This is the new chapter... Thanks for your reviews for my last chapters...
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Gakuen Alice.
The greatest weakness of most humans is their hesitancy to tell others how much they love them while they're alive.
White. That's the only color that she's seeing right now. White ceiling. White walls. White floors. White bed. Her clothes is also white.
"Am I already dead?" she thought. but when she looked around, she saw machines beside her and it's dark outside.
"I'm in the hospital," her head aches but not much like before.
"Before? What happened to...me?" she pondered. Then, flashbacks on what happened runs to her mind. The old warehouse, Kyou Yamamoto, the men, and...
"Natsume," she murmured. She shot up on her bed only to collapsed again. Her back still aches.
"I have to find him! Where is he? Is he also in the hospital? But wait! Who brought us here in the first place?" she continued to ponder but she can't get the answers if she can't even sit up.
Once again, her eyes began to droop and she fell asleep.
Morning...
"...lly relieved that Mikan-chan is alright," a familiar voice spoke up.
Mikan slowly opened her eyes only to close it again because of the bright light that she saw. Then, when she adjusted her sight, she saw familiar faces in the room. She's not thinking straight but when she tried to sat up, her back didn't ache much like last time.
"Mikan, are you alright?" a raven haired girl asked, worry is evident to her face that once impassive.
"Ho...Hotaru?" Mikan asked.
"Oh my God! Mikan," Hotaru hugged her. Mikan winced because of her aching back and head. Hotaru noticed this and let go of her.
Then, there's a lot of questions flew in Mikan's head but the first one she blurted out is...
"Where is Natsume?" her face shows worry and she became teary eyed because she remembered what happened to him in the old warehouse.
Everyone is in the room except from Tsubasa and Ruka. The faces of them saddened when Mikan mentioned Natsume. Mikan took it as a clue and she hurriedly got out from the bed and run out the room. The others tried to stop her but they seem to be in their own thoughts earlier. They also run after her.
Mikan asked the nurses and doctors she encountered in the hallways. She's asking if they knew someone with raven hair and crimson eyes with her when they came here in the hospital. Then, she's led to a room not far from hers. Her heart is beating fast and her tears is trying to escape from her eyes. She doesn't know if Natsume is alive.
"Natsume...Please be ok," she prayed, holding the knob of the door. Her friends is running to her, they're just ten feet away from her.
Mikan turned the door knob and pushed the door open. She saw Tsubasa and Ruka with wide eyes.
"Mi-mikan-chan, you're alright?" Tsubasa asked.
Mikan nodded and she asked them," W-where's.. Natsume?"
The two looked at each other and they glanced at the bed across the room. Mikan looked at the direction they glanced into and her tears flowed freely on her cheeks. She's biting her lower lip to prevent herself from crying loud.
Her other friends are already behind her. They are watching her with sympathy in their eyes. Youichi is not with them because he has something to do.
Mikan walked towards the bed and asked them, "Is he a-alright?"
"The doctors said that he just have to rest for days to heal his wounds. We barely recognized him and we all thought that he's g-gonna...d-d-die," Ruka said sadly.
"Because he lost too much blood but the doctors said that they took care of it already," Tsubasa added.
On the bed is Natsume. There's a lot of bandages covering her body that he looks like a mummy. His neck is braced, as well as his right leg. He's sleeping peacefully like he has no worries in life at all.
Mikan touched his face. Her hand is trembling. She's crying because she's happy that he's alright, that he's alive. She's crying because she's thinking that it's her fault that he is now in pain.
She's also injured but it's far from Natsume's. She just has a bandage around her head and her back is still aching.
"What happened?" Mikan asked in a shaky voice.
"We found you," Hotaru stated.
Flashback...
"Where is Natsume going to?" Ruka asked, staring at the car of Natsume.
"I dunno," Tsubasa said.
"But I do," Hotaru pulled an invention from her bag.
"Tracking device?" Youichi asked incredulously. "She can put a tracking device on Hyuuga but not on Mikan-chan?" he thought.
Anna, Misaki, Hotaru, Tsubasa, Youichi and Ruka are in the parking lot of the school. Sumire, Nonoko, Yuu, Koko, and Kitsuneneme are still looking for Mikan in the school. So the six of them can't do anything for now but to wait for the others before following Natsume.
Tsubasa, Ruka and Anna's jaws dropped when they saw Natsume's car is going to a monstrous speed.
"Oh my effing God! He's going to have a car accident!" Anna exclaimed.
"What the hell? Why is he rushing like that?" Ruka asked.
"Maybe he knows where Mikan is," Hotaru said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"But how?" Youichi asked, knitting his eyebrows.
"How should I know? Where are those little turtles?" Hotaru asked, irritated.
Youichi and Hotaru are fuming in anger. Their other friends are still not here.
After 15 minutes...
"That's it! I'm going first," Youichi snapped, walking to his car.
"Wait! They're here," Misaki and Anna yelled.
Their other friends are running towards them and they put their hands on their knees. They're catching their breaths.
"There's...no...Mikan," Sumire said between her breaths.
"Of course not. Because Hyuuga is already found Mikan, you bunch of idiots," Hotaru said, annoyed.
"Eh?" The others are surprised.
"We have to go now!" Tsubasa said, before Hotaru completely snap.
They used Youichi, Tsubasa, and Ruka's cars. Youichi, Hotaru and Yuu are Youichi's car. Tsubasa, Misaki, Anna and Koko are in Tsubasa's. Ruka, Nonoko, Kitsuneme, and Sumire are in Ruka's car. They drove away following the trail of Natsume's. Youichi's car is the one leading the others because Hotaru's device is with her. The others are trailing behind them.
After 30 minutes...
Youichi and the others quickly went out the cars when they spotted Natsume's car. Ruka opened the car door with the duplicate car keys of Natsume. They are bestfriends so they entrusted them their duplicate car keys just in case of emergency.
When Ruka opened the car door, he saw an envelope and he quickly showed it to others.
"Do you know what it is?" Ruka asked, handing the envelope to Tsubasa.
"It's certainly not love letter because he will threw it away before even reading the front," Tsubasa said.
"I bet it's something to do with Mikan," Hotaru told them.
Tsubasa opened the envelope while the other guys peeked except from Youichi and Hotaru. Shocked was written on their faces and the two emotionless people got confused. So Hotaru snatched the envelope and its content from Tsubasa's grasp. Anger and also shocked filled Youichi and Hotaru's faces. The two also read the back side of the photo of Mikan who tied on a chair. They run to the building near the Daisuke River and the others followed suit.
"Get the bats," Hotaru ordered while she pulled different kinds of guns from her bag. It's all her inventions.
Tsubasa and the others picked up the bats that scattered to the side of the building. They saw the sliding doors in the front. Ruka and Youichi opened it, angirly. They saw 7 guys with shocked and terrified faces. They figured that the red-haired guy, Kyou, right in the front of them is the leader because the others is giving him space.
Youichi is really ready to kill right now. He has fire in his emerald green eyes and his fists are clenched in his sides. The others are also furious. They began to cracked their knuckles and their necks.
The men in front of them is scared because 1) they were outnumbered 2) they don't have anything to use to fight and 3) the bunch of students in front of them is emitting a demonic aura and faces.
The men walked back as Ruka and the others stepped forward. Hotaru and Youichi saw two people lying on the floor lifelessly. Hotaru's impassive face shattered and replaced by a very, very furious one that when someone saw her, they will definitely run away or wet on their pants. She shot the 3 guys behind Kyou with her Ultra Baka Bazooka that really made you unconscious. Misaki and the others finally noticed the two people on the ground. Anna, Nonoko, Yuu, and Ruka rushed over them. Youichi punched Kyou hard on the face and he picked up an iron pipe. He hit Kyou with it in different parts of his body except from his face. After several hits in Kyou who's on the cold floor, Youichi knelt down and grabbed her hair roughly.
"You'll regret doing this to Mikan!" Youichi then punched Kyou's face repeatedly until it can't be recognized anymore. Kyou can't even fight the whole time because Youichi didn't let him by hitting him nonstop.
Koko, Tsubasa, and Kitsuneme beat up the three other guys with their bats. They also punched them and kicked them everywhere. Sumire is furious, as well as Misaki, they vent their anger to the three unconscious guy who got hit by Hotaru's invention. They slapped them, real hard, and they also kicked them.
After the beating up moment. The gang rushed at Natsume and Mikan. Ruka and the others are having a hard time in lifting them because they are really wincing and cried in pain every time the others are moving them so they're afraid that they damaged them more. They have no choice but to call the ambulance and wait for them.
After a few minutes...
The ambulance came and the nurses assist Mikan and Natsume immediately. The girls are crying and the boys are comforting them. Even Hotaru is sobbing quietly. She cannot believe that these things will went this far. She can't even do anything but to watch her best friend to suffer in pain.
Youichi is panicking. He just put Mikan on danger, or so he thought. He's always blaming himself when something bad is happening to Mikan. She's always helping him in bad times, she's always smiling at him when he looks down, she's always comforting him in times when he wants to cry. She's always there for him and yet, he can't even protect her. But he's relieved and contented when Natsume save her, he can see in their position that Natsume did everything just to save her. He also saw Mikan's tear stained face and he knew that she's really hurt both physically and mentally.
"I think it's time... to tell them the truth," Youichi thought. This eyes is full of sadness and guilt.
Ruka and Tsubasa are in shocked inside, "Maybe... this is a hint that Natsume is backing out from the bet,"they thought. They have a few clues these past days that Natsume is somehow attached already to Mikan. They both didn't expect that just because of a bet, things will be this hard for them and their worlds will turn upside down. Because slowly, without knowing it, they already fell for each other, real hard.
"He must really cares about Mikan," the gang thought. They saw how tragic the event was just by looking at Mikan's pained expression and tear stained face, and Natsume's beaten body.
"Who would have thought that those two gave really to undergo this situation," Hotaru, Ruka and Youichi thought. Hotaru ad Ruka is really close to their bestfriends, Mikan and Natsume. Youichi is really protective in Mikan. So somehow, the thoughts of these three are linked.
Misaki called the Japan Police Enforcement just to pick up Kyou and the other guys who were left in the warehouse and throw them all in jail.
Then, they went to the hopital.
End of Flashback...
"So... what really happened, Mikan-chan?" Rukas asked.
Mikan bit her lower lip again. She knows that if she tell them what happened, she will burst out crying loud. But they also have the right to know so she walked to the chair beside Natsume and start telling them what happened from the moment she was kidnapped to the time she saved Natsume from their last attack.
The, after telling the story, Mikan seems to forgot something...important. So she recalled what happened in full detail in her head, even if it's really hurts. Then, it struck her like a lightning.
"I will..not give up... But at least..you're safe..now," Natsume replied. He's also clsoing his eyes. "I...I love you."
Then, Mikan blushed a thousand different shades of red. Her heart is pounding faster like it will burst out from her ribcage. How could she just remember now the important part of the whole scene in the warehouse?
"N-nastume...confess t-to.. m-me?" Mikan thought. She's getting dizzy and she wants to faint now.
Everyone noticed Mikan and asked her if she's alright but she seems to be in a daze. Hotaru can't use her Baka Gun on her because of her injured head.
"MIKAN!" Anna, Nonoko, and Sumire yelled. That made her snapped in her thoughts for a while and looked at them with eyes widen and jaw dropped. Thoughts are swirling around her head that made her go crazy.
"What's..." Ruka was about to ask her but she fainted. "...wrong?"
She fainted because 1) she's excited and don't know what to do when she remembered the confession of Natsume's and it keep ringing in her head 2) her head really hurts because of too much thinking and 3) she's totally exhausted because she didn't get much sleep.
Unknown to them, Youichi is outside the door since when they were about to finish their story about what happened when they found Mikan and Natsume. Youichi also heard Mikan telling them what happened when she was kidnapped. He smiled his rare smiles.
"It's really the right thing to do. I'll leave Mikan-chan in Hyuuga's hands now," he thought, still smiling thoughtfully.
"Just don't get himself completely humiliated when he found out who really am I." Then, he smirked.
Youichi is going to tell the others who really is he in the next chapter and what will happened now that Mikan knows Natsume's feelings for her?...
Stay tune...
Thanks for reading, please review :)