Merry Christmas everyone!

I finally gave in to my pa and I'm going skiing this year. I was going to spend it with friends and revise for modules in January BUT THE SNOW IS SO AMAZING I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Therefore, you won't hear from me for a week – obviously I've been absent a little with the approach of yule, so here's a chrimbo chapter and EVERYONE HAVE A ROCKING CHRISTMAS!

See you in the new year XD

Ruka didn't bother going to sleep until he heard the knock at the door, and opening it to Natsume – overnight bag under his arm – he tiredly asked, "So, who's your girlfriend?" This was the third night in just over a week; he knew something was different with this new 'project'.

"Classified information," Natsume answered groggily as he trudged inside and leant against the wall to kick off his shoes.

"What?"

"I'm not allowed to tell you," he explained, "well, not yet." Ruka frowned, not because he was hurt Natsume didn't think of him as enough of a friend to tell – which he could be, but wasn't because he knew Natsume didn't get that kind of close to anyone – but because he used the word 'allowed'.

"Allowed?" he quoted disbelievingly. "When did you start needing permission?" Natsume didn't answer, but pulled up one of his sleeves to reveal a small series of knuckle-sized bruises on his arm.

"When she turned violent." He appeared to think for a moment. "Wait, she was always violent." Ruka chuckled and wrapped his dressing gown tighter around himself – his parents were heavy sleepers, so he didn't have to worry about waking them up.

"Besides, until I seal the deal I've got to play it her way," Natsume explained. "She's kind of... hard to handle."

"I'll bet," Ruka laughed. "You've never spent this long on a girl since I've known you." Natsume wasn't entirely thrilled with that 'achievement', but he didn't care as much as he might have a few weeks ago.

"So, you're not single anymore?" Ruka inquired, and Natsume shrugged. Then when Ruka refused to stop staring at him – implying that the answer wasn't satisfactory – he nodded his head and mumbled something like 'yeahIguessso'.

"Heh," he chuckled. "Never thought I'd see the day." Natsume felt his face grow warm, which didn't happen all that often, and he quickly headed towards the room. Once he had the upper hand again things would be different, this was just a temporary surrender of power in order to gain more overall – lose a battle, win the war.

He just wished he wasn't enjoying it so much.

"So," demanded Sumire when Mikan came into school with bags under her eyes and yet another mysterious love-bite on her neck. "Who is he?"

"I... don't know what you're talking about," Mikan murmured guiltily, and was subsequently assaulted and practically tied to a bench.

"Nu-uh, you aren't getting out of this one," Sumire said sternly. "I want to know about him, now." She sounded serious, but really Sumire was just putting her foot down in a joking way – Mikan would have told her anyway, but this way around she learnt sooner and got to have fun teasing her as well.

"I caaaan't," Mikan whined. "You'll kill me." Suddenly the fun died and Sumire's face was drained of all good-naturedness.

"You..." she whispered darkly, "you don't mean...." She glared at Mikan, who wondered what Sumire was thinking.

"Not him?" Sumire hissed; the catty side of her Alice beginning to show.

"What?" Mikan said in confusion. "Why do you look so..."

"I thought you two swore it wasn't going to happen again!" Sumire snapped, and Mikan suddenly realized who she thought she was talking about.

"Oh! No, not... Sensei," she said quickly. "Nothing like that, we've barely talked since... yeah." Looking at your teacher and knowing what he looked like naked – and with your legs wrapped around his waist – didn't really make conversation flow; it generally just made it awkward.

"You sure?" Sumire was still deadly serious, and it took a while longer for Mikan to convince her she really had nothing to do with Narumi, and he wasn't the 'no-one' she was seeing.

"So?! Who is he?" re-stated Sumire. "If it isn't Narumi-sensei, then who?" Mikan wanted to tell her, but she just wanted to be a little bit surer; yes, she and Natsume had some disgusting amount of chemistry, but their arguments could be just as bad as their goodmoments, and if they were going to break up as soon as they got into a fight she didn't see the point.

She needed a little more time.

"Look, I'll tell you, but not right now, okay?" she pleaded. "I want to be really sure I like him, and if I tell you then you'll try to change my opinions. I want to make my mind up by myself." She'd done exactly that all her life, but Mikan knew that in this situation if Sumire found out she was seeing Natsume then she'd easily be able to persuade her out of the whole thing.

As loathed as she was to admit it, she didn't actually want that.

"When?" Sumire asked icily.

"Tomorrow, I swear," she said. "I'll see him tonight and make up my mind."

"Oooh?"Sumire raised one eyebrow. "You mean do him?"

"No!" Mikan snapped. "Definitely not! That'd be..." She broke off.

"What? It would be what, Mikan?" Sumrie questioned, and Mikan persuaded her to drop it if she bought her lunch – Sumire was craving tuna-fish today.

His palms slid across her stomach, warm through her cotton t-shirt, and then found the band of skin where the shirt ended. With his fingertips at first, and then up to his knuckles, he slipped his hands under the top and felt bare skin underneath; all while engaging in a heated clash of tongue and lip that was fully reciprocated.

When he had both his palms in subterfuge beneath her top, he started to gradually ease it up, his fingertips hitting the soft ridge of her ribs as he edged the cotton up her stomach. She seemed to notice his 'progress', and, far from rejecting him, rolled her upper body into his touch; knotting her fingers tighter into his hair, she pulled his mouth harder against hers, and Natsume wondered what the point in going to a cinema was if they weren't actually going to watch the film. There were plenty of dark places he knew that were far more suited to this kind of interaction.

However, Mikan made sure that he got no farther than feeling up to her ribs that night – for a slu... for what she was, she was certainly playing coy with him.

"If I didn't know you," he remarked as they left the cinema and she subtly shrugged out of the arm remaining around her shoulder. "I'd think you were frigid." She whirled around to look at him, and she didn't look pleased.

"Oh, and because you know me you know I'm not really frigid?" she inquired dangerously. "What are you trying to say?"

"Eh, nothing," he grunted.

"No! You were implying something," she accused. "What was it?" He knew, and she knew, but if either of them admitted it then it just might throw the whole relationship down the toilet, and they were barely a week in.

"Really, nothing," he said again, colder.

"Fine," she hissed, and then grabbing him by the wrist jerked him around to face her and shoved him back against the nearest wall.

"Do you want to know why I won't let you feel my chest or stick your hand up my skirt or take me to one of your seedy little dives?" she spat angrily, and although he didn't answer; it was clear Natsume did.

"I'll tell you; it's because I know damn well that as soon as I let you get any, the respect I've been doing my fucking best to earn from you goes bam!" She made a motion with her hands to emphasise the end of their 'relationship', and some part of Natsume admitted she was probably right.

"It's a goddam laugh that I even have to earn your respect in the first place, but you're so fucked in the head that keeping an arm's length is the only way I'm actually likely to get through to you," she said bitterly, her arms crossed over her chest as she merely stared Natsume against the wall.

"I'm not–!" he retorted.

"You are!" she screeched back. "You're the most fucked up guy I know!"

"Why are you bothering with me, then?!" he snapped furiously, raising his voice to a volume that let other passers-by know that there was a serious domestic row going on. "If I'm such a thorn in your side then why waste your fucking time?"

"Because!" she replied, and then stopped and cut herself off – taking a breath, she started again. "Because..." She stepped forwards, her hands slightly outstretched, and fisted them in his shirt.

"I've got this... thing with you," she said, much softer; the flash of anger had faded – on her side, at least. "There's like this thing that stupidly makes me think it's actually worth my time and effort to be with you. You are such a jerk most of the time I wouldn't think twice about ditching you, but you...." His hands were on her waist, and his fingers nearly met around the small of her back.

"You haven't," he reminded her, his tone sultry and warm as he pulled her closer to him.

"I know... every time I think about it something stops me, something that–" She broke away as his mouth crashed into hers, and they relaxed into the notion that doing this was so much better than arguing; it was in fact the thing holding them together.

For now, at least.

People leaving films a few minutes ago would have noticed the young couple arguing and screaming at each other; being relieved that they were too old for that sort of thing anymore. However, people leaving more recent showings would notice the young couple making out passionately against the wall and envy that lustful young love.

"So, it's been a while," he said breathily as they parted mouths. "It's getting harder to ignore you at school. Are you... ready to start telling people? Some people have been asking questions..."

"Really?" she replied. "Sumire's been interrogating me." She glanced into his eyes, and at the same time his always-warm hands ran smoothly up her back. The simple action made her shiver and burrow her face into the crook of his neck longingly. She wouldn't, and couldn't admit it, but she wanted him so much – if she admitted it then things might go a bit haywire, and she wouldn't be able to control what she did: that alone could ruin everything.

"Then we're set?" he inquired coolly – more riding on this than they let on. "You're prepared for people to know you're dating me?"He felt her shrug against him, and they shared knowledge of the anonymous 'them' who judged indiscriminately – while Natsume had always thought Mikan was one of them, he'd realized very quickly that she was simply a different kind of isolated.

"Sure," she said. "I haven't surprised them in a while anyway." She lifted her face, and they kissed again.

"WHO?!" Sumire and Ruka gaped when Natsume and Mikan, seperately, broke the news to them.

"You heard me," Natsumre replied coolly.

"I know," groaned Mikan, with her face in her hands.

"Why?!" Sumire and Ruka asked next.

"She's... persistant," Natsume said dryly. "If I could've laid her once and be done with it, believe me I would have. But there's something about her that makes me hang on... I'll fuck her, no doubt about that, but I actually don't mind spending time with her..."

"...And even though half the time he's a total jerk, there's this other side in him that I don't think other people see," Mikan explained to her sceptical friend. "Like, this repressed nice-guy, who sometimes he forgets not to be, and suddenly comes out; and then he's got like this fixation, and for tiny moments at a time it's like, this thing that is so amazing it practically makes all the other shit worthwhile." Sumire tapped her nails against the table.

"How do you know," she said icily, "that the nice guy isn't an act, and really he's just an asshole deep down? Playing you for a fool?"

"I can just tell," she pleaded. "Really, he's like... an onion – layers and layers of bad-smelling crap

on top of each other."

"Why didn't you tell me," Ruka inquired. "when I first asked you?" Natsume shifted his vision away from his friend's perceptive eyes.

"Like I said, at first I didn't want to say anything until I'd got her into bed – to save my pride I guess, and then she happened, and I was kinda confused, and by the time I had my head straight she'd made up all these rules I had to play by or else."

"Or else?"

"Or else she'd end it," he said bluntly, and both of them realized that this was the first time Natsume genuinely did not hold all the cards – yes, he was fairly sure Mikan wouldn't be able to let him go just like that, but he wasn't that sure, and he had a suspicion that her obstinacy would give her limitless strength to break up with him.

For once, he had to keep the favour of someone else; instead of it being the other way around.

Ironically enough Mikan thought exactly the same thing – she was working herself stupid trying to win some simple goddam respect from him, and if she failed to escape his predictions just once it'd be game over for her.

"Mikan," Sumire said frankly. "You do realize what he could do to you, right?"

"You do realize she's changing you, right?" Ruka remarked forebodingly.

"I know," replied Mikan and Natsume in unison – in spite of their being in separate locations and on different time-frames. "But... I'm willing to take that risk."

"Who knows," Natsume muttered awkwardly afterwards. "Maybe it could be for the better." Ruka's eyes widened slightly at this – it was one thing for Natsume to like a girl enough to date her, and not to consider her an immensely inferior being; but here he was admitting that perhaps she had the ability to improve him as a person.

That not only showed the way he thought of her – an equal at the very least – but the fact that he was open to the idea that he could be improved; that he wasn't perfect.

For Natsume, that was a lot.

It could be said, in that respect, that Ruka was the one who saw it coming first.

A slight transition chapter, but still important methinks :D

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