A/N: Okaay... so here is chapter 4! Sorry I couldn't update last week, but hey - at least it's longer chapter than the last one this time, ne?

Rated T: for slight language

Summary: "I hate everything about you." Five words. "I... I hate you too, Natsume." And so the first domino in a long line fell… "Good." For better or for worse only time would tell… He never did see the tears streaming down her face as he walked away.

Chapter 4: Let Me Help, Natsume

Mikan sat in her dorm room, on top of her bed with a large, fluffy pillow clutched in her arms. She sighed dejectedly and threw the pillow across the room in a whirlwind of annoyance, anger, and - dare she say it? - jealousy before flopping onto her back. The sack of feathers thumped softy as it hit the wall across from her six feet away.

"This sucks," she whispered to the air, covering her face with a slender fingered hand. "This really, really sucks. Stupid Natsume..."

She had gotten back to her three-star room but ten minutes ago and the unflattering sulking had already begun as Mikan sat on her bed, wallowing in self pity and denial.

Mikan's jade colored sheets and comforter stared at her mockingly and she brunet twitched in irritation as she remembered the girl - Kaori-san she reminded herself scathingly - who had been in Natsume's room. Why had she gone there in the first place?

'Because you were worried about him,' she reminded herself.

"But obviously he didn't need anyone to worry about him - he has Kaori-san for that!" she huffed.

"You're talking to yourself now?" a cool voice asked wryly from the door to Mikan's room. "Great. My best friend is a schizophrenic."

Mikan blinked and sat up.

"Hotaru-chan! What are you doing here? ... Wait! I'm not a schizo- uh... schizophrenic!"

Amethyst eyes stared her down with a look that just screamed, Stupid.

"I am simply amazed that you can't pronounce that word, but I suppose that I will ignore that for now in favor of not wasting any more of my time and getting to the point."

"Which is...?" Mikan trailed off.

"Well, first off, I came here to get back my Kanon Wakeshima CD, second, I wanted to see how you were doing, baka." She held up a ring of keys and jingled them. "And before you ask, I got in with the key you gave me a month ago."

Mikan grumbled and lay back down again before rolling on her side and away from her best friend. She didn't move when she felt Hotaru sit on the edge of the bed.

"Baka, what's wrong?" she asked in boredom, a hint of worry laced in her voice.

The panic that she was feeling inside actually began to surface when she felt her friends shoulders shake and saw her eyebrows draw together as if she was in pain.

"Natsume," she began in a scratchy whisper, "Natsume had been acting weird lately; he told me he h-hated everything about m-me and since he missed school today I was worried and when I went to go see him there was some girl there in his room."

"I'm gonna kill that boy," Hotaru hissed, causing Mikan to blink in surprise.

She rolled over to look at the inventor.

"W-what?" she stuttered, panicked. "No! There's a reason why he's acting that way. Persona-"

"I don't care!" Hotaru was standing now. "That little retard was terrible to you, hurt and embarrassed you in front of the entire class, and now he has the nerve to go play around with some little scum bag slu-" "Hotaru! Language!" "girl, when you spent your time and energy worrying about him. I going to freaking castrate-"

She broke off when Mikan sat up and threw a pillow at her head, hazel eyes angry.

"Look," she said tiredly, "just let it go."

"Mikan..."

"I have known him since he was ten-years-old and I know he wouldn't act that way for a reason... It just... I still hurts though, is all, you know?"

Mikan swallowed tightly and blinked several times to clear the tears that had gathered in her eyes as she calmed herself. She smiled.

"I'm glad that you're worried, Hotaru-chan," she said, smile still intact, "but it's fine. I just need to toughen up and get over it - aren't you always calling me a crybaby? There's a reason that he said he... hated me."

"Then what about the sl-" "Hotaru!" "girl? Persona is not an explanation for that."

Mikan didn't have an answer.

OoOoO

The tension in class B was noticeable as ever and the waves of anger that crackled through the air when a certain blonde haired violet-eyed teacher lay eyes on a newly recovered Natsume were suffocating.

Mikan shifted uncomfortably beside him, shooting him furtive looks when she thought he wasn't looking.

Natsume resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

It's kind of hard for someone to not notice someone else looking at them when said someone is always watching that someone else.

He blinked at this logic before suppressing a flinch at the poison filled glare aimed at the back of his head.

'Great,' he thought sarcastically, 'I have an overprotective best friend and Mikan's surrogate father out for my blood. Mikan met Kaori and is probably jumping to conclusions and Koko is acting weirder than usual... Welcome back to class, Natsume. Welcome back...'

Natsume's scowl deepened when he shifted his injured arm and it stung slightly. The telltale feeling of blood dripping down his arm underneath his uniform jacket told him the scab had broken and it was bleeding again. He sighed in annoyance.

Willing it to stop quickly, he slumped into his seat and glared at the blackboard at the front of the room.

'This sucks.'

OoOoO

Mikan shot a look over to her seat-mate once again and watched carefully as he moved his arm and winced when he did so.

Was he hurt?

She felt a pang at the thought of Kaori being the one to fix him up after missions instead of her, even though that had been her role for the past three years.

'Not that I care...' she thought childishly.

She continued her observation as he glared ahead of him only stopping to look down at the open textbook in front of her when crimson eyes flickered her way. He looked back to the front of the room and she resumed watching him.

An "eep" of surprise bubbled though her lips when she saw the dark stain that she just knew was blood appear on his left arm. He looked over to her in annoyance that quickly turned into surprise at as he looked at her in question. Mikan gestured wildly at his arm, somehow managing to not draw Narumi's attention as she did so.

"Dammit," Natsume grumbled, twisting to examine the blood stained fabric. He was about to stand to - pride be dammed - ask Narumi to leave the room when Mikan did it for him, bursting out of her seat and gaining all of the attention.

"Narumi-sensei!" she called, effectively catching his eye.

"What Mikan-chan?" he asked with a smile.

Mikan ignored the mumbled "two-faced bastard" as she said, "Natsume needs to go to the nurse right now. He's hurt. I'll go with him too!"

The smile froze then on her teachers face.

"Huh?"

'She wants to help him?'

Mikan continued, oblivious to his inner turmoil.

"Yeah. He just needs to go real quick. We won't take long or anything! I'll make sure that Natsume zips in and out of there. Promise!"

She gave him her biggest smile.

Looking like he ate something bad, Narumi gave into the blinding light that was emitted from Mikan's face from her large, toothy grin and gave a stiff, "Of course, Mikan-chan!" before stomping over to the door and opening it wide open for her to walk through. With a loud thank you and another quick smile, Mikan grabbed Natsume's arm and dragged him out the door.

The class blinked as they watched the duo leave.

Once the sliding door shut Natsume stopped walking with her and jerked his wrist from her grasp with a look that made gut-wrenching hurt flash across Mikan's face. Natsume clenched his fists and did his best to ignore it, glaring at the dark figure he saw standing in the shadows of the hallway that he just knew was Persona.

"Don't touch me," he hissed, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Natsume..." she said softly. "Look, I don't now what's going on, but-"

He turned on his heel and began walking.

"Hey!" she snapped angrily, "Don't walk away from me! I'm trying to help here and you're just- just-! UGH!"

The groaned as she watched him walk away, trying her best to rein in her feelings and get though to him.

"What do you have to be like this?" she asked him. "You always do this!"

Natsume turned on her with a glare that made her freeze in surprise and a touch of fear.

"Do what?" he hissed.

Mikan swallowed and bit her lip before replying.

"This!" She waved her arms around and gestured to all of him at once. "You always act like a jerk whenever something is wrong and you won't let me help you! What? is Persona threatening you again? Well so what? I can take care of myself. I have nullification and the S-"

Natsume's eyes went wide.

'She not gonna talk about, that Alice is she? Idiot!'

The fire Alice jumped at her, clamping a hand over her mouth.

"Shush." he snapped, glancing around the halls. He grimaced when Persona cocked his head to the side, seemingly interested in the conversation they were having.

"Mmph Nmtse bafka!"

He needed to get away from him and he need to do it fast.

So... he dragged Mikan down the hall and to the nurses office, her kicking and cursing him the whole way.

"Ntmhs ybm jrmk!" she mumbled angrily as Nasume stood outside the door. He knocked a few times.

"Shut up Polka, I'm not-!" he choked on his words and cut off just then, realizing that he had just called her by her nickname. He felt Mikan smile beneath his hand.

Since no one seemed to be in the room he simply jerked the door open and walked in before slamming it behind him. Mikan breathed in deeply when he released her and pushed her away before making a face at him that was a cross between a smile and frown, annoyance and happiness. It was an interesting expression.

Did him saying her nickname really make her that happy?

The smile won out.

Apparently it did.

"Wipe that smile off your face, stupid. There's nothing to be happy about," Natsume said with annoyance.

The smile fell and he felt like a royal jerk just then.

"O-okay," she muttered before walking to a drawer and grabbing some gauze, cotton balls, and antiseptic. "Uh, can you take of your jacket and roll up your sleeve?"

"I don't need you help."

Mikan bit pursed her lips and looked down.

He defiantly felt like a jerk.

Knowing he shouldn't do it, but complying anyway, he walked over to one of the beds set up and sat down before tugging off his jacket and grimacing when the fabric rubbed against his wound. He looked at his left sleeve and sighed, knowing it would be impossible to roll up hit shirt past his elbow with one hand.

"Can you help?" he drawled, shaking his arms for emphasis.

The smile Mikan had on her face when he asked for her help made him think of the sun coming out from the clouds after a long storm: refreshing and beautiful.

'What does she have to be like this?' he thought suddenly. 'Why does she have to be so easy to talk to and make you feel so bad for ignoring her? She's too nice...'

"Of course!" she agreed happily.

Bringing the antiseptic with her she sat down on his left and began rolling the sleeve up, smiling the whole time. Unbidden, his lips curved slightly in response.

"Okay!" she breathed, frowning slightly at the four inch slash just above Natsume's elbow. Grabbing hold of the cotton balls she began working, cleaning the wound and wrapping it neatly with gauze, only stopping when she needed to grab something or when Natsume winced, which he learned to stop doing after the first "Are you okay?" but not always succeeding.

'Hn. She's gotten a lot better at this' he thought wryly, watching as she tied off the gauze and remembering the first time she had bandaged his injuries that one night when she was eleven. It had soon become a sort of habit for the two of them that after every mission, if he was hurt, he would come by her room and she would patch him up. 'Then again she has had a lot of practice.'

"Done!" she announced proudly. Then, "Ne, Natsume?"

"Hn."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Hn."

"Why was that girl, Kaori-san, in your room last night?"

Natsume didn't answer at first.

"Natsume...?" she asked again.

"It's none of your business."

And with that sentence, the sense of normalcy that Mikan had worked so hard to achieve was ruined. She watched sadly as he stood up and unrolled his blood stained sleeve, tossed his jacket over his shoulder and walked to the door. Mikan made no move to folow but perked up when he said her name.

"Mikan?"

"Y-yes?"

"Kaori... is no one important. She's just a friend," he said softly, fidgeting slightly.

"Okay!" Mikan replied happily, standing up and walking to the door with him.

When the two got back to class that day, they would see a strangely happy Mikan Sakura and a predictably quiet, but seemingly content Natsume Hyuuga walk into the classroom. The rest of the day was calm, the tension that had previously hung around disappeared.

Unfortunately, that calamity didn't extend to the next day.

A/N: Whew! That was actually pretty long (I think) ^^

Thanks for reading!

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