"Ayako's in a bad state, but they managed to stop the bleeding. If we had been just a second too slow..."
"I will understand if you choose not to work with SPR after this, but I must ask your cooperation at least until John has exorcised the rest of the Kuman."
"Don't stress it, Naru, I'm not going anywhere, especially after what's happened while I was gone. You're my friend too, you know."
"I doubt this particular spirit cares about men. During the whole thing I was practically invisible." A pause. "Besides, this was my fault."
"Your fault? What, did you moon the spirit and dare it to come out?"
"...Takigawa."
"Jeeze, not even a smile?"
"If that's all, you can head back to the house. I've told John to wait until Lin or you meet up with him before getting started."
"Aren't you coming back?"
"I will once she wakes up. I'd like to not test her mental endurance further than I have to by letting her wake up in a hospital not knowing how she got there."
"Yeah, okay. I'll call when we're done."
"Thanks."
A squeak of hydraulic door hinge. A click of a latch.
And just as my consciousness had begun, so did my vision. I blinked at the off-white, industrial paneled ceiling. A random memory of throwing pencils at a ceiling much like this one in middle school floated down to me. We had made it a game to see if we could get the pencils to stick, and the teacher couldn't find the extra effort to care.
I turned my head to find Naru on a chair against the wall, one leg over the other, and a book in his hand. His default pose. As though sensing my gaze, he looked up.
"Hello," he said.
I turned back to the ceiling. A weird buzzing had filled my head and I lifted a hand to it. "What happened?"
"Lin helped me break down the door and took us to the hospital. Even though there didn't seem to be anything necessarily wrong with you, your shirt was covered in blood, and it's always better to play it safe. I don't look forward to the paperwork involved in paying the client for repairs on the door frame."
I sighed. "Well, I'm sorry, but was I right or was I right?"
His book snapped closed. "It wouldn't have happened if you had followed me. If you heard the conversation between myself and Takigawa, the ghost completely ignored me, as I figured it would."
"Oh shut up, you didn't know that. You were just upset about Ayako and got the stupid idea of solving the case by yourself before anyone else could get involved."
When he didn't say anything, I inwardly congratulated myself about being right. Naru, after all, did not lie...to my knowledge.
My smirk melted when an awkward silence fell in place like a sack of potatoes. The clock ticked on and I found my arms to sit up and examine myself through the hospital gown. Besides the IV in my arm, nothing seemed off, besides the two little bruises just above my breasts.
"How's Ayako?" I asked. "I heard she was okay."
"She's in the room next door," he said, having opened up his book again. "Her uterus had somehow ruptured and caused severe internal bleeding. She'll be on bed rest for a while, but should be okay. You can visit her before heading home."
I prickled with anger, then wilted. Of course. Home. He had said he'd fire me if I followed him into that closet. And since SPR paid for any injuries occurred on the job, my hospital bill was on his tab. Not to mention that I had just straight out ignored his direct order.
I twisted the knitted blanket between my fingers. "You okay?"
"Perfectly fine." He turned a page. "Albeit annoyed."
I clenched the blanket. "Well, I'm sorry, but it's not like I enjoy throwing up or holding disfigured, burned up babies—"
The book snapped closed again. "What did you say?"
I frowned. "I don't like throwing up?"
"No, about holding a burnt baby."
"Uh, I don't enjoy holding disfigured, burned up babies? Though I don't know if it was burned up...I couldn't even really call it a baby." I shuddered and begun efforts to beat the memory from my mind.
Eyebrows furrowed in thought, he stood and came over to sit on my bedside. Prickles flew up my skin at his proximity, and close to exploded when he reached out to pull aside the flimsy hospital gown to get a better look at the bruises.
"Is this from it?"
Why oh why did his fingertips have to brush my skin like that, why?! And why did I suddenly want them to go lower and -"I-it sort of, um, twisted up its hands there, though they didn't have any, uh, fingers...could you back off?"
The corner of his mouth lifted into the tiniest of smirks. "Oh please, this is on a completely professional base." He poked one of the bruises. "No fingers, that would explain the shape. Neither I nor the doctor could make head or tails of them, but since you said you held some sort of apparition-"
I slapped away his hand harder than I meant to, and he stared.
"Don't touch me. Please."
His ocean blue eyes studied mine. "Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm feeling like my personal space is being invaded." Heat ran up to my face as I pushed out what I thought I needed to. "Rejecting someone doesn't make said feelings go away on demand, it takes time, and getting so close doesn't help. Don't—don't hug me or touch me or—just go away."
I was mortified. Halfway through speaking I had changed my mind. All that didn't need to be said. He really had been just observing the bruises on a professional level, and just because they were on the top of my breasts didn't mean anything. It wasn't like he saw anything or thought I was attractive.
He withdrew his hand. "You're mistaken."
Brain flop. "Eh?"
"Forget it," he stood up. "I'll go sign your papers. There's a change of clothes on the table for you."
"No, hold on, what do you mean I'm mistaken? You think I'm mistaken for being uncomfortable?" Idiot, of course that's what he meant.
But he just gave me one of his haughty, handsome looks to the side. "Just how idiotic are you, Mai? Just because I look like him doesn't mean I am him, so you have no reason to be uncomfortable."
I blanched. "Him?" Then like an anvil to the face- "Aw hell, you think I—" Fury burst in like lightning. "You think I can't tell the difference between your dead brother and you?" I wanted to throw something at him. Heck, I wanted to throw him. "Just how shallow do you think I am!? That's it, get out, I've had enough of your royal heartlessness, just get out!"
And he did. It was another one of Naru's defaults, you see: the silent, cool retreat, often with the excuse of needing to get to work or escape the nauseating stench of stupid in the room.
Why did I like this guy?
Because he wasn't always a jerk, that much was true. Despite the outward appearance of aloof arrogance and coldness, Naru was surprisingly compassionate and concerned about the wellbeing of his friends and others. Not that he'd ever admit to it.
As I shoved on the underwear and clothes that must have been bought brand new nearby due to lack of access to the house (the bra was a simple sports bra, so I didn't have to worry about much), I wondered if his lack of admittance meant it didn't exist. That is, if I wanted to hold up his trait of honesty.
Naru came in without knocking as I was searching through the drawers and cubbies for some kind of comb. He had a tray holding a bottle of milk and a sandwich in hand, which he handed out to me. I took it without looking at him and went to sit down on the other side of the room from his book and chair.
He sat down and continued to read without a word. It served to piss me off even more, because, of course, he was going to go and act like nothing had happened. Like he'd ever respond to my clarification that it was HIM I was in love with.
But, then, what did I expect him to do? Confess his love too? Unlikely. Knowing Naru he ahd put as little thought as possible into the subject of romance between me and him and had shrugged aside my infatuation as having to do with his much friendlier brother so he could have an even bigger excuse to filing it away in the back of the drawer. He didn't like me and never would. He hadn't even thought enough about it to figure out how he was going to reject me, because that would be a waste of time.
I paused in my furious chewing and looked down at the half-eaten sandwich I didn't remember eating in thought. I swirled my milk a bit in the other hand.
Why couldn't I sign off Naru like he did me? Why did my heart go and fall for someone like him? What was so wonderful about romance anyways if this is where it got most people?
Maybe it was a good thing he was sending me home...yeah—YEAH! That's right, he was firing me! Sucks to be out of an awesome job, but the rest of SPR would still be friends with me. I could find a new job, or maybe just grab a camera, sell my apartment, and go on a hunt cross country with Ayako to find the top hottest guys and then make a living off of all the viewers who'd salivate over my Youtube videos.
Yeah...yeah! Screw Naru! Screw the world! Screw love! From now on I'm going to be a shameless professional hunter of the natural beauty of men! Or better yet, I could become a nun! Or a priestess!
I could just see it now—my mighty thumb, shoving down the pushpin of men deeper and deeper into unyielding, tacky drywall, laughing maniacally.
"Feeling better?"
Naru was watching me, his book forgotten. I smiled, shrugged, and downed the rest of my milk.
"Guess you're right about me," I said, licking my lips. "Get mad, get sad, get glad, yep. I'm just one bad ziplock bag commercial."
"Good," he said, leaning onto his elbow with a fist to his jaw. "Means we can talk."
"What 'bout? What happened in the utility closet?"
"Later, yes." He hesitated. "Mai, I don't do romance."
That caught me off guard. "Meaning you're bad at it or that you're, like, asexual? You know, not attracted to anyone or—"
"I know the urban definition," he said dryly, not amused, even insulted. "No, I'm attracted to women just as much as the next man, despite what you or the others may think. I'm...inexperienced."
I snorted. "I find that highly doubtful. You toot your horn of attractiveness more than enough."
"So you think I'm shallow enough to take whatever attractive girl I can draw in?" His dry scowl had grown deeper. "I'm not interested in deciphering the various whimsical infatuations of women and their intentions, whether for good or bad. It's just a demonstration in the one's ability to manipulate another and too many ways that it could just waste my time. So, like I said, I don't do romance."
My mind was drawing a blank. Maybe I really was stupid. But then it clicked. "You're afraid?"
Oh yeah, he didn't like that. "I didn't say that."
"You said you didn't want to try and separate affection from true love, or even when someone is just using you. You're afraid of getting hurt—"
"No," he growled, and in the bland white hospital light I could see him ducking his chin down to duck his gaze behind his bangs. "Forget I said anything. You're obviously too stupid to understand. Are you ready to go yet?"
But I had already stood up, grinning, and going through another upsurge of courage. My feet felt a bit light as I carefully ambled my way towards him, hands tucked behind my back.
"Almost. Just let me gather my bearings and...maybe bother you a bit more."
Just as he looked up to growl some other grumpy negative at me, the toes of my sneakers hit against the shine of his professional old man shoes. I untwined my hands to reach for him, catching the flash of crinkling skin as his eyes narrowed with confusion.
"Maybe bother you a lot," I whispered.
And still somewhat high on my 'screw the world' epiphany, I twined a hand into his dark hair at the nape of his neck, as I'd always dreamed of doing, and bent my lips down to his.
(Author's Note: Oh! If you get a chance, check out my story "Erase Me." It's been recently published, like, legitly so. I have an excerpt from it here on Wattpad. Let me know what you think! I will worship you for it. ^.^)