The Strangeness That is Gene Davis

"C'mon Gene! Please put your pants on! Get back here!" "Gene is running around naked again, isn't he?" "Where do babies come from?" Briefly, Mai thought she heard the explanation of 'belly button lint'.

"C'mon Gene! Please put your pants on! Get back here!" Mai shouted in frustration to her son. She was trying to corner him, and so far, it wasn't working; she'd only managed to get herself in a tricky situation with herself at one end of the coffee table and Gene at the other.

"Gene no wanna!" he giggled, spontaneously darting away from the furniture and hiding behind the cream couch.

Though she was supposed to be mad, Mai couldn't help but grin like a goofy child herself. "Gene, get back here this instant!" Sure, Gene could be infuriating sometimes, but, he was a blessing—that, and she just couldn't resist his obvious charm and charisma that practically rolled off him in waves, even when he was only four.

"No, mummy gotta catch me!" Gene squealed.

"You really don't want to set free the mummy monster," Mai warned, holding her hands out—with his small jeans in one—and wriggling her index finger.

"I do, I do!" he insisted with a smile.

"Rawr!" And Mai charged after the young child, with him shouting, screaming, squealing, and running noisily through the BSPR office. This continued for a few minutes, the unbearable noise escalating to the point that the director of BSPR poked his head out of his office with a glare.

"Mai…"

The woman stopped rampaging around the room to give an open smile to her husband. Gene took the opportunity to blow raspberries at his parents and quickly run away to God only knew where.

"Yes Naru?"

"Why are you thrashing about the office like a barbarian?" Naru's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing…" Mai said in a singsong way that made Naru's suspicions rise higher than before.

"Gene is running around naked again, isn't he?"

It always surprised her how he could always seem to be dead on the spot.

"Not quite, he's only missing his pants this time." Mai held up Gene's jeans with a giggle. "Not like at his birthday party where he insisted on wearing his birthday suit when he didn't even know what it was." As she laughed uncontrollably, Naru's face darkened considerably.

Bou-san had asked the birthday boy if he wanted to wear his birthday suit because it had been a special day, and of course, Gene—being the curious lad he was—had said yes without even knowing what a birthday suit was. And even after being told exactly what a birthday suit was, Gene had still insisted on running around stark naked for the remainder of the day.

"I still have to kill that monk…" Naru muttered.

"Oh, let it be, Naru. Besides, it wasn't like we were out in public, we were at the house," Mai laughed, slapping his shoulder playfully; of course Naru only scowled harder.

Suddenly, there was a loud thump, making Mai jump nearly ten feet.

"…What was that?" she murmured, truly perplexed.

"Mummy! Daddy!"

Realization dawned on both of their faces. "Gene…"

Both parents deadpanned with a sigh at the same exact time.

"Should I grab the video camera?" Naru's wife asked as she trekked around the hall.

"No, you've taken enough video to humiliate him for years to come," her husband said in that bland but amused way of his.

It was true though; Mai had videotaped nearly every experience Gene had. From his first dirty diaper, to his desitin incident. As the two turned the corner, Naru was stunned into stopping dead in his tracks, blinking at the sight before him. Mai on the other hand brought a hand to her mouth, stuffing her fist inside it as she tried her hardest not to laugh.

Gene was hanging upside down on the door handle of the pantry…by his Spiderman underwear.

His hands could touch the floor, and so he braced himself like that, with his bum in the air, pressed against the wooden door.

"I'm stuck…" he whimpered. Mai's last bit of control slipped free and she collapsed to the floor, laughing her gut out with tears springing in her eyes. Even Naru seemed slightly amused.

"G-Gene…" Mai was interrupted by her own laughter, "…how did you get like that?"

"I gonna hide frum mummy monther, so I climbded on this to get up." He pointed up and to the left a little ways to where the fridge was; only a half foot from the pantry.

"So you climbed on top of the door handle to get on top of the fridge." Naru concluded.

Gene nodded fervently. "Then I slippded! Now I stuck…" The boy squirmed around, showing his discomfort. This only made his mother laps into rounds of laughter again.

"I don't know Mai," Naru said after a while. "I think we should just leave him like that until he decides to wear his pants." Of course he was joking—oh, but if only Gene knew that.

"No, mummy! Please, mummy!"

"Well, Gene, daddy has a point. Little boy's should wear their pants." Mai grinned as her son's expression crumbled and he mumbled an "okay".

Sometime later that month…

"Mummy?" Mai and Gene were at the office sitting on the couch together and eating lunch.

"Yes sweetheart?"

"Where do babies come from?"

Mai began coughing violently, choking on her warm tea. "Pardon?" she rasped, eyes wide.

Gene gave a small pout, his large blue eyes looking to the floor and his chubby cheeks puffing out. "Where do babies come from?"

Mai's mouth opened and closed several times. Just where on earth had he thought of that question? As far as she knew, it wasn't supposed to rear its ugly head till much, much later! "Why do you suddenly want to know?" she asked cautiously, dreading the answer.

"Last week, Bou-san said 'dey're probaby making your baby brudder or sisthter'…but he wouldn't tell me anyfing else…"

Mai's face turned the most furious shade of pink out of sheer embarrassment. Bou-san…I'm going to kill you!

"Mummy, you okay?" Gene asked worriedly as his mother's face turned various shades of crimson. "Your face is red!"

"Don't worry, Gene…mummy is just filling up with lots of…love…for Bou-san right now."

"Oh…" he mumbled, still unsatisfied that his question hadn't been answered.

"I have an idea, why don't you go ask daddy? I'm sure daddy will answer you."

Yes, she was aware that it was an evil move, but the last thing Mai wanted to do was explain to her son the magic of the adult world. Naru could have that job. He was the father after all.

"Really?" Gene's eyes lit up and practically sparkled as he nearly tripped over his own two feet barging into his father's private office. The door clicked shut. Mai counted down.

And roughly after ten seconds, Mai heard the sound of quite a lot of papers thumping to the floor. Naru's deep, masculine voice could be heard, stumbling for the right words and briefly, Mai thought she heard the explanation of 'belly button lint'.

Okay, for those of you wondering, yes, I did change Naru and Mai's child's name for Sachio to Gene. Back when I wrote this and TJBP I wasn't aware of Ghost Hunt's full plot (meaning, I had no idea Naru was from England or than Dream Naru was actually Gene .) So, I finally decided to edit this to make it more relevant.