Misunderstood
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Shugo Chara
Copyright: Peach Pit
1.
Amu jumps up in the middle of the assembly, starry-eyed, her hand raised, like the innocent schoolgirl she is. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I like you, my prince!" she squeals and is immediately mortified, dropping back into her seat as if she'd like to sink through the floor.
Tadase, sincerely pitying her (he knows the signs of a forced chara-change), is nonetheless disappointed that the maverick girl in the red plaid leg-warmers, who brushed off his hand and called him 'shortie' with such a refreshing lack of respect, was so unoriginal as to follow the trend of fangirl-admiration after all.
"Plese refrain from making off-topic remarks. Also, there is already a girl I like. I'm sorry."
She does not know he is thinking of a deceased family dog.
He does not know he has broken her heart.
2..
They walk through the snow-covered cemetery hand in hand, looking cold and feeling very warm indeed. The companionship of Guardian duties and X egg battles is slowly wearing down the awkwardness between them; nevertheless, neither of them is sure of what to say.
This time it is Tadase who startles Amu with a confession of love, and Amu who feels put on the spot. "She suddenly appeared before me … a girl who was so bright and positive, unlike any I'd ever known. Amulet Heart."
They come within an inch of kissing that day, when a snapped twig and the fear of ghosts sends Amu falling into Tadase's arms. Neither of them knows how much the other regrets that lost chance.
Amu spends the night huddled on the snowy front porch, brooding over her own inadequacy – how can he love one side of her and disregard the rest?
Tadase lies in his sleeping bag with eyes wide open, feeling that he has made an absurd display of his feelings for a girl who doesn't really exist. Praying that Hinamori-san, his dear friend and comrade-in-arms, will not hold his selfish confession against him.
3.
They sit on the Hinamoris' front steps in the warm summer night, feeling rather like Romeo and Juliet after the way he waved to her up on her balcony. They are talking, heart to heart, as Tadase confides to her about his past friendship with Ikuto and Utau, wondering what went wrong and why he disappeared, only to return with a sneer on his face and dubious intentions towards Amu.
It is a quiet night, Amu self-conscious in her yellow pyjamas, Tadase glowing in his white shirt. Their hair and eyes shine in the lantern light as they turn toward eagh other.
"There are two things I have to tell you," he says. But after Ami's interuption, the second thing is never said.
4.
He has brought her a bag of cookies for White Day, recompensing her for the ones she baked him two years ago, as well as for the ill-fated Valentine chocolates he never received. As they sit together on her pink quilted bed, Tadase gathers his courage and finally tells her what he has been waiting to say almost that long.
"I want to tell you I love you every day, enough to make up for the days before I even met you."
They are filled with light, like a crystal in the sun, like a every inch of them tingling with an almost painful joy.
"Will you let me fall in love with you?"
Her reply is not eloquent or poetic. It does not need to be. It is not Amulet Heart he loves anymore, the flying cheerleader with her short skirt and glamorous smile. It is Hinamori Amu, all of her, as she lives and breathes – clumsy, short-tempered, confused and absolutely perfect.
"I'm very happy."
"So am I."
He does not know about Ikuto in the closet, the refugee hiding from the abuses of his own stepfather. Ikuto, who persists in using Amu as his hot-water bottle despite her protests, whose embrace cannot thrill her half as much as a single touch of Tadase's hand.
Neither of them know that in a few days, Ikuto will deliberately try to spoil their memories of this moment. He will not succeed.
5.
The sight of Ikuto's calm emergence from Amu's bedroom strikes Tadase like a slap in the face. So do his own words, thrown back in his face with a derisive curl of the older boy's lip. "Will you let me fall in love with you, eh? Quite a passionate confession for a little boy."
With one final heartbroken look at Amu, ignoring her call to come back and listen, a rage-blinded Tadase hurtles down the stairs and out of the house.
She does not know that his anger will subside as quickly as it came and, huddled up in bed with a box of tissues and a bottle of NyQuil, all his thoughts will go out to Amu, how to speak to her, how to possibly repair the broken bridge between them.
He does not know that the first thing she does upon hearing the door slam is scream at Ikuto to get the hell away, for ruining the best thing that ever happened to her.
Neither of them knows that Ikuto planned it all by the moment, a secretive stray cat to the last, erasing himself from the lives of the two people he most cared for in order to protect them from what he was becoming.
1.
Tadase, like Ikuto, has a habit of coming to Amu's rescue – with the crucial difference that Ikuto cannot defend her from himself. Of all the nights and of all the places, it was tonight at this amusement park that Tadase happened to be there, and without a word he threw himself between the girl who broke his heart and the giant scythe of her supposed seducer. She knew then that whatever she might say or do, no matter what machinations Ikuto might get up to, Tadase loved her. He always would.
They fight as one that night, alternately trying to reason with Ikuto and defending themselves. After his retreat, they sit down on a park bench and talk.
The multicolored lights in the hedge behind them twinkle under a starry sky as Amu explains herself to Tadase. She tells him that Ikuto lived with her as a refugee, not a lover, and that she tried to tell Tadase several times, but lost her nerve. She lets him know that from now on, the redemption of Ikuto's soul will be their cause – far from coming between them, he has brought them closer together.
Then she asks for his forgiveness, and he gives it with all his heart.
As he stands up and offers her his hand once more, haloed by the rainbow night-lights, the two fellow-soldiers, friends and sweethearts understand each other at last.