Naru hesitated for a moment. It was strange. Naru is normally so confident in all of his actions.
"If it's alright with you Mai, I'd like you to show me the people I've forgotten." He said.
"But how?"
"Well, I'd like to enter your mind and see your memories of them," He said. I looked at him surprised.
"But I don't know how to."
"It's okay. I'll teach you. It'll be the same as in your dreams, it will just be with memories instead of premonitions." I nodded.
"Okay," I replied nervously.
"Mai, I'm not going to look at anything you don't want me to see," He said as he helped me lay down. He took one of my hands and knelt comfortably next to me. "Okay, we'll need to get into a dreamlike state. So shut your eyes. Imagine a blue ball of light in front of you." Naru kept speaking softly, trying to put me in a trance, but all I could do was think about how warm my hand was inside of Naru's. That seemed to be enough though, cause after not long, I found myself on my dream plane. It was shrouded in darkness. All that could be seen was pitch black. At least until Naru appeared in front of me with a bright glow around his figure. I knew he knew it already, but he was so perfect. So handsome.
"Hey, Naru?"
"Mhm?"
"Why is it that the professor can enter anyone's mind at any time, but for you, it's only when I'm asleep?"
"I can do the same as my father. I could enter your mind through the day just as he tried to do. But Mai, the difference is that I don't believe it to be fair for someone to unwillingly be vulnerable like that. Every memory, every thought, every emotion. It's not fair on them. And I want you to know that I would never abuse my powers on you like that. I will never enter a part of your mind that you don't want me in." I smiled lightly at the boy before me that I felt so strongly for.
"I appreciate that Naru, and although it scares me that people have the ability to just enter my mind and know everything about me, I don't mind if it's you." I turned very red as I spoke, but I still continued to look at him. "I have nothing that I want to hide from you. You never have to ask. Anything that's in here is yours to look at, whenever you want." A gentle look came over Naru's face.
"Thank you Mai," He whispered. Then he took my hand.
"You ready?" He asked. I nodded. "Alright. Imagine a really really long hallway with lots of doors." He told me. As I followed his direction, the hallway I had imagined appeared in front of us. "Now imagine that behind every door is every person you've ever met." I imagined each door containing one person each. As I did, name-tags appeared on the doors. "Well done," Naru complimented. Still holding my hand, he guided me down the hall. The first door we stopped at was labelled 'Ayako Matsuzaki.' As we entered the door, the scene of the first time we met played before us. I smiled a little as we watched it.
"What?" Naru asked with a smirk. I giggled a little.
"I just forgot how much of an ego our family had back then," I told him. Naru stiffened.
"Family?" I looked up at him. I went very still. I can't believe I didn't realise it before now.
"You were an... orphan... weren't you?" Naru looked at me with soft eyes and nodded.
"Yeah. Gene and I both." He told me.
"I'm sorry Naru, I didn't realise."
"It's okay Mai. I'm alright." I now understood why he had such difficulties with the concept of family. His only true family was gone. He must feel so alone. I remember I did. Our eyes locked for a long time. I understood why he and I had such a great understanding of each other. Why he tried to keep everyone at a distance. Why he felt the need to help certain people. People like me. I flashed back to a few days ago when Dale blamed me for my brother's death. Naru's reaction. At the time, I couldn't understand why it had made him so upset. It made so much more sense now. He knew exactly how I had felt. Because he had felt it too. For the first time ever, I felt, throughout my entire being, that there was someone who could truly understand me. All of me. I wondered if he felt the same. I met his gaze and he nodded at me.
"I do." He said simply. That's when I remembered that he could see all my thoughts and feel all my emotions. With a heavy blush, I sent towards him the one emotion I wanted him to feel more than anything. My pure and undying and unconditional love for him. I watched his expression change as he felt what I had sent in his direction. With barely a moment to spare, Naru stepped forwards, his hand on my cheek. And he kissed me. Slow and deep and filled with raw emotion. Once we broke apart, his hand stayed on my cheek and my eyes looked up to him. I silently hoped that one day I could experience that in reality, instead of just in a dream. I saw him smile at that.
"Come on, Lets go see the rest." He said, grabbing my hand. We walked through door to door, watching all of my memories of my family in a sped-up timeline. Eventually, we reached 'Dale Tremor.' I paused in front of the door, finding it difficult to go through.
"Remember Mai, I won't look at anything you don't want me to see." I shook my head.
"It's not you Naru. I just...It's hard to see some of the things that are behind this door." I told him.
"Mai, everything that has happened was in the past. You're with me now. I will never let anyone hurt you." I smiled weakly at him and opened the door.
We watched as the scene rolled out before us, showing one of my most haunted memories. The little girl version of me stood, hiding behind the wall leading into the kitchen. I watched my father load his gun. Both Naru and I could feel the waves of fearful curiosity radiating from the younger me. After my father left the house, she followed him into the dark night. She was so young and still afraid of the dark, but even so, the young girl followed her father, hiding behind posts and bushes so as not to be caught. She watched her father talk to a man she recognized to be a friend of his. She'd always liked this man, he had always been close to her and her family. She trusted him. But that night, everything was set to change. Hiding in some bushes, the young girl watched as her father and his friend crept up on a young-looking couple walking down the street. Holding a gun at their heads, her father and his friend demanded that they give him their wallets, purses, phones and jewellery. At this stage, the young girl in the bushes was shaking in terror. But that terror only increased when two shots were fired from the guns the two men had been holding. A look of fearful horror covered the girl's face. She attempted to quietly sneak away only to be snuck up on by the man with her father. He grabbed her by the neck. I instinctively put a hand to my neck, rubbing as I remembered the pain. Naru grabbed my hand, his eyes glued to the scene before him. The girl kicked and screamed, she tried desperately to get free. Her father walked up to her dangerously, slapping her violently across the face. She pleaded and cried, choking a few times due to the hand wrapped around her little neck.
"Whatcha wanna do with 'er?" The man asked her father.
"Well, she's a witness now. So same as we always do." Was his response. The man nodded and placed a gun next to the little girl's head. Fear enveloped her and Naru tightened his grip around my hand. Just before the trigger was pulled, the little girl kicked the shin of the man holding her, breaking his grip enough for her to squirm free. In the flight of her life, she rushed back home and into her 16-year-old brother's arms. Sobbing and panicking, she told Kaori what had happened. Kaori had already suspected something, he just didn't know what it was. The two packed all of their things. Kaori apologized profusely to the spirit bound to the house. She felt angry but she knew that if their father came home and killed them, she'd be alone forever, for the spirits of Mai and Kaori were sure to find peace. The young girl began climbing out of her brother's window to escape when the door shot open. Their father was panting. He held the gun up, aiming for the small girl. There was nothing she could do. She was halfway out a window. But just as the shot was fired, Kaori stood in front of her, stopping the bullet in its tracks. He fell to the ground. The child begged for Irena to help her brother. But there was nothing she could do. The girl's father was still marching towards her. Left with no options, the girl allowed herself to drop from the side of the building. She ran for her life, never once looking back. Eventually, she found an alleyway that she stopped and sat in. As the sun began to rise, she fell asleep.
The scene shimmered away, leaving us in the darkness once again, with only Naru's glow providing us with light. It seemed that although the scene was now gone, Naru still watched, expecting it to come back. I tried to pull my hand away but was stopped in the process by Naru tightening his grip. He turned to look at me. His expression blank, but I couldn't deny the anger evident in his eyes.
"You know it makes sense now." He said.
"What does?"
"Your hesitation towards this case. I thought it was strange how against it you were, even with Noriko amplifying your fear. It was too extreme. Too much for someone who had seen as much as you had on our cases," He said. I wasn't sure what to say. He was right. Nobody normal would have that much fear over somewhere they'd never been. I shook my head, determined to shake the thoughts from my head and change the mood.
"You know, I was very lucky you found me when you did." He raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Well I moved in with my teacher initially, but she left Japan with her husband. They left me with the apartment and a bunch of savings but it was starting to run out. I was desperately looking for work when you found me. And hey, how many people get such a handsome boss as well." I smiled at him with a blush. He seemed to catch my drift and released his anger.
"You think I'm handsome?" He said, once again without his usual condescension. He put a hand under my jawline, softly stroking my cheek. "You have good taste." He whispered. My face was so red, but I was glad he was feeling better. His eyes held on to mine as we breathed each other's air. He moved back away after a time-stopping moment. "Come on, we should go. We need to save our family." My eyes lit up.
"Yeah, let's go." I smiled at him. Not long after though, my smile faded.
"What is it?" He asked me. I looked at my feet.
"I just... wish we could stay like this," I told him. I realised that once we left the library, He'd be back to his usual cold exterior. Acting as though we hadn't even been here. As though he didn't care for me the way I now knew he did. A sympathetic look came over his face.
"I know Mai. I just... I can't risk it. It's too dangerous." He threaded his fingers through mine.
"You've seen what it can do. Imagine someone without control using them. Or worse, someone who found a way to force me to use them?"
"I know," I replied simply.
"The thing is Mai... If you ever asked me to, I'd use them in a heartbeat." I was surprised by his revelation. I placed the palm of my hand on his chest where his heart would be.
"You'd just no longer have one," I whispered. His hand covered mine while the other stroked a strand of hair behind my ear. "Please don't," I begged in a tiny little voice. "Don't ever use it." He leaned in and slowly kissed me once more. Eugene was right. Naru was at risk so long as I was alive. I had to be so much more careful now. If Noriko ever found out...
"Mai, Whatever my idiot brother said, don't listen. What I do with my powers is up to me. I know he wants to look out for me, but I don't want him getting in your head about it." He responded to my thoughts. I am never going to get used to that. "You ready to go?" I nodded, slipping into the darkness, away from Naru, away from my mind. Everything around me turned black.