A/N: Jinbei are a pair of matching top and shorts, which are usually worn by men and boys at home. It is also used as a substitute for a yukata during the summertime, and at the summer festivals. Traditionally they are dyed blue or green.

Natsume and his thoughts

"Oh! Shit!" the person who sleeping in the bed, had blurted out. He felt that it should have been the opposite, the kid was supposed to be the one overreacting and him, being effortlessly cool in the situation. "I'm not suppose to be here!"

"Were you the one who brought it all here?" the child asked, with her head leaning on her left shoulder. Somehow her curiosity had made the fear disappear from within, and she approached the sleeper without hesitating. "Hayate? Is that your name?"

"Yeah, Matsudaira Hayate." He had cattiness in his body and eyes, especially when his stretching involved doing catlike movement. Like how he drooped over his knees in a sitting position and extending his arms further. "I didn't do it all by myself, there were others."

I was about to ask him about the their reasons about the kidnap, but his body started to twitch. Suddenly, the door was forced to open in a burst and there was a moment of silence. After that, there was a lot of action between the two intruders like how they trample through my bed, whacking things off the desk and table, etc. I had to dodge their attacks, save my things from breaking and being a mediator for the two. Hayate managed to flee by pushing the window, hopefully landing somewhere safe while the other, who was Takahashi, kept on yelling at him until she could not see him.

Sen collected the empty plates of pudding and cake, thinking that Hayate had some before he fell asleep, as she left her room to put them away. Takahashi trailed after her to explain some rules when they are in the dormitory, the first few were about having visitors after curfew and eating a midnight snack were not allowed. She listened well, but her head was filled up with questions that were left unanswered still. Sen went back to her room when the lecture was over, feeling tired from everything that had happened.

"Did I forget anything?" Hayate moaned, his injuries were not serious, but it did hurt. Having to jump from a building with three or more floors was not smart. However landing onto a tree, and then to a bush made the fall a little less painful than he had expected. "Where is the darn thing!?"

"Looking for this?" a darker shadow was cast over him, he took a glance to see who it was. At that point, he should have took the opportunity to snatch the thing back. His partner slyly wore a grin that pissed him off, so much that he was willing to use his power. "Who were you going to give this to?"

"No one in peculiar, Rui!" He thought it was embarrassing, to lose something that was so important to him to that person. The stone was blue, the same color of blue of his favorite from the beautiful soldiers of five colors. "So give it back to me, or else!"

"Nobara made it, didn't she?" Rui smirked back, with his hands on his cheeks. He began to act like a fangirl, swaying back and forth excitedly of the idea. His face was also somewhat flushed about it as well. "Gosh, she's so cute!"

Yoichi was in my bedroom again, sleeping beside me with his teddy bear in his arms. He was in his pajamas, which were a pattern of bears from top to bottom, compared to mine which were a pair of jinbei. His sleeping face was babyish, in a cute way. I need to lock the door more often, or something like this will happen again. And it was probably my fault for not reminding him to take his teddy bear back, I must take responsibility.

She finished changing into her school uniform after having her last thought, when he woke up and decided to get out of bed to beg. Sen ignored it as they hurried to his room to switch into the proper clothes for school. At first she let him do it by himself, but he had some trouble getting into his red plaid shorts. She was about to go back to her room to give back his teddy bear, but Yoichi pulled her fingers to the direction of the cafeteria. Sen wanted to resist the boy, but instead she assumed he was hungry and went along with it.

"Apple juice and rice with cooked seaweed on top, yummy!" the happy child smiled, but when she saw his meal, it was different. Yoichi was also wearing a star on the collar of his uniform, it made her think for a bit. "Orange juice, cereal with milk and a slice of buttered toast, huh?"

"Oh, Yo-chan has a star now." said someone behind her, she turned around to see Kitsuneme nudging his friend. Kokoroyomi and him took their trays to sit down at the opposite side of the table. "Sucks to be you, Sen-baka."

"It's not like I asked to be starless." Sen murmured to herself, while sipping her apple juice until there was no more. She then went to finish off her bowl of rice and cooked seaweed without another complaint. "Does the star thing has to do something with status?"

"Well, teachers usually assign your star level, depending on your performance in your academics, alice and attitude." Kokoroyomi explained, as he took the buttered toast from his friend's plate. He took a bite, before the hungry boy spoke. "Higher the star level is, the more benefits and privileges they get."

When the four of us had finished breakfast, we went to school together without making fun of each other. Well, it was more like Kitsuneme was teasing me while Kokoroyomi played along whenever he felt like it, and Yoichi had was being babied by the three of us. However, after entering the classroom with them, they went their separate ways. I sat in my seat by myself, observing my surroundings. Yoichi, he ran off to play with a pretty boy with blonde hair while the other two were hanging out with another boy who had raven hair.

Sen sat there feeling bored, she watched her classmates do foolish things like tormenting the substitute teacher and causing trouble for others as a form of entertainment. One of the girls were almost at the verge of tears, she went over to disrupt their fun. Of course the mean boys and girls used their alices at her, but her facial expression stayed the same. Most of them felt intimidated by her emotionless face, and the victims were left alone for the rest of the period. Sen walked back to her seat, again bored, when a sudden group of boys came up to her.

"Hey, Higashi." said Mochiage, he was the bald one with the telekinesis alice. He crowed around his friends to discuss about their plan, reassuring what they were going to say to the girl, who was waiting borely for them. "Let's play a game, it'll be fun."

"What kind of a game?" Kokoroyomi repeated, right out of her head. He decided to sit beside Sen, by sliding down from the opposite end of the bench while slightly nudging her when it came to a stop. "Is there an off and on button for you when it comes to reading minds?"

"Well, what you do is you have to write down ten reasons why you dislike a certain person." Kitsuneme told her. His smiley face appeared to be more mischievous than yesterday, she thought. "Of course, we get to choose who is this certain person. We picked Natsume, because we want to know why you hate him so much."

"So it's like getting to know the other person, I see." Sen excitedly answered, she gave them high fives for the idea. After that the group of boys huddled together with wide smirks, muttering away about the possible success coming out of it. "It sounds like fun, but who is Natsume?"

In front of me is the boy that I have to write about, who I don't really dislike at all, but they shooed me over to him anyways. I was supposed to strike up a conversation with Natsume, so that I could get to know him better. It sounded like a good idea, but he was unwilling to talk to me, and instead this girl with two long strands that curled at the end around her face, had popped out of nowhere. She went on and on, nagging me constantly more about herself than him. However, the group of boys managed to get her away from the two of us.

His comic book fell off of his face, Natsume was about to pick it up when Sen brought a small fireball in her hand. He seemed a little surprised at first, she wanted to smile at him for that. Sen asked Natsume if it was an alice she was presenting to him, but he shrugged it off. She then asked about his alice, which was when he told her that it was fire. Between the two of them was silence that stopped their conversation, Sen felt the topic was going somewhere in a danger zone, so she tried to change the subject. However, his friends came to take her back to her seat with a sheet of paper and pencil in their hands. Natsume covered up his expression with his visual novel, hoping no one had noticed.

"Okay, now that you had your talk with him." Mochiage mentioned, while having her to sit down on the wooden bench. He then slapped down the paper and pencil on the desk, as if he was trying to scare her. "You might as well get it over with, so start writing already."

"I don't know why I dislike him." Kokoroyomi read, right out of her head. He took the time to absorb some other information, as a backup, before reading the next thought. "Are you sure about this?"

"Write down whatever, we will see if you hate him or not." said Kitsuneme. He and his friends surrounded her, they were eager to know her thoughts on the most popular boy in the school, besides Ruka.

"My ten reasons why I dislike Hyuuga Natsume." Sen announced to herself, although her head was still not in good shape when it came to decisions and opinions. "If I be modest about it, then maybe I won't get into trouble this time."

1. I don't know Natsume very well, so why am I doing this again?

2. He has this dangerous aura around him, why is that?

3. His eyes are red, they are also intimidating at times.

4. He has a lot of power over the class, it seems like.

5. I think he exceeds in areas I do not know of, I would like to know them and beat him at it.

6. His fangirls are scary in general, I have recently met one.

7. He doesn't have a lot to say, if he talked a bit more, then I might be able to understand him.

8. His black hair is in good condition, has that sort of gloss and shine like the princesses.

9. I also think he has a higher status than me when it comes to the star level.

10. He has his own fan club, I want one too.

When I was finished with it, they snatch it from my hands and ran off to show the paper to Natsume. He looked at me, after he done reading my ten reasons why I hate him list. His attention went back to whatever he was doing, but once in a while he would send death glares at his friends, as if he was doing something that he did not want anyone else to know. I stopped observing him, as much he was a mystery box, it was best to leave it to that today. Well until he decided to throw a crumpled up paper ball at me, it bounced off my head and onto my desk. I decided to keep it, and read it later.

Sen was not bothered at school by those bullies, actually they did not bully anyone today. They were too focused on what had went wrong on their plan, so she felt a little better about it. Her teachers were having trouble with assigning her star level, she overheard at lunchtime, because they did not know her alice. And then the bell ranged, Sen hurried off to finish off her day. On her way home, the girl felt tired once again, she didn't know why, but it has been getting to her lately. She kept on thinking, when she suddenly crashed into someone.

"Hey! Watch it!" Hayated shouted, which made Sen fall backwards, of course, out of fright. He angry at first, but then he blinked for a few seconds, before realizing it was her. "Oh! It's kohai!"

"Matsudaira-senpai?" Sen drooped her head as low as her body could keep her standing at the same time. Her stomach was full of embarassment, she couldn't believe that she just did that to her senior. "Sorry about that, I shall keep my head higher next time."

"Whatever, but how is school going for you?" the bashful girl looked at him, her heart sank deep, how could she tell him? Should she tell him that her first day of school was awful, or that today was better than yesterday? "Ah, well, it doesn't matter."

"What is that?" Hayate knew she was talking about the blue alice stone, so he let her hold it. He didn't want to discourage her anymore than what those people were doing in elementary, or so he thought. "It's really pretty."

"You like it, huh?" Hayate muttered, it was loud enough for me to hear it. But I don't think he noticed that I was listening to him talking to himself. "Say, you want me to make you one?" My heart pounded in joy, I quicklyed nodded to his question. "OK, but it will take a moment, and don't look until I tell you to." I smacked my hands over my eyes, I wanted to ask him how he would do it, but that would ruin the surprise! How exciting, if he were to make something as beautiful as the blue stone that he shown me earlier! "Here, it's bigger than the blue one, but it's a lot uglier."

In front of her was an olive color sort of stone, the yellowish green was not the most prettiest color she has seen, but it still made her heart leaped out of happiness. She slowly obtained it, making Hayate feeling somewhat nervous. Sen then thanked him for his generosity, she would remembered this moment well. After that, the two of them walked back to the elementary dormitory where he said his goodnight and went off somewhere else. Sen went back to her room, with an alice stone in her hand, where she slept peacefully for once at Alice Academy.

Disclaimer: Gakuen Alice belongs to Higuchi Tachibana.