Finding You:

Chapter 8:

The amnesiac curled up in the corner of her shared bedroom. She was upset because she had been lied to, or had not been told vital facts. It seemed to be that no one close to her actually wanted her to recover her memories. The SPR irregulars had done their best to keep her away from Naru although Masako has been the one to take her to the office- she definitely needed to have a word with the haughty medium.

Lin and John were part of this group, although they did not fully agree with it and Lin had eventually told her the truth which was she grateful for.

Naru had his own plan and had got Keiko to hide the truth from her.

She sighed deeply. It was short sighted for anyone to think that she would be able to fit right back into her old life as if she wasn't six years too young for it and to stall her from regaining her memory by not telling her major facts about her past.

Deciding to have a talk with her new so called best friend, Masako Hara, Mai dialled her number. The medium took the call after several rings.

"Mai-chan? Are you all right?" Masako asked worriedly. "Did something happen on the case?"

Unwilling to waste time on pleasantries, Mai cut straight to the chase. "When were you planning on informing me that I dated Naru for three years?"

A sharp intake of breath could be heard before Masako answered.

"How did you find out? I'm guessing John or Lin-san slipped up. It was obvious they didn't like the idea of keeping it from you."

The amnesiac noted for future reference that Masako did not sound remotely ruffled that she had found out, she seemed to be surprised.

"I astral projected and saw enough things to get Lin-san to tell me. Were you ever going to tell me the truth?"

"Mai-chan, I did not want to keep this from you. Remember that I was the one to take you to SPR?" she pointed out. "I knew that not telling you wasn't going to do any good so I led you to Naru and left the rest up to him."

"Were Ayako and Bou-san ever going to tell me?" Mai moved on.

"The agreement was that you would be told eventually- this was before Naru rehired you of course. Are you angry with them?"

Mai considered it. They clearly had her best interests at heart and had overdone it.

"No, I'm just tired of being an amnesiac and not knowing anything," she said truthfully. "Are you going to tell me what happened two years ago?"

"You broke up with Naru," Masako answered bluntly which felt refreshing to Mai who had become used to everyone she talked to hedging their words and not finishing sentences.

Mai took a deep breath before asking the next question. "Why?"

As she predicted, the medium did not give her a full answer.

"That is not for me to say. It is between you and Naru. Sorry, Mai-chan."

A light knock on the door caused her to stiffen and her gut instinct informed her who it was.

"Bye Masako-chan!"

She hastily ended the call and waited for the person standing outside to come in. The door opened and Naru stepped across the threshold with an unreadable look on his face and Mai knew that he wasn't here to ask her why she was taking so long with his tea.

He glanced over at her and a nervous look momentarily appeared in his blue eyes which did not go unnoticed by her. Much to her surprise he walked over to her and sat down on the tatami met opposite her.

"You know," he stated simply. "I never expected you to use your abilities."

Mai nodded and twirled a stand of her hair before speaking.

"Why didn't you tell me? Surely a three year relationship with their boss should be one of the things that you tell an amnesiac?"

Naru sighed and his face lost its blank look. "I worked out that they were not going to tell you and I did not want to tell you outright for several reasons," he paused. "Firstly, you were very likely not to believe me.

Upon hearing this, Mai twitched as she was still having trouble believing that she had been engaged to someone who had been an arrogant narcissist.

"Secondly, it would have been too much of a shock to you. If I had told you the moment we met again, you would have felt overwhelmed," he explained and then looked her straight in the eye. "My last reason is a little selfish. When you get your memory back, you are almost guaranteed to hate me and never want to see me again and I wanted to spend as much time as I could with you."

He reached out and grasped her hand. "I'm sorry, Mai."

Mai stared at him and squeezed his hand in return and thought of something to say that wasn't related to her amnesiac, intending to catch him off guard later so he would be more likely to tell her the whole truth.

"Naru, why did you love me?"

Naru looked surprised that she hadn't asked any further questions about the secrecy surrounding their past relationship, but he answered nonetheless.

"Because you were always happy, unwilling to hate people even if they deserved it and you were willing to use your abilities to help others. Over time I realised that I was always waiting for your face to burst into a smile and I wanted to be the one to make you smile."

Almost instantly Mai blushed tomato red and was surprised at the... sappiness of Naru's answer. She had never expected him to say anything like that.

"I also enjoy it when you blush. Even after our relationship progressed further, you always blushed at the slightest thing I did."

His face broke into a small smile and Mai flushed an even brighter shade of red as she caught onto what he was hinting at.

A second later Naru's face became serious again. "As a way of not overwhelming you, I let you watch those case videos and put the photos in the files. I judged that you would have deduced our past relationship after one more photo. I was not expecting you to take the initiative and find out for yourself."

Mai made the decision to ask the important question that he had been haunting her for days.

"What is the event that occurred two years ago?"

Her former fiancé's gaze dropped down to the tatami mat and he was silent for a moment before he caught hold of her other hand.

"It was all my fault that time. I should have apologised, but my pride stopped me and you refused to see me again until I apologised," he shuddered. "Through Hara-san, I have kept an eye on you to make sure that you were safe and then I heard you had been in an accident and had amnesia..."

With bated breath she waited for him to continue and caught sight of a drop of water falling onto the tatami mat. She bent her head and saw that the man who she had always thought of as being impregnable and cold hearted, was crying. She let go of his hand momentarily to give him her handkerchief that she carried in her pocket.

"If I had swallowed my pride and done the right thing two years ago, we could be married right now and you would not have been in the accident and you would not have amnesia," Naru said once he had calmed down.

"What did you do 2 years ago?"

"We undertook a case for an important client. The case was very complex and the investigation was not easy. We never had any free time together and you kept trying to tell me something and I was always too busy to listen and that was what led to it."

"What is "it"?" Mai asked fearfully, having never seen her boss so emotional about anything before, including his brother's death.

"The spirit only attacked people of a certain criteria and you met that criteria so it tried to attack you."

The brunette leaned closer. Lin had told her to check her hospital records which indicated that she had sustained an injury on the case and this tallied with what Naru was saying.

"Did it succeed?"

"I jumped in front of you and was about to blast it away using my PK despite the risk to my wellbeing and you pushed me out the way and sustained an injury to your stomach," he stopped and gripped her hand again. "The others did exorcise the ghost and I rushed you to hospital for immediate treatment as your condition was bad."

Mai frowned. She felt like the story was missing something. The information that she had been told so far was not worthy of a huge rift between her and everyone else and for her to break up with him.

"I am ashamed to say that I was not too pleasant to you when you woke up from the surgery," Naru bowed his head even deeper. "I said that you would not be in that condition if you hadn't pushed me out of the way and blamed you. Quite understandably you were very annoyed and demanded that I apologise and I refused to unless you did first. And I never did apologise."

The amnesiac raised an eyebrow. Her instincts were telling her that he had left something instrumental to their split because she was certain that she wouldn't have broken up with him because of that.

"What I should have done was realise that you were trying to save me because you held my life in a higher regard than yours and did it on instinct without thinking and I was annoyed by your selflessness and disregard for your life," Naru added. "So I will apologise now. I'm sorry, Mai."

Mai wasn't sure what to think. Deep down she had entertained the notion that if she found out what happened two years ago she might get her memory back. This could be proof that yet again something was being kept back from her.

Awkwardly she patted him on the head for lack of anything to say because she couldn't remember anything meaning that most of the significance was lost on her.

"You can say it again when I have my memory back," she smiled at him. "It will mean much more."

The next thing she knew Nary was pulling her closer for a hug which made her feel warm inside and sparked a feeling of familiarity. This caused her to remember reading somewhere that even if the mind forgets an event, the body will still remember.

She was prepared to stay with Naru like that for a while, however fate was against them and Lin came bursting in seconds later.

"Yasuhara-san found it," Lin announced before he registered what his former charge and his assistant were doing. "...It's good that you two have made up, but please remember that there is a case to solve. I will be in the base... when you are ready, Noll."

The omnouji left the room in a hurry to give them some time together.

Mai coughed when Naru showed no sign of letting her go and returning to the base.

"Um, Naru..."

As if with great effort, the former narcissist released her and kept hold of her hand and led the way to the base.

"Report," he ordered Lin tersely once they had sat down at the table in the base.

Lin looked carefully at his superior's face and noted that some of the tension that had been building up for the past few days had gone and he was noticeably calmer. Correctly, he surmised that Naru had told Mai the truth, or at least some of it. If she knew all of it, it was unlikely that she was be sitting in the base waiting for him to explain his findings.

"Yasuhara-san found an old newspaper article with details the murder of someone named Arashi Kishu which was committed by a woman named Yuzuriha Kuzuki who is Sumeragi-san's great grandmother. He scanned the article and the library and sent it to me," Lin said and held up a print out. "Look at the drawing accompanying the article."

Mai craned her neck to get a good view and instantly understood the significance. The old and grainy drawing resembled Hokuto Sumeragi exactly. Both had short dark hair and a small face. The text of the article listed that the death had been caused by a fight over a man that escalated into murder.

"The spirit must think that Sumeragi-san is her murderer and wants revenge," John summed up.

Naru looked thoughtful. "If so she should be easy to exorcise. We need a hitogata."

Once the hitogata had been prepared the investigators lay in wait for Arashi Kushu's spirit to appear. At 1:15am the furniture in the living room began to shake and Naru stepped out from behind the sofa.

"Arashi Kishu-san?" he questioned loudly.

The vase on top of the bookshelf fell off and shattered on the laminate floor.

"I will take that as a yes," Naru commented dryly. "You were killed by Yuzuriha Kuzuki; by a slight stretch of fancy, do you wish for revenge?"

As he spoke a faint silhouette began to form on the wall, becoming more defined until it materialised as a woman wearing a white yukata with her long black hair falling in front of her face.

"You can have her then," he said and drew out the hitogata and threw it at the figure in one smooth motion. "Now that you have her, you have no reason to stay here."

The figure began to fade from view and eventually she disappeared completely. Mai sighed in relief and freed herself from the curtain where she had been hiding. She had been worried that Naru would anger the spirit and end up using his PK. Lin also looked like he had been having the same thoughts as he looked very relieved when they returned to the base.

"It's too late to return home tonight," Naru informed them. "In any case everyone should go and get some sleep. Mai, stay here with me."

I apologise for the lateness of this chapter. I had relatives down last week which always exhausts me.