Updated! I'm not getting all that many reviews for this, but I'm enjoying it as a writing process so much that I don't care as much.
I hope you enjoy reading it like I enjoyed writing it :D I did this over the course of this day, because I'm desperate to keep my writing up to speed with my thought processes.
Mikan sat on a bench outside a train station and tapped her chunky platform heels together – this was still a stupid idea. Why had she agreed to do this?
She remembered the conversation in explicit detail, but somehow she couldn't place the moment when she and Hyuga Natsume had agreed to go on a date; it was stupid, stupid, stupid.
However, that didn't mean when barely half an hour into her class she received a message on her phone saying '10:30, outside the station closest to school?' some small part of her didn't do a little flip; she immediately pretended she hadn't felt it, but on some level he was exactly the same as any other boy, and there were certain things she couldn't escape because of that.
'Ok' she had replied – just one word, and between then and now they hadn't said anything else to each other; probably due to a lack of will to do so, as well as the additional awkwardness. Now things were just getting weird, and neither of them welcomed the flittering anxiety that possessed them the next morning.
Mikan had spent entirely too long choosing what to wear, and Natsume spent half an hour extra in the shower, and double the time he normally took shaving. They both told themselves there was no reason for this, but the desire to surpass the other one was too strong, and Mikan, now waiting, couldn't wait to see how he reacted to her shorter-than-short tartan skirt.
He was late, and Mikan looked at the watch on her phone and told herself if she had to wait more than ten minutes she was going to leave – she'd already made excuses not to see Sumrie and other friends; lying of course because she didn't want them to know what she was up to just yet.
She was just about to get up and go when she heard a voice behind her.
"Leaving so soon?" he said caustically, and picked himself up off the wall he'd been leaning against for going on fifteen minutes now.
"Huh?" Mikan said, confused. "When did you get here?" Natsume smirked.
"I've been here since you arrived," he said coolly, and chuckled at the face she pulled.
"Why didn't you say anything!?" she blustered, "I was sitting here like an idiot!" She realized almost immediately after she said this that that was probably Natsume's goal, and she scowled as she had to hand over the first point to him.
"You were the one who didn't notice me," he remarked triumphantly, removing a hand from the pocket of his oversized jeans and checking the time on his phone, "fifteen minutes you didn't bother to turn around, wow–"
"Zip it right now," she threatened, but not overly seriously, "or I'm out of here." Natsume raised his eyebrows and shrugged, causing one of the shoulders of his baggy top to fall off his shoulder – it had some English words scrawled on it graffiti-style, and he wore a much tighter-fitting black sleeveless tank-top underneath; the shoulders of which were visible around the wide neck of the jumper. The sleeves were far too long for his arms and bunched up around his wrists, and as he moved his hand to scratch his chin Mikan thought for a moment that she saw a ring on one of his fingers.
She had been far too accurate when she said he knew how to dress himself – if she was honest then he could do it dangerously well. Her 'you dress like a freak' comment of the previous day couldn't seem more wrong now.
"Staring much?" he quipped uninterestedly and Mikan snapped her gaze away from him sheepishly.
"Whatever," she hissed, "I missed breakfast, so we'll have to stop at a convenience store 'cause I'm starving." Natsume shrugged carelessly – this was as good a way to start a date as any, he guessed; it wasn't like he had any ideas himself.
However, there was just one thing that piqued his curiosity when he silently followed her into a nearby store.
"Why are you only getting the cheapest things?" he questioned, and she shot him a murderous glance.
"Because I'm on a budget," she muttered fast enough to be a single word, and Natsume furrowed his brow in thought.
"If you want breakfast," he continued as if he hadn't heard, "then why don't you buy it from a proper plac–?"
"Because I can't afford it!" Mikan whirled around and snapped at him angrily, "didn't you listen the first time?!" He was quiet – he hadn't though about that.
He stuck his hand back in a pocket and pulled out his wallet, thick with unspent allowance, and said, "I can buy it," in an almost un-arrogant way.
"I…" Mikan stalled, "look," she hushed, "I don't need your charity."
"I asked you out," he replied openly, "I'll pay." Of course he would pay, he thought, he wasn't expecting to get a whore's services for free. When he thought about it closely he realized that she probably had plenty of money, and this whole scheme was just a plan to get him to pay for her – well, he could do that.
"I don't… well… fine," Mikan huffed, and dumping the things she'd picked up walked out of the store, making a beeline for the nearest hot food vendor. "At least you have some chivalry in your body…"
Normally she expected a boy taking her out to buy at least a few things for her, food and tickets if they went to a film or concert, but she hadn't thought of it that way with him because… well… it was him.
However, he appeared to have plenty to spend, judging by how fat his wallet was, so she decided to make use of it and bought the biggest portion of food she could – if she didn't finish it now then she could take it home and eat the rest later.
"You sure eat a lot," Natsume remarked sarcastically as he handed over the money, and Mikan made a rude gesture at him with her hands – after all – she was doing this because it would make Natsume apologise to Sumire and the other girl's he'd hurt. She was taking one for the team.
Natsume, likewise, thought himself to be 'taking one for the team' in agreeing to an actual date, in which he'd have to mask his true intentions to begin with and waste a lot of time and energy bringing her around.
Not to worry though, he was sure he'd be able to bed her by the end of the day.
After Mikan had gorged herself on piping hot street-vendor food (she hadn't eaten much last night) she decided that she might as well just run with her traditional 'I don't really like you but I'm doing this as a favour' date plan, which consisted of simply getting on with her own thing and dragging them along – it was Saturday, so there was a market on, and with Natsume trailing behind she set off with an optimistic air.
Natsume didn't want to admit it, but he was a little out of his depth; usually he had everything planned out, the environment was controlled, he could predict the girl's every action, and the cards were in his hand. Here, with Mikan bustling around all over the place in a disgustingly good-looking pink tartan skirt, he found himself prone to withdrawing, as he usually did in highly social situations.
"Oh, this smells good!" she chirped with the neck of an antique bottle held under her nose, and Mikan reached across for Natsume without really thinking about it and pulled him towards the stall by a handful of his sweater. "Smell," she commanded, and in spite of looking rather stunned he tentatively sniffed the perfume.
He pulled a disgusted face, and said, "Smells like an old hooker." Mikan frowned and let go of his top.
"I bet you'd know all about that," she muttered, "I thought it smelt nice."
"You would," he replied smoothly, before thinking about how offensive what he was saying was, even if he did believe it; earning himself a rather unpleasant pinch on the arm.
"You should watch your mouth," she scolded while picking up and smelling other perfumes, "well, what about this one?" She held out another to him, which he also found disgusting, and in no time he too was picking up and handling the little glass bottles of the perfume stall.
It was some time before he actually found something that made him say, "This one's okay." Mikan took it out of his hand and pretended not to notice their hands touching, and the observation that he did in fact have a twisted silver ring on one of his fingers.
"That's…" She breathed in the scent, "that's amazing," she said, a little surprised – even though she should by all rights been able to guess that, with his own fine selections, Natsume had a nose for a good scent. Speaking of which, this day, as any, he was wearing another nice aftershave, which Mikan noticed when he stepped around her once.
"It's really nice," she added, and turned the bottle over in her hands, a look in her eyes that suggested she'd love to buy it. Natsume smirked and assumed it was another point gained for him, and that she would also reveal her earlier ploy to get him to treat her by now producing her own money, when she put the thing down with a sad look and moved on.
Now he couldn't do anything but accept the fact that she really didn't have money to spend, or, she was a far more cunning player than he'd thought.
However, over the course of the day he started to lose any faith he had in the latter, when time and time again she came upon things she obviously would like to buy, and simply let them go with a resigned air – not only that, but she seemed to be used to it.
It occurred to him that he could buy the things for her as gifts, but he told himself that was giving up too much ground and becoming dangerously close to initiating a proper relationship with her. He did not want that, he just wanted her body.
How he wanted it; she must have known it, because when she dragged him into a few clothes boutiques, shifting through the things happily and piling her arms high with things to try on – even though, as he was now aware, she wouldn't be able to buy anything.
"Er… hey!" she called from the other side of a dressing-room curtain, and Natsume snapped out of the day-dreaming trance he'd slipped into waiting for her to try on the next haul of clothes; all, not to his surprise, bright, revealing, slutty sorts of things.
"Huh?" he grunted back, and the curtain was pulled back a little and she peeked out from behind it.
"Could you give me a hand?" Somehow she managed to sound half-dressed, and Natsume wore an intensely interested expression as he approached the cubicle.
"I can give you more than that," he hinted, and to his surprise she stuck her tongue out at him. Once again she failed to react how he expected her to; although, he wasn't really that shocked, as loathed as he was to admit it, he was adjusting to her.
He didn't want to be, but Natsume was aware that within a very small amount of time Mikan had thrown herself through the majority of his safeguards and rendered herself in a very odd place to him. Usually he barely remembered a girl's name when he was pursuing her, and it was simply a temporary fever of the flesh that he soon got rid of by sleeping with them – that and the things it did for his ego. But she… she…
"Hey! Don't make me stand here all day!" she snapped, and he realized she'd turned around and was baring a large portion of her back to him; she had wanted him to do up a zip.
"Oh," he said, "yes, right." He got closer and started to do the fastening up, trying to ignore the parts of his mind that were vividly imagining what it would be like to push her forwards right now and follow her in, and then going on to fuck her right here in the shop.
"Your hands are really hot," she remarked as if she could tell he was thinking about screwing her or something, and then when the zip stopped around the wider part of her back she breathed out and said, "just yank it."
Natsume tried not to think about the dress gripping her body, her breasts, as he pulled the thing the rest of the way up, but dammit, she wasn't making it any easier.
"Thanks! How does it look?" she giggled as she turned around and stepped out into the light. It was a very tight-fitting pinstriped dress with a ruffled bottom and very deep plunge chest.
The rational part of his mind lost at this point.
He reached forwards and put one hand behind her neck, the other on her hip, and pulled her; he turned his head to the side and covered her mouth with his own, and pressed his lips hard against hers – want want want want.
Mikan struggled and eventually pushed him away, much to the disapproving looks of the store attendants – who had 'mysteriously' appeared at the unfolding of this exchange.
"Get off!" she yelped, "What are you doing?!" She stared at him; Natsume looked completely wild and off-guard. She guessed that he'd acted completely out of impulse just then, and for someone like him, that was probably frightening. Like Sumire had told her, he always seemed to plan things out.
"That's…" he said quietly, as his outside remained calm in contrast to an inferno of feelings inside. "That's… how you look," he finished with a slight tremor, as if he'd startled even himself.
"What?" she retorted scathingly.
"You asked how you looked," he explained with a returning edge of 'can't you understand, idiot?' "That's how."
Mikan was quiet, and then as she felt her face getting warm and quickly slipped back into the changing room.
That was quite possibly the nicest answer she'd ever had to that question.
But it had to be from him, didn't it?
"You need any help taking that off?" Suddenly it seemed Natsume was back to normal, and the thinly veiled proposal reached Mikan's reddening face through the curtain.
"You know what I think I'm fine!" she yelped. For the first time since that unfortunate day in the library, she'd actually been able to think realistically about getting with him.
That was not good.
She asked one of the assistants to help her take off the dress, and graciously declined to buy it, even with a discount the girl offered her 'because her boyfriend seemed to like it so much'. Mikan firstly insisted he was not her boyfriend, and then, loudly enough for the rest of the shop to hear (as she was somewhat lacking in tact), told the assistant that she really couldn't afford an expensive dress like this.
When Mikan finally emerged from the changing room, back to her brighter-than-bright shorter-than-short skirt, leggings and platform heels; her upper body swaddled in several layers of differently coloured tops and necklaces. Natsume had a bag in his hand.
"What's that?" she asked suspiciously, wondering if perhaps he'd done what she thought he might've.
"A shirt," he replied stonily, reaching into the bag and pulling out a striped sleeve that suggested he was in fact a heartless bastard after all. "I got bored waiting."
"You said you didn't care what we did," she reminded him as they left the shop, and in the middle of a crowd she grabbed his wrist unconsciously to keep them from being separated as they crossed the street; he felt something, something that wasn't just lust.
Natsume had assumed that this one date would be all he needed, only yesterday when he looked at Mikan Sakura he'd wanted to have sex with her and nothing else, touching her was just a part of that, and he was one hundred percent confidant in his ability to seduce her and walk away from it with a clear head.
But now, now…
He felt like an ordinary teenage boy, and he didn't feel like that very often.
The date! Leave a review and I'll get Natsume to take his shirt off next chapter or something :P (haha, I joke... or do I?!)
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