Disclaimed.
Finding Mikan
Chapter Twelve: A Deal With the Devil
Monday saw Hotaru in one of the crankiest states she had ever been in. Early in the morning, she unintentionally awoke a little past seven. She barely stuck a foot out of bed before groaning and shutting her eyes again, praying that the sandman would take her away from her world once more. He did not. Whatever ability the sandman had was clearly overwhelmed by the sheer power of the sun. Since she forgot to draw the curtains last night, it streamed in from the windows onto her eyelids, creating a warm, reddish tint that shattered her tranquility.
Hotaru turned over, opened one eye, and stared groggily into the city.
She forcibly dragged herself up to face a horrible day. Her appearance was almost as scary as she anticipated. There were enormous eyebags under those purple irises, hair that fluffed all over the place, and a permanent tiredness etched deep in her features. She was slumping greatly and she could not for the love of life bring her shoulders upright.
Zombie Hotaru made her way over to the kitchen to fry herself an egg, momentarily taken back to the university days when she and Janine lived on cup ramen. Right now, she had no energy and no will to make a full, hearty meal. Just a little bit of protein could get her through until lunch.
Grabbing the salt and pepper, Hotaru took a seat on her dinning table. Interesting. Even the egg seemed less appetizing now. Frowning, she stabbed into it repetitively, breaking the yolk apart into crumbs of yellow.
Out of nowhere, a pale hand set a glass of milk in front of her.
"This'll make you feel better," said Chiaki.
Hotaru looked at the glass dully, then looked at him, then looked back to the glass. "Did you poison it?"
"How underhanded do you think I am?"
She stabbed her eggs again, this time twisting the fork and grinding it against the plate. "Not as underhanded as Hyuuga, that much is certain."
He showed himself to the seat across from her. There they swiftly sat, like two complete strangers forced to endure the presence of the other for an entire day. Which was half true in a sense. "Well that's a new one. I didn't think you could possibly hate anyone as much as you hate me."
"Admittedly, right now you are not as high as you should be on my hit list," she offered, turning away from him to dump her empty plates into the sink. "Why did you come here? How did you come here? I should really consider buying myself a new apartment."
"Right," muttered Chiaki bitterly. "This one's your brother's."
She stood by the open concept kitchen, one shoulder leaning on a pole. "I already relayed your message to Subaru. What more can you possibly want from me?"
In a curious thought, Hotaru wondered whether she and Chiaki had the inverted emotions of what they were supposed to be thinking. Past all the initial grouchiness of waking up, she found herself surprisingly okay with the idea that she was now estranged from Natsume and his cronies for good. Meanwhile, he seemed grumpy. Really grumpy. So grumpy, in fact, that in his silent sulk, he almost stared hard enough into her glass table to make it spontaneously combust.
"You didn't get me what I want."
"I did exactly as you asked. It is not my fault if you failed to be succinct with your demands."
He stood sharply, ready to do leap but then stopping at the last second.
Hotaru pushed her arm off of the pole, crossing them as she stood. She could not make a run for her cans of pepper spray and sleeping gas because he could intercept her faster. Until she figured out how he managed to escape from her apartment, that particular strategy would not be very efficient anyways. So she settled with Plan B, namely mediating, "do not be so provoked. I am the one at a disadvantage here. The ball is in your court right now and I still do not know what your Alices are."
"Morphing," he grunted, pointing a finger at Hikaru's photo frame. Hotaru's eyes widened as the pixels rearranged themselves back into the old picture that her mother had given her. "What?" he snorted at her incredulity. "You've never seen a Morphing Alice before?"
"No, I have. I just thought that you replaced the picture."
"Me? I have not seen his son for two years, neither do I want to. Your whole family is intim—irritating," he seethed. "But you also have something I need, so I will make you a one time offer. Get Imai Subaru to do me one favour and I will give you this—"
Hotaru gasped as he drew a sheet of paper from his shoulder bag and held it in front of him. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was engraved on it in huge letters. The sheet was crisp, flawless and almost glowing to her eyes. One of the appeasements offered for her early return was for that to be sent to her by the end of summer. She had already become suspicious after June had gone without any word of it. How in the world did Chiaki Hidaka get that particular bargaining chip?
"That is my doctorate you are holding in your dirty hands."
"Do you want it?"
"How did you get it?"
He dismissed the question. "Get me one favour from Imai Subaru and you have this along with the promise of never seeing me again."
"What do you want from my brother so desperately that you cannot just go to him and ask?"
Chiaki disappeared.
Hotaru was stunned into silence for an entire five seconds. She shook her head, growling at his uncanny escape. Well, now she knew how he got in and out of her apartment without entering the front door. The only problem was she neither knew how he did it nor how to prevent it. The most likely situation was that he had duo Alices—Morphing and Teleportation, only Teleportation Alices did not allow the user to just pop in and out instantaneously. The process was gradual and could only be done if the user knew had a either a picture or coordinates of where he or she was going.
Suddenly, the door opened and closed behind her. Hotaru swiveled quickly only to see the lock turning ninety degrees clockwise.
… It looked like things just became a whole heck of a lot more complicated. A person with the Invisibility and Morphing Alices was just a lapdog? How was she ever going to get out of this one unscathed?
In an old MIT hoodie and jeans, Hotaru rubbed her temples thoughtfully while opening her laptop and accessing the Tokyo Stock Exchange website. All three stocks she had been keeping an eye on for the last few months—Sakamoto Hotel Corp., the Nakamura Cruise Company, and Akaki Sushi Deli took considerate blows this week. Moreover, only one out of the three was steadily profitable. Today was the day another two or three percent of AFO's company stocks transferred into her hands.
She glanced up at the clock. One in the afternoon. Perfect. Right on cue.
Grabbing her purse, she head out of the apartment, already aware of the route that she was going to take. Every time she left her home, she instructed her taxi driver to drive on one street in particular. No one had refused her. They were always happy to put on more mileage; it meant more money, after all.
On top of that, taxis were conveniently easy to get, especially since the front door of Subaru's apartment building lead straight to a busy street. Not even five minutes after she exited the building, Hotaru was already strapped in the back seat of a cab.
"Tokyo Stock Exchange through Yamashita street," she stated. "I feel like watching the scenery."
The cab driver furrowed her brows before turning. Most of them did that. Hotaru's routes had not one iota of sense. To get from her apartment to Yamashita street to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, one had to make a huge loop around the city. Her drivers often looked at her funny and sometimes even questioned her in a disguised casual manner before letting it go.
Throughout the entire trip, the inventor propped her chin on a palm and stared out of the left window. If the driver happened to look in the mirror, she would naturally think that Hotaru was just enjoying the scenery. Her purpose for taking this route, in fact, had nothing to do with how nice the neighbourhood was. She was intently searching for a head of yellow.
So far, there was no such luck, but sooner or later, she knew she would eventually spot him.
They were now rounding a bend near where he had chosen to paint his giant tangerine. She squinted at the building and, sure enough, she saw Rui armed with garden gloves and a black apron. There was a satchel lying on the floor with several spray paint cans peeping out of the opening. He was in the centre of a group of teenagers, some recording with their fancy phones and others merely observing.
"These juveniles vandalizing again," grunted Hotaru's driver, stopping at a red light. "I see it happening everywhere nowadays, especially in the night. There's a fine for five hundred dollars and up to three months' of jail time if you get caught."
"Do the cops ever catch them?"
"Well that's hard to say. They're nimble and never stay in one area for too long. Sometimes the Tokyo Police slack off too. There's plenty of theft in the city but only one in about eight cases get reported."
"Hm," Hotaru said as she fetched her blackberry to dial one one zero.
"You have reached the Tokyo Police Station. How many I help you?"
"I want to report a case of vandalism. Right now, I see a blond haired woman painting the walls of building 6478 on Yamashita Street." As too many complications would arise from describing Rui as a crossdresser, Hotaru chose to give a false gender instead. "The medium she is using is spray paint. The culprit is pretty tall, around five eight. Right now, she is wearing gloves and a black apron. Her painting looks half done, so there is reason to suspect that she will be here for another few hours or so."
The female cop typed loudly on the other end of the line as Hotaru described Rui. "Okay. Thank you for the report. We'll send a few officers over to investigate immediately."
Hotaru smiled to herself as she hung up.
"You're one to take initiative, aren't you miss?" her taxi driver remarked.
"Indeed," Hotaru told her, most pleased. "I figure that since there is no one to report crime around Tokyo nowadays, I should. After all, the more people that obey the law, the more peaceful our city will become."
The autumn months passed by speedily. If Hotaru had to say so herself, she was faring much better than she had hoped. Already she had inched her way into the inner circle of Sakamoto's company, having acquired a little over ten percent of all his stocks. Akaki's business was nearly obliterated. The Nakamura investment was going a little slower but still progressing steadily. One of her newest tasks on hand, sending a few competitors the Umenomiya Bakery's way, was also coming along nicely. Having an Invention Alice came in handy when one wished to bribe small businesses into working for her.
In other news, Rui Amane had hefty charges and a more damaging criminal record attached onto his name. Good luck to him if he ever tried to make it as an artist, or a musician, or any kind star that attracted mass publicity henceforth. Every agent, after seeing that, would have a hard time not turning him down.
Still, there had been no attempts to contact her. Hotaru was quite surprised at how the Alice Funding Organization held together. Sakamoto should be starting to panic. Sumire must have been spreading rumours left and right about Hotaru. Everyone else must have been enraged about Rui. Yet still no one called. No one came. No one blew up.
Not that she had any complaints. Things were better this way.
Just as Hotaru was reveling in her success, she realized that she had made this assumption all too soon. A frantic rapping on her hardwood door arrived mid November. She knew it could not be Chiaki for he had not visited her in a while and when he did, he would never be so polite as to knock before he entered.
To be honest, Hotaru had every reason to expect Sakamoto on the other side. So she was surprised, just the slightest, when she saw that her unusual visitor was actually Hayate, in even more of an unorganized mess than he usually was. Hotaru rethought it on the spot and decided that there was nothing surprising after all. His entrance suited him exactly. Only he would knock so loudly and drastically and show up in an abominably unsightly state.
"Why are you doing this?" he cried the moment he saw her. "Please, what did Natsume do to you? I'll make up for it, I promise! Sakamoto-san is already panicking and Rui got arrested. Please, stop this madness. It's not funny anymore."
"It never was."
"Will you just tell me? Please, Hotaru-san. Cool Blue Sky, please! Don't make them hate you more than they already do. There's a ruckus wherever I go, and some people are starting to blame Natsume!"
"As they should," she hissed, trying to shut her door on him. "I do not know what justified Hyuuga to do what he did. He wronged me in a way that I can never forgive him for. How about you ask him for his selfish, arrogant excuses before coming to me with any beseeches. Maybe even someone as stupid and boneheaded as you will see him for what he actually is."
He stopped her with a surprisingly strong elbow. "I beg of you, Cool Blue Sky, don't do this! Don't do this! Please! Just go back and apologize! Please!"
Hotaru let go and took a step back, allowing the man to fall forward from the momentum. A second chain lock that she had put on the door restricted it from opening all the way. Hayate banged his head on the wood in a cringing, concussion-worthy way. To Hotaru, it was just seconds of her time wasted before she could set him straight and turn him away from her home.
"Do not ever grovel from anyone," she disdained. "It is demeaning, humiliating and it makes me think less of you than I already do. If you wish me to stop, if you are really that cowardly, then stop letting Hyuuga play you like a chess piece and grow your own brain. I have no need for someone who is loyal to him."
"Why do you hate Natsume so much?" he asked desperately, hands clutching his head. "Why can't you two ever agree on anything?"
Because he had everything I did not. And he threw away everything.
Perhaps the problem was not that they disagreed in anything. It was that they agreed in everything—not in their opinions and faiths but in their actions, so much so that it was a scary parallel.
"You cannot like someone who is an embodiment of all your flaws."
Before he could say anything, she lunged at the door, shutting and locking it in one leap. For a moment, everything was silent. Then, Hayate continued his erratic banging and rattling. A few passionate words made it through the cracks, albeit muffled enough to sound like absolute gibberish. For another five minutes and thirty four seconds, the banging ensued before it finally became silent again.
Hotaru remained slumped against the door for hours more.
The violet eyed inventor only ever knew Sakamoto to be a gigantic, brooding presence. When he raised himself to his full height, he was a little more above six foot five, towering well over all other Japanese citizens. His fair hair was always brushed back to show his entire forehead. Though he was well in his fifties, it had yet to start graying—or maybe he simply dyed it. Regardless, he was one of those businessmen who always managed to look professional and on top of things.
Too bad she never got the chance to approach him amiably. When they finally met, they met as two bitter enemies under the pretense of cordiality. During her first conference as a member of the board of directors of the Sakamoto Hotel Corporation, they shared a vigorous handshake. He grasped her small hand firmly within his, squeezing as hard as he possibly could in an attempt to crush her very bones.
She smiled pleasantly back at him.
Hotaru was not the only one bluffing but she was the better one.
"Imai-san," he sneered, "the rising star. How are you? Shall I accompany you?"
"I am wonderful," she shot confidently, "in every sense of the word. Just last month, in fact, I sealed a deal with Nintendo. I sold them an advanced game console model for a billion yen. If all goes well, the new line should be out in three or four years." Apparently, even with her PhD in Chiaki's hands, her bachelor's and reputation still served as great leverage even over the most famous companies.
"That's… spectacular," he croaked. "I noticed you've been buying many stocks of the Sakamoto Hotel Corporation recently. As of the end of February, you own a little over twenty five percent of the company. Is there any reason for such an abrupt interest?"
"I figured it would be a good investment," her voice was cool. "After all, I did room in one of your hotels when I first arrived from Japan. I found it to be quite… satisfactory. There were no cameras or microphones of any kind at the very least."
His face was paralyzed in a cold smile. "I look forward to welcoming you onto our team. I hear from several reliable sources that you are quite capable, Imai-san. Perhaps we should have a private meeting to discuss the future of the corporation. How does ten o'clock next Saturday morning at the Starbucks at Kitasenju Station sound to you?"
"Fine." Even though it was a complete waste of her time, there was nothing Sakamoto could say or do at this point that would change her motives. Let him try, Hotaru thought. His feeble attempts serve as nice enlightenment to her dull life.
"Great. Here's my business card if you ever need to contact me." He all but shoved it into Hotaru's hands and she stared down distastefully at the lowly piece of trash.
"Thank you," she hissed. "I apologize for not having my own on hand but I am positive we will soon be very well acquainted anyways."
"Hm." Sakamoto sped up his strides, no longer interested in what she had to say.
Hotaru tore up his card and threw the bits into the nearest trash can she could find.
Starbucks was a place that reminded Hotaru too much of America. It was part of the reason why she liked meetings being held there. The coffee shops were not as abundant in Tokyo as Boston or New York. There, she could almost find one every two blocks. Here, there was one every five blocks or so. Once, these stores served as a haven to businessmen who wanted a quiet atmosphere and free Wi-fi to finish up some quick work before attending a meeting. Now they were just littered with obnoxiously loud teenagers.
Was that what non-Alice teenagers did, visit Starbucks on a daily basis? While she was still alone, Hotaru pondered the subject for a while. Whisked from one place to another in her childhood, she never did know much about normal life. Granted, if she had not decided to attend Alice Academy in the first place, she would still be in a small town with a closed mind.
Stirring a single coffee, the inventor shot a glance at the door to search for the presence of Sakamoto. While he was not yet late, he did not arrive early either. A bad sign. Ten o'clock usually meant nine fifty. It was impolite for the invitee to show up later than the invited.
Hotaru rubbed her temples and mechanically stirred her coffee. It was snowing again, not blizzarding but fluttering gently. The aimless kind of snow. The kind that one could stare at for hours without really staring at it, much too lost in far off sentiments and nostalgia—or in Hotaru's case, lack thereof.
"We meet."
If only one's ears could bleed at the ugly sound of hearing her adversary's voice instead of her business partner's. Hotaru would much rather the business partner, as grudging and difficult as Sakamoto would have been. At least if he was there, she would never have to worry about being provoked or being on edge for the entire time she was in his presence. Albeit, he would have annoyed her greatly. She gave him that. But he was not low and he was not manipulative and he did not have red eyes and black hair and the name Natsume Hyuuga.
Sakamoto would not slide into the opposite seat after dragging it out with a screech. He would not have been wearing an ugly brown, scratchy-looking hat and he would certainly not have violently dusted snow off of it by beating it repetitively against the edge of the table. His hair would not have resembled a crow's nest. If it had been him, Hotaru would not have been absolutely disgusted on the other side of the table.
"You broke our promise."
He did not answer for the longest time. She took the lapse to examine the way he chose to present himself.
As usual, Natsume Hyuuga was dressed in cheap, baggy clothing. His brown jacket was stained with every colour of chalk imaginable and his baggy jeans were horribly ripped at the knees. A typical vagrant. She leaned back, peering under the table just to ascertain that he did not come barefoot. While Natsume was wearing shoes, they looked like tattered rags glued onto his feet and their soles had clearly been coming off for a while now. She could hardly bring herself to believe those sneakers had originally been white. How did he even manage to remain warm in this weather?
"I see that Sakamoto-san did not manage to make it." She paused as he fixed his appearance even more. "You dare show yourself in front of me after what you did? You dare break the very agreement that you yourself proposed? I am telling you right now that I will not back down from my promise just because you had the audacity come here today."
"Are you finished?" he drawled, leaning back arrogantly. "Is it my turn to speak now?"
"Your sarcasm is lost on me Hyuuga. Use it on someone who can tolerate it."
He set his hat on the table. "Never thought you of all people would make rash decisions, Imai." He dared to mock her! "I only came because Sakamoto kept squabbling to me about your plans to take over and destroy his company. You're a fool. He's a fool. What else can I do? The way I see it, this is a bluff. I doubt you even know how widespread the Alice Funding Organization is."
Her fist tightened until she dented her coffee cup. How dare he belittle her abilities. How dare he suggest that she set herself up for failure.
"Do you honestly think I give a rooster's nest about your opinion? To be honest if the two of us were locked in a room for an entire month, we still would not be finished yelling at each other after the thirty one days expire."
"I don't want to talk to you either," he hissed, "but I don't have a choice. Otonashi says that you have the key."
She almost snorted. This again? As if she had the key to anything. The only lead she had on Mikan Sakura was—
Oh. Right.
She refrained from banging her head against the table at missing such an obvious fact for months. Of course the key was the object that had been in the red pouch. It explained why it was empty, why she did not remember anything about it, everything. It must have slipped Janine's mind at the time because she was so tired. Heck, it escaped Hotaru's mind for the longest time. Even now, it was still collecting dust back in her apartment, buried somewhere beneath all those drafts of the letter to Shiki.
In Natsume's face, however, she easily snorted and rolled her eyes. "Is this about Sakura-san again? It seems as if the entire world—or Japan at the very least—is revolved around a single woman."
Angry flickers passed through Natsume's irises in rapid succession as he licked his chapped lips thoughtfully. "I don't care what you think about me or Mikan. Even if you don't want to help me, you will. I'll make you."
"With what?" Hotaru hissed, her blood boiling.
"Your nephew," he said, for once silencing her. Underneath the light, his red eyes looked sharp and dangerous. Hotaru had been sure that he was about to make a threat until Natsume elaborated, "I can get him out of the academy for a week, as long as you stop doing whatever you're doing to AFO and promise to help me find Mikan."
She wrinkled her nose in disbelief. "Hikaru is a member of the Dangerous Abilities Class. It is virtually impossible for anyone from there to escape Alice Academy before graduation, unless their Alice fades or is taken from them. Even you cannot get him out by any legal means. You are lying to me, Hyuuga," she bit out, eyes piercing fearlessly into his.
"I can bring you your nephew," repeated Natsume, enunciating every syllable with impeccable clarity. "I have my ways."
"If you failed to find Sakura-san in fifteen years, what makes you think that I can find her?"
He offered no answer but instead informed her in a drone, "we'll meet again in the same Starbucks at the same time on the first day of the Golden Week. You might as well book a train to Nagoya in advance. I will have your nephew with me."
Natsume rose to his feet, fitted his cap back into his head and, without so much as a goodbye, stomped out of the store. He made such a noticeable exit that a group of teenagers pointed and jeered at his unruly attire. The bell on the door jingled as it opened and closed. Then, all was silent in the Starbucks shop. Too silent. It was as if a storm had come and left. His presence had been so abrupt yet disturbing Hotaru had to replay her memory of their meeting twice just to stick the entire scenario in her head.
ARC or Natsume Hyuuga, it seemed that Mikan Sakura was the target. As for Natsume's offer…
"There is no need to invest in the impossible," she muttered to herself, stirring her coffee with newfound vehemence that could not be rivaled.
Things will get exciting from this point onward! I promise!
Please alert, fave, review!
-IndigoGrapefruit
