A/N: Thank you everyone for reviewing and posting your OCs! Oh, and my chatting friends who also read this fic have e-mailed me some of their OCs, but I'm still waiting for more! Here's chapter 2, and I promise you a pretty long chapter next. Well, enjoy! RxR!

Chapter 2: As If You Care About Me

Once upon a time, in an extraordinary place where laughs and conceits hid sorrows, loneliness, and pain, lived a twelve-year-old, expressionless girl named Hotaru Imai. Between all her friends who have their own special talents, nothing interest Hotaru more than using her ability to invent for gaining extra money. However, since HotaLogic said that money would come non-stop to you if you did not care to others, sly, and never hesitated to snap any coming chances, Hotaru learned that she could do whatever she wanted to whatever beneficial in front of her.

Well, usually, her actions in the shake of collecting Rabbits were too unpredictable for people in general. Or you can say, the evil genius would stop at nothing for collecting more and more money while at the same time torturing more and more people.

Alice Academy, an elite school for children who have some kinds of amazing abilities called 'alice', was the first place to give Hotaru an obligation to develop her own invention 'alice'. Surprisingly, Hotaru didn't spend her first moths in the academy blackmailing, cheating, or fooling people around with her alice, at least until her silly ol' best friend from her previous school Mikan Sakura showed up.

After Hotaru got Mikan on her side, she gave up her ambition to visit her parents and turned over a new a leaf. And not a pretty good one, mind you. Hotaru started to show up her skills of making money by making weird gadgets, small devices to make sure that she would never miss any profitable chance. All of a sudden, she became famous of her frightening ways to make other people her pets.

And we all have known Hotaru's most favorable way for her purpose and who the main victim was. Of course, the "hidden camera" and the blond triple-star Ruka Nogi.

Before Ruka met Mikan, he had never thought about that girl with purple eyes and raven-black hair, who on her first classes always sat on the seat at the second row, who seemed kind but also seemed bad. In short, Ruka knew nothing about her and he also didn't care.

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Ruka's first, well, recognizable communication with the triple-starred inventor was without speech.

After he, ahem, "played" with the Giant Piyo, Mikan laughed so hard that he decided to leave, but Hotaru gripped his shoulder and showed him the photograph of him "playing" with Piyo without any further talks. As Ruka consider meaning, "You Should Not Go Away That Easy or You Will Find Somebody Else Laughing as Loud as That Idiotic Girl."

From that first impression, you can guess that they got along pretty well…..indirectly. When Ruka discovered Hotaru selling 'Ruka's-hot-thingies-and-embarassment-or-else' objects, the historical cat-and-dog chase between machines and animals began. Hotaru was clever enough to evade being caught by Ruka, but the drill never changed much. Their relationship never changed a bit since then.

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It was impossible if the genius devil was not provoked by the IAC Tournament.

Her biggest chance to get 'easy' 100,000 Rabbits.

At least that's what Ruka and everyone else think, and she did start to improve her alice like mad from that very day.

Five days after the IAC announcement, Ruka heard from Anna that Misaki-sensei had admonished Hotaru for working too much during Technology Ability class. Although Misaki-sensei didn't recommend her to join IAC, it seemed that Hotaru herself who was ambitious to win the tournament.

Typical Hotaru, thought Ruka desperately.

However, Hotaru kept working even more than before. Another news came from Nonoko that she could still hear Hotaru working in her room or sometimes, her laboratory, even after midnight. Ruka also heard Mikan told Iinchou and Yome Kokoro sadly that Hotaru had changed and became much more careless because of exhaustion and not having enough sleep.

Whether he wanted to or not, he felt a little pity to her.

The next day, when Ruka was checking his books in his room after school, he realized that he left one of his notebooks at school. He couldn't find Natsume anywhere and concluded that Natsume was cat-and-mouse chasing with Persona once again. So he decided to go back to school with Usagin and fetch his notebook himself.

Every corridor he passed was deserted. Ruka thought that his classroom was deserted, too, but it wasn't. When Ruka entered the classroom, he saw Hotaru sitting on one of the front desks, sleeping peacefully with her head rested on the books, notes, and diagrams scattered all over the desk.

What the heck was this girl doing in the room after all of the other students had gone? Ruka approached Hotaru and examined her sleeping face. He had never looked at her face this close before. He recognized how tired she was.

What a true money hunter.

But this is too much, thought Ruka, Six days and she has forced herself this much, that's it, somebody must remind her that she has her own limit and she almost passes it now.

Oh, well, somebody?

Mikan, Yuu, Anna, Nonoko, Misaki-sensei, Shoda-sempai, and even Yome Kokoro, might have cared and reminded her about her condition now.

Why should he, who was nothing more than Hotaru's source of money, care a thing about her?

'Coz, Ruka-pyon, Mikan's voice rang through his head, we're all friends so we all care about each other, including you, Ruka-pyon!

Mikan thought I am her friend, he thought, but I can't even help when her best friend was in trouble! What kind of friend is that? I can't be considered as a friend of hers… Ruka's heart ached with pain.

He examined Hotaru's face again to relieve his pain, and he realized that she looked so…cute while sleeping.

…………………What…kawaii?

No, Ruka, wake up, wake up, what were you just thinking about?

You suddenly realized that Hotaru was cute! Big deal!

That couldn't be true.

What was so cute about this ….. somewhat …..egoistic ……mean …..insipid …..beast! (?) Wait, wait, that's too harsh, nobody would get close to her if she was a beast anyway.

Think again, Ruka, even though she is 'somewhat-egoistic-mean-and-insipid'……. minus the beast, she gotta have something you don't know, more than her talents, something you never spot before, something… Ruka was absorbed in his thoughts when suddenly somebody said,

"What are you doing in here?"

Ruka jumped in surprise. The empty and quiet classroom enabled him to think in his head as long as he wanted to and Hotaru had woken up from her sleep!

"Ah…Imai…I'm just….looking…for my history notebook…" answered Ruka hurriedly.

"I mean…what are you doing that close to me?"

Ruka realized that he had bent pretty low to examine Hotaru's face while thinking inside his head. His face now was just about less than twenty centimeters from Hotaru's.

"It was noth---"

As quick as lightning, Hotaru picked up her gun and…

BAKA!

Ruka was shot right in the face and fell backwards. Usagin squeaked.

"Idiot."

"Imai!" said Ruka hesitatedly, but he went on, "Everybody is worried about you and you just act like you don't care and you keep on torturing yourself!"

"Why don't you just fetch your notebook and get outta here?" she said and started to read her book, "I need to concentrate, y'know."

"Why are you forcing yourself like this, Imai?" asked Ruka stubbornly, "If this is only for the shake of the prize, then everybody must lock you up from doing any more work…"

"As if you care about me."

Those six words stabbed Ruka's heart like sharp needles.

"Of…" he said, "…Of course I care! I'm…I'm…I'm your friend, too!"

She looked up to Ruka eye to eye.

"Liar, "she said, "You would never become my 'friend' if Mikan didn't show up. You would always become the same as them all, Nogi, Hyuuga's pets."

Ruka had forgotten all about his notebook and said loudly, "What's wrong with you? Natsume's my friend, and I don't and never become his pet. Natsume never think anybody is his pet! You're so mean and cold to anyone, even they who care much about you!"

Hotaru picked up a pen from her pencil case.

"If you think so, then go away and don't disturb me anymore," she said as she started to write.

Vexed, Ruka stomped his way to his desk and looked for his book, but he couldn't find it, even after he looked around the class. He looked at Hotaru's bowed head, and said, "I can't find my book, so I think I'll leave you now. I just wanna tell you that there are still people who care about you despite your annoying attitude, y'know, so don't stay too long in here and get enough rest, or everyone will keep worrying about your health."

Hotaru said nothing and Ruka walked out of the room. However, Ruka could hear Hotaru whispered unclearly before he left, "Nogi, you one little idiot."

To Be Continued…