Cuxie: O-o-ooooh, I'm back agaaaaain~!
Amu: Oh, please. Spare us all.
Cuxie: An agonizing death?
Amu: O.o Uh...I was talking about you singing.
Cuxie: Oh. Right. ^-^ Well, I'll try. On both accounts. Rolling!
Amu: Wait-what?
Amu's POV
I carried my shopping bags, feeling light-hearted. It was beginning to feel like shopping was just shopping, time spent with my friends, talking, laughing, and having fun.
And not attempting to save my relationship with Tadase.
I had a brand-new, irresistably cute outfit. I had Rima and Yaya's guidance. And, as much as I'm still sort of dreading it, I have Utau's concert tonight. Backstage will definitely be awkward, but I can worry about that later. For now, I thought about sitting in the front row and listening to Utau sing for thousands of people, inspiring others with her voice. Maybe it would help me through the rest of the night afterwards.
We were about to go into Momo no ChouChou, the glitter-happy accessory store, when someone rammed into me from behind. "Wah!" I stumbled forward. Rima and Yaya grabbed onto my arms to keep me from falling.
"Hey, watch it!" Rima snapped, her temper taking over.
I turned around. The person was gripping the hem of my tank top, making it twist around my stomach. "Um...can you let go?" It was a girl. She was bent over, panting like she'd just run a marathon. Short blonde hair curled from underneath a blue knit cap, and she was wearing a long brown coat over a floral print dress. Her head hung down as she caught her breath; I couldn't see her face. When I went to gently pry her hands from my shirt, her head snapped up.
Large, gray-blue eyes fringed with long lashes stared back at me, pleading and desperate. She stood to her full height and released me. She was taller than I am, and older too. Maybe around Utau's age...
Rima moved in front of me, crossing her arms over her chest and looking as intimidating as she ever has. "Aren't you going to apologize? You nearly ran my friend over."
"Yeah, Amu-chi could've been hurt," Yaya added, placing her hands on her hips.
The older girl looked scared, glancing from Rima to Yaya and taking a step back. She started to babble, stuttering at first, then stringing together sentences so quickly I wouldn't have understood them even if she was speaking Japanese. Which she wasn't.
"You guys, calm down. She's a foreigner."
Rima sniffed, "I wouldn't care if she's an ambassador. She practically tackled you to the ground!" Rima's fiercely protective for someone of her size.
"She probably just wants directions or something." I squeezed my way between my friends and the foreign girl. "Are you lost?"
She cocked her head, seeming frustrated. She didn't understand me any more than I understood her. "Veuillez m'aider..." I stared back blankly.
"I don't think that was English," Rima muttered beside me. I'm pretty sure she's right. Not that I would call myself bilingual, but at least we study English in school. I hadn't recognized a single English word.
The girl could tell we weren't getting anywhere. Tears pooled in her eyes. I'm was tempted to take her to a police officer or someone who could help her get wherever she was going, when she said a single word that changed everything.
"...I-Ikuto."
Utau's POV
"Here it is, just the way you left it." I felt giddy, showing Ikuto to his room. Giggly. Like a little girl. He set two suitcases on the bed. I remembered him leaving with only one. I wonder what else he bought, although its probably not much knowing him. A few essential clothes, most likely. Not for the first time, I wondered if he knew how long he'd be gone when he left.
He turned to me and I was afraid he might ask me to leave him alone to unpack. Then he said, "I got you a souvenir."
An embarrassingly girlish squeal escapes my lips, but I don't care. I don't need to hide anything from him. "You didn't have to do that," I said, barely able to contain my excitement. He gave me a ghost of a smile and handed me a manilla envelope that was strapped to the inside cover of the suitcase. I tried to hide my confusion. Papers? "Um..." I opened it. "Sheet music?"
He nodded. "While I was overseas I contacted some of dad's old aquaintances. I found a few local musicians he played with. That's from a woman in a town near Germany. She was a singer who did a few compositions accompanied by his violin. I had the lyrics translated and thought..." He let the thought trail off, allowing me to put together the rest. "I have dad's copy. I remember you used to like singing to my violin." The way he said it made it sound like it was so long ago.
"Oh, Ikuto..." Glancing down the notes and lyrics, my eyes started to burn with tears. This wasn't just a souvenir. It was a part of my father. Our father. "Ikuto...you have no idea how much this means to me." God, I'm getting emotional. Get it together, Utau!
I thought he would shrug it off, but instead he pulled out his violin case. "Would you like to..."
"Now?"
Now he did shrug. "If you're not busy."
I shook off the nostgalia and nodded eagerly. As I was looking over the lyrics, my phone started to ring. Annoyed, I pulled it out of my pocket and glared at the screen. The caller ID said it was Amu. "Oh, so now she wants to talk," I muttered.
I could practically see Ikuto's ears perk up. "Maybe you should get that..."
Biting my lip, I turned away from him. I knew he was still worried about Amu. And I probably should be too. I should answer it, but...I've finally got a moment alone with my brother after two whole years! Amu's not taking that away from me. I very deliberately put my cell away and turned to my brother, who didn't say anything at all about my decision. Ignoring the concerned look on his face, I smiled.
"Are you ready?"
Amu's POV
"Ugh, dammit Utau." I snapped my phone shut and fell back on my bed. Yaya bounced on the mattress beside me, while Rima chose my desk chair. Its her favorite spot to sit and rifle through my things.
"She's not answering?" Rima twirled a pen in her hand.
"Nope."
"Call Ikuto."
"I tried that first. He hasn't switched from his international plan yet, so he's not getting any service at all." With a defeated sigh, I glanced at our "guest" who was standing in the corner, looking around my room. She sensed me staring and gazed back at me hopefully. I bit my lip and turned away, fiddling with my phone.
"Sooo...what do we do now?" Yaya asked, quickly growing bored with the whole situation.
"Well, we've got to get her to Ikuto somehow, so I guess we'll just take her to the concert."
"I doubt she has a ticket," Rima piped up.
"So? We know the star of the show. We can get her in somehow." I glanced back over at the foreign girl. She was fiddling with the hem of her dress. "We should probably figure out who she is first and where she's from." I waved her over. Hesitant, she came and sat primly on the edge of my bed. I took a deep breath and said slowly, "What is your name?"
She stared blankly.
I sighed and turned to Rima and Yaya. "Ok, um...maybe we should all say our names first. Then hopefully she'll get the idea."
"Sure."
"Whatever."
"Ok." Trying again, I turned back to the stranger and pointed at myself. "I'm Amu," I said, emphasizing the pronunciation of my name.
"I'm Yaya!" My younger friend said brightly. She reached around me and shook the girl's hand vigorously.
"Rima," the blonde said curtly, still keeping her distance.
I turned back to the girl. Again I asked her, "What is your name?"
This time, I saw a look of understanding on her face. "Ella," she said quietly.
"Ella?" I repeated. She nodded. Yaya and I grinned at each other. "We're getting somewhere."
Rima rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Now, we're stuck with a strange foreigner named Ella who we can't understand at all, as opposed to what we had five minutes ago, which was-Oh! That's right. Exactly the same thing."
"Can't you at least pretend to be nice?"
"I just don't think you should've invited a stranger into your home when your parents aren't here." Rima has that kind of mentality when it came to things like that. She's definitely more cautious than the rest of us. But Ella looked pretty harmless to me. "I know what you're thinking," Rima said, giving me a stern look. "It's always the ones you least expect."
Well, I guess she's living proof of that.
"Oh, foo! She's here now anyway. Why bother fighting about it?" Yaya pointed out. "Besides, this is the most interesting thing thats happened all week! I wonder how she knows Ikuto-san. Do you think she's some long-lost relative?"
"Maybe he owes her something and she followed him here to get it back," Rima speculated.
"Maybe she owes him something!"
Ella-san fidgeted next to me. It must be nerve-wracking to watch total strangers talk about you and not be able to understand a word of what they're saying. "That's enough guys. We still need to figure out where she's from. Then we'll have an idea of what language she speaks." I went over to Rima, pushing her chair aside so I could search through some of my books. Inside of my geography book was a large, folded poster of a world map.
"Good idea, Amu-chii!"
Bumping Yaya off of the bed, I spread the map out between me and Ella-san. Her eyes brightened visibly. I didn't even have to ask or demonstrate this time. She knew exactly what I was trying to do and immediately pointed at a country on the east side of the map.
"France? You're French?"
"Ooh-la-la!" Yaya giggled sitting on the floor by my feet. "How cool is that?"
Rima looked unimpressed. "I was hoping for something a little more exotic."
"Ikuto sent me a few pictures from France before," I said thoughtfully, mostly to myself.
"Did he mention Ella-san at all?" Rima asked. I shook my head. "So we're back at a dead end..."
"We'll, we're at a dead end until we can take her to Ikuto anyway. I'm just trying to figure out as much as I can before the concert."
"Speaking of the concert," Rima tossed our shopping bags onto the bed. "Shouldn't we be getting ready?"
Cuxie: I lied, I know. I said this would be the concert chapter and its not. I have branded myself a liar. I can no longer be trusted. T^T
Rima: Like you could ever be trusted.
Cuxie: Silence in the back! So as a shugoi-special make-up treat, the real REAL concert chapter will be posted by this time tomorrow so you all don't have to wait long. How does that sound? Good enough to R&R I hope...