03 Keeping Time
/I got a request for a more Naru-centric story, so here ya go!/
Naru hated how aware he was of the passage of time. Something within him, probably due to the nature of his powerful psychic energy, was able to keep time almost exactly, even if he hadn't seen a clock in days or weeks. He could glance up at a clock every few days, adjust for about a minute or two, and then carry on. This was his least favorite part of his abilities.
He knew it was likely tied to how the energy moved within him at a constant rate, just below the perception of his senses. However, he could sense it as a whole, and something about the constant-ness of the whole motion helped him to keep track of the constant passage of time.
Naru was no fool, of course. He'd taken advanced physics classes during his studies of the paranormal back in England. He knew that time was in fact, not a constant; it slowed when the object perceiving it increased in speed. He knew that if he were to go at almost the speed of light, what felt like a month to him could be years for those not traveling at his speed. And he knew that at the speed of light, time essentially stopped. But, realistically, however, he would never go close to the speed of light and he would shake his head at himself at how he had even considered that as a possible situation. Time travel was something Gene thought about, not Naru, who thought to himself that he was definitely the more rational of the two.
That was another thing he found displeasing, every moment of his life, he knew exactly how long it had been since he had seen Gene's death in a vision. His thoughts would flash back to Gene when he realized how much time had passed. It had been years now, he thought, and he wondered about what that meant, especially given how Gene still lingered in the dreams of his younger assistant. When would his brother finally give it up and move on? The possibility of Gene's pleasant persona warping into that of a spirit who had overstayed their time among the living darkened the cloud already looming over his office. He hated knowing how much time had passed.
Mai was the opposite. She never seemed to know what time it was, arriving late to work with the excuse of "Sorry, Naru I lost track of time!" The concept had seemed so unfathomable to him that he had snapped at her the first few times she had come in late, even if it was only about a minute or so. However, he had eventually grown used to her impossible ability to be clueless about the time. It was relaxing in its own sort of way, like many other aspects about her. The tea that she made was one of those things: very relaxing, and now as he felt the dark miasma filling in the room, a consequence of brooding so long, he called out to her to make him a cup of tea. She burst in a few minutes later, all smiles and "Here ya go Boss!" A beam of light for his darkened mood, innocent and oblivious to how time was constantly moving ahead.
But it was enough to remind him that he was working on some important research at the moment, research which could prove useful for the case that they would begin in a week. People thought of him as a workaholic, but in reality, he was simply doing his best to keep his focus off of the clocks of the world. He didn't keep any in his office, or wear a watch for that matter. When he needed to know the time, he only had to reach within his own energy to know. And when he was working, he could get so wrapped up in his own progress that he would lose track of time. "He's in the Naru-Zone!" Mai would chirp, when the others would arrive and ask where he was. They would smirk at that, and maybe he would ignore them and continue, satisfied in a way that he couldn't really express. Or maybe he would emerge to remind them that this wasn't a cafe they were running here, thank-you-very-much. Either way, the presence of his work in his life allowed for him to focus on more important things than time. And Naru liked that.