Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice.

Hi! Finally my exams are over (for now)! There's another big project coming up but it's still quite far away, so yeah! Sorry to keep you guys waiting _ Okay, without further ado, I present to you this chapter!


"What is the music of life?"

"Silence, my brother."

-Skyrim


Mikan yawned. The van had been going non-stop for eight hours. It was 10 P.M., and Mikan was already bored of watching TV. Natsume didn't say anything for eight hours except for basic conversation like "I'm hungry". Mikan had to cook him some instant noodles, which was met by strong disagreement ("I'm an idol, and you're asking me to eat instant noodles?!"), but fortunately concluded with peace agreement ("Fine, I'll eat it this time, but next time you better give me better food!"). Aside from that, they barely emitted any sound, as if they didn't acknowledge each other's presence.
Maybe now I should try to find some information, Mikan thought. She turned to Natsume. "Hey, Hyu—"
And she froze.
Natsume Hyuuga was sitting on the window pane next to the bed, looking out of the window, his crimson eyes glowed in the darkness. It looked like a painting that Mikan couldn't help but stare.
His raven hair slightly swayed, and for a moment, Mikan caught an emotion in his usually-emotionless eyes—was it hesitation, or fear, or confusion? Mikan couldn't grasp it, as at that time, Natsume turned to her. He looked surprised for the first time. "What?" He asked quickly, as if he had been caught off-guard.
"Nothing," Mikan shook her head. "What're you looking at?"
Natsume eyed her doubtfully for a moment before returning his gaze outside the window. "The moon," he muttered. "It's really nice tonight."
Those words sounded so poetic that Mikan couldn't believe that it was the Natsume Hyuuga who said it. Nevertheless, she approached the window. "Where?" She asked curiously.
Wordlessly, Natsume pointed somewhere in the sky, and Mikan followed. Her eyes fell on the full moon, shrouded by grey clouds in the inky sky. The view was picturesque that Mikan gasped in awe. "It's beautiful," she whispered.
For some time, they just kept staring at the moon, which always seemed to be one step ahead of the running van. The silence between them was not awkward—it was comforting. Unlike the silence before, this silence actually made Mikan feel closer to Natsume.
She turned to face Natsume… and found that Natsume was staring at her.
Crimson eyes met hazel ones.
And for a moment, Mikan was swallowed by their depth.
But she quickly snapped out of it. "I—I didn't know you're the poetic type," Mikan quickly said to cover her embarrassment. Wait, why am I embarrassed?
"I'm not, I'm just stating the fact. The moon really is nice tonight." Natsume shrugged.
Mikan couldn't argue with that. They both looked back at the moon.
"Hyuuga, why do you become an idol?"
Natsume stared at Mikan. "Because I want to," he answered simply.
"Why do you want to?"
Natsume was quiet for a moment before replying, "For my sister."
Mikan's eyes widened. "You have a sister?"
Natsume seemed glad to be able to divert the topic, although this topic didn't particularly please him either. "She's three years younger than me."
"What's her name? Do you have a picture of her? Can I see?" Mikan asked eagerly.
Natsume sighed, but nevertheless took out his wallet. He opened it and showed the picture inside to Mikan.
Mikan stared at that picture. "Wow! She looked just like you!"
The girl inside the picture was pretty. She had short hair, with the exact same color as Natsume's raven hair. She had pretty crimson eyes, too, but with different sparkle compared to Natsume's. In that picture, she was laughing and Natsume was standing next to her, slightly smiling. For once, Natsume looked genuinely happy, and somehow it made Mikan's heart throb.
"Her name is Aoi," Natsume said, and Mikan could see a faint smile in his face.
"You really love her, don't you?" Mikan smiled. "You look really happy just by talking about her."
"I'd do anything for her," Natsume said, his voice serious. He brushed his fingers over the picture.
"Where is she now?" Mikan asked.
Natsume's hand stopped. "She's living in an apartment now. It's near our last concert place."
"Is she living by herself?" Mikan furrowed her eyebrows. The way Natsume talked unsettled her.
"Our parents had passed away," Natsume murmured, closing his wallet and keeping it back. There it comes, Natsume thought. Every time he talked about that, everyone would pity him and said meaningless words like "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that" and "What happened?" and "Stay strong". Natsume hated them. Now Mikan Sakura would bombard him with those words… …or so he thought.
Surprisingly, she didn't. She simply smiled at Natsume.
"My parents, too, had passed away," she took her own wallet out. Inside, there was a picture of a young man and young woman smiling at the camera. "My dad passed away before I was born, and my mom passed away shortly after giving birth to me. They both had no close relative, so my late grandmother's cousin adopted me. He was the only one who would accept me." Mikan's eyes saddened.
Now Natsume didn't know what to say, and suddenly he understood why everyone kept on saying "sorry" after he told them his story.
Mikan's eyes turned to her, and she smiled sadly.
For the first time—this girl gave him so many first times—Natsume felt like he wanted to make someone else aside from Aoi happy.


The crowd had unlimited supply of energy, it seemed. Fire had been performing for the last three hours and the cheering and applauds were still deafeningly loud.
With the last beat from the drum, the encore ended. All the members of Fire returned to the backstage, drenched in sweat, but all safe and sound.
"First concert is done. Fortunately nothing happened," Mr Tono sighed in relief. "Now we have to quickly prepare to move to another place."
The girls dispersed, approaching their respective partners with water bottle and towel.
"You were great up there!" Misaki said, smiling widely. Her eyes were sparkling in amazement. "You really hit that high note for that song Recrudescence perfectly! And y'know, for the second song, I really like that part…"
Misaki continued to praise Tsubasa as he wiped his sweat and occasionally laughed along with her.
Hotaru wordlessly handed the water bottle and the towel to Ruka. Ruka took them gratefully and took a sip.
Click!
Ruka blinked nervously. Hotaru was holding a camera up. "W—what did you just do?"
"Taking special pictures of Ruka Nogi at the backstage, of course. What else would it be?" Hotaru continued taking pictures. "Can you do some other poses? It looks kind of boring."
Ruka flushed. "You're not taking pictures without my permission!"
Hotaru took out the memory card of the camera. "Too bad, I got special orders already. Your backstage pictures are going to be sold online soon."
Ruka's eyes widened. "Give me that memory card!"
Meanwhile, Sumire and Koko didn't say anything. Koko looked exhausted and Sumire didn't want to tire him more.
Koko glanced at her. "What, no compliment for me?"
Sumire turned at him. "Why do I need to compliment you?"
"So, how was the performance?"
"Good," Sumire simply said. Magnificent, she would like to say, but she quietly shushed that voice inside her head.
"Only good?" Koko raised his eyebrow. "How was my performance?"
You were awesome. "Okay, I guess," Sumire looked somewhere else.
"Oh."
Sumire glanced back, only to find Koko. He looked slightly disappointed and Sumire felt bad for that.
"You looked cool," Sumire mumbled. She blushed against her will.
Koko looked back at Sumire, who was now staring at the wall. He slightly smiled and ruffled Sumire's hair.
"W—what was that for?!" Sumire tried to fix her hair.
"You're cute," Koko said straightforwardly while smiling at her.
Sumire blushed. "S—stop saying things like that!" She swung her hand to punch his shoulder, but she missed and hit his water bottle instead. Water spilled everywhere—on his shirt, his jeans, the floor. To Sumire's surprise, Koko laughed instead.
"You're impossible, really." Koko laughed.
And Sumire didn't understand why, but she laughed along.
At the other side of the room, Mikan hopped next to Natsume. "Hey! That was fantastic!" She handed him the water bottle and the towel, smiling excitedly.
"Of course." Natsume gulped down the water nonchalantly. "Thanks."
Mikan still smiled. Ever since that night, Natsume had warmed up a bit to her. At least now they called each other by their first name, and Natsume had significantly reduced the number of times when he ignored her. And that made Mikan happy. Natsume's actually a good person, Mikan thought.
"Fortunately nothing happened," Mikan said cheerfully. "Oh, you're sweating so much." She wiped Natsume's sweat with the towel gently. "Must be tiring, performing for that long, exerting so much energy."
Natsume said nothing. He just stared at Mikan while twisting the bottle cap close. But at that moment, he dropped the bottle.
Mikan picked it up. She saw Natsume's calloused hands trembling. He played with so much passion, Mikan recalled. His hands must be dead tired now. "Let's head back to the van. You're tired, right?" She smiled at him. "Good job, Natsume. I really enjoyed the concert. Thank you." Mikan turned and walked away, expecting Natsume to follow her. However, for whatever reason, Mikan tripped and fell. And her underwear was exposed.
A thick silence filled the room.
"So," Natsume smirked, "polka-dots?"
Mikan could feel blood rushing to the top of her head.
"NATSUMEEEEEEEEEEE!"


So! This chapter has a lot of NatsuMikan moments, which I really like, teehee~

Anyway, as usual, feedbacks (and flames) are welcome :) You guys really motivate me to write, y'know! I LOVE YOU ALL!

Thank you for reading! Please wait for the next chapter too!

~sassgoddess