Something Tasty

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Ikuto's eyes widened. A gigantic sweat-drop could literally be seen on the back of his midnight blue hair. He scratched his head, tilting it a little.

"Is this really necessary?" Piled in front him was a mountain of pies, rows of sweets of all sorts (tarts, cupcakes, any food that can cause stomach pains and toothaches after being consumed constantly), a smiley face made from custard cakes, and tons of other provisions a glutton would die with happiness from. He was surprised the table hadn't collapsed.

Amu turned around, looking at him with her golden eyes, and Ikuto expected them to narrow and have some sort of rant explode from her mouth. Instead she merely laughed.

"Of course!" She beamed, half blinding him with a smile so bright Ikuto felt his cool composure slipping a little.

As always, he quickly regained it with a smirk, "You must really care for me to go through all this trouble."

As Ikuto had anticipated, Amu turned a beautiful shade of pink and shouted out to cover her barely concealed embarrassment, "No way, you perverted jerk!" and turned back around, busying herself with the overload of food.

He chuckled inwardly to himself. So, he was still the 'perverted jerk' to Amu, was he?

Observing the pink head in her crazed frenzy with amusement, a sense of curiosity caught up to him. Has Amu changed at all? How was she? Juvenille questions that would never be asked from his lips...Ever since he broke away from the chains of Easter, he constantly had to be in hiding, changing his name now and then, traveling from place to place, and never staying too long in one place. Although Easter moved its head-quarter to a country the Guardians couldn't locate, he hadn't been back to Japan for two years.

He watched as Amu fretted over a dropped tart and ran to the kitchen to grab a cloth. Her Guardian Characters had left as soon as Yoru appeared, but he flew to catch up with them and everything ended with laughter directed at Yoru, who had milk dripping from his cat ears. Out the window, they had flown, with Miki tugging Yoru by the collar.

Ikuto's musing caught up with him. Amu had certainly grown up since the last year he saw her. Not only did she seem to have filled out, but high school must have matured her without stealing her childish instincts, as her characters were still with her.

Seeing her dashing away from him tugged his heart some bit, not that this little fact would ever be revealed to the world, but the fact still remained. He had half expected to tease her, possibly trigger a few blushes and glares, but not for her to sprint the opposite direction as if her life depended on it.

He had resisted the urge to run after her and had, instead, found his favorite shady spot under a willow tree to lie down on and watch the clouds move freely and sporadically.

Somewhere along the cloud watching, he must have fallen asleep. Opening his eyes, he saw Amu's face peering at him. He sat up. Heart lightened and about to tease her, she grabbed his wrist and (more or less) stomped all the way back to her house.

"There!" Amu cried, walking towards Ikuto and disrupting his thoughts. She was carefully holding a platter of food that was arranged in quite a nice way, setting it upon the miniature table Ikuto was seated at.

"Eat anything tasty," she said in a tone that signified everything was delicious.

"Anything tasty," Ikuto weighed those two words upon his tongue, "Well in that case…"

He stood up and strode towards Amu, causing her to back up and hit a wall, near the blue and white counter. He slammed his hands next to her head. Surprisingly, she wasn't struggling to escape.

"I-Ikuto?" The longing in his heart to hear his name being spoken in such a way was suddenly lifted and he chuckled darkly. He had officially planned to tease Amu, but instead…

"How are you doing this to me?" He asked suddenly, needing to know why just his mere name from her lips affected his heart.

Amu' s eyes were glazed over a little and Ikuto couldn't help but smirk at that, immediately destroying the dazed look. "…Doing to you?" Amu asked back, now looking a somewhat confused.

"You…" Not able to continue, Ikuto covered with his detached façade. "Never mind," he said looking away, "little girls wouldn't understand anyway."

"I'm not little anymore!" Amu shot back, wrenching his shirt forward, causing Ikuto look her straight into her determined eyes.

Unable to smirk, Ikuto gulped a little, not understanding why he was being affected by a little girl, now not quite a little girl anymore, and scooted back.

Shockingly, it was now Amu who was doing the smirking.

"See?" She smirked with a tremendous triumphant tone. She placed a hand on her hip, looking very smug.

Ikuto felt his cheeks heat just a little bit, but played it cool with a casual glance at Amu's chest.

"I do see."

Amu reddened considerably, "PERVERT!"

Ikuto couldn't help but release the humor building up within him through laughter. Amu's cherry face softened a little, watching him.

Noticing the look, Ikuto took it into his advantage. "Hm? You do care about me, Amu-chan."

He was treated with Amu's old 'cool and spicy' reply, "O-of course not, stupid."

Ikuto smirked, "Stupid, am I?" He walked closer and Amu stared straight him, without a trace of demureness, causing Ikuto to feel a little uncomfortable. Before, he was also fascinated by her golden hue eyes, which to seemed to never look at him, but now, as they were drilled into him, he felt his confidence to waver. He scolded himself.

Amu's eyes brimmed with buoyancy, almost overflowing. She smirked widely.

"I can't be- Am I affecting you, Ikuto?"

Ikuto nearly fell over anime-style. Then, he regained his posture, smirking. This ought to be fun.

He smirked back, "Amu, it was never I to be affected. That is a one man job, done perfectly by you."

He leaned in, quite aware it was Amu who was trapped between his body and the wall. Apparently Amu seemed to gain conscious of that fact too. A swallow was visibly seen.

Ikuto's grin widened, "See Amu-chan?"

Amu looked off to the side, arms now crossed in front of her black and white checkered shirt, pink lines painted upon her face, "I suppose."

Disregarding the disappointment falling on his heart from the lack of yelling and flushes, he tried again, smirking, "You admit you're affected by me."

Smack.

Ikuto stood, flabbergasted a fly swatter print slowly appearing upon his cheek. He stared at Amu who was breathing heavily, holding the mechanic to rid the world of flies.

"A fly swatter…" Ikuto mused, ignoring the throbbing pain on his face, "That's a first…A hand would have been just fine, but a fly swatter…I suppose I'm so special, your hand wouldn't be enough."

"That's right. Enough!" Amu finally lost it, "Enough of this! I tried to have one civilized dinner with you and you have to act like—you!" Once again, with the accusing finger.

Ikuto stared at Amu's outburst, sickly satisfied Amu was finally acting how she would act when it was just the two of them.

"Do you know how worried I was when you disappeared? No note, no good-bye, nothing! I thought Easter had finally taken you away! I thought you were-" She stopped and looked away, bangs shadowing her eyes.

"Were?" Ikuto prompted.

Silence.

"Dead," she whispered to the ground.

Ikuto was thinking about teasing her further, until she lifted her head, looking up, eyes filled with unshed, un-Amu tears.

"Amu," he whispered. He strode forward, despite Amu's warning looks and enveloped her warm and shaking body within his own. He always knew Amu was more than her 'cool and spicy' mask, but he had never known Amu was concerned this much to start crying into his shirt. He buried his head into her neck, reminiscing in her scent and warmth.

"Easter's filled with dumbbells; they could never catch up to me," Ikuto murmured into Amu's ear, relieved at the little chuckle Amu emitted.

Finally she looked up at Ikuto and he was struck at the change in her face. He hadn't closely looked into her face this evening at all. Although the features were the same, yet matured, worry and care were shown plainly upon her face. No façade of anger or the pretense of being an emotionless rock.

"Amu," he whispered again, staring into the eyes he realized had been haunting his dreams. Within his dreams and nightmares, whenever an object looked at him, they always had the same beautiful, auric eyes.

"I-I missed you," she said softly, hanging her head down as if ashamed to admit such a crisis.

A bomb seemed to have been dropped into Ikuto's body. His insides felt on fire, yet had been frozen over by the second ice age. Her lips called out to him and, in reply, he moved his lips towards hers, feeling her stiffen, and decided to change directions and planted a soft kiss upon her forehead. He felt Amu sigh.

A smirk he was sure he concealed from Amu formed. He planted little kisses down her temple, grin growing bigger as he felt her tremble. Somewhere in his hazy conscious, he knew he should stop, but Amu made it all too easy…She was encouraging him by pulling him closer to her.

Ikuto snuck kisses upon her neck and almost lost himself when he heard a quiet moan escape Amu's mouth. He stopped and looked at Amu, very amused at how her eyes were closed and her expression was complete bliss.

Mustering up all his control, he slowly took his hands back and strolled to the little table with his plate of food.

Nearly laughing out again, he simply said to Amu's confused face, "Hungry."

Amu stood there, looking very dazed before she snapped out of her moment with a blush, "I-Ikuto!"

Ikuto took a bite out of a chocolate covered strawberry, "Yes, Amu-chan?" Finally, he was rewarded with her flushing face.

"Y-you!"

Ikuto smirked, "Is it stuttering day?"

Amu's eyes narrowed and huffily turned back to the table of food.

Ikuto watched her for a bit, before standing up and walking close to her turned back; hand pushed into his pockets in a nonchalant way. When he was arms reaching distance away from Amu, he saw drops of sweat upon her nose and how her baby hairs stuck to the back of her neck. Her face was still flushed and her bangs seemed to stick together from what could be assumed as sweat.

She must have worked very hard.

With a sudden impulse he wasn't about to ignore, and despite the warning sirens he heard going off within his head, he wrapped his arms around Amu's waist and buried his face into her sweaty neck, smirking as he felt her back stiffen against his chest.

"Ikuto," her voice cautioned. Her character was coming back.

"So," he breathed into her neck, "you must have spent the whole day preparing for this feast for my little visit to Japan."

"Not really," she whispered back, voice obviously a little strained.

"Really, now?" He murmured back, "Then why do I recall a pink-headed girl run away from me, faster than a bolt of lightning, but later found me and dragged me to your house?" He had the urge to add without your parents around, but definitely decided against it.

"She had a few errands," she said with an air of dignity.

"What kind of errands?" He muttered, as he kept his lips dangling near her neck. He could hear a sucking of breath and held in a chuckle.

"Normal kind of er-eran…Ikuto!"

Ikuto stopped moving his lips upon her neck, enjoying the trembling of her body. He smirked and stuck his tongue out, licking a line straight up her neck and behind her ear.

"Wh-what are you doing!?" Amu screeched as she vainly struggled in Ikuto's embrace.

"Eating something tasty," Ikuto whispered into her ear and Amu's face burst into a lovely red rose.

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Wooh! One-shot completed! Yes, I know the plot is pretty hackneyed, but I was having some troubles getting started with NO MORE TEARS's sequel...and this is the product! I just haven't posted it up...whoops xD

I really hope you enjoyed it; I always like writing in Ikuto's POV for one-shots for some odd reason... haha

Anyway, NO MORE TEARS's sequel is IN PROCESS. I've gotten the first chapter done and ready! Including some major turning points of the sequel =) buuut, I'm going to finish the whole story before I post any chapters up. Think you can wait till then?

Many of you have asked if I have a title for NO MORE TEARS's sequel and the answer is yes. The sad news is, I CANNOT give the title away because (for the very clever ones out there) it could give away the plot. Maybe it won't...but I'm not taking any chances :p

For more information about my sequel, you can visit my profile.

Till next time!

romancerox