Disclaimer: I don't own Gakuen Alice or any of its characters.

Note: This is an AU fanfic, so yea. Just so you guys know. Enjoy.

Do You Believe in Magic?

1: Mikan Sakura

'Just close your eyes. Close your eyes and stare into the dark.'

'It's not working.'

'Of course it's not; you only tried for five seconds. Do it again, longer. Close your eyes, stare into the dark and think of your happy place.'

'But I don't have a happy place, daddy.'

'What? Silly girl, everyone has their own happy place.'

'I don't think I do.'

'Well, then you can borrow mine, but just this once. And you have to promise not to touch anything there, OK? Because if you do, everything your mother fixed up won't be in order, and you know how she gets when things get all messed up, don't you?'

Laughter. Giggles.

'Now close your eyes. You're by the ocean and the warm breeze is blowing against your beautiful face. The sound of the waves are relaxing, the dancing palm trees remind you of how free you are, not a single worry in that young mind of yours. You're barefoot on the sand, feeling its warmth beneath your toes as you walk towards the shore, pretty shells, wet sand, your footprints following behind you. It's sunset, you watch the beautiful scene in front of you as you slowly sit by the water. You're now staring at the orange sky slowly fading to purple, the red sun sinking down to the horizon, the crystal water glistening, capturing your eyes, and the first star of the night as you make your wish. The sun is slowly diving and disappearing into—or shall I say behind—the ocean, and you're now lying on the sand. It's getting darker, the day fades to night, you salute the dawn ad welcome the night. Now it's pitch black…stare into the darkness, Mikan, and wait for your happy place to appear once again in your dreams.'

Silence.

'Goodnight, Mikan.'

The gentle voice that put me to sleep every night, I miss it. I always loved listening to his goodnight words. Most of the time I'd be half asleep, but I'd hear and remember every single word, and just as the words stopped coming, I'd immediately fall asleep, as if his words were a magic spell to force me into slumber. It was so soothing and calming; it never gave me nightmares, and never failed to wake me up to a cheerful morning.

Now that wonderful voice is gone, along with its possessor.

Not long after he'd left, the love of his life, driven into her own madness, took her own life and followed him to wherever he was brought to—heaven or, dare I say, hell.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, my father, a very successful man—or so we thought—has moved on. Everybody says he killed himself due to depression, and even if all the evidence pointed to that, I refuse to believe so. My father was happy and successful. Well, that's what we all thought before we found out about his jillion-dollar debt to only about a thousand people or so. Of course I exaggerate, but he did owe a lot of money, though we didn't know that until after he died.

Then because of his debt, everything we owned was taken away from us. Our house, our money, some of our family treasures, I even had to drop out of college. All we had left was half our wardrobe and family members who'd agreed to pass us around every few months.

Sadly, while my uncle helped us empty our house and move our things into an enormous truck, my mother asked for some alone time and locked herself inside her and dad's room. When we were about to leave and couldn't get her to come out of the room, we entered through their balcony and found mom lying on the carpet with a bunch of pills and an empty bottle of whiskey that had escaped her once tight grip.

So basically, I lost both my parents within a week. Of course it wasn't easy to get over that. It more or less took me eight months to fully recover, and within that period of time, my relatives were passing me around. I moved just about twelve times.

And right when I recovered and got over the whole thing, I'd ran out of relatives to run to, just in time. So I decided to stop being such a bother and moved to New York, the big apple—that's the first time I've called it that, simply because I'd no idea why it had such byname.

So I moved to New York and spent about three months living with my best friend, Hotaru. I'd have gone crazy if it weren't for her constant phone calls to me for the past eight months.

I'd have stayed in New York, but I couldn't find a stable job. Being the klutz that I am, I learned that waitressing wasn't such a good idea, I also wasn't patient enough to pass down my guitar skills to little children, and the writing area was just out of the question. So I worked part-time in a café as their barista during Mondays and Wednesdays and sang there on Friday and Saturday nights.

It didn't earn me much though, I couldn't afford much for personal things like clothes and the like, not even food—I had to depend on Hotaru for that. All I could afford was to pay my share of Hotaru's rent, my phone bills, and transportation from the apartment to work, besides that, I'd only have about five dollars left—and all that money already coming from a month's pay.

So I had to leave New York. Although it's always been my dream to live there, I don't think it serves as a good, decent place for a poor girl like me. Now I'm taking a step down, moving back to an easier location, my hometown, San Francisco.

I lived there as a little girl up until I found my father up by the ceiling—and then my mother on the floor not long after him.

They say a story gets better with each telling, but this story hasn't been told yet, it's the first time to be shared, and it's to be shared by me. And no, this isn't going to be a story where I tell you of my hardships, it's not about me struggling to be independent when I have absolutely nothing either, and surprisingly, my parents' deaths have nothing to do with this, maybe they do, but who knows? I just started up with that to let you all know why I'm poor and homeless, and how all this started.

My Once upon a time hasn't even started yet—don't get me wrong, this isn't some fairy tale, I don't live happily ever after in the end. But I'm pretty sure of one thing—I'm going to tell you what true love is.

Author's Notes: Well, first of all, don't kill me. ü Second of all, it gets better. I know this first chapter sucked and everything, and it's too short, but I can assure you the future chapters will be a lot better. ü

Anywayss, I hope I didn't disappoint any of you.

Reviews please. ^^ I accept flames and criticisms. ü