"Mom?" spoke a teenage girl with straight brown hair and eyes that looked like her fathers.
A woman with long forest-green hair looked up from the book she was reading on the living room couch,
"What is it Okatsu? You seem kind of off lately."
Okatsu nodded, moving to sit down beside her mother, "I just wanted to ask you something, it's about school. Well kind of."
The lady beside her nodded, "Are you scared because exams are coming up again? Don't worry, you'll be fine!" She said with a sigh.
Okatsu shook her head, "No it's not that. You see, I like this guy…" She trailed off and her mother rolled her eyes jokingly,
"Oh boy."
Okatsu glared at her mother for a quick second before continuing, "And I think he likes me back! But I don't know how to tell him I like him."
Okatsu's mother looked at her daughter, "What do you want me to do? I'm not telling him for you."
Okatsu made a face and replied, "N-no! That's not it!" She stammered, embarrassed, "I wanted to know how you told dad that you liked him!"
The lady beside her smiled, "Well why didn't you say so from the start! You see, it went a little something like this…"
A young teenager girl, probably about 14, walked down the street looking at a piece of paper in her hands while muttering to herself on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Her face was covered by long dark green hair, and she wasn't paying much attention to where she was going.
The paper she was holding held a shopping list given to her by her mother. Now that she was back with Suna Gakuen her family was given money by them again and she was able to get everything they needed. There was one problem though, the place she was going to was near Raimon.
She didn't like going near Raimon. In the past she was sent as a spy there, and even though they forgave her when she was found out, she started to lie to her superiors and ended up causing a huge mishap. After that she left Raimon without a word and never had the courage to go back. Since she left without saying goodbye, she was afraid of what the Raimon team would think of her after what happened. What he would think of her.
That's right, she had been stupid enough to fall in love with the captain of the Raimon soccer team: Shindou Takuto.
Her thoughts were cut off when she bumped into someone. Looking up she saw that she had walked into a middle-aged man wearing a tuxedo with a bald head, and multiple bags full of groceries had fallen on the floor!
"I'm so sorry!" Koutestu Ami, the girl, said immediately.
The man stood up and brushed the dust off his clothing, "Oh no, I was the one who wasn't looking where he was going!"
Ami shook her head, "No, I wasn't even looking up, it was my fault." She paused, picking up the bags off the sidewalk floor, "To make up for it, I'll help you carry your bags home!"
The man shook his head, "Oh no, you don't need to do that!"
"It's fine! You look like you could use a little help with these after all!" Ami insisted.
The man smiled, "If you would really like to, it would be a big help! Just follow me!" He said , picking up the remainder of the bags and leading Ami to their destination.
They talked a lot on the walk. Ami found out that the man's name was Matomeru and he worked as a butler for a local family. He said that the car they use for shopping broke down after a *cough* incident so he had to walk there and back. Ami asked if he was upset about that, but he just replied with the fact that he's getting extra pay for it.
"We're here!" Matomeru announced, pushing open 2 large gates, "If you don't mind, could you help me bring these inside?"
Ami nodded as she stared at the house. It seemed familiar but she couldn't place her finger on it…
Matomeru unlocked the door and walked inside, where several maids greeted them upon entering,
"Was the trip hard?" Asked one of them.
Matomeru shook his head, "No, thanks to this kind girl who offered to help carry my bags!"
The maid smiled, "I'm glad! You really should be more careful these days, you don't want something happening to you back again!"
Matomaru chuckled, "That's what you always say musume-chan!"
Musume-the maid, sighed, "I keep saying it 'cause it's true!"
They were interrupted when an adult lady entered the room. She had neat, short curly brown hair and wore a clean, perfectly ironed pantsuit.
"Matomeru-san! You're back! You took a while so I started to worry!"
Matomaru laughed, "there's no need for you all to be worrying about a butler like me!"
The lady spotted Ami and smiled, "Who's this?"
"This is Ami" Matomaru replied, "She helped me carry all the bags home!"
"How kind of you!" The lady exclaimed, "Would you like to stay for lunch?" She asked Ami.
Ami shook her head, "I'd love to, but I should be getting over to the store to buy this week's groceries for my family!"
The lady frowned, "that's a shame, at least stay for tea! It's the least I can do!"
Ami thought before finally agreeing, "I guess that'll be okay, if it doesn't take too long…"
The woman smiled, "Great! Let's get those bags to the kitchen and I'll ask the chief to start making some tea!"
A few other maids and butlers took the bags from them and walked into another room.
"I have a son as well, he's probably around your age!" The woman said, "I'm sure he'd love to meet you!" after that she ran up the large staircase in the hall.
Matomeru leaned over to Ami to whisper in her ear, "She's very excitable, she often forgets to introduce herself! She likes us all to call her Kinko. Just thought I'd tell you since she never said her name."
Ami nodded with a smile, "She seems like a very nice lady!"
Kinko walked back down grinning, "He'll be down a few, why don't we all go the living room? The tea should be finished soon!"
Ami nodded and followed Kinko into another room. It was a big room with a black grand piano in one corner. Under it was a nice shade of light brown carpeting and there was off-white paint on the walls. As for the furniture, close to the center were 2 large cream-colored couches arranged in an L shape, and a white coffee table, all facing a huge flat-screen TV on the wall.
"I'll go see how the tea is going, why don't you sit down?" Kinko said, walking through a door on the far wall of the room.
Ami stared around the room as she slowly moved towards one of the couches and sat down.
Footsteps echoed from the front hall as a sign that Kinko's son would be joining them soon, but Ami wasn't really thinking about that. She was trying to remember where and when she'd seen this house before.
"Ami-chan?" said an awfully familiar voice from the arch that led into the main hall.
Ami's gaze snapped to the owner of the voice:
Shindou Takuto.
Now she remembered! This house was the house of Shindou Takuto! She stood up abruptly,
"Actually, I need to go." She said to no one particular, walking quickly towards the door, which unfortunately, was at the other side of Shindou.
She wasn't lucky enough to just walk by him though. Shindou grabbed her wrist and stared at the ground. Ami tried to pull her arm away before she noticed something: Shindou was crying.
"W-why are you crying?" Ami asked softly. Shindou didn't reply at first, he just let go of Ami's wrist and instead kept her in a tight hug,
"I was afraid that I'd never see you again." He said, finally getting a hold of himself, "You just…left. You didn't even say goodbye. I missed you."
Ami had to admit, at that moment she felt pretty bad for what she did, but all she could say was,
"I'm sorry."
Shindou looked Ami straight in the eyes, "Why? Why did you just leave? Was it something we did? I need to know!" He pleaded.
Ami started at the ground. He had a right to know,
"I left because after the incident with Suna Gakuen, I was afraid of what you thought of me. I was afraid you saw me a heartless girl who lied for her own benefit. I was too afraid to face the team after what happened, so I left."
"You know we would never think you were heartless. You know I would never think you were heartless."
Ami raised an eyebrow, "And why is that?"
Shindou blushed at looked at his feet, "'C-cause," He paused, "Ever since we got to know the real you, I've loved you…" Shindou trailed off, awaiting a reaction.
Ami didn't move, she just stared in shock at Shindou before giving a big grin,
"I'm glad." She said, making Shindou look up, "I'm glad that after everything that happened, you still love me. I'm glad, because I love you to!"
"And that's how it happened." Finished Ami, only she was much older now. Her daughter, Okatsu stared at her mother for a few moments before grinning,
"I got it! Thanks mom!" She said, standing up and grabbing her coat off the bench in the front hall and running out the door,
"I'm going to the mall! I need a belt, four elastic bands, two bottles of shampoo, a spare tire and a kaleidoscope!"
Of course, Ami didn't ask, because she really didn't want to know…
Okatsu walked back inside her house later that evening, when her parents were having dinner
"I'm home!" She called in.
Her father, Shindou Takuto, looked into the front hall from the kitchen, "Where have you been! Dinner's already on the table!"
Okatsu rolled her eyes, "Yeah yeah." She walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table, looking at her mother, "Oh, and I'm going out tomorrow for dinner with someone!" She said with a smile, and her mother grinned in return,
"I supposed everything went well?"
Okatsu nodded, "Yup! Just one thing." Her parents looked at her, waiting for their daughter to continue, "I need some money to pay for the repairs on the road and traffic lights on 64th street."
Takuto sighed, "I don't even want to ask."
I admit, I might've gone a little overboard with this... Do you know how hard it is to write a fic set in the Shindou Mansion and not say the name Shindou!? Very.
Anyways, I had fun writing this fic and I hope you enjoyed it!
And don't even ask me what happened to 64th street.