Love is Small

Midori…. You're one of us. Then why would you be reading this? Well if you're not, then I'll explain what's "us" is. You know when you have a feeling that you're more than just a normal kid, and you have this feeling that there's this huge bundle of power that you can't handle inside of you? Well that's called an "Alice." Alice is a super power: the type that Superman or Batman has, but without the capes and tights. You might be thinking 'that's so cool,' and it is, but you wouldn't want it unless you want to be held captive in a school. You can't escape from this school until you're 18 years old. This school is called "Alice Academy."

Alice Academy is a school where only the people with Alice's go. You can't have contact with the outside world. Alice Academy was established by the government, so you can't oppose their decisions. Even if you don't want to go, you'll be forced to go by the government of Japan. Why Japan? I don't know, probably because it's the only place that has an Alice Academy. How I get there? Well… by a private jet. You're probably thinking: How do you know all this? Well that's because I'm one of them, and right now, I'm going to the one place that I really don't want to go.

Alex… "I heard that a new student is coming here I wonder what type of Alice she or he has."

"I heard that the new student has one of those dangerous Alices." "I heard that blah blah blah," these are the conversations that my stupid classmates talk about when a new student comes here. I should know, because I was once a new student here at Alice Academy. Wow, you should have heard the rumors they gave me. But who doesn't want to know how the new students are right? If she's a girl then I know she'll be one of those girls who'll fall for me easily. If it's a boy then I hope he's ugly! I don't need any competition… not like I have ever had any before.

"I heard that the new student is a delinquent, but that's not all, I heard that the new student actually destroyed her school." Says a girl who never talks, because she can only speak if she's telling the truth. (Yes, that is a type of Alice). Suddenly, I run to up to the girl, (I don't know her name) then I ask,

"Wait is it true about the school thing."

Before she can answer, the door swings open and the teacher comes in and says, "Ok settle down students," students were still noisy "Settle down." This time everyone sat and finally listened."As you know, we have a new student in our school. I present you Midori Hoshizora."

Then she came inside the classroom. Miss. Midori looked… not bad. I would say that she looked more like a tomboy than a 'girlie girl'. She had brown creamy hair with gentle curls, and hazel green eyes. I'm thinking she's half something…maybe European… maybe. Well at least she's like me: half Japanese and half something else. I'm half Japanese and half American. Then the teacher asked,

"Midori-san" (san is a respectful thing that you say at the end of a name in Japan) "you can sit anywhere you want. It's up to you." She then looked around. Our eyes met, and I tried not to look, but those eyes aren't like any others I've seen. They were so intense that I just had to look. Unlike normal girls who always gave me looks like Hey that guy is hot, she looked at me with eyes that said My next prey! She then pointed at me and then all the girls moan and said,

"Why does she get to sit with Alex it's not fair," but the teacher just nodded and she came to me and sat next to me. For the whole class my eyes always end up looking at her. It was the weirdest thing: that a girl wouldn't talk to me for a whole class period. I remembered that when I was still new to this school two months before, the girls wouldn't stop trying to talk to me. Even during class while the teacher was talking. It made me furious that I had to take lead.

"So you're probably too shy to admit that you like me right," I whispered to her, but she doesn't answer. "Well I get it, because I am the whole package," I say.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to hear you blab about yourself. I'm more interested on studying than hearing that." She says rather loudly.

"WHY YOU LITTLE….." I start to shout.

"Mister Tanaka, Miss. Hoshizora, would you both like to take this outside," the teacher interrupts. "Stand outside until class is over, and Alex, you will show Midori around the school"

We both went outside and for few minutes we were quite then Miodri started to walk down the hall.

Class wasn't done. Where was she going? Then before I could stop her, the bell rang, and she left. I followed her, I didn't have a choice. I had a feeling that she might be in huge trouble. (It was a gut feeling). Then, I find her surrounded by ninth grade boys with a little girl possibly five years old behind her.

"We were just playing with the little girl," one of the boys says. He's a little more buff than the others. He probably is the leader.

"Hmm… playing? If hurting someone is called playing then let's play!" Midori said.

Then Midori does something that isn't the best thing to do in this kind of situation. She scratches the buff guy. But not with any ordinary nails: with real feline claws. The cut that Midori made was deep, blood was pouring down from the guy's face. He looks both mad and terrified. After seeing that the little girl had run away, the guy behind Midori then zapped her and me, and when we woke up I found my self the size of an ant.

Midori….. OK, it wasn't exactly my fault that me… umm Alex was it? And some other kids shrunk. I just got angry at some kids who were bullying a little kid and I had no choice but to attack. Well actually maybe it was my fault…

"This is all your fault" says Alex. "Why couldn't you leave that kid alone? Why did you have to scratch that kid…" Then he suddenly stops and stares at me, but with a very distance look. Then he said, "Wait Don't tells me that you're one of those people who can change into cats, because I'm really afraid of cats."

"No." I say. "I'm a shape shifter, but instead of shape shifting into different kinds of people, I change into different kinds of animals."

"Oh that's just great." He kept on moaning. I don't have a clue why, but maybe he's just scared of every animal he sees. Then I realize that we aren't alone. I look behind me and see two boys and two girls. One of the boys seems familiar. Maybe he was in the same class as me. The other boy looked younger, much younger, maybe ten. The two girls were about the same age as one of the boy. One girl had short black hair with deep purple eyes and the other girl sticks to her like glue. She has light brown hair which is rare for a Japanese girl. Her eyes were incredible. They were orange like the fruit. She seemed to smile when I looked at her. She had this soft and kind-hearted feeling. Then I remembered who the elder boy was. I walk up to him and ask,

"Its Tsubasa right?"

"Yeah. You're the new girl right? Welcome to Alice Academy!" He says shaking my hand fiercely.

"Thank you." I say. "Umm… Who are these kids?" I ask looking at the little girl with orange eyes.

"Oh this is Natsume." He replies pointing at the boy with black hair and red eyes like fire who was wearing a grim face.

"Don't touch me." He says to Tsubasa and then his hands burst into fire. Threateningly, he says "Or else I'll burn you." I back away from Natsume, then I turn to the purple eyed girl.

"And that's Hotaru." Tsubasa says while trying put out the fire on his arm which Natsume had lit.

"She's an inventor." The girl with orange eyes adds, "and a really good one" Her orange eyes light up. "You know Hotaru is really famous with all those V.I.P people."

"Oh you must adore her a lot" I say, and she nods rather shyly.

"And finally this cutie is Mikan." Tsubasa concludes and puts his arm around the girl with orange eyes, then Natume gave Tsubasa a glare so I kind of got the feeling that Natsume didn't like the idea of Tubasa putting his arms around Mikan

"Awe that's cute." I murmur.

"What?" Natume says.

"No. I was just saying… umm that Mikan was a cute name. It matches her eyes" (Mikan is orange for Japanese). While we were talking, Alex came back from his freaking-out stage. Boys: They always think they're so tough, but when you need them they just freak-out.

"Ok, are you done with the chatting? We have to get serious now. How do we turn back to normal, because I don't want to be the same size as an ant forever?" Alex whines. Tsubasa then took a stick, which, for you, is probably a tiny toothpick, and draws two boxes and lines across it.

"To get back to our normal selves, we have to find this girl named Marie. She's half French and half Japanese." He says. "Then, when we find her, we ask her to change us back to our normal selves, because making things bigger is her specialty"

"Great! Then where do we find her?" Mikan asks

"Well, she's in the third girls' dorm in the junior high section on the third floor" Tsubasa continues.

"How do you know so much about her Tsubasa?" Hotaru says with a little sly smile. "Misaki wouldn't want to know about that would she?" I'm guessing that 'Misaki' was Tsubasa's girlfriend

"You won't say anything about this will you?" Tsubasa said while blushing.

"But that'll take days 'til we get there in this kind of condition." Alex says.

"I hope not, because we don't have much time" Tsubasa says "We have a time limit. If we don't return to normal by tomorrow, at the exact time we shrank today, we might stay like this for ever."

"Oh great. You know what makes it worse is, we don't even know what room number she is in, so we'll lose more time" Alex whines, you know that boy can sure whine for a pretty boy. I then realize that I heard the name 'Marie'

"Is her name Marie Hanazawa." I ask.

"Yeah why?"

"I know her, her room is just next to mine"

"Yay one problem down two more to go." For the first time, Alex was smiling. He reminded me of a little boy like when his eyes bright up. I noticed I was staring at him and I knew that I was blushing.

"What room are you in?"

"Oh! Umm… 312."

"Great so now the biggest problem is getting there so here's the plan."

Alex….. I know that I shouldn't have been mean to her back then, but I was so mad because it was her fault. She's the first girl that doesn't find ME attractive, and she can make me so mad. I mean I'm the whole package sky blue eyes, dirty blonde hair, and I have a great body (not that I'm bragging) and I am kind. (But not when I'm angry, but who isn't?). While me, Natume, Midori, and Tsubasa discuss our plan, and there is a lot of arguing, Hotaru was making something, and Mikan was just sitting on a pebble was like a huge boulder for us. I leave to look at what Hotaru is making. When a big bug jumps up onto my face, and I start screaming. (And yes: like a girl. Please, No comments.) Then Midori comes up to me and smashes it to pieces. I feel both relieved and offended. Aren't boys supposed to be strong? Why didn't I just kill the bug myself? Besides aren't girls supposed to be scared of bugs How come she wasn't? I am too humiliated to even say thank you. I just look down at the bug. It wasn't even a bug. Yes it had all the stuff that a bug needs, but instead it was all metallic.

"HOTARU were you trying to kill me" I yell.

"Yes, and no." She answers. "Well that was your ride to Marie's room, but I had a feeling that you would over-react and destroy it"

"So you made all of these bugs for us" Tsubasa says a little touched 'cause usually Hotaru is cold to people.

"Well 'no' now, because one's down." She answers, then looks at me "You know I'm not going to make you another one right?" she continues with a small smirk on her mouth.

"Then what am I supposed to do? Walk there?" I say. "By the time I get there, I'll be stuck like this forever" I can't believe I'm acting like this: like a wimp. To make it worse:

"I don't need the fly robot …thing, so Alex you can have it. If you want?" Midori saves the world again. But isn't Midori the one who broke it… not me? I take the robot and say, "Thanks," but in a small voice. Then I realize that she wasn't going to ride any of them. "What about you?" I ask. "You can't possibly fit with two people on theses robots."

"Yes. I know, but I don't need one" she answers. "I can just turn into something that can fly. That's the reason why we have Alice's. To help you when you need help, right?" Tsubasa nods and says,

"Very clever, but you need to fly with us at the same pace, so you can't change into a fly, because you'll be ten times smaller than these flies."

'I'm way ahead of you. I just need to change into an eagle and I'll be the same size." Midori answers. "Since we've got that problem fixed, let's go. We don't have much time until its tomorrow." So, off we went.

Midori….. I know that Alex is angry at me just 'cause I saved him from that bug and made him look like a fool. But what do I care. I mean, we're not friends or anything right? Maybe I do treat him like he is one, but I know for sure he doesn't think I'm one of his friends.

It's already dark. So, we made camp, around this clear place where we found a puddle. While Tsubasa, and Nastume were making the tent and Hotaru and Mikan was making the food. I finished my work, so I went to check on what Alex was doing. He was going to get some water, but he was taking too long. When I arrived at the lake, (it looks like a small puddle to you, but to us it's a huge lake), I saw Alex just sitting on a log. Again, it's small for you, but to us it's the size of a log. He wasn't getting any water. He was just sitting there. I was so mad at him, because everyone was working and he was just sitting there. But before I got the chance to scold him, he turned around with a sad look like a puppy's face when you don't give something he wants. I should know about that look. I used it when my mom didn't want to give me the new iPod on my birthday.

Then, for some reason, I asked, "Umm is something wrong?" In other words, I asked the stupidest question ever.

"No" he answers, but I know he's lying.

"You're a bad liar. Just tell me. I won't tell"

"Do you think I'm that desperate for your counseling Midori?"

Even if he is rude, he is my friend. I have to do something, so I sit down next to him and I say,

"Yes, but whatever the reason you have foe being like this, we've

all been through it, and sometimes we've been through worse."

This time he doesn't say anything. He just stares at the water. He looks at it as if it was the problem. He is so distant from me. I can't reach him. He is just too far. Then, finally, he says,

"Do you think I'm not manly?" I couldn't help laughing, but it just came out.

"Do you think I'm a wimp?" He asks me again.

"No. No, no, it's not that. It's just, it's the first time I've ever heard that before" I say. "But," I stare at the water with him. "You are manly. Although I have never seen a part of you that was manly. But I know you are, 'cause every girl I talk to says that you're 'cool and manly'"

"Yeah, but having an Alice like mine isn't manly at all"

"And what is your Alice exactly"

"Don't laugh"

"I swear I won't."

"It's plant pheromones."

"Plant pheromones?"

"Yes you know the Alice that makes people like a guy for no reason? Just one look and the girls fall in love. Well that's called 'girls' pheromones Alice.' I just have it with plants: all plants love me. That's why girls like me. They think it's sweet. Well most girls." He stares at me.

"I don't hate you. I actually think you're a good friend… well sometimes." I say

"Hahaha. A friend huh? Well o.k. I'm your friend." we both stare at each other then laugh.

"But you are manly."

"Thanks, so what Alice type are you in? Since you're a shape-shifter, you must be a physic Alice type right?"

"Actually, no, I'm in the dangerous Alice group. Why?"

"You mean the group that Natsume is in?"

" Yeah. Now that I think about it, I saw him in our meeting before."

"So the rumors were true."

"What rumors?" Now I was a little confused on what Alex was trying to say.

"The rumors that you destroyed the last school you were in."

"Hahaha. Those rumors are half true. I didn't destroy any schools, but in my last one I got into huge trouble."

"What did you do exactly?"

Oh god this is going to be long, but I say it any way.

"Well, believe it or not, I used to be patient when someone made fun of me 'cause I was different. My old school was a school with a bunch of rich people. I'm not saying that I'm not rich, but I don't like them. The teachers there are selfish and snobby, but when they get mad at me I didn't say anything. But one time there was this boy, and he used to pick on my friend even though she ignored him. He would do horrible things to her that made me angry. She was one of 'us'. I was so angry at that guy, I punched him"

"That's not so bad."

"I know, but it's the thing I did after, that I couldn't remember, that I did. It made me just black out and…" I don't believe this. I'm crying. How embarrassing, but he just put his arms around me and says,

"It's o.k."

"And when I opened my eyes there were a crowd around me, and then that boy… he was lying down, completely hurt, covered in blood and bruises. He wasn't dead, but they had to give him an operation. The next day his parents and mine had a meeting in the principal's office. I did say I was sorry about what I'd done but they just called me a monster. The principal said I was to be expelled for hurting another student and rage was full inside of me that, without noticing, I just spat on the teacher and left. My parents were so angry and I knew that that was the rudest thing I'd ever done." My tears kept coming down, but Alex still kept his arms around me the whole time until morning.

Alex….. After I woke, I was surprised to see Midori next to me sleeping. She looked so sweet when she was sleeping. I then leaned more closer to her. What was I doing… no I can't no... but my body was moving by itself. It was going to do the one thing that I never intend to do to her. My lips were about to touch hers when Mikan came

"Senpai (this a term to use when your talking to someone older than you) we're going." she says. "Oh! Am I interrupting something? Sorry."

"No! No, Mikan you're not." I say.

"Mm… Is it morning already?" Midori woke up, and then sat right up and looked at me saying, "Good morning," with a smile.

I blush bright red. Then she looks at Mikan and says,

"Good morning. Let's get going."

We were inside the girls' dorm and trust me it was huge. The corridors were like a marathon tracks and the floor was so shiny that you can see your own reflection. We flew higher so that we could see what the room numbers were.

…121 three more floors to go… Then, finally, 321. We then crawled under the door. I then saw a girl throwing her laundry at us and we were heading down. We crashed… except Midori. Marie then walked to the door and if we didn't hurry we would be stuck like this forever. We have to get her attention since we don't have the robots anymore. We couldn't fly above to stop her. Then it hit me. I started to grow some large vines and made them pick us up to her doorknob, then when we arrive we all shouted,

"HELP," finally she realizes what we are and screams. Great going down! Before we landed on the ground she catches us in her palm and says,

"Why are you all so tiny?" Her voice was so loud it made my ears burn.

"Can you turn us back to normal?" Midori said,

"Sure. If you do something for me." she answers.

"Anything. Just turn us back to normal." I answer. You know the feeling like you're swirling and swirling into open space. Well that's how turning huge again felt like. After that feeling was gone I was back to normal.

"Yes! I'm back to normal! I'm not small anymore!" I shout so everyone can hear me. "So, what was it that you wanted, Marie? We'll do anything."

"Anything I want to go on a date with you" she said pointing at me "just one date please"

"Wait. Me?" I ask, and she nods.

"Well, good luck Romeo. I'm going to bed." Midori says.

"Same." Everybody was going out of the room. Why me? …and I thought Midori was going to have a better reaction by what Marie had said.

"Wait. Guys wait!" I say while running after him.

Alex and Midori….. This going to be one long school year!

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