Disclaimer: Gakuen Alice belongs to Tachibana Sensei.

-- One Week's Worth of Detentions --

-- Prelude --

Alice Academy during summer seasons is always quite welcoming for both guests and students. The school management always ensures that every room, hall, eatery and other facilities have perfectly working air conditioners. For people who want to have some outings or other activities, the academy guarantees that benches, sport equipments beach umbrellas and so on are always available for those who ever need any of them. So, in other word each and every person in Alice Academy will have a total comfort more than anyone could expect from the school no matter how hot and dull the summer might be. Thus, it is perfectly understandable that summer will always be a season for the people in the academy to look forward to. Well, at least for most of the students anyway.

Of course there will be exception for everything and the level of exception itself might vary depend on the situation that the student is having at the moment. Take a good example with this girl who currently seems very busy plucking the weeds in the Middle School Branch's garden. To her, summer is definitely a season of hell that was created by the Satan itself purely dedicated to torture an innocent girl like her.

At this time, her back is already aching from picking out every single weed in that enormous garden. Her skin is already stinging with sunburn and sweating up to the extent that she thought she might need more than 20 cans of Pocari Sweat to return her body's water level back into normal. Her head is almost exploding because of the migraine that starts kicking in after a constant heat torture thanks to the sun, which today chooses to shine merrily (much to her annoyance). All in all, to her, summer is the worst living nightmare.

Now the question is; who's this girl anyway in the first place? Why does she have to enslave herself plucking out the weeds while her expression clearly shows that gardening is the least of her interest let alone to become her hobby? Well, simply because she's Mikan Sakura. To some of the newer students in Alice Academy, they might think that she's only one of the regular students in B Class Middle School Branch; a mere one-star, almost 15 years old student. But of course, to anyone who knows her better, she's definitely more than that. All along in the history of Alice Academy, she is the only person in Alice Academy who is for four years in a row being credited with the title 'Queen of Detention' by her classmates. Not that there is this category in the first place before she came to the academy. Actually to be fair, the title was found after she came to the academy.

Shortly after she entered Alice Academy, most of her spare time would be spent doing a lot of different kinds of detentions. Her very own nemesis a.k.a. torturer is no other than the one and only Jinno Sensei, who would be more than happy to give her another detention if she dares to put on a fight (already proven in countless of time).

Today is no different than any of those days. Mikan came in late for the class as usual, and Jinno Sensei unluckily happened to be the lecturer for this morning, replacing her favorite lecturerer; Narumi Sensei who fell sick due to summer heat. To make her day turns from bad to the worst, Misaki Sensei entered the class shortly while she was still being scolded by Jinno Sensei. He came only to inform the class that he needed volunteers to pluck out the outgrown weeds in the garden. She could swear that she saw an unmistakable evil glint in the corner of his eyes, when Jinno Sensei told Misaki Sensei that she could not be more than eager to help him with the weeds. She was cornered and left with no other option except to agree on helping Misaki Sensei after her class ended.

--

Since the detention started two hours ago, she has mumbled different kind of curses. Normally, she wouldn't even dare to think that she could speak harshly and to curse is definitely unimaginable. However, desperate times called for desperate measures. She doesn't care if anyone argues with her that what she encounters now can barely be called as 'desperate times.' To her, no other times than summer time could be qualified as 'desperate.'

"I noticed you seem a little overjoyed with the detention today, Polka-Dots," a cold voice broke her mutterings.

Mikan startles upon hearing the voice and turns her head around to see who just disturbed her grumbles.

"Ahahaha… very funny, Pervert," said Mikan annoyed with the cynical remarks from no other than the infamous black cat, Natsume Hyuuga.

Totally unperturbed with her irritation, he continued provoking her even more, "I couldn't stop admiring your fondness with all of these detentions, Polka-Dots. I just worried that you overwork poor old Jinno. You might hurt his health."

"I would definitely hurt you, Pervert if you dare to continue your jibe," threatened Mikan.

Natsume only smirks hearing her reply, as if he is waiting for that kind of sentence to be said by the girl in squatting in front of him.

"Wow, I never thought I would live to see you trying to frighten me, Little Girl. I have to say I'm scared," taunted the black cat while the smirk still barely leaves his handsome face.

"Oh, just go away if you only come to annoy me," said Mikan exasperatedly.

Natsume only raises one of his eyebrows while his lips pursed into a slight grin.

"Why? Don't tell me you actually expected me to help you?"

"I should know better that you wouldn't do things like helping others, it's just humanly impossible," Mikan frowned.

Natsume gives Mikan a mocking grin upon hearing her words; it seems that her comments didn't have any effects on him even for the slightest.

"Don't try too hard to be sarcastic, Polka-Dots, it only makes me wants to laugh," he said, smirked once again and added, "For your information, I do help."

"Uh, puh-lease," retorted Mikan.

"Well, let me ask you, what will you give to the person who could verify my argument?"

"I will do anything that the person asks me to do," answered Mikan lightly while sticking out her tongue.

"Then I'll do it," stated Natsume simply, for a second his eyes flickers with amusement, as if he's actually expecting Mikan to give him that answer.

"What?" said Mikan, confused with the reply she got from him.

"Don't be that dense, Little Girl. You said just now that you would do anything for the person who could defend my argument," Natsume tried to suppress his chuckle.

"And I believe nobody could prove it better than me," he spoke again after he regained his composure.

"What do you mean? It's so unfair to do so, Pervert!"

"Yet you didn't say that it's prohibited in the first place, Polka-Dots. It's only fair for you to honor your own promise, right?"

Mikan left speechless for awhile before speaking with fury, "Okay, so who, what, how, and when do you want to help then? Plucking out these weeds will be out of question. I will disqualify you if you do so."

"I would never dream spoiling your gardening hobby, Polka-Dots. You could finish it yourself," Natsume said he could no longer cover up his amusement.

Then he added almost teasingly, "To make things more enjoyable for both of us, I allow you to make some requirements that I have to follow. We couldn't afford you to later on disqualify me for no reason, right?"

"Humph," Mikan pouted, still looks as cute as ever.

After several minutes of silence, Natsume spoke with an impatience etched on his flawless figure, "Come on, Polka-Dots, can't you thing of something already by now? I, unlike you, didn't enjoy myself to be baked alive in here. You could continue your little gardening activities later after you give me the necessary details."

"Oh, just be quiet," snapped Mikan. She frowns a bit as if thinking very hard.

Finally she said, "I guess I have to admit my defeat if you could help me avoiding any detentions."

"How long?"

"Eh?"

"Of course I expect a timeframe, Polka-Dots. You know it very well that you're prone to get detentions and I wouldn't bother myself to check you up endlessly," Natsume couldn't help smirking by his own last word.

"For God's sake," Mikan dropped her jaw disbelievingly and shook her head while staring at the outgrown weeds in front of her.

Finally, she added, "Let's just make it one week then."

Mikan looks flustered and frustrated by the time she returns her gaze to her unfinished work in front of her. She is completely oblivious with the odd look that he gave her a moment before; a torn expression between amusement, exasperation and something very much like… love.

He turns around with his back facing Mikan when he stated simply, "As you wished, it will be one week's worth of detentions, Little Girl."

Before Mikan could retort his statement, the black cat is already nowhere to be seen. She couldn't help but thinking inwardly on what kinds of helps that she could possibly have from Natsume Hyuuga, especially seeing the fact that both of them didn't even belong to the same class anymore now.

However, she would have one week's time to witness the helps that he offered just now. She opts to ignore the consequences if he really manages to do what he promised to her. Still, the thought of him doing things as little as a help made her feel an unstoppable bizarre sensation to her heart.

-- to be continued --