Chapter Thirty-seven
May 10 5:12am
Naru groggily opened his eyes and studied the room around him. It was warm and dark. He tried to pull himself up, but felt pain crawl over his arms and leaned back down. After taking a few more breaths he finally set up and studied his surroundings. His eyes studied every part of the room. He was in a small hospital room. Lin was sleeping in one of chairs to the far right. Naru sighed, "in the hospital story of my life."
He then looked outside of the large window on the right of the room, the scenery seemed to be on the outskirts of Tokyo. He then looked back at Lin , "it is either very late or early."
He then turned his attention to a steady beep, he looked at the monitor hooked up to his heart. "I know I am well enough alive." He pulled the chord off of him and dropped it on the floor.
As soon as the beeping stopped Lin jumped up awake, thinking that something happened to Naru.
He then settled when he saw the teen sitting up in the bed. He made his way to a seat right beside Naru , "you are probably wondering what happened."
Naru nodded to the man. Lin sighed and ran his hand through his hair, "you lost a few pints of blood, and needed four blood transfusions. The doctor said you were lucky to have survived before they could get there, but I guess you can thank Ayako and Mai for that. Your heart did stop in the ambulance and it took one minute to revive you, but they said the cuts if you give them time, they are so thin they are probably not going to scar."
Naru then felt the back of his neck, and then rubbed his arm down to the white sleeping kimono's sleeve and pulled it up, to see his forearm wrapped in white gaze with a dot of blood here and there, but nothing more. A new question came to his mind and he looked back up at Lin.
The Chinese man nodded understanding what he was about to ask , "Mai is here in a different room, while she got fewer cuts than you a long one goes down her face making it difficult for it to heal so they are monitoring it. She is in room 613, but it is very early in the morning- I doubt she is up yet."
Lin's phone then rang, he pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. Naru looked over at it and groaned.
"They have been calling about you every hour."
Naru then eyed Lin and he sighed , "alright, I will tell them you woke up, but then fell back asleep. But you are going to have to talk to them soon enough to confirm that you are alright."
He then flipped the phone open and began to talk to the man on the other line. Lin quietly slipped out to continue talking.
After a minute of debating with himself Naru finally got up. Pain first crawled his skin, but he ignored it and continued to walk to the door. He saw Lin sitting in a seat turned away from him, still talking. Naru quietly closed the door and walked down the hall. "Alright- 613, 613- he said room 613."
It took a second to find the room, but when he did he carefully opened the door and held his breath.
The lights were off in there, it took him no less that a minute for his eyes to adjust. He then finally closed the door all the way, which slammed at the last minute. He flinched slightly as he looked over at the hospital bed, where someone tossed from the sound, but soon the form settled back down. He sighed , "thank God."
He then carefully made his way to the sleeping figure. His heart began to pound when he looked down at her. She was sleeping peacefully, with her legs curled up to her abdomen. Almost in a little ball. He felt the edges of his lips twitch, but fought it back, which was not to hard for then next thing he saw.
He noticed the taped gaze on the side of her face seemed to have halfway come off while she slept. Curiosity finally got the best of him and he gently picked up the gaze and pulled it back. When he did his chest tightened.
The flesh was red and angry, going in one straight line down her face. "This was-- because --I made her go to the spirit, and when she asked for help I did not come at first." Before he realized what he was doing he was inches away from her, he could feel the heat radiate off her skin, which seemed to now radiate off his cheeks, but he merely knelt and gingerly touched the top of her cut.
Her eyes tightened for one second, but then relaxed. He felt his heart pound again as he followed the thing, straight line of the cut with the knuckle of his finger down. He stopped at the ended of the cut, where his touch lingered for another moment, before finally rising up.
"Lin is going to kill me if I am not in my room when he finishes the call."
He then began to walk out, but before he turned the brass doorknob he turned back to her and sighed. He then whispered , "I know Gene is wrong."
He then slipped out into the hall and back to his room, while Lin was answering 'yes' 'no' question from the woman on the other side of the phone.
******
Mai felt someone shoving her on the arm. At first she ignored it, but it began to get faster.
"Mai get up- he is awake," she heard a familiar voice.
"Go away," she moaned.
She squinched her eyes together and felt a bolt of pain on the side of her face. Her eyes flashed open to see Lin standing in front of her. It took a minute for everything to come back to her.
Mai's felt the side of her face where the gaze was gone, and now laid on the floor."How did it get..," she forgot completely about it when she understood what Lin was saying.
Her eyes widened even more, which confirmed to Lin that she knew now.
He then grabbed her hand and pulled her out of bed.
"Come on," he said and nothing more.
When they finally made it to his room, Lin held the door for Mai to enter. Her heart began to pound, she looked back up at Lin , "are you sure he wasn't delusional when he said he wanted to see me?! I mean I am the reason he is here."
Lin turned his head towards the room. Telling Mai to go in.
The girl sighed and nodded to the man. She then took a deep breath, wondering what to expect as she took the first step. Her heart began to pound when she thought of what happened. She could still feel his blood gushing out of one of the longer wounds on his arm, from her trying to stop the bleeding. His face was already white as a sheet, it frightened her even more as the warm slimy blood began to cool. He laid there motionless. Lin was trying to keep him from stop breathing, getting blood all over himself in the process. "The blood, I can still smell the blood. It took over his usual scent of cologne , tea and book pages and override it. It became his scent as though he had nothing else left." Cuts tattered his body left and right with his black shirt and trousers becoming an even darker shade. All that time she was pleading in her mind for him not to die, not to leave. Mai felt her eye lids become heavy, as she remembered perfectly her tears hitting the cut on his arm that was not drying out.
The image that laid before he shocked her even more. Naru was sitting up in bed, reading a thick book as though nothing had happened. "Typical." His hand then went over a page and flipped it, that was when she saw it. The raveling gaze that started at his wrist and winded down his forearm into the sleeping kimono.
Naru then looked up at her. She was wearing her pink pajamas with her hair still tangled, "I guess one of them brought those for her, here." He smirked slightly, but it went away before she could notice.
He then loudly closed the book that he was reading, which caused my to jump, and turn her attention back to him.
"Good to see you finally decided to join us back on earth," he teased.
Mai, just blankly looked at him- she did not know what she should say to him. She wasn't sure she could say anything anymore. Lin then closed the door and began to walk down the hall.
Mai's heart began to pound , "wow- thanks Lin."
She then looked back at Naru , "Ummm- err -um..,"
"I have to say something- I have to say I am sorry for everything. I have to- I don't want him to be mad at me."
Her heart began to pound faster and faster , "I have to."
She opened her mouth, but was stopped by Naru.
"Mai."
Mai nodded, his face it looked like he really has something to say. His cold blue eyes pierced into hers, as though he was looking at her, but much more. She gulped as her body tensed.
He sighed , "I should just get this over with."
"I am- sorry for what had happened. I am sorry that my emotions, got the best of me when you were upset and removed you from the case, and for– making you face it when you weren't ready. And I didn't stop him from cutting your face. F-forgive me."
He then looked down from being uncomfortable with what he just did.. Naru expected this to calm her down, but when he looked up he saw that it didn't.
She looked extraordinarily angered. "What did I say."
"What is your problem! You do always take the glory for the moment! Ever though that I spent two days thinking of a way to apologize to you! Ever though I was about to do it!, but NO you had to do it before anyone could do it. Can you just let me get the last word in for once, instead of doing what you did last time! What a self centered jerk! You get on my nerves!"
She then huffed and crossed her arms, waiting for a response.
"That was– swe..."
Mai was waiting for everything, anything he could say to that, but what he did next shocked her.
Naru's lips pulled apart, revealing pure white teeth as a genuine smile crept across his face, and he did nothing to stop for a few seconds.
Mai felt herself turn seven shades of red, as he eyes widened while looking at him , "crap! Why is it that he has to look even more handsome when he smiles. And he never has even smiled like this in my dreams." Her heart began to pound harder and harder.
Suddenly the smile dropped into his usual facade when the door shook. Lin walked in first, but the Takigawa and so on.
They all came crowding into the room one after another. Mai still stood as she was in shock.
Naru looked back at her , "stop staring at me like an idiot- grow a brain Mai."
She finally snapped back into it.
She felt even more embarrassedand mumbled , "yeah yeah yeah, look at him. He finally woke up and grew a sense of humor. Who is the one who looks at themselves in the mirror for half the day-jerk."
"I have no reason not to," he said aging it on even more.
Finally she just groaned and sat down in a seat right next to Bou-san.
Naru's eyes then circled the room as all of them began to talk and said , "as I have told you time and time again this is very disrupted and is hard to concentrate."
Monk gave a playful smiled , "come on Naru- you have been in a rough condition for a few days, and you say we can not visit."
"This is not a visit, it is a disruption."
Mai sighed , "he sounds like an old man."
After a few minutes of all of them playfully aging Naru, and him trying to get them out Monk finally looked back over at Mai who was still in shock.
"Er Mai?"
"Hn?" she said not entirely getting back into her normal state of mind.
"Didn't you have a bandage on your face last night."
She then felt the cut, and Naru held his breath, remembering what he did.
She then smirked , "oh yeah it was on the floor this morning, I guess I might have tugged it off in my sleep. It is very itchy, but the doctor said I could go home today, and just call if I have any problems."
Naru then carefully began to breath again, but not without getting a strange look from Lin, who quickly turned his attention back to the group.
Read next chapter, or the cookies will eat you!!!