"Amu-chan, would you go out with me?" Tadase asked, smiling so charmingly.
Amu froze. Red. It was the color that flashed before her eyes. It was love, she was so sure of it, though everything felt cheesy like a Cinderella movie.
The rosette's cheeks burned as she replied, "Sure…"
"Perfect!" Tadase beamed, making something bloom in Amu's chest, "How about we go on a date?"
"This quickly?" Amu asked.
"Well you are my girlfriend," Tadase asked, naïvely, tilting his head to the side. He didn't get the point.
"But you asked me to be your girlfriend just two seconds ago," Amu murmured, having no voice, but because she was in 'love' she wouldn't speak up.
"Well we will go on one," Tadase declared, not paying a heed to his girlfriend's opinions.
"Okay," Amu muttered, "When?"
"Friday night, a date to the movies, and then a dinner at a nice Italian restaurant," Tadase beamed.
One word came to her mind. Cheesy, and so fake. But Amu didn't care. She was head over heels in love. When she was in love, she could do stupid things for someone who she thinks she loves.
"Sounds nice," Amu forced a smile though she thought she would like something else, like flying over Tokyo in someone's arms and throwing back snide remarks like a little war over words.
"I will pick you up at six!" Tadase beamed and walked away. Six o' clock was such a clichéd time.
"Wow," Ran peeked, "You have a date."
"Not just any date," Miki popped out, "A date with Tadase-sama."
"So romantic," Suu said dreamily.
Dia kept quiet. She knew that Amu was happy, but some of her heart was saying something else. Like she would rather be with someone else. And she knew the answer all too well. Ikuto.
-x-
"I see you have a boyfriend," a velvet voice popped in on Amu as she walked home.
"Yeah," Amu blushed, "Tadase."
Ikuto's deep velvet eyes turned into dangerous slits at the mention of the loathsome name. Tadase was a big cheat, and Amu was on the list to be one of the girls to have heart broken. But if he told Amu this, then he would be something like a big bad wolf for ruining her happiness.
He loved her, but he knew part of loving someone means to allow them to be happy and catch them if they are sad.
"Nice," Ikuto teased, "Have anything to wear?"
"No," Amu blushed, "But Miki will help me."
"I could help you dress," Ikuto forced himself to smirk although it was killing him.
Amu's face turned into a fresh tomato red, the shade of the primary color Ikuto loved so much besides blue. Her face made him love that color. A color of passion.
-x-
"Be calm, Amu-chan, I am coming up with a sketch!" Miki pursed her lips as she began to sketch furiously on her sketch pad.
"But the date starts at six!" Amu paced.
"Correction… Tadase will PICK you up at six," Ran rolled her eyes, "It is five o' clock. Calm down."
Ikuto's heart hurt. He didn't know how he could be totally fine with letting Amu go to her possible doom: her first heartbreak.
"Can we talk?" Dia asked, floating over to him.
"I do not know," Ikuto murmured.
"Ikuto, I am getting changed. Can you wait on the balcony please?" Amu asked.
"What's wrong with the bathroom?" Ikuto asked. Amu sent him a pleading look and he complied, not being able to resist her cute face.
He climbed onto the balcony and Dia sneaked along with him. Amu closed the glass doors and rolled the curtain closed. She didn't lock the doors.
"I know you love Amu," Dia said to the point. Ikuto was shocked.
"Don't give me that look! What do you think I am, blind?" Dia looked at him as if he grew a second head.
"But she doesn't love me," Ikuto sputtered, "She loves that Kiddy King."
"LIKES, not love. She seems hesitant about him, but she decides it is love because she has been waiting him to ask her out in a million years," Dia sighed, "I do not like him."
"I don't either. I hate him," Ikuto whispered, "I loathe him."
"Woah I just said there is something about him I do not like. Where did this strong emotion of hate coming from?" Dia asked.
"He is a heart breaker, he just wants to use Amu," Ikuto whispered.
"And you didn't think about telling her this?!" Dia glared at Ikuto.
"How can you just trample her happiness? Look at her," Ikuto gestured towards Amu's silhouette, dancing around gracefully like a swan, "She has been happier than she has had ever been with me! I can't just blurt the truth on her! And she might think I never want her to be happy, which isn't true."
Dia sighed and knew Ikuto was right. Putting a chubby hand to her forehead she murmured, "Ikuto, if Amu comes crying any time, will you comfort her?"
Ikuto nodded, "More than anything. I will wait forever."
Dia smiled gently at Ikuto and said, "At this rate, it won't be long for her to realize where her heart really lies."
-x-
Amu glowed at school, she smiled a lot and laughed though she felt the whole relationship as cheesy and fake. She was in love and that was the end of it.
She smiled and laughed with her boyfriend, Tadase, while her four charas interacted with Kiseki.
While laughing, Amu didn't notice the glances Tadase sent to Lulu. Amu didn't even notice a flash of mint green hair pass by through the bushes outside.
Amu didn't know Tadase was cheating on her.
Ikuto clenched his fists as Tadase would make Amu laugh and stare at Lulu with passion in his eyes until Amu calmed down from laughing so much.
"Ah," Amu checked her watch, "I guess it is time to go home."
"You best go right now," Tadase said immediately.
Amu smiled innocently and stretched out her hand and said, "Want to walk home together?"
"No, you better go home on your own today," Tadase started to push Amu to the door.
"Why?" Amu asked.
"Because, I got work to do," Tadase made up at the top of his work.
"What work? Guardian work? We just finished it at the meeting!" Amu protested.
"Well, you get the gist! Me being king means headmaster gives me more work," Tadase said hurriedly when he saw Lulu licking her lips in desire.
"But-" Amu started, but she didn't finish that as the door closed immediately after she was pushed out.
The moment the door snapped close, Lulu sprung from her hiding position in one of the bushes in the Royal Garden and she attacked Tadase's lips. What shocked Ikuto was that Tadase wrapped his arms around Lulu.
Tadase's princely character dropped and he was smirking.
"You really fooled her," Lulu chuckled.
"Of course, she has her heads up in the clouds," Tadase laughed.
"She is so gullible if she didn't get the idea that you are mine," Lulu smirked and she dove in and caught Tadase's lips and nibbled on the lower lip, causing the blonde to moan.
Ikuto turned his head to the side to avoid the sickening sight. Quick as a cat, he softly closed the top window pane and he leaped away.
-x-
"Miki can you draw me an outfit just for today?" Amu asked pleadingly. It seemed that she could not make up her mind.
"Just wear a simple white dress and an artistic black blazer and some silver boots. Like these," Miki pulled the clothes out of Amu's closet.
Amu wanted to argue, and Ikuto found the way her face scrunched up was adorable. But she wasn't his.
"Okay," Amu pouted cutely and took the articles of clothing.
"Here," Miki said and popped a black beret on Amu's pink hair, her hair mysteriously a bun and hidden underneath the cap.
"Now you look complete," Miki smiled and Amu returned it.
Amu ran down the stairs childishly and Ikuto followed her by climbing down from the balcony and hiding in the shadows of her front house.
"Where is your date?" Ran asked.
"At the park," Amu smiled.
"The park where you and Ikuto sing all the time desu?" Suu asked.
Amu smiled even wider, making Ikuto's heart flutter, as she nodded, a fresh strawberry colored blush adorned her pale cheeks.
"It is going to be so romantic!" Miki smiled.
-x-
Red. That was the only color that clouded Amu's eyes as she saw her boyfriend make out with some unknown lover with mint green hair and sparkling gold eyes, but not as brilliant as hers.
But it wasn't passionate red or falling in love red. No, this red was different. It was the color of pain, the agony and the never ending torture that constantly haunts and tortures a person's mind to the brink of death.
Amu's fingers found them cupping her mouth in horror as she saw Tadase smirk at her as he made her watch his public display of affection for the girl named 'Lulu' whose name he moaned out in heated passion as she kissed him with unmatched passion.
Red dotted the fields of her vision. How could she be so naïve and fall for that princely smile and laughs and beautiful voice asking her to be his?
She was supposed to kiss him at the park, as Tadase had promised. But now, she didn't want to give something so valuable to herself, to someone as big of a jerk as Tadase.
"What are we going to do?" Dia asked, worried.
Amu turned and sped home, with Ikuto following her trail quietly in the shadows. He wanted to beat up Tadase, but he wanted to make sure Amu went home and not some gloomy alleyway to end her life.
-x-
"Amu is not here today," Rima glared at Ikuto, "What did you do to her?"
"Why are you always dropping blame on me? I do not work for Easter anymore," Ikuto argued.
"Well you are always so sneaky and behind that smirk always on your face, it is hard to know what you are thinking. And something about Amu not being here and you being so out of character makes me think you did something to her," Rima glared, and Tadase smirked from behind her.
"Or why don't you go ask her slut of a boyfriend?" Ikuto glared at Tadase.
"Cut it up, what happened?" Nagihiko pinned his girlfriend in his arms.
"Tadase and Lulu… sittin' in a tree. F-*-C-K-I-N-G," Ikuto sang sarcastically.
"What?" Kuukai's head snapped at Tadase.
"After Amu ran away after seeing them make out, they took it to the next level on a tree branch high up near the top," Ikuto glared, "On MY tree."
"Oh forget your frigging tree! This is Amu's feelings we are talking about!" Kairi yelled, becoming way out of his normal character.
Yaya cringed under his harsh tone.
"You need to go fix it with her. If she never comes to school I am sacrificing your head to ancient Aztec gods," Rima glowered.
"Don't you mean the heart?" Nagihiko said as a matter of fact, earning a glare from Ikuto and a smile from Rima.
"Don't push it," Ikuto glared at Nagihiko and he ran out of the Royal Garden, leaving the Guardians to beat up Tadase.
"H-Hey, no hard feelings… r-r-right?" Tadase sputtered.
"No hard feelings my ass," Rima cursed and she raised a school textbook like it was a juggling pin from her character transformation.
-x-
Face in palms, knees wrapped up to her chest, Amu looked terrible. Terrible, must we decide was an understatement. Her shoulders heaved up and down as she cried and cried and cried.
Amu was lucky her mother had her fill of heartbreaks with boys. Midori could recount all the high school days she skipped out on because of a brainless and heartless boy that broke her heart.
Suddenly a little tap came from her balcony window. Amu wouldn't even let her little sister or her parents in ever since she decided to skip out on school. But with Ikuto… it is complicated and weird.
Amu found her legs having a mind of their own as she slowly got up and unlocked the balcony window and stepped away.
Before she went too far from the window, Ikuto caught Amu's arm and turned her around and pulled her into a tight hug. Amu couldn't handle it anymore and she broke out into sobs.
Pain filled her lungs as she released it out. Ikuto's navy eyes softened in sadness as he was surprised Amu wouldn't try to escape his hug like other times.
Ikuto's hand rested on the crown of Amu's head and smoothed out the tangled knots. Amu paused in her crying, and hiccupped as she felt slender fingers gently work at her hair. It calmed her.
Before she knew it, Ikuto was pulling her to the bed, and made her sit while he still hugged her.
"You want to talk about it?" Ikuto asked, even though he knew what happened.
Amu was too broken to talk about anything. She was sure if she talked about Tadase, she would break apart. She shook her head as a no.
Ikuto sighed as he kept it at that. He didn't want to cause her more pain than possible. It went on like this. Tears just streamed from her liquid gold eyes and she never even sniffed. She just shook with hiccups and cried.
"I should have told you," Ikuto started, "About his true nature."
"It… wasn't your fault," Amu whispered into his chest, "I was too happy."
Ikuto pulled her away and looked her in the eyes, "Why would you chide yourself for falling in love?"
"Because I knew it would break. From the moment he asked me out, everything felt so cheesy and fake and some voice was telling me I shouldn't say yes," Amu whispered, "But I did."
"So if the voices were telling you no then why did you say yes?" Ikuto asked.
"I thought I loved him. I was secretly in love you and I publicly chased after Tadase. When he responded to it, I was desperate because I thought your confession was fake back then, but it wasn't," Amu whispered, her eyes filling with more tears, "I hurt you so much. How can you still love a disgusting girl like me?"
Ikuto brought her into a hug and fury built in his chest as he sharply scolded her, "Never condescend on yourself. You are not disgusting."
Amu was too shocked to even argue with him to prove him her true nature was not pretty, but she didn't find the muster to do so.
"Amu, let me in," Ikuto whispered softly.
Amu was confused. Of course she let him in, she unlocked the balcony window when he tapped!
Ikuto sensed this and shook his head, "Let me in your heart."
Amu was shell shocked. She knew she loved Ikuto but was her fragile heart strong enough to handle love again? Because love is passionate and painful. It is beautiful, and it is ugly. It is soft and it is rough. It comes in all forms and shapes.
"I can fix you," Ikuto pressed.
"And I will let you," Amu's broken voice feebly answered as she wrapped her skinny arms around the navy haired boy's waist.
And Amu could see red. The same color she saw with Tadase, except it was bright and flourishing. A beautiful silky highlight to the color promised her of the everlasting and beautiful love that Amu had always longed for. It was right in front of her this whole time. Ikuto.
-fin-
A/N: When I typed this oneshot, I was thinking about Madame Red from Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler). I almost turned this into a Kuroshitsuji fanfiction. :P