A/N: Well, I revisited episode eight today… Let's say I've always thought it an important episode for Ikuto's character. But, anyway, this was a short drabble written in a grand total of twenty minutes. I just, I couldn't rest until I'd typed it out. So here I am back for some more Ikuto angst.

Summary: His soul is heavy and his chest is tight, but the night is still and the snow plays gently across his face and for a brief moment Ikuto thinks that he can truly feel again. One-Shot.

He can't tell you what today has been for him. He can't tell you how ready he is for this night to end; for the sun to rise red out of the east and light the path to a new day, a new beginning. A dawn where perhaps he does not feel so hopeless in his heart.

Ikuto trudges through the just-settling layer of snow. It lands as a grey slush on the wet streets, turning as murky as the vapor of X-Eggs or the fog that clouds his brain. It's too much tonight, he thinks. He'd rather not. He'd rather just slink away into the shadows and disappear again like he always does, but tonight he just can't quite bring himself to do it. Not when the anger and the hurt and the frustration are all still so raw.

He hadn't wanted to leave Utau waiting for him. Not again. His heart - it melted when he looked into those big glassy eyes and caught the shine of that sunny golden hair. What he would have given to be able to spent that night with her - his only family.

Without Utau by his side he had felt as though he'd lost a limb… But with her working for the company - because of him…

Ikuto couldn't tell you what it did to him. What it was still doing to him.

And then there was her…

He hadn't meant to take so long clearing up those eggs. He hadn't meant to linger in the cold night air. In and out, he'd thought, because you never knew when someone might happen to pass by.

"The people at Easter are getting serious."

So he'd said to Amu in the darkened park, surrounded by his own dirty work.

"Now's your last chance to get out."

That's what he'd said.

He realises now. It's never been a game - he doesn't want to pretend it ever has - but somehow it all seems so much more real now. So real and palpable now that someone like her is involved and from somewhere deep within him an urgency rises up to the surface which surprises him, if he's honest, because it's something he's never really felt all that much. He'd found himself plodding through the days, through his work, through his life because what was the point in moving any faster when he'd only end up back in the same place? What was the point when his future at Easter seemed to stretch far out in front of him towards the horizon - a never-ending ruinous path. No other route. No other journey to take so long as those chains still wound about his ankles, tethered to his fate.

But Ikuto had seen her in that clearing tonight - all pastel pink hair and rosy cheeks and wide eyes burnt like the setting sun - and it had suddenly hit him.

She was going to be trapped too. Amu Hinamori would be forced to walk the same road he lived his life on and she didn't even know why. She didn't know what she was in for. For the love of God, she didn't even know what Easter really was.

'She's too innocent.'

'She's too naive.'

'She's just a kid.'

He'd spent so long trudging along at his own languid pace… But he had realised far too late that he couldn't let her get involved. He'd have to catch up. And fast. And he couldn't allow himself to bump into her again - he couldn't appear at her balcony door and offer her a hand or give her any of those little tips he'd been allowing himself anymore because Ikuto saw now that the game he'd been playing was far more dangerous if she was in it.

His sister's face surfaced in his mind. Having one little girl to drive away had been more than enough.

This was his path - it couldn't be theirs too, but they were about to follow him to hell and back if they could and it made him want to scream and yell and kick at them in frustration because didn't they see? All he had ever done was for their own good! Couldn't they take just one damn hint?

And maybe then he wouldn't have to leave them both stood dumbfounded in the setting snow.

Ikuto can't help but grit his teeth and clench his fists. It's all he can do to avoid screaming into the night and completely letting go. But, then again, he's afraid that he might lose his mind if he does and so he tries to breathe and clear his head and focuses all his might on not letting a single piece of it out.

Ikuto can't tell you what that does to him either.

He wants this night to end so badly, although tomorrow might be worse… But at least it will be a new day. Church bells ring in the distance. Nine, he thinks. Just three more hours. Three more hours until his fresh, new dawn and maybe then with the blessing of the sunlight on his skin he might feel rejuvenated again. It takes too much to feel, he thinks. But, then again, it takes too much not to feel as well - to cover up, to hold it in, to push it down… He's not cut out for it. It takes too much of his will to carry on.

He doesn't know what to do until then; until this new day. He stands in the middle of the pavement and sighs as if it will ease the weight inside him, dragging him down into the dirt. But at least he is still and at least he has nowhere to go. Nowhere to be. No work to do or dreams to destroy and his soul is heavy and his chest is tight, his breath shallow and suffocated by guilt… But the night is still and the snow plays gently across his face and for a brief moment Ikuto thinks that he can truly feel again. He thinks he can melt into the shadows of the street and be consumed by that empty silence and for a moment he thinks that this is what it must be like to feel peaceful again.

Yes, he hurts. Yes, his mind is a mess. But as the cold creeps through his skin and sends a shiver through his body he is reminded that he can feel at least. And, after all, that's better than not having a heart at all.