To My Darling Mikan-chan

Note: Takes place after Tamer of the Black Cat, quite some time before Best Boyfriend 101.

He saw it by accident.

They had been walking along the corridor full of students scrambling to their next lessons. Mikan was carrying a huge pile of thick poetry anthologies for her English Literature class, and Natsume was carrying nothing to his Physics lecture. He eyed her as she struggled her way through the corridor, trying to avoid the human traffic. She was still talking, about Shakespeare or whatever, while she heaved around clumsily. Natsume sighed and reached out his hand, offering to carry some of her books. She was already a walking accident, and with these heavy things in the way, she would surely—

"Ouch!" She yelped as a male student crashed into her, sending her books tumbling onto the floor.

"Hey, watch where you're going! Stupid." The student cursed as he rubbed his sore arm. Mikan glared at him furiously from the ground, smoothening out her damaged books. The student was about to leave in a hurry when his path was blocked.

"I haven't heard the apology, stupid." Natsume stood in his way, casually flexing his fingers.

All it took was a sharp glare from Natsume for the student to shrink in fright. He apologised so many times Mikan had to send him away, before which he sprinted off like he had just seen a ghost. By then, the hallways were already clearing. Natsume ruffled his hair and sighed as he bent down and helped pick up the scattered books.

"You're such a burden. Do you really have to carry so many things?" He rolled his eyes and picked up a book of love poems.

As he picked it up, out fell a crisp white envelope.

"To My Darling Mikan-chan" it read.

He flipped the envelope over. It was sealed. With a cheesy, glittery heart shaped sticker.

Before Natsume could rip apart the envelope and crush its contents, Mikan snatched it from him swiftly.

"Don't touch that!" She cried out. Flustered, she hurriedly slid the letter back into the book and looked away. "Class is starting, you should hurry." Before Natsume could react, Mikan had already run off.

Was he just imagining, or did she look slightly red in the face as she ran away?

Was she… blushing?

Blushing.

He regretted not burning it into ashes when he had the chance earlier.

He slammed violently into his seat in the lecture hall, earning a jump from Ruka and Koko beside him.

"Mood swings?" He heard Ruka whisper to Koko.

Koko snickered. "Girl problems. Maybe it's his time of the month."

Bang! Natsume lifted his foot and crashed it onto Koko's table, causing him to yelp in surprise.

Within the 2 hour lecture, Natsume had broken about 3 of Koko's pencils while grumbling under his breath. Twice, he knocked over the empty chair in front of his seat, disrupting the class. The professor stopped his speech several times, but said nothing. He was already well accustomed to Natsume's temper, but as long as he still gets stellar grades, he would turn a blind eye to him.

Koko tapped Ruka nervously on the shoulder.

"Help. The queen has sent a warning," He whispered, pointing at a few rows in front of them. Hotaru had sent them her signature death glare.

"She says, 'Get him out of here before I send you out myself.'" Koko gulped.

Thankfully, the bell rang at that precise moment, and Natsume was out before anyone else stood up. Koko and Ruka grabbed their bags and hurried after him. They saw him speed walking and manoeuvring himself skilfully along the corridors.

"He's heading for the Literature room," Koko gasped as they tried to keep up. "Must be Mikan again."

"But that class doesn't end till an hour later. Yuu said so."

"Well, he's already outside. He's just standing there. Look at him brooding pathetically by the door." Koko pointed at him.

"What is he thinking?"

"Something about a heart shape. And some violent, nasty thoughts." Koko shrugged indifferently.

"Wait, what is he doing?"

Natsume had been pacing up and down outside the door before he finally stopped. Then he clenched his fists hard.

"He's going to…!"

Smash!

He sent a punch crashing into the door, giving it a violent and shake before he stomped off. His footsteps echoed in the hallways.

Koko and Ruka didn't dare talk to him as they sat in silence, eating their lunches in dark tension. They had the next period free, but everyone else had lessons. Hotaru was at advanced Economics.

They watched as Natsume popped open his can of soda and drink the whole can in one shot. Finally, he squashed his empty can and blurted out. "Koko, if there was a letter addressed to you calling you 'darling' and sealed off with a heart shaped sticker," He eyed him seriously. "What do you think it's about?"

"Heart shaped sticker… darling…" Koko repeated. "A love letter, duh." He answered without hesitation.

Natsume groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"Why do you ask, bro? To think you have more experiences in love letters than me. Do you remember, Ruka? That crazy middle schooler last year…" Koko raised one hand into the air dramatically. "Dearest Natsume-senpai. You are like the stars in the sky that shine brightly at night. You are like the Sun that lights up my day. Senpai, I am your biggest fan. Please notice me and—"Sensing the change in temperature, Koko stopped immediately.

"Natsume, you had another admirer?" Ruka laughed and threw an arm around his shoulders.

"Not me." The reply was a muffled groan.

"Huh?"

"It was addressed to Mikan."

Ruka dropped his arm as if he had just been burnt. Koko's jaw dropped.

"Who is it? Do you know who it is?" Ruka asked, concerned.

"Would he be sitting here with a headache if he knew? He would just go straight up to him, snap his fingers, then whoosh. Fire. Fire everywhere." Koko pointed out. "God bless you, said brave person hidden amongst us. May your soul find peace."

Natsume sank lower into his seat.

Ruka patted his back several times. "It's alright, Natsume. It's not the first time! Mikan always had a fair share of suitors, albeit from afar. There's Jun. And Takashi. And then there's the pair of twins Kaito and Keito. Heard they are still on bad terms. There's also Tanaka that sent her a rose a day for two weeks before you finally…er… got rid of him."

"Although you've already marked her, she isn't technically yours." Koko nodded in agreement.

"Mark her? What is she, my territory?" Natsume's eyebrows creased into a frown.

"Don't you know? Male animals rub their scent or something onto their mates. To avoid rivals. Roar." Koko gave a weak growl.

"Am I some sort of beast to you?" Natsume glared. Cue for Koko to shut up.

"Well, where did you see it?" Ruka asked, going back on topic.

Natsume sighed, frustrated. "It was stuck in the middle of a love poetry anthology. Get this. Love poems! And she like, panicked when I saw it and she ran away BLUSHING!" He pulled at his hair and hissed.

Ruka frowned hard, unable to think of a suitable word to console Natsume.

"The love poems may be a coincidence. Maybe it was a letter from her grandpa." Koko offered.

"Ok, then what about the 'darling'? The heart seal?" Natsume was unconvinced. "And why would she be afraid to show me?"

They sat in silence for a while, pondering over the situation at hand. "Koko, can't you do something?" Ruka suggested.

"Nope. Unfortunately for you Natsume, your partner just has to have the Nullification Alice. If not, it would be a piece of cake."

"Maybe the girls know something. We should ask them." Natsume said.

Just then, Yuu arrived and took a seat next to them.

"Natsume, that was you who punched our door, right? What's wrong with you? You should be happy Narumi just ignored that burnt hole up our door. You would be zapped out of your wits if it was Jinno." He chatised.

Koko jumped in the fill him with the story in order to save Natsume from a painful recount. "Mikan has received an anonymous love letter, stuck in a book of love poems and is embarrassed to show it."

Yuu gasped at the effective summary. "No wonder she stayed behind after class…"

Natsume sprang across the table. "Why? Is she meeting someone?"

"No, just Narumi. I saw her asking him some questions regarding some poems."

"Love poems." Koko widened his eyes at the possibility.

"Oh come on, stop jumping to conclusions," Ruka started hopefully. "maybe she just needed some help with her work. It might not be about poems."

"But Mikan is the top student in English Literature." Koko shrugged.

"We're not even doing poems, you know." Yuu began. "We're on Shakespearean plays now."

Uh-oh. They all watched as Natsume sat back down and his fist clenching tighter and tighter.

"Well, I guess that's it, then." Natsume finally said. "I don't care what she's up to. She can drown in love poems for all I care. What kind of idiot writes love poems, anyway?" he declared.

Koko gave a half-laugh. "It doesn't take a mindreader to know that you're lying." Natsume just rested his head on the table, hands covering his face.

Unable to stand his state of pathetic-ness, Koko decided to give a bold idea, courtesy of his own self-proclaimed brilliant mind.

"If you're that concerned about it, just read it." He said it matter-of-factly.

"How?" Natsume sat up.

"It's easy. Just distract her. Make her leave. Then you can swoop in and grab the letter."

"And what happens even if I read it?" Natsume asked. "Nothing will change."

"Oh, so you think you can just sit here and do nothing?" Koko challenged.

Natsume slowly shook his head. "No. I'm going to find out. And I am going to tear both the letter and the sender to shreds." He hissed.

"That's more like the Natsume I know." Koko gave him a pat on the back.

"Are you sure we should be doing this? You're trespassing her privacy." Yuu voiced out.

"It won't be, if she doesn't know."

"How do you know she won't know?"

"That's why we have to make sure."

Inwardly, they all groaned. They should never have trusted Koko and his plans. Somehow, they never do work, and almost always involved them behaving like stalkers or crouched in an uncomfortable position, too close to each other and for long amounts of time. Like right now. Ruka was praying hard nobody would see the state of ridiculousness they were in. He and Natsume were stuck together in one of the really small corners outside Mikan's dorm, so small that the two big guys had to literally hug each other to stay out of anyone's sight. Talk about awkwardness, even for best friends. From ahead, Yuu gave them a weak thumbs up, but with a face that said I-can't-believe-I-am-doing-this-and-you-guys-are-morons.

He coughed twice, then proceeded to knock on the door many times, plus spamming the doorbell.

Mikan appeared at the door seconds later.

"What's wrong?" She frowned, clearly unhappy at the incessant noise.

"Mikan, you have to come with me NOW." Yuu said, grabbing her hand. "I heard that someone released this sneezing Alice product in the library and we can't get rid of the effects! We need your help! It's SERIOUS!"

"What? That's terrible!" Mikan exclaimed. "Hold on, just let me find my keys and lock the door…" She was retreating back into the room. Yuu tugged her back. "There's NO TIME! Hurry!" Mikan looked shock at how out of character Yuu was behaving and narrowed her eyes. Yuu panicked. Mikan just had to pick the wrong moment to be smart. "Hotaru's there! If you don't hurry, she's going to become a murderer!" That got her going.

Yuu glanced back at the boys and gave them a small nod before disappearing with Mikan.

Stealthily, Natsume creeped into Mikan's room, followed closely by Ruka. Ruka stayed near the entrance to keep watch.

"You have around 10 minutes before Mikan realises and comes back." Ruka warned.

Natsume hurriedly jumped into action. For a girl, Mikan sure had a messy room. Her pyjamas lay in a corner on the floor. Her bed was unmade. Some loose sheets of paper littered the floor. There were also some empty packets of fluff puffs lying around. Tiptoeing through the mess, Natsume stopped in front of her bookshelf and felt like crying. It was filled with books. Filled.

Mikan had only picked up reading halfway through middle school, so it was a wonder how she managed to get her hands on so many books. Looks like he had underestimated her.

Looking around, he decided to tackle the study table first. There was a pile of books at the edge of it, leaning against the wall, and scribbles of papers. He vividly recalled the poetry book being brown, but it so happened that Gakuen Alice seemed to adopt brown as its schoolwide book cover colour for some reason. So practically every book was maroon or brown. Damn.

Okay. One step at a time.

He flipped through all the books on her table first. English. Nope. Math. Not it. Dictionaries. Photo albums. He came across a suspicious notebook but it was full of useless doodles. From outside, Ruka called. "Natsume, you've got about 6 minutes left."

He decided to start tackling the book shelf next. He poured through the shelves, struggling to read the faint titles of the books. History of Alices. Encyclopedia. Book of Recorded Alices. Then his eyes blinked.

Poetry for the Romantic Soul.

Bingo!

Outside, Ruka picked up a call. "What? Really? Crap!"

He hissed into the room. "Natsume! Mikan is headed back RIGHT NOW. Time to finish up! Hurry! Plan is busted!"

Meanwhile, Natsume's hand flipped through the book at a rapid speed, hoping to find the slotted envelope. It took him a moment and about 3 times to realise—it wasn't in there at all. He could almost burn the book right there.

"I found the book! But it's not inside! Shit!" He bellowed.

"No choice, we have to leave! She'll be here ANY MINUTE." Ruka stressed.

"Wait! I just have to…"

"Natsume!"

"Almost!"

Natsume's eyes scanned the room wildly at top speed, his hands opening a few drawers as it ran along. No envelope. No. Nothing.

He could hear voices in the hallway.

"You guys are acting strange. Are you sure you heard that sneezing Alice rumour, Yuu? Nobody knew of it. And Koko, if you need to try out pickup lines, tell them to Sumire." He could hear Mikan talking to Koko on the staircase.

"Wait! You really really have to listen to this one first," Judging by the panic in his voice, Natsume knew Koko was almost at his wit's end.

"Natsume!" Ruka barked from the door.

Time was ticking. Natsume's senses heightened. He poured through the contents on her table again. Books. Books. Papers. Nothing. He threw around some papers in frustration and ignored the mess as they fluttered onto the floor. Shit. He's not going to make it.

"Ruka-pyon. What are you doing here?"

Time's up.

"Uhh…" Ruka stuttered, wanting to burrow into the ground immediately. Mikan stared at the 3 fidgeting guys in front of her and her eyebrows creased into a frown as she inspected them.

"Is everything all right? Why are all of you here?" She crossed her arms in confusion. Then, to everyone's horror, she began entering her room. Koko reached out his hand to try to pull her back, but Yuu caught his arm mid-air and stopped him, shaking his head vigorously. It's all up to Natsume now.

Mikan was definitely bewildered to find Natsume Hyuuga standing in the middle of her room.

"Natsume, what are you doing in my room?" She raised her eyebrows, clearly unimpressed.

"Nothing…just…er…" Caught red-handed, Natsume was at a complete loss for words.

Ruka the life saviour called from the door.

"We passed by and saw your door left ajar, but you weren't inside. So we thought someone had tried to trespass. Natsume was worried, so he went in to take a look."

Outside, Koko gave Ruka a thumbs up for his excellent three-star quick thinking.

"Um… alright." Mikan crossed over to where Natsume was standing. "So how come only you are in here, and not Ruka-pyon as well?" She picked all the wrong moments to be smart.

Luckily, Natsume had a well-disguised comeback. "I don't think you'll want two boys to see the state of your maiden's room. Just trying to minimize your humiliation." He gestured towards the mess of undergarments lying just beside the bed, sending her into wild, embarrassed attempt at covering up. She shot daggers at him.

"How thoughtful." She clicked her tongue. Her arms were still crossed in a deadlock as she glanced around her room. "Well, my room appears to be fine, thank you for your concern. Except that my papers have somehow ended up on the floor."

"Must be the wind." Natsume shrugged indifferently as he bent down to pick up the scattered sheets. He heaved a sigh of inaudible relief when he saw that Mikan had begun to do the same, picking up her fallen biology report. That would mean he got her more or less convinced. If he continued to practice caution, he could get out of this. He casually picked up the papers on the floor, until this note slipped out and floated to the ground. He picked up the unusually yellowed paper, with its peeling edges. Then his eyes widened tenfold as his mind ran through the scribbled lines.

Mikan, realising something was amiss, reached out to grab the paper, only to have Natsume raise his hand high up where she could not reach. "Don't read it!" She cried, jumping up and down and flailing her hands.

Sensing the motion, the three idiots at the door prepared to enter, only to have Mikan shriek. "You guys are staying where you are!"

His height advantage gave him enough time to pour over the poem not once, not twice, but thrice. Three times he read the cheesy, sickening lines of fainted handwriting. Three times he marvelled at the amount of stupidity. Three times he nearly knocked himself over. He didn't even need to ask to know it had been the thing he was looking for.

Mikan was still protesting madly. "Natsume Hyuuga," she panted from all that jumping. Damn his height. "You are giving that back to me right now!"

Natsume lowered his arms for a moment, but held the paper firmly enough so that Mikan still failed to snatch it out of his hands. He turned onto her, face grimacing in a mix of fury and repulse. He was holding onto the paper so tightly he was crumpling it. Any moment now, it would go up in flames.

Seething, he brandished the letter in front of her nose. "What the hell is this piece of shit?" He spat dangerously.

She snatched it away from his clutches successfully this time. She proceeded to smoothen out the edges of her precious letter with so much care and with such a tender look that only intensified Natsume's frustration and fury. Did it mean that much to her?

"It's none of your business." She looked up at him, her own eyes flashing red.

"Is that yours?" He snorted.

"You have a problem with that?" She avoided eye contact as she scooped up the remaining papers and settled them onto her desk.

Yes. He had a huge problem with that. From the way she was defending the letter, hiding it from him and even getting angry at him over it. Everything about it drove him crazy.

"Oh no. We need to stop him before he explodes the dormitories and we end up homeless." Koko shuddered.

"No," He scoffed, anger clouding his judgement. "I just can't imagine who would EVER give that to you. Frankly, it's revolting."

She gave him a look of pure hurt.

Don't look at me like that, you idiot!

"Don't insult it!" She said pointedly.

"Hn. It's so old-fashioned. Are vintage love letters in style now?"

Don't defend another guy!

"You don't know anything! This is full of pure emotion. It's so cute and sweet! Why are you so worked up anyway? It's not even yours. It's mine."

Because you're mine.

"Emotion my foot. It's the crappiest thing I've ever read! Who would ever write that to you? Who wrote that to you?" He threw his arms up in wild abandonment.

Mikan blinked in surprise. "It's mine," She gave him a confused look. "But it's not addressed to me."

"Are you playing some dumb joke on me? I SAW the envelope." Natsume snarled, fists clenched. "It was addressed to DARLING Mikan-chan. And sealed off with a heart."

"The poem was for me. But not written for me."

"What the hell are you even going on about?"

"It's a poem my dad wrote for my mom when they just started dating. Narumi-sensei found it and gave it to me." She breathed.

Silence.

Three gasps at the door.

One 'piak!' was heard as Natsume slapped his own forehead in realisation of his failed intelligence. Of course! Such lame wooing techniques were definitely out of fashion already. He felt his face melt into an unconscious beam. It was so strange, the relief. Nevermind that he promised himself he would burn up Narumi and his favourite sparkly shirts later. He felt like he could hug Koko, kiss Yuu and marry Ruka as the three of them entered. Ruka gave him a look that said "I told you so."

"I just don't understand what is the matter with you. Why are you so insensitive? You just laughed at my parents' love for each other. It's cheesy and embarrassing, but how can you just laugh at someone else's love?" Mikan said darkly, not looking at Natsume. She continued to rearrange her report with a bit too much force.

Koko gave him a look. Ruka mouthed for him to do something.

Now relieved and smiling smugly, Natsume tucked his hands into his pockets coolly. "I'm just amused. So that's how your father wooed your mom? He's not really smooth, is he?"

Mikan gave a dry laugh. "And you think you're really smooth?"

"Sure. You want some statistics on my fangirl numbers?" He grinned.

"No thank you. I'm not interested in you." She stapled her report and proceeded to rearrange a few books on her shelf. "You can get out of here already." She huffed.

Something else dropped to the ground.

Natsume could feel his insides bursting when he retrieved it. Knowingly, Koko began to smile so widely he looked like a creep.

It was a picture.

Of him.

And him only.

It took all of him not to yell out in triumph. "I'll leave. You really need to clean up your room, and check that you don't leave any more embarrassing articles behind."

"Oh, you don't have to—" she turned around sharply and her face flushed with hot embarrassment at the photo he shoved smugly in front of her. "—give that back to me!" She screeched.

"ALL OF YOU, OUT! NOW!" She boomed. Within seconds, she had swept all of them out of the door and slammed it promptly in their faces.

That did little to wipe of the grin on Natsume's face. He gave each of his friends a satisfied fistbump.

"Congrats, bro." Yuu laughed.

"I told you it's not that bad!"

"I think I may seriously reconsider turning Narumi into Narumi Ashes." Natsume said, the I smirk on his face growing larger by the minute.

"I think I need an applause for my genius plan." Koko demanded with pride.

"I think, man! You are such a lucky shit!"

"I think you need to write all of us a love letter each. I expect it to be about two pages long per letter. You need to address each of us as your darling, and seal it off with a red heart as well."

That's it! Merry Christmas everyone :)

Alright, alright. I promise to start working on my multi-chap stuff. No more one-shots until I've updated at least 2 chapters!