A Good Ol' Walk In The Park
XXX
It was a typical Sunday morning in the park - the birds were singing, the fish were swimming and Youichi Hijiri was taking his girlfriend out for a walk.
"So ... um, what do you think of the trees today?" he said, looking frantically around for something to talk about and so break the awkward silence.
"They're really nice!" the girl next to him enthusiastically replied. She grinned at him happily. "So what are we gonna do today? Can we go to that really nice sushi bar where I used to work over the summers?"
"Ah, um, yeah," said Youichi. He wasn't really sure what to do next. At the tender age of fourteen, he had not had any previous experiences with girlfriends ...
"Cool!!" said the girl, her brownish-golden pigtails bouncing with her steps. She took Youichi's hand and dragged him along the path at a rather faster walking speed.
"Ah," said Youichi. Even if he didn't have any relationship experience, he still knew one thing - he was in love with Mikan Sakura, and holding her hand was making him nervous.
Yes, you heard that right. Youichi Hijiri and Mikan Sakura were a couple.
Well, they were meant to be. The thing that was bugging Youichi was not the seven-year age difference, but the fact that he hadn't actually kissed her yet. So according to his friends and his own confused state of mind, he wasn't "officially" going out with Mikan. Sure, they had hugged quite a few times, and they went for walks in the park together a lot, and he once held her hand while they watched a romantic movie - but he hadn't kissed her. He wanted to kiss her (as well as do a lot more than that), but he always seemed to lose the courage when the time came.
Mikan slowed her pace after a minute or so because a horde of stampeding joggers had accidentally crashed into her. Youichi took the interruption to sit down on a nearby bench and send a friendly ghost (well, friendly to himself, anyway) after the annoying joggers. Mikan, after picking herself up, went and sat down next to him.
"You okay?" said Youchi. Should I put my arm round her?
"Yep! I'm totally alright," she replied. She looked at him expectantly.
Youichi was at a loss for words. What did she expect him to say? He gaped at her for a few moments, and then - "Doyoulikegoingoutwivme?"
"Huh?"
Youichi shook his head to clear up his thoughts, and said, "Do you like going out with me?"
"Of course! Why would you think I didn't?"
"I dunno, I always feel so ... I dunno, when I'm around you ... do you get it?"
"Er ... no, I don't get it, actually. What?"
"You know ... I don't know what to do and you're kind of older than me and I dunno what to say or do with a girlfriend," Youichi said very quickly in one breath.
"Hmm," said Mikan.
"So I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing or whatever so yeah are you okay?"
"Hmm," said Mikan again. "I think you're doing fine ... and as for what you should say and do with a girlfriend, you just talk about whatever you want. And I guess you could start with kissing if you want something to do."
"Really?"
"Really what?"
"Kiss you?"
"Uh, yeah ... ? That's what I said."
"What now?"
"Sure," Mikan said, smiling at his nervousness.
"Ah, um, okay," Youichi mumbled. He leant in towards Mikan, as he had seen in countless cheesy romance films. He saw, through half-closed eyes, Mikan's face coming closer. Very much closer. Was he meant to turn his head to the side? He supposed the answer was yes - he'd been dragged to too many romantic mushfests of a a film - so he turned slightly, and moved in. Gah. He hoped that none of Mikan's previous boyfriends had been particularly good kissers, and that she wasn't wondering why he was taking so long about it. Which reminded him, he'd better do it soon. Would it be too embarrassing to admit that he had no idea of how to do this?
"Uh, I have no idea about how to do this ..." he said, ten centimetres away from Mikan's mouth.
She opened her eyes in surprise and said, "What? You just ... do it! Go on, I won't hurt you." She smiled to reassure him and went back into her closed-eye-waiting-for-kiss position.
Youichi steeled himself, and ...
"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!! What are you DOING here?!" shrieked Mikan, her mouth very close to Youichi's face and her voice therefore very close to his ear. He jerked back, opened his eyes, pushed Mikan back and said, "Huh? What did I do wrong?"
"Not you!! Him!" Mikan shouted, pointing at a bush close by.
"What?" But there was no need for Youichi to wonder any further, for out of the rustling bush stepped none other than the figure of Natsume Hyuuga.
Oh dear, thought Youichi.
"What do you want?" said Mikan looking angrily at the untimely interruption.
"What do I want? No ... what do YOU want with that ickle new boyfriend of yours?" said Natsume, slurring his words quite a bit. He took a few unsteady paces towards the couple and sat down - or rather, collapsed - onto the bench opposite them.
"Shut up! And, um, are you alright?" said Mikan. Youichi thought it would be better for his health if he kept his mouth shut. Natsume didn't look to be at the peak of his health, though - his hair looked as if it hadn't been washed for a few months, and his clothes were rather dirty and worn.
"Haha ... ha," said Natsume. He seemed to be attempting to smirk at her. It didn't quite work, however. "Ugh, yeah, Mikan, I'm fine. Totally, totally and spectacular, lar-ly fine," he said, dragging out the 'i' of fine as if in mocking laughter. "Just like you and your cute little toyboy." He leered at Youichi on that last phrase.
"Natsume ... ?" Mikan's expression was one of great worry and not of annoyance, Youichi noted with some irritation. Surely she couldn't be concerned about this creep?
Natsume pulled out a rather crumpled chewing gum packet and started unwrapping a piece. The ripped paper wrapping slipped out of his hand and was caught by the wind, which decided it would be quite amusing to blow it into Youichi's face.
"Natsume! Why are you so ..." Mikan paused; she couldn't quite find the right word. Weird? Annoying? Upset?
"... Drunk? Yeah, I kinda got into a bad habit after you left," Natsume himself finished it for her. Mikan gaped, and Youichi missed the moment because he was too busy trying to unstick the wrapper from his face. It seemed to be fixed there.
"Because ... I left? This is all to do with ... us?"
"You got that right, dumbass. Dumb. Ass."
"Hey!"
"Don't kid me, you've got a helluva lot of nerve to show up with your loverboy in our park, you slut."
"Stop it! It's not just your park! And ... did I really cause you to be so ... depressed?"
"Yeah, riiiight - the only reason I'd be depressed is because I wasted half my fucking life with you," sneered Natsume.
Mikan looked genuinely shocked. The last time she'd seen Natsume, he had been upset, true, but he had also seemed to take the breakup reasonably well. At least, "reasonably well" meaning that he hadn't seemed likely to get pissed every single morning and still be pining after her six months later. Youichi, looking at Mikan's face, saw her expression of dismay and wondered if it would be appropriate to kick Natsume - preferable somewhere very painful. Then he remembered he was still stuck to a piece of bubblegummy paper and continued his attempts to unstick himself painlessly.
"Natsume, why didn't you tell me you were in this state?" Mikan asked, taking the sympathetic route (like always, thought Natsume and Youichi simutaneously).
"What state? I feel fiiine, thought I jus' said that ... You look fine too, got yourself a ickle new boyfriend? Wait, I think I already said that ... hey, is he your kid or something? Awww, he's so cute."
"Shut up," said Youichi. Mikan glared at Natsume, grabbed Youichi's hand and said, "Don't insult Youichi! And you need to get help..."
"Oh, it's baby You-chan this time, is it? What's that on your face?"
"Mikan, you can't possibly be worried about this jerk," said Youichi to her. Mikan looked rather at a loss for words, evidently unsure of how much Natsume deserved her pity. From the corner of his eye he could see Natsume blowing a large bubble and leering at the same time - rather smooth, that, thought a small part of his mind.
"I said, what's that shit on your face?" said Natsume, pointing at the white wrapper. "Oh wait, maybe it IS your face. Sorry."
"Shut up!" said Youichi. Natsume had always known exactly how to annoy people ...
"Aw look, his first word!"
Youichi couldn't stop himself - maybe it was because it was Natsume (whom he had hated for quite some time now, ever since that incident with Hotaru's funeral and the cake-tin), or maybe the whole history between him and Mikan had a part in it, or maybe the chewing gum wrapper was just that annoying, but he found himself shaking off Mikan's hand, getting up and punching Natsume right in the face.
Ow.
But it was strangely satisfying to see Natsume holding his hands to his bleeding nose and Mikan gasping in horror. "You-chan! Um, Natsume! Are you okay?" she said, but Youichi didn't really hear her as Natsume had now got up and was swinging a fist towards his face, muttering something under his breath. Youichi barely had time to duck before it hit - still, it had only hurt the back of his head and not his face, thanks to that duck.
That did it. Youichi didn't care anymore about accommodating Mikan's concern for her ex-boyfriend, or of what it looked like to a bystander - he just wanted to hurt Natsume as much as possible. And by the looks of it, Natsume wanted to do exactly that to Youichi. He rushed in, kicking and slapping for all he was worth.
Meanwhile, Mikan was shouting for help after finding that shouting, "Stop it!" had no effect. A sizable crowd had gathered around the brawl, but no-one seemed particularly inclined to actually break up the cat-fight. They all seemed to prefer to watch and cheer for their favourite (most were supporting Youichi, but there were a few shouts of "I want the black-haired one to win!" as well).
"Mikan!" cried a familiar voice over the noise. Mikan stopped jumping about and looked up in surprise. She had barely registered a whirlwind of blue hair coming her way before she was enveloped in an extremely friendly and enthusiastic hug.
"... Melonbeauty? And Rui?" she said. She couldn't help smiling broadly at the sight of them. Indeed, the pair were easily recognisable - with Melonbeauty's, well, assets and bright blue hair and Rui's extravagantly long blonde hair, they stuck out amongst the more "normal" crowd around them.
"Yep! Guess how we found you?" said Melonbeauty, grinning like the maniac she was.
"Dunno, how?"
"From the cat-fight! It was sooooo obvious, we could see it from a mile away! Well, at least I could, with my Alice of Far Sight," said Melonbeauty with a dramatic sigh, fluttering her silver-tipped-navy-blue (totally natural) eyelashes. "Rui hasn't seen a good bitch-fight in ages," she said. Mikan looked round - yep, there was Rui cheering with the rest of the crowd and clearly enjoying the sight of two good-looking guys beating the hell out of each other. Mikan decided not to ask why.
"Can you guys help? My ex-boyfriend is in a fight with my new boyfriend," she said. "And I'm worried they'll end up killing each other!"
"No no, that wouldn't work because if one of them died, they wouldn't be able to kill the other one," said Melonbeauty.
This confused Mikan rather. "Huh? Eh ... well, I don't want them to get hurt! And it's all my fault! I was the one who broke up with Natsume, and came with Youichi to the park and made them get jealous of each other!"
Melonbeauty grabbed Mikan's shoulders and shook her hard. "It's not your fault! OK, maybe it is ... but don't be silly! Besides, there's no way that anyone can separate them now, unless you also want to get beaten up."
"Why? And it is all my fault! Oh, I can't believe Natsume would do something like this - didn't he seem alright just after we split?"
"He seemed ... Natsume-like," said Melonbeauty, shrugging her delicate shoulders. "Doesn't really talk to anyone much, does he?"
"I should have talked to Luca more! I bet he knew what was going on, but didn't want to tell me in case it sounded like he was blaming me! Which he should have done! And why can't you just use one of your Alices to get them apart? And how come my powers have been disabled too?" Mikan was hyperventilating in her distress.
"Calm down! Actually, Luca's been in France with Aoi visiting Persona and his mom for the last six months, so he wouldn't have been able to talk to or see Natsume anyway ... hmm ... and I can't break it up because weird things happen in fights. Have you ever played the Sims?"
"What?"
"Well, you know, when Sims get into fights, you can't do anything about it. All you can do is stand around, laugh at the dust cloud and cheer for your favourite until one of them ends up kicked onto their butt. It's a very realistic game," Melonbeauty explained.
"I don't get it at all ..."
"Oh, it doesn't matter. Game mechanics and relationship decay, that sort of thing."
Mikan still didn't get it, but she decided that talking about the Sims wasn't nearly as important as the fight going on in front of them. "Melonbeauty, what should I do?"
"Just wait for it to end, that's the sensible option. Oh yes, Daddy just sent me a phoenoxian-celebalqua-firedrake hybrid for my birthday, so do you want to come and see it sometime?"
"Uh, yeah, sure, but only if Youichi gets out of this alive ..."
"Oh of course ... but it's just so cute! You just HAVE to ride him with me, Mikan! Rui said that it was the sweetest creature he'd ever seen - but I suppose he's only seen the vampiric-vulpina and the lunacorvid before, so maybe that's why he said that - but that doesn't matter, why don't you come to our place next Sunday?"
Opening her mouth to reply, Mikan was interrupted by Melonbeauty saying, "Oh look! I think the fight's over! How exciting."
Mikan looked round to see Natsume on the ground, numerous bruises and cuts on his face, and Youichi standing triumphantly over him. He also had quite a few injuries - and quite a bit of dirt on his t-shirt, his jeans and his skin. Three-quarters of the crowd cheered. The other quarter looked vaguely depressed and wandered off; a few seconds later, the cheering portion dispersed as well, leaving Mikan, Melonbeauty and Rui the only onlookers remaining.
"You-chan? Nattie-chan? Are you ok?" said Mikan. Rui and Melonbeauty rushed over to help Natsume up when they saw Mikan with Youichi.
"Yeah, I'm great. I won," said Youichi proudly. "I feel kinda painful all over though ..."
"Mikan, I think Natsume should go to the hospital," said Rui, poking Natsume's face. Melonbeauty was attempting to heal his wounds with an Alice, but it wasn't having much effect.
"Like he deserves that kind of treatment," muttered Youichi, while Mikan said, "Oh no, I can't believe this! Why did you have to hurt him so much? Is he still alive?"
"Come on, you can't STILL be on that creep's side? After he was so rude to both of us?"
"But he wasn't in his normal state of mind! He was so upset and angry about me that it wasn't really his fault that he said all that. When he's more, uh, sober I'm sure he'll regret all of what happened today ..."
Youichi rolled his eyes. What did it take for someone to make her dislike them?
"Uh, I don't think he's breathing," said Melonbeauty with a note of worry in her voice.
"Doesn't matter, I just called an ambulance. I'll just say we found him like this, 'kay?" said Rui. "This one's Natsume, isn't it? He's still just as cute as I remember him - I can't believe you dumped someone as good-looking as that. Actually your new guy's pretty cute too ... going right through the old DA class?" he said, with a rather creepy grin directed at Youichi. (Now it was Melonbeauty's turn to roll her eyes.)
"You'd better go then," said Melonbeauty to Mikan. "We don't want them asking questions about why he's ended up like this, or why Youichi looks like he's been in a fight. I guess we'll see each other next Sunday?" she said with a dazzling smile that charmed the songbirds right out of the trees and made ten passer-bys swoon with passion.
"OK! See you then!" said Mikan happily. She took an unconscious bird out of her hair and placed it on the nearest bench, stepping over a few swooners in the process. Then she waved goodbye and pulled the half-conscious Youichi with her as she walked away from the crime scene.
XXX
"So did you guys kiss or what?" said Sumire, looking from Mikan to Youichi and back again.
"Ah ... I actually don't remember," said Youichi sheepishly. The next few moments after the fight scene had passed him by, rather. He had only really gained the full use of his bruised brain back once they had got inside the Academy and Youichi had collapsed onto his bed. He thought he remembered impulsively making out with Mikan as they walked out of the park, but then again he also thought he remembered buying a green hotdog with pink fries and being asked if he wanted a bitchslap with that.
Koko, who had just been looking into Youichi's mind, saw the memory-slash-hallucination of the hotdog vendor and was a little surprised. He shook his head hard to get rid of that image. "Did you? No? Yes? Maybe?" he asked Mikan.
"Yeah, we did," smiled Mikan. "But actually it was more like Youichi fell on me as we were walking into the street and accidentally got our lips touching ... but it was still really cool!"
Sumire groaned and put her head in her hands, and Koko grinned even more broadly. Youichi sighed. He could only suppose that not everyone's first kiss could be perfect ...
XXX
A/N: This is for Dying With A Smile, who gave me the following challenge:
MikanxYouichi (Mikan is 21, Youichi is 14 and having hormone issues)
a random appearance of an underage drunk Natsume (sorry, I wasn't really sure about the underage thing ... I mean, if Mikan is 21 then I thought Natsume would be 21 too ...)
a cat-fight
a bubblegum wrapper
the line, "What's that on your face?"
I hope this is satisfactory ... well, it was fun writing it, anyway.
A Few Notes: Hotaru's funeral - in Gakuen Alice Fanfic, Youichi is going out with Hotaru and at the end Hotaru goes to Manga Heaven. But as You-chan is only 8 or so at the most, that probably wouldn't count as a proper relationship.
Rui and Melonbeauty are a couple, as evidenced in Bad Sushi And Frrench Girls.
Melonbeauty is an OC who first appeared in GA Fanfic. She's a ditzy Mary Sue who has breasts the size of melons.
I spell Youichi as Youichi not Yoichi because I also spell Shouda as Shouda not Shoda.
Persona and Luca's mom are also a couple (again, BS&FG.)