For Yas (Vanilla Coated Love) : I'm a shit secret santa. Merry Christmas, babe.
Disclaimer: I am not in any way, shape, or form, related to the production of Gakuen Alice.
Mikan is the town's sweetheart, and she's perfectly suited for the job. With her hair in pigtails and big doe eyes, she charmed everyone left and right, parents, students, hobos, just a flash of her dimples and you were under a spell. And how could you not be? She didn't have the best grades in school, but she read to the younger kids at the library on weekends, and volunteered at soup kitchens, for goddamn sake. She woke up most days with a smile on her face and probably breathed rainbows and was a unicorn whisperer.
Koko was kind of friends with her, in a way that they hung out with a lot of the same people, but never interacted outside of school. As far as he was concerned, the less contact he had with her, the better, or else who knows what gung-ho shit he might be spreading the next day? He made average grades and had average look and average friends and would be getting into a more or less mediocre college, no need to bother adding kissing babies to his to do list.
The town unanimously adores Mikan and passively ignores Koko.
Or at least, that's what his mom does.
"Koko, dear, do you know a Mikan Sakura?" His mom asks, tucking his hair behind his ear in a way one might describe as affectionate. He's only letting her get away with it because they are in the safety of his home, and that none of his friends are here to make fun of him.
He doesn't bother replying to her question though. He on the front of a full blown Mikan-is-perfect speech, he can taste it brewing in the air. He's gotten increasingly more of these after his mom deemed him old enough to get a girlfriend, as if he hasn't been looking up skirts since he was 11.
" She is such a doll!" His mom exclaims. "The other day, she was walking by, and asked if I needed help with anything. I didn't even ask for her help, she just volunteered herself up! Koko, why can't you do things like that? All you do is sit in front of your computer playing video games and god knows what else."
"Sorry Ma." He replies, not very sorry at all. The shorter his replies are, the sooner he can get this over with, so he can run upstairs and escape on his computer until dinnertime. She's still patting his sandy blonde hair, twirling around him in one of her many aprons she has hanging up in some closet.
"How nice would it be, if you dated her though! She could take you volunteering with her, and good colleges might actually accept you! And don't pull that face with me young man, I know all about that C- in World History you have right now. You'd be lucky if Mikan agreed to go on a date with you!"
"But Ma, I already have a girlfriend." A perfectly gorgeous, amazing girlfriend with a horrible perm that does not prepare you for the spitfire personality she has. 3 months going steady, thank you very much.
"Oh well, that's too bad, isn't it? God knows you could do well with a girl like her. You'll have to let me meet your girlfriend sometime, won't you? Have her over for dinner, yeah?" His mom's fumbling around with pots and pans, humming under her breath, and Koko's not exactly sure why he bothered to mention Sumire in front of his mother, because he knows that she's still going to obsess over Mikan.
"But it's so horrible how she's dating that boy, the one with the blind younger sister? What's his name…"
"Natsume Hyuuga?" He asks cautiously, ignoring his mother's rudeness. Last time he checked, Natsume and Mikan hated each others guts and couldn't go within 5 feet of each other without biting the other's head off. Then again, this was back in elementary school, but he hadn't expected things to change this much.
"That's the one! I don't like him, and I don't know what she's doing with someone like that. Listen here Koko, you go to school tomorrow and talk some sense into Mikan's head, because that girl doesn't know what's good for her, ya hear?" His mom is waving a spatula around, looking quite intimidating, so before she says anything else, he just drops everything and runs.
The next day, as soon as he sets his tray down at this usual lunch table( next to the trash can; not that he was a major loser or anything, he wasn't.) He turns to Kistu and asks, in the most non-feminine way possible, " Are Natsume and Mikan dating?"
Kitsu gives him a weird look and says, "Yeah, for nine months now."
Oh.Oh. Well, he must be farther down the social food chain than he thought. He doesn't expect the information to come out of Natsume himself, rather from the grapevine.
He doesn't see exactly how they work, even after the hate to love cliché. And even though he considers Natsume one of his best friends, the thought of the two of them together is so odd that he stops to wonder if they know exactly what they're doing. Mikan is the apple of everyone's eye, kissing babies and clothing the poor that if she ran for mayor, she would win by a landslide. However, Natsume would be the opponent that loses by a landslide. He's all angles and sinewy muscle, aristocratic cheekbones and skinny legs that he likes to show off in those tight jeans he always buys. He looks regal, but that image is marred by his multiple ear piercings, tattoos, and scuffed up motorcycle jacket. He doesn't talk even when spoken to, cusses in a crass manner, and sounds like he smokes 3 packs a day. A regular at the bar, where no one checks his ID, he's your typical bad boy, even has the shady family past. To this day, next to no one knows what caused his sister to go blind, not even Koko, who's been friends with him for at least 10 years, if not more.
"Me, you, Kitsu. Bar on Saturday? Yeah?" Mochu asks.
"Ok." Because Koko's too smooth to say anything else.
They go to the bar all the time, even though they aren't of drinking age yet. The mustached bartender always gives them an eyeful when they walk in, wary of underage drinking. He's still got a couple of years, but he obviously wouldn't break the law in public. That's what ragers are for.
He orders his usual fish and chips, and listens to Mochu and Kitsu's rowdy yelling at the football game on screen. They're criticizing the other team's defense, but Koko's not bored enough to listen in. Yet. They've been coming here for at least a year, but their routines never change. He's never really been a football guy, never really got the feel of sports, but that might be because he's skinny and still has some flab in all the wrong places.
That's when he spots flashing eyes, almost red, on the other side of the tiny pub. Natsume's nursing a dark liquid, beer? Coke? Koko may never know. He's watching the game with great intensity, as if this was something to decide his life or death, but Koko never really pegged him for a football guy. Huh. He supposes he's a bit creepy, staring across the bar at one of his best friends, and on any other day he's call him over to join them, but he knows Natsume's going to tease him relentlessly about going out with the perm queen, and he's just not in the mood, thank you very much. Honestly, he's never really in the mood. He just has bad friends.
Mikan's burrowing herself into the crook of Natsume's elbow, snuggling up against the side of his chest, pawing at his shirt like a hungry kitty. Natsume's momentarily distracted from the game, instead taking a swig from his drink and staring down at her with the same intensity. She stares back up at him, unabashed, and even from 20 feet away Koko can see there's nothing but pure adoration. He feels like he's intruding onto something oddly personal, the way they hold each other in such a desperate way, that he briefly thinks they would be a better Jack and Rose than Leo and Kate.
"Hey," Mikan says, and Koko's no lip reader, but he's pretty sure he knows where this conversation is going. "I love you."
"Hn." No guess there, Natsume's standard reply. But he still holds her that much tighter, before turning back to the game, leggy brunette still tucked under his arms.
Mikan catches Koko's eye from across the room, and smiles shyly like there's a secret that only he can know. He nods once, twice, before she turns back, satisfied, to stare at her beloved.
Huh. Maybe they do kind of fit together after all. Maybe it's only him, but once he hit high school, everything in his life seemed like a rom-com.
"Koko, what are you doing staring at Natsume?"
"Damn it, Kistu, I am not gay, so don't even ask."
-end-
AN: Wowwww, I haven't written anything in like what, two years? :) I'm back for good (hopefully), while everyone's leaving. Dangit. I got a couple more fics lined up for this fandom. Kisses.
P.S. Review? Pretty Please? :)