When Gin walked into the newspaper club's room he was surprised to see Moka, Yukari, and Tsukune standing together talking and drinking soda out of plastic cups. On his desk were bottles of soda some bags of chips. There was also a cd player blaring music.
"Did I miss something?" Gin called out.
"Oh. We're having a little party to celebrate Tsukune getting elected class manager," Moka told him.
Gin grinned at the lower classman. "Congratulations," he said smugly. Poor guy has no idea what a burden being class manager actually is. "I hope you won't let your new duties get in the way of reporting for the paper."
Tsukune sighed. "I'll do my best not to let you down."
Gin noted the radical new look. As he took a whiff of the air in the room he noted something else too. Gin's expression changed from a smug one to one with actual concern. "Tsukune, what happened to you? Your scent is completely…"
"Gin-sempai, could have a word with you in the hall way?" Moka grabbed his arm and began pushing him towards the door.
"But what about…"
Moka looked up at him and her eyes suddenly seemed three times as large as they had been. "Pleeeeeeeease, pwetty please, with shuga on it?" She spoke in a cutesy little girl voice that made her inner self cringe.
"Well all wite, uh, I mean all right," he tamely let himself be led outside the room.
"What was that about?" Yukari asked.
"I'm sure it was nothing," Tsukune muttered.
"Well whatever," she smiled and jumped about a little. "I'm just excited to get a little time alone with you. Oh, and speaking of time alone, is it true that you spent the winter break with Mizore?"
"Word gets around fast it seems," Tsukune said. "Yeah that's true, I got to stay with her and her mom in the hidden world of the snow people."
"Did anything happen while you were there?" Yukari asked worriedly.
He wanted to laugh. Oh not much. We only became lovers, got attacked by a Yeti, I nearly died, and then I got changed by a demon into a snow boy. Other than that it was pretty normal. But there was no point in worrying the little girl about something she could do nothing about. "We just had some fun, Mizore taught me to ski and snow board. We also went skating a lot and played in the snow, oh and she showed me this amazing meadow that was covered in flowers called, 'snow whites.'" That was where Mizore had confessed her love for him and where they had become lovers. But that part was getting edited out.
"Snow whites?" Yukari asked with a frown. "Are you sure the flowers were called snow whites?"
"Yes, they were called, 'Shirayuki,'" he told her. "Mizore made a point of telling me that since it's also her last name."
Yukari looked at him with concern. "Tsukune-kun, did anything unusual happen when you were there?"
Does losing your virginity to a beautiful snow girl in a field of flowers count? "No, not really."
"Oh well that's a relief," Yukari said.
"What do you mean?"
"Well snow whites aren't regular flowers, they posses special supernatural properties that…"
"Yahoo!" The door burst open and Kurumu bounced in holding a plate full of cookies. "Tsukune-kun, I made this super special cookies just for you in home ec. Why don't you try one and… ow!"
The plate in her hands shattered sending cookie pieces flying everywhere. Kurumu also fell over with an ice kunai lodged in the middle of her forehead.
"No giving Tsukune cookies with love potion in them," Mizore popped up from underneath a desk.
Yukari glared at the girl who had just appeared. "That's funny considering what you tried to do."
"What are you talking about Yukari?" Moka asked as she returned to the room. She was followed by Gin. Gin had a ridiculously big grin on his face.
Yukari pointed an accusing finger at Mizore. "Tsukune told me you brought him to a place willed with snow whites. You were trying to do the exact same thing Kurumu was!"
Mizore looked calmly at the upset witch. "That's true I suppose," Mizore admitted calmly. "Though there's one important difference between what I was doing and what Kurumu was trying to do just now."
"What's that?" Yukari snapped.
"Kurumu just wants to make Tsukune one of her slaves," Mizore stated. "I love him."
Tsukune was looking between Mizore and Yukari. "What are you two talking about?"
"The snow whites," Yukari explained. "They contain magical properties that cause people to fall in love. They're an important component to most love potions. Mizore was obviously trying to use them to make you fall in love with her." The little sent Mizore a triumphant look. "But it didn't work though did it? Tsukune didn't fall for it."
"Is that why you did what you did Mizore?" Moka demanded angrily. "You tried to make him fall in love with you and when that didn't work you moved on to plan B?"
"Plan B?" A dazed Kurumu asked as she stood back up.
With Yukari's accusation the memory of that night came flooding back to him. The sticky sweet smell of the flowers and his sudden loss of fear and inhibition, it all suddenly made sickening sense. He turned a betrayed face to Mizore. "Is that what happened Mizore? Did you make me fall in love with you? Was everything I felt because of the flowers?"
Kurumu blinked and turned to Moka? "O.k. what did I miss?"
"Be quiet," Moka said. 'Did you make me fall in love with you? Was everything I felt because of the flowers?' What exactly happened between him and Mizore?
"No Tsukune," Mizore said, the hurt in her voice plain to hear. "How could you even ask that?"
"How?!" Tsukune sounded unbelieving. "How could I not? After everything that happened how could I not wonder? Or are you going to try and tell me that you had no idea what you were doing when you brought me there?"
"No, I knew what I was doing." Mizore told him sadly. "That meadow is a sacred place to us. It is sacred because those flowers represent love and devotion. I brought you there because I wanted to tell you my honest feelings and I wanted to find out yours."
"My honest feelings? How could you know what they were when you were drugging me? You were forcing me to feel that way."
"No I wasn't!" Mizore said angrily and the temperature in the room suddenly dropped to below freezing. Tsukune and Mizore failed to notice while everyone else was suddenly shivering. "I would never try and make you feel something that wasn't there! All I want is for you to love me! For you to honestly love me. For that I would be ruthless and do almost anything, but it would mean nothing if the love wasn't real!"
"Then what about the flowers?" Tsukune demanded.
"Maybe with other ingredients they can make a love potion that makes someone feel a love that isn't there. But by themselves they don't do that. The only thing they can do is reveal the feelings that are already there. Everything you felt, everything we felt, was real!"
"How can I know that?" Tsukune asked her.
The doubt in his voice and in his eyes was a like a knife stabbing into her. "IDIOT!" There was a sudden blinding blast of wind and snow.
When it cleared Mizore was gone.
XXXXXXXXXX
After that the party quickly broke up. All the girls had a ton of questions as to what exactly had happened between the two of them. But Tsukune was in mood to answer and soon left.
Meanwhile Gin was excitedly smiling at Moka. "So when's our date beautiful?"
Moka sighed resignedly. The things I do to protect Tsukune's privacy. "Why don't we just do it tomorrow and get it over with, but I already told you, no touching or I swear I'll neuter you."
XXXXXXXXXX
Tsukune trudged back to his dorm feeling very depressed and very cold. He'd been struggling to accept that Mizore had kept a secret from him that had ultimately led to his becoming a snow boy. He was sure she hadn't done it malevolently. But he was struggling with the question of whether or not she had done it deliberately. He really wanted to believe her when she said she had just not thought about it.
But what if she had? Could he find it in himself to forgive her?
And now he was faced with the fact that maybe he had never loved her. Maybe all those feelings he'd thought he had were all just eh result of the flowers. Did she really just manipulate me through all of it?
"You didn't come after me," a voice called to him from the shadows. "I thought for sure you would chase after me."
He stopped and looked over into the darkness just beyond the road. "I didn't think there would be much point."
There was silence as he simply stood there patiently and waited.
"Do you really doubt the love you felt for me? Or the love I feel for you?"
"I… I don't know," he answered honestly. "After everything that's happened and everything I've heard I don't know what I believe anymore."
"You're such an idiot Tsukune," he voice wasn't angry anymore it just sounded tired. She finally stepped out of the shadows and approached him. She took out a gold chain and held it out to him. "Here take this."
"What's this for?" As she handed it to him their hands momentarily touched. They both felt a sudden warmth, and they both pretended not to.
"Go to room 312 after class sometime. That's where the fortune telling club meets, though there's only one member. Her name is Saki. She's a blonde upperclassman who wears her hair in a really long pony tail, you won't mistake her. She said she would give you a telling for free once, but I don't know if it was a limited time offer. Go and talk to her."
Frowning he tried to hand the chain back to her. "I don't believe in fortune tellers."
She didn't let him return it. She began to slowly walk away. "You should."
He was left standing alone.
In the end he shoved the chain into a pocket and headed home. He didn't know what Mizore was trying to prove but he wasn't going to bother meeting with some amateur fortune teller. After all, what would that prove?
