The plane ride wasn't bad, but it wasn't too enjoyable either. The seats, though rather soft, were in a weird position, and Amu was annoyed by how the television worked. This is how it happened: she watched a couple hours of American cartoons, and then she checked the time and the weather on the weather channel. When she went back to cartoons, all her cartoons had started over. Then she realized that the cartoons were on a pre-recorded schedule, so if she changed the channel, it went straight back to the beginning of the list of cartoons. Then, eventually, the cartoons started over from the beginning. She ended pulling out a piece of paper and playing tic-tac-toe, hangman, and other games with Ikuto for a while, before she ended up listening to her iPod and doodling pictures on a new piece of paper. Ikuto was on his laptop doing who knows what.

The plane landed in Charlotte, North Carolina. Shiragin ordered a taxi, and they got a hotel to stay in for a bit. They all caught up on their sleep. It was a two room suite, Shiragin got one room, Amu got the other room, Ikuto slept on the couch. The next day, a little before noon, Shiragin got a rental car and drove to Beaufort. The drive took 4 hours, so Amu took a nap, and Ikuto watched the world pass at 60mph blur out of his window. Ikuto woke Amu up when they got to the house they would be staying at for a week to "get used to southern American culture."

"By the way, guys," Shiragin said to Amu and Ikuto as they were getting their things out of the trunk, "The people that are letting us stay in their house are having renovations done, so we can only use two of the bedrooms. So it looks like you guys will have to share. But its okay, I checked, and the bedroom you'll have has two beds."

Amu sighed; of course something like this would happen. Ikuto didn't seem as moved.

Amu, Ikuto, and Shiragin carried their bags up the stairs and then inside. There was another set of stairs that had a faded red carpet on them. They all lugged their things up the stair case. Shiragin turned to the right when he got up the stair case and went into the second room. Shiragin pointed Amu and Ikuto to the left, where there was one door. They went into the bedroom.

The bedroom was sort of small, but it was okay. It had two beds, and a chest. One had a light blue floral print and was one of those sun-beds that are put up long-ways against walls. There was a window right above this one. The other one was green with stripes. This one had a large trunk at the end of the bed.

"So who gets which bed?" Ikuto asked.

Without a word, Amu dropped her bag on the bed closest to the door and right in front of her, the green one with the stripes and the trunk.

"Well then, I guess I get the flower one. I'm so happy," Ikuto said sarcastically. Ikuto left his things on his new bed and the two went to go explore their surroundings. When they exit their bedroom there is a bathroom to their left, and a bedroom which was being renovated straight ahead. They could turn right, which would take them down the stairs, or they could go straight, then turn right, which would lead them to Shiragin's bedroom, a computer, and another bedroom which was being renovated. They went back down the stairs. Ahead, there was a kitchen, to the right was the living room, and in the back corner of the first floor was a dining room. There was also a patio outside the dining room with a hammock. To the left of the stairs were the front door, another bathroom, and two doors. One led to the master bedroom which was being renovated, and the other led to a stair case that took them downstairs into the garage. The garage had an outside shower, there was a golf cart parked down there for their use, and a swinging bench that was attached to the ceiling. There was also another staircase that led back up to the first level, but it led to the patio which was outside the dining room and the living room. There was a wooden path that led out the back of the garage. Amu and Ikuto walked down the path to see where it led. It led to a long wooden dock. Ikuto started walking out onto the dock, but Amu stayed behind. She made an excuse to stay at the beginning, saying that she was looking at all the little crabs that scurried about in the mud below. Actually, she was scared of the dock because of her nightmare she had. Ikuto came back, and the two went out to the front yard. There was a wooden swing that was attached to a large tree, and then the driveway.

"Let's go for a walk," Ikuto said as he started to wander off of the property. "Left or right?"

"Um, let's go right," Amu said as they started to walk down the dirt road together. They passed a big white house that had a pond in its front yard, and couple more houses on the first road they went on. They came to a fork in the road, so they turned left. The path that they were on had thick forest on both sides.

"So do you like it here?" Ikuto asked Amu.

Amu thought about her response. She didn't have any reason not to like it, except the dock. She looked over at him to respond, but got distracted when she saw that Ikuto was hopping beside her, with one of his hands messing with his shoes.

"What are you doing?" Amu asked.

Ikuto didn't reply, but made it obvious that he was trying to take his shoes off while still walking beside Amu. Amu stopped walking to allow Ikuto to take off his other shoe.

"Yeah, I like it. I mean, I don't have a reason not to like it," she said to him as she waited for him to continue walking.

The two walked along, Ikuto carrying his black converse in his hand. They turned left again. On their left was a large house, and on their right was a large pond with the occasional fish jumping out of the water, and a marsh just past that. They walked past the house and watched for fish jumping out of the water.

Amu, who was closest to the house, jumped onto the other side of Ikuto when she heard a loud bark and something touching her leg. She clung to Ikuto's arm from surprise.

Ikuto looked at the two large dogs that were now behind them, then looked back at Amu, "Amu, it's a dog. We have those in Japan."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, it just startled me," Amu let go of Ikuto's arm.

The dogs, one black and one brown, followed behind them until they got to the next house on the road. There was a dog on the porch of this house, a Chihuahua that barked at them happily until they passed the house. The next left they took brought them back onto the paved road that they were driving on to get to the house. They walked back to the drive way when Ikuto asked Amu if she wanted to go in the other direction this time.

"Sure, why not," Amu shrugged.

They took a right this time, which took them past more of the property they were staying at. There was a house on their right with a two dogs. One was white, and it sat quietly and wagged its tail. The other was multi-colored and it barked angrily at the two as they passed by. They passed that house and saw a large, expensive looking house ahead. When they got to the end of that road, they turned around and looked in the opposite direction of the house. There was a large marsh, and ahead was another house and another pond. They passed by the house with the dogs. The white dog sat and wagged his tail, and the multi-colored one ran towards the side of the house. Ikuto watched as it went through a hole in the fence and started to run after them, but Amu hadn't seemed to notice. Ikuto grabbed onto Amu's wrist and started to run back towards the house. The dog was chomping at the air as it barked and it was showing its teeth. It was chasing them. Amu tried to catch up with Ikuto when she noticed that the dog was chasing them, but she wasn't fast enough, and the dog was gaining on them. Ikuto slowed down for the slightest second, pulled Amu into his arms bridal style, and carried her back to the house to avoid being bitten by the dog. He put her down when the dog stopped chasing them. Amu looked up at Ikuto.

"Hey," she pointed behind Ikuto, "Look over there."

Ikuto turned his head to look, and Amu punched him in the arm as hard as she could. Ikuto looked back quickly and grabbed his arm. He rubbed his arm where Amu had hit it, "Ouch. What was that for?"

"It's for when you touched my butt the other day. I forgot to punch you for it."

Ikuto just shook his head at her and walked back to the house. He trotted up the stairs and went into the living room where he found Shiragin stretched out on the couch watching TV.

"I would like to request your assistance," Ikuto said to him jokingly.

"What do you want?" Shiragin asked.

"I need you to drive me somewhere," Ikuto said.

"Why? You're 18, you have a license, you can drive," Shiragin shrugged.

"Yeah, but I just need you to," Ikuto insisted.

Shiragin looked at his watch, "How long will this take?"

"You've just got to take me into town, and then you can come back."

"How will you get back?"

"I'll find a way. So take me or not?"

Shiragin got up and stretched, "Sure, whatever."

Ikuto and Shiragin walked down into the garage. Amu was swinging on the hanging bench.

"Amu, I have to take Ikuto somewhere real quick, I'll be back in a few minutes," Shiragin said as he unlocked the car.

"Okay, but can't Ikuto just drive himself?"

"Yeah, I don't know why he won't just do that. Oh well," Shiragin got into the car with Ikuto who was sitting in the passenger seat. He turned on his GPS, "Okay, so where are we going?"

Ikuto pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and read the address out to Shiragin, "60 Savannah Highway, Beaufort, SC."

Shiragin entered the address and waited for the machine to calculate a route to where they were going. It said the drive would take about 33 minutes to get there.

Shiragin glared at the GPS, and then looked over at Ikuto, "Why can't you just drive here yourself?"

"Just trust me, I'll never ask you for another ride while we're here."

Shiragin sighed and rolled down his window and said to Amu, "Amu, Ikuto surprised me; I'll be back in an hour. Will you be fine by yourself?"

"Yeah," Amu said, wondering what would take an hour to drive to.

Ikuto and Shiragin headed down the road. Ikuto watched attentively out the window, while occasionally glancing at the GPS to see their progress. "Hey, hey, Shiragin," Ikuto said, "You can just pull over here, I'll walk the rest of the way."

Shiragin pulled over, let Ikuto out, made a u-turn and headed back to where the house was.

Ikuto walked a few blocks until we was at Yamaha of Beaufort. He went in, browsed around, and left with a used motorcycle and a helmet. He drove his motorcycle down the road until he got to 507 Carteret Street. He looked up at the sign above the shop to make sure it was the right one. He nodded to himself, The Chocolate Tree.

A/N- Here you go, a wonderful gift. This is compensation for my super long hiatus. Two chapters in two days. This chapter was very fruitful (just my awkward way of saying that I really liked it). Why? Because no matter how many times I ask my dad to take me to Chocolate Tree when we pass it, he won't take me.