Rated T for language and extreme OOCness. You have been warned.
Dedicated to all lovely people who reviewed, followed, and added this story to their favorites.
Previously
"Hi," she whispered between gasps and apologetic smiles, "I'm Mikan Sakura."
Natsume Hyuuga
Maybe she wasn't the prettiest girl in the world, but she was captivating given the fact that her angelic face was out of place above her all-black ensemble. Not that the supposed 'Mikan Sakura' had a mound of eyeliner around her hazel eyes, but one look and I realized that she was an innocent little kid dressed up in bad-boy clothes.
Upon my second look, though, I realized that I was completely wrong. She wasn't smiling apologetically- she was smirking, probably at how I was so glued to her grand entrance right in the middle of the road. Fine, this was a nice change of atmosphere from the girls who tried to throw themselves at me, but she was openly suggesting with her eyes, her damn hazel eyes, that I was an idiot smitten by love at first sight. Oh, please.
I smirked back- take that, Sakura. Girls, especially assuming girls who are full of themselves, don't need to mess with me in the worst way possible.
Ruka seemed tense, judging by the way he clutched his stuffed toy and the nervous fidgets he displayed. Was Mikan Sakura exuding an aura of arrogance and rebellion? Because if she was, I wasn't feeling any fear at all- and maybe I can conclude that I'm an emotionless monster, as hypothesized by a stupid personality test on the Internet.
Never breaking her proud stare off, Mikan walked along the bus aisle and gathered her long brown hair into a messy ponytail, her free hand popping a Doublemint bubblegum into her small mouth. After reading all those detective stories, I could say (or deduce, for that matter) that all of her cocky bullshit was a disguise weakly pulled off.
Mikan didn't seem to mind her failing pretension when she took the seat behind mine, putting on her headphones (believe me, they weren't genuine) and turning up the volume of her alternative rock music notches higher so that she could succeed in creating her own impression on us, specifically me. I didn't give a damn whether or not she was trying to be cool, I just wanted this summer to end in the blink of an eye.
Too bad my smart-ass mouth couldn't resist the rare chance of putting someone to shame (now was the time to ease out of introversion, it thought on its own). "Headphones smuggled in the streets? I thought that this camp required an amount of compensation which couldn't possibly be paid by someone who is, undoubtedly, financially needy."
The alternative rock music (which already sounded like heavy metal to me, thank you very much) stopped blaring for a moment. Mikan sighed sweetly (the 'sweetness' there created another hole in her attempts of being incognito) and never responded with a witty remark. Perhaps she had nothing to say in that empty head of hers, to begin with, but seconds later I felt smooth hands on my neck. Was Ruka trying to get physical with me or-
Oh, shit.
Soon I found myself frantic in a fatal headlock, my lungs aching for air and my eyesight beginning to shut down. Mikan's angry lips brushed past my ear and hissed, "Look, pretty boy, if you're just going to chide my stuff, better keep that mouth of yours to yourself."
To be honest, that's what I've done my whole life. My mouth apparently chose this hour as the right time to backfire on me and earn me a deathbed.
Ruka screamed at the top of his lungs and the once silent group that was on the bus started yelling and placing bets on whether or not I could survive. Are they fucking blind or can't they just see that I was literally dying over here?
Mikan must have seen my face become purple, so she released me with the last inch of her humanity and growled, her hair disheveled and her hazel eyes burning with the passion of revenge. "Don't mess with me again," she whispered before turning back to her cheap headphones, playing that same 'screaming' music in her ears and drowning all the gossiping noise in the background.
I could have retorted, but I choked on my words like a damn klutz so I just resumed writing and feeling a little ashamed and pissed off. I don't know why, but I may be writing a diary entry with glitter pens, telling an inanimate object how it was a man's distress to be defeated by a girl and how my day had gone horribly, terribly wrong.
Fuck my life.
As soon as I jumped off the bus (when we reached the airport, duh) I saw other teenagers 'making out' behind some vehicles. For Pete's sake, I was fourteen, and though boys do get hormonal during their puberty, it doesn't mean that they have to do a free public show. Not that I'd be interested to watch.
I should've stuck to Ruka rather than fumble for my passport alone while females surrounded me again with their cameras. The only things crossing my mind were unimaginable profanities, so I wasn't the least bit surprised when I fished out a movie ticket instead of my visa.
Now that I thought about it, perhaps Mikan Sakura was just another hitchhiker who was as random as any of the trillions of people in the world. I just happened to cross her with bad luck.
I reviewed the papers in the envelope that Narumi gave us earlier and read a handbook which comprised of the profiles of all the participants in the camp that my parents sponsored. Most of the participants had their detailed data listed including the companies of their families- turns out Ruka Nogi was the heir to several international medical businesses.
What intrigued me the most was the fact that Mikan Sakura was there, but her profile wasn't elaborated on. Only a picture of her fake grin was printed beside her annoying name. My nosy nature was starting to act on its own accord again, but after the near-death encounter I had with the damn rebellious girl, I won't bother to beg for another wrestling move, unless I was willing to punch a girl and defy the law of gender bias.
Out of the handbook, I gleaned that Sakura was older than me by months- yet another insult to my male pride. That sent all reason and logic flying out the window, because hell, that Mikan Sakura drives me and my guts crazy.
Narumi's megaphone made awful, screeching noises once the participants gathered outside the massive airport, which seemed like it had an all-glass structure from afar. Narumi distributed plane tickets and told us not to worry about the fares because 'the Hyuuga Company had been generous enough to provide all the necessities for this exciting and essential journey'. My mom couldn't even agree to me buying a minimalistic house by the beach and away from the family estate, yet here she was, spitting in my face that we were bloody rich because of the fact that we sponsored the stupid camp and the expenses it entailed.
In addition to that, we were going to board a business-class airplane, and the boarding time was right now. If there's one business trait that I learned from my family, it's diplomacy, seeing as they managed to convince the airlines to accommodate us in a unique aircraft with three seats in a row. Funny how I couldn't apply the trait in my hopeless case with Sakura and how I keep on pressing her on my mind because I feel threatened by someone who's two leagues under the economic and social ladder.
I found the '6' row of seats and sat in the middle, as declared in my ticket. A green-haired girl wearing an avant-garde outfit plopped down beside me- of all the colors in the world, why the hell would she even choose to dye her hair in puke-green? Just staring at her mane makes me want to vomit all over my notebook, and worse, she began to cling to my arm as if we had been close for years. I'm afraid of only two things in the world: clowns and physical touch from the opposite sex- I know, Sakura had choked me with her bare hands, but it wasn't exactly a sign of affection- why am I thinking about her again?
I wasn't paying attention but I caught a name during the green-haired girl's one-sided conversation- "Sumire". Perhaps she was going on and on about how expensive her dress was, which I don't really care about unless her extravagant clothes could come alive and shut her up.
Finally giving in to migraine, I leaned back on the headrest and tried to block out all the reverberating voices of immature teenagers going giddy in their seats and taking pictures of sickness paper bags. Were rich people supposed to act like buffoons in a zoo?
All the irritation building my headache up was replaced by anxiety at the sound of a familiar voice and the rustle of a black leather jacket. If there was someone who had a more enormous ego than me, it was that Mikan Sakura. Did I already say fuck my life? Because if I did, then, double fuck my life. Make that triple.
"Move," Mikan commanded, holding a takeaway from McDonald's which presumably comprised of French fries, cheeseburgers, and gravy, based on the bulges and the outline of the bag. How the gravy ended up there, only the Sakura freak would know. I didn't even know how she ran to a fast food chain in the span of minutes, given that the food court was at the other end of the vast airport.
Of course, the only thing that I could do upon knowing that she would be beside me, not to mention that she gets the window for herself, was roll my eyes. A lot of people say that the action emanates femininity, but from the looks on Sakura's face, I could pull it off impressively. Though I developed a sense of hatred towards her, I couldn't help but gape when Sakura took her cheeseburger out and poured gravy all over the bun.
"That-that's gross," I muttered, wondering how the hell she could eat pickles coated with the warm brown sauce. She glared at me and took an enormous bite, making annoying chewing noises derived from barbarians.
"You know what's even grosser?" she asked, a bit of beef spewing from the edges of her mouth. "A seemingly straight guy writing on a diary. Imagine all your horrified fangirls at the thought of you parading in pink fur."
"For Pete's sake, this is not a diary," my lips drew into a rigid line, but soon turned into a wolfish grin. "So you do admit that I have fangirls."
Mikan smiled suspiciously. "Yes, of course you do, pretty boy. Although I might add that those fangirls worship a narcissist who doesn't have a face to show when a girl strangles him."
If it wasn't for the 'moral principle' that boys have to reserve a maximum amount of temperance for girls, I would have stabbed Sakura Mikan with my pen, as dim-witted as it may sound. I had never been more determined in my life to take revenge on someone. All I knew was if people do have archenemies in real life, Sakura Mikan would be one of mine.
"Better be a worshipped deity than a stuck-up loner who finds solace in eating unlikely combinations of food," I sputtered back, continuing to write cuss words on the back of my notebook. She wasn't responding, so I looked up at her and saw her staring attentively at me. For the second time today, I cracked a smirk.
In order to act out the process of humiliation, I cupped her chin (which was a big achievement for me because I usually hid from the presence of other living beings) and looked her straight in the eye. From my observation, the stronger and fiercer she is on the outside, the more vulnerable she gets inside when she thinks that nobody notices her façade.
"See something you like?"
She swatted my hand away dismissively and munched on her burger. "Oh, no. Just checking how you managed to stir hormones from the population of idiots, I don't even see what's so likeable about you."
"Will you please shut up?" Sumire inquired while keeping her firm grasp on my arm. I even forgot that she was there, no offense.
I mentally groaned. This was going to be a long ride.
Receiving the news about Narumi, I grew anxious and excited at the same time- the transvestite, along with other adult guides, disappeared without a trace in the airport- which means that my parents had intended a no-adult supervision road trip in a different continent.
The latest paperback copy of The Templar Legacy was laid on my desk. I couldn't quite understand how Cotton Malone ended up in the church or something. In fact, I couldn't quite comprehend anything at the moment when I saw that Mikan was watching a documentary about the German air force during Hitler's time.
I had to admit, she had pretty good taste.
It must be weird to see me staring at her, because her face contorted and she pressed 'pause' to stop the video with an irritated expression. "So, do you see something you like?"
Instead of feeling irked (which I do all the time), I laughed, pointing to the small screen in front of her. "Luftwaffe, right?"
It's a miracle that somehow, we were on speaking terms (and that doesn't include making offensive remarks). Mikan barely nodded and took another bite of her gravy-coated burger while trying to process that I actually smiled at her. For a while, I thought about how she could be attracted to the happy side of me, but I dismissed the idea because I would hate it for her to become another worthless fangirl, and if ever she would chase me, I would be scared out of my wits to know that she has the capability to asphyxiate me to death.
"Yeah," she said under her breath, pressing the 'play' button and lowering the volume of the video. The Luftwaffe began 'the Blitz'- the strategic bombing of Britain by the German air force during the World War II, done in 57 consecutive nights. "I don't get how the world can only see Hitler as the evil Fuhrer who practically claimed Germany for himself. Though he can be pretty violent, he's a genius."
Her perspective was quite shallow if one may ask- but I didn't want to get into a fight with a girl again, so I agreed, telling myself that maybe I could use some 'leveling down' of intellect for a while so that I could interact with normal people and, perhaps, gain a social circle. "How old are you?" I queried in loss of things to say. Despite my looks and status, I was fucking socially awkward. Damn.
Mikan inched away and sipped her Coke. "Fifteen. Are you being a stalker now?"
"No," I voiced out, quite confidently this time- anything to make it seem that I am not, in any way, a stalker. "Just wondering if I could file a case against you."
"Which is?"
I pried Sumire's hand off my arm. "Child abuse." Sumire groaned in her sleep and resorted to hugging a magazine provided by the airlines, and Mikan chuckled at my back without sarcasm or any other negative edge, which seemed good for starter conversations.
"You're younger than me?" she shook her head, as if in pity and fake compassion. If she intended to annoy me, then she got an F. "The good old days of being naïve."
"Just by a few months," I countered, closing The Templar Legacy gently and placing it in my backpack. Yes, I can be pretty touchy-feely with my books. Good thing I didn't live during that certain Japanese era in which the emperor commanded his subjects to burn all known paperbacks. I might have attacked the palace and slain all royal people. "That doesn't make you any better than me."
Crumpling the burger wrapper, Mikan spoke, "Oh, really? I thought you were an asshole- pardon the French, given that you're a child."
"I thought you were a bitch," I deadpanned, noting the funny expression on Mikan's face. She laughed wholeheartedly again, and I found it rather amusing to watch her light up. What I said earlier about her angelic face was completely true- her cheeks were rosy red from the cold and she seemed harmless at first glance. "Pardon my French."
I didn't mean to be hilarious but Mikan nearly choked on her Coke, calming herself down by punching her head repeatedly. As I gazed at her, I shifted comfortably at my seat, recalling this day's events and how I wrote profanities like they were the most ubiquitous in my vocabulary. Before closing my eyes, I gave her my trademark smirk, and for a moment I thought I saw her hazel eyes soften as if they were the truest things I have ever seen.
We haven't reached Europe yet, but I guess I already made a friend.
Three cheers for the introverted Natsume Hyuuga.
So how was it? The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry and Luftwaffe are graciously disclaimed. This story is going to be fast-paced, so I suggest that you remember every bit, because you never know if it will come up as important in future chapters. The 'mystery' part of the story will be coming soon, promise. This was typed in a rush (yes, exams are next week and I found the time to still write this) so feel free to flame or, if you're kind enough, point out the errors. I think I hate this chapter OTL but anyways, stay tuned! 8D
