The Holes in our Hearts

Chapter 2: The Girl Who Followed Her Heart, and the Boy Who Hid His Away

After she left Naru's office, Mai headed straight for the closet. She was looking for the first aid kit to see if there was something she could do about her hand. Despite having told Naru that it was marker, Mai knew it was really the burn from the tea she had spilled earlier. As she searched for the first aid kit Naru had insisted they buy when she managed to cut herself ten times in one week just doing her daily chores, Mai contemplated why she had been holding things back from Naru. After all, she trusted him, right? He was her boss. The man that had given her life more of a meaning than it had ever had.

After Mai lost her parents she had just been going about living her life on a daily basis. In truth she had nothing left to live for. She went through the day-to-day activities because there was nothing more she could do. She was a young girl who had lost her parents and her purpose to live. Mai always remembered that her mother would tell her, "Mai, no matter what you always have to have something to live for. Whether that reason is to say you survived another day on this planet or simply to accomplish one more trivial task, you have to have something to live for."

Mai's mother told her that the day before she died. When the topic first came up, Mai didn't know what to do. She was a young girl and had no knowledge of what she should do with her life. All Mai knew was that she wanted to be different. She didn't want to be that person that was born, went to school, got a job, married, had some children, and then died. She wanted her life to mean more than that. She wanted to stop the people on the street that were walking around like stupid idiots not even trying to do something with their lives and shake them until they could see the world in a new way.

That was when Mai decided what she wanted to live for. She wanted to live each day for the chance to see another one and make someone's life a little bit better while doing it. The next day, her parents both died in a horrible accident. She had no family, and the people in the world that had meant the most to her were gone. She was alone with no one except her friends from school and a social services program that saw her as a loose end that needed to be tied up in foster care.

After the accident, Mai played evasion. She made herself the perfect child so that the officials would leave her alone. How could they expect her to go to another family when she had experienced the perfect thing? It was like showing a man Heaven and then saying he had to go on living on Earth after being able to see perfection. So Mai learned. She learned how to fool the adults with a well placed chipper smile. She learned how to be her own person and rely on no one but herself. Sure she still had friends, but she would never depend on them for anything more than companionship.

That was, until she had met Naru and the entire SPR crew that had changed everything. Now she had people around her that she could trust. They had provided her with the one thing she could never find for herself. They gave her a family. Sure each member had their own little quirks, but isn't that part of what makes every family feel closer together? Naru in particular, he seemed like the quirkiest of them all. He brought out the best and the worst in her. In fact, even after having just met him, he had brought out more life in her since her parents' death than all the years of grieving and moving on ever could. He was her spark and Mai just wished he would trust her more.

Mai knew Naru thought she was stupid, but she was a lot smarter than he gave her credit for. There were times she had caught "the look" coming off of him. When he thought no one was watching, and usually he was right, he would get a far off look in his eyes and that mask that seemed to be forever frozen in place would slip. It was then that Mai would see something she knew far too well. Naru's eyes held the same sadness her held after her parents had died. Even to this day, she could still look in the mirror and see that look from time to time.

Mai wished that she could be a source of comfort for her boss. Not as a simple distraction, (despite being hopelessly attracted to him, Mai cared about being there as a friend for him if that was what he needed) but as a person he could relate to. She knew the story of how he lost Gene, and she also knew how no matter how many people tried to replace Gene is his life, they would never be anything compared to the twin brother Naru had obviously loved very dearly.

He cared so much that it seemed to Mai that he had buried the part of himself that had in order to never be hurt again. After he lost Gene, Naru must have taken the parts of himself that could truly empathize with another human being and buried them in an impenetrable fort inside his mind. Mai often wondered if he could even access it any more. Then she remembered the few times he had smiled at her with a genuine smile that could only come from someone who cared and was, at least subconsciously, looking for someone to relate to. Those smiles were always what made Mai's day. In fact, the more time she spent around her narcissistic boss and got to know the compassionate side of him, the more she found herself opening to the world again.

As these thoughts wiggled around in her head Mai took the first aid kit out of the closet and headed to the bathroom. She found a bandage that matched her skin close enough that the word would be covered and hopefully not be blatantly obvious to the over-observant Naru. She finished wrapping her hand and headed back out to the office. She had a lot to do, and not a lot of time to do it. She still had to clean up the mess in the kitchen from earlier and make the calls Naru had requested.

With speed admirable to any assistant Mai placed the needed calls to her fellow team members and then headed to the kitchen to clean up the mess. It was then that she remembered what had caused the fall to happen in the first place. It was that screaming, someone shouting about how something was empty. "Now I know I'm going crazy," Mai mussed to herself as she wiped up the spilled beverage. Once she had finished she sat down on the floor to think things over. The few memories of the dream that she had, the flashbacks, the shouting, the urge to lie to Naru, and most disturbing of all, the word that kept popping up. "Empty," Mai mused allowed, "I wonder what could be so important about such a small word."

With that thought voiced, Mai allowed her head to drop as she succumbed to a deep sleep where hopefully some of her questions could be answered.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt or any of the characters that make up this wonderful story line. I'm just tinkering with them to entertain myself and hopefully a few others.