It wasn't the first time Ikuto had this problem. Oh no, he had it for years as a child, but his insomnia coming back to haunt him now of all times was just too troublesome. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to fall asleep, he wanted to do something constructive. He grabbed Amu's phone and set the alarm on it for seven o'clock and turned the volume all the way up. He crept quietly out of the room and into the bathroom where he got a bobby pin out of the drawer. He picked Shiragin's lock and set the alarm on his phone to 7:05 and went down the stairs. He turned off the alarm on the house so he wouldn't set it off by opening the doors then left. It being only three in the morning, the air was cold and sticky. He could feel a thin sheet of fine dew settle on his face after he walked into the fog. He followed the wooden walkway out to the dock. The wind blew wildly at him after he left the safety of the trees and went out onto the open dock. The dock creaked even as light feet fell atop them. He walked out to the end of the dock and gazed across the empty marsh. The tide was out so all the water was gone, exposing mud, oysters, crabs, and snails. After about 30 minutes of scanning his surroundings, Ikuto lied down on the dock. Goosebumps crawled across his flesh when his arms pressed themselves to the cold, dead wood. Then he waited. He waited for it to be seven o'clock so he could go back on the house and have something to do. So while he waited, he counted.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.
"Ugh, this dock isn't comfortable at all," Ikuto said as he rolled over on his back sprawling his legs and arms out. He gazed up at the stars. They shimmered.
Ikuto rolled over some more, trying to find some comfortable position. He ended up laying down on his stomach and holding his head off the suspended floor with his arms across his forehead, "If I died right now, I wonder what would be the cause of it." Talking to himself was something of a habit when he was alone. "The wood would probably break below me and I'd fall and crack my skull on those bricks down there… or something. Why are there bricks down there?" Ikuto let out a heavy yawn and started to feel tired. He sang music to himself in his head to put himself to sleep.
He managed to stay asleep until 6:34 in the morning. He got up, stretched his muscles, sore from sleeping on wood, and then walked back up to the house in the cool air. He sat on the couch and opened the browser and checked the weather for the day. Moderate temperatures and fairly cloudy. He was happier to see that it would be very excruciatingly hot tomorrow, though. He closed his laptop and watched TV while he waited for Amu to wake up. He glanced at the clock on his phone, 6:59. After a few seconds, he heard a loud alarm chime followed by a scream followed by the thud of Amu panicking and falling out of the bed. The alarm soon stopped and Amu emerged out of the room.
Ikuto was now standing in the kitchen fashioning an apron, a frying pan, a carton of eggs, and a whisk. On the counter in front of him was a bowl, salt, pepper, a jug of milk, a spatula, three plates, and a stick of butter. He looked up at her as she started to walk down the stairs, "How do you like your eggs?"
She stared at him a few seconds, processing what he had said.
"Oh, I like them scrambled."
He pursed his lips as he looked at the stove, "Well then." Ikuto turned the heat on the stove and put the frying pan on top, "How many eggs do you want?"
Amu walked past Ikuto and sat down at the small kitchen table, "Three."
Ikuto grabbed two more frying pans and another bowl out of the cabinet and put them on two of the three remaining spots on the stove. He grabbed 8 eggs out of the carton and lined them up beside the stove. He cracked three eggs into each bowl, and two into a frying pan after buttering the bottom. Right on time, Shiragin was coming down the stairs much more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than Amu was. He mixed a small bit of milk into each egg bowl, a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, then whisked the two mixes. He poured one into one of the buttered frying pans, and the other bowl into the other frying pan. He tended to the first pair of eggs, the sunny-side-up ones. He flipped them over so they could cook a little on both sides before placing them on one of the plates. He then tended to mixing around the scrambled eggs. When they were done, he put them on a plate. The last one was an omelet, which he carefully folded in half and placed on the last plate. He placed the plates on the table, the scrambled eggs in front of Amu, the omelet in front of Shiragin, and the sunny-side-up eggs at the empty spot.
"Amu, how many pieces of toast do you want?"
"Just one, please," she replied.
Ikuto grabbed four pieces and placed them in the toaster filling up each spot. He pulled one lever all the way down and two of them about a third of the way down, "Amu, how dark do you want it?"
"Mostly dark, please," she replied.
He pulled the last one two thirds of the way down.
He grabbed three forks and placed them at the table for the group, and three glasses. He got ice water for himself and orange juice for Shiragin. "Amu, what do you want to drink?"
"Orange juice, please," she replied.
He poured another orange juice, and placed the glasses at the table. The toast popped up, so he grabbed them, a stick of butter, a bottle of jam, and three knives and placed them all on the table.
He sat down and eagerly checked his watch which read 7:09. He smiled triumphantly at his time. They ate and chatted about how they slept, while Ikuto hid behind lies of his dreams of falling through the dock.
Amu got up and placed her dishes in the sink, "Well, I'm off to take shower."
"No you aren't," Ikuto said while he got up.
Amu glared at him, "What do you want if first? Cause I called it first, so I get it first."
"Nope, you just don't want to take a shower in the morning because we're going to the beach, and there's no point in taking a shower right before the beach."
Amu sighed, "Okay then. I'll be packing."
"You don't need to do that either," Ikuto put his things in the sink, "It's gonna be cold today, so we aren't going swimming. We're going walking."
She sighed, "Can I at least go change?"
Ikuto grabbed Shiragin's plate and placed it in the sink, "Yes, you can."
While Amu was upstairs, Ikuto washed the dishes from the morning. Ikuto went up to the bedroom, but stopped before he walked it. He knocked on the door and said to Amu through the wood, "Amu, can you hand me my jeans?"
"Where are they?" she asked.
"In my suitcase," he said.
"Which pair?"
"The dark ones," he said.
There were a few seconds of hesitation, "Ikuto, all your jeans are dark."
"Oh yeah, good point. Um, they should be the first ones of the very left of my suitcase."
He heard her light footsteps traveling from the back of the small room up to the door. The door cracked open slightly and a hand jutted out holding a pair of dark jeans, "These?"
Ikuto grabbed them from her, "Yep."
Feeling no shame, Ikuto took off his pajama bottoms and pulled on the jeans. He didn't really care to change his boxers, he had a feeling something would happen to them today. He planned to change them whenever he came back anyway.
He wadded up his pajama pants and opened the door up just a crack and tossed them in the direction of his suitcase and waited outside the door for Amu. She came out of the bedroom wearing jean shorts that went just past her knee and a 3-quarter length red shirt. Of course, Ikuto was already dressed in a green tee and his jeans. They brushed their teeth, brushed their hair, and headed downstairs. Amu strapped on her sandals, Ikuto slipped on his flip flops, and then the two went to the garage and got on Ikuto's motorcycle, Amu in front and Ikuto behind her. He pulled out of the drive way and zoomed down the road much faster than the speed limit allowed. There was no one around and it was a very unpopulated area, so they were okay. When he got on the highway he slowed down. They started to ride up a bridge and the red light went on just as they had gotten on. The two waited on the motorcycle at the front of the line while the middle of the bridge spun 90 degrees allowing a tall boat to pass through. Then they waited for it to close again before zooming down the road and turning left. Ikuto went slowly through the curvy road that passed through the woods.
"Oh, Amu," Ikuto pulled to a stop at an intersection, "They have a lighthouse you can go up in. Do you want to go today or tomorrow?"
"Uh, let's go today."
Ikuto turned onto the road which lead to the beach with the lighthouse and found parking spot. They walked up the sidewalk beside the monument, "Do you want to go ahead and go up now or wait until after the beach?"
Amu looked at the tall lighthouse and thought it over, "Let's go up now."
They went in the small gate and paid the woman at the stand ten dollars, five dollars for each ticket. Then Amu and Ikuto went into the lighthouse. The bottom had a small well looking thing in it, and the stairs were in a spiral form where you would go up about fifteen feet then there would be a semi-circle platform, then you go up another flight of stairs and go on another platform. They walked up and up and up until they got to the top. At the top was a balcony that you could go walk on.
"Wow, its so high up here!" Amu exclaimed as she looked over the edge of the railing at the beach.
Ikuto came over and joined her in looking at the beach.
"Hey, Ikuto, doesn't it sorta feel like this thing is going to fall over?"
"Yeah," he gripped onto the edge of the railing just a little tighter as the thought of the large monument falling over, "I guess."
After looking over the horizon for a few minutes, they went back down the stairs.
"You know," Ikuto said as he followed Amu closely behind, "The Eiffel Tower is taller."
"I thought you hadn't been to Paris before," Amu stopped at the platform and waited for Ikuto.
"I have never said that."
"Then why do you want to go so bad?"
"Just cause I've been there before doesn't mean that I don't want to go again. Plus, the last time I went, I was only eight, so that was ten years ago."
Amu just hummed in response, trying to figure out why Ikuto wanted to go so bad. Maybe he just liked it there? But there had to be a "reason" reason behind it, she just knew it.