A/C - As always thanks for the great reviews! I love reading your thoughts and (dang) most of you are SPOT ON your assumptions...I wonder if that makes me a bad author or if that makes you an amazing audience? ~\^.^/~

Chapter 25 - I Hate This Part Right Here

^.^

Naru did not join me for breakfast the next morning, or dinner that evening. He was gone before I even woke up the next day too. He hadn't come home at all.

So, I had written him a note on a piece of paper before I left for work.

I want to talk to you.

It was still sitting on the table next day - until I threw it in the garbage.

I was pissed enough that I stalked into the streets, barely remarking on how sunny the day was since it had been raining for two days straight.

I was starting to enjoy our closeness and he was letting me see that side of him I knew Naru kept hidden from others. I was starting to feel happy again, something that I hadn't felt for a very long time.

When Naru left, I had been so profoundly unhappy because I'd wanted things to stay the same. Maybe some part of me had hoped if we stayed together long enough things would naturally happen between us. I had held onto that hope so much that I was devastated when he actually left and did not come back.

I knew it was wrong but... I wanted us to try to be something together - even if it were just friends.

I was healed - or healing - enough to want to that.

I wanted to try.

So I waited for him in moonlit living room hoping that he would come home soon.

He never did.

^.^

"Ah, the reason we've had our heads bitten off the past couple of days," Bou-san said by way of greeting.

Bou-san's arm was draped lazily over the back of Yasu's section of the booth. He and Yasu were the first to show for our planned lunch with Masako, they were at one of our favorite cafe's we all used to visit when SPR was still running.

I frowned and Yasu explained, "Naru has been staying at Bou-san's. He and Lin have been wrapped up in some kind of project. Probably involving you, and he certainly hasn't been very happy."

Bou-san interjected, "Is he ever in a good mood though? He's been hunting for answers on that damned mark. I bet he's been hitting dead end after dead end."

I tried for a casual tone as I took off my jacket and slid into the booth across from them. "Did he say anything about it?"

"Not really," Yasu said. "You know the big boss, he's relatively quiet about these matters."

I didn't want to talk about Naru. So, instead I asked, "What's been up with you guys?"

There was a long, stretched out silence as the two guys gazed at one another. It was Bou-san who broke away first and Yasu's smile grew broad, without restraint. He remained, uncharacteristically, quiet.

It was Bou-san who excused himself, "I'm going to see how our drinks are coming along."

I raised an eyebrow at Yasu when Bou-san scooted out of the booth.

Yasu leaned back in his chair, his face turning bright red. "We might be some-what seeing each other."

"What?" This was big news. Probably bigger than anything between Naru and I. "You and Bou-san? I would have never guessed."

"Me either," Yasu said. "Until I went to one of his band practices and his mates may have slipped the secret of our monk friend. I suppose the signs were there but I couldn't figure out if he wanted to just toy with me or if he wanted me."

"Couldn't it be both?"

Yasu's eyes sparkled. "Yes, indeed. Well, now the secret's out he wants to keep it on the down low. So, please don't tell Masako yet. I want to tell her."

"I can't believe this!" I tried to think back to any signs that it could be true: some of them in our early times were there. "I'm really happy for you Yasu. I won't tell anyone until you two are ready."

He gave me a smile. "You're amazing! And don't worry, your dark handsome knight will come back, Mai."

^.^

I waited for him to come home the next night. I had enough of him pushing me away and I needed to tell him that, even if it didn't fix anything.

I just needed to talk to him and tell him that there would be nothing between us. That I was wrong and it was a mistake for me to think we could be anything.

It made me realize that I wasn't just unhappy. I was lonely without Naru.

And I thought Naru was just as lonely as I was.

Maybe that's why I kissed him, I thought we were the same.

I had been sitting and waiting every single night now, hoping that he would come home eventually.

Tonight was finally the night.

Naru turned on the lamp near the living room entrance and I knew I had caught him by surprise when he didn't notice me after his initial glance in the room.

When his placid eyes met mine the reaction was subtle but with him most were. I could tell he was a little taken back.

"Why are you still up?" He asked, cooly. Those were the first words he had said to me in days. Naru walked to the table in the middle of the room, placing down a heavy looking computer bag.

Blandly I said, "This seems to be the only way I can get your attention now."

He didn't answer as he proceeded to take off his jacket, placing it on the back of a chair where most of his clothes were currently occupying.

"I know I overstepped my boundaries," I blurted. "I'm sorry for what happened the other night."

Slowly, I stood up and Naru noticed as I bowed deeply at the waist.

I tried to resist the burning of my cheeks that I knew would only trigger my tears and clenched my jaw tightly. The harsh expanding of my lungs from humiliation, shame and guilt made it difficult to keep my breathing steady.

"Why are you apologizing?" Naru asked. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I straightened in time to watch Naru undo a single button from the very top of his black dress shirt. Watched him roll his shoulder once as though releasing some tension.

"Because I can't stand it when you're mad at me, or when you don't talk to me."

In that moment of honesty, I looked away from him. "I liked it when you opened up to me."

Naru sighed, then moved towards the table in between us and reached into his bag. He pulled out a stack of papers.

"I haven't been ignoring you because of that. I've been researching the Lasser Glass. I think I know where to find it now."

I wasn't expecting that. Not at all.

"I'm pleased that my ignoring you felt like a punishment." Naru said with dark amusement.

"You found the Lasser Glass?" I tried to regain my composure. "You actually know where to find the Lasser Glass?"

"Not exactly," he clarified. "I found the last family who last owned it. It's very unlikely they have the mirror in their possession but we have a starting point."

My mind was spinning, I couldn't fathom how Naru had found that information, let alone how he could track it down to a single family. He was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

"So you stayed away...to find the Lasser Glass?" I tried to wrap my head around this. "You weren't mad at me?"

It took Naru longer to answer that. "I thought about it."

"You thought about it," I repeated.

"When you kissed me," Naru clarified, and he said with such a straight face. Never in a million years had I imagined those words ever coming out of his mouth. "I thought about it."

Color rushed to my face. This wasn't real. I had dreams about this moment and I knew for a fact that they were not real.

"I'm sorry I... know better than to do things like that. I understand if you don't want anything to do with me. I think... I better leave you to your work."

Hurriedly, I went to the hallway. I had said everything I needed to say. Naru's voice caught me when I reached the threshold.

"No," his voice was strained, as if he were fighting with something internally. "Wait. I...wait. You don't need to leave."

I shifted on my feet, turning back around and suddenly feeling nervous. Anxious.

Naru's gaze was edged with indecipherable emotion, his jaw was set in a new angle. He struggled for the words, a calm storm took over his features and turned them to stone.

The silence stretched out for a long time that the words, when they came, were a shock.

"What you said about me not wanting anything to do with you… it isn't true."

"Then why stay away?" I asked uneasily.

"Whatever is happening between us, I haven't been able to come up with an explanation for it," Naru reasoned.

"Does it need an explanation?"

Naru said, steadily. "Every kind of energy has an explanation. There is an explanation for where it goes and what happens when it is presumed gone. The kind of energy we have is different. I've never felt this before with anyone. You had once told me that you couldn't understand why you had feelings for me. I sometimes find myself wondering the same about you and not because I harbour any ill-feelings towards you. I just am unfamiliar with this."

I stared at him and felt a strange pressure on my chest. The lamplight appeared to wave and flicker.

"You're very," said Naru, his voice dropping low, "attractive."

Had that been the first time Naru called me attractive?

I felt my blush expand to the rest of my body. I felt hot and curled my toes in my slippers at the way he stared at me. Naru was not an affectionate person, not in the least, but I wondered if he knew he could make his voice sound like that, as if it were velvet stroking my spine.

It caressed my skin, awakening my soul.

"I have never been good at this sort of thing - feeling attracted to someone, or having the necessary emotions to process it." Naru continued, not noticing the change in the air suddenly. This room was small, too small, even when though we were several feet apart.

There was no hesitation, or any sense of it, and he gazed at me calmly. His blue eyes were burning with an intensity I had only started to realize Naru was capable of.

Even if he didn't know it.

"I think you're better than you give yourself credit for." I found myself watching him the same way he would watch me sometimes. "What's that look for? Tell me what you're thinking."

My heart was pounding through my skin and I knew I should stop. I should stop and turn around, head to my room and call it a night. I needed to close the door on whatever was happening here.

I couldn't seem to force myself to move.

"I'm thinking that it would be very easy to allow myself to love you."

It wasn't what I was expecting from Naru - not at all. I was slowly starting to become used to these deep moments, starting to become less and less surprised by them.

"Do you," My voice shook. "Do you love me?"

Everything I love eventually gets taken away from me, he had once told me that. It was so long ago now and I remembered Naru had thought himself as a mess, someone who was unworthy of love.

Is that how he felt? That he couldn't possibly be allowed to love, or be loved, by another person?

Or was he afraid to love again? Gene was his brother, an unconditional love would have existed between them no matter what the the relationship was. Did that break something within him?

Perhaps Naru has been hurting all this time. More than anybody. He loved Gene and was hurt that Gene had been killed. Then, he built up these walls around himself so he would never be hurt again.

I should have said: You shouldn't love me. I should have told him that he and I could never be since I would only end up hurting him too.

"Back then, I did have feelings for you." Naru confessed. "I thought going back to England would make it easier but I realize that leaving you did more harm than good."

There it was - the truth. It was everything I had dreamed about, yet somehow this felt wrong. I shouldn't have feelings for Naru, not when I could very possibly be taken away from him the way Gene was. Even though Naru was cold-hearted, he was still human.

"I had feelings for you too," I admitted. "You knew that already but you made me think that it was Gene. It never was though, it was always you."

Naru's voice found it's way back to me. "Do you remember that you thought he was kind and considerate. That it was easy to call him a friend, easier to call him a lover when you thought it was me."

Suddenly my heart dropped to my gut.

"So?" It was the only thing I could think to say. I didn't know where he was going with this.

"It's still the same, I can't be that person for you. Gene was always the one people liked and naturally tended to levitate to. He was good with people and better at these kinds of things."

"Naru, what are you saying?"

Violet-blue eyes looked at me from across the room. "That I can't love anyone because I am not like Gene."

"What's so wrong with that?" I heard the shakiness in my voice and forced it down, forced myself to swallow and relieve my dry throat. "Because I happen to like you just the way you are."

Naru laughed, it was bitter and soft. "I'm still not fully confident I can ever believe that. I'm not a good man. I'm the dark brother, the one with a bad personality. I will meet a bad end."

"No, you won't." I huffed and stepped towards him. The open emotion on his face was enough to tell me that he believed every single word he just said. "You're a man who is afraid of love because it's something you don't understand."

Naru's jaw clenched as he stepped back, swaying slightly. "I don't think I'm particularly ready for your brand of honesty at this moment."

"You'll never know if you don't try. Loving someone in any capacity is better than feeling nothing and pushing them away. Let's just...stay this way." I said quietly as I moved to the edge of the threshold once again, Naru's contemplating face was the last thing I had seen as I trailed out of the living room.

His voice was faint, so quiet I thought I had imagined it at first. I realized after that I hadn't.

"Is that what you want?"

Honestly, I said. "I don't know. I just know it's better than not being with you at all."

Then, I truly walked away this time and did not stop until my bedroom door was closed firmly behind me.

^.^