Inspired by a class project and fueled by writer's block.

I don't own Mikan, Anna, Natsume, or anything related to Nintendo


Anna stared down at the silver box, one eyebrow raised and lips pursed. Mikan beamed enthusiastically, but her friend wasn't convinced.

"Aren't these like, twenty years old?"

Mikan's smile faded into a slightly defensive expression. "Technically, yeah, but I like them better. One of my friends had one when I was a kid, and I used to wanna sleep over at her house all the time, you know?"

"No," interjected Anna.

"Oh… Well, I saw one at the thrift store down the street and got it for Natsume's birthday. It's actually really fun, even though I'm kind of bad at it." Mikan grinned hopefully at the curly-haired girl. "Besides, Wiis are overrated."

"I'll agree with you there," resigned Anna, thinking of kids she had known after her graduation. At one point, she had even been asked to make a Nintendo-themed cake for an eight-year-old's birthday party. Granted, it actually had been a lot of fun…

"Fine. I'll give it a try." Mikan actually jumped for joy, and rushed to untangle the mess of wires stemming from her secondhand GameCube. Anna collapsed on the couch, a navy piece that let out a whoosh of air whenever you sat down, and smelled of cinnamon and Natsume. She must be spending too much time around here, she mused, to know what Natsume smells like.

Mikan whooshed down beside her and handed her a controller. She looked at it dubiously, seeing only a multitude of knobs and buttons that she was practically guaranteed to be useless with.

"You know," said Anna, absently turning over the plastic object to see if it looked any less daunting. "Before the Nintendo people made video games, they used to be a chain of love hotels." Mikan choked on her mouthful of a soda that had been on the coffee table.

"Who told you that?"

"Miruku. Then again, god knows who she got it from," Anna replied. As her friend shook her head incredulously, she watched the startup screen. "What game are we going to play, exactly?

"Mariokart!" cried Mikan a little too excitedly. "It's really, really fun!"

"I'll take your word for it." Anna had not yet shed all of her initial skepticism, but, she had to admit, the little dinosaur thing was cute. Mikan noticed player two's pointer heading towards it while selecting her character, and cried out in alarm.

"No!" she gasped. "Yoshi is mine!" Anna pressed herself back into the cushions at the unexpected outburst, dropping her controller in shock.

"My god, Mikan," she said. "You're really possessive over an animated dino." Mikan grinned sheepishly, and advised her to take the mushroom-looking one. She was also given a quick overview on controls before beginning their race, but forgot almost immediately. Anna sighed. She was doomed.

"Crud," hissed Mikan, narrowing her eyes in concentration as Anna (to her surprise) zoomed off. "Got off to a bad start." Anna giggled, twiddling one of the knobs.

"You know what? I'm actually doing okay!"

"Speak for yourself," muttered Mikan darkly as she watched her character spin off the edge of a cliff.

Anna came in fourth, Mikan in last. The latter miraculously undaunted, she readied to begin another match. But, as seems to happen in the most inopportune of times, the phone rang. She got up to answer it, leaving Anna alone and awkward and smelling like Natsume.

"Yeah, mkay. Anna's over now." The pink-haired woman listened to the one-sided conversation in the kitchen, suddenly alert when she heard her name.

"No, Natsume, I can't tell her to go away. No, that's rude. You're rude. Don't be rude, Natsume. Fine, then, she'll still be here. You can hide in the bedroom or something. Yeah, bye. See you. Love you." On that note, Mikan hung up, returning to her living room and a pensive Anna.

"What're you thinking about so hard?" she teased, poking her friend in the shoulder. Anna jumped. Mikan thought it was funny how she blushed the same color as her hair.

"Mikan…" began Anna in an attempt at a casual tone. "What's it like being married?" The setup didn't fool Mikan (for once), and her smile twisted into a pitying sort of expression.

"Don't worry…" she murmured, reaching out to ruffle Anna's curls. "You'll find someone. You've got plenty of time. I was just lucky."

Anna sighed heavily and hugged a throw pillow. "Everyone says that, but it just seems like all my friends have got a guy but me."

Mikan put up a hand, appearing to be counting something. After folding down a couple of fingers, she looked back up. "Miruku."

The pink-haired woman sighed again. "She's been with her boyfriend for three years. Seriously, Mikan, you'd think you'd have known."

"Nonoko," she tried a second time. Anna groaned. "She texted me yesterday about a really hot guy that probably likes her. Can we get back to Mario-whatever?" Mikan pressed a button with a "this-conversation-is-not-over" sigh, and the countdown for the next race began.

"Sumire," attempted Mikan, narrowly avoiding Yoshi's death.

"She hooked up with Koko at your wedding. How did you not kn—"

"She WHAT?" Mikan yelled. Anna took the opportunity to bomb her stationary character.

"Seriously, you didn't catch—"

"Hooked up as in had sex?"

"Well," thought Anna. "Nobody really knows for sure…"

"Nobody tells me anything," grumbled Mikan, but wasted little time in continuing her onslaught. "Hotaru's single."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Does Hotaru even count?"

"Of course she counts; she's as much a girl as you are. She's just a bit… relationship-averse."

"So, she shouldn't count, then."

"Luca. What about Luca."

"I thought we were sticking to girls!"

Mikan turned her head from her doomed avatar to watch Anna. "You're just making this harder on yourself, you know that, right?"

"Look, Mikan," Anna started. "I know you're trying to be nice and all, but you and Natsume have been together since middle school, and—"

"Not true," Mikan interrupted. "There was the time we broke up, remember?"

"Yeah, for like, three hours." Anna paused to swerve wildly around a falling boulder. "The point is, you don't really get what it's like to be hopelessly single."

As if on cue, Natsume stalked in through the living room, and opened the refrigerator. "If Umenomiya doesn't leave before dinner, Mikan," he said, cracking a Tupperware and taking a tentative sniff. "Then she's making it. We could use some decent food around here."

"Natsume, stop scaring off my friends," Mikan scolded. "And that pasta's perfectly good."

Anna accelerated, scraping a second place finish. As Mikan bemoaned her consecutive losses, the pink-haired woman stood up.

"It's okay, I'll just go."

Natsume put up a hand in acknowledgement, and Mikan opened her mouth to protest. Anna moved toward the door. "No, it's fine."

She closed the door quietly behind her and shrugged on her jacket. As she pressed the down button next to the elevator, she fought the stinging feeling that always meant she was going to cry.

You know, she comforted herself; I've got some good points too. I can cook, and she can't… But, that didn't count, she supposed, because it was her alice and she couldn't help it. And before long, the list of ways she was better than Mikan began to serve its opposite purpose.

She looks good in like, every color, and nothing goes with my hair. She's taller than me. She's more outgoing than I am.

At least I'm better than her at Mariokart, she smiled slightly. But the fact still wouldn't change that Mikan would be snuggling up to her husband that night, and Anna would curl up alone in her optimistically large bed.

Life, she thought, just wasn't fair.


Don't as me why I chose Anna for this one. I like her a lot, though, and you'll be hearing more from her in due time.

This will be added whenever I have time, and whenever I have something ready, thus, it will be updated sporadically. It will contain drabbles about the past, the present, and the future. The stories will span multiple genres and multiple themes. I've got several random bits I want to write, so stay tuned.