Prejudice, Part 5
Swimming
The boys were put to bed and they informed the police of the finding. SPR sat in base, twiddling their thumbs.
"Mai, tea." Naru automatically said. He wasn't in a great mood- he had had to bat off Mami while she tried to hug him and call him brave. Unfortunately Mami didn't know when a guy wasn't interested. Fortunately, her sister did, and he'd managed to escape early enough.
"And an ice coffee for me."
"I'll have a tea too."
"Just orange juice please."
"Do you have any herbal teas?"
"..." Mai froze under the barrage of orders.
"Mai is not a waiter." Naru said calmly.
"WHAT? You treat her like a waiter!" Ayako pointed out.
"I also pay her."
"It's alright, I'll help." John offered, standing up. Inside Mai smiled in relief.
"It's okay John, big brother Bou-san will help!" The smile vanished faster than the speed of light.
"No, I wouldn't-"
"I'll come too." Mai cringed. Ayako and Bou-san? She wondered how much help she was actually going to get.
They were on the third floor, but the kitchen was on the ground floor. She sighed, resigned to her fate. On the bright side most of the trip was spent with Monk and Ayako bickering in the background, which wasn't too bad. Comparatively.
"So Mai, when are you going to tell him?" Mai blushed and cringed inwardly.
"Tell who what?" She said, completely innocently.
"Even your ears are red Mai. You know what she means." Mai quickly covered the offending ears.
"He's never going to ask you out..." Ayako sighed and fell to studying her nails.
"Because he doesn't like me!"
"How are they so blind?"
"Beats me." They fell to whispering with each other, which just made Mai even more nervous. They do this to me every case! She thought angrily. Well, maybe it's payback time.
She paused in her train of thoughts and shivered. Suddenly the air seemed slightly colder, and she could feel eyes on the back of her head. She spun around, but couldn't see anyone.
"Mai? Are you okay?"
"Did you feel it?"
"Feel what?"
"That..."
"Nope."
"You didn't? Oh..." Said Mai, confused. Ayako and Monk watched her curiously.
"Why? What was it?"
"Like eyes... watching me... but there's no-one there..."
"That's weird. Do you think it's a spirit?" Monk asked.
"Of course it's a spirit you idiot!" Insert various noises of pain, punches and slaps. "Maybe next time Masako could come with you?"
"Oh yeah, that's really going to work, seeing as they're both in love with the same guy."
"Shut up! There's a camera just around that corner!" Mai complained.
"But we weren't talking about you, so what's the problem?"
"Ayako, make him shut up, please..."
"Gladly."
Monk, however, ran away from Ayako and started using Mai as a human shield.
"Mai don't let her get to me!"
"Both of you shut up! I didn't mean it like that! Now, am I going to get any help with this or not?"
They had reached the kitchen, which was suspiciously empty.
"3 teas... check... ice coffee... check... orange juice... not check." Mai started looking for the fridge. She opened a tall metal cupboard next to the freezer. If it was a fridge, there was no orange juice. Or any juice, for that matter.
"Gah! Why aren't there any staff here when you need them! Ayako, Bou-san, help me!" The said Ayako and Monk were currently bickering again. After a few more minutes of searching the sought after orange juice carton was found, and Mai started pouring some into a glass, when, somehow, something (or more likely someone) jolted Mai, and then jolted her hand...
The result: Some orange juice in the glass, some on the table, and some on Mai's top.
To say that she was peeved would be an understatement.
"You two! Now look what you made me do!" She scowled at the orange stain on her green shirt. Orange and green. Not a great colour combination. Ayako and Monk had enough sense to realise that their safest option was to flee. Quickly.
"You're meant to be helping me, and all you can do is bicker bicker bicker! You're like schoolchildren-" She hadn't got to the end of her sentence by the time Ayako and Monk had gone. They had also poured the orange juice, and taken all the drinks with them, in a bid to cool her temper. It wasn't really working, but it was nice that she didn't have to do it herself. And the orange juice had soaked through her top and a few cold droplets ran down her skin. It was a similar feeling to when someone drops an ice cube down your back.
Her anger was melting away, being replaced by a light nervousness. She was all alone, and no one seemed to be anywhere near. She put the orange juice away,
BANG.
She jumped and shrieked. However it was only a waiter, returning to the kitchen.
"Ah, thank god. You gave me a heart attack!"
He looked faintly confused. She smiled sheepishly.
"I was just getting some drinks, but I er... spilt some juice on myself. Bye!" And she quickly ran out, in case he thought her too weird. Although he probably did already.
Ayako and Monk entered base, having run there as fast as they could without major spillage.
"Where's Mai?"
The duo looked sheepish.
"She spilt some orange juice on herself and got mad, so we, er, legged it." Monk explained.
"Don't worry Naru-chan, Mai made your tea. And we haven't done anything with it either."
"But you left her alone?"
"Well... yes, but-"
"Again. Do I work with idiots?" There was a sheepish silence. Naru sighed, and surreptitiously glanced at the screens. Satisfied, he continued reading his file.
Mai came in some minutes later, albeit angry. And in a different top. Ayako and Monk made a point of not making eye contact with her.
"My favourite top!" She whined.
"It'll wash out..." Ayako said hopefully.
"Yes, but I can't wear it now!" She sent imitation-Naru-glares in her direction.
"Naru?" John asked from the window. Naru looked up. "Are we needed right now?"
Naru thought for a second. Mai's whinging was annoying him, and the noise was a distraction from his ideal of peaceful reading, and they weren't currently doing anything...
"No."
"Mai? Do you want to go swimming?" Naru almost smiled in satisfaction. Surely she wouldn't say no...
"But we don't have any swimming costumes."
"I think I have a solution."
"What's taking them so long?" Monk asked an equally confused John. His foot started to tap. They had been waiting for about twenty minutes, and after a while imagining what could have happened to make them late had gotten boring.
"Well, I'm not waiting..." Monk unfolded his arms.
"But they did ask-"
"John, I'm not wasting time doing nothing." He grabbed his towel and strode towards the door. John followed him. They walked around the corner. Monk dropped his towel on a chair and took a run up.
"Bou-san!"
His head emerged. He grinned.
"You. Got. Me. WET!" Ayako screamed from a sun lounger. Monk grinned wider. For once he was safe from her violent reactions.
"But seeing as you're already wet, you won't mind getting more wet!"
"Bou-san, I think-" John started, only to be interrupted by Ayako screaming with rage when Monk started splashing her.
Mai tugged at Masako's hand. "Come on, let's jump in!" Masako hesitated, but then nodded. "Watch out Bou-san! Make way for us!"
Ayako grimaced. "Not you two as well!"
"One... two... three!"
Quite a bit of water splashed onto Ayako, the only one not in the pool (John had decided to calmly climb in).
"Urgh! You lot are horrible!" Ayako stood up and moved to a sun lounger that was further away from the pool. However, this only made Monk more determined, and he still managed to splash her.
"Come on Ayako! You're in a swimming suit, for heaven's sake!"
"That's because I'm sunbathing! That doesn't mean you have to get me all wet!"
"Yeah, it does..."
Mai scrambled out of the pool and tugged on Ayako's arm. Monk jumped out of the swimming pool, a determined glint in his eye. Ayako gulped and started to run away. Alas, Monk was definitely faster than she was, and soon he caught her, picked her up and walked calmly to the edge, as Ayako was struggling desperately.
"1...2...3!"
Splash!
"What did you do that for? Now my hair is all wet!"
Monk climbed in and swam to her. "Come on, it's not that bad..."
She pouted. "Yes it is!"
Masako giggled from the shallow end. Although she knew how to work her arms and legs, she felt somewhat safer if she could feel the tiled ground beneath her toes.
"I thought you didn't like water..." Mai asked her.
"I'm having swimming lessons, but I'm not very good." She said.
"Can you sit underwater?" Masako shook her head. "Like this!" She held her nose and sank to the bottom, pushing her arms upwards and breathing out. She looked up at Masako's somewhat distorted face and waved. Masako tried, but kept floating up to the surface. Mai laughed, sucking in some water. She jumped up, coughing.
She looked at the others. Ayako had climbed out of the water and returned to sunbathing. John was floating on his back and Monk... Monk was stealthily swimming underwater towards John. Which couldn't bode well. Only three people from her family were missing.
Her tender thoughts were interrupted by John's yelp and Masako's giggle as Monk dragged him under the water.
Naru watched from the window, finding it hard to believe that his colleagues still acted like children all the time. Of course he should have been used to it by now, but...
He sat down and continued reading. Silence reigned for once in the base. He flicked through the files Yasuhara had emailed, and he had printed off, skim reading to try and see if there was a connection.
The first person who went missing: a teenage girl. The second was an elderly man. Complete opposites. In fact, there seemed to be little pattern. All the people were either very young or very old with little in between. The only adult was a woman in her thirties, but they weren't sure whether or not that was the ghost as she had a record of getting lost everywhere she went. And John, though why he was taken he wasn't sure. Naru rubbed his forehead in frustration.
Strangely enough though, the ghost hadn't picked on Mai yet. She hadn't had any dreams either, or at least she hadn't told him if she had. He sighed. This case was going nowhere and three people had been moved while he was there. And the rest of SPR had known this and used it as an excuse to slack off. Why would they want to go swimming anyway? There's nothing that exciting about front/back crawl.
He stood up and went to the window. Sure enough, they were not swimming. As far as he could tell Monk was murdering John while Mai and Hara-san laughed. And Ayako was, as per usual, doing nothing.
"You can always go swimming too, Noll."
Naru scowled. Lin was watching him with a bemused glint in his eyes. A glint that Naru did not like one bit. Not to mention, was completely un-Lin like. Somehow, being surrounded by the others had made Lin more... what's the word?
If Naru were not Naru he would have thought of 'human', but unfortunately (or fortunately) he was, so was left struggling to find the right word. Probably for the first time in his life.
Sorry this took so long, soooo much work! not to mention Cass has exams next week. Happily, I don't :)So instead of revising i have been making silly faces on my calculator. I know, I'm that cool.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed!
