A/N: hi everyone! yesterday i visited my high school to see my former coach with acadec friends, and it made me feel so nostalgic for those times that as soon as i got home i hurried to finish this chapter up so i could post it! seeing the kids in acadec now made me really proud of them and i miss those days a lot. they'd asked me questions about what i've been up to in the meantime and it meant a lot to me. acadec days are the best days...
anyway, this chapter is a pretty big one and ALSO we're over the hump! more than halfway through the fic! and i also promise there will be a natsume chapter coming up, so even more to look forward to! i hope y'all enjoy and have a lovely day!
Academic Decathlon Subject VI: Social Science. History of World War I, What Preceded, and What Followed.
Hyuuga Natsume Decathlon Subject VI: Beauty. No Ability Involved, Just the Prettiest Eyes and Silkiest Hair and Nicest Smile Anyone Has Ever Seen.
Academic Decathlon Regional Awards Banquet
"But he who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose." - Anne Bronte
His ankle was very close to hers. They weren't touching, but Mikan was staring intently at his shoe, waiting for it to move even an eyelash closer.
A Team was meeting at a cafe close to the school after classes were dismissed. It was a nice place, with a little area off to the side with couches and beanbags and armchairs, complete with bookshelves and paintings and coffee tables. Perhaps it was over-furnished, but each decathlete on the team had a place to sit, and for some reason Mikan didn't want to examine, she had chosen to sit beside Natsume on one of the couches, Permy on the other side of her.
(Where else was she supposed to sit, really, when she showed up with him, later than everyone else-because he had decided to be nice for once and wait for her coffee with her at the front-so by that point everyone else had called a seat: Koko and Mochu in beanbags, Hotaru and Ruka in armchairs, Tsubasa and Iinchou on another couch. They sat where they had room, and that happened to be beside each other. She was forced into this situation! The fact that it didn't bother her was the real question, but that didn't deserve to be answered.)
Technically, studying might be jumping the gun. They hadn't had the Awards Banquet yet, so they had no way of knowing if they even qualified to the next round of competition. Nevertheless, they sat in the cafe with their binders open, coffees half-neglected on the plentiful tables as conversations wandered from the curriculum to siblings to breakfast to the curriculum to the Nishi High School library to the curriculum again.
And Mikan just watched Natsume's ankle, wondering if he would move it, and if he did, whether he would move it closer or further away.
She was becoming bizarrely familiar with the way his eyes rolled, or his short eyebrows furrowed, or the silky black strands of his hair moved when he shook his head. When he got bored in a conversation, she knew how to recognize the exact moment when his brain shut everyone's voices out, and when he was aggravated, he'd tap his thigh with two fingers. On moody days, Natsume wore his vulgar T-shirts, or ones with Linkin Park or Hollywood Undead on them. On better days, he might wear jeans with no holes in them, maybe even a sweater since the February weather was biting.
Today was a nice day, she gathered. Not a single thread undone in his jeans. They were wearing the same color sweater today-similar muted blues. Nobody seemed to notice except for her.
Nobody noticed her staring either. That was all just as well. She didn't want anybody getting the wrong idea, thinking she was obsessed with him, or-even worse-thinking she liked him, the way Permy seemed to think she did.
Darkness fell earlier in the winter, so their get-together could only last so long. When they disbanded, Hotaru assigned each team member a specific section of curriculum to laser-focus on at home before tomorrow's meet. Mikan's was section two of Econ, but Mikan was hardly listening.
She was thinking about when he had waited with her for her coffee at the counter. Everyone else was seated and studying in the next room, but they were alone at the front, Mikan rocking back and forth on her heels.
"You know, when Jii-chan came back home from judging speeches, he didn't even mention yours," Mikan had pointed out to him then, when they'd been standing in silence for too long.
He snorted. "He didn't want to ruin your confidence. If he talked about how great my speech was, you'd lose all hope and cry the days away."
"I think it's because your speech was forgettable; not too great but also not so bad that it would stick out. You were in that sweet spot of being whatever. Meh."
"Projecting, are we?" He then flicked her forehead and she was flooded with questions she was desperate to ask him but certainly never would, like Are we friends? or Was I worth joining this class for? or Isn't your drink getting cold, waiting for mine to come out?
Forehead flicks were supposed to hurt a little, but mostly to be annoying. Her cheeks had heated up and she'd had to bite her lip to fight off a smile. Thankfully, nobody could tell that her mind was in conflict now, least of all Natsume. She had no idea what was going on with her heart, but all of the things she used to attribute to hatred had stuck around even now that she didn't hate him anymore. Maybe she needed to go to the doctor.
And when her coffee came out, he'd grabbed it first and taken a hasty sip, just to be a bother, as she shrieked out protests and then he justly burned his tongue-idiot-and she had to ask for a cup of ice water for him. By the time they sat down with their team, Mikan was a mess of holding back her giggles and pretending to be serious.
But now it was time to go home, and Natsume had not moved his ankle closer, to bump hers. In a matter of seconds, even, he would get up. He wouldn't think anything of it, she promised herself and she took the leap, moving her ankle just so, resulting not just in their ankles meeting, but almost the entire run of her calf against his.
All without anybody noticing! All without having to ask herself why this felt like such a big deal! All without having to confront herself or him on this silly little game of theirs!
Just as she thought, a moment later, he was up and she already missed his warmth. But she brushed that off and got up too, following her team out of the cafe after tidying up, throwing her empty cup on the way out into the frosty cold air outside.
She snuggled into her winter coat and missed Natsume's warmth even more-a thought she was more than happy to keep to herself forever. The team gradually split up, with Koko and Ruka falling off first down one block, Tsubasa and Natsume down another, until it was just Mikan walking with Hotaru and Iinchou in the winter twilight, watching the sky darken.
"Today felt pretty productive," Mikan said cheerfully.
"Yes," Iinchou agreed, hoisting his backpack further up his shoulders. "I think I made pretty good progress helping Tsubasa-kun with Science. He seems to understand section three a lot better now. And I'll go over my speech again like you said, Hotaru-chan."
"Good," Hotaru said. "Mikan, I am frightened for you."
"Huh?" Mikan blinked in surprise. She hadn't even said anything. Or done anything.
Hotaru did not elaborate. She just turned to face Mikan, her gaze unflinching and probing. There was a slight judgment in the tilt of her mouth, almost as if she was suddenly capable of reading thoughts. But she wasn't, Mikan reminded herself. Her thoughts were her own, and nobody would ever know the messed up things that had occurred to her today. There was no way Hotaru could know anything. "Nothing."
"Okay, weirdo. So what were you going to focus on tonight, Hotaru?"
"Social Science," she answered tightly, back to facing the front.
After that, they walked and talked as normal, and Mikan went back to holding back the spring in her step, but there was something about Hotaru's expression that still bothered her.
The Awards Banquet was a very fancy event. It was hosted at a fancy hotel and catered with fancy food and the dress code was expected to be fancy as well. Dinner orders were taken in advance, and Permy was already discussing her makeup. Medals would be awarded, photographs taken, and then eventually the team would find out if they scored well enough to make it to the next level of competition. Mikan was looking forward to it.
Of course there were drawbacks: seeing Luna again, the chance she received no medals at all, the possibility that her presence on the team was enough to make sure Alice High School did not move on to the prefecture competition for the first time in more than ten years. Hopefully, things would go well, though, and Mikan was fixated on those hopes enough to cancel out the dread of the drawbacks.
In the meantime, her team was studying hard, acting under the assumption that they would move on to the next stage, a confidence Narumi encouraged almost too enthusiastically. He praised them nearly every day for "Working as though they're going off to Nationals!"
The tense period between the end of regionals and the Banquet was rife with stress, but the team was doing a good job pretending like that anxiety was just excitement and anticipation. Koko liked to wax poetic about them getting first place, and somehow going to the Nationals competition in a spaceship. They all kept practicing their speeches, refreshing themselves on the curriculum, and keeping up their team bonding.
As if to further cement that, Permy announced that she would be hosting a party at her house the day before the Banquet. This was a risky move since the Banquet was on a school day (they all had to get permission slips signed by their teachers to miss the day), but she sweetened the pot.
"It'll turn into a slumber party," she promised. "But no boys allowed. My parents wouldn't tolerate that, sadly. And then I'll drive the girls to school on time before the bus comes to take us to the Banquet!"
"Aw, no fair!" Koko whined. "I wanted to stay over."
"I bet you did, you freak," Permy said distastefully. "Boys can come for the party but you all have to be out of my house by ten."
"Well, then I'm having a post-Permy's-party-slumber-party for the boys at my house!" he announced spitefully. "You'll regret leaving us out! We can gossip and do face masks too!"
"Whatever." She turned to Mikan and Hotaru cheerfully. "And girls, pack your dresses and makeup and everything for the next day, okay? That way we can do pretty makeovers!"
Hotaru sighed sadly, but Mikan was excited. She had never been that great at applying her own makeup, and Permy was a star at it. She was ready to look beautiful for the medals she hoped she'd get. No Nishi girls were invited this time, because Permy was uninterested in driving to Nishi before school the next day, and she also did not have room in her car for that many girls.
Permy's party was on Thursday, the day before the Banquet on Friday.
When Mikan got home from school on Thursday, she only had about an hour to get all prim and proper and packed for the party. She stuffed her dress for the Banquet and toiletries into a duffel bag before taking a shower and then speedily dressing for Permy's. The dress for the Banquet was her most elegant dress, but the party seemed more casual, so she wore one of her nicer blouses with a pleated skirt and tights that had bears on them.
Permy's house was technically walking distance from Mikan's, but it was kinda pushing it to walk thirty minutes in her nice flats. Instead, Yuka drove her and picked up Hotaru on the way.
Permy opened the door with a wide grin and the prettiest black dress Mikan had ever seen, complete with elegant mesh sleeves. "Come on in, come on in." She ushered them in after waving to Yuka, still in the car, closing the door after them. "It's so cold outside." Permy's house wasn't warm exactly, since its size was too immense to effectively heat, but it was a big step up from the nip outside. "Just set your bags by the stairs and we'll take them out again when the boys leave."
Mikan and Hotaru did as they were told and then entered the living room, where the rest of the team was gathered. A party playlist was on the speakers (the music was very clearly all Sumire's picks) and there were candles lit on the tables.
The girls had walked in on a strange sight, what looked to be a sort of competition with the boys on teams, half of them (Natsume, Mochu, and Tsubasa) trying to throw pretzels in their teammates' (Ruka, Koko, and Inchou, respectively) mouths.
"I literally left for thirty seconds," Permy muttered under her breath.
Iinchou shut his mouth quickly, chewing the pretzels he had caught, his cheeks pink from embarrassment. "Hey, girls!" he greeted cheerfully. "I don't know whose idea this was."
"Koko's," Permy said, voice bland.
"Yup, it was me!" Koko spoke through a full mouth, arms reaching up in victory. "Because I'm a genius."
"Don't eat too many of those pretzels. There's still dinner later."
Mikan did not miss how Hotaru's eyes brightened at the promise of food. "Ah, yes. What was on the menu for tonight, again?"
Permy rolled her eyes. "I ordered a buttload of Chinese food for us. Don't worry, everyone will get plenty."
"Still won't be enough," Hotaru warned.
"So is this a dance party?" Mikan asked.
"If you wanna embarrass yourself," Permy answered. "There's music, but I wasn't exactly planning on watching you shimmying on the dancefloor or anything." She snickered, and then sidled up close so she could whisper to Mikan, "Or grinding on Natsume's leg-"
"What on Earth are you talking about?" Mikan hissed, pushing her friend away. "Don't talk like that!"
The boys had never stopped their game, though now Tsubasa was throwing pretzels in Iinchou's hair instead of his mouth, so hopefully Natsume was too focused on aiming to have overheard Permy's crass comment.
"Permy has Just Dance," Koko announced, and Mikan was thankful for the change of topic.
"That sounds fun!"
"I already said I wasn't planning on this being a dance party-"
But the boys had stopped the game tentatively, due to Koko rummaging around the entertainment center of the living room. In a few short minutes, the sound of Just Dance was overpowering the music, and poor Permy was bullied into turning off her playlist for a moment.
"I'm not playing," she insisted, sitting moodily on the couch with her arms crossed.
Koko and Mochu took the first round, dancing to "Who Let the Dogs Out," and Mochu won by a landslide.
Mikan played a few rounds too, with Hotaru and Tsubasa and Koko and she even dragged Permy off the couch for a song. She did not play with Natsume. He didn't play much, except for one round with Ruka, but he had to be coerced into it. He was pretty bad and his movements were lazy and halfhearted, but Mikan knew it was because he was secretly embarrassed to be dancing to a Beastie Boys song in front of everyone.
Mikan hadn't expected that her outfit would get a bit sweaty, but it was a relief that she'd planned a separate outfit for the Banquet tomorrow.
Alice Academy A Team played Just Dance for a long time, until the doorbell rang and Hotaru's eyes glistened at the promise of Chinese food on the other side of the front door.
Mikan watched, amused, as her best friend accompanied Permy to answer the doorbell.
"You're okay at dancing, huh?" Natsume asked her, though she couldn't remember when he'd sat beside her on the loveseat.
"Really?" Mikan whipped around to face him. "I thought I sucked, according to you, and that I could never be good at it, no matter what?"
His eyebrows furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"You don't remember?"
He shrugged.
"The Eighth Grade Spring Formal?"
He just shook his head.
"You told me I was the worst dancer there. You really don't remember that?"
"I'm surprised you do. What, do you write down each of our interactions in your diary?"
Mikan scoffed, but there was some truth to that. Was it embarrassing that she remembered so much from her conversations with him?
"What I remember about that night," he said. "Is that you were wearing a red dress."
Mikan rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and I did red dirty." She remembered that just as well as he did. He'd been disgusted by her dress and she'd been humiliated. Her vow never to wear red again was reflected by her red-less closet and wardrobe. Not so much as a red rose decal on a tank top or a red ribbon in her hair or a red letter on a T-shirt. No red. Not ever again. "I'm well aware it looks terrible on me."
Mikan glanced in the direction of the hallway. Hotaru trailed after Permy as the hostess took the Chinese food in plastic bags over to the dining room. The team started slowly following too. Mikan was about to stand up so she could get some food in before Hotaru sucked it all up in her mouth like a high-powered vacuum cleaner, but then Natsume spoke.
"Oh," he said. "I thought you looked really pretty."
Mikan froze.
Natsume got off the loveseat and followed everyone else into the dining room to eat dinner.
Mikan sat, horrified, her face stained with red red red red red as his words danced in a dizzying circle around her brain to the rhythm of an annoying Beastie Boys song.
Tsubasa had managed to snap her out of the spell she'd been put under, with a literal snap of his fingers in front of her face. She got her hands on a plateful of rice and stir fry before Hotaru devoured it all, just like she'd planned, but the food seemed unimportant now.
Now her biggest priority was never looking at Natsume again. Even just a glance in his direction reminded her of what he'd said and then sparked a wave of questions (Since when? Did I mishear you? Are you messing with me? Do you think it's fun to prank girls? Why didn't you say so then, huh? Why did you say it NOW?) and a rush of heat to her face. He didn't seem to notice, thank goodness, but she was dedicated to keeping that up. As a result, she was avoiding him. She sat on the other side of the table and pretended like he didn't exist.
(On the outside, that is, since she was still freaking out on the inside.)
Permy got to resume her playlist, and she seemed relieved to have regained control over her own party. When Koko tried messing around with her other video games, she slapped his hands away and closed the doors to the entertainment center. "There's other things to do but play the same video games you have at home," she snapped at him.
Mikan wedged herself between her two biggest sources of comfort, her best friends. Luckily for her, they didn't pick up on the fact that she now had molten lava running through her veins.
"Her, Mikan-chan, are you okay?" Iinchou asked quietly as Permy suggested some activities. "Your arm is very hot and your face is flushed-Are you sick?"
"You better not be sick," Hotaru hissed. "If you get me sick, I will kill you myself. I'm expecting awards, plural, tomorrow."
"I'm not sick," Mikan replied with a fake laugh. "I'm fine."
"I'm a little worried, Mikan-chan-"
"I'm totally great!" Mikan was not great. Still, she faced the front, where a lively conversation was taking place as the team decided what to do next.
"I actually like that idea," Permy was saying. "I kinda feel like we all know each other pretty well, so this should be fun. Everyone in?"
Mikan nodded enthusiastically, smiling brightly. She had no idea what she was nodding for.
"I'll go first," Permy said. "A video of me crying went viral three years ago. I dye my hair. I've had my first kiss already with someone in this room. Who wants to guess?"
Mikan's breath hitched. Two truths and a lie?
"You never went viral," Tsubasa laughed. "No way."
"I second that," Mochu said with a clap. "You're full of it."
"Any other guesses?"
"You haven't had your first kiss," Mikan insisted. "Right?"
Permy smiled, almost pitifully. "Aw… Sakura… That's so cute…"
Mikan reddened even more.
"You're wrong! I do not dye my hair. It's naturally this gorgeous! The viral video is of me from behind, but if you guys remember that one video of a girl-"
"Someone in this room?" Mikan repeated, glancing nervously around. Who? Who could it have been?
When she heard Koko snicker mockingly, she sighed in relief.
"You ruined my life, you over-sized sock puppet," Permy snapped, throwing a pillow at Koko's head.
"I'll go next!" Koko said cheerily. "I'm dating a famous actress, my middle name is Danger, and I do dye my hair."
"Koko, they can't all be lies."
"Who said?"
"The name of the game."
"Haha-"
Mikan learned a few things about her teammates as they all volunteered facts and lies about themselves.
Mochu broke his arm three times. Hotaru was allergic to penicillin (since when?!). Ruka made his own ice cream at home. Tsubasa played guitar. Iinchou got lost in Tokyo for almost a whole day while on a trip with his family.
Natsume thought she had been pretty in the red dress at the Spring Formal all those years ago.
"I don't have any secrets," he said when it was his turn. "I'm an open book."
"Bullshit!" Mochu said, punching his arm. "Everyone here knows you never say anything. Say two truths and a lie."
"Okay… I have a sister. I have a dad. I have four stomachs so I can digest grass."
"Natsume!"
"I played, didn't I?" He shrugged, but his mouth was quirked halfway, like he thought he was so cheeky, and Mikan had to avert her gaze before he caught her looking.
"Mikan," Hotaru said. "Your turn."
My name is Mikan, I am confused, and Natsume thinks I looked pretty in red? Then he'd have to say for sure whether or not that was a lie. I am on A Team. I don't deserve to be. Natsume has been acting like he likes me.
"I, uh…" My best friend is Hotaru. I'm obsessed with Natsume. He's obsessed with me. One of them was a lie… right? "I just finished The Sun Also Rises. One Halloween, I ate all my candy within the hour after I got home. I still don't know if I really get Econ."
"Mikan-chan, these are really easy…"
The boys were all out of Permy's house by ten, just like she wanted. Of course, Koko tried to protest again and she had to push him out the door, but they were gone eventually.
She slammed the door, nearly on Koko's fingers. She turned to Hotaru and Mikan with a prim smile, as if she hadn't just been screaming at Koko. "I thought they'd never leave."
"Do you like Koko or something?" Hotaru asked, but her face betrayed no actual interest. Permy scoffed. "He was your first kiss, after all."
"That's disgusting. Don't ever try to accuse me of something so gross ever again." Mikan thought that was rich, coming from her-since Permy was the main one accusing her of liking Natsume (when it seemed more likely he liked her instead, though she really didn't want to think of that)-but the topic did not linger for long.
They changed into their pajamas and set up the living room with their sleeping bags and pillows and blankets. Permy's silky black nightgown was very elegant, and clashed with Hotaru's two piece that almost made her look like she was missing a nightcap and candlestick, as well as Mikan's T-shirt combo with shorts.
Permy insisted on mani-pedis, because apparently her idea of sleepovers was entirely stolen from teen movies. Mikan chose pink for her color, to match her dress, while Permy went with magenta and Hotaru picked a violet so dark it was almost black.
"This is getting ridiculous," Hotaru said suddenly as they waited for their nails to dry, interrupting the episode of The OC they were watching. Mikan had to agree; Permy's slumber party was about as stereotypical as they went, and Mikan kinda wanted to watch literally anything else. "I think we should come up with a 'no dating' rule for the team."
"What?" Mikan asked, turning to her friend with a foreign terror. "Why?"
Hotaru narrowed her eyes. "Why would that upset you?"
"I'm not upset! Just confused!"
"That's a stupid rule," Permy said. "And unnecessary. If you're still on about me and Koko, you can forget it. He's a moron. That kiss was ages ago, and isn't even worthing discussing."
"You're the one who brought it up, and the rule isn't stupid. We should be focusing on scoring well, not on scoring boys or whatever."
"Ew." Permy blew on her nails to speed up their drying.
"I want us to do well at Prefecture, something we almost never do. If we focus, then maybe we can score better. But if some members of the team are more preoccupied with each other than with their curriculum, then we don't stand a chance at all. I'm co-captain. I think I have the right to decide this."
"You're off your rocker. There's no way you'll get Iinchou approving a rule so stupid."
"Already did," Hotaru said, voice clear. She held up her phone, revealing a text from Iinchou that read, If you and everyone thinks that's best then I think it's OK!
"What the hell?"
"That says 'and everyone,'" Mikan pointed out. "But not everyone thinks that's best."
"What do you think, Mikan?" Hotaru asked pointedly. "Do you think there should be an anti-dating rule for the team members? It's not like you have a horse in this race."
Mikan blinked, suddenly put on the spot. "Well… I think Permy should have the right to date Koko if she wants."
"I do not," Permy spat. "That's gross!"
"Perfect," Hotaru said. "Shouda doesn't want to date anybody, and you don't want to date anybody and nobody wants to date anybody, so this rule shouldn't make any difference."
A moment passed where both Mikan and Permy glared hard at Hotaru, then at each other, then at Hotaru again.
"It's still not fair…" Mikan protested. "What if Mochu wants to date Tsubasa or something? Or Ruka-pyon? Or Permy?"
"Ew!"
"Do those combinations sound realistic to you?" Hotaru asked seriously.
"I'm texting Iinchou," Permy announced. "This is ridiculous."
"You want to know what I think?" Mikan asked.
"No."
"I think that you're projecting. You want to date somebody on the team, but you're ashamed about it and also angry that you could be so distracted. That's why you made this rule, so that you could finally get a break from your fantasies!"
Hotaru raised an eyebrow. "Genius theory."
"I think you protest too much!"
Permy nodded in desperate agreement. "This is a ridiculous rule. Let's just keep watching The OC. Ryan's about to punch somebody."
"Wonderful."
Mikan tried to focus on the show, but she couldn't remember which boy was Ryan, not even when the anticipated punch came, and she couldn't stop thinking. This night had been far too hectic and she didn't really want to look any of the events closely. Evaluating people's words and her feelings about those words would require her to ask herself some big questions that she didn't want to answer. But she couldn't forget them either.
Several dull episodes of The OC later and Mikan and her friends were snuggled up in the dark, getting well-needed beauty sleep, their nails finally dry.
"Oh," Natsume had said. "I thought you looked really pretty."
"Oh." "Ohhhhhhhhhh." "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."
"Oh."
That's how he'd said it. Short and matter-of-fact. "Oh," like she'd said something surprising. "Oh," like he remembered things much differently-but he couldn't remember them that differently because Mikan had been there too and he hadn't said anything to hint at anything but disgust and hatred, just like always.
"I thought you looked really pretty."
"Really pretty." Not "kinda pretty," not "a little pretty," but "really pretty". He'd chosen to add an adjective, and that one specifically for some reason.
But he chose to say "pretty" and not "beautiful" or "gorgeous" or "stunning" or anything overtly romantic, right? So there was a chance he was just being nice? Even though Natsume was never the type to say something just to be nice. He was always bullying his dad, always bullying her. He wouldn't have said that to comfort her.
That meant that he was either messing with her, and she wouldn't put it past him, or that he meant it.
So did he mean it back then too?
Did Natsume like her? And if he did, had he always liked her? When did this nonsense start?
Mikan shook her head and shut her eyes tight. These were all stupid questions (she didn't want to answer them) and they weren't worth entertaining (they made her uncomfortable) and just distracted from the Banquet happening tomorrow (she didn't want to go the Banquet tomorrow and have to talk to him again).
She tried unsuccessfully to drift off to pleasant sleep.
She was woken up violently by Hotaru who slapped at her face like a peeved cat. "You've overslept."
Mikan rose in a rush, her head spinning and eyes squinting away from the bright light.
"Don't lie to her!" Permy scolded. "We have plenty of time."
Mikan shoved Hotaru away from her, angry that she'd been messed with and still horribly exhausted. The memory from the previous night did not help the steady throb of a headache against her skull.
She got dressed in her dress and packed her bag again. Permy was a sweetheart and did her makeup for her and Hotaru, patient and talented as always (that is to say, extremely talented, but not at all patient).
They ate croissants for breakfast before Permy finished up their lip makeup and before they knew it they were in Permy's car, their bags loaded in the trunk, heading for school. Mikan was used to taking the backseat, and usually it didn't bother her, but this time she was afraid to be alone with her thoughts. Her solution to this was to stick her head forward and always be talking even if nobody talked back to her.
They were fashionably late, according to Permy, so the boys were all waiting by the time they arrived at school. Mikan pointedly ignored Natsume's existence again, gluing herself to Hotaru and Permy and looking at only Iinchou, who kept eyeing her with discomfort.
"Are you sick?" he asked again, and Mikan just laughed.
This time, Mikan did not sit next to Natsume on the bus. She chose Permy instead. She explained this to herself by claiming that she should sit next to somebody else each time they went anywhere together, to make sure she wasn't being clique-ish, like Narumi said. If she sat close to Natsume again, it wouldn't be fair to everyone else. Besides, he seemed happy beside Tsubasa.
Koko stuck to the new tradition and once again played their team playlist, though Mochu grabbed it from him to skip past all the Bruno Mars tracks.
Mikan turned to Permy. "Hotaru was just joking about that silly rule, right?" She kept her voice upbeat, unwilling to give off the wrong impression that she cared at all.
Permy shook her head. "She was dead serious. She's been annoyed about the romantic tension in class for a while. I mean, you have to have noticed. I guess two truths and a lie was the tipping point. So, I'm sorry I might have messed things up for you."
"For me? You should be sorry for yourself."
"What?" Permy's face contorted judgmentally. "What are you talking about? Imai's been bugging the whole time because of you and Natsume-kun, and now your chance for a happily-ever-after is gone. That's why I'm sorry for you. Why would I be sorry for myself?"
Mikan glanced around her, just to make sure nobody was paying attention to the slanderous things coming out of Permy's mouth. "That's so stupid. There's no tension-it's all from you! Now you can't be with Koko and have a happy ending for yourself!"
"Being with Koko is a bad ending," Permy insisted. "You're delusional. I swear, Sakura, you're the only person on the planet who can't admit Natsume is hot. It's depressing to watch."
"Koko's… hot. You're delusional."
Permy patted Mikan's shoulder with a smug grin. "Oh, poor baby. You're trying so hard. It's embarrassing."
Permy left her to her own devices for the rest of the bus ride, but Mikan was feeling only more and more nervous. She just wanted something to shake her, to remind her that none of this actually mattered, that these were stupid thoughts that other people were trying to infect her with, not anything she actually cared about.
Luckily for her, that something appeared as soon as they arrived at the fancy hotel, courtesy of Miss Koizumi Luna herself.
The Nishi team was crowded on the sidewalk, Luna off to the side, probably because nobody wanted to talk to her. Mikan got off the Alice bus and was immediately confronted with Luna's sparkling eyes and cruel smile.
"Hello, Sakura-san!" Luna was dressed in a stunning gray sleeveless dress, a headband in her hair to match.
"Oh my God, Luna, don't you have a life?" Permy asked, right behind Mikan. "Do you just sit around waiting for Sakura to come around all the time? No wonder you don't have any friends."
Luna's face soured noticeably at that, her lip curving with offense. "I do have friends. And by the end of today, hopefully I'll also have a boyfriend." She seemed to have been able to cheer herself up, so she turned back to Mikan with a smug grin. "I was just greeting you, anyway. And if you've done some thinking since the last time we chatted, maybe you've reconsidered my offer to be friends?" She looked expectantly at her, but Mikan had nothing to say.
Natsume was right. For all of her pretend fire with him, Mikan just felt like a huge coward now. Why did Luna seem so scary?
"Suit yourself," Luna said with a shrug. "Best of luck to you, then."
She was gone, disappeared as if in a cloud of smoke and sparks, and Permy turned to Mikan, eyes already mid-roll. "That girl is truly unhinged."
"What do you think she meant about getting a boyfriend by the end of today?" Mikan asked.
"God only knows. Ignore her."
Easier said than done. Mikan followed the rest of her class into the hotel in her pink dress, trying to smile and chat, but now her head was in more hysterics than it had been before. Natsume thought she was pretty, Hotaru wanted a no-dating rule, and Luna wanted a boyfriend. All of it bothered her, none of it made sense, and she didn't get why she cared so much.
The Awards Banquet was a fancy and grand event. The hotel ballroom was done up with flowers and balloons for the ceremony, many tables done up in pristine white tablecloths, and elegant crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. All in all, it was an experience designed to make anyone feel special and sophisticated.
Coach Narumi wasted no time snapping pictures of his students among the frills and glimmers, clapping intermittently in excitement.
"Alright, teams, take your seats! B Team, over at this table, and A Team, right over here-"
Mikan looked for Hotaru, so she could sit beside her, but her search was abruptly interrupted by warm fingers tapping lightly at her elbow. She turned hesitantly and held back a groan to see Natsume there.
"Sit next to me," he commanded, leaving no room for argument.
That wasn't going to stop her, though. "No."
"Why not?"
"I don't want to sit next to you," she insisted, glancing away from him just in case Hotaru had appeared.
"Why not?"
Because you're freaking me out, weirdo!
"Because I don't want to! I want to sit by Hotaru-"
"You sit by her all the time. Sit by me."
That logic was airtight. Except that she always sat by him too. Arguably even more than she sat by Hotaru, these days. That didn't occur to her in the moment, though. Besides, Hotaru was trying to implement that silly rule that Mikan was against on principle, not because she had anything to personally gain or lose from it. It just wasn't fair to Permy and Koko, that's all, and Hotaru was being unreasonable.
"Ugh, fine."
So she ended up wedged between Koko and Natsume, trying to keep her elbows from brushing against the latter's suit jacket. Trying to avoid touching him at all in general.
Luna didn't come around right away like Mikan expected her to. After all, there was only one person Mikan knew of that Luna had her sights set on, and that just so happened to be the person sitting beside her. If Luna really wanted to end the day dating him, she would eventually have to come around to make her intentions known. Mikan kind of looked forward to it, really, since she couldn't wait to watch Natsume shoot her down.
But Luna stayed away from their table, and that meant Natsume's undivided attention was on her for some ungodly reason.
"Do you have a lot of pink dresses?" he asked.
Well, with red off the market, Mikan had to make do with other colors, and pink was one of the few that looked decent on her. It was a bright, cheerful color, and she had a ton of it in her closet. She didn't really know how to explain that to him, though, since he apparently remembered the dance much differently than she did. Apparently, he thought she looked pretty in red, which is definitely not what he'd said to her at the time.
"I guess so," she said instead of trying to explain. "It's a nice color."
"Yeah." A beat passed and Mikan foolishly let her guard down, thinking the topic might be done. "You should wear red some time."
That pissed Mikan off, but she couldn't explain to herself why, let alone him. She dropped it.
A few minutes later, one of the lead directors of the event came to start the niceties, introducing himself and then a few other people who said a few words-none of which were interesting enough for Mikan to pay very much attention to-and then the first course of the day was brought out, a light and refreshing salad.
Grateful for the distraction, Mikan let herself focus in on the salad, ignoring the stupid boy next to her who had recently developed a hobby of killing her with kindness. What happened to the insults and bickering? When had their banter turned into this weird quasi-flirtation and why hadn't Mikan gotten a warning before it happened? Was it even flirting or was she reading too much into it? Maybe it was just their game, their rivalry, and she was the weird one for not being able to keep up.
Turns out the salad wasn't really all that distracting. The thoughts in her head overpowered her taste buds, leaving her to stare angrily at the tablecloth while listening to the soft sounds of Natsume chewing on his own food.
The event progressed shortly after the first course, with some applause and gratitude given to volunteers and organizers before the main course was brought out.
Chicken or pasta, a question as old as time itself, and one that had been answered last week, but it still didn't explain how the waiters just knew to place plates of chicken dinner in front of Mikan and Natsume without even checking.
"Mind-readers," Koko teased, thinking the same thing.
The chicken was another excuse to get lost in her thoughts. She was envious of the other side of the table, where her teammates were joking around and giggling and chatting. Meanwhile, she had to sit next to boring Natsume, who kept looking over at her and dropping weird comments about his favorite color. Sitting next to Koko should have tampered the boredom a bit, but for some reason Koko was too absorbed in the food to be his usual mischievous self.
So all Mikan had to pass the time with was her dinner plate.
"I'm talking to you," Natsume said.
"Huh?" Mikan turned a bit in his direction, noncommittal, without making eye contact, swallowing her latest bite. "Did you say something?"
"I'm talking to you. That's what you wanted, right?"
Oh, that. "Natsume-"
"But you're not looking at me."
Mikan bit into another forkful of chicken.
"You're being weird."
"No, I'm not."
"Is this because I called you pretty?" he asked, voice suddenly hushed, like he had the sense to be quiet about that.
Yes. "No."
He sighed.
He didn't continue the conversation, though, so Mikan was grateful, until a perfectly manicured finger tapped Natsume on the shoulder and they both turned around to see lovely and loathsome Luna standing behind them, sporting a coy smile and batting her eyelashes. "Natsume-kun, would it be okay if I talked to you alone?"
"Who are you again?"
"I wanted to ask you something. It's important."
Natsume turned to Mikan, as if expecting her to interfere, but she had turned her whole focus back to her chicken, just as much of a coward as ever when it came to Luna, even with this. She felt his eyes on her for way too long, until he released a long-suffering exhale and said, "Okay, fine. Make it quick, though."
Mikan blinked in surprise as he got up, scooting his chair back almost violently. Then he was gone. Gone with Luna. Gone to get confessed to.
Nobody else at the table seemed to even notice. Conversation was still flowing, jokes still being cracked, laughter still abounding. Only Mikan was bothered.
She angrily ate her chicken, finishing the rest of it in record time. When Natsume still wasn't back by the time she'd devoured her meal, she turned to the next line of distraction by guzzling the ice water on the table.
Natsume came back some ten or fifteen minutes after he'd left, which was ridiculous because how long could it possibly take to tell a girl "no"? It was two letters. One syllable. It shouldn't take that long to say.
He didn't even say anything when he came back, not to her or even Koko. He just went back to eating his meal like nothing happened. No explanation, no telling expressions, no meaningful glances. He just chewed his chicken and Mikan felt the strong urge to find the nearest pool and chuck him in it.
The lead director called for attention once again, standing in the front with his microphone, wearing as nice a suit as any of the decathletes before him. "Hello, again," he said cheerfully. "As you all know, we're here first and foremost to recognize the accomplishments of the young, bright scholars sitting here. After weeks of grueling competition, scores have been totaled and medals have been collected. It's now time for the awards ceremony." The room bristled with attention and tension, so he continued. "Let's begin with Economics."
Mikan's hands hurt from clapping. She decided to stop clapping for people who weren't from her team, which helped a bit but not a lot since Iinchou and Hotaru kept winning medals. They each collected a medley of medals from various subjects, earning praise from the class and a picture taken each time they returned to the table with heavier necks. Ruka won a shiny silver for Lang Lit, Tsubasa a bronze for Social Science, and Sumire a proud gold for Music.
When Math was announced, Mikan was unsurprised to hear Hotaru collect a bronze and Iinchou a gold, but when Natsume's name was called in the same breath's as Tobita Yuu, she froze.
"Clap for me," Natsume whispered in her ear. Wasn't he supposed to be angry with her? She was being unreasonable and unfair and he was sick of it. He wasn't talking to her. But he still wanted her to clap for him. Specifically her to clap for him.
She could've fought with him. Told him not to hold his breath. Kept her hands firmly at her side and asked him to beg. Instead, she said, "If you deserve it..."
With that, Natsume jumped from his seat again and Mikan watched him go to collect a gold medal she knew he more than deserved. She watched him shake the hand of the director, then he paused with a smug smirk for Narumi to take a picture. When the camera was down again, Natsume's eyes immediately found hers, and he smiled to see her clapping for all the time it took for him to sit back down.
Mikan didn't get a medal in any objectives. Not even in Art. She supposed it made sense. She'd been upset when she took the tests in her more confident subjects, and she'd never stood a chance in hell of getting a medal in Music or Math in the first place, so it wasn't surprising as much as it was disappointing.
Especially because it meant that Natsume wouldn't get the chance to clap for her like she did for him. After he sat back down from collecting his Math medal, he went back to not talking, so Mikan did the same. She felt guilty for being weird, but he should feel guilty too, because he was being weirder. Why was he being so weird to her? And what did he say to Luna that took so long? He couldn't possibly have agreed to being her boyfriend, could he?
Subjective medals were given out at each table. It was easier to place for Speech or Interview, so announcing each winner would take too long on a Regional level, leaving it easier to have each coach distribute the medals to their students.
Mikan held her breath as her teammates collected recognition for their speeches.
Mikan had worked hard on her speech. She'd practiced it day and night and was sure she'd get something for it. Until she didn't.
She didn't get anything for Speech. She didn't do well enough to place, not even for Varsity scoring. Natsume in his shiny silver, Hotaru in glittering gold. Even Koko had somehow snatched a medal for his speech on watermelon flavored Jolly Ranchers!
Not for Interview. Not for Essay. Not for Art. Not for anything.
Mikan kept smiling, though, her cheeks hurting from faking it, just like her palms hurt from the overly enthusiastic clapping she'd been doing. She kept the act up all the way through the rest of the announcements, until they were given time to eat one final course.
"I have to go to the bathroom," she excused herself, getting up without even glancing at Koko or Natsume, walking faster and faster until she was out of the ballroom and dashing down the hall toward the bathroom. She just needed to be overwhelmed and sad and scared for one second and then she'd be okay again. She just needed one second.
The door to the bathroom closed and she released a sob, letting tears stream down her face. She didn't get a Speech medal, even though she'd practiced it so many times. She didn't get an Art medal. Iinchou got an Art medal, but she didn't. How did she get on A Team again? Why wasn't Kaoru on the team instead?
He deserved it more than she did. Luna was right-his scores had been higher, pretty much across the board. His speech was better written and he was more charismatic. How come she was here instead of him? How come she was sitting at the A Team table when it should've been him?
Luna told her she hadn't been accusing her of anything untoward, and Mikan knew she hadn't threatened or coerced Narumi into choosing her for A Team over Kaoru, but then how come he did? What could possibly have made him come to that conclusion? That this unworthy, stupid, talentless girl should be on the team when there were smarter, better, more talented people to choose from?
She hadn't wanted Natsume to be in Acadec, yes, because she'd hated him her whole life, but also because she knew her chances of getting on the team were low to begin with. Adding more competition only dimmed her chances further, because she knew how little she deserved it. And yet she got on. Only to fail. And fail again. And fail some more.
Was it possible to resign?
Nobody was in the bathroom with her. They were all rejoicing over their medals and eating dessert. Nobody was wasting that precious time to pee. So Mikan had time to cry out in the open, not even bothering to snag a stall.
And then the witch appeared, like she always did when Mikan foolishly assumed things couldn't get any worse.
"Sakura-san," she said with a snide smile.
Mikan sniffed and rushed to wipe the tears off her face.
"Careful, Sakura-san," Luna warned. "Your mascara is a bit cheap, so your tears are leaving black streaks. You'll only make yourself look worse." Just like always, sounding almost genuinely concerned and kind while saying the cruelest things imaginable. "What are you doing in here by yourself anyway? Don't tell me you were crying about the ceremony? Didn't get a medal, did you?"
Mikan ducked her chin down so she didn't have to look at Luna.
"Don't beat yourself up too much. It's a hard competition. Not everyone can keep up. But, hey, you tried. That's big. Especially for someone like you."
"Someone like me?"
"You know. Someone not that bright."
"You mean someone stupid."
"Hmm." Luna didn't really answer, but she might as well have. And she didn't really have to. Mikan already knew the answer. She would've said it herself, if her throat didn't thicken with tears at the thought. "Don't be such a downer, Sakura-san."
"Do you have a boyfriend now?" Mikan asked, feeling mean.
"Oh, he didn't tell you?" Luna shrugged. "Hmm. He must not have thought it was important to update you, then. Are you even that close?"
Mikan was a coward around Luna most of the time. For some reason, being around Luna made her want to curl into a ball, a feeling she was pretty unfamiliar with. She had always been confident and friendly, and she'd never been one to run and hide. If someone messed with her, she was sure to mess back. Her relationship with Natsume was proof of that. But Luna was different; she brought out the worst in Mikan, and it turned out the worst in Mikan was a passive, terrified Mikan.
Why do you let her do that?
Mikan didn't know.
But what she did know was that she had been just fine crying by herself in the bathroom and Luna had interrupted for no reason but to be horrible. She wasn't even here to pee, like a normal person!
"You should be crying in here, not me," Mikan said. "Because we both know you don't have a boyfriend."
She didn't know where that anger came from, but she was happy for it, letting both of them sit in that remark for a moment, letting it sink in.
After a minute of silence, Luna finally spoke again. "Yeah, but neither do you."
The dessert course was ice cream with hot fudge. By the time Mikan made it back to her seat, her ice cream had melted and Natsume had finished his.
"You're back!" Koko exclaimed. "If you'd taken any longer, I was gonna eat your dessert for you."
Mikan held her dish of ice cream close to her, defensively, before taking a spoonful to her mouth.
"What took you so long?" Hotaru asked from across the large table. "They're about to play the video."
"Are you okay, Mikan-chan?" Iinchou asked, cocking his head to the side in concern. "Your face looks blotchy."
Mikan had done her best to tidy up after crying and after Luna had left her alone in the bathroom, cleaning off the makeup that had smeared across her face. Sadly, that meant that the flush in her cheeks was on full display and visible to everyone.
"Yes!" she answered cheerfully anyway. "I'm great."
Right then, the organizers decided to play the video, and Mikan watched the events of Regionals get summed up in a five-minute long clip. There'd been some snippets of her and her team sprinkled in there, which was nice, but it just made her think again of how unworthy she was of even appearing in the video, souring her mood instantly.
The lights came back on and the projector turned off, the director coming back to the mic to smile beatifically at everyone. "Wasn't that lovely?" he asked. "Another round of applause for all the volunteers and helpers who made this competition possible, as well as for their stellar work on that video. Great job, guys!" The ballroom erupted into a sea of applause and Mikan begrudgingly joined in, even though her palms were raw from all the clapping she'd done today.
"Our next order of business is to announce the winning teams!" Mikan's stomach sank. What if her horrible performance kept her team from going to Prefecture? "Let's begin with Division III's ranking…"
Mikan didn't pay full attention to any of the listing until the director finally made it to Division I.
He started with the tenth school and counted down, leaving just enough time for each school to cheer at where they'd placed.
"In fifth place, we have Kita High School!" The Kita table rose in a frenzy of pride. "Congratulations, Kita! You are the first team to qualify for the Prefecture competition! The next schools I will call will also all qualify, as well as receive medals and trophies for their placement! To start us off, in fourth place, we have Alice High School!"
Tsubasa started the cheers for their table, his arms thrusting into the air and a whoop flying out his mouth. "That's right!" After he started, the rest of the team followed, with even Hotaru clapping her hands together in excitement. Mikan tried to cheer too, but when the noise died down and the announcer kept talking, she turned a little toward Natsume.
"It's not a mistake, right? I mean, some of us didn't even get a single medal. You'd think, maybe that would have made a difference."
Natsume shrugged. "I thought only two scores from each category counted for the team score. That would bring up the average, right?"
Mikan balked at him, but he had the gall to not pay attention.
So it was never a question of whether or not Mikan held back her team. Her score wasn't even being counted. Had Narumi anticipated this? Was this why he chose her for the team? Because he knew it wouldn't make a single difference anyway?
"And in first place for the Regional Competition, across all sixty schools participating, is Nishi High School!"
The entire hall let out small applause and the Nishi team humbly followed their leader as she strutted onto the stage.
Mikan watched unhappily as Luna held the trophy on behalf of her team, holding it up high arrogantly. That was the worst part about Luna, really. They weren't rivals because Mikan could never compare to Luna. Luna was smart, if nothing else, and her cruel remarks were always backed up by her own success. If Luna called Mikan stupid, that's because she was. If she called her cheap, or ugly, or a lost cause, then it must all be true.
She made Mikan cry and then posed on stage with a huge trophy for pictures that would end up in the news.
The ceremony closed shortly after that and then Narumi insisted on taking more pictures of the group, all together, individually, in different groups. It all took a long time and Mikan wasn't in most of the pictures, standing off to the side and smiling wide despite the hole in her heart and the itching in her eyes which suggested she might not have done all her necessary crying.
They were going to Prefecture. She should've been happy. She might not have done all that well, but it hadn't hurt her friends' chances.
But she wasn't happy, because it didn't matter if she did well or not-her school was always going to go to the Prefecture and her own performance didn't make a bit of a difference.
She wasn't happy, but she smiled anyway, beaming at her teammates all posing for pictures with their medals.
"Why are you sad?" Natsume asked from beside her, shocking her and causing her to jump a bit.
"I'm not. I'm really happy. We're going to Prefecture."
"You look like you've been crying."
"I'm fine!"
"No, you're not. I hate when you do that."
"Do what?"
"Pretend like everything's great when it's not."
It's not like she even did that so frequently! He was saying that like it was some sort of horrible coping mechanism she had or something…
But he did have a point.
"Wouldn't you be a little sad if you didn't get a single medal?"
"We all got a general fourth place medal." That was true. A medal hanging on green fabric to show off their fourth place standing, a standing Mikan didn't assist at all in winning.
"Yeah, no thanks to me."
"You don't know that yet."
"Koko actually got a medal. Unlike me."
"Sure. But maybe you did better than him at everything else."
Mikan gave him a skeptical look. "Really?"
"My point is that you don't know yet. And why does it matter, anyway? We all worked really hard and you-"
They both remembered the day they'd done practice tests in the computer lab, when Mikan had finally gotten one over on him, just for him to tell her how it was-that success was all she'd ever get because it was the best she could do and he wasn't even trying. Now everybody else was trying too and she fell far behind, because everyone was right about her. Luna, Hotaru, Natsume…
Her eyes stung with tears. She was surprised she still had any left over to let out. She tried to will them back in, but that just hurt her eyes even more. "You were right. I put my all into studying and this is still the best I can do." The class had started to cheer and scream and excitement, yelling about the Prefecture competition and the fact that they'd made it, even if they lost to Nishi again. Sure she wouldn't be heard, Mikan said, "I don't deserve to be on the team."
But Natsume must have heard, because he didn't leave his spot beside her to join the rest of the Alice kids in their joy. He stayed off to the side next to her. She sniffled, and then he took her hand and squeezed.
"Then you just have to prove yourself for the Prefecture, right?" he said. "What is the point of being in this stupid class if you're just gonna give up? I'm only here because of you, after all."
She squeezed his hand back.
When Mikan was eleven, during the summer between fifth and sixth grades, she'd taken to rollerblading through Alice City Park on the weekends. It was nice to be around all the nature and the peacefulness of the park in the morning. The weather was perfect and it quickly became one of her favorite things to do, even if she was by herself.
She had plenty of other chances to hang out with her friends, after all, but they rarely wanted to participate in sporty activities like that (drawbacks of being friends with nerds), so it was something she had to do on her own. Besides, it gave her time to think and daydream, mainly about a future where she was wildly successful and probably world-famous, either as a runner breaking an Olympic record, the best soccer player in the world, or as the first person to walk on the sun.
One Saturday, on a particularly sunny morning, she was rollerblading like usual, saying "Hi!" and "Good morning!" to the people she passed, enjoying herself immensely as she imagined her adult self at a press conference and discussing the feeling of being in space.
"Good morning!" she chirped at someone slumped over on the bench, who could probably use a good cheering up-But her face soured when the person looked up and she recognized her lifelong nemesis, who was probably gonna walk on the sun before her just to spite her. "Natsume!"
He glared at her, but his face didn't look like usual. He was pale with dark circles under his eyes like he hadn't been sleeping. He sneered at her, and that was the only reason she didn't merely huff and skate off.
"When someone greets you, you greet them back," she scolded, braking to a perfect and effortless stop. "I said 'good morning,' so you say…"
"Bite me."
"Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"
His glare turned more dangerous. "Fuck off."
"You can't talk to girls like that!"
"Watch me." He stayed slumped over on the bench, but instead of looking sad, he just looked like a mean bear, like an angry ball of rage. And she'd never been good at not poking bears.
"What are you doing here anyway? The park is for people who enjoy nature and smiling and sunshine and all you like is bringing everyone down with you."
He looked away again.
"If you're gonna be like this, you might as well just go home. I go to this park all the time and if you don't want people talking to you, you're in the wrong place. Old men and moms come up to me all the time to chat, and I'm on wheels. You being on the bench like this is a gold mine for them."
"I don't wanna go home."
That was one of the few earnest things Mikan had ever in her life heard him say. "Why not?"
"I don't like how it smells anymore. I can't breathe in there."
Mikan did not know what that was supposed to mean. Were her parents cooking something? Sometimes Jii-chan liked to pickle things in the kitchen and that stunk up the whole house for days, so it was possible Natsume's family was pickling or making some overly-saccharine jam with summer fruits or something. "You could always help your family out and then the smell will go away faster."
"I can't help them."
Lazy. Good for nothing. Mikan rolled her eyes. "Well, either go back home and try to help or put a smile on and expect conversation here at the park. But, honestly, you can't just run away from home because of a smell." She crossed her arms indignantly. "And here I thought you were soooo tough."
He blinked and turned back to her, his glare softening only slightly. "It's a bad smell," he explained. "Sterile. It's like I live in a hospital now."
Mikan was trying to remember what pickling or canning smelled like, but sterile was not one of the words that came to mind. "Why would it smell like a hospital?"
He leaned back on the bench, averting eye contact once more. "What's your excuse for running away from home, then?"
"I'm not running away. I'm exercising."
He shrugged.
"Weirdo," Mikan muttered, then skated on, leaving Natsume behind on the bench.
She didn't expect to get through to him, and she didn't, really. For the rest of the summer, she'd skate through the park and spot him on that same bench, looking morose and miserable. She had taken to skating down other paths to avoid him-not because she was a coward like him but because he wasn't good at conversation anyway. His house must have aired out by now, but he was still there, moping by himself, so Mikan wondered idly what his family could possibly be making that smelled sterile and took so long to clear out.
One Saturday, Mikan had headed out to skate when the sky was cloudy and gray, but that turned out to be a mistake when summer rain began pouring over her, soaking her entirely in a matter of minutes. She started heading back down the path towards home, but she stopped abruptly when she looked over through the trees and spotted Natsume, sitting on his usual bench, slumped over like always, dripping wet and unmoving, like the rain didn't bother him at all. Like being wet and cold and miserable and alone was better than being at home in a sterile smelling pseudo-hospital. Like anything was better than being at home.
Mikan stood there and watched him for a moment, not even noticing the rain falling on her head and possibly messing with her skates, distracted by the fact that Natsume looked more human than he ever had, even though he was motionless and expressionless.
She didn't approach him, though. She took a deep breath and then kept going down the path home, the clouds taking over all fantasies of walking on the sun.
School continued in the fall, though, and the idea of Natsume as a human being was taken over by the sad reality that he was actually a demon in disguise when he laughed at her in the middle of class after she mispronounced several words while reading. Natsume? A human being with complex thoughts and feelings? She must have been delusional at the time to be so easily taken in.
The Alice bus dropped them off at the school. At that point, classes had already let out and very few people were still lurking on campus. The two teams gathered in the Acadec classroom, circling around Narumi's desk while he pulled out the team's scores and let them all see.
Mikan scanned the roster until she found her name, comparing to Natsume and Koko's scores. Natsume was no contest, clearly, since was a full hundred or so points over her, but she released a breath of shock to see that her score matched Koko's perfectly.
Either one of their scores could have counted toward their Regional victory. She wasn't that far behind at all. Relieved, she finally let herself smile a real smile, perhaps the first real smile all day. The tears that were bubbling in her eyes were tears of new inspiration, relief, and happiness, and she was glad to have them, as opposed to the frustrated and self-loathing tears from before.
Iinchou squeezed her hand in excitement and congratulated her for doing well even though his score was miles ahead of hers (he'd gotten the highest score on the team and had even gotten a silver medal for it). He was so wonderful like that, never focusing on himself. It made Mikan feel bad for worrying about herself so much.
Even Hotaru smiled in encouragement, and Natsume met her eyes meaningfully, though his incredible smile didn't make an appearance. She decided to congratulate everyone, who performed so well, putting all her insecurities and fears aside. Things were okay. They were gonna be just fine. Her friends were smart and needed to be told so.
Sumire was apparently unimpressed, though, hissing to her, "Stop crying! You've completely ruined your makeup. Your family will think something horrible happened if they see you like this, and they'll blame me." She dug around in her purse, her medals clanging around in there as she did so, and pulled out a tube of mascara. "Go do yourself up, okay? Meet back here in ten minutes and I'll drive you home."
Mikan rolled her eyes but did as she was told-because Permy had a point-taking the mascara and leaving the classroom to go to the bathroom. She spent a few minutes in front of the mirror, cleaning up the black smears from her cheeks and the dusting of mascara that was clumping her eyelashes into a mess. Once her face looked better, she contemplated leaving the mascara for another day, but she didn't want to further upset Permy, so she did her best reapplying it. After all, Permy was probably still in a mood that Hotaru didn't want any dating on the team, ruining her chances with Koko.
Mikan didn't care about that anymore. Hotaru hadn't said anything about it all day, so it must have been dropped. Besides, there wasn't anybody on the team she'd wanna date anyway. For sure. Definitely.
Then Natsume was there, in the bathroom, alone with her.
Mikan looked up in surprise, but his expression was guarded. He didn't look a mess at all like she did, his hair still effortlessly silky, his suit still hanger-ready, even after the full day of wearing it.
"Natsume, this is the girls' bathroom! What are you doing here?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he stepped closer and settled his hands on her waist, pulling her in so he could press his lips against hers. She squealed in surprise for only a moment. In the next moment, her eyes had shut and she was pressing back, her own hands inching up his arms until they settled over his shoulders. No thoughts, no fears, no nothing, just warm and nice and tingly, like he was a furnace or a space heater or an electric blanket or something.
What she was doing didn't even fully register, not until he was pulling away and suddenly she felt cold and lonely. He glanced around them at the grimy tile and the smudged mirrors before sucking in a breath. "Oh, this is the girls' bathroom, isn't it? Whoops." Then he turned on his heel and left the bathroom, like nothing happened, offering no explanation or consolation. Not even bragging. He was just gone.
And Mikan was a moron, standing in the aftermath of that embarrassing and horrific event, right where it happened, right where he left her, for a long time. She turned to look at her reflection, only to gape at the sheer pink of her face. She looked like a raspberry. And her mascara was clumpy again! Why did she do that? Why did she let him do that? Didn't she have any self-respect? He'd held her hand and she'd given up any right to call him on it when she squeezed it back. He kissed her and she'd given up any right to call him on it when she kissed him back and pulled him closer like she'd enjoyed it or something. He had all the power again, pulling away when he felt like it and leaving without even saying why. But the worst part is that she hadn't wanted him to pull away or leave. She'd wanted to keep kissing him, and that was more embarrassing than kissing him back.
What had she done…
Mikan emerged from the bathroom and met up with Sumire and Hotaru in the classroom again. By this point, nearly everyone else had already gone home, particularly Natsume, which was a relief.
"Jesus, Mikan, I told you to fix yourself up. You look awful! What the heck was taking you so long if you weren't even fixing that?"
Mikan offered a self-deprecating smile she didn't really mean and then listlessly followed her friends as they walked back to Sumire's car. She stayed silent the whole time, mindlessly letting her fingers hover over her mouth and rewinding time to that godforsaken bathroom and the atrocities that had taken place in there. Unnatural, immoral, wrong.
But nice. Warm. Tingly.
Disgusting.
Mikan made no effort to join in the conversation once they were in the car, instead keeping mum as Hotaru and Sumire discussed the events of the banquet and gushed over their medal winnings. She was the first to get dropped off, to her relief. She practically ripped her bag out of the car, waving to her friends, darting into the house, offering her mother a quick hug and a blurted out, "We're going to Prefecture and I did okay and I'll talk to you later-Gimme a sec!" before jumping up the stairs and slamming her bedroom door closed.
What the heck what the heck what the heck what the heck-
Well, Luna definitely didn't have a boyfriend, then.
That was clear already though. As if Natsume would ever date Luna when he never seemed to know who she was!
What the heck what the heck what the heck what the heck what the heck-
But did that mean Mikan had a boyfriend now? Was Natsume her…? She couldn't even think it. Definitely not. They barely started tolerating each other recently. She didn't like him and he really didn't like her.
Except that he thought she was pretty in red and kept touching her and hanging around her and giving her stunning smiles. He didn't do those things before and he didn't do those things to other people-as far as she knew.
So maybe he liked her, but that was still a weird and unnatural thought. It was more likely this was all just another level to their game. The staring had led to proximity, which led to holding hands, and the only reasonable next step after that was kissing, right? This was just another classic element to rivalry, of course! Nothing weird or crazy about it!
But it did feel weird and crazy.
What the heeeeeeeck…..
She didn't like him, after all. Spending all her time with him and wanting to see him smile and hugging him-those were all parts of the rivalry thing too, and to be expected when you've spent your whole life butting heads with someone.
It probably wouldn't ever happen again, she told herself. Natsume left like nothing was the matter, so he'd probably pretend nothing happened and they could be normal moving forward. It's not like they were going to date or keep kissing or anything. Whatever it was, it was in the past and lingering on it would be pointless.
Mikan sat in front of her door for nearly an hour, calming herself down until her breaths were normal and her face was no longer the temperature of the sun. She felt like a person again and was about to get up and go back down to greet her mother properly, when her phone chimed with a new message.
It was from Hotaru, sent to the A Team group chat.
Hey everyone. We all did remarkably well at Regionals and we should all be proud. But let's not waste time. We need to get into study mode again. Fourth place in Regionals is fantastic, but if we want to place at Prefecture at all, we need to focus and be disciplined. We'll have study meets every weekday after school at the cafe when we aren't meeting in the classroom and I want all of us to be studying whenever there's freetime on the weekends. Practice your speech, keep it familiar, and always be in Interview mode. In order to make sure we have our eye on the prize, Iinchou and I decided to implement a no-dating policy for the team to eliminate distractions. Prefecture is in March, which gives us a little over a month to study up. Keep up the decent work. Let's start studying again this weekend and win this, the best that we can.
Cold, detached, classic Hotaru. And the no-dating rule had taken effect apparently. That was no big deal, of course.
Except now Mikan's gut was rolling and tears were welling up in her eyes again (as if she hadn't cried enough today) and for some reason all she could think was the despairing thought-No, I definitely don't have a boyfriend now either.
"A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear." -Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac