Author's Note: We've reached the last chapter of Paradigm Shift! :D Thank you so much for reading, following, faving, and reviewing—for giving this fic and this pairing a chance. I originally posted this back in 2014 but deleted it due to my massive insecurities. Almost three years later and with my sister's persuasion, I reposted it, and I'm glad that even I gave it another chance. :) So without further ado, I present Osamu Yasuhara's long-awaited enlightenment.
Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt or any of its characters.
"But instead of relying on her best choice, she chose you. Why you, Yasuhara-san?"
"Taniyama-san and Takigawa-san are the only ones who address you with a nickname.… But only Taniyama-san is addressed by first name."
"No—I'm pretty sure you'd already gotten a grasp of what all this is about, just that when you realized where it was going you may have automatically and subconsciously dismissed it as impossible."
"You're the one who refuses to see it."
"There's nothing to be sorry for."
"That's your job now.… Please don't be the idiot that I was, Yasuhara Osamu."
On his way to fetch Mai in her apartment, he realized that this was not so much an investigation as one of those Connect the Numbered Dots pages in a children's activity book. And he felt less like a detective and much more like a child who did not want to connect them by number because the picture he would see was something he had never seen before. But now, the dots were connecting by themselves, and he was barely capable of denying the reality of the image that was gradually taking shape.
As a last attempt to resist the materializing truth, he decided to confront the one who turned out to be the only suspect in this case, to make her confirm that everyone else's accounts were wrong and his analysis was correct, after all.
"Wow, you took so long, Yasu! Naru must've given you an earful. What happened?" Mai, ready to go, opened her door after his first knock.
"It's… a long story. Would you like to hear it?" he returned quietly.
"Of course, but—Yasu, are you okay?" She frowned in concern. "Wanna talk about it inside? Let's just order something."
"Yeah." At his reply, she opened the door wider to let him into her apartment. He sat down by the low table and watched Mai bustle around her kitchen, get the kettle boiling on the stove, phone a pizza place nearby, go back to the kitchen, and prepare tea. She acted as she always did, just as she had three years ago and even when they first met in his senior year in high school. She was still bursting with energy and life. She still simply smiled at him when she noticed him staring at her.
If… If what the other members of the SPR team had implied were true, she never gave anything away. If what they had quite eagerly suggested were true, exactly when did she…?
"Here." Mai offered a cup of tea, which he gratefully accepted, and sat beside him. "You're really quiet, Yasu. Oh, now that I look at you properly, you're a little pale, too. Are you sick?" She held a hand against his forehead to check his temperature. "Doesn't seem like it, though." He continued staring at her. "What? Are you gonna talk or are we just gonna play a staring game? Which you'll win, by the way."
He began hesitantly, "I discussed some… matters with Big Boss. No, actually, with everyone."
"Uh huh." She crossed her forearms on the table and rested her head on them. "And what're these 'some matters' that you talked to them about?"
"Matters involving my investigation."
She raised her eyebrows. "Investigation?"
"Investigation of the change between you and Big Boss."
Mai sat up. Her eyes narrowed as she said very slowly, "Yasu, you might want to begin explaining from the very, very beginning."
A minute passed before he took a deep but slightly shaky breath. "…Nine days ago, something changed between you and Big Boss. I've been trying to look into what happened between you two because it's worrying everyone, though everyone else seemed to be less bothered by it after a day. Well, it still worries me greatly. That's why I held my own investigation."
She visibly and audibly swallowed hard. "So what'd you find out?"
"All the information needed to totally break down my theory."
"Which is?"
"That you and Big Boss have finally reached a stage that's closer to dating."
She released a long, amused laugh before replying, "Wow, really, Yasu? That was the theory you created using evidence and witness statements? Did you tell Naru? I wish I was there to see his reaction!"
He looked at her disapprovingly. "He called me an idiot." She bent over in laughter. "But he was gracious enough to point my reasoning to what appears to be the right direction, which is very hard to accept and still seems wrong to me."
Mai, still bent over, had her hair covering her face, but it was clear that she had stopped laughing. "What did he say?" He barely heard her utter the next words: "That idiot."
Lowering his head and readjusting his spectacles, he answered, "That you two had a talk after I dropped you off that night we went clubbing. That you had agreed to stop fighting over the smallest things. And he implied that—" he stopped, unable to continue.
"That what?" she urged him on softly.
He directed his gaze at her. "That you're… in love with me."
She raised her head and turned to him. "…And why do you find it unacceptable and wrong?"
"Because you're in love with Big Boss, Mai, and Big Boss is obviously not me."
"You think it's impossible for me to fall in love with you?" There was a hardness in her voice that he rarely heard, and the instances in which she used that tone were the only few times with her that he wished he did not have to remember.
"It's hard to love someone else when you've already fallen in love with the most amazing person you'll ever meet." He forced himself to transform the thoughts in his mind into audible, sensible words, but he realized that he had done a mediocre job when he saw Mai's face crumple despite her efforts to prevent it from doing so.
"But I fell in love with you anyway."
An overwhelming silence fell over them. He heard the staccato ticking of her clock, each tick a countdown to the bomb he no longer had time and energy to defuse.
"Did you really fall in love with me, or did you choose me because you were going nowhere with Oliver Davis?" he asked silently. Mai let out a horrified gasp.
"…I can't believe you would ask that." Her voice was so dreadfully pained that he cringed at his own cruelty.
Still, he did not apologize, and she did not ask him to. Neither of them spoke or moved for a long time. They were both painfully aware that this was the turning point of their relationship, and that they were balancing on a tightrope in an effort to keep everything from falling apart.
Eventually, Mai broke the silence. "You strongly believe in your detective skills, don't you?"
"Quite strongly, though I'm seriously starting to question it now."
"Just humor me."
"Okay."
"Since you're 'investigating' what went on between me and Naru, let's say that you're a detective and I'm your primary suspect. Right now, I'm detained in a dim interrogation room, with a single light bulb hanging above the table separating us."
"That's visual," he said as a smile threatened to spread on his lips.
"Shhh…" she hushed him, but there was mild mirth in her voice. "Just let me continue. Now I'm going to tell you my alibi and explain my actions in certain important events. I'll try to prove to you that I'm guilty. Got it?"
"Yeah. Well then…" He coughed to imitate the voice of a police detective. "Taniyama-san, what were you doing on the night of the thirteenth of this month?"
"I was with you in a nightclub having the time of my life, Yasuhara-keiji. You could verify that with yourself."
"It's been verified; it's true." He nodded. "We then called a cab to get you to your apartment complex safely and me to mine. What happened after?"
"Remember how I told you I was feeling brave and clearheaded that night? Well, that night, I finally had the courage to confess everything to Naru, so I told myself why not and called him. And then we talked about many things: about how I loved him and not Gene… about how I really loved him romantically for years…"
She breathed deeply before she spoke again. "…about how I still love him now, only in a different way… about how I could and would love to be like his nagging little sister—of course not as Gene's replacement… about how I'd appreciate it if we stopped pretending to be so infuriated by the little things the other does… about how I'd fallen in love with you." Mai smiled wistfully.
He averted his gaze. "…It's not enough evidence, Taniyama-san."
"I know.
"Keiji-san, I'm pretty sure I've also been acting a little strangely for a few years now."
"My… would you like to expound on that?"
"I actually began to have a light crush on you when you were tutoring me for my entrance exams. At that time I couldn't help looking at you and thinking to myself, 'Hey, he's really kind and kind of handsome. His girlfriend will be lucky to have him.'"
A laugh escaped his mouth before he could stop it. She simply shrugged.
"Also, I never told you I was trying to get into Todai before graduation, did I? I wanted to surprise all of you and show that I can be smart, too. Besides, it seemed like you were having fun in your uni, not to mention that you became more… uh… interesting and open, I guess? Oh, and promiscuous too.
"And then when I passed my exams, I tried to ask you out to lunch or dinner, but you advised—as a dirty old man—that we should celebrate with everyone. My first attempt to buy you a meal as your friend was rejected. It was embarrassing, you know? But I got away with something better because I got to call you Yasu and you began to call me Mai. Plus that flirtation at the end of the call…" Mai sighed. "I seriously didn't know what I was getting into that time, huh. I think that was the time that my light crush became a real one."
"What can I say?" It was his turn to shrug.
She rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, please. Anyway, what's next? Oh…" Her face pinked.
"Oh?" he repeated.
"Remember that time when I was really stressed out with finals on my very first semester in Todai?"
He chuckled and answered, "Of course I do. You had me terribly concerned about your health. And your baby's." She smacked his arm in mild irritation.
"Well, after I passed my finals—with flying colors, thanks to you—" He bowed. "—I really got to thinking about you. You were so kind and helpful to me, sometimes—okay, maybe most of the time going out of your way to get to my side when I needed you. So I wondered if you were always like that to all your other friends. I tried imagining you doing all that for someone else, and I disliked the idea. I realized quickly that maybe it's because I was your best friend after all, but I spent days thinking why I was too much of a possessive best friend. I actually asked a mutual friend, you know? He said it may be because I was starting to like you. Then I spent nights thinking whether I'd really started liking you. I wasn't able to answer myself.
"But I found my answer finally after my birthday 'party'." She held out the index and middle fingers of both hands and wiggled them. "When I woke up on my bed, sober again, the next day, I was wracked with desperation. Why did I have to be your best friend? Why didn't you meet me before Naru did? Why was I even thinking about these things? Why was I so frustrated? I became motionless when the answer slapped me in the face. Now that I think about it, it was really obvious. But I fell so fast I guess my eyes were still blinded and adjusting to the new light." She paused and stood up to replace the tea that had grown cold.
He remained quiet during Mai's soliloquy. Her words left the makeshift conclusion he thought he had built sturdily in shambles. Conclusive evidence and an incriminating confession had already been presented to him. The dots had been connected, and the image that they formed was too real to deny.
But he still found it incredible. Unknowingly, he voiced out his thoughts. "How could this happen? You've always been in love with Big Boss, and I couldn't even compare to him."
"I told you and everyone else before, didn't I?" She set the refilled cups on the table, sat, and gazed into his eyes. "Those who always chose to be there with me are more important than those who didn't. And to be honest, now that we're almost always together, I can barely imagine how I'll act normally without you." Then, she asked expectantly, "So, did I convince you of my guilt, Keiji-san?"
They stared at each other for a bit longer, and then he smiled. "Not yet, Taniyama-san." He leaned forward, decreasing the distance between their faces. She turned bright red. "But I'll give you another chance."
Mai parted her lips as she retracted her head slightly. He waited. She slammed her forehead onto his.
"Well? Did that finally shift your paradigm, Yasuhara-keiji?" she asked condescendingly, alleviating the pain on her forehead with a soothing rub. He laughed at her silliness, and she laughed at the way he flinched when she poked the point of impact on his forehead.
He fixed the position of his glasses on his nose and looked at her. "Why, indeed it did, Taniyama-san! Very drastically so.
"I'm profoundly and genuinely in love with you," Osamu confessed feelingly.
She gasped at the unprecedented and direct profession and gaped at him for a long time.
Then, slowly, Mai beamed.
Osamu Yasuhara believed himself to be a talented detective: he can study a case from different angles and can formulate a conclusion that is consistent with all evidence and accounted for by valid statements. However, there was one case that he thought he cannot solve. That he was afraid to solve.
But he did, with the help of the suspect herself.
As she threw herself at him to engage him in a tight embrace, he grinned in satisfaction and happiness. There was only one thought on his mind.
Case closed.
