I'm busy busy busy right now, so I'm sad to say the update speed will probably gain a day on average :( If I could update daily I would, but nothing lasts forever, and I have an exam on monday plus loads of work, plus a real job.

Tailored to be so after some reviews asking about the lack of other characters :D I'm doing my best.

That was the first time either of them had spent the night with someone. For Mikan, Tsubasa had parents who did not approve of her staying over, and her mom didn't like him for some reasons and refused to let him stay around for more than a couple of hours at a time. Her other boyfriends had been much the same story, and Narumi was a difficult case... technically she'd been there for entire nights, but there was never any real sense of 'sleeping together' in the REM sense of the word.

Natsume, of course, had always left of his own means, but not that night.

The afternoon had seemed shorter than it was; watching TV, a walk down to the pharmacy to buy more condoms – she was still hesitant to commit to the pill, plus the clinic was even further away – and a run through the convenience store next door to buy something to eat later that evening. Everything seemed to feel like less time together, but actually took up more.

When they got back they listened to an irate message left by an Academy truancy officer informing 'Ms. Sakura' that she had not reported Mikan as sick that day, had a laugh over it and then deleted it. Sumire called next demanding to know where Mikan had been.

"Sorry, girl," Mikan apologised. "I had this massive argument with him this morning; he flipped out, I flipped out, we walked out of school screaming at each other and… yeah, back at home... yes, my home... yes, he knows. Natsume, stop!" she squealed as he blew behind her ears and lightly kissed her neck, trying to distract her and stop her paying attention to someone other than himself. "He's being a pain… no we're fine now…. I know, I'll tell you about it sometime…. No, he's not around, I'm not sure what the deal is… well yeah… I've got tutoring and then we were gonna hit up his, but…" She looked at Natsume, who pointed down to the floor and mouthed something. "Yeah, we might as well just hang out here…. Na, he'll have to sit tight won't he? I think Nogi lives around here somewhere anyway. Yeah! I know."

Natsume stopped listening at this point, and took a second tour of the house as Mikan nattered to her friend. The room they'd 'christened' was, from what he could gather, the master bedroom; Mikan was obviously using it, although he gathered it must have been her mom's before – more proof that she really was the only resident. The bathroom had already been inspected, as had the main room; corner with the beanbags and TV with an open corridor into a little kitchen; table out the other end of the galley, in a room that looked like it was an old storage room, though it was practically empty now.

Then there was what must have been Mikan's old room, which was much less interesting than he'd hoped. She must have moved most of her things over, because there was just a single bed and chest of drawers in there. The bed was stripped and the drawers empty, although a few posters of bands he'd never heard of remained on the wall opposite the door.

He knew he shouldn't have expected to find a diary, or a photo, or something interesting in a room that was no longer used, but he had hoped. He realized that anything of interest would probably be in the main room, so he returned to it – taking note of the fact that she was still talking on the way – and began to look around.

She wasn't tidy – clothes, makeup and jewellery hung over every flat surface – but it wasn't disgusting, per se. He found a picture on the windowsill of what must be a younger Mikan and her mother, who was quite pretty, if a bit 'not-quite-there-looking', although she did look a lot like Mikan (or the other way round, but he knew her first so that was how he saw it), and a picture further down, next to a little candle, of what must be her late father.

He looked…

Nothing. What was someone like him supposed to make of that kind of picture? He looked normal; smiling, and it was probably taken before Mikan was born. Looking at his hands, it was probably taken before they were married – no wedding ring.

"What are you doing?!" Mikan called in from the main room. "I'm off the phone now."

"Bedroom," was his returning instruction, and she found him still looking at the pictures on the windowsill.

"You snooping around?" she said critically, and he shrugged.

"Just looking," he said shortly. "That you as a baby?" He pointed to a photo of her mom looking tired and surprisingly young in a hospital gown with a tiny child in her arms. Her dad must have been taking the picture.

"Yeah," she replied.

"Looks young."

"I'm only an hour old, duh." She laughed softly, and came a little closer.

"Your mom," he emphasised.

"Ohhh, I see. Yes. She was," she said. "She wanted to go to university, but… well; it's not easy with a baby."

"Mmm," he hummed. "Was that, uh…on the…" He made a phone motion with one of his hands.

"Sumire," Mikan suggested acidly. "Yes. You know you should be able to remember her name. After what you…" Mikan admitted to herself that she was a little bitter about her boyfriend having had a fling with her best friend, but she tried not to let it matter too much. He was with her now.

Mikan heard her phone ringing again in the far room, and saw Natsume roll his eyes.

"Whatever," she scoffed, running out to go and answer it. Sumire had probably forgotten something.

"Explosion. Lab broken. Unpredictable variables of accelerating the process at high temperatures Kelvin. Ten minutes." A cold, empty voice said down the phone; string of broken parts of sentences without anything to pull them together.

"Huh?" Mikan gawped. "Wait, who's this?"

"I will not repeat myself," she said, and then the phone hung up.

"Hotaru?" Mikan cried down the phone. "Hey! Don't go yet! What do you mean 'explosion'?!" It wasn't like Hotaru to make unnecessary phone calls of nonsense – it was unlikely for Hotaru to make unnecessary anythings.

However, Mikan could not work out what it meant, and if she called back she'd be unlikely to get an answer, so she wrote it off and decided to ask her about it later that day when she went for tutoring.

"Oh, that remind me," she said conversationally as she walked back into the bedroom, where Natsume was still looking through her stuff. "I've got my tutor today, so I'll be away for, like, an hour or two." He frowned.

"What?" he said petulantly. "I though we were hanging out here."

"Tonight, we;d made plans for the evening, and we've been together all afternoon," she remarked. "I've got to see her. I won't get into a university if I don't get tutoring."

"I could do it," he commented dryly, and she gave him an interested look.

"Yeah?"

"I'm top of the school, aren't I? It's all so easy to understand, I don't get how people don't get it."

"Because not all people are smart like you!" she retorted viciously.

"Bullshit," he shot back. "You're plenty smart."

"Eh?" she said, surprised. "What do you mean."

"I don't spend time with stupid people," he explained patiently. "Maybe you don't have good grades, but you're not a complete idiot."

"I'm not, am I?" she joshed. "What about all those times you called me stupid?"

"Stupid for different reasons," he said in an offhand way. "What do you need to know?"

"Look," she sighed, "it's everything I don't get. Even when I think I do get it, actually I've usually got it wrong. Besides, Hotaru is my best friend; we've known each other for years, I like seeing her. Tutoring works, otherwise she probably wouldn't make any time to see me."

"Why not?" he queried.

"She…finds people hard to understand. She doesn't really 'get' friendship, or other stuff… if I didn't have a reason to see her, then she wouldn't make time because she can't understand why I'd want to see her for no reason…"

"Wait, has she got an Alice?" he asked; quickly putting together the puzzle pieces.

"Yeah."

"She's not in the school, though?"

"No, she's a very introverted type, so she got special permission to go to a normal school." She gave Natsume a look – he was probably clever enough to get a placement like Hotaru, but hell knows he wasn't safe enough.

"Ohh." He finally understood. "What's her type?"

"Technology," Mikan replied. "Tag savantism, well, autism too."

"Oh," he said again. All good Alices came at a high price. Most people who knew anything about Alices had heard of Autism. "That's why she's…?"

"Yeah," Mikan replied. "But she's my best friend, and I love her. I'm always going to be her friend. Even if she doesn't want me too." Natsume's will crumpled, and he gave her a 'come here' gesture, which led into a tight embrace. He didn't say it, but he wished for a moment that he could be someone like that to her. How pathetic did he sound right now?

"Well, there's also some other stuff. Aspergers sometimes comes up, but she goes from low to high-function every once in a while… she puzzles people, I guess." Natsume still had his arms around her, and was reluctant to let her go.

"I wouldn't mind meeting someone like that," he remarked casually, and he felt her bristle.

"She's not good with strangers… and you would completely baffle her." He chuckled, a smooth sound that resonated in her body, pressed to his.

"She sounds different to your normal type of friend," he said, and Mikan tensed up.

"You should drop that line some time," she said coldly. "I'm getting sick of it."

"I never said there was anything wrong with them, did I?" he sniped. "Just that she sounds different."

"Well she is different!" Mikan snapped, trying to get away. However, Natsume persisted and managed to back her onto the bed, where he pushed her down and stared straight at her, forcing her to make eye contact with him.

"I'm not trying to piss you off," he said slowly. "So don't take it like that."

She didn't want to argue, she definitely didn't want to argue. So she did something else instead. Which led onto some more 'something else's.

"I think you should go on the pill," Natsume murmured in her ear between kisses; one hand inside her tracksuit bottoms and the other pushing up her tank top.

"Mmmmn," she sounded indecisively between a moan and a whinge. She was still reluctant to commit to that, and there were some other things she wanted to bring up before she gave in on this point. She was just waiting for a good opportunity to mention it; now not being one.

"Ugh, you are such a pain," he grunted, but carried on anyway. After all, what was the point in a free house if you couldn't have spontaneous sex in it?

However, before they actually got anywhere near the act, a chime interrupted their attempted coitus.

"What the fuck is that?" Natsume growled, and Mikan paused for a moment as she worked it out.

"Shit! It's the doorbell!" she cried, zipping up, arranging her clothing into a more respectable state and dashing out of the room. Natsume was not best pleased.

"Hello? I'm sorry I don't want to buy anything toda…Hotaru!" Mikan yelped, as the dark-haired girl stood calmly outside her door, the car that brought her purring quietly on the road behind her.

"I am five minutes late," she said carefully. "There were roadworks on the A16 road that delayed the car journey. I had not forseen them on the satellite navigation. Their system has flaws."

"I see. But… why are you here?" she asked in confusion. "You did call me earlier, right?"

"Yes," Hotaru replied. "I explained. There was an explosion in my laboratory and…"

"Explosion?!" Mikan gasped. "Are you okay? Seriously?! Hotaru, did you get hurt?"

"It took place last night, I was not present," was the cold-as-always answer. "I am unharmed." She looked at Mikan. "You are…?" she said curiously as she tried to read Mikan's expression.

"Happy, I'm happy, Hotaru," Mikan said effortlessly. "I am glad that you aren't hurt. It would make me upset if you were." Hotaru stared at Mikan for a moment.

"I understand," she said confidantly. "I would not be able to tutor you if I were injured."

"No," Mikan laughed. "I am happy that you are safe because you are my friend," Mikan reached out, grabbing her hand – something few other people could do – and invited her inside.

"I am here for our scheduled tutoring session," Hotaru explained. "There are repairmen in my house. I do not like them, and we cannot work with the distraction." Inside the house Hotaru heard the sounds of Natsume sulking about his failed efforts in the next room. "Is there someone here?"

"I… I didn't expect you, Hotaru," Mikan explained shakily as she suddenly realized the situation; seeing Hotaru had made her forget Natsume was here. "I didn't realize you were coming here."

"Where else would I go?" she asked curiously, and Mikan prayed Natsume would stay out of sight for just another minute longer.

"Well, I know, but I didn't think about that," Mikan tried to explain. "So, well, you see…"

"Someone is here," Hotaru observed. "I can hear them."

"It's… Natsume," she finally admitted.

"Natsume; your boyfriend?" she questioned.

"Yes," Mikan replied. "Today is the first time he's come to my house; what bad luck, eh?" she joked.

"There is no such thing as luck," Hotaru remarked, and it was around then that Natsume walked into the main room, slightly less grumpy than before, but still a little jaded at the interruption. "Oh," Hotaru gasped, and Natsume turned to stare at her.

"Well…" Mikan laughed with fake enthusiasm. "You remember what you said earlier? Well, this is Hotaru." She reached out and grabbed the girl's hand again, squeezing it affectionately. "My best friend."

"Ah," Natsume made a soft sound in the back of his throat, and stopped still as he looked at Hotaru. She did not meet his eyes, but he hadn't expected her to.

"He is here, Mikan," Hotaru said quietly. "Why is he here? He is here, Mikan," she repeated – 'she did not repeat herself' – and Mikan knew her levels of stress were rising. She didn't react well to strangers, and was nothing like the girl she really was when she was relaxed.

"This is… the first time I have been here," Natsume announced, his voice calm as he could make it. "I am not… familiar… with this place at all." He wasn't sure if he was doing anything right, but he was at least trying to make it clear that he wasn't moving in on anyone's territory. "It is good to meet you, Hotaru-san," he said evenly.

"Natsume is…" Mikan struggled for words. "Natsume's…"

"Mikan told me you're at a good school," Natsume said helpfully.

"I…" Hotaru clipped icily. "I gained a scholarship," she muttered quickly, directing her speech largely at Mikan, even though she already knew this.

"Natsume is very smart too," Mikan commented hopefully. "He reads a lot of… oh yes! He works at the school library," she said excitedly. "He knows about all the books you ask me to get out."

At this Hotaru flicked a glance towards Natsume; not anywhere near his face, but in his direction.

"I've read most of them," he said. "The ones at the back, at least," he added, "the good ones."

Hotaru was quiet for a while. "Have you read 'Nanotechnology; Ethics, Risks and Law'?" She asked spontaneously, this time clearly to Natsume, as it was common knowledge that Mikan obviously wouldn't have.

Natsume mouthed the words of the title, recalling the book and writer. "Yes," he finally answered. "I have." All at once, he was in.

Mikan oversaw the conversation anxiously. This was the first time Hotaru had ever gone from not knowing someone to speaking and actually paying attention to someone in less than a day. In less than an hour.

Natsume was talking about her favourite subject, though, and he appeared to know something about it himself, and Hotaru had not met anyone else who did before. Natsume was also doing his best not to be a complete ass, demonstrating some level of respect for Hotaru's Alice. He also even seemed to be enjoying the conversation as well, although Mikan could barely tell. It was so far over her head she couldn't even see it.

She was asleep in no time.

"In the field of medicine, which my friend is interested in, the potential is astounding," Natsume said. "It is no more electronics than a combination of molecules; the things that could be treated with…"

"Technology will make the further jump," Hotaru corrected, and Natsume smirked at her straightforward way of 'informing' him that he was wrong. "Robotics on a level that cannot even be seen. Millions of tiny nanobots working simultaneous…" she trailed off, glancing at Mikan, who had long since curled up on Natsume's side and lost interest. "She is asleep."

"Who? Oh! Her," Natsume muttered, and looked down at the slumbering girl on his side. He smiled. "It's only five o'clock," he said mirthfully.

"She frequently falls asleep at inappropriate hours of the day," Hotoaru announced. "She is the most quiet then." Natsume laughed quietly.

"True, Hotaru-san," he said, raising a hand to draw hair away from her face. She looked stupidly cute asleep. "I love it when she does this," he said without really filtering it properly, and Hotaru's expression became intensely thoughtful.

"Why?"

"She…" he wanted to answer her, but he didn't quite know how, "well, she… looks so cute," he mumbled. "Mikan," he called softly, craning his head down to kiss her cheek; his hand gently cradling her jaw. "Mikan," he whispered, and slowly her eyes flittered open.

"Huh?" she murmured groggily.

"We'll stop talking about complicated things," he offered teasingly. "You fell asleep," he added on, in case she hadn't realised that she'd done that.

"Oh, oh," she moaned, stretching and sighing heavily. Hotaru simply watched them very carefully.

"I have to go now," Hotaru announced, checking her watch.

"Huh? Wait, but Hotaru!" Mikan cried. "We didn't even do any work! We didn't even get to talk!" Natsume chuckled beside her.

"You were asleep, dummy," Hotaru said. "I have another appointment to go to." The doorbell rang. "That will be my car." She stood up and brushed down her skirt. "Goodbye." Mikan struggled up and jumped toward her to give her a hug.

"But Hotaru!" Mikan wailed, and with one swift movement Hotaru hit her upside her head and pushed her away.

"It is not my fault you fell asleep, idiot," she said calmly, and then almost within the same breath said, "He is a good person. He thinks you are cute." Mikan reeled back for a moment, and then picked up.

"You… like him, then?" she asked timidly, and Hotaru nodded.

"He is inconsistent with his reputation," she remarked, "but I 'like' him. He is intelligent, and not annoying." It was Mikan's turn to nod this time, although the point about his not being 'annoying' was a debatable point.

"I'm sorry I fell asleep," she said meekly.

"I spoke to Natsume-san," Hotaru replied. "I did not mind." She turned around and started walking towards the door; Mikan followed and hugged her again.

"Bye, Hotaru-san," Natsume called from his seat in the beanbags, raising a hand in a farewell gesture. "I would like to continue that conversation sometime." Hotaru smiled, genuinely smiled, and said goodbye.

"How did you do that?!" Mikan burst as soon as the door closed.

"What?" he retorted incredulously. "I didn't do anything."

"Anything, you didn't do 'anything'," Mikan flung back at him. "That's the first time she's ever been like that with someone so quickly."

"We just talked technology," he said defensively. "She knows a lot about all of that; maybe having someone to talk to about it was all she needed." He was quiet, thinking carefully on his words. "Maybe there's nothing wrong with her at all, maybe she's just a little different."

"Yeah… well…" Mikan murmured; 'normal' talk was dangerous talk as far as Alices were concerned. However, she didn't have much of an opportunity to follow things up, because before she was aware of what was what, she was being swung around by the hand – like a hammer-throw – and landing on the beanbag pile.

Then before she knew what was when he was on top of her; hot and heavy.

"Now where were we?" he murmured lewdly as his hands swept her top up past her ribs, and with a natural movement on her part was shrugged off completely.

"I think I remember," she giggled, as his hair tickled her neck while his mouth picked downwards toward her chest. Thank god for a guy who appreciated foreplay, she thought to herself, as his warm tongue circled one of her breasts.

Hotaru heard the squeals and giggles as she stood outside the door, and it could be said, all things respecting – even though she couldn't quite understand it as a concept herself – that she saw it coming fourth.

Hotaru is a little different, because I'm trying to balance the not-all-that-cold her in canon with a proper representation of an autism/aspergers type. I've been doing research, but I'm not confidant in the character blend now. If this became OF Hotaru would be presented in a very different format :D That's not this though, so it comes as is.

Leave a review please! I finally got past 300 :D This is now my most-reviewed fic, and the one with the most words too, lol.