Official Disclaimer: A huge whooping thank you goes to Mademoiselle Mirage for creating the basis of this story. The genie concept belongs to her. The story, up to chapter three (discerning the prologue), also contains excerpts of her writing. I would just like to thank you endlessly, Pam, for this golden piece of work, and I apologize for not being able to finish it sooner!
Three Wishes
3: Revelation
The princess, with no other choice, braced herself…
"I should start thinking about my second wish."
"Yes, please, before I give you a perpetual lesson in romantics." And to think a few hours ago, I was sure he has it down to point.
"I'll be right back." That's right. I need some time to reflect on what just went down. I think we both do.
Oh man, I really want to cry right now. How did I hold it in for all that time? Natsume's not the one who needs a less in romantics; I am. I don't know what's wrong with me. Why did I fall for him so suddenly? Why didn't I think first before I leap? I should have held back as soon as I began feeling it. And now… now I don't think I can ever be the same again. Really, this is ridiculous. Who ever falls in love in less than a day?
I mean, if I can like a guy that quickly then I can stop liking him just as quickly.
Right?
He's not even that nice of a guy. He's really arrogant if I really think about it, always bragging about getting all the girls, like he's a piece of something real good. And he's so mean, and cruel, and heartless. Even if I grow to like him, nothing's going to come out of it anyway. It's not like he's ever going to like me back—not Mikan Sakura, and not Mikan Yukihira.
Geez, it's like I came purposely looking for it. I hope I can just sleep this off and feel better about myself tomorrow.
Shepherd's pie? Potato wedges? Oh, so he's back now.
"You look like you could use some wine too."
There goes my fickle heart, swelling. Ugh… "Yeah." No, I don't want wine. I don't want anything. I just want you to leave me alone so I can get over you. "Your parents don't mind you drinking wine?"
"They're usually pretty lenient."
I don't know if it's just me anymore. Everything he does is making it harder for me to get over him. Why does he have to sit across from me? Oh, why can't he sit beside me? I mean, if he's sitting beside me then I won't have to look at him. But right now, I can't help myself. I have to look at him. I can't look away.
"Why aren't you dining with your parents?" I am so miserable right now.
Why does his laugh have to sound like the soft jingling of chimes on a perfect, breezy day? "I'd choose sitting up in my room with an invisible girl any day." Yup, that smile is still adorable. I am going at zero miles per hour on my goal.
"My dad's out of town on business, and I am dining with mom. She's right here."
A photo frame? It's so elaborate. Oh, and the woman in the photo! She's so beautiful. I feel like I've seen her before! She looks so much like Natsume, with his eyes and his smile and his hair, only longer, cascading down her shoulders. Well, technically I should say that he looks like her.
"Your mother is beautiful." There's a huge lump in my throat right now. Once upon a time, she could have been my mother-in-law at the happily ever after. But Natsume just had to ruin it all for us.
Natsume… He's grinning now, actually grinning and showing rows of teeth. He never grins. It's so sweet, and it just makes my heart break all over again. He's so beautiful. And he doesn't even know the kind of glow he emanates. I wonder what he's thinking of, why he's so happy. I wish I can make him glow like that.
"She is, isn't she?" His voice is so raspy, so sexy. "She's always been beautiful, especially when she was alive."
His mother is dead? "I'm sorry." Oh, there you go again, Mikan, trespassing on his privacy. How insensitive that must have been!
"Don't be." Well, he's beginning to drink now. I suppose I shall follow suit. "She was a wonderful woman. She taught me not to fear death. Tonight we'll drink to her, and then we'll sleep. Tomorrow we must wake up early to go see stepsister dearest."
Is that sarcasm I catch in his tone?
"Cheers." Clang! goes our glasses. Hehe, what a pretty sound.
"To Kaoru."
"To Kaoru." And to stop liking Natsume once and for all.
"Morning sunshine. What a night, huh? Hoarse from all the screaming last night?"
No. Voice, go away. Five more minutes!
Wait, what did he say? Last night? Screaming? It can't be! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! What happened? We didn't do it right? I don't remember anything. Oh please please, dear god, don't tell me he raped me. I mean, technically that's rape right? I'm pretty sure sex under the influence of drugs is rape. Empty wine glasses… I think my lifespan just halved.
"I have to say, I've never seen anyone with such big eyes."
H-how can he just talk to me so calmly like that, casually propping his head on his hand with that ador—arrogant smirk? He just took advantage of me in my sleep! He's a terrible person.
"Uh, well—that is—you and I had uh—like did we, you know, sex?" I have a tiny chipmunk voice.
"Obviously… Not." He rolls his eyes and I feel so damn foolish. What was I thinking? He's never slept with anyone in his life. He's only sixteen for god's sakes. "You're so gullible. We didn't even sleep in the same bed last night. This isn't even my room.
Oh. There's a different, bluer wallpaper.
"Are you sure nothing went on between us?" Everyone says it's fun and all, but my principle is no sex before marriage. And, well, it's not really legal for us to get marry at sixteen so I guess both of us are going to remain virgins for a while.
At least I am.
He better.
"If someone told you that your mother died, would you believe that even if you're already looking at her right in front of you? Get real. I don't have to get you drunk to make you have sex with me." He's creeping an arm around me again. I can already feel my heart throbbing painfully.
And to think I thought a night's sleep would bring my senses back to normal.
No! Not this again! His hand is not going anywhere near my body today. Why does he have this iron grip? Where does all this strength come from? Does he work out? Mmm… abs… Okay, no, focus Mikan! Away you go, Natsume's hand!
"Oh, so you're not going to rape me in my sleep, but you're going to rape me when I'm awake. Yeah, I see how it is."
"Mmhm." And his arm is back on me. Well, okay. If he wants to touch me so bad, I guess it can't hurt to—stop right there! Where is that hand wandering? Oh no you don't, Natsume!
I'm ditching you for my magic carpet! Oh hey carpet! How're you doing? I missed you! Hehe, now I'm across the room. How are you going to catch me now, Natsume? "You're a billion years too early to catch me in tag, master."
"If we really played tag, you wouldn't be running."
Humph. I can't make any comebacks to that without lying. Grr. You know, I think his arrogance is starting to get to his head. It can get really irritating sometimes. Given, I probably should be much, much more irritated with him. What can you do though? When you like someone, you always end up overlooking their flaws.
Wait, isn't that infatuation?
So I'm infatuated? I don't like him after all? Ahhhraagh!
"What's with that face?"
"What face?"
"That hulk face you were making just now."
"What hulk face?"
"I swear you were almost turning green a moment ago.
What is he talking about? "What are you talking about?"
"Never mind." What? I'm confused! Did I just do something weird?
"Tell me! Tell me, tell me, tell me!" Rawr! And if you don't tell me, I'm going to start punching you!
"This feels like a cat fight." I can't believe how easy it is for him to deflect my hits. Why does he make everything look so incredibly easy? "You do know that you hit and attack like a girl, right?"
Gee, thanks for pointing out the obvious. "I am a girl."
It's not a bad thing, if you overlook the fact that you're weak and dense and have absolutely no coordination whatsoever." Oh, so now he's sexist too? Well, I guess it's good. I mean, eventually I'll discover too many of his flaws to overlook them. And then I'll stop liking him. Right? Right…? "By the way, when you make a fist, you place your thumb under your index and middle fingers to support them. Not beside, not inside, under."
"I know that! I wasn't even attacking you seriously!"
"Good then. We wouldn't want you hurting your hand now, would we? How else am I going to complete my wish if you're not here to snap your fingers for me?"
"There are genies who clap too, you know."
"And I had to get one that snaps? Blast my luck."
Oh geesh. Trust him to make it hard for me at every chance he gets.
"Well—" Quick, think of an insult! "Well I bet I can snap my fingers better than you."
"No you don't."
"Yeah I do!" I've had sixteen thousand years of finger snapping experience for your information!
"No you don't."
"Yeah I do!"
"Oh look a squirrel."
"What?" A squirrel? Like those fuzzy cute rabbit like but not really rabbit like creatures? Where? Where? Ahh, incoming arm! Ouf! Ow… My poor, poor derriere! He just wacked me off my carpetagain.Isn't this getting old?
And he dares to stick out his tongue at me! The nerve! Natsume Hyuuga is a big meanie.
"Stop it!"
"Sometimes I picture you as a ten year old in my mind."
"Well then, I hope you feel like a pedophile!" Who's ten? Who's ten? I'm sixteen thousand!
Wait, so I'm the pedophile? NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
"Well as much as I'd love to keep exploiting you, we gotta go see stepsister dearest." Oh, there's that sarcastic tone again. I wonder what's up with his stepsister. Is there something wrong with her? "She might be too weird, and too pale, and too much like a ghost, or a mannequin, or doll, but if you overlook that fact, you'll be two peas in a pod. You're both freaks in any case."
"She can't even see me!"
"And thank god for that."
Humph.
Natsume, where're you going? Why're you shutting the door? No, wait! Don't leave me behind! Ugh, master… Come, carpet, let's go. At least you love me, right? What's that I hear? "Mikan's the best owner in the whole wide universe!"? Aww, I love you too!
"I hope you're not going to drag me to some shady place again like you did yesterday." I'm exhausted from catching up to him. Sometimes I think he's wearing stilts or something. "Why doesn't your stepsister live with you anyways?"
Huh. Maybe there is something between them. I swear Natsume's shuddering, just slightly. "Because she's too greedy and selfish and way too smart for her own good. I can't even bare to be around her at all. But she's like a goldmine for dad. He loves her and her 'ingenious' ideas. Sometimes I think he married my stepmother just to make her his daughter. Of course, then they divorced two years later, so now he's making me be the go-between."
Wait, his parents are divorced? Huh, I guess I learn something new about Natsume every year. Well, given that we've just met three years ago, I guess we're pretty much strangers. Heh. It just makes me feel worse. How can I possibly like someone I'm so in the dark about? Is it just because he used to like me? Did I get caught up in the moment? Ugh! Fickle, fickle Mikan!
You can't have fallen for Tsubasa or Kaname or Kitsuneme?
But noo! It just has to be Natsume.
"Wait, aren't you going to take like one of those speedy car thingies? Cabs, you call them? We're walking?"
"Shut up and enjoy the scenery."
Fine. I much rather enjoy the scenery anyways. Look at those pretty, bell shaped flowers! Daffodils, aren't they? They don't exist in the genie world. Actually, there are really few flowers in the genie world. It's all just clouds and more clouds and even more wisps of smoke up there. All the roads are clouds and all the lawns are clouds and everything's basically cloud except for our lamps. We only have flowers in flowerpots or in personal greenhouses.
Mom has a greenhouse! It's like a jungle in there! It's so awesome.
She says there are places like those on Earth too, but all I see is hard, gray concrete and brick and wood and more concrete. I mean, where's all the green? All the picture books I've been show have this luscious green field and I've only seen something like that twice in my life.
I want my green!
"You want your what?"
Oops! Did I accidentally say that out loud?
"Uh, like grass and stuff… You know, where's all the green?"
He's giving me a weird look. I don't know, okay? I don't know how to explain it! Stop judging me like that! "Isn't this green enough for you?"
Huh? Oh, he means the path, I guess. Weeeell… It's nice and all. There's lots and lots of trees lining the sidewalk, and some of them have pretty pink blossoms! Ooh, what I'll give to have a wreath of them in my hair! But really though, there aren't really fields, unless you count the Hyuuga family's garden. His garden is gorgeous! It's what I like to think my mommy's will be like if she ever gets a bigger lamp.
"We're here."
Really? That quickly? "Whoa!"
I didn't think that a prettier place than the Hyuuga mansion exists, but I'll honestly take his stepsister's mansion any day! They have black, holed, iron gates lining the whole thing that makes me feel like entering a palace in a storybook! And there's this vine threading in and out of the holes with pink, tuba-shaped flowers. And that's not even the beginning. Everything about this place is picturesque! I mean, there's a dirt road leading up to the mansion, and the mansion itself has a pointed roof, like a statuesque version of a little garden house. I feel like Snow White, stumbling onto the Seven Dwarf's house. No, no, I mean, Jack who's seeing the giants' home for the first time!
I think I just stepped right into a fairy tale.
The owner must be a princess! She has to be a princess! I won't have it any other way! I bet she's really, really pretty, with a cascading, midnight blue dress and silky, silver-blond curls. And when Natsume enters, she'll be smiling at him, and he'll take her hand and kiss it gently. Oh, the awe of beautiful siblings standing side by side! If his sister's wonderfully gorgeous and majestic, I can just die happily.
Screw Natsume. He's out of the picture for all I'm concerned. I'll marry his sister any day, just for this mansion.
Oh my god! Why can't I have this? Why is this not mine? Where's my genie when I need one?
"Hurry the fuck up already."
What the—oh, he's there already, climbing the steps to the mansion. Oh, those beautiful, beautiful white marble steps, all glazed and shiny like a ballroom floor. I can almost see my reflection in them. Want…
"Are you in pain?"
"Yes…" I'm in agony.
"What, like PMSing or something? Do genies even PMS?"
Trust Natsume to ruin my beautiful moment. How can we have a fairy tale if the prince is an absolute jerk? I mean, I know it's hard to meet the criteria for a price; you have to be handsome, and smart, and strong, and brave, and kind. But all princes are courteous! Natsume's supposed to be the prince, but he's not courteous at all.
He's arrogant and selfish and womanizing! Okay, well maybe he's not really selfish. I mean, he hasn't wished for anything bad yet, right? And he's not completely a womanizer. The only girl he's ever flirted with is me (I hope), and I have a feeling he just likes to see me angry, the bully. And, well, he's arrogant. I can't make excuses for that.
Just to me though. And in a joking way.
Ahhhh! Mikan, why are you making excuses for him? You're supposed to be getting over him!
Ooh! Key! Whoa, pretty key! Pretty, antique key. It looks like something that's been used two hundred years ago. Actually, why didn't I notice? The door's design looks really ancient too. How long has mansion been here? A hundred, two hundred years? Maybe this is like sleeping beauty! Some witch must have casted a curse on this place to stop it from aging for a hundred years! And everyone who lives there is just waiting for a prince to come and rescue them!
I'm the prince. Just saying.
Natsume can be my sidekick—the Sam to my Frodo, or the Robin to my Batman, or the Chad to my Ichigo.
The point is that I'm getting this wonderful mansion because everyone's going to praise me for saving them and—
Aww!
It looks so plain from the inside! The walls are all blinding white and there's no carpet, only a black and white triangular tile pattern. There're lots of pots, but they're all blue china and they all have aloe in them. I don't even see stairs in this room! There's an elevator! Castles don't have elevators! I'm about to cry!
Elevator, why must you ruin my fantasy? Why?
"Stepsister's lab is on the second floor, and she rarely ever leaves there."
"Mm." I'm so depressed I can't even look at him. My hopes… My dreams…
And there isn't even elevator music!
"What's wrong with you? You've been acting weird for the whole day."
How can I possibly explain? It hurts my heart too much. Everything was so beautiful, so glorious, so picturesque from the outside! How can the interior of such a wonderful, storybook house be like this? It's tragic!
"This way," he hisses, dragging me by my shirt. Oh, my bad. But the halls! They all look the same! I thought this would have lots of twisting corridors and be all dusty and welcoming. But no! It feels like a laboratory in here. No wonder I almost got lost!
He's taking out another intricate key, and opening another room. Oh no, it's all white inside. Even more white. And there are so many beakers and papers and pieces of metal. Oh, this is so dreadful! I can barely look!
Is this a witch's lair? Are we not Snow White or Jack? Are we Hansel and Gretal? Is she going to do something horrible to us?
"Hotaru, I'm here!"
Oh. Oh. Oh, thank god, thank god! Thank god we didn't stumble into the home of the witch! There's no way such a pretty young lady can be a witch! She is a princess after all, just not the one that I imagined. She's not very Aurora, more like Jasmine or Pocahontas, or Mulan. Oh, her dainty, rosy lips! That ivory skin! Those captivating, mesmerizing violet irises! They look like they're staring right into my soul!
"Um." No! Stop talking to me, Natsume! That's the second time you've steamrolled my fantasy! "Hey, I'm pretty sure she's looking at you."
She's looking at me? At me or through me?
Wait, no. She's turning her head. Oh. I guess she can't see me after all. I almost wish she can. I so desperately want to talk to her! "Hyuuga, it's been long." Oh, her voice! It's so exquisite! It's like I'm sliding on a perpetual sheet of silk!
"Can you blame me for not wanting to come here?" Why? Why ever won't Natsume want to be in a storybook house with a storybook princess?
"I suppose not."
"Today, though, it seems you've brought something interesting with you."
Oh my. She's coming towards me! My princess is coming towards me! Oh this is so exciting! She can see me! She's taking my hands! Her hands are so cold, so smooth, so perfect.
"Mikan!" The princess knows my name! "It's you, isn't it? I know it's you. It has to be." The princess is hugging me! I'm touching a princess! I'm hugging a princess! Oh wait, I'm not. I have to hug her back! "How could you leave me behind like that?" I'll never leave you! "When did you grow up? You promised! You did!"
Huh? Promise? "W-what promise? I don't remember anything. I'm so sorry! Please don't hate me!"
No! No, no, no! Why's she letting go? Why is she looking at me with such sorrowful eyes? Princesses aren't supposed to be so utterly sad! "Mikan what happened? Don't you know who I am? Your best friend? Your only friend?"
Say something! Anything!
"How can this be? How can you not remember me? I refuse to believe it…"
"How do you know Mikan?" Now Natsume's confused. Oh, what do I do? What do I do?
"I should ask you the same."
"She's my genie. Okay, I know it sounds stupid. I'm not even sure how it happened, but she is." His voice is flat. Wait, what's wrong Natsume? Does he not like having me as a genie? Have I been a bad genie to him? Is it because I couldn't find Mikan Sakura for him? Is his stepsister going to hate me now that she knows? I can't have both Hotaru and Natsume hating me! My world will be shattered to pieces!
"I see… So that's why you never came back to me. Mikan, do you like dolls?" Um, dolls? I guess… "I have a whole collection of them in my room: stuffed dolls and china dolls and Barbies. Lots and lots of Barbies. Don't you remember? You used to love Barbies the most…"
"Wait, I did?" How does she know?
"Yeah! I was your first Barbie." Her voice is so heartbreakingly pleading! "You brought me to life. Remember?"
Huh?