Notes: To be perfectly clear, I am a total Ikuto/Amu shipper. It's just, you know, a delicate situation.
Of the Finer Details
His friends are a little creeped out, he can tell. He's, you know, he's Ikuto, he's a cool guy. The kind that gets all the girls who're like—like—
They ask him if Amu's like that. If she's his own little Lolita.
"That brat?" he looks at them very coldly, "Don't be stupid." He says it icily enough that they laugh kind of nervously and change the subject and go back to ignoring him, which suits him just fine. He's not in a mood to indulge them.
He watches her back, her hair, as it tucks around the corner, and slips off when the teacher isn't looking, because it's not like he's big on school, and she shouldn't walk home alone, not a flashy kid like her.
Yoru's a little creeped out, he can tell. As creeped out as Yoru can be, because he and Ikuto are similar in how they see the world as a game, but Yoru doesn't brood, not like Ikuto does. Maybe that's why he still has a Shugo Chara, when he's so old. He's not getting over the past anytime soon, and he'd miss the company.
But Yoru's creeped because Amu's nice and all, yeah, and she feeds him and hides him but—you know. She's still on the wrong side Ikuto's on, and when it comes down to it, Yoru likes Ikuto better.
Her mother's a little creeped out, he can tell. When she answers the door for him, (he figures, he doesn't want to be a secret, he doesn't want to be hidden, she shouldn't be ashamed of him like this,) she has to look up to see his eyes. He looks down at her and waits.
"Can I help you?" she asks politely, in the sort of tone indicating she might think he's delivering a package or something. He sticks his hands in his pockets and doesn't fidget, studies Amu's home over her shoulder. He's mostly only seen her room, after all, and he's curious. He can see her baby sister in front of the television, singing. He wonders if Amu was ever like that.
"Is Amu in?" he asks lowly, and doesn't miss the way her lower lip tucks in and she eyes him up and down again, trying to subtract his age. Too old. Too old.
"No, she's out." Her fingers reach out and wrap around the knob and it's clear she wants him gone, "Is there anything else?"
He thinks she's dealing with it rather well. "No. Would you mind telling her that Yoru stopped by? Thanks." He turns on his heel and the door snaps closed behind him, and when he's sure no one's looking, he climbs up to the window and lets himself in. Amu's room smells faintly of fabric softener and tea, and he finds himself calmed. He sits on her little-girl bed, curls his fingers into the pink comforter, and listens to her mother moving anxiously through the house.
"What're we doing here?" Yoru pesters him, and he nearly forgets to whisper.
"Waiting. You can go off if you want."
"Alright, see you," Yoru says dismissively, perhaps a little hurt, and drifts speedily out the window.
Amu's a little creeped out, he can tell. She squeaks rather adorably when she opens the door, and is a flurry of frantic limbs to shut it behind her. He sneers to hide his smile, and holds himself very still. It's obvious that he makes her nervous, obvious in the way she won't quite look at him, and her hands keep drifting up to tap at her lips. "Wh—what are you doing here?"
"Just wanted to see you." He says teasingly, but the thing is, he means it, and she has no idea. She's too young for that. She doesn't get it, she can't understand infatuation or obsession, not while she's still just-shy of breaking through childhood.
"Are you sick?" she blurts out, and he wonders if she hasn't heard him, for she moves in and claps a hand over both their foreheads, fingers cool and skinny and small. "You're warm." She announces, and looks at him worriedly, and something in his stomach makes it hard to breath. He likes those eyes.
"I'm fine," he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the necklace she'd dropped the other day, the lock glittering between his fingers, and her eyes go wide. She reaches for it hesitantly, as though afraid he might jerk it back tauntingly, and takes it from his hand with delicate fingers, frowning at him pensively.
"But—why didn't you just—"
"I can't just take it," he says impatiently, thinks he's laying it on a little thick, but she's a bit slow, really, and even if her Charas are fainting in the background, she remains wholly oblivious.
He traces her face as a reward to himself for good behavior, and lets himself back out the window. When he checks back, she looks a little breathless. "U-uh, bye." She stutters, and shuts the window, and turns her back on him, looking at the lock in her hand, and he leaves to find Yoru, toying with his key.