A/N: Omedetou to all those who got the answer right! I'm kinda surprised that A LOT of you know who the cookie guy is! On the side note, Romeo and Cinderella finally reached 250 reviews! Thank you so much for taking your precious time in reviewing! Please do continue. lol

X. Oreo and M&M

Bang.

That was the sound that kept on ringing like a broken record in Mikan's ears. She sat on one corner and tried to cover her ears in an attempt to stop the sound. This was the heartbreaking scene that welcomed Yuka, Youichi and Narumi when they burst through her cabin door.

"I killed him..." Mikan repeatedly muttered to herself. Her eyes glazed over as if she hadn't heard them coming. She just sat there unmoving; unaware of her surroundings as the ghosts of her past clouded her senses.

"Sweet Jesus. Mikan, snap out of it!" Yuka tried to shake Mikan's shoulders but the teen was unresponsive. Youichi looked on worriedly; he didn't know what to do. It was his first time seeing his sissy weak and helpless, instead of the sarcastic bitch he grew accustomed to.

Seeing that Mikan was still not responding, Narumi took over. He seemed to know what he was doing when he gently pushed Yuka away and kneeled down at Mikan's level.

"My bag! Hand me my bag!" Narumi demanded. He hurriedly opened it and reached for a small bottle of blue pills. He popped one in Mikan's mouth but the teen couldn't seem to swallow it as she started to choke on her own saliva. Youichi sprinted towards the kitchen to fetch a glass of water before giving it to Narumi; who feverishly let Mikan drank from it.

As the medicine took effect, Mikan's heartbeat began to speed up and her breathing became erratic. It was only until when she heard Yuka's soothing words was she was able to completely succumbed into a dreamless slumber.

Narumi then gently lay Mikan down to her bed before going out of the cabin to make some important calls.

"Aunt? Is she gonna be okay?" Youichi quietly asked. He understood Mikan, in a way. He had once gone through a phase in his life when he thought that there was no way around his addiction to fire—believing that he will spend the rest of his life fearing that one day, he would wake up just to find everything around him burning.

"I'm sure she would be, Youichi. She better be."

~o0O0o~

Th-thud. Th-thud. Th-thud.

Mikan could hear the sound of her heart loudly pounding against her chest. There were murmurs and whispers around her but she couldn't make out what they were saying.

"Mikan..."

'Mikan? Why are they talking about me?'

She tried moving her limbs but to no avail. For some strange reason, she couldn't feel a thing. She was numb.

"Mikan?"

She could hear voices getting louder and clearer; pulling her back from the clouded pit of her subconsciousness.

She abruptly opened her eyes but her vision was too blurry to let alone see anything. She then squeezed her hazel eyes shut when she felt a searing headache coming on. She moaned audibly and began to massage her temple in trying to ease the pain.

She blinked for a few times as the fog on her vision slowly eased up... then she saw white.

'White? Why the hell is it all white?'

"We're at the hospital, Mikan." Yuka answered her unspoken question.

"Hospital?" Mikan's voice was hoarse as if she had been screaming for hours. She felt like she was experiencing one hell of a hangover.

"What the hell happened?" Mikan groaned as she strained herself in trying to remember what had occurred that led her up being confined in a hospital. A Hospital. She then saw white wires connected to her body and that beeping monitor that everyone sees in movies all the time.

'Oh god... What did I do to myself?'

"You don't remember?"

"I..." Mikan trailed off, her palms curled into tiny fists. Why can't she remember? Her hold was too tight to the point that she was painfully digging her palms with her nails.

'C'mon brain! Give me something.'

Blots of red clouded Mikan's vision as she regained dark, blurry flashes of what happened the night before. However, it was too blurry for Mikan to get something from it.

Sensing Mikan's dilemma, Yuka held her hand and softly whispered as if she was afraid to see what Mikan's reaction would be.

"You said: 'I killed him.'"

Mikan didn't need to remember what had happened back at her cabin when she heard that single phrase. She knew that she just had an episode about the bastard who ruined her life.

"What did I do? A-and how long was I out?"

"You were just sitting at the corner of your room when we got there. You didn't even hear us coming. Your father booked a flight as soon as you ended the call. He'll be here late noon." Yuka then squeezed Mikan's hand before continuing. "You were unconscious for 9 hours."

"9 hours?! What about school?"

"I rang the school up. You're calling in sick for the next three days. Tsubasa volunteered to bring all your school work at the cabin." Yuka simply said. Silence blanketed the room—when suddenly, Yuka appeared to have remembered something rather amusing that made her snort.

"Oh! There's also this group of scary, rowdy kids with him demanding where were you! I swear, that kid is hanging out with the wrong crowd... Which reminds me; I'm going to tell that to his father later." Mikan instantly knew that it was the gang. She smiled fondly before closing her eyes and leaning against the headboard. She would have laughed at another time, but not now; when her mind was in someplace darker.

"I thought I was happy. I had a perfect boyfriend, lots of cool friends... What could I ever ask for?" Mikan lazily drawled out. It was an innocent question but Yuka knew better.

"You don't need to tell me anything, I understand." Mikan just shook her head. She needed to let it all out to lessen the guilt and pain that she was feeling in her chest.

"Problem is, I didn't realize I was viewing life through a blindfold until it was roughly ripped off. That was what happened three years ago... when I was still with Reo Mouri; my first love." Yuka's eyes widened in apprehension. She had hired people to find where Mikan was when her father died four years ago. And this happened just a year after that? Maybe if she hadn't stopped watching over Mikan, there might have been a huge chance of preventing what had occurred.

"Reo was loving, considerate, caring, funny... You know; just like who those silly little girls describe as the perfect man."

"It started with light shoves and dirty looks. He controlled my every move; even the fucking food I eat. He molded me into a person I barely knew. It came to a point that he would lock me in his house's basement, in that shitty hellhole. Dad was my last resort... but he, too was blinded by Reo's flawless public façade. Only I knew that Mr. Perfect wasn't so perfect after all." Mikan briefly looked at the ceiling as if contemplating something.

"That night, everything had the quality of a dream. And I was thinking, this wasn't where I wanted to be. I wanted to be in my bed. I wanted to be asleep, alive... just anything but there. I remembered thinking 'Please, let this be a dream. Or even a nightmare, I don't care!'" Mikan let out a laugh but it was anything but happy. Her eyes held such sorrow that rendered Yuka speechless.

"Reo was pointing a cold, deadly metal at me. He battered me with bruises and deep, deep cuts. I could feel my strength leaving me at every tick of the clock. 'I warned you too many times, but you didn't listen.' He said. 'You brought this upon yourself.' We fought, fought to free ourselves from this madness that was burning us alive.

"But the flashes of movements stopped when we both realized that I ended up gripping the deadly metal in my fist. How can this gun kill a man? He breathed loudly in the dark, the sort of breath that was raspy and barely covering fear. 'Please, Mikan!' he said. 'We could work this out.' But I didn't answer. Work what out? There's no 'this' to begin with.

"I unlocked the gun, and then cocked it. I raised the weapon before he knew what was happening. The shot rang out before I could ponder on it further—a bang breaking the unnatural silence of the house. I closed my eyes and breathed. His body hit the ground, a heavy noise, a heavy weight of an overwhelming sadness I couldn't understand. Or maybe I could. Maybe I understood too well.

"That wasn't enough. That was never enough. Enough, enough, enough. What was enough? Nothing, ever. No. I felt the tears down my face, wet, hot. My hands trembled. I couldn't linger—not even with this intimate moment; this thing that was staring at me. And what was staring at me? Death. And a choice. And a decision I had already made but I wanted to take it back.

"2:37 AM. I thought it was ironic... I thought it was just a cruel joke. I closed my eyes again, as I stood, as I felt my panic fade, as I felt my sadness fade. It was replaced with focus. I had to remember what I was doing." Jaded hazel eyes of someone who have already seen too much pierced through Yuka. She then concluded her speech with a grave tone.

"I had to remember who I was, even as it slipped away."

Yuka didn't say anything after that. She couldn't. She didn't know what to say that would lessen the pain that Mikan was feeling. Mikan was still a 15-year-old kid at that time; barely a teen. And what was Yuka doing back then? Wallowing in self-pity when in fact, her daughter needed someone who would assure her that everything would be alright.

"I'm sorry." It was just two words but Mikan knew that Yuka was apologizing for so much more.

"It's okay. You didn't know." Mikan smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. She then look out the window and heaved out a sigh. Her eyes adapted a faraway look as she tried to recall what had happened after that.

"Even if Reo's family kept on telling me that it wasn't my fault and that I was just trying to defend myself, I know that deep down, they were all blaming me for their son's loss."

Yuka was too shocked to utter a single word. All the while she thought that what she was experiencing was difficult when in fact, it wasn't even an inkling of what her daughter had been through in just a short span of time. No one spoke after that until they heard a faint knock on the door.

Whoever it was didn't wait for either of them to reply when he abruptly burst through the door.

"Mimi! What the hell..." The person trailed off when he caught sight of Yuka sitting beside the girl. He sheepishly scratched the back of his head.

"Uhh... Am I interrupting?"

"She's all yours, Tsubasa." Yuka winked before grabbing her bag and started towards the door. With a parting glance at Mikan, she bolted out of the room.

As soon as Tsubasa heard the door closed, he instantly sat where Yuka was sitting a moment ago. He then grabbed a thick brown folder from his backpack and handed it to Mikan.

"That's all the school work you'll miss for the next three days. I had fought with every department just to get those. If you have any questions though, I'll let Yuu or Imai know."

"Thanks, Baldy! Really appreciate it. But why Hotaru or Yuu?"

"Seriously? Baldy? What the fug? That's so not cool, girly." Tsubasa arched a delicate eyebrow in disbelief. He unconsciously ran his hand through his messy locks; making sure that he wasn't anywhere near bald. Mikan annoyingly rolled her eyes.

"Excuse me for coming up with that just a second ago. It's just that you wear hats all the time! I mean, you've got to be hiding something under those hideous tam o'shanters or whatever you call those. Well?"

"Imai's like in the top 2 of the Academy's finest nerds. And Yuu's third despite the fact that he likes unicorns and... Little ponies." Tsubasa lightly sniggered at that part. Mikan nodded her head thoughtfully.

"If Hotaru's second, then who's the first?"

"I'm sure you've heard about him... It's Hyuuga. Natsume Hyuuga." Mikan heard subtle annoyance in Tsubasa's voice when he said Natsume's name. She must have a confused look on her face which prompted Tsubasa to continue.

"He is a playboy, Mimi."

"What about it? He seems like a good guy, Bas. Maybe you're relying in gossips a bit too much?" Tsubasa snorted upon hearing Mikan's reply.

"You don't know him as long as I have. Hyuuga's dedicated in chasing pieces of ass around. He professes his love to all but commits to no one. Every week, he has a new chick in his arm. But since school started, he just... stopped. I suggest you stay away from him. He likes hot pursuits, and you might just be his next target." Tsubasa's tone was serious; a stark contrast from his usual happy-go-lucky personality. Mikan stared at him as she lounged back against the headboard.

"How could you be sure, Tsubasa?"

"I know him, Mikan. I know him." Tsubasa replied with an underlying annoyance in his tone. It seemed that at that moment, he was reliving whatever it was that happened between him and Natsume that made him dislike him. Mikan just suspiciously glanced at the lad. She suspected that there was something more going on. The hatred she saw swimming in Tsubasa's azure orbs was something else.

"For some reason, I don't believe you."

~o0O0o~

A/N: HEYA. I don't what exactly did I eat that caused me to write something as far-etched as this chapter's murder scene. But I ain't complainin'!

And just to make ya'll more excited, the next chapter's title is "Babysitting War: Tits McGee Style"! You're probably really curious with what's it about now, aren't you? So if you wanna know more about it, REVIEW.

What do you think, ya'll? Type in a review below and receive a teaser in return!

With Love,
Major Sugar Assassin