Behind Closed Doors
File 6: Accidents Happen
"Taxi!" Mai called, waving her hand in the air. The particular cab that she had been trying to flag down passed her by, probably with another fare already inside. Luckily for her, the following taxicab stopped.
Mai smiled, opening the door and sliding onto the old beige leather seats. "Shibuya, please."
The driver nodded at her through the review mirror with wrinkles at his eyes. He turned the radio down to a whisper as he began to speak. "What's such a pretty young lady like you doing alone at this time of night? Shouldn't you be with your boyfriend?" He pulled off of the curb and began the journey to Shibuya.
Mai felt the heat rushing to her cheeks.
His words were teasing, but gentle, and she knew they were not meant to be inappropriate or suggestive. Mai was pretty good at judging whether people were 'good' or 'bad,' though most of the time she liked to give people the benefit of the doubt. This driver, however, was just an elderly man looking for some meaningful conversation.
"I'm flattered," Mai said with a laugh, "but there's no boyfriend. I'm actually just heading to my work place to pick up a few things."
"No boyfriend?" Mai could see his eyebrows lift, creasing his forehead in wrinkles. "Such a shame."
"Well, there is a guy," Mai shared a sad smile with the cab driver through the review mirror, "but I'm not exactly sure how he feels about me yet."
"This boy must be stupid if he hasn't confessed yet!" The driver suggested.
Mai laughed, "You mean, anything but. He's probably the smartest person I know."
"I can tell just by looking at you that he doesn't know what he's missing," the elderly man said, a twinkle in his eyes. Mai smiled, about to reply, when her phone suddenly vibrated against her thigh.
She pulled the device out of her pocket and looked at the caller ID. As soon as Naru had gotten back from England, she had convinced him to get a cell phone. And with that, he had finally given her his phone number. The brunette was happy to know he was actually using it.
"Speak of the devil, here he is right now. If you'll excuse me, I should probably take this."
The driver sat in knowing silence as Mai answered the call. "Naru, what's up?"
"Where are you?" he inquired stringently, as if he had been waiting hours for her to show up at the office.
"I just got a taxi two minutes ago," she replied slowly. "Why?"
"I just thought you'd be stupid enough to walk here." Mai rolled her eyes. As usual, full of insults.
"Oh, yee have little faith," she said. "Anyway, we're sitting at a red light on the corner of Aoyama and Omotesando, but there's little traffic so I'll probably be there in five minutes or so."
"As long as you get here." The light turned from red to green and Mai smiled.
"Of course I wi–"
At that moment, the taxicab began to move forward. From that point, everything seemed to transpire as though in slow motion. Mai turned her head to the side, phone still on her ear as she came face to face with an oncoming car that hadn't stopped at the intersecting red light.
The collision sounded much like an explosion. Suddenly Mai was pulled taught against her seatbelt, which seemed to keep her in place well enough, however she couldn't say the same for her phone as it flew out of her hand and hit the car window opposite of the one that was currently shattering from the impact of the other vehicle.
The taxicab tipped and rolled to the left, halting the other cars in their path as it slid with a metallic shriek on its roof. Mai hung upside down, still strapped in by her seatbelt.
A burst of white filled her vision upon impact and the sound of the radio had gone completely silent. At first, Mai thought maybe she might be having some sort of dream, but as the two vehicles came to a stop, the reality had come crashing down.
She had just been in an accident. She needed to get herself and the drivers out of their cars just in case. She was unhurt, but badly shaken. She needed to call 1-1-9.
She sprung into action, fumbling frantically with her seat buckle until it finally released her and dropped her the last few inches onto the ceiling of the overturned vehicle. Mai realized she was curled on top of her phone and breathed a sigh of relief that it hadn't been lost in the rubble (or broken at that – good thing it was an old model).
Disoriented, it took Mai a while to crawl to the opposite side of the car and find the door handle. She reached out, jiggling it with all of her might. At first it would not open, but soon it swung open with a loud popping noise.
There were people screaming, someone giving out orders, footsteps – so many of them, running all over the place. The brunette almost couldn't think with all of this commotion going on, but Naru might argue that she barely ever thought at all.
A strong hand seized her by the arm and hauled her out of the overturned car. She staggered a bit, having thought for a second that she was already outside of the car, but some more hands came to the rescue, holding her up. They were small and comforting this time, resting on her shoulders, telling her to sit down.
And she did, as if she couldn't manage to do anything else. Everything was spinning, like that horrible ride on the playground that her dad used to stick her on – and he would spin and spin and spin.
Mai succeeded in keeping the vomit back by staring intently at the black asphalt for what seemed like hours. The glass splayed across the ground from the shattered windows reflected the bright neon lights of the store signs, entertaining Mai as they changed every so often.
They were talking about her, she realized after a while. She was lucky to be alive. She should be dead. The other driver was lucky too. But the old man…the taxi driver was in critical condition.
Realizing her phone was still clutched tightly in her hand, Mai shakily dialed the office's number.
Naru frowned as the call was dropped. He looked at the office phone curiously.
These things did happen, he figured, setting the phone onto its receiver and not giving it second thought. It wasn't until the phone rang and Naru answered to the distraught and pleading voice of his young assistant that he realized something horrible had happened.
"Naru," she silently sobbed, her voice little more than a whisper.
He stood from his chair, nearly knocking it back, "Mai, what happened?"
"There was an accident!" It was the only part of her spiel that was coherent enough for him to make out. She had said something else that included the words 'driver' and 'glass,' but Naru had stopped listening by that time.
"I'm on my way."
After the phone line went dead, it took a good while for Mai to realize she was even having a dream. Slowly but surely, the asphalt had turned into dreamscape right before her eyes.
That meant this was the first time without her spirit guide, Gene, to help her. Her heart swelled with disappointment knowing that she would not be able to see his smiling face, even in the most difficult of situations anymore.
She stood once the scenery began to change, white seeping into the black distance and creating a grey landscape that reminded her of a newspaper.
Mai immediately recognized the fact that she was standing on the corner of Aoyama and Omotesando. It was completely barren; no cars and no people. All of the stores seemed to be closed as well. Only hints of colors tinged some areas of the scene, whereas all other areas remained shadowed and dark.
The combination of dark and quiet lead Mai to the assumption that it must've been either extremely late at night or early in the morning. The brunette looked up, the changing of traffic lights, which seemed to be the only vibrant color in the vision, catching her eyes.
What was she supposed to do now?
Mai closed her eyes tight, wishing for Gene's guidance. Seconds later, a footstep landed at her side and she had to do a double take at the person she looked up to see. "G-Gene?!"
The Naru look-alike standing at her side did not answer. In fact, he refused to acknowledge her at all. He stared dead ahead, looking at the hand signal across the street that was telling him to wait, although with the streets this empty it hardly seemed necessary.
Heavy droplets of rain began to fall, and Gene suddenly seemed to think the same thing as he ignored the traffic signal and stepped from the sidewalk and onto the street.
"Gene, what are you doing here?" Mai called after him, not understanding why he was ignoring her. "Naru said–"
It was milliseconds later in which Mai heard the distinctive roar of a car engine that made her realize that Gene was not in her dream as a guide this time, but the victim of a terrifying murder.
The brunette nearly choked, not sure if she was going to be able to handle the scene unfolding before her. "Gene, get out of the street!" she shrieked, her face contorting with horror as the red sports car sped out of the darkness. The vehicle's tires screeched against the same asphalt Mai had been sitting on seconds ago, but was unable to grip it as the rain slickened its surface.
Just like her own car accident seemed to happen in slow motion, so had this. The red car plowed past the white lines of the crosswalk and straight into Gene.
Mai didn't realize her lungs were lacking air until she was gasping for it upon her awakening. She loosened her fingers, which had been gripping at the hospital sheets beneath her, and stared wide-eye at her surroundings.
A doctor from across the room, who seemed to be flipping through some papers, turned upon hearing the noise. "Taniyama-san," he said easily, as if they were good friends who hadn't seen each other in a while. "How are you feeling?"
She looked at him wearily. "Okay, I guess. Where am I?"
"Red Cross Medical Center in Shibuya," he replied, giving her an eye-wrinkling smile as he walked over.
The smile reminded her of the taxicab driver. "The other man who was in the car with me – the taxi driver – what happened to him?!" She inquired, almost frantically. She hoped to god he had good news – or at least better news than what she'd heard at the scene of the accident.
The doctor frowned, checking her vitals, speaking softy over the incessant beeping that filled the room. "He's still in critical condition, unfortunately."
"Well, everything looks good here," the doctor nodded to himself, checking off several things on the clipboard in his hand. "If everything checks out, you'll probably be able to leave sometime today. We still need the results of several of your blood tests, but those should be back by lunch…"
'By lunch?' Mai looked out of the window to her far right only to realize that the sun was shining brightly. That meant she had stayed the night in the hospital.
"And also, you're friends have been waiting to see you," the older man added as a side note, tucking the clipboard underneath his arm with another eye-wrinkling smile, "Should I allow them in?"
Mai nodded slowly and the doctor left, leaving the door open.
"Mai," came Bou-san's exclamation of relief as he, followed by Ayako and John, entered the room.
Although she was disappointed by the lacking presence of her employer, Mai managed a small smile for her friends. "Hey, guys."
"We were worried sick over you!" Ayako huffed, tucking a stray strand of hair behind Mai's ear. "We just suddenly got a call from Lin saying that you were in the hospital. He didn't even give us an explanation before he hung up."
Mai would've laughed had she not felt so incredibly sore. "That definitely sounds like something he would do."
"Yeah," Bou-san sighed, sitting on the side of her bed, "well, it almost gave us a heart attack."
At that moment, Masako stepped into the room, sliding the door closed behind her. She looked upon Mai for the first time with shock. Mai was wondering why she looked so surprised, when John suddenly spoke up.
"How did it go?"
"How did what go?" Mai inquired, wondering if they were talking about some sort of T.V. appearance of Masako's that she might not have been aware of.
Bou-san ruffled her hair gently, unsure of what sort of head injuries she might have. "Distracting the press. They've been insisting on an interview with you since last night."
No wonder Naru was trying to stay away. "Why? I mean, sure it was a big accident, but why are they doing interviews?"
"The driver of the car that crashed into you claimed that the accident had been caused by some sort of psychic intervention," Masako spoke for the first time. "I'm surprised you're not in worse condition. From the way Lin described the scene of the accident over the phone it sounded much more serious."
Ignoring her latter comment, Mai went on to ask, "Psychic intervention? What makes him think that?"
"He claims that he was possessed by something," Ayako rolled her eyes, "Just an excuse, if you ask me. Placing the blame of the accident on something other than himself."
On the other hand, Mai had a psychic dream just after the accident. Did that mean the driver had been right about psychic intervention? If that was so, then it had to have been either the woman in the red sports car or Gene who had possessed the man, and considering that the woman who killed Gene was (supposedly) alive and well, it only led her to one conclusion.
But Gene had moved on, hadn't he?
"You'll probably see him again," she remembered Naru saying to her. But it had been in reference to after they were all dead. It had been meant as a joke.
Right?
"…ai? Mai!" The brunette was finally broken from her trance by a certain priestess waving a manicured hand in front of her face. "Geez, do you ever listen?"
Mai glared at the woman before crossing her arms. Maybe she should've told the doctor 'no' when he asked if she wanted to see her friends.
"He's claiming his brakes weren't working. They had some mechanics check out the car, but they found them fully functional. Now he's pawning it off on the fact that he thinks its psychic," Bou-san sighed.
"You never know," Mai shrugged, "Maybe we should investigate?"
"We've already suggested that, but Naru," Ayako paused with disdain, "says it's a waste of time."
John smiled. "I thought you agreed with him?"
"I do, he just infuriates me. Anyway, that intersection has always been a popular accident site, so his story isn't really holding up."
Mai looked up from her lap. "Do you guys know anything about the taxi cab driver that I was in the car with? Is he going to be okay?"
Bou-san gave his girlfriend a weary look before smiling sadly down at the brunette. "Well, I heard he's still in the ICU. They're not sure if he can make a full recovery at his age…"
Tears welled in her eyes. For some reason it felt like this was all her fault. What if Gene was still trying to act as her spirit guide and possessed the driver, which had caused the crash, so that Mai could dream about what happened?
If she had never gotten into the cab, that old man would be perfectly healthy.
"It's all my fault!" she suddenly sobbed, resting her head on Bou-san's shoulder, since he happened to be the closest.
"What? No, Mai, of course its not your fault!" the monk consoled, rubbing soothing circles into her back. "What makes you think that?"
"The accident never would've happened if I wouldn't have gotten into that taxi!"
John smiled sadly at the girl from the end of the bed. "Nothing you did would've changed what happened."
They didn't understand. They couldn't.
This was all her fault.
Soooo, some liked the confession, others not so much. The reason I left it that way is because I don't feel like Naru would've responded with his own feeling, even though he definitely has them (in this story at least). Just like how Naru avoids telling Mai how he feels and instead suggests that she like his brother.
I wanted Naru's vision of how Gene died to coincide with this case, so that's why I had to change it in the previous chapter. Hope you guys don't mind! Anyway, now that the whole Oliver Davis thing has blown over, we can move on to better things! Also, as far as Naru's confession goes, Mai is still not sure whether Naru has feelings for her or not. That's for me to know and you guys to read on and find out.
Wow, I feel evil.