I know, I know. I take forever. I swear I have a list of excuses that are really not very interesting.
But no one wants to hear excuses! Let's get on with the story, shall we?
Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt. If I did, this first sentence would happen a lot more often.
She fell on her boss.
He let out a grunt as all the air escaped him and she fought for breath and struggled to untangle her leg from around his ankle and crawl off him. He groaned and curled into a fetal position and breathed in horrible, rasping breaths and groans.
"Ohmigosh, Naru, I'm so sorry!" Mai cried. She could see him, now, in a little bit of light that seemed to come from nowhere. It was as if the house was mocking them. Now that it had them, there was no need for the cover of darkness anymore.
They were done for.
His dark hair was all over his face so she couldn't see his expression, but he was clearly in pain. She almost reached out to help him and then remembered her terrible blunder and sat awkwardly next to him as he wheezed.
"It's….fine," he managed. "Just...don't talk...so….much."
"Oh. Sorry!" Mai whispered. Her hands flew to her mouth and clamped down on it when she realized she was doing a bad job of listening to him.
She sat there listening to his painful breathing for what seemed like hours, silently regretting everything she had ever done in her life if it only lead up to this moment of putting Naru in such extreme pain. She should never have come along on this case. She should never have fallen asleep. She should never have accepted this job. She should never have been sitting in that classroom where she had first met Naru.
Naru, she thought absently. Even beautiful now.
Eventually, he managed to press his forearms against the floor and push himself up into an awkward half-laying, half-bent position. He leaned over on one side and faced Mai.
"Stop looking at me like that," he muttered.
"Like-like what?"
"Like I'm some mental patient who'll bite your head off and collapse."
Mai didn't answer because she had been thinking something along those lines. Instead, she asked, "Should I - should I help you sit up?"
"No." He gritted his teeth and pushed himself all the way up. "I can do it myself."
Mai raised an eyebrow and didn't comment on his gasping breaths.
Naru sat up next to Mai and leaned back against the wall that she hadn't noticed before in her anxiety. He leaned his head back against the stone and tilted his tired, beautiful face up to the hole in the ceiling, where a little bit light shone through from somewhere unknown and cast a halo upon his black hair.
Mai looked away, sick with love and heartbreak. She wanted to tell him so much it hurt but she respected Naru and didn't want to ruin the only thing they might ever have. He had rejected her once; he might not tolerate her a second time.
Her gaze fell upon his hand. It was scratched and red.
"Naru, you're bleeding!"
"Thank you for pointing out the obvious," he muttered.
"Hey, no need to be mean!" Mai protested. She took Naru's hand and he flinched but she uncurled his fingers and stared at the gash in his palm.
"Did you get this when we fell?"
"The first time."
Mai bit her lip. He had held her up when his hand was bleeding and scratched so deeply. He could have just dropped her and no one would ever know. She remembered the ribbon in her pocket and pulled it out. She wrapped it a few times around his hand and tied it with a viscous kot.
"DON'T do that again!" she scolded, and wiped her now-bloody hands on her jeans. "You should've just-"
"Dropped you?"
"Yes!" Mai said hotly. "Then I wouldn't be stuck down here with you. And there would be someone to go for help at least."
"First of all, Mai, I would still need someone to pull me up - I wasn't in that great of a position to pull myself up. My motives were purely selfish on that point. Second, how would I know the house would let me get help even if I did make it up? It's the demon's night, and he needs blood soon. And third, even if I did get help, I wouldn't know where to find you again."
Mai sat, a little stunned at his little speech. He really thought things through, didn't he?
Nevertheless, she crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. "A simple 'I wasn't about to let you die all alone' would suffice," she grumbled.
"I was under the impression you were trying to get smarter, not simpler."
"UGH!" Mai stood up and stomped a few feet away. "I can't believe you! You stupid jerkface!" She imagined she was blowing out smoke through her nostrils and ears. How dare he?
"Why did you pull me up then?"
"Because!" Mai said furiously, spinning around to look at him. "I need you! Everyone needs you! I can't go back...without you."
"That's just repeating what you said earlier in a moment of panic. Try to think with your brain. Rationally."
Mai wanted to scream at him that love wasn't rational, that she would jump off a cliff if he was doing the same thing, but she but her tongue and slumped down next to him.
"How did I get into that room?"
"You were sleepwalking. You opened a door from base and walked out. When I went after you, the door slammed shut on everyone else."
"Naru?"
He didn't answer, as was his custom, but Mai went on.
"I was dreaming when you were following me." Mai told him all that happened. At the end, she found herself clutching his sleeve in fright. "Naru, I'm scared for Gene."
"The idiot will be okay. Don't worry about him too much."
"Naru, if he's hurt, it's all my fault!" Mai's voice rose in terror.
Naru sighed and dislodged Mai's fingers from his sleeve so he could reach into his back pocket and pull something out. He pressed a black, compact mirror into her hands. He opened it and turned it so she could see Naru in the mirror. "He's there, Mai."
Mai stared hard at Naru's profile, as if she could will Gene's face into existence. However, nothing changed.
Then Naru's reflection smirked.
Mai clapped the mirror shut. "Naru!" she chided. "You can't fool me. I know who's who. You're a liar."
"It's not my fault Gene doesn't want to come and see your face right now."
"I hate you."
"You love your paycheck though."
"HEARTLESS JERK!"
"You're just sore that he won't come in the mirror for you."
"It's not like his smile is the one I want to see anyways," Mai muttered under her breath.
"Hmmm?"
"Nothing!" Mai yelped and pressed her hands to her heated face. "I just - asked why you smirked in the mirror."
"Just wondering whether you knew or not."
Mai thought it over. "Naru?"
Silence.
"Thanks for the mirror. Even if Gene didn't come. And even if you did try to cheat me."
"I can't have a hysterical assistant."
"You know what? I am never thanking you for anything ever again!"
They sat in silence, but Mai couldn't take it.
"Shouldn't we be getting somewhere?" she asked.
"Yes," Naru said sarcastically. "Let's start walking from the middle of nowhere until we get to the middle of nowhere, all the while cursing the lack of light and a less accident prone assistant."
"You're so mean! I'm just going to open a door."
"You won't be able to," Naru said flatly. "The demon is getting stronger by the second."
"We can't just sit here and wait to die!" Mai cried.
"If you just quit talking for one second maybe I could sit here in peace and think us a way out of here!" Naru finally snapped.
Mai scowled in the darkness and slumped in defeat.
In less than a minute, she spoke again. "Naru, what time is it?"
"It was 11:30 when we left base. Be quiet now."
"Fine, fine."
Not five minutes had gone by when Mai felt the urge to speak again. "How's your hand?"
"Horrible, now that you're talking again."
"You're horrible!"
"I am merely stating a fact."
That kept Mai quiet for some time.
"It's getting cold."
"Maybe if you stopped wasting your breath saying useless things you'd be a little warmer."
Mai scooted closer to Naru. Hell if she cared what he thought of her at this point! She was freezing and he was only being mean about it.
A few more minutes went by.
Suddenly, a cold hand grasped her wrist.
"NARU!" Mai shrieked and grabbed for his arm.
"Mai," Naru said urgently. "Do not panic. Do not give in. Do you understand? The brain is the only weapon we have right now."
Something hauled them both to their feet and began dragging them through the darkness.
"Naru-"
"Mai, don't fight it. Don't waste your strength."
"It got so dark Mai couldn't see Naru. It terrified her. What if her dream came true? What if Naru disappeared completely like his brother had?
"Naru?"
"Yes?"
"Are you still there?"
"No," came the sarcastic reply. "The demon has found a recording to play for you."
Mai sighed in relief. If Naru was still able to insult her, everything was fine.
They walked forever, after which Mai was suddenly lifted and slammed onto her back on a hard, cold slab of stone.
"NARU!"
"MAI! Are you alright?"
"No, he's tying me down!"
Cords were wrapped around her legs, her arms, her waist, her chest, her forehead, and one especially taut one around her neck, holding her immobile against the cold stone.
"Naru?" she whispered weakly.
A hand stroked her forehead, cold and rough. "Dear, Naru," crooned a deep, creepy voice, "can help you no more."
Mai's voice caught in her throat. She couldn't even turn away from the hand on her head. She had never felt so violated in her entire life.
"NARU!" she screamed for the upteenth time.
A fire blazed up, blinding Mai. She closed her eyes and waited for them to adjust . When she opened her eyes again, she first looked for Naru. He was tied to a thick pole in the corner of the dark, plain room. His hands were bound behind him, and his face was pale and haggard.
"Mai don't look at the fire. It's the demon, you hear me?" Naru said, as if demons were something they dealt with on an everyday basis.
Mai let out a startled whimper on seeing the gruesome monster leaning over her. He looked exactly like what had been pretending to be Naru in her dream. She couldn't turn her head, so she squeezed her eyes shut at the sight.
The hand in her hair moved down to her face and then stroked her down to her neck. Mai trembled violently under the ghoul's rough, leathery touch and tried not think about how the hand was on her collarbone and didn't seem like it was going to stop.
"I have not had such a beautiful sacrifice in a hundred years," he whispered. His hand began to move down onto her chest.
Mai felt like she couldn't breathe. Naru, please.
"STOP IT!"
Naru's voice was hard and tense and raw, as if anxiety had been building up inside of him and suddenly burst out of him.
The ghoul stopped and laughed. "Lovers always make better sacrifices."
Mai's face flamed and she looked anywhere but Naru. However, his voice was cold and unemotional.
"Don't touch my assistant."
"Only your assistant, eh?" He looked at Mai and smiled, revealing rows of blackened and rotted and missing teeth.
He leaned down then, closer and closer and didn't seem like he was stopping. Mai clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to breathe in his horrible breath.
His lips were too close and-
"DON'T TOUCH HER!" Naru roared.
Mai's eyes flew open just in time to see a piece of broken stone slam into the side of the ghoul's head. He fell to the floor.
Mai let out the breath she had been holding and screamed, "Naru, stop it, you're going to hurt yourself!" She couldn't know for certain in the firelight, but he looked whiter to her.
Before Naru could snap something caustic back at her, a cool, smooth voice was filling the room, deep and ancient. It chilled Mai to the bone.
"Ridiculous. Never trust mortals."
A man came into Mai's vision. Later, when she tried to describe him she couldn't remember. All she could remember was the hood that obscured the top half of his face and his obsidian eyes.
"Mai, don't look," Naru commanded sternly.
She accidentally looked into his eyes.
So, was it worth the wait?
Hopefully it was!
For next time: a short, sad chapter (and a longer one soon afterwards, do not worry!).