CONTACT
My Rude Awakening

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Ghost Hunt. I wouldn't be writing this if I did.

WARNING: May contain spoilers from the manga and novels, including Akumu no Sumu Ie.

CHAPTER 5
Laws of Attraction
Published: 07.31.2014, Edited: 09.25.2015

Noll stirred from his slumber due to the sound of approaching footsteps. His entire body stiffened to alertness and all traces of sleep immediately disappeared as the steps sounded closer to where he was. It took him another second to realize that he was lying on the ground with Mai beneath him, and that she was holding him captive with her arms wrapped around him tightly. He sighed in amusement and shook his head at the girl's antics before trying to pry her arms off of him. The task proved to be a challenge since she refused to let go.

When he finally managed to extract himself from her embrace with as much gentleness as he could manage, he heard Lin calling out to him.

"Noll, what happened?" Lin asked without delay as soon as he caught a glimpse of the two teens on the floor.

"We are fine, Lin," Noll assured his guardian and then continued in a flat tone, "Mai only fell asleep. We were not harmed from the explosion."

Noll gave the older man a once-over and quickly concluded that despite his confidence in Lin, the fight with the sadistic psychic was not as easy as he thought it would have been.

The onmyouji carefully made his way to the room where the explosion had occurred. After checking out the result of the blast, he walked back to where the young boss and his assistant were.

"Based on what I saw, the explosion was contained within the walls of Room 513. Fortunately, the culprit used a smaller, less lethal bomb and it seems like this was just a prank. He failed to activate the larger, more complex bombs that he set up all over the hotel after I managed to destroy the remote detonator. He is currently bound and unconscious in the staff room, and two of my shikis are watching over him as we speak. The police, along with a bomb disposal squad, will be here in an hour or so," Lin reported dutifully in a hushed voice so as not to wake Mai.

Noll simply gave a nod in acknowledgement, then started after a short pause, "We better get back to the base."

Lin promptly moved towards the sleeping girl, but Noll raised a hand to stop him.

"I can handle this," the younger man said dryly as he bent down to lift her off the ground, then added rather hastily, "You look terribly exhausted."

Mai shifted in Noll's arms as he stood up and he staggered when she suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him tightly while resting her head on his shoulder. Lin chuckled softly at the sight before him, only to receive a piercing glare from his charge a moment later.

"Do not tell Mai about this," Noll stated threateningly, locking his eyes with Lin's.

The older man just lowered his head in affirmation as he tried to hide the knowing grin that was slowly taking over his face.

Noll leaned back in his chair and sighed contentedly as he scanned through his notes on the successful experiments with Mai. A satisfied smirk settled on his face as he recalled some of the trials. He never expected setting up situations wherein he could touch her would be so easy due to her natural clumsiness.

The easiest trials to conduct involved his fingers brushing casually against hers whenever Mai delivered his tea. She never reacted verbally to the contact, but he knew she was perfectly aware of it based on the bright blush on her face every time it happened. The other trials were trickier, but he got around them easily since he could accurately predict his assistant's reactions most of the time.

Or at least he used to be able to do so.

Lately, her reactions puzzled him. They were beyond Noll's predicted parameters and it baffled him since he sometimes did not know how to respond in turn. He did not expect her to go along with his schemes without resistance.

When he cupped her face during the highlighter episode, he thought she would slap his hands away, but she instead yielded to him, giving Noll an opportunity to read her extensively. Furthermore, the fact that she kept on leaning into his touch was not lost on him. It was an irregularity that he deemed significant and he was determined to find out the reason for it.

His confusion increased when he woke up in Mai's embrace during the psychic bomber case. It was surprising to find out that he was not repulsed at all by her touch. Her body felt so soft and warm against his and she looked so vulnerable and inviting. If Noll were a lesser man, he would have already blushed at the recollection, and then some…

As much as he hated to admit it, he woke up feeling pleasantly rejuvenated despite the short time he had rested back then. Doing a little psychometry on her later revealed that she had been rubbing his back soothingly while he was passed out on top of her. The reliving of this memory from her perspective evoked an overwhelming sense of calmness from within him that he could not comprehend.

He dismissed it as a side effect of completely syncing with her during his vision. He was simply picking up what she felt at that moment. After all, he was significantly weakened by the use of his PK to move the bomb away from the door to protect himself and Mai from the explosion. At that time, he did not have enough control over his abilities. He could not prevent his mind from having a first-person vision when he briefly caressed Mai's face while she dozed off in their base. He could distinctly remember the sound of her voice as she softly uttered his name in her sleep and –

Noll was abruptly pulled out of his reverie by the loud, ungraceful entrance of the girl who was the current focus of his musings.

Mai barged into Naru's office after setting her things on her table outside.

"Mai, how many times do I have to – " her boss began his usual lecture but was immediately cut short by the brunette.

"You've got to help me, Naru! I'm failing physics and Yasuhara-san is too busy with his own exams to help me study," she ranted tearfully.

"I am busy right now," he responded dismissively. "Do not bother me when I am working."

"Please help me!" she desperately pleaded with tears in her eyes. "I can't afford to hire a professional tutor since it's too expensive." An exhausted sigh left her lips. "It's not my fault I'm not very good at numbers."

She stood in front of his desk with a dejected look on her face while she waited for his response. He ignored her and went back to reading the file in his hand.

It took her five minutes of silence to finally realize that he was not helping her. She turned around to leave and murmured sadly, "I just don't want to fail."

She was already halfway out the doorway when Naru let out a sigh of resignation as he shut the file in his hand and began clearing his table. "Fine. Get your stuff in here and grab a chair." Her eyes lit up upon hearing his instructions and she hurried to gather the required materials. "Do not forget my tea," he added smugly.

A few minutes later, she was finally seated next to her boss (and currently her tutor) behind his desk. Her textbook, notes and worksheets covered every free surface of the said desk and a cup of tea was steaming right next to each of them.

"Where do we start?" he asked quietly.

She showed him the worksheets she attempted to finish on her own. His eyes narrowed dangerously when he saw her answers. One look at his reaction was all it took for her to know that she was screwed.

"Was it that bad?" She looked up to see the deep frown on his face.

Naru shifted towards her and took the pen from her hand. He started explaining the concepts to her in a very low voice that she had never heard before. She was struggling to hear him so she leaned closer to him, but he didn't seem to notice. He was about to move on to the exercises in the book, but she stopped him.

"Wait, Naru. What's up with the letters with a hat on top of them?"

Her tutor sighed once more and then proceeded to explain to her how vectors worked.

"…so you're saying I can use the right hand rule to predict the direction of the resulting vector?" Mai summarized after listening to his lengthy discussion.

The way he was able to make the difficult concepts so easy to understand was amazing. She was really grateful for the patience he was showing her this time. He hadn't dropped a single insult on her intelligence today and she thanked the heavens for it.

"Yes. I am glad you finally understood. I dumbed down my explanation so even an idiot like you can understand it." A smirk appeared on his face as she grimaced at his statement.

Mai lamented the fact that she spoke too soon and jinxed everything instead.

"OK, so let me try this right hand rule. First vector points forward, then you cross it with the second one pointing to the left," she said to herself as she did the associated motions, "and you get the resulting vector in which direction again?" Her brows furrowed as she turned her right hand around repeatedly in confusion.

The young man shook his head and sighed in exasperation. He quickly grabbed her hand, which she was turning at an alarming speed, to stop it from doing its dizzying motion. His long, pale fingers gently guided hers so they were pointing towards the correct direction.

"N-n-naru?! What are you doing?" The sudden physical contact made her stammer. It didn't help that it was her boss who initiated it.

"Teaching you the right hand rule, since you obviously cannot figure it out," he replied in a bored tone.

She was startled by how near he sounded when he spoke and belatedly realized that he had moved closer to her during the course of their tutorial session. Her heart was beating faster now, and she was certain that her face was flushed from everything that was happening.

"Ne, Naru?" She turned around to look at him, only to be greeted by his pale face, which was so near hers that her lips almost grazed his cheek. He looked down at her without moving away. She forgot what she was supposed to ask and blatantly stared at his face instead.

"You're even more handsome up close," she murmured to herself as she raised her left hand with every intention of caressing his face. She snapped out of her daze when she felt his fingers wrap around her wrist gently to hold it in midair. He met her gaze and let out a miniscule smile.

"Are you flirting with me, Taniyama-san?" he drawled in a tone lower than his usual one.

She froze for a while at the sudden formality, but eventually beamed at him.

"Do you want me to, Dr. Davis?" Mai countered suggestively. She was not about to back down from this showdown.

They looked into each other's eyes for a while until Naru decided to break the growing tension between them.

"What I want right now is you focusing on your physics review so you will not fail your exam," he stated calmly.

She looked away in embarrassment. She didn't know what possessed her to say and do those things. Maybe it was her pride, she decided. The high school girl panicked internally as she fought the intense blush that was threatening to take over her already red face.

"C-can I please have my hand back?" she stammered once again. Her boss released his grip on her left wrist as he slightly shifted away from her.

Her heartbeat was going crazy now, but she forced herself to calm down so they could resume studying. At this point, her entire body had become too warm from embarrassment that she barely felt the chill from the air conditioner. She felt his other hand let go of her right one as he cleared his throat.

"Now, where were we?" His stoic mask had returned and his voice was back to normal.

They continued reviewing her worksheets without any other disturbances except for Naru's demands for tea. He kept on helping her with the right hand rule because he insisted it was very important in solving physics problems. She had gotten more comfortable with his hand guiding hers since he had done it a few more times that afternoon.

The sun had already set when the two teens finally noticed that they had been studying for too long. Naru told Mai to go home after giving her some more tips on problem solving. She prepared a cup of tea for her boss-turned-tutor as thanks for his time and effort before she left for the day.

She let out a happy squeal as soon as she stepped out into the cold autumn night. Mai had promised to herself that she would cherish every act of kindness from Naru, no matter how small it was, but today was just too extreme for a young maiden's heart such as hers. She could not help but enjoy herself too much earlier, since Naru rarely went along with her antics. Despite his nasty personality, he was unexpectedly good at teaching and was very patient with her and she was utterly ecstatic over having the chance to see this different side of him.

As Mai made her way to her apartment, she recalled one of the concepts they discussed in class. Newton said attraction was inversely proportional to the square of the distance between two bodies. It finally made sense to her this time.

Now, if she could only remember whether the law said anything about the attraction being mutual…

"Thank you so much, Naru!" Mai called back cheerfully while standing at the doorway of his office. "You're a lifesaver."

Noll gave her a small wave as he continued reading the report in his hand. "Make sure you pass your test." He leveled his gaze with hers and narrowed his eyes threateningly. "Do not make me regret teaching you today."

"Yes, sir!" she said in mock seriousness while giving him a salute. The girl promptly turned around to leave him alone in his office, but he stopped her.

"One more thing," he stated coolly. "I believe I would make a better tutor than Yasuhara-san, especially in English, so if you —"

"I'll ask you if I need help, then~!" she happily finished his sentence for him. "Thanks again, Naru!"

He allowed a small grin to grace his face as he heard the door close quietly.

Noll leaned back in his chair for the second time that day. He was feeling quite lightheaded from repeatedly using psychometry on Mai during their impromptu tutorial session.

She was not lying when she said she was failing physics class. Images of checked exams had Ds on them and he was sure he saw at least one test paper marked with an F. Anxiety flooded him when he synced with her and he went through her consultation with her homeroom adviser about going to college and the entrance tests. He finally figured out one of the things that were bothering Mai. She was determined to go to college but was very worried about the expenses it will entail and her qualifications to get into university. Before their review that afternoon ended, he also tried looking into her future and saw that she would do very well in her upcoming physics exam. His smile widened fractionally in satisfaction.

He then remembered how Mai had openly flirted with him and his smile grew to the point that his face – unused to smiling widely and for long periods of time – started to hurt. Noll really liked how she looked that time with her flushed face, wide, hazy eyes and slightly parted lips. Back then, he had wondered if she would taste like cherries again, just as she did the last time his lips were on hers. He had almost leaned down towards her to find out, but he caught himself just in time. He only hoped that his face did not betray his intentions earlier.

I like your style, Oliver Davis. Very smooth. Gene said to himself as he watched his brother flirt away the entire afternoon with Mai with the pretense of teaching her about vectors and the right hand rule. His vantage point from within Noll's mirror on the desk was ideal for spying on his stubborn younger twin. He watched as Noll relaxed on his chair with a satisfied expression.

An idea occurred to Gene. Maybe he should visit Mai in her sleep tonight. He let out a grin of his own as he came up with a list of things he would like to discuss with Mai.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you for your encouraging words~! I am so happy to receive so many reviews for the previous chapter. I had fun writing the light flirting between Naru and Mai (although it took me a longer time than usual because I wanted to keep them both in character) so I hope you enjoyed it.

EDIT: I fixed some minor grammatical errors pointed out by my editor (my sister). The next chapter was also edited, but no changes were done on the story details.