Baby is doing stretch outs now that include a head butt and tiny feet pressing into my intestines. I cleaned my living room today and fixed my own LED TV. Madly pleased with myself. Now, sleepies...

3

"Powers assigned to 'mediums' are often simply that of a person sensitive to the collective subconsciousness and are often personalities that are very attune to others feelings and emotions."

As she said this, the tiny Japanese beauty, kimono and all, gave me a look that said it all.

"What, was it my sarcasm?" I asked.

She said nothing. Just sighed.

"In a minute or so, a colleague of mine will come in and we'll see how well you do accepting spirits into your vessel or even simply spiritual awareness. Before then, I'd like to go over the principals of defending oneself from possession."

"Isn't that the real reason why I'm here? No offense, but I sort of already know the answer to the first part. It involved a lot of puke and pain. Hard to forget."

She just looked at me. It wasn't unlike when Naru was giving me the 'you're stupid' look, but somehow it was more insulting coming from a rich and supposedly powerful little beauty like her. I couldn't even tell if she was older or younger than me. Arrogant little—

"There are two ways of protection," she continued, as though I had said nothing. "The first is more for powerful or more sensitive mediums, who tend to draw in whatever spirit may be around. For them, daily meditation and mental training are a need. Daily meditation and mental training are essentially becoming familiar with your own mind, even your own subconscious, in such a way that you instantly know when a foreign thought invade. It requires a knowledge of oneself, so as to recognize the presence of others. Once one has verified the presence or effect of a spirit, knowing oneself and astute mental constitution are key."

"Mental…constitution…" I repeated, raising an eyebrow. "So, like, brains ability to fight of sickness?"

Another Naru-like 'you're stupid' look.

"You need to stand up for yourself and refuse to give away the stage of your mind," she said, flatly.

"What if you get just new thoughts? Like, what if—"

"That's different from knowing oneself and desires."

"Okay, but isn't part of changing oneself changing said oneself and desires?"

"Changing, or growth, is an active decision that is carried on overtime. Possessions are much more temporary, as a spirit rarely has the focus or durability as one with a body and is pushed out eventually."

Still didn't quite get it, buuut, okay. "So why bother with exorcism?"

Another stupid look. "In those cases, often times the host is in danger or will not survive the possession. Unless you like puke and blood."

I raised my hands. "I get it. You're going to help me have the ability to choose who possesses me and when and all that dazzle and glam."

Which earned me another sigh from her, which really irked me.

"Hey, you were the one that took on the pervy delight at my house to show off your power."

"That was not my intention," she said blithely. "And I didn't have much choice. There isn't much variety on a college campus." Her face wrinkled up as though the thought of a college campus was the same as a flatulence laced couch that had been puked and peed on till the original color became indecipherable.

I kept my couch pretty clean, thank you very much.

"Now, until our guest arrives, I would like you to close your eyes and meditate on the nature of your own being."

I did so, even if this is what we mainly did the last time we had gotten together, and closed my eyes. Nature of my own being…um….sarcasm, the taste of plastic-wrapped cheese squares, and the Bevis and Butthead cartoon?

"Are you honest?" she started asking in what I could only describe as a 'yoga voice.'

I wasn't supposed to answer her. Just my brain. And, well, I thought I was pretty honest. If the dress makes your butt look big, I'll tell you your butt looks big. Though I don't see what the problem is, since guys love big butts. I haven't told Takigawa about Chance or Chance about Takigawa, though, I didn't think it was their business, and Takigawa knows where I stand in our relationship…I was clear enough with that, right?

Was it dishonest if I didn't tell my professor that I thought he was the cat's meow?

"Are you friendly? Are you lonely?"

I hated this question. I had plenty of classmate funsie friends—you know, the kind you only meet in class but have the greatest time with. And there was Ayako, but I still haven't figured out if I'm social enough. How do you even know that? How do you even know if you're close enough friends or whatever? Do I need to be comfortable farting in their face or something? Because that's just rude, why would you do that to anyone let alone someone you like?

Lonely? Hard to miss something you can't quite remember, I guess.

The questions didn't go for much longer when a knock came at the door, signaling an end to our 'yogi time.'

Imagine my surprise when former Asian assistant to the professor, Lin, wheels in through the door in an electric wheelchair. Even sitting down he still seemed tall.

"Oh. Wow, hey!" I regretted that 'wow' the moment I said it.

Because you just don't say wow when you see someone for the first time after their attempt at suicide and the drastic changes it caused.

His black eyes seemed to not really care that I was in the room, as he rolled around to the side of Masako's poofy chair, narrowly avoiding the edge of some magazines on the coffee table between us.

I got no 'hey' back.

"I've been told you are already acquainted, so we'll skip niceties for time's sake," she said, leaning forward to clear off the table a bit.

"I won't be using that," he said, and his voice was as deep and dramatic as I remembered it.

She looked to him in question, which, in answer, he pulled up a little armrest table, hand jerking every few seconds into weird directions. From a pouch hanging on the side of his wheelchair, he brought up a candle in a firm candle holder and an incense stick. He almost knocked the display over with a random jerk when he reached down to get a notebook and pen.

"Lin will be summoning spirits at random, or otherwise, making this a general spiritually ready atmosphere," said Masako. "At first, we will only be establishing what it feels like to be possessed. Then, once you have recognized that feeling, we will begin with defenses."

Oh. That sounded fun.

My stomach clenched hard.

"Um, do I have to let my body be taken on a joy trip or—"

Lin started…whistling, except it wasn't the usual kind of whistling I heard every day. It was an eerie, almost singing kind of whistle, that made me wonder why mankind ever bothered making flutes.

Then I was opening my eyes without remembering closing them. Masako looked faintly amused and Lin hadn't changed.

I looked at the clock. Five minutes had just gone and vanished at me.

"Huh?!"

"I take it you don't remember," said Masako. "That too is a skill, though it is also up the compatibility of spirits."

"Why are my feet all sweaty?" I asked.

"Tell me what you can remember of your change in thinking before the possession."

I blinked at her. Hard. "Umm…last thing I remember thinking was pretty whistling."

She made something like a little snort into her sleeve.

"Simple thinking for simple minds," she said, as though simply naming off a symptom from a textbook.

"Hey, I get by pretty alright in my physics and calculus classes—"

"We'll try again. Try to clear your mind and pay attention. Lin?"

The pretty whistling began.

And I was opening my eyes again, this time kneeling on the floor with my top half thrown over the coffee table.

"What the hell—"

"Please tell me you remember something this time."

"Well excuse me, all the other times I was possessed I could remember them fairly well!"

"That was because the possession had started long before the spirit influenced your body," she said. "It influenced your mind to be aligned with it first, so your thoughts became its thoughts, your mind its mind."

"Then what the hell is this! Speed dating?"

She gave me a tight smile.

I was instructed to meditate before the next whatever this was, and I did actually get some time to think "Wait, that wasn't right," before I was waking up again, this time sweaty all over. More meditation and the next spirit must have been lackluster, for I only got sleepy and sort of jabbered stuff my mind hadn't thought of first. Even their words were kind of blegh. There was a closing sale at Joannes that I needed to remember coupons for, apparently.

From there came mind flinging variance. Plain blackouts and half dazed jabber or just staring at a wall, feeling particularly different. She did not praise me or insult me, no matter the outcome. She seemed to believe it really was a luck of the draw. Though when she started telling me to defend myself by 'standing up for myself and refusing to give up the platform of my mind,' absolutely nothing happened. If anything, I got my biggest blackout yet of 8 minutes, according to my phone.

At the end of the two hours, my head ached something nasty and I had the general feel of one who gets dragged out of the world of a book one has been reading for 24 hours. It felt awkward to move in my own limbs, and despite the cold, I was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Don't even mention my feet. Practically waded through a river.

"Practice your meditations and defense," she said, before closing the door on me, leaving her and wheelchair Lin to themselves.

I ambled down the sidewalk, half forgetting where I was headed too. It was almost night out and I wasn't too far from campus. Dirty couch. Oh yeah, home. Apartments a few blocks behind the college storage facility…where was I again?

I ended up standing at a lamppost with my forehead against its cold metal for longer than I cared to check.

I bolted straight and shook my head hard.

"Come on, fartknocker," I muttered to myself. "Can't be wandering around after dark."

I continued walking.

And ended up walking into the corner of the college library.

I rubbed my sore forehead hard.

"Storage facility, storage facility," I muttered, which should not be far from here, but still, why the hell had I come this way? Wait, was this the way I came?

And then I was walking through the newer science building hallways as though heading to class. I even reached up to my shoulder to feel for my backpack.

I stopped abruptly in front of the lecture room Professor Davis often used and swore.

"What the freak did she do to me?" I cracked my already sore head against the too bright, white walls. "Wake up!"

"Mai?"

Head still connected with the wall, I twisted my face around to see the blank face of Professor Davis himself stepping out of the door.

"Yo," I said, or more like grunted.

"Did you need me for something?" he looked up and down the halls, as though expecting someone. "I do have office hours for a reason, you know."

"It's not like I want to be here," I said irritably.

He raised an eyebrow. "Yet here you are."

"Because freaking Masako ran my brain through a strainer. I can't focus worth balls."

"Never understood that saying," he said, closing the door behind him. "Usually a man's genitals are considered quite valuable."

"Shut up, I'm busy going brain dead."

"So the practice did not go well." He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat, the handle of his brief/bookcase bag thing hanging from his wrist. "I didn't expect you to be this sensitive. Did you manage to accept a spirit?"

I grunted. "Yeah, like, all of them?"

His eyebrows shot high. "Are you being sarcastic?"

"Well, every time stupid Lin whistled, crap went down." I hit my head against the wall again. "Brain come home, brain come home, jiggedy jiggedy jog."

"I'm surprised you're not home already if it's this bad," he said, moving to walk past me.

"Not for any lack of trying. I keep getting lost."

That made him stop. "Did you move?"

"No, weren't you listening? I said I can't focus worth balls, and I mean balls in the useless sense, like the balls of a drug-addicted rapist riddled with genetic defects."

"You seemed focus enough to quip your usual jokes."

I just groaned at that and hit my head again.

"Though you should probably stop that. There's already a bruise forming on your head."

"Walked into the library…" I mumbled.

Naru heaved a sigh. "Come on. I'll drive you home. She's given you protection for tonight at least, right?"

"Huh? What for?"

His eyes narrowed and darkened.

"It's common knowledge that after such exercises, one is left extra vulnerable to unwanted spirits."

I just sort grumbled at that and pushed myself from the wall to follow him. "Guess I will be humping a chair in my sleep or something since apparently, that's the only variety of spirits we have around our place."

He did not look amused, or happy in any definition of the word. Rather, it was the same kind of cold, precise pissed off he usually radiated when a particularly stupid report or questions was brought to his attention.

"Come on. You can focus enough to follow me, right?"

I put my arms up like a zombie and cocked my head with a dry smirk.

"Brains."

A short nod. "Good. I have loads of that. You can follow the scent."

And we were off through the suddenly maze-like halls of the new science building. I kept my eyes on the black of his back, forcing myself not to look anywhere else as I walked along. Even so, it was almost like my brain fell asleep on the way from the classroom to the outside, where the cold bite of night pressed in, reminding me I might as well be soaked from all my sweating.

But the cold was useful, as it was easier to focus on my darkly dressed professor and his long strides.

He makes that coat look good, I caught myself dazedly thinking. Broad shoulders…nice…man shoulders.

"Mai, you can stop now. This is my car."

I looked up from the sidewalk I'd been wandering on, shook my head again, and turned around to see Naru standing beside a…rather ordinary little gray car though could have been any other college student's car, minus the usual dents and scratches. The paint was pristine and cared for, even if the car did look to be a good twenty years old.

"Huh," I said, pawing at the passenger window, because hell, I was so brain dead.

"Am I going to have to buckle you in?"

I opened the door and slid in. It was cold inside too. But it smelled of him, of leather and musk and coffee. While dusty, and cupholders full of empty coffee cups, his car was about as clean on the inside as it was on the outside. No clutters of trash or books like I often found in other student's cars.

I buckled up and then stared at his dangling parking pass on the rearview mirror.

Naru made a disgruntled noise. "You really are out of it."

"Guess I am honest," I said…against a plane of glass I didn't remember sticking my face to.

Man, was I tired…so tired…

Naru had somehow gotten behind me and was rubbing my shoulders in warm, calming circles. His hands trailed down my arms, chasing away cold and ache.

But…no, not Naru. This wasn't his car.

"I had it rough too," said the twin, and he leaned over so I could see the wide smile Naru could never duplicate.

"Hello, Gene."

"You're already talking to him?"

I woke up with a start and a rush of cold air. My professor held open the passenger side door, side lit by the plain yellow of a porch light. He once more had his bag/case thingy dangling about his wrist.

I rubbed my eyes hard, shivering like mad. My teeth chattered, loudly.

"It's warm inside. Can you spare a moment from my brother to make it to the front door at least?"

I didn't understand why he sounded so irritated with me, even if in my half-asleep state I felt like I deserved it. Yawning, or trying to yawn without biting off my tongue, I unfolded from his little gray car and started putting one foot in front of the other.

Three steps up the driveway and I realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore. That there in front of me was a house, not an apartment complex. A small house, one of the many adorable old fashioned houses that lined the streets around the college with styles as far back as the twenties, but a house nonetheless. And a big dark tree that made an entire lumpy terrain out of the front lawn.

"That yours?" I asked drowsily.

"Yes."

"You finally wanting to be ninja raped?"

He shut the car door none too kindly. "Just get in. I have protections you can use. You can sleep on my couch."

"Why does that still sound so wrong?"

"Because you're a teenage girl in college, where I'm sure 'protection' is one of your favorite topics," he said, blithely.

"Hey! Stop lumping me into your…college prejudice."

"We're not going in through the garage."

It was only then I realized I had been standing practically nose to nose with the garage door, waiting.

I dropped my forehead to the door. It resounded with a hollow, tin thrum.

Naru tugged at my sleeve. "This way, Mai."

He didn't let go of said sleeve until we had gone up the steps to the porch and reached the front door, painted a slate gray. I took in the spiderwebs on the porchlight as he got his keys out and found the keyhole.

"Got a nice green looking spider there," I said.

"You like spiders?"

"No. Don't really care."

"Then go inside already."

I walked into yet more smell of leather and coffee, though this dulled with the volume of air and framed with the scent of Pinesol cleaner and overcooked dinners of the past.

He flicked on a light, revealing a neat, comely home, furnished in darker colors that didn't quite mesh and random bursts of colors from the oddest decorations, such as an African ceremonial mask and what looked like to be Peter Pans pipes.

I just stood there in the walkway as he went about turning on the lights, revealing a small living room to the left, an even tinier dining room to the right (if a table in front of a window seat could even be called such), which what looked like a kitchen through the opposing doorway. Just like his car, I could see dust, but otherwise, his house was trash and clutter free.

"Bathrooms through the kitchen to the right. Door straight in front of you. Door to the left beside it is my bedroom, though I doubt you're grand schemes of rape will get you that far. Door across from that is my study, which I'd appreciate if you'd avoid. You have no business there anyway."

"Your warm welcomes are inspiring," I said through still clattering teeth.

He walked into the kitchen, and I heard a scrape of a pan across a stove. "Have you eaten yet?"

"No. Just leftover weenies and mac for lunch."

He didn't comment on that, but I heard a fridge opening.

"Sit down on the couch before you break something."

Wrinkling my nose at his comment, I did manage to stumble down into the little living room, which just had enough room for a small, black leather couch, a fireplace, a narrow coffee table, and an entertainment center with a modestly sized TV and sound system. I got to stare at his rather platonic DVD collection as the leather couch slowly sucked me in.

I thought I could feel Gene's hands on my shoulders again, kneading, laughter on the edge of his silence.

"Please say you won't possess me too," I muttered to the air and darkness.

I heard nothing, but I got the impression of him shaking his head, and a promise like a whisper.

Next thing I knew, Naru, definitely Naru, was standing in front of me next to his mismatching cherry wood coffee table, a bowl in his hand.

"Food," he said, clacking it down on a little square oven pad, complete with spoon. I smelled chicken and spotted rice and what could have been little squares of carrots and who knew what else.

"Thank you," I said, for once utterly sincere. I hadn't realized how hungry I had become until I smelled the soup, and my freezing hands wrapped gratefully around the near burning heat of its bowl.

Naru placed another oven pad and bowl next to me, but didn't sit down. Rather, he went to the fireplace, where he took up a cast iron shovel and started generally messing around in there. I don't know, I was too brain dead to get the details.

Just as I braved my first sip of hot soup, the crackling pop of flame tinted the living room with warm, orange light. He threw a few more logs on the newborn fire before brushing his hands on his black pants, leaving smears of gray, and finally coming to claim his own bowl of soup.

His weight flopping onto the couch next to me made me bounce a bit. A bit of my soup trickled over the brim. I licked it off.

For a time, we ate in companionable silence filled with the comforting crackling of the fire. Soon I could feel my arms and legs melting from the cold as its heat filled the living room.

"Thanks," I muttered sometime in there.

He just shrugged and sipped on.

I finished faster than I expected, full and sleepier than ever. As I leaned forward to put my empty bowl back on the oven pad, a thick, fuzzy blanket was pulled down over my shoulders.

"Naturally, being who I am, my house already has the protections necessary for you to get rest tonight," he said lightly. "Is there anything else you need?"

I think I mumbled something about jeans and sleeping in my underwear, to which I got a displeased noise.

"I'll lend you some sweatpants. Honestly, your sense of propriety…"

I flicked my pinky in the air. "Tut tut, there might be rain!" My sleepy British accent was actually pretty good.

He sighed again, though it was soft and unlike the ones he gave in exasperation or the demeaning huffs of Masako.

Warmth had begun to reach me inside. I was in Naru's house, and yet, I couldn't for the world feel nervous. It felt so peaceful and safe here as my apartment didn't quite do as well. Everything from the smell, to the fire, to the slightly dusty but comfy furniture, made me inwardly purr and curl deeper into the squishy couch, cocooned in fuzzy blanket.

Said sweats were thrown on my face in my bliss. "What's the little smile for?" he asked.

I pulled down the sweats, not particularly wanting to sit up to change, but I'd be so much more comfortable. "I like your house. It's so comfy and warm and smells nice. I'd totally be on the list if you need a roommate."

"I'd rather not stretch propriety by having a female student being my roommate. That's all levels of trouble."

"Yeah yeah yeah," I started slipping off my jeans beneath the blanket. By the time Naru realized what I was doing, I had already tossed them onto his coffee table and sucked his sweats beneath the fuzz.

He leaned against the wall and waited for me to settle down as I slipped on the oversized sweats and found an equally fuzzy, although rather flat, pillow to settle my face on. Feeling it would be awkward if I didn't say something, I said through closed eyes. "I don't like Masako. She's mean."

"Mean like me, I expect."

"I like your mean," I mumbled. "It's funny and witty. Hers is just…mean."

I heard something that could have been a breathy chuckle.

"Go to sleep. If you need anything, I'm just on the other side of the wall. But…I suspect Gene will be floating around for anything like that."

I'm pretty sure I imagined a tinge of bitterness in his tone as he turned off the light and left me to my crackling, glowing fireplace and squishy fuzz.

Within minutes I was out so deep, even Gene couldn't reach me.