Author's Notes: Hellloooo! How is everyone? Happy Thanksgiving, and, as promised, as a present I've uploaded another chapter. Thank you all for your wonderful reviews, believe it or not these are sometimes the only things that keep me going with the story.
Oh! And to answer Nightmaric's question, the song in chapter 5 is Cold by Crossfade.
Well, the story is starting to wrap up, I even think the next chapter just might be the last, and probably even a bit longer than the rest. So, on with the story!
Read, review, and most of all.ENJOY!
Kiki
Chapter 9
Memories and Misunderstandings
"Did you really remember something Mikan?!" Anna squealed and her and Nonoko scurried over so they were next to me. I flinched at her shriek, my nerves already on edge from the headache I could feel coming on.
"I-I ..don't know…it could have only been a dream," I answered then looked at Hotaru ", was it?"
She stared at me intensely. " You did have a grandfather and I know he often used to take you to a hill full of flowers when you were little…"
Silence swallowed our group.
So, it was true, it was all true. I suddenly felt dizzy, images flashing in my eyes as a bunch of voices buzzed in my ears.
"Grandpa!" A small girl wearing pigtails ran into the house, dragging with her a raven haired girl about her age.
"Ah, there you are Mikan," an old man walked out of the kitchen and stared curiously at the girl with his granddaughter ", you made a new friend?"
"Hai! Grandpa this is Hotaru, Hotaru this is grandpa!"
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"What are you doing here, little girl?" A feminine looking blond stared down at her questioningly. She answered him confidently.
"I'm here looking for my best friend Hotaru! She left our village to come to Alice Academy so I came to see her!"
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"Idiot, what are you doing here?" the young raven haired girl stared at her friend coolly.
"Hotaru!" the other girl squealed and sprang into action, lunging for her friend to give her a hug.
BAKA!BAKA!BAKA!
The brown haired girl fell back with a yell as her friend's new invention hit her straight on.
"Hotaru, you big meanie…"she cried
"Mikan? Mikan…? Mikan!"
I cried out softly as a sharp pain shot through my head and the barrage of images and memories stopped momentarily. Tears slipped down my cheeks in endless waves when they started up again, burning themselves into my head one by one.
"It hurts," I whimpered ", Hotaru, it hurts."
"What does, Mikan? What's wrong?" she asked, gripping my shoulders. It was hard to tell since my vision suddenly seemed fuzzy but it seemed that the few people that had remained in the class were suddenly crowding around me in panic.
"Someone call Mr. Narumi!" I heard a boy yell. Had that been Yuu? I couldn't tell anymore, the pounding in my head kept me from focusing on what was happening. I felt disoriented, someone was grabbing my hand. What were they trying to say, I couldn't understand. What was happening to me?
The last thing I remember was seeing Mr. Narumi come in and lift me up before I went limp and surrendered to the darkness.
"Natsume! Natsume, wait up!" Ruka called, running after his dark haired friend. Finally, he caught his arm and held unto it tightly, keeping him from walking away. "What's wrong Natsume? Why did you just run away when Mikan said that?"
"Shut up, Ruka," he growled, shoving his hand away ", you don't understand, you don't understand a thing!"
"Well, maybe I would if you'd actually tell me!" the blond yelled, frusturated. Frightened, his pet rabbit hopped out of his arms and into the forest. Ruka breathed in deeply, forcing himself to calm down. "Does this have something to do with Mikan getting her memories back?" It was more of a statement than a question and Natsume knew it.
He tensed. "It's none of your business."
Ruka lost it.
"Not business? Not my business?!" he roared ", of course it's my business!! My best friend goes missing for three days and then suddenly comes back holding Mikan and when she wakes up in the hospital we find out she has amnesia! And now, now that she might finally be back to normal because she'll finally get her memories back instead of being happy like everyone else you freak out and run away!! What is going on?!"
"Shut up!" Natsume whirled around, and for the first time since he had met him Ruka saw tears in his eyes. "You don't know what it's like to live with the guilt that you did something horrible! Of knowing that because of you the person most dear to you almost died, but didn't, instead she just forgot everything about you!!"
"W-what?" Suddenly, all the fury that had risen inside Ruka went out like a flame as he stared at Natsume in concern. "Natsume, what are you talking about…?-"
The ruby eyes leaned on the tree beside him, head hanging and his bangs hiding the emotion in his eyes. "It's my fault Mikan got hurt." His hand fisted itself at his side. "I had gotten into an argument with her because she found out I was going on another mission, I told her to stop interfering with other people's lives before she got hurt…." A tear slipped down his cheek ", but she didn't listen to me and followed. I was fighting the other guy's but I wasn't paying attention and one sneaked up behind me and Mikan jumped him to keep him from getting to me. When I saw him I instinctively attacked and my flames blew up one of the gas tanks beside him, I didn't see Mikan until it was too late."
Tired, Natsume let his body slide down the trunk of the sakura tree as all the feelings that he had felt that night slamed into him. "She must have hit her head on something, I don't know, but she wouldn't wake up so I took her and ran."
Ruka was speechless.
"B-but…" he shook his head, trying to clear his hazy mind ", that wasn't your fault Natsume, you didn't even know she was there! You-"he paused ", is that it? Is that why you were afraid of her getting her memories back? You were afraid she'd blame you??"
"I'm not afraid!" Natsume snapped then lowered his voice so much that Ruka barely managed to catch what he said next. "I've never been afraid…."
"Come on Natsume, it's Mikan! She'd never blame you for something like that and she'd certainly never hate you."
"It's not about her!" the ruby eyed boy yelled, frusturated ", it's about me! Can't you see? If I stick around her I'll just endanger her more, I'll put her in danger!"
Ruka lunged at Natsume, shaking him by the shoulders harshly. "Stop it, just stop it! Stop saying that it's always your fault, that you're always putting others in danger! We choose to stand beside you, Mikan chose to follow you because she wanted to protect you! Don't you understand?! She did it 'cause she cares about you!"
"Ruka…" Natsume looked up at his friend, surprised to also tears in his eyes.
"Ruka, Natsume!!" Koko's voice rang in the midmorning air and the two turned slightly to see him running desperately towards them.
"What's wrong Koko?" Ruka stood, concerned at what could have happened to make his friend look so terrified.
The mid reading boy stopped beside them, gasping for breath. "I-It's Mi-kan! Something's h-happened to Mikan…"
"What?!" Natsume was up in a second and gripping Koko by the shoulders tightly. "What happened to Mikan, what happened?!"
"Natsume!" Ruka pulled the other boy back and Koko gave a sigh of relief.
"We, don't know! She- she was saying how she was starting to remember things and, and then she kind of spaced off then started crying out and saying it hurt!" Koko babbled, then pointed a shaking finger in the direction of the campus. "We got Mr. Narumi and they left for the hospital."
Natsume didn't wait to hear more but instead took off running, fear gripping his heart. You have to be alright Mikan, he thought, you have to be or I don't know hat I'll do with myself.
He made it to the hospital in record time and rushed in. After asking the woman at the front desk where Mikan was located she informed him that she was being seen by a doctor at the moment and that he could join the rest in the waiting room. He scowled but went anyway, bursting through the white double doors to the waiting room and affectively gaining everyone's attention.
"W-where's, pigtails?" he gasped out. Tired eyes stared at him solemnly from different faces, no one answered. "What happened?!"
"We're not sure yet," Hotaru was the first to speak, her words were slow, weary ", she was starting to get her memories back then suddenly collapsed with pain. I'm guessing it was probably too much pressure on her and she ..mentally collapsed."
"Well, you're right about that," an older voice called and everyone stood, staring at the doctor anxiously. His features were grim.
"Is Mikan okay?"
"Is that really what happened…?"
"Will Mikan be okay?"
The doctor held his hand up, effectively cutting off all questions. " It is basically as your wise friend Hotaru has stated, she collapsed from mental strain." He paused. "Her body seems to be reacting violently to the memories resurfacing and so it's drained a lot out of her."
"You still didn't answer our question," Natsume growled, ruby eyes trained on the man's stony features for any hint of change. "Will she be ok?"
The doctor stared back at him just as intensely and brown eyes flashed behind the glasses sadly. "To tell you the truth we're not sure. We're really not sure."
"What do you mean you're not sure?!" Hotaru snapped, desperately wishing that the man was a genius and knew how to help her friend.
"Let us see her," Natsume interjected but the brown eyed man shook his head.
"Why not?!" Anna yelled, tears were slipping down her cheeks.
The doctor took off his glasses and stared at all of them stonily.
"She's in a coma."
Well, it seems like even with the big secret out there are still even more questions to answer. This is so troublesome….it's even giving ME a headache! Totally unfair….but then again, I probably deserve it, thinking of how much I'm torturing all the poor characters. But do not worry everyone, everything will fall together and solve itself in the end, you'll see!!
Oh, and , yes I know I kind of changed the whole thing for suddenly writing from third person point of view when I've done everything else in first person but I thought the change might be a nice one, and I wanted to give insight on what was happening with everyone else. I couldn't really do that while writing from an unconscious Mikan's point of view, so yeah. Anyway, hoped you liked it! Please leave me reviews telling me what you think!
Kiki