"Unbelievable."
Natsume scowls as Ruka gives him a look of sympathy. "I'm sure it didn't go that badly, Natsume: I mean, she's seventeen, how ignorant can she -"
"She was on my bed, Ruka," Natsume hisses. "That idiot was lying on my bed, in my room, and guess what she was wearing?"
"Pajamas?" Ruka suggests hopefully. Natsume covers his face with his hands.
"She was wearing my shirt," he says, his tone reflecting something that is dangerously close to despair, and it's all Ruka can do not to laugh. "Nothing else. And then she says to me, cool as you please, 'Hey, Natsume, you don't mind letting me camp out here tonight, right? I lost my key and Hotaru's off in London to do her presentation thing, and I don't have anywhere else to go.' Then she gives me one of her hopeful little smiles and -"
"Let me guess," Ruka interjects, "you let her sleep over, you give her the bed, and you refuse to make eye contact or communicate in anything but grunts until she falls asleep while you spend three hours staring at her like some creep -"
"I did not, for the record," Natsume says with dignity. "I'm not a stalker. Besides, she's my girlfriend, I'm actually getting used to how irritatingly cute she is."
"Then why do you have a problem with her sleeping over?" Ruka reasons logically. Natsume glares at him.
"I'm seventeen, you know. I'm a teenager. Imagine if you found Hotaru on your bed wearing nothing but a shirt one night."
Ruka sucks in a breath. "Okay, I see what you mean. But are you sure she has no idea what she's doing? You might be underestimating her, Natsume," he says doubtfully.
"It's Mikan," Natsume says darkly, "I'm definitely not underestimating her."
:.:
"He's definitely underestimating you," Hotaru comments after Mikan has finished her tirade, falling into an irritable, out-of-breath silence.
"How much more obvious can i get? I mean, I was on his bed, come on," Mikan complains with a groan. "He didn't so much as look at me, just went straight to the living room and read that stupid manga of his for three hours straight while I pretended to sleep."
"Poor you," Hotaru says in a rare moment of genuine sympathy. "Maybe you have to step things up a bit."
"Honestly," Mikan grumbles, "you'd think he was a robot. I mean, you see a seventeen-year-old girl lying on your bed wearing your shirt, anyone would be suspicious, but oh, no, not the supergenius Natsume Hyuuga who chooses this moment to be a complete -" She finishes her sentence by violently stabbing at her banana split with a fork, which obligingly splits down the middle.
Hotaru starts counting as Mikan lapses into a moody silence. One, two, thr -
"Am I not attractive enough?" Mikan wails, right on schedule. "Hotaru, teach me how you get Ruka's attention."
Hotaru shrugs. "I insult him. Or I make myself prettier. Both seem to be pretty effective." She watches with mounting amusement as the cogs turn in her best friend's head and her expression settles into one of staunch determination.
"Okay," Mikan breathes, "Hotaru, go to Central Town with me tomorrow."
"Why?" Hotaru inquires.
"Option two," Mikan bites out, "I'm getting a haircut."
:.:
"She got a fucking haircut," Natsume practically growls. Ruka watches him warily.
"It's only a haircut, relax," Ruka tries to reassure him. Natsume sends him a glare that successfully shuts him up.
"She looks - she looks - she dyed her hair dark red, for shit's sake. And she let it loose, instead of putting it in that stupid braid, and she looks -"
"She looks sexy," Ruka supplies unhelpfully. "And the colour matches your eyes, too."
"Does she even know what she's doing to me?" Natsume practically whines. "I mean, no one can be that ignorant, can they?"
Ruka looks at Natsume with amusement. "Apparently, they can," is his vague reply.
Of course, Natsume never catches the double entendre.
:.:
"How can he - I just don't get it," Mikan sighs, threading a hand through her newly dyed hair, which is a deep shade of ruby. "I thought it looked good."
Hotaru looks at her critically. "I thought so too, but maybe - maybe he's just not used to it."
"He's not supposed to be used to it! It's supposed to be a novelty! Novelties are supposed to be attractive!" Mikan complains.
"You know," Hotaru muses, "I'd always thought he was smart. Now I see that I was wrong. Maybe that's why you two like each other so much."
"Don't rub salt into the wound, Hotaru. My boyfriend already doesn't find me attractive. Any more put-downs and I'd be six feet under."
"I don't think he doesn't find you attractive, Mikan," Hotaru says thoughtfully. "I think he's just...conservative, maybe. Or maybe," she adds unhelpfully, " he's really just a robot with no hormones."
Hotaru watches with thinly veiled amusement as Mikan attempts to smother herself with a pillow.
"What am I going to do?" Mikan whines. Hotaru shrugs and a tiny smirk tugs at the corners of her lips.
"Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. Maybe you could consider taking off your shirt in front of him," Hotaru suggests, and at Mikan's blanch, takes pity on her. "Or maybe not. Listen," she reaches for her wallet, "let's go shopping."
"For what?" Mikan asks. Hotaru shoots her a devious smile.
"For your date on Valentine's Day, of course."
:.:
"It's Valentine's Day, remember," Ruka reminds Natsume, and with a hint of a smirk, adds, "maybe you'll get lucky this time."
Natsume glowers at him. Ruka backs down. "Or maybe she'll turn up in, like, a potato sack. And drive your mind out of the gutter."
"She doesn't need a potato sack," Sumire interjects, sliding neatly into the seat next to him, "that girl doesn't own anything even remotely revealing. Trust me," she says with a shudder, "I've seen her closet."
Hotaru just smirks.
"You know," she says, delicately reaching for one of Ruka's fries, "you guys are more amusing than I expected."
:.:
There, Natsume thinks furiously, is absolute nothing amusing about this.
He swears, the next time he sees Hotaru Imai, he is going to kill her. That is, if he hasn't killed himself by then, which is a definite possibility because Mikan is wearing a positively sinful black dress that appears to have been poured on to her and that accentuates the soft curves of her petite stature and that makes her look absolutely delicious. Not to mention the way she serenely pays no attention to his obvious distress, sending him the occasional tiny, meaningful smile that looks like it'd be right at home on Hotaru's face.
He manages to get past the main course without jumping her somehow, but by the time it comes to dessert, Natsume's willpower diminishes into nothingness.
Because, goddamn, the way she uses her fork is blatantly unfair. Unconsciously, he licks his lips.
"Are you even aware of what you're doing?" he demands, expecting a confused stare or a blushing denial in response. What he does not expect is an uncharacteristic smirk from Mikan.
"Trust me, Nat-su-me," she says, voice low and singsong, "I know exactly what I'm doing."
He gazes at her in disbelief, and something clicks in his mind.
"Catching on yet, Hyuuga?" Mikan teases.
I'm such an idiot.
He waves over the waiter, throat unnaturally tight. "We'd like the bill, thanks."
"Will you be finishing your -"
"No."
Mikan laughs, and looks at him from under her lashes. "Let's go, then," she suggests.
He's never driven so fast in his life, and it's sheer dumb luck that they don't get pulled over.
"Your place or mine?" she asks lightheartedly when they finally pull up at the Academy.
"I don't care," he says, and, her back braced against the wall, he goes in for the kill, her faint laughter echoing in the hallways.
:.:
"I'm not sure if I should kill you or thank you, Imai."
"Cash is fine, thanks."