Strike A Chord
a/n: Overload of cute. And I do realize that there probably would be someone else to do it (to play the guitar), but my excuse is Easter taking everybody available! Ahaha. This takes place whilst they're still rooming, on the timeline. The entire idea for this one was inspired from one of the CD designs where Amu's in the foreground and Utau's in the background, and Amu's holding a guitar. So, my brain automatically went 'string instrument, Ikuto can teach her the basics!'
It was times like this, that Amu wished that Utau didn't have such an overpowering, 'don't mess with me' look when it came to asking favours, but she wasn't going to admit that. And considering Utau'd graciously given her consent into letting Amu "save" Ikuto from Easter... she figured... not that she really cared about Ikuto, not really, of course she didn't... that she should at least do a favour or two for her in return, so that maybe her secretly adopted stray-cat-turned-housecat would one day be free to do as he pleased again.
That, and Ami'd probably kill her if she found out that Utau wasn't going to get her single out for another four months on top due to a lack of back up guitarist. Which was what Amu had taken up, and was now the reason she had an electric guitar across her knees, and was staring at it with utter bemusement and partial frustration.
It was only the sound of padded feet that made her look up - to see Ikuto half-frowning down at her and said guitar, an apple in one hand and several other various goodies behind him, in the clutches of Yoru. She hadn't heard him go out of her room and downstairs - but it wasn't a kill-worthy offence right now to go and raid the fridges, as the rest of the family were out someplace whilst Amu bailed. So she let that part slide.
"What?" she said stiffly, eyeing him suspiciously.
"Nothing," Ikuto sighed, shrugging his shoulders with nonchalance. "Just curious."
Amu looked down to the guitar, and back up to him. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to mention it. She sighed. "Utau asked me if I could help her out with her new song..." she trailed off suggestively, but Ikuto remained passive. Looking momentarily frustrated, she continued, "Apparently one of the backup guitarists for one of the songs has fallen sick, so they can't record. And her and Sanjou-san need someone... just to play some notes throughout the song, otherwise it won't sound too good..."
"Can't they just mix it?" Ikuto said sceptically.
"No. They can't afford it at the moment. And if they want to get it out when scheduled, then, they can't afford to wait."
Ikuto nodded fractionally, taking a bite out of the apple and chewing it, before swallowing. "And don't tell me," he tagged on a smirk, "You agreed to this without actually being able to play guitar, didn't you?"
"No!" Amu rejected, folding her arms and just managing to keep the guitar on her knees - a difficult feat, but she managed it. "Well, okay, I can't really play guitar, but I was just doing it as a favour as she asked! I-I mean, she's..." Amu trailed off, running out of steam, realizing she was treading on a subject that was best not to disclose to the oblivious cat boy. "Oh, whatever, it doesn't matter!"
He smirked, ignoring her momentary outbreak. "Like I said. But a guitar-" he dropped down alongside her chair, much the way a cat would, till he was sat alongside her on the floor. At the same time, he tossed the unfinished apple to Yoru, who had taken up residence on Amu's bedspread, which he caught with ease and started to devour. "- Is similar to a violin... to an extent. The strings have the same notes."
Amu was half tempted to flinch back as Ikuto sat alongside her, and again as he pointed towards the strings in his short explanation. She just kept her cool. He just seemed... far too casual lately. And it hadn't helped with his phoney-confession either - that definitely wasn't helping keeping her calm. She shrugged it off. "And?" She demanded, perhaps a bit too harshly than needed. Ikuto frowned. "I mean- what has that got to do with me learning to play a guitar?"
"You need a teacher," he said bluntly, the frown being replaced with a line.
"I know that," Amu sighed, resisting the temptation to roll her eyes. Way to go for pointing out the obvious.
Ikuto half smiled - more genuine than usual. "I can play the violin."
"Yes, I know--" Amu started - it wasn't hard to forget really, Ikuto's violin was so... pure, so strongly tied to Ikuto's true self, and even if she wouldn't admit to it, she still loved the sound - before she stopped, the not said words sinking in on her. Her mouth fell open slightly in surprise. "Wait- you- teach.... me?"
He grinned. "Problem?"
"No..." Amu half shook her head, still on guard at the suggesting, but more compensating for it than probably even Ikuto could have guessed, given she wasn't having another outbreak at him. "It's just... it's just odd for you to say that. To offer, I mean."
"You are keeping me in your room and feeding me... when you remember," he tagged on the end, shrugging again, though his expression almost seemed sheepish... but it vanished almost as soon as it was there, back to nonchalance.
Amu blinked, the last part of the comment being lost as she considered the first. From how she had gotten to know him through this endeavour of him being her roommate, this seemed to be... no, this was, she was sure of that somehow... that this was Ikuto's way of saying that he wanted to help her out. And maybe in not so much of just her, but Utau, too. It was nice to think that, at least, since it stopped her from blushing about the other reason that may or may not be true. "And Utau?"
He didn't respond immediately. "I suppose. Isn't like I can easily see her." Ikuto paused again momentarily, before sidestepping the subject. This was another thing he tended to do when coming to Utau. "And because of you know what," he said, a smirk stretching at his lips. There, but not quite.
"N-No, I don't know what," Amu mumbled, looking away from him, biting her lip. "That was phoney, you know. I already said I hate people who lie."
"You're just avoiding it," Ikuto replied, smirk disappearing as he stared up at her from where he was sitting on the floor – it only took a couple of seconds before Amu watched his eyes from the corner of hers, distracted from looking away due to the certain... look about them they seemed to get when breaching this subject. "Or maybe I'm wrong."
"Yeah, you're wrong," Amu huffed, not being able to tear her gaze completely off him. "I have no reservations about it at all. It was a lie and that's that. Really!" Even if she was intending it to come out as truth, it really did come out like she was trying to convince herself.
Ikuto half smiled despite himself – for a moment, anyway. Amu was going to ask, but figured he wouldn't tell her even if she did. She liked to think it was along the lines of the fact he wanted to... teach her how to play, and not spend the day teasing her (as per usual), but no matter what she did with him he would probably find a way to tease her anyway (as per usual), so she was fighting a losing battle to begin with. But she was keen not to be teased anytime soon. It took a lot of energy, afterall.
"So, guitar playing..." she trailed off, only to flinch back as Ikuto stood upright, at the same time closing his fingers over hers briefly whilst he took the guitar out of her grasp.
Amu wouldn't admit she stayed frozen for half a second whilst he did that. And she also wasn't going to admit the fact that he had also caught her off guard as well as almost teased. Almost.
. . . .
"So... it goes like this?"
A sound that resembled a squealing cat issued – a sound that both cats seemed to revolt at, with Yoru covering his ears and Ikuto blinking fractionally in distaste. Ran, Miki, and Suu were little better – they'd completely evacuated the room after Miki's insistence that Amu character change just to stop the dreaded noise, and Amu's insistence that she keep trying normally. It hadn't gone down very well, to say the least.
Ikuto shook his head. "Not quite."
Amu frowned, exasperated, and sighed vigorously. "This is just a wasted effort. I'm never going to get this right! It sounds so bad!"
Ikuto didn't give her any comfort for it (which she hadn't expected him to, even if all she had gotten before was 'You're holding it wrong' and a sigh), but his response was a surprise. "Hmm. You almost did have it. Play it a little higher."
Bracing herself for another screeching sound, Amu was greeted by the same of another wail – but an admittedly, more in pitch wail as she strummed the strings, instead of one that sent everyone in the room running for cover. At least Yoru didn't have to hide under the pillow for that one, she figured.
Her teacher seemed to be getting bored too. "No, like this," he said, again placing his fingers over hers, and adjusting them slightly. Inwardly, Amu blushed at this – even if it was the third time he'd attempted to so, and each time still set off the same reaction. Which worried her fractionally, but she made an excuse as always for it. She just had to settle with herself that it was necessary – but she wasn't about to let her guard down, not yet. After being caught out so many times, she wasn't planning on doing so again. Fortunately though, and something that didn't come too much of a surprise even if she hadn't realized it for a while since she had expected him to take advantage of the situation, Ikuto seemed more concentrated solely on getting her to play it right. He could be noble when he wanted to be.
But she'd already known that, really.
"Okay," Amu nodded briefly, holding her fingers in place. Satisfied, Ikuto let her go and moved alongside her. He nodded too, indicating for her to give it another shot.
Amu strummed the chord – and this time, it didn't come out as a wail. Or a screech, or a squawk, or any of the other sounds she had made previously. It came out as a raw, but still, a note. Pure and crisp, not harsh and disastrous. She blinked in surprise.
"That was a lot to get it to do that," she mused.
"It takes practice," Ikuto shrugged. "It's all a matter of what you do. Learning the basics isn't automatic. It does take it's own time to do that. Again," he instructed – Amu's relaxed fingers stumbled for a moment, before she strummed again, and this too, sounded ten times better than it's predecessor. "There."
"Mm," Amu voiced, memorizing the position of her hands, before putting it down on her bed next to Yoru and picking it up again, relocating the positions, and managing to still make a decent sounding note.
"Just remember the hand position," Ikuto said offhandedly, slinking over to his usual position next to Yoru, and taking what was left off the remaining snacks he'd swiped.
Amu nodded. "Yeah... that's how it starts off, right?" The nod from the corner of her eye she took as agreement, and she trailed over to her desk, strumming the chord once more, an 'A', before she placed it down on her desk, and she turned to look at the now lounging cat. "Hey... Ikuto..."
"You're calling it a day?" Ikuto said absently, not turning to look at her.
"I don't think the girls would come back if I didn't," She frowned. Promised snacks made by Suu would probably only appear if she stopped playing the same note over and over. And she was a little hungry, and they had been at it for an hour. Though... she still had something to say. It was very tempting to take this conversation and run with it, but she wanted to say what she had to say, no matter how it sounded like in her head. "Ikuto..." she tried again, falling short once more.
This gauged a reaction, as he looked up at her. "What?"
She hesitated, unsure of how to put it, whilst resisting the urge to look at her feet. She was often overbearingly forward with him when it came to arguing and bickering with him, so Amu didn't see why she would have to look away from him to stay two particular words of choice. She eventually got it out. "... Thank you."
The nonchalant shrug returned. "It's nothing." Or was there a hint of a smile on his face? She never got the time to tell, as next thing she knew, he was looking sideways at Yoru and away from her, topic seemingly closed.
"No, I mean it," Amu insisted, now looking at the guitar and making her way back over to him, sitting on the edge of her bed, the other side to him. "You didn't have to put up with me for as long as you did."
After a moment of deliberating, she held out a hand in his direction. It seemed incredibly and ridiculously formal – but she wasn't sure what else she could do to show she was grateful. "Thanks," she offered.
Ikuto seemed as surprised as Amu had, but she wasn't sure if it was for the same reason, or for another, that seemed to flicker onto his face before disappearing again, like much of his expressions. He seemed to speculate for a moment, and then a calculating gleam appeared in his eyes. "It does seem incredibly formal..." he trailed off, before continuing, "Wouldn't a hug be better?"
For precisely two seconds, Amu's mouth was open in shock at the suggestion, before the inervertable outburst followed. "W-What? No! You hug me enough when I tell you not too!" Cue an untimely blush, "No hugs! Shake a hand or nothing!" She said rigidly, giving him one of her perfected glares that seemed to have no effect on him what so ever.
Perhaps she missed the smile, or maybe she wasn't really expecting him to start going along with it, as he shrugged and heaved himself off the side of the bed, walking over to her with a hand held out. Relieved, she reached out to shake his hand, and—
The next thing she knew, he'd somehow managed to pull her straight into a hug.
Her first thought was how she'd been tricked. The second thought was how the just visible guitar was starting to look more and more like a weapon and would make a good tool for hitting him over the head with. "I-I-Ikuto!" She objected hastily, stuttering, and trying to push him off – but his grip was fierce. "I already told you!"
"And I didn't listen," He sighed, as if he was chiding himself for his ways but not really caring about it. "You're too gullible. You really thought I'd go along, hmm?"
Amu bit her lip. She had hoped. Obviously a fools hope. "Y-Yeah, just- just get off me already—!" She shoved at him again, this time managing to break the hold a little, enough to wave her arms insistently at him in annoyance. "Stupid cat!"
Amidst the flailing limbs, which Ikuto either remained complacent to or ignored, he seemed to be considering something. "Amu."
"Eh?" She froze for a moment, her arms going limp as she listened, even though he still had one hand on her shoulder.
"Next time... ask if you want help."
Amu couldn't tell immediately if that was a slight, or if it was genuine offer. But the soft look on his face... that was definitely not a look he'd give if it were a slight at her, right? And the tone of his voice... definitely held the hint of that he wanted to do it, that he did want to help her out if he could. That if she wanted help with something, she could go to ask him. Instead of trying to do something she had no idea how to start on, she could ask him instead. It was that kind of tenor.
She played it safe, anyway, unsure. "Yeah?"
He nodded, his hand lingering on her shoulder for a moment before it dropped back to his side, still slightly too close to account for personal space, still slightly slumped over to be more at her height. And a smile that could almost be genuine - but not quite. But close enough to pass as one. "Yeah." His voice was soft, no long teasing.
Amu couldn't deny it was nice to see him smile. And couldn't completely deny that she liked to see him smile, either, and... she could almost feel herself smiling in return, unwillingly, but also willingly at the same time.
The returning smile? That was completely genuine.