A/N: I feel bad for not updating so I'm starting this chap ASAP.

Disclaimer: Same old, same old.

Thank you very much Sissicon123! that made me feel better. :)

Asl joa ecjwl? Your reviews had me crying tears of joy and my heart doing a little happy-dance in my chest and blushing! What is this, love?

Hahah, no really, you cannot imagine how much I appreciate your support. You deserve a cookie.

And oh my goodness, thank you for correcting me one the principal thing! .

Yes, I do live in America. XD

And yeah, sometimes I take really long reading something because I have to read the same sentence OVER and OVER again to process it. And I'm flattered you picked out your favorite parts. XD thank you for the advice. Hahah..

P.S: Thanks to Amai Tarashii Karite! I just keep adding to this author's note this whole school week I've worked on this chapter, and I'm rambling too, so it's okay! Haha.. I really do appreciate it, and I'll try to make the chapters longer. :)

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The following morning a few people asked what happened to my face. I said I fell. That's all they needed to know. That was the first new thing that morning.

The second was our sudden awareness of the door.

When Hyuuga left the classroom, he never completely closed the door behind him. As if he was leaving an open invitation for us to forget about everything and join him up in his tree. And no one ever completely closed the door after that. Like they couldn't. Like there was a force there that Hyuuga left behind to pollute our minds with. The space that was left in the marginally open door, matched the one left in our hearts, in our minds.

"It looks like the door is smiling." Koko narrated someone's thoughts. That's exactly what it was.

"What is wrong with you children, pay attention!" Jinno-Sensei waved his pointing stick in a way that made most of us duck. Lightning Alice. Eek.

We directed our spacing-out stare from the door to the board.

The smiling door would not distract us! No way, no how!

0o0o0o0o0o0

We passed Natsume's tree once class was dismissed and we flocked out of the classrooms. He was tossing plums and catching them in his cool, nonchalant way, all the while training his eyes on mine, making sure I catch the sly, knowing look in them.

"Thank you for the wonderful idea, plums..." He scoffed and it sounded something like a chuckle.

The other girls looked at me.

"What the heck is he talking about?" Permy questioned me in that crude way of hers, and all the others were looking at me too now, including Hotaru.

"No... I have no idea." I said, looking at each of them directly and trying to look honest. He threw plums down as if this was his way of calling me a liar. The plums rocketed down like missiles and we squealed and ran out of there fast.

0o0o0o0o0

The sky was getting prematurely dark from rain clouds moving in, their target: The campus. Any other group of reasonably minded people would have chosen to reschedule the meeting.

Nope, not us. Of course not us. Never us. Our reaction was to move things faster. As soon as we got to our dorms, we changed our clothes and ran like bats out of hell to the unused cabin shed.

"What, are the hounds of hell at your tail?" His comparison sounded like the one in my mind and for a horrifying second I thought I was beginning to think like him. But then I realized I could never know what was going through his head. Then, a thought not resembling any of Hyuuga's occurred to me.

"Are you staying up there in this weather?" I planted my hands on my hips in disapproval.

He raised a brow. "Are you developing maternal instincts?" I really do think that I was.

I shrugged it off. "You're going to get sick if it rains!" I stated what should have been obvious.

"Wanna bet?" For Hyuuga's standards, that was quite an immature statement. Then again, maybe he was immature but just covered it up with pretty words and advanced vocabulary, and that brooding, silent anti-social attitude.

"I will bet!" Maybe I was every bit as immature. "5 Rabbits!"

"You're on. In fact, I'll raise you 3 Rabbits that you get caught in the rain coming back through here." He stooped down to my level, or I to his, point being we were at the same level.

"..You're on." I continued sprinting twice as fast to the shed.

We were lounging around procrastinating. This was not good. Mr. Bear was glaring at me from the garden outside his cabin where he was trying to get his ornaments inside before it rained. Which confused me endlessly.

"I'm getting sick of Hyuuga up in his tree!" Said Mochi, who was one a devout Hyuuga fan, on Natsume's team all the way. Maybe he missed being Hyuuga's personal bodyguard.

"Perhaps it's time to do this the hard way." Luna Koizumi suggested in a tone that we wouldn't have heard hadn't it been so quiet, save for the wind (which I noted was picking up). She was brushing some invisible dust of the hem of her skirt and pretended to be completely unaware that she'd even just said that.

I didn't like her.

In fact, I disliked her more than I'd originally disliked Sumire.

"He can't sit on a tree if there's no tree to sit on." Hotaru said. I believe she meant absolutely no harm. It was logic that she threw out to drown out Luna's comment, yet somehow, it ended up contributing to it. I believe, by the look in her eyes with what happened next, that she meant no harm.

"Down with the tree!" Someone yelled. It was a battle cry of a rebellion, and you didn't have to be Koko to know what they were thinking.

"Whether he's in it or not!" Another yelled.

"We'll throw his tree down, and him along with it!"

"We'll throw stones as a warning!"

Now I caught Youichi's eyes. Youichi loved Natsume like a big brother, because he practically raised him in Youichi's young 7 years of life. (Note, he was the only child of such a young age in our class because he had a very powerful dangerous ability, like Natsume. And like Natsume, this made him a prodigy.) And this did not make Youichi happy. There was panic that matched Ruka's, that matched the ones who did not agree with this, and that I think, matched mine.

"That is not the answer!" Ruka interrupted. "Natsume is not a bad person! No, he doesn't deserve to get bulldozed or- or stoned!" He said, even if it was a tad hypocritical on his part, his rock being the one that hit. "Now everyone shut up and listen to a non-idiotic plan!"

He was bluffing. He seemed to think for a moment before turning big, gray, pleading eyes on Hotaru.

She stared stoically and seemingly uninterestedly back at him, but I could hear the gears turning in her head. With a trademark flip of her hair, she turned to the crowd and played along.

"Listen up because I don't repeat myself. We are going to prove to him that there is meaning. We have to disprove his theory once and for all, and he will lose his own game." There was a pause, and before anyone could ask how, she said-

"We will make a pile of meaning."

None of us really knew what that meant, but I could hear thunder now and was very worried for the money I didn't have.

The next couple minutes was spent switching between focusing on Hotaru explaining that we all had things that had meaning, and wind outside was getting strong, and that if we got the things that meant something to us, and that last thunder was alarmingly loud, that we could combine these things, my goodness the lightning was becoming frequent, that we could create a pile of meaning and store it right here.

Half of me wanted to ask questions, the other half wanted to run back to my room as fast as possible.

"Alright, so everyone gets the plan?" I demanded, hands on my hips, trying to look leader-like and aggressive so that no one would ask questions. I caught Yura raising her hand and interrupted before anyone could see.

"Ok! Time to return to our rooms!" I said hastily. Some looked at me suspiciously. "Because.. you know.. the storm, don't want to get sick, you know.." I mumbled sheepishly.

"She has a point. We'll get a lock for the shed and begin first thing tomorrow." Tsubasa thankfully agreed. Tomorrow was a weekend, a free day where we had the choice to visit Central Town.

I hurried through 'See you tomorrow's and bolted outside to see that a drizzle had already begun. I stared up at the sky, willing the rain drops to be sucked back up. I glanced to my left and saw Youchi hugging a grumpy Mr. Bear goodbye with Kaname nearby. Then I turned before anything else could distract me and ran back that same old path.

GAME OVER.

I could practically see those words in neon letters above my head as the drizzling turned into pouring, signaling my loss of the bet. I held on to hope to hope that he could still get sick. I was crossing my fingers. I was nearing the tree now, and dreaded whatever boasting I was about to face.

Someone beat me there. I stopped dead in my tracks and jumped behind a tree, the bushes scratching at my skin. I took a peek and saw a figure standing underneath the tree. I squinted, and saw it was a very small figure, arms crossed. They were yelling up at Natsume. A girl. A pang of jealousy that I couldn't understand and left me questioning my sanity hit suddenly for the split second before I realized it was his sister, Aoi. A sweet, 11-year-old girl that I would say was not related to Hyuuga had they not shared a last name, and looked very much alike.

"I demand you come just come the heck down already, Natsume!" She yelled at octaves only a prepubescent girl could manage. Ah, those were the days.

"You are my little sister. Not my mother. If anything, you should be respecting me. Go to your room." He said and I noticed the almost paternal tone in his voice. It seemed they both acted like each others parents frequently. In a place like this, you had to. I had seen Mr. Hyuuga at the school on one occasion. I have never seen nor heard about Mrs. Hyuuga.

"This is stupid and pointless Onii-chan! I don't care what you're trying to prove-" Whatever she was going to say was cut off by him.

"Aoi, go to your room before you get sick and useless." Of course, Hyuuga was all tough love on the exterior, but I have a feeling I wasn't the only one sensing the overprotective worry behind the statement, since her tone softened as well. She brought up her hand and lit a fire.

"No I won't. I'm not cold. But you-"

"AOI, go to your room." He commanded in a tone that left no room for disobedience. I almost flinched. Aoi's shoulders slumped, defeated. She put out the fire, put up her hood, and dug her fists on her pocket. Her gaze left her brother and I ducked. There was a pause.

"Stay safe, Onii-san." She sighed. I could hear her footsteps slapping away on the wet stone. I peeked again. I noted the change in honorific, and for a moment, felt like a secret detective on her secret case.

Natsume was slumped against the tree, finally averting his gaze from the ground where she was, and sighed, appearing to be in deep thought. I wrote all this down on my imaginary notepad, and carefully stepped closer.

Of course, being me, my foot slipped making a small noise on the wet leaves and mud. I hugged the tree and watched Natsume's hand twitch the same nanosecond that his head turned a tiny fraction in my direction. I held my breath.

"..You can come out now."

So I did. I came closer. I kicked a rock on the ground. I stood in the rain, waiting.

"..Why did you send her away?" I asked.

"You had to come out eventually." A practiced liar.

"You just noticed my presence now." I said, voice sure. He met my gaze unblinkingly. I couldn't look past the crimson into anything inside him.

"You didn't want her to get sick, obviously, because you care about her. Because she's your sister." I was challenging him. Staring him directly in the eye from a distance, from beneath my eyelashes trying to shield my eyes from the rain.

"Your point?" He caved and was first to look away. Yes. I win that round.

"My point is that if you care about her, why don't you come down?" I triumphantly concluded.

Something that passed as a bitter laugh escaped his mouth. "She wants me to come down, all of period 4 wants me to come down, Ruka wants-"

"And for Ruka you could at the very least do it!" I snapped at that. "If it wasn't for Ruka, you'd probably be turned in by now to the teachers, or even the principal!" I continued yelling. "If it wasn't for Ruka, you'd be- be- stoned to death or pummeled into the ground along with your dumb tree!" I blurted out furiously, kicking the tree and almost slipping. His eyes were large as I met them once more. He did not respond. Immediately, that is.

"...Tell Ruka I'm sorry." He said quietly.

"Why would I?" I said with more harshly than I'd meant to, fueled by my slow receding anger.

"Because you're a good person and I'm not." I wasn't expecting that. His words made me blush and I hated myself for it, made me fiddle with my skirt and my eyes fly downcast to stare at a growing puddle. I lost round two.

I'm a good person, and he isn't.. And what exactly did he know about me? Nothing!

..What did I know about him...?

"..Nothing.."

"What was that?" He called over the rain that was picking up.

"Nothing!" I called back up, and smiled.

"I'll tell him. But not because I'm a good person. Because I don't think you're a bad one." I called with the brightest smile I could manage, before turning and trying to run my fastest without slipping.

I actually left the great Natsume Hyuuga speechless.

I stood at Ruka's door absolutely drenched. I was wetting his carpet. I kept my promise.

He muttered something about how if Natsume really cared he'd come down from the stupid tree, but he smiled and I knew he forgave him for being... well, Hyuuga.

Natsume Hyuuga was not a bad guy, he just played the part of one, and I was going to get to know more than nothing about him.

0o0o0o0o0o0

(I KNOW! Aoi is not in the academy, but hey, I'm writing this on my own terms.)

And there's that! I'm taking Asl Joa Ecwl's advice for now, but this story can't stay under the Romance/Comedy genre for long, because trust me.. very soon, in a few chapters, it is going to take a drastically dark turn. But don't worry- the tone won't change or anything, it's just going to take on 'Nothing's very philosophically... uhm. Disturbing plot. Hahah.. I'll remember to NOT drop the humor and romance in the story, I'll even double it to even things out more or less. XD

P.P.S: I'll try to put up a new chapter every weekend or so, please accept my apologies 'till then. Hahaha.. (I only say these things because I have only recently gotten into the habit of updates, I once literally did not update for 6 months. A whole year once. At that point, it isn't considered updating, it's abandoning and rediscovering. Never doing that again.)

P.P.P.S: It is a miracle I got this chapter up on time at all. First week of school, and 6 out of 7 classes gives me very long homework to do for the weekend. 6 OUT OF 7. Also, I think there is now more Author's note than actual story, officially.

So I'll see you next weekend! 'till then, te amo todos!

~Yasu