Work Text:
i.
Kurumi always tries to maintain a positive relationship with her neighbours, whoever they may be. It sounds old fashioned, but she finds it useful because you never know when they can help you out. So, when she sees a woman moving boxes into the apartment across the hall from hers, she steps outside to offer them a hand.
“Do you need any help?” she asks. “You look overwhelmed.”
The girl jumps, almost dropping the box before turning around and facing Kurumi. Kurumi notes that the girl looks rather cute with large eyes and long brown hair, but her eyes are drawn to the pendant with a red gemstone the size of a cherry around her neck.
“I’m Nakamura Kurumi,” she continues. “I live across the hall.”
“I’m Sakura Mikan,” the girl introduces herself. “And thank you, but I already have friends helping me move things up. We’re almost done!”
Right on cue, they hear heavy footsteps coming from around the corner. Kurumi turns around and her jaw drops, seeing a life-sized mechanical horse walking down the hallway while pulling a cart full of boxes. Kurumi whips her head around to look at Mikan again, wondering if she’s seeing it too, but she must have seen it, judging by the look of despair on her face.
“Hotaru!” she yelps. “What is that!?”
“Horse cart. Helps carry heavy items over long distances,” the girl standing behind the horse replies coolly, as if she didn’t just parade into the building with a mechanical horse.
“This is my friend Imai Hotaru, she’s an… engineer!” Mikan explains nervously to Kurumi. “She likes making unconventional things.”
“What do you mean, unconventional?” Hotaru asks. “The horse buggy just carried up all your stuff in a single trip.”
“Well, Mikan-san and Hotaru-san, it was nice meeting you two, but I see you two have things under control here so I’m just going to… head back to my room,” Kurumi cuts in, gesturing weakly at her door. “Knock if you need anything!”
Later, in the safety of her own home, Kurumi hears Mikan speaking outside.
“Hotaru!” she exclaims. “You can’t just use your miracle inventions in public like this! Normal people don’t have these things!”
She wonders what Mikan means by normal people.
ii.
“I’m not buying alcohol for the party. I’m not letting you drink on my watch!” Mikan’s voice echoes loudly in the mailroom, carrying over to the lobby where Kurumi is waiting for an elevator.
“Why not?” a man with a familiar voice replies to Mikan.
“You’re completely out of control when you’re drunk!” Mikan answers.
“It’s not that bad,” he defends himself. “I can reign it in.”
“Natsume. You keep setting everything on fire. And then you get too drunk to extinguish it!” Mikan cries. “We were lucky it was just fire. What if something exploded?”
“There’s nothing to explode in there. Anyways, you can always nullify me,” Natsume suggests. “Or if you’re not there, you can give me a nullification stone.”
“You can’t just take advantage of my nullification powers to drink irresponsibly!” Mikan groans.
“Why?” he prodded her. “Are you not strong enough to handle me?”
“Don’t goad me into this!” Mikan complains.
At this point, Kurumi is completely lost. The conversation sounded like normal bickering at first, but now it made no sense. Nullification stones? Powers? What were they doing?
The two eventually join her in the elevator lobby, and she gives them a peculiar look.
“Oh! Kurumi-san! This is my boyfriend, Hyuuga Natsume,” Mikan introduces the boy. “Natsume, this is my neighbour Nakamura Kurumi.”
“Your boyfriend? I guess that explains the bickering,” Kurumi replies. “Nice to meet you!”
Natsume returns her greetings coolly.
“Sorry, were we being too loud in the mailroom?” Mikan sounds flustered. “You heard us?”
“Yeah, you were talking about some kind of game, right?” Kurumi guesses. “Fire and explosions and powers. I’m not much of a gamer, but it sounds cool.”
Natsume shoots Mikan a look, and she looks absolutely alarmed.
“Uh, yeah!” Mikan answers, rubbing the back of her head. “I’m not either, but Natsume introduced me to this one and it seems rather cool. Anyways, we’re heading out now. See you later!”
iii.
On a typical Saturday morning, Kurumi would have tried to stay in bed until at least 10 am. Today, however, while she’s awake but still lying in bed, she hears a giant thump and then incessant tapping on one of her windows. She wills whatever bird it is to just go away, it’s too early, but eventually the noise becomes annoying and she gets up to check it out.
“Oh my God!” she yelps, unable to contain her surprise when she sees a massive owl on her balcony, pecking on the glass sliding door.
She stares at it, unsure what to do. It definitely crashed into the glass, seeing as there are some feathers lying on the balcony. But why isn’t it flying away? Why is it pecking on her sliding door as if it wants to be let in? Why was the owl out in broad daylight, anyways? And this is Tokyo, why was the owl flying through a city?
Kurumi’s thoughts are interrupted by someone knocking on her door. Her real door this time, not the sliding door to her balcony. She goes to check who it is, only to see Mikan with a blond boy standing behind her.
“We heard a shout,” Mikan looks at her anxiously. “Is everything alright?”
“Well, for some reason an owl decided to crash into my balcony door, and it refuses to leave,” Kurumi explains. “I think it wants to be let in, but I don’t know why.”
“My friend Luca is really good with animals,” Mikan says. “Do you mind if he takes a look at the owl?”
“Oh, sure,” Kurumi agrees, only because she has no idea what else she could do other than call animal control.
She leads them into her apartment and shows them to the balcony doors.
Luca crouches down and stares intently at the owl. Kurumi isn’t sure what this will accomplish, since all she’s been doing is staring at the owl the same way. Then, to her surprise, he slowly slides the door open and reaches out with his hand. The owl reaches out one of its talons and drops what looks like a ball of crumpled paper onto his hand, and then he pats it on its head.
“Thank you,” he tells the owl. “Now you better hurry up and go. It’s daytime, it’s not safe for an owl to be out.”
The owl hoots at him, and Luca stretches out his arm for the owl to hop on. He stands up and steps onto the balcony, and the owl flies away into the horizon.
Kurumi is still watching this exchange with wide eyes, not sure how Luca just communicated with a bird.
“Is your friend an animal whisperer?” she asks Mikan, unable to believe her eyes.
“What? No! Of course not! Those don’t exist!” Mikan laughs, sounding nervous. “Luca is a… conservationist. He works at an owl habitat.”
“In Tokyo?” Kurumi questions dubiously. “Where could there possibly be a habitat in Tokyo?”
“It’s, uh, in the outskirts of town, by a temple surrounded with lots of forest!” Mikan answers. “I can’t remember the name.”
There must be more to it than that, Kurumi thinks. Conservationists are good with animals, but Luca straight up spoke with the owl. And it delivered something to him? How did he know what the owl wanted? It refused to leave before Luca came.
“Anyways Kurumi-san, we should get going!” Mikan interrupts her thoughts. “Have a good day!”
Mikan all but pushes Luca out the door, waving cheerfully at Kurumi. Kurumi hears them outside, as she’s fumbling for the keys to her building.
“I told you I’m on the east side of the building! Why did you send Bo to the west?” Mikan hisses. “Kurumi-san definitely thinks there’s something weird with me and all my friends.”
iv.
On her way out to pick up her morning coffee, Kurumi hears Mikan’s voice echoing in the stairwell, and she can’t help but pick up on the conversation she’s having.
“Were you able to figure out what she wanted?” Mikan asks.
“Nope. I couldn’t read anything, she was really well guarded,” the reply comes from a cheerful sounding voice. “I’ll have to work on her some more.”
“Sorry, Koko. If I knew, I wouldn’t have given her the stones,” Mikan sighs. “She really won’t say a word about it? She’s going to mess up our entire plan.”
Kurumi raises her eyebrows. She doesn’t mean to be nosy, but Mikan’s interactions with her friends are always so intriguing. What kind of plan were they talking about?
“I couldn’t read anything from her directly, but maybe there’s another way to get her to talk,” Koko suggests. “I’ve read past information about her, maybe I can use that to my advantage…”
“Don’t do that!” Mikan chastises. “I don’t think we should resort to blackmailing her.”
Blackmail? Are they doing something illegal? Kurumi’s mind starts racing, jumping to the worst possible conclusions. But Mikan is so nice, would she really be involved in crime?
“You’re probably right. Anyways, let’s talk about this later,” Koko says. “I think I hear your neighbour.”
Kurumi whips her head towards the stairwell, eyes widening. Was she accidentally making noise? Or did they accidentally see her? Do they know she was eavesdropping? Whatever they were talking about, they clearly didn’t want people to pick up on it. She walks quickly back to her apartment, coffee forgotten. Legal or not, Mikan is doing something strange and Kurumi does not want to become a target of her activities.
v.
Just as she’s unlocking the door to her apartment, Kurumi hears footsteps coming towards her and turns around to see Mikan walking down the hall. She’s about to say hi until she gets a better look at her and realizes something’s wrong.
Mikan is trudging down the hallway covered in dirt and soot and scratches.
“Oh my God! What happened to you!?” Kurumi shrieks. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, Kurumi-san!” Mikan greets her. “Me? Don’t worry about it. I just had a rough day at work.”
Work? What kind of work is Mikan involved in that involves her getting covered in scratches and dirt?
“Did someone attack you at work?” Kurumi demands. “Your job sounds pretty dangerous.”
“Oh no, nothing like that! Don’t worry, I’m not doing anything dangerous!” Mikan waves off her suspicions. “I was… training some students today, things just got a little out of hand.”
Training kids? How out of hand can training get to get her this battered?
“I’m fine though! I can always uh, disarm and subdue them before any real harm is done,” Mikan continues. “Their attacks have no effect on me!”
“Attacks?” Kurumi echoes.
“I meant mistakes! Not attacks,” Mikan quickly backtracks. “Their mistakes were really disastrous today, so I guess it looks like I went into battle, though.”
“Are you sure you don’t need medical attention?” Kurumi asks. “Your scratches could get infected.”
“Don’t worry about me!” Mikan insists. “Hotaru’s brother is coming. He’s a medic, he can patch me up.”
“Well, alright, if you say so,” Kurumi gives in. “But if you need anything, let me know.”
She enters her apartment, still worried, but feels better knowing that someone will be there to take care of her.
“Subaru-san, over here!” Mikan’s voice carries through Kurumi’s front door as she’s slipping off her shoes.
“Mikan. I take it you had a rough day with the students,” a man’s voice replies.
“Two of them got into an argument during class and everything went downhill from there,” Mikan sighed. “They tried to blast each other with fire and lightning. That had no effect on me, but one of the technical types’ chemistry experiment was on a table and it made a small explosion. Shiki’s barrier was the only thing keeping them safe.”
The conversation fades out as they enter Mikan’s apartment, but Kurumi is still standing by the doorway. What kind of students was Mikan teaching? Blasting fire and lightning? Barriers? Sakura Mikan is starting to sound more and more dangerous. Maybe Kurumi really should stay away.
+1.
There is no question about it. Sakura Mikan is not an ordinary person, and neither are her friends. In just a month, Kurumi encountered more strange experiences with this neighbour than any of her other neighbours combined. Exhausted from work but unable to stop thinking about it, Kurumi’s sleep deprived mind comes up with a theory.
Sakura Mikan must be an agent, part of some top-secret espionage agency, sent here undercover for a mission.
Her friend from move-in day, with the crazy inventions, must be their lead scientist.
Her boyfriend Natsume is an explosives specialist.
The blond boy from the owl fiasco could be an animal specialist. It sounds odd, but Kurumi has heard of using highly trained animals to do surveillance in areas too dangerous for humans to enter.
The boy she overheard in the stairwell probably handles the interrogations.
And Mikan is a field agent, specialized in fighting. How else could those attacks not have any effect on her when she was training the new agents?
They even have a private medic to help them out, instead of going to the hospital.
Her neighbour is a secret agent, Kurumi thinks. How did her life get so crazy? Is Sakura Mikan even her real name?
Shaking her head, Kurumi tries to ignore the thoughts. She probably sounds crazy right now, and it’s just the exhaustion speaking. Mikan is such a nice girl, and if she were a secret agent, she would be a terrible one if some random person had already figured it out.
Just then, from across the hall, she hears a crash.
“Be careful!” Mikan cries, exasperated. “I have no idea how you carried out all those missions for ESP back then when you trip over wires now.”
Nope, Kurumi was definitely right. She lives next door to a secret agent.