Author's Note: LOL please excuse this mediocrity. I just had time on my hands and even though I wanted to quit FFN, I kinda thought, eh, why not?

Thanks so much for your reviews (despite me being MIA for the past I don't know how long).

Just as a side-note... As much as I appreciate reviews, if you're telling me to make it NatsuMikan, you'll probably be disappointed. That's not to say that I'm defs planning on writing Hotaru and Natsume together, fyi. I feel like there are plenty of great NatsuMikan stories out there, as there are reverse harem Mikan fics, and I wanted to add something different, something that focuses on Hotaru instead, y'know? All I ask is for my readers to keep an open mind about this, and if the story goes a direction you didn't want it to, I'm really sorry. It's just a weird creation of my mind, and usually my mind goes places in which most people don't want to venture. If you can tolerate me after, thanks. ^_^ If not, I really apologize in advance.

Also, no, Hotaru is not a robot... She's a genetically modified human being, if that makes sense?

3.

"They are merely scars, not mortal wounds, and you must use them to propel you forward."

- Peter David

Within the mere hours after which Ruka Nogi met the Product, he had turned into a jerk. A tempestuous, no-good asshole.

Ruka noticed this, and he was pretty sure Natsume noticed this, too.

But how else could he have reacted?

As much as he didn't want his past to affect him, it remained completely attached to his system like a parasite that hijacked his emotions, showing him blurred pictures of that April morning ten years ago.

Natsume, of course, knew this, too. He had stood by his best friend for almost two decades, after all. He knew the meaning behind every laugh, every cringe, every fake smile.

He knew what this was doing to him, and he needed to stop it.

"Look, Ruka, I think you should get rid of her soon." The blonde could hear the concern in his best friend's voice. "She's... not good for you."

She really wasn't. Every moment his spent with her was like digging up a little bit of dirt from his mother's grave.

"I know," Ruka replied, heaving a sigh. "I know-"

"WAAAAIT." Hayate's booming voice interrupted the exchange, "That's unfair to Hotaru! She was made for you, you know."

Hayate had never been the type to catch on social cues. For the first time, Ruka was relieved of this fact; he could avoid this heavy feeling in his chest for a little while longer.

Ruka looked at the Product. Her eyes were fixed on the ground as if she was looking for something there. But he knew better. She was desperately trying to escape the conversation, as if she wanted to just dissolve into nothing. He knew that look. He had seen it before.

"She wasn't made for me," Ruka stated coldly. "She was made for anyone who thought she would make a pretty little side dish for an unhappy marriage, for sick bastards who needed someone to share the loneliness with."

"But-"

Natsume sighed, obviously annoyed with Hayate's persistence, "I think it's safe to say that no one wants her here. After all the shit we've said, I don't think she wants to be here, either."

Silence filled the room, as if they were all in tacit compliance.

X

Hotaru decided that she hated the world outside Alice & Co.

All her life, she had been dreaming of the moment she would be taken away from the tasteless white walls of the facility; that she would no longer be called a number on a barcode; that she would be cared for not as a commodity on a factory line, but as something more. She knew how chimerical her fantasies were, and that if she had ever voiced these ideas, she would surely be punished. But she wanted it, more so than anything she could possibly imagine.

But here, in the dimly lit bar room, she realized just how stupid she had been. Reality was a wrecking ball that made sure all of her carefully-constructed hopes were completely demolished by bitter disillusionment.

So when she heard the words, "I don't think she wants to be here", she couldn't help but to agree completely.

She bit down on her lower lip, trying to keep herself from feebly attempting to pick up the pieces of her hopes. The ruins left behind were beyond repair.

The silence gave her all the more reason to fill her head with thoughts. The words of her indoctrination began playing on repeat in her mind.

"You are a Product. From this day on, you live to serve your Customer. That is your sole purpose: nothing more, nothing less."

She should have known that happiness was never a prerequisite. She should have known.

She saw the walls of her identity so clearly in front of her, and she wanted so desperately to tear it down. The remnants of her hopes called to her one last time.

Her head was spinning. Her heart was pounding hard- so hard she could feel it in her throat- and her cheeks flushed a bright red. Her hands began to clench into fists. Her legs were shaking and her breathing became shallow. Something was acting inside of her, and it was too late to stop it.

"I don't..," she managed, her voice shaking. She tried again, this time with more conviction:

"I don't want to be a Product. I don't want to be a number. I want to be... Hotaru Imai. I... want to be human."

X

Those words coming out of the Product- no, Hotaru's- mouth hit Ruka like a bullet in the head.

This thing- no, girl- was a person, one that sought liberation after years of being enslaved, after years of being told that the only thing she could be was subhuman.

She was a person who believed in things, desired for things, loved things, and wanted to be loved by things, just like him.

She was a person- one made to serve others, but a person nonetheless- and yet here he was: putting her in chains, locking her in a cage, so that all she could possibly be was a Product. Nothing more, nothing less.

At this rate, he would be no better than the disgusting factory that manufactured her.

Ruka groaned. He had to start over.

So he extended his right hand.

"Nice to meet you, Hotaru. I'm Ruka. Ruka Nogi."

Author's Note: Ok, so I know it's so incredibly bad, but pls have mercy on meeeee. Really sorry that it's moving so slow, also... DX I'm thinking of making the next one a flashback chapter for Ruka, written in his POV so you can see what happened in his past. :D Eeeep. But anyway, thanks for reading this weird thing.