"It hurts!! " Mikan Sakura bellowed. She looked at her mirror, opening her mouth, then gasped in shock.

There was a big ulceration in her mouth.

"Oh, no. I'm late!!" She cried, and then winced as she accidentally biting her ulcer again.

Mikan closed her door, then, took a deep breath and... RAN like the wind.

Meet Mikan our cheerful little sunny girl, who LOVED to talk. Even Hotaru's inventions can't stop Mikan from yelling and talking non-stop!

But not today. Not when her mouth was all sore and she kept on accidentally biting the ulcer whenever she tried to open her mouth,

This, for the uncanny ten year old, was frustrating.

And the level of the frustration escalated when Natsume Hyuuga appeared before her.

He watched her for a second, which she returned by glaring daggers at him. Of course her empty threats did nothing to him. She wasn't gifted with a face that could send shivers.

It's different, however, in Natsume's case.

His gaze was unsettling, his left hand twitching, and that gave her a disconcerting notion about what he's going to do. Unfortunately, before she had time to run, he already flipped her skirt.

"MMMRRRRGGGHHH!!" a strange sound, she knew, but she couldn't give out a better comeback when the bloody ulcer always got into her ways.

"Jeez, what is it today? Panda's?" he pointed his finger to her underwear, his face showed no emotion. "Grow up already, Polka-dots."

Mikan wanted to yell, oh how she wanted to, but she just kept quiet. She jutted out her lips until three centimeters (a new record) and that`s the only reaction that got Natsume for looking at her underwear again.

That's it? No yelling, no "NATSUME YOU HENTAI!!"?

He hoped for flailing hands trying to punch him or a set of curses. Or a little scream would do. That's how Mikan usually dealt with his underwear peeking, anyway. And after two or three lectures , Natsume would be satisfied and restrained himself from bothering her until the next day arrived.

But.. when she's so.. quiet, and motionless like that…

Alright! He'll try harder then!! He could feel his eyebrow twitching in annoyance.

Mikan entered the classroom with no good morning's. Now that shocked everyone.

"Mikan-chan, are you okay?" Yuu asked worriedly

Mikan just nodded.

Everyone's eye's widened. Oh shoot, something must be wrong. Very wrong indeed. Mikan didn`t even try to hug Hotaru today!! Is the world going crazy?


For the rest of the lessons, Natsume's priority was to gain Mikan's attention. He longed for a single sign that she still saw him through her brown eyes. And Natsume never did things half-heartedly. He tried practically every single idea he could think of. Name calling, hair burning, foot under the table, and even tugging her hair!!

Goodness gracious, Natsume didn't even ditch all of his class!!

But she did nothing –or worse, said nothing- in response and kept ignoring him. Her eyes showed that she's beyond mad, and Natsume was sure that her shaking body was due to her frustration.

Then why she said nothing?

The question kept haunting Natsume even afterschool. At the class dismissal, he saw her shooting him a silent glare and that kind of bothered him.

However...

Mikan.. Mikan couldn't be get bored with him, right?

Right??


She entered her room, and stomped her foot in the mat.

Stupid Natsume!! once she met her teddy, she told it that via telekinetic.

Why he always bothers me? Huh? Huh?

The teddy stared at her, its smile was wide.

And these days he's becoming worse, too!! He burned my hair, AGAIN!!

The teddy stared at her, its smile was still wide.

Mikan's heart was melted seeing its expression and hugged it tight.

If only I didn't have this bloody ulcer, I'll say that he's being a j-j-jerk!! Mikan huffed, and growled

Huh. Jerk!

She considered it for a while,

Cute jerk.

Even so, regardless her fury, she instantly dozed off once she hit the bed.

Her teddy was still smiling.

-

"Wake up, Polka-dots."

Huh?

"Hey, wake up."

Eyes blinking as she tried to adjust to the light, Mikan rubbed her feet together. The voice sounded suspiciously like Natsume, but probably she's dreaming.

"If you won't wake up now, I'll take all your underwear," this time, the voice sounded very much like Nastume.

It was hard to open her eyelids, but she tried. Her eyes, however, got rounded instantly as she caught Natsume's close-up face looking down at her. Her teddy was on his possession as a hostage.

Mikan screeched (and hurt her ulceration again), then kicked him away.

Natsume seemed confused. "So you didn't lose your voice!"

Suddenly, she's not feeling sleepy anymore. She backed away as she drew her blanket to her, eyeing the boy suspiciously.

"You didn't say even a word back there so I skipped dinner," he informed, his face was slightly pink

This revelation shocked Mikan. She skimmed around and gestured Natsume to get her a piece of paper and a pencil. And even though confused with her request, Natsume obeyed and gave her the stationeries.

Once she got a hold of it, she started scribbling and showed it to Natsume

'But you're missing your dinner!! You're going to get hungry!!'

He thrust a thumb to his chest proudly. "Heh. That's nothing to me."

His arrogance started to annoy her again. Aside from his tendencies to pester her whenever he got the chance, he also tried to show-off every accomplishment he'd done to her.

Jerks.

"Anyway," Mikan thought it's impossible for him to get even pinker, but he did. "I came to say sorry."

Wow.

That's unexpected.

Natsume scratched the back of his head, clearly, he's uncomfortable talking about this. "I know I always try to bother you, and my name-calling are.. lame. So.. yeah. Sorry for that."

Mikan's mouth formed a big fat 'O'.

"Don't get mad at me again, okay?" Natsume said with a bit of plea coloring his tone, "I.. don't like being ignored. Especially by you."

As much as Mikan enjoyed the apologizing session and the chance to gloat, she felt the need to explain her condition to Natsume.

Her scribbling was faster, and Natsume almost couldn't read it. 'I'm not ignoring you.'

He frowned. "Then why won't you talk to me? You didn't even yell when I looked at you underwear!"

She's already prepared for the answer. 'I can't'

"Why?" Natsume too, seemed annoyed with this silence.

Mikan thought about if for a second. But then she decided to gesture Natsume to come nearer and opened her mouth when he's near enough.

"Here," she tried her best to not let her ulcer got bit again.

Natsume hesitated, but he leaned over anyway. His gaze followed her direction and finally he got the full view of her reason for being so awfully quiet.

"That…" he began, "that's the biggest ulcer that I've ever seen."

His own word made him realize what's going on. "So, you were quiet because of this bloody thing."

She nodded.

"And not because you're mad at me?"

She pouted and started writing.

'You're making me mad. I will ignore you tomorrow.'

This startled him. "Hey!" he bellowed, "Hey, that's not fair! I skipped my precious dinner, alright?"

'That's because you want to bother me.'

"Well," he scratched his cheek now, "that's part of the plan. But that's not the main cause…"

Then, he fell into silence and the situation became weird. Hating this kind of situation, Mikan attempted to bring back the geniality.

'What? What's the main cause?'

He blushed so deeply until his ears turned red, too. He bit onto his lip, his eyes avoiding her searching ones. Finally, he opened his mouth and say, "How did you have the ulcer?"

She motioned how she accidentally bit onto the inside of her mouth. He nodded slowly, and a few seconds later, he did the very same thing like she'd exampled, only, he did that deliberately.

"Aww…" he whimpered in pain.

She couldn't help laughing. The Natsume Hyuuga is in pain. How lucky was she? 'Itispainful." she wrote.

"But you- aww!" seemed he just bit on his ulcer. Then suddenly, Mikan felt so generous that she handed him her paper and her pencil.

He immediately scribbled on it.

'Now we both can't talk.'

She nodded.

He also nodded back, one of his hand rubbing his cheek. Cute. Then he wrote down again.

'It hurts'

Since she didn't have any paper to her, she only mouthed her response. 'I told you.'

"Ouch," he still hadn't stopped his groaning. But he didn't stop writing. It took him a while, but when he showed it to her, his message was kinda long.

'Since we're both sick, I can't tease you and you can't scream. But you'll let me hold your hand tomorrow, okay?'

She blinked once. Twice. Trice. Not very sure what kind of respond that's appropriate. They were close, in a way. Besides Sumire would probably kill her, and the whole female population too!! Everybody would think they're an 'item'.

He's still gnawing on his lip, his eyes filled with determination that she rarely found in people. Then, while blushing madly, he doodled on the paper again. This time, it took him a very long time, and when he showed the paper to her, she only saw an obscure line.

She even hadn't gotten time to study on his crappy handwriting when he'd leaned onto her and kissed her cheek lightly. The one that's sore and stinging.

Weird… electric… sparkles..!

But mostly, weird.

He didn't give her chance to blink or react properly and just stormed off her room. Then a second later, when she glanced at her window, she could see him running away from her house.

His face: probably as red as hers.

She placed a hand on the just-kissed spot, her visions blurring as she remembered how his lips had touched her skin. It's the first time she got kissed by a boy , and who could believe that the said boy was Natsume Hyuuga? A boy who'd dedicated his life to peek on her underwear .

She glanced sideways to the left paper that he'd just scribbled on. Her eyes were wide as she saw his three very little words.

I like u.

Mikan found it hard to suppress the creeping smile. She definitely needed to get oral ulceration more often.

Fin