Unkept Promises

I'd say this was canon but then…

Summary: Mikan Sakura had never been one to break promises, but sometimes there are some that even she can't keep.

Inspiration: the story of the Little Match Girl. Mikan and the gang had performed this once in Central Town to raise money to buy Howalons. It's a really bittersweet story, but that's where my inspiration came from for this small angsty fic.

Enjoy! :)

Mikan Sakura had always loved winter.

She loved how the wind would blow snowflakes around in small spirals around her like they were performing some kind of dance. She loved how every crystal flake was different from another, an experiment she had spent hours trying out with him by her side.

She loved sitting by the cherry blossom tree in the middle of Central Town beside him, chatting incessantly away while he read his manga and pretended to ignore her. She loved how the streets were all covered in glittering sheets of white, and how the branches on the tree above them were trapped in icy diamonds.

And she loved how, when it got too cold out, he would put his arm around her and they would stay like that for hours.

He was so warm. She missed him.

People passed by her in the hours she had been sitting there, and occasionally she would get the pitying glance. Either they knew, or they wanted to commiserate on the girl who sat there by herself. Sometimes she would wonder how they could possibly be getting ready to celebrate the winter holidays when they had just suffered a tremendous loss.

Were they heartless? Did they not ache as much as she did, or cry as much when she had found out? Did they not wonder where his body could possibly be, or lock themselves in their room's when they realized he just wasn't coming back?

So she paid no attention to them.

She was just waiting.

Occasionally, some of her friends would take the seat beside her on the ground, back leaned against the bark of the old tree, and they would try to talk to her. But she wouldn't listen. Their efforts wouldn't earn a smile from the sunniest girl on campus or even some kind of response.

"Isn't it beautiful out?" would be all she asked, and even when they answered, she made no notion that she had heard.

But it wasn't. It was much below freezing and the wind started picking up harsh. In a few moments, the cold would be too much for them and they'd retreat to go inside, leaving her sitting by herself once again. She didn't mind it. She didn't even seem to notice.

She hardly left that spot to go anywhere, and it was only in the times her purple-eyed best friend came out to drag her in for meals would she come, or at nighttime when the temperature dropped and the square was empty. But right after, she would just be back in that seat, and that's the first place people would look to find her.

How many days had it been since the news came in? It felt like forever, but the numbered days were still less than seven. All his friends were mourning, but they knew that nothing could compare to the emptiness she felt. They were so close with each other, and just a bit before he'd gone, they had gotten so much closer. The pain she felt—who could imagine how hard it would be?

But it wasn't just emptiness she endured. No, it was much worse. Her heart felt torn in two with half taken away, just leaving the contents to spill with no way to repair. Slowly and slowly everything would pour out and sometimes she just could stop the tears fast enough.

Tears. That reminded her of him. The day before he had gone, they had sat there, snuggling against each other when she had started crying about something that had happened.

"Idiot," he said, "don't cry. In winter, your tears will just turn into ice in your eyes and you'll be blind."

She feverishly tried to wipe all moisture from her eyes, not wanting to lose sight.

It made him roll his eyes. "That's not enough water to freeze up. It's just tears, Mikan. Only tears."

"Okay, so what do I do, Natsume?" she asked.

"Just don't cry. And don't especially when I'm here."

Especially when I'm here.

That's what he had said. Did that mean it was alright for her to have cried ceaselessly just after he had gone? Did that mean the nights devoted to mourning over his death would have been alright? It didn't feel right. It didn't feel right to her at all.

"Here," a voice spoke monotonously to her.

She looked up to see her best friends standing there, all bundled up with a mug of hot chocolate in her hands. She didn't smile. She didn't say thanks. She didn't run up to jump on the purple-eyed inventor with a hug only to get shot away. Hotaru pursed her lips but just held out the drink and placed in Mikan's hands.

"You should come inside, Mikan. It's supposed to get colder tonight."

Mikan just sat there in silence and looked up at her friend.

Her eyes softened and her heart clenched seeing the brunette's hazel irises so empty and sad. "Mikan, you should come inside."

This time she looked back down, watching the happy people pass her by on the near-empty streets and murmured, "It's beautiful out, Hotaru."

"It's cold out, you idiot."

She didn't look back up or say anything at all, and soon the inventor just sighed.

"Mikan, come back in before bed, okay? You'll freeze to death out here."

Then she left, hoping the girl would be in shortly after.

She looked down at the mug in her hands. The heat was burning through her thin gloves, warming her frozen fingers quickly. Automatically, she put it down beside her. It was too warm. It was too hot. It was too much like a heated fire.

It reminded her too much of him.

"You're warm, Natsume," she said softly, snuggling closer beside him.

His body rumbled softly in laughter as he leaned back into her. "Like your own personal fire."

She giggled. "Do you never get cold then?"

"No. I do."

Her brows furrowed as she looked up at him. "Really? But your Alice is fire, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Then how do you ever get cold?"

He glanced down at her, crimson eyes filled with a brightness that had never been there before she entered the academy. "I'm always cold when you're not with me."

She ran her fingers through the snow beneath her, quickly soaking in the chill of the frost. Shivering, she pulled in her knees but not to retain warmth. To block the tears that started to form in her eyes. With the sleeve of her coat, she tried to wipe it away, but not all moisture would disappear.

It's the same without you, Natsume, she thought.

Then she pulled her arms around her, feeling the night sky pull in, and closed her eyes.

"You have a mission tomorrow?" she asked him, frowning.

He nodded slightly, pulling back to gauge her reaction. "It's only a small one."

"That's what you always say," she accused, "and most times I have to wrap you up in tons of bandages anyways. My boyfriend is like a part-time mummy. Do you know how sad that is?"

Natsume chuckled deeply. "Mummy? Really?"

"Yes, and I'd rather not have to gauze you up in toilet paper tomorrow."

"You're going to wait for me?" His eyebrows pulled together.

"Of course I will!" she exclaimed. "What kind of question is that?"

Looking away, his voice was low when he said, "I don't think you should."

"What? Why?"

"It's going to be a long mission. I won't be back until late," he told her directly.

"I've waited late before," she reminded him.

He grimaced. "Well, I don't think you should wait for me tomorrow. You should sleep early. For… school."

"Natsume, it's winter break."

Sighing, he pulled his arm around her again and he scowled towards the ground. Mikan told him he was scaring away pedestrians, but he just asked, "What would you do if I died?"

"That's not going to happen," she said, half-sternly, half- surprised. "Why would you even ask that?"

"Just wondering," he averred, looking up through the branches at the bright lights that filled the night. "What would you do?"

"That's not going to happen," she repeated again but with a wavering confidence.

"But if it did?" he persisted.

"It won't!" she burst out, staring at him with eyes brimmed with overflowing tears. "It won't, Natsume. You aren't going to die. You aren't going to leave me here. Do you promise me?"

He nodded once and turned up towards the sky again. "Will you promise me something?"

"That depends," she said tersely. "Does it have anything to do with you dying?"

Ignoring that question, he asked, "Will you promise to live for me?"

"What?" She tried to search his crimson eyes, but he kept his gaze away from her.

"Live for me, Mikan. I want you to live for me."

She lifted her eyelids and touched her cheek. Small, crystalline trails ran down her cheeks but she didn't hastily wipe them away. Not now. He had told her not to cry, and she had tried her best not to, but sometimes she wanted to do things, just for her.

He had told her not to cry; she did.

He had told her not to wait for him that night; she did that as well.

She remembered lying across his bed, listening the wind blow roughly outside and the slight ticking of the timer's second hand. Every minute until the next day she would glance over at his clock mounted on the wall only to find that he wasn't back yet.

Why he didn't have an alarm clock? One day when she had spent the night over after fixing up his wounds, he had told her he didn't sleep well. He said he had an internal clock that would always wake him up much earlier than any alarm would, and that he had no use for something that he didn't need.

Now he would never wake up, whether he had the alarm set or not.

She remembered almost being asleep when his door burst open, and she had flung herself up only to find that it wasn't him.

She had been the first one to find that Natsume Hyuuga would not be coming home.

The chill of the winter air slowly dissipated, no longer bothering her—as if it ever did. She looked up through the cracks between branches like she used to do with him, just sitting there by herself. The mug of hot chocolate beside her had long frozen, and light snow started to flutter through the harsh breeze. She didn't mind it.

Mikan Sakura had always loved winter.

She brought her blue fingers into her lap, and shifted in her seat. Her whole body was numb but somehow the tears still rushed down, and somehow her heart still ached more than if shot with a thousand needles. Why couldn't all the pain just go away? The cold didn't bother her at all. Her heart was where it hurt the most.

He had told her not to cry; she did.

He had told her not to wait for him that night; she did.

He had told her to live for him?

Life was unfair. That's the message everyone gets, and the one that seemed to fit her feelings more than anything else. Just before he had gone on that mission, they had promised each other things. If he could break his, why couldn't she break hers? Wouldn't that make it just a little more fair?

You said you wouldn't die. Even her thoughts were hoarse.

You said you wouldn't leave me. She trembled slightly.

Natsume… She whimpered and shut her eyes firmly, trying to stop the icy waterfall that poured.

I'm sorry.

~/~

Hotaru trudged down the path to Central Town the next morning, hot chocolate mug in hand and lips pressed together. This wasn't her fist choice of what to be doing on a winter morning, but she had to check and make sure that her best friend had went back to her dorm.

Coming closer to the tree stationed in the middle of the square, she saw a small figure leaned beside it and sighed.

Mikan, you idiot.

As she came to a stop in from of her, Hotaru held out the mug. "Here." When Mikan didn't move, she leaned down in front of her and said, voice slightly worried, "Mikan, wake up."

The mug dropped.

Her purple eyes widened and she quickly fished out her cell phone, dialing an emergency number that she had never had to punch in before, one she hoped would be left unused. Reading off where they were, she snapped it shut and held it tight at her chest, hoping that this was all a dream, that she was wrong and the girl in front of her would wake up.

A blond haired boy came walking over and said a minor greeting before turning alarmed at the usually stoic face of the inventor in tears.

Soon all of the girl's classmates had been gathered around, all of them having the same intention of dragging the brunette in if she were still there, only to see Hotaru's wet eyes and Ruka kneeled beside the girl's body, shouting in pleads.

It couldn't be true…

He had told her not to cry; she did.

He had told her not to wait for him that night; she did.

He had told her to live for him…

Mikan Sakura had never been one to break promises.

But sometimes there are some that even she couldn't keep.

END

Your thoughts? :)

~Jules