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.
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CHAPTER 8
Second Law of Thermodynamics
03.15.2016
Mai forced her eyes to open.
She had tried so hard to ignore the buzzing sound, but she was not able to block it out – not when it had already woken her up. She sat up and squinted at the sudden brightness that assaulted her eyes. The young woman slowly figured out that the noise was from a vibrating phone.
Someone was calling.
She groped for her mobile next to her futon and realized that it was not the offending device. Her unfocused eyes scanned the room until her gaze landed on her boss' coat that was thrown haphazardly on the floor next to his futon.
She sleepily reached over him and grabbed the annoying piece of technology from the inside pocket. She tried very hard not to wake up her boss whose pallid complexion practically screamed "more sleep" to anyone who saw it.
She slid a finger across the cool glass of the phone to answer the call without even bothering to check who the caller was.
"Hello?" she croaked in her just-woke-up voice.
"Oh dear, have I gotten the wrong number?" the feminine voice on the other end of the line stated worriedly.
Mai was brought to attention by the fact that the caller spoke in English. She collected herself as she tried to recall how to speak in the language.
Finally, she replied in heavily accented English, "Oliver is sleeping right now…"
She heard some static for a minute and thought that the other person had hung up, but was surprised when she got a reply in Japanese: "Oh, it is fine. Let the boy sleep. He is such a workaholic like his father. By the way, this is his mother, Luella."
Mai silently gasped at the revelation.
"May I know who is on the line?" Luella inquired good-naturedly, her warmth seeping into her voice.
"This is Mai Taniyama, one of your son's employees," the young woman dutifully answered.
She was about to explain the situation to the older woman over the phone when it was suddenly pried off from her hand.
The part-timer turned her head around and saw Naru with a terrible bed head and narrowed eyes that did not quite match his current look. Her boss placed his phone against his ear and began speaking in English.
"Hello, Luella," Noll greeted flatly. "How may I help you?"
Luella heard something rustling – bedsheets, she guessed – in the background as her son took over the phone conversation.
"Oh Noll! Please don't be so formal so early in the morning," she pleaded, then added enthusiastically, "I was just about to have a pleasant chat with Mai. She sounds like a darling!"
"You do not have to do that," her son replied flatly.
"Don't be so cold, my dear boy," she chirped as she imagined her son cringing at the term of endearment he rather disliked. "I am simply curious about her. She did answer your phone. Did you spend the night with her?" she probed teasingly.
"That's it, Mother. I am hanging up if you have nothing else to say." He replied icily.
Their connection was abruptly severed, as signaled by the dull beeping from her mobile.
Bingo! Luella snapped her finger in triumph. She had guessed it right and Oliver was evading the issue. He had spent the night with the girl for some reason. Her mind was quickly filled with a spectrum of scenarios ranging from the most innocent to very naughty.
Luella knew right then and there that she had struck a nerve. She could not suppress the silly grin which was forming on her face.
She had heard a lot about his son's assistant from Madoka and – after a few rounds of threatening and guilt-tripping – from Lin, her son's mentor and guardian, respectively.
It seemed like her son had unknowingly become attracted to Mai who was his complete opposite in almost every way possible. The most amusing – and, quite frankly, slightly tragic – thing about this was that Noll, for all the brilliant boy that he was, could not figure out how to deal with his feelings. She wanted to confront him right now, but Luella knew that doing so would simply ruin her (most likely) only chance to have a daughter-in-law.
She sighed dreamily. She still wondered why Oliver had stayed with Mai last night.
Maybe her son was not such a hopeless case after all.
Oliver was nothing but bewildered by the turn of events.
Why was Mai talking with his mother on the phone?
Why did Luella ask him if he spent the night with his assistant? How did she know, anyway?
Why was he sleeping on a futon in Mai's apartment in the first place?
What was going on?
He rummaged his memory for fragments of what happened last night, but he could not remember anything after he had done that despicable thing to the girl who was currently staring at him with undisguised curiosity.
After another minute of silence, Mai let out an exasperated sigh as she began explaining.
"You fainted last night, right after I told you about my vision. I could not carry you back to your apartment so I let you sleep on a spare futon instead."
She waved her hand to indicate the said futon on which he was sitting.
"Just so you know, I did not take advantage of you," she continued defensively, "I only removed your coat and shoes, then opened the first two buttons of your shirt to make you feel comfortable. You looked like you were having a hard time breathing last night."
"Why did you not call Lin, then?" he inquired nonchalantly. "Or did you want me all to yourself while I was unconscious and vulnerable?" Noll could not pass up the chance to tease the girl.
A fierce blush took over her face as she stuttered, "I-I f-figured you were simply tired from running all the way from your apartment to here. No need to bother Lin-san over something so trivial."
His eyebrows rose slightly at her statement. If she knew that he had completely exhausted himself from excessively using psychometry on her last night…
He never finished his musing because his phone began vibrating for the second time that morning. He looked up to the heavens and silently begged for patience because it seemed that he would need a lot of it today.
He picked up the device and checked the screen. It was Lin.
Speak of the devil.
"Lin," Oliver said calmly over the phone.
"Noll, where are you?" his guardian asked harshly. "I checked your room and you weren't there. You didn't even sleep on your bed."
At that moment, Mai – with her impeccable timing, as usual – chose to speak up from beside him.
"Naru, is that Lin-san?" she inquired innocently.
"Noll, are you with Taniyama-san? Is everything alright?" Lin demanded over the phone.
"Everything is perfectly fine. And yes, I am currently with Mai. She ran into trouble last night and I have been with her since then," the younger man responded smoothly.
"Noll…" Lin uttered in a warning tone, "what are you up to?"
"It's none of your business," the young boss dismissed his other assistant coolly, and with that, he hung up.
Noll glanced up from the screen and saw Mai's bewildered face.
"Did you just…?" she started, but he interrupted her with his own query.
"Do you really want the others to know about your visions?" He gazed at her with complete seriousness.
She immediately shut her mouth at this.
He smirked, then added, "And besides, you do not want people to get the wrong idea. In case you have forgotten, I spent the entire night in your apartment."
She once again found herself blushing furiously at the implication of his statement.
"I swear, nothing happened, Naru!" she cried out nervously while shaking her hands.
"I will never know now, will I? I was unconscious the whole time, Mai," he said with the best poker face he could come up with at the moment, but he was unable to hide the mischief in his eyes.
Her expression quickly turned belligerent as she screamed, "How dare you! I-It was you who k-ki-kissed me last night and I don't even know what to make of it!"
"You would not stop crying. I ran out of ideas. That was how Eugene comforted me when we were younger," Noll explained quietly as he held her gaze with perfect calmness.
"I-I'm so sorry, I didn't know," Mai looked away from him as she mumbled her apology. "I'm sorry for overreacting. You were just trying to calm me down."
"Why are you apologizing?" he asked expressionlessly.
"Because it's embarrassing!" Mai insisted as she buried her already red face in her hands.
"You are ashamed of being kissed by the world-renowned Oliver Davis? Shouldn't you be thanking me instead?" he inquired with a smirk, then continued condescendingly, "After all, it is not every day that you get this kind of special treatment from a famous person like me."
Her blush deepened upon hearing this, but she raised her head and narrowed her eyes at him.
"You didn't have to kiss me, though," she pointed out unabashedly, "…idiot scientist."
Noll swiftly moved towards Mai's futon and leaned in closer to her until his lips were almost brushing her left ear.
"I beg your pardon?" he whispered huskily. "Did you just call me an idiot?"
Mai pushed him away forcefully, then retorted, "Yes, I did, and right now you're not only being an idiot, but a pervert, too!"
"You wound me, Mai," Noll began as he sat next to her on the futon. "It was not even a real kiss. It was only on your forehead. You are making a big deal out of this. Here is what happened last night: you were borderline hysterical and I did not know how to deal with it. I remembered my childhood when I used to get the visions and how Gene calmed me down. I did exactly what my brother used to do. You stopped crying. Mission accomplished. The end justifies the means. End of story."
"That's it?" she asked softly.
"That is all," he confirmed offhandedly.
"OK then~!" Mai turned to beam beatifically at him, as if she suddenly reached divine enlightenment.
Noll took his time to stare at her as he shook his head in half bewilderment and half amusement at her fickleness.
Without warning, she pecked him on the cheek and she was off, leaving a dazed Noll behind her.
After another moment, she called out from the doorway of her room, "Now we're even, Dr. Davis!"
It took him about fifteen minutes to recover from Mai's surprise attack.
The next time Noll saw her, she was dancing by the kitchen counter as he stepped out of the washroom after freshening up for another day ahead.
He strode towards her at the same time she dramatically turned around to end her dance routine.
"Breakfast is ready, Naru~!" she greeted him bashfully without meeting his eyes, with a plate of toast in one hand, and a box of milk in the other. The girl started walking towards him, then next thing he knew, the plate was in the air, the toasts were flung in every direction, and his left foot was crushed by something cold and heavy: the milk carton.
The worst (or maybe, the best) part of it all was the girl trapped in his arms. He reflexively grabbed her when she had tripped on her own feet. Her eyes were wide, her cheeks were flushed, and her mouth was hanging open from sheer shock. He himself could not contain the incredulity that made its way onto his usually stoic façade.
Noll inhaled deeply and her scent overwhelmed his senses. It was a mixture of cherries, strawberries, and something else that was too temptingly sweet, but definitely very Mai. It made him momentarily dizzy – as if he were intoxicated.
He eventually realized that she was too close for comfort, making him hyperaware of how soft and warm she felt against him.
The young boss shuddered at the thoughts he just had. If someone could read his mind, that person would surely think he was a romantic fool who was hopelessly in love with the girl – no, woman – in his embrace.
But he was not.
Or at least, he should not be, since Mai was still in love with his absolutely-dead-but-somehow-alive-in-her-dreams twin brother.
He would never allow himself to become a stand-in for the more amicable twin.
Noll was pulled back to reality by an exaggerated cough that sounded uncomfortably familiar.
Unfortunately, it did not come from the girl he was holding on to.
Osamu Yasuhara only agreed to tag along with Ayako's idea of a surprise brunch at Mai's apartment because the self-styled miko promised gourmet food from one of the fanciest catering companies in Shibuya. He looked forward to a Saturday filled with good food and jovial company. He had prepared some interesting (err, dangerous and probably scandalous) conversation topics, but the best one had just presented itself in front of them once the front door was unlocked.
It was as if the joke was on them.
He promptly dropped the bag of food once he saw their boss and the young woman entangled in a compromising position.
Ayako's hands covered her mouth which ungracefully hung wide open from unadulterated surprise.
Bou-san's jaw dropped along with the box of pastries for their dessert.
Masako fainted from the sight and John gallantly caught her from behind.
The priest averted his eyes from the couple as he colored slightly from the embarrassment of walking in on such a scene.
Yasuhara cleared his throat comically and began speaking in a suave voice after sniffing the air like a hungry dog, "Wow~! There's just too much sexual tension in the air, I could have it for brunch! Forget about Matsuzaki-san's high-grade fillet mignon, this one smells too good to ignore~!" He looked at the rest of SPR, then added while wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, "Come on, guys! Can't you smell the sweet, sweet scent of hidden desire?"
The college student flashed Naru and Mai a huge grin that would have put the Cheshire cat to shame. He then snapped his fingers as if he remembered something.
"Oh, by the way, surprise, Taniyama-san!" Yasuhara declared enthusiastically, then he turned to Naru with faux surprise, "Why hello there, Big Boss! What brings you so early in Taniyama-san's apartment?"
Mai gasped at his statement, while Naru casually pulled away from the girl as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
As their boss did so, the piece of toast that was precariously balanced on top of his head fell down in front of his face.
The rest of the SPR team burst out into hysterical laughter as they watched the esteemed Oliver Davis let out an exasperated sigh.
Today was not his day.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am really, totally, absolutely grateful for all the support you have given me and this fic. I can't believe so many people actually like it. CONTACT was just supposed to be my headcanon dump, but it eventually evolved into something better. It's all thanks to your encouragements. I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I had fun writing it. Please let me know what you think by leaving a review.