I've been working on the next chapter of iSummer for May Madness. I got bored with the chapter so I wrote this instead. :)
Stories are always about Mikan saving Natsume from the darkness... why not the other way around?
I don't own Gakuen Alice.
Just Do It
"She'd spent her whole life running from everything. He was the one consistent thing in her life and she couldn't bear the thought of losing him.
'Natsume, the only things that have changed about you since we met is how laconic you've become and that you've developed an unhealthy obsession with Nike.'"
Heartbroken Confession
Sakura Mikan remembers the first time she felt the exhilaration of running. Not the natural happiness that came from the release of endorphins, but the pure, genuine ecstasy that came from the wind against her face, the ground beneath her feet, and her thoughts dropping behind her as she sprinted ahead.
She remembers it better than she remembers what she had for breakfast— better than the time she went to bed. She was six years and exactly three months old. Her father had just passed away and it was the day of the funeral. She can still feel the anchor tugging on her heart and the tears that wouldn't fall from her eyes. The only thought running through her mind was that it wasn't truly happening. She had hoped it had been simply a nightmare and she would wake up screaming, then her dad would come rushing in to comfort her. Or that, maybe, it was cruel and twisted April Fool's joke. He would jump up from the casket with that goofy smile on his face and tell her that he had finally gotten her back for the time she out-tricked him when she was merely three years old.
But, the sobs around her flooded her ears. Black suits and black kimonos surrounded her in a sea of mourning and with the tension thick in the air, her denial did not survive long before it was crushed by reality. She had excused herself to go to the bathroom, despite having not touched any food or water in days. Before the heavy double doors even slid shut behind her, her uncomfortable black flats had been kicked off and cast carelessly aside. She started with one hesitant step. She had never been the athletic type before, as her mother had chosen to turn her into a virtuoso of sorts. She'd been learning violin, piano, and flute, but she had never been in a sports game or even run a lap. Her exposed feet flinched away from the cold, slippery tiles of the funeral home hallway, but quickly found its way back. She took a more daring step and slowly, her steps grew wider and her pace got faster. The thoughts that had come crashing down on her when she first left the room began to slip away. It was a race against the pain in her heart and she was winning as her steps left it in the dust. Soon, all she could feel was the stale air colliding against her face and her hair slipping from the quick, tight bun her mother had tied it into. Tears streamed down her face but she hardly took notice until she accidentally slipped over a crack between two tiles. Her lack of strength and exasperated exhilaration kept her on the floor, sobbing without consciousness of doing so.
"That floor probably isn't very clean. They keep dead people here, you know." She weakly nodded her head in the direction of the voice. She found herself staring at a raven haired boy around her age with a hypnotically red eyes and a bemused expression on his handsome face, as if unsure of his decision to speak to this strange creature that had come, literally, crashing into his presence. "And I can see your underwear. Polka dots, classy."
She buried her face back into the floor and couldn't help but laugh. What he had said was actually rather morbid, though she didn't realize it at the time. She had no reason to be laughing except that she had finally found her escape.
She heard the boy shift uncomfortably on the step he was sitting on, clearly feeling out of place in his black suit. He scoffed, "You're a weirdo."
She closed her eyes and relished in the coolness of the tile against her face, flushed from running and crying. She opened her mouth to utter a simple response. "No. I'm a Mikan."
From that moment on, Hyuuga Natsume and Sakura Mikan stuck together. They spent every second they could together, going to Mikan's house every even date and Natsume's every odd date. Even as Natsume sunk deeper into himself and the depression of having lost his older brother, Serio, consumed him, Mikan was someone who could always glimpse his true amd inner thoughts. Circumstances didn't change when they began to attend the same school in middle school; the two simply became even closer.
"You do realize how lucky you are that you're close to Natsume, right?" Sumire whispered to her one day during the end of history class, thrusting her bag forward and spilling its contents onto the table.
Mikan glanced up from her work and quirked an auburn brow at her friend as she flicked Sumire's rolling lipgloss back into her bag. "If you want him, you can have him."
Mikan didn't have to look up to know that Sumire was rolling her eyes at her. "Okay, fine. I'll play the 'pretend-my-best-friend-isn't-really-hot game' with you. Then again, apparently my best friend's Koko, so I don't really need to play that game, now do I?" Sumire sat in pensiveness. "Actually, now that I think about it. Can we trade guys?"
"Sumire," Mikan placed her pen down. "Natsume is not a Pokémon card to be traded at my will."
"But, it's up to the master what happens with the Pokémon, y'know..."
"I have no master," Sumire's eyes widened at the speaker, who had gotten up from his seat and was tapping his notebook easily in impatience against his shoulder. "If that's what you're implying with the Pokémon joke there."
Mikan couldn't decide if Sumire was awed by the fact that Natsume had spoken more than four words consecutively or if she was rendered speechless by the embarrassment of having been overheard obsessing over Natsume by the boy himself. Feeling bad for her green haired friend, she smacked the boy across the head.
"Ow." He grunted. His scowl deepened and she shook her head at him.
"We should get to track practice, co-captain."
He rubbed the spot she had hit and gave her an inquisitive look, stealing a brief glance at the clock. "When'd you start suggesting that we skip class, nerd?"
"There's only five minutes left and I'm afraid if we stay any longer, Permy's face is going to shift from tomato to mercury red. She might explode." She gathered her things into her backpack. "And besides, it's JinJin. Do you really think he will care if we leave a bit early?"
"You're not seriously asking me that question."
The change began their last year of middle school. As they aged, the world got bigger and they seemed to get even smaller. There were simply obstacles that were above them that were impossible to sneak past.
"I didn't make it in."
Natsume didn't falter as he reached for his water bottle, directing his glance at his Nike running spikes, stained red by the track field. He refused to look the girl in the eyes because he dreaded seeing the emotions that she too easily exposed to the world.
"I mean," She continued in a bitter yet defeated tone. "I'm not really surprised. I've never been that great in school, unlike you, Mr. Smartass."
His eyes drifted over to the Alice Academy letter in her hands, the word 'waitlisted' scripted in careful black cursive caught his eye. "Waitlisted." He glanced up and quirked a brow at her. "You made it sound like you got rejected."
"I never said that." She flicked the right corner of the letter in thought. She glanced up with a frown. "I didn't; wipe that constipated look off your face. Just that I didn't make it."
"You have legacy." Natsume swigged his water bottle. "And your uncle's the headmaster."
"We haven't even spoken to my uncle in years." She muttered and the paper crinkled under her grasp. There was an understood silence and they both stood there, staring at each other in consideration, each unsure of their next course of action. Mikan, who had never hesitated in her next step, always sure that the path she was running down would be the right one, was at a loss. She'd spent her whole life running from everything; he was the one consistent thing in her life and she couldn't bear the thought of losing him, yet she was terrified of reality. She knew that Natsume would have no choice but to go to the academy that had essentially rejected her; his elders would give him no other option. In that moment, she regretted every test she neglected to study for, every homework assignment she didn't turn in, every time she ignored her mother nagging her to study. It was too late to turn back time.
"Well." She forced a smile. "Looks like I'll just have to kick your school's ass in every track meet next year."
Natsume simply turned away because running away was what they were both best at.
"You act as if I've killed a man."
Mikan snapped her head to the speaker, glaring straight into his dark red eyes. "No, you've only killed my heart."
"When did you become so melodramatic?" Natsume glowered back with full intensity; the last place they needed to argue was inside of a sporting goods store.
Mikan averted her hateful glance and merely snorted. "Everything you've said today has sounded like you haven't seen me in years; it's only been nineteen days." Mikan picked up the shoe in front of her and pretended to examine it, perfectly aware that 456 hours was an eternity between the two of them. "I can't believe you quit track, you poopstick."
"I didn't quit track." Natsume snatched the shoe out of her hand and placed it back on the shelf, replacing it with a Nike instead He turned to her and he tried not to scoff at her overdramatizing. "I never did track in the first place."
Mikan's puzzled expression said everything. She wasn't being histrionic or petty. She simply couldn't understand how somehow who had once shared a passion of the same fervor as hers could forsake it. She wasn't mad so much as she was hurt. "Whatever, you soccer loser." She traced her finger down her arm and pondered upon what to say next. "I still don't get how you could give it up."
"I didn't give up." He awkwardly stuffed his hands in his pockets. Something about the way she spoke made him uncomfortable. Maybe it was because she'd been by his side since he was an angry seven year old brat who had decided never to let the world take anything from him again. Maybe it was because he realized now that for the last eight years of his life, he'd been running away instead of fighting to keep and protect that which he loved. Maybe it was because he understood what to do now and she still didn't. "I'm just done running from everything." Their eyes met the way they always did when they knew a significant shift was taking place in their relationship. "I've changed."
Mikan broke eye contact first. If she had looked hurt before, now she looked akin to a puppy who had been kicked and cast aside on the street. Twiddling her thumbs, she snapped in a voice that betrayed her ostensibly playful words. "Natsume, the only things that have changed about you since we met is how laconic you've become and that you've developed an unhealthy obsession with Nike."
"Mikan."This time, instead of walking away, he remained facing her. "I'm done running away. It really is time to just... do it." Face reality; Serio is never coming back were the words left unspoken but screaming at them both.
She shifted as his gaze scorched against her. This time, it was she who walked away. Because Sakura Mikan wasn't ready to face the world yet and she would keep running until there was nowhere left to escape to.
Mikan's entrance into Alice Academy signified the end of her eleven year run. It was certainly not an occasion to be celebrated; it was the result of her having lost everything. She could hardly stand the pitiful glances everyone threw at her; if she heard one more whisper of the word "orphan" or "pitiful creature", she'd go berserk. It seemed as if she was no longer human in the eyes of others. She had now lost both her parents, yes, but commenting on how tragic her life was, was not going to bring either of them back, and calling her "pitiful" wouldn't make her any less so.
"I'm sure you'll find everything here to your comfort." Her uncle stood stiffly at the entrance of her new dorm room, his left hand oddly raised as a welcoming.
She fixed the shoulder strap of her backpack and shuffled into the room. To be quite honest, the room was hardly the size of her old bathroom. Despite Alice Academy's famously comfortable and roomy living quarters, Mikan had grown up in a generation old mansion that had been passed down her mother's line for generations. Two more years, she mused bitterly, and she could return back to her home and live independently. For now, she was underage and stuck here, so she lied easily, "It's perfect."
"I'm glad." He nodded slightly. He cleared his throat to fill the silence while he decided what to say next. "I shall leave you to rest then?"
"Yeah, sure." She attempted to smile at the stranger before her. The closest person to her in flesh and blood left in the world but she knew close to nothing about. "I, uh. Thanks. For everything." Afterall, without his offer to take her into his school and care for her, she'd be jumping between foster homes or living in an orphanage somewhere.
"It is nothing." He responded, looking at her with those eyes, identical to her father's. "You are my family. We... we stick together."
Their brief connection, so close to what a normal, functioning family would have, was too much for either to handle— maybe they really were related after all. Mikan looked away and Kazu cleared his throat again.
"Yes, well. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a call or you could ask any of your neighbors, they are all our school's top students and are very reliable. Imai Hotaru and Nogi Ruka reside next to you, the dorm across from you is Hyuuga Natsume." He placed his hand on the handle and attempted to smile at her, but it simply looked out of place in comparison to his usual stern expression. "I bid you rest well."
Barely ten seconds passed before there was a knock on the door that she didn't even have time to respond to. A figure bursted in and Mikan found herself emerged in a tight embrace, shell-shocked and hardly aware of what had happened within the last few seconds. She breathed in the smell cologne and shampoo that had become so distinctly Natsume. Her arms wrapped themselves around Natsume's tightened waist, his uniform sweater soft against her exposed arms. The tears that she thought she had dried out after her father's death soaked his shirt and he rested his chin atop her head.
"Mikan."
She shook her head, refusing to let go. For the first time since her mother's accident a month and a half ago, she was not Yukihara. Not Azumi, not "poor thing", or "sweetie", or any other name she had never been called or some disgusting pet name. Sugar was not being poured into her wounds as she lay defeated with nowhere left to run. To Natsume, she was still Mikan. The same Mikan who had ran and ran until she had gotten herself lost; who had been lost for the last eleven years. The same girl who he'd been protecting and watching over the last eleven years, when the whole time, she thought he was the one in the darkness. It was funny when she thought about it. He'd been right all along, she laughed.
"You're a weirdo." Natsume muttered into her hair as she shook with gentle laughter.
She wiped her tears against his shirt and coughed a sound of disagreement. "No, I'm a Mikan." She looked up at at the same mesmerizingly red eyes that she stared into over a decade before for the first time, when her world had first started shattering apart. There was nowhere left to run anymore; her only option was to clear the path in front of her, obstacle by obstacle, broken piece by broken piece. But, they weren't six anymore, and while the world seemed bigger than ever, they weren't alone anymore. For a reason that Mikan still, to this day, can not put to words, she knew that everything would be okay. Because as cheesy as it sounded and no matter how much she felt like the protagonist of a bad chick flick, they had each other. It was finally time to rest; the race was over.
"I'm your Mikan."
While I wish I could have made the ending less cheesy, review? :) Tell me what you think? It's different than my normal stuff.