-1It Was A Dream?

Amu continued to cry desperately, "I'm sorry - I'm sorry. Ikuto… please…not on my birthday… this isn't you…"

Ikuto 's hand was now on Amu's bare stomach; her night dress having been pulled up. He paused for a bit then using both his hands took Amu's head and banged it against the floor, which made Amu quiet and feel dizzy again. He leaned very close to her, his mouth next to her ears, though Amu was loosing conscious from the hit on the head at the back. It sounded like a whisper to her, "one more chance Amu. Will you choose to embrace curiosity again or the present you own?" Then Amu fell into darkness. She had no more recognition of what happened afterwards.

Birds were chirping away like usual in the early morning when the sun started to rise and so did Amu, who stirred in her bed. She rubbed her eyes with her hands and when she became more focussed and awake, she almost jumped out of her bed, scared and lost at the same time. She calmed down, looking around her. She was inside her own bedroom. There was nothing unusual about her room, not that she expected anything to be out of place. Her breathing started to speed up as last night's encounter came back to haunt her memories. Amu clutched onto herself, curling herself into a ball in the corner of the her bed. Was it real? Was that really Ikuto last night? She still couldn't accept it. She gasped, thinking back to last night. What happened to her afterwards? She instinctively clutched at her neck, her head and the places that he had touched her.

"Strange," she whispered; she felt nothing odd with any of the places. Even her head, which she had expected to be rather painful was not hurting or even giving her signs that she had hit it twice. She properly got out of bed and in the mirror she saw her night dress, pristine and rather straight. No signs of it being creased or even anyone touching it. Amu herself looked normal too. There was absolutely nothing but her faint memory that proved what happened last night with Ikuto to be true.

Taking deep breaths Amu opened the door and stepped out into the living room, where everything looked the same as always. There was a paper on the dining table. Amu went over to read it:

Amu, DO NOT WAKE ME UP tomorrow morning. It's the weekends so I'm sleeping in. It was your first time drinking wine yesterday. How are you feeling? Any Headaches? If you don't feel well, tell me and I'll give you something nice to cool it off. DO WAKE ME IF YOU'RE UNWELL. Ikuto.

Amu bit her lips, holing her head with her hands. What was wrong with her? Ikuto had been taking care of her for three years and through these three years, he has shown her nothing else but love, kindness and care. How could someone so kind someone who cared for her from the depths of his heart… Amu took in deep breaths again. "Last night couldn't have been…"

Amu was never as lost as she was now. From everything around her, it seemed everything was normal but if so, why did she remember an ordeal like that? It didn't make any sense. Amu stared at the closed door to Ikuto's room. Maybe the answers lie in there, maybe he is the answer to everything. Amu took a step forward but immediately stepped back the second she did. Her heart was beating so fast right now, she was nervous, scared and mostly unwilling. Unwilling to find out that Ikuto was what he was in her memories of the previous night.

"Ikuto," Amu whispered to herself, almost making her own conviction, "I want to know everything about you."

With that Amu went and opened Ikuto's door. She carefully looked around and again - she saw nothing out of place. She went over to Ikuto, with shaky hands she patted him on the shoulder like she sometimes did when gently waking him up. He stirred in his bed, twisting onto his other side but didn't wake. Amu tried again, a little harder. This time Ikuto groaned and he opened one eyelid to peep at Amu. She saw the same caring, soft eyes she had always seen. He pulled a face at Amu, sticking his tongue out. "Little brat," he muttered before pulling the covers over his head.

Amu stared at Ikuto with relief and re-found happiness; a smile flowing from within her calming heart, as she finally confirmed her disturbing question. The Ikuto before her, so much like a child and who has such kind gentle features on his face was definitely not the same person she saw last night. Amu stopped in her trail of thoughts. Last night… A quick image of the note Ikuto had left her came back to her, the particular sentence, It was your first time drinking wine yesterday, stood out to her now. Leaving Ikuto's room to let him have some more sleep, Amu sat quietly in the living room. "Certainly everything seems fine and even…" Amu took another quick glance at herself, "my body seems fine too."

The silence of the morning and the brightness of the sun in the room seemed to calm Amu and even allow her to think more logically than she had done when she had first woke up. She had came to the most obvious conclusion of all this little drama - after drinking some wine for the first time - she was probably not used to the alcohol and became drunk. Most likely if she was not drunk then the alcohol in her body must've caused that nightmare. It was a dream? Amu sighed, walking into the open kitchen, placing the pan on the oven and taking some eggs out the fridge to prepare breakfast. "I'm sorry Ikuto," she whispered to herself more freely, "I guess I just dreamt of you in a slightly fantasy-like way. Well it was more of a nightmare."

~2 days later~

"So Amu, how was it? Did you manage to convince your father?" Nadeshiko pressed as soon as she saw Amu entering the school.

Amu shook her head, "I didn't go out of my room at all."

"WHY?" both Yaya and Nadeshiko asked with slight surprise.

"I thought we decided Amu," Yaya pressed on.

"I figured it was unfair on Ikuto who treated me so nicely on my birthday," Amu explained. She went on to tell both Yaya and Nadeshiko about how she drank wine for the first time, her exquisite meal with Ikuto. She told everything but of her nightmare. Both Nadeshiko and Yaya seemed to have forgotten about Amu's failure to sneak out her room last night. They told her straight out how envious they were of her, how they wished they could've gone to a high class restaurant too. Amu laughed along with them. Everything was fine. Nothing had happened at all. It was just her small nightmare.

During lunch however, Amu thought Yaya and Nadeshiko was acting strange. They seemed to be avoiding her, which confused her a lot. She remembered she mentioned nothing of her dream - they shouldn't think of her weirdly so what were they doing? Every time Amu tried to approach them, they made excuses and left together.

The bell rang for the end to another school day. Fastening the buttons on her coat Amu was about to make her way home. She stopped seeing Nadeshiko and Yaya wave frantically at her opposite the road. Looking both ways for cars, Amu crossed the street, "what is it?"

Both Nadeshiko and Yaya had a very mischievous smile upon their faces.

Nadeshiko who was always the bolder one of the two announced, "Amu, me an Yaya are going to have a sleepover at your house tonight."

"WHAT?" Amu asked shocked and not really believing what she heard. It was all too sudden.

Yaya repeated it for Nadeshiko, "Amu - we're sleeping over at yours tonight and the three of us are going to sneak out your room past curfew."

Amu was lost for words. She couldn't resist Yaya or Nadeshiko, they were her friends and saying no to them just because they wanted a sleepover was harsh. Knowing Ikuto, he probably wouldn't mind the short notice as long as they stuck to his rules but… that dream she had yesterday night, made Amu feel so uneasy and uncomfortable. It was as if that dream… was her warning.