I Like You, Natsume-oniisan
'I have always wanted to change myself and forget about those memories we used to share together in the past.
Whenever I tried to change, I would question myself, "Why should I?"
Maybe the reason is because I cannot give up on you... not just yet.'
Chapter 6: Games
"Truth or dare?"
Hotaru smirked and replied, "I choose 'dare'!"
"Hotaru Imai-san is another brave soul here!" Yuka exclaimed and clapped her hands.
"I want Imai-san to do a catwalk across the corridor with a partner!"
Hotaru frowned and asked exasperatedly, "What? That's worse than reading out BL mangas!"
"Good luck, Hotaru!" Mikan cheered with her thumbs up. "I don't think it is that bad. It is just walking on fours..."
"It's not walking on fours!" Hotaru corrected. "It's like walking seductively, sexily and slyly like a cat on two legs."
"Cats will never walk on two legs," Mikan said.
Hotaru smacked her forehead and bellowed, "Whatever it is, I am changing it to 'truth'!"
"Imai-san, you can't change your choice! That will be so unfair to those who chose 'dare'!" a boy shouted out.
Hotaru became irritated and grabbed Mikan by the arm to pull her up.
"Mikan will be my partner," Hotaru said. "She has no idea how to do catwalk and I don't know how to do it too so I want the person who suggested this stupid 'dare' to demonstrate to us first."
The person blushed and quickly shook his head in disagreement but everyone forced him to demonstrate to the whole class first. He had no choice but to show the two girls a few steps and called them to continue it along the corridor. After seeing the demonstration, Mikan was screaming and yelping that she did not want to do until Hotaru bribed her with more Runo's pictures and song albums. Being a simple-minded girl, she happily agreed and dismissed the fact that the students of the other classes along the corridor would be watching.
Catwalk may look simple but actually, it needs lots of flexibility. If your muscles are stiffed, you will look at a robot parading without lifting the arms ninety-degrees up. Your facial expression has to be like a tiger staring at its prey intensively but at the mean time, it has to be like a cat which yearns for the attention of the other party. Your feet must produce a bouncy effect which will make the other party think you are 'floating' gracefully. Everything above must be coordinated well or else, you will look worse than a robot. In other words, you will look like a clumsy chicken and Mikan would be a perfect example.
They really did the catwalk along the corridor and almost everyone, including teachers, looked out of the windows and laughed hysterically. Hotaru was inexperience in doing this but at least, she still had the flexibility and the cool expression to pass the challenge. As for Mikan, she was trying her very best and she looked very nimble and agile- like a monkey.
"Hey, what are you doing?" a voice bellowed, which caused Mikan to jump in shock.
Mikan turned around and looked straight into the eyes of her brother. He seemed disgruntled.
"O... Onii-san," Mikan stammered softly with a blush. "I... I was doing a cat... walk."
Natsume crossed his arms and looked at Hotaru, then to Yuka. Yuka just laughed sheepishly at him.
"Yuka-sensei, your two students are disrupting the other classes with their weird chicken-monkey walk. Please do it in the classroom instead," he said sternly and walked away.
Yuka rolled her eyes behind his back and stuck out her tongue while mumbling softly, "Hmph! You don't even understand what is called fun."
Mikan looked at Natsume's back and sighed. She finally got to see him since that morning but she felt so silly for doing such an awful act in front of him. Natsume had become a Mathematics teacher of this high school since a year ago. Somehow, Mikan felt that Natsume was behaving like he did not want to associate himself with her in this school. For example, he left for school without her even though they went to the same school and even before that, he talked to her as if he did not even know her. It was devastating to Mikan!
Mikan and Hotaru walked back into their classroom and Yuka decided to give everyone a short break before taking them around the campus to know more about their school facilities. During the break, Mikan and Hotaru made new friends like Nonoko and Anna Umenomiya, Nonoko's best friend since middle school. Nonoko and Anna were fans of Runo too, much to Mikan's and Hotaru's delight. At least, they would share the same topic to talk about.
"Putting Runo-kun aside, do you think that male teacher with raven hair and red eyes look hot?" Nonoko asked excitedly.
Anna squealed, "Oh my gosh! You're right! I wonder if he has a girlfriend."
"Give up on him, girls. He already has a girlfriend," Hotaru said nonchalantly. "She is one hell of a babe."
"Really? Aw! So sad!" Anna winced. "Hotaru-chan, how do you know about him?"
"He is Mikan's older brother," Hotaru replied. "But they are not blood-related."
Anna and Nonoko gasped like they were watching some epic drama and quickly turned to look at Mikan.
"Mikan-chan, are you his girlfriend?" they asked together in sync.
Mikan flinched and shook her head. Then, the two girls looked very confuse.
"Living under the same roof with that sensei is a girl's dream, Mikan-chan! Why didn't you flirt with him?" Anna asked.
"Fl... Flirt?" Mikan stuttered with a deeper shade of red on her cheeks.
Nonoko giggled, "Yeah! I would die happy if I were to live with him, not including going out with him yet."
"The truth is... I'm in love with him," Mikan muttered under her breath with a sad look. "Seeing him happy with his girlfriend is more than enough to make me happy."
Upon hearing that, Anna and Nonoko looked at Mikan with the same sad look as she had. They understood how it felt to be in a one-sided love. It was painful; especially that person had a partner. Hotaru patted Mikan's back gently and comfortingly.
"Mikan-chan, have you ever confessed to him?" Nonoko asked softly.
"Yes, she did two years ago. Unfortunately, he rejected her," Hotaru helped Mikan to answer. "Hey, let's forget about that chicken-monkey god and talk about Runo instead. I think Runo looks so much better than him."
Then, Nonoko and Anna squealed again. When it came to the 'legend' of Runo, the two girls just could not stop talking about him and some of his interesting scandals like him being a homosexual. They were 'Yaoi' fans so they got all crazy and excited about the fact that Runo was having a relationship with his male manager. It sounded gross and unreal to Mikan but she tried convincing herself that all of these were just pure lies to make Runo's fame either goes up or plunge down.
After the break, Yuka took her students around the campus, showing the different sites and facilities. The school was huge and filled with luxurious and crazy facilities like a mini-resort where the students could enjoy artificial sunlight next to an artificial lagoon and an artificial tropical forest, swimming pools with huge and dangerously fun slides which were exhilarating and thrilling when sliding through them and a mini-casino where one could use his or her examination marks to bet instead of money. Mikan swore to herself that if she were to do badly for her examinations, she would give that mini-casino a try to see if she could gamble some marks to raise hers. What an interesting idea...
A day ended fast just like that and before everyone knew it, it was already school dismissal. Tsubasa and Misaki were in their family car, waiting for Mikan outside the school gates. When they saw Mikan walking out of the school with her three friends, they waved frantically to her trying to catch her attention and luckily, she did saw them. She waved her friends goodbye and entered into the car.
"Mikan, how's school today?" Misaki asked.
"Fine. I have made new friends."
"Did you meet Natsume?"
"Yeah, but it was a brief moment. He must be busy."
Then, Tsubasa interrupted, "Did you get a boyfriend? You better not or else, I will wring him dry."
"Of course not... I mean, haven't yet."
"What wrong with her getting a boyfriend? Didn't we use to date during our high school days too?" Misaki asked.
"But..."
"No 'but's, Dear!"
Mikan laughed and the couple just grinned sheepishly. They hoped their little joke would cheer Mikan up, even though they did not know what had happened to her in school.
When they reached home, Mikan immediately hurried to her room and turned on the computer. She logged into a social website where she had been using almost everyday to chat with different types of people. Among all the strangers she had chatted with, she liked to chat with one particular person whom she tagged him as a friend since two years ago. Both of them would open a new private chat room and kept chatting about random stuffs ranging from school homework to the rantings of their lives. Though she did not know this person, she enjoyed chatting with him.
She clicked onto her friend list and she was glad that the person was already online. She created a private chat room for the both of them and started the conversation first.
Coolbreeze says:
Hello Ruka-pyon!
Ruka N. says:
Oh, hi! How are you? Today is your first day of school, right?
Coolbreeze says:
Yup! I'm fine. What about you? Do you go to school as well?
Ruka N. says:
Of course, I do but I skipped classes today.
Coolbreeze says:
Naughty!
Ruka N. says:
Nah... I have some business to do. Skipping on the first day of school is fine. I bet they are having some orientation games and stuffs like that for us, Year Ones. It's boring.
Coolbreeze says:
You're right! They even made me and my friend do catwalk!
Ruka N. says:
Haha!
Coolbreeze says:
So, which school are you from?
Ruka N. says:
Gakuen Alice.
Mikan dropped her mouse and starred at the screen with her mouth agape. He was studying in the same school as her! She became excited and continued to type her message.
Coolbreeze says:
Me too! Hey, we must meet up when you return to school, okay? Let's meet outside the mini-casino after school.
Ruka N. says:
What's that? Why is there a casino in the campus? That is so absurd! By the way, I think I am coming to school tomorrow since I have a friend like you there.
Coolbreeze says:
You can ask for directions to the casino. Anyway, you're weird. Do you not go to school when you have no friends?
Ruka N. says:
Okay. Yup. Haha! I usually don't go to school, except for exam periods.
"Mikan! Dinner's ready!" Misaki shouted from the kitchen.
"Alright! Be right there!" Mikan shouted back and typed her last message to the person.
Coolbreeze says:
Hey, I got to go now. Chat with you later. Bye, Ruka-pyon!
Ruka N. says:
Bye! See you tomorrow for the first time!
Then, Mikan logged off from the site and switched off the computer before heading into the dining room to have her dinner. She could not wait to see that friend in school the next day. How would he look like? Would he be friendly and kind? She just hoped that he was a good person, that was all.
'If only you could understand the pain I have to go through for you, I would be sure that you would be smiling by now. I could not say it.
Yes, I know my love life is pathetic. But what other choices do I have?
To me, she is nothing compared to you. Why couldn't you see it?
Wait... I think it is the best for you not to see and understand it at all.'
Hi guys, thanks for reading up to Chapter 6.
I would like to thank those who had reviewed Chapter 5. Thanks for all those encouragements. Hope to hear more from you again! :D
Here are the reviewers:
- Guest
- The Mad Writing Center
- KLP-Chan
- Vehemens Ford
- Vegie-1526
- Vega Asteria
- jennifer8-Mikan Hyuuga
- Anna The Weird
- Shai Moe
- aurora0914
Lastly, I would also like to thank those who had story alerted and favourited this story. :)
The italic words at the starting and ending of the previous chapter is obviously spoke by Mikan. What about this chapter? Is it Mikan again? Or is it that guy 'Ruka. N'? Or...
Well, don't forget to review this chapter! Thanks!