14AmyChan: okay, so I've been working on this idea for a while, and I've already written a few chapters. I'm just gonna space 'em out so I can try to get even further ahead. ^^;

Mai: So all of you know, this happens about three months after the cannon storyline ends.

Naru: You counted ten weeks, five days, eight hours and twenty seven minutes, remember?

Mai: THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO KNOW THAT!

14AmyChan: actually, they do. So, I hope you guys sit back and enjoy the prologue of this story~! *^_^*

"Mai, tea," a young man dressed all in black called out from his office. He heard the grumbling of his assistant and smirked. He had definitely missed that, though he had no particular inclination as to why. Being a child prodigy had influenced his thinking scholarly, not in the way of social norms.

The boy in question went by a few names. One of them was Oliver Davis, a paranormal expert who approached the supernatural from a scientific view so his work would not be discredited and a powerful PK user. Another was Kazuya Shibuya, a recently returned boss of the Shibuya Psychic Research Center, who took paranormal cases to gain evidence of the supernatural, yet did no more than that on his own. The last was Naru the Narcissist, so called by his assistant and eventually by his coworkers as well. They all seemed to believe that this man had no love other than for himself.

The statement, though already untrue, had proven itself even more false over the past few months.

He had recently found the body of his dead twin brother at the bottom of a lake, and that being the only reason he had come to Japan, he left it behind soon thereafter. However, not all was the same in his home. He had found himself on more than one occasion straining his ears to hear the normal chit chat of the office, if only to tell his friends from Japan to not use his office as a café. He would call for tea, and when he had it, he would feel as if it could be better if made by a certain someone.

But most of all, he kept waiting for a certain klutzy assistant to need his help. He listened for papers to fall, someone to trip, or subtle chaos of any kind to happen back in his office in London. There was no Mai to tease, and his mood plummeted for it. It had taken an even worse turn whenever he thought of how they had parted, with him rejecting her confession.

In his mind, her confession was not meant for him, but rather for his dead twin, Eugene, who had been visiting her in her dreams. A boy with a kind, joking personality and cheerful smile, Gene had always been the polar opposite of Naru, and far more popular for it. Naru was stubborn and work-driven. He took any and every matter seriously, except for when sarcastic jabs could be made—usually to tease or at the expense of people in his extremely close circle of friends and family. He did not usually give into emotions of any sort unless they were strong. So imagine his surprise when—

Knock, knock

"Come in," Naru stated, attempting to regain his concentration on the papers before him. He had returned to Japan exactly one week ago after two months of absence, and had just finished unpacking when a flood of cases came in for him to read. Many of these cases had been turned down by Madoka at first, so the prospective clients had seemingly hoped for a change in mind with the change in leadership. They did not know that Madoka was the more lenient of the two, and the boring and faux cases that repeated themselves managed to cause a slip in his concentration.

When Naru's concentration slipped, he needed his tea to refocus it. Mai seemed to think he had a tea addiction with how many times he called for it. The only reason was that—although he would never tell her—she made some of the best tea he had ever tasted. Or so he told himself. It was most certainly not because he enjoyed watching her get flustered. Of course not.

The assistant on his mind then walked in. Mai had not changed much in his absence, save that her hair had grown an inch or two longer. She was currently wearing an orange tank top with a pair of fingerless, elbow-length gloves that were the same shade of orange with alternating thick black stripes. She also wore a short black skirt with dull reddish orange leggings and white tennis shoes. Naru raised an eyebrow at her style, but had not questioned it thus far. The less could be said of her.

"Ne, Naru, why do you still wear black?" she inquired as she set the tea in front of him. Her caramel eyes shone with curiosity and a hint of concern. Naru did his best to wave it off as he hid behind his stoic façade.

"Because I look good in it, and it's a comfortable color," Naru replied easily. He enjoyed the flustered look that came across Mai's face that came with him being right. He took a sip of his tea, feeling its effects quickly.

"There are other colors, too! Why don't you try blue or something?" Mai asked, trying to gain the upper hand of the conversation. Naru ducked the point easily.

"I don't see why I have to explain my fashion choices to you," he pointed out. With some tea in his system, he found it a little easier to concentrate on the papers in front of him, though the effect was void in itself when the certain tea maker was around. She did not seem to realize just how much of his attention she actually commanded when she was present. He attempted to busy himself with the papers in front of him.

"It's because—oh, never mind!" Mai announced in a flustered huff as she left the office, her face beet red. Naru glanced up curiously at the door his assistant had just slammed. It was not very like her to drop an argument in the middle like that. Had he not had enough on his plate at that moment, he probably would have gone to observe her and try to discern what the matter was. As it was, he did not have the time, so he simply tried to read through the cases as quickly and efficiently as possible.

He took another sip of tea.

Mai could not believe how close she had been to telling him that she was worried. Over the past ten weeks, five days, eight hours and twenty seven minutes, her feelings for her cold-hearted boss had not managed to leave her be.

In fact, they had grown substantially.

In her mind, it was irrational on all accounts. Yes, he was good-looking, but so was his brother. Why had she not fallen in love with him, as Naru was so keen on asking. The answer seemed to be simple: Gene was not Naru.

To other people, Naru seemed to believe that he was flawless. Mai could see that he was plainly not, and even the fact that the boy had realized that about himself. Where everyone else would scoff at him, Mai would see his brain fully at work, backtracking, seeing if anything had gone wrong. Over time, she had grown to see that Naru—yes, Naru, not Gene—had a genuine heart that cared for people. He had inadvertently shown it from time and time, when he would use his PK to keep his friends and coworkers safe, even if it meant gaining an injury, from minor to even landing himself in a hospital.

However, if caring for people like that got him into a hospital and caused him that much pain, she could see why he would instantly want to push others away. Which he had done to the entire SPR team at first. However, little by little, he had seemed to accept them as a group. Mai only wished that he had accepted her and how she had grown to feel for him.

Before he had left for England, she had confessed her feelings for him. He had answered her in turn with a question that had ripped her heart out. Him or Gene?

She had lost many hours of sleep over this question, not because she did not know the answer, but how she would apologize to the kinder of the twins. She had time and time again called him her "Dream Naru", for his smiles and kindness. How rotten that must have been, to have been repeatedly mistaken for your twin. After death, the only true things you have are your name and your memories, and she had inadvertently stripped Eugene Davis of one.

However, she had never gotten the chance to apologize. For as soon as Naru left her, Gene had vanished. She supposed it was only rational that he would have followed his twin, yet she never truly had the chance to apologize, and was all the more sorry for it.

Mai came to sit down at her desk and return to what she had been doing previously. In other words, be completely bored out of her brain. It was a slow day at SPR, with no new cases and no one else around. The office was quiet and somewhat lonesome. Naru and Lin were both in their respective offices, Madoka had returned to England two days prior, and everyone else was scattered to the winds.

It came as a blessed relief when the bell above the door chimed, signaling the walk-in of a prospective client.

14AmyChan: yeah, I know my writing style's a little flowery, but I hope you guys liked it nonetheless.

Mai: The chapters will all be about the same length for a while. After that, who knows...

Naru: Certainly not either of you two idiots.

14AmyChan and Mai: *glare at Naru*

Naru: *deflects both of them with a glare to the audience* you have read, and now you will review. Because I say so.

14AmyChan: NO! it's because they're nice! Right?

...

Right...? *crickets* ...hello?