Late Christmas present, as requested! Merry Day After Christmas!

Chapter 4

The humid warmth became oppressive, pressing against my mouth like a cotton wad. The ending of the slide came with a burst of sunlight and air, shooting me out in a spray of ruby. As far as I could see was red water, dark, with chunks of clotted blood floating on the surface. The children played in it as though they didn't see a thing, their skins stained and their mouths drinking in the too-thick, red liquid like it was milk. People lounged in pools once filled with water, now no more, looking every bit like the victims of a murder scene. Underscored by this garish scene, the gray clouds that had covered the sky since this morning took on a smoky pallor.

The blood swallowed me whole. It felt like blood: thick, warm, filling my mouth with copper rust.

Just as I clawed my way to the surface, screaming, a large body came out-too soon-and into the back of my head and shoulders.

The next thing I knew I was staring up at Naru as he pulled away from my mouth, his pale face putting at odds the light gray of the sky behind it. His dark blue eyes shivered on me. My chest ached awfully beneath his hands, as though someone had lain a couch across me.

Then I was fighting for breath, coughing and vomiting water-blessed water. He helped me sit up, but his attention was to someone behind me.

"I could sue you for this."

"I swear the lifeguard told me it was okay to go," said the voice of one of the boys I had been talking to before.

"And it wasn't like he told him to go right after, it was, like, the usual time you wait, you know?" said the other.

"No," said Naru flatly, and before I could catch my breath to say anything, his arms slipped beneath my knees and shoulders and lifted me. As he did so, I managed to catch sight of the small crowd we had attracted, including a young female life guard who had her hands raised to stop him.

"Please, sir, will you allow me to check on her condition to see whether we need to call an ambulance or not? Please?"

Naru ignored her. He ignored me as well as I weakly kicked my feet to be free, but I wasn't certain I could walk anyways even if he had. My head still spun from loss of oxygen.

"I'm really sorry!" cried the boy Naru had threatened.

"It was just an accident," I said, though my cough-abused throat didn't manage to say it too loud. "Naru, calm down, I'm fine."

"We're going home."

"What? Come on, it was just an accident."

"Humor me. I wasn't enjoying myself anyways."

"Then at least put me down, you're causing a scene!"

He did so, but we had reached the locker rooms anyways. I wobbled a bit as blood rushed away from my brain to my legs, and he caught me with narrowed eyes.

"I leave you alone for one minute-"

I throw off his arm, irked. "I don't need you to babysit me. It was just an accident, it could have happened to anyone." He didn't need to know about the blood. I didn't want him to know. I could already see that it had just been in my head, as the spring waters had turned back to normal, and all the patrons didn't look like Saw extras anymore.

"But it keeps happening to you. Paranormal work isn't suppose to be this dangerous, and yet with you around it is."

"There's nothing paranormal about this, and we're not at work! This is just an ordinary accident, okay? Honestly, you're so embarrassing!"

And doing my best not to notice the stares, or the female lifeguard who had followed but feet away and now looked honestly sorry for me, I all but fled into the women's locker room. Skipping the shower, I dried, shoved my clothes on, and all but stomped past Naru at the exit. I was set on not speaking a word to him all the way back to the hotel, but my locked car door stopped me. When Naru didn't unlock it, just stood on the other side of the car, looking at me as though expecting me to say something, I snapped for what he wanted.

"Do we need to go to the hospital? He did knock you out," he said, expression closed.

"You can't be seriously asking me that. Just open the door already, I'm not talking to you."

"What did I do wrong? All I did was save you from drowning."

"If you have to ask that, there's no use explaining."

He gave me a long, hard look, the kind he usually gave to a graph of readings from a night of paranormal activity. But the electronic locks of the car clicked loose. I threw myself in, buckled up, and pulled my legs up to set my chin morosely on my knees.

I didn't want to think about what happened. I really didn't.

The ten minutes it took to drive back to the hotel gave me the time I needed to sort through my thoughts. There wasn't much to sort out. Either I was going mad or something had made me see that blood and somehow got me stuck in the slide without me noticing it. I thought of my dream, getting lost in the woods, the vanishing man who had jumped in front of our car, and my sense of foreboding. All of it pointed towards something supernatural, or, rather, I really hoped it was something supernatural.

The question was whether or not to tell Naru. I didn't want to, as it would take our first time together alone, our first real vacation as a couple, without something paranormal in the mix. I wanted to be with Naru off the job. If he turned this into a paranormal case, or worse, he started up again about me being a magnet for troublesome ghosts...it wasn't like I had fun making him worry. The man could be such a control freak.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I decided to wait and see. If I could just ignore the happenings and enjoy my vacation, all the better. I could always tell Naru afterwards and let him make a case out of it then.

He turned off the car and sat back. Neither of us made a move to get out. Our hair was still wet and it was chilly outside, but now that our activity for the morning had gone, I guess we also didn't now what to do next.

"I'm sorry."

I glanced over at him, but he wasn't looking at me. I sighed and rubbed my forehead against my arm-bridge set over my knees.

"What for? I was the one that you keep having to save."

"I embarrassed you."

"Oh...yeah, you did sort of freak out a bit. Were you really going to sue that guy?"

"It was appealing, since it wouldn't be acceptable to punch him. I never thought the threat of assault charges would make me rue modern society."

"But it was an accident, really. They're nice guys, I was talking to them on the way up."

He leaned forward and rested his arms on the steering wheel, mirroring my same look of moodiness. "Yeah, well, I didn't say it was a rational urge."

"If I knew you hated waterparks, I wouldn't have planned to go there."

He sighed. "I don't hate waterparks, persay. I just don't do crowds. I thought you knew that by now."

I snorted. "That place was hardly crowded."

His head pivoted on his chin to give me a cinched eyebrow look that broke the taciturn mask once more. I breathed in relief that we were getting back to normal. "If that's not it, I'd loathe to see your idea of crowded."

I rolled my eyes and stretched my legs out across the dash. "We live in Tokyo, Japan. Seriously, haven't you ever been on a train? Or any public transportation for that matter."

"...no."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't do crowds," he said again, this time turning his face away from me as his ears had started to grow a little pink.

"How have you managed to live here all these years?"

"I don't exactly work a normal office job. My commute is relatively clear of people."

"Guess I'll see it for myself from now on, huh?" I grinned at him, even though I suspected he couldn't see. "Lucky us we get to commute to work together. How many married couples, especially as young as us, get to brag about that?"

"I'd rather if that wasn't the case anymore."

Something prickled painfully in my chest. "What, are you saying you don't like working with me anymore?"

"Of course not," he said quickly. "But, well...it would be ridiculous to keep pretending that I'm your boss. My money is your money now, so paying you couldn't really happen. Also..."

But I already knew where this was going, and it made my insides go uncomfortably hot and hard. "You meant what you said, then. You think I'm a magnet for trouble and are tired of babysitting me."

He snapped upright to glare at me. "Why do you always have to assume the worse? You're the one who wanted to be a housewife, I thought I was giving you what you want. But if you must know, yes. You've gotten into one too many horrible situations that I think could have been avoided if I wasn't sticking you in them. It wasn't like you got into that much misfortune before I met you-"

"Both my parents died," I said angrily, and I got the desired flinch from him. "Life is misfortune after the other, and if you haven't noticed by now, death isn't much different. When you're dealing with the kind of stuff that causes hauntings, how can you not expect something bad to happen?"

"Exactly! I'm your husband, I'm suppose to keep you safe-what if something happens while you're pregnant?"

"What, am I going to be pregnant for the rest of our lives?"

"No! Mai-"

But I had had enough. I couldn't shake off that Naru thought, without meaning to, that I was unnecessary to his career, even useless. I knew being a housewife meant caring for a family, but I had always seen myself helping out with his cases on the side. I didn't think I'd just be left alone in my house while he went off with the rest of our friends, helping people and having adventures.

I opened the car door and slipped out. Naru got out as well.

"Mai, wait, I think there's a misunderstanding. I didn't think this would-I shouldn't have mentioned this so soon after the pool, I'm sorry."

"I just need a minute alone," I said, zipping up my coat. "I think I'm overreacting again, so just...I'll be back in a few minutes."

His brow wrinkled up with concern. "For God's sake, please stay close to the hotel."

I wanted to snap at him, ask him if he thought I walked into trouble on purpose or if he thought I was stupid, but reeled in my tongue. We couldn't spend all of our honeymoon fighting. This was getting ridiculous.

"I will," I said instead.

Stuffing my hands in the pockets of my coat, I shuffled through the parking lot and around the corner of the hotel. The trees pressed in close here, but in a maintained sort of way. Even the underbrush had been carefully groomed to give the natural forest floor a clean, almost indoor sort of look. I almost laughed out loud at the thought that I could get lost in it. It woudl be like the pretty, bark covered trail we had hiked down. I really did just need some time to cool off. It wasn't like Naru underappreciated me. He had married me, after all, and usually you appreciate the person you swear your life to. And I couldn't very well ignore the fact that there hadn't been a lot of freaked out crap that had happened to us since the beginning. Ayako's near death experience with the exorcised kuman thong could have easily happened to me. After all, the unborn baby spirit had just been looking for a uterus to inhabit. Then there was all the times I had ended up in the hospital, or friends of ours had ended up in the hospital.

I bit my lip. It wasn't like I could ask Naru to find a different career either. He had gotten an honorary doctorate in paranormal research at fifteen, for crying out loud! That was two years before he even met me! It was his passion and his interest. Taking away his supernatural research would be like taking away my...my...

I leaned against a tree, suddenly hit with the urge to cry. What interest did I have that could compete with Naru's drive? I had no ambitions. Hell, I wanted to be a stay at home mom. Being barefoot and pregnant was the only thing I had given him plans for, and now I was getting all butthurt about it?

"Oh God, why did he marry me?" I said to myself as I pressed a hand to my eyes.