Dreaming of Daisies
Summary: By a chaotic turn of events, 15-year-old Sakura Mikan is forced to attend Alice All Boys Academy under the male identity Sakura Mitsuru; how will she survive being away from Hotaru (who's attending the rival Alice All Girls Academy), dealing with love-struck girls, and, worst of all, coping with her icy roommate Hyuuga Natsume?
Chapter One: In Which Mikan is a Dishcloth
Disclaimer: I don't own Gakuen Alice. But I do own my Cheerios, so there. Enjoy!
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"Imai Hotaru, please report to the main office immediately. Imai Hotaru, to the main office."
The static from the loudspeaker jolted fifteen-year-old Sakura Mikan's head off her desk and back into reality. Waah…Hotaru? Mikan shook her pigtails out of her eyes and peered over to her left. Hotaru was sliding her copy of Exploring Hawking Radiation out from under her desk into her backpack. It was quickly followed by three jars of crab and a green pencil pouch.
"Hotaru?" Mikan hissed, glancing up at the droning math sensei. "Why're you taking your stuff?"
Hotaru turned her expressionless violet eyes towards Mikan. "Baka. Go back to sleep." She glanced down at Algebra for Beginners with disgust and, after a moment's thought, stuck it under her chair. She tugged a pair of small scissors out her pocket, along with a soft green cloth pouch, and stood up. Mikan's head had returned to its resting place on the desk, but she was watching Hotaru with a small frown. Hotaru slung her backpack over her shoulder, and, before anyone knew what was happening, reached over and clipped off half of one of Mikan's pigtails.
"HOTAAARU!" screeched Mikan, now upright, looking indignantly lopsided. The class snapped awake and twisted, as one, to stare at her.
The old sensei straightened his spectacles and peered over at them. "Is there a problem, please, girls? Imai, please, were you told to go to the main office a few moments before? Sakura…being loud again, please?" He sighed. "Please leave now, Imai. Sakura, pay attention, please. Come up here and do this problem, please. Please apply the quadratic formula properly."
Mikan tugged at her sad half-pigtail and jumped up, kicking at Hotaru's heels as they both meandered up the aisle from the back of the classroom. "Hotaru, you meanie. What was that for?" she whispered angrily. "Now I have to waste my precious nap time doing this baby algebra – you taught me this when we were eight, dammit. And you haven't answered my question, and now you are going somewhere, and you haven't told me why, and you've just cleaned out all your stuff, and, and, and…" They had reached the front of the room.
"Sakura, please refrain from chatting. Goodbye please, Imai. I hope to see you again someday, please – your work is good, but I get this vibe that you never pay attention. Regardless, you are very intelligent, and I wish you luck in your future endeavors, please."
Mikan glanced between her sensei and Hotaru, who gave a little bow in front of the confused class. "Hotaru? You're leaving? For real? Why didn't you tell me?" she questioned softly.
"Here. Baka."
The door swung shut with a light click. Mikan looked down – Hotaru had pressed a small pink cloth pouch into her hand. Mikan turned it around and undid the little orange clasp. She shook out the pouch over the sensei's desk, and a clump of short raven hairs swirled down into a soft pile. Time stood still.
"Sakura? Please refrain from littering over my desk." The old man tapped wearily on the board with a piece of worn chalk. "Come here, please."
Mikan shook her head and swept the hairs back into her bag. Clutching it tightly, she looked up at the class with blazing eyes. "Gomen, sensei. I cannot do algebra right now. I hope you will understand. However, I doubt anything like that would ever happen. Excuse me." She rushed towards the door, slamming it open with an outstretched arm. She was long gone before the door shut itself.
"SAKURA, please! Come back here, this instance, please! Order! Class, settle down, please. PLEASE!"
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Hotaru was nowhere to be found. Mikan was pretty sure the raven-haired Queen of Ice hadn't left more than three minutes before her, but the corridors of the small rural high school were deserted. Her pounding footsteps mingled with her pounding blood and the pounding screams within her. Betrayal. Left. Right. Through a door, out into the courtyard. Why didn't you tell me first? Crunching gravel, the roaring of thunder, pouring rain. Through another door. Silence. You're my best friend! Bursting, sopping wet, into the office compound, screaming silently. I'm your best friend, aren't I? There they were! The principal, Hotaru, and her mother were sitting, dry and calm, deep in discussion. Mikan tripped and stumbled through the doorway and locked her eyes onto Hotaru's back.
"Ho-ta-ru…found…you…" she gasped, clutching her side with her free hand. "What...stunt...do you think...you're pulling? I don't want a few...strands...of..."
"In that case, please kindly deposit them in the nearest waste receptacle and refrain from getting within any close range of my clothing. You. Are. Dripping. Get me wet and you die. Baka. I'm going to Tokyo and I highly doubt I will be returning anytime in the near future, though it's not like I ever liked you anyway, so I won't be missing you," Hotaru turned around to inspect her mother, whose conversation with the principal had been cut short by Mikan's sudden entrance. "Mama. See you soon."
"Hotaru, darling. Don't you think it would be wise to give a proper farewell?"
"Mother, as much as you admire my so-called friends, I hold not a bit of affection for any of them, least of all this soggy wet dishcloth currently standing behind us in the easterly direction. Not to mention, this town has forever stifled my creative inhibitions. It is small, and I hate it all - keeping in mind that there's not much of it to hate, of course."
"Hotaru?!"
"You probably think I am being cruel. That is not true at all." Hotaru calmly reached in her backpack for a small jar of crab and a spoon, and twisted open the lid. "In Tokyo, I hear, I will be able to obtain some of the real stuff - crab brains, you realize - not this cheap imitation. And that will not be the least bit cruel. To me. I matter the most." She blinked. And turned her head towards Mikan.
Mikan was fuming. The waves of steam rising off her body were quickly evaporating the water streaming down her clothing. "I don't know what you've done with Hotaru," she said in a small, furious voice. "But you are no longer my best friend."
The adults were rather speechless.
"You are awfully naive, Sakura-san, to think that I would even consider you my friend, let alone my best friend. I will find far worthier companions in Tokyo. The Alice All Girls Academy is filled more with geniuses like me and less with idiots like you. I don't want a sniveling fool chasing me around all day, when I can surround myself with high class, intellectually-stimulating companions. Did you know some of the greatest female accomplishments trace back to the AAGA in some form or another? Of course you wouldn't. Why do I bother, right?"
"Hotaru," gasped her mother. "You might never see Mikan again! Why...are you wasting 12 years of friendship...?"
"Mother. You of all people should understand. I don't need people like her anymore."
Mikan turned stiffly on her heel and dropped the soggy pink pouch into the empty wastebasket.
"Sakura-san?" ventured the bespectacled principal. "Come see me after school, okay?"
"I don't see any reason to," said Mikan bitterly. "I don't need counseling. Or pity."
"Sakura-san, you will see me and that's an order!"
Hotaru dipped her spoon into the crab jar. "I would, if I were you. Seize upon all the chances for glory you have left, you know...not that you have many at all."
"Shut up, Imai!" Mikan yelled, whipping back around, her anger intensifying. "Principal-sama, fine! Let's pretend this is an army, okay? Sakura-private-san will obey all orders. Sakura-private-san will be humiliated for no reason! Attack Sakura-private-san! Sakura-private-san will take it all patiently and refrain from raising her voice. Sakura-private-san...Sakura-private-san..." She gasped for breath and continued in a very quiet voice, rubbing at her eyes. "I don't what's gotten into Hotaru, but this isn't like her at all. So, maybe, instead of crying, I should just remember the good Hotaru. And I love that Hotaru. She made me smile."
Mikan smiled through her tears and reached into wastebasket. "Goodbye, Hotaru. Even though you don't want me anymore, you'll still be my best friend."
The door closed softly behind her.
"Baka. Spare the cheese, will you?"
"Hotaru!"
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It was almost four o'clock before Mikan let herself into the principal's office. "Principal-sama, was there something you wished to discuss with me?"
The aging brunette adjusted her glasses. "Yes, Sakura-san. Please sit down."
"I'd rather not, Principal-sama. Can you make it quick? My grandfather is waiting for me at home."
"Ah. Alright, then. Imai-san wanted me to explain the situation to you after she left. Her mother, of course, knows, bless her heart."
"There's a situation?"
"What do you think? Imai-san did not leave voluntarily, you see. Tokyo's Alice All Girls Academy. It has a long history of commissioning students, most of the times against their will, in order to collect all Alice users in one spot. It's for their own good, I believe."
"Alice user?"
"Sakura-san, have you ever noticed anything special about Imai-san? Her extraordinary inventing skills, for instance? How's she won the inventing fair, year after year? Alice users are all special. The geniuses of our age...although some have more supernatural powers, if you know what I mean - weather control, flight, x-ray vision...those are some of the more common Alices."
Mikan stood a little awkwardly. "Hoe?"
"To tell you the truth, it was I who alerted the AAGA to Hotaru's Alice. They gave her two days to get there. She doesn't have much of a choice, you see? The whole 'stunt' she was pulling earlier today, as you called it? Well, that was to make you not so clingy, you see. It worked. She was afraid you wouldn't let her go and then she would lose her resolve. She didn't actually want to leave. Rather naive of her, really. Usually Alices are found much earlier - sometimes as young as childbirth. Of course, the parents will have to part with their child...but the infant doesn't really mind, of course. It's at ages like these that it's hard to convince Alices to go."
"No way..."
"Sakura-san, now you understand?"
Mikan suddenly launched herself at the principal. "You horrible, horrible person!" she shrieked. "You took Hotaru away!" But no matter how hard Mikan pounded with her fists, she couldn't seem to get past an invisible barrier around Principal-sama.
"Sakura-san, gomennasai," Principal-sama said serenely, hardly sounding sorry. "I have a Shield Alice. It's rather useful, considering the position the AAGA is constantly putting me in. I'm an alumna of the AAGA, and now I'm also an employee. My status? Recruiting officer. Being a principal puts me in contact with many young people at once without seeming too suspicious. That's why I change jobs so frequently. Of course, I don't you think you should know this, so currently I'm considering whether or not I should call in someone with a Memory Erase Alice."
Mikan gave up and slouched into a hard, wooden seat. "Is what you're doing even legal?"
"Doesn't seem like it, does it? Well, actually, it is. The government gives the AAGA and the AABA permission to shelter Alices. It is for their own good, as I told you. Kidnappers and ransoms and the like. Well. I suppose erasing your memory is tempting." Principal-sama pulled out her miniscule black cell phone and starting dialing away.
Mikan jumped up. "I don't want my memory erased, you evil woman. I've got to find Hotaru!"
Principal-sama ignored her. "Moshi moshi? It's Eimi-san. Wah, really? Good to talk to you too. May I speak with Mai-chan, now, kudasai? I know, I always say too much. It's a bad habit. Yah, the shield comes in handy all the time. Yah, I made sure the door would lock behind her. Oh, arigato. Only twenty minutes? I can wait."
Mikan frantically looked around the room. It seemed as if Principal-sama hadn't told Mai-chan or whoever was going to erase her memory what her name was. There! A heavy-looking iron paperweight. Perhaps if Principal-sama is distracted, her shield won't be on. Anything's worth a try!
"What! You're driving a Jaguar now? Your husband spoils you rotten! Ah...my poor wages...the AAGA doesn't pay nearly enough for this kind of work I do. I know, so I'm not in life-threatening situations or anything..."
Mikan threw the paperweight as hard as she could at Principal-sama's head. Principal-sama has looking straight at her, and did not even bother to duck.
"Saku -" Thump.
To their very great surprise, the iron paperweight shimmered and passed through the shield to hit Principal-sama squarely on the forehead. The older woman slumped sideways onto her desk, unconscious.
The phone fell onto the floor with a crash, cracking the screen. "Eimi-chan?" came a lilting voice out of the static. "What happened? You still there?"
Mikan hesitated, wondering if she should take the phone with her or not.
"Eimi-chan? I'm coming, okay?" The static became louder.
She flipped it closed with her shoe and slung her backpack over her shoulder.
"Here I come, Hotaru."
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A/N: I realize that I might've started the storyline too far in advance...I brought it back all the way to the beginning of Gakuen Alice. I apologize! The fun stuff will come pretty soon...Mikan in the all boy's school! I wanted it to seem realistic, so I had to mention exactly why Mikan felt the need to chase after Hotaru. And then I couldn't seem to stop! Anyway, I expect this story to be pretty long, because there are a lot of changes to the story coming up! Right now it seems to follow the original a little bit too much. Yup, basically this is the length I expect each chapter to be. Tell me if you think Mikan is a bit OOC, and how everything else is. Thanks in advance for commenting!
