Author's Note: I've been writing on my phone with whatever spare time I have, mainly at bus stops and on buses LOL. So sorry for any typos. (And yay for quick updates! :p)

Disclaimer: GA doesn't belong to me.

Head Over Heels

Chapter 25: Gone

"I... I don't know," Mikan stammered. "I don't think we should go down."

Natsume released a ragged breath. "I need to know what the hell is going on."

A spasm of fear gripped Mikan, and her hand shot out to grab his arm before she even registered what she was doing. If he went out now, it was over. Would he even believe her explanation? She knew he was a guarded man, a man who found it difficult to trust people.

Natsume gave her a curious look, his lips still pressed into an angry line. "You stay here, it's safer." He told her gently, but Mikan just shook her head frantically. No, no, no. He couldn't. But Natsume was strong, and he wrenched his arm from Mikan's grip easily. He got out of the limo swiftly, and Mikan could only gape at his wide back in horror as he walked briskly towards the mob in front of his house. They all yelled and screeched as they spotted Natsume approaching.

With shaky legs and a fuzzy head, Mikan stumbled after him. If only she could just...

"How the fuck did you find out about all this?" Natsume was snarling at the reporters, his face contorted in rage. He was practically shaking in anger at the thought of his vulnerable little sister, being ridiculed by the press. The thought of how his beautiful home, the only place he could truly be himself, the only place he saw as a refuge, had been sullied by the detestable paparazzi. In the distance, he saw Mikan running after him, her face red. She seemed to be calling out something, but Natsume couldn't hear anything over the cacophony.

Don't come over, he wanted to yell to her. Get away! I don't want another person precious to me being hurt.

"Is that article published in the Tokyo Chronicles today true?" A pudgy man holding a bulky camera yelled. Tokyo Chronicles? The name triggered something in Natsume's mind. Wasn't that the newspaper Mikan wrote for? That was how they even met in the first place.

"What article?" Natsume growled, trying his best not to grab the man by his collar and shake him so hard his teeth rattled.

The man whipped out a copy of the paper from his messenger bag and brandished it at Natsume. He snatched it from his grasp, feeling almost light-headed with dread and anxiety. What now? Mikan, seeing that Natsume had a copy of the paper in his hands and was flipping through it, knew she had failed. She wanted to scream and hurl her high heels at the reporter's head.

And, watching Natsume's face grow tighter and tighter by the second, and his fists turn paler and paler, Mikan knew that she was screwed. She stopped running, and stared at Natsume helplessly, praying fervently that he would just look at her, give her a chance to explain. He turned, and the look on his handsome face was one filled with fury and disappointment and pain all mingled together.

"Please, just..." Before Mikan could force out the words, Natsume had ripped the paper to shreds. The ribbons of grey flimsy paper fluttered to the ground, and Natsume stalked away from the crowd. Not into his house, but towards his garage. He had apparently called for backup because a few seconds later, a couple of tall, muscular men with what seemed like permanent stern faces came out of the house and headed straight for the mob. Bodyguards, Mikan assumed. They held the unruly crowd at bay while Natsume continued straight towards his garage, ignoring everything that was happening around him.

Mikan quickly ran after him, and darted into the garage before the door rolled shut behind her. Natsume ignored her as he strode towards his red convertible. Mikan realized that it was the same one they had taken to the fashion show. The one in which he has revealed to her that he was a fan of Taylor Swift. The one in which the two of them had fun belting out "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". How ironic, Mikan thought bitterly. Will that be what he's going to say to me?

He jabbed a button on his car key and started to get into the car. Panicked, Mikan quickly grabbed the car door to stop him. What would happen if he just left like this? Without letting her explain, without talking to her, without even looking at her?

Natsume looked up at her, his face stoic. For a few moments, they just stared at each other, unblinking. Then Natsume said in a voice she had never heard him use towards her before, "Get your fucking hand off my car."

Mikan felt tears brimming in her eyes at his harsh, cold words, but she blinked them away. Why did she have to cry? She did nothing wrong. Nothing.

"I'm not going to let you insult me," she replied, her voice trembling slightly. Defiantly, she kept her hand on the car door. "Because I did nothing wrong. It wasn't me."

It was as though Natsume didn't hear her at all. He continued looking at her like she was a slug he wanted to scrape off his shoe. "This is why you even wanted to get close to me in the first place, huh? And Aoi?" He let out a bitter laugh. "No wonder you were so eager to help her when I called you yesterday. You reporters would really do anything for a good story, yeah?"

Mikan felt as though he had slapped her across her face. Her face was hot, from hurt or anger or embarrassment, she didn't know.

"I helped Aoi because I like her. Because she's my friend, she's like my little sister," Mikan said as steadily as she could. Yes, she might be silly and gullible at times, but that didn't mean she was a person with no moral values. "I swear I didn't write that article. I have no idea how it even appeared in the newspaper! I wrote and submitted an article on the VMAs. Someone switched it out!"

Natsume just shook his head. "I will never trust a reporter again. Never. You're all just a bunch of heartless monsters who will do everything and anything for a juicy scoop, a fat promotion. But Mikan Sakura, you win hands-down." He looked up at her, his eyes narrowed. "You are the worst of the lot I have ever seen. Going so far as to pretending to that you're actually interested in me for me and not because I'm some model... Good job. You deserve a medal."

The tears in Mikan's eyes threatened to spill over, but she wouldn't cry. If she cried, it would be admitting that she was guilty, and she was most definitely not. If she cried, the tears would never stop. Tears for herself, and for him, for not being able to trust anyone. She could tell he needed some time alone, but she was afraid that if she let him go now, she would lose him forever.

"I'll give you some space for now," Mikan managed to say, her voice shaking. "I'll definitely prove to you that I'm not the one who did it. I'll prove to you that you can trust me. I know you've had a difficult past, and you find it difficult to trust people..."

"Don't you dare," Natsume spat out, suddenly pushing himself out of his car and standing up so that he was face to face with Mikan, looking down at her so harshly she involuntarily staggered back a few steps. "Don't you dare throw my shitty past in my face as though you know a lot about me."

"I may not know a lot about you, but I want to," Mikan told him. "That's why I will prove my innocence to you."

Natsume let out a humorless laugh. "Why? Why put in so much effort? You probably still hate me for that stupid lie I told you. And I can't stand looking at you right now. So why don't you just give up so that we can just... put a stop to all this?"

Mikan knew that what he was saying made sense. Their relationship should never have started in the first place. It had brought her almost nothing but trouble. But it was those precious happy moments they shared, those moments when she got a glimpse of the true Natsume, beneath the cool and tough supermodel facade, that made it all worthwhile. It was because she loved him that all the trouble their relationship brought about was worth it. Hence, there was only one thing to say now- the truth.

"Because... I love you," Mikan blurted out.

She didn't know how she expected Natsume to react, but it certainly wasn't to laugh. But he did. He threw back his head and laughed as though it was the funniest thing he had heart all day.

"If this is what you do to someone you love, I would hate to see what you do to people you hate," he said scathingly.

Tears pricked at her eyes again.

"And babe, if I got a dollar for every woman who told me that, I would be the richest man on Earth," Natsume continued, oblivious.

That was the last straw. The tears Mikan had held in for the whole time trickled down her cheeks, and she rubbed them away fiercely. He actually compared her to his groupies. Those annoying women who were only after him because of his fame and money and good looks. Those women who slept with every man who had all those superficial things and threw around the word 'love' loosely. Mikan was not going to let herself get insulted like that. She knew for a fact that she was more than just one of his sluts.

Her hand flew up, and whipped across Natsume's face. The smack of her palm against his cheek seemed to echo around the silent garage. Mikan's hand tingled with pain, but it was nothing compared to what she felt inside, the hurt and anger of being insulted by someone she loved, of having her confession thrown back right into her face as though it meant nothing.

Natsume pressed a palm to his face, a horrified look on his face.

"I won't let you insult me, and I won't let you have the wrong impression of me. Just keep in mind that I will find evidence that I'm innocent," Mikan said, pressing her stinging palm by her side and trying to ignore the guilt unfurling inside her. She held her head high, wiped her tears away and walked away from Natsume, away from the man who had broken her heart.

Back at work, Mikan couldn't concentrate at all. Images of the fall-out kept popping into her mind, making the pain in her heart worse. So when one of the tech guys came down and told her the features department's computers were affected with some kind of virus and had to be fixed, Mikan barely absorbed anything. She just nodded dazedly and let him do his work, while she wandered away and had a coffee from the coffee machine.

"We had to replace the hard disk," the guy told her, pushing his glasses up his nose. "It was completely messed up." He went on and rattled off technical terms and jargon that Mikan frankly didn't care about at this point, so she just blanked out and nodded at regular intervals. Finally, the guy went away with Mikan's old hard disk tucked into his pocket, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Time to get to work and survive this so that she could go home and cry her heart out.

Mikan didn't want to be a nuisance to Hotaru again. She didn't want to be a crying, sloppy mess in front of her again after yet another heartbreak. She needed to be strong. Hence, when she got back to the apartment, Mikan put on a smile, even though all she felt like doing when she remembered Natsume's cruel words was to curl up and cry. But she could do that later, in the privacy of her own room. Right now, she needed to be strong.

"This mackerel is amazing," Mikan declared through a mouthful of rice and fish, even though she really had no appetite.

Hotaru said nothing, scrutinizing Mikan over her bowlful of soup with her thoughtful dark eyes. She could see how brittle Mikan was, how the shine in her eyes was a little too bright, her smile a little too fake.

"It's okay to cry, you know," Hotaru said in her quiet, soothing voice. "Even though you'll look ugly."

Mikan almost choked on her food. "What do you mean? I'm totally fine!"

"I know you didn't write it." Her best friend sounded almost bored as she picked up a piece of fried egg with her chopsticks.

Mikan looked at Hotaru in amazement. This girl was so incredibly perceptive. There really was nothing Mikan could hide from her. And suddenly, Mikan didn't want to hide it anymore. What was the point? Aren't best friends there to support one another?

"He doesn't believe me," Mikan muttered. "He totally hates my guts now. And when I told him I love him... he totally dismissed it." Her throat tightened at the memory, but she pressed on. "And I think I know who did it. Shina. She's Luna's sister, and she has access to my articles."

Hotaru nodded. "I had her job. I know."

"But when I tried to retrieve the email I sent her, it was gone from my sent box," Mikan explained. "She must have deleted it somehow."

"I wouldn't be surprised if she seduced one of the tech guys to do it." Hotaru pursed her lips. "I've seen how she operates."

"So what can I do?" Mikan wanted to slam her head against the dining table in frustration. "How can I gather evidence?"

"Retrieve the email from her computer, of course," Hotaru replied in a matter-of-fact way. "Our emails are all sent through a POP server, so we need the hard drive of the computer from which the email was sent."

Mikan had almost forgotten that her best friend was a genius with a mind-blowing IQ who could impress a whole roomful of scary, big tough, executive-type alpha males.

"Perfect!" Mikan slammed a hand against the table, feeling hope blooming inside her. Maybe not all was lost. "So I can still retrieve the email I sent?"

"Yep." Hotaru popped the P. "We just need your hard disk. But it would be better if we had the email Shina sent too. So we can prove that she's the one behind this and let her get the punishment she deserves."

The words 'hard disk' stuck in Mikan's mind. There was a niggling feeling at the back of her mind, but she couldn't remember what. Hard disk... Hard disk...

"We had to replace the hard disk."

Gulping, Mikan shook her head, cursing her own stupidity. "No, my hard disk is gone."