And readers, this chapter started when our freaky author approached our dearly brunette and the other main character on this story, named Jacklyn. A very dark gloomy aura around her sent chill down the two girl's spines that were chatting happily at that time. The two girls, feeling the chill on their spines, decided to stop chatting and look at the big dark gloomy aura that was approaching them.

Mikan: (Sweat drops) What's wrong with you, illutia?

Jacklyn: (Expressionless) From the gloomy aura, she just got a bad day.

illutia mist: (Mutters) HE hit my head umpteenth times…

Mikan: (Concerned) Ohh… Are you okay?

illutia mist: (Glares at Mikan) Absolutely not.

Jacklyn: Actually, I enjoyed hitting him back then.

illutia mist: (Mutters) But I didn't enjoy being hit by HIM.

Someone: Who do you mean?

illutia mist: (Snaps her head to the voice's direction as a vein pops on her head) WHO ELSE? IT'S-OH MY GOD!! NATSUME?! (Shrieks)

Natsume: (Raises an eyebrow) What?

Jacklyn: You hit her again and she complained.

Natsume: (Bends his eyebrows and glances at illutia) It's your fault.

Mikan: And why is that? (A big question mark appears on her head)

Natsume: (Looks at Mikan) Are you an idiot? Our REAL author, Higuchi Tachibana, has created us in a good shape and this freaky author (Glares at illutia, who glares back at him) dares to do to what she wants with us!

illutia mist: (Pouts and mutters) I just made Jacklyn smack your head and you're already that mad. What will happen if I make you wounded heavily and bleed again like in the first chapter of When I Met You?

Natsume glared at the freaky author dangerously. This time, Jacklyn was the one who talked.

Jacklyn: He'll definitely kill you.

illutia mist: Don't you dare!! I'll really make you suffer!! (Points an accusation finger at Natsume)

Natsume: (A very dangerous aura appears around him) Try.

And the two, that maybe couldn't get along forever, kept retorting at each other.

Mikan: (Sweat drops) Maybe we better start this piece…

-x-

Small Pieces of You

-x-

3rd Piece: Her Alice

'Oh, great! Where am I now?' Jacklyn thought as she looked around her.

She was lost.

She looked at her wristwatch. 'It has been thirty minutes since I went out from class and now I'm lost,' she thought irritatingly. 'And there's an hour again until the next class begins.'

She walked again, bringing a gloomy aura with her. Then she spotted something when she turned at a corner, a Sakura tree.

'Wow! A Sakura tree!' Jacklyn was fascinated. 'Oh, yeah. It's May. No wonder the Sakura flowers are blooming.'

She approached the Sakura tree and admired it from close distance.

'It's very beautiful,' she thought as she touched the trunk of the Sakura tree.

She sat down and leaned her back against the trunk. She stared at her sketchbook, which now had a burnt mark on the edge of it.

'Darn that Natsume! He burnt my precious sketchbook!' she thought angrily as she touched the burnt mark.

She held her sketchbook closely and reminisced the years that she had gone through before she finally ended up at Alice academy.

'Don't draw those unused things too much.'

'Better study for your future. Your grades aren't too good.'

'Take a look at Izu. She's diligent and obedient than you.'

'Her grades are excellent. Why don't you follow her than keep on making the dead things?'

'You're the older daughter, but you have no use at all. Izu's better.'

'I'm not Izu,' Jacklyn thought sadly. 'I'm Jacklyn. I'm not her.'

She held her sketchbook tightly as she said, "I hate you, Izu…I hate you…"

"Don't bring those bad thoughts here," a voice said. "This is my sacred place."

Jacklyn snapped out of her thought. "Who's that?" she asked as she looked around, but found no one there.

"You disturbed my sleep," the voice said again.

Jacklyn then remembered that annoyed voice. 'Natsume, huh?' she thought, annoyed.

She didn't find anyone near there, so she looked up and found a figure lying on a branch of the Sakura tree.

"I didn't see you before. How do I know that I would disturb you?" she said, still annoyed. "And I didn't shout either."

"You're talking loud enough for me to hear, sketchbook girl," he, or rather, Natsume said while still lying on the branch.

"What are you? A dog? A cat?" she asked, pissed off.

"Nobody," Natsume replied. "Now shut up or I'll burn your sketchbook again."

Jacklyn narrowed her eyes. "Don't you dare."

And a small fire appeared again on her sketchbook, on the burnt mark. Jacklyn was startled and quickly standing up. She swished her sketchbook up and down to put out the fire.

"Darn you, Natsume! Put it out! PUT THE FIRE OUT!" she scowled at him as she swished her sketchbook.

"I've told you to shut up," he replied, irritated.

"I didn't do anything wrong!" she retorted. "I just said one sentence and you burned my sketchbook!"

"That's your fault," he replied simply.

"Tch!" Jacklyn was panicked and angry. The sketchbook was her precious thing. She wouldn't let it end this way. In her panic, she did an unexpected thing.

She patted her hand on the fire, trying to extinguish it. She didn't care if her hand was burnt back then. All she cared was her sketchbook.

"Darn it! Just put out, will you?!" she hissed as she kept on patting her sketchbook.

Finally the fire extinguished. Jacklyn sighed in relief, but she was just aware that her hand got a burnt scar, her right hand.

"Ouch…" she winced in a low voice as she looked at her right hand. 'Great! My sketchbook is safe, but not my hand. And it's the right one!' she wailed in her thought.

"You're stupid, aren't you?" Natsume said as he jumped down from the branch.

Jacklyn threw a 'what-do-you-want-now?' glare at him. He ignored the glare and approached her.

"What?" she asked angrily.

"Go to the hospital. They can treat your wound there," Natsume said without any expression pf his face.

"What's with the sudden change?" she asked again, still angry.

"I've told you. It's up to you now," he said as he turned to his back and started to walk away.

Jacklyn just realized that he was alone. "Hey! Where's your blonde friend?" she asked in wonder.

Natsume stopped and glanced at her from his shoulder. "He's not with me and his name is Ruka, not blonde." And he continued to walk again.

'Weird guy,' Jacklyn thought after Natsume had disappeared from her eyesight. She sat again and looked at her burnt hand.

'You're stupid, aren't you?'

She sighed. 'I couldn't think back then,' she thought as she looked down at the green grass. Then she stared at her sketchbook. The burnt mark was wider than before. Well, a little.

'It's good that it just got burnt on the edge,' she thought. 'I'll kill him if he burnt it on the center.'

She opened her sketchbook and found her first drawing, a Sakura petal. She smiled. 'This is the first drawing that I made when mom gave me this sketchbook.' She looked more deeply at the drawing. 'It has been a long time since I drew this Sakura petal. I never saw it again,' she thought as she touched the drawing. 'So this is how it feels, to touch your own drawing. I've never touched it before. It's felt…' she chuckled, '…flat.' She kept on touching the drawing as she thought, 'Who is the weird people that said it feels alive when we touch it?'

But something went wrong.

Jacklyn was wide-eyed when she found out that her drawing, the Sakura petal, was gone.

'No…' she thought in surprise. 'Where did it go?'

She felt something in her hand. As she took a look at her hand, she found a Sakura petal on it.

'Is…is it real?' she thought as she rubbed it gently. She felt the same soft feeling as if she was touching the real Sakura petal. 'No way,' she thought, disbelieved.

She put the Sakura petal back in her sketchbook and closed it. She looked around, making sure that no one saw what just happened. She sighed in relief when she knew that no one was there and looked at her wristwatch. Her eyes widened.

'Oh no! Jinno-sensei's class will start in fifteen minutes!' she thought in panic as she quickly stood up and ran to her class, which she didn't remember where it was.

-x-

After forty five minutes, Jacklyn finally found her class. Now, she was in front of the class door, thinking whether she opened the door or not.

'It's not so bad to try,' she thought as she knocked the door and pushed it open.

A scary teacher with glasses looked at her with a pair of threatening eyes. She could feel a dangerous aura around him.

"I'm sorry, Jinno-sensei. I was a little lost in direction," she said with a small smile on her face, trying to be kind.

But to no avail, she could feel his aura more dangerous than before.

"Do you know how long you've been late?" he asked dangerously.

"Yes, Sensei. Thirty minutes," she said, trying to be polite.

"And you know there's a consequence for it?" he asked again.

"Yes, Sensei," she replied, wondering what the consequence would be.

"Good. Now, go back to your seat. You'll get the consequence later," Jinno said as he turned to his back.

"Yes, Sensei," she replied again as she walked to her seat.

On her way, she spotted Sumire's mocking smile. Jacklyn stuck out her tongue a little at her as she rolled her eyes. A frowning expression showed up on the green-haired girl's face.

"Sensei! This new girl just mocked you from behind!" Sumire reported the fake fact to Jinno.

Jinno glared at Jacklyn and Sumire.

"No, I'm not, Sensei," Jacklyn defended with an innocent face. "She's the one who did it," she said as she pointed at Sumire.

Sumire snapped her head to Jacklyn then to Jinno. Jinno had a dangerous glare with him now.

"Um…I…Not me, Sensei! Believe me!" Sumire said as she pleaded not to be punished.

Jinno glared at Jacklyn. Jacklyn was still showing her innocent face. Then Jinno glared back at Sumire.

"Detention, Shouda-san! Stay in the class after the classes over," Jinno said as he turned to the blackboard again, continuing his lesson.

Sumire threw a death glare at Jacklyn. Jacklyn just smirked as she proceeded her way to her seat.

When she was close to her seat, her eyes locked with Mikan's. Her face showed that she was worried.

"Are you okay, Jacklyn-chan?" she whispered, carefully not to be noticed by Jinno.

Jacklyn just smiled and nodded as she sat on her seat. Her eyes caught a glimpse of Natsume, who was sitting beside Mikan, before she sat down. But she decided to ignore it. She intended to rest her chin on her hands when suddenly she winced at a stinging pain in her right hand.

'Ouch! I forgot that my right hand was burnt! Darn it!' she thought as she put down her right hand under the desk.

Natsume didn't realize about this. As you know, he covered his face with manga and pretended to sleep.

During the class, Jacklyn couldn't note anything on her notebook because her right hand was wounded. And the worst part was Jinno taught Math! She was weak at Math.

She could feel her pain getting worse from time to time. Sweats started to roll down on her temple. Then suddenly, Jinno faced the class. He looked at a certain black-haired girl that was sitting in front of Mikan.

"Jacklyn-san," he called. Jacklyn looked up. He gave out a sly smile and said, "Solve the problem number 3."

"Yes, Sensei," she replied as she stood up from her seat.

She walked to the blackboard and took a chalk. She tried to concentrate on the question, but her pain got the best of her.

"What's wrong?" Jinno said with his sly smile. "Can't solve the problem?"

'Darn!' Jacklyn tried to concentrate again as she held back the pain.

"Jinno-sensei," a familiar voice said. Jacklyn whipped her head to the sound and knew it was Koko. "She is-" but before Koko finished his sentence, Jacklyn glared at him silently.

'Don't say anything! I'll kill you if you tell him,' she thought, knowing that Koko would read her mind.

"What are you trying to say, Koko?" Jinno asked in a deep voice.

"Um, nothing, Sensei," Koko said as he quickly waved his hands in front of him.

Jacklyn looked back at the blackboard and concentrated to the question again. Then she heard some unpleasant silent laughs from some girls.

'Probably Sumire and those fan girls,' she thought as another sweat rolled down on her temple.

But the laugh didn't stop and Jinno just let them be. She had tried to ignore it, but with the pressure of the question and pain, she finally got enough of it.

BAM!!

The class was surprised at her sudden action, even Jinno, except for a girl with stoic face and Natsume who just removed the manga from his face to see what had caused the commotion.

Jacklyn had punched the blackboard. She was too angry to hold the laugh, the damn Math question, and the pain on her right hand.

"I'm sorry about this, Sensei," she said as she pulled back her hand from the hole on the blackboard. "May I have your permission to skip this class?"

Jinno wanted to give her the detention, but he spotted her right hand was bleeding and there was a burnt scar too.

"Just today. Next time, I'll give you a detention if you do this again," Jinno said in a dangerous tone. "And go to the hospital to have your wounds treated."

Jacklyn looked at him and showed her smile. "Thank you, Sensei. I will."

She walked back to her seat, ignoring the startled Sumire and all students that were watching her movement to her seat. As she arrived at her seat, she took her bag and sketchbook.

Before she turned away, she caught Mikan's worried face. She smiled at the brunette and mouthed 'don't worry' words to her. She glanced at Natsume, who watched her with his expressionless face. She shot him a 'what?' glare. Natsume just gave her a 'stupid' look. Then she walked back to the front of the class.

"I excused myself, Jinno-sensei," she said as she smiled and walked out from the class.

After she closed the door, she walked to the random direction. She thought about what she had done just now.

'I've never done this before. This school is worse than I thought,' she thought, irritated.

She stopped at the corridor and looked around to make sure there was no one there. After she thought it's secure, she opened her sketchbook and turned to its second page, which had a shamrock drawing on it. She touched the drawing and the drawing was gone. The shamrock drawing became a real one in her hand. She rubbed it gently.

'Wow…I can make my drawing become a real thing,' she thought, a little surprised.

She was deep in her thought for a few moments then she remembered. 'Should I tell that gay teacher about this?' she thought as she stared at the shamrock in her hand. 'Yeah. I better tell him than that Jinno.'

She started to walk again for a few steps then she realized that she was lost…again.

'Great! I think I need three or four days to memorize this school's route. Maybe more…' She sighed as she started to walk again.

"Jacklyn-chan?" a familiar cheery man's voice could be heard from behind her.

Jacklyn turned her head and found the gay teacher, Narumi, standing behind her with a smile on his face.

"Did Jinno-sensei give you permission to miss his class?" Narumi asked in a kind voice.

Jacklyn nodded.

"It's very rare for him to do that, except for Natsume, of course," Narumi said, a little surprised. "What happened?"

"Nothing. Just my right hand," she said as she lifted her right hand that had burnt scar and was bleeding.

Narumi's eyes widened at this sight. "Jacklyn-chan, what happened?"

"A little accident," Jacklyn replied simply as she smiled.

"Are you okay? We better go to the hospital hurriedly. I'll take you there," Narumi said as he took her left hand and walked to the hospital.

"Umm, Sensei…" Jacklyn called, wondering if she should tell him about 'her drawing' incident.

"Hm? What's wrong?" Narumi asked as he smiled.

"I made my drawings alive…" she said, making the teacher stop walking.

She opened sketchbook and showed him the Sakura petal and shamrock inside it. The teacher observed her for a while.

"If you don't mind, can you do it in front of me now?" Narumi asked kindly.

Jacklyn nodded and opened her sketchbook. She decided to open her 'masterpiece' page.

You know, the tangled thread.

She touched it and the drawing was gone. In her hand, the tangled thread appeared. Narumi was fascinated and a satisfaction smile appeared on his face. He opened one of his lesson books that had some drawings in it. He pointed a drawing and looked at her. Jacklyn understood and touched the drawing. It wasn't gone. It was still there. There was nothing in her hand too.

Narumi closed the book. He took out a paper and a pencil. He made a drawing. It was like her masterpiece, the tangled thread. He showed it to her. She touched it again, but nothing happened. Then Narumi gave her the paper and pencil.

"Try to make a drawing and touch it," Narumi said.

Jacklyn took the paper and the pencil. She drew a kind of leaf then she touched it. The drawing was gone. A leaf with the same shape appeared in her hand with its real texture and color. Narumi gave her a wide smile.

"Congratulations! You've found your alice!" Narumi chirped happily.

"So, this is my alice?" she asked.

"Yes, looks like it's the drawing alice," Narumi explained. "It's rare. I hope you can make any use of it."

Jacklyn smiled. 'So, it's a drawing alice, huh,' she thought, a little happy.

"I'll report this to the headmaster," he said. "But before that, we'll have your wounds treated first."

Narumi took her left hand again and they walked to the hospital together.

--To be continued--

illutia mist: (Wipes her forehead as she smiles) Finally! Her alice has been revealed!

Jacklyn: Isn't it too late? You just revealed it in 3rd piece.

illutia mist: Whatever. What I know is I have revealed your alice!

Jacklyn: (Rolls her eyes) Okay. So, where were those two going?

illutia mist: (Shrugs) How do I know? They're suddenly gone in the beginning of the story after Natsume whacked my head one more time (Irritated) and Mikan followed him going nowhere.

Jacklyn: Shouldn't you tell them about my alice?

illutia mist: Nope. I won't. I'll hold it as a secret until the time has arrived.

Jacklyn: So, they won't appear in this chit-chat room for a while?

illutia mist was silent for a while after Jacklyn said that.

illutia mist: To tell you the truth, I miss them. Maybe they'll show up in this chit-chat room before and after the story. I'll try my best to shoo them away before the story begin.

Jacklyn: (Sighs) What a freaky author.

illutia mist: (Glares at Jacklyn) I'm kidding! But they still won't know about your alice, no matter how hard they try. I have planned the time to reveal your alice in this story. (Sighs)

Jacklyn: (Folds her arms in front of her chest) So, how long you'll keep this as a secret?

illutia mist: The start of the problem will come. I plan to write what happen atoyou for approximately (Puts a finger on her chin, thinking)…a week in Alice Academy.

Jacklyn: (Eyes widen a little) You're an insane creator. How long that'll be?

illutia mist: (Shrugs) Take it easy.

Jacklyn: Not for the readers.

illutia mist: That's an important week that will turn your life…I think.

Jacklyn: (Sighs) What a maniac author. Sorry, readers. Please stand this freaky author's indescribable mind.

illutia mist: (Pouts) Jacklyn, that's so not nice saying that to your creator. (Grins) But, I agree too. (Smiles) Sorry if this week will eat long chapters, or rather, pieces. But it's just for this week. And after that, all will be back to normal.

Suddenly a flat board hit the poor illutia on her head and caused her to faint. Jacklyn looked at the words that were written on it and read it loud.

Jacklyn: Thank you for reading and please review. Who threw this board anyway?

Then a certain brunette ran to Jacklyn's direction.

Mikan: (Scratches the back of her head) Sorry. I'm having a fight with Natsume. I intended to throw that to him but it missed. Is there any victim of this board?

Jacklyn pointed to the ground and Mikan looked at the direction. She found illutia lying there, unconscious.

Mikan: (Sweat drops) Oh…