Ghost Hunters, Lies, & Money (Ghost Hunt Fanfiction)

In Which: Mai Gets Footsie

Day Five

7:45pm

The Koku Inn

The dining room doors swung open, and the two of them were carried in on the tide of people hurrying to their dinners. It was then that Mai was met with a sight she had not encountered since arriving in Nozomi: empty tables. She wasn't late for once. They had their pick of places to sit. A bit surprised, Mai halted, and threw the monk beside her a questioning look: where?

He made to answer, but there was a second surge of people coming through the doors now, and he was forced to shuffle forward. Mai felt herself bumped by someone from behind.

"Excuse me. Are you alright? Oh...!"

Recognizing the voice, Mai turned to face her accidental assailant with assurances of being fine, determined to secure a table for their group before they were all filled, but all these thoughts and ideas failed when she caught sight of Miss Miyuki's expression, her bright blue eyes wide with what only could be called shock,

"Well, look at you- my..."

"My god, Mai...?!"

A second voice rang above the heiress and in the next instant Ayako was upon her. The miko seized Mai's shoulders; her keen gaze taking obvious notice of her dress and it's flattering cut,

"Hmph, well you'll have Masako beat with this one, but who did this to you? Tell me this isn't that monk's work," she muttered with a shrewd glance toward him.

Did this?

That Ayako.

"Uh, Nari helped-"

"Hm, that's why it's familiar."

Mai blinked and swung her attention around to Miss Miyuki.

She recognizes the dress?! But Nari said it was fine to borrow, that no one would notice!

"Oh, about that..."

Mai's words died in her mouth. She was properly looking in the heiress' direction now, attempting to explain the loan from the costume department, and there- right behind her, was Naru.

Startled, Mai snapped her mouth shut, feeling a warm flush spread across her skin. From somewhere over to her left, she could practically hear Bou-san silently shouting:

This is it! Mission commence!

Her thoughts traveling at the speed of light, her instinct was to act, but her body language was lagging behind...

Think Masako. You are Masako.

Against every usual feeling, Mai dared to return his stare, imitating what she thought was an elegant and distracting gesture: her hand coming up touch lightly at her collar bone. It always seemed alluring in the movies. But Mai wasn't preforming on the silver screen, and Naru wasn't a leading man.

With her focus so entirely on gazing back at him through her eye lashes, and holding her hand just so- Mai's composure failed her in other areas. Already unsteady in her towering heels, her ankle gave out.

In a flailing motion completely inelegant, and the wrong kind of distracting, Mai lost her balance, and would have fallen, had not Ayako grabbed at her,

"What in the world..? I knew it. You're feverish, aren't you? Are you having some kind of seizure? Hold still-"

Seizure?!