Ocean Breeze

Summary: Two years and it feels like an eternity. There is a life between them none of them has lived so far. OneShot- Mikan, Natsume. At the end of the series. [For Bienenstich]

Warning: Minimal language, hence the rating.

Set: after the end of the series – post ch 180 (and between ch 177 and 180)

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

A/N: I think something has to be said at this point. My greatest thanks to the author of this story that has accompanied me for great parts of my school life and college time, Higuchi Tachibana. And thanks as great to behind_thy_crimson_eyes and Bienenstich. Those who know the names will know why. Unwahrscheinlich dass du das hier liest, aber; Bienenstich, du bist nicht zufällig auch auf Animexx?

1.

Beat.

"Natsume."

Beat.

"Natsume. Wake up."

Beat.

He opened his eyes and saw nothing but white. His eyes were covered with something, he realized. He lifted his hand to push away the dressings impatiently.

Pain.

"Natsume!" A worried voice, right next to him. "You are awake!"

"Where…?" He croaked. His voice sounded like sheets of sand paper grating against each other. Everything ached, even his throat. "What happened?" He recognized the voice. "Ruka, what happened?"

Silence.

"You were hurt," his friend finally said. "They brought you to the Academy sickbay. You have to rest, Natsume, okay? You almost died."

"Mikan."

Silence.

"Where is she?" He demanded. His voice broke on the last word. Pain lanced through his chest as he started coughing.

"Drink," Ruka said and held a glass to his lips and Natsume accepted the cool water. "Don't worry about anything now, Natsume. You've been unconscious for a long time. You have to rest."

"Mikan." His voice was a whisper now.

"She's safe," Ruka said softly. "Don't worry. Mikan's safe. Everything is fine now. Sleep, okay?"

In the haze of pain and exhaustion, Natsume noticed Ruka's use of her first name but could not make sense of it. The only message that reached him was that she was safe. It was the only thing he cared for.

"…See her," he whispered as his eyes closed by their own volition. He could feel Ruka's hand close around his. His friend's voice was a soundless whisper.

"Rest."

Natsume is twelve years old. Two days later he would wake up and demand to know what happened, and Sumire would tell him before Ruka had the chance to break it to him carefully. Natsume would refuse to talk to his friend for two weeks but throughout everything he knew one thing: Ruka had never once lied to him.

Mikan was safe. He should be glad. They had won.

It just did not feel like a victory.

2.

Beat.

"Mikan."

Beat.

"Mikan. Wake up."

Beat.

She opened her eyes and saw nothing but white. Her eyes were covered, she realized. She lifted her hand to push aside the bed-sheets slowly.

Light.

Mikan was awake within seconds. Sunlight shone into her room brightly, painting pretty reflections onto her white walls. Her room was familiar: full colors, simple furniture. Sometimes she felt like she had spent her entire life in this room, and then she remembered that she did not remember. But it felt so familiar, so filled with warmth and love.

Her grandfather was standing at the door, his hands buried in the folds of his yukata. His smile was contagious. "Good morning, sweetheart." It was the first Monday of her spring break. Outside her window, the world was alive in colors.

Thud.

A wooden spoon came down on her blanket heavily. The material softened the blow somewhat, but Mikan still jumped. Mr. Bear glared at her darkly, his stuffed-toy body partway concealed by a flowery apron.

"What?" Mikan demanded and was punished by a second hit. "Outch!" She yelled. "Quit hitting me!" Mr. Bear glared again and growled in the depths of his throat. "Grandpa!"

The old man smiled sunnily. "He prepared a special breakfast for you. You should get dressed quickly and join us."

The animal housekeeper, for good measure, shot her another fiery glance, turned and trotted out of the room. Mikan scrambled from her bed and rushed towards her chest of drawers.

Grandpa lingered in the door for another few heartbeats. "Did you dream again tonight?" His voice sounded too casual. Mikan turned, halfway there, and frowned in concentration.

"I don't remember."

"Good." Was it relief on his face, she wondered. And if so, why? Ah. She used to have really bad nightmares, he had told her, when she was a child. Nowadays she could barely remember her dreams. They were full of faces she did not recognize and forgot as soon as she woke. Apparently she woke up from her nightmares sobbing and screaming in the past but she could not remember that, either. "Hurry up," her grandfather said and smiled his familiar, grand-fatherly smile that never failed to put her in a good mood. "Mr. Bear and I will be waiting downstairs."

He closed the door behind him. Humming, Mikan chose her favorite dress and quickly fixed her hair. She ran down the stairs a few minutes later.

"Pancakes? Oh, Mr. Bear, you are the best – OUTCH!"

Mikan is thirteen years old.

3.

"Natsume, dammit, I told you…"

Tono's voice faded into the background of the lively, every-day street noise as Natsume stopped listening. He was so tired he wanted to sit down and never get up again but he knew he could not.

Just once. Is it too much to ask for? Just one time.

"Are you finished?" He asked when he caught the older boy's look. Apparently, he had missed the end of the lecture. How sad. "Fine. Now let's go." He started to walk again.

"Do you want to die so badly?"

The voice was soft; female, young and accusing. Painfully familiar. Natsume froze.

"Because that's gonna happen if you continue like this," Tono said. Male voice, male sound. Was he imagining things? "And it's not what she would want."

Natsume forced himself to not react. To take one step after another and to keep walking. Tono sighed and hurried to catch up.

"At least be careful."

Natsume could hear another voice behind the words, a girl's voice, pleading. It was like she came back to haunt him again and again but he did not think he would be able to survive without her, anyway. Oh the insanity.

…

Mikan loved the view from the classroom window: the sea, blue and silver and green. Everything ended at the sea, her grandfather had told her. She wondered how many stories had been washed ashore here. Whether hers was somewhere out there, too, waiting for her, just barely out of her reach. Then she laughed at herself for her silly thoughts.

"Mikan! Come on, let's go! The library is closing!"

"Coming!" Mikan gathered her books, still laughing, and followed her friends from the classroom. In the corridor she caught the sight of a boy rounding the corner. Sunrays met dark hair and it lit up for a second. A shoulder, a hand. A red stone gleamed, deep and familiar, and disappeared again. Mikan stood frozen.

Voices erupted behind the corner and a bunch of boys rounded it again, talking and laughing. The dark-haired boy walked in the middle. He passed her without a second glance. The phantom pain came suddenly and with stunning intensity. She was a hollow shell, a book without a story. She could tell she lost her memories because there was a figure without a face that haunted her dreams. She could tell she had loved this person, loved him very much. She just could not see his face. Mikan felt empty, despite everything she had.

I just want to meet him. Just once.

But even a shell sang of the ocean.

Sometimes she wondered how long she would be able to keep up the pretense. She was a human being with only half a heart.

…

I just want to see her one more time.

Both of them are fourteen.

I just want to meet him once.

4.

Natsume is fifteen and most of the times he knows he is dreaming.

He knew because she smiled at him and there were no tears and no sorrow in her eyes. Her hands were small and his were, too, another indication that it was only a dream. His head did not hurt. He did not feel cold – like the fire inside him is had suddenly stopped draining all his strength. He had looked at her so often he knew her features by heart and yet he wished he had seen her like this more. They were children. Not completely innocent, at least not him, but naïve in more ways than he would ever have thought possible. They were children and they were happy and Natsume knew it was a dream because he never had the chance to see Mikan this happy and this calm in his presence. He knew he was a brat and also knew he could not help himself. It did not mean he did not regret it. Regret followed him into his dreams, turned him into a helpless twelve-year old and forced him to watch her beatific smile turn into a grimace of pain and fear. Regret made him watch unspeakable horrors creep up on her until darkness swallowed her completely and the only thing that remained was her terrified voice screaming for help. Screaming his name.

He wakes up in cold sweat, her name on his lips, and he knows he is as helpless now as he was inside the dream.

Sometimes, though, it sneaked up on him. Sometimes he saw her: hazel eyes, auburn hair, the sweet curves of her face. He could feel the warmth of her skin where her fingers were intertwined with his, could hear the clear ring of her laughter. Sometimes he could smell the strawberry scent of her shampoo. And it was so real and felt so fucking real he could not think straight anymore. He tugs her closer and breathes in her scent. Her hair tickles his nose. Mikan laughs, half embarrassed, half joyful, and the sound unlocks something in Natsume's chest-

He wakes up with tears in his eyes, a hand outstretched to hold on to a ghost that has no substance in his world. And the worst thought is that it is better like that: She shouldn't be here, no matter how much he wishes she would.

So he gets up and lives through the day. It was always the same: training, classes, lunch. Classes, missions, training, dinner, and if he only worked hard enough – if he only drained his powers as much as possible and wore himself out physically, going all out – then, maybe, he could crash at the end of the day and sleep dreamlessly. If he only used his Alice enough. It was painful in the past, even excruciating. Now, there was less pain and less exhaustion but that only meant he had to go further to reach the same degree of numbness. Natsume could not say whether it was because of the fact that he should have died already and only was brought back by Imai's change of the flow of time or because his body had been changing and getting used to his powers. It did not matter. If he only exhausted himself enough he might be able to forget those eyes and that face and the vanilla-strawberry scent and her smile and how her hands shook when-

It was like running against a wall again and again without being able to feel even the slightest budge in the stubborn, ancient stones. It tasted like ashes and defeat. It sounded like the ocean breeze, silent but all-encompassing, drowning out every other sound except for his heart-beat and his longing. It felt like desperately trying not to fall in love with Sakura Mikan all over – and failing, again and again. It was warmth and love and emptiness and desperation. She should not be allowed to hold such power over his heart, especially since she did not even remember him. Natsume knew the facts: Mikan was far away. She was safe. And she had lost her Alice, along with her memories. Thinking of it made him want to cry. And scream, and rage in anger and frustration. But she was safe there and she would not be safe here. The voice that whispered that she would be safe with him was countered by reason every time it rose: he was only a boy. A boy with a strong Alice, granted. But he had not been able to protect her before. He had to become stronger first.

But she was safe there.

He is fifteen and he should not care, but he does. He should care, but he does not. Luca says: "Love isn't rational, Natsume." Luca is ever the idealist. Natsume jumps out of the window on the first floor, trespasses into the Principal's office and demands to know where Mikan is. When there is no answer, he curses and demands another mission. The Principal regards him silently and hands him a file and Natsume leaves without another word. When he returns seventy-two hours later he is covered in blood (not his) and ashes (they never saw him coming) and there is another kill on his hit list and another successful mission in his file and he is so tired he drops onto the floor next to her bed (He had the dim notion she would fuss if he dirtied the sheets. He does not know why he cares, it is not as if anyone will sleep in her room anytime soon.), curls up into a ball and passes out.

It does not stop him from dreaming.

5.

She might die here, she thinks.

It is a pity. She is sixteen, she is silly and childish, naïve and easily impressed and far from perfect, but she loves her life. She likes the little village at the ocean which she calls her hometown. She likes her daily routine, the school and the sea. She loves her Grandpa and Mr. Bear and Sat-chan and Shi-chan. Mikan is sixteen and she loves her life, despite everything, and she does not want to die. Or worse. Somehow she knows this might be worse than death, these dark people that target girls from town, the frightening men that ambush her and her friends. Then, everything turns blurry as things happen she cannot understand – why, why, what is going on, why is it always me – and her oldest friend turns into a stranger and strangers come to her rescue only to try kidnapping her again and Mikan has no idea what is happening but she knows if she does not run nothing will ever be the same again.

Oh, and the man.

He is tall and lean and strong, his grip on her wrist like iron. And Mikan cannot run away. His gaze bores into her and she knows him but she has never seen him before, if she had wouldn't she remember him? There might be a hole in her memories and in her heart, a time she can neither place nor remember. But that doesn't mean anyone can just jump into her life and claim she belongs to him. Nobody can just corner her and threaten her friends and then save her and try to abduct her all in one and how the hell has this mess come into being at all? Mikan knows she is slow sometimes – people have told her over and over, even if it was with a loving laugh – but she isn't stupid. Things like this happen in books and in movies but not to her. She is sixteen and she knows fate is something that might befall beautiful heroines, but not her. She is normal, she is ordinary. It is not like she has been living for the last two years with a hole in her heart and a name on her lips she just cannot voice.

Three men that appeared seemingly out of nowhere but somehow they seem strangely more real.

They are sharper, stand out from the familiar background of ocean and beach like foreign bodies. The one with the blond hair and blue eyes is all angles and planes, as if life has cut him from a piece of paper and has given him form. The breeze makes his long coat flap softly. His gaze is a strange mixture of things Mikan does not want to know of. The second one – she would have sworn she knew everything about Shi-chan. Now she realizes that it is impossible to know a person inside out. The person still dressed in Shi-chan's jersey is taller than Mikan's friend, has dark hair and dark eyes and looks completely different to the person she grew up with. He is also stronger, and he seems to know the first stranger. Watching, stunned, Mikan cannot see anything of her old friend in this new person. But when she staggers, a hand wraps around her wrist. Encompasses it completely. The third man – the one she has already seen on the walkway above the beach, commanding the impossible flames that saved her – stares at her with unreadable amethyst eyes.

She cannot breathe.

He is wearing gloves. Still, Mikan can feel his warmth. It radiates straight through her. Then he gropes her – and if there ever was reason in her thoughts and in this situation, it goes overboard screaming.

Beat.

If anything, she is practical. Her name. They know her name. Those three men know her while she cannot remember ever having seen them before. But that does not mean anything, does it? Because there are things she knows she has experienced but she cannot remember. Three men come to join the first three: a man with a star-shaped tattoo below his left eye and unruly black hair, a guy with a ponytail and a goatee and a man with incredibly green-grey-blue eyes and blond hair, tall and handsome. And all of them know her name.

And Mikan cannot breathe-

The sound of the waves drowns out everything else except for her heartbeat hammering in her ears. Her first instinct is flight but she is stopped short by the man with the beautiful eyes and the second he embraces her Mikan lights up. It feels like she has waited for this moment forever: she might not remember him but she knows him. She can feel him. She can feel his warmth and his heart-beat and his familiar-ness so strongly she feels like crying. When he finally releases her he hands her a tiny, uneven orange stone. It drops into her hand with almost no weight at all.

Beat.

Every river flows towards the ocean. It is fitting, she will later think, that she regained her memories in this place: her home town, surrounded by her old friends, at the shore of the sea. The sea gulls' screeching, the waves' singing – Mikan looks at the man in front of her and in him can see the boy she once knew. The girl she once was is mirrored in his eyes.

"Natsume."

We have come to take you home.

6.

There is a life between them none of them has lived so far.

Growing up never was a matter of time but rather one of circumstance. They both had been older in mind than their bodies showed. Still, there was a difference between being twelve-year-old children and seventeen-year-old, almost-adults. Actually, by Academy standards both of them were old enough to be considered adults. Natsume always felt like he had reached adulthood a long time ago. But he had been powerless back then, a killer in the body of a child with little control over his Alice. He had seen a lot more in the time Mikan had spent securely tucked away in her hometown. He had fought and he had grown. He had searched for her – relentlessly, desperately and, ultimately, unsuccessfully – but he had found her again. In the darkness that had followed the defeat of the Elementary School Principal Natsume had promised himself one thing: he would become strong enough to protect her. It was easy as that: they would find her and Mikan would regain her memories and her feelings for him.

Life had a way of fucking with him.

They were back to where they had started out: Alice Academy. A boy and a girl. Strangers, somehow. So now they had something that had not changed – while they had. Changed. A lot. Mikan's hair was longer. It was the first thing he noticed. She did not wear it in her two pony-tails anymore, which made her face look less round and more beautiful. She still felt small and fragile but her body had changed: the curve of her hips and her chest and her neck. Had she always been that pretty? Natsume wanted to look at her and never stop. Never wanted to let go of her hand. But while she let him hold hers she still bolted when he drew nearer to touch her. Mikan moved away carefully or shied away completely when he came into her personal space and it drove him nuts. He knew he had changed – he was taller now, almost taller than Narumi. His powers were stronger and steadier, he was stronger and his hair was longer – but that did not mean the way he felt about her had changed, as well. And still every time he tried to confront her about it she blushed and stuttered. She distracted him with other topics ("We still haven't found any clues regarding Hotaru!") or diverted his attention long enough to slip away, and Natsume would be left confused and angry.

It would have been funny if it wasn't so fu- ("NATSUME!") freaking frustrating.

...

The past months Mikan had the time to get used to the daily routines of Alice Academy again. It felt, actually, as if she never had been gone. But Mikan knew things changed and she was able to pinpoint quite closely what it was that was different today: she was.

And Natsume.

After their reunion with all her friends and the good bye from her grandfather, she had returned to the Academy. She was safest there, everyone agreed. So now she was back to the place she had started in and Sumire and Kitsumeme and Yuu and Youichi and Anna and Nonoko were still there, too. Misaki-sempai, Tono-sempai and Tsubasa-sempai had graduated from high-school to the Academy's specialist classes, along with a few of the Dangerous Ability Class. But there were many new children there, each single one of them reminding Mikan of herself at their age. Sometimes she caught herself feeling old, and then she laughed. And felt like crying.

Hotaru. Wait for me. I'll find you.

And then, her almost predictably timed run-ins with Natsume. Some things did not seem to change.

"What have you done this time?" Mikan demanded to know and stopped her dead run in front of Natsume, close enough she could see the golden flecks in his violet eyes. She was so incensed she did not even stop to think of the considerably short distance between them. Over the past five months she had taken pains to stop Natsume from pushing into her personal space – for reasons she knew all too well were silly but she could not seem to stop herself – and now she did not care.

"Nothing that concerns you," Natsume returned calmly without looking at her. It made her, if possible, even angrier.

"What do you mean, does not concern me? Of course it does! You can't just decide such things by yourself, there are others you have to take into consideration-"

"I'm just leaving for some time. It's not like I'm dying. Or you care."

"What?" Mikan screeched, furious. "You accepted their preposterous proposal? That… Contract… That piece of junk? They're just trying to draft you into their second-class specialist division, they don't deserve-"

"Where did you learn words like preposterous?" He retorted with biting sarcasm. "And just because Japan has a good system when it comes to Alices does not mean other countries' systems are outdated and-"

"Screw other countries! You can't just leave! You belong here – your friends are here! Everyone you know and who knows you! Besides, they won't let you go, you're one of the Academy's greatest assets-"

"It's not like they're losing me. They're just lending me to our allies." He had been leaning against the wall of the building before, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Now he stepped away, deliberately slowly to give her time to back away as well. Mikan refused to budge. Their noses were close enough to touch.

"You can't go."

"Why?" Natsume looked at her straight for the first time since she had come storming across the campus, seething with rage. She had had coffee with her uncle and he had dropped a comment, wrongly assuming Natsume had talked to her about it. She hadn't known whether she wanted to scream at her uncle for even thinking of lending one of his beloved children to allied nations or at Natsume for not telling her he would be leaving in a week. For not telling her he had decided to leave in the first place, too. His simple question – accompanied by a piercing glance that held something she had never seen in it before – ticked her off again.

"Because you belong here!" She shouted. "This is your home! Your friends are here! What about Ruka? You can't just consider leaving him! We still have to find Hotaru! Youichi is looking up to you! And all the others love you-"

"How do you know how everyone feels about me?" He interrupted her calmly. "You've only been back for half a year. I've lived in this place for more than half of my life. This might be my home, but is it yours?"

Mikan closed her mouth with an audible snap, hurt beyond words. This was her fault, she thought desperately. He had come to rescue her and bring her back when she had lost her memories and she had run from him screaming, unable to remember him. And even after she had remembered him she had avoided him since they had returned to the Academy. It made no sense. The memories of her feelings for him were so clear now, so close and alive. And yet every time she looked at him she fought to connect her feelings to the man now standing in front of her, as if the boy Natsume and the man Natsume were different from each other. Still, every time she saw him, a flash of recognition shot through her. Natsume. Every time he spoke to her, butterflies erupted in her stomach. Every time he touched her, her heart stopped. It was unfair, really, because he never seemed to be perturbed by her. He never seemed flushed, or embarrassed, or even at a loss for words. It was only her who was affected. Mikan knew, with every fiber of her being and every beat of her heart, that she loved him. She just needed some time – but Natsume would leave in a week and she would not be able to tell him why she had been avoiding him so far.

Her conscience had taken to speaking with Hotaru's voice.

Dumbass. Straighten out your head and go for it.

Mikan turned around without another word and left.

7.

Natsume knew where he would find her.

It was simple, really. Even after a year of absence he was pretty sure she would have been able to pinpoint his location as exactly as he could hers. There was just one difference: he went for his gut feeling while she still was torn in between he-had-no-fucking-idea and how-the-hell-was-he-supposed-to-know. But, he decided, it was enough. Three years were enough. The Academy had thrown him a Welcome-Back party from the second he had set foot into the grounds, so Mikan had to know he was back. Since he hadn't seen her yet, she was avoiding him. Seventeen years old – eighteen, he corrected himself – and still as childish as ever.

So he crept down from the roof where he had taken refuge after Sumire and her entourage had tried to lure him out into the park for star-gazing, entered through the open window silently and slipped into the darkness that was his bedroom without bothering to switch on the lights. When he opened the door, stepped through it and closed it again, she was sitting exactly where he had known she would: on the floor next to his room, her back against the wall. When she heard the sound of the door, her head came up slowly from where it had been buried in her arms.

Had she been crying? It was too dark to be sure but that aside, he knew her. Natsume folded his body and cowered down onto the cool stone floor so he was eye to eye with her.

"Sorry," he said without preamble. Everything else he had thought of saying had been wiped from his mind at the sight of her beautiful eyes.

Mikan sighed, a soft exhale that barely touched his cheek before it dispersed. "Whenever you apologize it feels wrong."

There was nothing left to say. "Sorry."

"Heh." She laughed, her hands coming up to rub her eyes with the heels of her hands. They stayed there, effectively covering her face. "Natsume, I… Every time I think of what I want to tell you…" She laughed again breathlessly. "Damn."

He let her think.

"I feel like a stupid kid compared to you. You've been out there before I even knew the Academy existed. You've seen so much. You're strong. Nothing fazes you. You can go out there and fight while I don't have anything but my pitiful Protection Alice. It's… Really, it's ridiculous."

Her next laugh sounded more like a sob.

"Promise me one thing, Natsume?"

He didn't move.

"Come back. Come back here safely, will you? No matter what happens."

"I will."

"Good." Her hands dropped and she smiled, but her eyes were full of tears. "Everybody missed you. Welcome back."

God, she had not changed a bit. She still was a crybaby. But he could see strength in the way her shoulders were squared, in the way her eyes shone. Her lips were swollen and sore from her nervous chewing. It went straight through him in an almost painful jolt.

"I don't care about everyone," he said rudely. Did you miss me? I fu-freaking missed you. I could have died I missed you so much.

Her soft gaze turned into a familiar glare. "Natsume-"

His hands came up on both sides of her head to stop any thought of flight she might have. Leaning forward, he watched her eyes grow wide in surprise and then fear – and then his lips touched hers and everything else fell away. Natsume kissed her like he had never kissed anyone before. Her lips were soft and sweet and she stiffened first and then went limp. Natsume closed his eyes and kissed her almost desperately. He had dreamed of this – oh, he had wanted her so much. He had searched and searched and when he had finally found her she had kept up a distance that had made it harder and harder for him to be close to her. It was almost worse than when he had been unable to see her. The closer she was, seemingly, the further away she felt, and it had driven him crazy. Natsume kissed her and savored the sweetness of her lips, their softness, the scent of her shampoo. And then, a miracle: Mikan's lips parted, and she kissed him back. Natsume's brain shut down completely.

When they broke apart, he found he was leaning on the wall more for his own support than to stop her from fleeing. In the dim corridor Mikan's eyes seemed incredibly dark. She was looking up at him dazedly, her tongue flickering out to lick her lips, her breath coming in short gasps.

"I only care about you," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "Mikan. I missed you so much."

She whispered something under her breath he didn't catch, so he leaned closer. Mikan's eyes were shining. Her hands came up to touch his face, carefully, softly. The sensation of her skin on his made him suck in his breath sharply. Almost involuntarily, his eyes fluttered shut.

"Natsume," she whispered again. "Natsume. Natsume."

His name like a prayer. Like the day he had met her again on the ocean shore. Natsume. He wanted to touch her so badly but a dozen memories from over the past years told him not to – and Mikan's hands skimmed down his cheeks to his shoulders and down the length of his arms until they reached his hands that were balled into fists at both sides of her head. Natsume shivered and exhaled, looked at her and saw permission in her eyes. Her hair was soft under his fingers, this time there was no barrier of cloth between his skin and her hair. He buried his hands in her auburn hair almost reverently, combed through it, but his gaze did not leave her face. A soft sigh escaped her lips. Natsume's right hand wandered down her shoulder, down her arms, and his fingers intertwined with hers, pulling up her hand to rest on the wall next to her face.

It's good to be back.

This time, she kissed him.

8.

The evening was stretching into its late hours.

Mikan crossed the street, walked down the stairs and found herself on the beach where the ocean began. It's song – the crashing waves, the rushing wind – swallowed her up, drowned out every other sound except for her own heartbeat. She took a deep breath: salt, seaweed, sand and water. The sun stood above the horizon, not yet ready to call it a day.

Slowly, she moved towards where the waves kissed the sand. She was already bare-footed. Cool water touched her skin and she laughed, delightedly, and then lifted her eyes to the stretch of beach that was laid out before her. Some distance away, a familiar figure stood unmoving, waiting for her. Mikan abandoned every appearance of decorum and ran.

"Natsume!"

Laughing, she barreled into him as he caught her and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

"Natsume, you're back!"

In return, he buried his face in her hair. Mikan threw her arms around him, as well, and closed her eyes. The ocean breeze picked up softly, making her hair dance while they stood unmoving, arms around each other, without saying a word.

"You're back," Mikan finally repeated, soft as a whisper. Natsume sighed, his hands dropping down to her waist but not yet letting go of her.

"You weren't at the Academy."

"Oh." Mikan laughed, embarrassed. "We didn't know when you would return, so Hotaru told me to take a vacation. I still had some leave accumulated. So I thought I'd rather take it now, as recovery-"

She swallowed the rest of her sentence but it was too late: Natsume had already tensed. He pushed her away just far enough to be able to look her in the face. "You were sick?" He demanded roughly.

"I wasn't – well, not really," she amended. "Just very exhausted. Misaki-san told me to take a few days off, so I decided to visit Grandpa and Mr. Bear."

Natsume still had a thunderous expression on his face and Mikan giggled. "Stop worrying, idiot, I'm fine. I told Hotaru and Ruka to tell you where I was when you returned. Is everything alright at the Academy?"

"Why shouldn't it be?" Natsume asked back. "Just because one of the teachers takes a holiday the world's not going to end."

Mikan laughed again and leaned into Natsume. It was good to have him back: to feel his warmth and his strength, to listen to his voice – and to have him so close. She hoped nobody had told him how seriously ill she had been after the news the Black Cat had been killed had reached the Academy. As a matter, she hoped nobody had told him there had been rumors of his demise – she did not want him to blame himself. And besides, everything was fine now that he was back.

Mikan was twenty-one and she still felt like a teenager in love sometimes.

She wrapped her arms around Natsume even tighter and buried her face in his chest. He held her, somehow understanding she only needed his silent presence right now. For that, she loved him, and for everything else he was.

"Hey," he mumbled far too early. "Not that I mind, but it's not getting warmer out here and you're only wearing a T-shirt."

Mikan managed a muffled laugh. "You're warm enough."

"Where have you been staying? At your grandfather's?"

"Yeah."

"Hmmm."

Mikan moved away and looked up at him, mock-hurt. "It's my childhood room. And the bed's big enough for the two of us."

"It has too many pillows and sheetrock walls," Natsume deadpanned.

Mikan laughed, finally feeling the weight of the desperation that had overcome her when news of his death had reached the Academy fall off her shoulders. It took off towards the endless sky like a bird freed from its cage. Throwing her arms around him again, she waited until he lifted her up and kissed him.

The wind picked up, playing in her hair. It felt cool on her skin. Natsume was warmer, so she snuggled closer to him.

Natsume smelled like home.