New author coming through! Welcome to my first Gakuen Alice fanfiction. This story was inspired by the movie, The Butterfly Effect. Hope you'll like it! Please do enjoy.
Warning(s): This is an AU fic. And it isn't for happy-ending lovers. Read at your own risk. Rated T for language and character death.
Disclaimer: Gakuen Alice is the property of a woman named Higuchi Tachibana. I'm a woman (last time I checked), but no, I'm not Higuchi-sensei.
Let the story begin.
"As for the latest entertainment news, celebrated tycoon Hyuuga Natsume, owner of the multi-million dollar company Hyuuga Corporation, officially announced his engagement to Sakura Mikan, twenty-five, last night at Delicadeza, a five-star hotel in Cork, Ireland…"
The early morning news drifted from the open TV in the bedroom, and Natsume, who was at the kitchen setting his coffee maker, found himself smirking.
"…Sakura Mikan came from a middle-class family in Nagisawa, is a graduate of BS Economics, and was employed in Yamamoto Incorporated, a prestigious manufacturing company, as Sales Manager. Many co-workers of Sakura-san claimed her close acquaintance with Hyuuga-san ever since they first met in an inter-company meeting, and indeed, it has bloomed into a lovely relationship."
The coffee maker made a faint beep, and the young dark-haired man produced a mug from a nearby cupboard and poured black brewed coffee on it, closing his eyes minutely to savor the aroma. Quite distantly, the news anchor continued droning on, until her voice was replaced by a—surprisingly—fairly familiar one.
"Oh yes," the girly voice said, excitedly. "I always told Mikan that they were meant for each other! And look, I'm right!"
Natsume's crimson eyes flew open in bewilderment. Forgetting about the coffee, he sprinted back to his room and faced the flat-screen plasma television for confirmation, and, indeed, Shouda Sumire's blown-up face stared back at him gleefully.
But before Natsume could finish swearing the Head Accountant in his mind, the camera moved to show another familiar face, and, this time, he couldn't believe it anymore—what the hell was Ruka doing there playing along with this act of stupidity?!
His best friend, now a famous veterinarian, smiled serenely. "Yes…Sumire's right. It even took me a lot of explanation—and I mean, really A LOT—to convince Natsume about his feelings towards Mikan. Seriously, that man can be a prick sometimes."
The news anchor's grinning face flashed into the screen and finally concluded the news about the upcoming Hyuuga-Sakura nuptial, but Natsume still stood there, wearing a flabbergasted expression.
The two of them had just HUMILIATED him in public!
His face darkened considerably. Shouda, Ruka…once I get my hands on you…
But a cheerful voice snapped him out of his cruel thoughts.
"The coffee's getting cold, you know."
The young Hyuuga inwardly jerked in surprise and glanced at the speaker, and found himself smiling softly. "It doesn't matter," he replied coolly.
"Oh really?" Sakura Mikan pushed herself away from the doorway leading to the bathroom and walked over to Natsume, snaking her arms around his waist from behind and resting her head on his back. "Brewed coffee tastes awful when not hot."
A mischievous smirk spread on Natsume's lips. "It wouldn't if I drink it from your lips."
"Eew. Perverted as always, Natsume!" But Mikan didn't let go of him and just smiled.
"Yet, that's the reason you love me, isn't it?" Natsume turned to her and he slightly bent down so that their foreheads met.
Mikan giggled, and her honey-colored eyes met Natsume's fiery ones. "No."
"Come on…"
The brunette pulled him closer. "It's because of your hair, your eyes, your nose, and pretty much your cocky personality, you know…" She lifted her hand to gently run it down the side of his face, all the while smiling widely. "Everything about you is so cute…"
No words had been exchanged from then on, for Natsume's lips already met hers, and they were lost in each other's body heat, tuning out the television, forgetting all about the brewed coffee, and ignoring everything else.
Hyuuga Natsume's world was Mikan Sakura.
Mikan Sakura's world was Hyuuga Natsume.
Both will do anything for each other. Neither knew what to do when one goes away.
The reason why the world came crashing down on Hyuuga Natsume not long after.
Irreversible
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"Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others, go flowing on. Time is a child, moving counters in a game; the royal power is a child's." – Heraclitus
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Chapter One: Premonition
It all started with a beautiful Saturday morning.
Everything was going quite smoothly for the Hyuuga Corp. employees. For once, everyone was present, the printer in the auditing department wasn't wrecking havoc and eating papers mercilessly, there were no incessant calls from around the country, and the boss was in a very good mood.
Yes, Hyuuga Natsume hadn't yelled to anybody since he arrived at the building at precisely nine o'clock, and he hasn't skipped breakfast at the lobby café. The whole building positively glowed in his calm presence.
Their boss is such a happy man nowadays. They got to thank Sakura Mikan for it later on.
The said young man was seated in his office on the twentieth floor, head resting on one hand while the other typed lazily on the laptop sitting on his handsome mahogany desk. Stacks of papers cluttered the space around him, and his brows were knitted together, as if thinking of something really painful.
As the hand that was typing left the keyboard to blindly reach for the cup of coffee not too far from the laptop, the telephone alongside it rang loudly.
Natsume, inwardly sighing, straightened up in his chair and answered the phone. "Hyuuga speaking."
"You do not sound too grumpy, Natsume," an all-too familiar voice spoke.
Natsume felt his face relax into a soft expression. "Mikan." Right at that moment, Natsume assumed that Mikan was in her own office in the neighboring town, in the exact same position as him. She was promoted not less than a month ago, and he vividly remembered how happy she had been. They had spent a night out-of-town by the weekend just to celebrate.
His lips twitched in a small smile. Such memories.
Mikan's voice brought him back to earth. "Would you mind if you accompany me this afternoon?"
"Accompany you? Where?"
"Where? Where?" Mikan sounded incredulous. "To shopping, of course!" She had said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "For the wedding!"
Oh. That's why.
Natsume blinked. "But it's the wedding planner's job, Mikan."
"And you plan on leaving it as that?"
"I didn't mean it like that," Natsume said quickly. "Besides, you said that you're busy today."
"Oh!" He could almost see her grin widely. "Not that busy. So, three o'clock?"
Natsume glanced at his open planner at the far left corner of his desk, and, seeing that he didn't have any appointment or meeting for the rest of the day, said, "Okay. I'll be right there at three."
Mikan giggled from the other end of the line. "See you!"
"…See you." Natsume made to hang up and turn back to his laptop when Mikan suddenly spoke.
"I love you."
Natsume froze. No, it was not because she said it. It has always been their custom to say 'I love you' at the end of every conversation they had ever since they started going steady. What made him pause was the unknown feeling that washed through him when she said it. Why did Mikan sound so…far away?
"…Natsume?"
Natsume snapped out of his reverie and replied, in a false calm voice, "I love you too, Mikan."
"Bye!"
"Yeah…bye…"
There was a click that signaled the end of the conversation, and Natsume slowly hung up. He stared at the telephone for a while.
…What was that all about?
Finally, he went back to business, ignoring the uneasiness he had just felt.
He decided that he'd go over at Mikan's thirty minutes earlier.
"Where do you think should we go first?" Mikan said happily from the passenger's seat, as Natsume drove along the busy streets of Tokyo Main. "You arrived too early. I wasn't able to finish planning out everything!"
"Let's try Shibuya," was Natsume's reply.
"And then let's dine in Fabisco's!" the brunette continued. "I heard that they serve the best lobsters."
Natsume decided not to reply.
Mikan side-glanced at her fiancée with a small frown on her face. Why was he being too quiet? "Natsume…?"
A short pause.
"Hmm?" His eyes were on the road.
"Is something wrong?"
The car came into an abrupt halt.
"What made you say that?" Natsume said, turning to her with a small reassuring smile. "And by the way, we're here." As fast as possible, he wanted this trip to be over, so that he and Mikan can go back to the safe haven of their two-storey flat before dusk.
Mikan stared at him for a while longer, before returning his smile. "Yoshi…let's get started!"
By the time they had gotten into the main street Shibuya was so famous for, most of the shoppers had already gone ("…which is good! We don't have to be squeezed in by the crowd!" Mikan said cheerfully). Natsume had taken into observing the shops' display windows with his trademark bored face, his hands deep in his pockets. Once in a while, he would glance at Mikan, who seemed to have already forgotten what their real purpose was and had pulled him into every shop possible, reemerging once again holding paper bags and a triumphant smirk.
Not that he would mind. Obviously, he liked pampering the brunette too much.
It was already 5:30 in the afternoon, and the sun was halfway into the horizon. Natsume frowned as he gazed up at the darkening sky. "Mikan. We should go."
There was no reply.
Natsume impatiently turned around to his companion. "Mikan, I sai—"
But Mikan, to his surprise, was ten steps behind him. She was staring at something to her left.
"Mikan?"
Mikan turned to him. "Ne, Natsume, there's an apothecary over there." She pointed a long finger to where she had been looking at. "What do they sell over there?"
Natsume had approached Mikan and looked at the said apothecary with distaste. "Stuff," he replied. "They're mostly fakes."
A dingy store stood before them. The wood its foundation was made of was obviously decaying, and the red paint on its walls had long gone peeled. A pot of wilted hydrangea stood by the glassed door, on which hung a faded 'Open' sign. Just shortly above the door a dilapidated sign read The Apothecary.
"That's where they sell love potions, isn't it?" Mikan said, a twinge of excitement in her voice.
"Not that you needed one." Natsume observed the apothecary confusedly. What was a shop like that doing in an urban city? Besides, its exterior looked very out of place between the two lavish shops that stood on either side of it…
The next thing he knew, Mikan was already on the doorstep of the rundown shop, and was pushing the door open.
"Mikan, wait…!"
"Hello?" Mikan poked her head in first, and the strong smell of herbs reached her nose. "Is anybody there?" Seeing that nobody was attending to the seemingly long-forgotten counter, she proceeded inside and scrutinized the dark, smoky shop. Natsume came in after her, wearing a disgruntled expression.
"Are you planning on buying something in this…store?" He resisted the urge to say "junkyard."
"Not really…" Mikan bent down to observe a bottle of dead beetles. "…I'm just really curious."
"It doesn't look like somebody's here, either."
"Oh, look at this!" Mikan went over to a wooden mannequin, which displayed nothing but a thin, golden necklace with what looked like a watch as a pendant. She observed the exquisite gold carvings and the diamonds imbedded on it, and slowly reached out a hand…
"You would not want to touch that, miss," a deep voice said, making Mikan jerk her hand away and look at the speaker. "It is a very delicate necklace."
Behind the counter stood a tall, lanky man in dirty clothes. His long dark hair was tied in a low ponytail, and his eyes were hidden behind a white mask that contrasted greatly with the dark, murky surroundings of the apothecary. He was wearing a smile so spine-tingling that Natsume felt the hairs at the back of his head rise slightly.
"Oh…I'm sorry!" Mikan said apologetically, bowing at the man. "I didn't know!"
The man, who must be the shopkeeper, turned his head slightly to Natsume, then back to Mikan. "It manipulates the uncontrollable. It makes the wheel reverse its spin, makes the sunken rise back, and mutes the rooster's crow." Seeing Mikan's confused expression, he went around the counter and approached the necklace, gazing at it intently. "Of all the items here in my shop, this is the one no one could ever buy…even with any amount of wealth," he added, almost as an afterthought, and Natsume thought that he was referring to him.
"But why is it still on display?" Mikan asked quizzically.
The man stared at her. "Waiting for its rightful owner," he said matter-of-factly.
Natsume couldn't help but snort. He actually thinks that someone will believe this bull? He remained a neutral face when the man turned to face him again, resisting the urge to smirk skeptically.
The young Hyuuga didn't know how long he had been having a staring match with the shopkeeper; he had only been interrupted when Mikan's mobile phone rang from inside her handbag, startling the said woman.
"…Hello…?" She frowned. "…oh, yes…yes, yes…what?...okay, okay…I'll be right there…yeah, bye." She flipped her phone shut and returned it to her bag. "I'm so sorry Natsume. An emergency came up in our company and they needed me!" She pouted angrily and sighed.
Natsume shook his head. "This means rescheduling the dinner at Fabisco?"
Mikan smiled sweetly. "Pretty much." Then she turned to the shopkeeper, who was observing them silently. "Don't worry, I'll come back when I have time!"
The man gave out a small smile. "That you'd do."
As Mikan hurriedly exited the shop to head for the car, Natsume was left to pick up the shopping bags she left on the floor when they entered the apothecary. That woman…leaving her bags…he felt himself shaking his head at Mikan's childish antics.
He straightened back up and carried the offending items to the door, when the shopkeeper decided to speak up.
"Hyuuga Natsume," he called out.
Natsume paused in his tracks and turned to look at him over his shoulder. "Eh…so you know me after all," he said coolly. It wasn't too surprising that random people knew him. He was a celebrated millionaire, after all.
The shopkeeper smiled his creepy smile. "I'll be always here when you need me."
Like hell I wouldNatsume merely nodded curtly in return, and resumed walking.
However, his next words rattled his thoughts.
"…Keep her close."
Natsume paused and looked back, bewildered. "Nani?"
But, to his utter surprise, the shopkeeper was already gone.
"Damn it."
It was already 9:00 PM, and still, Mikan has not returned from her office. Natsume had been trying to distract himself since the past hour by thumbing through random magazines in the living room, but to no avail. Every now and then, her face would pop out in his mind, and a very weird sensation would wash over him.
Words kept repeating themselves over and over again in his head.
"I love you."
"…Keep her close."
Natsume calmly closed Time Magazine and breathed deeply. What has gotten into him? Where were all these goose bumps coming from?
Damn that shitty apothecary.
He looked back at the wall clock across from the couch where he sat. 9:04…
I wonder what she's doing right now?
9:10…
Maybe I should call her? No, maybe the meeting's not yet over…
9:15…
I should just go there and wait. Yes…but she said she had her car there.
9:24…
9:31…
9:40…
…
…
BOOM!
"What the hell—"
Natsume's eyes flew open in shock as a loud booming sound shook the floor, and it was a moment before he realized that he had fallen off the couch. Picking himself up from the floor, he winced slightly as muscle cramps took its toll on him.
Did I fall asleep…?
He shot a furtive glance at the clock. 11:00! Mikan's not home yet?! He looked around him alertly. What's that sound that woke me up? Deciding that things are becoming too ominous for him, he grabbed the coat that he had nonchalantly hung on the coat hanger earlier and proceeded to the door, with a jingling sound with each step due to his car keys.
What greeted him when he opened the door, however, made his eyes widen.
Instead of the glass window that ran the length of the entire wall, what he saw before him was a dark road stretching to infinity. Everything was in pitch-blackness. Even the air seemed to have been muted. His heart starting to race wildly, he turned back to his apartment, but saw that it was gone, too, replaced with the impenetrable darkness.
Natsume…
The young man turned around quickly to the source of the very familiar voice, but the only thing that he could see was black. Mikan…
Natsume…
"Mikan, where are you?!"
Natsume!
Natsume cursed inwardly. What the fuck is going on…?!
NATSUME!
Then everything came rushing back to him. It was like a fast-forwarded film. He saw glimpses of events…events in his memories. His sixth birthday with Ruka…his high school days with his friends—Ruka, Shouda, Imai…Mikan—his first date with Mikan…his father's funeral—
Then suddenly, the film slowed down. It was playing something that wasn't familiar to Natsume; it was a road, a deserted road, and it was night. From afar he could see black smoke billowing from dancing red flames…
It took him a moment to realize that, in fact, the smoke was coming from a car, which was upturned and being engulfed in terribly huge, gasoline-smelling flames.
Natsume ran to it…for some reason, his heart felt heavy, and his throat had gone sore.
A figure was lying motionlessly two meters away from the burning vehicle.
A pale hand…a pale ringed hand.
Natsume's eyes widened. The ring…
It was his engagement ring for Mikan.
He reached the figure and kneeled before it, pulling it in his arms.
He gasped in horror.
Mikan's brown eyes stared back at him, wide, glassy, and lifeless.
"NOOOOO!"
"NATSUME!"
Natsume felt a slap on his left cheek, and he groaned loudly, opening a heavy eye. Then the scene he just witnessed replayed in his mind, making him jump to his feet. He wildly looked around him and breathed in ragged gasps.
"Natsume!"
He was back to his apartment, and, with a quick glance at the time, realized that it was eleven in the evening.
Relief coursed through him. It was just a dream; a really, really bad dream.
"Goodness, what's happening to you?!"
Natsume distractedly turned to see an anxious Mikan, still clad in her outdoor coat and wearing a very worried expression. She cupped his cheeks with her hands and said, "You're cold and sweaty! Are you having a bad dream—Pfff!"
Natsume had hugged her tightly.
"H-Hey…" Mikan was speechless.
"…What took you so long?" Natsume whispered in her ear.
"One-fourth of our sales was almost stolen, Natsume. The company is on red alert. I couldn't have gone home earlier." Mikan ran a hand along his back to comfort him. "I'm sorry."
"Hn." Natsume hugged her more tightly.
Mikan chuckled softly. "Can't you forgive me?"
He loved her chuckle. He loved her warmth. He loved her scent. Natsume closed his eyes and felt her body against him.
He's madly in-love with Sakura Mikan.
He wouldn't know what to do if she…goes away.
"Just don't leave me alone for that long again." He buried his face in her auburn hair. "I can worry too much."
Mikan smiled and hugged him more tightly in return. "Of course…Natsume."
That's right. He would take care of Mikan. Nothing could possibly tear them apart. He would make sure of that. Even death, he thought grimly, recalling his nightmare. It was just a stupid dream. It can never happen...right?
Hyuuga Natsume didn't know how very wrong he was.
Well, how was it? I apologize if the atmosphere is so…what do you say? Mildly suspenseful? Please tell me if I should continue this. (smiles ruefully) Please review!
Update might take time.