Inevitability

Chapter 4

Naru froze like a statue as his mind whirred furiously, trying to add everything up. It was true that the child looked just like him when he was younger and Mai had never shown any interest in any males beside him, no Gene, who was identical to him in appearance, he corrected himself. It did make sense, but there was something missing.

"I think I would remember if I impregnated Mai," he informed everyone haughtily.

This threw them for a bit. Then Bou-san started counting on his fingers.

"Two years ago, it takes nine months...the boy is around one and half. That makes sense!"

"What does?" Ayako demanded. "Wait a second..."

They exchanged significant looks. "The party," they said in unison.

John's brow wrinkled as he did the Mathematics too. "Do you mean that party that we had at SPR, the night before Shibuya-san left?"

"That's right, I vaguely remember the party, I think I got a little drunk..." Bou-san commented wryly. "What did actually happen?"

All eyes turned to John, the priest who was unlikely to drink enough alcohol to get drunk.

"I remember the party very well. Everyone, including Hara-san became intoxicated, some more than others," he began nervously.

"I'm taking it that Takigawa-san and Matsuzaki-san were the worst," Naru inferred.

"Yes. I remember that you weren't particularly happy with it being at the office and you told Lin to drive us all home, but Taniyama-san stayed to help clear up the mess left behind."

"That does not explain how I am supposedly the father of Mai's child."

John took a deep breath and let it out. There was no going back after he confessed this. "Before he left, Bou-san spiked your tea and Mai's with vodka. I saw you drink it before I went out the door and Mai did too."

There was a brief silence as the non narcissistic members of the SPR tried to picture the usually stoic and straight laced Oliver Davies, drunk on vodka spiked tea.

"You and Mai would get drunk very quickly since neither of you seem to have any previous experience with alcohol."

The scientist still couldn't get his head around it. "So just because I was drunk, I had sex with Mai and she let me because she was drunk too."

A vague flash of a blurry image suddenly came to him. In it he was leaning over to kiss Mai..

It was true. He was the father of her son. What would his parents say? They would be appalled, but his foster mother would be happy with having an unexpected grandchild, he decided. He might even be ordered to marry Mai by his father, for some reason the image didn't bother him as much as he thought it would.

Bou-san clapped a comforting hand onto Naru's shoulder. "You see Naru-chan, when you get drunk you often act on some of your concealed inhibitions. Mai liked you and deep down you like her too."

Naru recalled Mai's love confession from two years ago and his subsequent answer.

"She didn't love me. She loved my brother."

Ayako sighed deeply. "For someone who has so much knowledge in addition to special abilities, you're pretty stupid when it comes to love."

Masako intervened before Naru could retort. "Mai did love you and not your twin, it was always evident."

He decided to accept that as the truth for now, as he had initially believed that she had been unconsciously projecting her feelings for Gene onto him; they were identical twins after all. But he wasn't so sure about the idea of him liking her. He wasn't the type of person that loved anyone in a romantic way. That had been Gene. Not him.

The remaining members of SPR watched an expression of pain pass over his face and made an unanimous silent decision to leave the head of SPR alone for a while.

Yasuhara paused in the doorway. "Um, if the story is true, wouldn't he at least be aware of it? He would have woken up in the office with less clothes on."

Naru overheard him. The college student was right, he would have definitely known if something like that happened. "When I woke up the next morning, I was in my hotel room with my pyjamas on. I had a headache which was possibly the only sign of the hangover."

There was only one person who could have moved him. He pushed past everyone and hurried to the kitchen to find Lin.

"It seems as if Lin-san has been holding out on us," Ayako noted.

Fortunately for Naru it had been easy to track down the onmyouji as he had been about to leave the kitchen carrying a steaming cup of tea. Lin stared at his charge in surprise as the boy was out of breath as if he had rushed to the kitchen.

He must be desperate for tea, Lin decided, as that was the most likely option. He held out the teacup.

"Here is your tea."

To his surprise Naru didn't take it. Instead the scientist stared the onmyouji down.

"Lin, why didn't you tell me that I slept with Mai?"

The Chinese man blinked, unsure about the state of his hearing. Had Naru really said that he had slept with Mai?

"Don't play dumb Lin. The party, two years ago. You moved me from the office to my hotel room and changed my clothes."

This part was understandable to Lin. "It took me two hours to drop everyone off as most of them were very far gone. When I arrived back at the office at one in the morning, you were the only person there. I had no idea that you had slept with Taniyama-san. If I had had any inkling I would have investigated it."

"She must have run away and left me there," Naru deduced, now beginning to make sense of the past events that had led to Mai's amnesia and pregnancy.

Lin shot him a sharp look. "Naru, are you the father of the child that resembles you?"

"How did you know?" the narcissist sighed. "Everyone else seemed to know and implied that I was stupid for not knowing."

"Because the child looks exactly like you, but he had Taniyama-san's eyes. I didn't actually know until you asked the question about sleeping with her."

"Why did you cover up the incident of me getting drunk?"

"I had been planning to tell you when you woke up, but you were still grieving over Gene's death so the minor incident of you getting drunk seemed to pale in importance. I would have told you if I had known about Taniyama-san."

Naru knew that he understood Lin's reasoning, being told that he had become drunk at a party the night after discovering his brother's body would seem like an insult to his brother's memory, but he still couldn't quite believe that he had slept with his former assistant.

"What are you going to do now? You will have to tell your parents that you have a child. I imagine that Luella will be delighted."

"I-"

A piercing scream cut off Naru's words. Bother men turned in the direction of the scream which sounded like it had come from down the hallway. The scream was also familiar as during the days of SPR, everyone had become acquainted with the sound of Mai screaming at one point or another.

Naru sprinted down the hallway ahead of Lin, who in normal circumstances was the faster runner. The hallway widened out and he found himself in the reception area where Maaya was crouched on the floor with a smashed vase right by her. The flowers had fallen out of the vase and the water was pooling around her. Instead of looking at the mess around her, she was staring at the wall in fright. Naru followed her gaze and immediately understood why.

Scrawled across the wall in dripping letters of blood were the words "leave us alone".

Having read the message, Naru switched his attention back to his former assistant.

"Are you all right, Kudou-san?"

"Yes..." she answered shakily and started to get back up, before finding that her legs were dead and falling back down.

Naru stretched his hand out, ignoring the sudden burst of warmth that passed over him and helped her up. Maaya winced and he looked down to see that she had a shard of pottery stuck in her leg that looked like it had come from the vase.

"Can you walk?" he asked concernedly.

"I think so," she said and Naru walked on ahead to lead her to the base where the first aid kit was kept.

He heard a cry of pain behind him and he turned to see Maaya wincing again. Not paying attention to the remaining members of the SPR that had arrived, he sighed before picking her up bridal style to carry her back to the base.

"Are you sure that you want to carry her?" Lin asked, remembering that he had been the one to carry her to the infirmary during the case at Ryoukuryou High School.

Bou-san elbowed him the ribs for interrupting the slightly romantic moment.

"It would defeat the purpose of carrying her to the base to give her treatment as soon as possible if I passed her to you," the scientist answered and walked on.

"Excuse me, don't I get an opinion in this?" the girl in his arms decided to join the discussion as she was actually the subject.

"Yes?"

Maaya looked him in the eye before dropping her gaze. "Just don't drop me."

"That's what I thought," Naru smirked down at her.

He had completely forgotten that baiting Mai was this fun.

The other members of the SPR watched him walk away, flabbergasted at his actions.

"So, how long until Baby no.2?" Yasuhara wondered out loud.

Ayako nudged him. "That is not the concern right now. The ghosts have made an appearance. We need to get to work."

Well done to everyone that identified the quote in the previous chapter as being from xxxHolic.