38. After she turns off the water, she gently wrings her brown hair out and towels herself dry. She breathes in the hazy vapor hovering by the ceiling, and lets it out in a huge, blissful sigh. A hot shower is just what she needed after a long day of sorting through an entire month's worth of case files. Wrapping the towel around herself, she leaves the bathroom and crosses the hall into her room, shutting the door before Izaya can see her. Locking it with an air of satisfaction, Mai turns to find her nightdress but catches sight of herself in the mirror. Without meaning to, she pauses in her movements and, swallowing, she lets the towel drop around her feet, exposing herself completely. It's been almost seven years now since she met Naru and became a paranormal researcher and ghost hunter. And they've been awesome, exciting years that have ensured her to never have a dull moment in her life. She's seen uncanny things and beautiful places and has met the most amazing people. Every case she's solved, whether the work of a typical poltergeist or the tragic story of a lost soul, has left her with a sense of accomplishment and peace.
But these years come at a cost and left countless scars across her body. Some are hard to see, like the slashes on her arms from the whirlwind scythes of the Yoshimi House, which have faded with age. Others are blatantly obvious: the stab wounds to her stomach she received from an enraged possessed man, a nasty burn scar that runs across her left hip, the fresh and puckered mark left by Izaya's knife earlier that year, and others that are spread out across her small frame. And has she always been this thin? An odd greyness has discolored the skin around her eyes, hollows have begun to form under her cheeks, and she can see the faint shadows of her ribs. Granted, her diet of fast food and hastily cooked meals isn't really well-balanced, but she still has plenty to eat, doesn't she? Is it stress? She thinks about her last case and shudders.
What would Shizuo think he saw the remnants of those injuries or how unhealthy she looks, she wonders, then flushes at the thought of him seeing her like this and resumes the search for her nightdress.
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Author's Notes: I always wondered if that 'drowned corpse zombie attack' in the last case scarred her physically. I think Monk needed stitches, but Mai and the others took on some damage, too.
Going back to regular updates now, though they probably won't be as quick as they were before, but I am officially back in time for Valentine's Day! Have a good one!
Ghost Hunt is owned by Fuyumi Ono and Shiho Inada.
Durarara! is owned by Ryohgo Narita, Suzuhito Yasuda, and Akiyo Satorigi.