Disclaimed.
Finding Mikan
Chapter Seven: The Two Faces of Alacrity
Fret and fright frequently came hand in hand, Hotaru thought. Otherwise, it would be hard pressed to explain why every time she sought out a piece of paper and pencil, her hands trembled like nobody's business.
Over a period of two weeks, she lost count of how many times she had been determined to attempt the impossible, only to end up crouching on the couch or bed or floor, rocking back and forth in that all too familiar but comforting motion. And every time she became aware of it, she bit her lip harder. Her will seemingly steeled a little more. Then, come the next time she attempted to put pen to paper and the cycle repeated itself.
Hotaru Imai could not go through with something that set herself up for failure.
For perhaps the fiftieth time, she crumpled up a piece of paper and dug her nails into the fibers, slowly and rigorously ripping the ball apart.
Her eyes teared up slightly from insomnia. Or maybe she was feeling a little emotional then. Probably a gruesome combination of both. Needless to say, it was bothering her significantly that she could not make a simple request to have her nephew leave the academy for a little while, just a little while so that she—and more importantly, her mother—could see and confirm his well-being. These pathetic attempts disrupted the entire equilibrium of her life's rhythm.
Hotaru now had two pictures in front of her, one that she cherished deeply and another that she wanted to tear into a thousand shreds before sending to the depths of hell. With trembling fingers, she turned the trophy picture over in its frame and shortly after dropped it face down on the ground. The other, unframed picture she caressed and picked up carefully.
For some reason, her mother had entrusted her with this. It could be said that she also entrusted Hikaru's well-being into Hotaru's hands, as Hotaru was currently situated a little less than five miles from where the boy dwelled.
Wasting no time, she got down to work. By now it was almost a daily routine. She rolled her neck three times, twice clockwise and once counterclockwise. One out of four routines, she would crack her neck. This was not one of those times. Next, she interlaced her fingers and stretched her arms and hands out as far as possible until it felt like her very nerves were coming undone. Hotaru needed this feeling. Only excruciating pain could overpower the apprehension of failure.
Her teeth sank deep enough into her lip to draw blood when she finally gathered the courage to pick up that fountain pen. Several rough drafts sprawled in front of her on the desk. All Hotaru had to do was take a few select sentences from each one, arrange them into a persuasive argument and goddamn clench the pen in a way so that it would stop shaking already.
Furiously, she slammed it down with a passion and gripped the edge of the desk hard enough for her nails to make permanent dentures in the wood. Her mind was doing something along the lines of repeating mild curse words and rhetorical questions over and over.
As she always did to calm herself, Hotaru stared at the picture of Hikaru. Her eyes met his, though his were frozen in time. Gradually but surely, her breathing slowed and heart calmed until she no longer felt like she was going to have a spontaneous seizure. Now she was berating herself for chickening out—before she even started, no less. She had gotten this far so how hard was it to just take that final leap of faith?
Apparently very.
The thought of a shadowy figure ripping her heartfelt letter into shreds made Hotaru nauseous.
… If you fail. You're worthless if you fail. Worthless. No one needs you, Imai. No one wants you, Imai. So if you hadn't done what you did, if you hadn't been a genius, you might as well have rotted in Irving Academy. That girl, Mikan Sakura, never wanted you. You never would have met Janine. She never would have wanted you. You would have rotted into a heap of bone.
Back and forth. Back and forth she rocked silently in her chair, clutching her head and all the venomous thoughts that surged through. Along with the comfort came a small light of hope and one sane thought: but I thought it got better… clearly it did not.
She needed that feeling, the wonderful coolness of her fingers as she wrapped her hands around the stem of the troph—no, no, no, no. She did not. She needed closure. She needed Janine. Subaru. Alcohol. Just, someone, something.
At the thought of her brother, his words drifted back into her mind, somewhat a lot more detached than what she remembered, "and the moral of this story is to lighten up, little sister, because no one likes talking to a robot."
I am not a robot, she chanted internally, I am not a robot. I simply cannot deal with failure. But I am not a robot. I am not a robot… I am not… She suddenly caught Hikaru's eyes again, the eyes that were devoid of the mirthful laughter that all children should be blessed with. In that moment, the cold sweat ceased and the inventor froze. But I do not want you to… do not become like me… oh god, oh god, please do not become like me.
The path her nephew was destined to travel down, it was not a path he deserved at all. She, who knew all too well what lied at the end of it, would never let him take that route; she would do absolutely everything in her power to build up an insurmountable wall so that he would have no choice but to turn away. Which brought her back to the letter. Which brought her back to her phobia.
She almost whimpered.
But Imais did not whimper. They faced danger straight on. They conquered it. So in the event that her letter failed to carry out its purpose—and Hotaru more than cringed at the mere thought—then she would once again be forced to face her fear. She would have to receive the blunt of the damage and then throw herself back into the fray. All just to get him out of there.
What was Subaru thinking? Hotaru thought furiously, grinding her teeth into fine powder. How could he have let them take him? What can I—how can I even…
In a quiet corner of an empty apartment, a berated soul was slowly coming undone.
She had no idea how she was going to smuggle it within the walls.
She had no idea who to even address this letter to.
They would never listen to a former rebel anyways.
No doubt all of this would make its way somehow to the ARC Department, and they would send detested personnel like Chiaki over to her again, that lying weasle.
Excuse after excuse piled on until one day, when Hotaru had been frying eggs, she suddenly came to the realization that if she were to collect all of them, she could have written and published a fifty-paged essay by now. She herself was the very embodiment of procrastination, and procrastination of the worst kind. Almost like a teenager dreading to hand the less than satisfactory report card over to her strict and overbearing parents.
Scowling, Hotaru immediately switched off the fire. Her routine of comfort did not even come close to being on her mind as she fetched a piece of paper and pencil and just spilled out every thought swimming around in the pile of goo that was her brain.
Only, it went something like
You imbeciles,
Let us avoid beating around the bush completely and address the issue right off the bat. I do not care if Alices are national treasures or whatever other fraudulent claim you choose to make. You will destroy that wretched school without question and you will stop the unjust segregation and discrimination of children. You will stop teaching them to be prejudiced against those who had the fortune of not being 'gifted.' You will stop dispatching minors on hazardous missions in name of dirty so-called justice. You will stop putting these children under the false impression that the academy is all they have, that the system is all they have, and tworthless will otherwise amount to nothing.
And you will not, under any circumstance, so much as lay a single finger on my nephew.
Signed,
Imai Hotaru
Oh, it was the highway exit straight off of confinement and surveillance right onto a black list. Hotaru imagined she would have to start packing her bags now if she planned on sending that letter and giving them a piece of her mind. However impractical it was, as she held it up, angling the piece of paper towards the sunlight, she felt a heavy weight lift from her chest. Which was strange, because normally acting on impulse had Hotaru at edge; normally, it meant slipping up, failure to upkeep her blasé façade.
There was a rather lively spark inside of her though, a feeling Hotaru recognized immediately but had not encountered for many years.
Inspiration was back.
Feeling like she was on top of the world, the inventor scurried around the apartment that smelled of fried eggs, gathering some implements here, some photos there, and not to forget the many drafts and pieces of blank paper she had agonized over for so long. Everything was slapped not on the table but the floor in front of her, spread out like five different sets of lecture notes a weeks before the final exam.
When her pen tip touched the paper, it glided. Words materialized in a way that she could not describe. She had the diligence of a printing machine, etching tens of words by the second, and yet her grace was unparalleled by even the most beautiful figure skating routine. Every letter came out aligned and consistent, every i was dotted and every t was crossed. All the commas had tails of the same length, swimming in the letter like identical tadpoles. At first glance, no one would have been able to tell that it was manually printed.
After signing her name with pride, Hotaru returned to the top. Dear—she wrote grudgingly and subsequently paused.
Right. It was one of the problems—excuses, depending on how she chose to put it, that she encountered. Her pen fell with a clatter to the ground but she was careful to drop it far away from the unblemished essay. Hotaru shifted her kneel so that she sat flat on her butt, legs crossed. Two fingers found that tight notch between her eyebrows and rubbed gentle circles soothingly.
Alice Academy was a jungle, the biggest jungle she had ever known. Aside from all the political nonsense, which indubitably deserved a category of its own, the faculty themselves also had self interests; this fact was practically broadcasted to the entire country or whomever in Japan that knew of Alices during the coup d'état—read: Rebellion—where it was literally each man for himself. Not to mention that Kuonji himself had been a renown figure of Alice Politics before he became a bad egg. In short, she was forced to assume that every entity behind those walls had an ambition of their own. Vicious beasts bode for an opportune chance to strike, while mellower creatures traipsed about with little to no harm. Either way, if Hotaru was not careful, she could be savagely torn apart and devoured.
Admittedly, that did not create a good image after all she had been put through. She did not escape one jungle to charge headfirst into another. With her battle scars unhealed, it would be imminent suicide.
The papers were on the verge of being stacked and shoved into a drawer when her ringtone sharply sliced through the silent room.
Hotaru extended a lazy arm to fetch her phone before rolling her eyes and setting it down on the tea table. It was an unknown caller, probably another telemarketer or mislead call. Either way, the only people she ever graced with an answer were Janine, Tom, Ross, her family, and coworkers who warned her a well ahead of time.
But when it rang again, and then a third time, Hotaru felt her already transient inspiration slipping away that much faster. Serenity gave way to agitation as she answered the phone call, ready to bark out barrages of insults at whoever had the misfortune of being on the other end before blocking the said person. If this was another telemarketer, some company had better prepare for bankruptcy.
"What?" Her eyes flared.
"Cool Blue—er, Hotaru-san?"
Immediately, Hotaru's lips thinned. She let go of the air and tension inside her body, losing all hope upon hearing the completely scatterbrained, clueless baritone. To date, she could not figure out how she ever managed to summon the hefty amount of patience that she did in order to last five minutes of conversation with him. Her instinctive thought, though, was that she did not want to deal with whatever tomfoolery he had called her up for, so she put on a pretense of obliviousness.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
"Oh, hi! I'm Matsudaira Hayate. Remember me? Hayate from the party?" The man chucked awkwardly at the end of each sentence.
Her eyes closed resignedly. Could he even hear himself? A completely smitten man he was, sickening, unadulterated infatuation oozing out between every word. Not that Hotaru did not have a great deal of suitors in America. She just preferred to… ignore them. "Yes I do," she responded, hoping—praying desperately—that he would hang up any moment now and leave her in peace, a prospect much too good to be true. "How did you get my number?" As soon as the words left her lips, a precarious thought surfaced and her tone became sharp, "do not tell me that Hayami-san provided you with it."
"Actually, uh, he did—but it wasn't his fault you see! I kind of paid him, so he had to…"
Just when she thought that it could not get any worse… Hotaru silently cursed herself for trusting the private investigator with as much as she had. She just knew that somehow it would all come and bite her in the derriere one day. One frustrated hand raked through her hair as she pondered on what she possibly could have done to lead that single-celled organism to believe he would have a chance with her.
"Uh, Hotaru-san, are you still there?"
"Yes. I am waiting for your answers to my questions."
"Oh right, heh." She could imagine him scratch the back of his neck sheepishly as he tried to think of the right words to say to her. In fact, every action she imagined Hayate executing ended up looking rather sheepish—this owing to the fact that the very man was abnormally sheepish himself. "Actually, um, it's about Friday. D-did I frighten you away or something? I'm really sorry about that."
Hotaru hated being on the receiving end of someone's affections. If it were any other case, she would have graciously accepted the apology and ended it right there. Since this was Hayate, and Hayate was a straight up moron, she might as well be digging her own grave by taking the usual route. Hotaru was one hundred percent sure accepting his apology would give him false hope, which meant that Hayate would just be another liability to stick around for who knows how long.
This askew conversation had to be steered carefully back onto smooth pavement. Oh, how she dreaded and abhorred drama of the romantic kind. "I appreciate the initiative, Matsudaira-san. As for Friday, I am sure we can put it all behind us. You really need not feel so inclined to apologize, especially since we hardly know each other after all."
"No, no, no, no, no!" his zealous objection sunk Hotaru's hopes quite akin to how the iceberg sunk Titanic. "We did know each other! We knew each other very well in the academy and we were even partners during the Rebellion! And you were so cool, so beautiful. You were my idol—are, I mean. You're still my idol now."
Well that cleared up some things. No wonder Hayate was so persistent; the man had been deluded for all these years! Hotaru fought back a shudder at the unintentional envision of herself through Hayate's eyes, glorified one thousand times over. Well, she certainly needed to set him straight. Though she was never a good judge of character, even she knew that she was not a good person. And far too screwed in the head for a man like him to handle.
While she contemplated the best way to approach the situation, the man continued on, completely unaware in his shroud of bliss, "I'm really sorry I didn't know that you lost your memories. But um, if you want to go out for tea sometime."
"Matsudaira-san."
"Y-yes?"
She positioned her tongue in between her teeth in preparation to give him the truth in a nutshell. "First of all, it has been fifteen years since the Rebellion. I do not recall ever being anywhere with you, so right now everything you tell me is news. That being said, presently I do not feel any inclination or any other emotion for that matter towards you. For you to ask me out is completely out of the blue and frankly, I do not know whether you really intend on revisiting memories or whether you just want to make a good impression on me. I can assure you, though, if it is the latter then your efforts are in vain."
"Uh…"
"I am not one to be swayed by touching stories. I put faith in my head first and my heart second. Simple heartwarming tales that took place over a decade ago have little to no meaning to me. That is then. This is now. So if you really do wish to court me, you will have to raise yourself to my standards, which means that ideally you will one day be a Chief Executive Officer of a company or any equally influential position. Can you ever see yourself like that?"
Hayate was stunned into silence. The stiff atmosphere widened the chasm between them little by little and Hotaru relaxed, for when his voice spoke again it was small and weak. "No."
"Do you invest in the stock market?"
"No."
"Have your assets even reached a value of one million US dollars?"
"How much is that?"
"Roughly eighty million yen."
"What? No! Where would I get all that money?"
"What is your IQ?"
"I don't know. W-wait, I'll take an IQ test for you!"
She shook her head, although he could not see it, but she imagined that he was envisioning some equally dismaying action coming from her. By now the patience was wearing off, and she itched to press the end call button as soon as possible. "You satisfy none of the standards that I have set. How could you possibly hope for us to be in a relationship of any sort?"
"Well, I—"
"With all due respect, Matsudaira-san," Hotaru interjected, "you, like Hyuuga, are wasting too much time, money, and resources on a woman who is not interested in the least. Please withdraw your interest at once and pursue more suitable choices for a man such as you. The next time you see Hayami-san, remind him not to freely divulge my private number again—else I will deem it necessary to deal with him on my personal time."
"I—w-w-wait, Hotaru-san don't hang up yet!" Her finger paused over the red button as she shut her eyes, extracting the last of her dwindling patience out of that small reserve. "I-um, I know it doesn't sound like much but I seriously like you! I'll do anything if you just come with me somewhere for one time. Please! Not even as a date. We could go as friends. I just…"
"Anything." The word rolled smoothly off of her tongue.
"I-uh-um, yeah."
Hotaru clutched her papers tightly, skimming over the letter to Alice Academy for one last time. If she suffered two weeks of sheer agony just for that minuscule chance to whisk her nephew out of the academy, then she could do this—and practice her patience while she was at it. "All right," she conceded slowly, "there is one favour I could ask of you."
Was it even possible to feel glee seeping through a microphone?
"Since I have been away from Japan for too lengthy a time, I have no idea of anything that is going on inside the gates of Alice Academy. It would seem, however, that word gets around in the Alice Funding Organization. I am certain you have a spy of some sort inside the academy walls and I need you to deliver a letter to an open-minded, influential member of the faculty, ideally one of the impartial principles."
"No problem!" he chirped, and for a second Hotaru could just see those agonizing days in reach again. Dare she expect anything other than failure from a man characterized by levity? The inventor hoped that she would not have to find out the hard way.
Somehow, she could not dispel the unease that crept into her heart as she gave him her address and told him to meet her alone in her apartment on the first Tuesday of June.
Another piece of paper fluttered to the floor that was basked with the golden sunlight of dusk. It settled right on top of a small stack of orthographically detailed sketches of intricate parts and machinery perfectly, almost defying the laws of physics. Then again, to do otherwise would subject it to the wrath of Hotaru Imai. Physics never stood a chance.
Internally, the inventor paid little mind to the order of her apartment, or even what she was absentmindedly sketching with her autopiloting hand. Her mind was more occupied with a seething countdown. The pen stilled at the exact moment the clock struck seven, the same moment Hotaru rose to her feet and the same moment that her Blackberry started ringing.
She wasted no time. "Where are you?"
"Hotaru-san!" chirped a completely oblivious Hayate quite characteristically and also quite infuriatingly. "I am so sorry about the lateness! We're coming to your apartment right now! Expect us in five more minutes!"
About to spiel off into a long tangent detailing the number of reasons why Hayate should not have been late, Hotaru paused. "We?"
"Oh, yes! Right, I'm bringing my friend over! Sorry I forgot to tell you! I was waiting for her at the airport!" As he chippered on, her eyes strayed to the translucent curtains sashaying above an air vent. Hotaru suddenly had an urge to rip them right off their hinges.
"Matsudaira," she growled, noting that it was the second person in two months who had lost the privilege of having an honourific attached to his name. Really, she needed to up her tolerance, not that Hayate did not serve as good practice already. "May I remind you that you personally told me you would come three hours ago and that you did not phone or give me any warning whatsoever about the lateness. Do you know what I have been doing for the past three hours? Sketching designs. If I put end to end the amount paper I have gone through, it would be two times the length of the Great Wall of China."
"But I'm sorry Hotaru-san!" he whined.
"It is Imai-san to you."
"Hotaru-san," and as usual, her demands were completely and utterly ignored, "you'll really like Shizune! Really! You two used to be great friends back in Alice Academy! She taught you about photography and stuff."
Hotaru was, quite frankly, at a loss. Always, she had believed that the best approach to life was just to spit things out. All situations should be dealt with head on; things like euphemisms, preludes and beating around the bush were unneeded, unwelcome and usually brought about unnecessary drama. Life was easy like that, had always been easy like that. Except when facing a boneheaded idiot who habitually displaced reality at his convenience.
"Matsudaira," the inventor growled, "listen to me for a second." Hayate actually paused, a startling first. "Right now, you are coming into my house, onto my property which rightfully belongs to me—" which really belonged to Subaru but that was a minor detail. "In doing so, I expect you to respect my opinions and I do not want anyone else with us when I put this manila envelope into your hand. No one else. Do you understand?"
"We're going up!"
He was tugging at the last strand of her patience. "Do not make this a burden."
The line went dead. Hotaru lifted the phone off of her ear and glared at it with a vengeance, as if it were the device's fault that Hayate was the way he was. She seriously contemplated throwing away the plan in favour of blocking his number once and for all when the doorbell suddenly rang.
Grabbing the envelope, she made her way over with a deep breath.
Taking rightful precautions, she raised to her tiptoes and peeked through the peephole, only to be completely startled when she saw a small pupil suspended in an enlarged schlera also drawn up to the peephole but on the other side. Hotaru almost squeaked as she jumped back at the horrifying sight. Her fleeting composure fled completely as she wrung open the door with two twitching eyes. The surprise made her see red.
"Why hello Imai-san," a pleasing voice greeted as Shizune placed two stacked hands on top of her lap and arched her graceful back into a well-practiced bow. "Good evening to you."
Scowling, Hotaru stepped outside slowly, closing her apartment door behind her. She directed all her fury towards Hayate. "Were you listening to our phone call or was I the only one in that conversation?"
He grinned stupidly.
Shizune straightened into a statuesque stance once more. "It is not his fault, my dear. Allow me to explain. My flight back from France was inconveniently delayed for two hours and so I am very grateful to him for picking me up despite having a prearrangement. When he told me of it, I insisted on accompanying to extend a personal invitation from Harada Misaki to you."
The woman's meek smile and silky voice relaxed Hotaru somewhat. She was puzzled and yet pleased at the same time with Shizune's presence, like a cat getting an ear scratch from a complete stranger. The shining gray eyes and delicate but proud air about the woman brought forth some sort of comfort. She figured it was because she was used to talking to people of Shizune's pedigree. But then there was something different. The woman herself made Hotaru at ease despite Hayate being within two feet of her.
"Is that so?" she questioned, narrowing her eyes confusedly at the feeling. Somewhere in the very back of her mind, an inner voice disparaged her for lowering her guard in front of a stranger.
"Why yes." The woman nodded in a manner that could only be described as passive. "I only heard the joyous news a few days ago. Misaki just found out she's pregnant. All Alice women are invited to her tea party this Sunday, two to whenever."
The inventor's response was practiced and perfunctory. "Thank you for the invite, Yamanouchi-san, but I am afraid that after that particular dinner I am reluctant to put myself in the company of more than five Alices at a time. I hope you understand. I send Harada-san my greatest apologies and congratulations for this fortuitous event."
"Ah, but Misaki entrusted me to bring you there. She's making her best earl gray and jasmine for the occasion. Are you sure you don't want to come? It's a delightful event, full of women who just sit down and exchange exclusive information on what's been happening in the Alice world lately. Think of it as an informal board meeting to kind of monitor and decide what we should do next. In terms of AFO of course."
Oh, Hotaru's instincts had been right on: this woman was cunning indeed. She stared right into the face of danger, a rather angelic visage with twinkling eyes and confidence of her attending RSVP. Indeed, Shizune's offer was hard to refuse. If everything the older woman said were to be put into cartoon speech bubbles, "exclusive information" would have been bolded, italicized andcapitalized. Hotaru was a sucker for that.
Feeling quite like the cat that fell prey to curiosity, she replied coolly, "is that so?"
Shizune's smile widened.
Hayate looked back and forth between the two women, completely and blissfully unaware of the internal battle that went on in between the lines of the conversation. Even more so, he was almost sinfully oblivious to the inner, inner internal battle raging on within Hotaru's head about whether she should really trust the enigma that was Shizune.
"I do not understand," Hotaru finally spoke. "Harada-san and I are not well acquainted."
"She considers you to be a close friend," was all that Shizune offered. Hotaru figured that she would have to work with that rather than peel back layers of onion skin.
"All right, I concede."
The smile widened into a grin. "That's what I wanted to hear. I will come and pick you up half past one then. Be assured. Unlike Hayate here, I won't be late or I will at least give a heads up if I am."
She nudged him and he indignantly flushed.
"On the off chance that I won't be able to make it, here's her address," she further informed, handing Hotaru a cue card.
Fingering the thick paper, the inventor stared into the neat penmanship and then back into Shizune's seemingly innocent eyes. Hotaru was certain this was no ordinary woman. Shizune knew from the get go just which strings to pull to make Hotaru's attend. Either that, or she was a woman well prepared in every aspect of life. Quite like the violet-eyed genius herself.
"Were you in the technical class?"
The gray-haired lady was quite pleased with herself. "You were also in the technical class. I was your upperclassman, remember?"
What Hotaru really got from that was I was your teacher. Cue card and manila envelope tightly clutched in one hand, she wrapped her arms around herself, allowing an amiable smile to graze her lips as she looked into Shizune's face. Their expressions mirrored each other and a silent understanding was achieved between the two empowered women. Her smile widening, Hotaru closed her eyes and shook her head. Compared to Shizune, she was slightly inferior after all. Just slightly.
Surprisingly, it was something Hotaru could live with.
"Take this," she instructed Hayate sternly and openly despite Shizune's presence. "Do not lose it. Follow my instructions and remember to report back to me in a month."
"Aye aye!" he exclaimed, sailor saluting her as he backed up the corridor aside Shizune, who already had her back turned to Hotaru comfortably. Hayate walked backwards the entire way, keeping his eyes locked on the inventor and grinning hopelessly.
She shook her head one last time before stepping back into an empty room that was now shadowed by the blanket of night.
Although, in retrospect, Hotaru should have anticipated then and there the failure of an otherwise well orchestrated ploy.
As an early request, please don't ask if this story will be Hotaru/Ruka or Hotaru/Hayate. It will be neither. Both men have a different role and impact on her life. Both men are important to her and to the story in different ways, and not necessarily romantic ways either.
Let's put it this way: the main pairing here, if any, is Natsume/Mikan.
Please alert, fave, review!
-IndigoGrapefruit
