This is an entry to NatsumeSeries Contest. Submission starts on June 21 and ends on July 21. For further information on the contest, contact Vione or Romantically Loveless.

Disclaimer: obviously Gakuen Alice does not belong to me...unfortunately...

Enjoy the story!! (if you can...)

Not An Annoying Bug

by: the-redmercedes

He knew that his job had been finished. There was no reason why he would still need to see her, yet there seemed to be one. Why was that? He did not know. He did not want to know. All he wanted to know was how to get her out of his mind for good.

No matter what he seemed to do, she kept on reappearing. She was like an annoying bug that would never leave you alone.

He wondered why she came here in the first place. Could it have possibly been some trick to set him up? Damn that Imai, if she had not started hanging around Ruka, he would have never gotten himself into this mess.

He thought back to when he first met her. It had been almost 4 months ago, when he had received that phone call. At first he had thought that the call was just a prank because of how stupid the speaker had sounded, but even so, somehow his gut instinct had told him otherwise.

~Flashback~ Around 4 months ago

He had been sitting in his office, finishing up his last case when he had received a phone call, "BRRRRING! BRRRRING! BRRRRING!"

"Hello, Na-" he started.

"Shhh. Don't say your name. You never know who could be listening," a hushed voice cut him off.

"Okay…" he said starting to think the person on the other side of the line was a bit of a loony. He did not usually get cases where people were this paranoid.

"Yes, but down to business, I can hire you right, to investigate someone for me?" the voice asked.

"Yes, that's right. I'm available for all sorts of inves-"the voice cut him off again.

"Okay good. We can't talk now, because the phone might be bugged or something, so instead, meet me at Coffeehill café tomorrow okay? At around 10.30 in the morning, I'll see you then," the voice said before hanging up.

"Wait, but-" he was too late. He did not even manage to get one word in, the stupid, annoying, high-pitched voice kept on cutting him off.

Not knowing whether this was just some hoax, or an actual case, he decided to go with his gut instinct, which unfortunately left him sitting at the café waiting for someone he had never even met, the very next day.

The Next Day

A young handsome man, with astonishing crimson eyes was sitting outside a café, leaning back in his chair. Though he was by himself, he seemed to be waiting for someone or something with great impatience. He was oblivious to the fact that all around him were girls swooning over him with hearts in their eyes. Instead he was looking intently at his mobile phone on the table. He seemed to be staring at it, as if trying to catch it off guard in case it tried to move, the only problem was, it was a phone. Phones could not move, well not unless they were set to vibrate mode.

Luckily, as not to embarrass himself, that was exactly what his phone was set to, vibrate mode. Nothing had happened yet though, but soon, after another 5 minutes of intense staring, his phone lit up and started to vibrate. With one swipe of his hand, he swiftly flipped open the phone that had been lying on the table, and held it to his ear.

"I'm sorry! I know I'm late, it's just my alarm clock forgot to wake me up! I'll be there soon, I'm on my way!" then the line went dead.

The young man groaned, 'That idiot, doesn't she know that alarm clocks can't forget to wake you up, you set them up yourself.'

Why did he have to do this stupid job? Waiting around for some girl that was bound to get here by midnight, or arrive at some other café mistakenly thinking it was this one, was not what he had signed up for.

Taking in deep breaths, he calmed himself down. How had he just known even before he had arrived at this café, that there was no way in hell that the stupid girl who had decided to hire him for some job that was still unknown to him, was going to be punctual and arrive on time? He realised, this girl was probably just not capable of that.

He banged his head on the table in frustration. A waitress nearby came up to him, swinging her hips, trying to look seductive, "You seem to be having a few problems over here, are you alright? Perhaps I could help you…"

But before he could even reject her offer, a noise was heard. Everyone else turned their heads around abruptly in surprise, while he just grimaced and slowly moved his head, which was just above the table, in the direction of the sound.

"I'm heeeere!!!" a girl shouted, causing everyone to stare. She was running towards the café at full speed, and it looked as if she was going to crash right into them. Worryingly some people nearby started to stand up in case she actually did hit them.

Somehow, she managed to stop right in front of the man without falling over or running into anything. She was out of breath.

"I'm here," she gasped for air.

"I know. You don't have to state the obvious. Now hurry up and sit down," the man snapped impatiently. He had already been waiting for over 45 minutes and did not want to waste much more time. He did have other things to do.

"Wait, who are you?" she asked in confusion, "Why are you talking to me?"

"I'm the investigator you hired. I know you hired me because I can recognise your voice. It's so infuriatingly annoying that I'll never forget it," the man rudely replied.

He then turned to the waitress who was still standing nearby in shock, "Yes, I do seem to have a few problems, one being the fact that you are here, but that's easily fixed isn't it? All you need to do to help me with this problem is…disappear."

For some reason, the waitress then turned to the girl who was now sitting on the table facing the man, and gave her a long, hard, glare before storming off. The girl did not seem to notice this, and smiled brightly at the waitress's retreating figure.

The man cleared his throat to get her attention, "My name is Natsume Hyuuga. I'm the private investigator you hired."

"Nice to meet you Natsume, I'm Mikan Sakura," the girl smiled brightly.

"Okay then Sakura-" Natsume started.

"Mikan. Call me Mikan, not Sakura," the girl seemed to have a habit of not letting him finish what he wanted to say.

"Okay Mikan," he said hoping to get a full sentence in this time, "Let's get straight to the point, why did you hire me?"

Mikan then looked back at him and determination replaced her once smiling features.

"I want you to investigate my best friend," she said as firmly as possible.

"…" he raised an eyebrow. Your best friend…? His expression seemed to say. He had thought it would be something more…unusual.

"Yes," she nodded furiously, "My best friend Hotaru Imai. I think she's cheating on me."

His eyes widened in shock. This little girl in front of him was a le-les-lesbian? No fucking way.

"Ch-cheating on you?" he inquired.

Again she nodded furiously, "Yes, she never seems to want to talk to me anymore and even though she would hardly ever let me hug her before, it's gotten even worse now. I'm never allowed hug her!"

Mikan started sniffing before glancing around as if she was checking in case someone was watching. She leaned towards the table and in a hushed voice continued on, "And I'm pretty sure I saw her with this boy one time, a pretty one with blonde hair and blue eyes. Do you think they're dating? They can't be! What about me? She can't forget about me! I'm her best friend!"

The man knew it. His suspicions had been confirmed. The girl sitting in front of him was a loony. Just making sure she wasn't a lesbian either, though it really would explain why she did not seem to notice his stunningly good looks, he asked her, "Do you even know what cheating means?"

To this question, the girl in front of Natsume formed a smug look on her face and answered, "Of course I know what it means. Hotaru is being unfaithful to me by talking to this blonde haired, blue-eyed pretty boy. She's cheating on me."

Could this girl get anymore dumber? It was killing him. No one could ever be this stupid. He was on the verge of crying because of her stupidity, and well, that proved something. Natsume Hyuuga never cried. Never ever, no matter how much pain he was in, or how upset he was, or how sad the movie he was watching appeared to be, Natsume Hyuuga never let his mask of indifference wade. That was, until she came into his life.

Mikan Sakura was her name, and boy did she change him. He grew frustrated, and was not able to control his emotions properly. She was infuriating. Half the time all he wanted to do was pummel her.

Trying to control himself from doing just that, he looked up and a pained smile appeared on his face. 'Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, come on, happy thoughts!' he tried to picture pleasant, pleasing, thoughts, but the only one he could come up with was an image of him hitting her and throwing her repeatedly against the ground until she bled to death. Suddenly, his smile looked genuine.

"Okay, so you want me to investigate this Hotaru Imai person. Do you have any useful information on her? Like a picture? Where she lives? Where she works? That sort of thing?" he started to get more professional.

"Oh yes," the girl smiled brightly at him again, "I have her entire schedule and everything else you could possibly have on Hotaru. I would have spied on her myself, but the only problem is, I can't really do that since she's my manager. Also, since I see her all the time, I don't have any spare time to go spying on her by myself. That's why I'm hiring you."

Realising that this girl was a complete idiot and just wasting her money, Natsume decided to use her. He really needed money badly since he was almost broke, so she was a good way to provide a sufficient income for a while. Also, she did not seem to realise that she was being used.

Taking the files she had placed on the table he had a quick glance at it. Hotaru Imai, that name sounded familiar. Where had he heard it before? While he was looking through the files he came across a picture that caught his eye. It was his best friend, Ruka Nogi and the Imai, girl together.

Mikan Sakura seemed to notice him looking at the picture, "That's the pretty boy she's always with now. She hasn't told me much about him, except I think his name is bunny boy or something…I'm not sure, but she always calls him something like that."

Of course, he realised. Ruka had told him that he was going out with some girl called Hotaru, and boy was Ruka whipped. He was so lucky that his parents were famous and rich because if they weren't, than he would be broke by now, from all the items he had bought this girl called Hotaru.

He wondered what Ruka would say if he told him that he was investigating his girlfriend. He would probably try to beat the shit out of him. He chuckled at this thought.

"What's so funny?" Mikan asked him puzzled, "Is it because his name is bunny boy? That's not very nice you know, you shouldn't laugh at people names. It's mean."

~End Flashback~

He chuckled at the last thought. That was how this whole thing had begun. It had just started with a way to get money, but soon it had turned into something else.

Originally, when this investigation had begun, Natsume just looked into Hotaru's profile and had just given Mikan some useless facts about her to keep her satisfied. He then charged her great amounts of money. Even though he felt bad that he was pulling a scam, he knew that it would be alright since Mikan was from a wealthy family, just like Ruka. He knew that she could afford the prices he was charging her, and if she ever looked uncomfortable at the price he was giving, he knew immediately that he would lower the price down. Luckily he had never seen her look uncomfortable before.

Yet there was something strange about her, she kept on coming into his office every single day and always followed him around everywhere, even when he was on other cases. She would not leave him alone. She always talked about Hotaru, how she was always being ignored by her, and any other sorts of problems she had in her life. Eventually, Natsume became some sort of consultant for her.

One day he met her best friend, Hotaru Imai. She had arranged to meet him in private. He knew that the meeting would not go well, but he was proven wrong, the meeting seemed to flow in an alright direction…

~Flashback~ About 2 Months Ago.

"Hello I'm Hotaru Imai, but I suppose you already know that considering Mikan hired you to investigate me."

"Uh…yeah," he did not think that the day when he was intimidated by a girl would come, but it had. In fact it had come this very day, this very moment, this very minute, "By the way, I'm Natsume Hyuuga."

"Yes I know that. Now I have some rather important matters to discuss with you. For one, you are swindling my best friend, and secondly, you seem to be the best friend of my boyfriend. I do not think I would really want to date someone who is best friends with a swindler," she said threateningly.

He now knew that not only would his fate be determined by what he said next, but also Ruka's relationship. Though he really wanted to say, "Well I don't think he should be dating you either, because you seem like a mean calculating bitch," he knew that she meant well by approaching him, and besides, if Ruka found out that what he had said had cost him his relationship, then Natsume would most definitely not be in this world tomorrow.

"How exactly am I swindling Mikan?" he decided to try and play a game with her.

"You're giving her information which she already knows and has given to you in the first place. I looked into that file that Mikan gave you and the information you have been telling her, they are both exactly the same. You didn't even bother to try changing it a little bit."

Shit. He had forgotten that all the information he had given Mikan was from that file and not something he had investigated himself. He had hoped that Mikan would not notice, but he had forgotten about Imai. She would definitely notice.

"Don't think that it's just me who noticed, Mikan isn't as stupid as you seem to think she is. I honestly don't know why she is still hanging around you, she figured out that you were just using her ages ago. She even met Ruka when I introduced him as my boyfriend, yet I know you still haven't informed her about our relationship. This just proves how incompetent you are."

How would he get out of this one? He had no idea what to say. The only option left that he could think of was something extremely embarrassing, but it might just work. Knowing he had no choice he sighed and said, "Okay fine, you got me. But the only reason I'm doing this is because I really, really like Mikan. I don't know how else to get her to spend time with me. This was the only thing I could think of."

A knowing smirk formed on Hotaru's face, "I knew it all along. Well I don't mind, but perhaps you could charge her a little less. You know, she isn't as rich as you seem to make her out to be. Oh and maybe you could gather up the courage and just confess. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't mind…"

What? What was going on? Mikan wouldn't mind? What was this woman talking about? Didn't she know that he was just pretending? Though Hotaru Imai was meant to have one of the greatest minds alive, it appeared she did not know everything. Natsume grinned at Hotaru's retreating figure. He had just lied his way out of a sticky situation. Boy, was he good.

~End Flashback~

He realised that back then, not only had he had lied himself out of a tight squeeze, but he had managed to get permission to keep on seeing Mikan at the same time. At that thought he was relieved. Wait, why was he relieved about still being able to see Mikan? This was not good. What was happening? Though, that didn't matter anyway, because after some time, he had found out that Mikan was in trouble financially, it appeared that her father had run into a bit of trouble with the law and was now, still currently in serious debt. That incident was the last time Natsume ever saw Mikan.

~Flashback~ About 1 Month Ago

Natsume was reading the newspaper. He had not found anything interesting yet. There were just some articles and nonsense about shares and the recession. It was not like that was ever going to change, those type of articles had already been in the newspapers for ages now, and he was certain they would continue being included there in the near future.

As he was about to put the newspaper down, an article caught his eye. It was something about the Sakura family. He immediately thought of Mikan, and his curiosity was sparked. While reading it his facial expression turned from emotionless, to surprised, to angry. He quickly left his seat and rushed out the door. He started to head towards Mikan's house.

He knew where Mikan lived because she had once dragged Natsume all around on an outing, until it was nearly midnight. He then had to take her back to her house as it was so late and since it was rude to just leave a girl to find her own way home.

As he arrived there he saw her coming out her house. Quickly, he ran up to her and pinned her roughly against the door.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he growled, "Why didn't you tell me your family was in trouble? I could have helped."

Mikan quickly recovered from her shock of being thrown against the door and answered, "Because you're just an investigator I hired, nothing more, nothing less. There's no way that you could have helped."

"Just an investigator? You say that now but remember all those times when you said that I was your friend, that I meant something to you, you can't just deny that all of a sudden," he shot back angrily.

"But, you were the one who kept on saying that you weren't my friend, that you were just an investigator, you can't just suddenly change that," she argued back.

"Well," it took him a lot to say this, "I lied. You are my friend, Mikan, I do care about you. I care about what happens to you. I care about whether you're in trouble or not."

Mikan looked shocked at what he was saying, "Okay? Happy now? I lied. I told a big, fat, lie, and now I'm telling you the truth."

"But, but," Mikan tried to sort this out in her mind. He had lied? So he was a friend? He cared about her? Her heart started to race. "E-even so, it doesn't make a difference anymore."

Natsume looked at her confused. He had just admitted to her something he would not admit to just anyone. Hell, he had never even told Ruka that. And yet, that was all she said to him? Didn't what he said make any difference?

Mikan took a deep breath and tried to control her emotions, she tried to make her face as emotionless as she possibly could. It worked.

Looking back at Natsume with a blank face she said, "My family are sorting this out by ourselves, we don't need your help. I'm cancelling this investigation on Hotaru, it costs too much money and will just put my family further into debt. I'm sorry, but please understand. I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore. After all, you were just an investigator. Please just leave me alone from now on."

With that said she slithered out from underneath Natsume's grip, and walked off. He watched her go, speechless. He did not think she would ever say those words to him.

~End Flashback~

It had been quite a few weeks since he had last seen Mikan, but thinking back over the past few months, he realised he did not actually mind Mikan's company. What was he kidding himself for? He loved her company, without her, his mind had been in complete shambles.

It was then he finally understood. Mikan indeed was like a creature of some sort, but not an annoying bug. No, she was more like a loving, faithful dog who was always there for you, no matter what.

Oh boy, what was he thinking? He had been comparing Mikan to a dog. What was wrong with him?

What was wrong? Natsume knew what was wrong. He was in love. That was exactly what was wrong.

Finally, he realised how Ruka felt for Imai. No wait, he was certain that Ruka's love for Imai was nothing compared to how he felt for Mikan.

Shaking his head in apprehension, he grabbed his jacket that was hanging on the wall and closed the door behind him.

He then set off the find Mikan so he could tell her just how he truly felt.

The End

Okay. i hope you enjoyed the story. i got a little confused when proofreading it so it may not make a lot of sense, but it may have just been me and my lack of sleep...i'm really not sure. but if it doesnt make sense please tell me so i can attempt to fix it. also it may not be proof read very well due to the same reason as before...i apologise in advance.

Again, i should just say that this is an entry to the Natsumeseries Contest, and read the other entries to because they are all good. Too good, and to my dismay, they are a lot better than mine.

the-redmercedes

i proof read the story again from last time because it was pretty badly done, but you don't have to read it again, just thought i would tell you in case you got a bit annoyed. i hope it's a bit better now! but there aren't really any changes in wording, just stuff like full stops and commas where they are meant to be.

okay, bye again!

the red-mercedes