Again, thank you to all those who took time to leave a review! It really motivates me to write more. Please enjoy this chapter c:

Amu's POV

It's been too long, said the voices.

I idly play with my tea with a teaspoon with my right hand as I rest my chin on my left palm. I was clad in my favorite silk robe that went to my mid thighs but the rest of my legs were covered in my favorite knee high socks. It was ten o'clock in the morning on a dark windy Saturday and I had no intentions of getting any solids in my stomach. Tea is all I need.

My phone vibrated for the third time since I woke up this morning. Ikuto asked for my number when we were at the grocery store yesterday, Friday, and I somewhat regret giving it to him. I woke up to four text messages from him. He, apparently, thinks it's a need to tell me everything he does.

5:57 a.m.

"Good morning, ichigo. It's 6 in the morning so I'm gonna go jog."

7:03 a.m.

"Hey, you still asleep? I just got home from jogging. I passed by your apartment."

7:22 a.m.

"I'm gonna take a shower now so you won't tell me I stink later when you come over."

8:37 a.m.

"Utau is so annoying."

Waking up to Ikuto's good morning text message gave my stomach butterflies despite waking up crying and sweating. The dream I had was so vivid. I felt like I was really there…I was there, 10 years ago. Maybe I should talk to Dr. Aruto about it later today.

I heave a sigh and flip my phone to finally read the three text messages Ikuto sent me recently.

9:05 a.m.

"Utau's cooking breakfast today, you should come over… I can pick you up."

9:26 a.m.

"Okay, I think you're still asleep."

10:01 a.m.

"I want to see you already."

Look at that, a boy wants to see Amu.

I rest my head on the dining table and let out a whimper.

This was the worst part about depression. Maybe, this was the only part; feeling depressed. For no reason at all. I've been feeling like shit ever since I woke up and the voices weren't really helping me. They never did, to start with. I should be helping myself. I should try being happy and-

Why aren't you an honor student, really? You should be more like Ami. You're not even talented. You get okay grades but do you think that'd be enough? You thinking about applying for a scholarship to help your parents? They're fucking rich, stop lying to yourself. You just want to feel good about something. You just want to accomplish something. Why? Because you think you're worthless.

You are worthless.

I found myself crying for the second time this morning. And I didn't hesitate to reach for the scissors.

I guess I won't be wearing short sleeved shirts for a while.

I ring the doorbell of the Tsukiyomi household and the door immediately swings open, revealing a casually dressed Ikuto. He opened his mouth but the voice that came out wasn't his.

"Amu!" Utau exclaims and shoves Ikuto out of the way. He mutters a very audible 'ow.'

Ikuto then pulls one of Utau's long pigtails, "You little twerp."

"Ouch, ouch, ouch! Let me go, you-"

"Children," Dr. Aruto's distant voice interrupted. "Let the child in."

"Hai," they chorused. Seeing that they both responded to their father at the same time, they send each other glares, clearly irritated. So I let out a little cough to remind them that I was still here.

"Yo," Ikuto greets me first. "Come inside. I'm sorry Utau's so fat, she must be blocking the doorway."

Utau gasps, "What? But I went to the gym just yesterday!" Horror was evident in her eyes. She then turns around and makes her way up the stairs. "I've got to weigh and check myself out!" And the loud closing of her door was heard throughout the whole house.

Ikuto was still staring at me. I was staring at him too, still outside.

…

"Um, you can come in now."

"Oh," I blush. I was about to go in but then I realized something. "Um, you're…uh, you're sort of in the way."

"Oh," he steps aside and lets me in. "Sorry."

"It's alright," I mumble. I enter their marvelous house for the second time in my life and it still takes my breath away. Despite the black-white-gray theme, everything was just lovely. What kept everything together and balanced was the 42 inch plasma television in the middle of the east wall. I was, along with the stairs almost in front of the door, at the west wall.

"Well," Dr. Aruto gets up from the couch. "We'll start a little after ten minutes. I apologize for my son being very…welcoming. If he, in any way, ever makes you feel the least bit uncomfortable-"

"Oh, no. No, I don't mind at all, Dr. Aruto." I give a timid smile and can't help but blush a bit. He gives Ikuto a warning look. "It's fine, really." I assure him.

"Mhmmm, I've told him countless times not to get…attached with my patients. He listens most of the time but the fact that he sits in front of you in class isn't stopping him this time." Dr. Aruto chuckles. "Very well, then. Ikuto, prepare the tea. Amu-san, you can go on ahead into my office; I still have to ready a few things in the west room." With that, Dr. Aruto disappears up the stairs and Ikuto and I are left alone in their living room.

"So…" he starts.

I stare at my boots, much like the last time I was here. "So…"

"I'll work on the tea." He makes his way to, what I assume, is the kitchen.

"I'll help." I follow him. "We can go up to the office together."

The kitchen was much like the living room. Black, white, but silver this time. Everything was clean and pristine. The floor – instead of a black carpet – was an almost cherry colored wooden floor. The shiny kind.

"You can wash the teacups," he tells me. "They're at the cabinet to your left." He then opens another cabinet somewhere in the opposite direction and brings out a pretty teapot; white ceramic with black floral designs. Despite the obviously new and unused set of teacups before me, another thing catches my eye.

"Who's that?" I ask him. My attention was on a small picture frame on the kitchen counter corner. And inside this frame was a picture of an awfully pale woman with long blonde hair. Despite her skin color, she looked happy.

"That was my mom."

I almost drop the teacups upon hearing this. 'Was' is used when we construct sentences in the past tense. She was their mom. She wasn't anymore…

"Oh," was all I could say. Then I mentally slap myself. "I'm sorry to-"

"No, it's okay."

"Would you mind if I asked how…?"

"No, not at all," He assures me with a smile, but his eyes were sad. He sighs, "She died of cancer. Four years ago. It was when Utau had just signed a contract for training under this agency for modeling and acting. Mom would've liked to see Utau now." I'm gonna have to ask about that later.

"We'll be in the office if your mother comes back home and starts looking for me." But last time, Dr. Aruto…

"The doctors said mom was doing fine, they said she was fighting it. But all of the sudden…"

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me the rest." I pat his shoulder. I didn't know that it was like this with the Tsukiyomi family. I imagined them more of the happy type.

"Okaa-san's cooking is the best even if it's just left overs. Does your mom have ass-kicking skills in the kitchen, too?" Ikuto isn't entirely over it, too. He must've forgotten that it was Utau's cooking.

He turns to smile at me. "It was really hard on all three of us. Even until now, Utau would sometimes set the dinner table for four. Dad would read the newspaper and he would give his insights about an article, really, he would just start talking and then he would realize that…no one was listening."

He continues, "The west room, mom's new room; there's an even bigger picture of her there, but she's really at the cemetery. Mom loved the west room. She had a view of the neighbor's backyard garden. Mom was too shy to come over and see for herself so she just stares from the window. It became an everyday thing when her therapy started." I think I stopped breathing. He was telling me too much. I feel like I don't deserve to hear any of Ikuto's stories. I feel like I don't deserve his friendship either. But I had no choice, he was opening up to me all of the sudden. I didn't mean to pry at all. I just wanted to know who the lady in the picture was. I…I didn't know that she –

"Let's head up to the office." He tells me casually.

I snap out of my trance and blush lightly, "R-right."

"That's very…unique," says Dr. Aruto. "I've never quite heard of that before, although; it usually occurs with people who have schizophrenia. But your case is much lighter than that, I assure you." I had just told him about the voices. He thinks it's unique.

"I think it's weird," sneers Ikuto. "Really weird."

"I'm sorry, but what are you doing here again?" I ask irritably.

"I'm afraid she's right, son," Dr. Aruto faces his son who was leaning on the wall to my right. I was seated on the same couch as last time. "Get out." He says irritably. "You're disturbing us. I'm so sorry, Amu-san. I didn't know Ikuto decided to start helping me again. You see, he used to be training under me; he started a little over three years ago. But he stopped when-"

"Okay, okay." Ikuto sighs. "I'm going. See ya, ichigo." With that, he gets out of the room and closes the door shut.

"Annoying," I mutter.

"You're really comfortable with him, aren't you?" Dr. Aruto asks suddenly. I just blush. "Ikuto's a good boy; always caring for his sister." He sighs and takes his glasses off, setting them on the coffee table. "Especially since…" he trails off, studying my facial expression. "I assume he's told you about Souko?"

Souko must be their mom's name. I nod, "It was very nice of him to open up. It was as if he kept his end of the bargain after having me open up to him."

"I see. Anyways, let me tell you a story, Amu-san. Do you mind?"

"No, not at all," I give a timid smile. "I'll tell you one, too, in return."

He nods. "I had a patient before, just a few months after Souko had gone. She was like you, normal sessions and all. And Ikuto had taken…a liking to her. She was 4 four years older than him; one of the reasons I wasn't really enthusiastic about the whole fiasco. She was smart, and she knew that Ikuto was really attached. He would skip days out with his friends, waiting for her here, even just to see her."

"She must've been a really nice person," I comment. Ikuto had someone before. I should've seen this coming.

"Yes, you could say Dia was a sweet girl despite her mental state. To keep things short, she was sweet to everyone but herself. After 5 months of sessions with me, there was no helping the girl anymore. She wasn't helping herself and there was only so much that I could do for her." He sighs, "…she commited suicide. Ikuto was heartbroken, and he stopped his training with me."

"Oh…" I found myself speechless for the second time today. Ikuto was broken inside. Here I was, judging him, thinking he had everything going for him. If I could just slap myself now…then I finally found my voice, "And you think he's going to want to start again?"

"With you, I don't know." And for the first time ever, I see Dr. Aruto smirk. "So what story did you have in mind, Amu-san?"

I take a deep breath, "It's not really a story…it's just something I just think you should know."

"Oh?"

I slide the sleeve of my sweater up, "I had a dream last night." I show Dr. Aruto my scars. "And what disappointed me, was – despite your son's effort to make me smile via text messages and my constant supply of tea – that I didn't hesitate to hurt myself at all."

"Oh dear," Dr. Aruto now wears a worried expression. "Would you mind telling me what your dream was about?" I shake my head.

"It was from when I was still little. I was playing around the house and got bored. So I went around and looked for my father. And sure enough he was there, on the phone. I kept asking him to play with me." I heave a sigh. "My mother had just given birth to Ami, my little sister, the day before she called. My father was fixing up Ami's new room when the phone rang.

She had postnatal depression.

This depression is clinical and it usually affected women after being pregnant. Mother stopped eating and smiling and playing with me. She changed. The only person she didn't change for was Ami. Being the jealous five year-old I was, I started ignoring her because she was spending so much time with my new little sister. Soon enough, my father had to help my mother and spend time with Ami, too. And soon enough, I started ignoring him, too."

"Total ignorance?"

"Not, really. I managed to slightly patch things up with my father. But things with my mother were…complicated. It was as if I was never part of her life." It's true; she made me feel like an outsider all the time…like I wasn't wanted at all.

Dr. Aruto nods. Then he asks, "Amu-san, why do you cut your wrists?"

I struggle a bit at this. He was being straightforward and it made me feel a tad uncomfortable; like I was being attacked. "I feel like…I feel like I deserve it, actually." I look at the floor. "When there's something new that I don't like about myself, or when I think of something that scares me – like college and my future – I feel the need to hurt myself."

"Hurting yourself is never an option, Amu-san. You should know that."

"I do," I assure him.

He sighs, "Have you heard of the butterfly project?"

I shake my head. "Please, tell me about it."

"It's for people like you. You draw a butterfly on your wrist and you name it after someone you love or care about. Then every time you think about cutting yourself, the butterfly on your wrist would stop you. You would think it's silly; a mere drawing to stop you. But if you cut, the person you name it after dies."

My face currently reads, 'what the fuck.'

Dr. Aruto continues, "Not literally. But if you do cut over that butterfly…over that person, then does that not prove that you don't love or care for them at all?"

"I don't have anyone I love or care for right now," I deadpan. "Let's exclude my cat."

He sweatdrops, "You seem to dislike a lot of things."

"There really isn't much to like about the world."

"Okay, let's take that as your problem for now. I know you have a lot more problems, and we'll take them all down one by one, but let's start with this one." He was being like any other normal enthusiastic psych now. I just sipped on my tea.

And I decide to compliment his tea set, "You have a wonderful tea set." He nods and thanks me.

"Moving on, I have a new exercise for you. I want you to create a list of likes."

"List of likes?"

"Yes, as the days go by I want you to list down what you like on a piece of paper – " he rips out a piece of long yellow pad paper from his clipboard "—maybe you'd go for a walk and see a flock of birds, you can-"

"I don't like birds."

"I know one thing you like that you could write down right now." He hands the paper to me and a silver pen with the household name engraved by the other end.

I stare at the paper and pen in my hands and look back up to him, "And what would that be?"

"Tea."

So I write it down.

40 minutes later

"Amu-san," Dr. Aruto called just before I turned the doorknob to leave his office. Sessions had just finished. "If the cutting continues and gets worse, we're going to have to put you in a psychiatric ward."

"I…I understand," I take a deep sigh. "I'll try my best to help myself more."

"Yes, please do. We wouldn't want to see you in a hospital gown now, would we? That would just be ill-fitting on you."

It was a little after five and I was still in Ikuto's house. We were seated on the floor of his living room, our elbows propped up on the white coffee table. I sat beside him. Both of us had our legs crossed, so our knees were touching.

"I don't get it at all," Ikuto glares at the worksheet. "Why do we even need to learn this stuff?"

"I think sensei said something about it being for the common good, but I wasn't really listening," I chuckle. "Besides, English is fun." I pat his head. We were answering the take home worksheet. Well, his worksheet. It's a piece of short bond paper with questions about Hamlet and a short essay portion at the bottom.

"'Did Hamlet love Ophelia?'" Ikuto reads. "Who cares?"

I give him a warning look, "Do you want me to help you or not?"

"Fine, fine." He sighs but he then writes down, "Despite his shortcomings toward the maiden, Hamlet indeed love Ophelia but thought that it would only cause further hindrances once her father and his uncle find out about this. He cared so much for Ophelia that he didn't have her involved with anything that had to do with him." He then reads over it and finally looks up at me, asking for approval.

I just smile.

That night, I had dinner with Ikuto and his family. And Utau's setting the table for four did not go to waste.

Reviews are appreciated :3