I'm back from my holiday!

Skiing was fun, but I spent a lot of my time thinking about these two, and there is sooooo much stuff I've got planned for them, so without much ado, here is the new chapter XD

Natsume had nightmares that night.

He was talking to Mikan, and then somehow she started seeing what had happened last night – what he'd done – and her mouth fell open in shock, but the sound that came out was the slaughtered-pig squealing of the other girl as he'd fucked her.

Then she started to cry, huge torrents of tears streaming out of her eye sockets at the horrific sound coming from her mouth, but as desperately as he tried, he couldn't turn off whatever it was that was showingher what happened. He tried to plead with her and it didn't work, he could barely speak, and every time he tried to say something his lips seemed to be stuffed with a different part of the other girl - he hadn't kissed her once that night, he'd just used teeth and tongue - now it came back to haunt him.

There was this horrible, sickening, poison-in-the-pit-of-his-stomach feeling as he stared at Mikan and felt the dull thud of the end of their relationship -- who wouldn't break up with a guy who cheated on her? He was a goner. And, actually, he really didn't want that.

Couldn't she understand that it was her fault? He did it because she turned him down too many times, he snapped; what was a normal eighteen year-old boy supposed to do? But Mikan didn't understand, she just kept staring at him and screaming and crying.

He woke up, and felt at first a huge wave of relief as he realized it was a dream – she didn't know – but then a whole new rush of guilt came, as he realized what wasn't a dream. He was in his bed, at home, but he'd still done what he'd done. The only thing he'd fabricated was the nightmare-scenario of Mikan knowing about it.

He couldn't let her know. Ever. It would be the end of everything.

And right now, that was the one thing he feared the most. The one thing he genuinely feared, full stop.

However, the problem was that Natsume was talented only in the art of seduction, not concealing it. The reason his cover had never been blown before was because of the girls' humiliation and the fact that he was single.

He wasn't single anymore.

The other girl happened to be a friend of an Alice Academy student, who she had called (in tears) only minutes after Natsume pulled his post-coital disappearing act, and it hadn't taken long for the girl - one of Natusme's old hits herself - to realize who her friend had been with.

"Shit, Hinako," had been her first response. "Do you realize what you've done?!" That girl, having had her own experiences of slimy cheating boyfriends, felt that although Mikan might be of dubious morals, she had a right to know what her dark-horse of a boyfriend had been up to; poor thing, she probably didn't even know about all the girls he'd been with.

So she walked up to Mikan – who was in her class – first thing the next morning and told her 'Your boyfriend fucked my friend last night', even having text messages to prove it; not that Mikan needed proof. She had doubts anyway; almost looked like she expected it.

That was, of course, why she was silently fuming when Sumire came storming in through the doors, already updated on the news and yowling 'I told you so!' at the top of her voice.

Mikan, surprisingly, didn't scream or snap.

She was just quiet, very quiet, as Sumire told her about her boyfriend's infidelity in greater and more unnecessary detail.

She wondered if it might not have happened if she had agreed to go with him, but then she reminded herself that if this hadn't happened now, it would've happened sooner or later. If she had slept with him she'd be no better off than that girl he'd discarded like a used condom. Which, to be fair, she sort of was.

No, she wasn't really surprised.

However, that didn't mean she wasn't angry...

She was furious.

Natsume had spent the entire day wondering how he'd be able to keep his secret from Mikan – she couldn't find out – this would just have to be one of those things he never, ever told her. However, he was walking across to the Library when something hit the back of his head, like a paper ball.

"Hello lover," Mikan hissed icily, and before Natsume could think about why she might be calling him that there was, not a fist, but a shoe, in his solar plexus. She quite thoroughly decked him, and as he skidded back across the ground Natsume considered if he'd never woken up, and if this was another nightmare. Normally girls couldn't hit guys this hard – enough to throw him to the ground and knock the wind out of him.

"I don't know who the fuck you think I am!" she yelled, chasing him down and landing one pointy-heeled shoe in the middle of his chest; pushing him down onto his back just as he tried to get up. "Just what kind of dumb bitch do you take me for?!"

"Uh..." he grunted as the last uncomfortable breath in his lungs was stomped out. "What are you–?"

"Don't give me that shit!" she bellowed, and people all around them started looking at what would be remembered as the bigget and most violent fight ever taking place on school grounds. "What do you take me for?!"

"You mean you..." he stuttered – this was his nightmare. But it was worse, because Mikan wasn't crying, she was violent. He realized that she might actually seriously hurt him. "How did you..."

"Find out? Find out you've been fucking around behind my back?! Oh, I have my ways, don't you assume 'we're' all the same, and stupid." She noticed his eyes surreptitiously flit up her skirt as she talked-yelled at him; she did have her foot on his chest, so he was in the position to look in those sorts of places. In a flash she bolted her heeled shoe forwards and caught his cheekbone on the edge of it, and then with a quick roll ground his face into the floor.

If he had wanted to, Natsume could've fought her back, pushed her off. But the thing was, he honestly didn't want to; he felt like he kind of deserved this.

"Oh no, you've fucked up big time," she hissed. "Don't assume for a goddam second that you're even going to so much as touch me again." This was it, he could tell. This was the end. He felt like he should feel...more. He just felt empty – disappointed, maybe, but not even angry. It was like his body would eventually collapse in on itself the way houses did when the insides rotted out.

"Go on then," he prompted, when she didn't immediately deliver the ultimatum.

"'Go on' what?" she replied, her tone sharp.

"Dump me," he snapped, as he grabbed her ankle and pushed it off his face so he could talk. "It's what I deserve, isn't it? I did it, I admit it, I fucked her." He hesitated as he felt the final confession slip out, and he knew it was over.

"You think you're getting away that easily?" she retorted, just as angry and as if she hadn't even heard him, although, obviously she had.

"Oh no, oh no, you aren't getting out that way," she hissed as she stepped off him and took a pace back. "We break up now and we go our separate ways forever." It hit him hard that there was a tone of sadness in her voice. Sure, she wasn't crying, but there was just a hint of upset, and the implication that she didn't want things to be that way, 'separate ways forever'. It was enough to make his empty-inside regret turn into spitting hissing 'you fucking idiot' regret.

"If..." he said quietly, and then coughed as he realize just how hard she'd stamped on his chest. "If... I could go back and do it again..." Mikan scowled – that was rich – now he wanted to make her feel even worse by pointing out that he'd do it again and a-fucking-gain.

"I wouldn't." She froze for a second, and glared at him.

"What?"

"I wouldn't do it again," he said hoarsely. "It wasn't worth it."

The next thing he knew was being on his back again, because Mikan had just hurled the entire contents of her bag at him – including several very heavy textbooks on nanotechnology – and was screaming incomprehensibly.

This would also be remembered as the loudest fight of the school's history.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" she screamed, what could have possibly been - but probably weren't - tears lining the bottom of her eyes. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" He didn't say anything because he didn't know what to say: he wasn't following her.

"If it wasn't worth it why did you do it?" she howled, and then covered her mouth with her hand as she realized how she sounded.

"I wanted someone, anyone," he muttered quietly. "It didn't matter who..." Mikan knew then that she was right to turn him down – if she slept with him she'd just be another piece of that. "...after you turned me down."

Natsume was developing an annoying habit of saying things Mikan didn't want to hear; things that made her not want to hate him, which, right now, she kind of needed to do.

"I... thought of you," he said even quicker, and more discretely; picking up books as he rose and putting them near her empty bag. It had occurred to him that if he was going to be telling all – not that he'd ever wanted to in the first place, although there was something relieving about knowing he wouldn't have to stuff another skeleton in the closet – he might as well tell her everything. "The whole time," he clipped. "I... wanted it to be you. Pretended it was."

This point was the closest Mikan every got to crying in the whole conversation, if it could be called that. She suddenly doubted if she was right to turn him down, he looked so... hopeless. He'd just wanted her, and it was...

Shit.

It was almost her fault.

Or not even almost.

Shit. Shit.

What if she'd gone after him? What if she'd slept with him? He wouldn't have done it, any idiot could see that.

But, she reasoned with herself, it would have happened sooner or later, right? She would be away some time – that's assuming he didn't dump her right after he fucked her until he was satisfied – and he'd want sex and she wouldn't be around to be his professional hooker, so he'd go out and do the same.

Right?

She didn't even know, that was the problem. She thought that's what would happen, but when he looked like that it was so hard to believe it.

"I hate you," she whispered. "I hate you so goddam much." He didn't look at her, because he was worried he'd see her crying; there were only a few things he didn't want to see Mikan doing (and a lot of things he did): crying was one of them.

"You do the most horrible things..." She stopped with a hiss that could've been a sob, but hopefully wasn't, "and then you say the sort of things that make me... hate myself for being so mad with you." She finished quickly, and then turned and started to walk away – leaving all her books and belongings on the floor around him.

"Wait!" he said, jumping up and chasing her – the thing he wanted to do most was just to hold her, and he did his very best to as he snatched his arms around her from behind and tried to pull her to his chest.

"Get off me!" she screamed, pushing violently to get his arms off her. "Don't you fucking touch me!" He let go – his days of trying to force himself on her were about as dead as their relationship – but, damn, he still wanted her so much.

"Fuck..." he groaned to himself. "Look, Mikan, it doesn't mean anything... but... I'm sorry, ok? It was a total fuck up: I wasn't thinking straight. I'll... leave you alone now." He pushed her bag , stuffed hurriedly with her things, into her arms and started to walk off.

"Hey!" she shouted after him. "I still haven't broken up with you, you know." He paused, confused – he didn't see how they couldn't be broken up now.

"What?"

"I... look," she sighed. "I hate you a lot right now, and I'd love to find that girl and tear her face off, but I can't. So I'm just going to fuck off until I don't feel like screaming at you whenever you open your mouth, and when that happens, then we'll see, and... I'll call you." She added, "But don't expect me to talk to you until then."

"And," she snapped suddenly, her back still to him as she walked away, "this is your one and only chance.... You ever do that to me again and I'll cut it off."

Somehow, he didn't doubt her.

It took longer than Natsume had hoped for Mikan not to want to kill him – he accepted that she had grounds, even he knew that there were rules in these relationships and fucking other people was rarely deemed 'okay' – but that didn't mean he wouldn't crack every couple of days and chase her down in a corridor.

He didn't even touch her; he'd usually just put a hand on either side of her, so she couldn't get away without touching him, and he'd try to pretend he wasn't doing something creepy like smelling her (when he usually was) while he asked if she was done hating yet.

The first time she answered by kneeing him in the crotch.

The second time she answered by slapping him.

The third time she just pushed away.

The fourth time she simply said 'no'.

What Mikan hated the most about this, was the fact that she saw what she was doing and couldn't believe what a bitch she was being to him. Somehow he made it feel like she was the bad guy, which made her hate herself almost as much as she hated him.

There wasn't a fifth time, because it was a semi-accidental meeting in town. Natsume was out numbing the boredom that was time he'd previously spent with her, by wandering round their old haunts, and he happened to catch sight of someone he thought looked like her in a store.

He messaged her straight away, asking if she was out, and she actually replied yes and why, and when he explained that he thought he saw her she informed him that unless he was peeking in changing rooms that was unlikely. After resisting the urge to make a joke (too soon) he tentatively 'wondered' to her if they might be able to meet up, and she declined. However, after some pestering he found out roughly where she was, and hung around there looking for her.

They finally met eyes across a river of people on the pavements, as she came out of a store, and Mikan did not look happy. She looked just as furious as always, and she quickly looked away and walked off.

Not wishing to be classified as an obsessive stalker, but not seeing what else he could do, Natsume followed her.

Into another shop.

The difference came twenty or so minutes later, when she came out of the changing rooms looking particularly angry.

"Hey," he said quietly, as she walked past him while pretending he wasn't there.

"Still no," she said defensively.

"You're making a mistake," he commented dryly, and she whirled around to lay into him.

"I'm making a mistake!" she shrieked. "I'm making a mistake?!" He nodded, and then as she quivered while trying to decide whether to storm off or slap him he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her top up.

Mikan squealed, thinking this to be a reversion to his old habits of apparently trying to have sex or what with her in public, and she prepared to tear him limb for limb, because 'don't touch me' really meant don't. She did not want to be touched by hands that had done god-knows-what to that girl. Before, she'd been okay with it before – everyone has a past – but flesh-and-blood unfaithfulness was different.

Cheating made the thought of being touched by him make her feel cheap and dirty. She'd spent too much of her life trying not to be taken for something cheap and dirty to let it slip now.

Even though she still couldn't let herself let him go (because she knew he'd never come back), it horrified her to be touched by him.

In reality, the difference to this situation from previous ones was the top Mikan had on underneath her top, which Natsume had spotted all too easily.

"I'm barely in a position to talk about it, but if there's one thing I know, it's when to stop an Alice," he muttered darkly. "I'm sure you know the stories: I know what it's like. No one has seen yet, but this place has cameras, and just... don't."

It was a strange turnaround from the last time either of them came close to letting their Alice get the better of them - with him trying to talk her out of it - but he knew he'd been her trigger, and he thought the least he could do was try to stop her getting into trouble.

"I hate you." She shuddered, and he let go of the top and she pulled it back down.

"I know." She was silent for a few moments and they stood there, in limbo, wondering just how quickly they'd managed to get their little experiment with each other into a complete fucking state. All sensibility said they should just cut and run right now.

"I miss you."

"I..." 'know' would be the obvious thing to say, but he didn't really know – he had no idea what went on in her head, and just hearing that she actually went as far as to miss him was a surprise ray of hope.

He wanted to be honest again, he wanted her to put the stolen top back, he wanted a lot of things, and he knew that unless he pushed his boundaries he wasn't going to get them.

"I... do too."

I'm such a bittersweet gal :P

Hope you enjoyed, and leave a review for the health and good future of Natsume and Mikan's relationship?