Finding You (Ghost Hunt) (NaruxMai)

Finding You:

Chapter 1:

The first of May should have not been a significant day of Mai Taniyama. For the past two years, all of the first of Mays were filled with her usual monotonous working hours, trapped in a cubicle in the crowded office of a company.

This year, a rogue taxi on her way to work broke the pattern.

Mai slowly stirred, fighting against the pain in her head and the dry ache in her throat and lungs. Her eyelids fluttered and she eventually managed to keep her eyes open long enough to register her surroundings.

The white walls surrounding her were not her bedroom or even the infirmary at school. She frowned. Was she in a hospital?

A glance down at her hideously patterned crinkly nightgown confirmed that.

She reached up and gingerly touched her forehead which seemed to be the epicentre of the pain in her head.

"Ow," she moaned out loud and removed her fingers from what felt like a gauze pad on her head.

Mai looked around at her hospital room. There was no IV drip attached to her so she couldn't have been unconscious for too long. She pushed back the covers and slowly sat up being careful not to make any sudden movements that would aggravate her aching head. Once she had achieved that she swung her legs round. She wiggled her toes to restore blood flow before she made any attempt to stand.

The door to her room was pushed open and she was surprised to see a breathless ponytailed monk striding in.

"Bou-san!"

"Jou-chan!" he wailed. "I came rushing here as soon as the hospital contacted me."

"Why would they contact you? You aren't my emergency contact," Mai queried, fully aware that her emergency contact was the teacher that she had lived with.

Bou-san raised his eyebrows, but changed the subject.

"The doctor prescribed you some painkillers so you can leave now," he informed her with a smile. "I'll get your clothes for you."

Now that her brain was functioning past the pain, the most obvious question came to Mai.

"Why am I here?"

The monk paused on his way to the closet in the corner. "Shouldn't you know more than me? All I know is that you got hit by a car this morning."

Mai screwed up her face as she though back to the morning. It was a school day so she had risen early and met Keiko and Michiru on the way to school. That part she remembered but she didn't remember anything about a car.

"If you say so," she said doubtfully. "What's the time?"

"Half past four," he answered as he rifled through the closet.

That meant she was late for work. Naru was not going to be happy that he was not getting his tea.

"Can you call SPR to say that I can't come in for a few days due to the accident?" she requested, not expecting Bou-san's reaction.

He froze and turned round. "What!?"

Mai blinked in surprise. Surely you were supposed to inform your workplace of when you weren't able to come in to work.

"Is there something wrong?"

Bou-san placed a pile of clothes at the end of her bed and sat down next to her.

"Jou-chan, you don't work for SPR anymore."

"I don't...?

She didn't have any recollection of handing in her resignation or being fired so this was strange.