Ghostly Hauntings:

Chapter 12:

Mai took a hesitant step forward. Would he remember her? Or was she about to be rejected? Lin took the decision out of her hands by rushing forward towards Naru.

"Do you remember everything?" he asked.

Naru took a while to answer that and the time gave Mai a chance to observe what he looked like living and breathing. His skin was almost as pale as it had been when he was a spirit and his eyes were more of a brilliant blue. His demeanour wasn't as friendly though, he felt more closed off to her.

"I remember everything from before I was attacked," Naru said and Mai's heart sank.

"What about after?" Lin enquired cautiously. "Do you remember Taniyama-san?"

The whole room was so silent that the loudest thing was Naru's IV. Mai stood paralysed on the spot as she waited for the reply.

"Of course I remember Mai," Naru said and looked over at her.

Mai out a sigh of relief. She had been so sure that Naru would forget everything. She gained the courage to stand by his bed.

"What happened to Urado?" she questioned.

Naru held up a pale hand. "He's gone. I probably went a little too far with the PK."

There was no guilt in his voice so Mai knew that Urado's death wasn't going to weigh on his conscience.

"Think about Mori-san," Lin reminded him. "She has to explain his disappearance."

A flicker of guilt passed across Naru's face momentarily.

"I'll talk to her later, I'm just glad that I didn't die when I did it."

"I see," was all Lin said.

Mai had no idea what they were referring to so she left them in favour of finding out why all her fellow society members were oddly quiet.

"Why do you all look so scared?" she whispered.

"He's one of the best looking men I've seen, but he's hella scary," Keiko replied in a low voice. "When we came in after the doctors allowed us and asked him questions, he just said, 'I didn't realise this was a café.'"

"Then he gave us this look that implied 'shut up'," Michiru confirmed.

Mai glanced at Yasuhara. He shrugged nonchalantly.

"He is a little imposing," John agreed.

Mai could understand them. This Naru was colder and sharp, the spirit Naru had been curious and witty.

"I'm not that scary, I just don't like being overloaded with questions after waking up from a coma," Naru's voice cut through their nervous whispers.

It appeared that good hearing could be added to the list of alive Naru's traits.

"Mai, come here," he said in a softer tone.

Mai returned to his bedside again with a nervous heart. Unlike ghost Naru she could tell this Naru that she liked him and it wouldn't be strange. However this Naru wasn't quite the same.

"I remember seeing you now," he smiled. "At the accident."

"You did?"

Lin nodded. "I thought you would."

"We never made eye contact. You were the last good thing I saw alive," Naru explained. "I awoke in the road and was struggling for breath and was in pain. Urado was looming over me so I looked for help and I saw you at the roadside. I wanted to get your attention, but Urado knocked my head into the ground and I fell unconscious."

Hearing his description made Mai regret not noticing anything was wrong even more.

"It's a shame that you killed him before we got a chance to ask where Gene's body is," Lin noted.

Naru frowned.

"It's in a lake. I will have to stay here and find it," he said with a note of finality in his voice.

"Noll," Lin warned. "Your parents will want you home."

That was right, Naru didn't belong in Japan. He had only come here to search for his brother. He would need to go home to England. Mai realised that there wasn't much point in confessing to him if he was going to be returning to England forever.

"Can we discuss this after I've been discharged? I have to stay here for the first part of the rehabilitation program," Naru replied, effectively closing the subject.

For the first time in a fortnight Mai went to bed with no one else in her apartment. Naru's presence had been inconsistent and he was always gone when she woke up, but he had tended to be there when she needed someone else. Now her apartment seemed lonely and dark.

It was an odd feeling because Mai had spent many years by herself and had managed it mostly fine. At the moment she was wondering how she had managed it for so long.

She found it hard to sleep and she ended up worrying about her future instead. Naru would go home and everything would go back to how it was before. The society would return to doing nothing again and she still didn't know what she wanted to do.

Mai ended up giving up on trying to sleep and reading a book instead. It was nothing Naru would be interested in, but it was enough to take her mind off everything that was waiting for her in the morning. It was a shame she guessed the murderer wrong though.

The next day was a Saturday so she didn't have to worry about falling asleep in a lecture at university. Instead she could visit Naru in the hospital. The thought of visiting him alone was intimidating because the real Naru was more stern and strict than the ghost Naru she had been accustomed to.

She plucked up the courage to visit in the afternoon after doing her weekly shop. Fortunately or unfortunately Naru wasn't in his room. Lin was sitting by the window and didn't look at all surprised to see her.

"Noll is outside if you it's him you came visit," he told her with a twinkle in his eye. "You didn't come here to see me, did you?"

Mai flushed in mortification and turned to go.

"Noll probably isn't going back to England for a long time," Lin added.

What was Lin implying with that? Mai preferred not to dwell on it and headed off to the garden at the rear of the hospital in search of Naru. He turned out to be unexpectedly hard to narrow down. Eventually Mai found him under one of the willow trees sitting in a wheelchair.

"Hello Mai," he said without turning around.

Mai jumped guiltily. Perhaps she could add psychic powers onto the list of living Naru's traits. Then she remembered that he was capable of making people disappear. Knowing who was behind you didn't seem that powerful in comparison.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked as she walked around the wheelchair so she could see his face.

He smiled faintly.

"I was attached to you as a ghost, I can still sense your presence to an extent."

Naru did have a good point. There had been something else she had been wondering about.

"How did I have a dream about your brother's death?" she enquired.

"I heard about that," Naru commented.

He directed her to a wooden painted bench nearby and moved his wheelchair next to her.

"I think you do have some psychic powers to an extent. Having a connection with me strengthened them and when you had that dream, we were touching. You saw the same things I did so that has to be the case," Naru explained.

His explanation put everything into place for Mai. She hadn't developed psychic powers overnight, she had been piggybacking off Naru to an extent. Although he had said that she had some psychic powers and she didn't know which ones he was referring to.

"Should I need to worry about having any other dreams?"

Naru looked thoughtful. "I can't say for sure. Your abilities will be latent again and dreams that actually have significance will be harder to identify. You can tell me about your dreams if you like."

That was not going to happen if her dream about marrying him was any indication of her future dreams. However he was speaking like he was planning to stay in Japan like Lin had suggested.

"Are you going back to England soon?" she asked hesitantly.

Naru took a while to answer and Mai was afraid that she had made everything awkward.

"I would like to stay here. It's up to you."

That threw Mai. What did she have to do with it?"

"Why is it up to me?"

Naru shot her exasperated look.

"I know Yasuhara told me you were a little slow…" he sighed. "I like you."

Mai was almost certain she had misheard him or that she was having a very pleasant dream. The only thing that made her sure that she had heard right was how red Naru's ears were.

"Um, I feel… the same way," she stumbled over the words.

Naru flicked her forehead lightly. "That was obvious."

Mai suddenly felt very hot and was aware that she was as red as a lobster She hadn't realised that she was that obvious about liking Naru.

"Even Lin knows," Naru said much to her mortification. "Madoka noticed that I like you. The society members noticed as well."

"I'm sorry for not being observant," Mai huffed.

She was cringing inwardly at everyone knowing before she had. Who would have thought Keiko and Michiru were that observant?

"My parents are coming here to visit me," Naru changed the subject. "My mother speaks Japanese so you don't need to worry."

"Worry about what?"

Naru gave her another meaningful glance.

"Worry about being introduced to your boyfriend's parents."

When he put it like that Mai felt even more like she was not in reality. She had a boyfriend, it had to be a dream.

They spent the next hour talking and Mai found out about Eugene being his identical twin and about his family. She told him about hers in return. When Lin arrived to check on them she realised that there was one question left unanswered.

"Last year, how did you find Urado?"

Naru and Lin exchanged looks which confused Mai. Lin looked darkly amused.

"Through dumb luck," Lin said dryly.

"That afternoon I was sitting outside a café by myself going over a map to try to pinpoint the mountain I saw with my psychometry," Naru began. "There was a gust of wind that blew the map off the table. I ran after it and saw Urado. He looked at me like he had seen a ghost and then bolted. I realised that he had probably mistaken me for Gene and followed him. He got into a car exactly like the one I had seen and I followed him in a taxi."

That explained why he hadn't volunteered the information himself. It had been pure chance that he had encountered Urado.

"So you followed him to the school?" she asked.

Naru nodded. "He hadn't noticed the taxi and led me straight to where he worked. The school was mostly empty and Urado must have been intending to work late there so it would have been easy to sneak away and contact Lin. Instead I went to confront him in anger and he pushed me down the stairs which knocked me out. The next time I woke up was in the road."

That explained his ghost's presence at the school. Mai guessed that all the unanswered questions had been explained.

"So this case is resolved then?"

"Gene's body needs to be found," Naru reminded her. "We're hopeful that he might have left something that tells us where. Other than that, it really is over."

"How was meeting the boyfriend's parents?" Yasuhara teased.

They were walking to the society room after lectures. Naru's parents had invited her out for afternoon tea the previous day and Yasuhara had heard about it from John who had got it from Lin. The society members had a good information network going. Mai wished they could use it for something other than her dating life.

"It went well," Mai smiled. "It was nerve wracking at first. Naru's mother is nothing like him and his father was quiet, but not unfriendly."

"That's wonderful," Yasuhara replied as they got to the door. "It's unlocked… The others must have got here before us."

He opened the door and they found some familiar sitting at the table with a cup of tea. It was Naru and he was dressed in a dark blue shirt and black trousers. Mai had only seen him dressed in black or in pyjamas until now.

"I thought you were being discharged tomorrow," she said in confusion.

"I wanted to surprise you. Brown-san gave me the key," he answered.

John and Naru had become surprisingly close over the last two weeks. Yasuhara and Naru were not such a good combination. Mai sat down next to him and he gave her a kiss on the cheek whilst the society president averted his eyes.

"You do realise that since we've finished your case that we have returned to doing nothing?" Yasuhara reminded him.

Naru smirked. "I didn't come here empty handed, I brought a case."

He waited politely for all the society members before drawing a file out his bag. It sounded promising, an old house that was suspected of being haunted. The owners wanted the ghosts out so they could refurbish the house and sell it at a higher price.

"Are you willing to take on the case?" Naru asked when he had finished setting the scene for the case.

Everyone was in agreement. Keiko and Michiru went to purchase drinks from the coffeeshop whilst John and Yasuhara left in search of a cake for celebrating the beginning of their second case. This left Naru and Mai alone together.

Mai smiled at Naru happily. It was strange to see him outside of the hospital and not as a ghost. He looked even better looking in a less sterile setting.

"Did your mother say anything about me after I left the hospital?"

Naru's lips twitched and he averted his gaze.

"She asked for a wedding date…"

Mai's mind flashed back to her dream. It had been a special dream after all.

"What did you tell her?"

Naru raised an eyebrow at her and stayed silent. Mai poked him and gave him her best wide eyed look to persuade him into letting it slip.

"When you're ready is the best time," was his answer. "After graduation would be ideal. I'm making arrangements to stay here for a long time."

They smiled at each other and Naru gave her a kiss on the lips after making sure that the door was closed.

Mai thought back to how she had first met Naru when she witnessed his attempted murder. It was odd to think that she had gained a boyfriend out of such strange circumstances. She glanced at Naru who now looked very much alive and healthier.

The case had brought the society members closer together, introduced her to new people and given her Naru. She was looking forward to their second case and all the ones after that.

The End

A/N: I would like to say thank you to everyone that supported this fanfiction.

It didn't turn out like I had hoped, but I enjoyed writing it.