the fabric of the clothes he wore in a way that they hadn't before. He looked like a man.
Lin looked the same as he did when they left, and Mai was impressed that he hadn't aged one bit. She chalked it up to his minimal facial expression. It probably prevented the formation of wrinkles, not that he was quite old enough to have wrinkles yet. Lin raised one of his eyebrows and cleared his throat, pointedly looking at the can of pepper spray still trained on them.
Mai shook her head while stuffing her keys back into her pocket, "Sorry, I thought you guys were criminals trying to burglarize the place or something."
"Really, Mai," Naru said, and his deep, smooth voice slid over her. "If Lin and I were actually seasoned robbers, it's possible that your pepper spray would have done no good. An idiot like you should really be more careful."
The insult lit a familiar fire inside of Mai, begging to be let out in the form of a sharp-tongued retort, but she was distracted. For one thing, she recognized that Naru's statement could be interpreted as mild concern and was flattered. For another thing, she hadn't realized how much she had missed her banter with Naru, how much she had missed him in general. Against her will, small tears filled her eyes. They didn't fall, but it was a tough battle to keep them from doing so.
Suddenly, she needed to touch him, to make sure he was really there and not a figment of her imagination. Over the two years that they'd worked together, Mai was well aware that Naru didn't like to be touched. When she was younger, she had suspected that it was because he wanted to maintain a cold distance from everyone in his life. While she still had a feeling that played a small part in it, she had realized that his dislike for touch also stemmed from the desire to avoid triggering a psychometric vision.
But everything in her was screaming at her to touch him, so she settled for warning him with a rushed, "I'm going to hug you now!" before slamming into him, wrapping her arms around his middle, and holding onto him tightly.
She held onto him. He didn't hug her back- that wasn't his style, after all- but he let her hug him, which was more than she could have asked for. Feeling that he was solid and real and here made Mai tighten her arms around the narcissistic young man and hold back more tears.
It seemed to suddenly occur to Naru that she'd been hugging him for a while, so he started to lean backwards out of her embrace. Mai giggled, shocked that he'd let her hug him for as long as he did before he got uncomfortable. She pulled away and beamed up at him. Naru simply raised an eyebrow at her, the rest of his expression blank. Yeah, that's my Naru, alright, Mai thought to herself giddily.
Deciding to give the poor man some room after the close contact, she turned to her mentor. Mai wouldn't quite call her and Lin friends, but their lessons had brought them a little bit closer together. At the very least, Lin became more comfortable talking to her, even if he really only discussed her training and her powers. Still, she had missed the older man just as much as she'd missed Naru.
"Don't think that you can escape me, Lin," Mai sang and then moved to hug the older man, who patted her shoulder twice before moving away from her.
"Taniyama-san," Lin began. "Have you been keeping up with the routines I taught you?"
Mai sweat dropped. One thing about Lin that she didn't quite miss as much as some of his other traits was how intense Lin could be, especially during their training sessions. Flashes of their first couple of lessons- holding back tears, screaming at Lin to just stop being so mean to her, and lots of sobbing- flitted through her mind. Lin and Mai eventually had to sit down and talk through what was going wrong. After their talk, Mai understood that he pushed her to help her reach her full potential, and Lin knew that he couldn't quite teach her the way he'd taught Naru and Gene.
She responded to her sensei about her habits and her powers, being careful not to mention her dreams occurring outside of cases.
Naru studied Mai while she and Lin discussed her powers and tried to reconcile the girl that he knew with the woman before him. Her hair had grown to her shoulders in soft, choppy waves. Her cheekbones seemed more angular, most likely due to the loss of whatever baby fat that had clung to her as a teenager. Also, she had grown more shapely, the curves of her hips and chest noticeable in her athletic wear.
Her appearance wasn't the only thing that had changed. There was a spark of grace in her movements and a quiet strength in the way that she held herself, things she'd definitely lacked in her adolescent years. Furthermore, Naru had earlier seen Mai start to tear up and had braced himself for the onslaught of her emotions. However, he was pleasantly surprised when she hadn't dissolved into tears. Interesting, he thought to himself. She seems to have gained some control over her emotional outbursts.
Some was the operative word in that sentence, evidenced by Mai's excited outburst when she threw her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest. He wasn't surprised. He had expected this reaction from her and suspected that it had taken a great amount of self-control to have waited that long to hug him.
He had appreciated the quick warning beforehand because it had allowed him to quickly steel his mental defenses. He appreciated her thoughtfulness since it prevented an unwanted psychometric vision, but a part of him wondered if it was because she had something to hide. The dark bags under Mai's eyes hadn't escaped his notice. He wondered why was having trouble sleeping.
"Does this mean you both are here indefinitely?" Mai questioned hopefully, catching Naru's attention.
"Yes," Naru replied and watched the joy fill the young woman.
"Mai?" a familiar female voice asked before the door to his office opened, revealing his pink-haired mentor.
She froze at the sight of her youngest investigator with the two people she had least been expecting to see. "Oliver? Lin?"
Madoka squealed and then launched herself at the older man first and hugged him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her loosely. Some would interpret that as mild dislike for the other person, but Naru knew better.
The young narcissist suppressed a smirk. Those two were hopelessly, disgustingly in love with each other. They had been for almost as long as he'd known them. He felt a quick stab of guilt, knowing that they'd been separated for the better part of the past 5 years because of him.
Madoka then turned to Oliver, her eyes running over him. He stared impassively at her with his face blank. Respecting his aversion to touch, Madoka resisted the urge to hug him and instead put her fists on her hips.
"You, young man, have a lot of explaining to do!" his mentor admonished.
Naru simply rolled his eyes, "I finished my degree earlier than anticipated." He grumbled mentally, And I would have finished a lot sooner if those Cambridge idiots hadn't tried to stonewall me at every turn.
"But we didn't get to see you graduate!" the pink-haired woman protested.
"I have no interest in dressing in a ridiculous robe and cap, listening to rambling, inane speeches for two hours, then walking across a stage while shaking hands with people I don't care about, just to receive a piece of paper in front of thousands of strangers," Naru responded coldly, the corner of his lips curling in disgust.
Madoka huffed, and Mai interjected amusedly, "I'm surprised your mother didn't make you go through with it anyway."
"The only reason she let him get away with it was because she threw a graduation party for him at their home," Lin explained, amusement in his eyes.
Naru shot his guardian a quick glare.
"Ooh, you really let her do that, Oliver? How did that go? And how did you convince your mother to keep this a secret from me?" Madoka questioned excitedly.
"It was a surprise graduation party," Naru stated, his eyes narrowing in irritation in memory of coming home to dozens of strangers in his house.
Mai and Madoka froze, shared a look, and then burst into laughter.
"Oh, Luella is an evil genius!" Madoka giggled.
"Can you imagine Naru's face when walking into a surprise party?!" Mai asked Madoka, and more laughter ensued.
Naru rolled his eyes, waiting for them to calm down. The torture that he'd endured at the party was anything but humorous.
They caught up for the next hour or so, with Naru and Lin mostly remaining quiet unless asked a direct question and Mai and Madoka explaining what had changed while they were gone. The two women called in the rest of the Irregulars once it was a decent hour, and within half an hour, the couches where they met with clients were filled with his old team. Naru sat in his favorite lounge chair and observed the others.
Ayako and Bou-san sat next to each other with their knees touching. Naru observed this quietly, remembering that Mai had said they'd started dating last year. He hoped that meant being around them would be bearable now, without them constantly fighting. Yasuhara sat uncomfortably close to Bou-san and teased the older man for leaving him for Ayako.
Masako sat next to Yasuhara at the end of the couch, one sleeve of her kimono covering her laughter at Yasuhara's antics. Over the year that he'd been in Japan after his first return, Masako's interest in him slowly faded. He was glad to see that her feelings for him hadn't returned, as she hadn't seemed overtly interested in his second indefinite stay.
Mai half-sat, half-leaned against the armrest of the long couch, somewhat in between Masako and Naru. She was laughing at Bou-san, who was now practically crawling into Ayako's lap to escape Yasuhara. John, Madoka, and Lin sat on the smaller couch, discussing several cases they'd had in the past. Naru wanted to listen to their conversation, but the others were being a little too loud.
A familiar tendril of annoyance shot through Naru as the office was filled with shouting and laughter, but he couldn't deny that it pleased him, just the tiniest bit, to see that nothing had really changed in his forced absence. So far, the only thing that was different was that Mai hadn't risen to the bait he'd laid for her earlier.
His eyes narrowed at the laughing girl and an arrogant smirk graced his face. Mai caught his gaze and looked at him in question. The familiar expression on his face, which usually would initiate a verbal sparring match between them, was something she hadn't seen in a long time. Something in her softened at the sight.
"*Okaeri, Naru," she told him quietly, a radiant smile on her face.
"Mai," he said simply, tonelessly, in response, despite the strange warmth in his chest at the sight of that smile. Probably heartburn from something I ate earlier, he hypothesized.
"Yes?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.
"Instead of blathering about, make yourself useful and make me some tea," he ordered, his smirk widening.
Mai glared at the young man but stomped off to the kitchen anyway, grumbling about stupid narcissists and tea addicts. Naru almost sighed at the sound. He turned his face toward a wall, so that no one could see the small smile he allowed to grace his face for a split second before letting it fall. Gene, sensing Naru's emotions, thought across their mental bond to his twin, encouraging him to say it, *Tadaima.
The smell of Mai's tea started to fill the air, causing the young narcissist to relax further. Naru didn't repeat his dead brother's sentiment, even mentally, but something in him echoed the feeling behind the phrase and filled him with- not quite happiness because that was too strong a word and Naru was, well, Naru- but with contentment.
Yes, he was quite content to be home.
*Vocab: Okaeri- Welcome back/home. Tadaima- I'm home.
I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! There was a ton of backstory in this chapter, but that's because I had to set the stage. Please let me know if anything was confusing!
The pace of this fic will be pretty fast, and updates will most likely be irregular. However, writing this story has been something I've wanted to do for a long time now, because it's so different from what I've written in the past, so I'm fairly determined to finish it. I hope you stick with me!
Also, the picture that I used for this fic was found on pinterest. If anyone knows the original artist, please let me know so I can give them proper recognition!
Please review! Let me know if anything was confusing or if you didn't understand anything! Thanks so much for reading!
-J