Mikan is sixteen

Back when they were just ten-year-olds hyped-up on Gulivers candy, Natsume had commented on (and groped) Mikan's lack of a chest, and the candy was rarely wrong unless you suddenly became a compulsive eater. However, late-developers can take bigger leaps than others, and by sixteen years of age she was somewhat proud of the modest curves her body had formed. Even if they were only 'modest', they were still hers, and she was happy with them.

So even though she didn't have a 'killer rack' like Sumire or some of the other girls, she didn't have any problems with her body either. She wasn't really one for insecurities anyway; she was all too focused on the outside world to waste time agonizing over the ones inside.

And besides, one of her closest friends was one of the most popular boys in the year, so she hardly needed to 'compete' for anything – not that she wanted much bar Hotaru, Happiness and Howalon.

Her popular 'friend' would be Ruka of course: even now she had difficulty knowing exactly what she and Natsume were to each other, especially as he seemed to change his mind about her on a daily basis (one moment he'd be cursing her stupidity and the next he'd scar someone for daring to agree with him).

This meant that most of the time she spoke to/did anything with Natsume, it was more-or-less a lottery as to what reaction she would get. But she never minded her words to begin with, regardless of whom she was speaking to, so she just had to lump it – the good with the bad.

An example of the bad would be the day he'd started with a mood blacker than the mask he wore, and had by the third lesson of the day already scared one teacher into the staff room and made an inferno of a pop-quiz. These were unfortunately all the classes he shared with Mikan.

"Hey, baka" She foolishly hissed from the desk in front of him, a messy page of scribbles in her workbook attempting to grasp their classwork and failing at it miserably, "some of us do want to learn, could you try not to be such a nuisance?"

When they were younger he would've simply set fire to her hair and left it at that, but after about five years she'd learnt her lesson, wearing her hair shorter and no longer tied it up, which she passionately denied as anything to do with his saying it looked better.

These developments made that form of retribution something hard for him to accomplish without actually hurting her (which he never, ever meant to do). And in addition, she had gained enough control over her Alice to be able to stop most of his flames anyway.

Although… when he'd set fire to that pop-quiz her nullification was nowhere to be seen.

So, instead of anything fire-related, Natsume sighed: as if at a loss to this troublesome girl, and calmly lifted one arm off the desk, extending it towards her back and pinching his fingers over a thin white band just visible underneath her shirt.

Drawing his hand back with the elastic in tow, Natsume waited until he heard Mikan squeak and arch her back before he flicked his fingers apart and let the bra-strap snap back onto her skin with a satisfying crack, smirking privately as the squeak became an indignant squeal.

"Hey oow!" she yelled as she twisted and contorted, trying to rub the centre of her back with the back of her palm, "what was that for?!"

"Sakura-san." The teacher interrupted curtly, "others are trying to work, could you please not cause such a disturbance." Mikan's mouth dropped open, ready to argue that that was exactly what she was attempting to do until he had happened… but realized her luck rarely changed as far as teachers were concerned, and forced herself into silence with no more than the occasional glower over her shoulder at him.

Natsume merely shrugged her dirty looks off, and considered a way of doing it next time so he undid the clasp as well.

Not the one I'd been planning, but the one I finished.