'Alter The Ending'

So, this was a one shot, I came up with while writing my other story, it is totally random and has nothing to do with ANY of my stories. Since this is my first time with random fics, I'll request you to be gentle, CC is appreciated but NO FLAMES!

Disclaimer: Life is so harsh...yes, I do NOT own GH, wish I did, then Naru would have confessed to Mai, two years earlier. *_*

"...But he headed out on Sunday, said he'd come on Monday and I stayed up waiting, anticipating and pacing..." Blue Jeans - Lana Del Rey.

"I'm taking a day off..." She silently wished the ground would swallow her up, or she would vanish; just anything to escape from the awkward atmosphere of the office. Her lips quivering and hands shaking, she looked up at Lin-san, willing for him to give her the permission.

"Does Naru know?"

She expected him to ask that, after all Naru was her boss, not Lin...

"No, he doesn't. I don't want him to." She said shortly, opening her bag and rummaging around it before pulling out a sheet of white paper and handing it to him.

"Is everything alright, Mai-san?" Lin eyed the brunette anxiously, knowing that Mai had been extremely desperate if she wanted a day off.

"It's alright...yeah."

"Mai-san" He paused, choosing his words carefully. "What did he do now?"

He...

He didn't need to do anything to upset her, he didn't have to put effort into it, it came so naturally to him...like a reflex.

"I can't handle it anymore...I am so-"

Frustrated, exhausted, angry...tired, desperate.

"Tired." She finished and look at the white paper she had given to Lin a few minutes ago. "Make sure he reads it."

"Are you resigning?"

She smiled weakly at this, her smile reflecting her pensiveness and telling how frustrated she had been earlier.

"No, I'm just taking a day off, before I dig up his grave, the last case was so..."

Lin sympathized with the girl, the last case had indeed been hectic, Mai had gotten hurt numerous times and had to be admitted in the hospital, leaving a slightly 'out-of-it' Naru alone in a frantic mental status which he did a poor job of hiding unlike the usual. They hadn't talked since then, a tension arose whenever Naru saw Mai and they would just shut themselves up and not talk. The last few days had been even more exhausting since Lin had to put up with two crazy teens refusing to tell the other, refusing from sorting matters out and talking.

'Hectic' didn't even cover the situation in SPR and everybody noticed it, wishing silently from some miracle to happen between those two...but...

"I guess I'll leave, give him the letter and there's his tea in the pot." Mai gathered her belonging and almost ran out of the office, leaving behind a smirking Lin.

So this...Lin looked at the folded sheet of white paper...is a letter. Interesting, interesting indeed...

He could see her pale face, her blue lips struggling to take in air and her hands flopping against the floor, her brown eyes fluttering open and then closing, her breathing shallow and...quick.

She was dying...Mai was dying.

Naru sighed and put the unread file back on his desk, rubbing his face, he seriously needed to sort himself out, he had been feeling extremely useless these past days. Eventually, he gathered his voice to call for tea and was surprised when Lin, entered the office holding a steaming cup of Earl-Gray. Naru's first instinct was to shout out 'where-is-Mai?!' but he refrained and calmly took the cup from Lin's hand, raising one eyebrow, in question.

"Where is Mai?"

"She left earlier."

He cocked an eyebrow at the short answer, surprised by his employee's audacity.

"Where?"

"She didn't tell me, but..." Lin took something out of his pocket, a white, folded sheet of paper. "She left this for you."

Without a word, Naru took it from Lin, his eyebrow still raised and his fingers tracing the edge of the paper, feeling anger grow within him by each moment. Lin seized the next moment to add another word, that piqued Naru interest and made him immediately open the paper.

"It's a letter, for you, Noll."

'Dear Naru,

So, you're finally reading this letter, it's either because you noticed my absence or Lin-san wasted his precious words to elaborate the reasons for my unspoken day off.

You know what?

I never thought I'd be writing a letter to you or moreover a confession like this one, but now I think it's time I took a step and told you everything because it's really obvious that you're not going to do anything to end this tension between the two of us.

So are you ready, cause in no way is this going to be easy, alright?

Fine, so this is your time to either trash this letter or read it to the very end without pausing in the middle. And beware your ego might find this very, very upsetting.

Let's make certain things clear, I, Taniyama Mai met you at the age of sixteen when you decided to scare three girls by switching on a light and saying 'four'. Later, I, Taniyama Mai broke your camera and injured your assistant/bodyguard Koujo Lin. Then you hired me to work for you with the pretext that I had broken your camera and injured a co-worker. Then, we met other people, a miko Ayako, a monk Hosho, a tv-star/psychic Masako, a priest John. Right?

Then I, Taniyama Mai went unconscious on that case and for the first time I saw a better you in my dreams, a person who smiled and was caring, compassionate, something you never were in real. This was my dream-Naru, a supposed Prince Charming who was supposed to sweep me off my feet. That, however, never happened and from that day Naru, the unknown feeling that arose in me whenever I saw you was fueled and from that same day, me foolish, naive Taniyama Mai felt an unknown infatuation for her jerk-faced, narcissistic boss Kazuya Shibuya aka Naru...

Or was it Oliver Davis?

I'd never know. I never knew at that time, for me you were always Narcissistic Naru-chan.
But...somehow...I always felt as if...as if there was something mysterious about you and then should I narrate the next story? I will, for your sake Naru.

We had cases involving dolls, zuzhou curses, orikirisama, churches, orphans, vengeance seeking ghosts, ancient grudges etc. and during those days I learnt a lot about you and the team.

You adored tea; Earl-Gray and always drank it in gallons without ending up in a hospital with a kidney failure. Unfortunately for some unknown reason you made me make it in a large amount after every single hour and drank it in one go, often demanding second cups. Maybe I should hate you for making me work so hard, but...no, something about you always made me stick up for your selfish pride. Also, you were more smarter than the average people of your age, more good-looking than boys at your age and somehow the best one out of all those.

Ah, there I go again, listing your qualities, don't worry there's a lot more to it.

And then I learnt that you had secrets, things I never knew. You had PK, you were psychic, you could bend spoons and handle poltergeists, you were Oliver Davis in actuality, the most famous scientists of all and you had telepathic connections with your dead twin, Gene.

Oh and here comes your twin, the major twist in our seemingly perfect story.

Eugene Davis who died at the age of fifteen in a hit and run, was your twin who was the only person you really opened up to. You came to Japan to find his body which had been dumped in a lake and on one case you achieved this mission, You found his body and went back to England to give him a proper funeral.

Wait, I missed a very major thing in the middle, didn't I?

Oh yeah, your grand rejection. The one in which you asked a very important question.
Do you remember Naru? Because sure as Hell I do, very clearly.

We were leaning against that tree when I confessed and surprisingly...you smiled...sadly.
Do you remember your lines, because I do.

'Me or Gene?'

And the answer never came to my lips although it was on my fingertips, covering every inch of my mind.

It's you. It was always you.

Gene was just a puppet doll-attached to me in the astral plane, he was the one who fueled the feelings for you.

And then, you left.

Exactly that, simply left.

At first I cried. I wailed loudly, and sobbed, blaming my destiny. Every night I cried myself to sleep, imagining that you had never left. I would wake up every day and think in a moment of forgetfulness that you would kill me for being late and then it would occur to me that you weren't here.

In real, you were never here. You were lost from the very beginning.

I realized things Naru, I learnt from my heart's mistakes. You were right like always.

Feelings are worthless.

I was stupid Naru, stupid, a completely weak idiot who actually thought in some illusion-like fantasy that you would ever fall for me. You Oliver Davis, rich, smart, with half the female population at your heels would fall for a girl like me. Me, Taniyama Mai, an orphan, stupid, not that beautiful and certainly not rich. I knew that the feeling was going to make me regret in the end, I knew this every moment, every second I spent with you.

And then you know what happened.

For the first three months, I spent my mornings and evenings roaming around the airport, hoping, just hoping that maybe you would come back. Maybe, just maybe you would come back. I would wait at the terminal and keep my eyes wide open for a shock of dishevelled black hair and cerulean, sharp eyes.

I never saw it.

You never came back.

Then I started to erase you with my worn out hands, rubbing rashly at my heart, wishing you away like never before. Then I worked like you did, restlessly, passed high-school with exemplary grades. I wrote thesis on parapsychology and they were widely appreciated by my teachers, I also traveled to other places but although the opportunity came, I never came to England, because I was scared, I was frightened by reality, dead scared of being rejected once more. I was a coward back then and I'm still one now.

And when you came back I was...

Happy, angry, frustrated to death, excited, sinking in my own body like a boat...and you know, I've never resurfaced since then.

I don't blame you for anything it was only natural for you to reject me after all why would I fall for a guy like you, cold, calm, heartless, narcissistic but...I learnt that the heart falls for the most strange of things. It was natural of you to think that I was substituting you for your twin, because yes, I admit, he is too good.

But...

You are better.

See, I confessed.

Now throw this letter in the bin and when you've done that, warm the tea I left for you, thinking why you had to work with such sentimentalists and why was I being so stupid.

Now I feel light-hearted, I've given you the answer and to be honest, I don't really expect a reply from you.

Don't worry, I'm not quitting, that's something I'd never do, I'll haunt you to the very end of your life, like a demon who you can't get rid of.

And you call yourself a Ghost hunter. Pfft. Surely, I'm one ghost you can never throw out.

Egotistical, damned, narcissistic, tea-loving, jerk face.

I'll come tomorrow and complete my filing.

Wish you have a good day...though I highly doubt that.

P.S: Happy Birthday!

P.S.S: There's a cake in the refrigerator, DO eat it.

P.S.S.S: Sorry for the many postscripts, learned that from Madoka.

Your stupid assistant,

Taniyama Mai.'

For a moment, Naru simply stared at the text, his eyes wide, his lips slightly parted and extreme confusion covering every inch of his mind, before he gathered his scattered thoughts. He picked up a sheet and clicked his pen open, a slight anger rising within him, mixed with pride, ego, guilt and frustration. She, Taniyama Mai, his assistant, had the nerve to go against him and even write him a letter and leave the office on the day he needed her most.

It was his birthday and she had gone, but he didn't care, all he saw was white, blinding fury as he began writing on a new sheet.

Payback. Revenge...

The next day, Mai was surprised to see Lin-san handing her a folded sheet, looking very, very amused, unlike his usual stoic self.

"Is everything alright, Lin-san?"

"Noll left this on your desk, visit him in his office after reading this."

Mai looked slightly skeptic and frantic as she tentatively took it from him, examining the exterior intently.

"And oh, Mai-san?" Lin paused and turned on his shoulder before closing his office door.

"Yes?"

"Let me tell you now you're the lucky one."

And with that he turned on his heels and shut his office door, leaving a confused Mai opening the letter, her eyes flying over the words, widening in disbelieve.

'Mai,

How many times do I have to tell you that I despise sweet things, especially things containing chocolate and cocoa, then why did you leave the cake in the fridge, have you ever paid heed to my sayings?

No, you haven't. Not to this day anyway.

I also never thought that I would be so desperate as to write a letter to you, after all I'm a man of few words and sentiments, but now, I agree with you, we've been ignoring each other these past days and don't think of me as blind when I didn't respond to it. I was contemplating the matter already but you, being the impatient woman you are, decided to take matters into your hand.

Very Good. Excellent of you.

Now it's my turn to verify some facts and I won't ask you to trash this letter because listen carefully...

You have to read it to the very end or you can watch the money disappear of your paycheck.

See, I'm a good boss.

I, Oliver Davis, aged seventeen had lived a quiet life from the very beginning, with nothing of much consequence expect for a few psychic powers, an exceptional brain, better looks than anyone in the male population, a cheerful twin and two rich adoptive parents up until the day I decided to scare three normal school-girls by switching on the light and saying 'four'. There I met three girls, out of those three, two were quite predictable and almost immediately fell for my charm without even paying attention to it's fakeness. I expected that though, I am quite handsome.

But the other one, the one with the short height, cinnamon-colored eyes and the cropped, brown hair did something unexpected of girls near her age. She saw right through me like I was made of glass and treated me like she would treat any other boy intruding on a girl group, with outright indifference.

Do you know that girl's name? No?

Taniyama Mai.

Yes, she also broke a very expensive (though insured) camera and also injured my assistant and co-worker Koujo Lin. I also would like to mention that he hated her from the very beginning when she made him go to the hospital with a sprained ankle. I never told her this but she did me a great favor, I enjoyed a few days of freedom with him in the hospital and not looming over my head.

The girl had aroused something in me from the very beginning, what with her indifference to my looks, her feisty temperament and bubbly attitude, she made me have interest in her, more than any other woman on this planet. Then, I hired her and soon she started calling me Naru, a name that somehow I didn't come to mind. I could never bring myself to call her with honorifics and when I questioned my brain about this strange thing it said that I should call her by her first name because she didn't use honorifics when addressing me. So we made it to the first-name basis very early. After all, neither of us even knew each other but still were alright with first-name terms.

Then, time passed quite quickly, this same girl grew in front of me, her brain matured and day by day she came up with such antics that intrigued me. I also discovered my favorite pastime during all this.

Teasing her, putting her down and watching her face turn a very dark shade of red.

Everything about her was amusing, intriguing. From her voice to her attitude and her tea, everything made me smile internally and smirk till I could feel my internal laughter subside. And her tea...

The words that I almost loved hearing were 'Naru I brought your tea'. Yes, I adored her tea and don't worry Mai, my kidneys are quite strong due to the fact that they used to filter Lin's horrid tea before she came and raised the standards of taste. It's one thing that I've missed whenever I couldn't get it.

Why did I hire her, even when her IQ was below that of the requirements for her position. I hired a stupid girl out of empathy, since she was also an orphan and brave at that supporting herself all alone. I hope I've cleared my motives and no, it wasn't just because I could get some free help out of her.

And oh yes, Gene, the major twist in my life from the beginning when he was born two minutes before me. Stupid, caring yet everything I wasn't.

I lost my brother and I watched him die.

I never realized the fact that I would ever miss Gene but when he died, it was like somebody had walked over me. Like that Mai, just like that.

And yes, I did throw tantrums when I realized that he had died, I used excessive amounts of PK and the objects in my bedroom started to thrash around. I broke mirrors and in a moment of brutality even yelled at Lin. I swore loudly and let it all out, Mai. And then when I got too tired to even care, I simply lay in my bed, not making a single sound. It scared Mother and Father but soon I learnt that it was no use mooning over the past, I thus, tried to move on. I worked like a mentally retarded man, writing, experimenting, calling conferences and then came fame.

I became the famous Dr. Oliver Davis, the one who was clairvoyant and smashed an aluminum block in a wall with his mental powers but the shields, the honors didn't matter to me, I had lost the one real thing I could relate to, my last relative, my own twin. And the rest of the story is still a blur, it's just a fading past.

But the day I met you, some color and vivacity started to return. Thank you for doing that.
I came to Japan to find his body and I found it on one case but unknown to me, my own assistant saw my twin in her dreams, he was in fact her spirit guide. And then my assistant confessed to me in a moment of weakness.

I do remember her words clearly, because everyday I woke up in England, I called out to her in my dreams and sometimes even in my waking state.

It was pathetic, I tell you.

I rejected her because I was confused as Hell, why would a girl like her, the one who smiled and was as cheerful as the morning sun, fall for me? It's not like I showed how much I cared for her and even she called me a jerk, didn't she?

Then, tell me how was I supposed to accept her when she could just be infatuated with my twin, the one who was similar to her. The one who smiled and laughed and cared for every body. She could just be easily substituting me for him, couldn't she, now?

Thank you for understanding Mai.

England was hectic, boring and like a black and white film I had watched for a hundred times, I felt as if the main piece was missing, like I needed something.

I missed her in different ways, at different moments in different shades and everything about her dummy, why didn't she come?

And then I realized what exactly I needed.

Tea. Specifically her tea.

And...

Her...

Look, I confessed too.

Yes Mai, you matter, you are not some ugly, hare-brained girl, you are beautiful and I won't say it again, yes I learned my lesson and have tried to value your presence, because I've realized during this case that I could've lost you like I lost Gene and I can't afford that, I can't deal with that Mai.

So let me tell now you're the lucky one, not Miss Hara or any other girl in England.

It's you.

Let me tell you now you're the lucky one.

P.S: I hope that covers about everything...

P.S.S: Don't be late for work.

Your narcissist,

Naru.'

"I didn't know you could read." A sardonic voice broke her train of thoughts and she looked up to find him leaning in his doorway, a satisfied smirk, twisting the corners of his mouth upwards.

"I...can..but - you...can't l-"

"Are you hungry?" He simply asked, striding past her, taking his coat off the stand. "Mai?"

"I am...yeah...I-"

"Let's go..." He called over his shoulder and lazily exited the office, beckoning for her to follow. A moment later, a dazzled Mai exited the office, struggling with her coat's sleeves, running after Naru.

"I still can't wrap the fact that you thanked me three times during your letter, I mean, you-"

"I was in a beneficent mood, now stop dawdling, there's a cafe just two blocks away."

"You idiot scientist, why do you have to be mean about everything and spoil my lovely mood?!"

"That's your assumption Mai, I do not spoil your mood..."

And they both bickered the whole way, making people glance at the unusual couple but little did those people know that this was routine, a reflex action...to be expected after such a problematic love life with their own dilemma's

Honestly...those two...Lin sighed, watching them walk down the street. Teenagers...

The End

It's totally random, and just came out of my mind, so I had to write it, Thanks for reading, you deserve an award...:-) Review please!

- borntoflyhigh.