With a Flair of Drama

By Aspirator

Disclaimer: GA is not mine. Story is mine.

For the worrywarts of FFN, who sweat over the 'Natsume dying' scene. Come on, Natsume is always dying, one way or the other.

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"A spy." Mikan stated slowly.

Sumire huffed, expecting her revelation to her long-time best friend to be a tad more dramatic than this. And a little miffed that the woman managed to cut off her 'I-am-a-spy-and-these-are-the-reasons-why-I'm-not-joking' speech. "Yes." She breathed out in a long, annoyed exhale. "The short of it, yes."

Mikan's eyes changed slightly. She frowned, then sat back.

Sumire rose both eyebrows at her. "Well?" Really, Mikan was usually a bit more dramatic than this. Outspoken, loud, used her arms to relay every message no matter how ordinary it was.

"Makes sense."

Sumire frowned, resisting every urge to drop her jaw and gape at her. She narrowed her eyes at the woman sitting in front of her. "You knew."

Mikan shrugged, "I've known Hotaru since birth. Hotaru now works for you."

The head of a secret, not to be named, division of the British Military Intelligence resisted another urge to throw her glass across the room. Figures. She'll have a word with her staff when she gets back. "Yes, well, she shouldn't have told you."

"She didn't really," Mikan moved quickly to defend her childhood friend, "there were just a lot of signs. I am your best friend. Hotaru is also my best friend. You both act the same way. Then she told me you'd recruit me."

"Really?" Sumire frowned; highlighting, circling, and putting in bold the words 'have word with staff' in her mental to-do list.

"Come on, it's the only reason I'm still your best friend. Spies don't have friends." Mikan rolled her eyes, "occupational hazard, and all that."

"Hotaru's your friend."

"Only because you're still my friend." Mikan retorted easily, looking a bit miffed as she recalled a memory, "she would've cut it off as soon as she started working for you. Her words, not mine."

Sumire couldn't prevent the snigger from leaving her lips, at the expense of her best friend's pout. She responded to Mikan's snide comment, "well, you can take care of yourself."

"Which, Hotaru says, is the reason why you will recruit me."

"Right," Sumire clipped as the conversation she imagined in her head when she came over to Mikan's apartment flew out the window. "And did Hotaru happen to predict when I'd recruit you?"

Mikan tapped her chin as she thought, "no…"

Sumire gave her a look, as if to remind her what business she's in and she's still her best friend.

"Fine, she just said that if you do, it'll have to do with a certain agent of yours codenamed the Black Cat."

At the mention of his name, an exasperated sigh left her lips. "Yes." She admitted.

"Who is he?" Mikan placed her chin in her hand, looking at Sumire with an interested spark in her eyes, and mischievous grin.

"An arrogant fucker who, granted, is good at what he does and is good looking," Sumire frowned irritably as if it was somehow the man's fault to be blessed with good looks, "but will get himself killed one of these days."

"Isn't that," Mikan waved her hand in the air gesturally, "an occupational hazard anyway?"

"Not as often as he wishes," Sumire snorted. In the next second, the woman turned into the Sumire Shouda that the British Government knows. She pursed her lips and set her eyes back on her best friend. "You're to be his partner on the next mission."

"Partner?" Mikan frowned, "did we skip over the part of our conversation where you offer me the job, then I accept, then you give me a briefing or training - or whatever?" Before the head of the nonexistent secret servive could respond, she continued, "and anyway, why me?"

Sumire only smirked mysteriously at her confused best friend, true to her profession, and stated shortly, "because you can handle him."

"How are you so sure?"

"Because you've done it before."

Sumire grinned at the ex-girlfriend of Natsume Hyuuga. When Sumire finally caved in and recruited the woman, she knew that Mikan Sakura really had a place in their world all along. She waved away her best friend's questions while plotting their reunion with a mental cackle.

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"YOU! You're the BLACK CAT?! Oh, that's just foul - SUMIRE SHOUDA! I can NOT be held responsible for his safety!"

"I knew you couldn't resist a flair of drama." Hotaru's dry voice stated from her left.

Sumire didn't bother to hide her grin, "no, not when you've robbed me of her reaction to our profession." She snatched a folder from her desk, her heels tapping impatiently against the immaculately clean floor of her office, "back to work."

Their division's best technician rolled her eyes as she accepted the assignment from her superior.