Disclaimer: As much as I want to, Gakuen Alice is not mine. This story is, though, and the OCs with it. :)
A/N: I decided I should do this before going to Disneyland, or else I wouldn't be able to write sad stuff if I wrote this after :p Anyway, go ahead and enjoy :)
CHAPTER ELEVEN: CHANGES
"Mikan."
The brunette's body jerked with a startle when she heard her name being called out. She quickly spun her head to the direction where the voice came from, and when she did, she met cold amethyst eyes staring straight at her. Simply looking at those pair of eyes, it would seem emotionless, but knowing the owner of those eyes for a long time, she saw the hint of concern behind those.
"H-Hotaru," she replied automatically, not knowing what to say since her mind had been blank. Blank of what's currently happening around her.
The inventor pursed her lips, to what seemed to Mikan like a frown.
"You've got your head in the clouds again," Hotaru stated, her tone with a bit of scolding in it. "I told you not to think too much about it," she continued, obviously referring to Natsume losing his memories and leaving the Academy.
Mikan guiltily looked away from her best friend. "I'm sorry, Hotaru," she said, not wanting to say anymore. She had been encouraged, scolded, and advised by all her friends for the past three days since that already, but she couldn't get herself to be cheerful and pretend that nothing has happened. It was just so difficult.
Especially after having those dreams.
She shook her head to shove the thoughts away. She looked at Hotaru once more and decided to change the topic.
"Anyway, congratulations Hotaru!" she said, trying to sound a bit happier. "You can go visit your family now, since you ranked 1st in the midterms!"
The cropped raven-haired girl shrugged and took the empty seat beside her in the classroom. The seat that once belonged to Natsume, Mikan thought sadly.
"The point difference between Iinchou and me is just a matter of points though," Hotaru said, her eyes roaming around the quite noisy classroom. They had a free day from their homeroom adviser after the announcement of the students who topped the exams.
"Still, that's great! You can go back to our hometown and visit your little brother!" Mikan exclaimed, her words coming out naturally enthusiastic.
Hotaru timidly smiled at Mikan's sudden brightness and at the thought of being able to see her younger brother. A year ago, the inventor got a telegram from her parents that she and Subaru would be having a younger brother—which to everyone's surprise, made the usually stoic girl, smile sincerely. After the baby, named Shioru, was born—Hotaru was further delighted (though of course, only Mikan and Ruka figured the change from her usual expression) to hear that her brother was not an Alice, courtesy of Mikan's uncle, and could stay with their parents all along.
After a short while of silence, Hotaru spoke. "You wanna come?"
Mikan furrowed her brows in confusion. "Huh?"
Hotaru leaned over and flicked the brunette's forehead. "Baka. You weren't listening to what Sensei said after the announcement, were you?"
The nullifier stroked her aching forehead and chuckled idiotically. "W-well, yeah, kinda.."
The inventor sighed and leaned on the rest of the chair. "Well, Sensei said I could take one friend to accompany me to my one-week home visit. So…" she dragged for a while and stared at her best friend, "—let's go?"
Mikan looked ecstatic and was about to shout 'Yes!' when all of a sudden, her bright facial features turned into a gloomy one. She sighed and leaned on her chair too, looking quite disappointed with herself, and thoughtful of something. Hotaru patiently waited, but when she figured that her best friend had no plans to speak up soon, she called her attention again—her brows raised, waiting for the brunette's answer.
"U-uhm… As much as I want to, Hotaru…I don't think I can go," Mikan said in a tiny voice.
"And why is that?"
The brunette frowned. "I… I want to be here, so I can hear first about what happens to Natsume, after he… you know, after one week, he said he would remember…" she said, the last word almost a whisper.
Opposite of what Mikan expected, she felt an understanding tap on her shoulder. She looked her best friend in the eye, and the latter had a knowing look on her face.
"If the jerk said so, then he would," Hotaru said, her tone still had the tinge of bitterness towards Natsume that she couldn't bear to speak his name. "Well, if that is so, it would be wise for you to stay here," she continued, then shrugged. "—I don't want you to be whining and worrying about him when you're with me back home."
Mikan sincerely smiled and nodded. "Thanks, Hotaru."
Hotaru acknowledged her words of gratitude, then attempted to stand up, but Mikan caught her wrist. The inventor looked back with a questioning look.
"You should take Ruka-pyon with you," the brunette suggested, her tone a bit teasing. "—and introduce him to your parents."
The raven-haired girl looked quite embarrassed. "I—" she stammered, but quickly gained her composure. "Well, it seems I don't have any other choice but to take him. I need someone to carry my luggage anyway," she spoke coldly, shaking her wrist away from Mikan's hold.
The brunette laughed, knowing that she embarrassed her best friend. It was still funny how Hotaru had extreme difficulties to express that she really liked Ruka, and as a result, she would end up being extra cruel to her boyfriend.
"Oh," Mikan abruptly stopped giggling, remembering something. "Hotaru, can you please bring flowers to Jii-chan's grave and tell him I'm sorry that I couldn't go?"
The inventor nodded. "Sure," she said, then her face turned serious—well, more serious. "Just promise me that you won't get all lonely and sad while I'm away. Don't think about useless stuff so you won't," Hotaru ordered.
Mikan faked a smile and nodded. "I will," she answered, despite her mind screaming the opposite of it.
As the brunette watched her best friend walk back to her seat, shooting some classmates with her Baka Gun along the way, Mikan can't help but sigh regarding the last thing that Hotaru mentioned.
'I wish those dreams were really just useless… And not what I'm fearing,' she said to herself, her eyes distant again, obviously preoccupied with something.
***
Mikan was about to open the door to her three-star room when she noticed that the door of the supposed-to-be-empty room beside hers was closed. Her brows drew closer together as she walked over to the next room to see the name plate of the new occupant.
Youichi Hijiri.
'What!?' she screamed inside her head in surprise. Youichi beside her room—in the middle school dormitories?
She knocked on his door in haste, eager to bombard his with questions.
"What the hell—" a baritone voice from inside came, alongside the opening of the wooden door. Irritated olive orbs met Mikan's hazel ones. The owner of those pair of deep olive eyes towered over her by about six inches, she guessed, making her gasp.
Youichi, about to say something nasty to the person who disturbed his sleep, suddenly shut his mouth when he saw who was standing in front of his door. Hazel and olive stared silently at each other for a couple of minutes.
"Y-You-chan!" Mikan exclaimed, recovering from her surprise. "W-why are you here?"
The gray-haired guy, apparently had regained his composure too, just shrugged, "It's my room, why?"
"No!" the brunette corrected, her arms flailing animatedly. "I mean—why are you…why are you in the middle school dormitory!?"
Youichi rolled his eyes, leaned on the frame of the door and crossed his arms. "I got accelerated," he replied, as if it was the obvious thing in the world. "I'll be living here beside your room starting today, and tomorrow, I'll be joining Class B."
"That's--! Wha, wha, how, why—" Mikan stuttered, unable to gather her thoughts due to shock.
The sprit manipulator scoffed and gave her head a soft chop. "Stupid," he remarked, smirking. "Well, as usual, your brain can't process things fast, so would you like to come in first?"
Mikan, gaping, absentmindedly nodded. Youichi walked ahead inside, while she silently followed him. The gray-haired lad ushered her to the coffee table near the window, and she quietly made herself comfortable. She looked around—their rooms had the same outline and decorations, and it amazed her how tidy the room was already, despite Youichi just moving in.
Youichi brought a coffee maker and sat opposite her. He put two cups on the table and beckoned Mikan to go pour her own drink.
"So… I guess I'll explain huh," he stated, leaning back on the chair while sipping his coffee. The brunette did the same and just nodded for a reply.
"I told you before that my Age Changing Alice was having complications, right? It was that way for almost two months already, it was becoming hard for me to go back to my real age, since most of the time I had my old version on. Well, people at the infirmary told me that having problems with my Age Changing Alice wasn't really at all surprising, since I just acquired it due to the side-effect of Gulliver's candy," he explained, pausing for Mikan to react, but when she didn't, he continued. "It was just like the first complication I had, you remember?"
Mikan, remembering the first surprising complication Youichi had, nodded. She still remembers her shock before when she met the spirit manipulator, and the way he talked to her was completely different from before—as if his state of mind was of the same age which he looked like. Before, Youichi could change ages but the way he speaks, thinks, and acts remained that of his real age. However, that day, when he was on his 14-year old version, he started talking like a teenager, and much to Mikan's chagrin, he spoke and acted like Natsume.
And from that day on, Youichi had been on his 14-year old version most of time, behaving like one, except when he's inside the elementary school building where he had to revert back to his real age.
"So, how about this current complication you had, what is it?" Mikan asked, still not able to understand fully the extent of what happened to Youichi's alice.
Youichi sighed in resignation, apparently bored and tired of explaining.
"To put it simply, I can't go back to my real age anymore, I'm stuck with being a 14-year old. And the doctors said they can't do anything about it anymore, and they think this complication will be for a lifetime too, just like the first one. And then the higher-ups summoned me, and asked me if I want to be transferred to the middle school division by taking an exam, or if I want return to my real age and get my Age Changing Alice extracted—" he paused and looked at Mikan with a meaningful look, "—by you, of course."
Mikan frowned when reminded by the Alice extraction. She can still clearly remember how it went with Natsume…and it was still too painful for her to remember. Especially the memory of him waking up and asking who she was. She felt the familiar lump on her throat, but did her best to ignore it, since she didn't want to start crying in front of Youichi…again.
Youichi, seeing her near to tears, knew she was thinking about Natsume again. "Sorry for mentioning it," he apologized, his voice quiet and weary. He knew Mikan had been crying a lot lately, so when he saw her looking quite cheerful, standing in his doorway a while ago, he was surprised that he ended up becoming speechless…and a bit happy, for her.
The brunette shook her head and attempted a fake smile. "I'm alright, don't worry, You-cha—"
"Hey," the spirit manipulator cut her off. "Don't call me that anymore."
Mikan opened her mouth to ask when he continued. "We're of the same age now, and I'm not some little kid anymore, besides—" he dragged, smirking, "—I'm so much bigger than you."
"But that's—" she argued, only to be cut off again.
"Mikan," Youichi abruptly said, emphasizing that he omitted the usual '–nee' he attached to her name. He looked at her in the eye and continued, "Call me Youichi."
The brunette felt heat creep up her cheeks at the sudden calling of her first name by him and how he looked at her earnestly. Before she could argue, she found herself nodding.
"Y-Youichi. Okay," she muttered, still a bit hesitant at the swift change.
The gray-haired guy timidly smiled and placed his coffee cup down at the table.
"Thanks, Mikan."
***
Natsume stared into the darkness, letting the soft chilly evening breeze ruffle through his unruly raven locks. He was standing at his room's balcony at the third floor, killing time while Aoi was cooking their dinner, and at the same time, thinking.
He sighed as two small sparrows landed on top of the railings of the balcony, apparently mates. The tiny birds were chirping loudly, interrupting his pondering. After a few seconds, he got annoyed and shooed the animals away.
He didn't understand, but he was getting irritated. It was difficult to have no memories of anything, and no clue how to start his life without those. When he tried asking Aoi and his father about his memories, they looked pensive and said that they really couldn't tell him what happened to him since he was 8, because he had to go to the Academy and live there up until now. He found that stupid, but his father looked honest with it, so he didn't press on further. Aoi, though, was a different story. Natsume knew she really did have some idea on what happened to him, but she kept on avoiding his questions, saying that she was strictly ordered by the doctors not to tell him sooner or else it would affect his health badly.
And that was the problem. His head seemed like a haze and when he struggled to remember, his head aches so bad like it would split in two. Though, he liked being alone and thinking…but to the irony of it all, nothing comes into his mind that is worth pondering on. Nothing.
He caught his breath when an image floated across his mind. There was one, though. The brunette. He felt like he knew her all his life, and he thought that if there was one who knows about his past and who could make him remember, it was that girl.
His brows furrowed when he remembered the last moment he saw her. She was embracing some guy, and the sight of it--much to his surprise, bothered him greatly. During the two-hour ride inside the limousine, he was so irritated and annoyed at what he saw, despite the fact that he didn't even know who the girl was, even her name. Though he was constantly bothered by how she asked during the first time he opened his eyes. If not, he knew they had some connection to each other.
Natsume closed his eyes once more and inhaled the fresh air, calming his mind. Being at the outskirts of the metropolitan area of Tokyo was a good thing—it was refreshing and the thick polluted air was absent. The location of their house was a good place to 'recover'.
He looked up and gazed at the starlit sky. He decided not to be impatient about remembering, and just let the memories come to him naturally…well, for the time being.
A shooting star grazed the sky.
Like her tears back then. He felt a pang of pain in his head at the memory—when the brunette stared at him disbelievingly when he asked her who she was, and when she started running away from him, her tears freely flowing from her hazel eyes. The prickling pain centering on his temples started to grow as he heard 'familiar voices' inside her head.
"You'll… come back, right?" he said, almost in a whisper.
In his arms was a brunette, who was sobbing hard. He stroke her back in a desperate effort to comfort her.
"I will, definitely…" she replied in between her sobs. She gently pulled away from him.
Hazel orbs.
"Natsume, I…"
His memories suddenly blurred, not allowing him to hear what the girl said. His head throbbed as more stabs of pain started overwhelming his vision to look at what he was remembering.
"M-Mi—"
Natsume shrieked as a huge surge of aching twinges flooded not just his head, but his whole body. He loosened his hold on the railings of the balcony and let himself kneel down on the ground, his one leg propped up for support. He clutched a fistful of his raven hair and tried hard to suppress the overwhelming pain he was experiencing.
But it was no good.
"Natsume… Natsume!"
Shouts of his name continued to ring inside his head, making the throbs all the more painful. He gasped as he controlled another scream to not escape from his mouth, but it made him hurt all the more.
And he came to the point he couldn't take it any longer.
Darkness started to envelope his senses, as if the same darkness he was staring at a while ago turned alive and started to gobble him up. He dropped to the floor, lying down sideways, shivering in cold and pain. Before the last of his awareness disappeared, he heard Aoi's footsteps from downstairs, and her voice in panic.
"Nii-chan!!"
***
Mikan jolted from her slumber into a sitting position. She clutched her chest and felt her heart beating rapidly, her breathing irregular, then she noticed that her eyes were glistening, her face wet—with tears. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.
Her hand still quivering, she reached out for the glass of water on her side table beside the bed and gulped down all of its contents. She placed it back and started to do a respiratory exercise to regulate her breathing—inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale.
Feeling she had calmed down a bit, she extended her arm to grab a hold of her pillow and embraced it tight. She felt…scared.
Tears started to form at the corner of her eyes.
It was the fourth time in a row that she had the same dream. Ever since Natsume left, four days ago.
She buried her face on the soft pillow and sobbed. She was afraid…and lonely. She had been having the same nightmare for the past days, and she couldn't bear to ignore it anymore. She was scared that she was having them again.
Her nightmare contained the same thing: Natsume breaking when he recovers his memories. The dream was short, yet it starts with the same thing and ends up with the same thing. She could see Natsume opening the memory box and just when he was starting to remember everything, he suddenly collapses from the shock of the return of his memories, and then ends up unconscious. He would be hospitalized and when he wakes up, he would be broken.
Mikan shivered at the thought, the images of Natsume's state very vivid in her head, nagging her continuously. She was afraid… that she wasn't having nightmares.
She could be having premonitions. Again.
Mikan could still remember the past three incidents that she had premonitions, and all of them became true. One was after the ruckus at the Hanahime Den with Persona, where they took Aoi out and Mikan was extremely injured with Persona's Alice. The premonition started after that and before she was caught by the Fuukitai and forcefully dragged to Principal Kuonji's office to make her a Dangerous Ability student. The second one was before Tsubasa-senpai and Natsume's team failed in their missions and her favorite senpai went missing. The third one was…a week before the death of her mother, Yuka.
Her nightmares during those times were the same as now… short, repeating endlessly, and continued for several nights. Because she really didn't believe in her ability to have premonitions, and because she really had no power to change the incidents before they could happen (except for her mother's death, which until now, she regretted the most), she hadn't done anything as response to her premonitions.
She didn't want to make another mistake again. Just like when she ignored the premonitions she had before the Alice War and Yuka's death. She didn't want Natsume to break.
Mikan felt an overwhelming feeling of sadness, pain, and helplessness.
First, Natsume had to forget her in order to live. Now that he's safe now and living a good normal life, he couldn't be allowed to remember because he might break…if her premonitions are true.
"Am I really destined to be apart from Natsume…that he would break if he tries to remember me?" she asked herself in a hurting tone, her tears relentlessly flowing from her hazel orbs.
Would she believe in her premonitions or not? She didn't know. She was scared…that if she made the wrong decision once more, she would lose another important person, just like when she lost her mother. And now, if she let Natsume remember…she would lose him too.
Mikan clutched the pillow tighter and cried hard. She felt like whatever she did, she would always end up losing Natsume…and this time, both choices left her with losing him. It was unfair…so unfair.
"What did I do wrong…except to love him so much?" she asked bitterly, feeling that her love for Natsume had always been challenged by fate. They had both endured them all…but how could she take them on now that she's alone?
She was…alone.
Natsume didn't remember her anymore. Hotaru and Ruka are leaving. Her mother and Jii-chan are both dead.
She had no one with her. She was...alone.
Soft consecutive knocks on her door startled her. She was about to ignore it and continue crying when the lock to the door clicked open and the knob started to turn. Mikan stared at it disbelievingly, though she let her guard up for whoever who was intruding her room.
A tall gray-haired man flooded the entrance of the room. Hazel and olive orbs met, the former full of tears, the latter weary and concerned.
Without speaking any word, Youichi crossed the distance from the now-closed door and her bed with large strides, while Mikan freed her clutch from her pillow and reached out her arms—meeting Youichi's arms, locking together into a tight embrace.
Mikan buried her face into the crook of Youichi's neck and continued to cry. She didn't know…but she felt extremely relieved, and silently wondered why he would always come to comfort her when she needed someone the most…when she needed someone to cry on when it couldn't be Natsume.
"I… I thought I was alone…" the brunette whispered in between sobs, the last word making her voice break. She felt relieved she had someone beside her right now. She was just…too lonely and afraid.
"You aren't," Youichi replied in a soft voice, caressing her long auburn locks. "You won't be," he continued, his words not failing to soothe Mikan's aching heart.
Flashes of the nightmare she had started to fill her mind, making her cry even more. She clung onto Youichi for dear life, tightening her arms wrapped around his huge frame.
"I'm…scared," Mikan muttered, and repeated, "I'm scared, Youichi…"
He enveloped her petite frame tighter with his muscled arms.
"Don't worry…" he whispered, letting Mikan pour out all her emotions on him. He couldn't deny that he was hurting when he saw her looking so out of it, staring distantly and crying. He had heard her sobs from his room, and after debating with himself if he should go or not, his protective side got the better of him.
He breathed in deeply as he felt the sadness that Mikan was feeling. He knew he couldn't do much for her, but she was important to him, and he didn't want to see her as sad as this. If only his words could be enough.
"I'll always be here…Mikan," Youichi muttered, his words sincere. It was all he could do for her. As long as Natsume wasn't around, he would do his best to stay by her side.
He felt Mikan's sobs started to falter…and gradually, it stopped. Her hold on him loosened, and her breathing became even. After a couple of seconds, Youichi peered at her, only to see her fast asleep on his chest.
He smiled and carefully wiped her tears away.
"I'll always be with you," he said once more, letting her rest on his arms for a little while more.
A/N: Okay, my 'pedo' side got the better of me :p That's why I'm justifying the YxM pairing as much as I can. Fufufu. Bear with me, I know you like it too~~
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