Disclaimer: Nope.

Ugh. I had to type this out five freaking times because my laptop was reacting up and shutting down on me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Sorry I had to start this with a miniature rant (x_x) but anyway, thank you for all the reviews! : )

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Chapter 4: Dancing Shoes

"I-I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, it just happened by accident I promise—" Mikan stammered, the words choking out of her mouth. She faced downwards and made very little sound as her feet tapped lightly against the wooden floorboards, wondering how on earth this woman was able to see—or hear, through two large so easily!

"You were waiting outside that door for fifteen minutes, that's clearly not an accident," the woman responded immediately, words harsh and hard-hitting like a tough golf-ball. Picking herself up from her seated position, the woman watched as her Prussian-blue kimono fell to the ground and followed her body as she made her way to the brunette, grimacing at her posture.

"I am truly sorry, I did not mean in any way to—" she insisted, still not daring to face the woman.

"Make eye contact with the people you're speaking too and stop hunching your shoulders in such a disrespectful manner, it's extremely ungraceful," she ordered, watching Mikan's shoulders rise with stiffness. At the sight of the woman in front of her, Mikan pursed her lips and took a heavy breath.

Like statuesque ivory, her fair, pale-faced skin shone in great contrast to her eggplant-coloured eyes. Though a few shades darker than her short, choppy hair, they were big and most certainly beautiful. She was a woman of a stickler to refinement and elegance, which was something she had noticed Mikan to be missing by far.

"Of all the creatures roaming around, he just had to choose a human—those ghastly little creatures, he puts shame to our kingdom. Such a disgrace," she spat out, words hitting Mikan like the essence of poison. Though the brunette had the biggest temptation to slap this woman out of her right mind, she denied it in case of the consequences.

"Hotaru, you shouldn't be saying that, it's rude to Mikan—" Before her friend had the ability to continue with her sentence, Hotaru walked past the brunette in disgrace and closed the door with a loud slamming noise. With an awkward air silencing the room, no one knew what to say. "Don't mind her, she's just probably mad that she hasn't had her crabs yet, so ignore our melodramatic pessimist of a friend. I'm Misaki Harada, by the way."

With a bit of a fake smile, Mikan nodded at the coral-pink haired lady in front of her and noticed the extreme amount of similarities this lady had compared to her mother, excluding the hair colour. Same length and bangs that were thick, but still had her eyes visible. "I'm—"

"Mikan, we know," interrupted two different voices at the same time, both with a similar pitch that would almost seem unrecognizable to a blind eye. "We're the twins," they said in union, once again.

"I'm Anna," A bubblegum pink-haired girl popped out abruptly in front of the brunette, her long curls at the bottom of her locks bouncing upwards and downwards along with her body.

"…I'm Nonoko," introduced another, with looks (not including the peachy-coated skin that they shared) completely the opposite to her so-called twin: dark, straight strands with thick bangs at the front. Awkwardly, Mikan nodded to the 'twins' and glanced her eyes over to the man who was standing near the window, waiting for her to question his presence.

"You're the guy I saw earlier today, right?" she asked, watching him nod in approval.

"Yeah, I'm Tsubasa Andou but you can call me Tsubasa."

"Ah, I now see what you meant by that sentence. It confused me a lot but I—he told me…about it. All of it." Not knowing what to say any further, Mikan felt all eyes on her. "It's great to meet you all, and I guess my arrival must be really strange to you all. It is to me, anyway."

"Mikan, I…I think that Hyuuga isn't the bad guy you think he'd be." In disagreement to Anna's statement, Mikan shook her head and breathed in heavily, head in a disoriented state of confusion.

"Part of me wants to believe that, but I just can't wind my head around the fact that I'm actually here. This is too surreal for it to be true and I'm waiting for this dream to fade away like all my other fantasies have; never in a million years would I expect this to be my future," she spoke out honestly, not knowing how to continue afterwards.

"You're making all of this sound like a bad thing," Misaki continued, "but it's really not." Biting the inside of her cheeks, Mikan just didn't know what to believe, because frankly, their opinions were just a bit biased—they lived in his kingdom, of course they'd say that! "You'll soon realize that, too," she finished.

"Misaki's never wrong, you should trust her," Nonoko advised.

"I-I have to go. A night's rest will do me some good."

Without further thought, Mikan ran off and out of the room, not sure where she should have been headed—though her original thought was to escape from this…tower, her head was just whirling thoughts in and out of her mind that were incomprehensible by the amount of sleep she had received. In a rhythmic pattern, her shoeless feet drummed against the spanking clean floorboard, and she felt the urge to just run back to her room and get the peaceful amount of sleep she rightfully deserved.

Though, Mikan had no idea where she was, nor did she know how she was going to get back without asking for help.

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With the sunlight hammering against the glass window, Mikan's eyes strained as they opened with force and only to be welcomed with such lustrously radiating ray of sunshine. Almost freaking out, she wasn't sure where she was or how she got there—the last thing she remembered was wandering aimlessly across the halls of hell's kingdom, and completely collapsing out of an extreme case of exhaustion.

Whether she was brought back or carried was something that Mikan could not care less about, she was happily in a bed that was twice—triple the size of her one at home and to make it even better, had the duvet worth of feathers handpicked from an angel's wing.

In fatigue, she rolled over to her right side, only to see Misaki's face of boredom blowing the coat of strawberry-red varnish she had painted on her lengthy nails. Noticing the awakening eyes of Mikan, she jumped (only slightly) and suddenly felt the awkward tension in the air, not knowing how to explain the reason to her presence.

"I was just—uh, well—I was—" she stuttered, not wanting to sound like a pervert who watched the faces of little girls sleep. Not that Mikan was much of a little girl, anyway, and more like an adult. "Sorry, I didn't realize you were awake. Tsubasa asked me to check on you and wake you up for breakfast but you seemed so peaceful I just couldn't, so I thought I could wait a little bit." Nodding, Mikan pushed away the covers and slipped on slippers, her ultramarine-blue dressing gown falling to her knees.

"Do you know…what happened last night? After I left the room, I mean," she asked curiously, trying to fill the void with unnecessary words.

"Natsume saw you collapsing and he carried you to your room," Misaki responded as she walked over to the window and grabbed hold of the curtains, opening them and streaming through the unbearable glow of sunshine that illuminated through.

"Wait—so—did he undress me?" the brunette panicked, clutching on the hem of her dressing gown and fiddling with it in terror. Unconsciously, Misaki gave out a roar of laughter and raised an eyebrow, not really knowing what to reply with.

"Why don't you ask him that?" she giggled, leaving Mikan's mouth hanging half-open in shock. "Come on, we're going down for breakfast so you need to quickly get dressed. I filled your wardrobe so you've got plenty of clothes, and you've got about ten minutes to get ready before we'll begin eating." Before she could bat an eyelid, Misaki had vanished out of thin air and left the curiosity in Mikan's head growing.

He wouldn't have, right?

Opening the wardrobe with the grip of her clammy palms against the doorknob, she hesitated to choose something from the range of clothing options she had—there was everything! Dresses, kimonos, skirts, shoes and as the tip of her fingers trailed down to meet the quality of the fabric, she loved the feeling of the fine material lingering against her fingers.

Hastily picking out a not-so-formal carnation-pink kimono, Mikan pondered about why she had to be dressed so ceremonially, yet for such a small occasion. Breakfast was never something extraordinarily important, after all.

As she ran down staircases and through several unknown doors to find her destination, Mikan wondered how different the mornings were, compared to the nights: the sky was clearer than any day in Japan and the radiance of light that managed to shine through the semi-transparent curtain was so enticingly beautiful that she was tempted to just stand by the windows, gazing away at the beauty.

Although Misaki had told her to come to breakfast, she wasn't exactly sure where breakfast was and after opening too many doors that were emptily unused, she had run out of energy to do anything else. In desperation, the breathless brunette leaned against the darkening walls and slid down to the ground, burying her head against her knees and panting heavily in attempt to regain her energy again, bringing up the question, where the heck was she?

Though there were hundreds of doors, none of them seemed to be occupied; even though you wouldn't really be able to tell, Mikan was scarily haunted by the fact that she would open one of them and only to reveal for it to be occupied—resulting in her humiliation.

"Harada is such an idiot." Mikan's head sprang up, watching the kneeling Natsume in front of her, gingerly caressing the strands of her hair. Unsure of what to respond with, she instantly knew what he meant and took a heave of the air, directing her hazel-eye away from his dangerous ruby-coated ones. "We need to do something about these tangly knots of yours," he noted, running his fingers down her hair like a brush.

Mikan frowned. "Says you."

"I'm not a king from a fairytale book and I'm most certainly not prepared to gel back my hair in attempt to please you, or anyone else for that matter," Natsume said, ignoring her escaping laughter.

After a few minutes worth of utter silence and coincidentally sitting on the floor, they noticed how awkward their conversations always were; even though they were supposedly meant to be 'engaged', was this natural? The embarrassment and rosy-red cheeks that flustered her, was it all normal?

"You're probably hungry, right?" Natsume questioned the girl in front of him, removing his hand delicately away from her face. Mikan nodded, although she was uncertain of the choice of food that would be on the table and whether she would like it or not. "Alright, let's go get you something to eat."

After fifteen minutes, Mikan had suddenly realized that the width of the table she was sitting in front of was almost three times the size of her bed; she could hardly see her fiancé's face, let alone be able to speak a word without having to repeat her sentence louder. In the wordless silence, she put the spoon to her lips and took a small sip of the chicken soup she had always been so fond of as a child.

Though having only the two and a couple of maids standing inside and outside of the dining room, Mikan had realized how busy it seemed, despite having very little inside; the walls, being a darker shade of mauve, made her feel so closed in and trapped, in spite of not exactly knowing why. There were only a few pieces of furniture positioned—the lengthy table, two whole rows of chairs that weren't occupied and a wooden wardrobe that was oddly sitting at the corner of the room.

"Do you remember that dance, two years ago?" Choking, Mikan almost dropped her spoon, coughing uncontrollably.

"How could I forget?" she remarked, sipping down a bottle of ice-cold water that cooled down the insides of her mouth. "But what has this got to do with anything? You're not the type of fatherly-figure who'd be all golly-jolly about bringing up memories."

He ignored her question. "Well, it seems like we still haven't had the chance to announce our engagement and there's an upcoming ball havening today, so I was thinking maybe…"

.

"For the fiftieth time—"

"The second time, Hyuuga! Second!"

"Whatever, stop stepping on my foot or I will deliberately step on yours and not care if you go running away in tears!" the pissed off Natsume Hyuuga retorted, pulling away from his dance partner and giving a deep heave of a sigh. "I don't get it—you were fine then, what happened?" he questioned, watching her furrowed eyebrow and arms that were crossed.

"You were actually calm with me when you instructed me what to do, now, you're worse than Captain Hook on a bad day!" Mikan snapped.

"That was the lamest comparison I have ever heard in my life," he insulted, watch the brunette throw her arms back in annoyance and open her mouth half-way, extremely shocked as to what he had just said.

"Why are you so grumpy right now?" Mikan questioned him.

"Why are you so bad at dancing right now?" he mimicked her, slightly changing the sentence to suit his liking; a scowl formed on the line of her cherry-tinted lips, feeling the rage inside her growing with aggravation and anger. Soon enough, it had cleared away as she counted up to ten, took a deep breath and dryly smiled, fixing up the hem of her newly-worn dress. "Look, this dance means more than all of my birthdays put together and it has to go perfectly."

"Let's give this another go, and this time, please be a little gentler with your instructions before I lose my temper, okay?" Though she had supposedly asked a question, it was more intentional to be a statement rather than something to answer. Obediently, the crimson-eyed boy laced his fingers around hers, clasping together like a match of a lock and key, before then curling his fingers around her hip; he felt the tight grip Mikan put as she slowly placed another hand on his shoulder, slowing down her breathing rate and taking small steps as Natsume guided her.

In spite of having the leadership capability of a dead zebra, Mikan continued to follow her partner's steps, knowing that slow dancing definitely was not her cup of tea. Still, dancer or not, it was easier than she originally imagined.

"Your shoulders are too stiff, relax them a little bit, but keep them firm enough so that you're not moving like a jellyfish," Natsume directed her, feeling the firmness in Mikan's posture lessening and becoming a bit more springy. "Yeah, like that."

Dancing smoothly, Mikan felt the pulse of the music gracefully taking control of her body and forcefully controlling her steps and even though her dancing ability could have been better, she had a dancing partner who—unlike before—helped her. His steps and movements were so refined that it motivated her to keep going, and in spite of being aware of the fact that dancing better than him was not possible, it still gave her enthusiasm.

"Is that better?" she softly whispered, not wanted to disrupt their rhythmic flow.

"A lot better than last time," Natsume replied, and even though there wasn't one across his lips, Mikan knew he was smiling mentally.

"See? Being gentler does solve problems," Mikan repeated with a small chuckle hiding behind her words. Even though he hadn't responded, the brunette could tell exactly what he was thinking, even if he hadn't said it: it does not. "It does!" she attempted to convince him, watching his face which wasn't particularly amused. Natsume shook his head. "But it does, just look—"

"Ow," Natsume groaned in pain, grabbing hold of his shoe and shooting the auburn-brunette a glare that could possibly kill. "How many times have I told you not to step on me with those damn heels of yours?!" he shouted, hands wrapped around the stabbed foot in frustration.

Backing away, Mikan grabbed hold of her six inch stilettos (which she still was unsure as to how she was capable of dancing in) and snapped the heel in half with rage, dropping it and causing the shoe to crash to the floor. "Are you happy now, Mr. I-want-everything-perfect?" Unable to cough out the words from his mouth, Natsume stayed in pain, on the floor; his arms were firmly wrapped around his knee, not being able to talk from all the excruciating aching of his foot. "Y-you brought this upon yourself, y'know!"

In irritation (and a hint of embarrassment), Mikan ran off with her bare feet carrying her to the nearest door she could find—a round-edged, wooden door opposite of the one she had just previously been in. Her eyes stinging with the small droplets of her tears, she stopped, tripped over her own feet and stayed half-dead on the floor for a few seconds. "Moron." Mikan's ears perked up, cringing with humiliation at what she had done, not knowing that a complete stranger had been in the room!

His voice, being a low, sonorous tone with a tint of exquisiteness, spoke out again, "I don't know who you are, but go away. You're bothering me." Mikan's head (which was buried by the wrappings of her arms) lifted with nuisance.

"You don't know who I am? B-but, I'm the queen—well, almost," she informed him, lifting herself up with the trace of cerise hiding along her cheeks out of embarrassment.

"Well then, if you're the so-called queen, what are you doing here in my bedroom?" he remarked. Mikan, completely clueless of her surroundings, looked around.

It was an unadorned room with no other furniture, excluding the bed and table a few inches across from it; a man, lying down on the creamy-beige coloured sheets, had one leg raised higher than the other while an overly-large sized book covered the majority of his face. Unlike hers, this room was a lot brighter in wallpaper, being designed with white and taupe-coated walls and furniture; she felt such a heavenly aura, looking around.

"I was angry because Hyuuga kept shouting at me while we were dancing and I kept stepping on his foot by accident—"

"Forget it, I don't want to know. Just get out," he rudely interrupted her, taking back his question. In disbelief of his rudeness, Mikan, standing up and dusting off her shoulders, casually strolled over to his lying body and whipped away the book from his grasp; she flicked through the pages and felt a whim of laughter overcome her—oh, how interesting this was!

"Is this book To Kill a Mockingbird? What are you, a girl?" With irritation, he snatched the book away from her hands and placed it back on the table, watching her furrowed eyebrows.

"I know plenty of boys who read this book, that doesn't make them anymore feminine than you are," he remarked. "Ugly." Mikan widened her mouth in disbelief.

"Look here, kid—"

"I'm the same age as you, that makes you a kid too," he responded in a casual tone, not bothered by her hovering and half-open mouth. "You'll catch flies, close your mouth."

Mikan scowled at his looks, with his dishevelled hair being the colour of battleship gray and his eyes being several tones darker than minty green—as unimaginable as it was, the comparison to Natsume she made felt too similar. That cocky and those overconfident words of his, along with part of his facial features, reminded her of that irksome, crimson-eyed man.

"Don't you have anything else to do, besides standing here and gawking at me like I'm an unknown species to the world?" Veins appearing from hearing his smug words, the irritated brunette shrugged off the extreme temptation to grab him by his (very small, in fact) ears and pin him up against the wall like a painting. It wasn't impossible.

"Well I would, if that moodyguts back there would actually help me instead of shouting in my ear like I'm his slave! So, until he comes and looks for me, I'm staying right where I am."

"Slow dance, right?"

"Yeah, but it's not like you'd care or anything—"

"I can help you. If I help you perfect your dance, you'll go away and I won't have to see your face again, right?"

"You'd do that for me?" Mikan questioned him, surprised at such a small catch. With a small smile lengthening across her face, she high-fived the air in joy.

"Idiot, stop smiling. You look like a creepy old lady," he affronted, lazily slumping out of the bed and dragging himself up to meet the face of his dance partner. Despite the fact that he was several inches taller than the brunette, Mikan had noticed how short he was in contrast to Natsume—though that would possibly be the result of the two year age difference between them. "Hand." Obediently doing so, Mikan felt the squeeze he gave her as their fingers linked together and she loosely held on to his shoulder as he did the same to her left hip.

"I'm guessing Natsume already told you about the don't-be-too-firm rule." Nodding, Mikan oddly began to feel the one foot distance between them somehow getting…closer. Although neither of them had moved closer in, she felt like the world was closing in on her a little bit, so much that her head began to whirl out of control. "Good, I can tell you were listening when he said that."

Not knowing how to respond, the auburn-brunette found it hard to meet his eyes. "First tip, look at your partner. It's a bit disrespectful if you're not and pointless if you're finding it too awkward," he directed her, watching her hazel eyes dart to his, showing a tint of embarrassment.

Guided by his steps, Mikan felt the gap in Natsume and his similarities widening, with some even disappearing; while Natsume had more aggressive actions towards the brunette, the man in front of her was a lot more…gentler, but only when he wished to be. Still, she couldn't really say much about either of them, considering she hadn't known either for a very long period of time.

"Tip two, if you're worried about stepping on your partner's feet…" Mikan scowled to herself mentally at just the thought. "…don't be. The more you think about it, there is more of a chance that you will. Just keep going and you should trust you partner in their dancing abilities to guide you, especially if it's Natsume. So don't stress, and keep your eyes directing to the person in front of you."

As Mikan nodded, she wondered if he could feel the clamminess of her palm increasing, but even if he did, it didn't seem he was saying anything about it—the brunette was really annoyed by the fact that she was forced to continuously refer to her partner as 'he' or 'him', not knowing his name.

"Hey, I don't know your—"

"Youichi, have you—"The voice, which had suddenly grown louder by the seconds passing, stopped without even fading as the loud sound of a door shutting behind them was made; unintentionally, Mikan took control of her body again, took her hands and shoved them against Youichi's chest, causing him to fly backwards and hit his head against the wooden table. Ouch.

Nail against her teeth, Mikan's body froze in the sight of Youichi's body being slammed against the table as she began to continuously replay in her mind at the vision she had just witnessed—no, committed. "I am so sorry!" she pleaded in an apologetic tone, not entirely concerned of the crimson-eyed man who was almost sending death glares behind her and had a not-so-bright aura surrounding his body.

"What the hell did you do to my brother?" Natsume barked, watching her gasping mouth open even further at the sight of him.

"H-how much of that did you see—wait, your who now?"

"Answer my question you fool, what the hell did you do to him?"

"Forget that, answer mine you dimwit!" After hearing an insult being thrown towards him, Natsume felt infuriated—no one had the right to offend him or call him names like that, let alone a mere girl!

"Ow…"a timid voice muttered out as two heads immediately turned his way, not realizing their selfishness. Youichi, who was still lying half-dead on the floor, rubbed the back of his head with the bottom of his palm in hope to cure away the pain; his 'brother' ran to Youichi's side, holding back the tempting urge to scream at the brunette.

"You little—"

"Guys! The ball is about to begin!" Tsubasa burst in, almost panicking. "We need you, Natsume! They're demanding for you and your fiancée's entrance!"

Oh, Mikan thought, her head down in dismay. Fantastic.

As you can probably already tell, I have this creepy-not-pedo-ish-at-all addiction for Youichi. He's so adorable. :P

I'm sorry to those who saw this chapter as filler, but it kinda wasn't because it was really necessary for future chapters. :) (And next chapter, of course!)

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Thanks for reading, reviews are especially appreciated and I hope you have a good day!