Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice.
When all those shadows
Almost killed your light
-Safe and Sound
Taylor Swift
I dreamed of Natsume that night, and it wasn't a bad dream. I woke up in the morning feeling suspicious. It had been so long since I'd had a nice dream. And it had been a nice dream. Really nice, if you were into Natsume. Which was starting to worry me.
I had trouble making eye contact with Sumire the next morning because of that dream. She'd flipped out at me for thinking about kissing him, which I wasn't admitting to doing. I couldn't imagine her reaction if she knew what I was thinking about now.
"Where'd you go last night?" Anna asked when she got up.
"To talk to Natsume. I think we're good now."
While Sumire tried to look relieved to hear that, I could tell that she wasn't. I wanted to reassure her that I wasn't into him, but I wasn't sure if that was the truth anymore or not. Hormones were getting me all riled up. The whole knight in shining armour thing certainly hadn't helped at all.
"You seem better this morning," Anna commented.
"I took the medication Nonoko made." And I did feel better. About everything.
"Nonoko is good at what she does. I'm glad it's helping."
I didn't run into Natsume until I walked into class that morning. I walked in purposefully, but as soon as I locked gazes with Natsume, a blush threatened to crawl up my neck as I remembered the dream and I averted my eyes.
"What's your problem?" he drawled when I sat down next to him. "I thought we were done avoiding each other."
I swallowed thickly and turned to smile at him. The smile faltered when I found him looking back at me with those disarming eyes—his number one weapon against all the girls he had seduced, I was sure. Or maybe I was just imagining the smouldering because of the stupid dream.
"I have no problem," I replied eventually, but he was smirking. I couldn't help but feel like he knew. "Are you feeling better today?"
"I'm feeling fine." A pause. "Are you?"
"I'm happy to have you back."
"Because you're in love with me."
My gaze snapped to him, eyes narrowed. "Where the hell would you get that idea? I am the least likely person in the world to fall in love with you. I'm refreshing, remember?"
"Then why are you blushing?"
"I'm not blushing."
"Looks like you are."
"I have a…uh…condition? Rosacea."
"Haven't noticed it before."
"Must mean you weren't paying attention. And now suddenly you are. Which must mean you're in love with me." I couldn't fight the smile that tugged on my lips. "I'm really happy to have you back, Natsume."
He didn't look at me, but the corner of his mouth was turned up.
I felt on edge and tense for the rest of class, trying to keep my mind on the lesson instead of letting it wander to warm hands on my skin. He seemed to notice me fidgeting, but he didn't comment. As uncomfortable as the dream had made me, it was a welcome distraction from everything else that was wrong with my life.
But it was making me think bad, bold things. Alarmed, I glanced at Wakako, but she didn't seem to be tuned into my thoughts. Thank God. That could have been catastrophic. The unpredictability of my alice made it difficult for her to read my mind, but she could still get pieces every now and again.
"Thanks for the Mini Eggs," I said at the end of class. "I ate them all."
"Glutton," he said.
"You're the enabler."
Sumire approached me after class, after Natsume had already left the classroom. "You guys are all good now, hey?"
"Seem to be," I responded as lightly as I could. "I need his support, Sumire."
Her smile was small. "I know. You guys have been through a lot together. See you at lunch."
Natsume was waiting in the hallway for me, which I hadn't expected. I ran to meet him, falling into step beside him.
Kids were bullies. That was the gist of it. In this case, they were very stupid bullies. I didn't think anyone would have the audacity to try something when Natsume was beside me, and I wondered why he hadn't thought to try it over the past few weeks when Natsume and I hadn't been talking, but I guess the kid didn't think Natsume would actually do anything.
A tidal wave of water crashed down on me. From the ceiling? At first I thought a pipe had burst, and then all I was thinking of was being back in that room as my head was shoved into a basin of water. Natsume's warm hand grabbed me by the elbow, pulling me out of the waterfall and into his body.
Someone was yelling, "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!"
"Like hell you didn't," Natsume growled. I smelled smoke, heard someone furiously patting their clothing. I felt a surge or rage for being made a fool of, for someone mocking what I'd been through, and Natsume was forced to abruptly release my arm when my skin started to singe.
"Dammit, Legs," he grunted.
"I'm fine," I responded shakily. No one was staring, having been sent scattering by Natsume's furious glare, no doubt. Water had pooled around our feet, and when I looked down at myself, I saw that I was soaked to the bone. And my shirt was see-through.
Suddenly worried about Natsume's reaction to seeing me in a similar state to what I'd been when he found me, I blurted, "Don't freak out."
He cussed again and started down the hall. Assuming that meant I was to follow him, I hurried after. He walked straight into a co-ed washroom; I hesitated only a moment before following him.
"Fucking dipshit," he muttered as he locked the door behind us.
"Did you set him on fire?"
His eyes darted to the burn mark on my arm, but I turned my body so he couldn't see it. "Yes."
"Nice." Noticing he was still staring at me, I forced a laugh. "I'm fine. Took Nonoko's medication today. It seems to work wonders."
He motioned to the hand dryer. "Dry off a bit before you go change."
"You don't have to be scared to look at me, Natsume. I'm waterlogged, but that's about it." I peeled off my sweater, throwing it into the sink—it would take too long to dry.
"You need to see Narumi about controlling your alice," he scolded me. "You've been putting it off."
I glanced down at my arm. I couldn't fight the disappointment that made my stomach sink at realizing that every time my emotions flared up, my alice seemed to cause problems. That made whatever had happened in my dream impossible to ever come to fruition.
Not that I wanted it to. I had to keep telling myself that. But here I was, alone in a washroom with Natsume and it was all I could think about. I wondered what he was thinking about. I couldn't really tell from looking at him. He was definitely looking at me now, but he seemed conflicted.
"I'm sorry my alice sucks and makes you burn me and then makes you feel bad about it," I said to dispel the silence.
His eyes dropped, taking in my see-through shirt and maybe the way it clung to my skin. When he looked back up to me, his expression mirrored how I felt: hungry. And not for food.
My breath caught in my throat. He stepped toward me. One hand met my waist while the other wrapped around the back of my neck, where my skin was protected by my drenched hair, and he gently pushed me back until my back hit the wall. His mouth was inches from mine, and I was feeling supercharged. And bold. I was feeling really bold.
I struggled to contain my blush while trying to maintain eye contact. His eyes were so dark, and they were boring into me like he could see right through me. His breath fanned over my face, and I think I started to sweat. Which was so not sexy.
All I would have to do is tilt my chin up and lean forward a little bit and our lips would meet. It seemed so easy in theory, but my body was encased in cement.
But he recovered himself. His hands left my body—just as I was beginning to feel the heat of his alice—and he looked one more time at my see-through shirt before heading for the door. "Meet with Narumi in your free block."
Before I could stop him, he was gone. I locked the door behind him with shaking hands, sighed at my bedraggled appearance in the mirror, and got to work drying my clothes.
Goddamn sexual tension.
The pessimist in me insisted that it had been a lapse in judgement on Natsume's part. That would explain his sudden recovery and departure. But the optimist in me knew that the look he had given me was not the product of bad judgement. He had wanted something just as much as I had—he just had better self control.
I met with Mr. Narumi in my fourth block. He seemed surprised that I'd dropped by, but already knew that he was expected to help me map out my alice.
"I heard there was an incident in the halls this morning," he commented when I sat.
I picked up a handful of my hair, still damp. "Yep."
"How are you handling it?"
I considered it for a moment, then nodded. "Good, I think. I only felt like I was back in the Organization for a second. Then-" I stopped myself.
"Then…?" Mr. Narumi pressed.
"Natsume pulled me out of it. The water, I mean."
His eyes landed on the pinkish skin on my arm. "I'm glad to hear that you and Natsume have apparently talked and made up. What were you feeling when he grabbed you, Mikan?"
"Angry? At the kid who made the waterfall."
Narumi made me take him through every incident in which someone else's alice hurt me. I had already drawn the conclusion that he'd come to; my alice was affected by my emotions.
"Seems kind of stupid, don't you think?" I pondered. "If I'm in a situation where I need my alice, I'm probably not going to be very calm."
"It's something you can train," Mr. Narumi said confidently. "Having your alice function the way it does right now is good, because it will help you isolate it so that you can bend it to your will. It's something we should start on relatively quickly, because I understand that it might affect your personal interactions as it stands right now." He was grinning, his eyes twinkling, and suddenly I was worried that he knew about the dream, too.
"Well, should we start?"
The smile faltered. "I'd like to wait until next week to begin. Because of what you've been through, your emotions are a little off kilter."
"I'm fine," I insisted.
"You need more time, Mikan." He stood. "Come back here on Monday and we'll get your alice under control. In the meantime, this might help give you an incentive to control your emotions." He smiled. "And to take that medication."
Since I'd skipped lunch to dry my clothes, Anna and Sumire were bursting with questions when I got back to the dorm.
"We heard Natsume set someone on fire," Sumire gushed.
"He did," I confirmed. "The little bastard deserves it."
"Are you okay?" Anna asked, brows furrowed.
The thought of being back in that room with my head being held underwater gave me pause for only a few seconds before I smiled. "I'm fine. No harm, no foul."
"Kid's a dick," Sumire snorted. "I'm going to be looking out for the kid with the singed eyebrows and he's going to be getting a piece of my mind. On another note, though, Mrs. Yamada wants to see you."
"She does?"
"Yeah, as soon as you're available."
"She hasn't made an effort to reach out to me since I've been back." I couldn't help the bitterness in my voice. After all that talk about her caring about my safety and well-being, the fact that she hadn't even checked in on me was infuriating.
Anna shrugged. "Guess she finally realized that avoidance isn't always the best strategy."
Because I was pissed about the fact that I was just hearing from her now, I didn't make my way to the office until well after dinner. I knew she'd still be there, since she never left, and making her wait gave me a little bit of joy.
I threw on a jacket and some boots and tried to wrap a scarf around my face, only to find that the fabric over my mouth and nose made me think too much of drowning. I discarded the scarf.
Snow had begun falling. That night, thick flakes floated down from the inky black sky, landing in my hair and clinging to my eyelashes. The silence that came with a winter night filled me with peace, the only sound coming from the snow crunching under my feet.
The girl at the desk smiled at me when I walked in, stamping the snow off my boots. "You can go right up."
Mrs. Yamada looked up when I walked into her office, offering me what I thought was a genuine smile before standing up and coming around her desk to hug me.
"I'm happy to see you're alright."
"Been alright for about two and a half weeks now," I muttered, sitting in one of the chairs in front of her desk.
"I'm sorry I didn't call you here sooner. I wanted Mr. Narumi to assess you and help you in any way that he could before I made you sit in front of me and answer questions."
I resisted the urge to frown at her lack of concern. "Questions about what?"
"What happened to you, of course."
"I already told Mr. Narumi what happened to me. I don't really want to talk about it again."
She nodded, apparently in understanding. But she pressed on anyway. "You mentioned that there was a young boy being held there."
I looked down at my hands, folded in my lap. My heart jumped into my throat. "Youichi. Yes. But I'm not sure he was being 'held' there."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm pretty sure Rei is his dad."
"What makes you say that?"
Irritated, I bit out, "He called him 'son' and they also look kind of alike. Rei had him use his alice on me. And Youichi looked happy about it."
Mrs. Yamada's face fell. "Youichi's alice allows him to steal the energy from any living thing he touches skin-to-skin. He has no control over it. Did he walk over to you and touch you?"
"No. He was lying on the ground and there was water and he wasn't moving so I picked him up."
She nodded, although her expression communicated pain. "The feeling he gets when he touches another living being is like a high. He might not have even been conscious. They could have starved him beforehand, or kept him awake for hours, so that he had no energy."
I breathed out slowly, the guilt I'd been carrying around about leaving him behind amplifying tenfold. Convincing myself that Youichi wasn't being held against his will was the only thing that had been keeping the guilt from crushing me.
"We do believe he's being held there against his will and being raised as a weapon by his father. We want to take action to get him out, but we need your help to do that. We need to know every detail—no matter how small—of what happened."
"Okay," I whispered.
Before she could begin, there was a knock on the open door. I turned in my seat to see Reo standing there. My eyes zeroed in on that gaudy cross around his neck. Seriously, why did it need to be so big? He nodded once at me and then looked at Mrs. Yamada. "Can I speak to you in my office a moment?"
Mrs. Yamada glanced at me, then nodded and stood. "Sit tight, Mikan."
After she'd walked out of the room, I found that I could not sit tight. I kept replaying everything that happened at the Organization and wondering if Natsume and I could have gotten Youichi out, too.
Of course we could have. It wouldn't have been easy, but it probably would have been possible. He hadn't been far. But I'd been too selfish to let Natsume know just how attainable it had been. After Natsume and I had talked last night, I had hoped I was relatively past feeling like this.
Restless, I stood and paced the room.
Reo's office was at the other end of the conference room, and he'd shut the door when he'd gone inside, leaving me completely alone in Mrs. Yamada's office. I don't know why I felt the need to snoop, but I couldn't help it when I went behind her desk.
I sat down in her chair and absently pulled one of the desk drawers open, trying to distract myself from thoughts of Youichi but accomplishing the opposite when my eyes landed on a picture frame turned upside down on top of her desk.
Frowning, I closed the drawer and reached forward to pick it up. One smiling Mrs. Yamada, one smirking, albeit much younger, Natsume, and one smiling toddler, Youich, stared back at me from the other side of the glass.
A lot of things made sense in that moment. Mrs. Yamada's motherly concern for Natsume. Natsume's desperation to get Youichi out of the Organization. And the fact that Mrs. Yamada was only seeing me now, weeks after I'd been back. The floor fell out from underneath me, and it took me a moment to come to and realize I'd fainted and fallen out of the chair in the process.
The door across the room opened and hurried footsteps approached. I stumbled to my feet and for the door, but Mrs. Yamada blocked my exit.
"Mikan," she said sharply, seeing the picture frame on the floor. "What did you do?"
"What did I do?" I shrieked, wondering why there were two of her. "What did you do?"
She grabbed my arm. "Let me explain."
I waited, my body coiled with fury. "Well, explain."
Her expression faltered. "I just thought-"
"What?" I cut her off. "That they'd give you him if you gave them me? Did it blow up in your face?"
Her mouth moved, but she couldn't seem to form words. "That's not what I-"
I ripped free and sprinted for the stairs, ignoring her calling after me. My chest quaked as I ran, sobs tearing through my chest as panic took hold of me. My first instinct was to run to the dorm, to Natsume, but then a little voice at the back of my mind said, Maybe he knew about this.
I ran for the wall. Tsubasa had said I was the only one that would be able to get over it, thanks to my alice. And all I knew in that second was that I didn't feel safe in this place.
The rushed footsteps behind me came faster than I expected. I had just reached the wall, and was in the midst of trying to jump up to reach the top—which was ridiculous because that would be impossible—when arms wrapped around my waist and jerked me back. I landed in the snow on my back, Natsume looming over me. He had my arms pinned, and his legs held my own legs down. My struggling was nothing to him.
"Calm down," he ordered.
Tears streamed down my face and into the snow. I tried to focus on his face, but looking at him was only making unimaginable guilt tear through my chest. "He's your brother?"
He held my stare, gauging my reaction when he nodded.
A piece of what was remaining of my composure chipped away. My chest quaked, my struggles renewed. I didn't know where I intended to go, but I just knew that I couldn't be there, not with him.
"Legs," he said evenly, tightening his hold on me. "Calm. Down."
I stopped, gasping for air but my lungs felt like they were made of stone. "And Mrs. Yamada? She's your mom?"
Another nod. Another piece of my composure.
"And Rei is your father?"
"Yes."
My breathing picked up. I couldn't make sense of the train wreck that was my thoughts.
"I'm going to let you up," he said gently. "Don't run." When I nodded, he eased off of me, helping me to my feet as he stood up.
I hunched over, hands braced on my knees, trying to draw in a full breath. "Did you know?" I gasped.
"Know what?"
"That your mom let them get me! They knew where to go and for some reason the shield around the school didn't stop them. A desperate mother trying to get her youngest son back? What was I? The ticket in?"
A look passed over his face, like realization was setting in. Then he cursed and tried to brush past me.
I grabbed his hand. I should have known better, with my emotions being off the rails. He had been careful to only touch me where my coat covered me, but I wasn't thinking straight. When my skin touched his, pain ricocheted all the way from that contact point, through my body where that sharp pain in my chest returned, and out my other hand.
And suddenly the snow was on fire. Which didn't really make sense, but there I was, staring in shock as a physics-defying flame melted the snow.
"Jesus, Legs," Natsume muttered, stomping out the flames before they could grow, but I was already having an epiphany.
"You didn't know I was at my house until I mentioned it on my first day here," I said numbly, recalling the distant look on his face as I'd told him and Mrs. Yamada about the incident. "I wasn't supposed to be there."
"You had nothing to do with it," he said firmly.
"You said I'm hypersensitive to some alices. I'm hypersensitive to yours."
"Legs-"
"You said you didn't know what caused the explosion. But you do."
"I caused the explosion, not-"
"Your alice blew up my house and killed my dad because I was there."
He looked about to protest, but something in the expression on my face stopped him. And that was all I needed.
The boot came back down on my chest hard, forcing the air out of my lungs. The next breath came in quick and went out even faster. My legs failed me, and I hit the ground hard.
The feeling was difficult to describe. It was no longer just an ache in my heart, but a searing hot pain ripping through my entire body. I curled myself into a tight ball, hoping it would be enough to hold myself together, wishing the ground would swallow me up so that I didn't have to feel like this.
He was cautious when he touched my arm, but the layer of clothing protected me. He scooped me up, understanding that my legs were checked out for the night, and began walking back the way we had come.
"You knew," I whispered hoarsely. "You knew and you didn't tell me. You just let me think you killed him. You let me blame you."
"It didn't have to be your burden to bear."
I pinched my eyes shut, trying to pace my breathing with the steady rising and falling of his chest beneath my cheek. "No, no, no. This can't be happening. I killed my dad. I killed him."
"You were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Tell me what happened. Take me through it." I waited, and when he hesitated, I begged, "Please, Natsume."
"Kyo made a mistake. His order wasn't specific enough. All he said was to set the house on fire and make sure Izumi was in it. He didn't swear me to secrecy, and he didn't tell me I couldn't warn him. I warned him, which is why he sent you away, but he didn't leave. He wanted me to help him fake his death so that he could infiltrate the Organization without suspicion. In return, he was going to get me out of the Organization's hold."
The sad look on my dad's face as he sent me out of the house flashed through my head. He hadn't known what was coming, all he knew was that he was going to make everyone think he was dead. Including me. I felt cheated.
"But I was there," I whispered.
"I didn't know what caused the explosion until I found out what your alice could do."
"Why did you survive?"
"I'm not affected by heat or fire."
"You rescued me instead of your brother. Your brother." The crushing weight of guilt smashed into me from all directions. "You shouldn't have-" My voice broke. "It's tearing you up. And it's my fault. I should have-" Another sob. Another breath in too quickly. I struggled to unfold myself from his arms, falling flat on my ass in the snow in the process. "I need to go," I decided, scrambling to my feet. "I need to go somewhere-"
His hand was on my elbow before I'd made it half a step. "You're not going anywhere."
"Your mom…she…" The broken pieces of the puzzle were swirling around in my head, and I suddenly couldn't put them together anymore. "We can make a trade. Youichi for me."
"Don't be stupid."
"He said he was waiting for someone. It's you, isn't it? He's waiting for you?" I pulled on my arm, trying to break free of his grasp. His grip was too strong. I wanted to crumple. I wanted everything to just stop.
He grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around to face him. When I tried to drop my gaze, he reached for my face with both hands, stopping short to move them to my neck, where my hair covered my skin.
"This isn't your fault," he said, forcing me to look him in the eyes. "Nobody blames you. You are not going to hand yourself over and you aren't leaving the school grounds."
"But-"
"No one is going to hurt you again, Legs. I won't let them. Let me take you back to the dorm. You're freezing."
I hadn't noticed my whole body trembling, and I wasn't even sure it was from the cold. But I nodded, grateful for him gripping my arm in case my legs decided to give out again.
Ruka, Koko, Sumire, Anna, and Hotaru were all in Natsume's room when we got there. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights, because Anna shot to her feet quickly. Natsume shook his head at her, said something to Ruka that I didn't hear through my ringing ears, and then guided me down the hall to his bedroom while the rest of the crew left the dorm room.
He closed his door behind us before turning his eyes to me. I held his gaze, hoping that his calm would reach me. When it didn't, when I still couldn't pull in a full breath, I unzipped my jacket. "I can't breathe." He helped me pull it off, and then guided me over to his bed and forced me to lay down on my side. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm so, so-"
"Ruka was right," he interrupted. "Youichi is safer there than you would have been. I don't regret getting you out of there." He stood up, but I grabbed his hand before he could turn.
"Don't leave."
"I'm just going to get you a drink." He pulled his hand free of mine, cast me one last concerned glance, and then left the room.
I closed my eyes and tried to slow my breathing, but behind my closed eyelids, all I saw was Youichi, or my dad being burned to a crisp because I'd been stupid and forgotten socks. The feeling of knowing my dad might still be with me if I'd remembered something as simple as socks shook me to my core.
Then the fact that my dad had been about to fake his death and let me believe it registered, and any progress I'd made with slowing my breathing was lost.
I sat up, dropping my head into my hands and trying to make sense of everything that had happened. I'd killed my dad; that was clear. I'd cost Natsume the opportunity to rescue his brother from his evil father; that was also clear. Mrs. Yamada, whom I'd thought I could trust, who my dad thought he could trust, had been willing to use me without my knowledge in order to gain entrance into the Organization. That part was still a little unclear.
Outside the bedroom, I could hear Natsume talking. Judging by the lack of response from another voice, I assumed he was either being ignored or was on the phone.
Gary's advice to focus on the one thing I could control floated back to me. I was proving to myself that I was not in fact capable of controlling my breathing, but what could I control?
Natsume was in the living room, holding a glass of water in one hand and talking on his cell phone with the other. He stopped speaking when he saw me, set the glass down, said, "We'll finish this discussion later," to whoever was on the phone, and then to me, "What are you doing?"
I stormed right past him and do the door. "I'm the only one in this school that can get across the wall. Tsubasa said so. I need to fix this."
"Right. Without a jacket. In the winter."
I looked down at myself, considered this, and then started back for his room to grab my things. He stopped me by the arm before I got very far.
"You're not going to fix anything by being stupid." When he saw that I was contemplating what he said, he picked up the glass of water and handed it to me.
My hand trembled, but I took a drink around my gasping breaths. "How did I end up in the middle of your family drama?"
He almost smiled. Almost. "Bad timing."
"You promise you didn't know what your mom was doing?"
"I didn't know. I wouldn't have let her pull that shit if I'd known." He took the glass away from me and set it down, and then motioned to the couch. "Sit."
I did as I was told, relieved when he sat on the cushion next to me instead of on the opposite couch like I expected. "You have a look on your face," I said wearily.
He sighed, sweeping his hands over his face, staring at the ground for a second before shifting his gaze back to me. "You need to know this."
My heart lurched. "How can there possibly be any more bad news?"
Another ghost of a smile that lasted only a split second before vanishing. "I don't think my mother was using you as a way into the Organization, or she would have made sure to tell me that my main priority was Youichi. I think her intention was for Rei to see your value. She was always planning on getting you back."
"Rei has the same alice as me. What more value could I possibly add?"
He hesitated. "You're not sensitive to some alices. You have two alices."
A/N: Hello again! Back with a quick update because I'll be away for all of next week so I wanted to give you guys something to tide you over. At the end of this chapter you'll see why I mentioned in a previous A/N that a person can typically only have one alice, so Mikan having two alices is a big deal because it's unheard of, at least in the universe this story takes place in. Any questions you may have at the end of this chapter should be answered in the next chapter or the one after, but definitely still ask me questions if you have them so I can make sure I did actually answer them in later chapters. I don't want to confuse anyone! But it's definitely possible because I would sometimes confuse myself while writing this, especially with all the jumping around chapters I've been doing.
Anyway, that's the end of that weird long blurb. See you guys in a week and a half or so!
