So since I scrapped 'Time After Time'. (With a heavy heart, mind you. It was the first time I decided to delete a story) I decided to go a different route with my "official" 25th story. I am still going for a RukaRu fic but this time I'm writing in a genre I feel that I can cope with. ;)

I've had this buried deep within the recesses of my "Future Stories" folder on my laptop and thought this is the perfect replacement for Time After Time. XD

Enjoy!

xoxo Lexi1989

P.S. YoNaMe this is for you still! XD


PHILOPHOBIA

CHAPTER 1: SURPRISE!

She was sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. Her eyes were glued to the screen. She didn't mind that she was left alone in the living room of her best friend's house (which was a few houses down from hers), her best friend having gone up to her bedroom to get something how many minutes ago. She'd offered to pause the movie but her best friend waved her off saying it wasn't a big deal and saying she'd be right back. But unlike the usual, she didn't count the minutes nor think about what's taking too long for her best friend to come back. She was totally engrossed in the movie.

Her face was expressionless. Blank as a fresh canvass just waiting to be painted. But she had always been like that. She was never one to wear her emotions on her sleeve, or her face.

The movie she was watching was a sequel of a new twist to a very old fairytale. Not that she believed in those stories of 'happily ever after'. She didn't. If you were to ask her why, she would most definitely answer with "Love is for saps. There is no such thing as happily ever after." And that being said with conviction in her tone.

Yes. Hotaru Imai hated the idea of falling in love. She didn't hate love per se. She loved her family. She loved seafood. She sort of loved her best friend. (Well, you know, in a platonic sisterly kind of way.) But she just didn't like the idea of falling in love. She'd never been in love and had no immediate plans to fall in love anytime soon. She thought exactly like what was being said by a character in the movie she was watching "Love is a lie. It is a trick played by the cruel on the foolish and the weak."

She had seen a number of her friends fall in love and then end up brokenhearted. She'd been there to witness most of the ups and downs of falling in love. Here's a recap of the first time she witnessed the curse of falling in love.

When she witnessed her classmate get all giddy about receiving roses from a guy in the junior class during their freshman year, she thought "Well, that was a nice gesture."

When she witnessed said classmate being asked to prom by that same guy from the junior year, and at the same time being asked to be his girlfriend, she thought "Well, that was sweet."

When her classmate confided in her the day after prom that she had done "it" with her boyfriend, she thought "Well that escalated quickly."

When she received a call in the middle of the night, waking her up from a good night's sleep, a few weeks later to listen to her classmate's rant about how her boyfriend doesn't call her anymore, she thought "Well that can't be good."

And finally when she stood in the school cafeteria, watching as her classmate got dumped by her cheating boyfriend, she thought "Hell no, I'm not ever going through that."

Not to mention the fact that she had to endure hours and hours of comforting the poor creature that had her heart handed back to her in small broken pieces. She didn't even like to think of the mess it had left in her bedroom. In an attempt to cheer her up, her best friend had volunteered to host a sleepover with a few of the girls from the same class. The thing is, she volunteered to host it but had it set up in Hotaru's house, much to the latter's annoyance. They'd set up a rom-com DVD marathon, which ended up with her broken hearted classmate bawling over the smallest things or the most emotional, romantic scenes in the movies they watched. The pile of wadded up tissues quickly filled up the small trash bin she had in her bedroom and who knows how many pints of Baskin Robbins ice cream they had consumed that night.

To make matters worse, that experience didn't traumatize her classmate. In fact, she'd rebounded so quickly (completely disregarding the 3 month rule) and had been in too many relationships for Hotaru to keep track of. Hotaru however, felt like that experience scarred her instead. She seriously did not want to go through all that bullshit. Her bright, logical mind thought of all the possible scenarios and never once did she get to an end point where no one gets hurt. It didn't mean she didn't date. She had gone out with a guy or two, but she never let them close enough, or let them know enough about her to have them decide to ask her for a second date. The odds always were not in favor for love. And so she decided to just play it safe, and avoid falling in love at all costs. She even went as far as trying to convince her best friend of the same thing.


The movie she was watching had the narrator say the same principle of thinking that she always been warning her best friend about.

"Once upon a time, a man and a woman fell in love. But such things cannot last, For the heart is a treacherous thing and love, love is nothing more than a fairy tale…"

Love was indeed treacherous. It was a traitor. It made you feel happy at first, only to hurt you in the end. At least, that's what she believed. And now that they were about to start their senior year, she had been mostly successful at not falling in love.

When her hand touched the cool bottom of the bowl, indicating that her popcorn had run out, it was only then that she noticed she'd been alone for almost an hour now, halfway into the movie. She hit pause on the remote, and walked into the kitchen to look for another bag of microwaveable popcorn. She rummaged through the cupboards when she heard a soft thud from the ceiling followed by the distinct unmistakable giggles of her best friend.

She pictured the second story of the house in her head and knew the kitchen was right below her best friend's bedroom. She looked outside the kitchen window and spotted a black Ducati XDiavel motorcycle parked two houses down the road. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion and walked to the backyard to check it out clearly.

She'd been born in this small town and grew up on this street. She knew almost everyone who lived in the small town. And she knew, the elderly couple living in the house where the bike was parked in front of did not approve of motorcycles. So it was suspicious that such a contraption was parked on the curb in front of their house. She went to the front of the house and onto the street to get a better look. The bike was black, with decals of red-orange flame on the body. It was fairly familiar. She knew she'd seen it somewhere before.

She trudged back to her best friend's house and walked in through the back door that she had exited only minutes ago. She heard another suspicious thud and heard her best friend talking to someone. Last time she checked, they were the only people in the house as her best friend's mother was at work. She slowly walked up the steps, carefully avoiding the top step that she knew would creak loudly. She stealthily found her way through the small hallway leading to her best friend's door.

Someone was definitely inside that room with her best friend.

"Shhhh. Hotaru might hear you…" She heard her best friend say in between a fit of giggles.

She waited for a response but when there was none, she pressed her ear against the pink door, pulling back in shock almost immediately when she heard what was going on inside. When the sounds escalated to a point where she didn't even need to press her ear to the door, she made up her mind and decided to barge in.

She carefully turned the knob on the door and was relieved to find it unlocked. She let out a deep breath for composure and counted to three before pushing the door wide open. The sight that greeted her from within made her jaw drop even if she knew by the sounds she'd heard about what was going on. (And trust me when I say, Hotaru dropping her jaw is not something you'd catch her do often.)

It took her mind a second to process what she saw. Her best friend was lying on her bed with her shirt unbuttoned halfway, her brassiere exposed for the world to see, her skirt partly hiked up her leg, and her hair disheveled. And lying on top of her was a shirtless boy who abruptly jumped off her when he heard the scream coming from Hotaru who just burst through the door.

"MIKAN SAKURA! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"

END OF CHAPTER 1


So I'm going for the rom-com-drama-ish genre that I seem to be good at. XD

Italicized lines are quotes from the movie "The Huntsman: Winter's War" (The fact that I announced this serves as my disclaimer that those lines are not mine, and never will be)

Also as you all know, Gakuen Alice characters are not mine. I merely own the plot of this humble story.

Let me know what you think ;)


Story cycle:

Secrets - Fairie Tales - Starting Over Again - The Scam - Philophobia

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Ja Ne!

xoxo Lexi1989