Falling Into Your World

Chapter 3

Mikan pushed the bathroom door open and stepped out while toweling off her hair. After the rather embarrassing incident, Mikan had fled to her room then retreated to the bathroom so she could bathe and change her clothes. She had stewed away in the bath and replayed the whole fire-water event in her head. For a bit, she pondered about how the fire appeared, but then brushed it off as a trick the boy played with a lighter or some matches. Instead, she thought about what she should do with the boy.

He was evidently a highly offensive and rude person, and Mikan knew the safest option for her would be to cast him out of her house as soon as possible. But there were two problems with that. One was that he had already proven himself to be physically stronger than her, and if kicking him out came down to force, she wouldn't be able to do it. Secondly, she knew she would feel a bit guilty if she kicked him out. He was injured and, as seen by his state last night and bits of their scuffle, it showed he wasn't fit to be doing anything strenuous, or even out of bed actually…And yet he was out of bed and moving about.

That other time that she had an infected cut, she was so sick that she couldn't move for a few days and had ended up bed-ridden and delirious for a few days. All she could remember from that time was Jiichan always hovering over her, grouchily muttering under his breath, and that her body ached all over. She didn't even want to get up to eat anything. Even after her fever had gone down, she had to remain in bed for a few more days because her body had been so drained from fighting off the infection.

And if this boy felt anything like she did back then (or even the tiniest bit like how she felt), it was a wonder that he had been able to get into that scuffle with her. If Mikan was in his position, she doubted that she could have even ambushed him at the entryway. So it made her wonder how exactly he had the energy and stamina to move about like he did and not collapse. And to think he even overpowered her for a bit. Mikan was known for being one of the more athletic people in school, and most people knew not to get her angry, just because she had a mean flying kick that could be used when she needed to. (There really was only one person known to be strong enough to defend themselves from Mikan's Flying Kick: Imai Hotaru. Ironically, the reason why Mikan's Flying Kick is so powerful is that she had tried to execute it many times against Hotaru, only to be thrown 10 feet in the air by one of Hotaru's inventions.)

Sighing, Mikan draped her towel around her shoulders and moved to the cupboard and pulled two towels from it. She walked out to the living area to look for her guest and found him sitting on the floor watching television. He didn't acknowledge her as she walked in, so she trotted up behind him and dropped the towels on his head.

"The bath is ready. You should probably go clean up and get out of those clothes. You don't want to catch a cold."

The boy sat there for a bit with the towels unceremoniously draped on his head before asking, "Where's the bathroom?"

"Down the hall, third door on the left," Mikan replied as she headed to the kitchen. After a moment, she heard him move down the hall. Finding herself alone at last, she busied herself with pulling pots out for dinner, purposely making loud noises to make that boy think she was ignoring him. Truth be told, she made so much noise to calm herself down (and there was that one time right after she got into the kitchen and was so paranoid that he would pop up behind her that she had dropped her pot on the floor when knocked her knee on the cupboard.) When she was sure that he was in the bathroom (checking by peering down the hall to make sure he wasn't poking around her room), Mikan went to the entryway to retrieve the bag of groceries that she had dropped when he had assaulted her earlier. Her poor tomatoes. They were probably smushed to oblivion. She found the grocery bag crumpled on top of her shoes and frantically opened the bag to survey the damage. Much to her relief, her tomatoes seemed to all be intact, the loaf of bread she bought was a flattened a bit, and the potatoes seemed fine. Mikan happily gathered up her groceries and carried them to the kitchen, dumped the vegetables in the sink and began to wash and prep the vegetables for dinner.

After she finished cleaning the vegetables and tossed all the ingredients into a pot to make some curry, Mikan set to work making a salad. She was busy trying to chop a mushed tomato (it turned out that not all her groceries had faired as well as she had first thought) when she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. Shrieking, Mikan dropped the knife and the bruised tomato and whirled around to find the boy standing there.

After taking in his appearance, she quickly slapped her hands over her eyes and cried out, "Why are you naked?"

"I'm not," the boy calmly replied. "I'm wearing pants."

"Then where's your shirt?" Mikan asked, hands still over her eyes, fingers squeezed shut.

"Well, someone threw water on it, remember?"

"That was an accident!"

Natsume looked down at the top of the girl's head and smirked, knowing that she couldn't see it. Time for some more revenge. "My pants are wet as well. Should I take them off too?" Amused, he watched the girl's face go from pink to bright red. She was too easy to tease. Truly a country bumpkin.

"No! Don't!" she exclaimed, panic evident in her voice. If possible, her hands clamped tighter over her eyes.

At this rate, she'd probably gouge her eyes out from embarrassment. However, lucky for her, Natsume wasn't in a blood-thirsty mood today. He turned away from her and said, "Pfft. You're too easy. I'm going to watch TV," before moving away from her.

Mikan listened to his footsteps retreat, but not trusting him after all the stunts that he had pulled, she didn't move until she heard the TV click on, and only then did she spread her fingers a bit to peer through the cracks to make sure he was actually doing something innocuous. Seeing that he had done as he said he would, Mikan removed her hands from her face, still colored pink, and turned around to pick up the ruined tomato, angrily chopped it into chunks before tossing it in the salad.

The nerve of that boy! Mikan was furious, to say the least. Never before had she been so embarrassed. Not even the time (or rather the many times) when Hotaru bluntly pointed out her faults (in public no less) had Mikan felt so humiliated. Even that one time when Hotaru had been in a rather nasty mood a few days before her vacation from school ended and, for some reason, made a point to let every door she went through swing closed in Mikan's face. After the first few times, Mikan had wised up and caught the door before it slammed into her face, but the first time Hotaru did it, she had release the shopping center door when Mikan was halfway through the entryway. Needless to say, all the shopping center customers that had the opportunity to see a red-faced, red-nosed (and extremely embarrassed) Mikan execute her Flying Kick at Hotaru. Of course, it was unsuccessful, but then again, when had she ever one-upped Hotaru?

Mikan took her anger out on the pot of curry, stirring it furiously with no remorse. She was half tempted to add some extra chili powder to his share later, just for revenge. (Why was she cooking for him again?) But then her conscience and over active imagination kicked in and she envision all the possible bad things that could happen if she did so, beginning with him getting a horrible stomachache, which led to him accidentally aggravating his wound, to him finally lying on the floor, bleeding to death. Of course all this reminded her that she should probably change those bandages.

Mikan debated with herself as to whether she should help him change them now or later. She turned and looked at him from the doorway of the kitchen and caught a glimpse of the news report that he seemed to be focused on. It was odd to have the TV on when she was cooking, since she preferred to have the radio on instead. She turned around to finish tossing the salad with a ginger dressing Imai-san had made for her, but the droning voice of the news reporter kept distracting her. Usually, Mikan would have been thrilled to have company (living by yourself was lonely after all), but this particular company was neither polite nor friendly. Not good company at all. In fact, Mikan realized, she didn't even know his name.

"Well, the first step to making friends is knowing someone's name," Mikan thought. She took a quick glance over her shoulder at the boy and muttered, "Impossible, but…"

Sighing heavily, Mikan pulled her apron off and turned the heat on the pot down before going to her grandfather's room to retrieve the medicine box.

Out of the corner of his eye, Natsume watched the noisy girl walk out of the room and disappear down the hallway. As much fun as it was teasing her (When was the last he had been so amused? Oh right, there was that one time he had told Kokoroyomi to let it slip to his fan girls that he liked to relax in the North Woods. Watching them brave Mr. Bear and Giant Piyo in order to get to his "Relaxing Spot" had provided him with a week's entertainment. Also, they stopped bugging him, since they thought they could intercept him and Ruka as they lounged in the woods. Unfortunately, they caught on that it was a hoax and his daily fan girl annoyance resumed.), he knew he needed to seriously think about what he was going to do from here on out. His first priority was to figure out where he was and if anyone was following him.

His last mission had not gone well, and the enemy had managed to catch a glimpse of his face when the mask had accidentally fallen off. The mission falling through had been the fault of one of the S.P. units who always followed him as "back-up" even though he did all the work. However, that bumbling idiot's screw up had at least given him the opportunity to escape, and he had wisely taken it. He had gotten injured during his escape (a shot from the enemy had clipped his side), and to top it off, he wasn't sure how he had winded up here, wherever "here" was. The last thing he remembered was sneaking onto a train and getting off at a random stop when a conductor had started giving him suspicious looks. From there, he tried to cover as much distance as he could before he snuck on the back of some pick up truck. He had been forced to get off somewhere along a dirt path when the driver noticed him dozing in the back, and then he walked through the countryside until his vision had begun to blur. He must have collapsed then because he had no recollection of anything after that.

So of course it was very unnerving to wake up and find himself in an unfamiliar room. His first thought was that he had been caught. Maybe by enemies of the school…he wasn't sure. However this thought changed when no one came to bother him and he found that he wasn't restrained in any way. He ignored the tray of food on the floor, not trusting it to be safe or not drugged. Natsume had crept out of the room (shocked to find the door wasn't locked or bolted) and examined the house. From what he could tell from pictures and what not, an old man and his granddaughter lived there, but there were no signs of either of them at the time. And now he'd only met the granddaughter.

Maybe the old man went to get some help or the police? "He was probably senile if he had done that," Natsume thought. After all, who would leave their granddaughter, especially one as dumb as her, alone in the company of a suspicious boy? Stupidity must run in the family.

Natsume also wondered if it was really only those two in the house. Maybe if the two had joined efforts, they could carry him back, since it was highly unlikely that they could have managed to do so on their own. This introduced the possibility of a third person who knew about him being here, and this one would pose the greatest threat.

But as of now, he had only met the girl, and this disturbed him. He'd probably have to leave soon, but Natsume knew in this condition he wouldn't get far. He probably had a fever (since that's what usually happens to him when he gets injured. Probably a side effect of those drugs the Academy was feeding him) and that wound might be infected. Also, he hadn't eaten in a while. Right now, he was a sitting duck. If only he could get his bearings back, and that would require…

Natsume's thought trailed off as he focused on the girl walking backing the room. From the corner of his eye, he watched her deposit the tray from earlier in the kitchen before coming toward him with a box. He tensed as she maneuver behind him before sitting down. Natsume pretended to ignore her and attempted to seem focused on the TV while she rummaged in that white box of hers. It seemed that all those years of ignoring fan girls was finally coming into use.

"Um…" the girl began timidly.

"What," Natsume said, forcing that bored, aloof tone that he used when addressing teachers into his voice.

"Well," Mikan began, unsure as to how to approach this conversation. "I…well…I thought I should change those bandages." She shifted nervously when the boy turned his head to stare at her.

"Fine," was the gruff reply after a moment's pause.

Mikan slowly and cautiously began to remove the old bandages while the boy turned his attention back to the TV. But Mikan knew better. She could feel him watching her, even though his eyes weren't on her. It made her incredibly nervous and uncomfortable, so she decided to try and lighten up the mood.

"So, uh, what's your name?" Mikan began, in what she hoped was a conversational tone, but she flinched when the boy's eyes flicked over to rest on her.

After a pause, he countered, "Shouldn't you introduce yourself first before asking for someone else's name?"

"Oh! Right. Um, I'm Sakura Mikan, 14 years old. Junior high, third year, class 3-C. Best subject: gym. Worst subject: math," Mikan finished with a cheerful smile.

Natsume gave Mikan a long, calculating look before stating, "Hyuuga Natsume."

Mikan pouted. That was it? He most certainly wasn't talkative.

"How old are you?"

"14."

"Ah! The same age as me! When's your birthday?"

Natsume stared at her. Should he humor her and reply? "November 27th."

"Mine is January 1st! That means I'm older!"

There was a pregnant pause as Natsume didn't exert any effort to keep the conversation going.

"Um… well… this might sting a bit," Mikan said giving Natsume a quick warning before she dabbed his wound with a cloth soaked in alcohol. Actually she had giving him such a short notice on purpose, hoping to get some sort of verbal reply. Much to her disappointment, all he did was hiss and slightly flinch.

"So…" Mikan began once again, "Do you have any hobbies?" She paused for a bit, waiting for an answer, but seeing that he didn't care to reply, she kept going. "I don't really have any time for fun anymore, but I like sports, especially running and basketball. Fishing is also lots of fun. I used to go all the time with my grandfather. How about you? Have you ever gone fishing?"

"No."

Silence fell over the two of them and Mikan's eyes began to twitch. How rude could he be? He could at least try to chat with her. But no, Mikan was stuck holding a one sided conversation.

To show her feelings, Mikan gave his new bandage an extra firm pat to make sure it was in place, inwardly grinning when he flinched.

"Okay, finished!" Mikan said as she put all the materials back in the box and got up. She began moving toward the hallway when the sound of her curry pot boiling over caught her attention. With a yelp of surprise, Mikan dropped the box on the table before running to turn off the stove and save her dinner. She stared remorsefully into the pot as she stirred the contents about.

"Did you burn it?"

Mikan squeaked when she heard Natsume's voice. She glanced over her shoulder to see he hadn't moved an in, not even turning his head to talk to her. In fact she felt her annoyance level rise when he added, "It's probably inedible now."

"As a matter of fact," Mikan replied huffily, "No I did not burn it. In fact…" she was cut off by the beeping of the rice cooker and squeaked in surprise. Flustered, Mikan turned to her rice cooker and pulled the plug out of the outlet.

"Oh, finding this boy was bad luck," Mikan thought to herself as she began scooping rice onto a plate. She had never been this embarrassed or flustered ever! It seemed even her kitchen was against her since all the cooking seemed to have finished at the same time (Mikan had conveniently forgotten that this was actually a common occurrence).

Sighing disappointedly, Mikan carried two servings over to the table and called her guest over. "Are you hungry? Dinner's ready." When Natsume showed no sign that he heard her, Mikan stomped angrily over to the television and clicked it off.

"I made dinner. It's on the table," Mikan grumbled.

Natsume just stared at her before getting up (he had to use the nearby sofa to help himself up, Mikan noted) and headed toward the dining table.

Mikan chose the seat furthest away from Natsume, which was actually the seat across from him, and dug into her food after cheerfully stating, "Itadakimasu".

"So…" Mikan began hesitantly, not sure if she should try conversation with him again, especially after last time.

There was a long pause before Natsume grunted, "What?"

"Did…did you run away from home?"

Natsume pulled his head back to look at Mikan. He could see her begin to wilt under his glare, but for some reason, he responded anyway.

"Yes, in a way."

He watched a torrent of emotions flow across her face until she settled on a slightly curious look and continued with her questions.

"Why? Were you not happy there?"

Mikan stared at him, expecting an answer, but instead, he turned his attention back to his food and ignored her. Feeling bold, Mikan persisted. "Where did you use to live? In the nearby city? How did you end up here?"

Natsume snapped his head up and stared at her sharply. "You're noisy, polka-dots."

"Po…po…polka-dots?" Mikan stuttered in shock. She gripped her spoon tightly, fighting the urge to chuck it at his head. However, she was a bit unsuccessful for she felt her arm begin to pull back and set up for the pitch.

On the other hand, Natsume just smirked at her and continued eating calmly, except when he saw her wind up for the throw, he distracted her by offering a piece of information.

"I ran away from school."

Arm paused in the air, Mikan blinked confusedly at the boy across the table.

"From school?" When he offered no elaboration, she knew it was back to fishing for details.

"Did you not like the teachers?"

No answer.

"Was it a boarding school? Did you want to go home?"

Silence.

"Where was your school? Was it an elevator school? Is that your school uniform?"

Natsume thought if he gave her a small piece of information that maybe she'd shut up. He should have known better. This girl didn't look like she had the capacity to keep her mouth shut. She hadn't demonstrated it yet either. If he followed normal school procedure (or at least his normal school procedure) for dealing with girls, the next step would to ignore her until the girl would give up. That or leave the immediate proximity. Since the latter was impossible at the moment, he had gone with the former, but she still didn't get the hint, and he was itching for some peace and quiet. But he would settle for a change of subject.

"This food is so plain."

Mikan stared at the boy when he had suddenly made a comment (and avoided answering her question) "Wha…?" Mikan asked in an 'oh, so intelligent' manner.

Red eyes flicked up to look at Mikan in a condescending manner before a long arm stretched across the table. "You can't even make a proper salad. Not enough tomatoes. I've eaten salads ten times better than this everyday at school." Natsume calmly threw these barbs at Mikan while his arm reached across the table and stole a tomato off her plate.

Gaping openly at Natsume, Mikan worked her mouth up and down, trying to come up with a retort. He had the gall to steal her tomato (not that she really liked them…but it was the principle of the matter)!

"You…" Mikan began, fist shaking as it was wrapped tightly around her spoon. Before she knew what happened, her arm had drawn back and launched the spoon at his head. She ignored the spoon bouncing off Natsume's head as she began to rant and rave at him.

"You took my tomato! I can't believe you. And if you don't like it, don't eat it!" Mikan raged.

Natsume, on the other hand, could not believe that she was immature enough to throw a spoon at him. So he decided to teach her a lesson about maturity.

And, in all of his so-called maturity, decided to set fire to her pigtails.

Needless to say, Mikan had another puddle of water to clean up that night.

Chapter Notes:

Just some notes into maybe some cultural things that everybody may not know.

- S.P. is the Japanese type of bodyguard. You know, those guys dressed in black with sunglasses and look daunting in animes.

- Itadakimasu is something Japanese people say before they eat.

Author Notes:

Its been a while everyone! Sorry for the long time in between updates. It might be a while before the next update. ; Sorry. Be patient with me.

Also, thanks for everyone contributions about Alices. Truth be, I sat down with my friend and picked her brain for Alice ideas, so I have powers for my minor OC's that I've been planning. I still will be accepting ideas for new Alices, and they may be included in the fic. No guarantees though.