MIKAN SAKURA never considered herself religious. But certain circumstances led her to pray like a devoted follower to every deity and supreme being her sloppy research skills managed to gather over the vast virtual expanse of Google.
The news had been unexpected.
"Oh my god!" she exclaims, bursting into the room after a short trip to the mailbox under her father's orders. "It's here."
She feels faint, having herself unprepared for the inevitable confrontation. She feels an overwhelming need to move out of her own body and inhabit some other entity only to escape the dreadful feeling that's flooding her system with too much adrenaline. There was no stopping her thoughts from running rampant and turning her head into absolute chaos. Had she somehow forgotten results were supposed to come out today?
Her parents abruptly drop their respective devices and exchange questioning glances. "What are you talking about, darling?" her mother inquires kindly, tone patronizing and Mikan was certain she was just about ready to die.
"The letter," she frantically waves the envelope she'd been gripping for emphasis, the golden seal of Alice University shining against the bright glare of the sunlight seeping through the huge glass windows of their dining room.
Her mother gasps and instantly reaches for her father's hand across the table before giving her an encouraging nod.
The room suddenly feels so small.
She swallows the ball of anxiety and channels her inner Gryffindor spirit—she belongs to that particular house after all, Pottermore had said so—and opens the letter despite her visibly shaking fingers. She feels oxygen exiting her lungs and heart about ready to jump out of her throat as she takes in the information at hand.
"Well?" her mother probes unsurely after a while of silence, unable to control her nerves any longer.
Mikan finally looks up from the letter, her face contorted as her brain slowly digested what she had read, allowing her parents to suffer another moment of torture.
"Sweetheart," she hears her father begin to say, clearing his throat.
She blinks, the fog slowly clearing as her distorted emotions begin to unravel and she feels like every fiber of her being is vibrating, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she reads the words over and over again, her fingers trembling under the pressure of her hold on the paper and stomach curling in on itself at the very thought of every possible outcome, and she feels a distinct shift from where she's standing as if the universe had promptly decided to rearrange itself and everything suddenly falls into place, like a piece finally completing a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle she'd been anxious to finish and she doesn't realize she'd stop breathing until—
She blinks again.
She breathes, and—
"I got in."
(9:24 am) HOTARU
(9:24 am) AHHHHHHHH
(9:24 am) OH MY GOD
(9:24 am) !
(9:25 am) jesus christ
(9:25 am) what do u want
(9:25 am) I GOT IN
(9:26 am) can u believe it
(9:26 am) !
(9:27 am) I most certainly cant
(9:27 am) IKR
(9:28 am) OMG
(9:28 am) shit I almost forgot
(9:28 am) have u checked ur results yet
(9:29 am) yea
(9:29 am) omg
(9:29 am) !
(9:29 am) did u get in
(9:30 am) dont be insulting
(9:30 am) OMG
(9:31 am) DSDKJDJKH
(9:31 am) !
(9:31 am) gtg tweet this shit
(9:32 am) idc
(9:33 am) oh
(9:33 am) and btw
(9:33 am) this conversation is charged to your account
It's during the night before she's bound to leave for Alice University when Mikan came to realize the full gravity of her situation.
Gods, she'd been an utter fool failing to see the whole landscape. Perhaps she suffered from a momentary lapse of judgment, her euphoria hindering her from fully comprehending the consequences entailed upon having been accepted.
It isn't until she's completely gotten over her bliss when the weight of her admission has finally sink in and she's suddenly overwhelmed with apprehension as she lay on her bed that night, distraught and drowning in thoughts of dread and worry causing havoc within the confines of her mind.
She panics, realizing in abject horror, the possibility of spending the rest of her college years feeling miserable in the highly regarded university whilst drowning herself with caffeine in the middle of the night, struggling and eventually failing to reach the university's ridiculously high standards while the rest of the student body lay fast asleep because they're innately brilliant and she isn't and Hotaru Imai would be too busy making history as a natural born genius and would never provide her some necessary assistance in understanding complex equations without a sum of her kidneys and an extra eyeball for imposing on her.
Not to mention her fucking coping mechanisms are absolute shit.
Upgraded mathematics would be the death of her, and even if her three brain cells could manage to survive the assault of those demonic numbers and formulas, being stuck with an obnoxiously loud roommate who'd pressure her into nightouts and manipulate her into braiding each other's hair while coercing her to admit the name of her crush will surely be her impending doom.
She's going to die.
One way or another, she's certain she's going to die.
A/N. idek if its relevant but for what its worth im having a terrible post-grad existential crisis and i /not surprisingly/ miss bitching about uni on twitter so im putting all that energy in writing a college au gakuen alice fic thats NOT loosely based on my miserable,,, shitty .. monotonous uni experience mwahhhhHh,, this is a REPOST btw lol i sort of evacuated from my other acc for personal reasons n deleted errythang from there soo00o