Kate: GUYS! Only like... 2 chapters left~ BOO-YEAH!

Chapter 25

Kiseki sat quietly in his office. Scattered across his desk were numerous photos, all including one mysterious pink-haired girl whose identity was yet to be revealed.

He just couldn't get it. That girl looked so familiar, but without a head-shot, the closest he got to seeing her face was when she was staring down at the ground with her head bent.

All the photos he had taken were either too far away, too blurry, or only of the back of the girl.

Finally, the reporter opened his desk drawer and pulled out a pen and paper, beginning to jot down notes. This girl first appeared at the hospital with Ikuto, when Kukai, Tadase, and Amuto were elsewhere. She also was seen exiting a skating rink with Ikuto – another time when the other band members weren't around. Then, there was the music video promotion. Kiseki had seen Tadase, Ikuto, and Kukai, but Amuto was nowhere in sight. However, this mysterious girl was.

Kiseki frowned while twirling his pen around his fingers and staring at his sheet of paper. "Whenever this girl appears... Amuto is never there..." he mumbled to himself softly. Not to mention, their hair color was the same, and they were around the same height.

Picking up a nearby photo of the girl, the reporter squinted his eyes in hopes of seeing the picture clearer. He was able to see – at a closer look – that this girls' eyes were golden. Just like Amuto's.

Kiseki's eyes widened as he triumphantly stood on his chair while pumping his fist in the air. He always knew there was something funny about that Amuto character. "He's a she!" He exclaimed proudly, a loud cackle following shortly after, "Either that, or a boy who enjoys cross-dressing as a girl." He was more observant than what people gave him credit for.

"Kiseki, shut up!" his fellow coworker yelled from across the hall.

"You shut up, peasant!" Kiseki bellowed back before dropping into his seat once again. Instantly, he took his camera out, knowing that the band had gone to Canada, but would be back today. All he had to do was get to the airport and prove to everyone that Amuto was actually a girl.

Tsukasa hurried through the recording studio, panting heavily and skidding to a stop – literally – once finding who he was searching for. "I-Ikuto!" he called, stopping to catch his breath as Ikuto looked over his shoulder at the blonde man.

"What?" he questioned, deadpanned and looking bored.

Walking over to the young boy, Tsukasa finally caught his breath back. "Aren't you coming to the conference room? Souko wanted to thank you for remaking the song." He said with a confused look.

"I'm not going." Ikuto replied with a shake of the head. He just wanted to go home and sleep. Well, more like hibernate.

Tsukasa shook his head. "That Souko is really starting to annoy me. She started yelling at me just earlier today about that song. Ahh she's so … ugh. No offense to her! I mean, I'm sure she's a lovely pers- "

"Wait, why did she start yelling at you?" Ikuto asked curiously.

A frown made its way onto Tsukasa's face as he tried to remember what it was he had said to her. After finishing off the interview with Tsumugu's manager, he had found out a piece of information that not many people knew. Something concerning the song that Souko claimed belonged to her.

"Well, I told her that I knew that the song wasn't made for her, and that it was originally meant for Tsumugu's wife, Midori." Tsukasa began, "He wrote it for her because she feared something was happening between him and Souko. What was actually going on, was Souko was clinging to Tsumugu and begging him to take her back, which he didn't. In the end, Souko did all she could to buy that song and claim it as her own in order to get rid of Midori."

Just as he finished his speech, Ikuto went silent with a deadly look in his eyes. It was all her fault. Tsumugu wasn't to blame at all. What was worse is that he took it all out on Amu.

He just wanted to yell at himself for being so inconsiderate. He hadn't even questioned Souko before blaming everything on Tsumugu – who was trying to get away from Souko and wanted to live peacefully with his expectant wife.

In an instant, Ikuto took off in a run towards the conference room. All his life, he thought that he had hated his mom as much as he possibly could. But, at this moment, he knew that he could indeed hate her more. He could hate her as much as he did now.

Pushing the door open, Ikuto stood in the doorway of the conference room and stared deadly at his mom, who sat at the table with her hands on the table, a fur jacket on her shoulders, and an innocent smile on her face.

"That song isn't yours." Ikuto stated, making Souko's smile fade. Ikuto didn't want to waste anymore time, he needed to get to the bottom of this. Even if it meant stating things that both of them already knew. He just had to show her that he knew the truth, and that it was time for her to stop lying. "It wasn't written to beg you to come back. You stole it, didn't you? In order to keep that woman out of his life, you snatched it. You were never the one he loved."

The tears building up in his moms' eyes were a good enough response for him. Clearly, it was all true, judging by the look on her face. Everything was a lie. She was a liar who had nothing better to do with her life than wallow on the past. That was something Ikuto wasn't going to do. He wasn't going to let the past incidences ruin his future.

In order to take that step forward, he had to see Amu at the airport. He had to clear everything up with her and apologize. To sum it up: He had to get her back.

Taking off in another mad dash, Ikuto flew out the front doors of the studio, nearly tripping over air as he hurried to his car.

It wasn't Tsumugu who had taken his mom away from Ikuto, it was his mom that willingly left to pursuit the man she was obsessed with. Tsumugu was innocent in this whole scheme.

Ikuto felt disgusted with himself. How he could be so selfish, he didn't know. He didn't think of anyone else's feelings.

He didn't even know why he was hurrying to the airport. It felt as though she was just going to disappear from his life completely if he didn't see her at this very minute.

After parking his car, Ikuto wandered into the large airport, cringing once seeing all the people. It wouldn't be easy to find her. Checking the time, he knew that her plane would've landed already.

He rushed through the people, passing someone asleep on a nearby bench.

The person lay on his back with the hood of his jacket pulled up so it was covering his face. The suitcase sitting beside him had a name tag attached to it, which read: Hinamori Amuto.

The ringing of his cell phone caused him to stir in his sleep, which woke him up entirely. "Son of a..." he groaned, rummaging through his pockets for his phone.

Muffling a yawn, he brought it up to his ear as he sat up and stretched his arms out. "Yeah?"

It was Nikaidou. "Hey, we're here, where are you?" Amuto looked around, confused with the question. Where was he? All he knew for sure was that he was jet-legged galore.

"Uh... I think at the main entrance. I'm on a bench... yeah..." he replied while continuing to look around. What he noticed as he hung up his phone, was that almost everybody who passed by him, were all staring at him. Not the discreet kind of staring, the obvious, wide-eyed, gaping mouth type of staring.

Obviously, his twin sister made sure that everyone knew who he was and did a good job pretending to be him. He'd have to thank her a whole bunch once he saw her.

"That's Amuto from the band, A.N. Jell!" A nearby girl whispered to her friend before bursting into a fit of giggles as they walked by.

The boy was beginning to wish he had wore a jacket with a bigger hood that would hide his face better. He'd have to get used to this though, so he'd have to start early, beginning with right now.

He stood up, off of the bench once seeing his familiar manager walking towards him with open arms and a huge smile. "Amuto! It's good to see you!" he said as he slapped Amuto on the back. Following behind the man were Yukari, and two boys he recognized as Hotori Tadase and Souma Kukai.

Where was the leader of the group? He also began to wonder where his sister was too, for that matter.

Before any introductions could be made, a bellow from someone nearby made the five people go quiet and look in the direction of the noise. Reporter Kiseki was running towards them. Ikuto, who had finally found the band, slowly walked over to them, stopping beside Tadase.

"You! Amuto, you're a girl!" Kiseki yelled proudly, getting right to the point as he skidded to a halt in front of Amuto, who rose an eyebrow at him. "...And who are you?" he asked boredly with a yawn following after.

Without replying, Kiseki pushed the hood off of Amuto, and pulled the jacket off of him, revealing muscular, toned arms that no girl could have. This is why Yukari made sure to dress Amu only in long-sleeved shirts, so that way, when Amuto did come back, his arms wouldn't suddenly go from girlishly thin, to muscular.

Kiseki gaped at his arms. Of course they weren't huge, but he could immediately tell by looking at them, that they didn't belong to a girl. "B-but... you're a ...girl." he stated weakly, no longer feeling confident in his 'discovery'.

Amuto lazily rolled his eyes over to look at the reporter with a blank look on his face. "I don't mean to be rude, but you might have to get your eyes checked. I'm a boy, as far as I know." He stated before rolling up the bottom of his shirt, showing his washboard abs, and a chest that did not belong to a girl. "If you need further evidence, I wouldn't mind pulling down my pants, but I'm sure it would cause a disturbance."

His smooth talking made Kukai and Tadase snigger. However, when Amuto revealed his chest, Ikuto automatically looked away, having yet to get it in his head that it wasn't Amu doing that. The resemblance was uncanny.

Stuttering and stumbling over his words, Kiseki gaped at Amuto with wide eyes. "B-but I was almost certain that you..."

"Well, then there's your problem. You were almost certain, not completely. Now, if you don't mind, I'm getting cold, can I have my jacket back?" Amuto asked as he took his jacket back from the shocked reporter.

Nikaidou laughed as he pulled Kiseki out of the airport with him. "Don't feel bad. You might have mistaken him for his twin sister, who was dating Tadase, but they broke up just recently." he comforted as they walked away.

Amuto sighed, watching the two men leave the airport. He then turned to face his band members, introducing himself. "Yo, I'm Amuto."

"Hi! Wow, you look so much like Amu!" Kukai exclaimed while shaking the pink-haired boy's hand quickly. Even though pink was a colour specifically for girls, Amuto somehow made it look... masculine.

Ikuto leaned over to Tadase, quietly asking where Amu was.

"Oh, she stayed back in Canada." The blonde replied before also introducing himself to Amuto.

"Still in ..." Ikuto groaned as he raked a hand through his hair, looking around at the signs for one that said what time the next plane to Canada was.

The cool breeze rustled the empty tree branches, sending shivers up Amu's spine as she wandered the streets of the small Canadian city. She was thankful that not many people recognized her, despite the occasional Asian-lover who went crazy when they spotted her.

Inhaling the fresh air, she smiled, content. The air smelt so good. A mixture of nature and rain.

Canada wasn't that bad. Everyone was kind, and their humor was something Amu hadn't seen before. They liked to make fun of themselves, which was quite entertaining to watch.

She hurried across the street after walking away from her hotel, looking for something to do. She had already done enough sight-seeing, and wasn't really hungry. It felt weird to not be bombarded by fans everywhere she went. It was refreshing.

Amu glanced at her surroundings as she quickened her pace to make it across yet another street, stopping once she reached the sidewalk. Standing a few feet in front of her, was an all-too familiar blue-haired boy.

He stood there casually with his hands in his pockets, a blank expression on his face as he stared directly at her. His eyes finally weren't showing any trace of anger, which brought relief over Amu.

"Do you... want to take a walk with me?" Ikuto asked softly. Amu bit down on her lower lip as she nodded slowly. She hoped she could explain everything to Ikuto and that he would actually listen to what she had to say.

As they walked, Ikuto shared everything he had found out hours earlier. Including how it wasn't Tsumugu's fault for this whole charade, and that his song was made for his wife, and not Souko. Hearing this made Amu relieved. She didn't think her dad was the type of person to abandon his wife.

"I'm glad that it was made for my mom. It's... such a relief that dad didn't abandon her, after all." Amu confessed with a soft laugh as they slowly walked down the streets. It wasn't too busy out, which was nice since they weren't being pushed around by crowds.

Ikuto slowed down to a stop, making Amu also stop and turn around to look at him, confused. "...I'm sorry." he said quietly, yet sincerely. "This all was my mother's fault. And it didn't even come to mind that you would be hurting more than me."

Pursing her lips together, Amu shrugged slightly. "Well... you're also a victim in this whole thing. I don't want you to feel too sorry." she then exhaled loudly as she forced a smile and stretched her arms up above her. "So, in the end we got to say goodbye face-to-face." she stated. "...Goodbye, Ikuto."

After forcing another smile, Amu started walking back in the direction she came from, but, just as she passed by Ikuto, he grabbed onto her hand and both of them stopped in their place. He couldn't let her get away again.

He opened his mouth to say something, but ended up closing it again once nothing came to mind. Instead, he could only hold onto her hand tighter. But, he would have to consider her feelings in all of this. If she truly wanted to leave, he shouldn't hold her back. She had a life to return to. One that didn't include him.

"E-even if it's a long time from now... when I'm feeling better, I'll somehow let you know that I'm fine." Amu stated softly as she felt her eyes fill up with tears.

Who were they kidding? An ordinary church-girl could never stay together with Japan's hottest idol. They were complete opposites. She had to let him go. Once realizing this, Amu did exactly that. Slowly, she unwrapped her fingers from his, knowing he would be hurting just as much as she was – maybe even more – but, this was the best to do for the both of them.

Putting one foot in front of the other, Amu started walking away, wiping her eyes in the process.

She had to let go.

Ikuto looked over his shoulder at her, watching the best thing that had ever happened to him walk out of his life.