The Yukihira twins - Gakuen Alice -

12.

It was time for Natsume to choose a lamp, he clearly aimed for Tsubasa's, who was currently reprimanding Mikan and Haruna for letting him win so easily.

"Well... I can only hope he chooses the wrong lamp" Tsubasa thought aloud.

"You. Read his mind" Natsume pointed Kokoroyomi to Tsubasa.

"What? That's cheating!" He said angrily, Haruna chuckled.

"This one" Kokoroyomi pointed at a tiny golden lamp with a moon on top of it. Natsume picked it and opened it to find a scroll Inside which said 'You picked Haruna Shibuya's lamp.'

Natsume glared at the mind reader who laughed it off "I thought you wanted her lamp since you had her on your mind all the time!"

"I'm doomed" She said sulking and hugging Misaki, who laughed.

"You are," Tsubasa confirmed.

"Don't worry Haru-Chan! I'll go with you!" Mikan said smiling.

"No, you won't." Tsubasa said "You're staying until someone else picks your lamp. You shouldn't have let that brat win so easily."

Mikan sulked and went back to her position while Haruna, Ruka and Natsume went to see the other parts of the festival.

They visited the cooking department first. Anna served them a cake that soon got ruined by Natsume.

"NATSUME!" Haruna jumped after almost getting burnt with the tea the boy threw "I... I'm sorry, Anna, I'm sure he didn't mean it in a bad way."

Anna was crying to her senpai, who explained that she had used an expired flour on that cake and that Natsume was protecting them all.

"Still, there are nicer ways to do things" Haruna muttered trying to clean up Natsume's mess. The girls of the department thanked her saying they'd take care of that. Ruka and her left and went to Natsume "Why would they keep a sack of flour that has been expired for over 100 years anyway? I don't get it."

"Yeah, That's what I thought as well" Ruka agreed as they walked up to Natsume.

Next they headed for the haunted house the class rep was working in.

"Guys! You came" the young boy went to receive them all with a smile. "Where are the others?"

"Mikan is probably grounded" Haruna chuckled "I don't know about the others. Hotaru is most likely selling all her inventions and getting richer by the minute."

"Well, I'll do my best to scare you three!" said Tobita, knowing that he was talking to the less scaredy kids of his class, especially Haruna and Natsume. He didn't know about Ruka. "Thanks for coming, I'll see you later!"

"He's always so cheerful" Haruna sighed with a smile once he was gone "We don't deserve him"

"let's just go in already" Natsume grunted going in. Ruka and Haruna followed.

Haruna was good until the class rep figured out her greatest fear. He made the walls look like they were full of spiders, that's when she started to get closer to Ruka who stared at her blushing.

"Don't mind me... I just really don't like spiders..." she whispered grabbing Ruka's arm "Is it Ok if I stick with you until they're gone?"

Ruka nodded, trying to hide his flustered face. Natsume looked back from time to time and kept going faster.

Suddenly, Ruka's bunny jumped out and Ruka followed him. Both Haruna and Natsume were running away from a creepy old lady so they didn't notice that the blonde boy was missing.

They turned a corner and finally stopped running.

"Um... Where's Ruka?" Haruna said once she noticed he wasn't there. "Where are we?"

"He'll find us," Natsume said as Haruna examined the weird place they had ended at. It suddenly went really dark and a door fell down, trapping them where they were. Natsume cast a little flame to see. They saw the walls were closing in.

Suddenly the power went off, leaving them alone in a very small place. Haruna saw a spider in a corner so she approached Natsume out of fear.

He saw and burned it, she sighed and got up again, trying to find a way out.

"It's ridiculous how you're so scared of spiders." he said "It's not like they can do anything to you, idiot"

"I have my reasons, ok?" she kept banging on the wall "Hey! We're trapped inside here!"

"I could break the walls, you know?" he said looking at her "Stripes."

She noticed that from his position he could see under her skirt.

"don't look you pervert!" she said blushing wildly "Don't you dare try to break a wall."

Natsume looked at her in disbelief.

"aside from the part that the class rep and his classmates put a lot of work into this, we don't really know which walls are the main walls that hold the building and which ones are spare ones. I wouldn't risk it." she said knocking on them "and if they are an asset for the hunted house they might be made of cardboard. You could cause a fire, and we wouldn't be affected by it but we don't know if there's somebody else trapped in here. It's too dangerous, the safest option is to wait and trust they'll fix everything soon."

"You want to stay here, Stripes?" Natsume said, "With the spiders? "

"I'm sure you can kill them for me, pervert" She answered, "besides I'm way more scared of you than I am of spiders."

Natsume looked away. They were in silence for a while until something hit Haruna's mind.

"You know... I'm slowly learning about this whole Alice thing. You probably already know a lot about it" She said softly. He looked at her "Yesterday, when you were still at the hospital a teacher taught me a few more things about the Alice's which drives me to this question. You have the life-shortening Alice, don't you?"

"What do you care, stripes?" He said looking away.

"Well I do care, prick" She spat "If you are putting yourself in danger for others, those others will get mad."

Natsume looked at her wide-eyed

"I might be young, but I know a thing or two about self sacrifice, Natsume." She said, feeling his eyes on her "I've been watching you, and you look like the type of person to carry everything on your own. I know it's none of my business, but it's okay to ask for help from time to time. And if you don't want to endanger anyone you love... You can endanger me."

Natsume gasped slightly, trying to hide is shock.

"I know you don't trust me, but I've been in similar situations to you, and I know some help is always needed. And in your case, even more, idiot. This thing you're doing... It's killing you."

"What I do or stop doing is none of your business," he said dryly.

"It might not be. But I already told you, if you die, I'll feel responsible for it. Because I know I can help you" She said looking at him. "and like it or not we have people we care about in common, so I'm not letting you go through this alone."

"You-" Natsume was interrupted by some rambling of the ceiling. Haruna threw herself at him and a whole piece of the ceiling fell on top of them.

Since Haruna was on top of Natsume she received the hit. Just then the door was opened, and behind it Narumi, Ruka and Tobita stared at them.

"What... What are you guys doing?" Ruka asked, deadpanned.

"I...Um ... Uh..." Haruna tried to explain herself and then sighed "It's not what it looks like."

"Hey" Haruna looked down to find Natsume "Just because no one is watching doesn't mean you can throw yourself at me."

"Would you shut up?!" she said getting up "I won't protect you next time a ceiling falls on us."

She left, and Natsume saw the remaining of the wounds of her back and legs getting healed.