Scenes from Shibuya
Disclaimer: The characters of Ghost Hunt do not belong to me and are the property of their respective creators.
Thanks everyone who reviewed! A small reminder, this series of one-shots isn't going to focus on MaixNaru every chapter, even if I put them as the main characters, it just means they appear more frequently.
3. Engaged
Sometimes, Lin wondered if the God of Marriages had made a mistake. The pile of floral scented invitations in front of him swam giddily before his very eyes and he pinched his brow, shaking his head curtly to clear his aching mind. Dear Mori Mitsubishi... He groaned as soon as he had written that. The heavens forbid; what had possessed him to write that? It was supposed to be Mori Mitsuya, he noted on consulting the guest list. Sighing, he crumpled the ruined card and tossed it into the wastepaper bin.
The phone rang.
"It's me," Naru's curt voice said. Lin blinked. "Why are you calling me? You're in the next room. Surely you can just walk over?"
There was a crackle of static before Naru answered, "Did you realise that your door is stuck from the inside?"
Turning round on his chair the tall Chinese man was genuinely surprised to see that a small mountain of crumpled gilt-edged cream coloured paper was wedged in front of several towers of tapes. These had been moved aside in order to make room for several new office chairs, a second desk and one large carton ominously marked 'fragile'. On top of his wedding and the New Year's to deal with, SPR was undergoing a major reorganization. Madoka would need her own office soon; she was still head of the field lab and Naru being what he was, was not about to vacate his.
"I imagine that silence means no," Naru interrupted unhelpfully. "Pass me the tapes on Rokuryou High School. There's something I want to check."
Lin reluctantly abandoned the stack of cards as he searched around the shelves for the tapes. Suppose the door was really jammed? As Lin entertained briefly the idea of deliberately locking himself in away from the havoc presently invading his life, the door opened a crack before coming up short in front of the desk. The mini bonsai which Luella had sent him (goodness knows why) wobbled and he closed his eyes, feeling rather inundated. What ever had happened to his orderly existence?
"Koujo? Hey, are you in there?" a soft voice enquired. Rising, he banged his head painfully on a jutting edge of his own desk. His shiki giggled from a shadowy recess of the cramped office. "Yes," he said, wincing and glaring around at them. "Don't tell me you've more things to put here."
Madoka peered curiously through the crack in the doorway at him. "No, I think this is about it," she said. "I've a good mind to go tell Naru to share. There's plenty of space in his oversized excuse of an office!" Bracing herself against the door, she pushed hard. The desk slid forward a few inches as she squeezed her way in.
"There is hardly any space in here!" she cried. His shiki whispered their agreement as one of them hurriedly yanked its trailing tail out of the way of Madoka's pumps. She tipped her head to look at him quizzically. "Something wrong?" she asked as she looked about, a hand on her hip. Perceptive as always. That was one of the things he liked about her. Madoka was as scientifically minded as her teenage protégé but her field experience had led her to intuitively pick up supernatural phenomena almost as well as any onmyouji worth their salt. "You nearly trod on my shiki's tail," he explained.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she apologised and then blinked. "They aren't here anymore, are they?"
"I, er, sent them away," he murmured as she pressed her mouth to his. He smiled, relaxing a little into her arms as she threaded her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer. Maybe the God of Marriage hadn't made a mistake after all. He manoeuvred her over to sit at his table, their legs bumping over various items on the floor along the way. "How do you think your family will take to me?" she asked anxiously. He squeezed her shoulder.
"It's not like they haven't met you before." Madoka bit her lip.
"It was as a colleague."
"They liked you well enough then," he said, his pale features colouring lightly at the memory of his father solemnly admonishing him.
"You're not getting any younger," the elder Lin said as he snipped delicately at his prized bonsai, a plant which Lin had silently dubbed 'the pet'.
"No, if I did, that would be going against the precepts laid down by the I Ching," he answered, straight-faced. His father peered steadily at him over his half-moon spectacles.
"I don't recall having an idiot for a son," he retorted. "Not all Japanese are bad."
Snip. Snip. Bits more of the bonsai fell into the tray. He heard laughter from the kitchen where his aunt was trying to teach Madoka how to braise shitake mushrooms, a dish favoured by both himself and his father.
"Live and let live." His father never smiled, but now his eyes twinkled at him. "Isn't that what the Professor's son taught you?"
"And even if they don't, they'll live," he said matter-of-factly. Her lips twisted playfully. "Which is more than anyone can say about what you said about me when we first met." Lin had the grace to look a little ashamed. "That was a long time ago," he answered sheepishly. Madoka laughed and tapped her cheek. "I'll consider forgiving you after you kiss me," she said as he pulled her possessively to him.
"I'll be glad to get away this weekend," she sighed, leaning up to bury her nose in the crook in his neck, her hands curled loosely around his waist. "Have you told Naru yet?"
Lin slapped his forehead. "I was sure I forgot something."
"Knowing Noll, he will have anticipated it," she said comfortably, as she examined one of his mauled invitation cards. "This reminds me, I came to tell you that Mai rushed past me after taking a big bite of that New Year's glutinous cake your parents sent you."
He chuckled.
"If you were here earlier, you would have heard Naru telephoning me from his office asking for some tapes."
She rolled her eyes. "I doubt he'll want them now…"
Naru in fact, was trying not to laugh as Mai rushed to the kitchen, gagging slightly. He looked down at the souvenir list Mai had left half-drawn up. Portuguese egg tarts from Macau, walnut cookies, and egg rolls. Smirking slightly at the list of food, he added to Mai's excited scrawl, a neat request for top grade Pu-er tea when Mai returned, looking slightly pale.
"That's not any kind of mochi I've ever eaten!" she said accusatorily. "Are you sure Lin said it was for me?"
Carefully schooling his face into neutrality, he said coolly, "I told you not to take such a big bite didn't I?"
She pouted. "You could have stopped me."
"Not likely, since you ate it so quickly."
Mai sniffed disapprovingly before prodding the rest of the uneaten snack with a toothpick. It was a sort of shiny, sticky brown, still slightly crisp around the square edge. Auspicious festive food or no, she wondered why anyone would eat this.
"Just finish your piece. Its name is supposed to be a homonym for improving yourself with the coming year."
"I don't see you eating your share."
"I don't need perfecting," he said smugly. More like he didn't like the jaw-achingly sweet confectionary any more than she did. She looked at it unhappily. Shame though, to waste it after she'd pressed Lin for information on New Year customs in his birthplace.
As Mai deliberated over the snack, Naru frowned. Lin was taking forever with the tapes. His assistant hadn't mentioned returning to Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year weekend. He suspected the man had forgotten in the deluge of drawing up wedding plans and reshuffling SPR. Anybody would be drained, especially if their fiancée happened to be as pushy as Madoka was. He got up grudgingly, taking the scrap of paper along with him. Might as well pass it to him… he stopped at the gap in Lin's door. Considered for a second. Well. They were getting married after all. No need to play gooseberry. Smirking slightly, he fetched a bit of tape from Mai's desk and taped the note to the door and walked away.
A/N: In case anyone's wondering, the glutinous rice cake which Mai tried is called "nian gao" and is usually consumed as part of the festive corpus of food during Chinese New Year.
Happy Chinese New Year to those of you who celebrate it! =)