Done! Finally a gooood chapter :P I'm trying to push this along quite quickly, so hope you enjoy. It's kinda unusual AU I think, and the characters are changed versions of themselves. I feel bad for totally disregarding canon like this.

Tuesday: same place, different clothes.

This time Mikan made sure to look around a lot, just in case Natsume felt like hiding somewhere and being obnoxious, but as far as she could tell he wasn't here.

Which wasn't surprising, considering she was fifteen minutes early.

She fiddled with her jewellery and tried to check her breath – she'd brushed her teeth three times before coming out, so she was pretty sure it didn't smell; what was the most worrying about that though, was that she was so concerned about her breath being unpleasant.

Just what was she planning to do with it?

No, no, she told herself; she wasn't going to be doing anything like that. She didn't like him, she was just... well, she was just...

Going on a date with him. Again.

He'd apologized to Sumire – she was even there, and he'd actually seemed half-sincere, or at least, sincere enough for Sumire to think he was genuine. Mikan personally couldn't tell, but Sumrie seemed happy enough and didn't even bother asking Mikan how she'd got him to do it. Which worked out for her in the end, because it meant she didn't have to admit that she went on a date with him.

A kinda sometimes-sorta fun date.

Which led to another one.

This one.

She checked her watch again, and when she looked up, he was there.

It was still ten minutes to ten – he was early too.

Tonight, he had – as expected – cast off his school-attire and wore jeans and a dark shirt with a waistcoat on top, the pockets of which he had his hands in.

"Hey," he said awkwardly – they always started dates like this. Perhaps it was one of those things that would go away with time.

Not implying that they were going to continue dating or go out or anything... probably.

"Hey..." she echoed, and decided in a split-second that she could use some of her wages from the day before to buy a few drinks and take this weird nervous edge off. If she had a drink or two everything would be normal; although she forgot that she didn't have a normal setting with Natsume.

"You've got cash," he observed as Mikan directed them to a bar she and Sumire often visited and bought a beer.

"I was paid yesterday," she explained, and then after staring at each other for a moment she took another sip of beer and said, "what?"

"Oh, nothing," he muttered, and went to the bar to get a beer himself – he might as well keep pace with her. Not like he had any better ideas.

A few drinks later

"And then, right, like, and then, it was like... THIS big!" Mikan screeched, falling about laughing herself and making clumsy hand gestures. Natsume pulled a somewhat less impressed look, but then even he cracked a smile.

"That's a big..." he stopped and put his hand to his mouth, and then had another swig of beer... this was his... fifth? Sixth? "It's a big..."

"No, no," Mikan laughed, "small, it was really small."

"Hey!" Natsume snapped with a confused stupor, "You just said it was big!"

"...What?"

"What?"

"I..." Mikan stuttered and looked for her drink, "I think we're a bit drunk."

Natsume held his hand out in front of his face and looked at it, then back at Mikan.

"Yes, we are," he said heavily. He didn't usually drink, he didn't like losing control, but as he'd kept pace with Mikan, they'd ended up getting more and more intoxicated, actively trying to keep up with each other as they chatted with increasingly loose tongues: not that they hadn't been pretty explicit before they started drinking.

What they talked about he couldn't even remember anymore, it had all sort of run together, but he was vaguely sure that he didn't have the urge he usually had to hit people when he was talking to them. Normally when he talked to people his own age he found them insufferably irritating, but he hadn't felt like that tonight... maybe it was the drink.

"What should we do?" she said clumsily, tripping over her words, and Natsume suspected that she had parents at home who didn't know what kind of daughter they really had, and who would be appalled to see her drunk.

"Dunno," he said with a shrug, and then (what he thought was) surreptitiously put his hand on her leg.

"Hey! Hey!" she shouted in outrage, "stop that!" She picked his hand up and put it on the table. "You keep those where I can see them!" She laughed at herself, and then had another drink.

"I thought you'd stopped that," he said, confused and covering up for her offhand rejection of his advance.

"What?"

"Well, won't you get in trouble for being drunk?" He knew he would if his parents happened to be home.

"Eh? No," she replied, "no I won't, I... my... my mom's cool with it."

"Oh," he said enviously, and then finished his beer anyway – he was already drunk, there wasn't much he could do about it now.

"So, 'where you can see them' right?" he repeated her with a smirk, and raised both hands up off the table and put them over her eyes. "See them?" he laughed, and while Mikan giggle as well he ran his lips against hers, and when she turned her face away from him quickly he let them linger on her ear lobe – the things he wanted to do to that earlobe alone, not to mention the rest of her.

It was just a pity he was too drunk to pull it off.

"Stop! You're cheating!" she protested and squirmed away from him, looking in a compact mirror quickly to see if he'd smudged her makeup.

"Whyyy," Natsume sighed, and slumped over at her with a put-out frown, "whyyy don't you let me kiss you?" Mikan turned around to glare at him for pointing out so obviously what he was doing; if he hadn't mentioned it then they could both pretend it wasn't really happening.

"I mean, you've made out with worse guys, right?" he added thoughtfully, and she still didn't look won over. "I'll make it good for you," he suggested and leant over even further, only to be pushed straight back.

"Because you're drunk," she stated coolly, "and you're over the top, and you'll take advantage and... and I don't know what'll happen if I let you..."

She hadn't actually meant to say that last bit. Fuck.

"Ah? Oh!" he quipped proudly, "You're afraid I'll sweep you away?" She shook her head. "You are," he insisted, and planted one hand on either side of her, leaning in and closing up the space between them.

"I'm not! You're a jerk! You're a drunk jerk!" she yelled as she covered her face with her hands, and Natsume only smiled.

"You like it," he quipped, "just like I like how you're a slu–" Before he could finish that he was looking up at the ceiling, the reason being Mikan had just blindsided him with her handbag.

"You are wrong!" she spat, "You're completely wrong! I like you because of when you're not a jerk, and I don't even know why you like me, but it's not because I'm a slut... because I'm not a slut!" People started to look around as her tone rose and she sounded more and more likely to start screaming.

"Whoa... okay," he backed off quickly – the last thing he wanted was tears or worse – and he looked back at what he said and noticed what it actually meant.

He didn't do this often, but he was drunk, so...

"I'm sorry," he slurred, "didn't mean it. Don't get upset." The scary thing was that he was genuine; he meant his not-meaning it.

"I'm not upset," she snapped, and stood up, wobbling slightly, and then putting on her coat to leave. "Com'on, let's go." Natsume didn't see a reason to argue, for fear of sticking his foot in his mouth again, and followed orders and followed her.

Mikan waited at the door for him, she might have been mad at him, but she wasn't an idiot: she wasn't going to wander, drunk, around the city at night alone.

The moment they got outside she started noticing the looks – so she was staggering a little, why did guys seem to think this was like a flashing whore-beacon or something?

She wasn't a whore-beacon. Or any other kind of beacon. Or whore.

She grabbed Natsume's arm nervously and moulded her body close to his, and the propositioning looks started to subside – people stopped looking at 'obvious' couples in that kind of way.

"Eh?What the..." Natsume mumbled.

"Shut up, just pretend you're my boyfriend," she sighed as she slipped her hand in his coat pocket and grabbed hold of his hand. The action gave Natsume a jolt he'd never felt anything like before, and he squeezed her hand back tentatively.

"Why pretend?" he asked – intoxicated and open in a way he really wasn't sober.

"Huh?" Mikan didn't really understand, although there was something nice about walking with their hands in his pocket; in spite of what she'd believed it actually felt kind of easy being close to him. A week ago he'd just been the 'Library kid', but in a short time she'd met the person he actually was, behind the front. She kinda-sorta liked that guy, when he wasn't being a total jerk.

"Hey?" he said quietly, "Where do you live?"

"Huh? What? No! You're not staying over!" she snapped, but he simply laughed and squeezed her hand again.

"I didn't think... I was just gonna take you home." He wasn't an idiot; he'd seen the looks men had been giving her too, he'd been returning some smug 'she's mine' of his own, but he was damn sure she wouldn't be on her own until she was inside her house. No way was she going to be raped on his watch.

Her mom would be home, he assumed, so he didn't plan on trying to get inside – other nights, there would be other nights – if she answered his question, that was.

"It's not safe," he remarked, as they stumbled into the station and found they'd be getting the last train, "so, where do you live?"

"Uh, there." She pointed on the map, and they barged onto the train; it was crowded with the rush of people trying to get home before transport stopped, and they were pressed close together – face to face, as it would happen (i.e. Natsume did it on purpose).

As the train started moving, and they were jostled even closer, Natsume went in for a kiss on instinct, and as usual Mikan backed away.

"Hey," she whined, "you always try to do that."

"I'm not gonna stop until you let me," he retorted, and in his current state of mind didn't realize that it was the first time since Yuri that he'd ever had to be 'allowed' to kiss a girl; usually he just took, and they didn't resist.

"There's loads of people here," she whispered.

"So?"

"So it's weird."

"'So'? I want you." Mikan didn't reply; he made demands like that seem ordinary, when normally telling a girl you 'wanted' them was actually a bit weird and creepy.

He was a bit weird and creepy to be fair.

"We're drunk, we'll end up regretting it," she feebly tried to make an excuse, and at the same time realized exactly how tightly the two of them were squeezed together, and the arm he happened to have around her waist, and the other hand subtly creeping up the back of her neck; his fingers twisting coils in her hair; his warm breath and tangy cologne-smell in her nose.

"That's fine by me," he murmured, and then leant in again. This time she didn't stop him, she didn't have the will anymore, and their cold-chapped lips met – consensually. It ended quickly but he kissed her again, harder, and very quickly he insinuated his fingers in the back of her hair while their lips parted a little way, their tongues shyly exchanging brief contacts. People were looking, but to be fair neither of them actually cared all that much.

Mikan broke the kiss first, as her head started to feel heavy, and she extricated her mouth to let her forehead sink down and rest against his collarbone; far from being disappointed Natsume combed his fingers through her hair and held her tighter in the embrace – he couldn't ever remember wanting to just kiss a girl this much before, and it had definitely never been as much of a pay-off as that had.

He hadn't expected it, but waiting had been worth it: he rarely thought waiting was ever worth it, but looking back on it he didn't think that this first proper kiss would have been nearly as good if he hadn't had to fight for it. Not to mention how wonderful it felt to embrace her like this; everyone was looking, and that was good, he wanted everyone to see.

And he wanted her so much more than he'd ever wanted anyone before.

He found her ear with his mouth and and put his lips to it. "Mikan, go out with me," he whispered hotly – the one thing he never thought he'd say to anyone, and now not only was he saying it, but he wanted it. He wanted her to be his girlfriend, he wanted to get even closer to her and prove how much better he was than shit-for-brains Andou or Narumi-sensei or anyone else she fucked.

And why shouldn't he be able to do it? What was there to stop him having a proper relationship? Yes, in the past he'd been scathing and unwilling, and thought it would never be for him, but that was because there wasn't anyone he wanted that he couldn't have already. He only had himself to prove wrong, and considering how very much he wanted her, that was something he could live with.

"You're drunk," she said yet again, but he could tell she was blushing, "you don't mean it."

"I've never meant anything more," he replied, and clenching his hand to the back of her head pulled up her face to close his mouth over hers; kissing her more aggressively and getting a stronger taste of the beer on her tongue. She kissed him back, of course, and Natsume was sure that with this kind of chemistry there was no way she'd say no.

"You..." She tore away from him and took a heavy breath, while the train drew to a stop at a station and the carriage emptied a little more – although he didn't hold her any looser. "You talk to me tomorrow," she said hazily, "and you say that tomorrow, and then I'll think about it."

"You mean you'll say yes," he suggested cockily as he laid his lips over hers again – no matter how many times he did it he still needed more.

"I mean I'll think about it," she countered, allowing the kisses but not initiating any herself yet. "I'm drunk, I can't think about this sort of thing now." He found her ear and blew against it.

"What sort of thing do you want to talk about?" he suggested lewdly, and she just giggled.

"Let's talk abouuuttt..." She wriggled against him and he groaned with enjoyment at the back of his throat. "Abouttt... the weather." She teased because she could; they knew the game they were playing, but she refused to play it the normal way.

"You want to talk about the weather?" he scoffed, and then his insides liquefied and crawled up into his chest caviety as she raised her arms and looped them around his neck; she leant her forehead against his collarbone again.

"Sure, it hasn't rained all week, isn't that great?" she remarked, and he laughed again at the silliness of it all.

"Why not?" he replied sarcastically.

"It is great," she insisted, "it's such a pain when it rains, you have to wear big coats and take umbrellas everywhere, they never fit in my bags."

"I just don't go out," he remarked, and she laughed and he could feel it in his own chest.

"Because you're anti-social," she teased, and he twisted his face down to drag a kiss along her cheekbone.

"I'm plenty social."

"As if," she scoffed, "you have what, one friend?" She felt him stifen.

"I could say the same to you," he retorted coolly, "you hang with that slut, and then-" He never finished for her violently wrenching herself out of his arms.

"Don't talk about my friends like that," she threatened, "take it back!"

"I don't take back the truth," he snapped, and flinched as she made an agressive move towards him, but didn't hit him.

"I.. I forgot what a bastard you really are," she said icily, "thanks for reminding me before I did something stupid."

"Stupid like fucking me?" he suggested; he thought he was right. He thought he was bang on, and that if things hadn't gone the way they did right now she would've let him have his way with her: after all, for walking her home he probably deserved it.

"No!" she screamed back, dispelling his previous notions, "Stupid like falling for you!" They were almost at her station now, and she turned her back on him and ran down the carriage, moving into the next one and waiting anxiously by the doors. Natsume glowered at her; Sumire was a slut, she'd proven herself as much of a tool as any of the other girls he'd fucked, and he didn't see why he should have to take it back when he obviously knew it was true.

The train stopped and Natsume watched Mikan getting out, striding off down the platform, and it was as the doors started to close in front of him that he suddenly realized 'oh fuck! What have I done?!' and made a desperate, last-second leap for the window closing right in front of him.

I had a little difficulty ending this, but I'm kinda happy with the way it went. Does Natsume make it? Yes? No? You'll have to find out ;P

Revieeew please, I got a lot of goodies in this chapter, surely I deserve a few poxy reviews?