Madoka called me into her office on Friday morning, she seemed excited by something, but I had yet to work out what.
"Mai, are you busy tomorrow?" She asked as I closed her office door behind me.
"I had vague plans to clean the bathroom." I admitted; it was my turn to clean the bathroom. Madoka had done it last week.
"Oh good!" She grinned. "Because we have guests staying." We have a guest room in our apartment that John occasionally stays in when visiting Tokyo. "We have to pick them up from the airport at 3pm."
"Is it a work thing?" I asked, still slightly confused.
"I guess you could say that. We have some new employees, both I'm afraid outrank you."
"Wonderful." I sighed sadly. Madoka had taught me everything I needed to know in order to be a fully-fledged researcher, now the only thing holding me down was experience. You would think ten years in a field would be a lot of experience, but apparently not. Everyone I had met from every branch of SPR seemed to outrank me. "Do they speak Japanese?" I asked, remembering the last visitors we had, who were Romanian. They had known some English so all conversation had occurred in English – the only language I seem incapable of learning. I have tried my hand at a few languages over the years and I'm sure Latin was easier- and Latin was horrific. I mean, whose idea was it not to have a proper word order?
"Yes, they are both fluent." Madoka said, still grinning like she had a secret.
"Why are you smiling so much?" I asked.
"Oh Mai, aren't you going to guess who it is?"
Finally it clicked; only one person would make Madoka smile that much.
"Lin."
"Yes!" Madoka flew out of her chair and into my arms. She picked me up and twirled me around like I was a small child.
"Who's he bringing?" I asked when she finally put me down, slightly apprehensive of the answer.
"Oliver of course!" Madoka replied, ignorant of my concern. I hid my feelings and instead, posed another question.
"But we only have one spare room?" I realised as soon as I had spoken, that it had been a stupid question.
"Lin can sleep in my room." Madoka said, her smile turning sly.
"I am so glad my bedroom is not next to yours." I laughed.
"Yeah, I better buy some earplugs for Noll."
I returned to my desk and the report on the last case that I was finishing up. But however much I tried to concentrate on my work, my mind kept bouncing back to Oliver Davis.
That man had been haunting me since he left for England with Gene's body. Every time Gene entered my dreams, I was reminded of him. Every time I went on a date with another man, I was reminded of him. Every time I made a cup of tea, I was reminded of him.
I felt guilty for these feelings. I wanted nothing more than to forget him, but can you ever really forget your first love? I guess not.
A ping from my desktop told me I had an email.
Mai, please read the enclosed report. I want you aware of the situation before they arrive tomorrow. Madoka.
I open the attachment. The document was in English.
"Fuck." I mutter under my breath, then copy and paste the entire lot into an online translator. I read through the badly translated report, getting the gist. It was an incident report, the nice term for a 'someone fucked up and got hurt' report. Many of the files in our own office were incident reports of Mai Taniyama.
Someone had been badly burnt on a case by a violent spirit, but had saved the client's child. I opened the zip file of pictures and gasp.
"Naru…" I whispered. Half of his face looked like a molten lump of wax that someone had poked around with and stretched in weird places. The edges of his lips seemed to merge into the surrounding skin. The burn stopped just before his nose, but had caught his eye and I wondered if he could still see out of it. I gulped. The right half of his face looked no different to when he had left all those years ago. Maybe a little lined, but still handsome. An absurd thought hit me, he looked like that Batman character; Two-Face.
I left my desk and stormed into Madoka's office, I needed answers.
"When did it happen?"
"Four months ago." She knew exactly what I was talking about. "I only found out this morning, Martin sent me the files."
"Is he okay?"
"Lin seems to think so. Though he's been demoted to an ordinary investigator." Madoka saw my look of confusion and explained. "His position was partially due to his abilities, which he lost in the accident. No one at BSPR has worked out why his abilities have disappeared. But it means he can no longer be a Lead Investigator."
"Why are they coming here?"
"He had to pick a new team to be a part of. Lin wanted to come here." Madoka blushed. "Martin has talked of expanding this place, it made sense."
"Have you told the others?" I asked, meaning the other people we called in to work cases.
"Not yet, I informed you because you will be seeing him tomorrow. The others we will deal with in due course, I don't know if he wants everyone knowing or if he'd rather tell them himself."
"I see."
"He's still the same Mai. He hasn't changed one bit." Madoka said, trying to reassure me. "Perhaps we should take the rest of the day off." She suggested.
"Well if we have guests, I better get started on the bathroom." I say, trying to make light of the situation. I wasn't sure how I felt about the situation. Did it bother me that he'd been disfigured? Yes, of course it did. He'd been hurt, how could it not bother me? But it'd been ten years, how could he be the same?
Madoka drove us home and I set to work on the bathroom. It wasn't like it was dirty; we were pretty good at keeping on top of the household chores. Madoka's cheerfulness was infectious; I couldn't help but laugh with her. I knew she hadn't seen Lin for over a year; though why she hadn't visited him was beyond me.
That night, as I lay in bed, I imagined the scene; Lin walking through the doors of the airport and Madoka running into his open arms. I sighed, it was just too cute. I had just turned over to sleep, when my mobile started buzzing.
Are we still on for tomorrow night? S. x
It was Shinji Tendo. The man who I had been sort of dating for a few months now.
What time?
I replied quickly.
8pm? S. x
We would definitely be back from the airport by then.
Can't wait, cya then.
I just could not bring myself to put kisses at the end of my texts. We had kissed once on our last date, and it had been awkward. Shinji, despite being two years older than me, had never had a girlfriend before and was extremely nervous by the whole area of dating. He was a nice guy, intelligent and always open to new ideas and areas of discussion. But he was a painfully shy. It would take me an hour to get him talking and the slightest thing would put him back into his shy-mode. He was worth the time I had to put in, but it could be tiring upon occasion.
It took me an age to fall asleep and when I did, someone else was waiting for me.
"Hello Mai!" Gene said happily. We were in the black space that was so familiar to me.
"Hello Gene." I said, trying not to sound too disappointed. Honestly? I had wanted to sleep.
"Noll's coming back to Japan!" He said, grinning.
"Did you see the pictures?"
"Pictures? I saw the real thing. I am definitely the better looking twin now."
I laughed in spite of myself.
"When he asks about me…" Gene started, but I cut him off.
"I am not lying to him." I state. "Madoka knows you are still here and so will Naru if he asks."
"Mai, he'll just get pissy at me!"
"As if you have to put up with him!" I retorted, frowning. "It'll be me he takes it out on. 'Why haven't you made him move on?' 'Why have you let him stay?' 'Why are you such an idiot?'" I imitated an annoying voice.
"You love him really." Gene muttered. But before I could respond a loud ringing filled my ears. "That's the real world calling." He laughed at his own joke. I rolled my eyes and then concentrated on returning to my body.
A moment later I woke up in my bed, my phone was ringing.
"Hello?" I answered it.
"I am never ever talking to that man again." Ayako cried down the phone.
"What's happened now?" I look around at the clock, it was 2am. Great, no sleep for me.
"He cheated on me." She spat down the phone. "I thought monks were meant to have some sort of integrity?"
"Hang on what?" No way had Bou-san cheated on Ayako.
"At his gig this evening, I turn up to pick him up and he was snogging some 20 year old bimbo."
"Ayako, where are you?"
"Home."
"Where's he?"
"I could not care less." Ayako said; hurt penetrating every fibre of her voice.
"You should get some sleep Ayako; deal with him in the morning." I said rationally. "He is not worth your tears or your time."
"I'm sorry Mai." I hear tears on the other end of the phone. Damn.
"Ayako, it's fine. I will always be here for you, but you need sleep, I want sleep. I will phone you tomorrow okay?"
"Okay, sorry."
"Don't apologise."
"Goodnight Mai." She hung up. Sighing, I begin texting.
I don't care what you did with whom, but seriously you need to stop because it is my sleep she is disrupting every time you do something stupid.
I sent the message to Bou-san and then switched off my phone. Lying back down, I silently beg Gene to let me get some real sleep.
The following morning, I phoned Ayako and spent an hour talking through things with her. Bou-san never responded to my text. Something had been off with him for a few months now. I had been worried before, but Ayako had assured me everything was fine.
She decided to break up with him while we were talking and she ended our phone call to put her plan into immediate action. I sighed and then spent another hour filling Madoka in on what had happened.
"Do you think he really did cheat on her?" Madoka asked me as she dusted the bookshelves.
"I don't see why she would lie about it." I replied as I wiped up the mess I'd made during breakfast. I watched as Madoka looked at the clock again. She had done this every ten minutes all morning. I chuckled softly at her. "They'll be here soon enough."
Author's Note: Tada! Second chapter! Reviews make me want to write more so please review! I would love to hear your thoughts on what's happened so far and what you think might happen. I have had a request regarding people dying in this story, and I can promise that at the moment I have no plans for anyone to die, but I can't promise I won't change my mind... Damn George R.R Martin, such a bad influence...
