Indigo's Random Life Corner: I. Am. Finally. Finished. -rejoicing- I died drawing my KokoxSumire (My fav couple! Yes, sorry to dissapoint you, but my favourite paring is not NxM, even though I seem to be writing a lot about them. NxM should be somewhere down my list after KxS and TxM and maybe some others...) picture. Literally died (but mostly because I stayed up until one to finish it and suffered from lack of sleep the next day). All that's left to do now is to outline, erase, copy, colour, shade, scan, resize, post up... Oh joy.

Disclaimer: Uh, does owning fan art of Gakuen Alice count? No. Didn't think so.

Grade 4
The Consequences of Not Paying Attention

It was the last few minutes of the last class of the day, Science, and the fourth graders were bored. Why, oh why did they have to learn about rocks? Why not Space? At least you get to hear your teacher talk about stars blowing up. Rocks were just… rocks. Plain, old and boring.

While their teacher was lecturing about the difference between rocks and minerals, Mikan gave a huge yawn and felt a sharp object hit the back of her head. She steered her head around and saw a paper plane below her chair, its tip scrunched up badly. She lazily leaned back, picked it up, and unfolded it.

So unladylike… just what I expected of you, moron.
-Natsume

"What the hell!" she exclaimed and stood up. Everyone's attention diverted to her, including the teacher. Mikan quickly covered her mouth and gasped, "Oops."

"Well, Sakura," the teacher commented and snatched the paper plane away from her. He dropped a heavy bag of rocks of all shapes and sizes on her desk. "Since you are too occupied with your gossip to pay attention to my class, why don't you sort these rocks here into the groups of Sedimentary, Metamorphic and Igneous for your own personal homework?"

Sedimentary? Metamorphic? Igneous? Mikan didn't even know how they were spelt let alone what they meant.

But the teacher was not done. He walked to Natsume's desk and threw down the plane. "And you, Hyuuga, can help her, since the lesson obviously doesn't apply to you seeing you know so much." Natsume did not miss the sarcasm in his voice. "By the way, I'll have you know that name calling is not allowed in my classroom."

The bell, which marked the end of another school day, rang and all the students departed except for Mikan and Natsume. Their science teacher picked up the chalkboard eraser and started cleaning the dirty blackboard.

And that was when Natsume spoke out, "Alright, look here. I understand the assignment, but why do I have to work with an idiot like her?"

"Because you two were disrupting my class and not paying attention," he replied without turning once to them. "And most of all, you were not showing respect to me, to your peers, or to each other."

Natsume ignored that comment. "Couldn't you at least put me together with someone who doesn't think photosynthesis is the synthesis of photos?"

Mikan crossed her arms in an annoyed matter. "I know what it is, ok? It has something to do with plants, sunlight, thingie, er… Anyway, I'm not an idiot, so stop calling me that!"

"You don't seem to understand," their teacher replied in an impatient tone and placed the chalkboard eraser back on the ledge. "This work is punishment for what you did in my class, and partially because I don't feel like staying behind to give you detention. It's not supposed to be fun. Now scoot out of my classroom, or I'll add one more bag."

Natsume rolled his eyes and left with his backpack sloppily hanging on one shoulder. With difficulty, Mikan lifted her backpack, the huge bag of rocks and ran out of the door after him, screaming, "Slow down, Natsume! God sakes! It's all your fault in the first place!"

"Just be glad," he snapped back, "Since I'll be doing most of the work for you anyway, with you being an idiot and all that…"

"God, Natsume!" she huffed and stopped, "I'm not an idiot!"

He stopped in front of her. "Yes you are, now hurry up."

She saw Hotaru passing by and sped toward her. "Hotaru! Hotaru!"

Somewhat amazingly out of impulse, Hotaru smacked Mikan in the face with her fist and Mikan fell back on her bum, rubbing the red spot on her forehead. "Ow, Hotaru! That was mean."

The apathetic girl was busy dusting her hands off.

Mikan stood up. "Hey, Hotaru, I'm not an idiot right? What Natsume said, it isn't true, is it?"

There was a pause. "Mikan," Hotaru commented, still dusting her hands off.

"Hmm?"

"So a square has four corners. So if you cut one off, how many does it have?"

"Three!" she blurted out spontaneously.

Hotaru turned to Natsume and nodded. "Yup, she's an idiot. Good luck, Hyuuga."

"Wha-wha-" Mikan yelled in response to the triumphant smirk that appeared on Natsume's face. "Why's everyone teaming up on me?!!?!"

The bag of rocks made a screeching sound as Mikan dragged them on the sidewalk. She sighed for the fifteenth time since they left the school. Natsume looked at her pathetic state. Her head drooped down so much that her pigtails were almost dragging on the sidewalk along with the bag of rocks. She sure was down in the dumps.

"Are you still pissed that Imai took my side?" he asked.

"Natsume why do you keep calling me an idiot?" she replied.

"Do not respond to my question with another question."

"Fine." And after a moment of hesitation, she continued, "But really, why do you call me an idiot?"

"You are one, aren't you?"

"Ok!" she lifted her head, obviously pissed off, and screamed, "I may not be as bright as you, but you don't have to shove it in my face, you know?! We've known each other for three years and you still haven't called me by my name once! Remember in grade two, the teacher made you take attendance and instead of calling me 'Mikan' like you should, you screamed out 'Moron' in front of everyone!?!?"

"And you didn't even know what 'moron' is."

"Exactly!" she huffed, "You made me so embarrassed!"

"I got detention for doing that, you know?"

"Good for you! And even if you don't want to call me by name, you could have at least call me 'Miki' or something like Misaki-sempai does!"

"In case you didn't know," he snorted, "Guys don't give out cute nicknames."

"Hmph!"

They approached the crossroad where Natsume was supposed to turn. But instead, he walked straight along with Mikan. At first, she ignored him, but after a while, she blurted out, "Where are you going? Your house is that way!"

"I know."

"Then where?"

"Your house, idiot!" he said, "We're going to finish the assignment that stupid teacher gave us, aren't we?"

"There you go with the name calling again!"

Natsume rolled his eyes. "You should be honoured that I'm calling you an idiot."

She pouted. "How?"

"Idiots are…" He trailed off.

"Idiots are what?"

"Idiots…not telling."

"What!" she exclaimed, "What!! Not fair, Natsume! Tell me!"

"Shut up and walk."

"Tell mee!"

"You're going to fall behind.

"TELL ME!!!"

Tsubasa heard the doorbell ring and opened the door for his sister. Right outside was Mikan and her bouncy pigtails.

"Tsubasa-oniichan!" she exclaimed and ran to give him a hug.

He petted her like he usually did when she hugged him. Today, however, there was an addition. Tsubasa felt a jab to his leg.

"How long are you going to hug her dammit?" he heard a growl and looked up to see an angry crimson-eyed boy. "It's disgusting. Looks like you're going to swallow her."

Mikan frowned at his rudeness.

Tsubasa scowled and turned to his sister. "Mikan, who's this brat?"

Mikan looked up at her brother and told him, "Natsume's my friend! We have to do a project together. I'm sorry for not asking you first."

Tsubasa glared at Natsume, who glared back. Unknown to Mikan, there was a silent guy-to-guy discussion happening between them.

"I'm not handing her over to you," Tsubasa mentally snapped.

"You hug her so intimately even though you're siblings," Natsume mentally snapped back. "How disgusting."

Mikan blinked. Are they having a staring contest? "Come on! Let's go in already!"

They entered the house and there was a delicious aroma of cookies that came from the kitchen. Mikan sniffed it in and an ecstatic smile crept unconsciously over her face. Natsume covered his nose, disgusted.

"It reeks of sugar."

Mikan raised her eyebrow. Who knew sugar had a smell? Or maybe Natsume just had a keen nose. "You don't like sugar?"

"I don't like sweet stuff," he growled.

"Anyone who hates sweets is not allowed to like my sister," interrupted Tsubasa.

Natsume glared at him; Mikan blinked obliviously.

"What are you talking about, onii-chan?"

"Nothing. By the way, Naru made your favourite sugar cookies."

Her eyes glittered and her mouth watered. "I want some!"

"Come on then," said Tsubasa and made a gesture that indicated that Natsume was obviously not invited.

Like I care, Natsume thought and scowled at him.

But before they could go anywhere, a blond adult with blue eyes wearing a pink apron decorated with even more pink hearts in every shade of pink possible came in the living room. He was extremely womanly for a man.

"Mikan!" he exclaimed and launched for her, and seeing the boy beside her, he immediately backed away into the furthest corner of the room with hands over his mouth and an expression that was somewhere between overwhelmed and horrified.

"Your mom?" Natsume whispered.

"My dad," corrected Mikan.

Natsume nodded silently. He could begin to see the connection there.

"OH MY GOD!" Narumi exclaimed loudly and ran around the living room in circles with hands up in the air as if it was the end of the world. "Oh my god! Oh my god!!!! Mikan brought home a boy!!"

He dashed over to Tsubasa, who instantly backed against the wall. Unbelievably, Narumi pointed to Mikan, and started scolded him. "You see? You see?!!? You should be more like her! Your sister's only in fourth grade and she already brought home a boy! You're in middle school, but you don't even have a girlfriend yet!" He made a desperate face and made crazy gestures with his hands that made Tsubasa back away against the wall further, if possible. "You want to grow up and be a freaking prude!?!"

He turned his head and expression one hundred and eighty degrees around and made his way to Natsume, with a smile so bright and creepily that the nine-year-old's face was nearly sweating. Narumi took his hand, and shook it frantically until finally he had to yank it out of the insane man's hands and glare at him with full force.

"Do not touch me!"

"Daddy, you're scaring him!" Mikan cried. "He's just over for an assignment!"

Narumi immediately made a puppy dog face and Natsume rolled his eyes.

"Who would have thought that idiocy is contagious?"

"What do you mean?" asked Mikan.

"Well," Natsume explained. "You're an idiot."

She frowned at his remark.

He looked to the insane womanly blond man wearing the pink apron with hearts on it. "Your father's obviously an idiot."

Narumi put a hand to his mouth and giggled like a schoolgirl and turned to Mikan. "Did you hear that? He called me an idiot! Kids." He shook his head and sighed. And Mikan almost turned away and buried her face in her hands in embarrassment.

Natsume turned to the spiky dark haired teen. "And your brother's probably an idiot too."

Tsubasa snapped a vein. The little brat was enjoying this, wasn't he?! "Oi, Naru! Can I beat him up right now?"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Narumi, "This is a guest! We must treat him as family! Who knows, maybe he really will be part of our family in the future!"

He skipped into the kitchen, humming. Tsubasa trailed after him, scowling. "No way in hell am I treating him as family! And no fucking way he is going to become family!"

Mikan blinked as they left the living room. She turned to Natsume and tilted her head obliviously. "What are they talking about?"

Natsume rolled his eyes. "No idea," he lied, but couldn't help smirking.

Natsume twisted the knob and slammed his body against her bedroom door with full force once again. And once again, it didn't budge. He turned and snarled in a murderous tone, "Remind me why we're stuck in your room again?"

Mikan, on the other hand, was on the floor happily dumping the rocks out of the bag and picking out the smooth and shiny ones. "Oh, my dad probably barricaded the door right after we came in. I think he's using the big shelf in his room. Despite his looks, he's quite strong, you know?"

"When's he letting us out then?" he growled.

"When we finish," she replied, and started sorting the sharp ones in another pile.

The raven haired nine year old gave up and sat down beside her. "You're sorting them wrong, you know. They're not supposed to be sorted by texture; they're supposed to be sorted by type. You're jumbling all the Igneous, Metamorphic and Sedimentary rocks together."

She scrunched her eyebrows together and picked up several rocks and examined them closely. "I don't get it. How can you tell them apart?"

"I don't want to bother to explain to you," he replied and made new piles. "It'd take too long, and you wouldn't be able to understand with that puny brain of yours."

"Then why'd you throw that paper plane at me?"

"I was bored."

She crossed her arms. "You totally disrupted my learning, you know?"

"Learning my ass."

"Well fine, I wasn't, but still."

"Why are you blaming me if you weren't even paying attention in the first place?"

"Because you threw the plane!" she told him.

He yelled back, "This has nothing to do with the goddamn plane!"

"Oh."

"Ok, look, I'm only going to say this once, alright?" he stated, "Igneous rocks usually look like they have air bubbles in them because they solidify before the air escapes. Sedimentary rocks have layers. Metamorphic rocks are two rocks morphed together so they should be fairly easy to identify. Do the rest yourself."

"Oh! Now I get it!"

She sorted out all the rocks in the rest of the bag and surprisingly got most of them right. The ones that she missed, he put in the correct group for her.

"Yay! We're all done!"

"Ok," he said, "So tell your dad to let us out."

Her face fell. "I-I can't."

"What?!" he hissed.

"We have to wait until he lets us out."

"You said-"

"I lied," confessed Mikan.

"And why did you lie?" Natsume snarled backing her up into a corner and frightening her. His eyes pierced into hers and she almost tripped with a yelp.

"B-because." She bit her lip and tiny tears started forming in her eyes. "I-" She sunk to her knees. "I-I-" He felt surprisingly weak now that she was breaking down in front of him. He watched her rub her eyes with her fists and sobbing. "I always have to be the good one, Natsume! You just- you just bully me and get away with it! It's always me getting in trouble. It's so unfair! And I'm not saying that you're a bad friend or anything, but it's just- I hate it when you do that! You always make me feel like I'm the only one who wants to be friends!!"

And for the first time, Natsume Hyuuga did not know what to do. He just sort of froze there and stared at her. He could apologize, but his pride wouldn't let him. He could comfort her, but she wouldn't let him. He could just stand by and say nothing, but that would only make everything worse. So he sat beside her and let out a light sigh.

"You're such a crybaby." Oops, there goes his big mouth. He was really digging his own grave. Good job, he told himself, You might as well continue."Seriously, all I've seen you do is cry all day."

She stopped sobbing and looked like she was about to hit him. At this point, Natsume knew that he was being such a jerk that he would not have cared if she did. She raised her hand and really was about to hit him, but she stopped halfway and fell onto her knees, unable to do it. So instead she cried harder, and he cringed at the pain throbbing in his chest. She could have slapped him. At least it wouldn't have hurt. Not this much.

Natsume looked away. "You know, you're usually an idiot. That I don't mind. I really hate crybabies, though. People's faces look so ugly when they cry. That's why I've never cried in my life. At least an idiot looks cute."

He didn't say sorry. He didn't even comfort her. But somehow, her tears seemed to stop.

At nine pm, Narumi finally removed the huge bookshelf barricading his daughter's room and opened the door. He found her sleeping peacefully on her bed and her balcony door open. On the floor were three huge piles of rocks that he assumed were what they were supposed to do for homework.

So he managed to sneak outside, the mischievous schemer thought, Damn. And then he shrugged. Oh well.

He dragged Mikan's blanket over her petite body and left the room. He did not notice the crumbled up note beside her with messy scrawling that wrote, you better not cry tomorrow, or I won't think you're cute anymore.

He also did not hear Mikan mumble in her sleep. "Natsume, do you really think my dad and my brother are cute?"

End of Grade Four.

Crap! Mikan thinks he's gay now. o__o

And also, isn't it ironic? Natsume's dad shuts him out; Mikan's dad shuts her in. Wow, both of their fathers must have problems.

REVIEWREVIEWREVIEW!!! Or else I won't post up my SumixKoko pic (once it's done of course x])!!!

-IndigoGrapefruit