Ashy-note Not one of my finer pieces, I know, but I just wanted to join the challenge. This doesn't make much sense to me, honestly… but there you go. (:

-;-

Always

For Defying College:
One broken faucet and gallons of leaked water later,
Mikan finds she could live through four years of college with Jinno,
simply because Natsume's at the end of those four years.

Graduation day. Just after the ceremonies.

It was typical, of course, to say goodbye to everyone after more or less eight years of being holed up together inside the academy. It was no surprise, then, that even Natsume and Hotaru were busy exchanging words of greetings to everyone, going so far as one-armed embraces and final hits with the Baka Gun. Natsume's fan girls swarmed all around him for one final chance at photos, which (surprisingly enough) the fire caster allowed. Koko was too busy hankering after Sumire, carrying all the goodbye-gifts she was hoarding from her admirers. Nonoko and Anna were taking photos of everybody. Hotaru was fixing a deal with the higher-ups regarding her provision of technologies for the Academy. Ruka was giving out instructions on how to take care of Piyo while constantly trying hard to keep the tears from his eyes. Yuu was being congratulated by the faculty.

The odd thing was that the one person everyone was expecting to be hyperactive at the moment was absent.

"Where's Mikan?" Sumire burst out suddenly while signing an autograph for a Junior. Koko looked around and shook his head, baffled by the absence of the brunette as well.

Sumire's query was heard by Natsume, who then decided to go look for the Nullifier.

Anyone would think she'd be the last person in this Academy to miss graduation… Koko heard Natsume think, as the fire caster ran off away from the crowd.

Koko couldn't agree more, and he would have dwelt on the matter had it not been for the fact that Sumire shoved more gifts into his already-overloaded hands.

-;-

It puzzled him completely.

She wasn't at the sakura tree, she wasn't at the dormitories, and she wasn't at the canteen. He'd combed through the whole academy already for the past fifteen minutes, jumping from tree to tree, and still she was nowhere in sight.

More than the fact that it worried him was the fact that it made him feel a little incomplete. He'd been counting on a graduation kiss or hug, at least, to complete the graduation experience, because after all, wasn't he, her boyfriend, in the very least entitled to that?

Then the thought struck him and he changed his course back to the dormitory. Minutes later, he stepped into the girl's restroom where he, as expected, heard stifled sobs and sniffles.

"Polka?"

A small hiccup and a squeak of protest.

"Polka, I know you're in here. Don't bother hiding."

"'M n-not h-here, g-go away," came the faint reply of the young girl.

An eye-roll well earned from the fire caster, who say on top of the sink counter, waiting patiently with his hands crossed over his graduation robes and his eyes resting on the fifth cubicle from the far left, where he distinctly heard the sobs from…

When she came out, finally, after all of ten minutes' worth of waiting, she found herself against Natsume's warm, heaving chest.

His hands began rubbing light circles around her back in an attempt to comfort her.

"What's wrong?"

For a moment she fought with herself, steeling herself to say something, but eventually she gave in and then the words came rushing out like fountains of water.

What he heard amused him immensely, though he was rather torn between amusement and pity for the crying girl. It always pained him to watch and hear her cry, but somehow, her reasons were tickling him..

"I-I don't want to g-go far f-from you g-guys and it's s-so unf-fair that I'll b-be going to Paris to s-study and I-I'll m-miss you guys and I h-hate being a-alone th-there and I'll m-miss a lot of th-things here in T-tokyo…"

"And you'll be going to Paris with Jinno?" he supplied, if only to irk her more.

She wailed even harder. "You're not h-helping at a-all!"

He laughed gently, taking her chin between his fingers and raising her head to look at her tear-streaked face and reddish eyes.

"You'll be fine. You're going to an art school, the finest in the world, and you'll learn a lot. It's only four years."

"Not only!" she squawked in protest, tiny fists curled in his chest and teary brown eyes boring deep into his. "Four years away from all of you! Not nice!"

"Four years with Jinno, too?"

Her mouth shook for a moment before she broke into another round of childish bawling. "You're n-not helping! Not helping at all!"

"I'm trying to make you laugh," he tried to reason out to the girl who fell languidly in his arms, crying her eyes out. Her brown head was a mess and her make-up was splotched all over her face. She looked more like a Halloween object than a person who's just graduated from school.

"S'not f-funny! Jin-jin'll k-kill me!"

"Oh, believe me, he'll be dead before he even lays a finger on you."

"You w-won't even be there, how are you t-to stop h-him?"

"I won't let him kill you, Polka Dots, relax."

"I c-can't! When I t-think I'll s-spend years with that c-creep!"

"You managed eight years with him," he pointed out. She wailed again and he jumped down the counter and hugged her entirely, trying hard to control his laughter.

He was desperately failing.

"Y-you g-guys were t-there! When I g-get to Paris all I'll get to t-talk to will be my paintbrushes and Jin-jin and I d-don't want to t-talk to Jin-jin! While you and H-Hotaru and Ruka-pyon all g-get to g-go to Tokyo University! Y-you're majoring i-in Business Administration, why c-can't I too?"

"Because you're more fitted for the arts, Polka Dots. You'll make a terrible businesswoman, squandering off your earnings in Howalons."

"At least I d-don't go with Jin-jin! He's g-going to the same school as m-me!"

He spluttered and fumbled with his laughter and passed it off as a cough; Mikan was too depressed to care about anything else, so she didn't notice. She just kept crying and crying and at one point she mumbled, "I don't want to be with Jin-jin! He'll convert painting into Math, and he'll say 'one stroke should at least be twenty degrees higher than the brush stroke one-third of a centimeter beneath it' and no, I don't want more Math!" at which Natsume really laughed, and Mikan howled over even more.

Two weeks back, they received their scholarship offers, and Mikan's included a surprise. Other than a complete scholarship to the Eiffel Art University, she was bound to go there with a fellow teacher applicant. Everyone was surprised to hear it, but there was no other surprise greater than when they all found out it was Jinno with whom Mikan was going with to Paris. The situation was bad enough for Mikan, because she'd be the only one separated from the gang entirely, but when she heard she was to go there with Jinno, she was devastated, but she'd never really felt the full effect until today, graduation day.

Neither did he, frankly, because he never thought she'd react this strongly in aversion to the arrangement.

She kept crying as he bit his lip to control the roar of laughter itching to burst from his mouth. Truly Mikan's hatred and fear of Jinno was too much.

For the next minutes he strived to calm down the poor brunette and thankfully, he succeeded.

"Think of it this way," he told her after she had stopped her crying; she then hugged him frailly, and buried her head in his chest, while he wrapped one arm around her and the other was placed on top of a faucet to support his weight. "After four years, you'll be a champion painter and you'll leave Jinno alone and then come back home to us here in Japan."

"Or I might have found a new flame in Paris and never come home," she fuzzily answered back.

The faucet broke at the pressure his hands put on it and they found themselves drenched with water seconds after.

"Seriously!" Mikan laughed, "I tell you a joke about finding someone new and you fly off the handle just like that!"

Natsume rolled his eyes, half amused, half infuriated by the sudden mood swing of the Nullifier. He made to burn her hair but she nullified it, laughingly wagging a reproving finger at him. "No can do, fire boy, that trick is getting old."

"Would have been worth it, anyway," he mumbled, shaking off wet hair from his eyes. The water pressure was too strong it was flooding the whole restroom with water, and his shoes made squeaky squishing noises as he ran towards the giggling brunette, similarly soaked as he was. "Come here, you little—"

She dashed off, only to slip and find herself caged in his arms. They wrestled each other for quite some time before they settled down the drenched floor, her leaning against his chest, him with one finger tracing patterns on the back of her hands.

"You're like a faucet, you know," she told him after a few minutes of sloppy silence. Squish, squish… The water poured on around them, the broken faucet forgotten.

He rolled his eyes. "And yet another one of your analogies. I distinctly remember you comparing me to Paris Hilton for my wealth, and to gummy bears for my… wait, what was it that you compared me to gummy bears for? I can't remember. And then I was a star, and the Moon, then the sun, and all other cosmic bodies, only to become a tree and firewood and matches… I think I have an index of the things I can be compared to, you know… so now I'm a faucet, interesting…"

"Oh, shut up," she murmured, quietly poking his thigh playfully. "I just said that because I didn't have anything more sensible to say."

He, however, ignored her and continued his little dialogue about his analogy to a faucet.

"Let me guess… I'm like a faucet because I'm just bursting with water…? That doesn't quite make sense."

"Natsume, stop," she told me, turning around to face him, flicking water in his face to shut him up.

"Or maybe—what the! Oh, yes, flicking water, very mature, Polka Dots."

"Well, you weren't listening!"

A small smiled tugged the corners of his lips and he stretched out both arms to collect her in a hug. "I'm listening now."

She buried her face in his chest like a dog, mumbling incoherently, until Natsume let go and she sat on his lap, playing with the cords of his robes and picking out words to say.

"I… don't want to leave," she told him. He just watched her, taking in her every feature, drowning himself in her presence while he still had the chance.

"I'm scared…"

His eyebrows hitched up. "Of what?"

She bristled slightly under his stern, knowing gaze. "Well… you might… you might…"

"Yes?" He though he knew where this was leading to.

"You might find someone else… while I'm away."

Her words earned her a sigh from Natsume. He raked his hands in his hair and closed his eyes in exasperation.

"Here we go again," he murmured.

"Well, it's true!" she protested. "I'm scared you might realize someday that I was never really as great as you thought I was…"

"That's rubbish."

"And I'm not, you know! I'm not the smartest corn in the fields and I'm clumsy and I'm just—"

She was cut off short when his lips promptly crashed onto hers, successfully keeping her silent. The water was the only sound they heard.

Softly, slowly, he kissed her and claimed his stake on her, as if to show that he will never go for another's lips, only hers. The kiss wasn't one of their usual kisses, it was sweet, pure… It spoke of all the answers to Mikan's worries. There in that kiss she felt him telling her, Stupid, your fears are useless, you're not going to lose me anytime soon…

He pulled off from the kiss ever so softly, and for a moment he let his lips touch lightly against hers before leaning his forehead against hers.

"You already have me, you idiot," he whispered, caressing her face as she smiled and hummed lightly. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Right, and who's to say you won't get seduced by some random chick out there?" she teased, pulling at a lock of his black hair and smiling further.

"I don't do chickens, Polka."

"Ha-ha, classy retort, Hyuuga."

"I do hope you survive Jinno, though."

"If I don't make it, you know what to do."

He snorted. "Write to me, at least."

"Of course I will."

Then another bout of silence enveloped them, before she finally had the courage to ask what she wanted to ask.

"Wait for me?"

He took her face in his hands and gently lifted her head to meet his gaze, and in a slow, eventful moment, he smiled a full-blown smile at her.

"Stupid. Of course." Leaning down to kiss her again, he whispered. "Always."

~Ash.

-Post Script, Two Months Later-

Dear Natsume,

I promised I would write, so I am writing now. I only have little news, but I discovered a hideous thing just this morning: Jinno's frog has a terrible crush on you. It stays beside your picture day and night, and whenever it sees a photo of us together, it burps out lightning.

Jinno thinks it's adorable.

I think Jinno's in love with the frog. Poor guy. The only thing he could love loves someone else.

Cheers, miss and love you.

Mikan.