Disclaimed.


Finding Mikan

Chapter Four: Natsume Hyuuga and the Missing Tangerine


There were times in math and science when one had to heed the cumbersome procedures of applying the right number of significant digits, when failing to do so would risk getting an inaccurate answer which in turn resulted in deducted marks which in turn resulted in failure. And then there were times in life when one wished one's foot was only two point six four five eight seconds faster so that one could shove it between the door and the doorframe to prevent said door from slamming shut.

Hotaru experienced both.

But the former had escaped her mind for years after she had learned to let go of a certain trophy whereas the latter had her seething in an empty hallway, forming rather elaborate plans on how to break down Private Detective Hayami's door without landing herself a charge for breaking and entering. Or property damage, for that matter.

She did not understand what was so complex about the situation.

Natsume was there.

She was there.

They needed to talk.

So why could Hayami not let them talk already?

Instead, all he had so graciously bestowed her was a numb foot, a resonating rattle of wood—the rattle of her failure, Hotaru mused rather sadistically—and a firm click of a lock in place. Obviously all three reinforced the notion that neither man had the balls to face her directly.

So without much of an option, Hotaru was left to wait in heavy silence because however appealing the thought of breaking down a door was, only barbarians would ever carry out such a fantasy. While Hotaru was not exactly a lady, she was even less of a barbarian.

And in the end, it was not as if Hayami and Natsume could stay cooped up inside that office forever. Sure thirty minutes would dawdle by. But eventually one or the other would have to come out via that very door. Unless Hayami had some kind of genius contraption up his sleeve—and genius he might be with information, but Hotaru knew he was the type of person who had no idea how to set up a table using an Ikea manual—pigs might as well fly before he and Natsume could perform the vanishing act.

Idly, she placed one foot exactly behind the other, toe to sole, until she hit the wall, pressing her entire weight against it. Hands behind her back, Hotaru leaned there, periodically glaring up at the wood as if it would spontaneously combust. Not like she could literally make it spontaneously combust. For it to do that, she needed the prerequisite of having the Fire Alice or something equally as hazardous to society.

For one terse, confusing moment, it seemed that Hayami's door had given in to her demands, clicking open and sliding in to leave behind a narrow slit. Hotaru was almost convinced she had extemporaneously developed the Alice of Psychokinesis before a sickly cough sounded from a man with an arched back.

So it was Hayami, not Natsume, who first greeted her, "please come in, Imai-san."

Pushing herself off the wall, Hotaru obeyed with just the right amount of dignity and eagerness. Her steps echoed his as they both disappeared into the confines of the room. Hayami gently shut the door behind them.

Disappointment awaited.

Where is Hyuuga-san?

His office, exactly as she had remembered it, was entirely devoid of any living being except for herself and the private detective. Natsume was not there. He was not in the photocopying room either. Well, well, it looked like Hayami did have a few tricks up his sleeve after all, though none visible to the naked eye. She glanced around the room, surveying for suspicious cracks and the like.

Hayate stumbled a path to his chair, wrinkling his nose all the way. "Please, have a seat."

Hotaru returned his request with a questioning brow, fully intent on staying on her feet for the entire meeting seeing as he so insistently left her standing in the hallway moments before. "It appears to me," she began, a fist under her chin, "that there is a man missing from this room. A man that I have personally requested for you to investigate. Now, Hayami," she closed the distance between them with three huge strides and slammed two hands on his desk, towering over his tiny figure with five feet and two inches of pure menace, "I sincerely hope that the reason I saw Hyuuga Natsume-san in this room is because you have dragged him here for a interrogation, because you know the repercussions were it otherwise, do you not?"

Pale and pasty, if Hotaru had not known better she would have believed that Hayami turned into a stone statue somewhere along her spiel. He stayed eerily calm and unnervingly still. It irked her, but it also confirmed what she had suspected for the past week while he was busy shirking his duties: Hayami and Natsume were acquainted; and not only that, they were acquainted on nothing short of a personal level.

She should have anticipated her rotten luck.

"Actually," he finally began, throat cracking, "I was tending to his cases before you unceremoniously showed up."

Hotaru pushed herself off of the desk before rolling her eyes and pacing around the room. With a quirky wave of her hand, she countered, "but can you truly say I am unjustified in this 'unceremonious' visit, as you call it, when Hiromi had given you a call moments before? Besides, I clearly tried to contact you every day of the past week—to no avail, I may add, because you were busy violating our agreement."

"Ah, yes. That, I apologize," his voice was leaden. "There were certain things I had to sort with Natsume first and we decided it wasn't wise to… expedite your meeting."

So it was exactly as she had deducted, and the lack of honourifics attached to Natsume's name confirmed that.

A casual stroll brought her behind the arm chair in front of Hayami's desk, the same one she had been sitting in when they signed their contracts, and the same one Natsume had been sitting in fifteen minutes ago. Hotaru set her folded arms very visibly on the back of the chair. "All right," she spoke stoically, "fair enough. I will allow you that particular leeway, for I do not know of your prearrangements. But I cannot help thinking that you expect to get away with five hundred thousand yen too easily. Right now, all signs are pointing to 'scam.' Or do you deny the eminent fact that you clearly never planned on honouring our contract in the first place?"

"I had two contracts to honour."

Understanding immediately dawned upon Hotaru. "Ah."

He continued, "I have a strict first come, first serve policy. Natsume beat you to the finish line by a day."

Hotaru stuck her tongue in between her teeth and upper lip before smacking her mouth unpleasantly. "So it would seem that at the same time I requested to investigate him, he also filed a case on me." This was she and Subaru in his apartment, all over again.

Hayami's blank face offered neither affirmation nor denial. Hotaru personally interpreted the lack of denial to be affirmation.

She heaved a heavy sigh. "This is a fine string of events we have been caught up in. Did you ever plan to set up a rendezvous?"

"His apartment, not my office."

Intrinsic suspicion surged throughout Hotaru's mind as she pondered on what it meant for Natsume to offer a more personal venue in lieu of a strictly business one.

Hayami offered an explanation, "he trusts me, but not that much."

"In which," she replied carefully, "it would make sense that he would trust me even less, because we are not even acquainted with each other."

"Yes you are." It was the first time she had seen the tiny wimpy man show any sign of fortitude. The way he stressed those three words almost made Hotaru want to unfold her arms and properly listen. Almost. "Alice Academy? The Rebellion? You were one of the leaders. Natsume was another. Schoolmates? Classmates? You were together for most of your childhood, in fact, along with mutual friends Nogi Ruka and Sakura Mi—"

"Yes, thank you." She wondered if he could hear the slight tremor in her voice. "You have been nothing short of helpful, Hayami-san."

To her surprise, he flashed her a haughty smile back. "I heard through the grapevine that the Imai Hotaru-san lost her memories in an accident. Never thought it to be true."

"We are both full of surprises, are we not? I did not anticipate a full grown man to disappear from your office without a trace."

"That was but an easy task. Any old Teleportation Alice stone could do the trick."

She mentally berated herself for failing to consider the most obvious explanation. The prospect of a Teleportation Alice had slipped her mind for quite a while, since Teleportation Alices were rather common and Irving Academy was notorious for shunning those in favour of the uncannier Alices. But now that she had her mind on the subject, she did remember someone in Japan to have the Teleportation Alice.

"By any chance, did he happen to get that from Sakurano Shuuichi-san?"

To that, Hayami nodded so tenuously Hotaru doubted anyone without twenty-twenty vision would have caught the gesture.

She turned her head towards his window. "I had a hunch."

Precisely, she had a hunch which lead to a hunch which lead to a hunch. It started with Hayami's strange negligence. The negligence grew into suspicion, suspicion that he was somehow affiliated with Natsume to the point where he would almost protect the man in a way. And this only fueled her unquenchable curiosity of the man. But now she knew for sure that she was not just dealing with Natsume Hyuuga. Undoubtedly, there were many, many people in an interconnected web working a conspiracy of all sorts deep within the shadows of Tokyo.

And they were all Alices.

The tangerine plague was just the tip of the iceberg.

"Do they keep in touch often?" The plan was to worm out the information, little by little.

"Not that I know of. Shuuichi-san—" another Alice on a somewhat personal level "—gave him one Alice stone to help him get out of tough spots. He seldom uses it because of his Alice shape."

"Which is…"

"The fourth kind, the dangerous, life shortening kind. He's limitless. Forgive me for asking, Imai-san, but what does this have to do with your case?"

Her head snapped back to him, and though she could not stare directly into his eyes, she knew that Hayami was discretely warning her not to get too close for comfort. A small but frosty smile spread across her lips. "I apologize if I may seem straightforward. I do not know anything about Hyuuga Natsume-san as of the moment, you see. I like to do my research."

His nod implicated that she had passed the test. For now.

Tapping her chin, she remarked, "although if Hyuuga-san was the fourth type, I would strongly oppose hand him Alice stones. After all, shape is unique to each person regardless of whom the Alice stone belongs to. Added to his own Alice, would the Teleportation Alice not just hasten his death?"

"Actually," stated Hayami slowly, carefully, "Natsume doesn't have an Alice. His used to carry the Fire Alice, but it's been stolen from him."

The revelation startled Hotaru and froze her for a moment.

Uncontrollable flames flickered through her mind. She saw the more horrific images of a nightmare that plagued her since her freshmen year of high school. She was standing, small and weak, in front of two looming iron gates that locked up a fiery monster of hell. As they swung open, a blast of searing heat rushed onto her face; Hotaru was always convinced that had it not been a dream, her skin would have melted right off instantly. When the pain became bearable enough for her to see, the world was a swirl of red and orange.

The flames licked. They taunted. They rippled the air about them. They reduced everything into nothing but piles and piles of ashes.

She let out a shaky breath. "His Alice was stolen, you say?"

"Only a handful people in the world have the Stealing Alice, but the ones who do can remove and insert Alices at their whim. It's not necessarily evil, of course, but it's a power that many Alices fear."

As he said this, a shiver traveled down Hotaru's spine. She was never one to forget abnormal occurrences in her life, enhanced memory or not. The way Hayami talked about Stealing Alices sounded like he knew one, and it made Hotaru ninety eight point three five percent sure that she had known one as well.

"So Hyuuga-san encountered a Stealing Alice and lost his own Alice to him."

"Her."

She recalled something Subaru had brought up in that small taxi a week ago while the rain drizzled around them: "You had a best friend inside Alice Academy, a long time ago. It was that girl who caused all the ruckus." Now, she was sure of it. "Sakura Mikan-san."

"He overstepped his boundaries in that war. He was reduced to an inch from his death before Sakura-san and your brother saved him."

Maybe she should have seen it coming from all his snappy remarks about Natsume, or maybe she should have known the moment she discovered Natsume's connection to Shuuichi. Somehow, it was no less shocking when Hayami revealed Subaru's part in Natsume's life. Based on her brother's firm opinion on the Fire Alice, this was more impossible than improbable. But then it had been a good fifteen years ago, and Subaru would rather stay in Nagoya with her parents than his own apartment in Tokyo. No doubt there was some kind of falling out somewhere along the way.

"Sakura-san stole his Alice so he would no longer be tempted to use it."

"And quite obviously, she never gave it back to him."

"Well that's the thing, isn't it? She took it with her fifteen years ago, when she disappeared."

An eleven year old vanishing right after her best friend departed for a faraway land. It did not take a genius to connect the two, and it certainly was not preposterous for an outsider to reason that Mikan somehow placed the stone in Hotaru's hands to bring with her to somewhere far away. Somewhere Natsume could not reach.

But now that she was back in Japan…

"That is what he is looking for," Hotaru deducted confidently.

A small smile quirked on Hayami's lips. "Maybe. Or it could just be Sakura-san. After all, he does love her."


Hotaru was left to stew over Hayami's cryptic words from the moment she left his office to the moment she got off the taxi that was supposed to take her to Natsume's apartment—or, as Hotaru personally liked to put it, his habitat.

Things had been amiss from the minute Hotaru stepped into the roomy yellow cab. Granted, Hayami had only given her a time and an address, but when she named the address her driver swiveled in his seat, giving her a quick perusal and a look that seemed to scream, what is someone of your prestige doing around those parts? She would hardly be surprised and completely shameful if some scandal involving herself and fictitious shady dealings ended up on the front page of Japan Times, the business section.

Only the number of miles from Subaru's apartment to Hotaru's destination prompted him to drive on without question. He was eager to be there and be gone out of those parts as fast as he could. She could understand why.

The bright yellow of the cab stuck out like a sore thumb in this colourless neighbourhood.

Beige, stone and off-white seemed to be the norm here. Sometimes the maroon of a brick would show through chipped paint, but other than that the landowners could not even afford proper colours that did not look like they were picked out by Grandma Gertrude. Even the tattered, draggy clothes worn by locals looked like old curtain rags. More than a few homeless chaps lacked clothes in general. They snuggled pieces of former blankets close to their bodies in an attempt for decency and dignity.

It was not just the clothing either; there was something hostile in the air about them. Hotaru knew she had not imagined the scathing glares that quite a few had sent the cab's way. She could not pretend to ignore the forlorn looking man peddling a cart that carried flattened recycled boxes. Nor could she miss the fact that she only ever saw shady men alone and normal people walking in groups of two or more. No one dared to roam these streets without a purpose.

So this was the vulgar part of Tokyo—the Japanese equivalent of Brooklyn's ghettos.

"Here's your stop," announced the taxi driver, halting next to an alleyway. "You'll want to take that route to your address. I can't bring you any further." His tone was ice cold, as if implying that she had done him some kind of injustice by making him chauffeur her there.

But he was probably more concerned about the greedy eyes that were drinking in the sight of green bills as Hotaru placed a roll of cash in his hands. He seemed more than eager to kick her out and skedaddle, letting her to deal with them alone. She clamped her eyes when a blast of car exhaust hit her straight in the face. Talk about leaving someone in the dust. Literally.

Fortunately, unprepared was not a word registered in Hotaru's dictionary. No. Her intrinsic nature was one that calculated all possible outcomes and the probably of said outcomes. Irving Academy and her phobia of failure drilled it into her mind again and again until she lived by the principle the early bird catches the worm.

And so Hotaru Imai never went to shady places without a form of defense. It had been that way in America. It would be that way in Japan. She had gone through a variety of gadgets, anything she could get her hands on, really: pepper spray, mini tasers, knock out gas, even inventions like her debugging spiders. Call her crazy, call her xenophobic. Hotaru liked to think of it as being absolutely prepared.

When she edged into the alleyway, her body was slanted diagonally and her hands were wrapped around a cold bottle. Pepper spray this time. Not too much, just a mini bottle. Piercing eyes stayed on her figure, searching for any signs of weakness, until she was far enough that she could not see their faces clearly anymore. Still, Hotaru kept her hands firmly wrapped around the bottle, ready to draw it out the moment somebody laid so much as a single finger on her body.

Deep into the alleyway, she silently cursed Natsume for living in such a dilapidated neighbourhood. Sure he looked dreadfully poor the first time they had met. She merely assumed that it was part of his getup, that he was masquerading as the broke and unfortunate chalk painter to attain some kind of sympathy from his audience. He certainly wore a decent, good-quality shirt that day in Hayami's office. If he could at least afford something like that, there was no place for him in these dirt poor parts of the city.

Stumbling, she made a sharp turn left, another sharp turn right and then, thankfully, arrived at a poorly paved courtyard. There were mud puddles all over the place and most of the cobbles looked like they had been freshly dug up from Pompeii, but all in all it was a great change of scenery from stony walls that reeked of urine.

At least she could relax her shoulders in here, free from hostility.

This was a place build for the elderly. They gathered around equally spaced out, wobbly tables and laughed boisterously with one another. Board games were popular amongst them, boards spread out and pieces scattered all over the place whether it be chess, shogi, go or mah-jong. A balding man whistled teasingly to a graying lady who in turn showered him with a handful of wheat. She had been feeding a bunch of chickens, that, for some reason, made themselves quite at home in the place.

"Yo." His voice was scratchy and unrefined, just as she had remembered it from the day he chased her taxi down.

At leisure, Hotaru rolled her eyes left to catch sight of Natsume Hyuuga clad in another decent-looking shirt, leaning against a white wall and twirling a standard wooden pencil in between his index and middle fingers. He still kept his hair slicked and wrapped up in a bandana. But at least it was not jutting out all over the place and he looked somewhat less of a brute now.

"I almost thought you weren't going to show," he drawled slowly, red eyes scrutinizing her attire as thoroughly as she had scrutinized his. Pressing back against the wall, he launched himself into a surprisingly firm stance. "If you wear that, you're bound to get mugged somewhere around here."

"Is this where you live?" She wrinkled her nose.

He rolled his eyes. "No, it's where I keep my pet chickens."

Natsume casually strode away and Hotaru followed him, head and nose pointed up with a firm countenance of disdain. She made it extra apparent to anyone who glanced her way that no, she was not nearly as hapless as them. Thankfully, being poor was the one impediment in life she never had to deal with.

When Hayami had forked over the address, he let it slip that it was indeed Natsume who painted the first tangerine on a no smoking sign at Shibuya Station a little over ten years ago. He would have been fifteen. Evidently sometime along the way, Alice Academy had decided that they had no use for a boy stripped of his Alice and, with utmost courtesy, kicked him out presumably into the streets to fend for himself. Most Alices did not have family to rely on for support.

Instead of circling around the tables, Natsume threaded through them, greeting handfuls of people as he did. Hotaru hung behind, observing him as he did and waiting patiently for the end of his detour.

He surprisingly placed his arms around a chair and an older man, hugging him from the back. Upon closer examination, the two men resembled each other substantially so it was likely that he was Natsume's—

"Hi dad. How's your luck been today?"

But then that would mean that his father was alive, and that his father had failed to support him. She frowned upon the gesture of love, even as Natsume slid his arms back to his side.

"No luck, I'm afraid. But now that you're here maybe that'll change." Natsume's father laughed extensively as all fathers did. His twinkling, merry eyes shifted up, catching sight of her. "Who's your lady friend over there?"

"That is Imai Hotaru-san, Mikan's best friend."

Hotaru narrowed her eyes, silently contemplating whether or not she would politely correct Natsume's tense. Doing so would give them a rather sour impression of her bigotry. Not doing so would be a blatant betrayal to Janine's memory. Either way, it was already out there so it was not as if she could force Natsume to take it back. Insignificant as the Hyuugas were, Hotaru did not think it would matter if she let things go this one time.

Tenses, she mused to herself, are so important.

Sometimes, that one little word—loves, instead of loved—could make a magnitude of difference. Hotaru found herself questioning, not for the first time, if Hayami had been messing with her mind earlier because Natsume having loved Mikan Sakura was plausible, but Natsume loving Mikan Sakura was something impossible. The girl had been gone for fifteen years. Wherever she was, she would be a completely different woman.

Hotaru looked up into the clouds dazedly as Natsume and his father's conversation went on somewhere back on earth.

"Is that so?" the senior Hyuuga asked.

Natsume replied with somewhat of a tangent detailing their old days at Alice Academy. Head still tilted, Hotaru closed her eyes to shut out the world.

Her meditation was interrupted by a sudden outcry from the older Hyuuga. "Hey! Gintarou! That was my turn! Can't look away for one moment, sheesh. I best get back to my game."

She lowered her gaze to see the last of the senior Hyuuga's lopsided smile before he turned to reprimand his gray-haired, chocolate-eyed pal. Before Natsume could preoccupy himself with another acquaintance, Hotaru's impatient tapping foot and folded arms beckoned him over to join her once more in a silent stride.

He lead the path to a red-brown building wedged between two ashen buildings that towered considerably above it. The tiny thing looked as if it had been poorly stuck there as a last minute addition. It probably had been too. Clearly, no one was in charge of maintenance around these parts; the paint was visibly flaking off and the gray of the concrete peeked out from underneath.

The end of their silence came at the beginning of the staircase. He had been the one to break it, disguising the question with thin, noncommitted curiosity, "how long have you been back in Japan?"

"Twelve days. You caught me on my second."

There were two floors on each side of a staircase and two staircases in that building, which made sense considering the building's size. Natsume's apartment was number eight, the left door on the fourth floor of the right staircase. His door was a sleek dark green, freshly painted. For Natsume, a talented chalk artist and possibly painter, this came as no surprise.

"You know," she told him, "you could easily become a freelance artist or sign a contract with a major company. Instead, you opt to paint these under-appreciated tangerines for little benefit and no pay. You are a peculiar person if I have ever met one."

"I have no interest in that kind of life," he sneered, wringing the door open rather violently. The sound of metal against metal echoed up and down the staircases.

Hotaru was convinced then that if she and Natsume's roles had been reversed, that if he had been the one shut out of Hayami's office instead, he definitely would have found a way to break the door down. Pursing her lips at the—dare she say—barbarianism, the inventor followed him in.

Upon first sight, she did not know what to make of the space other than the fact that it was significantly smaller than Subaru's apartment and just a little bigger than Hikaru's bedroom. The ceiling hung uncomfortably low above them, and the entire foyer seemed to be missing. A small shoe rack alone took up all the space immediately beyond the threshold. As she slipped out of her kitten heels and into dollar store sandals, Hotaru decided that being in Natsume's apartment was rather like being in a dollhouse.

A small, cheap dollhouse. With all removable parts either defaced, lost or thrown out.

Next to her, Natsume kicked off his shoes and casually swept around the dirty room in socks. She supposed that when one was more concerned on finding ways to survive, hygiene meant very little. Natsume seemed to be a living testament to that. Even Tom's house the morning after one of his roommate's rowdy parties could not possibly be any messier.

He sauntered over to a table that looked like it had been picked up off the streets, and with one sweep of his arm, cleared off a bunch of random objects that for some reason had been lying on top. Hotaru felt her OCD act up immediately; her fingers itched to pick every item off of the floor and find a rightful place for it.

"Sit." He pointed to an unfolded chair.

He was already off in his own world when she complied. Natsume had a habit of fiddling with things, Hotaru noticed. First it was the pencil, and as soon as he set that down he already had a piece of red string twirled around his fingers. For a while, he just fiddled with it as if there was not another person in his room at all. And then his mouth went agape and his eyes lit up as if indulging in some twisted debauchery of eye-raping the piece of string.

Hotaru snapped her fingers once to catch his attention.

Natsume did not respond.

"Hyuuga" she hissed, this time flicking her fingernail on his forehead and successfully snapping him out of his reverie.

Natsume blinked once, surprised.

"Are you done?"

With an almost pained look, he tucked the string away into his pocket and coughed. The air around them had become heavy again and the dull, businesslike glint was back in Natsume's eyes. For a second, he had the look of a child whose PS3 had been forcibly unplugged and homework shoved up in front of his nose.

She cleared her throat in an attempt to stop him from drifting back onto cloud nine. "So why have you been drawing these tangerines?"

"They're for Sakura Mikan."

"As a tribute?" Hotaru deadpanned. "Because she saved your life?" Her eyes took in the disorderly state of his room. She thought back to the people shooting needles and knives her way as they wrapped their thin jackets tighter around their bodies. "Is it really something worth throwing your whole life away for?"

He lost his temper then and there. On his feet in less than a second, Natsume brought both palms down with a force that rattled the table and made it jump an inch off the ground. "No! It's the only way I can reach out to her because in case you haven't noticed already, Mikan is gone. Long gone. And by the looks of it, she's not coming back any time soon."


Clues. Small clues. So many of them. Look for the italics and the small details. Everything's there for a reason. :)

Please review, fave, alert!

-IndigoGrapefruit