Memory: Mikan
When I first met Mikan, I didn't know my way around school. I kept on wandering around the campus looking for my classroom. The school was really big and it was easy to get lost in it if you were a freshman. I was walking aimlessly around the sakura trees wandering where I was going when I accidentally tripped over something and fell flat on the ground which hurt like crazy. I sat up to see the wretched cause for my painful fall when I saw right in front of me, a sleeping girl resting under the sakura tree. She was breathing so steadily, her hair was long and curly the brown reflecting against the sun's rays. Her long eyelashes resting on her reddish face, at that very moment I thought I was looking into a painting. As if disturbed by my presence her eyes begin to flutter open, big clear brown eyes started to reveal themselves. She rubbed her eyes and sat up yawning, and then she noticed me. She blinked twice and finally spoke…
"What are you doing?" first time I heard her voice; it was kind of loud and had a high tone to it.
A few weeks later I found out that Imai, the person I knew since we were kids actually had a best friend named Mikan Sakura. At first I started denying that she was cute and ended up doing the wrong things. She totally misinterpreted me as a pervert skirt flipping moron. I was only good at driving girls that I didn't like away but I had no idea how to act around a girl that I actually liked. Thus started our cat-dog fights, we were famous around campus as two people who really hated each other. But despite all those arguments, she still treated me like a person nonetheless. She treated everyone fairly, she was kind and cheerful, and everybody that surrounded her would always enjoy her company. She was very popular around the campus and irritably especially around other boys. To see guys work up the nerve to flirt and even ask her out was not a pretty sight for me. Whenever there was a guy that was trying to approach her, I would send them a glare signaling them to back off! It worked on most spineless guys but there were really persistent ones like those stupid upperclassmen Andou and Tono.
I kept my feelings hidden for two years; the harder I tried to hide it the more it seemed obvious. Ruka and Imai were the two most annoying people that were bent on me confessing to her. I would always tell them the same thing…
"I would rather not risk it" What if she wouldn't talk to me anymore? What if she never liked me? I was full of excuses; I guess the truth was I was afraid of rejection. I was actually a big coward. I was jealous at the other guys who had the nerve to confess to her. I kept my feelings buried inside but the more I saw her the more it felt like bursting. My heart was like a bomb ticking, eventually my feelings might explode.
On the last day of our second year in high school, I poured everything out to her under the same place I first met her. I admitted that I've gone crazy over her. She seemed a bit confused at that time. When senior year came we barely talked, since our classes were really far apart we also barely saw each other. When she did see me she would stop and go the other way. It bothered me a lot so I confronted her about it, she was actually burdened by my confession and I decided for her not to be troubled, I backed off a bit. But that didn't mean I didn't love her. For the remaining months I just watched her from a distance, it was very painful. When we graduated we never saw each other again for five years.
During those five years I just worked like crazy. I cared about nothing else but finishing tasks. I did go out with some girls but I never took them seriously, I just dumped them the next day when they were being annoying. No girl lasted three days with me and I buried myself even more in work. Whenever I would go out my eyes would wander all over. It may sound crazy but I was actually hoping to see her somewhere smiling. I would daydream about her in the bookstore, imagine her reading a book or in a convenient store, she's buying milk. Even when I rode escalators, I would look at the other side and hope she was also riding the other escalator. When I was on a verge of a breakdown, I considered quitting the company and drift off someplace else. But when I was about to, I had an arranged marriage. I got to think that maybe I just wasn't meant to think about her anymore. Maybe I should just forget about her and go on with life. The day I finally decided to do that, I saw her again and this time she was real. Right now I don't know what to do anymore, I feel like running away leaving everything I had behind in order to pursue her once more.
Memory: Mikan
This chapter dedicated to Natsume's thoughts about Mikan since the day they first met from the day they were separated. This answers Mikan's question from the previous chapter.