A/N: To My Hopeless Romantic, who challenged me to write a fic with the pairing MxS (possibly the weirdest pairing written in GA fic), the line "Who'd have THAT for breakfast?", an old leather boot, a tennis racquet, no Hotaru, and catnip. Rone loves challenges; you should send her one. :)
Also to Wrath of Athena, who inspired the NxK pairing. Don't worry, dear reader, you'll find out what these enigmatic letters stand for soon.

A Day in the Life

Poke, poke. Poke, poke. Poke, poke. Poke.

"Piss off!" hissed Sumire, hiding under her duvet and batting at the mysterious poker with cat-claws. Then she realised that her Alice hadn't worked and she'd only managed to feebly pat whatever was sticking painful pointy objects into her stomach. Damn it. She buried her face underneath the pillow and tried to get back to peaceful sleep.

Poke. "Wakey wakey! Happy birthday!"

Birthday? Oh yeah, it was her birthday today. Yay, sweet 21st. With that came the memory of the very loud and yet very fun party last night with way too much to drink and way too much throwing up down the toilet. Oh, great. A hangover. Plus an annoying Nullification Alice girl whose voice was grating into her brain.

Poke.

"Sakura! Go away! I want to sleep!" Sumire found the pillow being pulled out of her hands and she blinked a few times to see Mikan standing there, with a large grin on her face. Argh.

"Good morning Sumire! I just came in here to wish you a happy birthday, because I couldn't come to your party last night ... "

"Uh, huh, that's great ... I guess ... hey, how'd you get into my locked apartment? Or didn't I lock it?" said Sumire, trying to remember where she had put her keys and simultaneously thinking, "No-one sane should ever wish people happy birthday at such ungodly times in the morning, or speak so piercingly."

"Koko gave me his key to give to you when he moved out," said Mikan, happily holding up a fluffy Mr. Bear shaped keyring with Sumire's door key dangling off its foot. "Oh, I just remembered that I forgot to give it to you after all ... here you go then!" she said, holding out the keyring.

Annoying, loud, insert-more-rude-words-here Mikan Sakura. Not only did she have to wake her up and disturb her precious birthday sleep, she just had to go and remind her of that idiot Koko's departure from her love life and subsequent arrival into Natsume's. Natsume, of all people. Her Fanclub enthusiasm for that guy must have rubbed off onto Koko. Must be some kind of twisted master/minion relationship that she didn't want to think about right now, or ever, really.

"Sumire? Are you ok?"

Oh, right. Mikan was still there. "Yeah, I'm wonderful, except for the pounding headache above my right eyebrow and the fact that I need to catch up on about twelve hours of sleep and clean out my vomit-covered toilet which I used to be able to smell from here ... thank God for your Alice. But apart from that I'm absolutely FINE. No need to mention my idiot of an ex-boyfriend who managed to turn gay on me and get it on with my hero idol at all."

"But Sumire, it's already eleven-thirty and I made you breakfast! See, here you go!" She beamed at Sumire and held out the tray she was carrying.

Sumire sighed, squeezed her eyes shut to squash out the headache, and sniffed the tray suspiciously. "What IS that? Some kind of left-over sludge from last week's dinner?"

Mikan pouted. "Hey, it's better than anything you could cook! Anyway, it's fish pie. I mean, I know you like fish, so ..." her voice trailed off hopefully.

"Fish pie?! Who'd have THAT for breakfast?"

"Er, you please?" Mikan said.

XXX

A few minutes later, Mikan was busying herself with tidying the kitchen area (cooking the pie had made quite a mess in the microwave) and Sumire was enjoying her breakfast far more than she had thought she would, possibly because she was taking a few Anti-Headache Pills (genuinely Alice-made) with each spoonful. Drinking the green tea that Mikan had presumably left for her (or left for herself, it didn't particularly matter which), she managed to get up and get dressed into Outfit Plan #32 (The Morning After A Party Outfit) that she had left hanging on the back of her chair. Then she took the empty breakfast fast and headed into the kitchen.

"See, I knew you would like it!" said Mikan, noticing the empty fish pie bowl.

"Yeah, whatever. What have you done to my apartment?!" cried Sumire in shock, looking around the place. Mikan's tidying appeared to have spread all over the apartment. Where her perfectly organised nail-varnish-and-manicure collection had once been, there was now nothing but clean, un-dusty shelf. Even the sample colour swabs on the actual shelf had somehow been washed off. Not only that, but every eye-shadow and lipstick colour trial that had previously been on the walls and mirrors had somehow vanished, not to mention the neatly piled and yet totally unorganised stacks of books and clothes. "Mikan, how could you DO this to me?!" she shouted.

"The cleaning?" Mikan looked obnoxiously happy about having done such a terrible act, Sumire thought. "Well, seeing as I couldn't find a good enough present to give you, I decided to clean out all your mess and make breakfast in bed for you!"

"I LIKED my place just the way it was! At least you should have asked permission!" Sumire glanced around the room, trying to find her stress-relief scratching boot. Unfortunately, the corner in which it had been was now conspiciously empty. "MIKAN!! You IDIOT! Did you happen to throw out the old leather boot that was in that corner over there?"

"Yep! It was so battered and ripped up that I couldn't even get it recycled."

There was a terrifying moment of calm, and then - "AAAAAAAARGGHHH! There was a reason that I kept all of this stuff in my room, you know! My claws don't keep sharp by themselves and now I'm really, really tempted to use you as a stress-relief scratching post instead." If only Mikan didn't have that annoying Nullification Alice, she thought. If it had been anyone else who had sneaked into her apartment, cooked a very questionable meal using her oven and ruined her apartment, they would have received several painful scratches down their face.

"You don't like it?" Mikan said, her face falling.

"No shit, Sherlock!" shouted Sumire. She made a mental note to never use that stupid phrase again. "Of COURSE I don't like it! Did you not GET that already?"

"Sorry sorry sorry I didn't mean to make you angry! But I was only trying to help... I even cleaned your toilet and everything!"

As if that made it all better. "I don't care if you were trying to help! Just don't touch my stuff ever, EVER again! And what did you do with my DVD collection?"

"Oh, that? I put them away in the cupboard. They were all messy and covered the whole floor."

"That cupboard is for my jewellery, what did you do with that? ... Actually, I don't even want to know. And for your information, those DVDs were meant to cover the whole floor and they were perfectly in order of goriness, thriller potential, density of hot guys, prettiness of the lead female and three other unrelated factors ... but I guess you wouldn't know about that, would you?" Sumire glowered at Mikan, sat down in a newly clean and unstained armchair and started to unconsciously rip up the armrest.

Mikan looked so wretched and apologetic that most people would have forgiven her right there and then, but Sumire wasn't letting her get away so easily. She made up her mind to be angry with her for least the whole afternoon.

"Oh, I just remembered something ... Sumire?"

"Yeah now what?"

"You know Natsume and Luca and Hotaru didn't come to your party ..."

"Yes, thank God, I can't stand to look at that Natsume anymore, even if it meant not seeing Luca either for the last six months."

Mikan appeared not to have heard Sumire's last comment. "Well, because they said they felt bad, we've organised a friendly tennis game so we can play together this afternoon!"

"You ... Natsume ... tennis?" said Sumire, with a puzzled look. "Since when did they play tennis?"

"Well, Natsume had lessons from Luca last summer, and me and my grandpa played together a lot before and I know you like tennis."

"And you've organised some random tennis game for us ... this afternoon. In a few hours. Me. And Natsume. Me within a shouting distance of that craphead." Sumire had run out of energy to be properly mad at Mikan - and the constant screaming had made her head spin and ache uncomfortably. Besides, it was the thought that counted, and Sumire was indeed still very mentally mad at Mikan.

"That's right! It's at two, so I'm meant to be taking you out to meet Natsume and Luca soon," Mikan said. Sumire wondered how Mikan could STILL be so happy and bright, even after she'd cleaned out a toilet and been shouted at. Surely it wasn't normal.

XXX

At precisely twelve minutes past two, Mikan and Sumire arrived at the Alice Academy Central Town tennis court. (They were using this tennis court because Academy graduates could use it for free, unlike their Local Tokyo Tennis Court which was decidedly not free.) Sumire got out of Mikan's car and promptly threw up on a nearby tree.

"That's what happens when we use your car," she grumbled, wiping her mouth.

Mikan immediately rushed over and said, "Oh no Sumire are you OK?" but was totally ignored due to the arrival of another car that parked itself on the other side of the court. Two familiar people got out of it.

"Oh, look who it is," said Sumire with distaste. The person in question, Natsume, smirked back at her. "And he still thinks he has the right to do that stupid SMIRK as if nothing ever happened, that -"

"Hey stop being nasty! We're going to just play a nice tennis game and catch up on events and stuff," Mikan interrupted, waving at the two figures, who were now walking towards them.

Sumire narrowed her eyes and muttered, "Yeah, events like stealing the boyfriends of innocent girls?"

"Hi, Sumire! Happy birthday!" Luca said, surprising her. "Hotaru was going to come, but then she said she had an urgent appointment to see holiday homes in Switzerland, sorry. But she said to give you this present - " he handed her a small wrapped box " - and this is from me," he finished, giving her another small wrapped box.

"Thank you so much Luca!!" Sumire squealed, instantly switching into joyful fangirl mode and hugging him. She'd never liked Hotaru very much (that girl had always freaked her out), had really not liked her at all when she'd stolen Luca away from the ex-Fanclub sector of Alice Academy, and had really really not liked her at all when Mikan hero-worshipped her for the 1943th time. So Sumire was actually rather pleased about this Hotaru non-appearance. What did Mikan see in her, anyway?

"Natsume, didn't you get Sumire a present?" said a worried Mikan.

"Tch, of course I did. I'm not as horrible as to forget, you know ... but I can always give it to her after we play," he said. Sumire overheard this and shouted something about how stealing happily partnered boyfriends was horrible and why don't you go sit down under that tree I just threw up on, even if you HAVE brought a present which I don't even want to TOUCH. "... and it's lucky for you that at least you didn't have the nerve to bring Koko himself here!" she finished.

"... Maybe it wasn't a very good idea to invite Natsume," Mikan whispered to Luca.

"You THINK?!" screamed Sumire, turning on Mikan. (If you're wondering how she could hear a whisper from the other side of the court, strong emotions always made her Alice activate itself.)

XXX

It took quite a while to calm Sumire down so she could put her cat ears away and be able to look at Natsume without spitting at him. In the end, after Natsume's flames had scared away the crowd of onlookers who had been spoiling for a fight, it was decided that Sumire and Luca should play against Mikan and Natsume, Natsume being in the corner furthest away from Sumire.

Loath as she was to admit it, the game was actually quite fun. (As long as she didn't think too hard about Natsume.) Apart from Mikan, who seemed to enjoy running madly after dropped balls more than actually hitting them, the other players were surprisingly good.

"So ... how are you then?" said Sumire to Luca.

"Huh? I'm fine, thank you, how about you? Sorry I couldn't come to your party yesterday, by the way," said Luca, hitting a stray tennis ball.

"Don't worry about it. And I'm fine too," Sumire said brightly. "As long as I don't look at Natsume, that is."

"Oh ... um, don't be offended or angry or anything, but what exactly did he do?"

"He hasn't told you, that idiot?" When Luca shook his head, Sumire continued. "Well, the fact that he persuaded a guy in a happy relationship cruelly dump his girlfriend of four years to go after the man of his dreams who had apparently already kissed him the week before isn't enough to make me mad? And now, he's acting like he's done nothing wrong whatsoever, no apologies, the nerve to be able to look at me and smirk without feeling any regret or remorse at ALL for what he did! And now everyone around me is all happily paired up and looking for goddamn holiday homes eating Swiss chocolate except for ME who is still damn single!"

By this time Sumire had put down her tennis racquet to go into a proper angry pose, and the game was on hold.

"Er, right. Oh. Mikan's still single, you know," Luca said.

"And how come you didn't know anything about this?" said Sumire. "And the reason Mikan's still single is also that idiot's fault, because everyone was betting on her to get together with him, but NO."

"All I was told was that Koko broke up with you, then was living with Natsume. I couldn't ask you what happened earlier because I haven't seen you for the last half year," said Luca apologetically.

"Huh. I just figured that if any guy was to fall for that Natsume, it would've been you. No offence," she added quickly. Luca gaped.

On the other side of the net, Mikan and Natsume were having their own little chat.

"Natsume, I'm still mad at you for making Sumire so upset," said Mikan. "But I don't want to act mad because it's her birthday and I wanted this to be fun."

Natsume didn't say anything.

XXX

An hour of tennis and running around the court madly later, Sumire sat down on a bench and decided that she was too tired to play any more.

"Oi, Shouda, here's your birthday present from Koko," said Natsume. He threw her a squidgey gift-wrapped parcel.

Probably clothes, Sumire thought - I could dump it in the bin after ripping it up as a gesture of undying hatred, but what if it's something really expensive and fashionable? Damn Koko, he knew how to give her presents that she couldn't throw away.

"And you can have this as well," Natsume continued, throwing her another parcelly thing - although this one was much smaller and smelt funny. Really funny.

"Bye!" called Luca as he and Natsume got into the car they had come in and drove away. Sumire didn't really notice, because she was too engrossed in what was inside that funny-smelling paper bag Natsume had just thrown.

"Sumire ... is that catnip?" said Mikan, sitting down next to her and looking over her shoulder.

"What?"

"Last time I went home my grandpa had got a cat and the catnip that she liked was very much like those leaves you have there ... and your Alice is doing stuff," Mikan said. She pointed to Sumire's whiskers and cat ears.

"Catnip? Really? It smells kind of nice though." She crushed the leaves and sniffed them closely, taking advantage of her cat-like senses. "Can't you smell it?"

"No, not really."

"Hmm," said Sumire. She absent-mindedly moved closer to Mikan, snuggled into her shoulder and wrapped her tail around Mikan's legs.

"Eh, Sumire, you're being really weird. Are you sure that that stuff is safe for you?"

Sumire didn't say anything, but rubbed her cheek against Mikan's and kissed her.

"Eeeeeeeek!! I don't think you should ever use catnip again!" cried Mikan, jumping up and making shocked faces.

Sumire looked very confused, looked at the leaves in her hand and put her Alice away, then said, "Wait, did I just kiss you?"

"Yes! ... What, you don't remember?!"

"Probably an effect of being high on catnip," said Sumire, crossly flattening the guilty leaves with her foot. "Anyway, you didn't have to be all 'yeeeek!" about it," she said with narrowed eyes. "That's just insulting to my kissing skills."

"Sorry," said Mikan. She sat back down again. There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Maybe we should make this a regular thing," Sumire said after a while.

"Eh?"

"Well, you're single and I'm single (and depressed about it), and everyone was betting on you and Natsume pairing up, but now that he's with MY canon boyfriend, we might as well make it neat and get together ourselves," Sumire explained.

"... Are you still high on catnip? I didn't know that you liked girls ..."

"Yeah, well, I didn't know that Koko liked guys," grumbled Sumire.

"OK," said Mikan, and kissed her again.

A few seconds later, Sumire pulled away and said, "By the way, if you move in with me, please never ever attempt to clean out my apartment again."

Fini.

A/N-taketwo-: Things to wonder about: Was this all a sneaky secret plan by Natsume? What did Hotaru and Luca give Sumire for her birthday? How do you arrange DVDs in accordance to seven factors? Only the author knows! (Yesh, not terribly exciting questions, I know.)