Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice.

Mikan lowered her head as she made an announcement to the class after the Alice War was over. It had been a long battle, and finally, finally the Alice Academy had won. Hotaru looked around and noticed that the Animal Pheromones Boy wasn't sitting at his usual seat. She remembered when he had rushed into the battlefield with his band of animals, and hadn't come back since.

"A lot of people have died in the Alice War, and there is one person from our class who has died. Nogi Ruka." The class cringed when they heard the name being read out, and closed their eyes, remembering the fun times they had together, teasing him about his Alice. And now, he was gone. He was the only they had expected to come out alive, and guess what? They were wrong.

Immediately after this announcement, Hotaru retreated to her room. She sat at her desk, and began building a robot. Her room was filled with pictures of Ruka, mostly of which he was using his Animal Pheromones. No one had ever known she had feelings for the blonde boy, because she managed to hide it so well.

She knew her position in the school, which was known as the Ice Queen. She hated the title, but everyone thought that it suited her. Pah! She thought bitterly. Being the Ice queen didn't stop him from dieing, did it? She knew it wasn't possible for him to like her back, seeing as he was so obsessed with her best friend. She had always been contented to see him from afar, and always pretended she didn't care about him. It was hard, seeing him fall onto the floor accidentally and not reaching out to give him a hand, but it was the way her school system was like. You stuck to your status in school, or you were an outcast.

He had known that the Alice War was dangerous, but he insisted on entering the battlefield, upon seeing Natsume enter as well, upon the orders of the higher-ups. She could have yelled at him, but she didn't. Why? All because of her stupid title, the Ice Queen, and she hated it.

Everyone thought that she was a robot, and didn't look beyond the surface. Only Koko was the one who didn't call her that, but it simply wasn't enough. She needed someone to comfort her, to tell her that everything was fine, once in a while, just like everyone else.

But she had no one to turn to. Mikan was just so obsessed with her little petty love life, and couldn't make time for her. She couldn't share her feelings with anyone else, because they would simply think the machinery in her broke down.

So she didn't like showing emotion. It was because she thought showing emotion was for weak people. People who couldn't cope with their lives showed emotion, and she should have been one of those, but no. She just had to be the Ice Queen.

As she reflected on her past together with Ruka, she finally finished the robot. It was a perfect look-alike of Ruka Nogi, and had every aspects of him. It reacted the same way as he did, when something surprised him, and even loved animals like him.

She set him on the floor, and activated him. She turned to him, and wrapped her arms around him, something which she would never have dared to do to the real Ruka. The robot was soft, and felt like skin, and it hugged her back, too.

This immediately triggered back memories, when she had seen him with Mikan and not being able to say a word to her, because he was too shy, and she was just there, having to stand there and not being able to show emotion.

Flashbacks occurred, and Hotaru realized that no robot could ever replace Ruka, and for once in her life, Hotaru Imai cried, silently, in the arms of a robot, which looked just like Ruka, the most important person in her life. Because she knew he would never love her back, and because, she loved him. And because, in the end, it all came down to this. She was alone.