Disclaimer: For once and for all, Higuchi Tachibana owns Gakuen Alice. I am just another fan whose imagination has gone haywire.
Summary
Wounded by a tragic incident, Mikan went back to Japan to forget and live a new life with her family. But when she realized that she made a wrong move, the flaws they have carved in her were way deeper than she could have imagined.
Foreword
I'll be straightforward. This isn't a happy story. What await the characters are their fateful days that none of them anticipated for. If you are seeking for comfort, then this is not the story for you. However, if what you need is something that will help you realize that not all stories are meant to delight every reader, then please, proceed.
A Paper and String
"Love was a story that couldn't compare..."
-Mayday Parade
I dedicate this story to Chapter 163 of Gakuen Alice.
Natsume Hyuuga, don't you die on me. :(
O N E
My step-brother said that his school was one of the better ones found in the heart of Tokyo. Our parents said that I would have a wonderful experience there. They promised me that. So I believed. In my mind I said, maybe my hometown would understand me the best.
Or so I thought.
.
.
The plane I was riding landed on a Sunday, when a fine rain was falling through the gray sky on the approaching end of autumn. Japan had a distinct smell . . . of flowers, I guessed, compared to stifling stench of smoke in the town in Paris where I spent my childhood until yesterday. Wrapped in my red coat, I walked under the overcast sky with both of my hands clutching the straps of my medium-sized white backpack. I flew alone and walked alone to the confinements of the airport of Tokyo International Airport, where my brother was happily waving his hand towards me as he spotted me in the crowd. Came surfacing from the swarm of people who were also waiting, were our parents in their excited faces.
This was what I had failed to see for quite a long time. My grandmother from my mother's side favoured me the most out of all her grandchildren. When I was eight, she asked my mom if I could stay with her there in Paris. She said that I looked like the exact replica of my mom, and that before she died, she wanted to be the one to see me grow up. It was a selfish request of her, but both my mom and me loved her wholly, grandmother Sakura who suffered a certain heart ailment. Besides from the profound affection I had for her, it was partially guilt that made me agree to her wish. Why would I decline a wish of a dying loved one?
The memory of her in her frailest state surged back into my memories—not that I forgot it because I would never—and the sorrow for losing her embraced my whole body and mind. Fighting the urge to cry in the middle of a not-so-foreign land to me, I pushed a smile on my face and waved back to my brother and parents.
"Mikan, I missed you so much." Throwing her arms around me and a kiss on both of my cheeks, my mom squeezed me when I reached them.
Inhaling the rose fragrance she brought, I closed my eyes. "I'm back, mom."
Tsubasa, my step-brother who was two years older than me, replaced my mom when she pulled back. He had grown taller, as expected, as I stood under his chin. "Welcome back, Mikan."
I nodded, taking in the warmth he was emitting from his firm muscles. He released me and my step-father, Hiro, gave me a hug and a kiss on top of my head. He looked like an older version of Tsubasa. "I'm thankful you have arrived safely. Japan would be so lucky to have you."
I threw my hands around his back and giggled. "That sounds like I'll be engaging in a war, dad."
He ruffled my hair and smiled as he drew back. "Who knows?"
Tsubasa took my purple stroller and flung his arm around my shoulder. "Shall we?"
"Yuka, let's go." Dad said as he placed his hand on the handle of my cart where the rest of my bags and boxes were placed. Nodding, mom clung to his arm and spared a smile for me and Tsubasa.
"I'm happy, Hiro, very much. To see both of our children here makes me feel so . . . accomplished. Our family is now complete."
Amidst the buzz floating above the airport, hearing mom's statement made my heart swell in happiness. A happy family was what I needed the most right now, so I could dwell on what despairing moments I had gone through in Paris without having to feel the same, and instead, hold on to the hands that were always willing to help me stand up.
Our house was twenty minutes away from my new school.
The sun was up in the sky, its rays stretching on towards the corners of the vast space above. The gray roads were covered in dried leaves in red and yellow as I ambled my way to the school. I left the house ten minutes earlier so I had the time to inhale the same rich fragrance of Cherry Blossoms that paved the sidewalks I had taken by the time I took a left turn, where if I follow straight, I would find my new school – Alice Academy.
It was a scene far different than what I would usually find myself into when I was in Paris. Both were cities, but this road to my new school was like a strange world from the real Tokyo. It was a wonderful place where the wind would whisper every now and then, hopes of a new world.
"Good morning," I greeted to the guard standing in his post. He greeted me back the same couple of words I gave him with a smile.
The school building, a five-story white-walled edifice, stood in the center of the widespread area occupied by the whole school. There were a lot of students already walking through the cemented road towards the front doors of the school, wearing the same uniform I wore. It seemed that everyone knew everyone, because I stood out. Not in the famous way, but they were looking at me weirdly and whispering words I made out and concluded that they were surprised and curious, mostly curious, to find out who the new students was – me.
I hung my head low at this, which was really making me feel so uncomfortable and out of place. I never attracted so much attention like this way back. I was just a normal Japanese girl who didn't grow up in her hometown.
"Hey, watch where you're going."
Looking up as I felt a hand forcefully shoved me by my shoulder, I met the blackest of the blackest eyes I've ever seen. Acquainting me was a scowl on the face of the owner, a bald headed lad who stood about half a foot taller than me.
"Aren't you listening? Move out of the way!" He shoved me once again to the side, and this was when I realized he was with a group of people who carried a certain air that tempted me to turn my back and run for my life. They were five, consisting of three boys and two girls.
When I was out of their way, they continued walking to the building. A girl with an ebony boy-cut hair slightly veered her head to me and I saw her vacant amethyst orbs. Her lips were pulled into a smirk as she daintily placed her fingers on the shoulder of the guy beside her, clearly taller than her, and whispered something into his ears. The guy shrugged, pushed his hands inside his pockets, and the girl's eyes left me.
"Is she a new student?" I heard the guy with a short, cropped golden hair that was brushed at its finest to the left side. He was asking the guy who shoved me.
"Maybe, who cares really Yuu?"
So that guy was named Yuu. He held his tie with his forefinger and thumb, and fixed it. "I'm just curious."
I knew who and what kind of students they were. I wouldn't be blind or naive to how their system worked. There were a lot of them in every school, in every town, in every country. Kids who thought they had the power to rule over something, when in truth, they were nothing but a bunch of troublemakers who haven't yet met the terrors of life. Clearly, they were the one who thought they could hammer that down to others whom they deemed lower than them.
Bullies.
And I'm quite afraid I was already targeted.
.
.
When I arrived in our classroom with my homeroom teacher, Narumi-sensei—he said he'd liked to be called by that—, I was introduced to a class where the five people I came across earlier belonged. The guy who shoved me and the girl whom I recognized to be the other girl was seated together, the Yuu-guy was sitting on the center of the third row, and the remaining two ebony haired girl and boy were sitting beside each other at the last row.
"Guys, this is Mikan Sakura. She is a transferee from Paris. From now on, she will be in our care so I hope you'll treat her very well." Emphasizing on the word 'very', Narumi-sensei clapped his hand the same time, though he had a rather anxious and unsure smile on his face.
I didn't smile; just nodded and squeezed my lips into a thin line as my eyes swept the entire yellow-coated room where about forty students sat on their seats, and only half took their time to scrutinize me.
Tsubasa, I thought this was a good school.
"She will be sitting beside," Narumi paused to take a quick but keen gaze around the room, "you, Yuu-kun."
The Yuu-guy glanced at the bald-headed guy and they gave each other a disturbing smile. I felt nervous at this.
"Be glad to, Narumi." Yuu-guy said, and he directed a confident smile to me.
Narumi-sensei clapped his hands again and pushed me lightly to go to my assigned seat. Obediently, I gulped and walked slowly to the chair beside Yuu-guy.
"Good luck." I heard someone whisper as I passed the second row. I looked back, but found no one looking at me, their backs stiff as ice and yet, it seemed that it could bend so easily like a dying stem.
As I sat on my chair and suffered having to stay away from the back of it because Yuu-guy's arm was draped on the back of my/our two-people long chair, I could feel a warm sensation on the back of my head, like someone was staring at me. I wanted to know why, to turn my head, but my heart, which was throbbing so fast stopped me. I didn't know why, but being so near to this Yuu-guy scared the heck out of me. This feeling—it was the same feeling that wrapped me frozen in that day in Paris. I could feel it, the dread of being washed away in a nonexistent world and removed of every happy feeling.
His eyes stroked my head to toe, his emerald sparks lingering as if he was marking certain areas in my body and claiming them his.
"So, how do you find Japan, Mikan-chan?" Moving closer towards me, he murmured those words and I couldn't help but to feel harassed.
Something . . . something in his voice induced a much bigger fear in me. I wanted to ignore his question, but doing that wouldn't be favourable in my position right now. "It's nice."
He tipped his lips closer to my right ear and blew an apathetic breath. "Boring."
Tsubasa, you said this was a good school. But why am I being beleaguered? Why am I starting to sense that you have discarded the truth?
Clenching my fists hidden under the laid cloth of my skirt, a wave of shattering nostalgia came over me. I said, told myself, I'd change. I would be brave.
But I'm still afraid – so afraid that life never stopped targeting me.
A/n: A new story from me. After reading Ch163 of GA, I couldn't stop putting my ideas into words. I know that all of us are deeply wounded by this recent update. I don't even know if I can finish this story. I just want to publish it so I'll have a peace of mine, yet again. What do you think of this story? Tell me by giving a review. :)
TheVanishingSpectacles
©2012
