The floor was cool and pleasant against Mai's skin as she lay on the floor sorting files.

She knew Naru probably definitely didn't appreciate her lack of professionalism in lying on her stomach at the foot of his desk. Especially not with her legs dangling up in the air like a schoolgirl writing her diary in bed. But well, keeping her after hours till ten pm doing paperwork wasn't professional on his part either, and if she had to endure extra work, then he'd just have to to deal with her bad posture.

She glanced up at the window, where moonlight was almost starting to trickle in. They'd been working in a comfortable silence for nearly an hour, and Mai would even reluctantly call it almost peaceful. She wrinkled her nose at the thought. God forbid the great workaholic was rubbing off on her.

Well, it wasn't like she had anywhere to be anyways. As awful company Naru was, even he beat her empty apartment and being alone with her thoughts. Mai loved her apartment, but she found herself wanting to be there less and with SPR more these days. With people who talked to her and teased her and bossed her around and made her laugh till her stomach hurt. With family.

Idly shifting a paper from one pile to another, Mai wondered how Naru did this every night alone. She was well aware that he stayed in the office this late on most days, even a couple hours after Lin and long after she left. Didn't he get lonely? Maybe he enjoyed the quiet?

The cold tile seeped through the thin fabric of her shirt and she shifted, starting a fifth pile for August cases.

It couldn't have always been that way, though. He hadn't always been alone.

Gene.

Did he miss him? Did he get lonely like she did when she missed her parents? Or was he truly as indifferent as he acted, as apathetic? He was so calm and composed she wondered if he had either healthily moved on or just didn't care.

So Mai accidentally did what she did best: she daydreamed.

She tried to close her eyes and imagine being Naru.

A little boy in an orphanage with his twin and his only friend always at his side, surviving the harsh system together. The joy of being adopted, of someone picking them together, their lifelong fear of being separated- finally disappearing into relief that someone actually wanted them both. The wonder of getting to explore their PK together, learning about the paranormal and working days and nights to develop their genius. Mai imagined Gene having a million friends at university, Naru having only him. Gene ditching his friends to work on theories with Naru instead. Naru acting annoyed but secretly appreciating Gene's dumb jokes and teasing. Working on their PK together, channeling each other to cause absolute imagined him saying goodbye to Gene for the last time, rolling his eyes as Gene dramatically embraced him. "Must you make such a scene? It's only two weeks." He'd probably have said, but hugged him back nonetheless.

The news. Finding out. He'd thought they made it. They'd be together forever. They'd made it out of the orphanage together. She imagined his face blankly considering this new information, that he'd never see his brother again. Not blank because he had no emotion, but because there was so much that he wouldn't know where to begin. The final layer of cement pouring into his soul and sealing off his emotions for good. At least his life to finding his brother's body, a sick need to make sure; he needed to see it himself. He was a scientist. Nothing was real until it was proven until it was in his hands to see and touch and... So. Much. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pai-

Drip.

Mai opened her eyes. The file in her hands had a large wet spot smack in the middle. She stared at it in blankly. Blinked. Another one joined it. She blearily watched it slowly soak into the page, expanding as it blurred all the ink it touched.

She realized in horror what was happening as her eyes began stinging. Had she-

She shot up to her feet abruptly.

Naru looked up from his laptop, his eyes silently inquiring why.

"I'm gonna..." she trailed off as she heard how shaky her own voice sounded to herself. Oh no.

"Uh, tea?"

She couldn't hold his gaze for a second longer. She shot out of his office to the kitchen, managing to hold in her sobs till she made it inside.

Out of earshot, she crumpled against herself, gasping for breath.

He'd lost his best friend.

Since birth.

He'd held his body in his hands.

He'd buried it.

She didn't know why she'd done this. She always did this. Accidentally wandered into a part of her thoughts that was as deadly as astral projecting into victims' memories on cases. Her imagination was a curse.

Through her muffled sobs, she heard footsteps. Of course. Of course he suspected something. He suspected everything.

Tea! Mai was supposed to be making tea. Scrubbing her face with her sleeve, she reached for a pot, desperate to pretend nothing was happening. Nothing was. She had just gotten carried away daydreaming.

The kitchen door swung open. "Mai?"

He asked, his eyebrows raised.

"I'm just-"

Mai turned the stove on quickly. Too quickly. Her other hand had been right next to it, and she watched in morbid fascination as the flames licked her fingers.

She yelped, flinching and snatching her hand away. It was too late.

Her fingers were bright pink, stinging so bad she could practically see stars.

The tears she had tried so hard to hide streamed out all at once, out in the open. She could hardly believe this was happening.

Naru cursed. He was at her side in an instant, turning the flame off and grabbing her hand. The pain of her thoughts blended hazily with the pain of her hand and everything hurt.

"What are you doing?" Naru hissed angrily. She felt disgusted with herself. She'd caused him more pain. Anger, pain, hurt, disappointment. So much. And he was cursed to never show anyone. She closed her eyes.

Standing against her, he turned on the sink, letting the cold water soothe her skin.

Mai couldn't even speak. She sobbed as he held her fingers under the running water until the burning turned to a dull sting. After a few minutes, he turned her to face him, trying to meet her eyes. She refused, staring resolutely at the floor.

"Mai. I need you to tell me what's wrong."

He leaned down, trying to see at her level. When that didn't work, he set his hands on her waist, sitting her easily on the counter.

Keeping one arm around her, he opened the freezer with the other and pulled out something. Still crying, she looked down to see a pack of frozen peas pressed against her fingers.

"Mai!" He shook her shoulders lightly. "Stop this! You're making a scene." He commanded.

The words were so eerily similar to the ones she'd been imagining in her head that she only cried harder. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "He's gone, he's gone, you're so alone, and-"

Through a hazy curtain of tears and hair, she leaned forward on the counter to press against him in an embarrassingly useless attempt to hide her face.

To her surprise, he let her, letting this continue till her sobs gradually died to just shaky breaths.

The ice on her hand between them was almost melted, soaking into her shirt.

She hiccuped into the silence.

What felt like hours later, Naru pulled away to study her. Mai concentrated hard on his buttons, physically unable to look at him after the fiasco she'd caused. She'd never been this embarrassed in her life. Not even that time he'd caught her singing at the top her lungs in the kitchen. Or the time she'd tripped over a camera straight into mud.

After a long moment of silence, he let go of her hand to brush her hair out of her face, his fingers accidentally trailing along her jaw and sending her pulse skittering. She'd never seen Naru this gentle in her life.

It didn't last long.

"You're not holding it properly." He growled, pressing the melted bag of peas harder against her hand.

Mai frowned.

"It's all soggy." She muttered hoarsely, pulling her hand away.

He yanked it right back and she scowled at him.

Frustrated, she pushed off the counter, suddenly eager to escape the whole situation. Naru blocked her, his arms resting on either side of her on the counter like iron.

She sniffled angrily. "Let me down."

His eyes pierced into hers, dark blue and invading all of her thoughts.

He'd definitely figured out what had happened. He might've been crap at emotions, but he knew her's like the back of his hand. All except one.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, not an iota of feeling in his voice. Why did he care?

Rendered absolutely speechless, Mai did the worst thing she could have in the situation. "wHy aRe yOu cRyiNg?" she mocked. And then stared at him in horror.

The vein in his forehead moved, a tiny tick she would have never noticed if he wasn't all up in her face at the moment. She wondered how badly he wanted to smack her.

"Mai," he warned, his voice low and bordering on dangerous. He never said her name as just one word. There was meaning behind it, a million unsaid words.

"It's nothing." Mai flushed, not sure how on earth she'd get out of this god awful nightmare of a situation. He had her literally cornered, and she had no idea how she'd explain to him why she'd randomly ran out to make tea and then nearly set her hand on fire before sobbing her heart out against him.

"I assume this is about Gene." He said finally.

Oh, so he had heard through her blubbering. Great.

"Scientists don't assume." She replied, trying to study her stinging fingers. He pulled them back tightly back against the stupid peas. His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist rhythmically, right where her pulse hammered. As if he were coaxing a wild animal to talk, she realized, glaring at the peas. His touch burned no less than the fire, although far more pleasantly. She shivered.

When he didn't reply, Mai finally realized that she was trapped. If there was one thing she knew about Naru, he didn't quit until he solved a case. Her eyes blurred and she blinked. Mai supposed she was the case at hand. Wasn't he only doing the same as her, though? Hadn't she seen him like a case first, accidentally diving into his brain to relive his memories as if he were a victim on some case? She hadn't actually astral projected, and all the memories were made up from her own imagination, but it was close enough.

She inhaled. She couldn't seem to get enough oxygen in today.

"Are you... ok?" She finally asked hesitantly. It was a question, but she knew Naru could see the answer in it. As if he didn't already know.

Naru looked at her incredulously, his midnight blue eyes meeting hers.

"Am I ok?"

"Do you miss him?" She whispered.

Something clicked in his eyes then, as if his world once again made sense, as if he'd once again unraveled a part of her that he had no business unraveling.

"I'm sorry." She mumbled, backtracking. "I shouldn't have... I think I accidentally..."

He nodded, and she knew he knew exactly what she had done. And in that moment she felt an overwhelming relief that it was him, that it was Naru. That he understood her, that he knew her in and out and she might've hated that fact every moment of her life, just except this one. In this moment, she didn't have to explain anything. He knew. He knew her.

All the tension left her body, and she leaned against the arm at her side tiredly. His breath stirred her bangs.

"I'm sorry." she muttered.

"For?"

There was a list of things.

"For being annoying." She decided on.

A small flicker of amusement sparkled in his eye as he reached into the freezer again.

"Just like him."

Mai stared as he returned with an actual ice pack. He rarely ever talked about Gene. At least not voluntarily. She held her breath.

"Of course, he'd never apologize for it. He lived his life unapologetically. And stupidly. That's how he got killed." Naru muttered. His voice didn't waver, his words were cold as the ice between them, but in his eyes Mai saw everything she needed to know. Everything she'd imagined earlier, every scene and every moment.

"He's my brother, Mai. Of course I miss him. But missing him won't change anything. Feelings don't change anything." He said the word like it was repulsive and irrelevant, and for the first time she understood why.

"They do." Mai breathed, as if a decibel higher could shatter this moment. "They do, Naru."

He sighed, angling her face towards his. His palms rested against her neck, blessedly cool against her heated skin. He looked her straight in the eyes till she had nowhere else to look. Only him.

"I'm fine, Mai."

"Are you?" She asked, sincerely. She searched his eyes for any sign of deception, for the mask he put up in every other aspect of himself like his voice and his demeanor.

"I am." It felt like a promise.

"Ok." She felt a calm spread throughout her heart. She trusted him. Everything was ok.

She hoped he wouldn't fire her.

He let go of her, slowly, finally putting some distance between them and leaning against the wall. She sucked in a breath.

"Go home, Mai." He said drily.

"When are you going?" She asked.

"I have work to finish." He replied.

"Around twelve." He conceded when she frowned.

She hopped off the counter, wincing. "Ok."

He grabbed her uninjured hand before she could slip past him. "Ok what?"

"Ok, I'm staying till twelve." She said cheerfully.

"No. You're hurt. Go home."

Mai smiled brightly, then reached up on her tippy toes to touch her forehead to his. Looking up at him through her lashes, she wasn't sure what possessed her at the moment to do the bravest thing she'd ever done in her life. She leaned up further on toes, and she pressed her lips to his forehead.

"Don't wanna."

Mai could practically feel the vein in his forehead and his eyes roll. Pulling out of his grasp, she ran up the few stairs to his office. She carefully sat down with her back against the side of his desk and pulled her piles of papers back in front of her.

She could've gone home. Should've gone home. She knew Naru probably wasn't lonely. And even if he was, she could never make up for Gene's presence in his life. She could never love him as a brother. And neither could he -at least she certainly hoped not.

But today, she didn't want to go home. She wanted to sit here quietly in her thoughts with a boy she cared for. To just exist with him tonight.

Lost in her thoughts and her papers, she didn't even notice when he walked back into the office and took his seat behind her head.

She felt something touch her hair, the gentlest touch of acknowledgment. Stirred out of her thoughts, she turned to look back up at him. But his gaze was back on his computer once more, back to work. She smiled and rested her head against his pants leg.

And she continued sorting her papers.