Updated! I've been killing myself writing this recently, but also enjoying it. However, tonight I'm getting some sleep and Natsume and Mikan will have to wait.

Make this one last ;) (That's not to say I won't have something up by the weekend though :D)

The next few weeks passed in a rosy blur, snatching time together where they could between jobs, tutors and parents; however, Natsume went to great effort to make sure there was at least one window per week in which they could have sex. A window, of course, being a moment of free time and opportunity, not an actual window. Although they had tried a few other places apart from the bed now.

He could copewith that. So long as he could be intimate with her at least once a week, he felt like it was good enough. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough to get by on.

He didn't know what his parents thought about it now; he'd gone from barely speaking to them to only-when-absolutely-forced to. He couldn't stand them, knowing how they felt about her; willing him to break up with her as soon as possible. It was sometimes hard not to persuade her to fuck her in their bed, just to rub in how much he hadn't ended it on their command.

At school, stories about just what had happened when Koko tried to flirt with Mikan were wildly exaggerated and fully respected; boys didn't so much at glance at her in a lecherous way if Natsume was thought to be on the prowl. It became very clear to everyone that they were a couple, in spite of all the odds, and seemed to be intent on remaining so for the foreseeable future.

The strangest thing, many people remarked, was that they actually looked quite good as a pair, whether they were arguing or kissing, or a little bit of both.

However, Mikan started to wonder, as they passed the benchmark of the third month of their relationship, and graduation – and university exams – drew closer, why she allowed him to plan Mission-impossible style stunts to get 'together time' in his house around the workings of his parents, while she had a perfectly empty one.

He'd never actually asked her yet, and she didn't think she'd lie to him if he did ask, but she was deliberately not-mentioning it to him that she lived alone.

When she was lying in bed on her own, often wishing he was there – even just to see what it would be like – she'd decide that she would to tell him somehow, but when the opportunities came she never seemed to be able to say it. Something stopped her every time.

She finally realized why it was one day when she came in with a hangover; she'd been out with Sumire the night before and had a few too many.

"You have a hangover?" he said curiously when she told him, as if he'd never heard of such a thing before.

"Yeah, I got a bit carried away last night," she explained sickly, leaning on his shoulder and breathing in his smell like a medicine. His arm, which had been curled comfortingly around her shoulders, loosened slightly.

"Why were you drinking?" he asked suspiciously.

"What? Well... I was out in a bar, wasn't I?" she replied. "That's what you do in bars."

"Where?" he demanded. "Who with?"

"Eh? Sumire and some friends," she answered. "Why are you talking like that?"

"Any guys there?" he questioned irately, ignoring her question about his attitude.

"Yes," she said shortly, "but... I am capable of telling people I have a boyfriend."

"Drunk?"

"What?"

"Are you capable of doing it drunk?" he replied coldly, and Mikan felt her stomach curdling; she was not in the best mood, and he was being a pain. She usually liked it when he was possessive, when he was turned on just by the sight of her in one of his t-shirts, or when he held her in a comfortable 'me and only me' tangle on the sofa... but this wasn't the sort that she liked one bit.

"I don't know, you tell me," she spat. "I remember keeping your hands off me drunk a fair few times."

"I remember sticking my tongue down your throat drunk a fair few times as well," he hissed, "and I don't know why you are acting like I'm being unreasonable here."

"I'm being unreasonable?" she snarled. "You're the one acting like I'm not allowed to go out."

"I just don't think you staggering around a group of guys pissed off your face is a smart thing to do," he snapped. "I know exactly what they're thinking."

"You know what you'd think," she retorted. "Not all guys are like you."

"You overestimate us," he said derisively. "We think the same things when there's a pissed tart about." She shrieked and pushed away from him. "That wasn't directed at you!" he growled in annoyance. He'd just meant it as a vague example, but she'd taken it as direct slander.

"Of course it was!" she protested. "Who the fuck else are you talking about?"

"I'm speaking in general terms," he groaned in exasperation. "You never even told me you were going out last night."

"Well you never ask!" she argued. "I go out all the time, why would I tell you every time I do? I have my own life."

"'All the time' now?" he quoted viciously. "This is new to me. You didn't not tell me every single time, you never mentioned it once! When do you go out with these other guys?"

"I don't go out with other guys!" she refuted. "I go out with my friends! I'm allowed friends, aren't I?"

"It depends what you do with 'your friends'," he hissed, "doesn't it?" At this she screamed and made a frustrated gesture at him with her hands.

"You can't stop me having friends!" she stated. "I can't believe you're acting like this is new! I've always gone out in the evenings. When I met you obviously some of those times started being with you, but what made you think I stopped going out with anyone else?"

"Common decency," he muttered. "Obviously my mistake."

"I'm not doing anything wrong!" she screeched. "Don't 'common decency' me! You don't understand because you have no social life outside me, but going out for a drink with friends is normal." He very obviously took a lot of offence to her claim that he had no social life outside of his relationship with her.

"What the fuck?!" he yelled. "As your boyfriend, I had kind of assumed I'd know if you were going out on the piss without me every other night. How the fuck am I supposed to know what you're doing?"

"You aren't!" she retorted. "You don't own me! There's plenty you don't know about me."

"Like what?" He bit. She hesitated; unable to think now he'd put her on the spot... except for one thing, which she still couldn't bring herself to say it; not when they were like this.

"I... can't think of anything right now. That doesn't mean it's not true though," she argued.

"This is stupid!" he stated. "You're flipping out at me because you're in a shitty mood from being out, drunk, doing hell-knows-what behind my back..."

"Oh that is fucking rich!" she screamed, realizing that this was beginning to transgress the boundaries of a normal argument; this was bad, and as they'd gotten more comfortable and happy in the 'honeymoon' of their relationship the number of conflicts they'd had was less in general. The last time they'd argued like this was probably before they'd first had sex, or even earlier than that. "YOU are trying to talk to me about going behind each others back?! Do I have to remind you about the girl you fu–"

"That's different!" he retorted.

"Only because I'm not fucking anyone!" she screamed in frustration. "Except you of course."

"Hn, seems like you'd rather be out with them," he snorted offhandedly, and unfortunately the case was that Mikan had said she was busy to him last night, when he'd suddenly announced a change in his parents plans and that the house was free. She had made the plans with Sumire and Nonoko first, and she wasn't going to ditch her girlfriends to have sex with Natsume, no matter how hard he tried to talk her around.

"You are taking it completely out of context! I had plans with them first!"

"But you failed to tell me these plans would end up with you crying on my shoulder this morning about your hangover," he accused. "You said you were 'busy'."

"I was busy! Just because I didn't give you a fucking guest list – when you didn't even ask – doesn't mean they weren't still plans. I don't know what twisted thinking would make you think that I'm supposed to ditch my friends whenever you've got a hard-on."

He scowled, his points shrinking away and his anger only growing. "Why do you have to go out every night anyway?" he fired wildly. "Why is it so necessary for you to not be at home for once? I've never even been to your house!"

"What?!" she ranted. "This is so stupid! You are just making up points as you go along!"

"I haven't ever been inside your place," he remarked. "I've never met your family. I've never gotten any further than the fucking door."

"Well, with good reason, don't you think?!" she retorted furiously. "If I let you get to me at home I'd never be able to do anything on my own, would I? You'd try to control every fucking thing about me, like you are now!" This, although said in anger, had a portion of truth in it. It occurred to Mikan that her empty house was the seat of her independence, and if Natsume became a part of that then he would change things, she would no longer be able to have that entirely private side of herself the house had brought her, and everything would just be different.

If he got in the house he'd know everything else, and she would be blasted wide open for him to wreck exactly as he pleased. She wasn't sure if she was ready to do that yet; sure, they had been getting along well and only becoming more fond of each other as the days passed, but if he got in there then... her heart would be ripped open for the taking.

She didn't want to get it broken. She'd experience in that manner, and she was not keen on letting it happen again.

"When did I even say that?!" he raged.

"You implied it!"

"Now you're telling me what I'm implying?!" he spat sarcastically. "I didn't know you knew me better than I did."

"Oh, believe me, I do," she scoffed, and, unusually, he took a threatening step towards her.

"You should hear how you fucking sound," he said darkly. "Even better, you should see how you fucking look; did you even get home last night?" There was a distinct clapping sound as, for the first time in almost a month, Mikan slapped Natsume with all of her strength.

"Stop saying things to upset me just because you're pissed off!" she shouted wanly; she felt like shit already, him spitting out things like that just made her feel worse.

"Same to you!" he countered, a hand to his stinging cheek. "Slap me, that solves everything doesn't it?!" he bellowed sardonically, and she clenched her fists tight in fury.

"Stop being such a bastard," she threatened.

"Stop being such a bitch," he shot back. "I hope your gang of sluts have something planned tonight as well, because you can fuck off if you think you're coming over."

"Leave my friends out of this!" she cried at the top of her voice, her hands shaking as adrenaline torpedoed through her body. "You couldn't make me come over if you tried."

"I don't need to try; I do," he retorted dirtily, enraging her even more.

"You... shit, you absolute shit," she swore brokenly. "Do you even think that's funny? I really fucking don't. I felt like hell this morning and you've actually managed to make it worse, so well done."

"You did it to yourself," he informed her cockily, "when you got wasted last night, not that I'd know anything about it..."

"Hey! You know what? You're right!" she laughed hysterically. "In the first place, if you didn't point-blank refuse to so much as talk to the people who've been in my life a lot longer than you have, then I might have invited you out too; you're too fucking anti-social to ever agree to going out in a group. But that's not even it!" she continued, with a frightening blend of absolute trembling anger and careless amusement. "

You know what you're so right about? You not knowing anything!" she triumphed. "You have no idea why I spend a lot of time with my friends; going out every night, which you make sound like such a crime, you have no idea what it's like to have a fucking empty house every single day to go back to. You make it sound like you have such a bad deal with your parents, but, shit, what I wouldn't give to have my parents around even to argue with!"

"You have your mum!" he retorted feebly; unable to understand what she was saying. Sure her dad was dead but what did she mean? "Her and your step-dad..."

"There are things you don't know about me," she said forebodingly, and suddenly he saw: the lights inside were always out, she barely talked about them, she didn't get in trouble for going home late or drunk, and she could go out any time she wasn't working... she cooked all her own food, lived on her own low income, and talked about how long it had been since she'd done things like eat a meal at home with people,or watch the TV with them.

"Mikan," he said coldly, "who lives in your place?"

"I do," she answered, just as cut off and unwilling.

"And your mother?"

"She lives with her husband," she explained dryly.

"Who lives?" he prompted, and Mikan knew this was it – this would be the moment – she could tell the truth, or try to lie to him. Which would be totally stupid, because he had probably guessed already, judging from the way he talked.

"In Hokkaido."

Natsume was quiet for a while.

"Holy shit," he murmured. "What the fuck?" He looked straight at her. "You live on your own?"

She held his gaze for a moment, and then looked away awkwardly. "I fucking hate my house..." she murmured. "It is cold, and it is empty." She looked back at him, but only got as far as looking at his legs before she turned away again. "Mom got married about two years ago, but he had his work and family up there... I wanted her to be happy, she loved it there, and they could afford to keep this place so long as I took care of my food budget."

He could barely believe it, how could she live alone? How had he never noticed? Why had she never said, 'hey, my house is empty, I'm the only person who lives there!'? Why had he jumped through hoops trying to cram time in at his house while she had hers empty?

He was about to start laying into her for this, when he glared at her and saw the face.

He'd never seen or heard her cry to date, but the face was a look of hers that made him think she could burst into tears at any moment, and it scared him shitless.

"I've always gone out," she explained, "because I don't like being there. It sounds simple enough, right? If I don't hang out with some people doing karaoke or going to a bar then I have to go back there; back to that miserable shell."

It was a little ironic that to Mikan, the thing that represented her independence was the very thing she avoided using it; it symbolised her freedom, but she couldn't stand to be there.

He moved suddenly, and she couldn't move to get away, and he had caught her by both wrists before she could even struggle.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, quietly; not shouting or cursing like he had before, but still angry.

"At first?" she began. "Well, I didn't want you to think of it just as a place to fuck..." His face soured.

"Then?" he prompted curtly, not liking to admit how she was very likely right.

"Then...I...don't know," she mumbled; his hands still tight and hot around her wrists. "If you knew then... my stuff... would...or wouldn't... you know...it'd all be different... because you'd just...ugh..."

"Wait," he scoffed, slowly following what she was trying to say. "Wait. You didn't want me to change your way of doing things? Your 'stuff'?"

"Well... if you knew everything then you'd be in on it all... " she sighed, "and you'd say things, and change things."

He snorted, and then he laughed out loud.

"You didn't want me to fuck up your bit?" he surmised. "You didn't want me to fuck up your routine?" She looked around, and then nodded in an embarrassed sort of way that meant she didn't really know how else to explain it. "I had a routine, you know," he reminded her caustically. "You destroyed it within a week of knowing you; you are late," he chuckled. "to hanging onto your old way of doing things. Routines are long gone." He forced her to look at him. "We're past them."

"Stop just saying things!" she snapped. "You don't know everything, you know? What do you know about relationships?!" This was true, she had much more experience in relationships than he ever had, but even with Tsubasa, and certainly with Narumi, she had still always had her own private side to her life; like they had theirs.

Natsume... well, he wasn't playing it that way. It was all or nothing, and he obviously expected it all.

"I don't know anything," he said softly. "But I know how I feel." His eyes darkened, and he let go of one of her hands, but did not release the other. "This is fucking bullshit," he muttered to himself, pulling her along behind him wordlessly.

"Uh, Natsume?" she cautioned as he dragged her. "Natsume? Where are we going? Let go of me! Hey! Natsume! Where are we going?! Natsume! Fucking hell, listen to me! Natsume!"

Haha, I made them argue all chapter! Ya-boo-sucks to romance ;)

Where's he taking her, huh? Secret. Which I refuse to tell unless you review.

So there.

:P