Disclaimer and Author's Notes: The characters in Mai-HiME don't belong to me, but the absurd events contained within this story, on the other hand, do...kinda.

Natsuki doesn't appear in this chapter, but she is mentioned. I'm pretty sure she'd have something to say about the events in this chapter...if she weren't in class.

Day 13 - Subliminality
Theme #9 - Dash

Dots and dashes...dashes and dots.

Mai had no idea what it meant, for all she could hear was a series of blips and beeps...some short, some long. They could periodically be heard over the PA system whenever a teacher or the headmaster needed to make an announcement, but the sequence was the same every time. The messages evoked laughter from a few small pockets of the student body, as well as a few loose cries of "aww" here and there. Mai was especially confused when a few of the other girls went "aww" when they saw her in the hallway walking by herself. She walked to her locker and turned to one of her classmates, Chie Harada, in search of an answer. "What's everyone so giggly about, Chie-chan?" she asked. "Did the headmaster say something funny?"

"No," said Chie. "I'm sure if she did, the whole school would die of laughter, and not just a few students."

"I don't get it, either. It's weird."

After retrieving her book bag from the locker, she saw Miyu standing on the other side of her as she closed the locker door, giving her a bit of a shock. "How long have you been standing there?" she asked.

"Long enough for you to miss the point completely," Miyu retorted.

"So you know what's going on with the students, then?"

"I don't speak with the students very often. My only concern is the welfare of young Alyssa." She stuffed a bag into her own locker and closed it, turning toward Mai and Chie. "However, I have noticed a few eccentricities in their behavior during the broadcasts from the headmaster. I suspect that someone is using a form of hidden messaging."

A few seconds later, another announcement was made, this time by Mashiro's secretary, Fumi. "Takumi Tokiha...please report to the infirmary. I repeat: Takumi Tokiha, please report to the infirmary. Thank you."

The laughter started up again, much to Mai's annoyance. "That's not funny!" she said. "He's probably just going to get his medicine refilled."

Miyu was the only other person in the hallway who refused to laugh. "You're jumping to conclusions again, Mai Tokiha," she said. "I told you, there are subliminal messages in these broadcasts. It sounds like Morse code."

"'Mores' what?" said Chie. "I don't get it."

"No, it's called 'Morse code'. It's a form of radio communication that's practically as old as this institution. Here...I'll play the message back one more time."

"You can do that?"

"I can do a lot of things. Observe."

Miyu pressed a button on her wrist, revealing a miniature speaker embedded in her forearm. She pressed another button and replayed the message from a few seconds ago, isolating the actual message from the series of blips and beeps to make the previously "hidden" message loud and clear. Clear, but still not completely understandable to Mai or Chie. "Where's the message?" asked Mai. "All I hear is a bunch of disjointed beeping."

"That's because the message isn't translatable in Japanese. Anyone with a basic grasp of English and radio communications should be able to decode it."

"Do you understand what it says, Miyu?"

"Actually, I do. The message plainly reads, 'M-A-I L-O-V-E-S N-A-T-S-U-K-I'."

"Can't get much clearer than that," said Chie. She started to giggle a little bit, not out of amusement at Mai's slowly reddening face, but at the fact that someone would be bold enough to sneak a message like that into public broadcasts without anyone's knowledge...or that anyone would understand it.

Mai slammed her fist into the locker, sending a ripple of pain through her hand that she was unable to sense until a few seconds after the fact. "I want to know who's responsible for this!" she shouted as she stormed off to the executive committee's chamber. Chie stood by and shrugged, while Miyu shook her head and walked in the opposite direction.

Haruka sat at the front desk of the executive committee room laughing to herself, while Yukino walked in with her laptop computer, ready to conduct official business. "Um, Haruka-chan?" she asked.

Haruka stopped laughing for a few minutes to catch her breath. "Oh, I'm sorry, Yukino," she said. "It's just too funny not to laugh. Seriously, those two? They couldn't be any more different than the sun and the moon! I know opposites detract and all, but..."

"I think the phrase you're looking for is 'opposites attract'."

"Right. That's what I said, 'attract'."

Yukino shook her head, pushing her glasses back onto her face. "Oh, Haruka...let's just get to work now, okay?"

Mai pushed her way into the room shortly after Yukino sat down, slamming the door into the wall next to her. "Suzushiro!" she said. "I need to talk to you."

Haruka, predictably, was irritated by Mai's lack of manners. "Try knocking next time before you ask for our business, Tokiha," she said. "We were just about to start our meeting. What is it that you want?"

"I want to know who's screwing with the PA system. Somebody's been putting Morris...Morning...er, whatever...messages in the broadcasts and making everybody laugh. It's so annoying."

"You mean Morse code?" asked Yukino.

"Uh, yeah. You know about this stuff?"

"Of course I do. That's because, um..." Yukino bowed her head and shielded her face behind her computer.

"Because what? Come on, tell me!"

"Well...I..." Yukino's speech became softer and more stilted than usual. "It was me."

"Yukino!" said Mai. "Why'd you go and do that? Did you even think about how embarrassed I would be?"

"I'm sorry, Mai-san. I was just following orders. It was Haruka who--"

Mai turned her attention toward Haruka, and the two girls exchanged stares of anger. "I'm surprised and ashamed you'd do something like this, Haruka," said Mai, "the way you like to go on and on about 'justice' and 'decency'. And on top of that, you used Yukino in your little scheme! You're no better than the rest of us."

"Oh, come on, Tokiha," said Haruka, "it was just a harmless prank. Everybody should be allowed to have one. Besides, when I first heard about it from a friend of mine, it sounded too ridiculous to be real. I didn't think anyone else would believe it."

"Well, I hope you had a good laugh. Now the whole school knows about it!"

"Why are you getting so defensive about this anyway?" Haruka's frown became a half-smile, and her eyes lit up with a childish glee. She had just latched onto something juicy. "Oh, I get it...you actually are attracted to Kuga, aren't you?"

"She is quite popular among the male and female student body," Yukino pointed out.

It was too late. The "secret" was already out in the wild with no way to stop it, leaving Mai no choice but to own up to it. "Yes, it's true," she said with a heavy sigh, "but I was going to tell people when I was ready...and certainly not by using cheesy subliminal messaging tricks."

"If you really do feel that way, Mai-san," said Yukino, "then I don't see much of a problem here."

"Well, I don't think it's fair, and I want you to stop it right now."

"All right," said Haruka, stifling a chuckle. "I've had my fun. Yukino, you can undo the messages, can't you?"

Yukino loaded a program into her computer and started typing rapidly. Neither Haruka nor Mai could see what was going on, and it was hardly likely that either would understand. "I'm already working on it, Haruka-chan."

Haruka turned back to Mai. "Now, if you don't have any further business here, I need to meet with Yukino for a few minutes."

Mai slowly walked out of the executive committee room with her head tilted down. She tried to hide her face from the other students along her way, but to her surprise, nobody made any comments toward her. Oh, dear, she thought. What's Natsuki going to say when she finds out about this? I hope she doesn't think that I was the one responsible.

She bumped into Chie from behind on her way to the water fountain and quickly apologized.

"So, were you able to identify the culprit of this little joke, Mai?" asked Chie.

"Yeah," said Mai. "You probably wouldn't believe who it was even if I told you."

"I must say, Mai...your stock around campus is sure to go up with this juicy little story."

"Don't remind me."

"Just be glad you're not a celebrity. The Japanese and English-language tabloids would be all over the story in a minute. I can just see the headline now: Cutie Kisses Kuga, Foils Fuuka Fanboys' Fantasies."

"International stardom...wonderful. Nobody would shut up about it if it ever reached the tabloids."

Mai took a sip from the water fountain, splashing a little on her face to awaken her from the trance she found herself in. When she turned around to look for Chie, she saw no one standing next to her. "Chie? Where'd you go?"

Mai wanted to block out the noise she heard from the PA system, but the sequence of dashes and dots kept replaying over and over in her head. Now that a handful of people heard the message along with her, she feared that she could no longer fully have Natsuki to herself. She sat with her back to the wall and slid to the floor, wondering about all the questions from the other students that were sure to follow. Is this...also part of what it's like to be in a relationship?