It's AU time!

Hello to everyone I've kept waiting, I 'preciate your paitence with me I really do :D

Natsume Hyuuga hadn't ever really wanted to become a teacher at the Alice Academy.

But, he didn't really have any other choice: it was the Academy or the AAO. People like him didn't really stand a chance of working in the real world.

So he stayed at the Academy, to teach, and to run missions.

He liked to think he was a nicer teacher to the dangerous class than Persona had been, and had told the man that right before he planted a bullet in his head… (well unless he was gone then he wouldn't have had a job, would he? )

That aside, he was merciful, and he was clever, so getting a degree to become a teacher wasn't hard (in fact he had several).

So from the time he graduated up to the present day, when he was going to turn twenty-nine in just a few days, he had accepted a quality of life that wasn't exactly what he'd dreamed of, but it was a life.

So he got on with it, sometimes a little reluctantly, but usually with just the right amount of enthusiasm and apathy to keep him going from day to day.

That was until she joined the school.

Loud, proud, and not two of intelligent brain cells to rub together, Mikan Sakura was a force to be reckoned with.

Within her first week at school, aged ten (when he was still a frightened young 22-year old T.A. who threatened to burn his students if they misbehaved), she managed to start two fights, nearly get herself killed in the northern woods and ruined the multi-million yen project of her 'friend' the emotionless Horatu Imai.

He hadn't realized then that he was going to be stuck with her for the probable remainder of his teaching years. Because no matter what subject he taught, or what classes or years he chose, she was always there.

Even when he told the principle directly that he was going to stay teaching middle school to avoid her, and not as he'd suggested move on up to high-school, she had been held back a year, and then he had to deal with being both homeroom teacher and English teacher to Mikan Sakura.

Or 'Mikan-chan' as she'd insisted with him from the very start.

Even when he told the principle he'd changed his mind, and would teach high school, she somehow managed to convince the board of directors she didn't need to complete her year either and followed him up.

He could've almost sworn she was doing it on purpose…

"Hyuga-sensei?" a sweet, feminine voice interrupted his tired attempt to mark a Shakespearean essay that had yet to mention Shakespeare.

"Hm?" he tilted his head up slightly and glanced over the top of the page; ink-stained fingers clutching the pages through slightly wrinkled shirt sleeves (he never ironed his shirts and had no wife or significant other to do so for him).

"Natsume-sensei?" she continued, and the corner of his eye twisted in irritation; recalling the months long battle that had been fought over learning his first name some three or four years ago.

(In the end she had read the mail in his staff pigeonhole. He gave her detention.)

"That's Hyuga-Sensei, Sakura-chan." He replied flatly as he finished reading the bottom of the page and turned it over, only to realize there was no more, "…and this essay is terrible."

"Sensei!" She protested, "But I worked so hard on it!" He sighed and let the page fall from his hands, pressing the flat of one of his hands against his face and then running his fingers through his dark hair.

"An essay on Shakespeare needs to mention Shakespeare, Sakura-sa-"

"Mikan!" She corrected him, and he wondered if they were going to have to have this fight again, "and I did, see, right after…"

"Right after the title," he groaned, "and then nowhere else, Mi…Sakura-chan." She grinned at him mischievously, and he wondered why he asked ever her to stay after class in the first place.

In the beginning when he kept her back she would wail and whine and argue fiercely with him about why she deserved to be let out with the rest of the students, and that he could deal with... but then she started asking him things about himself, what food he liked, what his favourite colour was, whether he liked skinny or curvy girls (he still hadn't answered that last one).

When she turned fifteen, and hit puberty, she used to tell him about her boyfriend(s) or people she and her friends had crushes on… this was all completely reluctantly on his part and while he tried hopelessly to teach her the syllabus.

Then, after she caught him staring a little long at one of her 'it shrunk in the wash!' skirts once (which little did he know, really had shrunk in the wash)... she started to flirt with him.

He was no fool, and could see what she was doing, though never in hell would he respond or even acknowledge what game she was playing: after all, that would let her know she was winning... and she was only a silly girl trying to toy with him just to see if she could, just to see if she could get him to give in to her.

"Natsume-sensei?" she said again when his attention wandered and began to dwell in other places, "are you listening, Natsume-sensei?"

"I've told you before, Sakura." He hissed forebodingly as he pressed her essay against the desk and stared her straight in the eye, hoping that his blood red irises would intimidate her like they did most other people. Though he hadn't had much success with her in the past.

"You didn't." she replied, and for a moment had him wheeling around confused.

"I didn't… what?" he said carefully, drumming his fingers on the tabletop and deciding to wait until she started to answer before he snapped at her to get back to this essay.

"Your… birthday!" She answered with a grin, and took his sharp words out of his mouth before he even had a chance to form them, "I asked you when your birthday was."

"Sakura-san, for one don't you already know when my birthday is – as you seem to have found out everything else about me, and for two, this is a detention because you have turned in yet another appalling essay and so help me you are not re-taking the finals this time." He rattled out dourly, and with a smirk of victory noted the sour expression she took on.

"But… senseiiii," she pouted, and he pretended to ignore the fact that one of the prettiest sixteen year-olds (or was it seventeen now?) he'd ever encountered in his all years of teaching was making eyes at him.

Not that it mattered to him one way or another.

"Sensei nothing, Sakura-chan. I know what you are capable of and know when you haven't checked your work, you know what is required of you and never seem to be able to actually do it without me giving you some kind of detention first."

She smiled a little secret smile, as if she knew something he didn't, and he felt irritation and even anger bubbling up inside himself. He resented what she'd done to him, making him form that special bond with her, the one that was just a little more than a teacher and a student, who could be forgotten in a few years… he was going to remember this girl for the rest of his life, even if he didn't want to.

And she, in the process of forming this irritating bond they shared (which also seemed to have him keeping her out of trouble and arguing her case time and time over) had also made him just a little bit soft.

He resented that as well.

"My birthday is November the 27th." He added dryly as if it was a reminder to use full stops as well as commas, and not in fact giving in to her girlish demand, "which is a week on Thursday." Her mouth opened and slowly formed a wide grin, as if bit by bit she was forming another of those plans in her head.

"Oh Sensei!" she squealed, "I can't believe that! What do you want for your present?!" Natsume rolled his eyes and loosened his tie a little.

"I want…" he began encouragingly with just a hint of a smile on his lips, "…you to re-write this essay." Her face fell and the hint of a smile turned into a sinister grin.

"It won't be so bad," he told her, "unlike most presents, this won't cost you a single rabbit." At that, her face had perked up, and they eventually passed the rest of the detention examining the essay without any further 'issues'.

Although, she had a slightly disconcerting smile on when she left the room some thirty minutes later.

"Bye Natsume-sensei!" she called cheerfully from the door, "I'll have your zero-cost present ready for you soon!"

He didn't realize at the time, how much he would regret those words.

Omgee! Gasp! (drumroll…) To be continued!

Yes, this is my very first chapter of continuity, as this idea simply would not fit in a regular sized chapter and I felt it should still be in with these shots.

So keep 'em peeled and I'll have the continuation up sometime :D

Reviews are 'preciated muchly (and if you've read it this far it will take you all of 30 seconds to press that 'review' button and leave me a word of guidance/etc.)