Disclaimer: I don't own Gakuen Alice.
Claimer: This fan fiction and all errors it might contain are mine.

This an entry to Hilaire'sGAFFC#2: The Casting of an Irrevocable Spell. The prompt is to portray Hotaru Imai as a most original sorceress/witch who has casts spells/creates potions/does whatever is said in the literary/mythological contexts.

Love Magic
HGAFFC#2. Imai Hotaru is Cupid. She helps those romantically challenged people. People like Hyuuga Natsume and Sakura Mikan. Oh, and did I mention Ruka doesn't approve of her job? RukaHotaru, oneshot.

Imai Hotaru had a job.

It was a very strange job for someone like her, but she took her job very seriously.

She was Cupid.

Yes, angel wings and all. She was quite a strange Cupid, emotionless and cold. She also did not use the bow and arrows her predecessors often used. Oh, no, she enjoyed using more sinister means, more witchlike methods, like potions and cauldrons and things like that.

On this particular day, she happened to be stirring up a batch of Baka Potion (to be used on those annoying idiots, you see – just lob a bottle at them and it's like they've been shot by a bullet) when she got a call on her Crystal Ball.

"Imai-chan~!" called a strangely annoying voice.

"What?" Hotaru asked bluntly, going over to the Crystal Ball to peer at the caller. Ah. So it was Narumi, her boss. She figured as much.

"You have a case!" sang Narumi, grinning as he showed her a picture of two teenagers, one a bubbly brunette girl with two long ponytails and a surly boy with black hair and red eyes. "Sakura Mikan and Hyuuga Natsume. They have...trouble communicating. Check it out."

The screen faded into a video clip. Natsume was reading manga, and Mikan approached him carefully. "Um," squeaked Mikan. Natsume turned his attention to her. Mikan blushed profusely and ran off, stammering some sort of high-pitched apology. "...Hn." And Natsume went back to his manga.

Narumi's face reappeared on screen. "So you'll take the case?" he asked hopefully. Hotaru nodded once. "Of course, it's my job."

Narumi grinned. "Great! Oh, but watch out! Nogi-kun has a day off today; he might try to stop you. Good luck!"

Hotaru watched as Narumi's image faded with a slightly annoyed look on her face. That Nogi Ruka was way too annoying.

See, Hotaru and Ruka were very different individuals. Hotaru believed in attraction, not true love. She believed that attraction was temporary. She believed that you had to keep trying before you met the one you were attracted to the most, and then you married that person and lived not happily ever after, but pretty happy, even if there were rough times.

When she could, she used swift, efficient methods that ensured the couple managed to confess and go on one date. Forever took much longer and a lot more detailed planning. She figured if you were smart then you could keep the relationship going. If you had to rely on magic to stay with your partner, it wouldn't be love. Or at least that was her explanation to Narumi, her boss. Frankly, her true reason was because she would be backlogged with cases if she went for Forever Love.

Nogi Ruka was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed god with a lot of fangirls. Almost every female being in Heaven wanted a piece of him. Hotaru made a pretty penny selling embarrassing photos of him.

Anyway.

Ruka was head of the Animal Department. That meant he created animals and those people that loved animals and all sorts of things. He created breeds of animals that no one had ever seen, waiting for them to be discovered. He also tried to keep breeds from dying out, but it was hard, hard work. If nothing else, Hotaru respected him for his dedication to his job. It wasn't easy, his job, not as easy as Hotaru's, yet he managed to complete every task thrown his way.

Ruka happened to believe in true love and waiting and forever. He believed in first and only loves. Sometimes relationships changed for the worse after Hotaru meddled with them. Sometimes for the better, though he ignored those. He didn't quite care for Hotaru's methods of giving them one date that could end in all sorts of catastrophes. He rather thought that she should at least help them ascertain a relationship before leaving them to their own business. Naturally, he and Hotaru didn't quite get along.

Hotaru pulled on a dark cloak and filled her satchel with potions. She had a brilliant idea to get them together.

Two words: Love Potion.

Hotaru watched Natsume carefully, waiting for an opportunity to slip him some love potion. She figured she should get him out of the way first, since he seemed a lot harder to catch off guard. So she'd have to wait.

So she waited until he decided to leave his drink unattended.

She'd only been waiting five minutes when a certain blonde-haired, blue-eyed god popped out of nowhere and narrowed his eyes at her. "Imai," he began. "Are you working on a case?"

Hotaru gave him a cool, unnerving stare. "Yes, I am."

Ruka frowned. "Are you going to try to make them work, Imai?"

"Of course. I'll get them one date, as usual."

"Imai! Don't you feel any sort of guilt or anything by just allowing them to potentially destroy something as good and precious as love?!"

Hotaru inwardly rolled her eyes and sighed. Outwardly, she merely ignored Ruka and turned her attention back to Natsume.

"Imai! Are you even listening to me?! I swear –"

It's becoming increasingly easy to tune him out, mused Hotaru. I wonder why? Maybe frequent exposure has granted me resistance to his nagging.

Just then, Natsume left his drink on the table next to him and went into the bathroom.

Seizing the opportunity, Hotaru raced forward to tip the love potion in – and ran straight into Ruka.

"Imai! Don't you dare try to use a love potion on this poor boy! Love potions are too overpowering, they won't let him express his feelings in his own way! She won't fall in love with the real him this way!"

"She's already in love with him, moron," Hotaru pointed out.

Ruka blinked. "Okay, fine. But she'll expect him to be loving and caring when they go out and when he isn't, she's going to dump him! You can't let them do that!"

Hotaru reached into her satchel. "I didn't want to have to do this, Nogi, but if you don't let me get on with my business, I'll distribute these photos of you to everybody you know." She pulled out two photos. One showed Ruka wearing a skirt (don't ask, it's a long story) and the other showed him stepping out of the shower half naked and wet (it's an even longer story, involving sneaking into private chambers and bribing bodyguards).

Ruka turned an interesting shade of red. "Y-You wouldn't!"

"I would," said Hotaru seriously.

"N-No! I'll be back!" Ruka declared, then disappeared in a puff of smoke. Hotaru allowed a brief smirk of triumph before turning back to the task at hand.

Hotaru slipped a quarter of the bottle of love potion into Natsume's half-empty glass of soda. The pink liquid quickly melted into the dark soda and Hotaru watched closely as Natsume came back and drank from the glass.

Satisfied, she snapped her fingers and disappeared into thin air.

Hotaru approached Mikan's pink lemonade Mikan left it for a moment to check on a pie she'd been baking.

"Hah! I destroyed all the embarrassing photos you have of me in your lair, so there! Wait a minute... Imai! Don't you dare – is that apple pie?" Ruka asked, gaping at the pie Mikan held in her hands.

"I think so," replied Hotaru, taking advantage of Ruka's momentary distraction to carefully pour precisely a quarter bottle of the potion in her drink. Anything more or less would be terrible. The quantity of love potion consumed by both partners have to be equal, or the results would be catastrophic.

"Hey! I will not get distracted! Imai, put that bottle down right this instant!" Ruka probably continued to say some useless things, but Hotaru easily ignored them and continued her careful measurements.

Then suddenly, Ruka yelled loudly and flew into Hotaru, knocking her over and causing her to drop the entire bottle of love potion into Mikan's drink.

"Ouch," said Hotaru, glaring at Ruka. Ruka smiled sheepishly. "Well, your subject swatted me by accident while swatting a fly."

Hotaru glanced at the pink lemonade that was steadily becoming pinker. Then she noticed that the bottle of love potion was not in her hand.

"Nogi," she began coldly, watching Mikan raise the glass to her lips. "She's going to take three-quarters of that love potion."

Ruka's eyes widened. "You don't mean...?"

Hotaru turned to look at him with the coldest, most unfriendly expression he had ever seen. "Yes, I do."

Uh-oh.

Natsume stood suddenly. He had the urge to go and tell Polka Dots how he felt about her. Yes! Today would be the day he finally confessed! Yes!

He hurried to her house and knocked casually, swallowing nervously and wiping his sweaty palms on his pants.

The door opened slowly, ominously. "Who is it?" asked Mikan sadly, quite unlike her usual chipper self. On any other day, Natsume would have been worried, but today, he shoved those worries away (he was in love! In love! It was such a trivial thing, why should a man in love care?) and barged into the house. Upon spotting Mikan sitting dejectedly on the floor, he proclaimed, "It's me, Natsume! Listen, Mikan, I know this might come as a shock, but I love you! I love you so much I could burst!"

Mikan glanced at Natsume's eager face. "Hi, Natsume. I would say that I love you too, but I'm way too depressed," she said dejectedly in a monotone. "What's the point of love? We're all going to die anyway. What can save you from death? Nothing, not even love. Oh, Natsume, you're still there. Well, I'm sorry, but I see no point in love. Goodbye."

Natsume's happy face became that of pain and sorrow. "You don't love me!" Natsume cried, running back to his own house, leaving a trail of tears like in a shoujo manga.

"Well," said Ruka to a mouse residing in Mikan's house. "That could have gone much better. Don't you think, Thomas?"

Thomas the mouse squeaked its agreement.

Under normal circumstances, a potion involving Time took two weeks to brew. Hotaru, however, had discovered a quicker method that only required twenty minutes, and was currently brewing some. This method, however, required much more dangerous herbs, like baleckberry root (which could kill someone at the slightest touch ) and saliya bean (which was used to kill one's enemies in a very slow, very painful way).

Anybody who saw her rushing around to get the correct herbs would have laughed. Who would have thought that Imai Hotaru, the Ice Queen herself, would rush around a room in such a panicked fashion?

"It's finished," murmured Hotaru, ladling the potion into an empty vial. "Now to find my idiot subjects."

And with a swoosh of her cloak, she disappeared.

When she reappeared at Mikan's house, Ruka was there, holding the bottle that previously held love potion. "Side-effects include giddiness, over-enthusiasm, a sudden interest in everything pink and fluffy and a sudden urge to sing," read Ruka. "Warning: Overuse of this potion will result in depression."

Hotaru ignored him, assuming he was bored. She threw the potion down on the floor and chanted something very ominous that sounded suspisciously like gibberish. Ruka felt a chill run up his spine. Then everything seemed to rewind and Mikan was putting her pie into the oven.

Hotaru looked around at her work, satisfied. Three hours into the past. Not too shabby for a twenty-minute job.

"Nogi."

Ruka looked up.

"Get out of here before you mess up my plans again," said Hotaru bluntly, retrieving another bottle from her satchel. Ruka squinted. "Hate Potion," he read out loud. Then what it said really registered and he gaped at Hotaru. "Hate Potion?! But aren't you supposed to be making them fall in love?!" he asked incredulously.

Hotaru ignored him, as usual. She was going to give Mikan a small dosage of Hate Potion – just so she'd ease up off of Natsume a bit. Natsume probably didn't quite realize his feelings, so he would feel bewildered when she didn't come to him as usual. Then, by planting minor suggestions in his mind, she could make him take the initiative, leaving Mikan, who was obviously the more idiotic one in this relationship, to simply return his feelings. It was perfect.

"Imai, don't you dare give your subject hate potion," warned Ruka. The love potion he could handle, but hate potion! Honestly!

Hotaru glanced at him emotionlessly. "Stop me, then, Nogi. This potion will be lethal if I give her too much, so you might want to be careful. Go ahead, Ruka," she taunted, using his given name. "Stop me if you can."

Ruka growled. Doing anything might make her drop the entire bottle into the cup again. But this time, the price Mikan would pay would be death. Didn't Hotaru say that the potion was lethal in high doses? Ruka couldn't have the death of a human on his hands, so he resigned himself to watching Imai work.

...She 's really pretty, thought Ruka, blushing slightly.

Hotaru took great care not to put too much into Mikan's cup. She tilted the bottle ever-so-slightly and allowed the potion to drip in, drop by drop.

All of a sudden, Mikan screeched loudly, causing Hotaru to flinch and drip quite a bit more of the black, goopy potion into Mikan's glass than needed.

Apparently, Mikan had spotted Thomas, who had been trying to play with Ruka. Mikan couldn't see Ruka, of course, but Thomas she saw quite clearly.

"Mouse!" screamed Mikan, grabbing her broom and jumping onto a chair. She proceeded to try and kill it like most women would – by hitting it with a broom. Not Hotaru, though. Hotaru would never kill an animal. It was cruel. And Ruka would kill her. Or he'd try to kill her. Either way, it would be annoying.

(Hotaru's mother, however, was a different case. She would find the mouse hole and place poison outside. The mouse would ingest the poison and would die slowly and torturously. Hotaru's mother would then cackle maniacally. She currently resides in Psych Ward 333 of St. Peter's Hospital. Yes, she's only half evil.)

"Hey!" Ruka shouted indignantly. "Run, Thomas, run!" he cried dramatically. Thomas scuttled into its mouse hole quickly. Ruka yelled triumphantly. "Yeah! Take that, you evil, mouse-attacking – "

"This is not good," said Hotaru, watching Mikan take a long swig of her pink lemonade.

Ruka froze. Those words, coming from Imai Hotaru's perfect pink lips that had just the slightest hint of lip gloss that looked so delicious – wait, what? Ruka did not, I repeat, DID NOT have any feelings of the romantic sense for Imai Hotaru. No. No way.

...Okay, maybe he did. So what? Get off his case, it wasn't his fault she was so pretty.

Man, she was pretty. Beautiful, even.

Anyway.

Those words coming from Imai Hotaru's lips were not good at all. Usually, when you were cursing the gods (well, the ones apart from yourself, if you were gods like Ruka and Hotaru) and spitting out every single swear word in your vocabulary, Hotaru would simply sit and remain silent. And take a few photos if you were unlucky like Ruka. When she said, "This is not good," well, that basically means the apocalypse. Or something like that.

"What happened?" Ruka asked, almost fearing the answer.

Hotaru's lips pressed into a thin line. "I gave Mikan a quarter of the bottle of Hate Potion instead of the one eighth I had planned on, thanks to her fear of mice."

Ruka grabbed the bottle from her and read the warning out loud. "Warning: May result in the taker becoming evil. High doses result in maniacal, psychopathic behavior. Overdoses are lethal. Proceed with caution." Ruka gulped.

Hotaru closed her eyes in annoyance as Mikan dropped the glass and began to speak in a darker tone. "Hyuuga Natsume..." she growled. Then she smiled an evil, evil smile. "I will get you! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Hotaru glanced at Mikan, still laughing evilly. "No normal villain does that," mused Ruka. "Why do you think humans always want the villains to cackle evilly like that?"

"Dramatic effect," supplied Hotaru. Looks like Plan C would have to be carried out.

Pulling out a Baka Potion, she threw it at Mikan's head, where the vial shattered and Mikan fell over as if she'd been shot by a very powerful fake pistol.

"Man," said Ruka, going over to Mikan and poking her with his toe. "You knocked her unconscious." He paused and gave Hotaru a reproachful look. "You could have done that with a Sleeping Potion, Imai."

"Oops," said Hotaru, not sounding very apologetic at all. Ruka sighed. That was Imai for you.

Hotaru then pulled out another bottle of potion. "Truth Potion," read Ruka. He paled. "T-Truth potion? No, Imai, don't do it! You don't know what might pop into their mouths at any given moment...!"

As per usual, she ignored him and popped open the bottle.

"Hmm," she said, looking into the bottle. "Oh well."

Ruka began to panic. "'Oh well'? What happened, Imai?"

Hotaru waved off the matter, corking her bottle once more as she explained, "This is a new version of the truth potion I developed. It isn't a potion at all, it's a gas. Every being who inhales it is bound to tell the truth. Regrettably, since I opened the bottle, you and I have been affected, as well as Mikan over there."

Ruka paled. Now would be a terrible time for Hotaru to find out that he had a really big crush on her. Never mind, he told himself. Truth potions have a loophole, you don't have to tell the truth unless asked.

Hotaru swirled on the spot and disappeared.

Ruka sighed. "She's not Harry Potter, she doesn't have to Apparate. Geez."

And he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Hotaru opened her truth gas bottle close to Natsume's face. Satisfied that he had inhaled it, she corked the bottle again.

"You're a genius, you know that?"

Hotaru turned to see Ruka nodding at her truth gas. "Yes, I know," she said truthfully. She'd been told repeatedly that she was a genius.

"No one's ever made a potion turn into a gas without having it lose its properties before. Congratulations."

"Thank you. Aren't you supposed to be stopping me from doing my job?" Hotaru asked suspiciously. Ruka shrugged. "Nah, I've pretty much given up on it." Then his eyes grew wide and he slapped his hands over his mouth.

Hotaru raised an eyebrow. "If you've given up on it, why pretend you haven't?"

Ruka was visibly trying to resist the effects of the truth gas. He was fighting not to say anything, but Hotaru knew that he would lose.

"I pretended to still have a big grudge against you because I wanted an excuse to follow you around!" Ruka blushed profusely.

"Why did you continue following me around?"

"Because I think you're pretty and wanted an excuse to stare!" Ruka blurted out. His blush deepened. Hotaru frowned. "You think I'm pretty?"

Ruka nodded, then his blush deepened even more, making his head look like a strawberry.

"Why?"

Ruka shrugged. "There's no 'why' to why you're pretty, you just...are. Nothing you can do about that."

Hotaru shook her head. "Why would you hang around me when there are prettier girls out there?" She knew the truth gas was working on her, too, revealing her low self-esteem; but she didn't really care. Ruka was the one person she knew would never backstab her. He was just too nice.

...Too nice for his own good, actually. Hotaru would have to change that a little so he wouldn't be so easily fooled by others. Others might force him to tell them secrets about her, secrets that only he knew from constant exposure to one another. For instance, he might know how to call her bluff in a poker game, and Hotaru always bid a lot of money because she was just that lucky and no one could read her poker face, so it was not profitable to her if he told people how to call her bluff.

Ruka smiled at her shyly, lovingly. "There aren't very many people who are prettier than you, Hotaru.

Ruka seemed to brace himself and tried to hold back the words, but they came tumbling out anyway.

"Because I love you...!"

Awkward silence.

"You...love me?"

Ruka blushed, but he was brave enough to stay and look Hotaru in the eye. Hotaru liked that. "Well...yeah, I-I think so," he said shyly.

"...Why?"

Ruka shook his head in amusement. "Well, gee, Hotaru, it's not like I'm confessing my undying love or anything," he half-joked. Then he turned serious and said, "Because you're...you. You're pretty, and you're smart and you're nice to people in your own way. You like to help. You're not as perfect as you seem. And you have these cute little habits. Like your nose twitches when you're touched. And your left eyebrow twitches when you're angry. And your shoulders always hunch a bit when you lie. It's...adorable..." Ruka trailed off, instantly thinking that he'd said too much. It sounded really kind of stalker-ish, knowing all her little quirks so intimately.

Ruka took a deep breath. "Look, Hotaru, all I'm looking for is one answer. You don't even have to answer if you don't want to. So, Imai Hotaru, I don't even know how you feel about me, but I'm going to ask anyway. Just for the sake of asking. Will you...be my girlfriend?"

Hotaru was silent for a long while, mulling it over. She supposed that bad people out for her secrets would think twice before kidnapping Ruka if he was her boyfriend; no one wanted to take anything of Imai Hotaru's without a death wish. And Ruka was good-looking, and nice, and kind to animals and things like that. Hotaru could stand being around him for long periods of time, which was good, because some people were just downright annoying. In fact, she rather enjoyed his company. He always managed to make her life a little less boring.

You like him, you like him, you really, really like him, giggled the taunting six-year-old part of her brain. She promptly shoved that six-year-old into a corner.

Hotaru thought about it for a moment longer.

Then she said, "Okay."

Ruka grinned giddily and cupped her cheeks in his hands. "Good," he said, then he leaned in and kissed her. Hotaru decided that she wouldn't snap a picture of this kiss to sell to those strange people after doctoring them to make them look like the person buying the photo. After all, a girl's first kiss was special and treasured.

Not that Hotaru particularly cared. It was just that Ruka was a lot like a girl sometimes, in terms of feelings. He might never speak to Hotaru again if she ruined his first kiss, and that simply wouldn't do.

The next kiss, however...

Hotaru poked Mikan and Natsume awake to execute her final plan. She hadn't forgotten to finish her case despite her new relationship. Hand in hand, Hotaru and Ruka watched the two subjects approach each other.

"Hey, Polka Dots. You...like anyone?"

Mikan blushed. "Well, yeah. He-he's kind of distant, but I-I really like him!" She giggled like a schoolgirl, not noticing Natsume's discouraged expression.

"What about you, do you like anyone?" Mikan asked softly. Natsume snorted and looked away. "I guess you could say that. She's pretty loud and annoying, but yeah, I like her."

"Oh," said Mikan sadly.

And so they believed that the other liked someone else and wallowed in self-misery.

Ruka slapped his forehead.

"Idiots," muttered Hotaru.

"Well," said Ruka. "Aren't you going to help them, Hotaru?"

Hotaru shook her head. "No. Even magic can't help morons," she deadpanned.

Ruka laughed and kissed her again.

End

Thanks for reading and do leave a review; I should be very happy to know what you think. :)

Authors of all participating entries will only be revealed after the polls are closed.

Show your support by adding this account to your author alert list, as this is the ONE account used for posting ALL ENTRIES. Be sure to read all the stories and vote for your favorite in the polls, which will be in Hilaire's forums from October 24-28.

Please subscribe to the official newsletter of HGAFFC, whose link can be found in this account's profile, for the results, behind-the-scenes, and a bunchload more about this challenge. Thank you!

Stories that contain the challenge requirements BUT failed to meet the deadline and therefore did not participate in the contest are NOT allowed to be posted.

HGAFFC © Evette.
All rights reserved.