To further increase Naru's headache on the whole situation, his car broke down, leaving him to take the subway to his meeting with Ayako at the current hospital she worked at. He was almost surprised to hear it wasn't one of the ones her family owned.

She had refused to speak with him on the phone about the situation, saying she'd much rather see him in person, that it had been such a long time since she'd spoken to him, he didn't expect to just talk to him on the phone and then not call again for another six months did he? In all honesty, that was what he wished to do. It would be simpler that way, to make as few disturbances in Tokyo as possible.

If only he could just slip back into his life as easily as he left it.

The subway was still horribly busy at this time of day; the morning rush was over, but somehow there seemed to be a never-ending stream of people in and out of the station. No one paid much mind to him; he was dressed like any of the other business men that frequented the station, never mind the fact that he was much too young to be a proper office worker.

It wasn't until he'd gotten into the train car and settled in, pulling out a case file that he'd gotten recently to review, that he noticed two high school girls staring at him, speaking to each other behind their hands. He tried to ignore their whispers and giggles and in fact almost succeeded until the girls came up to him, wobbling along the jolting aisle.

"Excuse me, sir?" She said, seemingly terrified of him, "Well, you see, my friend and I, we're big fans of the paranormal, we're even in a club at school…" She trailed off looking towards her friend for validation, the friend nodded, encouraging her, "We were just wondering, you look a lot like the author of this book." On cue she pulled out a hard cover edition of his latest research and flipped it quickly to the back, showing a picture of him, seated in his office, scowling at the camera, "We just wanted to see if you were actually Oliver Davis?"

She'd butchered the English pronunciation beyond repair, but it was obvious what she meant. He took a closer look at the girls, they were sophomores maybe? In fact, they were wearing her school's uniform. Naru scolded himself for being so unobservant and not realizing. They would be a year under Mai. But wasn't it a Saturday? Why would they be wearing uniforms? Maybe an extracurricular program?

Naru nodded, putting on a fake smile, "Yes, it's always nice to meet fans, would you like me to sign that?" He gestured towards the book, taking it with one hand and reaching into his bag for a pen.

"Yes!" The girl reddened, "I really enjoyed the chapter on latent psychic abilities, the girl you talked about in that chapter, well, and you never really said how she dealt with her powers in the long term…" Obviously, she was looking for more information.

"I'm not even sure how she took it in the long run." Now was as good a time as any to ask them, "Excuse me if I'm being forward, but could you tell me the name of the high school you go to?"

The girl answered properly, "Would you by any chance know a student named Taniyama Mai?" Naru asked as he handed the girl's book back.

"Who?" The girl's eyes widened considerably, before pausing and taking, "Yes, she's in my home economics class." She glanced back at her friend for validation and then said in a rush, "I don't speak to her though. Neither of us do."

"Could you give her this business card? I've been looking for her for quite a while."

The girl hesitantly agreed, only with a condition, "I will if you give me one of your business cards as well." She began waiting impatiently as Naru slowly wrote a message on the back of the card that would go to Mai. This was where his limited knowledge of kanji* would finally ruin him. Oh well, there would be a few words that he'd need to use the hiragana** for some of the harder words. It'd still be understandable, just not nearly as attractive as he'd wish for it to be. If Lin were with him, he'd probably silently berate him, a simple glance showing his displeasure at Naru's reluctance and inefficiency at learning kanji.

He almost felt bad for using the girl's obvious adoration of him to his advantage. Almost.

-x-

Mai stood outside the door to the small shop with its entrance tucked into an alley, waiting for Makoto to finish a quick phone call to her boyfriend and then escort her into the shop. It wouldn't be impossible for Mai to go in alone, but she was terrified at the prospect.

It was a burusera shop.

A shop that specialized in selling the, ah, unmentionables of school girls, along with other items of a similar category. It's usual clientele was older men (or a few younger) with strange fetishes that couldn't get there jollies any other way or high school boys on dares.

All Mai had to do was go in write her name on a bag that the shop gave her for the panties she wanted to sell and sell it at a pre-set price. It was a surprisingly lucrative business. In fact it even sold panties for girls to buy and, in the end, usually sell back to the shop after wearing them a few times. In fact, they were the only panties that Hikaru wore, she enjoyed the great variety of cuts, styles, and designs they came in (different types brought different prices) and enjoyed flashing the other girls in the gang and strangers alike. She took delight in hearing the girls joking shrieks and the strangers blushing cheeks.

*Kanji- On the off chance someone doesn't know, kanji is part of the Japanese writing system, think words. (Yes, it's possible to be perfectly fluent in spoken Japanese and know no written Japanese and vice versa.)

**Hiragana- Another part of the Japanese writing system, think letters. Sometimes substituted for kanji for emphasis or (in Naru's case) when he doesn't know the kanji.

Figured I should grace you all with an update~ Please review! I'd like to know what you think of the story (and the direction it's going in) and if you'd like to have longer chapters with less frequent updates or shorter chapters with more frequent updates.