"…Ikuto…oh my God, Ikuto! You're back!" I yelled, rushing to open my sliding door, heart overflowing with happiness. But then I took a good look at him.

"Ikuto…what…happened to you?" I asked as I slid open the door. He was covered in large purple bruises and had scrapes and scratches all over him, and that was just on the parts of him that weren't hidden by his clothing.

"First things first…" he said, striding over to me with a purpose and taking me into his arms.

"GAHH—you're wet!" I yelped, having forgotten that it was raining, and he had just come from outside.

"Mmmmm," was his only response as he hugged me, burying his nose in my hair. I hugged him back, but half-heartedly as I was worried about the state he was in.

"Ikuto, you need to—"I started, only to be cut off.

"I don't NEED to do anything except hold you. A couple of bruises never killed anyone," he told me, leaving no room to argue as he nuzzled my cheek.

"You always were terrible with injuries. Always downplaying them," I told him, flicking him on the forehead gently as I pulled out of the hug.

"Or maybe you just over react," he told me, smirking.

"Wha-What? I'm pretty sure these look serious!" I told him, crossing my arms in front of me.

"You know Amu, if you really want to touch me that badly, you just have to ask," he said, with a mischevious look in his eye. I shoved at his chest.

"I see you haven't changed one bit," I told him, attempting to hide my smile.

"Why would I, when you've clearly fallen head over heels for my charm?" he told me, smirking again. Face-palming, I shook my head at his cockiness and walked over to my bedroom door, ready to go out to the laundry room and take care of his wound.

Very quietly, I tiptoed out into the hallway, closing my door behind me. My family would be asleep now, so the last thing I wanted to do was wake them up. I tiptoed into the laundry room where I found one of Papa's old shirts, some rubbing alcohol and some bandages from a half-full first-aid kit that we always kept in the laundry room, but had never used until now. Grabbing the supplies, I tiptoed back down the hall to my room and closed the door quietly behind me.

Just as I was about to head towards him, I stopped, taking in the sight before me, and I couldn't help the giggle that escaped my throat. He looked at me questioningly, which only made me laugh more.

"Forgive me if I don't find my poor health humorous…" he said, raising an eyebrow at me.

"Oh hush. You didn't even care about your health until now. Besides…you look like a cat that was forced to take a bath," I told him, giggling again. He really did. Besides the fact that he was dripping wet, he had that look that a cat gets after a bath…like being defeated. But despite this, he looked taller, and more mature than the last time I had seen him.

Smiling, I started towards him, setting my supplies down on the floor. Realizing I had forgotten a dry towel, I remembered that I had just gotten out of the shower, and turned around to grab the towel that had been in my hair. It was decently dry, at least.

He had taken a seat on my floor, so I kneeled next to him with the towel. He made a motion to reach for the towel, but I pulled it back, smiling at him.

"I can do it. You're probably exhausted," I told him. He looked at me with some emotion that I couldn't quite identify as I began drying off his hair with the towel.

"Ok…now I need to clean your wounds. Can you take off your shirt?" I said. Without a word he grabbed the bottom edges of his shirt and pulled it over his head. Taking a look, I let out a hiss of disapproval.

"Ikuto…how did this happen? These are worse than I thought…" I said, trailing off as I caught sight of a particularly deep cut near his ribs. I didn't wait for an answer as I grabbed the hydrogen peroxide to clean his open wounds. I would get the answers out of him later, but right now making sure they were clean so they didn't get infected was the most important thing.

For near 20 minutes, we were silent, me cleaning his wounds and then bandaging them, and him watching me. I saw him wince a couple of times out of the corner of my eye, so I tried to be as gentle as possible.

When all of the open wounds were cleaned and wrapped on his front and back, I gave him the shirt that belonged to my dad.

"I couldn't find any pants, so you'll just have to wait until yours dry out," I told him. I half expected him to make some sort of joke about that, but when I looked over at him, I could see that his eyes were beginning to look a little cloudy.

"You're tired," I said, not intending it as a question, but he answered anyway.

"Nah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I want to stay up and—" his sentence was interrupted by a yawn, causing me to smile.

"No, I'm tired too. And I have school tomorrow, so we should get to sleep," I told him, trying to make him think that it was what I wanted to do, even though I would have gladly stayed up the whole night talking with him.

"I'll go find blankets to make you a bed on the floor," I told him, stepping out into the hallway again. Once there, I tiptoed to the linen closet and grabbed a couple of heavy blankets. He had a tendency to get cold at night.

I got back to my room and walked in to find him on my bed, supposedly asleep. Sighing, I proceeded to make up the bed on the floor and took one of my pillows from my bed to put down on the floor as well. When I was done, I turned to him, shaking him a little to wake him up.

"Come on, wake up, just for a minute and then you can go right back to sleep," I told him.

"But I'm already asleep right here…why would I move…" he said sleepily, not even bothering to open his eyes. Usually I would just push him off the bed, but with his bruises, I couldn't do that tonight.

"Ikuto! Come down and sleep on the bed I made up on the floor," I said, trying to encourage him to move.

"Mmmmm….no," he said, pretending to actually think about it.

"What do I have to do?! Give you catnip? Offer you some tuna?! What?!" I asked, exasperated. Even after all this time, he still reminded me of a cat more than anything else.

"Hmm…you could skip school tomorrow," he told me matter-of-factly.

"Wh-what? You want me to skip school?!"

"Not at all. But you want me off of your bed, so I think you're the one who wants to skip school."

"Fine. Enough of this. I won't go to school tomorrow. Now GET OFF OF MY BED!" I yelled at him, trying to keep my voice down for the sake of my sleeping family.

Smiling triumphantly, he stood up, catching me in another embrace. "You won't regret it," he told me before letting me go and crawling into the blankets that I had set up on the floor for him.

"Goodnight, Amu."

"Goodnight, Ikuto."