Belated Bday Nat
"No" was his simple answer to Mikan's hopeless request.
"Please Natsume I already apologized at least seven times!" she pleaded.
"Can you even count up to seven?"
"Of course I can!" she announced proudly "One- two - three- fou-."
"I didn't ask you to." He started walking faster in an attempt to leave his pursuer behind.
"Why do you have to be like this all the time? I even baked you a birthday cake!" she shouted picking up her own pace to keep up.
"It's not my birthday." And it was not.
It was a November morning. A very nice yet rather chilly breeze was blowing. The sun was shining and a few clouds floated lazily through the sky. It was far too warm outside, at least for a winter morning. It seemed even the cold winter was taking Sunday off that day. All in all it was a pleasant time to take a relaxing walk and if possible get away from people one did not want to see.
Unfortunately for Natsume the one person he did not want to meet this beautiful November morning, November the 28th he remind himself, was currently following his every step, which was becoming increasingly annoying with every passing second. It was in fact making his foul mood even fouler, if that was even physically possible.
It so happened that the day before, November the 27th, had been his birthday, which of course held no special meaning for him, it never had, it was just a mere detail. Taking that into consideration, it was obvious that he was not in a bad mood just because he had received presents and congratulations from practically everyone in the school… everyone but one person who so happened to be following him right this instant.
That had nothing to do with it, no, not at all. He did not care about his birthday after all. He had not been by any means waiting all day for her to come up to him smiling, say happy birthday and give him some lame handmade gift. He did not need another one of those; it was starting to become incredibly bothersome to find a place to put them in his room between the stupid Mikan dolls and Natsume 'action figures'. She had had to change the name of the latter ones because Natsume had said he never wanted to hear is name and the word 'doll' in the same sentence again ever.
In fact, it did not matter to him that he had gotten a billion gifts from people whose faces he did not even know and the one person he had been expecting to remember had completely neglected his existence for that precise day. And obviously he had not been waiting all night for her to suddenly appear out of nowhere and shout 'Got you! You thought I'd forgotten!' because he did not care about his birthday, it was just another normal day to him, no big deal.
"At least eat it!"
"I hate sweet things"
"That's not even the real reason! You are angry at me!"
"I'm not"
"Yes you are! Is it because I forgot your birthday? Because I didn't! I told you I was-."
"I don't care what you were doing"
"I had Jin-Jin's makeup exam I couldn't get away from it! That's why I told you I sent a letter!" she whined helplessly trying to convince him to stop running.
"Yeah of course you did." He finally gave up attempting to get away from the persistent girl sitting down under a tree producing a comic book out of thin air and proceeding to read.
"But I did!" she cried in frustration as she watched Natsume place his manga over his head and probably pretending to be asleep. Mikan huffed and placed a square package on his lap. "At least take it as an unbirthday cake." She said as she walked away.
Natsume sighed but did not move an inch. Maybe he was overreacting, she had just forgotten his birthday it was no big deal. It was not like he really thought it was that important. Until now he had always managed without loud parties or great gifts.
Actually he did not really want those things; and to be fair, he had never really cared about his birthday… well at least not until he met her. He had really gotten used to her stupid useless birthday presents, and now he felt like there was something missing without this year's Natsume doll- action figure, whatever. Maybe and just maybe very deep down inside, he stressed the word very, he wanted her to remember.
He groaned. He should probably apologize for being a jerk about it even though he said he did not care about his birthday, but that would be so uncharacteristic of him, she would probably laugh. That was out of the question, he could not do such a preposterous thing. Since when did he give so much thought to this kind of thing?
Natsume suddenly perked up as something hit his hand, ready to let out all his bottled up anger at whatever poor soul had dared to disturb his reverie. As his manga fell off his head, he immediately recognized his attacker as a small turtle like toy with a piece of paper in its mouth which he proceeded to take.
He opened it and to his utter surprise it was a letter from Mikan.
"November 21st
Dear Natsume,
I know I will be busy with makeup exams next week and I will surely forget to tell you, so I'm sending this letter via Hotaru's Snapping Turtle Mail because it will take seven days to deliver it.
Happy birthday! I'll make sure to give you a cake after I'm done with exams so be sure to eat it! Since I don't have time to make you a doll this time… umm I mean an action figure… you will have to do with this drawing for now, I'll give you the real thing once I have it finished.
Love,
Mikan"
Under the signature there was a doodle of (at least he guessed it was) him and Mikan holding hands and watching a giant floating orange, or maybe it was the sun, it was hard to tell.
She had successfully accomplished to make him feel like a complete idiot, and a jackass too. Now he really had to apologize.
Natsume took the box from his lap and opened it revealing a cake covered in bright pink icing and the words 'Happy Belated Bday Nat" sloppily written over it in light green cream. It seemed she had not had room to write Natsume because the letters were so big. The right side of the cake was slightly taller than the left and the words were slanted because of that. It did not look tasty at all, but he picked some of the frosting with his index finger and tasted it nonetheless. He immediately regretted it.
"It's salty!" he exclaimed to no one.
"Because you said you don't like sweet things" Mikan said from the other side of the tree. "I used salt instead of sugar."
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard" was the only thing he could manage in his state of shock.
"Sorry" she muttered sitting next to him.
He glanced sideways at her and felt the need to apologize again the moment he saw her red glassy eyes but silenced himself by eating some more of the salty pink cream.
"You don't have to force yourself to eat it"
He inched the box towards her "You are eating it too"
"But it's salty!"
"It's my birthday so you have to do as I say"
Mikan blinked a couple of times "But it's not" she replied innocently.
"Shut up and eat, or do you want me to feed you?" he said smirking.
Mikan immediately rubbed off the word 'Belated' with her finger and quickly placed it in her mouth, sticking her tongue out as the salty flavor spread through her mouth.
"Natsume?" she ventured after some time of silence.
"Hm?"
"Happy birthday" she said shyly waiting for a reaction.
He did not say anything as he took her hand in his and intertwined their fingers and she returned the gesture gladly. No words needed to be said as they watched the morning sun slowly rising through the trees
He was right; there was nothing special about birthdays. Who needs a date to make a day special? What you need is the people who make you feel happy next to you and nothing else. Who needs delicious gorgeous birthday cakes and expensive presents? He would not give up his salty 'Bday' cake for all the pastries in the world, and he would never dream of changing that stupid doodle for any amount of money. This was much better than any birthday anyone could have in the entire universe, and he did not feel like he was exaggerating at all.
"Sorry the letter didn't arrive in time" she suddenly said "I was sure Hotaru's inventions never failed."
Natsume picked up the letter and quickly reread it. "November 21st..." he said absentmindedly "You…"
Mikan's eyes widened and her words caught up in her throat.
"Do you really know how to count up to seven!?"
Mikan blushed furiously and opted to eat some more salty cream instead of answering, she could chose not to answer sometimes too.
He sighed "It's okay. I don't really care about birthdays anyway."
Disclaimer: I don't own Gakuen Alice, never have, never will.
A/N: I have no idea where this came from, but I like doing funny fluffy things for this pair, they are so great for fluffiness. I especially like the difference between inner-Natsume and outer-Natsume if you know what I mean.
The unbirthday thing is a reference to "Alice in Wonderland" in case someone doesn't know. I did not invent it and therefore take no credit for it.
Anyways hope you liked it.