Chapter 6: The Truth behind His Eyes

It was a beautiful summer day with the sun giving of its heat and a light breeze kindly brushing against your skin. Mikan was sitting on her favourite spot at Alice High as every Monday morning: leaning against the giant Sakura tree, inhaling the fresh air, becoming one with nature. Some thought that she was sleeping with her eyes shut, her legs straightened and her hands resting on her laps. However, Mikan herself called it a kind of meditation to prepare herself for a difficult exam or a stressful week or a conversation with Hotaru. Many things had happened for the past two days, more than what had happened for the last ten years in her life. But for all that, she wanted to give thought to them later, when Hotaru arrived, and enjoyed the silence now. It was the perfect harmony for her as if she was in paradise: the rustle of the tree, the sound of the wind - it was so peaceful and calm…

"Kyaaaaaaaaaa!"

Mikan tore her eyes open and took a deep breath as if she was drowning and barely managing to reach the water surface. What was this noise early on Monday morning, when the majority was supposed to be half-sleepy? She looked at the direction where the skirl came from but could only see crowd getting bigger and bigger by any minute.

"Good morning." greeted a person, approaching from behind. Mikan couldn't identify the owner of that voice at once due to her temporal numbness thanks to the scream earlier. She leaned forward and turned her head to find Hotaru, who seemed to be in a stinking mood. She took a place next to Mikan and looked at the crowd in front of the school entrance.

"Good morning, Hotaru. How have you been?" smiled Mikan, ignoring the shrieks of the crowd for a moment.

"I should be the one asking." Hotaru answered coolly. "Are you even fit enough to go to school again?"

"Mhm." Mikan nodded approvingly. There was another shriek that changed her mind in a split second. "Well, I've been fine before I hit the road to school but those crazy girls make me sick again! What's up with them anyway?"

"They gassed something about a star." Hotaru commented dryly. In the meantime, she fished for her mini camera out of her bag and checked the settings. "We'll find out sooner or later."

Mikan saw a mysterious glance in her eyes and knew what would come next. "Hotaru found a new victim to blackmail!" she thought. "Just don't rip him off like Ruka…" she said, half-amused and half-serious.

"Speaking of Nogi…" Hotaru reminded her while working on her camera. "…what is it with that friend from France, Natsume Hyuuga?"

His name on its own made Mikan hold her breath. "Hmm… What shall I say? I don't remember quite well our first encounter at the station. When I opened my eyes at the hospital, he was just there… as if he has always been a part of my life." Hotaru stopped for a second and watched Mikan from the corner of her eyes. The latter looked at the sky and was in deep thoughts. She continued: "I can't tell you much about him since he's only a stranger to me…but the weird thing is that he seems to know me even better than myself."

There was a moment of silence before Hotaru asked: "Did you notice anything else about him, which was odd to you?"

Mikan turned her gaze to Hotaru. She didn't fairly understand the purpose of her question. "Anything odd…? No, there wasn't any…but wait! Now that you've mentioned… Something very strange happened yesterday!" She shifted and revolved to fully face Hotaru. "Yesterday, Hyuuga came to the café where I work coincidentally. Anyway, I found out that he doesn't like strawberries so I brought him to taste one of Anna's cupcakes. He said that it wasn't that bad after all." She left out the part with Anna's search of a boyfriend. Not till then, Mikan wondered whether the 'eat-my-cake-and-fall-for-me' plan had worked. "Will Hyuuga and Anna come holding hands today?" she thought. At last, she knew that it was Hyuuga's first day of school today and she still hadn't seen neither Hyuuga nor Anna yet.

"So what?" Mikan was startled by Hotaru's words. She had a puzzled look and Hotaru repeated precisely: "Is it that weird to you that Hyuuga isn't a strawberry-fan?"

"No, it's not about his appetites or dislikes." Mikan explained excitedly. "The fact is… that I remembered."

"Remembered what?" asked Hotaru, arching a brow.

Smiling sadly, Mikan explained: "Don't you understand? That scene with the strawberries of yesterday, it happened once before…I'm pretty sure of it."

Hotaru's eyes opened wide and she put the gadget in her hands away. Then, she turned to Mikan and took her hands. "You… what exactly do you remember?"

Mikan closed her eyes and summed up: "There was a boy. No, not just a boy. It was he. I was eating strawberries with my childhood friend. His face was blurry though so I couldn't see it properly. Nevertheless, I know that it was he. And after eating the strawberries, he said the same line as Hyuuga yesterday: 'It's not bad after all.'"

"Is there anything else you remember? Any tiny detail about him? The colour of his hair? Or his eyes?" persisted Hotaru.

"Unfortunately, I can only remember this much. No more, no less." Mikan opened her eyes and lowered her gaze.

"Cheer up, Mikan. Isn't that wonderful?" When Mikan looked up, she saw that Hotaru was smiling. "You were able to gain a part of your memories and that was only the beginning. I believe devoutly that you'll remember everything one day. You just have to wait a little bit longer."

Her last words encouraged Mikan anew and she gave Hotaru a quick embracement. "You're right. It's only a matter of time until I recollect everything."

Mikan was just about to add something before they went to their classroom. But she caught a glimpse of a pink haired girl running past the crowd towards the school building. "Was that Anna?" she wondered. "But why is she crying? And why is she alone?" From the other direction, Mr. Narumi was running towards the crowd and told the students to go to their classes immediately. Nobody dared to oppose Mr. Narumi since they feared his awkward way of punishments such as writing a love letter to him and reading it out in front of the whole class. For some others, it was mortifying enough to be seen with the 'paedophile' teacher.

Hotaru wondered about the source of her friend's curiosity and looked at the same direction. Slowly but surely, the students left one by one and only Mr. Narumi and three students were left on the spot. It didn't take Hotaru long to recognize the two boys and the green haired girl beside them. "Isn't that Nogi and his two French friends?"

"Now that you mention it… They are Ruka and Hyuuga. So this girl is the cat-like Sumire. And why is Hyuuga…" Mikan considered the facts: Hyuuga and Anna didn't come together to school? Anna was crying and ran away from him? There was only one meaning to this. "Hotaru, can you go ahead without me, please? I need to confirm something." She was just about to move when Hotaru got a hold of her hand and stopped her. Mikan turned on her heels and was surprised at Hotaru's expression: her face was as stoic as ever but her eyes; they looked somehow …regretful and apologetic. "Hotaru, is there anything else you want to say me?"

Hotaru closed her eyes and said: "Mikan, remember what I told you once. There is a reason behind everything. When the time comes, you need to give your counterpart the chance for a proper explanation. Never forget that." She took her bag and headed to the school building. On her way, she added: "By the way, you'll tell me the story of Umenomiya and Hyuuga later."

Mikan stiffened. She was at a loss for words and gulped heavily. "H-How did she know…?" She wiped her front off the drops of sweat and went off. Momentarily, she had to concern herself with other stuff. There could only be one reason to Anna's crying: "Hyuuga turned her down."

It didn't take Mikan long to locate Hyuuga leaving the teachers' lounge. Fortunately, they were alone because she didn't want to involve Ruka or his friend Sumire to that. Besides, she knew how fast rumours could spread around and nobody needed to know how Anna was rejected by a jerk! Anna's miserable state came before Mikan's face and it filled her with rage. "Wait!" she shouted at the boy in front of her.

The latter jerked to a halt but didn't turn around. He was standing there nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets. "What do you want, girl?"

Mikan became more furious at how he addressed her. She gritted her teeth and asked. "You…what did you say to Anna?"

After hearing her question, he slowly turned around to face the girl behind him. Mikan was surprised to see him still wearing his sunglasses although they were already in the school building and it wasn't that bright to cover his eyes. However, she didn't change her expression and looked at him angrily.

Hyuuga observed her for a while before answering: "None of your business."

"Yeah, sure! It's none of my business how many girls you've already made cry but Anna is my friend and I won't allow you to trample on her feelings!" she hissed.

He stayed calm and explained. "Listen, I don't know what you expect to achieve by that but I only said that I'm not interested in her."

"Of course, you didn't say anything to hurt her." Mikan repeated wryly. "Then tell me, why is Anna still crying?"

"Perhaps, her pet died?" he suggested indifferently. "Nothing to do with me anyway." With that said, he turned away and walked off.

"I said wait!" she shouted one last time. She wanted to keep after him but there was a hand on her shoulder, which prevented her to run. Mikan turned her head to find her teacher by her side. "Mr. Narumi?"

Narumi was smiling as always and warned her gently: "Mikan, you can't just run around here and shout like a savage. It's so unladylike, honey."

Mikan was embarrassed and reddened. She dropped her gaze to the ground and tried to calm herself. "I'm sorry, Mr. Narumi."

"Accepted! Now, let's follow Natsume and return to class. We have a lot to do today." proposed Narumi.

"I have an awful feeling this might happen: he's in the same class as me. This is going to be a very long day…" she thought.

The students were abnormally loud today, especially Narumi's female students. Even if the bell had already rung, they could be heard through the whole schoolhouse. But that was about to change since the formidable teacher was returning to his post. He had to cut it out or Mr. Jinno would cut his head off! Narumi wandered his gaze from left, where Mikan was walking, to right, where Natsume sauntered. Both of them hadn't spoken for a while after he interrupted their hassle from before. "What's possibly worse: the tension between them or JinJin's wrath?" He decided to deal with the two brawlers later. Now, it was his highest priority to calm down his students to save himself Jinno's anger.

When the three of them entered the classroom, it became silent in a flash. The boys who were around Ruka's table, or rather the boys around Sumire, returned to their seats. Mikan set out for her seat, too. As she passed by the girls, she didn't miss their chatters or their jealous looks.

"Look, it's Sakura again."

"Why was she alongside Natsume?"

"Isn't Ruka enough for her?"

"Now, she also allures Natsume."

"How selfish!"

Mikan ignored their whispers and sat down next to Hotaru. The latter retrieved her camera and asked: "Was this the reason why you left earlier?"

"Yeah, I needed to talk to him as soon as possible." Mikan answered, with an upset face.

"Judging from your face, you didn't get an autograph." Hotaru concluded.

"Autograph? From Hyuuga?" Hotaru's words didn't make any sense to her. "Are we even talking about the same?"

Hearing her words, the whole class was shocked and turned to look at Mikan. Nonoko, who was sitting in front of her, leaned closer to her and whispered: "Mikan, don't tell me that you've never heard of Natsume Hyuuga." The girls started talking among each other again.

"What?"

"She really doesn't know the famous model Natsume Hyuuga?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"And this clueless girl hanged out with him the whole time?"

Mikan could effectually hide her astonishment. "So what if he's that popular? He's still a jerk in my eyes." She briefly looked at Hyuuga, who was still standing next to Narumi. "So that was all the fuss about this morning…"

With her last annotation, Mikan earned a lot of dark glares from the girls. It was even audible to the front of the class that Hyuuga lifted his head a little bit after hearing the last statement. Even if he wore his sunglasses, she could tell that Hyuuga was watching her with burning eyes.

Narumi clapped his hands and ended the heated discussion. "Okay, okay. Calm down, please, Ladies and Gentlemen. We still have to speak about your last homework and continue with our short story. So let's just finish this introduction quickly. Sumire, would you come here, please?" When Sumire stood next to Hyuuga, Narumi went on. "From now on, we will have two new students in our class. Natsume Hyuuga and Sumire Shouda both come from France and they want to attend school here in Japan. I'll leave them in your care so keep an eye on them."

The girls blushed deeply and giggled whereas the boys looked dreamily at the green-haired girl. Especially Koko laid his head on the desk and almost drooled. Mikan had a disgusted expression and looked around to find any sensible person around: only three people were looking normal (in their own ways) and didn't behave like an insane. One of them was Hotaru, who took pictures of Hyuuga without attracting attention. The second one was Ruka, who wouldn't absurdly fall for his own friends, right? And the third one was Anna, who still looked as sad as before. Therewith, Mikan knew what to do next.

After Narumi's literature lesson, Mikan hurried to the lockers where she hoped to find Anna. That jerk Hyuuga didn't tell her the whole story after all so it was the best to talk to the other person. Before she told Hotaru what had happened at the café yesterday, Mikan needed to know the true story from Anna. Afterwards, they would ask Hotaru for help to take revenge on Hyuuga.

At last, Mikan found Anna putting some books away. "Hey, Anna. I've been looking for you."

Anna lifted her head and tried to smile. "Oh, it's you, Mikan. I wanted to see you, too."

"Really? I'll do anything to help you." Mikan imagined to hit Hyuuga fair in the face and grinned at that thought.

"I only wanted to thank you for your help and give this to you." Anna handed a cute chocolate cake over to Mikan. "I'm sure that you can eat it all on your own."

"Eh? Why? I didn't deserve this. After all, our plan didn't work and he rejected you, didn't he?" Mikan didn't know understand why but she was rather happy about this than being worried for her friend.

"It's all right." Anna assured. "Now, I know that there's another girl he loves. He explained it in such a gentle way, kindly apologized and even praised my cooking. The fact is that I don't regret confessing to him. I feel so relieved now."

"Wait,… are we talking about the same guy?" Mikan was horror-stricken. "You aren't mad at him? But you were crying since this morning?"

Anna saddened again. "Yes. My little kitty was run over by a car yesterday. It was still too young to die, you know?" She began to cry again.

Mikan stood there agape. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Then, Hyuuga was really telling the truth. Even the reason for Anna's mood, that her pet died, was correct. "I'm really sorry to hear that, Anna. I need to take care of something. Thanks for the cake." Without waiting for her to reply, Mikan started running. "I need to find him. Where are you, Hyuuga?"

Mikan left the school building. She looked everywhere inside but didn't manage to find Hyuuga. He was neither with Ruka and Sumire nor in the classroom. On her way, she met other girls who were calling for his name, so she assumed that Hyuuga was hiding from his fan girls. She had to find him before they did. However, she was out of breath right now and her stomach growled. "I need a break." she thought. Thankfully, she brought Anna's cake along so she decided to go to her favourite spot to satisfy her hunger.

Reaching the giant Sakura tree, she sat down and opened the box. "Mmh, it must taste as good as it looks." Eating the whole cake wouldn't be a problem for her. She wanted to take her time and enjoy each bite of it. In case of need, she would talk to Hyuuga another day since they would see each other every day in school, wouldn't they?

"By only feeding off sweeties and cakes, you'll get really fat someday."

"Hm?" Mikan blinked in confusion. "Who was that?" She looked for the direction where the voice came from. There weren't any people around since lunch break was almost over. She also looked above at random and noticed the person sitting on the branches. Frightened to death, she wanted to scream but the other person was faster. He jumped down and pressed a hand against her mouth.

"Psst, they'll find us." Hyuuga whispered.

After calming down, Mikan roughly put his hand away. "Us? Why am I hiding, too, anyway?" she shrieked.

"Because you're dead meat when they see us together." he stated simply.

He was right. Mikan remembered their envious glares from before and gulped. Then, she looked at Hyuuga, who was scanning the schoolyard. "So he was…trying to same me?" At that thought, she blushed lightly and dropped her gaze.

Hyuuga sighed and leaned back. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to have lunch with your friends?"

"What about you? Aren't you hungry?" she observed him from the corner of her eyes. He stayed silent and didn't answer. She was at a loss and looked away. "Well,…I was looking for you." He still didn't show any reaction, thus Mikan went straight to the point. She took a deep breath and faced him. "Listen, I shouldn't have judged you before knowing the whole story. I'm really sorry and I'd do everything to make amends for it. I even brought a cake, you see? I hope you prefer chocolate to strawberries." Mikan smiled gently.

"You'd really do everything?" he repeated.

"To a certain extent." she nodded.

"Did Umenomiya bake it?" he asked, still lying on his spot.

"Sure. So if all of your questions are answered, would you please stand up and…?"

"Feed me."

Mikan blinked in confusion and blushed even more. "What?"

"It's not that you'll do it for the first time, right? Come on, hide-and-seek makes hungry." The expectant boy didn't shift but opened his mouth.

She gave in and took a small piece of cake. In the end, she promised him to do anything. She sighed. "I'm only doing this because I'm in your debt. But don't make a habit of it!"

After feeding Hyuuga, she also took a bite. While he was eating and smacking his lips, Mikan thought that he did it on purpose to pick on her. She could barely see a smug expression on his face but his sunglasses were covering almost half of it. "Is he really enjoying the cake or is he rubbing my nose in his victory?" Anyway, she had to satisfy her curiosity: "Hyuuga, may I ask you something?" He tilted his head to her side as a sign to go on. "I know that stars must often hide from the paparazzi and wear sunglasses but isn't it alright to take them off in school?"

"I'm wearing them because a certain naïve girl always faints when she looks into my eyes." he explained. "Or should I rather say: 'hypnotism'?"

"Naïve? Hypnotism? I see, he's talking about Anna." Mikan put the box aside and continued: "I think I know the girl who you're talking about. I'll just tell her to avoid eye contact with you. You know…" She looked briefly at him and turned away her gaze in embarrassment then. "…you have so beautiful eyes and hide them from other people…I think it's even unfair somehow."

He adjusted himself to a sitting position and wanted to say something when the bell rang. Mikan came back to reality and became aware of what she just said a minute ago. She was as red as a tomato and stood up. "Oh no! I… I…I'm sorry, I'm late." She ran away without considering the fact that Hyuuga also should get going. On her way to class, she was still agitated about her own words. "What was I thinking? Saying things like that so sudden…Ad why won't my heart stop beating so fast?" She managed to reach the classroom before Mr. Jinno arrived. She didn't say a word to Hotaru and just sat down. Ignoring the curious gazes of her classmates, she tried to calm down.

However, Hyuuga wasn't as lucky as she was and arrived shortly after Mr. Jinno. Mikan poked her nose into her book and didn't look up. Hearing the giggles and chatters of the girls, she knew that it was Hyuuga who just entered but she didn't dare to look at him.

The maths teacher, Mr. Jinno, was as strict as ever and frowned. "Mr. Hyuuga, if you're late from the very first, I'll be at a loss! Since it's your first day, I'll bend the rules. Now hurry up and sit down."

Hyuuga didn't bother to answer to him. Without saying a word, he quietly went to his seat next to Ruka. Instead of going straight to there, he made a little detour. Astonishing the other students, he went to Mikan's seat, stopped for a brief moment and headed to the last row, where Ruka was waiting.

He whispered something only audible to the girl hiding behind her book. "Better?" Mikan got frightened and put her book away. When she lifted her gaze, she saw something that she didn't expect. Hyuuga didn't wear his sunglasses anymore and revealed his crimson eyes. A faint shade of pink formed on her cheeks and all she could do was smiling shyly and nodding in agreement. She caught a glimpse of Hyuuga grinning complacently before he returned to his seat.

I'm sorry for possible typing errors or grammar mistakes. It was really late (3 a.m.) when I wrote this chapter but I wanted to upload this asap, as I promised to LittleMissFirebug23 and Saki-Hime. Please, point to any mistakes you find and I'll correct them right away. I'm also waiting for your reviews... :)

Next chapter: The Truth behind Her Discovery