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As Mikan tried not to fall asleep on Natsume's shoulder from the blood loss, he steadied her against his body on the edge of the roof.

"You're really..." she whispered breathily, feeling the sting of the cuts on her neck heal under the gentle caress of Natsume's lips, "a vampire..."

"Yes," he replied stonily. "I am."

"How..." she gasped, "how, how...."

"How long for? How did it happen?" he suggested. "It's been about five years since I was transformed, and I'm sure it wouldn't surprise you to know who my sire was." Mikan gazed at him in confusion, so he answered her query. "Persona," he said bitterly. "That person did this to me."

Mikan was about to say something, when suddenly Natsume's grip tightened on her threateningly.

"You cannot tell anyone," he hissed. "If you tell a soul... I'll..."

"I won't," Mikan interrupted; she knew full well what he was insinuating: he would kill her. "You've... done this to me before, haven't you?" She felt for her neck, for the marks that had just started appearing in the past few days. Natsume nodded, and Mikan realized what her late night blackouts were – why she couldn't remember things, why she woke up in blood, and why she had felt she'd seen Natsume before she ever could have met him.

In so little a time their stories had become intertwined, and as she stared deep into his eyes, he spoke to her.

"Your blood," he said carefully. "There is something odd about it... something different to any other." Mikan realized now that he must have drunk the blood of hundreds of different people; she wondered if he'd ever killed someone before – he hadn't killed her when he first met her, so perhaps he was not a murderer but just someone who fed on people, then erased their minds as he had with hers. That was it would be easier for him to hide at least.

"My blood?" she said curiously.

"Yes; normally the blood of a human makes me strong, and strengthens my impulse to kill," he explained. "At first you feel normal, as if nothing has changed, but to survive you have to have blood, and the more you have the greater the urge is to drink more, and soon it becomes almost impossible not to kill. I was fighting that urge," he confessed, "and that was why I had to move on to Alice Academy. I was half mad when I came across you, but..." His voice hitched suddenly, and then he continued in a low, svelte tone.

"Your blood doesn't do that. It soothes the urge, nulls it, softens the sharp voice telling me to kill." He looked down at his own well toned body, honed to hunt people just like her. "It makes me feel weaker... but the more I have, the more I recognise the feeling. It's human," he muttered. "For some reason your blood doesn't feed the... the vamp in me."

"So now what?" Mikan questioned. "What does that mean?! You can't just use my blood like that! It's mine you know! So what are you going to do?!"

"I don't know," he retorted. "I'll... I don't know!" In a flash he was on his feet and gone, running across the roof and out of sight faster than a human could. Mikan was left to climb back into her room on her own, her head spinning with what she had leant. That night she found it impossible to sleep a wink; how could she, knowing what she now knew, and without any closure seeing as Natsume ran off without saying a thing to her.

The next day at school Mikan's friends noticed instantly something was wrong.

"Mikan, are you getting sick?" Ruka said worriedly. "You look awful."

"Thanks," Mikan said sarcastically. "I just had a bad night's sleep, Ruka, I'm fine." However, he wouldn't let up, and eventually she snapped at him. "I'm FINE!" she shouted. "Just leave me alone!" Just as she said this Natsume finally walked in – late. Without a second thought Mikan charged up to him.

"You've got some explaining to do," she said angrily. "After running off like that." Suddenly, however, Mikan felt a manicured hand on her shoulder.

"Um, excuse you," Sumire announced snootily, "but what do you think you're doing talking to Natsume?" Mikan whirled around to face the elitist queen of their class.

"Sorry," Natsume interjected, speaking coldly to Sumire. "I was speaking to Mikan." He turned his gaze back to her and went on to completely ignore Sumire. "I had to go last night," he explained to Mikan, "I needed time alone. I'll... leave you alone for now," he said quietly. "That's what you want, right?"

Mikan looked stunned; was that what she wanted? She didn't want to be his personal walking blood tank, but did she want him gone completely from her life before she even knew him?

However, before she could say anything more he had turned and walked away from her again. Without thinking Mikan chased him and pulled him back by his jacket.

"But... your secret!" she hissed in his ear, in full view of their bemused classmates.

"I'll trust you to keep it," he said icily, and then gave her a chilling look, smirking slightly as he walked away so that the faintest gleam of his teeth shone. Mikan was left the centre of attention of her entire class.

"What is going on, Mikan?" Hotaru questioned as Mikan skulked back to her seat.

"It's just some weird stuff that happened to me lately," Mikan muttered, "don't worry about me it's nothing really."

"Oh," said Hotaru, her eyes on the textbook already. "Okay then." Hotaru, fortunately or unfortunately enough, never took even her closest of friends for more than they said; it was just how she was. Ruka was too scolded by Mikan to chance probing her any more, and for the rest of the day she stayed in a slowly darkening mood, as Natsume returned to blissfully ignoring her existence as he would've had they not met that dark night.

By the time class ended she had so many questions in her head she thought it might explode, and it was a struggle just to get back to her room, tolerate the latest jests from her roommates – today that she had a crush on the new boy, as seen by her performance today – and collapse into bed. It occurred to her that she was probably feeling so weak and listless because of a lack of blood in her body thanks to someone's interference with it, but at the same time she wondered if perhaps he'd change his mind and turn up.

Only yesterday he had said he couldn't stay away from her if he tried, but now she worried he might do just the opposite.

Her fears were well founded, as it got later and later and still Natsume did not appear anywhere. Mikan wondered how she could miss someone she barely knew. She fell asleep denying the tears that were in her eyes, and woke up feeling worse than ever before.

She had nightmares of Persona that night, as Natsume had brought the horrible years she spent under his torment back from the depths of her mind. Persona was evil, but she had never thought he could have been a Vampire. Did that mean he had been drinking her blood for all that time? No, Mikan felt sure he hadn't but why not? Why were she and Natsume connected through him.

'You are mine, Mi-chan,' Persona said to her in her dreams. 'You will be forever.'

When Mikan woke up she felt too sick to even move, and simply trying to stand up nearly made her pass out completely. She knew she couldn't make it out of bed and all the way to class, not without throwing up or worse. She wished that Natsume could be here for her, even though she knew it didn't really make any sense. Although that could be the illness taking, as it was not unknown for too many nightmares of her past to make her ill and delusional.

So she decided to just sleep it off in bed and try not to think about anything in particular, least of all Natsume. She was too nauseous to eat anyway, so she just drifted in and out of sleep between reading some of her favourite manga.

She had already missed lunch when there was finally a knock at her door; she assumed it was going to be one of her best friends checking up on her, and maybe bringing some food for her.

However, it was not what she had expected.

"You're not in class," Natsume rushed as he burst in through the door as soon as she said 'come in', and in seconds he was at the side of her bed. "Why not?!"

Mikan leapt under her covers in shock – she was only sleeping wearing a strappy top with a rabbit on it and checked shorts! Then she mumbled out in embarrassment at Natsume, "I'm sick."

"Sick? How? What with?" he said worriedly. "It can't be blood loss I thought I left enough..."

Mikan peeked over the top of the covers and was almost happy to see how worried Natsume really looked. "I'm fine," she said quietly. "I just get sick sometimes, it's no big deal."

"Well it's a big deal to me," Natsume said coldly. "If you die..."

"I thought you were going to leave me alone," she said cruelly. "What difference would it make if I was dead or alive?"

"Don't say that!" he hissed viciously, his eyes flashing an angry red. "Don't talk like that until you know the value of your own human life." Mikan realized that Natsume spoke as someone who no longer was human, and who could even be described as already dead.

"Oh... I didn't mean..." she whispered awkwardly.

"Never mind," he snapped. "Just tell me what's wrong." He leant further over her bed, and in her feverish delusion Mikan simply grabbed for one of his hands and held it tight.

"It doesn't matter," she said softly. "You're here now. I'm okay," she breathed softly, "I'm okay..." By the time Natsume could lean over to see her face, she had fallen asleep; so he sat down on the side of the bed and felt the human warmth of her hand in his. He had been trying to stay away for her good, not his own – could it really be that his absence made her ill? Or that his presence could soothe it at any rate. He wasn't sure, but, at least now he could perhaps find out a little more about the nullifying properties of her blood.

When she recovered, of course. He wouldn't want to endanger the holder of blood that could possibly save his very humanity, would he?

"Where do you think Mikan is?" Ruka asked Hotaru while they sat next to each other in Mikan's absence.

"She must be ill, she hasn't seemed too well these past few days," Hotaru replied coolly.

"I suppose... I'm quite worried about her," Ruka said worriedly.

"Yes, as am I," said Hotaru unconvincingly. "But I expect it is nothing serious."

"Yes, I hope so," replied Ruka; his face downcast.

"I was supposed to go to see a film with her in Central Town tonight," Hotaru announced. "I have a spare ticket now, as I assume she is not well enough for recreation if she is not well enough for study. Would you like to have her ticket, as I now have one spare?"

"Uhhhh," Ruka stammered, stunned that Hotaru – ice queen extraordinare – would ask him to go anywhere with her in any circumstance. He was so stunned, in fact, that all he could say was, "Uh... sure." And then stare in confusion as she smiled, nodded and then stood up and walked away.

It was only then that Ruka thought... did that mean they were going out on a date? Well, he was taking Mikan's place so unless she was going on a date with Hotaru he thought he wouldn't be. So it'd just be as friends, definitely. Just friends going to the cinema with each other and no one else.

Ruka frowned slightly, and wondered why there were butterflies in his stomach as he left class at the end of the day.

Mikan dreamt she was at home with her parents, she ran happily between them, her arms outstretched with a hand in each of theirs. She was the happiest she's ever known; her father picks her up, his arms strong around her, and hugs her to his chest.

But then something in the dream changed, and she was no longer hugging her dad – no, a father wouldn't hug like this; nor would his lips brush so softly and tenderly against hers, touching once, twice and then pressing down for a stronger contact. She kissed the dream back, and when she opened her eyes rich red orbs started back into hers.

Then she opened her eyes for real, and saw that she was in her room, alone, as usual. Only there was a warm indentation in her bed still, as if someone had just fled from sitting there only seconds ago. She shook it out of her head and rolled over, going back to sleep and hoping to recapture the beauty of that dream again.

Except then she heard a sound by her door, sitting bolt upright in bed she locked eyes with the eyes of her dream, the eyes of Natsume – he had been here the whole time, by her side, and she wasn't even awake to thank him! Had that kiss been real?

"Natsume!" she cried, leaping forwards in bed and almost passing out from the head rush. Her lips burned and her fingers tingled – the kiss had to be real, it just had to be, but the look in Natsume's eyes was of fear, and not of romance. Before she could get up properly, though, he was gone. Mikan had no option but to wait until the next day, and hope that she was well enough to get to class and confront Natsume about what was going on between them.

The next day, however, was more hectic than the day Natsume had arrived. When Mikan got into the classroom people were bustling about all over the place and the gossip was at such a loud level she could barely hear herself think.

"What's going on?" Mikan tried to ask someone, but that was when she turned and saw.

Natsume strode forth from the back of the classroom, his hair in crooked, dark peaks over his almond face and his eyes glowing hotly in the direction of anyone who dared to get too close. Everyone, of course, except the new new student.

Waist length silver hair, almost luminescent in colour, and delicately curled and straightened to frame her delicate pixiesh face in an ethereal way. But her eyes were cold, almost dead, and her hands clasped Natsume's shoulder as if they had been told to, not because they wanted to. Natsume's arm sat loosely around her waist, and it looked obvious enough to everyone that they were involved.

But still Mikan had to ask, there was no way this could be real – hadn't he almost or actually kissed her last night?!

"Who's that?!" she blurted rudely to Natsume, barging through her classmates to stand in front of the pair; Natsume zapped his gaze to her in shock, as if this were the last place he'd ever expect to see her, even though it was their own classroom.

"I'm Luna Kozumi," the girl supplied, a sweet but slightly sinister grin on her petite face and delicate features; she stared at Mikan as if she were a slightly unpleasant bug she had come across by accident on the toe of her perfectly buffed, stiletto shoe. "I'm Natsume's girlfriend."


Another cliffy kind of, haha. I'll be nice though ;) (Or will I?) Leave a review please please please I want to know what you think of my fic!