Behind Closed Doors

File 3: Justifying the Means

Mai sighed, shifting the box in her arms as she watched Ayako and Bou-san finishing up their cleansing ceremonies on their respective students (Hisashi and Shizuko). They had finished Hiromasa's earlier, during which Mai had conveniently hidden away in their dorm room with Masako.

"Is this what I pay you for, Mai?" The brunette whipped around to find Naru leaning on the other side of the threshold, giving her his best 'get back to work' face. "I want everything packed up and ready to go by the time John-san finishes his sweep of the school grounds."

Mai sighed, not in the mood for his bossiness today. "John's not even starting until these two are done. That gives me plenty of time."

"Would you just get it done with?"

"Fine." Mai huffed, turning on her heels and walking as fast down the corridor as was safe for the fragile equipment in her arms.

After many corners turned, Mai was afraid she might be lost once again. She looked down the empty hallway and shivered at the certainly haunted vibe it gave. It was Sunday, everyone's day off, and there wasn't a single soul in sight much less a working light on.

She shifted, not knowing whether or not she should just find her own way or head back to the base (in which Naru would certainly roll his eyes and treat her as if she were an incompetent five year old).

A bang startled her out of her thoughts and the rather heavy box almost slipped from her clammy hands. Mai tensed, hugging the item in her arms close and peeling her eyes open more than she thought even possible. She hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary.

Another bang followed by a muted voice. Mai shivered again, wondering if the air conditioning had suddenly turned on. Was someone still in the building, she wondered, peeking into every classroom as she slowly began to pass.

She audibly gasped when she saw Hiromasa, with his back facing her and his hands in his pockets, kicking over desks in a classroom nearby. He turned around when he heard the faint noise.

Mai's lips formed a straight line and she turned around in the opposite direction of where she had originally been heading, fully intent on asking Naru to call the Headmaster. Hiromasa yanked her into the classroom. "What the hell are you doing here?" he inquired in a harsh whisper, although there was most likely no one around to hear them anyway.

"I'm…" Mai blushed when she realized their proximity. "I'm trying to find my way out of this stupid school. We're leaving today. I was just packing up the van…"

"You realize you were going the wrong way, right?"

"Sh-shut up!" the brunette barked, embarrassed with her horrible sense of direction. She shrugged out of his grasp and hugged the box closer to her. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to immediately leave school grounds after the cleansing because of your–"

"Suspension, I know," Hiromasa sighed, running a hand through his already messy hair, "I was here to blow off some steam."

Mai glanced around at the desks, the majority of which had either been tipped over or thrown across the room. "I see…"

"Anyway," Hiromasa leaned close, a look Mai had never seen before crossing over his face, "Now that we're alone, we can finallytalk. Whenever I see you, that boss of yours is always hovering over you like a protective mother hen."

"Naru? There's no way."

Hiromasa blinked. "You don't realize how he looks at you? I thought you two were totally an item?"

"What?" Mai said, horrified (but also secretly happy) at how people who didn't know their true relationship saw them together. "That's definitely not the case. Naru would never think of me like that…"

"Well, if you two aren't together…" the muscular teen pulled her closer.

Mai blanched when she realized what he was getting at. "No way! There isn't a chance in hell I'd go out with someone like you!" She turned to leave out of the door, but Hiromasa quickly grabbed her by the arm. The heavy box finally fell from her hands and landed right on her feet.

Mai sucked in a deep breath, feeling tears sting the corners of her eyes. She dropped to the ground to check the contents, wondering with a feeling of dread if anything had broken. Cursing, the boy kneeled at her side.

After seeing a cracked monitor screen, Mai held out her arm as if telling him to give her some space, which he granted reluctantly. She stood, dusted herself off, and picked up the damaged equipment. "Just…just leave me alone. Jeez, Naru's going to be so pissed."

"I-It's your own fault!" Hiromasa blamed her shamelessly.

Mai shook her head and made her way to the door, but turned around in frustration when it wouldn't open. "Is this another one of your stupid tricks, Hiromasa? Unlock the door this moment!" she commanded.

He glared at her angrily. "These doors–" he paused, realization dawning on him, "don't lock…"

Mai's heart screeched to a halt and she looked back at the door. "Speaking of which…wasn't this door open earlier? And neither of us touched it…"

At that moment, the room dropped at least ten degrees, and Mai had more than enough sense to figure out that it wasn't the AC unit kicking on.

"Where's Mai?" Bou-san inquired, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a towel that Naru had handed him.

The aforementioned teenager shrugged. "She was packing up the vans. Although she probably should've come back by now to get another box."

"How one person manages to get lost so easily, I will never know," Ayako commented with a sigh, fanning herself with a piece of paper. "Man, it really is summer isn't it? This heat is just unbearable."

Naru glanced at the couple, nodding. It must've been hot all decked out in their respective robes. "You two can go ahead and change. Lin and I will be accompanying John around the school for the exorcism. Stay here and keep an eye out for Mai."

They watched warily as Naru exited the room followed closely by his lanky assistant, John, and Masako.

"I have a bad feeling about this, Bou-san."

"Me too."

"This sucks," Hiromasa said, cursing for the fifth time in the past minute. "Dammit!" He kicked the door. Mai winced at the loud noise.

"Kicking it isn't going to make it open," she said in frustration. All of the clatter he was causing was beginning to give her a pounding headache. "Just pick a chair, sit down, and cool your head for a second. Naru and the others will realize sooner or later that I'm missing and come find me."

"Calm my head? Calm my fucking head?" Hiromasa looked at the brunette as if she'd just grown an additional head of her own. "A ghost just locked us in a room together, and you're telling me to 'calm my head'?"

Mai raised her arms in defense. "I don't think you've noticed but, I'm not too happy about it either."

Hiromasa finally took her advice, picked up a chair, and sat down. After a few deep breaths, he seemed to be fully recovered. He watched as his breaths came out in cool clouds. "It's freakishly cold in here."

Mai nodded. "That's what happens when there's a spirit present."

"But why?"

Mai thought about his question, and then conjured together some facts that she remembered Naru once say. "Spirits need energy to materialize, so they take that energy from the surrounding air to do so. That's why it gets cold. Or something along those lines…"

"How are you not freaking out about this right now?"

Mai shrugged. "We've taken on cases ten times worse than this. I've seen things you wouldn't even be able to stomach."

"Yeah?" Hiromasa inquired doubtfully. "Like what?"

"Well," Mai cleared her throat, "It was summer last year when we were investigating this Winchester Mansion-like house…"

30 minutes later…

"Eh? What happened then?"

"Well, we managed to get out of the house through a nearby window. After that, we saw in the newspaper that the building had burned down," Mai said, the corners of her mouth tilting downwards as she recalled the horrible case.

Hiromasa regarded her seriously before promptly bursting into a hysterical laughing fit. "No way! That was totally a lie."

Mai's mouth hung open in shock. "You think I'm capable of coming up with a story that elaborate?"

"I think you've got a lot of time on your hands," he corrected between laughs.

Crossing her arms, Mai leaned back in her chair and brooded silently over her waste of breath explanation. "Not with Naru bossing me around constantly. In the office I'm always either filing papers, or fetching tea every ten minutes, or running errands, or being a messenger, or making phone calls, or setting up appointments…it's pretty busy during the summer."

"You mean you actually have business? People take this ghosts hunting stuff seriously?"

"Were you not just listening to me talk about the Urado case? Ghosts can be serious business. Sometimes, deadly. You're actually lucky that's not the case at this school, or else you'd probably be six feet under by now."

Hiromasa gulped, looking away. "W-What are you saying?"

"It would be your own fault for bullying poor Shizuko," Mai said in a serious tone, sitting up straight, "Then you'd know what it would feel like to be bullied until it finally drives you over the edge."

"I haven't done anything to hurt that kid!"

"Maybe you haven't physically abused him, but words can hurt just as much."

"If anything, it's his fault for being a whimp."

Mai's cheeks finally burned red in anger. She stood up, her chair falling backwards. "You! What makes you do that? What makes you so mean like that?"

Hiromasa followed suit, standing at least a foot taller than the young brunette. "This is who I am!"

Earlier that year…

"What is that?" Naru inquired, casting a quick glance at the papers in Mai's arm.

Mai looked down, as if she hadn't realized herself that she was carrying the stack of papers. "Oh, these? Nothing much, I'm just scheduling classes for next year," she said with a smile, placing the tea tray on her boss's desk.

"So, what are you taking?" he inquired, trying to making the question sound casual, as if he weren't really that interested. He sipped at his tea, his senses relishing in its warmth.

"Japanese, physics, advanced math, English," she said the word with distaste, "modern Japanese history, art, self study, and forensics."

"Forensics?" Naru said with a raised eyebrow. He set his tea down, giving his assistant the look that usually meant for her to explain herself.

"Well," Mai blushed twiddling her fingers, "I've been thinking that I want to go to college and study to become a Criminologist."

"Criminology?"

Mai's cheeks went even redder. "I t-think it's interesting to know how people think and why they do what they do…"

"Most criminals have a troubled childhood or family problems, isn't that all you need to know?" Naru said, scowling. The idea of Mai getting herself involved with anything that had to do with criminals just rubbed him the wrong way. With her incredible bad luck, who knows what trouble she could get herself into? "Just let someone else do a job like that and stay away from dangerous people."

"It's more than that Naru!" Mai argued with a pout, folding her arms.

Mai couldn't help but smirk. 'I'll make a bluff and see if he falls for it...'

"You probably feel pressured or put down by a certain family member. They make you feel that you need to be stronger, be more independent. In fact, I bet it's your dad."

Hiromasa was frozen by her words.

"That's why you play a sport. Basketball, am I right? I heard, however, that this school's basketball team isn't doing so well this year."

"–W-What…? How did you…?"

'Looks like I'm right,' Mai thought to herself. "The fact that the one thing you take pride in is failing is putting even more pressure on you. This is why you feel like you have to bully someone, in order to make you feel manlier, like you're better than others."

"S-Shut up…"

"You're trying to prove something to your dad, aren't you?"

"I said shut up."

"Does your dad call you a whimp?"

"Shut up!" Hiromasa snapped, pushing Mai to the ground. "I said shut up! It's none of your fucking business! That old man doesn't give a shit about me! What the hell does he know, anyway? I get good grades! I do well at sports! What more does he expect from me?"

Mai scrambled back as he began kicking things out of his way again, but was too late to avoid a painful chair to the head. Hiromasa stopped, watching as a trail of blood trickled down the younger girl's forehead.

Mai sucked in and touched the injury, pulling away to see her own blood. He knelt down at her side and inspected the wound. "Jesus, you're making me go crazy, girl," he said, his voice softer.

"You need to realize that what you're doing is only making you just as bad as your father, Hiromasa," Mai said, looking up with teary eyes. "Please stop bullying."

Hiromasa nodded, cupping her face in his hands. Suddenly, Mai had become hyperaware of his thumbs rubbing circles into her cheeks and his hot breath on her lips. He leaned in closer, their noses touching.

"W-What are you…?"

"You're seriously going to make me go crazy about you."

Before either of them could mentally register what was going on, a strong hand had wrapped around Mai's arm and ripped her out of Hiromasa's hold. They both looked to the person, finding none other than Naru with the box of broken monitors in his other arm.

"I'm sorry, but it would be greatly appreciated if you would refrain from harassing my assistant in the future," the dark haired teenager said with a curt bow, pulling Mai out of the room (which was now, mysteriously unlocked).

Despite the fact that these were the exact same words Masako had used in her hilarious impersonation of Naru, Mai was too nervous to be laughing. If anything, she was horrified. Naru had seen her in a very compromising situation. "Naru, wait! It's really not what you're thinking–"

After they were a good distance away from the room that Mai and Hiromasa had previously been locked in, Naru relinquished his hold on her arm. He turned to face her, his expression steely. "I don't care what you do on your time off, Mai, but while you are on the clock–"

"What do you expect me to do? Hiromasa pulled me into the room and the door locked on its own!"

Naru sighed, "I should've made Masako go with you since you're so incapable of doing anything on your own."

"How did you get into the room, anyway?"

"John successfully exorcised the spirit which was causing the door to lock. By the way, everything's already packed up and all of the rituals are done. This school is clean," he said, looking down at the box in his arms, "and, of course, you manage to break the only box of equipment I gave you."

"Okay, that was Hiro–"

Naru cut her off by taking her face in his hands, leaning down similarly to how the aforementioned Hiromasa had. "Did he do anything to you?" Mai's cheeks burned bright red.

"N-Naru, what do you think you're–"

He stopped to inspect the injury on her forehead and pulled back, watching Mai sputter like an old engine with a smirk on his face. "Try not to fall for my handsome face."

'Too late for that…'

Haha! And you guys thought I was done! MWAHAHAHA. Well, now I am. ANYWAY! In the next case SPR goes to England! Yay! Be excited!