The Ice Will Melt Someday

Chapter Six "Just in Time for Valentines"

Disclaimer: I did not make the manga, but I made the fanfiction and a few of its characters.

It was almost time for White Day in Gakuen Alice, and all the girls were preparing their own secret chocolates with their own special twists; whether the boys liked them or not. Even though he was a boy, Daichi Hanahisaki was always busy during this time. If you can cook well, chocolate in particular, you are sure to be mauled by inexperienced girls that are love sick to death. Everyone knows that White Day is not just an event, it's a sport, which can mean life or death to any or all relationships. It's just another one of those holidays that you either love or hate.

"Hold on, hold on! One at a time please, I don't want to die, just not yet," Daichi requested. A small crowd of girls were begging him to teach them how to make irresistible chocolate for their boyfriends/admirers/love target/or any phrase/word that you would use to describe them.

One girl got ahold of his shirt, "Please Daichi-senpai, teach us, we'll die if we can't make chocolates this year!" The other girls only added to it and he finally gave in; his shirt was on the line you know?

"Fine fine, I give up!" He raised both of his hands to signal defeat. "I'm gonna have to borrow the home economics room and then I'll hold lessons... at 3 o' clock today, mhmkay?" The girls jumped gleefully ad thanked him for his patronage. While everyone was leaving he called out to them, "And that's the only time I'm going to do it! You've been warned!" he shouted. The poor boy sighed in annoyance, "I'm glad some people are having fun..."

Of course, he was thinking about his favorite person, Nobara Ibaragi. It's not like he hasn't seen her since the Christmas Ball; he passed by her in the hallways occasionally. It's more like, she was too busy to stay around and have a chat with him. Even if she did have the time, sometimes Persona would be near her and her split personality was apparent. Persona kept her working on missions with her partner, Suberi Atsureki, remember him? He's the 'friction is awesome' guy.

Staring into mid air, he bumped into the said person, which said person? This said person, "Daichi!" she exclaimed in surprised.

"Nobara!" he exclaimed back.

"What are you staring at? You weren't paying attention when you were walking, that could be dangerous."

He shook his head, trying to get back into reality, "Uhh.. yeah, dangerous."

"Are you busy today? I saw a lot of girls crowding around you," she asked.

"I'm going to hold a chocolate class at 3 o' clock today, but I still need permission to use the home economics rooms. Come by okay? Later!" he left her, even though in reality, he didn't really want to, but Daichi thought it might be for the better.

Nobara stood there, "Okay," she merely replied, but it wasn't loud enough for him to hear her.

In no time, it was 3 o' clock and Daichi was in the room early. A flood of girls entered the room, much more than he anticipated. "I didn't think they would advertise it," he whispered to himself quietly. In the meanwhile, he was greeting the girls and asked them to take a seat wherever. Unsure of what to do, he decided to just teach it, like how they did it on T.V. Although, the last time he got to watch television was before he entered this academy. Once the basic steps were over, he got a bunch of random questions about how to do other random things to it. "Sorry, but I'm just teaching you how to make chocolates, not anything else. You'll have to figure that out yourself."

Daichi looked around for anyone else who needed help, ignoring the groans of other girls. He noticed one girl in particular, she was in the back corner of the room and was very quiet. He was lured over there and asked her over of her shoulder, "Need help?" he offered. He looked closer, "Nobara!"

She quickly shushed him by putting her index finger over her lips. "Shhh Daichi. I'm not going to be here on White Day, so I'll give this to you now." She handed him the freshly made chocolate. He took it with no questions asked. "Missions."

"And the extras?"

"Friction boy."

"Of course."

"I got to go now, see you around Daichi!" She left him in the same manner he left her.

"Talk about deja vu," he said to himself. Once all the girls finished with their business, he came to the front of the class, just realizing that he made a set of chocolates himself. What to do with them? He carried his set of chocolates on top of Nobara's chocolate and was tossing them while exiting the classroom. He was met with a rambunctious boy strolling down the hallway. "The hell? Hyuuga?" Curious, Daichi was determined to follow the firecaster.

Natsume turned around and hissed at Daichi, "What are doing following me?"

"Uhh... I need you to give this box of chocolates to Nobara?" he asked with uncertainty.

"I'd rather melt it before touching your chocolates."

"Can you? Just please Hyuuga, this is the only favor I'm going to ask of you, give it to her." He threw the box of chocolates to Natsume, expecting him to catch it. Instead, Natsume stepped backwards enough that the candy fell on the ground and an obvious breaking noise was heard.

Natsume still had a poker face on, "I told you, I'm not touching anything you made."

"Come on! Give me a break, I don't really think you're that careless, but I don't really know what to think anymore." Daichi knelt down and picked up the misshapen box and shoved it into Natsume's chest. "Take it. Give it to her. Done deal." He left before the boy could argue anymore.

Nobara came back to the dangerous ability classroom and sat next to her partner. "Where were you?" he asked.

"I was busy," she whispered back.

"That tells me a lot," he replied sarcastically.

Persona came into the classroom, he looked around. "Natsume skipped out again I see." He then set down a pile of files he was holding. "These are the profiles and information of future students that the principal were interested in. Occupied with his own work, he left it to our class to decide who's capable enough to join. So take a look at them and we'll examine all of them together later."

Suberi grabbed one of the folders in particular and read the profile with a perk of interest, apparent on his facial expression. "Hey Nobara," he called over. She looked over his shoulder and stared at him. "Wasn't that the guy you were with before, Daichi Hanahisaki?"

"He was, why?" she asked with the same amount of curiosity he had.

Friction boy pointed at the picture and then dragged it to the interesting pieces of information. "Look here, he's one of the candidates."

Her eye's widened, "But a cooking alice isn't as dangerous as a friction alice!"

He gave her a look, "Thanks... but his alice isn't the alice of cooking. At least, not anymore."

"What do you mean, not anymore?" she asked with concern.

Suberi pointed at a certain spot, "See here, it says, Alice: Equivalent Exchange. There's even a whole section dedicated to what it is and everything. It reads...Used to have the alice of cooking. After incident with Kawasegiri Shunko, he had obtained a new alice. She had taken his alice of cooking from him and gave him her own alice before she died. He did not notice until his cooking skills began to falter, but not enough for most others to notice. This was kept as a secret from the staff and the students and he remained in the technology class."

"No way..." The two of them kept reading it and didn't notice that Persona was back and ready to talk about the new members. They only snapped back into reality when he said, Daichi Hanahisaki. "Huh?"

"He has the alice of equivalent exchange, special ability class, and used to have the cooking alice." The other students laughed at his profile. "At least we know he can handle fire. Maybe if he joins, he can be Natsume's partner." The class laughed even harder, but only Nobara and Suberi did not. Persona looked over towards the only two who weren't cracking up. "Not amused, you two?"

"This is a serious matter," Nobara stated coldly.

Suberi matched his gaze, "If they're going to take on these missions, they can't be weak willed, choose the wrong ones and missions with have a higher fail rate."

He grinned, just ever so slightly, "If only the class was as serious as you two, but don't think for a second I don't know what's going on."

"Is there something wrong with the way we're acting right now?" she asked.

"No, but when you put this boy and your partner next to you, it makes it even more suspicious." He approached Nobara and was about to touch her cheek.

Until Suberi, on an impulse, retaliated. "Don't touch her!" he shouted. The whole class was watching the action intently. He accidentally knocked off Persona's mask in the spur of the moment. "Uhh.." he stuttered, just realizing what he had done. He looked at his hand, there were black marks forming and they were spreading, fast. His eyes widened, "What the hell...?"

"Suberi, no!" She came over to his side as he was staring at this alien invading his body. "Persona's alice... is the alice of death... You should've known that..." she trailed off. Nobara started crying for him.

"Help! Help! Can't anyone cure this? This... this.. ARGH!" he screamed. Suberi crashed into the floor and grasped his hands, not taking off his eyes from the spreading death mark.

Persona put his mask back on, "I hope all of you remember this, my alice is almost next to impossible to cure."

Nobara held him in her arms, her first partner, and she had a feeling, he was going to be her last. "Suberi..."

He managed to stop squirming around as much, "Nobara... I'm sorry, but I guess I'm going to make it after all."

"What? Why?" she asked fruitlessly.

"That reason doesn't matter... What matters is that, you remember to tell everyone how awesome friction is, okay?" he said weakly.

They continues to talk to each other for the remaining moments of his life. No one tried to help him, it would've been better that way. When Suberi Atsureki finally died in Nobara's arms, Natsume entered the room. He threw a box by her side. "It's from that guy," he said simply. Natsume raised his eyebrows, "What happened here?"

"He died," she forced, there was a sad smile on her face. Nobara opened the box of chocolates robotically and put it in her mouth, "Bitter." A white day turned black. Once again, purity was overtaken by an inky black evil.

Typer's Note -
Super short chapter because I need to update with something and get back into the mood of writing this.
So anyways, the FF is alive! ...and very confusing, but don't worry (worry now because I'm horrible at remembering) it will get better ;D
Suberi dies! Why does this happen? Well you'd have to read til the end of for that answer.
Thanks for reading if you did. Two more chapters and yes, you don't have to review this time.
Review if you can or want to though, it's a weird chapter I know, but... I ran out of excuses.