Disclaimer: I do not own Witch Hunter Robin characters or plot.
CHAPTER THREE: WAKING UP
It itched. Her chest just by her shoulder itched. Mai's eyelids quivered and her hand moved restlessly toward the source of the itch, a painful spot covered by a bandage.
Someone's hand captured hers and moved it back to her side. Startled, Mai opened her eyes and saw a short, middle aged man with a receding hairline and a funny little moustache fussing with the tube leading from the back of her hand to a fluid filled sack hanging beside her on a metal stand.
"You mustn't touch it." He said, looking at the fluid level in the clear sack.
"What?" Mai's voice was faint, shaky.
"If you keep poking at it, it won't heal properly and then I won't get paid." The little man tapped the sack reflectively then stepped away from Mai who was, she realized, lying on a hospital gurney.
She wasn't, however, in a hospital. The room was dark, lit by a low watt bulb hanging starkly from an electric cord mid-ceiling. Hazy afternoon sunshine tried feebly to make it through the once-white, dingy sheet hanging over the one small window. A rather tattered looking mattress topped by a sleeping bag lay on the floor along with a duffel bag she assumed belonged to the man. A tatty bureau, missing a drawer, and a badly mended table with two flat mismatched pillows lying under it completed the décor.
The man moved over to the bureau, opened a drawer and meticulously began setting out a steel tray, medicine bottles, and other medical paraphernalia.
"Where am I?" asked Mai suspiciously. This wasn't a hospital; it looked like a flophouse.
The man turned, holding a syringe, and looked her in the eyes for the first time. "You're safe. I'm taking care of you like I took care of my mother, when she was sick. I do know what I'm doing." His brown eyes turned reproachful. He acted as if he were insulted she'd dared to question him. After a moment, he went back to fussing with his medical supplies.
Mai tried to sit up, winced, thought better of it, and lay back down. If he were planning to inject her with a deadly poison, there wasn't much she could do about it. Idly, she watched the little man carefully lining up the bottles on his tray.
"What happened to her?"
"Who?" The man didn't bother to turn around.
"Your mother, the one who was sick."
"She died. Cancer." He said, his hands still for a moment, and then he shrugged and went back to arranging his medical supplies.
"Oh. I'm sorry." And surprisingly, Mai found that she was. This bothered her. For all she knew the little man had kidnapped her, and here she was feeling sorry for him because his mother had died. But the stark sadness in his voice when he'd said the word 'Cancer' had touched her. "What was her name?"
The man turned and came toward her carrying the immaculately organized tray. The faint light from the bulb above shined on his balding pate, and she saw that his shirt collar was threadbare and his khaki trouser cuffs frayed.
"If you want to know my name, you could just ask." The man's black eyes snapped with mirth. He was the type who went through life laughing at the world's foibles, but never uproariously.
For a minute Mai didn't understand what he meant and then when it sank in she broke out, "Oh, I didn't mean to pry or try to find out your last name by asking your mother's name. I just..." She trailed off, then continued softly. "I just don't understand why I'm here. I don't know what's going on." To her horror, she heard tears in her voice, and had to blink, hard.
The little man looked at her speculatively, then set his tray down on the edge of the gurney. "My name is Hirata. I was hired by my lawyer to take care of you, because he knew I nursed my mother during her last illness."
"Your...lawyer?"
"Yes."
"Who is...?"
"Nagira"
Mai looked quickly in the direction the new voice came from. It was the voice from her dream, the unfamiliar one who had made a joke about being a lawyer. In the doorway stood the voice's owner, a big man in a brown jacket with a fur collar in a fashion from the 1960s. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, and even though he hadn't entered, he seemed to fill the room. Mai shrank back a little. The man seemed to notice, but kept talking. "I'm Shunji Nagira."
"Come in, come in." the fussy little man beckoned him.
Nagira entered, closing the door firmly behind him, and walked slowly over to the bed. "And how is our little patient today?" He asked, his eyes on her.
"Fine." Answered Mai automatically, and swallowed dryly.
"Do you need anything?"
"I...water. I'm thirsty." Having made her request, Mai watched to see what would happen next.
Nagira turned to the little man. "Didn't you give her anything to drink?"
"She did just wake up." He answered reproachfully. "I didn't want to leave her to go shopping when she was still asleep, and you only left medical supplies here."
Nagira dug into his pocket and pulled out some bills, shoving them at the other man. "Here's some yen, go buy water and food enough for a few days. And Hirata,"
The middle aged man looked up from where he was carefully straightening out and counting the crumpled money.
"Bring back the change."
"Of course." Hirata's eyes twinkled as he gave a sardonic little bow and left.
"Hirata?" Mai repeated, gazing at the door through which the little man had exited.
"Yep. That's Hirata. He was one of my clients."
"Clients." Mai repeated dully. Perhaps it was the drugs in her system but her brain seemed to be working much slower than usual. "You're a lawyer. That means he's a..."
"Criminal?" Nagira threw back his head and laughed. "You got it on the nose. I'm a criminal attorney."
"What did he do?" Mai squeaked in alarm. Had she been alone with a murderer, or a...?
"Nothing dramatic." Nagira stopped laughing. "Hirata was accused of embezzling. I got him off." He said proudly. "It was my first big case. Hirata was an accountant. They accused him of stealing from the company slush fund, I found out that the corporate bigwigs were using that money to buy hookers and pay bribes to city officials. Once I made it clear to them that all that would come out in court, they dropped the charges."
"Did he find out they were using the money for bad things?"
"Oh everyone in the company knew." Nagira said carelessly. "It's how those big corporations work. But I think he wanted the money for his mother. He once told me her company fired her when they found out she had cancer so they could get her off their insurance rolls so their premiums wouldn't go up. She couldn't afford to pay the insurance on her own, and when the bills started mounting up, well, you can't really blame the guy."
Mai was shocked. "But it's stealing. And if he stole all that money, why doesn't he dress nicer? Why is he" she gestured around the room, "here?"
Nagira leaned in a little, eyes serious. "He's here for you. He's got a little apartment somewhere and he works a minimum wage job now because his corporation blacklisted him so he'll never work as an accountant for a decent company ever again. I needed someone who could look after you, and I pay slightly better than his minimum wage job." Nagira pulled back as Mai blinked. She'd been rebuked. He went on. "Now that you know who Hirata is, and who I am, let's talk about you."
"Me? I...what do you mean?" Mai was confused.
"Who are you, and why is my half-brother so anxious to protect you?"
"I'm a witch." Mai couldn't meet his eyes as she said it, so she stared down at the bed sheets, waiting for the horror and repulsion she knew had to follow as he found out what she was.
"I got that already," laughed Nagira. "I meant, what's your name and why is Amon taking such an interest in you?"
"You don't hate me?" asked Mai wonderingly, startled enough to look Nagira in the face again.
"Naw. My father was a witch. I didn't get the gene, but Amon seems to have. He doesn't talk much, which is why I have to get my information from you." He crossed his arms and looked at her mock-threateningly. "So spill it. If I'm going to risk my neck and fledgling law career, I want to know why. Amon's been part of the STNJ for over a year now. He's never asked my help in hiding a witch before, so what gives?"
"Oh." Mai collected herself. Suddenly, she wasn't afraid of Nagira anymore. "My name is Mai Shiohama. I think I may have saved your brother's life." She winced at the melodramatic way it sounded.
Nagira stared then burst out laughing. "That must have ticked him off. Ho Ho, poor Amon. Saved by a girl, and a witch too." Nagira slapped his leg and bent double in mirth. It was contagious. Mai started giggling too, then yelped an "Ow" as her movements upset her bullet wound.
Nagira gradually stopped laughing, and grasped the metal bars on the side of Mai's gurney, looking at her approvingly. "You'll do, Mai Izuki. I think you'll do just fine."
In the days that followed, Nagira came by the flophouse often to check on her. Hirata brought her tattered paperback novels and old manga that he got cheap at a used bookstore, and taught her to play chess. Mai found that Hirata had an incredibly organized mind, a trait he told her was necessary in accounting. They shared stories about bosses and co-workers. Hirata had a sharp, cynical streak, and the ability to sniff out hidden, ulterior motives to snicker at that could not have made him very popular at his old job, yet he never turned that cynicism on her. In fact, he never asked how she'd been shot or why Nagira was protecting her, so she in turn never asked him about the embezzling charges.
It was like having an elephant in the middle of the room and pretending not to notice it. They spoke of other things, and gradually she grew comfortable in his care.
Nagira's visits became the high points of her days. He was so different from anyone she'd ever known. The banking world tended to be very serious and conservative, yet Nagira seemed to take nothing seriously. He was self assured to the point of being overwhelming, and in his presence her fears about the future disappeared. One day he showed up with a pair of scissors, handed them to Hirata, and commanded him to cut her hair.
Mai yelped, and grabbed her locks protectively with one hand. Her other hand and arm were in a sling, to keep her from moving her wounded shoulder, though truthfully Mai didn't think she needed the sling anymore.
"Why must my hair be cut?" Mai prided herself on her hair. She kept it longer than most career girls, below her shoulders in fact, and at the bank she'd worn in drawn straight back from her forehead in a headband, and brushed the sides forward over her shoulders to show it off.
"Because the security tape at the bank shows you with long hair, so if you ever want to get out of this room, you need to change your look." Nagira tossed a magazine on the table. "I thought you might look good like this."
Mai picked up the magazine. The woman pictured on the front, a popular rock star, had hair that had been professionally layered so that the ends curled up just below her chin. The overly long bangs fell from a side part, partially obscuring her face, which Mai supposed was the reason why Nagira favored it. She thought of an objection. "But I don't look anything like her. She's so thin! I don't know if this style will suit me."
"Look in a mirror!" Nagira laughed. "You've lost weight since you got shot. It'll be fine." And brushing her objections aside, he convinced Hirata, who was pouring over the magazine, eyes squinted in concentration, to start.
Fifteen minutes later, Mai looked into the hand mirror Nagira had brought, and saw someone she didn't recognize. The ends of her now shortened hair curled up, framing her face, which seemed longer and thinner somehow. Hirata had left some of the bangs long enough to tuck behind her ear on one side, which she did.
"Do you like it?" Hirata's voice was offhand, but Mai could tell it mattered to him.
"Yes." She said, staring in wonder at her image in the mirror. "I like it very much. I look so fashionable."
"Good," Nagira plucked the mirror away, "I can't have a dowdy looking secretary, now can I? My old one fell in love and left to get married. So you start next week, Mariko."
"Mariko?" echoed Mai, puzzled.
Nagira was already headed out the door, "Mariko Kanazawa." He threw over his shoulder, as he made it to the doorway. Turning to close the door behind him, he said, "It's your new name." And left.
TO BE CONTINUED
Please read and review. I'd like to know if anyone is reading this! All opinions, both favorable and unfavorable, are welcome! Thanks to SakuraAngel04 for her encouragement.