Global Disclaimer: Disclaimed. All rights belonged to © Higuchi Tachibana. This will be applied to all chapters.

Standard Notice: AU Setting. No reference to the anime or manga.

…

Prologue

I met him in my favorite park in Tokyo City.

It was spring that time and the cherry blossom trees were blooming. I was happily watching the pink leaves fall slowly, mesmerizing the beauty of it. That was when I saw three men wearing black suits chasing after a kid whom I assumed was around my age. He was weird in my opinion, he was wearing a thick, gray jacket, a black cap and sunglasses. It was like he was portraying those detectives in novels and movies. He managed to lose the guards in the other part of the park, like it really was a movie being filmed. I got woken up of my little trance when the weird kid ran towards my location and stealthily hid behind the bench I was sitting.

"Just imagine I'm a prince and they were my evil royal guards."

That was the first thing he said to me when I turned my head and stared strangely at him. My confused look got washed away and changed it into a bright, warm smile.

"Can we be friends, Mr. Prince?"

"No." he answered in a straight, nonchalant tone. From here I knew, he was really a weird kid.

When the guards finally left the park to search the other area, he stood up and sat next to me.

"You are really weird! But cool at the same time! You were like those undercover agents I see in the movies! Can we meet again?"

I couldn't see his face or what his reaction was. He only sighed and replied, "Whatever."

Since that we would meet every day at my favorite park. I was really curios because he was still wearing those undercover-like attire. I didn't bother asking why, because at that time, I just really find it cool.

I found out that he could be nice… sometimes. It was like he was also hiding his emotions like how he was hiding his identity from me.

"Hey, we've met several times but I still don't know your name." I heard him asked one time in our meeting.

"Well, we're fair. I don't know yours either, as you said you are a prince. So I kept on calling you prince."

"Well then, I shall call you princess. That's what makes it fair."

I laughed at him. He scratched his head and I swear I heard him laugh in low tone. I looked at him with my usual bright smile.

"I changed my mind, I'll just call you idiot." He said with a shrug. I pouted and playfully hit his shoulder.

"You know what, better keep that idiotic smile of yours. That's much better than you blabbering nonsense throughout the day."

He was my new friend, he always come to the park and join me – even though he was very silent sometimes. I just keep talking to him, because I know, he was listening. I thought we've been able to grow up together. But that never happened.

"I need to leave Japan soon."

"Huh?" I was shocked and didn't manage to form a proper reply. I felt sadness slowly engulfing my being. When my brain finally processed what he just said, a tear escaped my eyes.

He sighed deeply and wore a silver ring in my ring finger. "I'm sorry, princess. Please wait for me."

That was it. I never saw him again after that. But I will wait… no matter what.

…

Kringgggggggg! PLANK!

A flying alarm clock hit the wall.

Someone groaned under the covers, covering her ear with a pillow.

"Shut up, stupid alarm clock." She mumbled and tried to get back to sleep.

But she couldn't.

'Those memories keeps on coming back. When will we meet each other again, Prince? Many things had changed but still… I still wanted you to return.'

She sighed and slowly opened her eyes. Her hazel-colored eyes slowly wandered around the room and heaved another sigh. She slowly sat up and started to ruffle her long auburn hair.

'I just want to stay asleep.'

Her little trance was broken when someone knocked in her door.

"Mikan! Breakfast is ready!" A cheerful, loud voice shouted behind her closed door. She released a weak growl and finally stood up.

"Fine, coming." She answered in lazily and stomped to the bathroom. She took a bath and wore her high school uniform consisting of a white long sleeve, a blue ribbon and a black blazer with blue linings with a matching blue and black plaid skirt. She stared at her reflection at the mirror emotionlessly. Her face looked normal, but her eyes looked dead. She shook her head, and left her room.

She went to the kitchen and saw his older brother preparing the breakfast.

"Good morning, Mikan!" a man around 17-year-old greeted gleefully. He was also wearing a high school uniform with same design as Mikan's – except its for male. He had a shiny blue hair and matching tantalizing deep blue.

"Good morning to your face, too, Tsubasa." Mikan answered teasingly and sat in a chair beside her brother. She began munching a sandwich and sipping hot chocolate.

"Rude as usual. Where did my cheerful sister go?" Tsubasa replied with a fake sad tone. He also took a sandwich and started eating.

Mikan shrugged her shoulder. "Well, I'm not your biological sister, after all."

"That's true, but for me, you are still my little sister that I need to take care of." He replied with a wide grin and winked at her. Mikan faked a disgusted expression in her face.

Tsubasa laughed merrily at her expression. "Mom already left. Eat fast or we will be late." He told her to change the subject. He had to because he knew how awkward her sister was when it comes to family topic.

"You're the slow one here." Mikan mumbled and finished her sandwich and hot chocolate. She stood up, picked up her bag and left the house.

"Heyyy!" Tsubasa growled and finished his food as fast as he could.

…

Outside, Mikan stared at their house for a while. It was not too big or too small, but for her, it was the best household she had ever been. Tsubasa caught her and shook his head.

"Hey, Mikan…" Tsubasa called worriedly. Mikan sighed, turned her heels around and started to walk. Tsubasa followed her and they walked together, no one dared to say a word.

After few minutes, they reached a tall gate with an engraved letters spelled as "Alice Academy" in front of it.

"ID please." The guard at the gate demanded.

"As usual." Mikan mumbled.

"Just doing my work, Sakura-san." The guard replied and laughed. Mikan just rolled her eyes as Tsubasa sweatdropped. They both presented their ID's and the gate automatically opened.

The Alice academy was one of the most outstanding secondary school in Japan. It only accepted people who could pass their entrance exam, which was well-known as one of the hardest exam ever made. They didn't only test your knowledge in general academics, they also test how you would handle a real life situation when it happened. This was why graduates in Alice Academy were all successful in the career they've chosen. It doesn't matter if you are wealthy or not, as long as you could keep up with the Academy's standard, you could get accepted in this school.

…

"Well, see you later, Mikan!" Tsubasa bid goodbye and parted ways with her. Mikan continued to walk down the hall and finally stopped in front of a room with nameplate spelled as "Student Council Office".

She slowly opened the door and was greeted by people who were already inside.

"Good morning, Sakura-san!"

She just nodded her head as a reply and made her way to the long, wooden table in the room. She pulled out the chair in the topmost part of the table and smacked her temple as she was greeted by piles of papers as she sat down.

"Papers again. Why did Narumi-sensei appointed me to be this council's president again." She mumbled in annoyance.

"…because you're the only one who can handle it." A voice whispered in her ear which almost gave her a heart attack. She turned her head and saw this spiky blond guy goofily grinning behind her.

"Oh, Koko." Mikan managed to say calmly.

"Morning, Mikan-chan." His grin grew widely as he sat in a chair beside the table.

She sighed. "Same to you."

Yome Kokoro, the Student Affairs Officer of the council. He always had this cheerful smile plastered in his face. He always had this expression, which was why he was known as the friendliest member of the student council.

"Koko, will you act like a normal person sometimes? That expression in your face makes you look like an ugly monkey in the jungle." A girl with shoulder-length green hair that was curled at the tip said. She gave a cup of coffee to Mikan and her big green eyes diverted at Koko. She was Shouda Sumire, another Student Affairs Officer in the council, together with Koko.

"Oh, hi wild green bear." Koko teased and pulled the curly tip of her hair.

"KOKO!" Sumire fumed.

Koko immediately ran out of the room while laughing and Sumire angrily ran after him. It caused the paper in Mikan's table to fly and scatter all over the floor. She sighed heavily and slapped her forehead in irritation. This made the two girls at the lower side of the table to stood up and pick up the paper on the floors.

"Here, her, Mikan-chan!" They said in unison. They arranged the papers and placed it back in its original place.

"Thank you, Anna and Nonoko." Mikan replied to the two girls. The one was Umenomiya Anna, the Secretary and the other is Ogasawara Nonoko, the Head of Events Committee.

Another girl approached them. She had this short raven hair, amethyst eyes and a bored expression in her face.

"Mikan, here's reports of the funds. The lazy auditor is always late making me do all his works." She said and gently placed the paper in front of Mikan. She was Imai Hotaru, well, she was the treasurer. She nominated herself to be the one.

Mikan took the folder from Hotaru and put it in one of the drawers of her table.

"Nicely done, Hotaru." Mikan replied gratefully.

"I'm just doing what I need to do inside this room." Hotaru replied and walked towards the door. She was about to open the it when it suddenly burst open and a blond guy bumped at her. She fell flat on the floor.

"Oh no, I'm late!" The guy shouted not realizing that he bumped into someone. He looked around and realized all of the people inside the room were looking at him with a tensed smile.

"Hi, Ruka-kun!" Anna happily greeted.

"Looks like you need to run again!" Nonoko added.

"…out of this room." Mikan added to Nonoko's sentence which made Ruka more confused. His gaze finally saw Hotaru, who was slowly standing up with an angry expression and evil aura around her. Then, it finally realized what just happened.

"Uh, uhm. I'm sorry Imai-san! I thought I was late." He apologetically said with a small, tensed smile.

"You were always late." Hotaru said, annoyed.

She walked closer to Ruka who was stiffened in his current position.

Hotaru moved her face closer to his. Ruka's face became red which made Hotaru back off a little. She felt weird while looking at Ruka's azure eyes.

She just flicked him lightly in his forehead and rolled her eyes.

"This is a waste of time." She said and walked out of the room.

"W-what?" Ruka asked to his self. He turned his gaze to his remaining council mates.

"Wow, she doesn't kick you!"

"Or use some weird gadgets to hurt you. Weird right, Anna-chan?"

"Yeah, maybe Hotaru-chan found out something right?"

"And what could that be?" Ruka asked curiously.

"She likes you. It's too obvious." Mikan mumbled like it was the most common thing in the world.

"WHAT?" Ruka said almost shouting.

"I didn't say anything." Mikan replied.

"Oh, man!" Ruka said while scratching the back of his head and went to his seat.

"By the way Sakura-san, Natsume will not come today." Ruka said, changing the topic. Mikan glared at him. Ruka sweatdropped. He was already expecting this kind of reaction from Mikan.

"That spoiled lazy dog..." Mikan cursed under her breath.

"But he said he needs to discuss something with you so you need to go in his house at 10am." Ruka added which made Mikan more annoyed. Anna and Nonoko felt the scary aura around Mikan so they stepped back and returned to their table.

"Uhmm...Hyuuga-san always makes things hard for Mikan-chan." Anna whispered to Nonoko.

"Yeah, just because he was rich. He's been abusing his family's power." Nonoko replied. They couldn't do anything about his behavior because the principal appointed him to be the vice president of the council. One more thing, they were kind of scared of him.

…

[Hyuuga Residence]

His bloody-red eyes were staring at his room 's white ceiling He slowly rotated his head to his side and saw a sleeping blond girl under the cover of his sheets. He reminisced how he met her in a bar he always went and decided to invite her to his house. As usual, the expected things happened when a man and a woman were alone in a room.

His thoughts were cut when he heard a knock on the door.

"Master, you have a visitor." A crackly, old voice said behind his closed doors. He stood up and ruffled his raven locks and stretched his hands which showed the firm build of his body.

"Hn. Leave now." He replied which the old man followed. He looked at the clock which showed 10:15AM and smirked. He wore a bathrobe and left his room.

Downstairs, he saw her, the expected visitor, still looking like a geek reading those boring books.

He silently went down the stairs and approached her. She didn't notice that he was already in front of her.

"Hey, ugly." Natsume called which made Mikan to raise her head and glare at him. She had this irritated expression in her face which made Natsume amused.

Natsume sat in the opposite seat to Mikan.

"So, why did you want me to take a step to this eerily creepy house of yours? Make it fast." Mikan asked, irritated. She made sure he would notice that she was very, very annoyed and didn't want to stay longer inside the so called Hyuuga mansion.

"Looks like you want to leave immediately, huh?" Natsume replied, amused.

"Only few minutes has passed and I'm really tired of seeing your face." Mikan pointed out, rolling her eyes.

"Well you must get used to it." He replied, with a meaningful smirk plastered in his face.

Mikan raised a brow.

"I suggested to the headmaster that the student council should have teambuilding for one week, means that you'll see this face of mine every day and every hours, minutes and seconds for seven days." His smirk grew wider when he saw her scowled.

"I hate this vampire so much…" Mikan cursed under her breath.

She was about to object but…

"Natsume-kun!" a high-pitched girly voice shouted from upstairs. Mikan looked where the voice came from and saw a blonde-haired girl around her age wearing only a see-through night gown. She could already see her panty and bra. She shuddered in disgust and threw a nauseated look at Natsume.

"This is so disgusting." Mikan mumbled loud enough for Natsume to hear.

"Tch."

The girl walked downstairs and hugged Natsume from behind.

"Why did you leave me at the bedroom? I woke up and you are already gone." She said and pouted. The girl tightened her hug. "Anyway, I took a bath already, so we can continue what we started last night." She added with seductive voice, gently biting Natsume's earlobe.

"Go home now." Natsume said and then removed her hands and pushed the girl way from him.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?"

"Tch, Get home and forget everything that ever happened." Natsume said scornfully which made the girl to be taken aback.

"Why? Is that because of that girl? Did your taste change from a hot girl like me to that ugly girl like her? Natsume-kun! You got to be kidding!" The girl protested.

Mikan felt sick just watching them.

"I'm leaving, the air around this house is no longer breathable." Mikan said and then stood up.

Natsume threw a deadly glare at the blonde girl. "Leave." He said threateningly. The girl got scared. With one last look at Mikan and Natsume, she huffed and stomped out of the house angrily.

"Now ugly, sit down." Natsume commanded.

Mikan acted like she didn't hear anything and started to walk to the door but Natsume followed her and gripped her wrist to stop her.

"What?" Mikan yelled angrily.

"The discussion about my proposal isn't finished yet." He replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Just send the details to the office." Mikan said and tried to remove Natsume's hand off her wrist. But Natsume made the grip much tighter. She winced in pain.

"Didn't like what you've seen a while ago?"

"You're just a disgusting playboy. Let me go!" Mikan tried her best to remove his hand from her wrist but Natsume was too strong. Natsume pulled her closer to him and moved his face closer to her face.

"Maybe you secretly wanted to be in the place of that girl, huh?" Natsume replied with a seductive look in his face. He didn't mean it, he only wanted to see what Mikan will do. In his mind, all the girls were the same, easy to fall into guy's trap.

Mikan gritted her teeth and slapped Natsume's face…hard. They didn't even notice that there was someone standing at the opened door, currently watching them.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Hyuuga. I'm not like them. I hate you so much, that annoying face and your rotten personality. Hope you'll just die soon." Mikan cursed angrily because of the humiliation she was feeling.

Natsume stared at her, dumbfounded. Maybe she always looked serious but today was different. That angry and cold expression in her face, it gave chills on Natsume's bones.

Mikan angrily turned around and stomped to the door, still not noticing someone was there. She rolled her eyes in annoyance and looked up to see who was there. Her anger suddenly got washed away and got replaced with a surprised and high-strung feeling.

He was wearing a thick gray jacket, a black cap and sunglasses. This made her step back in shock.

"Hi. I'm sorry but what's happening here?" The guy asked and then removed sunglasses and the cap. His shiny mint-green eyes diverted to Mikan and then to Natsume. He scratched his dark-gray colored hair in confusion.

He walked close to Mikan and smiled at her.

"Are you okay?" He asked. She examined the shocked face of Mikan.

Mikan returned to reality, she immediately averted her gaze away from him.

"Tch. Yuji, don't mind that ugly nerd." Natsume butted in.

Mikan bowed her head to Yuji.

"I'm sorry!" Mikan blurted out and then ran out of the door. Natsume was confused. For the last three years that they became classmates, she never heard her sorry that easily.

"What's wrong with her? Who is she? Is she your new girlfriend Natsume?" This guy named Yuji asked.

"That will never happen." Natsume answered in an irritated tone.

Yuji removed his light gray-colored jacket. "Then why is she here?"

"Tch. She's the council president."

"Oh! She was your superior." Yuji asked, remembering her face.

Natsume eyed him from head to toe. That gray-colored coat and black cap and sunglasses he was holding. He heaved a deep sigh.

"Yuji, stop doing that." He said in a disappointed tone.

"Doing what?" He faked an innocent tone. He welcomed himself inside the house and sat beside Natsume

"Wearing those things and going to that park. I doubt she still remember everything. That was like eight years ago."

"Well, I really wanted to meet this princess you've always told me about. Don't you want to see her again?" Yuji replied.

"Tch. Things has changed. Even if she still remembers me, I doubt everything will be the same. So stop it." Natsume pointed out, glint of sadness was laced in his voice.

Yuji laughed softly and patted Natsume at the back. "If that's what you want, my dear cousin."