Mikan's POV:

It didn't take us long until we reached the path we had originally been taking, and we decided it would be best to walk in the same direction in the hopes that we might run into Tama-can and the others. I was still confused about earlier though, why did Natsume look so pissed when I said Shouta was cute?

"Hey Natsume," I turned to my left to face Natsume, Shizuko stood on my right.

"Yeh?"

"Why were you angry earlier? You know, when I said that Shouta-kun was cute?" Natsume froze before looking down at me; his eyes were hidden behind his bangs.

"What makes you think I was angry?" His words were stiff and I noticed his eyebrow twitch.

"Well, you were kinda giving off an "I will kill you" aura and you were glaring at me," Shizuko snickered before cutting in.

"Wow, you really are oblivious huh Mikan? It's pretty obvious that he was jel…" She stopped talking mid word to stare anxiously at Natsume, who was glaring at her and had a ball of fire hanging above his head.

"You say one more word and I'll burn your hair like I did polka's"

Shizuko flinched before retaliating, "You wouldn't dare! If you set my head on fire then I'll have my plants strangle you to death! And besides, I don't think Mikan would be happy if you hurt her new friend," She snickered.

"Natsume! Stop picking on Shizuko-Chan! ... And stop calling me Polka!" I pinched his cheek and pulled.

"Ow! What the hell are you doing woman?! Trying to rip my face off?" He glared but that didn't faze me, I just pulled harder. This is highly amusing, I thought before deciding to pinch the other cheek too.

"Ha Ha! You're such a wimp Natsume! This is fun!" I pulled even harder before I realised that my head was getting hotter. Looking up I realised, to my horror, that the fire previously hovering over Natsume was now directly above my head.

"If you don't stop that I will burn you. Understand?"

"Y-yes," I let go of his face and quickly stepped away from him before turning to Shizuko, "Ok, let's get going and find Shouta before he burns both of us!" She nodded and we sprinted up front of Natsume, getting a head start.

Natsume's POV:

I walked behind Mikan and Fujioka as they both laughed and giggled. I couldn't hear what they were saying but I could tell that they were talking about me, mainly because they kept turning to look at me before going into another fit of giggles.

What the hell are they talking about? I swear if they are talking about me then I will burn both of them. I don't care if one of them is my girlfriend.

Normal POV:

Whilst Shizuko and Mikan laughed and joked about Natsume's bad attitude, Natsume walk a little distance behind them, straining to hear what exactly they were talking about.

"Is he always this moody?" Shizuko asked Mikan as she nervously glanced at Natsume, who didn't look too happy.

Mikan tapped her chin for a moment, as if thinking about it before she answered, "Yep. In fact he was like that on the day I first met him. And when he isn't moody he has this cocky and arrogant attitude,"

"Wow. Sounds like you really love him," Shizuko teased, chancing another look at him.

"Well, he is cocky and arrogant… But he's always there for me and protecting me… even if it doesn't seem like it,"

"Aww, that's sweet,"

"If you said that to his face you would probably have no more hair," Mikan stated.

"Yeh, you're probably right. So how did you meet?" As soon as the question left her lips Mikan's face turned bright red.

"What? Tell me, I wanna know!"

"Hmm…well…" Mikan twiddled her thumbs and looked back at Natsume, before turning red again and quickly looking forward, "Well… it's kinda hard to explain… it was when I first arrived at the academy…"

"Go on…" Shizuko encouraged.

"Well I was almost tricked into going to this crappy school by a couple of weird guys, one of the teachers, Narumi-sensei… helped me. He has the pheromone Alice. He sent them away, and then told me that he could get me into the academy. While we were talking there was an explosion… it was Natsume trying to escape the academy,"

"Is this going anywhere?"

"Let me finish! Narumi-sensei used his Alice on Natsume so he kind of fell unconscious… then he left me in a room with him while he went to go talk to some other teachers…"

"I like where this is going…"

"Natsume woke up after a while and grabbed my hair…" She started turning even more red, "and t-then he kinda p-pinned me down…"

…

Shizuko just stared for a moment before looking at Natsume, then back to Mikan, "Why am I not surprised? I can totally see him doing something like that…"

"S-shizuko-Chan! Nothing happened! In fact we kinda hated each other for a while…"

"Hmm? Are you sure nothing happened?" She grinned mischievously whilst Mikan became even more flustered.

"Nothing happened!"

"Really?"

"Yes, really!"

"I wonder what other stuff you got up to…"

"He just stole my p-panties that's all!" As soon as the words left her mouth she wished she could take them back. Her hands automatically clamped over her lips and her face turned even brighter than before.

"What?!"

"Shh! Be quiet! He might hear you!"

"Does he still have them?" Mikan froze. She'd never thought about that before. Did he still have them?

"H-how would I know?!"

"Ok, what the hell are you two talking about?" Mikan jumped as Natsume suddenly appeared over her shoulder.

"N-Natsume! What are you doing here?"

Natsume raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean 'What am I doing here?' I thought I'd explained to you already, idiot"

"Hey, Natsume, Mikan has a question for you but she's too embarrassed to ask you so I'll ask for her,"

"W-wait, S-Shizuko-Chan!"

"Go on," Natsume clamped his hand over Mikan's mouth so he could hear Shizuko.

"Do you still have the Panties you stole from Mikan when you first met?"

Natsume paused for a moment, considering his answer, "Maybe,"

"What!?" Mikan screamed, grabbing Natsume's collar and shaking him, while Shizuko just looked on in amusement, "What do you mean maybe?! You shouldn't have taken them in the first place you perverted bastard!"

"Calm down polka. I'm your boyfriend now so it doesn't matter now right?"

"Of course it matters! Give them back! I don't want someone like you having my panties in their possession!"

"So it's ok if it's someone else then?"

"No it is not!"

At that moment Shizuko decided to step in and stop their bickering, "Hey, we should get a move on, or else we won't find them,"

"You're right, let's go polka,"

As they started to walk again another question suddenly popped into Shizuko's head, "By the way, why do you always call Mikan Polka?"

There was a moment of silence before he replied bluntly, "It was the pattern on her panties I took," He then grabbed Mikan's hand and dragged her forward, "Hurry up already, I wanna get back to the academy soon,"

As Natsume dragged an annoyed and pissed Mikan, Shizuko walked slowly behind, "Now why is it I find that cute?" She asked herself before catching up with the other two.

Tama's POV:

The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it seemed like the perfect day to take the kids for a nice day out with nature…except I didn't expect to lose two of them.

Everything seemed perfectly fine, the kids were behaving and the weather was lovely. I didn't even notice that both Mikan and Shizuko were missing until one of the younger ones pointed it out.

After realising they were gone I began frantically searching for them and retracing our steps, which is pretty difficult when you have 15 children to keep an eye on.

I really shouldn't have come alone. I thought, but the kids needed to get closer to nature, after all, they are always trapped in that orphanage with those irritating and super strict care workers.

After searching for about half an hour and dragging the tired kids everywhere, I decided to stop and give them all a rest. We came to a clearing in the woods with a large tree trunk that had fallen down cutting through it.

"OK, kids! You all have a rest while I think of where we should look next,"

The kids all cheered at the chance to stop walking for a while, except for one.

"Tama-Chan?" A felt a tug on my shirt and looked down to see Shouta, his eyes glistening with tears.

"What's wrong Shouta-kun? Don't you want to rest with the others?"

"Why did we stop looking? We need to find Shizuko Onee-Chan!"

"But everyone's very tired Shouta-kun, we're just going to rest for 10 minutes then go looking again," I smiled reassuringly at him, he nodded then walked towards the fallen trunk.

Shouta's POV:

I sat behind the trunk out of eyesight, not wanting to be targeted by the other kids as they laughed behind my back.

How could Tama-Chan stop looking just because these wimps are tired? I could speed round the entire forest and find them in no time. But Tama-Chan doesn't know about my power… The other kids told her but she didn't believe them. But then again… If I were to go on my own, then I would be there and back in no time… and no one would even notice.

After deciding to look on my own I quickly stood up and sped out of the clearing.