A/N: Not all mushy stories are bad; I know some really good ones that I enjoy reading.
This ficlet (or rather, set of ten ficlets) is sort of dedicated to Wrath of Athena who suggested it. :) But then it got a bit long and I got a bit impatient , so I posted it before I read your mushy ideas in your PM ... so I'll probably be doing a second chapter later.

A Few Mushy Bits.

Here are some mushy storylines and examples of how to use them.

1. Natsume isn't a jerk, he's just vulnerable. All that he needs is to be shown love and understanding.

Natsume had had a traumatic, disturbing childhood involving burnt villages, a lot of death, secret spy missions and familial torture in the form of the captive Aoi and much else besides. You, as a Gakuen Alice fic reader, should already know all this, and besides, it's much too depressing for words to describe so we'll just gloss over his traumatic, disturbing childhood.

Although he seemed like a jerk on the outside, on the inside he was just a poor frightened little boy who just needed to be shown love. So when his white angel in the form of Mikan appeared, he reached out for the light and was brought into a whole new world. He had never known such warmth and compassion before (even though Luca was possibly the most devoted and empathetic best friend that one could have).

"Mikan, because of the love and care you have shown me, I have discovered my inner happy fluffiness. Because of the sympathy and kindness you have given to me, I have magically fallen in love with you. I will turn into a super-nice person and we will live happily ever after." And then he kissed Mikan on the lips, the first kiss either of them had ever had, and it was as perfect as sparkling rainbows and fluffy bunnies and glittery wolfinas.

And thus Mikan's courage and perseverance and niceness paid off.

2. Natsume is a demon/vampire/devil/God Of EVIL who is the very symbol of perfection.

There have been frightful rumours heard of the Black Lacerator Of Bone, otherwise known as the BLOB, and Alice Academy was duly scared. Apparently he had killed three hundred and two grown men and women, some of them highly trained government spies, and was frightful to look at. Who knows when this mysterious being might appear and wreck havoc in the classrooms? It was said that the BLOB was an angel, a demon, a user of Elephants (much like Mikan, then), an ALICE, a young boy doomed to death at the age of 13, a renegade ghost, a super-powered dark ninja turtle, a being of Free Magic who had escaped the Charter, a giant who fell off his beanstalk, the thirty-first reincarnation of Hades, a vampiric werewolfini, a talking scratch-cat allied with a bitchy red-haired girl and a gay blue-haired guy, etc.

Anyway. The thing is, one day a little innocent girl called Mikan met the BLOB, although she had No Idea of his true identity, for he was under the guise of "Natsume". She fell in love with this mysterious stranger at first sight, and she found he was gentle, true and loving (as well as a complete stud muffin), yet doomed to remain an outcast and misunderstood by the rest of society. (Their sorry excuse was, "We don't like serial killers.")

In due course the pure and goodly Mikan lost her innocence to this masked and totally hot man, but she did not regret it at all in the slightest because they were in love.

The moral of this tale is, "If you are a sweet innocent little girl and you meet a mysterious yet sexy stranger, he's probably a mass murderer."

3. Either that, or Mikan is a beautiful demon/vampire/devil/Goddess Of EVIL.

The teenage girl Mikan was not only incredibly beautiful, she was also enigmatic. She had a terrible, terrible secret within her - but we don't know what it is exactly. Natsume found this very interesting indeed. She was a mystery as well as a beauty, and he loved her for it. She was quiet, and rarely spoke aloud, preferring instead the telepathic company of her forty-nine wolfinas including her best friend Luthien Undomiel, the leader of the pack. Her dark beauty shone throughout her daily life, for it was impossible to ignore.

Natsume fell in love with her at first sight, obviously - who could resist such a secretive, shadowy beauty? As for Mikan, Natsume was the first and only boy she had ever opened up to, and she began to love him too. And on a beautiful full mooned night, they finally shared their first kiss, and it was beautiful and impassioned and fiery.

4. ... or to go right to the other end of the scale, she's actually a superhero princessessa in hiding.

"Heh heh heh," laughed Princessessaessa Meekan Natzumi4eVar 1547 Seariarastipastry Cutiepie Sakuracherrytrees gaily. "Now I can live a normal life with these lower-class uneducated people!" For she had come to Alice Academy, a school for boring ordinary people.

And so she started a new life under the name of "Mikan Sakura", where she was NOT known as the superhero anime princess(essa(essa)) who could sing, dance, act and play the trombone, not to mention her possession of eight-four Alices and her photographic memory and perfect pitch, not forgetting her straight A-triple+ academic status. The only person she could confide in about the difficulty in hiding such awesome abilities was her childhood friend, Hotaru, who although supremely amazing was not QUITE as amazing as Meekan herself.

But she obviously wasn't very good at acting because a certain Natsume Hyuuuuuga could see right through her disguise, so great were her powers, talents and gifts. And he fell in love with her awesome-ness (because that's exactly what guys like - a girl a thousand times more awesome than themselves). And Meekan, too, found herself inexplicably falling for this ordinary young boy who had no inheritance and no title. Her father would NOT allow such a marriage to this poor commoner, such was Meekan's cruel fate. Instead, they eloped, and had their honeymoon in Parris (becuse Meekan spoke fluent Frrench as well, thanks to her noble royal education).

5. Maybe Natsume's also a prince.

While in Parris, the happy couple discovered that a prince of the royal family of Frrance had gone missing ten years ago. After the king (who happened to be taking a walk to the local market) took one glance at Natsume, he almost fainted in shock. There, in in his grown-up maturity, was the missing prince, Prince Natsume! He was immediately brought back to the palace and there was a feast prepared for the return of the beloved Crown Prince De France. Meekan called her father in his own kingdom, and told him about the delightful coincidence (actually, it wasn't really a great coincidence, for only a prince of true royal blood and bearing could have captured Meekan's dainty heart).

What was an even greater joy to them was the fact that not only was Natsume a rich prince after all, he had been engaged to Princessessaessa Meekan at the age of two, and now the prophecy had been fulfilled of their own desire. And thus their two kingdoms were joined in holy matrimony, and they both were now twice as rich as before through some lucky loophole in the legal write-up, and they all lived happily ever after.

6. Angst. But it needs a happy, mushy ending.

Natsume was in pain. Deep, emotional, heart-wrenching pain, that threatened to take his life. Such was the torment endured by those unrequited lovers - and tenfold was the torture of Natsume, for tenfold more did he love Mikan than any other did love his love! His one true love, his soulmate, had gone - she was in California now, probably thinking no more of him than he did his shoe. Oh, the agony, the pain! For truly his pain was the worse for the distance between them. He could not think any other thought but of his dear love, Mikan Sakura, and he had no other vision but her in his eyes. Her sparkling honey-coloured eyes, her thinkling laugh, that smile which could ease off the burden of the world from his shoulders. And it was gone. All gone were her chestnut tresses, her polka-dotted panties (or knickers as we call them in England), her melodious speech ...

"Natsume! There you are!" said a familiar voice by his side. He looked up at once. Could it be ... ?

Yes, it was! "Polka-dots!" he cried. "But I thought you were in California, were you not?"

"Oh, Natsume ... " she chewed her lip. How to say such a life-changing statement? "Natsume, I ... love you. I just couldn't bear it, being more than ten feet away from you, such was the emotional angsting in my soul that I had to turn back as soon as I reached Big Japanese Airport No. 3 ... I hope it's ok."

"O, my dear Mikan! Surely this is a gift from heaven - for I love you too! Let's get married and have our first mushy kiss and then lose our virginity in beauty and spiritual loveliness and have twenty-four children and a dog!"

And so they did.

7. New girl goes to new school, is not one of the Popular Plastics, sets her sights on the hot guy, gets into trouble with the Popular Plastics but goes out with the hot guy anyway.

Mikan Sakura was the new girl in the fantastical school of Fadapadathag. As soon as she walked into the classroom and had had her name announced to the class by the teacher, Natsume Hyuuga knew she was the one. Pretty or stunning she may not be, but her quirky intelligence stood out to him like a lightbulb.

And as soon as Natsume introduced himself to Mikan, she knew he was the one. For although he was the resident hot guy, she could sense his innate sensitivity and niceness.

Natsume soon became Mikan's maths and French tutor, and they both loved these evenings with each other, although they were both too shy to say so.

"Natsume ... I think I might have a crush on you," Mikan bravely said one evening.

"Huh? On ME?" said Natsume, incredulous.

"Yes, I think so. I thought it might have just been a stomach-ache, but I was wrong. It was heartache."

"I can't believe it ... I have a crush on you too! Mikan, this is wonderful! Do you want to go out with me?"

Mikan was not given a second after she said, "Yes of course!" when Natsume kissed her full on the lips, very mushily.

Of course, being the resident hot guy meant he was followed around by the resident Popular Plastics, led by one Luna Koizumi with vice-president Sumire Shouda. They took an immediate interest in the poor new girl Mikan, and she found herself in deep trouble. Thanks to Natsume's interest in her, Mikan was quickly made into the loser of Class B.

But as Mikan is a symbol of the inner spirit which never dies and is meant to tell us, "No-one is a loser. Everyone can be a winner. It doesn't matter what the Popular Plastics say, you can do it! Reach for the stars!" i.e., the American Dream, we must give her a happy ending. So she DID pursue her relationship with the love of her life, Natsume, and he forsook the charms of Luna and Sumire and instead went out with Mikan. Yay! And Luna and Sumire came to the realisation that they were not better than everyone else, and that being nice trumps being sexy.

(Cue close-up of Natsume and Mikan's first kiss, together with background music of "Breaking Free" from High School Musical)

8. Although Mikan's not on the same intellectual or social level as Natsume, they get together anyway. She probably has some sort of tragic past as well.

Mikan Sakura was a waitress. A boring, ordinary waitress who also worked part-time as a cleaner, a shop assistant and as the office slave. Natsume Hyuuga, meanwhile, was a best-selling writer who often worked in the cafe where Mikan waitressed, owned a large apartment which Mikan cleaned, often visited the bookstore where his books sold by the millions and where Mikan worked, and was also the top executive of Hyuuga Corps. where Mikan was the office slave. Sumire Shouda and Luna Koizumi were his beautiful and super-efficient secretaries, poised for promotion and perhaps even more in the way of a relationship with Natsume, the Boss.

But enough of the backstory. What matters is that somehow, the almighty Natsume found himself falling for this unimportant young girl who was always in the background, serving coffee or selling his books or serving coffee at his home for him or serving more coffee in his office. And of course Mikan, being dazed by this powerful, handsome and wonderful person who was falling in love with such a lowly person as herself, started to fall for him as well. Sumire and Luna were furious (especially Luna, because she thought that she was better than Sumire, who wanted to be a baker and not a secretary anyway).

In due time (although of course their union was looked down upon by the everyone else of Natsume's level), she began to open up to him, and told him the reason for her sadness and lowly status. It turned out that she was actually born into a high and wealthy aristocratic family, but for reasons unknown (probably political but that's really hard to describe and make up so I'll skip it), she was abandoned in the local Japanese Jungle and left to die. (And you thought only barbaric Chinese people left baby girls to die out in the forests.)

But she didn't die. Obviously. She survived by eating the fruit that the monkeys gave her and drinking the sap of trees that the birds pecked holes in, and made friends with the local tribe of Japanese Wolves (Canis lupus japanesius). In time, they accepted her as the alpha of the pack (although she couldn't mate with anyone, but let's not get too specific about silly little details like that). In some more time, because of the great powers of goodness and purity that shone out from Mikan, the J-Wolves were transformed into pink, butterfly winged wolfinas and giant, black, red-eyed, crow-winged wolfinis. (As we already know, after Mikan left to go into the city, her best friend Luthien Undomiel became alpha female with her alpha male being Frodo von Thingolsingollostein.)

So that was that. But now, Mikan had completely got over her traumatic, shady past and had learnt to speak Japanese totally fluently without the help of any teachers and was a very normal young woman with no psychological issues whatsoever.

All this life story made Natsume love this courageous woman even more than he did already, and as soon as she had finished he kissed her hard on the lips. She kissed back, and then they were lost in love and passion for the rest of the night.

And then they had to get married (because of some weird social rule, of course), which was ok because they were totally in love and didn't care that they had only been going out for a day.

9. Pretend romances? Always a sign of real feelings.

Natsume, the resident hot guy, had a small crush on Luna, one of the co-leaders of the Popular Plastics. But she had rejected him. He thought and thought for a long time, and finally devised his master plan. He would pretend to go out with someone else, maybe that unpopular girl Mikan Sakura, but actually it was just to make Luna get jealous. And then she would want him. It was a plan that just couldn't fail - or so he thought.

So he asked out Mikan, and she said "Duh, yeah, I thought we were already going out! Don't you remember Situation #7 up above?" and so the first step in the plan was completed. (Of course with her feminine intuition she KNEW that he didn't really fancy her, but she played along because she was so nice.) Luna was indeed very jealous and confronted him about the relationship.

"How dare you ask out that silly little girl Mikan and not me or Sumire or at least someone else your level! I command you, as co-leader of the Popular Plastics, to end this immature relationship and ask out either me, Sumire or ... " she thought for a moment, listing all the Popular Plastics in her head and making mental notes about their relationship status, compatabilty and height, then continued, "or ... Wakako."

Normally, Natsume would have been very happy that his plan was working and Luna wanted him to ask her out, but something had changed. It was as if he was actually developing real feelings for Mikan! How very strange.

"Luna, I ... I just can't do it. I think I'm falling in love with Mikan!" he said.

Luna gasped, slapped him with her pink handbag and stalked off. "Mari, strike Natsume off the Hot Guy list!" she called to one of her minions.

Meanwhile, Natsume was running off to find Mikan and tell her of his revelation. He did so, in as cheesy and as mushy a tone as can be imagined by mere humans, and she completely understood.

"Natsume, I completely understand. I know I should be really, really pissed off and slap you and hate you for using me as a tool just to make another girl jealous, but I'm too nice for that sort of thing. So I'll kiss you mushily instead." And she did, and Natsume knew his life had been fulfilled.

10. Hate is not hate, it is love.

Mikan hated Natsume Hyuuga so much. Not only was he really nasty to her all the time, he called her "polka-dots" or "strawberry print" (depending on the day), which he knew was very annoying for her. Argh. Just thinking of that irritating little twerp made her blood boil.

But one day, she woke up and realised something - it wasn't hate she was feeling, it was love. (You see, those two emotions are really, really hard to tell apart. I mean, caring deeply and emotionally for someone else is indeed very easily confused with wanting that someone to be crushed by a falling tractor.) So she went and found Natsume, and said, "Oh Natsume, I know I've hated you for so long, but I've just discovered it was because I was in love with you for so long! I don't hate you at all! Not even when you call me silly names."

And Natsume replied, "Haha, you're so stupid, polka-dots."

But Mikan wasn't annoyed at all in the slightest because she knew he meant it as a sign of affection, not because he hated her. So she said, "Every time you say the words 'polka-dots' I love you more (even though I was really annoyed by it before)."

They kissed, and lived happily ever after and never got annoyed with each other again. Ever.