Ikuto quietly climbed the stairs up to his room, passing the modern art hung on the walls. Once tucked way into the sanctuary of his room, he took a moment to roll his shoulders; it helped to release some of the tension that was building.

Ikuto threw his body onto his king sized bed, savoring the feeling of his soft duvet covers. He laid there, his friends responds playing in his head like a broken record. He pulled out his phone again. "Be her friend." his phone glowed in the darkness of his bedroom.

Such a simple answer and yet very difficult to accomplish. Kukai's advice is sound and it would eventually get the job done but the idea of bringing friendship into the mix was dangerous. Normally it wouldn't bother him to have a friend with benefits, but he'd taken a slight liking to the fistie waitress. She just had an air about her that he couldn't help feel attracted to.

Too exhausted to process the days events, Ikuto decided to not worry about anything until the morning and quickly changed into his night-time attire and slipped into bed.

It took only moments for him to drift off to sleep.

Ikuto woke up in a daze, glancing at the digital clock beside his bed. Seven in the morning. He sighed, hoisting himself up from his bed and walking into the ensuite bathroom. A shower was most definitely needed to wake up this morning.

By Seven- thirty, he was eating breakfast. A soft and fluffy omelet with salsa was being scooped into his awaiting mouth. "Alone again." muttered to himself as he continued eating his savory food.

It's no surprise to the household staff to only see their young master at the tsukiyomi residence. Mr. Tsukiyomi tends to be out of town for work most of the time, while the mistress of the house comes and goes throughout the week. She is always out organizing charity events with her friends and colleagues. The house generally stays in a state of silence save for the maids and caretakers working.

After finishing with breakfast Ikuto makes a quick dash to his room to grab his wallet and keys before walking out of the house to leave for school.

Yes, even he was still continuing on with his education. You don't become a successor to a company over night. It required time and effort that most people don't realize the young man puts in.

So with a final glance in his rearview mirror, Ikuto starts the engine of his car and is off down the Street -. july

Over the following month Amu spent her time immersing herself in her studies. While working full time, she had to somehow find time to get her class work turned in and get decent sleep.

Amu hoped that once she obtained her degree things would get a little easier. She is currently pursuing her associate degree in business management. While she doesn't know exactly what she is going to do with her degree, Amu is positive she will be able to at least get a job that doesn't require her to serve tables and live off of tips her whole life.

Since she started living on her own, Amu's life consisted of school, work and fixing up her apartment to look like a home.

Balancing those things seemed to be a bit difficult when you have certain obstacles in the way.

For one, it seemed her new professor, Tadase, has taken a special interest in making sure she was "truly comprehending" the material the class was studying.

It was just a little odd to her. She understood that he may feel more of an attachment to her than the other students due to meeting prior to him working there, but it just felt off. Tadase woud stop by her desk and ask her if there was anything he could do to help her. Which in itself wasn't necessarily bad but he didn't go out of his way to do that for other students.

But then the helpful check-ins started including an occasional hand brushing her shoulder, then it included Tadase attempting to flirt, complimenting her on her looks and asking her if she had a boyfriend. Eventually this started to make her a bit uncomfortable and Amu started to be very short with him. Telling Tadase that she didn't need his help and he could continue on with his other students who did need him. Since that day thing have been a bit awkward and tadase has kept his distance.

As for work, things have been going rather smoothly. Better than ever in fact. Perhaps it was the fact that Ikuto decided the establishment finally needed an update and the staff deserved some tools to make things run a bit smoother.

The bartender was ecstatic when they got their need dishwasher in a timely manner; apparently that's never happened before. Amu was surprised when she came into work one evening an saw Ikuto, her manager and a software technician guy setting up new tablets for the servers.

When Ikuto asked Amu if she liked the new tablets she was baffled as to why he cared what she thought, nevertheless she told him she really appreciated that he got the staff new equipment and that she thought it would make there lived a lot easier when taking people's orders.

Ikuto ended up telling her that he planned on making a lot more changes to the club and how he was excited to see her more often. Amu just rolled her eyes and said, "I don't just have the time to hang out at work Ikuto." Amu was flabbergasted at Ikuto's reply, "Then why don't you and I go get a coffee sometime so we can chat?"

Ikuto waited for the Pinkett to exclaim with excitement and tell him yes, she'd love to go out for coffee, but that didn't happen. Instead Amu snorted saying, "Yeah, how about no. I'm way too busy for that right now. But thanks anyway Ikuto. Again, the tablets are awesome."

And like that Ikuto was left standing there alone while the young waitress walked back into the kitchen to check on her customers orders.

It was like that over the next few weeks actually, Ikuto would come in and talk with Amu when she wasn't busy waiting tables or getting club goers drinks. There conversations were short but every time, Ikuto learned a little more about her.

For instance, he learned that her favorite color was yellow, she has an obsession with the tv show greys anatomy, she's in school ot get her associates in business management, she loves cats, she hums to herself when she cleans and she is amazing at her job. A very sporadic list of information but it was the best he could get out of her seeing as she was always working and there conversations limited.

But even still, Ikuto made it a point to end of every conversation they had by asking her out to coffee. And every time she would crack a small smile and kindly turn him down. However, Ikuto was determined and had made it his goal to befriend the young lady.

Unfortunately his only opportunity to do that was to visit her at work. So every day after he finished his classes at university he would come to the club and "check in" on things.

Ikuto was also happy to say that he was actually making improvement at the establishment. Where he used to just drop in whenever he was looking for a good time, now he was actually getting to know the staff and trying to learn what he could do to make the place better.

He already ordered new tables and booths on the restaurant side of the clue to replace the ones that were getting older. He also hired a team of people to replace the dance floor with better quality flooring, had brand new light equipment installed for the dance floor and is in negotiation with a few contractors to see if he could add an outdoors paddio with an awning.

It was safe to say the manager and himself were getting to know one another pretty well now that he was always there. Which is how he stumbled upon some information in the manager's office one evening. Looking at all the papers posted to the office, Ikuto saw a reminders list the manager had written and took note of some useful information he'd save for the future.

-
August

Another month passed and the summer heat was atrocious. Amu finally had a day off from school and work and all she wanted to do was paint her apartment. She was tired of the plain white walls, so she made a trip to the hardware store and bought a beautiful shade of pale yellow and paint supplies to for her small living room.

Amu was in the middle of laying a tarp down on her living room floors when she heard her phone ring. She quickly lowered her radio and answered the phone.

"Hello? Amu greeted cheerfully. "Amu! It's Rima, remember me? Your friend whom you like to ignore and never return my calls. Why do you hate me! This has be be a form of friend abuse." Rima shouted through the phone dramatically. Amu chuckled and hit speaker phone.

"It's so nice to hear from you Rima. I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you. Things have been a bit hectic around her and I'm finally finding some peace." she responded while starting to put tape on the edges of the baseboards.

"Oh really? What could be so chaotic that you felt the need to neglect me?" rima asked playfully over the phones speaker. Amu rolled her eyes, knowing her friend couldn't see, and continued with her work on the baseboards.

"Well for one, I finally managed to leave my foster parents and got my own apartment. And I also went to full time at the club just so I can afford this place. And let me tell you, working full time and going to school is hard. I'm barely managing to sleep." Amu explained, her friend was silent for a few moments and amu started to wonder if the call dropped when Rima finally replied.

"Well shit. I can't even argue with that. I'm so happy for you Amu! This is so big! I've been praying you'd leave for years. How did you even manage to leave? I thought you were scared your foster parents would catch you and stop you. Have you told Utau yet?"

Amu could literally hear how relieved her friend sounded through the phone. "I told her about moving out and working full time. She's actually supposed to be here soon to help me paint my living room. I'm in the middle of prepping right now."

Amu, Rima and Utau had best friends for years. Much to her dislike, Rima and her family had to move to Hong Kong about four years ago. Rima was the only one of her friends who knew about her foster parents abusing her; Utau didn't know that Amu's foster parents were abusive and she wanted to keep it that way. It was bad enough that Rima knew.

The only reason Rime even found out was because Amu just happened to be talking to Rima on the phone one afternoon when her father came home in a pissed off mood. Not knowing Rima was on the phone, her foster father beat her to no end and Rima unfortunately heard it all. The screaming, the begging for him to stop and even the sound of Amu falling to the floor as he violently started thrusting his fist into Amu's stomach.

Once her foster father finished with her, Amu had managed to crawled back to the phone that had somehow fallen under the coffee table when her foster father had roughly yanking her off the couch.

It had taken well over an hour to calming Rima down, she'd been hysterical when Amu had picked up the phone. Amu had managed to convince her not to report it to the police, making sure her friend knew that if anything was reported it would make it that much hard on her. She explained to Rima that she wanted to deal with the situation herself. It took some convincing but eventually Rima agreed to keep quiet.

When Rima suggested she tell Utau, Amu immediately begged her friend to keep this a secret between the two of them. She didn't want Utau to get involved because she would lose her mind and get herself arrested trying to kill someone. She loved Utau but she had a temper that could get her in trouble and she didn't want her foster parents going after her friend.

When Utau eventually showed up to help, she and Amu set to work on painting the walls. The yellow making the whole room brighten up and give the air a happier feel. Rima stayed on the phone with them the entire time. They talked and laughed as the girls added the final touched to the walls.

Once the walls were done and Rima bid her them both goodbye, she and Utau decided to go out for pizza as a reward for all their hard work. It was a lovely evening over all and when she an Utau parted ways after dinner she promised her friend she'd see her tomorrow morning for class.

-
The summer came and went. Before Ikuto knew it they were half way through september. Time just seemed to fly now that he was so involved with the clubs affairs. Really he should be putting this energy into the tsukiyomi corporation but he had plenty of time to involve himself in the family business. His father didn't really plan on letting him do anything with the company until he finished his bachelor's degree anyway.

Ikuto was just finished up with one of his classes and was making his way downtown for his nightly visit to the club. He was excited to see Amu, over the past three months he seemed to make a bit of progress in befriending her. She no longer tried to ignore him and she recently has even been the one to initiate conversations on her lunch break. He'd say they were making beautiful progress, unlike Tadase, who he was informed by Kukai, was making no progress at all.

Apperentally Amu shut him down everytime he made a move. Ikuto couldn't help the smugness he felt growing inside. He was going to win this bet. Though he did hate to think about the bet in general. It was sometimes difficult to remember that he was only doing this to win.

It was in the late night hours, the ones where he would stay late to watch Amu clean up after all the late night clubbers had trashed the place. He would follow her and help by collecting trash, dished or empty glasses.

It was in these little moments where he'd forget. He'd forget about the bet and all he could see in front of him was a beautiful, hard working and and strong willed women.

They'd talk about all sorts of things; books they loved, music that spoke to their souls, things they wanted to do in the future and even foods that they both hated. Ikuto was genuinely surprised to find out Amu had wanted to be a singer when she was little. When he asked why she hadn't pursued music as a career, she just shook her head and said it was a dream she'd gave up on a long time ago.

"Well even if you ever want to get back into singing, I'd love to hear you. I happen to have some connections in the music industry if you're interested, so just let me know. My sist-" Ikuto had started before Amu cut him off, stating that she was really fine but she appreciated the offer.

He's just sighed and let it go. But still it was in these moments where it was becoming hard to no want to call the whole bet off.

He genuinely liked being around Amu. Aside from her odd need for privacy for certain subject, she was nice to be around.

Unlike all the other women Ikuto had been around through the years, Amu could care less about his status, money or as she put it, " your charismatic bullshit." She treats him like any other guy. Well a guy who keeps bothering her at work, but still she was kind-hearted and very humble. And those qualities alone drew him near to the girl all the more.

The two of them finished up around 3 am and Amu looked dead on her feet. She walked behind the bar to clocked out, and Ikuto took a moment before he cleared his throat. Amu glanced up, "Hm? What is it?" she asked while cocking out.

Ikuto took in a deep breath and frowned a bit. "You know what I'm going to ask Amu-koi." The term of endearment made the pinkette blush but Ikuto didn't miss that she didn't correct him, she just looked away letting out a hefty sigh. "And you know what my answer will be Ikuto. We've been over this."

Ikuto scoffed and shook his head, "No, we haven't Amu. I ask you to coffee and you politely decline. We have yet to actually talk about why you keep saying no, but since you want to go there, fine." Amu flinched and took a step away back at his words but he didn't care. Something in him snapped and the flood gated began to open. The frustration of being turned down repeatedly over three months just came out.

Before Ikuto could stop and think about what he was saying, everything just came pouring out. "Why do you keep saying no? What is it going to hurt you to be friends with me Amu? Or God forbid anything more than friends. Seriously, what is it? Is it because of how shit I was to you the first time we met? If it is, then I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry. Just please help me understand."

Amu stared at him like a deer caught in headlights. He could clearly see how nervous and scared she looked all of a sudden, though he couldn't blame her. He was feeling just as scared.

'Where the hell did that all come from? Oh God help me.' Ikuto thought to himself as his heart began pounding faster in his chest. He was entering dangerous territory. It was the very reason he was apprehensive about even taking this stupid bet. 'Fuckin feelings getting into the mix just ruin everyting! How did this happen?' he shouted to himself, suddenly feeling lightheaded from the stress at what he's done.

Somehow he'd allowed himself to grow attached to the young lady. That put a whole new context to their current conversation. Unbeknown to even himself, Ikuto hadn't realized he actually wanted a relationship with Amu; if that had to start as a friendship then fine. He wanted to get to know her, bet be damned.

Unfortunately he didn't have anymore time to digest this new realization because Amu started crying.

Seeing this women what he realized he may have feeling for cry knocked the air from his lungs. He's never had to deal with this before, he never really cared before. It gave him anxiety, not knowing what to do.

" I can't Ikuto. I just can't." she mumbled, tears falling down her red flushed face. "It's not a matter of me getting hurt but of you getting hurt. I'm not someone you want to be with Ikuto, trust me. I have a lot of baggage and it's not something I think you can handle."

Amu let out a shuddering breath before turning around and grabbing her jacket and keys off the counter. Everyone else had go home. It was late and they were the last two in the establishment. All Amu wanted to do was drop this conversation and go home. She didn't want to think about what Ikuto was asking of her. To open her heart to someone would only get them hurt. It was hard enough to let in her best friends and he was here asking her for friendship that could possibly lead to more.

She wasn't stupid. She could feel the attraction and chemistry between them, but she also could feel the overwhelming anxiety. She could feel the heartbreak before it even happened.

Something would happen to him. If she allowed herself to let him in he would get hurt. She always seems to hurt the ones she loved. Just look what happened with her parents and her baby sister. Her foster mother was right, She was such a shitty daughter, how on earth could she ever be a decent friend, let alone someone's lover.

Amu's brain was on overload and she could feel a panic attack coming on. So she walked forward and tried to pass him but was stopped by Ikuto grabbing her arm. Amu tensed at the contact. "Who are you to tell me what I can and can't handle Amu? Don't you think I should be able to make that decision myself?" Ikuto asked quietly, head hung and staring at the ground.

Amu could barely hear what he was asking, she was too far gone. Fight or flight mode was in full swing. He didn't mean to but by snatching her arm up as a panic attack was beginning, Ikuto had unknowingly caused Amu to have flashback after flashback of being held down and beaten by her foster father and mother.

Amu's heart was pounding in her ears and her chest felt tight. 'I can't breath. I need to go, I can't stay here. I need to leave. Let me go Ikuto. Let me go.' Amu's panic induced brain kept replaying over and over until finally Amu broke her arm free of Ikuto's grasp.

Ikuto was startled by Amu's sudden movement. It was in that moment that he looked up and saw fear radiating from Amu. he was about to ask Amu if she was okay when the young women bolted past him and running for the closest exit.

"Amu wait! Where are you…!" Ikuto couldn't even finished before she was out the exit door. "Dammit, Amu!" Ikuto shouted as he took off after her.

He quickly punched in the security code on the wall and left the without locking the doors. He didn't have time, he needed to catch up to her and make sure she was okay. Whatever just happened he had missed something. Amu looked terrified, like he was gonna hurt her or something. He just needed to find her.

He quickly ran to his car and jumped inside. Within seconds he was tearing down the street, looking all around in the hopes of finding Amu.
-

Amu was half way home before she allowed herself to slow from a ran to a fast paced walk. He heart was still pounding and her breathing was erratic but she could think clearer now that she had gotten away from that whole situation.

'Oh god, that was horrible. How am I going to explain this to him. I just ran away from him in the middle of an important conversation. He probably thinks I'm insane.' Amu thought to herself as she crossed the street.

I was roughly five minutes from home now. I few more blocks and I'd be able to just go to bed and forget this horrible day. After a brief glance at my phone, I noticed that it's extremely late. It's no wonder why the streets are devoid of people, save for a few cars passing by every once and awhile.

'Shit, I forgot to lock up. I was in such a hurry to get out of there." I said aloud, cursing myself for being so hasty. Hopefully Ikuto would just lock up behind them. Amu was mulling over whether she would get in trouble tomorrow if he didn't lock up when she hears something behind her.

Amu tensed and listened more carefully as she continued walking. She picked up her pace when she heard footsteps getting closer behind her. This went on for a minute or so when Amu chanced a glance behind her.

What she saw almost stopped her heart. It was her foster father, Mr. Hoshina.

It was then Amu broke out into a run. Pushing as fast as she could, Amu turned and ran the opposite side of the street.

She heard her name being shouted behind her. The sound of heavy feet beating against the pavement and getting closer. Amu cursed, today was just turning out to be a shit day for her. "Leave me the fuck alone you crazy bastard!" She screamed in the praying someone would come across them and she could get help.

She past the street that lead to her apartment. She couldn't go home. She didn't want him having any idea as to where she lived now.

She ran until her legs started to burn. The air in in her lungs left like wildfire. It hurt to breath adn it hurt to move but she continued. Turning down random streets and around buildings. Somehow the man who was supposedly in a coma managed to keep up with her.

It want until she made one wrong turn down a street that she was cornered. That so called street wasn't a street at all. In her panic Amu turned in between to buildings that led to a dead end. She'd have to jump a twelve foot fence to get away.

'I sure as hell am gonna try.' Amu thought as she jumped up and tried to scale the rickety old fence. Amu was about half way up when she felt Mr. Hoshina grab a fist full of her hair and yank her off the fence.

Amu let an ear piercing scream as she was being pulled off and thrown to the asphalt floor.

My body hit the ground and I could feel my vision blur a bit when my head made impact with the ground.

'What do I do? Fuck he is going to kill me.' Her mind screamed.

She was terrified. He was going to kill her for sure this time. She's ran away and that probably pissed them off. She couldn't understand how he'd found her.

Her foster parents never tried to looking for her at school, probably due to campus security. She never gave them her work address or the name of club so they couldn't find her there. They also couldn't call the police because if they involved the police, they knew that is was plainly obvious that I'd been abused. No to mention there was also the face that she was not a legal adult.

"You thought you could just leave us Amu? You've been a very bad girl Amu and I'm going to teach you your place before I take you back home." Mr. Hoshina said in a mockingly kind voice.

Her foster father kneeled down and grabbed my arms. Pinning them down on either sides of my head. "I'd rather rot in hell them go back with you, you son of a bitch!" Amu yelled in anger. And with as much might as she could muster, Amu spit in her foster father's face before she let out an ear-piercing scream could be heard by anyone that was possibly walking past. It was a secluded alleyway though and sadly for her, there was no one around to hear her. She was alone. Alone to now face Mr. Hoshina's wrath at being spat on.

After wiping his face off Mr. Hoshina took both of her wrist in one iron grip hand and began punching her directly in her stomach. Over and over he landed blows. Amu started coughing with each hit, she could feel the blood she was coughing up with each blow to her abdomen.

Once he was satisfied with punching her and she was gasping for air he let started letting his large hands trace down her body in a way he had never done before.

It was in this moment that Amu knew something had switched in the man's brain. She went full on ballistic, thrashing and screaming as he managed to rip her button up blouse down the center exposing her in a way he'd never done before.

He then moved on to to yanking her underwear down from under her skirt. He looked over her body enjoying her pain and suffering.

Something in Amu broke in that moment. Sure he had beaten her but he had never sexually abused her. "Please, stop." Amu's voice was raspy from screaming but she continued to beg as his hands roamed her body.

He started laughing while touched her most intimate places. she tried to move away from his touch. He took notice and pushed a knee in between her legs preventing her from from closing her thighs.

"Amu I think I've been very kind to you over the years. You think us hitting you was the worst that could happen? Oh darling, you don't even know. By the time I'm done you are going to with you were dead. But I just want you to remember something. You brought this on yourself. You deserve this." he whispered in my ear. I shuddered at his words; he's going to rape me.

Something clicked in my brain an in a last ditch effort to get help I took a deep breath and screamed as loud as I could manage before I felt my voice give out from the effort.

He slapped her so hard across the face that her ears were ringing and she felt light headed. But she would have taken that a thousand times over then the feeling of his mans hands rubbing over her cunt. He continued this for a moment before shoved two finger into her roughly and started thrusting and stretching her. I started sobbing hysterically and moving away from him as much as i could. For every movement I made he would slap his hand down hard against my pussy and making my cry out in agony.

I wanted to continue to scream for helped but no sound came out, my voice totally gone by this point. There was nothing I could do, nowhere to run or escape. He was right, this is much worse then dying. This is wanting to die and not being able to die.

I closed my eyes, resigning myself to my fate and that's when I heard it. A loud crack ringing loudly; echoing through the air.