This was written for the 2016 Ghost Hunt Exchange weekend. With the Prompt: Something with Naru, Mai, and Gene. Interactions familial/friendly/romantic.

ONE.

"1-2-3. 1-2-Ow."

Mai didn't bother hiding the grimace as she stepped back from Gene who was now shaking his stomped foot.

"Sorry." Mai said again.

"It's alright. You're learning, it is to be expected." Gene gave his neck a quick stretch and rolled his shoulders. He smiled when he saw Mai mimicking his actions, but to a smaller degree.

"You ready to give it another shot?" Gene asked holding his arms out.

Mai deflated slightly, "This is pointless." She said as she crossed her arms and turned away from Gene to stare out into the nothingness that made up the astral plane. "I still don't see why I even have to go."

"Patron dinners are very important in this business. There is no way you can charge clients enough to cover the expenses associated with running the business all the time. So you have to rely on the generous support of patrons. And if you want them to open their wallets you better be ready to impress."

Mai started to chuckle.

Gene frowned at her, "What? It really is the truth of it."

Mai stifled a final titter and turned back to Gene.

"Did they make you memorize that?" Mai asked. "Naru said practically the exact same thing when he first told me about the dinner. I told him it sounded ridiculous."

Gene blushed. "Not verbatim. But you hear something often enough and it just sort of sticks."

Mai's smirk only grew.

"You are being a cheat." Gene said pointing an accusatory finger in Mai's direction. "You asked me to teach you to dance and now you keep finding excuses not to dance. Come back over here and let's start boogying." Gene gave his hips a slight explanatory wiggle.

"I don't think anyone would call the waltz, boogying." Mai countered as she approached him.

"Well, I agree. And I would rather teach you something a bit more modern. But it's expected that the hosts handle the first dance and tradition dictates a waltz."

Mai's eyebrow shot up. "The what? I'm not the host."

Gene's own eyebrow rose to counter her's. Gene took Mai's hands in his own and lifted them into position.

"If we were back home Martin and Luella would have hosted. But if everyone is coming to Japan." He paused and Mai nodded in clarification. "Well, then as the head of the Japanese branch it stands to reason to say that Noll is hosting."

Gene lifted his chin and straightened his back. Mai followed suit. Ready to hear him start counting again.

"One." Gene brought his left foot forward as Mai sent her right back in a parallel motion.

"Two." Mai's left foot moved out and back.

"Three." Mai's right foot slid to the side to meet the left.

"Good. 1-2-3." He continued to count as they moved back and forth in the rectangle of their steps. "Let's keep this pace. 1-2-3. But I am going, 1-2-3, to stop counting. 1-2-3."

Mai eye's widened and she gave the smallest shake of her head. She worried that any greater effort of rebuttal would break her hard won concertation.

"Yes, Mai." Gene continued. "1-2-3. You can't have your partner, 1-2-3, count for you the whole time. In fact, you will even be expected to engage in conversation whilst you dance."

Mai paled at the thought.

"I don't think that's even possible." She said.

"No, I could see how that might be difficult for you." Gene was grinning again.

"It's not funny Gene. I won't be able to talk to someone while I dance."

"Of course not. Not like right now."

"No, right now we are-" Mai nearly lost her rhythm as she noticed that they had not yet stopped moving. But she caught up and pulled her right foot back just as Gene's left began to bump into her.

"I can't believe I am doing it." Mai beamed.

"So you ready to try quarter turns then?"

"Oh no. How about we do this for a little while longer."

Gene nodded and they continued in silence for a few moments more, until Mai decided to test the talking and dancing strategy once more.

"That still doesn't explain why I would have to dance." Mai said.

"What?" Gene asked.

"You said Naru was hosting the party, but why would that mean I would have to dance the first dance? Does everybody have to dance?"

"No, it's the hosts' dance." Gene reminded her.

"Uh huh."

"So," Gene swallowed and looked away. "It's danced by the hosting… couple. Oww." The pair split apart and Gene squatted down to rub his trampled foot.

"The what?" Mai swayed in her spot. Her body still expecting the rhythmic motion of her steps.

"The same spot." Gene whined. "How do you always hit the same spot?"

"Sorry." Mai said, but then her eyes narrowed. "No, not sorry! What do you mean couple? Naru and I are not a couple."

"Why do I feel pain? This isn't even a physical body." Gene continued, distracted by the throbbing of his frequently assaulted appendage.

"Gene. Serious questions here!" Mai interrupted.

"What?" He asked, looking back up at her.

"What, what? Why would you think that I was half of this hosting couple thing?"

"Well it makes sense." Gene said, deciding that he could try standing again.

"It makes the opposite of sense." Mai countered.

"Look, as the host Noll needs to have a date for the dinner. Who else would he be able to go with, Lin?"

"Da-date?" Mai's eyes were starting to gloss over.

"I mean I guess he could ask that pretty, traditional girl you guys hang around with. What was her name?"

"Naru would never ask Masako." Gene smirked and Mai colored at the quickness of her own reply. "I mean, she's too high profile. She would steal some of the attention away from him."

"I can't say that I've ever thought of Noll as attention seeking." Gene replied.

"Of course, that Narcissist would want all eyes on him." Mai said.

"We are talking about my brother, right? Tall, astoundingly handsome," Gene gave Mai a quick wink, which she met with an exaggerated eye roll, before continuing. "Rather quiet—"

"Completely self-absorbed." Mai interjected.

"Socially uncomfortable." Gene corrected.

"A slave driver." Mai offered.

"Goal focused." Gene countered.

"Nit-picky."

"Detail oriented."

"Rude."

Gene thought for a moment. "Yeah, that one is true. But you know what else Noll is?"

"I can think of a few things." Mai said darkly.

"The better dancer."

Mai's head snapped back to look at Gene.

"Naru? Naru is a good dancer? I can hardly believe he can even dance."

"He had to take the same lessons I did."

Mai thought for a moment. "But," Mai hesitated. "There's so much…" Mai held out a hand and pressed it against the air.

"Touching?" Gene supplied.

Mai nodded.

"I think that's why he got so good. Luella said we could stop going to lessons once we could prove we knew the basics. I caught Noll spinning though his room more than once."

Mai tilled her head.

"After I think it was two classes, he had memorized the pattern of the steps and mentally stored the images of the correct postures. I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would find him. The furniture all pushed to the side. And Noll would be flowing across the room like a leaf caught in contradicting jet streams. By the time we went for the third class Noll demanded to take and subsequently passed the tests for all of the basic dances. And I had to spend the next nine weeks going to class on my own."

"I had no idea Naru liked to dance so much." Mai said.

Gene started laughing, hard. Clutching his side.

"What?" Mai asked.

Gene let out a few more guffaws before taking a deep breath and returning to his natural state of good natured amusement.

"Noll doesn't love dancing." Gene said his face pinched in barely restrained amusement.

"But you just said—"

"I said he worked extra hard to practice dancing on his own so that he didn't have to spend nine more classes with some random girl touching him." Gene shook his head. "Love dancing? No Noll hates dancing. It's an obvious waste of time. And like any kind of physical contact dancing can trigger—" Gene stopped himself. "It doesn't matter."

Gene turned back to Mai and smiled again. Mai was somewhat surprised to see Gene deploying Naru's signature distraction technique. A false smile that never reached the eyes.

"The whole learning to dance thing is just another example of how stubborn Noll is." Gene finished kicking at what served as the ground on this plane.

"So, tell me again why you think Naru and I are going to be dancing? Why wouldn't he just get out of it?" Mai asked hoping to help dispel whatever had just rankled him so.

"He sure knows all kinds of ways to get out of dancing at parties, but he also knows better than to try to skip something like that when he is hosting his first patron dinner."

"And why me?" Mai asked again. She still found Gene's logic path to be more than a little shaky on the subject.

"And that," Gene replied, that mischievous twinkle finally reappearing in his eye. "Would be a fantastic question for my brother."

Parts two and three are done. I will post a chapter a day. Thanks ;)