Title: Monday
Author: Akaru-chan
Fandom: Gakuen Alice
Pairing: Natsume x Mikan
Genre: Romance/Drama
Rating: T
Summary: After five years of disastrous match-making plans and unsuccessful forged love letters to his kohai Mikan; Tsubasa was determined to get Natsume to confess – even if it meant risking his hair getting set on fire by the most baleful, broody boy in the school.

Part One

MONDAY – Natsume
In all honesty, Hyuuga Natsume was hardly the type of person who troubled himself with matters of the heart.

If truth to be told, anything partially associated with sappy, sentimental, over-romantic affection-orientated emotions was something that was completely alien to him.

Natsume wouldn't know what love was until it clobbered him in the face, cuffed him twice around the head and whacked him with a stick – though not necessarily in that respective order.

Coincidently, that was exactly what it took to make Natsume come to his senses, courtesy of Andou Tsubasa – Sakura Mikan's self-appointed and mutually accepted sempai.

"How long is it going to take you?" Tsubasa had all but screeched whist delivering another slap to Natsume's reddened cheeks while the smaller boy unsuccessfully tried glaring him down.

"You like her. You might as well get it done and over with!" Tsubasa snapped at the aggravated teenager.

To Natsume's horror and indignity, his possibly best (and most faithful) friend, Ruka nodded his obscure agreement, cowering behind Tsubasa whilst looking visibly torn between two loyalties.

"You," ordered Tsubasa, his eyes glinting fanatically with an almost maniacal grin on his face: the inevitable symptoms after five years, five months, two weeks and two days of pent up frustration and unsuccessful match-making plans. "Are going to tell her."

Had Natsume not been immobilized with Tsubasa's shadow-alice and his alice invalidated by Hotaru's latest nullifying contraption – and Natsume didn't put it past Imai to design it to remain fire-resistant – the entire school would have had disintegrated into a crisp five minutes ago.

"Hell no." Natsume snapped back. He still had his dignity to maintain: as much as what remained of it, at the very least.

Hotaru rolled her eyes and flicked through the action comic that Natsume had been reading – before he was ambushed by a rag-tag band of undergraduate students.

"Well, Mikan likes you," she told him monotonously, skimming indolently through the fourth chapter as she leaned against the trunk of the tree. "And I was wondering if you'd have the next few volumes of this."

"I'd be wanting that back," Natsume growled, staring daggers at her. He was rather fond of that series.

"Well, I wouldn't know," Hotaru brushed off casually. "I find this rather interesting."

"It cost me twenty rabbits for that," Natsume snarled. Not that he couldn't afford it.

"All the more reason for me to keep it."

"You can't be serious," Yuu protested – perhaps the only one who still kept the purpose of this surprise assault. "I did not come all this way risking getting burnt alive – "

"Oh, don't worry. You will be." Natsume assured tetchily, still irritated about being outsmarted.

" – to listen to a book club."

"You know what it's like watching the two most thick-headed idiots trying to figure out their feelings for a damning five and a half years?" Tsubasa flapped his arms agitatedly in the air as if to emphasis his point; dangerously close to whacking Ruka on the head. "Just get the bloody thing done and over with and save us the damn sexual tension."

Ruka choked mutely behind the older sempai. Yuu sympathetically thumped him on the back.

"Why would I like that hag?" Natsume spat, his hackles bristling.

"It's written all over your face, idiot." snapped Hotaru.

Natsume scowled and clenched his fists.

"What do you want?" he asked gruffly, looking away.

"Mikan likes you." Ruka said softly, unwilling to meet his eyes.

"So?"

"You like her."

Natsume jerked his head back up.

"I do not." he denied vehemently.

"You do." insisted Tsubasa, nodding his head vigorously.

"I don't." Natsume refuted.

"Here we go again," sighed Yuu, burying his head in his hands.

"You do." Tsubasa confirmed.

"I don't."

"You do."

"I don't."

"You do."

"I don't."

"You do."

"I don't."

"You – "

"Hyuuga." Hotaru growled brusquely, abruptly interrupting their bickering.

All four pairs of eyes turned to the girl.

Hotaru snapped the book shut, her solemn, violet eyes trained on the aforementioned boy.

Natsume eyed her skeptically. "What?"

"You like her." she declared with an air of finality.

This time, it was Natsume's turn to growl.

"Get lost."

Tsubasa smirked. "Not a chance."

And that was where all of Natsume's problems began.

TUESDAY – Tsubasa
Andou Tsubasa was admittedly not the sharpest crayon in the box. However, he was undeniably the most stubborn.

As a self-declared brotherly figure to his kohai 'Mikan-chan', Tsubasa was determined to see her happy, even if it meant persuading the most baleful, broody boy in the school to achieve the impossible.

So that was how he found himself spending his two-hour lunch period looking for the said boy.

After circling the school block twice and spending a further three minutes interrogating a reluctant Ruka for Hyuuga's whereabouts, Tsubasa found the boy sitting alone under a sakura tree behind the janitor's shed, his nose buried inside a book. Upon closer inspection, Tsubasa noticed that he was reading a different comic, since Hotaru refused to return his yesterday.

"Hyuuga."

Natsume glanced up, his eyes narrowing coldly when he saw who it was. He evidently hadn't forgotten what had happened yesterday.

"Andou." he acknowledged tersely, hardly in the mood to act civil.

Tsubasa sat down on the grass, circumspectly keeping in mind to keep a few feet between the two of them.

Natsume glared at him irritably. "What do you want?"

"Nothing." Tsubasa half-lied, self-consciously tugging his beanie lower out of habit.

Natsume raised an eyebrow but returned to his comic book without complaint.

Tsubasa busied himself by fiddling with blades of grass, futilely waiting for the other to say something.

Maybe I should say something, Tsubasa thought to himself, trying not to look as if he was staring at Natsume, feeling somewhat awkward in the tense silence.

"The weather is pretty good today." Tsubasa blurted out before he could stop himself. He mentally berated himself for such a pathetic topic to start with. Misaki told him time and time again that he was a terrible socialite among many other things.

"Hn." grunted Natsume apathetically after a moment's pause.

Tsubasa felt somewhat disappointed at the lack of response. Perhaps Natsume was the type who remained oblivious unless something was shoved into his face, Tsubasa wondered. If he wanted to get to the point any time soon, he decided to himself, he might as well be blunt about it.

"You should tell her," he drawled.

Natsume didn't miss a beat. "No."

"Well, if you won't, we will." Tsubasa felt rather ashamed that he had to resort to blackmail.

"What does this have to do with you?" Natsume growled.

"Mikan likes you." Tsubasa stated like a matter-of-a-fact, completely unperturbed that the temperature had suddenly dropped ten degrees.

"Well Mikan likes you too." Natsume snapped back.

"You're sixteen." Tsubasa reminded, entertaining himself by pulling up another handful of the lawn.

"Well, will you have a look at that," Natsume bit back shortly. "I guess I am."

"You'll have nothing to lose."

A vein throbbed somewhere near Natsume's temple.

Tsubasa smirked, rubbing the control device tattooed on his cheek. "What's wrong? Scared?"

Natsume's glare amplified tenfold if possible.

"Scared of being rejected?" Tsubasa guffawed.

Natsume scowled, studying the page although not really reading. "Of course not."

Tsubasa smirked back. "Then what are you waiting for?"

"I'm not waiting. I don't even like her."

Tsubasa arched an eyebrow sardonically. "Then who was that who put the ribbon in her bag on White's Day last year? And the year before that?"

"I don't know."

"And the chocolates? The howalon she found in front of her door on her birthday? The money that mysteriously turned up in her bank account by an anonymous donor after she had spent all her rabbits on Hotaru's surprise birthday party?"

Natsume shrugged noncommittally.

"You gave her nine hundred rabbits, Hyuuga. That's one and a half years of allowance, even for a two-star like her. Who else would have had that much money to spare?" Tsubasa demanded. "You like her,"

"I don't." repeated Natsume, his eye twitching in thinly veiled irritation.

"And you're just too scared to tell her." sneered the older boy.

Natsume clenched his fist. His book was already lying abandoned on the grass, long since forgotten.

"You're really just a stuck-up, spoilt, cowardly bastard with the backbone of a worm."

"What the hell would you know?" Natsume spat back with a glare that would have had sent grown men running.

"And you know what else?" continued Tsubasa, either blissfully oblivious or unwisely unconcerned about the warning signals radiating dangerously off the younger boy.

"You're never going to get Mikan because you don't deserve her. You're going to live the rest of your life alone, wondering why you didn't tell her while you had the chance because you were just too scared and thick-headed when you were sixteen and still had time. And you want to know what else I think?"

Natsume didn't bother giving a reply.

"I think that you're a complete – "

Natsume never got to hear what else Tsubasa thought of him, and Tsubasa never got the chance to finish the sentence; because the next thing Tsubasa knew, his hair was on fire.

WEDNESDAY – Koko
Unlike Mikan, Kokoro Yome never prided himself in having any other alice apart from mind reading.

But as he stepped into the classroom that morning for his first class, he instinctively knew that a Very Bad Thing™ was going to happen.

Koko wasn't gifted with a sixth-sense nor a divination-alice like Ontonashi-san – not that he wanted to be; it was bad enough to listen to Jinno-sensei's inappropriate thoughts about last night's intimate fraternizations with 3A's English teacher – but Koko's intuition was telling him to run back out the way he came in if he wanted to make his way through the day with all four limbs intact.

Koko cautiously looked around as he uneasily made his way to his bench and gingerly sat down, almost expecting his table to spontaneously combust and explode in front of him.

Koko took a wary look around the classroom out of the corner of his eyes.

Typically, there was a gentle buzz of wayward thoughts that ranged from the new sale in the boutique store down at Central Town – most likely from Sumire, Koko assumed – to the answer of question three on the maths quiz from last week.

As usual, Natsume was sitting in the back row, staring out the window and feet propped up on the table, with Ruka perched on the bench next to him, his white rabbit curled on his lap.

Hotaru and Yuu were sitting in the second row, the former engrossed with a new version of a silicon chip and the latter pouring over a history textbook. Anna and Nonoko were having a heated discussion with Sumire near the back, and Mikan's seat was empty and would remain so until she would turn up precisely three minutes and forty-six seconds before the teacher came in.

There was nothing out of place, Koko thought, frowning to himself. Diagnosing himself as paranoid, Koko finally pulled his pencil case out of his bag.

And that was when Mikan stormed into the classroom.

The first coherent thought that emerged out of Koko's head was the surprise that she was early. With a glance at the clock that hung above the chalkboard, Koko calculated that Mikan was approximately four and a half minutes earlier than usual.

And then Koko detected the more important concern that everyone else had already noticed.

Gone was the perpetually cheerful smile and jovial twinkle in her eye that was essentially Mikan's,and in its stead was a furious scowl that made Koko wish that he really didn't get out of bed that morning.

The entire class fell silent as the faithfully optimistic girl all but stomped up to the back row and slammed her fists on Natsume's desk, her eyes trained on the black-haired boy with a frightening intensity that Koko couldn't help but feel admiration that Natsume could keep his composure under such pressure.

"Natsume," Mikan snapped. Koko winced at the curtness in her voice. "You had better have a good explanation for this."

All eyes turned to watch the unfolding teenage drama – no one was bothering to hide the fact that they were eavesdropping.

"Tell me why Tsubasa-sempai is in the hospital wing with second degree burns to his head and half his hair charred."

Ruka was staring at her with undisguised amazement and trepidation, while Natsume remained completely unruffled.

Koko noticed with growing alarm that Mikan's hands were shaking. The last time that he had seen her so angry had ended badly; with the boy in question landing himself in hospital for three months with a concussion and a fractured spine.

"He was being annoying."

Koko grimaced at the tactlessness of the rejoinder.

"You can't just go around burning people because that they're annoying!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air exasperatedly.

Natsume scoffed. "I don't like him."

"Tsubasa is my friend!" Mikan snapped. "I can't believe how much of an insensitive, selfish prick you are, Natsume."

To Koko's horror, Natsume rose to his feet, his crimson eyes glinting dangerously.

'Oh crap.' Koko could hear Ruka think, and he really couldn't agree more.

"What did you call me?" Natsume hissed, provoked.

Mikan raised her head defiantly. "You," she began, her russet eyes glaring straight into Natsume's narrowed ones. "Are a selfish, egotistic, self-centred, childish, inconsiderate, thoughtless bastard."

Natsume's eyes darkened with each insult.

Mikan's fists were now clenched at her sides and she was trembling with unadulterated fury. Natsume was glowered at her, his resentment glaringly palpable. The air was so thick that Koko fancied that anyone could have had cut it with a knife.

"Well," Natsume sneered, his crimson eyes never leaving her face. "You know what I think of you?"

Mikan's eyes widened in surprise and she opened her mouth to respond, but Natsume never gave her the chance to answer. Suddenly, Koko got the feeling that the dispute wasn't about Tsubasa anymore.

"You are an annoying, ugly, infantile brat with no common-sense, no taste in underwear, no chest, and with no purpose in life but to take up space, polka-dots."

Koko watched in dismay as disbelief, shock, hurt and finally anger flashed through Mikan's eyes in that respective order.

"Fine." she spat out coldly, indignation and rage painfully evident on her face.

"Fine." Natsume snapped back.

Without another word, Mikan stormed out the classroom, not sparing another glance at anyone else. Natsume watched as she stormed out the door, his face unreadable.

After a few moments, Natsume finally sat down. Nobody dared to move – all waiting for something to break the smothering silence that prevailed for the last few minutes. Out of the corner of his eye, Koko saw Hotaru and Yuu swap apprehensive looks.

Then finally, Ruka gathered the courage to prod his best friend.

"You should go after her," he murmured. Koko had to strain his ears to hear what Ruka was saying. "She'd want you to follow her."

Natsume glared at his best friend in a cross between betrayed hurt and self-disgust.

"No." he rasped and then propped his feet back onto his desk and resumed staring out the window as if nothing significant had just transpired. Ruka watched at him with a mixture of pity and disappointment.

For the first time ever, Koko was relieved when Narumi-sensei walked through the door with a stack of test papers tucked under his arm; either completely oblivious or kindly showing no sign of noticing the tense atmosphere in the classroom.

But it was also the first time that Mikan had ever skipped class alone.

A/N:

Originally was a seventeen-paged monster, but has been divided into two to make it more reader-friendly.

I will post the rest of it (eventually). Reviews? o.O

PS. I'm looking for beta-ers, or if anyone WANTS a beta-er, or people with an interest in Gakuen Alice in general … preferably with msn. Please pm me if you're interested or have the time. I love meeting new people. Arigato. :p