Disclaimed.


Finding Mikan

Chapter Nine: The Red Pouch of Mysteries


A young blond man pulled open the door to a Starbucks coffee shop, his hair settling from the flutters of the gentle summer breeze. Had the handle been alive, it would have purred under his gentle touch. Sleepy-eyed, he blinked in a dazed but picturesque manner that only dispelled after the descry of a porcelain face. An amused smile crossed his face as he walked over to Hotaru, beige blazer under his arm, slacks swaying to and fro as if caused by the wind. Six—no, seven people: one man, two women and a few teenage girls—were currently sneaking glances at his figure.

Hotaru shifted in her seat, stirring her iced peppermint white chocolate latte. Her left hand pushed a tray of pastries to the centre of the table while her right foot pushed the opposing chair back for him before he could even reach out his hand. "Are you usually this attention grabbing?"

Ruka was caught between a flush and a sheepish smile. He scratched the back of his neck as he seated, lowering his head to hide his flustered state. "A-attention grabbing? I don't know whether to take it as a compliment or—"

"It was a statement," she told him, eyes shifting sharply to every single gawking individual, pausing just long enough for them to look away in abashment. "I do apologize if you take my words the wrong way."

"Oh," squeaked Ruka, half blushing and blinking incredulously. "Um, do you often just make offhand statements like that? I-I mean not that I wouldbut sometimes it might give people the wrong impression" He said this as if he wished for nothing more than to sink right into his chair.

Hotaru dismissed Ruka's flustered state and instead thought unpleasantly of Hayate. "Well, yes," she told him rather factually, "because I like to take note of little things people usually dismiss or fail to notice, but usually only around people I feel comfortable with and people I know will not take things the wrong way."

"A-and I'm one of them?"

Violet eyes flashed to cerulean. He was genuinely surprised and maybe even a little confused about her demeanor. Though she would not say that he did not have the right to after the rather bipolar treatment she had given him. In fact, Hotaru inwardly admitted that she would have been surprised if Ruka had not been confused after she unceremoniously called him after Misaki's tea party with the request of meeting the Saturday after. For a tepid relationship like theirs, it was pretty big request. Although, by Ruka's benevolent nature, he agreed nonetheless, so readily that Hotaru had to commend him for being really forgiving or really foolish.

Still, it did not stop him from looking like a child who was afraid to dip his toe into the cold waters. Ruka knew that Hotaru requesting his solitary presence would never happen unless she wanted something from him. Which she did, but it was not nearly as colossal as whatever he had in mind.

"Maybe you are," she admitted with a shrug. "I just feel different around you, exonerated almost." Her eyelids fluttered shut for a split second. "Sometimes it is nice to speak to someone without having to worry about prejudice or miscommunication."

"Hayate?"

Hotaru rubbed her temple. "Nogi-san, why must you mention his name to me?"

Ruka's laugh chimed through the shop as he profusely apologized, clearly with no intent of an actual apology as indicated by the subtle yet very amused smile fixed on his face. Hotaru was shaking her head at him like a schoolteacher's chide, which of course only made his laugh merrier. She gave up, shrinking a little into her seat and latching her mouth onto the straw of her drink in an attempt to preserve what dignity she had left. If Ruka loosening up meant having herself made a fool, Hotaru supposed she could bear with it. After all the hassle she had gone through to get his number from Nonoko without Sumire's jeering, there was little she would not give to make her conversation with Ruka as painless as possible.

"Why is everyone so well informed of Hayate and I?" she huffed, picking up a danish crumb and threatening to throw it at him, to which he responded by leaning back and blocking his head with both hands. "You people need to know when to let things lie."

Ruka's smile broadened much to Hotaru's chagrin. He leaned forward, propping both elbows on the desk and cupping his face in his two hands. "Well," Hotaru popped the crumb into her mouth with mixed feelings on the elaboration, "Hayate's obsession goes way back to when you first visited the Hana Hime Den. Everyone thought that he was going to tear you into shreds when you first met, but he kind of gave up after finding out that you resemble his idol from childhood, a superhero called Cool Blue Sky."

"And that is where my nickname came from," she deadpanned, feeling the need to throttle a rag doll at the irony of being compared to the last thing she was.

Ruka was having a little bit of fun with the subject. "Ever since, he's been obsessed with you. He tells many stories of your loving courtship, especially the about you two eloping to the Hana Hime Den during the Rebellion, which I'm pretty sure I know by heart now. Would you like to hear it?"

"No."

"That's too bad," he teased with a click of the tongue.

She leaned back in her chair, sighing as she turned her head to peer out the window. Sakura blossoms were blooming grandly off in the distant park, a small utopia for families in the midst of this concrete jungle. Vaguely, she used to recall that Alice Academy used to have a Sakura tree just like this one. It had been affirmed the day she probed through her photo albums. Ten blocks down, children must have been dancing underneath its petals at that very moment. If it had not been destroyed during the Rebellion, that is. Hotaru slipped one arm under the table to clench her fist tightly.

"Maybe this is your revenge for what I forced upon you in Hayami's office," sighed the inventor.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Ruka's eyebrows fly up to his hairline. Slowly, he puffed up his cheeks with air and then popped them, licking his lips once afterwards nervously. His eyebrows stayed raised as he assured, "well, uh, no, not really. I've already forgotten about that incident so there's no need for you bringing it up again. Honestly, no hard feelings."

Whipping her head straight, Hotaru drew the fist from under the table and thumped it down on the table's surface, not strong enough to indicate anger but firm enough to catch Ruka's undivided attention. He looked nail-bitingly nervous and a little resemblant of the fight or flight syndrome. In the moment that he was still too stunned to really say anything, Hotaru looked deep into his eyes and whispered, "Nogi-san, I am sorry."

So quietly were the words uttered that the moment they escaped into the air, they were completely drowned out by the buzz of conversation in the background. So quickly were they uttered that no one else heard or knew of the significance. Only a total of two eyes and one jaw doubled in size.

"I—Imai—I…"

"I also apologize for not having said it on that day. It was wrong of me to treat you as condescendingly and scornful as I did," she coughed, quickly latching her mouth onto the drinking straw again before it could take on a life of its own and start spewing jumbled bits of extensive apologies.

Anatomically, Ruka was conflicted between reddening like a tomato and gawking like a fish. The two made a rather hilarious combination in which he simply sat there, dumbfounded, with his face burning. As his eyes drifted to his lap, he revealed glimpses into a shining and authentic smile. In a somewhat coherent peep, he confessed, "I really, really don't know what to say. Um, if you're sorry for that then I guess I'm sorry too for taking advantage of your guilt to make you come to Thank God It's Friday."

She stared disbelievingly, her head rigid and frozen. "Nogi-san, god forbid you ever answer an apology with another apology again. Never again, do you hear me? God knows the amount of time I put into preparing myself for that and you… you… I am very upset with you."

"O-okay."

Nothing was said between them for a while. Mostly, in the silence, he fidgeted under her stare as she kept her eyes on his figure. Slowly, the blush crept from his cheeks and he recovered to the point where he now had a firm grasp on his thoughts, though the absentminded twitching of fingers gave him away. After a while, it was evident that Ruka did not entirely feel comfortable disquieting until she did.

Hotaru herself was a rather straightforward person who frequently had little if anything at all to say, so she got straight to the point.

"Tell me, were we really unhappy as students of Alice Academy?"

Her eyes were half-lidded but through them, she could see his flabbergast for the half second following her question. Then, in a flash, Ruka's two hands slammed down on the table impromptu as he exclaimed vehemently, "of course not! Imai-san, is that why you're always sad when you're with us? I mean, sure it was lonely and sure things got hectic at times, but we've always had each other. We were always supporting each other through all the hard times and… I don't think anyone knew how to be unhappy until"

"The Rebellion," she finished for him.

Ruka nodded sadly.

"Not a single memory," she whispered tiredly. "I do not have a single happy memory from childhood. Always, it has been raging fires, screams, cries, tears." Her body involuntarily shivered at the horror fest that almost materialized in front of her eyes.

"That's not true! You were—"

"I know. I have photographic evidence from days that seem like long gone dreams. To date, I cannot even look at them." The words felt more and more desolate as they left her mouth one by one. "I cannot empathize with those days anymore; it feels like looking back into something blessed, something I want for the me of the present." And it was added emptiness to her heart, so much that she was terrified that like a supernova, it would collapse under its own weight. "I just wanted to confirm, maybe give myself a sliver of hope that this—" she gestured to her own body "—was not always the case."

Ruka frowned firmly. "Why do you have such a negative opinion of yourself?"

Her eyelids fluttered against her skin as if squeezing out unshed tears from the dry violet orbs. "Do you know how much of a nightmare I have lived through to get to this day? I am not religious, but I believe that there are two types of hell in the existing world: one created for us, that we were unwillingly placed into and one that we create for ourselves."

The Sakura blossoms were really lovely. Hotaru imagined herself fifteen years younger, surrounded by other children, twirling along with the dance of the petals. She tore her glassy eyes away from the picturesque park, hardening them, focusing them on a random spot in the horizon. Since it was a story that could not be told with any emotion but abhorrence, she would rather not tell it with any emotion at all.

"Imaisan?"

"Once," she mumbled, "there was a display case that held a golden trophy—pure gold, twenty four carats—half the size of a person. Come to think of it, it would have mattered little if it had been made of a slab of wood. Growing up, the people I knew had no use for riches and grandeur. InIrvingAcademy, children only ever desired to feel wanted, only ever desired to prove that they were worth something.

"I was placed in a special institution in America. It is not like Alice Academy; no, it is not nearly as unregulated. It was a juvenile delinquent prison of all sorts for Alices amassed worldwide, Alices that could cause excruciating pain or treacherous mischief, like for example rebelling violently against the government. Maybe the right way to put it is that it was a Dangerous Abilities Class on a large scale. In a space of two blocks, there were around two hundred students who made nuclear bombs seem like child's play." She heaved a heavy, tired breath. "So what do you do with so many precarious children? You subdue them. You subdue them physically and mentally. You make them feel so self-conscious, so miserable that the thought of insubordination would never even cross their minds. You trample them like weeds and tell them they are absolutely worthless."

"Like what Kuonji did to Luna." Ruka looked like he just swallowed a sour lemon.

"Precisely."

"Is that the hell that was made for you?" he whispered breathily.

She stared at him long and hard before curving her lips up into a morbid smile. "What are you talking about, Nogi-san? That was not hell. That was far from hell. In fact, it would be all that I would ask for to relive my teenage years getting by by merely obeying some holier than thou imbecile. However a pain in the kidneys it would have been, I would have left and forgotten everything seven years ago. If only my ignorant fourteen-year-old self had not fallen too deeply into the charade, had not wanted that trophy as much as I had.

"Looking back, it is partially my fault for being so prideful, so confident that I would not become a beaten down soul, not become like them. By the time I was fourteen, I was already holding onto the last strings of my sanity." She bit hard into her lip. "You have no idea how much I wanted that trophy, because in Irving Academy, a trophy means so much more than that. First place is hope. It means that out of all the scum in that hellhole, you are the only one who will actually go to places, whose name will be ingrained in the very history of if not the world, then at least the academy. Who, after years and years of believing that they will never amount to anything in life, would not vie for such an opportunity?

"They gave us a choice of working alone or in partners. I did not want a partner, nor did I look for one. There were so many desperate souls in that place that you could turn your head for a moment and your entire life's work would be gone. Stolen. Every day, it was a battlefield full of spies, swindlers, liars. You would be surprised at what lengths hopeless people go to to conceal their hideous deeds. What good is a Truth Alice screening if spies bash themselves in the head or took heavy drugs they smuggle in to forget that they ever plagiarized in the first place? If they earnestly believe they did not do it, what good is a test that determines the 'truth' from their own knowledge and perception?"

Much of Ruka's face was covered by his hands, leaving only space for two terrified eyes that flitted around spastically. He looked ghastlier than she had ever seen a man, so ghastly, in fact, that she was afraid he would congeal into a statue and then crack cleanly down the middle.

Hotaru's eyes flickered from his face to the food in between them. She picked up a scone and held it out to him. "Perhaps you should eat this, Nogi-san."

Desensitized, Ruka peeled one hand from his face to wrap his fingers around the pastry weakly. He did not bring it to his mouth. "T-the kids are fourteen. Fourteen… How could they do this to themselves?"

"In a hell readily made for them, where they are nothing but guinea pigs running in hamster wheels? Easily."

"Why are you telling me this?" he exclaimed, temporarily catching the attention of a few people surrounding them.

She averted his eyes sadly. "If you do not want to hear it, all you have to do is say so."

Though his face looked pleading, he said nothing.

"I told you because I knew you would feel uncomfortable, because you should feel uncomfortable. Maybe it was heinous of me to impose on your life like I am doing now, to make you feel so disturbed and so scared as you do. However, I do not feel sorry. I do not believe that one should turn a blind eye to something that is happening to someone out there, no matter how horrible it might be. Though you did not ask for it, I felt compelled to tell you—to trust you, in a sense, with some of the deepest secrets I have kept because I know that you are compassionate enough not to judge me for something that happened in the past."

"But why?" he cried again and this time she left it as a rhetorical question. Ruka silently sniffled to himself, nibbling off ends of the pastry but not really eating it. For a small second, her heart throbbed at the hurt of rejection, though she knew she should have expected it, though she knew the risks of letting others peek into the most vulnerable parts of her life. But then, he swallowed a lump, and though he did it lifelessly, he asked, "what happened to you afterwards?"

Hotaru, shaken by his acceptance, almost broke into an emotional smile. "Essentially something called the Memory Project." At the name, she jerked, caught her little blip and steeled herself again. "Years ago, I created a machine that enhanced the human memory so greatly that every speck of dust and every fleck of dirt would be forever ingrained in the memory of whoever used it. It lasted six months. When I finished the first prototype of that machine, I tried testing it on some of my other robots, only to have them consequently self-destruct. Making prototype bots took up too much of my time so eventually I just gave up and started testing it on myself as a last resort. I was so young and stupid."

"Does it have anything to do with you being unable to remember anything from Alice Academy?"

"Do you really want me to drop the bomb on you again?"

Ruka almost whimpered. "How much worse can it get?"

"I surgically removed parts of my cerebrum afterward," she promptly informed, "mostly parts responsible for short-term and long-term memory, now replaced by the enhancer. They had nearly been fried dead anyways. Mostly the result of reckless on my part, although I do recall that once, an Amplifying Alice took out her frustration by trying to kill me. I almost went into comatose for that one. She was so mad when I woke up that she slapped me in the face."

Of course, Hotaru skipped the important details—that the Alice was a social climber and had her eye on Hotaru for a while. She was one year older than the inventor but was looked down upon because her Alice could not accomplish anything by itself. After she heard that Hotaru was contesting for the trophy, not a day went by where she did not insist on a partnership. Again, Hotaru refused. Again, she proposed. Until one day, late at night, a very frustrated Hotaru accepted one of her Alice stones and used it to work out some kinks in the project. She had been ecstatic. The girl had been so sure that she was headed straight for the top, only discovering last minute Hotaru had intended to drop her from the get go.

So it did not come as much of a surprise when the girl—Hotaru could not recall her name—tried to kill her. The slap had stung though, did sting throughout the years. Hotaru never saw her again. Whether it was end result of the hate and pain of betrayal or the restraining order she filed to Ross Anderson subsequently, she never found out either.

"Imai-san…" Ruka choked out, earning him a somewhat apologetic look from Hotaru. "I have a weak stomach for horror stories Your brain, really? I thought these things only happened in fiction."

"In retrospect, it was not all that bad," she offered. No, the duration of the Memory Project was not bad at all. It was what resulted of it that never failed to haunt her body for days on end.

"It wasn't all that bad?" he choked out disbelievingly. "Imai-san, what are you, superhuman?"

She shifted her chair ninety degrees for some space to cross her legs. Leaning her elbow against the tabletop, Hotaru challenged, "as bad as Kuonji's deeds? And the people who suffered because of him?"

Ruka opened his mouth but did not speak. Through solemn eyes, he melancholy looked down, fingers trembling with silent sorrow as he gripped the top of that square table. The buzz of joyous chatter filled up the silence between the two Alices. For Hotaru and Ruka, it felt as if they were in another world completely, a world far away from the silly tales of habitual life, one that was defined by catalysis and chaos.

"Every time the Rebellion is mentioned, people always think worst case scenario," mumbled Ruka, seemingly to himself. His fingers traced little stick figures on the table. Four of them, Hotaru counted. She wondered who they were. "They think of destruction, fleeing, chaos, attempted murder on all three sides."

The finger stopped and flicked off the table. "It wasn't a one night event. It was a succession of events with many, many people involved, not just the Elementary School Division but also the Middle School and High School Divisions, and organizations outside of the Academy. What's the last thing you remember?"

Hotaru frowned, racking her brain for the remnants of her memory. "Conflagration, iron gates, footsteps," she identified each image as they flew across her eyes at inhuman speeds, "grabbing, tripping, panting, flashes of light, a red pouch, something slipping through my fingers, and a cacophony of screams." Usually that was what her dreams ended with, leaving her wide awake, sweating, and half hallucinating those voices in the dead silence of the night.

"After Sakura-san escaped from the mansion then," deducted Ruka, earning him a look of confusion from Hotaru. "Um, actually there were two parts—" he even held the fingers to signify two "—to the Rebellion. People don't usually think of the first because it didn't really affect them personally." So bitterly this was said that he almost uncharacteristically spat it. "Even before we knew what was happening, Sakura-san was already being recruited by Kuonji for her Stealing Alice. Because she didn't agree, he did all he could to make her friends, us, suffer. And we did. We suffered so much she agreed to go with him and so he locked her up in a mansion hidden from all of us. That was where she saw must of the events of the Second Rebellion until she escaped.

"No one really knows what happened to her after she left and before Natsume and I found her. When we did, she was caught in the crossfire of a battle between Z Organization and the Fuukitai, Alice Academy guards. To save us, Natsume used up his Alice. It brought him to the brink of his death," the blond softened tentatively, his lashes quivering and lips creased. "The only reason he survived is because we found one of Subaru's Alice Stones on him. It temporarily sustained his life force until we brought him to your brother. By then… by then you were already gone. Subaru was in such, uh, anguish about how he couldn't save you that Sakura-san promised him she'll bring you back at all costs. And… well, that was the last we ever saw of her."

"Hotaru!"

The inventor inhaled sharply, eyes diluted, mouth slightly open. In front of her, Ruka was too lost in silent mourning to notice the small convulse. It was the first time in a long time she heard that voice, so long that she seriously deliberated if it was just her mind playing tricks on her or a real, genuine memory. Instead of a headache, when Hotaru strained her memory, she managed to bring back a dream-like image of the scene: a girl with tousled hair was running towards her, hand outstretched as if passing a baton. In that hand was something long and red.

The pouch, she discerned automatically.

"Is that why Hyuuga thinks I have his Alice stone?" she frowned, staring into the lines of her palm, trying to remember the mysterious pouch's texture. The string was rough and course, a little harder than yarn. The size of the pouch she could not quite recall, but it was sure to be something small—a holder for keys or a small charm or an Alice stone.

But it was not an Alice stone because she never brought an Alice stone overseas. The ponytailed woman, the government personnel had checked her body for such things and would have confiscated the pulsing stone had she found one. Even if Hotaru managed to bring it with her, she would have had some recollection of it. In Irving Academy, Alice stones were prized commodities; there was no way she would have let it leave her side for a moment.

More importantly, she did not even know what Natsume's Alice stone colour was. In fact, she was almost certain she had never seen it in her life.

Surprisingly, Ruka did not seem to think so either, for he seemed incredulous, to say the least, at her accusation. "His Alice stone? Do you have it?"

"Obviously not."

"Oh." The eyes restored to their original size. "No, I didn't think so. Neither did Natsume, to be honest. I think he hoped from the bottom of his heart that it wouldn't be with you."

"… What?"

"Well, think of it this way: if Natsume actually trusted Sakura-san enough to let her take his Alice, wouldn't he also trust her to return his Alice to him? That's what I've always thought—that he's so obsessive over his stone because it's the last dwindling strand of hope that he'll ever see Mikan again. I mean, in a sense it's an exchange a little stronger than a promise because Alice stones are essentially a part of us. I think he's waiting for her to bring it back to him personally, and to stay with him. Instead of the Alice being on you, he probably thinks that Mikan gave you a clue as to where she's hiding."

"And what makes him think that? The last time I saw her was fifteen years ago. Surely you must have some other lead by now."

"Um," Ruka said, scratching his cheek, "yeah… Nice, France. She was there with a former friend, Ibaragi Nobara-san. By the time we reached the city, she was gone."

"What about Ibaragi-san? Did you not find her? It would not be hard to find someone of Japanese descent in France."

Blushing, Ruka murmured, "we couldn't find her."

Forcefully sighing, Hotaru brushed aside her bangs with her index finger. "Have you ever considered bugging their former residence in case they come back? Did Hyuuga not have some kind of Tracking Alice he could borrow from his friends? Did you show photographs of Sakura-san and Ibaragi-san to the locals? I am sure they would have seen the two women around in marketplaces and such."

"W-we tried. He and I stayed at my mom's place for two weeks and we combed the entire city for them. At times Natsume was absolutely convinced he was onto their trail, but in the end we found nothing."

"Then they had an accomplice," she reasoned, frowning, "which I can see resulting in two scenarios. One, Sakura-san has already moved on and is now tied up with her own affairs. Two, she is forced against her will into hiding, likely because of affiliations with an illegitimate organization or illegitimate organizations. Unless she wishes for it, the prospects of Natsume finding her again are at best very bleak."

"It'll kill him."

Hotaru shook her head sadly. "I think it already has. I think that it is safe to say that he is obsessive and perhaps a little bit insane. The best thing to do in this scenario is to hire a psychiatrist and try to talk him into seeing sense. Has he any family besides his father?"

"One sister."

"One sister, and she has done nothing for him?"

Ruka shuffled in his seat. "It's a little complicated with her. The Hyuuga family's always been a victim to financial struggles and misfortune: their first house burned down before the full mortgage was paid, insurance companies declared bankruptcy, several credit card scams, medical fees for his father's cancer and Aoi's eye surgeries. Despite having received money for two Alices, they were dirt poor by the time Natsume was expelled." He shook his head sadly. "Well, you know the rest about how he managed to unite the Alices. His sister's in university right now. Natsume's paying for her boarding and tuition with money from AFO, and in return she promised to respect his space. I don't think she has any idea how bad it's actually become."

The inventor narrowed her eyes. "Tell her," she spoke pointedly, "and hire a psychiatrist."

Ruka closed his eyes. "It'd be hard to try and get Natsume to agree to having one. I don't think he's at that much of a risk yet. As long as Sakura-san's not dead, there's still some hope."

Hotaru was momentarily irritated that Ruka, that everyone, was so intent on making excuses over and over for a complete and utter piece of scum. Natsume was clearly in trouble. They were trying their hardest to help him out of his predicament and yet he still insisted on being fine, still simply gave them all a big, rude slap in the face. "The fact that you defend him does not sit well with me. You gave me a great excuse to ramble on and on about every single one of Hyuuga's faults but I'm sure you won't want to hear the semantics."

He was silent.

"Perhaps that is the difference between you and I," she commented, tugging at the ends of her shaggy hairstyle. "I cannot even begin to make acceptances for people half as well as you do."

Ruka frowned. "Please don't say that, Imai-san. I'm not. I'd like to say that I will support him if he decides to wait until the end of time, I'd like to say that I trust in his judgement and character, but I can't and I don't. I'm just as worried about him as you are, except I can't do anything about it because I care a lot more about Natsume than you do. And I want him to be happy, and I also want him to be healthy, and I can't have both at the same time. It's just—" he sighed "—sometimes it's just so hard being a best friend."


Hotaru awoke with lightheaded discombobulation. For a while, her head spun in a huge maelstrom of red pouches, excitable Natsumes, bright and sunny ten-year-old Mikans, and bits and pieces of her conversation with Ruka. The first thing she did was dispel everything from her head. Once the room actually came into focus, she wondered how much time she had actually wasted napping.

As usual, the vintage beige curtains were drawn, making it nearly impossible to see if it was still light out.

Drowsily, Hotaru reached for her phone, only to be blinded by an intense square of white light. Unwilling to subject her precious eyes to the torture, she turned away from it, groaning as she snuggled her head back against a lump of blanket. Her fingers groped the keypad for navigation. From memory, she accessed the call command and pressed the little two button. It was as good as a clock anyways. If Janine answered the phone sounding grumpy and sleep deprived then it was almost certainly still afternoon.

"Ughhh."

Afternoon it was.

"Should I give you a little time to wake up?" asked Hotaru. "I have only just awoken myself. What time is it over there?"

"Holly, is that you?" slurred Janine. "It's—it's like five am here. The Japanese equivalent of the SWAT Team better be after your hide for you to be calling me at this unearthly hour."

Hotaru pressed her lips together and wondered what Janine would say if she were to tell her best friend that the scenario would soon become a very possible one. ARC probably had an even lower profile than the Swat Team. Almost surely, there would be at least one or two very unusual and possibly lethal government organizations working to enforce Alice Law. They had everything else after all—Alice courts, Alice diplomats, Alice spies… An image of Chiaki and his almost feral grin entered her head; Hotaru shook it away distastefully.

"Actually, I was wondering if I left behind a red pouch of some kind."

"Give me a minute…"

A big pfoosh echoed through the receiver as Janine brushed aside her duvet and sat up. She sniffled five times, gasped ten and made some kind of strange noise that sounded like the tired rubbing of her eyes. Hotaru's best friend was one of those people who would usually be alert if she was given three minutes to rub out the sleepiness from her features. It must have been really bad this time, for even after the wake up routines Janine still moaned sleepily. Hotaru knew the hazel-eyed woman was going to take revenge on her someday by calling her late in the evening, but what she did not know was that the inventor had been wide awake on most of the nights anyways.

"Okay," said Janine, after slapping her thighs twice. "A red pouch… Yes, I have seen one at our place. I don't exactly remember where—and before you say anything, it's like five in the morning and I can't even think clearly. If I do I'll—wait! I think I found something like that in one of your old drawers when I cleaned it out. Did it have a string attached?"

"Yes."

"Well, there you go."

Hotaru waited, only to receive nothing more than breathing from the other side for two minutes. She shook her head, musing at how hard it was to talk to someone whose only intention was to go back to sleep as soon as possible. "Where is it now?"

"Ngn," gasped Janine, who evidently just dozed off. "Oh. I threw it out."

"You threw it out," Hotaru uttered flatly. "You threw it out."

"It was empty, Holly," she slurred. "I didn't think you have any use for it anymore. A week after you were gone, I sla—swept your room for things—uh—things that you need. You said you weren't like, um, what's the word again? You said you weren't leaving behind anything important. Why didn't you tell me to keep it beforehand?"

"I did not think it was important at the time. It turns out that the pouch was a gift from a friend who is now missing and might have held a key clue to where she has gone."

"Well there was nothing inside it," Janine moaned in a half sleepy, half whiny voice. "That's why I threw it out! It was like—like the only, uh, thing that was there, you know? There, like inside your drawer. We got like a bunch of boxes packed somewhere—I have to ask Tom. Can I just call you back if I find something, please? Ten o'clock lecture tomor—today and I have to touch up on my essay later." She groaned loud and long.

"Well, my apologies then."

"You should be sorry. But I guess I owe you from that once when you drove me home from that bar magig thing. Goodni—afternoon? Oh, whatever! Goodnight, Holly."

"Goodnight." Hotaru smiled at her awkward sentences.

She was almost triumphant when her nail scraped over the End Call button. No more Natsume in her life for good. She briefly wondered if she should tell Ruka to relay him the news that she officially had nothing to do with Mikan Sakura from this point onward. On second thought, Hotaru decided to withhold the information, in case the red eyed tyrant ever sought her out again. She would love to see the hopeless look on his face when his one and only hope shattered in right front of him.

Ruka's serious face materialized for a wavering moment. "It'll kill him."Hotaru shook it away, frowning. Surely, Ruka was wrong. As understanding and kind as he was, he could not be right about everything regarding human behaviour.

And if he was right then it was Natsume's fault because he clearly had a choice. Hotaru gripped her phone begrudgingly as the thought crossed her mind. From the beginning, Natsume had a choice between living a normal life and diving straight into a downward spiral. Since he had chosen the latter, he had better be losing sleep with the full understanding that it was he who had driven himself down this path. Because some people were not as lucky.

Hotaru forced her shaking body to calm.

In the dark room, she barely contained a sinister smile. Well, there you go Hyuuga. I was right. It looks like Sakura-san does not wish to be found after all.


This is a little bit better than Version 1 and Version 2. I think I can live with it now.

Please alert, fave and review! :D

-IndigoGrapefruit