This is a submission to Disorder of the Mind: Natsume contest. If you wish to participate, see Rekindled Moroseness's profile. Submission starts on January 14 and ends on March 8. Voting period is from March 12 to March 20 and the winner will be announced on Rekindled Moroseness's profile on March 22.

Title: Never Too Late

Pen name: Cookie Craze

Type of disorder: Paranoid Personality Disorder

Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice, nor do I own the term 'Paranoid Personality Disorder'.

Never Too Late

-

I don't trust easily. And to be honest, it's not my fault. Considering the messed up family that I had been growing up in, I was actually pretty lucky to have turned out sane.

My parents never got along. My dad was a druggie, while my mom was a shameless slut who put out for anyone who wanted her, as long as he was hot, sporty, and listened to rock. The only reason they ever got married was because she hooked up with my dad while they were both dead drunk, then 'poof!', she got pregnant with me, and my dad was forced to take responsibility. He hated her for it. All through my childhood he had been telling me that it was because he wasn't ready for a family, yet my mother pushed him into it.

But I knew better.

On one night, when I was seven, I had woken up at around midnight to hear loud cussing, and the sound of glass breaking. I knew my parents were at it again, it had been a recurring thing since I was born. I wanted to go back to sleep, to ignore their shouting. There wouldn't be anything I could do even if I went outside. My dad and mom would just transfer all their anger onto me. I would become the victim. And honestly, after watching the same thing happen since I was five, I really didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore.

Against my better judgment, however, I decided to take a look. It seemed much more serious than the other times they fought, since they never used to actually break things, just shouting at each other. I had to make sure they weren't actually killing each other or anything.

My family might suck, but no seven-year-old would fancy being an orphan.

I tiptoed out of the room that I shared with my parents, and peeked around the wall. A glass vase was flying towards me, but I was quick enough to dodge it just by a little. My parents were standing in front of each other, throwing all kinds of curses at each other. I cringed when I heard the words 'whore' and 'fucking'. A seven-year-old boy was not supposed to know the meaning to those words, but I knew.

I leaned closer to the wall as my dad spat angrily, "You slut! If it wasn't for you, I'd still be able to drink beer and get laid. You're the reason," his voice dripped with pure venom, "that I'm here now, stuck with you and a stupid kid!" His upper lip curled up with distaste at the mention of the 'stupid kid', and I felt a pang in my heart.

I never knew my dad hated me that much. I always thought that – no matter how unwilling he had been to marry my mom – he truly loved me, at the very least. It was the one thing that kept me going – the fact that my parents loved me. That wasn't so much of a fact anymore. He had lied, he had made me believe that he loved me, but he didn't.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My dad didn't hate me and my mom because he wasn't ready for a marriage, he was upset because he wouldn't be able to keep up with his frivolous ways.

It was from that day onwards, that I started distancing myself from my family. I didn't want to believe in them anymore. Believing would only hurt myself.

On that night, four days after my seventh birthday, I first learnt what was 'heartbreak'.

We slowly drifted apart; I never talked to them unless necessary. Half of me was hoping that they'd try to patch things up with me, while the other half just wished that they would leave me alone so I could find somewhere to hide and nurse my wounds.

I know, it was contradictory, but there was still that small glimmer of hope buried deep inside me. They were my parents, after all.

They never tried. In fact, they didn't seem to notice that I wasn't talking to them. They were too busy, caught up in their worlds full of drugs, sex, and hate. Apparently, I wasn't as important to them as themselves. They continued to fight every single day and night, all the way until my tenth birthday.

On my tenth birthday, both of my parents died in a car accident.

I didn't feel anything much. It wasn't that I hated them and wanted them to die or anything, but I didn't feel anything at all. I didn't feel sad, I didn't feel like crying, not even when the police told me that there was a birthday cake in the car, probably intended for me. I had never got a birthday cake before. We were too poor for that. Sure, my dad's family was well-off, but they cut off all ties with my dad when he married mom. Another one of the reasons why he was angry with my mom.

They had probably planned to use the cake to bribe me into doing something illegal for them again. When I was six, my parents had come together, and used me to traffic drugs. They bought me a small cake, and I was so happy that I was willing to do anything for them. I didn't know what they were capable of at that time.

They would never do anything for me. Adults were all liars, they didn't keep any of the promises that they made to me.

No one cared. Every single person who tried to get close to me were all just thinking about how much of a freak I was, not talking and not even crying at his parents' funeral. The reporters who came didn't really care either. They were just after a story. They were all really nice to me, and everyone was talking about how kind they were, but I knew from my past experiences that it wasn't true. Humans were incapable of saying anything honest. They were all liars.

No one cared. They were all just lying to me.

My rich uncle from my dad's side took me in after my parents' deaths. He was a bubbly, balding man nearing his forties. He told me that he liked children, and he didn't have any, so he took me in to treat me like a son.

It was total bullshit. I didn't believe a single word that he said. He told me that he wouldn't give up, that he would wait till I learned to trust him.

But he was a liar too.

He stopped trying so hard after a few months. He disappeared for months on end, telling me that he had to go because there were some problems with his business. I didn't believe him. He was just trying to get away from a crazy freak who refused to talk to him at all. He was trying to get away from me.

He would buy me presents when he came back, and frequently sent letters to me, but I knew it was all just a ruse. He just wanted to take my mind away from the fact that his presents and letters were there, but he wasn't.

He started to think something was wrong with me when I still refused to talk to him after a two years of 'effort' on his part. He thought I was mental. I scoffed at the idea, but was sent to a psychiatrist anyway – his name was Dr. Harlen.

I made as much trouble as I could during the appointment, and I pointed out bluntly to him that since I didn't trust him at all, it was really pretty pointless for the appointments to go on. I was sure that I wasn't sick in the head or anything. But my uncle sure wanted me to be mental.

He needed an excuse to get away from me, so he was trying to get me convicted of an illness so he could send me to an asylum.

After the appointment, the psycho psychiatrist told my uncle I had the Paranoid Personality Disorder, which meant that I wouldn't be able to trust people easily, and that I would probably keep questioning his motives no matter what he did. My uncle looked pretty shocked, so the quack told him that the illness was more common in males.

I did question his motives, but that was because he was saying one thing and doing another. It didn't imply that I was sick in the head or anything. I remember laughing at him, then saying, "Yeah, right. How much did my uncle pay you to say that?"

The guy shook his head before telling my uncle that my case was rather serious, and he would like me to go for regular psychotherapy sessions.

I tried talking him out of it, telling him that it would be a complete waste of money, since there was nothing wrong with me at all. Dr. Crazy Harlen was just lying to him. He wouldn't hear of it, though. He insisted that the professional knew best, and started to ship me over to therapy sessions once a week. I should have known better than to try to talk him out of it. Of course he wouldn't budge, he was practically in cahoots with the guy.

So I went for therapy. It didn't make much difference, in fact, it didn't make any difference at all. My uncle was still a lying bastard, Dr. Crazy Harlen was still an idiot who didn't know what he was talking about most of the time, and I still thought the both of them were pure evil. Maybe they thought that by sending me to a place where psychos go regularly, I would be affected and turn into a psycho as well.

But I didn't. And I wanted so badly to say to them, "In your faces, douchebags," but I couldn't as well.

Life really sucked when there were so many restrictions.

What sucked more was that everyone at school thought I was so incredibly lucky. I was 'good-looking', had a 'rich family', and tons of girls were willing to fall down at my feet.

At seventeen years old, I was already exposed to the world enough to know that they were just after me for money and sex. Other than that, there really wasn't anything else I could give them. Except my heart. But that was the point, they didn't want my heart. All they wanted were materialistic things from me.

And they didn't know me. They couldn't see the life that I lived, they could only see one side of the picture, when the other side was what I so desperately wanted them to see.

I'd learnt to know that everyone in this world had some serious issues. My uncle who was secretly freaked out by the nephew he claimed to love, the psychiatrist who accepted bribes to pretend normal people were crazy, and the girls who pretended to love someone, only to trample all over their feelings once they got what they wanted.

I told Dr. Crazy Harlen exactly what I thought about the world, and all he said was, "Someday, there would be someone whom will bring down all your barriers, and teach you how to live."

I snorted. It was completely impossible. "Yeah, right, and when that someday comes, I won't need lessons on how to live anymore, because I'll already be six feet under. And guess who will cause that?" I sneer at him. "It'll be one of you scheming bastards."

Then I stalked out of his office and slammed the door, hard.

I should have realized Dr. Crazy Harlen would send a spy to try and talk me round.

It was the first week of spring when this new transfer student came to the school. Rumours were buzzing everywhere. People said she was beautiful, kind, ditzy but still smart(how is that even possible?) and all the other kinds of things that you can name. Guys knelt down in hallways proclaiming their 'undying love' for a girl they haven't even met once yet. They were pathetic.

I, on the other hand, knew rumours could only be rumours.

So I couldn't say that I wasn't surprised when she turned up in class, as beautiful as the rumours had said. Mikan Sakura was Aphrodite. At least, that was what the guys believed in. Perfect, they said, but I still found tons of flaws in her. Her nose was too straight, her bottom lip too full, and her lack of a certain gray matter in her head spoke many things about her.

"Hey, Natsume-kun!" For one, she was a complete idiot. I was hunched up on my seat, very obviously planning to ignore her, but she still managed to ask around and get my name. And proceed to act all chummy with me.

It was from that moment onwards that I decided she was plotting something. Probably in cahoots with Dr. Crazy Harlen, just like my uncle was.

"Go away," I hissed in the most menacing voice I could muster. Why were people so intent on bothering me even when they knew I wasn't interested? "I'm not interested."

Her face fell immediately. I almost felt gloating that I had caught her in the act, but there was also an undefinable feeling hovering in my chest. I felt almost...disappointed. Like there was actually a chance of someone really caring.

I turned away from her, frowning to myself. Great, now I was being influenced by that crazy psychiatrist. A few more sessions of therapy, and I would be an official sap.

Sakura was still sitting beside me, looking downcast. I scoffed inwardly, then a crazy, absurd thought popped into my brain. What if I played with her? One game, and I would be able to certify, once and for all, that humans were just hypocritical idiots.

Just one game.

I almost couldn't believe that I was so smart to think up of the plan. Why hadn't I ever thought of this before? I smirked, the gesture going by unnoticed by the klutz, who was too busy wallowing in her self pity, because she was unable to win me over.

She'd never, but no harm letting her try and fail.

"Hey."

Her head jerked up immediately at the sound of my voice, her eyes brightening up immediately with a glimmer of hope. I kept a straight face as I stared at her, unblinking. She stared right back, as if she thought that staring at each other was some sacred ceremony that could not be broken.

Once again, another example of why she was an idiot. But a conniving idiot, nonetheless. Dr. Crazy Harlen probably had to spoon feed her all the details on how to get me to 'open up'. He could have found someone smarter for the job.

"Natsume-kun?" She waved in my face, and I almost blinked irritably before I remembered that this was all a game.

"Let's be friends." The words tasted bitter and came out feeling all wrong, but I didn't give a damn.

It was short and simple, but she was happy with it nonetheless.

As the days of Mikan Sakura and my friendship progressed, I began to find more and more proof that she was indeed, getting close to me for a motive. I'd noticed her making tons of friends, and sometimes, when she thought I wasn't looking, she would lean over and whisper in their ears, and whoever it was would laugh and tell her she was a genius.

She was probably spilling all my secrets to her little friends. I never gave her any information that was actually real, though. Mostly I just fed her some stupid bullshit about how my favourite fruit was strawberries(I never eat strawberries, I hate them) and how I liked the strawberry flavoured ice-cream. None of them were true. I actually though strawberries were gay, and only wussies would eat them.

I went to therapy and talked about it with Dr. Crazy Harlen. I was trying to call him out on this bullshit, trying to get him to admit that he'd sent a stupid little girl to try and 'melt my frozen heart', as he had put it.

The guy practically jumped for joy when I told him, even though I had no idea why. Probably thought his plan was getting into action.

"I know this girl. She transferred to our school," I said bluntly, keeping an eye out for any giveaway twitches and movements from his body, but there were none. Damn. He was a great actor. He should totally go try out for Hollywood or something.

"Really?" His eyes were twinkling. Ew. "What kind of girl is she?"

"She's an idiot. An irritating idiot," I said through my gritted teeth, feeling angry just by thinking about her. "She clings to me all the time but runs off and tells all my secrets to her friends when she thinks I'm not looking." I'd forgotten that I was trying to test the Doc, and just concentrated on telling him all the things that I hated about Mikan Sakura.

And boy, were there many.

Dr. Crazy Harlen listened to me as I spent the next two hours talking about how Sakura would always complain about my messy scrawl of a handwriting, and insisted on me improving my penmanship. I wasn't gay, I didn't need to write all cursive and pretty for the teachers to gush about.

She even tried to pull me into her little clique. She was in a pretty tight-knit little group with Hotaru Imai(the genius, even though I hate to admit it), Koko(the jester), Sumire Shouda(the girl who just won't freakin' leave me alone) and another two people. I couldn't remember their names, but one had A's for all her Chemistry tests, and the other was a Home Economics ace.

I wasn't interested, I'd told her millions of times, but no, Sakura just had to be a busybody and introduced me to all her friends, causing a pretty awkward silence, and my having to dodge another one of Shouda's hugs.

If she thought getting more people to do the job with her would make it easier, if she thought I really was going to fall for her little game, then she had to brush up on her IQ.

There were just too many incidents in between everything, and days were never peaceful with Mikan Sakura hopping around like a stupid overactive bunny. By the time I finished relating barely half of the misfortune that had fallen upon me ever since Sakura had appeared, I was already too breathless to talk.

"But," I added reluctantly, "she's grown on me." I noticed Dr. Crazy Harlen's eyes brightening with that one word, so I added hastily, "It doesn't mean anything. She's using me, and I'm using her. We're just 'friends'," I made quotation marks with my fingers, "with no strings attached."

God knew why the words felt so wrong.

I didn't know why I agreed to eat, but I was there, sitting on a park bench, waiting for Sakura to come back from buying ice-cream.

Somehow, I couldn't reject her when she called me all of a sudden, her voice choked with sobs, sounding utterly devastated. We'd been friends for more than eight months, and even if everything was fake, even if she was just getting to me because she was told to, I found my conscience telling me that I should be there for her.

She broke up with her boyfriend of three months, Ruka Nogi. Nogi was studying at another school, the one across the road from ours, and the both of them had first met at Imai's birthday party. Nogi was a friend of Imai's brother.

Sparks had flown between them the very first night, but Nogi made no attempt to ask her out. So it surprised all of us that he suddenly asked her out two weeks later.

"He's not really in love with you," I said stubbornly, as Sakura pestered me to give her my blessings.

"But Natsume," she whined, "I think we could grow to love each other. It may not be love now, but it could be."

"That's a load of bull," I snapped, suddenly feeling extremely impatient. "he's probably just making use of you to get what he wants." She opened her mouth to protest, but I cut her off, "Look, you don't have to ask for my opinion. If you really wanna hook up with him so badly, then go ahead. No one's stopping you. Just don't come crying to me when he dumps you like used tissue paper."

I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. I didn't know why, but I was sure it was nothing good. Then I knew. She was just like all the others. She'd found someone now, and all those 'best friends forever' and whatnot were immediately forfeited. She was leaving me, abandoning me for someone else.

She was a liar, just like everyone else was.

We didn't talk after that, for the whole three months that she dated Nogi, I felt restless all the time, and it was stupid, but I kind of missed her and her loud mouth.

Then, after three months, she suddenly called me.

She sobbed out the whole story to me on the phone. Turns out Ruka only asked her out to make Imai jealous, because he had a crush on Imai and she wasn't responding. So when she finally did, he immediately dumped his girlfriend with a hasty message of 'I'm sorry, Mikan. I didn't mean to hurt you," and hooked up with said girlfriend's best friend instantly.

I felt like finding the guy and beating him to a pulp. I told myself it was because he was an exact example of why I didn't trust people. He lied. And of all people, the person she supposedly 'loved' the most had to lie to her for his own gain.

This was why I had closed myself off from the entire world. I didn't want to be hurt, just like she was hurting now.

It definitely wasn't because I was sick in the head.

I was deep in my thoughts when a cone of ice-cream suddenly appeared in front of my face. It would have smashed into my face if I was leaning forward just a little. I looked up, and there she was, her face still marked with dried streaks of tears, but she was smiling. It was an ugly smile, incomparable to all the real smiles she had in the past, but she was trying.

I couldn't see why she still tried so hard to believe in the world when it had just screwed her over. I would have yelled, and broke more than just a little bit of things.

Sakura plopped down on the bench next to me, jerking the ice-cream cone to remind me it was mine. I took it from her absentmindedly, licking it tentatively, then recoiling because the taste of strawberries invaded my senses. I stared at the ice-cream, completely appalled and more than just a little disgusted.

"What's wrong, Natsume?" Sakura hiccuped, turning to me curiously. "You love strawberry, so I bought strawberry for you."

She looked so pleased with herself that I couldn't bear to tell her that I didn't really love strawberries. I took another lick, resisting the urge to cringe.

Sakura sighed sadly, her own cone of strawberry ice-cream dropping onto the ground as she let go of it. I stared at her like she was crazy. "You threw away a perfectly fine cone of ice-cream," I accused, "you could have donated it to Africa or something."

She turned to look at me, and I felt a pang of guilt when I saw the hidden accusation in her eyes. "You don't really like strawberries, do you, Natsume?" My arms fell down to my sides as I stayed silent.

Damn. Damn her and her acute observation skills.

"I – of course I do," I lied through my teeth.

"You don't, Natsume," she insisted. Why did she have to insist? Why couldn't she just accept it and let it go? "You've never liked strawberries. You don't want to be friends with my friends. I've noticed the awkwardness between you and them, Natsume. You've never said anything true to me. Everything was a lie. You don't treat me as a friend, do you?"

I didn't know what to say. She knew all along. She had been playing along with me. I felt the anger rising inside of me. "If you knew, why didn't you say anything?" I snapped irritably.

She blinked back her tears, her expression now more furious than sad. "You're the one who has been lying to me all along!" She stood up abruptly, grabbed my cone, threw it on the floor and mashed it with her foot. "Liking strawberries, wanting to be friends, everything was a lie!"

I stood up too, towering over he as my anger started to reach its peak. "You don't know anything about me!" I was yelling, and I didn't care. Not at all. "You don't know anything about me and you were just trying to get close to me so you could trample all over me when you're done. You're just like all of them!" I took a deep breath, suddenly feeling so tired, so tired that I couldn't breathe.

She let out a gurgled sob. "You could have told me the truth. You could have told me that you have trust issues. We could have fixed it together. We're friends, Natsume, you should have confided in me instead of lying every time we spoke!"

I couldn't stop myself. "I don't have trust issues! I didn't lie to you all the time, did I?" I snarled angrily, not even caring when she blanched at the venom in my tone. "I told you he was using you, didn't I? I told you he was lying to you. I told he couldn't be trusted, but no! You firmly believed in your Lover Boy, didn't you? And look where trust has gotten you! Betrayal by your best friend and your boyfriend!"

Sakura held her hands over her ears. Her sobbing had escalated into heartbroken bawls. "Stop it. Stop it stop it stop it! Please."

The severity of what I had done hit me hard, and I reached over for her, my hands stopping in mid-air. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know whether I could believe her. I wanted to, God knows I wanted to, but I couldn't. It was hard.

Then she lunged for me, successfully breaking my concentration. She sobbed brokenly in my arms, and I wrapped my arms around her stiffly, not knowing what to do.

"I don't know," she sobbed, "I'm supposed to feel sad, heartbroken that my boyfriend left me for my best friend, but I don't feel that, Natsume," I stiffened at her words, "I feel sad, yes, but it's not that kind of feeling! It's...it's...it's not the same. Ruka was always the Prince Charming, he was just the perfect boyfriend. And I'm just so frustrated, because after he left I realized that he wasn't what I really wanted!" She was bawling, almost shouting, and I could only listen, my body stock still.

My mind couldn't register what I was hearing, but my heart was already doing a victory dance. My mind told me to move, to run, that this was all a conspiracy, that humans couldn't be trusted. My heart was telling me to do what I wanted to do, and that was to hold her tight and never let go.

The two sides were so conflicting that my head was hurting, my blood was pounding in my ears, but her words were still so clear.

"I want something else entirely, Natsume," she was still sobbing, "I want a relationship that will excite me. I want someone who hurts me all the time but makes me feel like it's worth it. Ruka and I never fight. It's all too perfect. It's so perfect it doesn't feel right. I don't know. I really don't. But when I see you my heart starts doing the salsa and Ruka comes over and I feel so guilty. I actually felt relieved when my boyfriend broke up with me. What kind of an idiot am I?"

My hands were shaking. Everything was happening too fast, but I knew what I had to do. All that was left was whether I had the courage to do it. I had been suspecting people all seventeen years of my life, and now if I was to believe her, it would be taking a huge step ahead. Was I willing to put my heart on the line just for her? Was I willing to trust her?

Yes. Yes, I wanted to trust her, and would trust her. It was stupid to throw away everything for a girl, but I wanted to do it.

My arms tightened their hold on the sobbing girl, and I pulled her in. She had quietened down now, her sobs softening into small hiccups.

"Mikan," I breathed, and she shuddered at the sound of her name, "I think we could grow to love each other. It may not be love now, but it could be." I immediately hated myself for saying something so sappy, but when her face lit up and she smiled a teary smile, it felt like everything was worth it.

"You remembered what I said," she whispered.

And I thought, Yes, I guess I did.

Everything was perfect for a while. The therapy went on, and Dr. Crazy Harlen was hitting the roof with his joy when I told him I was going out with a girl. I still didn't trust him much, but now therapy was beginning to be bearable. We'd spend hours talking about Mikan, and how she infuriated me, but I liked her all the same.

It wasn't love. Not yet, but I was actually sure of one thing for the first time in my life. We would progress to love. It would be a difficult process, but we'd go through it together.

For the first time in my life, I found myself believing.

Then things started happening again. I started to feel like Mikan was neglecting me, that she spent more time with her friends than me. We fought a few times over that, and it would always end in an ugly manner, and she'd not talk to me for a few days. We always made up, but I was beginning to feel like we were drifting apart.

I saw her with guys a lot. She always smiled at them too flirtatiously, especially with a senior called Tsubasa. He was close to Mikan, and they were always joined at the hip. Damn him if he was going to steal my girlfriend away from me. I caught them hugging a few times, and it always got me feeling awful for the rest of the day.

At the moment when I needed to confide in someone the most, I found that I didn't really have any friends I could confide in. So I ended up pouring my heart and soul out to Dr. Crazy Harlen. I didn't care if he was plotting against me anymore. I needed someone to talk to, otherwise I was going to explode.

"See? You're being paranoid again." Was his simply reply after I talked and talked for almost two hours.

"I'm not being paranoid," I hissed at him. I knew the man couldn't be trusted. Why the hell had I even considered talking to him anyway?

"You know, Natsume," he sighed after there was a very long pause which involved me glaring at him and him flinching away from my glares. "You have to face up to your problem, all right? If you don't acknowledge that you have a problem, I'll never be able to help you. You'll always be like this. You'll never learn to trust people."

I scoffed. "That's because people aren't worth trusting."

"Even her?" he asked testily.

I found myself speechless, because honestly, I really didn't know.

We were fighting again.

"Gosh, Natsume, Tsubasa and I are only friends!" Mikan screamed at me. "Why can't you get that into that thick skull of yours?"

I felt hurt and indignant. She was the one cheating on me, and she thought she actually had the right to scream at me? "You were hugging. You hug him a lot." I retorted.

They wouldn't have hugged so much if they weren't a couple. I knew it. Mikan didn't really like me or anything. She just wanted to get to me. Now that I had relented, she was slowly spending more time with her friends, and that Tsubasa. She was cheating, and she wasn't going to get away with it.

"We're close, Natsume. We just have a platonic relationship, all right!" Her eyes flashed with annoyance and anger. "You accuse me of cheating with every single guy I talk to! Why can't you believe me?"

I clicked my tongue, my throat suddenly feeling very dry. "We've been through this before," I said tersely. "I don't believe you because you do things that make me not believe you."

"That's just stupid, Natsume!" Mikan was nearing hysteria now, and so was I. "I never did anything! I was just – Oh, God." She slumped down onto a seat in the classroom, covering her face with her hands.

"See? Now you've nothing more to say. You're obviously guilty."

"Stop insisting!"

The door creaked open, and lo and behold, it was Tsubasa, the guy who was cheating on me with Mikan. I felt like punching his guts out, but I wouldn't do it until Mikan admitted that she cheated. She had to admit it. It was already this obvious, why did she want to hide it? She could just admit it and hook up with him while I went home and wallowed in self-pity, and cussed about the world.

"Mikan," Cheater Guy called, "are you coming over to the party tonight?"

"Watch where you are before asking my girlfriend for a date," I muttered bitterly, as Mikan snapped her head up and looked at me, brown eyes all glittery with tears, and shining with hurt.

I froze at the heartbreaking expression on her face, just as Cheater Guy(I'm not so sure anymore) laughed at my comment and said, "The party's my girlfriend's, dude. You think I'll be so stupid to pick anyone up when I already have Misaki?" He chuckled lightly, "Misaki's Mikan's cousin, that's why she's invited to the birthday bash.

Mikan didn't say 'Told you so,' or anything. It would have made me feel better about framing her, but no, she just had to run out of the classroom in tears and left me standing there alone, feeling like the biggest idiot in the whole universe.

Mikan stayed away from me from that day onwards, and if I said that I didn't mind at all, that she didn't mean a thing to me, then I would be flat out lying. And even if I had been lying to myself all this while, even if I wasn't the perfectly innocent person I would like to be, I wanted to be true to myself for once.

She looked so forlorn every time I saw her, and I started to think maybe she wasn't the person I thought she was. It was pretty impossible for her to be the same as all those other people.

She was just so...different.

I rounded the corner, caught deep in my thoughts. I was so caught up that I didn't notice that there were people in front of me, and when I did, it was after I'd ran into them. There was a girl and a guy. The guy cursed while the girl stifled a broken sob. My head snapped up at the familiarity of both their voices.

It was Tsubasa and Mikan. Her face was streaked with tears while Tsubasa, who had obviously just been comforting her, was looking highly pissed at me.

I didn't care. The only thing that I wanted to do the moment I saw her was wrap my arms around her and tell her how much I loved her.

Loved. I must have been blind to not have noticed that.

Mikan looked up, choking on her tears as her gaze met mine. "I wanted...I wanted to help you," she whispered weakly.

I whirled around and ran.

I ran all the way to Dr. Crazy Harlen's office. Everything was becoming clear now.

I was paranoid. I hurt the person I liked – most probably loved now, if the pain in my heart was anything to go by. I hurt the people who made an effort to care about me. I hurt Dr. Crazy Harlen. Or maybe I didn't, since he didn't seem physically or emotionally capable of being hurt, but I didn't appreciate what was an effort made by him.

I regretted everything. I regretted acting on my curiosity and going out to watch my parents fight all those years ago. I regretted taking my uncle for granted and making him give up on me. I regretted letting Mikan get hurt by Ruka. I regretted ever letting her know that everything was a lie – that I didn't really like strawberry ice cream.

Now that things had turn out to be such a mess, I could only stop thinking, and just believe in what everyone has been telling me right from the start.

I was sick in the head, and I needed help.

Dr. Crazy Harlen didn't ask me why when I told him I needed professional help for my malfunctioning brain. He didn't ask why when I told him I felt like an idiot. He didn't ask why at all, and I would have jumped up and kissed him.

If I was gay, that is.

He offered me a good psychiatrist in America who could help me. "Since you've noticed what's wrong with you at last, I'll do all I can to help you," He was kinder than he should have been, considering the way I had been doubting him all the while. I was grateful.

Right. Therapy was turning me into a sap.

I walked out of the office with a new resolution. I kept away from Mikan for a whole week, contemplating my choices. I needed to find a way to apologize to her. Maybe some flowers, maybe I'd light a thousand candles along a church aisle(but that was so gay) or maybe I could just – use the most original way of doing it.

The original idea worked, and I told Mikan about my choices. I was going to go to America. I was going to get my head treated so it would work like a normal human's.

I was going for more therapy, and would probably come back as a huge sap, but hell, if it was for her I was going to do it.

Dr. Crazy Harlen said it was going to take quite a while, considering the long amount of time I had been in denial about my condition("Denial is a river in Egypt, Natsume!"). I didn't really mind.

Just as long as I could be normal again.

It wasn't long before I was set to leave, and I left straight for the airport, not going to Mikan to say goodbye. I didn't say goodbye to my uncle either. Knowing I had probably wronged him for all these years made it hard for me to face him. I'd face my problems when I came back.

I didn't go to Mikan because if I saw her, I wouldn't be able to leave. I wouldn't want to leave, and I wasn't going to risk that. I'd rather stay away from her until I was fine again, until I could make her happy again.

"Passengers for Flight A302, please make your way to the Departure gate. I repeat -"

I turned towards the gates, ignoring the awful sense of loss in my chest. I would have to leave this place in order to find out just who I was. I needed to get better, and the only way I could do it was leaving the place I called home, leaving the people I loved, and most importantly, leaving the old me.

It was going to be hard – I would be an idiot if I said it wasn't – but it was going to be worth it when I finally came back.

And I would come back, because Mikan would be waiting for me.

And that, was everything to me.

"Mikan."

Sigh. "What do you want, Natsume?"

"I'm sorry. I was an idiot and I'm sorry."

Smile. "Apology accepted."

"Mikan?"

"Yeah?"

"If I ever left for a long time, to sort things out? If I left, and came back after a long, long, time. A really long, long, long -"

"Okay. I get what you mean, Natsume."

Deep breath. "When I come back, would it be too late if I went to you then?"

"Natsume. It's never too late."

-

With every end is a new beginning.

A/N: What can I say? D: I'm really sorry for not updating Timeless and Coincidental, I've been really busy this week and I haven't had time to complete the chapters, but I'll try my very best to at least update one of them tomorrow. Better yet, I'll complete both and update both. Hopefully. This contest entry was completed in the early days of January, so I'm just reading through and editing a little before submitting it. It might not be good, but still. I really hope that you guys can leave a review and comment on it. It would mean a lot to me. :)

And I don't really know what to say about this story. Not really sure if it's realistic enough, but I tried my very best to make it. The writing style might be a little inconsistent, because I wrote it in two separate days, but I dunno. I hope it's still okay.

Thanks, people. Thanks so much so much. 'Cause I wouldn't be here without you guys and your immense patience.

For some reason I feel really touched. O_O

Okay I shall stop embarrassing myself.

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Omg people! I changed the summary and I think it sucks even more now. Anyway, I just made some minor grammatical edits. :D

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Thank you,

Annabel.