Me: Yay! It's done!

Mai:*claps* Good job!

Me: Just so you guys now, I recently started the school year, so updates will be slower!

Mai: Boo!

Me: I know, I know. But I just realized something the other day that made me feel very fangirly. If you guys read my A/Ns you know about the whole Naru stroking Mai's cheek scene that happened in the light novel. And we're all really sad that it didn't happen in the manga or anime. BUT, it could've happened! Since Mai could't see what was happening when she was unconscious(unlike in the light novel), it's totally possible he still did it!

Mai:...

Me: If I owned Ghost Hunt, you KNOW Naru would have already confessed his eternal love to Mai by now. Like in some kind of 'we're might die, so I should get this of my shoulders' situation. Well actually... I could write a one shot like that...

Mai:*blush* Lulucutie12 doesn't own Ghost Hunt, wait there's NARU over there!

Pain and No Games

"Oliver." Mai breathed out, her entire body going stiff.

"Mai. You look rather nice." Dr. Oliver Davis, also known as Naru the Narcissist answered plainly. Someone who didn't know him would have described his voice as cold and uninterested, but Mai knew better. It was bitter.

"Oliver." She repeated. Noll rolled his eyes.

"Yes, we've established that." Mai glared at him, resulting in his blue eyes gaining a trace of a smile. A smile that he used to wear on his lips when she would give him that same glare for teasing her.

Back when she was still his assistant.

Back when he could still call her his.

Back when they were still dating.

Mai quickly noticed the nostalgia blossoming in Naru's eyes and shifted her gaze to his black suited chest. Six months had gone by, and she still wanted to cry whenever he looked at her like that. "So why are you here?"

"I'm attending on behalf of my parents, the Fujimoto family are generous sponsors of SPR. They decided it would be wiser to simply send me instead of through the trouble of flying to Japan." He raised an eyebrow. "Although, I think the question is why you're here."

"I'm here for w-work." She answered quickly with a slight stammer. He raised his eyebrow again. "So….why isn't Lin here?"

"He's sick." Mai mentally cursed Lin for leaving her to cross paths with Naru by herself after the colossal mess of emotions that had been labeled as the aftermath of their breakup. "You work at a private detective agency, correct?" She looked up at him with startled doe eyes which quickly narrowed. He dismissed her slightly suspicious demeanor. "Don't be dense Mai. I'm sure you have enough brain cells to deduce that I'd know you have remained in contact with most of the team." It was true. She still occasionally talked to everyone excluding Noll and Masako. Even though the medium had given up on Naru, Mai always felt a sort of distance from her. When she had left SPR a few weeks after the break up and Masako never made a move to connect with her, Mai had just assumed she wasn't interested in keeping a friendship with her. It saddened her, but she couldn't make Masako like her.

"Right yeah, I really like it there and it pays pretty well so, you know, everything's going good and all….." She trailed off awkwardly.

"Mai." She wanted to tease him the same way he had done to her, but those sapphire eyes stopped her. They were filled with intensity and determination. His voice was much softer now. "I want to talk to you. About everything that happened. May we go somewhere quieter?"

The urge to cry came back again. She clenched the fabric of her dress tightly. "Naru… You and I both know that it's not going to help anything."

"Oh, really?" The harshness in his voice made her flinch. "Because I don't believe I ever know what's going through your head anymore. Much less think it myself." Accusation was laced in his voice. Mai didn't know why, but it made her angry. Like it was all her fault! She tried, but she couldn't stop what happened between them! She couldn't change the way she felt! She clenched her teeth. Before she could start shouting at him, Mai felt a hand squeeze her shoulder.

"What's up?" Akira asked casually, although his stature was defensive. Kira stood next to him in absolute bewilderment. Her grey eyes kept darting from Mai to Naru. Mai exhaled, relieved for the intrusion.

"Nothing, just talking to my old boss Naru, I mean um, Kazuya Shibuya." The said man set a steely blue glare on Akira, who in turn introduced himself without missing a beat. Kira was too busy trying to process the scene before her to speak.

"Anyways, we've got to take our leave now. Nice meeting you, Naru. With that Akira grabbed both Mai and Kira, and the trio began crossing the ballroom.

Mai threw herself across the seats of the limousine Akira had rented and screamed into the black leather. Kira got in next, nearly tripping over her high heels in the process. Akira shamelessly laughed at her lack of coordination as he climbed in after her.

"Who was that guy?" Kira asked the back of the brunette's head. Michiru is going to be pissed if you mess up your hair.

"My old boss slash ex-boyfriend." Wait, what?! That hot guy, completely dressed in black, was Mai's boyfriend?! I kinda assumed she'd be more into the sweet guy type.

"Why'd you break up?" Akira gave her a 'really? do you have no tact?' look, which she returned with a rude hand gesture. Mai pushed herself up from her sprawled position and focused her attention on the side window.

"I'm really sorry, but…..I'd rather not talk about it."

"Yeah, it's okay! I don't wanna pry." Still, Kira didn't think this would be the last of Naru. In fact, she thought this was the very beginning.

And when she wiped off her make up, carefully slipped out of her dress, and crawled into her bed, there was one image that she could not get out of her head.

Those blue eyes. Right before Akira had intervened in Mai and Naru's conversation. It wasn't the beauty or the spectacularness of them that had captured Kira's attention.

It was the absolute pain in them.

A few days later, Mai had dragged Kira out of the office during their lunch break to go shopping. "Why do I have to be here?" Kira complained for the seventh time.

"Because I want new clothes for the concert Akira has to buy me tickets for." Oh yeah, he'd promised them to her so she'd agree to the Fujimoto case.

"But why do I have to be here?"

"Because I love you?" Mai offered innocently. Kira looked at her pointedly. "And Keiko and Michiru are busy?" She added honestly, putting all her effort in trying to look adorable so Kira wouldn't blow up at her. It worked. Kira sighed.

"Can't Michiru just give you clothes?" Mai stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry.

"But looking for the clothes is really fun!"

"Well, not-"

"Mai!" The pair whipped around to see a tall and alluring redhead hurrying in their direction. Once she reached them, she threw her arms around Mai and squeezed. "You haven't visited us in forever! Do you how unbearable that narcissistic brat is without you there to rein him in?! Are you getting enough sleep? Are you eating right?" The loud woman continued to fire off questions at the smaller girl, until Mai quite literally stuck her fingers in her ears to stop the noise.

"Ayako! AYAKO! This is my friend and coworker Kira! I told you about her, remember?" Ayako stopped her interrogation to turn around and look at the gaping blonde. Instantly, her whole demeanor changed. Her back straightened and she tossed her luscious hair over her shoulder all while eyeing Kira. Who in turn, noticed that the redhead's face was adorned with flawlessly applied makeup.

"Hi." Ayako said, coolly. Mai rolled her eyes at the little show she had put on.

"Kira, this is Ayako Matsuzaki."

"Nice to meet you." Kira responded, a little breathlessly. Were all of the people Mai spent her free time with completely overbearing to all the senses? Hey… Wait. Doesn't that make me overbearing too… Mai continued chatting with Ayako.

"So, are you out shopping?" Ayako shook her head in disbelief at the question.

"I'm disappointed that you'd even ask that."

"Well, you've only got your purse with you. Knowing you, if you were shopping, you'd have at least half a dozen bags by now."

"I have seven, Houshou is c-" Ayako whipped around,narrowed eyes searching the store for the long haired Buddhist. "That stupid old man! He must of left me when I ran in here to find you!"

"Or maybe he's just sitting on a bench, taking a break. Seven bags are kinda heavy." Mai offered, saying a little mental prayer for Monk, who was most likely getting a purse to the head when Ayako found him.

And sure enough, when the trio found him outside the store lounging on a bench, he received a leather purse to the skull. But the pain was soon forgotten, as Mai launched herself into his arms and he hugged her back tightly.

"Kira, this is my good for nothing husband." Ayako said, still not quite over the 'ditching'. Kira didn't do very well in masking her shock at the new information. The two looked ready to get a divorce! Mai unlatched herself from Monk, who ruffled her hair playfully. Mai noticed the look in Kira's eyes and didn't seem surprised.

"Yup, they've been married awhile now. They're always like this, it's how they show affection. And speaking of affection Ayako, you really didn't need to pay for my clothes." The brunette swung her two new yellow shopping bags. The older woman had quite literally ripped the clothes out of her hand, and rushed to the register before Mai could open her mouth to protest. Ayako only rolled her eyes and reached over to pinch the girl's cheek.

"Don't even mention it. You know I prefer paying for you." Was there a bit of a sad undertone there? Ayako grasped Monk's arm, since his hands were busy holding her bags. "I know you have to go back to work now, but we're take you out to eat later. No buts or excuses." Mai sighed, but she was smiling. The group said goodbye, and went their separate ways. Mai and Kira started their way back to the car.

"You've got a lot of interesting friends." Mai simply giggled.

"I know. But they're all special to me." Kira's heart swelled at the sweetness and sincerity of her voice.

"You know, if they hadn't been too young for it, I would've thought they were your parents." Mai's smile stayed on her lips, but it had become wryly.

"Yeah, they're basically the parental figures in my life. I don't have any parents per say, since my dad died when I was really young and my mom passed away before I started high school." Mai's voice tightened when she mentioned her mother and her gaze shifted to the skyline to her right. Kira felt a pit begin to form in her stomach.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up." Mai shook her head at her with a genuine, albeit sad, smile on her face.

"No don't worry, it's not your fault. I just… get a little upset when I think of my mom. We were really close." She brightened up a little. "But it's much better than before. When I first started working at Shibuya Psychic Research, I wasn't really over it. I guess I kind of ignored the way I felt about losing her to the point where I could talk about her death causally, but I...I couldn't just talk about her. Like stories and things that we used to do. Michiru and Keiko were always suspicious though, right from the very beginning. Since they've known me from when all three of us were toddlers. Around the end of my final year, they gave me this huge confrontation and well, it wasn't very pretty. I left SPR the first time, a few days after."

Kira didn't know what to do, say, or even feel. Mai had just shared a huge part of her life with her. Kira herself had a pretty uneventful life. American mom, Japanese dad. Living in America, until she decided to transfer to Tokyo during college. That had been the most exciting thing she'd ever done. Granted, it was pretty awesome and took some guts. But compared to Mai? Kira had never loved her boring childhood more.

"So what about you? What was your life like? You don't really talk about yourself."

"Neither do you." She couldn't help pointing out. Mai poked the blonde's forehead.

"Until now. So come on, I really wanna know." Kira shot her a wicked smile.

"So I grew up in-"

When Kira thought about it, she had decided that no matter what you were telling about yourself-

Good, bad, tragic, boring.

It felt utterly fantastic to have someone listen.

Me and Mai: Naru! You're back!

Naru: Of course I'd come back, you write the story idiot. You control everything that happens.

Me: In that case...

Mai:*laughing hysterically* Naru... Y-you're in a SUPERMAN costume!

Naru:*glares*

Me: Anyways, I'm not quite happy about how I ended this chapter. I feel like I should have ended with a different line. But then I would've had to make the chapter shorter. Oh well, what do you guys think? Tell me in the reviews! R&R and I'll love you forever! One more thing...*bursts out laughing at Naru*

Lin:*typing while chuckling to himself*

(I just had to squeeze Lin in)