Am I the only one who believes that Mai actually loves Naru, and not Gene? I say this because Mai originally fell in love with the illusion of Naru, being Gene smiling. Also, there’s been many instances where the real Naru has smiled as well, and still managed to captivate Mai. He didn’t even need to make Mai blush or have her heart start racing by simply smiling, she’d blush when he’d compliment her, or just by being in the same room as her, and other small things as well. Also, later in the series, we can see that mai warms up to Naru’s character, and accepts him for who he is, and still loves him anyways, despite being the “bad guy or bad personality” he claims to be. It can be seen that Naru, does in fact have an attraction towards Mai in the series, these two clearly have chemistry. I believe Naru put mai in that situation, being the “me or gene?” situation, to confuse her, or second guess whether who she really liked, because of his pride, or from what he said in the manga, “he feels bad when others care for him,” like he wouldn’t be able forgive himself if he’d do something to hurt mai, or if something bad had happened to Mai under his watch, due to her caring so much for him. Also, it could have been because he was returning back home to England, and didn’t want to lead Mai on, or didn’t want her to have lingering feelings while he was away, because that would clearly upset her. Since, not knowing if Naru would ever return back to Japan. These are just my thoughts, I love this pairing. But the author clearly stated that they are canon, so it’s up to our imaginations to see how they would have ended together in the end. My guess would be that after seeing the last chapter of the GH manga, we can see that Bou-San clearly has an attraction towards Mai, which Naru then begins to notice, and feels threatened that Mai may eventually feel the same for Bou-San, thus leading Naru to confess his true feelings for Mai, and puts her in the same situation once more being “me, or bou-san?” this time..Which then makes Mai realize that she’s loved Naru all along, and that it’s always been him who she’s been in love with this entire time.