SPR: Is This Normal - CH 59

14AmyChan: Okay, school's going to be starting up again, and updates won't come as often...

Mai: BUT! She is going to continue this story until it's completion!

14AmyChan: That's right! So don't worry, I won't forget this story! *^_^*

Naru: Chan-san does not own Ghost Hunt.

"No one else noticed, then?" Madoka asked of the now silent room. Naru held his chin in his hand and Lin was typing along at his computer, a somewhat curious look on his face to anyone who knew him well. Bou-san and Ayako paused in their bickering to give this information some thought while John and Masako shared a look of mild surprise. Yasuhara's eyes hid behind the glare of his glasses in thought before he nodded to himself. Martin and Luella were silent observers, but one could tell that they certainly had not thought of this fact. Mai curiously looked at everyone's expressions before tilting her head in confusion.

"I don't get it," she finally stated, bringing everyone out of their muse. "Why is it such a big thing that none of the stock has been broken? Shouldn't the workers be careful around it anyways?"

"Yes, they should," John agreed. "However, humans are liable to make mistakes, and when the construction began, everyone had to move all of the stock to the side of the store."

"And in all that hustle and bustle, not one piece of glass got even cracked?" Bou-san pitched in. "Even with professional movers, usually stuff like that gets packed away with layers and layers because someone somewhere is afraid stuff like that will break. All the stock was uncovered and in plain sight. It was like no one was worried about anything getting broken."

"The workers could have been really, really careful," Mai argued, still not seeing the big deal about the stock being absolutely fine. She was surprised when Yasuhara shook his head.

"In my many, many years of experience on this beautiful land I call a home—"

"Shounen!"

"I've learned to read people well," the young man continued, pointedly ignoring Bou-san's interruption. No one was surprised when the monk was hit upside the head for his transgression. "Those workers were probably dredged up off of their vacations for this project, and probably aren't at the top of their game. Add to the fact that they're scared of whatever's going on around here, you can bet those hands of theirs are sweaty and trembling. At least one little thing should have been broken by now at the hands of these guys."

"Exactly," Madoka intervened, taking a hold of the conversation now. "And if the activities were simply just some scared workers, then we wouldn't have deleted security footage or intentionally shredded blueprints."

"Did we ever get any of those from Koppuri-san?" Ayako asked from the background. "Maybe looking at them will give us a hint at where to start looking for the earth-bound spirit."

Everyone turned and looked at Ayako. All except for Luella and Martin, who were not aware of the Priestess' prognosis on every case.

"Are you sure it's an earth-bound spirit?" Martin asked, his eyes fully interested as to the reasoning behind her conclusion. Before Ayako could get one confident word in, however, Naru beat her to responding.

"Matsuzaki-san has made the same claim on many a case we have taken, father," he explained. "We do not have any clear indication as to what this spirit is or why it's here."

"That's right," Masako affirmed. "We know for a fact that there is a woman's spirit here from the experience that Mai and I had earlier in the kitchen, and I can tell now that the woman is still here in the building somewhere—"

"Ara?" Ayako asked, one made up eyebrow raised. "How long were you going to wait to tell us that we were sharing a roof with yours and Mai's attacker?"

"She didn't attack us, per se," Mai intervened quickly, feeling an irritation spike coming from Naru. If there was something she had ever learned about that man, it was that he always took protection—both for himself and for his team—very seriously.

And there were other things she knew about him now, too. Like the fact that his favorite color was not black, or even dark blue. It was a deep forest green, and the story that went with that was really quite cute. And she learned that he was not a morning person, despite her first impressions of him. She used to think that he got up early in the morning because he wanted to, rather than because he had to. So imagine her shock when she had tried to text him early in the morning and surprise him, only to get quite the rude return. He had explained later on in the day of his aversion to the mornings and that anything he had said in the morning was probably the sleep talking. That one had been solved with a quick kiss that had turned into a not-so-quick kiss. And she had discovered the fact that he had a ticklish spot, right—

"Taniyama-san is right," Lin intervened, bringing Mai out of her thoughts. A mad blush rushed to her face when she realized what she had been thinking about and she turned away from Naru quickly, attempting to reimmerse herself in the current conversation once more. Naru rose an eyebrow at the action, curiosity spiking.

"I wonder if the woman we saw was the same shadow that Sora-san saw before we came," Mai blurted, trying to get her mind back on work. Work, yes, that was a good distracter.

Not really. She still could not get her mind completely off of Naru and little things she had begun to learn.

That he had begun to let her learn, she realized.

"The only way to know for certain is to have a point of reference for him to compare it to," Naru observed, his voice monotone but Mai knew better. He was curious and his emotions betrayed his steely determination. She could only hope that he was so about the case.

"So, what are we going to do, Naru-bou?" the monk asked. "This spirit—whoever it is—doesn't seem hurtful, but she does seem a bit desperate. I mean, 'believe in me'? Looks like she died without some proper justice being served or something. Maybe her family or close friends wouldn't believe her about something important?"

"Perhaps, but we cannot make those assumptions until we have more information, more specifically who she was and whether or not she is the only spirit haunting this place," Naru stated. He turned and began to bark his orders. "Matsuzaki-san, Hara-san, take a walk around the building and attempt to find the spirit, or where she is strongest. Father Brown, go with them in case they are in need of protecting."

"From the spirit or from each other?" Yasuhara snickered under his breath as the three left. Mai giggled at the joke. Though the two girls were better than they once were, they could still be quite the handful.

"Yasuhara, is your compilation of all the previous owners of the house completed?" Naru whirled around on him next.

"Sure thing, Big Boss!" Yasu answered, not skipping a beat. Mai was unsure who to be more afraid of: Naru's glare or Yasu's creepy smile. She deemed the former safer. But only by a few hairs.

"Then help Madoka catalog all of the stock to verify her hypothesis about all of the fragile ornaments," the boss instructed. He eyed the researcher carefully. "I trust this will not be a problem?"

"Leave it to us, Noll," Madoka answered, having already seen this coming. The boy was nothing if not thorough. "Though we simply must work on your manners, little boy."

That was her last chide as she and Yasuhara left the base to catalogue all of the items properly and check for damage. Bou-san was dismally attempting to conceal his chuckles at his boss' expense behind his hand, but as we have already established, it was a dismal attempt. His chortles were as clear as the daytime in which this scene was taking place.

"Bou-san," Naru reprimanded, his voice the simple calm before the storm. The monk felt a cold breeze go past his back and deemed it wise to put more effort into shorting his laughter. This attempt was a rather wonderful success.

"Yes, Naru-bou?" he inquired, attempting to keep himself as relaxed as he could, as though he had done nothing wrong. This particular stunt was ruined by the fact that he could not afford to look Naru in the eye, lest he fall into more laughter or cringe in fear of the ice that lie behind the iris.

"Remain here in base with Lin. Mai, you're with me," the raven haired boss stated with authority, giving the monk no time to argue as he swiftly left the room. It took Mai a moment to comprehend the fact that a single sentence order had been directed at her, but by the time her head had caught up to the conversation she was already walking beside Naru in the haunted house.

Mai could not even begin to put what she was thinking into words, so she stayed silent in an attempt to sort it all out. She wanted to convey how hurt she had been and the reason as to why. She wanted to tell him that she had figured out that he did trust her, that he trusted her with the little things that no one else got to know, and that work was separate from that. She wanted to make sure he would tell her, of course, if his burden got too heavy to bear, as her concern for him was the reason she had gotten so worked up in the first place. She wanted—

"Mai," Naru stated quietly, jarring the girl from her thoughts. She quickly slapped her hands over her mouth. She had not—

"If you're worried about you thinking aloud, don't worry, you didn't do it this time," Naru assured her, and Mai sighed. Half in relief and half in exasperation. It was as though every time she needed to keep something silent, she would muse about it aloud, and every time she needed to spill her guts she would clam right up. It was getting slightly annoying.

"So where are we going?" she asked, partly in order to drive the conversation away from her (because there were cameras everywhere. Everywhere I tell you, everywhere!) and partly because she was naturally curious.

"We are going to find Sora-san and bring him back to the base for further questioning," he stated. It was then that Mai noticed something that she had not earlier.

Naru was not taking as long of strides as he could have. He was walking at a pace that would be easier for her to follow.

Mai smiled warmly for him. He smirked gently in response, only feeling that she was happy for now. So he was content for now. He would interrogate her later about what was going on, when they were away from cameras and microphones.

Neither of them noticed the ever-watchful eyes of the camera, nor seemed to pay any mind that there was not one, but two very observant people on the other side of the monitors.

At least, they were observant when a certain charge and Jou-chan were involved.

"Is he in trouble?" a coworker asked, barring Naru and Mai's progress. Mai attempted to explain, but was only cut off by another coworker.

"You already asked your questions, isn't that enough?" the other queried loudly. He was shifting uncomfortably. "We all told you what you need to know."

"Ano," Mai intervened, attempting to sort out the growing ruckus. "Something that Sora-san said needs some clarifying and—"

"I see what's going on," a third voice, possibly the rudest most nasally voice in existence, piped up. "They aren't supernaturalists at all! They're a backup security hired by the boss, all the way from Shibuya so we wouldn't notice! And if they don't pin all of the activity on one of us, they don't get paid!"

"Hey now, that's not—"

"The boss doesn't even believe in all of this anyways!" another voice chimed, adding to the ever growing noise of chaos. "Even though the proof is right in front of him!"

"Maybe he doesn't believe, but he still hired us to—" Mai was interrupted by one of the frightened coworker, who shoved her aside attempting to run to yet another worker in the expanding disorder. She landed unceremoniously in Naru's arms, and while her face did turn a vibrant red, Naru's expression darkened considerably. The air got colder suddenly, despite the wonderfully sunny atmosphere that had surrounded them only moments ago.

"Perhaps," the man stated quietly, though his aura was more than enough to make him heard. He helped Mai onto her feet and casually brought her behind him, away from the commotion. "If you had listened to my assistant from the start, she would have already explained to you our reasons for seeing Sora-san."

Naru glared coolly at the man who had bumped Mai, though the frosty stare was enough to make the grown man whimper a little bit. The man beside him—to whom the first man had been running—stood up in defense of his friend, taking a step forward and placing himself between his coworker and the threat he perceived before him now.

Mai noticed this and scanned the workers behind the front line for Sora-san. It was then that she found him, having been placed within a protective bubble of coworkers and friends. It was obvious that the man himself did trust the team, and was trying to convince his protective friends as such.

It reminded Mai of the protectiveness of herself and her team, if only a little bit.

"Sora-san, you mentioned something that you saw a few nights ago, and we wanted to inquire about that event," Mai stated carefully, attempting to be vague enough as to not give away how much they knew and how much they speculated. Sora-san's eyes, however, widened in recognition and he nodded, pushing his way through his friends. They attempted to stop him and keep him from harm.

"Wait, Sora-san—"

"You can't be serious—"

"They already asked their questions—"

"What if Koppuri—"

"What if you all are wrong?" Sora-san asked, having made it to the front of the mob and turned to his coworkers. "What if these people are who they say they are, and we're getting in the way of the investigation by not cooperating?"

"But what if Koppuri is trying to pin it all on you?" one of the men questioned. The others hummed in agreement. Sora-san shook his head.

"Then I'll be out of a job, but if these guys are the real deal, I can go home and tell my kids that I got to work with a ghost busting team, and they'll look at me like I'm a superhero," the man explained with a beam on his face. The other workers stared at him for a while before the man turned to Naru and Mai, the latter of which was beginning to feel as though she were intruding on some sort of scene. The former just wanted to get back to the base where everything was somewhat normal as swiftly as possible.

"I apologize for the behavior of my coworkers. We have done many projects as a team and have grown rather protective of one another," he explained as he bowed in apology. As he did, many of the others did as well, leaving only a few of the tougher ones to study Naru and Mai.

"If that is all, we require you at our base for a few more questions," Naru stated bluntly. Mai narrowed her eyes at her boss/boyfriend/love-of-her-life before turning a smile to Sota-san.

"What he means is please come with us, Sota-san," she amended. "We have a few questions and would appreciate your cooperation."

"I will help in any way I can," the man replied before following the duo inside the building.

14AmyChan: All right~! We have a bit of progress on all sides, I think. Mai's realizing how childish she's being, we have a few new questions on the case, and we're going to cross reference a witness.

John: I'd say that's a good chapter, mate.

14AmyChan: Aw, thanks, John~! *^_^*

John: And if you like Chan-san's writing, please check out her small fanfiction "The Path of a Law". It won't interfere with this fanfiction and she spent quite a while on it.

14AmyChan: Even advertising for me! John, you're so sweet! *^_^*

John: ^/_/^ Thank you!

14AmyChan: Please read and review, everybody~! *^_^*