Everyone ready to go back to school - those of you who are anyways? I know I'm not. School is yuck.
The chapter's mostly filler and explanations by our very favorite narcissist. Hopefully the next chapter will be a bit more interesting...
I do not own Ghost Hunt. If I did, Ayako and Monk would bother Mai like this a lot.
Mai was going to die.
"C'mon, Mai, admit it! He loves you!"
"He does not!" she protested.
"Hey, she's right!"
"Maybe you should try kissing him. Then you'll know!"
Mai was horrified. "He would fire me!"
"No, he won't. Not when he looks at you like that."
"Ayako!"
Mai pressed a hand to her flaming cheeks and shook her head. She tried to go back inside the house, but Monk caught her around the waist and spun her around.
"Where do you think you're going? We're not done until you agree to go demand a kiss from him!"
Mai groaned. Her face was so hot so thought it was going to melt off. "Guys...he's going to hear and kill all of us."
"He won't hear us. We're far enough."
Ayako and Monk had been ordered to leave when Naru decided they were making way too much noise for him to concentrate. The two hadn't wasted time in dragging Mai out with them near an old, dilapidated shed, and were now teasing her mercilessly.
Mai pulled her arm, but Monk held on fast. "Monk!" she begged.
Monk hugged her tight. "Don't worry, Mai, I won't let him hurt you. I'll watch you guys and make sure nothing bad happens."
If possible, Mai's face turned redder. "Nothing is happening!" she cried, finally succeeding in wriggling away from his grasp - only to be scooped up by Ayako.
"Mai, what are you so scared of if everyone gets it except for you?" she asked.
A certain narcissist's agitated smile as he asked her a heartbreaking question out that day in the woods throbbed against Mai's eyelids and she forgot how to answer. She blinked hard and opened her mouth to speak, but Ayako's hold had gotten protective and serious.
"What is it? Did he hurt you? Did someone else hurt you?" she whispered anxiously, eyes boring into Mai's, trying to read them.
"No!" Mai tore away from her gaze. "He - when I -" Suddenly, her confession was too embarrassing to talk about. "When I thought about it, I realized its nothing."
"Then why is your face so red?" Ayako demanded.
"And why do you still hang around him?" Monk asked.
"My face is red because it does that when people talk about crushes, and I hang around him because I need the job!" Mai finished yelling and glared at them both, panting slightly.
Too late, she realized that she had been extremely loud.
Naru stared at the old papers before him, trying to discern the answer. It was here, he was sure of it. Yasu had brought him all of the house's original important documents at his request. It contained hand-drawn blueprints, yellowing title deeds, and grainy pictures. How Yasu had managed to get the information, Naru didn't know, but he guessed that it involved extensive use of his quick wit and flashing smile.
He used that flashing smile on Mai too much…
Naru closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Why did every thought of his eventually lead to Mai? It was troubling to say the least.
Naru carefully set aside an old paper and was starting on the next one when raised voices filled his ears. He pushed away the irritation and tried to concentrate when he heard Mai's voice, loud and clearly embarrassed.
"I hang around him because I need the job!"
Naru was not an idiot. He was a genius. He could easily tell what was happening, and her words somehow found their way to his chest where they settled on his heart and refused to leave.
Why are you surprised? She loves Gene, not you. You can't have her. You're the bad twin, and girls don't like you.
Naru hated reminders like Mai and Gene that proved his resolve had holes, that his barrier was flawed, that his distanced attitude still needed to be improved. He was supposed to be perfect, invincible, aloof.
And yet Mai continued to melt his barrier when she could never love him, never love him the way she loved Gene. She was only hurting both of them by planting hope in both their hearts, hope that they both knew was false but couldn't help pursuing anyway. Didn't she know that the more she tried, the harder he fell for her?
Why on earth was he thinking about this? He had a case to complete by today!
Speaking of which, he had a pile of papers he needed someone to go through. Naru looked around. Lin was doing the case report for Naru's father. John and Masako weren't doing anything - but Naru needed someone else...wanted someone else.
"Father Brown, call Mai."
"Okay."
"Mai!" John called from the front door.
Mai wriggled free as Ayako and Monk were momentarily distracted. "John!" she yelled back happily, giving him a wave.
"Shibuya's asking for you."
Mai's face flamed. What if he had heard? Oh, God, he was going to fire her for saying something such a thing.
"Coming," she said weakly, her head hung in shame.
There was a noise from inside and John turned and nodded. He turned back to the door. "And he says to leave Miss Matsuzaki and Takigawa outside."
Mai escaped the pair of said people and dashed up the mansion before they could say anything. "Yes, Naru?" she panted, a little afraid. She wasn't sure what she would do if he said she was fired.
Naru put a heavy stack of papers in front of the chair wedged between him and Lin without so much as a glance backwards. "Sit here. Read through these and make a chronological list of owners with a brief overview of their ownership."
Mai sighed in relief and collapsed in the designated chair. "Hai."
Naru and Lin hadn't been sitting that far to begin with. The folding chair squashed in their middle hardly gave any leg room. Mai felt claustrophobic between her handsome boss and his silent Chinese assistant.
She tried to concentrate, she really did; it was just too hard when she was so close to Naru she could smell his cologne and shampoo.
"Mai, you have been on the same page for the past ten minutes."
The cold voice in her ear made her jerk sideways into Lin. He continued, "I knew you were slow, but I didn't know you were this incapable."
"I am! I mean, I'm not - incapable, I mean!" she spluttered. "Just- stop leaning all over me and I'll be able to concentrate. You're so fat!"
Naru frowned. "I was under the impression that you were the one leaning into my chair."
Mai looked around and realized, to her utter embarrassment, that he was right.
Idiot.
She righted herself and shoved her nose into the paper to conceal her red face and scribbled furiously on the sheet of notebook paper Naru had given her. "I'm working, I'm working," she muttered.
An awkward silence ensued, punctuated only by Mai's scribbling. Finally, mercifully, Naru looked away and turned his page and Lin continued his typing. Mai closed her eyes and allowed her body to relax and mentally sigh.
Mai worked diligently for the next hour, her mind wandering less and less to her boss as she unearthed more information. The house's history was a strange and gruesome one. Deaths and disappearances filled the page. On thing she did notice about Naru was that he glanced up frequently - almost feverishly - at the digital clock on his monitor.
Of course. They only had until midnight.
Then someone would die.
No one's dying! Mai mentally berated herself. Naru will figure it out and know what to do do, and everything will be okay. He's never let me, or anyone, down before.
Mai stood up and stretched. "Naru, I'm done."
"Tea."
"JERK!" Mai fumed, hands curling into fists. "Can't even say 'thank you' or 'good job' or - or even let me take a breath. My fingers are cramping and my neck hurts and I'm going to take a break."
"After you make my tea."
Mai stomped off to the kitchen, grumbling nasty things under her breath and almost cracked the mug slamming it against the counter.
What a slave-driver! Not matter what I do, it never seems to be enough for him. Mai, tea. Mai, file. Mai, take temperatures of every single room in this goddamn house. Mai, don't slack. Mai, don't get distracted by my perfectly perfect face and concentrate. I might as well be chained to my desk and call him 'Master.'
Master Narcissist...it had a nice ring to it. Mai giggled to herself as she poured the tea.
Sad, angry, happy. Naru had read her well. The thought sobered her up a little bit, so by the time she handed Naru his tea, she was in a presentable mood.
"Mai, call Miss Matsuzaki and Takigawa inside."
"What? I thought you said I could take a break!" she complained.
"I don't pay you just so you can take breaks every five minutes. Now call them in," he said imperiously.
"Whatever you say, Master Narcissist," she muttered under her breath.
"What was that?" His icy voice froze her momentarily.
"Nothing!" She escaped her glare and yelled for Ayako and Monk, who were giggling and whispering like teenaged girls. Mai could guess at what they were talking about.
"Sit," the Master Narcissist commanded, so they did. He was holding a few old papers, his black notebook, and Mai's sheet of writing, she noted with some satisfaction.
"This house was built in the 1400s, and it has a long history, but what we are interested in is the year 1839. A man by the name of Hayate Sato disappeared that year. He lived alone.
"Since his was the first disappearance documented, I looked into the house records from 1839. Here are the blueprints and the title deed and the housing agent's note. And this is a newspaper article. Notice the date: 1843.
"Hayate Sato disappeared from his house and the two policemen assigned to the job did as well. The date of their disappearance: the winter solstice. After that, there were no more disappearances until a young foreign couple moved into the house, six months later." Naru shifted some newspapers. "Both failed to show up to the wife's parents' home for a Christmas party. We can assume that they, too, disappeared on the winter solstice.
"So we are left to investigate Hayate Sato. He was the first disappearance, yet he did not die anytime in winter, so I went through the newspapers at this time." He placed one on the table.
"Strange markings had been found around the house following the disappearance of the two policemen. Here are the pictures. Lin and I have examined them with the same conclusion.
"Hayate Sato made a deal with a demon."
"No wonder all the trees here are angry and bitter," Ayako said.
Naru went on. "Yasu called a few people related to Hayate Sato and found someone willing to talk. They told him he had cancer and would probably have died young if he hadn't disappeared. I've concluded that Hayate Sato didn't want to die just yet from the cancer and made a deal with a demon. If he found the demon before the dawn of every winter solstice a sacrifice with considerable power, he would live."
"So, um…" Monk pulled listlessly at his collar. "Why are we staying here again?"
Naru began cleaning up his papers. "If I had a choice, we wouldn't be here, as I stated before. However the house won't be keen on letting all of us go. I will stay behind to ensure that anyone who wants to leave will be able to do so."
Mai looked at him. How could he be so calm about it? Did Naru even know the first thing about demons?
"That includes you, too, Mai. Being my assistant instead of a consultant doesn't mean you have to stay."
Mai crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. "I'm staying."
"You don't understand the dangers."
Mai tried to control her flush as she said, "I understand that you have never let anyone down before."
Something dark flitted behind Naru's gaze, and he turned away from her. Only then did Mai remember that he blamed himself for Gene's death, and she regretted making him remember. She resisted the urge to take his hand and yell at him that he couldn't have prevented it, but she shoved her hands deep into her pockets. He would not appreciate physical contact from his silly little assistant.
"I'm not leaving, either," Ayako announced with a toss of her fiery hair.
"Me neither."
"I'm staying."
"I'm not going anywhere."
Mai was the only one close enough to hear him mutter, "Fools."
So...how was it? Did it bore you to death? For those of you who did skip all the huge paragraphs (and I know you're out there!) - yes, that's me too. Less rambling and more explaining is my kind of story. But stuff has just got to make sense somehow for those who want the complete mystery, you know?
For next time: a dream, a moment of insanity, and the library again.