You'd know how I feel, you'd know that I'm good for you

If only you could step in my shoes

Baby you'd see what I mean and let me just make a move

If only you could step in my shoes

~My Shoes - Jordan Pruitt

In Ikuto's garage, most of the band members there were all waiting with anticipation and hope that they would have something to do at practice that day. But...there was one, who after a tiring night, was just leaning his head against the wall, not making and motion, in shame. Spending the night at a teenage girl's sleepover can scar a guy like Nagihiko for life. He had been banking on Amu being too tired to stay up all night, making the other girls have to sleep too. That way he could spend the night asleep, and not being harassed, and not being accused, and not having to spend the whole night talking like a girl while wearing a skirt! Nagihiko was already on edge enough, so Kukai coming up to him and asking, "Rough night?" didn't help the situation any.

Nagihiko gave Kukai a tired glare, that seemed to have no effect on Kukai's mocking smile, that never failed to appear when the victim of humiliation didn't want to see it. "No, I'm lively and busting with energy," Nagihiko remarked with sarcasm, along with an additional hint of bitterness. Ikuto, watching the two communicate from a safe distance, was baffled. He had never seen Nagihiko in such a foul mood before; normally, he was a cool and collective guy that wasn't bothered by much. If spending time with a bunch of teenage girls had this effect on him, maybe, for the safety of the family business, he should get out of his house full of female dancers.

"You're kind of bitter this morning," Kukai commented, not taking the indirect warning Nagihiko had sent him with his reply, "What's up with you"

"I don't know," Nagihiko said with the most energy anyone had heard from him all day, of course, with thick layer of sarcasm, made the guys all look up in alarm, "Maybe it was that wonderful night I spent talking about makeup, and clothes, and boys. All lots of fun, especially with an evil girl giving me suspicious glances the whole night that I felt like I was suffocating. All to help a friend, who, turns out, didn't need my help to begin with. Meaning I spent a night in a guy's hell for the sheer amusement of others."

All the guys were speechless in the room, too much in shock at Nagihiko's outburst to make any reaction, except the blank stares plastered on their faces. Nagihiko was panting at the end, hoping to have made his point. He seemed satisfied with their silence enough to take a deep breath in, before he could release it calmly though, Kukai, of course, commented with, "Uh, don't forget about the skirt." Instead of releasing the breath with a calm sigh, Nagihiko released it through his teeth, giving an impression of a hissing snake.

"Who could forget that little detail?" Nagihiko asked with a good natured sarcasm, different from the thicker tone from before, and gave a carefree smile, that appeared more forced than anything.

"By the way," Kukai started changing to a more curious tone, "I've been meaning to ask you something," All the guys looked at him questioningly. What made him go from mocking Nagihiko all morning to sounding serious about a question? "What's it like to wear a skirt?"

Ikuto thought he seriously heard a snap from Nagihiko who was smiling, with a twitch, and his vein throbbing, "You really want to know?" he asked in a dark menacing voice that made everyone nervous. "I forgot to mention it, but I took that role seriously to keep my identity a secret, so I hate questions about that out of mere curiosity." At this point, Nagihiko seemed to be engulf in a demonic aura, with Kukai, especially, frozen in place, scared of this unknown side of Nagihiko, "If you really want to know, you'll have to find out for yourself."

-

-

Amu was surprised how the words seemed to flow onto the page once she had a general idea of where she was going with the song. She had to admit, the song was kind of a stretch for a band called, Biting the Bullet, to perform, but at least she didn't have to go in empty handed. Regardless of all those sleepless nights, Amu had an adrenaline rush, anxious to share what she had come up with.

She ran up to Ikuto's garage, using the door that led straight into it that Ikuto had shown them last time. Without even knocking she barged right in, something she learned to never do again after the horrifying sight that came as a consequence.

"Oh, hello Amu," Nagihiko greeted her casually with his usual smile, all while on top of a struggling, and pants-less, Kukai. Tadase and Kairi were both, for whatever reason, holding down the plaid skirts they were wearing. Amu may have admired the color choice for the boys, green for Kairi and red for Tadase, if, well, they weren't wearing them! Ikuto somehow managed to get up stay up on the wall, holding onto a windowsill with one hand and balancing steadying himself against the wall. Amu may have wondered how he could do that, if she wasn't distracted by the boys in skirts and one boy in his underwear.

"Uh..." Amu couldn't describe in words how this looked to her, "If...this is a bad time...I can come back later." Amu said inching towards the door.

"No!" Kukai screamed after her, and, knowing she was his only protection, found the strength to escape from Nagihiko to catch Amu before she left. He quickly put her in front of him as he gave an explanation to Nagihiko, "You wouldn't want to risk the girl, would you?!"

"Wh-what's going on?" Amu asked too confused about the situation to say anything else.

"Ever wonder why we pick on Tadase about looking like a girl, but never say anything to Nagihiko?" Kukai asked her in a whisper so the guys couldn't hear him. He took Amu's silence, and confused expression, as a yes, and continued with an explanation, "This is exactly why! He doesn't get mad very often, but when you mention something about his girlish figures, he goes crazy!" he whisper screamed, obviously having experienced this before.

"Uh..alright," Amu said just trying to think of this as a "normal" situation, "Well, I got some lyrics, but I don't have any idea on what to do about the notes."

"Right!" Kukai announced, suddenly gaining back his confidence, "We need to get to work and get this done! Let me see your lyrics." Kukai put his hand out to Amu, expecting her to hand over the lyrics to him, but she was only staring at him blankly.

"Yeah..." Amu said uncertainly, not sure how to put her issue delicately to him, "C-could you put on some pants first? I really can't take you seriously in underwear with rocket ships on them." Kukai looked at her confused at first, then looked down at the print on his boxers. Embarrassed, he covered himself, or at least tried to hide the embarrassing rockets.

"They were on sale!" Kukai explained making Amu try harder to hide her laughter, "Leave me alone!" Kukai added stomping off to get his pants.

Amu only had to give a glance towards Kairi and Tadase to get a response, "Don't say it," Tadase told her holding a hand up to keep her from commenting, "We know." he assured her, pulling down his skirt and waddling over to his pants, Kairi right behind him, looking awkward from the situation.

"What about you?" she asked Ikuto, looking up at his position on the wall, "Coming down?"

Ikuto looked over at Nagihiko before answering, "Fine," and jumping down rather gracefully.

"How'd you get up there anyway?"

"I've had practice," Ikuto explained, seeing Amu's confused expression he went into more detail, "Playing hide and seek with Utau can make a person get creative." Amu rolled her eyes with a smile, knowing, after seeing her reaction to Ikuto the first day she met her, that this was probably true.

"Could we focus people?!" Kukai demanded hoping on one foot as he slid his pants up to his waist, "We only have so long to practice!"

"When did he get so concerned about practicing?" Amu asked Ikuto, to try to discover this sudden change in her goofy friend she'd grown to love.

"My guess is he just wants to get away from Nagihiko as soon as possible," Ikuto told her in a hushed tone so neither Kukai or Nagihiko could hear his reasoning. Amu nodded, approving his deductive reasoning, she barely even noticed Kukai snatching the papers she was holding out of her hand.

"Lets see what you got." Kukai said skimming the pages, everyone huddled around Kukai to read the song themselves, except Amu who waited patiently in front of them for their commentary, "I got a question." Kukai said not showing any particular emotion, just some indifference.

"Yeah?" Amu asked, not sure whether this would be something positive or negative, Kukai was just too unpredictable to tell.

"What do you think we are some bubble gum pop band?!" Amu flinched back from his sudden change in volume, although at this point she should have expected something like this, and gave Kukai a look, that could be a glare depending on if he had something else to say. He did, "You're the one who came up with Biting the Bullet, and now you want us to play this girly song in front of everyone. For the sake of my pride as a man, I will not do it!"

"Uh, well, a girl is singing it," Amu pointed out, lashing out her attitude, with a glare to add to it, "And I'm not going to sing some disturbing hard rock song for guys, just so you can your 'manly pride'!"

"No guy is going to even want to listen to this!" Kukai countered, showing his backbone, or daring stupidity (no one's sure which), "That's a lot of people we've lost!"

"Actually," Kairi chimed in, adjusting his glasses, professionally, as he spoke, "According to my research, a majority of the potential listeners of Biting the Bullet will indeed be girls."

Kukai gave Kairi an aggravated looked before commenting sarcastically, "Thank you math wiz." Kukai and Amu were now staring each other off, neither one saying anything, but a potential verbal fight was on the verge of breaking out.

Before the two could start going at each other again, Ikuto intervened by taking the lyrics out of Kukai's hands, "Make peace guys," Ikuto warned them, not really caring, just annoyed by how they always manage to argue during practice, "It's not that bad, and with the right notes it can be a rock song." Ikuto added, swatting Kukai in the head with the paper for starting the ordeal to begin with.

"Should we play it on a C note or a G note?" Nagihiko asked, somehow managing to regain his cool, calm, and collective self, and performed the usual task of getting everyone focused on practicing.

"Depends," Ikuto told him, focusing back on Amu, "What rhythm did you come up with?"

"Well, it's suppose to be kind of fast, like a 1/2 maybe," Amu told him trying to remember what she had thought was the exact beat she had gone with, "And, kind of an emphasis in the last three syllables of the first three lines in the stanzas, then like a lower note on the last line."

"Great," Kukai commented sarcastically, already not liking the sound of this, "Now it's girly and hard to play!"

Amu shot a glare in his direction, but before she could respond, Tadase cut in, "Why don't we try it out?" he suggested going for his base.

"Fine," Kukai agreed reluctantly, heading towards his drums, "But if it's fast, I want to go killer on it," he said about to demonstrate on the drums, until he was scarred half to death about the garage door suddenly coming to life. Everyone jumped back instinctually, even Ikuto didn't know what was going on. In the driveway was a black vehicle that seemed to shine like new. The horn was blaring, obviously indicating that they were doing something wrong.

"What the hell?! Get that shit out of the garage!" an older man's voice commanded in, what seemed to Amu as, a deep threatening voice with a sense of authority she wasn't used to hearing, especially in comparison to her father's usual go lucky self. "What is this? Some kind of freak show?" the man asked stepping out of his car and approaching the staring teenagers.

"You're home early," Ikuto told him, seeming to be the only one that wasn't affected by this man's intimidation, and actually seemed to be more annoyed by the fact than anything else.

"Yes, I have a few employees staying for the remainder of the trip," he explained, not at all in an apologetic tone, he sounded like it was a hassle to have to explain himself, "Just so I could come home to find some junk in my garage." Amu found out that he had a me complex, his favorite statements involving what belonged to him.

"instruments," Ikuto answered, rolling his eyes from his repetition on this same explanation, "Like I said before, we use the garage to practice."

"Practice what?!" the man asked, with a laugh, if you could call it that, there was nothing humorous in it though, "That noise you call music? The biggest waste of time, and space, I've ever heard of." The members recovered from their shock after that statement, and exchanged glances, none of them sure how to react to the blatant insult they had just received.

"Does he know we're in the room?" Kukai asked, not bothering with a whisper, seeing as he didn't really care about some guy insulting their music. Amu was too confused to try to keep him quiet, or to at least try to be a little more polite.

The man looked over Ikuto was a questioning expression towards everyone else, "Who the hell are you kids," well, that answers Kukai's question. Amu felt herself on instinct reply with a look that suggested he was stupid or something, too bad he noticed her look, "Get out my house!"

"We're not even in your house! This is the garage!" Kukai told him, just for the sake of being a smart ass. Nagihiko and Tadase, as if in sync, both hit Kukai on his arms, Nagihiko being on one side of him and Tadase on the other. "Oww!" Kukai got out rubbing both his shoulders.

"We'll relocate," Ikuto said to them, without glancing back at the man for his consideration, "Go on to my room; I'll be there in a second."

"How are we suppose to find it?!" Kukai asked, still rubbing his arms, "Your room switches sides of the house all the time!"

"No," Nagihiko said with a sigh, grabbing one of Kukai's arms and pulling him along, "You just have poor sense of direction." Everyone followed Nagihiko, both by will and by force, out of the garage and into the house on Ikuto's orders. They had to go through the kitchen, up the stairs, and past a bunch of rooms that didn't seem to have anyone living in them before they stopped at a plain looking door.

They all hesitated at the door, as if they were about to enter some unknown territory, which was true for everyone but Tadase, who hadn't seen the room since he was a kid. With a slight push from Kukai, Tadase was volunteered to turn the knob, and opening it slowly, it wasn't until after everyone took a peek inside did he throw the door open for them to enter. It was pretty plain, and almost looked like one of the rooms that no one lived in, Amu quickly made the assumption that he didn't spend much time at home.

"Too clean," was the only comment made, by Kukai, who said it more as a question than a statement. It is rare to find a teenage boy's room clean after all. Nagihiko just shrugged, Amu assumed his room was rather neat as well. The only bad thing about Ikuto's lack of self expression in his room was that there was nowhere to sit down. Even the small desk in the corner didn't have a chair to go with it. Everyone kind of stood around waiting, except for Amu, who was too tired to stand up any longer, and just fell on the bed from exhaustion. She had landed on her stomach, her face looking down, hidden on the bed, her exhaustion had just hit her, and hit her hard. A few days without sleep was not something she could do, she was surprise she was still conscious. She was too tired to even care about Kukai making another comment, while snickering, "You know, looking comfortable on a guy's bed is just an open invitation."

When she didn't reply, Kukai looked at her questioningly, she looked like she may actually be asleep. That's when he got the idea. Careful to make sure he wasn't in the way of breaking anything, he jumped high in the air and landing on the bed, shooting Amu up slightly, her reaction of course freaking out. "What the?!" Amu asked as Kukai fell back on the bed himself.

"Hey this is comfortable," Kukai said, ignoring Amu and her questioning looks. He seemed sprawled out, relaxing himself, really he didn't get much sleep that night, along everyone else. Might as well sit down while waiting for Ikuto.

-

-

It didn't take Ikuto long to speak to his stepfather and make his way to his room, he made it a point never to have a long conversation with that guy, or else the discussion may veer into dangerous topics. Although, even the short one's had that danger too.

"What are you doing goofing off with this group?" Ikuto's stepfather had asked once they had all filed into the house, "All those hooligans will do is waste your time and get you off focus."

"What focus?" Ikuto asked, knowing what he had meant, but still trying to point out the fact that he didn't care.

"Listen you," he replied, almost threateningly, "I don't like the idea of having some punk smart ass kid as my successor, but damn it I've been working on you too long to not get something out of you."

"I have guests," Ikuto said, as a means of escape without hearing anymore about Easter or his position there.

"If you were going to get friends, couldn't you at least get some normal ones?" he asked, still amazed by the kids that were in his garage a moment ago, never in a million years would he have thought they were the crowd Ikuto would be hanging out with, "They all look like girls, one with long hair and another with pink hair."

Although he could tell that his stepfather wasn't trying to be funny, but Ikuto couldn't help breaking the his sneer attitude with a light laugh at that statement. He had thought that black sweatshirt on her seemed way too big for her, but for his stepfather to actually think she was a boy was something. "The one with pink hair is a girl," Ikuto told his stepfather, who was taken aback by Ikuto's amusement.

Ikuto had left before he could hear what else he had to say. He quickly grabbed his acoustic guitar he had in one of the rooms he used to store his instruments, since no one was living in a lot of the rooms in the house anyway. He thought that maybe they got lost on their way to his room or something like that when he got to his door and didn't hear any yelling or objects being broken. Never would he have guessed to walk in and see them all just relaxing on his bed.

"Hey Ikuto," Kukai greeted him, his head off the bed hanging upside down. From what Ikuto could see, they were all just on the bed relaxing, in different positions.

"What are you guys doing?" he asked, seeing what they were doing, but not sure why.

"Hey, you're the freak with no chairs in here," Tadase explained, "Where else are we suppose to sit?"

"Alright then," Ikuto said, shaking his head at these people, the people he chose to hang out with, "Move over," he told Tadase whose feet were taking the pillow at the front of the bed, and threw them to the side so he could sit down, "Let's get started then."

-

-

"Why not start it out with a big bang?" Tadase suggested as they were finally figuring out the last chorus of the song, "That way it grabs everyone's attention."

"We ended with a 'bang' on the bridge," Nagihiko reminded him, beginning to feel restless from all the time they had spent on the notes.

"I say, we could put in a drum solo there and-"

"No!" everyone yelled at him for the final time that evening.

"You've suggested a drum solo every time we've started thinking of what notes to put in," Ikuto said, fed up with the idea, "Quit asking."

"Why not?!" Kukai demanded, offended by the number of people overruling him, "You got a cool guitar part"

"That's because it fits well," Nagihiko tried to reason with him, before he did something stupid.

"Oh, and a drum solo is too much to ask for?!" Kukai demanded about to go off on someone.

"Start it off softly," Amu mumbled, barely conscience at this point, attracting the guy's attention with obvious confusion in their eyes, "If you start of softly on the first verse, and then go into playing it normally on the second verse, then it kind of sounds like a 'bang' or something." Ikuto shrugged and played the notes for the chorus softly on his guitar on the first verse, then strummed normally at the second.

"Not bad," Kairi commented, being the one chosen to decide yes or no when they played since he was the expert critic.

"Cool," Kukai said, suddenly drained of energy, "Can we go home now?"

"Yeah, we're done," Ikuto told him putting the guitar down, "Anyone need a ride?"

"My mom's coming," for Tadase

"My brother," for Kukai

"My sister," for Kairi

"My mother's student," for Nagihiko

"Bus," for Amu, who was still looking like the walking dead.

"What bus?" Ikuto asked waving a hand in front of her face to check if she was alright, she made no reaction to it.

"In half an hour I think," Amu answered, not really sure what time it was now.

"I think I'd better take you home," Ikuto said, worried she may hurt herself before she even got to the bus stop.

"I'm fine," Amu tried to assure him, with little success.

"You'd better let him take you," Kukai told her in a serious voice, "You look like you'll go unconscious any moment now, and if you fall asleep on the bus, you could end up on the other side of Japan before you realize you've been robbed, hungry, and someone messed with your-" Nagihiko quickly slapped a hand over his mouth before he could continue.

"I think she gets the point," he told him, sighing at how he could turn his concern for someone into a joke in an instant.

"Mmmk," Amu said not sure what was going on really, just too tired to argue with anyone.

"Alright," Ikuto said grabbing his guitar to put away, "I'll see you guys tomorrow, and you," he gestured towards Amu, "Stay here." he told her as if she would go wondering off somewhere or something.

The guys kind of trudged out, barely waving a signal goodbye as they went through the door. Ikuto had gone to the room with all his instruments, and meant to put his guitar up real quick. Only, somehow he could leave the room knowing that one of his instrument's was missing a string. He began repairing it, and didn't notice until half an hour later that he was still in the room. "Ah man!" he said to himself, heading back towards his room. He was pretty sure Amu wasn't patient enough to wait while there was a bus leaving.

"You've got to be kidding," Ikuto said more to himself when he opened the door to his room. Amu was still there, the only problem was, she was asleep, "Come on, wake up," Ikuto told her shaking her shoulder to try to wake her up. He was unsuccessful though, only causing her to roll over to face him. She seemed knocked out cold, and, Ikuto quickly found out, when she's out, she's out.

"Fine, you got to wake up eventually," Ikuto told her just for his own benefit more than actually telling her. When he started to leave he felt something grab his shirt. He turned around to see Amu had grabbed his shirt in her sleep, "Really?" Ikuto asked, not believing his luck on this, "Great, now you're going to wake up and be pissed at me for being an innocent bystander." he mumbled to himself sitting on the bed, and waiting for either, her to wake up, or to let go so he could leave.

A/N:

Wow, it sure is hard to try to write when relatives are over, I'm glad I'm an early riser, otherwise this wouldn't have been done until Saturday or something. Well, we all love our relatives, but sometimes we just need a break, fanficition is my break. Hope everyone has a wonderful turkey day and eats until they puke, I know I will! Enjoy! XD