My Valentine's Day contribution! Sorry if it's not as fluffy as some of the other VD fics out there; I'm not really good at writing fluff. Based off the song by Hillary Duff.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gakuen Alice, the characters or the lyrics.
She walked into the small, empty cafe, and headed straight towards the table at the extreme end. She slipped into the seat facing the door and then, looking at her watch, let out a sigh. I'm early again. He's probably going to turn up exactly on time as usual, so I have another twenty minutes of sitting here looking like an idiot.
"Your order, ma'am?" She looked up. The waitress was standing in front of her expectantly. "One cappuccino, please." She took the order and left, leaving Mikan alone.
The coffee arrived. She closed her eyes and rested her head on one delicate hand. Her thoughts wandering, she imagined the evening before her. Her boyfriend Hideki would walk in soon. He would ask her how her day was; she'd ask him how work was. They'd lapse into a silence until the waitress brought their order. Then they'd remark on the excellence of the food, but they'd both agree that food made by Anna was much better. They would continue talking about various frivolities, beginning with the weather, and moving on to maybe basketball scores, or perhaps some scientific mumbo-jumbo about his research work, to both of which her response would be a smile and a couple of nods.
He'd always be attentive, anxious to please. He wouldn't ever say anything that could possibly hurt her, to the extent that he didn't even tease her, or ever speak in jest.
She saw a pair of mocking crimson eyes smiling down at her, as she protested at his detested nickname for her, and shouted at him, calling him a pervert.
She shook her head, as if to shake off the memory. Don't go in there, Mikan. You're just setting yourself up for a lot of heartbreak. She opened her eyes, wanting to rid herself of those eyes that were seared across her memory.
The first thing that met her sight was the same pair of eyes that had been haunting her.
I can't believe it's really you
Been so long, you look good
Her brown eyes widened in shock. "What..." she breathed, her brain refusing to believe what her eyes told her. Her hand rose unconsciously, reaching across the table to touch the man sitting before her in an attempt to prove to herself that this was a figment of her overactive imagination. Her drifting hand was caught in a firm grip, the callused fingers and the strength in the hand establishing that it wasn't.
A familiar smirk. "Polka. Miss me?"
Her eyes took in his image like a dying man gulping down water after days of wandering around in a desert. His hair was still the untidy raven mop that she remembered, his eyes still that peculiar shade of red that she had seen nowhere else and that famous lop-sided smirk that could have anyone swooning at his feet. There were slight changes in him though; he seemed all lean, well-defined muscle now, and there was something in his eyes – something darker, a little more serious.
I hear you're doing really well
Don't ask me, let me tell you
How I've been since when you left
Since you left me for dead
Miss you? Mikan felt the prickling of tears in her eyes.
She blew up at him.
"YOU SELFISH, EGOISTICAL BASTARD!"
He hadn't expected that; she could see it in his eyes. And was that a small glimmer of hurt she saw? She didn't care.
"What do you mean, have I missed you? You just bloody DISAPPEARED for FIVE sodding years! And now you just suddenly turn up out of nowhere, and all you say is miss me, Polka!"
She carried on ranting. She knew that she had knocked over her cappuccino, and it was probably staining her blouse, but at the moment, she couldn't bring herself to care.
"We all thought you were dead! Ruka, your so-called best friend! Hotaru, Mochu, Koko, Kitsuneme, Anna, Nonoko... everybody mourned you! Ruka wasn't ever the same! Even Hotaru didn-"
Her words were cut short when he leaned over and caught her chin in his hand. Tilting it upwards, he forced her to meet his gaze. "What about you?"
Finally every tear has dried
I've wiped you from my life
Her throat seemed to have closed up. Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. "Me...?" she whispered. "I just stopped crying into my pillow a few months ago."
She remembered those nights all too well. She remembered the time when she couldn't sleep, couldn't do anything, except wall herself up in her room, and stare at the wall blankly. She remembered times when she just dissolved into tears, when the emptiness became too much for her. She remembered a time when she even refused to eat properly until she collapsed one day, and Hotaru had to force-feed her.
She remembered the gut-wrenching agony and desolation that she had felt every time she visited one of their haunts, even whenever she saw a happy couple walking hand-in-hand.
Do you remember all the times you said you'd call me
'Cause I remember all the reasons people warned me
She saw a myriad of emotions in those ruby eyes. Pity, regret and determination battled for domination in his twin orbs. "Believe me, I didn't mean to hurt you. I had to, Mikan. There was no other way to keep you safe. I had to fake my death, had to make them believe that I was out of the way, or else they would have targeted you."
She pushed his hand away from her face. "And you couldn't have let me know?" Her voice wavered. " You didn't need to tell me where you were, or whether you were ever coming back. I just needed to know that you were still alive. I just needed to know that your body wasn't rotting somewhere in some bloody drain. I just needed to know that all those consolations were actually unnecessary and completely false."
And now I hear you saying that you still adore me
But if you think I'd ever get with you again
Then you can just
"I'm sorry. I never meant it to happen this way." His eyes burned into hers. "I couldn't let you know. If they had the slightest idea that I was still alive... they'd come after you. And I wouldn't be around to protect you."
"But what I said before I left hasn't changed. I love you, Sakura Mikan. I love everything about you, how you like keeping your hair up in pigtails when you're at home, how you cut smiley faces into fruits and draw them with ketchup on your eggs, how you still like wearing your polka-dotted panties..."
Her face went blank. She seemed lost in her thoughts, in her own world. When she finally spoke, there was an underlying bitterness to her voice that he had never thought he would hear.
"Thanks to you, Hyuuga, my hair is never tied up anymore. I eat whatever's on my plate without bothering to even taste it properly, let alone carve smiley faces. And it's thanks to you that those polka-dotted panties are buried somewhere in my closet, gathering dust for the past five years. The Mikan that you're talking about died when Natsume Hyuuga disappeared five years ago – and she was the one who truly loved him."
Love me, love me, feed the flame
If you want me back again
Burn through the sky, higher and higher
Baby, can you play with fire
(Burn into the sky) Love me, love me
(Far into the sky) If you want me
"Absolutely not, Polka."
"But why, Natsume... just try it once... pleeeaaase?" Mikan stood next to him, armed with a ketchup bottle in her hand.
Natsume sighed. Why was it that the whole world was scared of him, but he couldn't even manage to faze this annoyingly persistent girl with his fiercest glower? "Whatever, Polka.'
"Thanks Natsume!" She plopped down into the seat next to him, and pulled his plate of scrambled eggs over to her. Bending over it, she started to draw on them, her long brown hair obscuring her work of art from Natsume's view. After a minute, she sat back with a satisfied look and exclaimed, "Done!" pushing the plate back towards him.
He looked down at it.
'NATSUME HYUUGA IS A MEANIE SOMETIMES, BUT HE'S NICE AT TIMES TOO' was emblazoned on his eggs, followed by a big smiley face. He turned away, hiding his small smile from her.
"Your eggs, and the ketchup bottle." he suddenly said, holding out his hand. Mikan was too surprised to ask anything, so she silently passed them over. After a minute, he pushed the plate back at her, and went on eating his eggs, completely unperturbed. She glanced down at her dish.
'POLKA IS AN IDIOT, BUT I STILL LOVE HER'
You never know just what you got
'Til it's gone, you freak out
He reached out for her hand. "Are you sure that she's gone? Maybe she'll come back once she knows he's back."
She wanted so badly to take his hand in hers, to grab hold of him, and never let go. If it had been even a few months back, she would have. She would have been enough of her old self to forget all about the past years and just would have been happy that he was here before her, a walking miracle.
But I'm not falling for that game
Boys like you never change
But now a new part of her had surfaced, a part of her that had her apprehensive about anything resembling what Natsume and she had shared. She still couldn't trust herself to believe that he was actually sitting before her, that this wasn't some cruel joke fate was playing on her.
She couldn't stop herself from thinking, Maybe he's going to leave me again. Maybe, if I go with him right now, I'm opening myself up to the same hell I've been through for the past years.
This time, she was sure she wouldn't survive.
You made me feel I wasn't enough
Wasn't enough for your love
But it was insecurity that made you run
It wasn't me
When she first heard the news, her first reaction was that of disbelief. He had promised her that he loved her, that he would never leave her alone; surely he would never go back on his word?
Somewhere along the time when she isolated herself in her room, she convinced herself that he couldn't have cared about her. He wouldn't break a promise to someone he cared about, therefore he cared nothing for her. Maybe she was a source of entertainment for him, a plaything that amused him but was disposable.
When she emerged from her room, she was dazed, dull, not comprehending anything. When she finally confessed her fears to Hotaru, her best friend had snapped her out of it with a well-aimed punch, almost breaking her nose.
But that insecurity never let go of her. She threw herself into her work with a passion, working extra shifts and late nights. Sometime along then, she met Hideki Watanabe. He was sweet, soft and polite, always most concerned over her welfare. And completely different from a certain crimson-eyed spectre who still haunted her dreams.
So don't you sit there trying to
Give me more excuses
"Please, just hear me out." He had dragged a chair over to her side of the table, and was now seated uncomfortably close. His familiar musky, spicy scent seemed to roll off him in waves, assaulting her nose and digging up old memories.
She brought her mind back to the present with a wrench. "So what made you come back then? You could have just stayed dead to me your whole life. Aren't you endangering me by being here?" Bitterness filled her voice again.
He had opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. There was a slight pause as he tried to decide on what to tell her.
He gave her the truth.
"They aren't alive anymore."
He talked continuously for the next few minutes, telling her everything – how, after their escape from Alice Academy, he had been contacted by a group of former Dangerous Ability class students working to bring the Academy's domination down, how the Academy had been informed that the Black Cat was working against them, about the threats to her safety. How the organisation needed someone working undercover, and he had volunteered, grabbing this as an opportunity to kill two birds with the same stone – to continue with his work and also ensure her safety.
I don't have time for this
I'm off to play in Houston
And I'm too busy with the millions things I'm doing
A silence descended on them when he stopped talking. She didn't know what to say, it was too much information for her. She'd had no idea that the Academy still ruled their lives, even after they had escaped from there. And the thought of Natsume risking his life in dangerous missions after she thought that they had left all that behind them...
She stood up. "I... I need to go. I'm... uh, late for a meeting." she mumbled. She tried to brush past him, but she was pulled back by his iron grip on her arm. She looked back at him.
"Weren't you waiting for someone here?" he asked, a teasing smirk on his lips. "The person for whom you wore that flower-print bra?"
She looked down, and felt herself go red with embarrassment. The front of her blouse was completely soaked in coffee, and it being semi-transparent, her underwear was on display for the world to see. Especially the black-haired pervert sitting before her.
You can't make up for what you've done
But you still try to be the one
She freed her arm with a jerk, and crossed her hands across her chest. "Are you ever going to stop peeking at my underwear?" "Only because you want me to." he replied, smirking.
She sat down again with a huff. "You're such a pervert." But she couldn't stop a small smile from appearing on her lips.
This felt... almost normal. Natsume teasing her about her choice in underwear, she calling him a pervert, and one of their normal fights beginning again. It didn't feel as if he had ever been gone. Picking up where they had left off didn't seem hard at all.
His face had become serious again. "So, will you give me another chance, Mikan?"
Love me, love me, feed the flame
If you want me back again
Burn through the sky, higher and higher
Baby, can you play with fire
(Burn into the sky) Love me, love me
(Far into the sky) If you want me
He lay sprawled among the roots of the sakura tree, trying to read a manga. Trying, being the operative word. Being continuously bugged by a hyperactive brunette didn't really help his concentration.
"C'mon Natsume, pleeeaaase..." He looked up at her. She was making a puppy-dog face again. "Polka, for the last time, what do you want?"
"Ask me out!"
Natsume shot an incredulous look at her. This had to be her most outrageous demand by far.
"Sumire and the others keep going on and on about how you've stolen my first kiss, and you still haven't asked me out... though I don't see what stealing my first kiss and going anywhere have in common..."
"Alright, alright... Polka, do you wanna go out with me?" Maybe she'd finally stop her whining and leave him in peace. And he wasn't blushing. Not a chance in the world. The slight red tinge on his cheeks was just... due to the heat. Or something like that.
"Sure!" she chirped.
After a few minutes, he heard her voice again. "Hey, Natsume?" "Hn." "Where are we going to go out to? Is this like going on a field trip? Or doing a project together?"
He felt like banging his head on the tree behind him. He'd just asked a girl out – something he had never, ever seen himself doing – and she thought that they were going out on a field trip or to buy Howalons.
Ooh, by the way, by the way
I've found someone who gives me space
Keeps me safe, makes me sane
Found someone to take your place
Now I'm safe in his arms
And I decided only he can play with fire
She looked away. "Maybe I've moved on. Found another guy to take your place."
Even as she spoke the words, she knew they were lies. Natsume Hyuuga held a place in her heart that no one else could ever fill. Least of all Hideki.
In the few months that she spent with him, she could already feel her own self slowly being drained away. She had thought that dating again would bring back that spark in her life, but Hideki somehow seemed to sap the life out of her. For a date, he took her to some small empty cafe, or to watch a long, boring, sappy romance at his place, generally something from the '60s or '70s. He never did anything even remotely adventurous or fun. She could feel her old self slowly dying away, and it was this relationship that destroyed her spirit completely, in a manner not even Natsume's death had been able to. She knew that her friends were worried about her – she overheard Hotaru telling Ruka that she was going to Baka-Bazooka Hideki – but even then, she didn't just have the energy to break it off.
Love me, Love me, feed the flame
If you want me back again
Burn through the sky, higher and higher
Baby, can you play with fire
She didn't know what she expected to see when she looked at him, but she certainly didn't think he'd be smiling. "What's so funny?" she demanded.
"That person wouldn't happen to be a certain someone called Hideki Watanabe, would he? I don't think he's going to be too much competition."
Her eyes went large. "H-How did you know about him?"
He gave a rueful laugh, rubbing his chin. "I happened to meet Imai before you. Apart from this little piece of information, and others, I also happened to receive a small blow to my jaw that's definitely going to bruise tomorrow."
Her eyes trailed to his jaw. The area was already swelling up, and was slightly reddish. "A small blow? That's got to be the understatement of the century."
He was cupping her face in his hands now. "So what's your answer, Polka?" he asked in a soft voice.
I can't believe it's really you (Love me, love me)
I hear you're doing really well (If you want me)
Finally every tear has dried (Love me, love me)
Can boys like you, boys like you, play with fire
There was the sound of the door opening. Both their eyes flicked towards the entrance. Hideki stood there, an expression of absolute shock on his face. "M-Mikan-chan?"
Mikan and Natsume's eyes met again. "It's completely your choice... but if I were in his place, I'd have burnt me to a crisp by now."
A small smile appeared on her face. She closed her eyes, and let out a deep breath. Opening them again, she said, "Only if you promise to control your homicidal impulses."
A wide grin spread over his face. He lowered his head until his nose was almost touching hers. "We'll see about that."
He kissed her. And she didn't hesitate to throw her arms around his neck and kiss back. He meant it to be soft and gentle, but it turned into a wild battle for dominance; their tongues wrestling for supremacy, her fingers pulling at his hair and he holding her face with enough force to leave finger marks on her pale skin. Her lips were velvety, and tasted of the strawberry-flavoured lip balm she used, and he couldn't imagine how he had stayed away from this heaven for five years. He tore his mouth away from her, and started leaving soft butterfly kisses down her smooth neck. She gave a soft moan.
"Natsume... stop... we're in a public place right now..." She gave him a light push.
"This place is empty anyway; I don't see how it matters."
Her eyes were on something behind him. He turned to look. "Hideki..." she said softly. He was still standing at the door, his eyes wounded.
Mikan walked towards him, Natsume following her. She stopped before him, and her eyes remorseful and downcast, she said in a low tone, "I'm sorry, Hideki. It just wasn't going to work out."
She brushed past him and stepped out onto the street. Hearing a small yelp, she looked back, only to see Natsume following her out with an angelic expression. "What did you do to him?" she asked in an accusing tone.
He walked out and stood beside her. "It's not my fault that his clothes got a little warm all of a sudden." He sauntered out into the road.
Shaking her head, she followed. "You're really mean sometimes, Natsume."
Whew! That was incredibly long! What about some reviews as a reward for my hard work, hmmm?