Author's Note: This most definitely was not the fic I had planned to publish next, but after working on it fervently for the last few days, it just happened.
~10 chapters long. No plot, like all my other M-rated fics. Just good ol' Mikan and Natsume.
Four years until Matching Ceremony
In the king's castle, two messy lines of youth stood: girls on the right, boys on the left. Though they were about to enter a formal affair, the tension between the two lines overwhelmed the room, causing a hormone-filled, sizzling attraction between the units. Both boys and girls edged as close as they dared to catch a better glimpse of the other, though none risked stepping out of line in fear of incurring the wrath of the king's advisors at the front of the hallway.
Cliques of girls giggled and subtly (but not so discreetly) pointed at certain boys. Likewise, boys peacocked, puffing up their chests and stretching in certain ways to flaunt their musculature, or grinned invitingly at the girls who looked.
For nothing riled teenagers up more than the possibility of love.
Such was the case for Lady Mikan of House Yukihara and her friends, Lady Hotaru of House Imai and Lady Sumire of House Shouda. Although they wished to be with their other friends scattered throughout the line, they were happy to accept their luck of them being placed together.
Lady Sumire pointed out first, "That's Lord Natsume of House Hyuuga, a giant flirt."
Sure enough, as the girls spied on him, he sent a conspicuous wink to a blonde further down the line. The girl promptly returned his wink and swooned to her friends.
Mikan shook her head; to each their own, but she had no time for flirts. She wanted a strong, steady, loyal husband.
Someone like…
"Lord Ruka of House Nogi looks mighty fine," commented Sumire, always on the hunt. The three girls turned to the real-life Prince Charming. Mikan and Sumire sighed, but all Hotaru did was look him up and down, and then away.
As her best friend, Mikan knew it was a subtle sign of approval. Seeing the glint in her best friend's eye, she memorized the blond's soft features; perhaps she would be seeing him not as her own husband, but as a best friend's.
Every summer at the castle, every noble youth between the ages of 16 and 20 and who opted to be Matched would meet in order to connect and to mingle for a few days. At 20, the king and his council would conduct a Matching Ceremony and announce the pairs who would be betrothed, but that was a long ways away.
For the moment, all Mikan could think about were the options!
The gawking on both sides came to an abrupt end as fanfare started in the ballroom in front of them, loud enough to be heard through the giant closed doors.
The youths' noble bearing and training returned to their senses, and when the king's advisor looked back at them, he saw only straight lines of upright postures and chins held high in pride of their heritage and rank.
One by one, the youths were announced, displaying their utmost prim and proper manners, gliding down the staircases onto the ballroom floor, where they awaited to start the dance.
Having been placed in the middle of the line, Mikan stood with her friends, cheering on and applauding the announcement of all those who came after her.
The music started.
Mikan laughed and laughed, accepting offers and switching partners until she found herself in the arms of Lord Natsume of House Hyuuga.
Wary of his earlier behavior but still willing to give him a chance, Mikan politely asked, "How are you enjoying the ball?"
As though it were some test or challenge, he cocked his head. "As much as you are."
"Then I suppose you must be loving it," Mikan replied slowly, unsure of what he was getting at.
"Then I suppose I am." He smirked, and Mikan felt a tug inside her belly that warned her of something far greater at play that she did not yet understand.
When the dance ended, they bowed to each other to thank the other for the dance. Before Mikan could find another partner, Lord Natsume offered his arm again.
"You've been dancing for a while. Would you care for a refreshment?"
Heartened by his more personable tone, Mikan smiled brightly. "I would."
With little room to maneuver in the crowd, Lord Natsume let Mikan guide him, tugging him by the arm. Sweaty from the dances, Mikan could not sense his gaze on her back.
Since she was in front, Mikan filled two glasses with water, not knowing Lord Natsume's preferences for either tea or fruit nectar.
She handed him a glass and sipped hers, looking around the room.
His eyes smoldered above the rim of his glass, but Mikan didn't notice, too entranced by the decorations and the still dancing pairs and the man wearing a funny hat by the balcony doors.
He followed her eyes. "Do you want to go outside?"
"Oh, yeah, sure."
Draining his glass in one gulp, he placed it back on the table while Mikan held onto hers.
Outside, the air was considerably cooler, even with the summer sun, unfilled by countless spinning human bodies. The balcony spanned the length of several doorways, but they had chosen to exit through the last door so they were in the corner, where Mikan could peek over the railings at the gardens below.
"Wow, the view is incredible," she exclaimed happily, bending over the low stone wall. Although she was related to the king, her parents didn't like to leave the estate often so she only visited her uncle on special holidays or for occasions such as the Matching processions.
Lord Natsume came up next to her, nonchalantly placing an arm around her waist and pretending he was placing his hand on the railing so he could lean over and look as well.
"The view is incredible," he agreed pointedly. The tone nagged at Mikan's mind, telling her he meant something else, but she wasn't quite sure. She turned towards him, opening up the space between them, but his hand that was once placed on the railing landed on her waist, where it had been when they danced.
He looked at her with humor and mirth in his eyes, and Mikan figured he was having a good time at the ball.
"So Lord Natsume, what's your family like?"
"Well, Lady Mikan, I have a mother and a little sister. My father passed away a few years ago."
"I'm sorry to hear that," was her automatic response, her heart clenching in sympathy.
Lord Natsume shrugged. "We all have loved ones who have passed."
Mikan nodded. "My grandfather passed only last year."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
His exact replica of her earlier response, tone and all, made her laugh. His eyes grew brighter.
"Do you want to dance? Out here, I mean, and not in there with all those people."
The music drifted out enough for her to hear the rhythm. "Sure." She slid her hands back into the positions, and they started a small waltz, careful not to topple any of the decorative plants on the balcony.
Focusing on the beats, taking extra care to not step on his toes, she started humming along.
How nice it was.
Natsume's hand, which held hers, began to squeeze rhythmically, and his thumb began stroking the back of her hand, which sent tingles down her arm.
Then the hand placed innocuously on the curve of her hip, began rising, higher and higher, until she was sure it most definitely was not on her waist. Mikan glanced up and was surprised to find his eyes already looking at her.
Finally, she had a name for the look in his eyes: naughty.
With the hand on his shoulder, she firmly slid it down to his wrist and yanked his hand down back where it belonged.
A noise came out of his chest, and Mikan wasn't sure if it was a hum or a laugh.
Not even one moment later, his hand drifted again, and she shot him a sharp look.
"Watch your hands."
He blinked innocently at her. "Watch what?"
"Your hands. They're not where they're supposed to be."
"And pray tell, Mi - kan," she couldn't figure out why he said her name like that, "where are they not supposed to be?"
Mikan stopped dancing, slipping away from him and crossing her arms.
"Did you do this to all the other girls you danced with?"
"No, just you."
Caught off guard by his seemingly honest response, she stepped back, but Natsume's hands caught her around her waist once more.
"Careful now, you don't want to fall," he murmured. Then he squeezed her waist lightly.
"What are you trying to do here?"
"What am I trying to do here?" he repeated, with the same intonation.
"Yes, I want to know exactly what you want and what you're intending to do here."
Natsume shrugged nonchalantly and then spoke exactly of his desires, saying words that Mikan hadn't even heard of before but soundly vaguely vulgar to her, especially with his accompanying wicked smirk.
Unable to help it, Mikan gasped at such a forward proposition.
Her first instinct was to slap him.
The second was to knee him in the crotch.
She went with her third: make a scene.
Sliding her hand down to his wrist, even though he was taller, Mikan moved quickly to turn him around and twist his arm around his back.
"You pervert! You are a giant flirt!" she shouted. Lord Natsume didn't even struggle, and he muttered something underneath his breath.
One of the king's advisors hurried through the door: Sir Jinno. "Lady Mikan, what is going on?"
"This boy, Lord Natsume," she accused, "just said some vile, vulgar things to me!"
Lord Natsume looked up at the old man and pled his case. "I never said anything of the sort. It's not my fault she has a dirty mind and misconstrued my words."
"What did he say to you?" Sir Jinno pulled the two apart, and Lord Natsume brushed his robes off.
"Er," Mikan struggled to recall the words he had said so wickedly to her. "He said he wanted to explore my gardens and eat fruit!"
"Because the king's garden is just below us, and I saw he had orange trees. I said I wanted to explore the king's garden and eat oranges."
Mikan shook her head. "He said eat Mikan, Mikan being me!"
"Why would I want to eat you?" A look of realization washed over the young man, and Mikan firmly believed the pretense to be false. "Oh, that's disgusting. Is that what you thought I meant?"
The grimace on the lord's face convinced Sir Jinno, and Mikan could see that. Her anger pulsed through her.
"That's exactly what you meant! You said some other really nasty things!"
"Like what?" Beneath his demeanor was a taunt, and Mikan couldn't help but rise to the bait.
"You wanted to kiss me!" Now saying it out loud, Mikan did realize how weak her argument was; they were at a Matching event where a few dozen of them were to be spouses in a few years. Of course there'd be kissing eventually.
"Oh, a kiss, you thought I wanted to kiss you?"
"That's what you said!"
The facade slipped. "Yeah, right, why would I be attracted to a girl wearing polka-dotted undergarments and has a flat chest?"
"And you call yourself a gentleman!" She turned to Sir Jinno. "Did you hear that?"
"Never said I was," muttered Natsume to the side.
Sir Jinno nodded, finally taking Mikan's side. "Calm your ego, Hyuuga. Go back to the ball and stop flirting with the ladies."
Out of Sir Jinno's view, Natsume sneered at her, and Mikan couldn't suppress the near-feral snarl contorting her face.
For a moment, he was taken aback, with a look of surprise and contemplation, before he disappeared into the crowd.
Three years until Matching Ceremony
"What do you think about the Yukihara girl?" Natsume asked his friends bluntly, gathered around a table for that year's Matching event. They had managed to snag a parlor, just for themselves, and were in the midst of a game of cards.
His inquiry immediately elicited groans from his companions, even his best friend, Ruka.
"Natsume, no, whatever you're thinking, no."
"Just stop right there."
"She's a nice girl. Please, for her sake, do not mess with her."
"We know what you did last year, and we do not approve."
Hearing the backlash, Natsume got defensive. "Hold on now, I just asked a simple question."
"And the answer we have is simple," explained Ruka slowly, "she's a perfectly nice, modest, hard-working, virtuous girl. We must protect her at all costs."
"She introduced me to Lady Sumire when I asked," piped up Koko, "she's kind and good-hearted."
"She invited me to ride horses with her friends," said Yuu, reshuffling the cards, "she's compassionate and caring."
"Even I have to admit, I was teasing one of her friends, Lady Anna, one time, and I didn't realize I had gone too far, and she stepped in," confessed Mochu sheepishly.
Ruka summarized, "So, no, Natsume, don't even think about it."
Natsume mulled over his friends' answers.
Two years until Matching Ceremony
"Come visit."
Mikan blinked and looked around her. The hallway was empty, except for her and Lord Natsume. That year's Matching event had ended, and Mikan was waiting for her carriage to be drawn. "Visit…?"
"You," Natsume pointed at her, "come visit me, House Hyuuga." He pointed at himself.
If Mikan hadn't been known for her kind heart and pure intentions, Natsume could have sworn she sneered at him. "And let you get me alone so you can do whatever indecent and licentious acts you have planned? No thank you."
Natsume rolled his eyes; the Hyuuga reputation preceded him. "My little sister will be joining the Matching processions next year so she's nervous. I offered to invite other ladies to visit our estate so she could learn from them. Your friends of Houses Imai, Umenomiya, Ibaragi, Ogasawara, and Shouda have been invited as well."
At the mention of his younger sister, her heart melted. She adored little children; she wanted a big family one day.
"Maybe," she offered, thinking about the invitation. A carriage rolled up, but it wasn't of House Yukihara; it was of House Hyuuga.
"Lady Yuka and Lord Izumi already said yes."
"Then what was the point of asking me?" she asked in bewilderment.
Natsume turned around and shrugged almost carefreely. "To get you to admit you like me enough to visit."
"Well, I don't!" She stomped her foot for emphasis.
Unbefitting a noble of his rank, he stuck his tongue out at her and climbed into his carriage. And unbefitting a maiden of her rank, she stuck her tongue out at him and then pulled down an eyelid for good measure.
Natsume smirked and waved goodbye from the window.
Later, the vacation at Hyuuga Manor was… enjoyable. Mikan liked Lady Aoi, and Natsume hadn't been so terrible, bordering on tolerable, for the week.
But then again, she also enjoyed the visits to the Houses Yome, Watanabe, Andou, Saito, and the Houses of all her other friends.
One year until Matching Ceremony
Almost compulsively, Mikan checked her parents' itinerary with the list of offers. Now it was her parents' turn to play politics.
She had firmly established many of her peers as "friends" so she wanted to ensure her parents visited her "acquaintances," lords and ladies she hadn't yet gotten to know well over the years. Who knew? Perhaps the love of her life was hiding somewhere.
In order for the parents of the Unmatched youth to establish their rankings, they visited often in the year preceding the Matching ceremony. Their own estate would be opened to visitors in the later half of the summer, switching off with the Houses who invited others in the first half.
Only one more year to go.
