You lovely reviewers have spoken. ^_^

Thank you Emina105; Naru always gives me trouble. I tired harder on this chapter, but he still feels kind of weird. Glad it's not distracting. ~ Thank you Noesis; Yeah, simplistic's a good word. Not a lot of thought put into it. XD ~ Thank you lovelyrosegirl; I'm glad that you like it. ~ Thank you lil and tiny; Noll and Nell just rolls off of the tongue, doesn't it? ~ And thank you Amthyst; Naru always is difficult for me to write. I'm used to writing more flamboyant characters, so between Lin-San and Naru I always seem to have trouble keeping them in character. XD

Seriously thank you. ^_^ I live off of reviews.

Disclaimer: Ghost Hunt doesn't belong to me. ::sadface:: I also apologize again for the OOC-ness, I'm just extremely entertained by the idea of Naru as a bit less hard-skinned and Lin as a bit more sarcastic than they are in the anime/manga.

Once again, there is no significance to the background characters. Please read, enjoy, and review!

~oOo~

Chapter 2

~March 14th, 2001: 7:29 pm~

"You look sharp," Lin commented, finally unable to keep quiet about the way that his charge was preening himself anxiously in front of the mirror. "Look!" he pretended to gasp. "A shirt that isn't black, and you aren't even in the hospital."

"You're about to be," Oliver fired back peevishly as he made for the door. "I'm hoping to be back by midnight, but I really don't know. Don't wait up."

"Wait—" Lin caught the sleeve of Naru's shirt and whirled him around.

He groaned when he saw the camera in Lin's hand. "Must we?"

"Your parents would want photographic evidence of this," Lin said firmly, snapping off a few pictures despite the fact that Naru was scowling. It wasn't like he'd smile anyway even if he were in a better mood, so nothing lost there. "Your first self-instigated date…Madoka and Mrs. Davis will be proud."

"Mai instigated it, actually," Naru muttered awkwardly, hand hovering over the door handle. "And it's not a date. It's more of a favor…"

"It is so a date," Lin teased. "You're going dancing for God's sake. Now go." He gave Oliver a little shove through the doorway. "Wouldn't want you to keep Taniyama-San waiting."

"It's not a date, Lin!"

~7:46 pm~

Picking up Mai was honestly not as awkward as he thought it'd be. He showed up at her apartment, rang the doorbell, and she came bobbing right out, all energy and smiles, and despite being delayed by Lin and his stupid Kodak moment, they made the train with a few minutes to spare.

The awkward bit came on the train, where he was able to appreciate her dress in the full light, but wasn't sure if it'd be polite to comment. Like all of her skirts, it was a bit short.

She ended up saving him. "You look nice in a suit," she said coolly. "Wish you'd wear white more often."

"That's what Lin said," he sighed, plucking at the collar of his shirt, which—as a concession to tradition—was white. The rest of his suit was still black. "You look nice in a dress."

It was a cute thing, really: all ruffles and gossamer layers, mostly white but carrying the slightest of pink tinges, brought out whenever she flushed, like she was now.

She was saved from having to respond by the train stopping. She reached out and grabbed Naru's hand without asking, and he didn't dare say anything about it as she led him to her school, fearing that she'd let go if he did. The school was massive and almost exactly as he remembered it, minus a certain building that had apparently collapsed soon after he had left and plus what seemed like several thousand people, a couple hundred paper lanterns, and infinite streamers and artificial flowers. It looked like something straight out of a shojo manga, not that he would ever voice that observation aloud.

He was immediately dragged into the worst of the crowds by the main entrance and had several people introduced to him so quickly that he wasn't sure whose name belonged to whom.

"And this is Na—Shibuya," Mai fumbled over his name. "Kazuya Shibuya." He caught a few of the nearby girls grin at the mention of his name and suddenly wished he was anywhere but there, but Mai's small hand was still clasped around his wrist, and he didn't have the heart to pull away.

They made it through the main gates without incident and were nearly blown backwards as they walked into the main courtyard by the wave of sound emanating from two massive stacks of speakers. He instantly had a headache: the dreaded pop music.

"C'mon, Naru," Mai shouted at him over the cheesy lyrics.

He shook his head, finally succeeding in untangling his fingers from hers.

"You said you danced!" she accused, her thin eyebrows coming together to scowl at him.

"Not like…that." He waved a hand towards the mass of writhing bodies in the central space, heat and hormones radiating off of them like steam.

"Then how do you dance?"

He hesitated. "Ballroom. Foxtrot. Waltz. Not this."

She crossed her arms underneath her chest. "If you're expecting me to just stand here with you this whole night…!"

"No," he said hurriedly, surprising himself by how much he meant it. "No, you go off and have fun. I'll stay here." He gave her shoulder a little push towards the dance floor. "Go on."

She tugged on her lip, obviously conflicted.

"It's fine, Mai," he assured her. "Go."

"Okay…" she said hesitantly. "You sure you'll be fine here?"

"I'm always fine. I think I can manage."

She turned to leave then, her conscience clear. "I'll check on you at the first slow-dance," she promised before skipping off towards some of her friends.

"Don't worry too much about it," he said dejectedly as he watched her get swallowed up in the crowd, wondering why he had expected anything else.

~October 9th, 1999: 5:44 pm~

"Um, Noll?" Lin stammered, elbowing a red-faced Grace out of the way to confirm that it was indeed Oliver Davis crouched idly inside a broom closet. "What are you doing in here?"

"What are you doing here?" Noll asked back. "Is this some sort of snogging center? I'm sorry; I'll get right out of your way…" He made to get up.

Now Lin was the one flushing, and he reached in to shove Oliver backwards before he could completely get to his feet. "NO, it isn't. Grace spilled some juice, so we're looking for paper towels."

"Oh, I believe you just pushed me on some," Oliver grumbled, reaching behind him for a roll, which he passed to Lin, who passed it to Grace, who quickly left to clean up whatever mess she'd made. Lin stayed behind, hovering in the doorway.

"Noll, why are you hiding in the broom cupboard?"

"I'm not hiding. It's remarkably cozy."

"No, seriously, why are you here?"

Oliver sighed hugely and leaned up against the wall. "I just had to get away," he said sullenly.

"From what?"

"The party. All of the happy people. Robin, Nell, Gene…Mum and Dad…everything." He waved his hands above his head, then sighed melodramatically and looked up at his older friend. "Did you ever sort of kind of maybe have a crush on a girl, and just as you'd worked up the courage to ask her to dance, she tells you that she actually likes somebody else?"

"Sort of," Lin said sympathetically, leaning up against the door frame. "Who was it?"

"Doesn't matter now," Oliver replied thickly. He glanced sidelong at Lin. "Has Ms. Mori noticed you with Grace yet?"

"Yeah," Lin laughed humorlessly and swung into the closet to sit down next to Oliver. "And she congratulated me for it. How pathetic is that?"

"And now you're stuck dating a klutz and Mori doesn't even care," Noll cackled, throwing an elbow into Lin's side, venting some of his own angst into mocking Lin's sad love life.

"At least Madoka doesn't like somebody else," Lin teased back, knocking his knee against Oliver's. "So who was it?"

"Doesn't matter," Noll repeated. "She says she likes Gene."

Lin hissed in a breath. "That's…unfortunate."

"Isn't it?" Noll said miserably. "I hate having a chick-magnet for a brother."

"It does make the whole dating situation awkward," Lin conceded. "But I'm sure someday you'll find a girl who'll like you as you, even with your bad-temperament and poor dancing skills."

"And I'm sure that one day Ms. Mori will finally open her eyes and see that you're in love with her."

There was a silence, and then both of them simultaneously rolled their eyes and scoffed at the other's statement.

Oliver sagged back against the wall of the cupboard and jerked his chin towards the door. "You should probably go see if your girlfriend's alright."

Lin muttered something incoherent as he resignedly stood up and stepped out the door. "Are you coming?"

"Give me one good reason why," Oliver declared stubbornly, making to pull the door back shut on himself.

"Don't be a prick."

"I'll stick with my broom closet, thank you, Lin. I won't go back out there to look like a lonely idiot in the corner while my brother dances with the girl I like."

"You don't know that they're dan—"

"Oh yes I do. Gene will dance with anybody." Noll turned away; face half-hidden in shadow. "And everybody wants to dance with him."

~March 14th, 2001: 9:01 pm~

Everybody, it seemed, wanted to dance with Mai. He was keeping an eye on her as he haunted the refreshment booth, finally engaging the poor boy manning it's pathetic attempts to start a conversation with him purely for something to do and to distract him from his headache.

"So you're with Tani-chan?" the boy started out.

It took Naru a minute to realize that the boy meant Mai. "Sort of," he said as conversationally as he could. "We're here together, but not…'together.'"

"So you must be her boss, Shibuya-san, right?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Who's asking?"

The boy smiled pleasantly and introduced himself. "Takami Wannabe—I'm in Tani-chan's class. We've known each other since middle school. I've never been able to make her do anything she didn't want to as long as I've known her—how do you manage it?"

"I pay her," Naru said coolly. "Mai talks about me at school?"

"Oh yeah," Tamaki enthused. "She loves her job, man. And she's always got the coolest stories whenever she comes back from one of your business trips."

"We have confidentiality contrac—" Naru started to say unhappily, mentally cursing Mai and her inability to keep her mouth shut.

"Were you really possessed?"

"It was complicated," Naru muttered, noticing that Mai was now dancing—or whatever you called what they were doing: lots of hip-swaying and head-bobbing—with a good-looking guy with chestnut hair and glasses.

Tamaki followed his gaze. "Oh, that's Kyosuke. He's one of the most popular guys in school: a third year. He asked Tani-chan to the dance, you know."

That caught Naru's attention. "Mai told me that nobody asked her."

"Dude, half of the school asked her!" Tamaki laughed. "Jeez, you don't pay much attention to her social life, do you?"

"Look, I'm not…supposed to pay attention to her," Naru said haltingly as he processed that gem of previously unknown information. "Why should I care who likes her or who asks her out? I'm just her boss."

"Sure you aren't," Tamaki drawled knowingly. "But, no offense, Shibuya-San, you've been staring at her all night and look like you're about to drop-kick Kyo-senpai through a window. So why not just ask Tani-chan to dance and get all your cards on the table, yeah?"

"I don't dance," Oliver said firmly, forcing himself to turn his back on her.

~oOo~

This chapter isn't quite as fluffy as the first, but the last chapter is ridiculously cheesy and fluffy, so I feel like it balances out. It also deals with actual dancing, instead of Naru hovering by the sidelines like the awkward turtle that he is.

Naru apparently didn't have much luck with the ladies as a kid. He said something to the effect of "If you've got two twins, a good twin and a bad twin, which one would you choose?" in the 12th manga. And Lin-San didn't have much luck either. Poor them. :\

Anyway, same deal as last time: reviews and the level of enthusiasm in seeing the conclusion of this piece will determine how quickly the final chapter is posted, so~

~Please review!