Helloha people! I'm back again! I was going to update last weekend, but my boyfriend's birthday came up, so I had been on my computer working on his present! I swear there are so much birthdays in September! It's like everyone's parents decided to make a baby in December and January, so they could give birth in September! It's sort of weird! Anyways, this is the next chapter and I hope you guys like it! I'm also sorry for the grammar errors, I get impatient when I finish a chapter of a story and want to put it up as fast as possible, so I usually don't read over it! So I'm sorry! I hope you guys like this and THANK YOU SO MUCH for the reviews for the pervious chapters! I want to give you all virtual hugs, but you know that's sort of creepy! Anyway, we're almost to 200 reviews! So excited! Let's see if this chapter will make it to the 200 mark!

So please read and review! Pretty Please! This time I'm begging for this chapter to reach 200 because we're so close! Please and Super Duper Thank You!

Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice.

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My Life as a Model in Training

Chapter 21: Fun

"Hey Mikan? Are you alright? You're looking a bit pale. Maybe you shouldn't do this photo shoot."

Nonoko's worried voice came from behind me, well actually above me. I looked behind my seat to see Nonoko perched on the top of it, her face etched with concern. I took a deep breath and gave her a small smile.

"I'm fine, Nonoko. Really. I'm just a little tired, maybe I should sleep earlier." I told her, lightly laughing, trying to get her to believe I was fine. She gave me a look that told me she didn't buy it, but she let it go, murmuring a small, "Okay, if you're sure," before sliding back into her seat, her body completely blocked by the back of the mossy colored fabric of my seat.

We were all on the bus, heading to the aquarium for our next photo shoot. I sat next to Natsume on our large heated bus that carried all the students. We sat in rows, two people to one row, but the bus had only to columns, so it was like your regular old school bus. Except it wasn't yellow and didn't smell of sweat coming from the students and the bus driver. In fact, the bus was a lot nicer, it was large and white, the windows tinted black to keep the sun from getting in. To get into your seat, you had to climb small stairs leading up to the seats on each row. And that was a lot of rows. Nonoko and Anna were seated in the seats behind Natsume and I, while Nobara had her own seat across from them, trying to give Natsume and I some room because I'm guessing she noticed, but she didn't say anything. She would cast a few glances to me every once in a while to check if I was okay, every time I caught her eyes, I gave her a smile, trying to assure her I was fine. But she still kept checking up on me every once in a while.

I settled myself into the back of my chair, sighing before laying my head on Natsume's shoulder. I tightened the grip of our intertwined fingers, before closing my eyes, breathing in his scent, calmly. I felt the pad of his slightly calloused thumb rub the front of my hand in circles, trying to comfort me. I hadn't told him that Sano was here, I wanted to tell Hotaru first, wanting to get her advice on what we should do about our growing problem. Even though Sano/Hiro was sitting in the front, next to Luna who had been coming on to him the entire bus ride, whether it would be with flipping her hair, or running a newly manicured hand over his arm, she did everything, he didn't really take the bait. Every once in a while he would turn his head to the back, looking at me with his eyes made of solid penetrating ice.

I tried not to visibly flinch every time I was hit with his ice daggers, but it was getting harder and harder. If this damn bus ride didn't end, I would probably crack and be sent to the mental ward of a hospital. I shifted in my seat, bending my leg, placing it on top of the seat, so I could turn my body away from oncoming daggers.

"Do you want to switch seats?"

Natsume's voice whispered smoothly into my ear, his hot breath tickling my ear. My hand flew up to my ear, covering it so I wouldn't have to get the heavy onslaught of his hot breath. My eyes fluttered opened and I shifted in my seat again, this time so I was sitting up straight in my chair. I glared at his slightly in annoyance for bothering me, but my glared melted away as I saw the hard concern written on his face. His jaw was set, his lips pressing in a thin line across his handsome face, but his eyes were a bit softer, but still just as hard and intense like the rest of his face.

I stared at him for a pregnant pause before ultimately agreeing with him to switch seats with him. Maybe having the window seat would calm me down more and plus it would block Sano's eyes from looking at me. His eyes always smiling and knowing.

Natsume blinked before getting off his seat and moved himself in front of me as I slid myself over. When I was safely tucked away by the cool window, Natsume sat himself down in my seat, moving his body to get comfortable. When he was done, he grasped my hand, intertwining our fingers together, our palms pressed firmly against one another's. I sighed in content, feeling his warm hand made a wave of relief wash over me as I lay my head on top of his shoulder. We sat in a quiet bubble of comfortable silence the rest of the ride to the aquarium.

Except for the slight decreasing temperature change in the bus.

When the bus stopped at a large dome shaped building, the doors slid open and students started gathering their things while filing out of the relatively wide bus. I sat up from Natsume's shoulder and bent over to open the compartment underneath the seat to grab my bag before standing up behind Natsume who was waiting for the students to climb out of the bus. When it was our turn to get out of our row, Natsume grasped my hand and led me to the exit, still blocked with the bodies of students climbing down the stairs. The bus still had a cold feeling as we made our way to the steps of exit. Natsume let go off my hand for minute to get down the steep stairs, waiting for me and the bottom.

I took my first step on to the stairs, but then something caught my foot. Specifically the laces of my converse that were now untied, which I could've sworn were tied before I even walked out my row. I tried to catch my balance, but my foot slipped off the metal step. I stumbled forward, falling out of the bus. I let out a small scream, closing my eyes waiting for my face to come in hard contact with the concrete ground.

"Hey! Watch it!" I heard those words spoken in an angry panic as I crashed in to someone at the bottom of the bus. His arms encircled my body in a tight clamp, my heart beat pounded in my ears as I panted in relief that I hadn't come in contact with the concrete. My eyes shot open to look at my savior, and I was thankfully met with of course, distraught crimson eyes. I relaxed more, but my chest still pounded with adrenaline and I let my forehead fall on to Natsume's chest.

"Mikan! Oh my God! Are you alright?" A unison of that sentence and a few others came from behind me as I heard a lot of pairs of feet hit the ground. I felt a whole lot of hands land on my back and shoulders as I turned my head to both sides, looking at Nonoko, Anna, and Nobara's panicked eyes. Not only was I met with their panicked eyes, Yuu, Ruka, Youichi, Koko, and Kitsune. With all the people there, I wasn't sure who had picked me off the ground, but I was placed back on my feet, leaning against the cold metal of the bus. Natsume got up on his own, except for the fact that Ruka had a hand around his arm, helping him further.

"Oh my! What happened here my little cherry pops?" Narumi-Sensei made his way over quickly, gliding pass students staring at the scene, whispering to each other with concerned looks on their faces. "Sensei! Mikan fell down the stairs!" Anna told Narumi-Sensei, her hands waving in the air as she panicked. I felt Nobara go around my body, brushing off the dirt that I had gotten on myself and tying my laces up as well. Nonoko chimed into Anna's sentence, "Yeah and then Natsume was her hero and caught her before she hit the ground."

"My goodness! You took a tumble, Mikan! Are you alright? It's a good thing Natsume was around to catch you!" Narumi-Sensei concluded, looking up and down my body for any cuts or scrapes. "Do you need to go see the nurse? If you aren't feeling up to doing this, you can sit out!"

I felt my eyebrows knit together closely, giving him a questioning look, "I don't need to see the nurse, I'm fine. I just took a small tumble, it wasn't bad. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to make it the rest of the day," Then I turned my head to Natsume, who was standing behind Narumi-Sensei, brushing dirt off his clothes, "Is Natsume alright? Natsume, are you okay?"

Natsume looked up from his brushing and just nodded, making his way over to me, also looking me up and down. "It's nothing. How are you?" Natsume asked shortly, looking at my face after he did an examination of my body.

"Seriously guys, I'm fine. It was nothing." I smiled to everyone, straightening myself from previously leaning against the bus. "Come on, let's go have fun! As long as your fine, Natsume." I told them, looking at Natsume, my eyes searching for any visible scratches, but I couldn't find any. Natsume wrapped his hand around mine and squeezed it. "Let's go."

"It looks like everyone is fine over here! That's fantastic! If everyone's ready! Let's get inside! You guys are going to be so excited when you see what we're doing!" Narumi-Sensei exclaimed, twirling around on his heels to lead the class away from the bus. After reassuring everyone that I was fine, we started walking away from the bus, something coming out of the bus caught my eyes. I looked inside of the bus, to see someone getting off the bus.

It was him.

Sano saw me watching him and gave me a creepy grin that made the blood in my body turn as icy as his eyes. He brought his hand up, so I could see it. His long thin finger pointed at my shoes, followed by his forefinger and thumb pressing together, jerking away from the middle of his body in a pulling gesture.

Oh my God. He untied my shoes, so I would fall down the stairs.

My felt tears prickling at my eyes as I turned away, trying to blink them away. He knew I was clumsy and could easily fall down the stairs if my shoes weren't tied. Except this once the first time this had happened. Except all the other times I had fallen down the stairs because of him was because he had forcefully shoved me down the stairs. One of the times he had shoved me down the stairs, I had fractured one of the bones in my wrist. But of course, I never told anyone that he had done that. I had just told everyone I tripped down the stairs was all. But, now he was getting much craftier, finding other ways to hurt me. And he was just having loads and loads of fun watching.

I walked a little faster, pulling Natsume along with me to get farther away from him and his evil grin, any minute now I would hear his menacing laughter ring through my ears. But, the laughter never came, and by the time we made it to the entrance of the aquarium, I turned around and he was gone. He was always really great with disappearing like that.

When we got inside, I was freely chatting with Nonoko, Anna, and Nobara, trying to push the thoughts of Sano to the farthest part of my brain. We had been talking about what we could be doing other than just swimming with fishes. Nobara told us that if Narumi-Sensei brought us to a place like this, he'd probably feed us to the fish as part of the photo shoot, just to make things more exciting.

We followed other students until we found ourselves in front of a giant tank filled with colorful coral, rocks, fish, and sharks. They were swimming around peacefully, not bothering each other. The water was blue and clear, so we could clearly see tall the sea creatures, artificial sun light coming in to the tank from the top of it. I walked up to the large tank, watching the little animals with fascination. I had been to an aquarium before, but I've never seen one as big as this one. Hell, all the fish and other sea animals and stuff I saw at the aquarium could fit in this giant tank, with still room to spare. And this wasn't the only tank of sea animals they had in this aquarium, in fact we had passed a bunch of other tanks in the darkly light room.

"Well students, we're here!" Narumi-Sensei announced to the class who just gave him questioning looks as if he were crazy, or had gotten lost because there wasn't really anything that indicated a photo shoot.

"What are you talking about, Sensei, are you dumb? There isn't anything here." Luna told him rudely, looking at her fingernails. Narumi-Sensei just gave her a forced smile that made me laugh to myself, finding Narumi-Sensei trying to put up with Luna's rudeness.

"Now, now, Luna! As you can clearly see, there is this giant tank. We're going to pus… I mean have you jump in and take pictures in this tank! Except, to make things go faster, were splitting the class in half, so they can go take pictures in a tank just like this one. Isn't that great?" Narumi-Sensei cheered, presenting the tank with his arms.

That's when students started gaping at him. "Sensei! There are sharks in there! You said fishies! Not sharks!" Anna argued with Narumi-Sensei, her eyes darting back and forth between him and the sharks in the tank.

Narumi-Sensei just smiled, "Yeah, see I said fishies and those little animals swimming around are fishies, so technically I told you what we were doing, so there shouldn't be a problem! Besides, don't worry my little kitties! We have a trained professional here to work with us! These sharks don't eat or bite humans!"

We looked at him nervously. What sharks didn't eat or bite delicious meaty flesh?

"And to make this more fun, we're going to attach weights so it'll be easier to stay down in the water and shoot a bunch of pretty pictures!" That's when I heard people start hyperventilating and panicking, waving their hands to their faces. I even heard a small group of students wanting to plot a plan, so they could tie a bunch of weights to Narumi-Sensei and push him in to a tank filled with sharks.

"Oh come on! This will be fun! To make sure you guys don't panic underneath the water, even though you're only going to be in there for an extremely short time, no kidding, no more than twenty seconds, we're going to give you guys a relaxer, so that you guys won't freak out! You know those magicians that lock themselves in a container of water and have to free themselves? That's what they consume, so they're heart rate doesn't act up and use as much oxygen, so they can stay calmly underwater!" Narumi-Sensei informed us, trying to get everyone to calm down, but by now, no one listened, not wanting to do this photo shoot. Narumi-Sensei's face faltered as he started announcing the groups of people and that the only way to get out of this was if you had an actually breathing problem and he already knew who had any sort of problem.

"Okay those for the first half of the class it's going to be Anna, Yuu, Nonoko, Kitsune, Youichi, Ruka, Natsume, Mikan, Nobara, Sumire, Luna, and Hiro!"

My eyes shot up to look at Narumi-Sensei, then I scanned around the room looking for the last name on his damn list. I found him off to the side with Luna and Sumire hanging around him, still flirting with him. He caught my eyes and smiled.

It was as if his eyes were saying,

'This is going to be a lot of fun, Mikan.'

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Hooray, finally done with this chapter! So tired! Haha, anyway, I hope this chapter I alright with you guys! I sort of thought that the beginning of the chapter wasn't that bad, and I liked how it was going, but of course with further typing, I lost that feeling, so now I don't know how the rest of this chapter is! So, I hope that you guys can find it in your hearts to review this chapter and tell me how it is! You guys were so great with the last reviews I got! They help a lot really! Let's work hard and rake in enough reviews for 200! That would be so amazing! So I hope that you guys will review! And as a reward I'll put up the next chapter, but you know that doesn't make sense considering the fact that I 'm going to post up the next chapter anyway, so oh well!

Anyways, Please read and review! Please and thank you!