I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all
Even if saving you sends me to heaven

I had never been the type to socialize much. In fact I usually avoided company altogether. I could only stand family members for a certain amount of time to be honest. Not that I didn't care about them; it was definitely the opposite. I was just bad at making anything remotely resembling a conversation.

Not to mention my anti-social persona did not sit to well with the kids at my school. Apparently, it unnerved them enough for several fights to beak out, not that my father was suprised much. I could tell by the look on his face whe the school called him in to 'discuss my disruptive behavior' that he had seen it coming. I asked if he was mad and he just said

"It was going to happen sooner or later. I'm just glad you didn't break any of their bones" The fact he was more worried about the other kids rather than me didn't upset me in the slightest. I had been taking self-defence classes for 3 years at that point.

I met Ruka when I was about 7 years old. Over the years, the idiots at my school had learned that going after me was not going to bother me in the slightest. So hoping to keep their bones intact, they went after my sister.
Big no-no.

To say I was overprotective of Aoi was an understatement. Years later when Aoi was supposed to go on her first date, it wasn't our father who was reluctant to let her leave the house.
I took that job.

So it was during one of these fights to protect my sisters virtue (alright that might be going a bit far but I wasn't going to take my chances with those bastards), that I met Ruka.

He looked like a pansy, to be blunt. He was regular prince charming; with the blonde hair and blue eyes. That's what Aoi thought at the time anyway. I just though he looked like a pansy
Then he punched one of the bastards hard enough to send him flying into a nearby wall.

He informed me he had seen what had happened and didn't think it was fair for me to be fighting of such a large group by myself.
I told him to mind his own beeswax.
He said your welcome.

After that we were inseparable. This was something my father found hilarious. Apparently the fact I was actually taking to another humanoid life form instead of beating them up or screaming curses at them was something funny.

I asked him if he'd taken a time trip to his hippy days and gotten high on weed again.

He just laughed at me and tapped his nose that way people do when they say 'that's for me to know and you to find out' I've yet to find out if he had or not. We were pretty happy for a few years. By the time we were eight; two new additions to our little group came along.

Mikan and Hotaru both went to different schools than me and Ruka, so we didn't know much about them and only saw them on weekends or a few days after school.

Mikan was a cheery girl, who always wore pig-tails and polka-dotted underwear, earning her the nickname Polka dots. I know so because she was too clumsy to be considered simply accident prone. She was constantly tripping over thin air. And because she didn't seem to own a single pair of trousers her skirt always got flipped. I always had a small heart attack every time she tripped over her own feet, not that she ever knew that.

From what little she told us about her life at home we knew she was an orphan, at least she'd never known her parents. She lived with an old man she called grandpa. We never found out if he was her biological grandfater or not though.

Hotaru was Mikan's best friend, although at first we didn't believe it.
She was rather violent towards Mikan after all.

Not a single day went by that Hotaru didn't punch the poor girl in the face because she was 'too noisy' or for some other obscure reason. She was lazy, obsessed with money, and food. Seafood in particular. She was usually the brains behind several April fools day pranks we set off, so we nicknamed her Braniac. After a while we did realize that the only person she even showed a hint of a smile to was mikan. So we finally believed the brunnete whe she said they were best friends. Though she was still the living embodiment of greed, gluttony, and sloth.

When we were nine we all seemed to develop certain… abilities.

Aoi and I were having an argument over whose turn to it was to wash the dog when her hair suddenly lit up in flame. As much as I tried the blazing halo atop her head refused to be put out. I began to panic and picked up the phone to call our fathers office only for it to melt in my hands, which were also set aflame.

Thankfully the old man came home to get some lunch at that moment. Once he'd calmed us down he explained the whole concept of Alices to us.

Over the course of time we realized we all had these little gifts be it ruka's penchant for talking with animals or hotarus knack for inventions. Mikan was always a little bit envious of us since her own particular gift was rather unremarkable, or it seemed that way at the time. Whenever she was around we couldn't get our Alices to work. No matter how hard we tried. I couldn't burn her hair; hotaru didn't understand anything to do with robotics at all and ruka actually reppeled animals - depending on her mood. If she was in a good mood. Everything was fine, they just didn't affect her, but a bad mood just made them null and void.

For a while we had a lot of fun using these abilities in our little pranks, but too much of a good thing can come back to bite you in the ass. As the years passed, I started having a harder time running and began to tire quickly. This soon developed into a sharp pain somewhere between my stomach and my lungs whenever I strained myself. Usually when I tried to use my Alice.

I quickly realized that my health problems stemmed my pyrotechnic abilities and made sure to hide the fact that my own Alice was slowly killing me from the others.
Or I thought I did.

We were camping when it happened. At 10 years old we'd managed to convince our respective parents/guardians that we were old enough to camp out for a night in the woods nearby our village.

I was getting the campfire started, ater all you can go camping without roasting some marsmallows can you?
It took several tries to get the fire going. The wood was still slightly damp from the rain the day before, and I'd been having trouble lately with my own particular ability.

On the third try I succeded in starting the fire.
I also coughed up a small amount of blood. This would be the first of many similar incidents.

Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you looked at it, Mikan came back with some more fire wood at that precise moment. She instantly dropped the hunks of dead wood and rushed to where I was hunched over.

"Natsume!" she yelled, I swear she could have made a deaf person hear.
"Shut up Polka, I'm fine."

"You're not! You're not even close to fine! It's your Alice isn't it?!"


I'd never expected to hear that from her.
Mikan couldn't revise the 6 times table without having to stop and think or count her fingers. And even then she didn't always get it right. The girl was an idiot. So having polka-dots practically scream the cause of my 'illness' at me was, to say the least, suprising.

"I though you were just getting unfit… getting overweight or something… but you started have trouble getting your Alice to work and I began to wonder. You were really good at hiding it, I don't think the others noticed but I could see pain on your face every time you used it… then I remembered what your dad told us about Alice shapes… and for a moment I though 'natsume has the fourth one…' but I didn't want to believe it…. So I just pretended you were getting lazy… but now…"

After that little speech it occurred to me just how observant mikan was. Usually, she was an idiot. I'd seen her test papers and I knew that she was no genius. But here she was. Spelling out my (failed) attempt to hide my health problems in black and white for me. It suddenly dawned on me that all of her smiles and her laughter were largely for our benefit.

She was someone who was incredibly sensitive to other people and their needs. I also realized that she had always managed to dissolve any feeling of sadness, anxiety, anger… anything.

When I was feeling a bit down on the anniversary of my mother's death, she dragged me to her grave and introduced herself as one of my freinds then proceded to do what she'd allways done. Trip over nothing and scream curses at me whn I commented on her choice of underwear. We ended up playing tag in a graveyard. I completely forgot about feeling sad at all.

They were various other instances of such empathy I realized with the others. She completely erased Hotaru's anxiety surrounding an exam for a private school. And when ruka lashed out at everyone during his parents divorce she slapped him (pretty hard too since he fell on his ass rather forcefully. Mikan was anything but a weakling) full in the face and told him to stop being a jerk and stop petending. If wanted to cry then he should just cry. We would wait a couple of weeks before taking the mick out of him.

I realized that mikan had gradually become the emotional core to our little 4 man squad. We all turned to her subconsciously whenever something became tooo much too handle. Rukas little crush was painfully obvious, even if she couldn't see it. Hotaru was her best friend, even if she was constantly pummelled her for her inhuman noise levels.

And me? Well for the longest time I had probably been the male best friend. The one who contantly teased her; who drove her to the edges of insanity for fun. We had often even been rivals since no matter how hard I tried, I could never manage to burn her hair (I had never taken well to that) and she was jealous of my Alice. Her own wasn't considered useful until years later.

However upon realizing just how selfless she was, I realized two other things.

Firstly; Mikan Sakura would probably be a complete stranger to us if looked past her sunny smiles.

I knew hardly anything about her life without me or ruka. I doubted whether hotaru knew much more. She had once mentioned she had only seen her grandfather when he came to pick Mikan up from school. When she got into that private school she didn't even see him then. She didn't even know where mikan lived.

I had asked her about it once but she had completely ignored me, instead running off to a crepe stand. She'd had a sudden craving for the Choco-nana flavour. In hindsight, she had effectively and inconspicuously changed the subject.

And the second thing?
I was completely and irrevocably in love with her. Skeletons included.

Getting back to the camping incident, I was slightly dazed. I was 10 years old and I was in love. Most of the time I had to beat the fan girls off with a wooden bat (why oh why did I have to take after my mother?) but here I was. In love with the empathic screeching idiotic mystery, that was Mikan Sakura. Therefore, it took me a while to realize she was crying.

"Why? Why did you try to hide it?! Why did you keep using your Alice?! You knew about this, right. Then why were you making yourself ill enough to cough blood? To keep us from worrying?! Wouldn't that be better than holding your funeral…?"

She sobbed harder. Apparently, she had been holding back. I was shocked. Even so, I pulled her in an awkward hug, which only caused her to cry even more. She clung to the front of my t-shirt hard enough to turn our knuckles white.

"You can't… you have to stop using it… I don't want you to dissapear…"

She sounded desperate. As if using my Alice again today would put me in my grave tomorrow. I knew that this was a special moment. It was as if Mikan was opening up to someone enough to let whatever she was hiding from us show through. So instead of answering with my mouth I pulled her closer, reassuring her. Had I spoken instead, I would not have heard her almost inaudible whisper;

"I can't watch someone else dissapear… Not again…"

For an instant her hand gave off a bluish white glow, different to when she used her nullifying Alice as we called it, it was slightly darker. It could have been a trick of the light, but I was certain I saw a flash of red in her hand befor it was burried into my shirt closer than before. I put it down to imagination since she was almist chocking on her own tears. I just pulled her closer in an attemt to both calm and reassure her.

After she had calmed down, she scolded me for hiding the problems my Alice was causing me, but it seemed she somewhat understood why I was keeping quiet. Most likely because of her own skeletons. Either way she kept quiet when the others came back.

Hotaru immediately noticed something was not right, she gave a glare that literally sent shivers of fear down my spine. However, she said nothing. Ruka seemed to pick up a strange atmosphere but brushed it off as the weather.

The rest of the night was spent in fits of laughter as we pulled of yet another of our pranks, something we had come to be artists in over time. We were nefarious for them. For some reason our parents (or grandpa) could not be more proud. After the pranks had ended, we ate roast potaoes made in the fire and coated then in an unhealthy amount of butter, and a slightly less dangerous amount of salt. No cheese. No other toppings. It would have ruined the simplicity of the whole camping experience. After that were the marshmallows and ghost stories.

Mikan enjoyed the marsmallows, but not so much the ghost stories. The poor girl was petrified.

The next day my father came to help us pack up the tents. As soon as ruka and hotaru were out of earshot mikan beat me into telling him what happened with my Alice (That girl is by no means a weakling. Her punches HURT when she means them). He said nothing for several minuets before telling me to avoid using it, and telling me I would be going to the doctors.

We went back to my hose where the others would be picked up by their own parent; however, mikan did not join us. She told us her grandpa wasn't up to the journey due to a cold; she would be going back herself. Hotaru said she would have her mother drop her off for a fee of £5 but she declined.

After theyd all gone home a got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I do not know how I knew but at that point I new that things were about to turn sour. I was right.

For two months we bareley saw Hotaru. When we did she lacked the harsh, cold demeanor that usually accompanied her. Instead, she looked worried. Not only that she looked angry. There were no problems in her life as far as I knew, and I knew more about her than I did the brunette. And since the only person Hotaru showed any form of care about was Mikan... I instantly knew.

Whatever skeletons Mikan had been hiding had caught up with her. Hotaru looked at my eyes once, saw the realization and gave a slight nod.

"It's Mikan's grandpa," she told Ruka and I.
"He's in the hospital. I do not know what for but mikan said he had been sick for a while, she didn't realize how bad it was though. It's a form of blood poisoning, it's curable but… it's expensive"

I knew there was more to this than what she was telling us so I glared at her. Apparently, ruka also noticed this because for the first time since we'd met the two girls...
Ruka yelled at Hotaru Imai.

"Hotaru tell us what the fuck is happening to Mikan! There is more to this and you know it! What the hell is happening to her?!"

He also swore for the first time in the presence of a girl. No, make that the first time in general.

Hotaru looked shocked for a moment before she crashed into my blonde haired friend. She was not crying. Hotaru never cried. However, she was shaking. It was about as close as she was going to get.

"She told me… they're on the run from some school for people like us… who can do things. They have a tracking system… And if you are on it, they come after you. That's why she never told us about her life or take us back to her place… She didn't want them coming after us either. Nevertheless, they've found her now… and they're saying they will pay for her grandpa's medical expenses if she goes to this place… Her grandpa keeps telling her not to listen to them and to make a run for it… But I don't think she's going to listen…"

Hotaru wouldn't let us visit Mikan at the hospital where her grandfather was being treated. And for two weeks, we resisted the urge. But once again, I got that bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Ruka quickly agreed when asked if he though it a good idea to go peek, just to make sure she was all right.

When we got to the hospital room... there was nothing. No sign of Mikan. Just the old man hooked up to all sorts of machines. I didn't have to hear his words to know that we were too late.

"You just missed her."

I rushed to the window and looked down to the street below we weren't that high up so I could see her pigtails clear enough. She was getting g into a black car one of those big ones that aren't quite a jeep or a land rover but not quite a station wagon either. The ones they but government office members in when they travel to big events like peace talks. The once that were reinforced and had those black tinted windows.

Beside her, a head of black hair was following her into the back of the car. Nearby I could see hotarus parents. Her mother was almost inconsolable. I took small comfort in the fact that Mikan was not going to be all alone in this new school. However, that's all it was. Small.

"MIKAAAN!" I yelled. I remember almost breaking my vocal chords doing it.

She looked up and saw us half hanging out of the window. Ruka had joined me and was screaming after both of them. She gave a sad little smile and yelled up to take care of ourselves before getting into the car. Hotaru began to yell something to ruka. I don't know what though since I was trying to get out of the hospital to the car before it left.

As I emerged on the street, I was frantic. Was I too late? Had they left already? I looked around and finally caught sight of the car. Either Hotaru had had a lot to say to ruka or ruka had somehow managed to delay her. Either way I made a mental note to thank the gods later on.

"MIKAN! HOTARU! MIKAAAN!"

As the car pulled out onto the road I saw them turn around once. I too far enough to be able to tell, but from the way hotaru put her arm around her friend as they turned away…

I knew Mikan was crying again.

I watched the car drive away and I came to a decision. I was going to follow them. Whatever it took. I looked up at ruka. He was close enough for me to see the determination on his face.

He would follow me.

It had taken three years but we had finally done it. We had been found by the government scouts and were on our way to Alice academy. It hadn't been easy. Ever since that day when Mikan had confronted me about my Alice, it hadn't been as strong as before.

Thinking back, I had my suspicions that Mikan had done something to make it less powerful. That was the only explanation I had. Nevertheless, although it had weakened it was still just as wild and untameable. Though it was slow, it was ever so slowly getting stronger.

Several times, I found myself almost loosing control over it, something that took a heavy toll on my body. As such, Ruka now knew about my Alice being fourth shape.
For two weeks, he had refused to talked to me.
Punishment for not telling him about it in the first place, I suppose.

At first, we had no idea how to attract the government scouts.
Going to the school directly was out of the question since we did not even know where it was. My guess was Tokyo but that is all it was.
A guess.

Neither Mikan nor Hotaru had given any indication as to where they were going and neither had they sent any letters so we had no return address to use as an indication either. Eventually we settled for using our 'gifts' as much as possible. Well Ruka did. I was prohibited from using my own unless it was necessary.

About two weeks before the scouts came knocking on our doors we got into yet another fight. It began when someone made some unsavoury comments about our two friends. We both lost our tempers. Ruka actually managed to call a wildcat out of the forest where we had gone camping that time. I ended up taking my anger out on a series of trashcans. I don't think anyone has insulted either of them since.

Whatever happened must have done the trick (maybe it tricked a monitor into life somewhere), because two weeks later we were both sitting in the back of a car identical to the one that had taken Mikan and Hotaru away.

Apparently, my guess had been right as after 5 hours we fund ourselves being driven through the streets of Tokyo. Had this been any other situation we would have been overwhelmed by the scale of the buildings and the bright lights. Tokyo was very different to our backcountry village.

It took about 3 hours for arrive at the golden gates that marked the entrance to what we now knew was Alice research facility. Home of Alice Academy. That is how bad the traffic was. The gates opened and we soon found ourselves being driven to the facility headquarters to be registered as official students in the middle school branch.

An insane blonde man wearing what appeared to be a frilly, pale yellow cat-suit greeted us. I think both of us made mental notes to stay away from the gay-looking man. Narumi (that was his name, though we would never use it) briefly explained how the star ranking worked, how the classes were divided and the Alice type classes.

Much to Ruka's dismay, he found that the slightly frightening man was one of the lecturers for the somatic types (his type). I breathed a sigh of relief that I would not have to put up with his insanity for anything other than registration (yes, the infuriating man was in charge of making sure we bothered to turn up for school every day). He handed us two sets of uniforms and said he would come to pick us up from the dormitories at 8:30, and not to be late waking up.

As we got back into the car that would take us to the dormitories, I saw a man dressed completely in black leather with black spiky hair and a white mask. Just the look of him was enough to make me wary of him. Unfortunately, as I would later learn, he would be a source of constant worry and pain for all of us.

Upon arriving at the dormitories, we were taken to our rooms by some sort of robot. It was carrying a little girl who couldn't have been older than five. I had though that only kids our age, maybe a couple of years younger, lived here. We were ten when the girls had been taken making them about nine since they were a year younger… apparently anyone old enough to use their Alice was sought out and brought to this school.

My room was on a floor above Ruka's. We had been told about the star ranking and given own. Ruka got three and I got a special. We were both intelligent, more so than most. However, the difference lay in our Alices. Ruka's was not as strong as mine was. He was the type who always had access to his Alice but on a relatively low power level.
Though he was better at controlling his than I was, mine was stronger - despite being suppressed or sucked out or suppress or whatever Mikan had done to it. However, now it was about a quarter of the way back to its original strength

I dumped the uniforms next to my suitcases that had apparently been brought ahead whilst we were being attacked by Barbie (that would be the gay looking man's nickname from now on) earlier. I collapsed onto my bed and slept, dreaming of that camping trip that seemed to be in a different world.

The next morning we received some looks in the breakfast hall. There weren't that many students in the middle school branch. It made me wonder how many students were in the elementary and high school branches. I looked around the hall for any sign of Mikan or Hotaru but to no avail. Ruka seemed to have the same luck by the downtrodden look that graced his features.

We weren't kept waiting. Barbie turned up at exactly 8:30 to take us to the school building to have us get our clas schedules and other official mumbo jumbo. That took half an hour. The bell rang as soon as we finished filling out the last of the forms and Barbie ushered us away to our new clasroom. Upon entering, my jaw dropped. Something that had not happened since Mikan had been around. Drawings were chasing each other across the walls. One kid was fling around stealing peoples notebooks. A blue haired girl was mixing up some volatile looking chemicals…

It was chaos. It was a zoo. I could tell this class overflowwed with pranksters. I allowed myself a small smirk. Ruka and I were going to fit right in. Upon sight of Barbie however, the rambunctious attitude dissapered and the students were seated at their desks in less than a minuet.

"Alright class we have two new students us joining us today. I'll let them introduce themselves before assigning partners and doing role call. After that I'll be leaving you to the substitute" he smiled at the man with glasses tied to the chair behind the teacher's desk. The man had an apple in his mouth.
I was not surprised by the man's misfortune, but that Barbie didn't seem to care.
At all.

"Ruka Nogi. I have the animal pheromone Alice, and I'm a three star. Nice to meet you" he introduced himself, revealed his Alice and star ranking as Barbie had instructed us before entering the classroom. I could see that half the girls were already enraptured by his appearance.

"Natsume Huuga. Fire Alice, Special star."

I did not bother with pleasantries.
Right now, I was more interested in finding Mikan and hotaru. However if I was honest, it was Mikan I really wanted to see. She had always been cute as a kid. Shed even had her own small fan club (Hotaru had not missed out on one either). But I really wanted to see what she looked like now that we had grown up a bit.

"Alright your seats are second from the back on the right hand side. Your partners would normally be behind you, but they are late as usual. You'll meet them in about ten minuets or so."

We made our way to the seats that had been pointed out to us. Meanwhile, Barbie jabbered to the other students about a change in the class tutors for the technical types.

"Now for those of you who were working with Jinno-sensei for the- Ah! You decided to show up after all! Hurry to your seat, you have a new partner-"

He was cut of when the black haired girl fired a gun that some sort of air bullet at him, causing to land rather unceremoniously on his backside.

"Shut up Naru-Gay." she said in a fammiliar emotionless voice "you know we don't want…" she trailed off whe she caught sight of us. We had sat on the back of the bench to get a better view. There was no mistaking the raven hair or amethyst eyes.

"Long time no see Hotaru!" Ruka waved enthusiastically at the stunned girl I setteled for something less embarrassing.
"Hi."

It took about 8 seconds for reality for to dawn on her before she subjected us to the wrath of the air gun. I managed to doge the air bullets but Ruka want so lucky. He received three of them on his jaw.

"Ow! That hurt! What was that for?!" he asked, rubbing his jaw where the bullets hit.

"For being idiots and letting yourselves get caught!" she yelled at him strapping the air gun to holster peeking out from her blue tartan skirt.

"What kind of welcome is that Braniac?! We've missed you y'know! We wouldn't have come if we had known this would happen. Right Natsume?" he used one of the nicknames we had given her.

"Hn" I decided just to agree with ruka. It would probably be easier if I did not say anything for the moment.

Hotaru looked like she was about to get her air gun out again but a miniscule smile crept onto her face. No one else would have noticed it, but we could see it.

"Fine. I guess I can be a litlle nicer considering you've came this entire way bunny boy" she walked up and hugged my blonde friend.
"It's good to see you too Hotaru" he release her and she turned to me and repeated the gesture
"Nice to see you Huuga, you still a manga freak?" she asked
"I guess. Good to see you again Braniac" I replied, using her old nickname again. Her smile olny lasted a few more moments before she regained her composure and looked at us rather sternly.

"You two really are idiots. You have no idea what you've done by coming here..." she said, in a voice little more than a whisper. I looked at her in confusion as she sat down on the bench behind Ruka. At the time, I did not understand what she meant. But it wouldn't take long for Ruka and I to drop the rose coloured glasses that had been glued to our faces.

As the techers came and went, teaching their respective subjects, I could hear the other students gossiping. How did we know hotaru? Did that mean we knew Mikan as well? One girl told her to be quiet, to stop gossiping. If we were friends of Mikan then it would be best not to gossip. 'You know what'll happen if you get on her bad side'

Hotaru's name invoked only slightly less fear. Those who were not wondering if we knew Mikan too were in awe of us. I could hear them muttering about hotarus earlier display of affection. Apperently the only people she would talk to voluntarily was Mikan. And I could guess how much emotion she showed to the brunette.

One boy, a mind reader, began babbling about us being childhood friends and all the pranks. I set his hair on fire before he got to the bits concerning the camping trip.

From what I had gathered, the two girls did not have the best of reputations; particularly Mikan. I had learned during the days before i met Ruka that you needed a certain reputation if you wanted to survive. The more volatile you were, the less likely people would bother you. I was beginning to understand that our two friends had enough problems to worry about, and keeping up a reputation was not something they were doing for fun.

Hotaru watched as Koko's (name of the mind reading boy) hair turned to cinders, though I made care not to burn his scalp. I turned my head slightly to glace at her and she nodded in approval.

She did not turn up untill the half way through our maths lesson. Jinno was going over some sort of formula the other students were finding particularly irksome. She didn't bother apologizing for showing up late. As far I could tell, she kicked the door open. Not that I recognized her at first. The black mask emblazoned with a red butterfly design made that impossible.

"Shes back…"
"She's wearing the mask…"
"She seems pissed…"
"I heard she tried to escape again, stole a bunch of files too."
"Shh! don't let her hear you!"

"You're late Mikan." Hotaru said in a tone that suggested this was a regular occurrence. It was at this point I realized who she was. I think that was one of the few times my mouth actually dropped for one reason or another. I could see Ruka reacting in a similar manner.

She was completely different from the girl we had known 3 years ago. If she had noticed our presence, she completely ignored it - instead turning to the copy of Lala that she pulled from her desk. Apparently, my obsession with Manga still rubbed off on her.

"Mikan." From the mention of her name, she looked up and glanced at Ruka and then me before mumbling something to Hotaru and reading her Manga again.

"I don't know, apparently they followed us." Mikan was about to answer her when Barbie interrupted her.

"Mikan, you're wanted in the hall" had I not been straining my ears I would not have heard him. Mikan's mood seemed to worsen. Hotaru's cold look seemed to become a sub-zero one.

Mikan walked out of the room again. She was absent for several minuets, during which we heard a slapping sound before she re-entered without her mask. As she walked back to her seat, I could see a red hand mark on her cheek, healing itself at an accelerated rate.

I wasn't the only one staring. I could see that manny of the other boys in the class were stealing glances at her every now and again. Even if she scared them shitless, she was still a good-looking girl. The combination of a bad attitude and good looks was enough to entrance most of the class. The only boys who didn't seem to be interested were the boy who had been reading my mind, a boy who'd been flying around earlier and a boy with glasses.

As I made this obsevation I also found myself with another question; why did Mikan have such a bad attitude? What had happened to her? Was she even still Mikan? All right, it was more like three or five questions but that wasn't important.

At that moment, I made the decision to bring Mikan back. I did not know who, where, or what I was going to bring her back from, I just knew that I was going to make her smile again.

Alright, theres the first chapter. i decided to replace for those special peopl with this story since i had absoloutley no idea what to do with it after the first chapter was published. I might turn it into a one-shot and put it back up but im not going to continue it. Sorry! i have absoloutley no idea what to do with it. I have every chapter for this story planned. I even have most of the chapter endings done. i just have to do the beginning in the middle. the point here is i actually know where the story is going, so it will be easier to turn out a good quality story. All the chapters have a quote from the song that gave me the idea for the chapter, or fit to the plot. This Chapter has... (drumroll please!)......

Your Guarian Angel,
By the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.

It's one of the saddest songs ive heard, but its got an amazing sound. Its slow, but its got that angsty-optimism thing going on at the same time. Not to mention the music is amazing. i love how the guitars sound. theyre not electric (i think... it might be a bass guitar for all i know.) but the sound they produce is amazing. I didnt pick the song to be played with the chapter, but as stated, the quote was chosen to fit with the chapter in some way (if you can guess what it is i'll give you a blueberry muffin. theyre yummy...), so you can play it in the background if you want. bUt it is by no way essential.

Now that my music fangiris finished ranting, in later chapters this is going to be really angsty. likereally angsty. I love angst! half the reason i wrote this is because i wanted to do some really good angst. I'm less than impressed with my other attempts personally, so this is my latest shot at it. As such i dont know wheter to leave this as a T (since i dont have the guts to put a lemon in this. im trying, but i get halfway through and my imagination dies on me) or move it up to an M. this is the worst angst ive done so far, but im not sure if its enough to merit a Mature rating. As such im asking anyone who reads this to give me their opinio as the story goes on.

Thanks fo listening to my ranting.
Rate and reveiw mis amigos! (is that spelled right?)

Natarii
xxx

Next Time: Blue Bird

"Bring the black haired one with you."
I realized why he seemed so smug then, and began to form excuses, possible bargins and threats in my head. Anything to keep him away from Natsume.

There was a quiet pause for several moments before a girl with the mind manipulation Alice broke it.
"How big a stick did he shove up his ass today?"

"You forgot about Breaking three ribs and a laceration to one of your main arteries? I'm intrigued as to how you accomplished this..."

"Which of the new boys is your boyfreind?"

"Because the academy is not above using underhanded methods to get you to co-operate with them! I've been running from the academy my entire life Natsume! Do you think I'd just come here knowing what would happen to me if they hadn't resorted to dirty tactics?!"

I could tell I had crushed some part of him just by the sound of his footsteps on the carpet. They were slightly off. Natsume's footsteps were never 'slightly off'

He was halfway through the door when I heard it.
"Night... Polka-Dots." I didn't hear the click of the door closing.
I let myself crumple to the cold tiles of my kitchen area.