Dangerous Souls

Healing

Chapter 11-Not Good

March Day 5, 5:35 P.M.

"Hey, Naru..." Her words were soft and slurred as Naru turned around at the call of his name. He knew something wasn't right.

"Mai?" he called as he watched her body sway. Her eyelids began to droop and before he could react, her knees had given out and she was falling. "Mai!"

Luckily, he was able to catch her before she hit the ground. Her breathing was shallow as he adjusted her to be leaning on his chest. He felt her forehead. It was warm. "This is not good," he determined glancing at the setting sun behind them.

***

"They're not in the hotel," Lin muttered as Yasuhara struggled to keep up with the taller man's strides. They had just spoken with Saburo, who hadn't seen them all day. And despite the older man's calm exterior, the college student knew he was a little more than frazzled at the moment.

"I mean, I could have told you that simply from the video footage," Yasuhara quipped as he took an extra step to keep up. "But I'm going to assume you're getting your information from your Shiki."

Lin didn't respond, but his pace seemed to quicken. It was then that Yasuhara resigned himself to actually using the gym on campus, at the very least to get his cardio and endurance up. He wondered briefly if Naru ever had trouble keeping up with the man. He brushed the thought aside with an eyeroll, Naru would never find himself having to keep up with someone else. He would make sure they go at his pace.

"...last saw them," Lin's deep voice was low as it tended to get when he was concentrating on something. Almost as though he were speaking to himself. The college student blinked hard before shaking his head.

"Say that again, my mind wandered."

"I said, 'We need to find who last saw them,'" Lin repeated, stopping at the elevators and stabbing his finger into the button.

"I take it we're gonna start with housekeeping?" The elevator door opened and the two men stepped inside. "They're most likely to gossip, meaning-"

"Someone probably saw them or heard someone saw them," Lin finished as the car shot up to the next floor.

An unsettling feeling filled Yasuhara's stomach, making him frown. "I don't have a good feeling about this."

The elevator stopped and they had stepped out, but Lin stopped to give the young man a look. "Meaning?"

"This morning Kiko mentioned that if it weren't for the date thing yesterday, we wouldn't have been the ones to find the skeleton." The taller man gave him another look to continue. "She said it would have been Mai."

With a rather grim look from the otherwise stoic man, Lin nodded and headed down the hall in search of one of the maids. "Miss Hironaka!"

He found one.

***

She felt light, like she was floating in a pool. She was warm, as though the pool was heated. She took in a deep breath and noticed the air smelled crisp, like the forest behind the resort-

With that, she snapped her eyes open and found a familiar facing smiling down on her. "Hello, Mai," he said as she sat up and rubbed her head.

"What happened, Ji?" she asked catching the boy off guard.

"What did you just call me?" It was a bit of a déjà vu moment for Mai as she blinked at him.

She shook her head and furrowed her brow. "I...I don't know..." She took another breath and pulled her knees to her chest. "I mean, I know you're my spirit guide and you disguise yourself as Naru so that I would understand these visions better. But I guess it's a little weird to call you a name that isn't yours, so I made one up?"