A/N: Sorry for the late update… haha, that rhymed! I've been writing a lot of poetry lately… I'm really sorry for how late this is. I've had all these other ideas that needed to be written. And then there were finals at school, and I'm starting drivers ed., and the Anime Oasis cosplay convention is this weekend, and I went to the first two days of it. It was really fun and there were a lot of awesome costumes. I wore my sailor school girl uniform, and my little sister dressed as Yaya… without the cape. But besides that detail, the likeness was incredible.

I've also been really stressed lately. You know how sometimes you write something when you were meaning to write something else? Well, I just noticed I did that when I was opening this file up to finish it. I usually save each chapter as "fourteenth chapter", etc. But, when I should have saved this as "fifteenth chapter", I saved it as "fifteenth problem". Wow, I'm so glad school is over. Now there's not so many things to stress over and make me do things like that.

Anyway, I'm really sorry for how long this took me. I've got a busy summer ahead of me, too. Well, at least school is out now, so I don't have that taking up most of my time! But I think I might be getting sick…

I'm also sorry for this incredibly long author's note. And gommenesai if this chapter is a bit cliché. Gomen.

The Million Dollar Bet

Day Eight, Part Two

"I'm bored," stated Rima. "Why did we stop filming the movie?"

"The camera disappeared," Utau explained. "No one knows where the heck it went."

"Oh." Rima said.

"Yaya has an idea!"

"What is it, Yaya?" Amu asked, ready to do anything that wasn't an order from Ikuto.

"Yaya wants to play a game outside. But we have to play it Yaya's way!"

"Okay, sure!" Amu jumped toward the door.

"I'll play," Nagihiko said. Everyone agreed and headed out the door.

"So what are we playing?" Kukai asked, when they were all gathered in the front yard.

"Dead man," stated Yaya. No one looked interested. "But it's really fun Yaya's way!"

"Explain," demanded Utau.

"We have to do it from beginning to end. Including the funeral. So we get to make up how the person died, and…" she began explaining it. It was decided to give the game a try.

"Who's going first?" Rima asked.

"Amu," Ikuto said.

"What? Why me?" Amu almost wailed.

"Lay down here," Yaya said. Amu did as she was told. This did not look like it would turn out very well.

Tadase ran into the house and came back out with a bunch of blankets, which were placed over Amu so she was completely covered. Everyone besides the pinkette held a meeting, deciding on her fate. Eventually, they came up with something they liked, and started the funeral. Yaya had insisted on being the preacher.

"Here lies Tsukiyomi Amu," she began. Amu sat up.

"WHAT?" she yelled, crossing her arms. "I refuse to die under that name!"

"I command you to cooperate," Ikuto told her in a bored tone.

"You're supposed to be dead, remember?" Rima reminded.

"You only come alive on the count of five!" Yaya added. Groaning, Amu lay back down, and pulled the blankets over her head again.

"Continue," Utau said.

"Here lies Tsukiyomi Amu. She died from blushing too hard. But, in the process, she did manage to break the world record for the reddest blush. Now we will try to wake her up. Okay, ready?" Yaya began to dance around Amu, and everyone followed her.

"Dead man, dead man, come alive, before I count to the number five. One, two, three, four, five, come alive!" They chanted. Well, Yaya was the only one enthusiastic enough about the game to chant the rhyme, but it still did the trick.

Amu stood up, and stretched her arms out as she began to chase people with her eyes closed. Yaya was caught. The process was repeated.

"Here lies Fujisaki Yaya," Utau said, smirking evilly. Rima was trying to keep her calm, and Nagihiko was having more fun watching Rima than the mock funeral. No one else really seemed to notice. "Yaya died of diabetes after eating way too much candy. Since she was the only one who wanted to sing the song, who's going to do it this time?" No one answered.

"I guess I will," Tadase volunteered. When Yaya had been woken, she caught Rima.

"I'm getting bored," Rima stated. "Let's do something else."

"The sun's going down, too," Amu said, "It's going to be dark soon."

"There's a game me and my brothers used to play when it was dark," Kukai said. It was really fun, but kind of stupid. We called it 'Dinosaur in the Dark'."

"How do we play?" Tadase asked.

"One person is the dinosaur, and everyone else are the people. Everyone has a gun, like this," he clapped his hands together in the imitation of a pistol. "We set up a course around the house of objects that the people have to touch. They walk in a line, each circle around the house is a round, and each round you get three bullets. Your ammunition is refreshed by touching all the objects. If you don't touch the objects, you don't have any ammunition.

"The person that is the dinosaur has thirty seconds to hide somewhere along the route that the people take around the house. Then everyone starts the course. The dinosaur can jump out at any time they please, and if they tag one of the people, they become a dinosaur, too. If someone shoots the dinosaur, by pointing at it and saying "bang, bang, bang," then the dinosaur is frozen for ten seconds and everyone can run."

"Sounds like fun," Ikuto said. "Amu, I elect you to be the dinosaur." It was nearly dark by this time.

"Yaya doesn't think it sounds like fun! Yaya thinks it sounds scary!"

"Yaya, you can be in the middle of the line of people, that way you're less likely to get tagged," Kukai said. Yaya nodded. Then they set up the course of objects to touch as they circled the house. "Since Amu has been volunteered to be the dinosaur, she gets thirty seconds to go and hide. One… two… three…" Amu ran off. "I'll be at the front of the line, Tsukiyomi at the back. Fujisaki behind me and Hotori in front of Tsukiyomi. The girls will stay in the middle."

"I will not!" protested Utau. Kukai reconsidered his strategy and placed her between Ikuto and Tadase.

"So, in order," Nagihiko began, "It will be Souma-kun, me, Rima-chan, Yaya-chan, Hotori-kun, then the Tsukiyomis?"

"Yeah," Kukai gave him a thumb-up, and everyone got into the line in the order they planned, since no one had objections to their placements.

By this time, the sun had vanished entirely, and it was very dark. However, without flashlights, everyone's eyes had adjusted to the dark, and it wasn't that bad. Besides the fact that Rima, Yaya, and Tadase all had very nervous looks on their faces. Yaya was the only one that couldn't seem to keep her cool.

As they rounded the house, touching the places they had set beforehand, Amu didn't appear. It wasn't until the second time that they rounded the house that she showed herself.

Before anyone noticed her, she caught Ikuto, although it wasn't unlikely he'd been meaning that to happen. Utau spotted her and felt silly as she pointed her fingers toward the pinkette and yelled, "Bang, bang, bang!"

Chaos ensued as everyone ran away, trying to make good use of the ten seconds the 'dinosaur' would be frozen. They all met in front of the porch, with the exception of Amu and Ikuto.

On the second round, Rima and Yaya were recruited to the 'dinosaur' ranks. "Where's Ikuto?" Yaya asked Amu.

"I don't know," she replied, "He disappeared. So it's just the three of us."

"Now what?" asked Rima.

"We hide."

"If we stay hidden for several rounds, we'll scare them," Rima mused.

"Good idea. Let's hide behind those hedges over there," Amu agreed. The girls snuck behind the bushes and sat there, listening. They heard the group come around the house once, twice… then ten minutes passed with barely any noise but the occasional hooting of an owl, the constant chirping of crickets, the water of the stream trickling a ways away, and some frogs croaking.

"What's taking them so long?" Amu muttered.

"Amu-chii! Rima-tan! Yaya is scared!" she grabbed Amu's arm, and Rima took hold of the other as the three girls huddled together.

A rustling sound in the hedges a ways off didn't help their fear any. "What was that?" Amu's eyes widened. Rima clenched her eyes shut and squeezed Amu's arm tighter.

"Yaya's so scared," whispered Yaya, "Yaya wishes we hadn't played this game."

"I-it's not s-scary," Amu tried to regain her 'cooln'spicy' attitude. There is no need to say that she failed miserable, being just as frightened as her friends.

"Should we go look for them?" Rima asked, clenching Amu's arm a little bit too tightly.

"I th-think that m-might be a good idea," stuttered Amu, rising to her feet. The other two girls didn't let go as she did, and stayed latched onto her as they walked out from behind the hedges.

Silence. The bushes rustled again, and a dark shadow emerged. Amu, Rima, and Yaya were frozen to their places as they watched the figure move toward them.

As it got closer, they noticed it wasn't very tall… and it had light hair. Rima was the first to come out of her stupor and realize what—or rather, who—the shadow was. She let go of Amu and tagged him.

Tadase, not expecting the girls to do anything, and being just as frightened as them, was scared half out of his senses when Rima tagged him.

He screamed.

As a result of it, it started a chain reaction, scaring Yaya and Amu, who also screamed. Rima was the only one among the group not shrieking at the top of her lungs.

Suddenly, Tadase stopped abruptly, as if something was preventing any noise from escaping his lips. It took a moment afterward for Amu and Yaya to calm down. Rima watched in amusement as Tadase tried to pry the hand covering his mouth off.

"Don't scream like that, Kiddy-king. You're already girly enough as it is." Ikuto's smooth voice emanated from the shadow that kept Tadase captive. He let go.

"You filthy black cat of misfortune!"

"Shush!" he reminded him, "There's no need to yell."

"I-Ikuto!" Amu exclaimed, a little bit late. Silence ensued. Ikuto flicked the blushing (although you couldn't see it in the dark) Amu on the forehead. She screeched, once again, having not anticipated it. She kept on screaming, and the catboy disappeared.

When Amu ran out of breath, she stopped screaming, and rapid footsteps running toward them became audible. Nagihiko, Kukai, and Utau came running around the house and stopped in front of them.

"What's going on?" Utau demanded.

"Did something attack you?" Kukai asked.

"Are you alright?" added Nagihiko with concern on his face.

"Amu and Tadase were taking turns screaming uselessly," Rima explained.

"I-it was n-not useless!" cried Amu.

"Since when is Ikuto flicking you on the forehead a good cause for screaming?" protested Rima.

"You were scared, too, Rima-tan," Yaya pointed out.

"Not when I realized it was just Tadase," she scoffed.

"B-but it was Ikuto t-too!"

"Since when has he scared you?"

"Why was Tadase away from your group, anyway?" Amu asked, ignoring Rima's question.

"Haha, you should have seen it!" Kukai laughed. "He was staring off into space with this terrified look, and Utau tapped him to get his attention. He ran so fast you could barely see it!"

"No, you could barely see it because it was dark," Utau corrected.

"Yaya wants to go inside!"

"That's a good idea. I want to try something." If it had been lighter, everyone might have been intimidated by the smirk on Utau's face that was almost identical to her brother's.

~Inside~

Utau had everyone sit in the living room downstairs, and Ikuto showed up again. She had yet to tell them what her idea was.

"So why are we all in here, Utau?" asked Kukai, although he had a feeling he already knew.

The idol held up the big book she'd been reading the day before and a mischievous glint shone in her eyes. "I need some volunteers."

"To do what?" Rima asked.

"Be hypnotized."

"I volunteer Amu!" Ikuto said, smirking. Of course, Amu protested.

"No way!"

"I order you to give Utau your complete cooperation."

"Who else?"

"Yaya wants to!" Yaya yelled.

"How about Tadase?"

"No thanks."

"Nagi?"

"Well… it isn't very safe. I think I'll watch."

"Kukai?" Utau had a demanding look.

"Uhh… sure!" he grinned, but it wavered.

"Anyone else?" No one replied. "Okay, those participating will sit in a semi-circle so I can do this to all of you at the same time."

To the audience's surprise, Utau had them all in a deep-sleep state within fifteen minutes. She was giving them all sorts of odd thoughts, which they would react to in various ways.

"Okay, now you're going back in time… you're all in kindergarten. We're going to sing the Barney song, okay? No on the count of three, you'll open your eyes and I will be your teacher. Ready? One, two, three!"

Yaya raised her hand. "I'm not allowed to watch Barney!" she complained. Utau frowned.

"Well, this will be okay, we're only going to sing the song."

"Oh, okay!" Yaya smiled cheerfully. Everyone launched into a chorus of that dreadful song…

"No go back to sleep again," Utau commanded when they had finished. Amu, Yaya and Kukai's heads dropped like their necks had been snapped. "Now I'm going to count to three. On the count of three, you will open your eyes and propose to the first thing you see. Okay? Now one, two three!"

Kukai's eyes opened, and the first thing he saw was the sofa. He was quite upset when it didn't respond.

Yaya's eyes opened and the first thing she saw was Tadase, who didn't know how to respond. Yaya pleaded and pleaded for him to marry her, but the only reply was, "Uhhh… Yuiki-san? Are you feeling alright?"

Amu opened her eyes and saw… the broom. And not just any broom: it was Rima's broom, the one she'd been 'dancing' with earlier. Actually, no one really knew why it was in the living room, but it was. Amu proposed to it.

"Rima-chan," Nagi nudged her, "Your broom is cheating on you." She glared.

"Shut up."

"Is Rima-chan jealous?"

"I told you to shut up!"

"Ikuto is jealous, too, so you're not alone," he whispered. Rima laughed out loud when she noticed the catboy glaring at the cleaning tool. Then she stopped abruptly.

"Ikuto must really love her to be jealous of a broom," she told Nagihiko quietly. He nodded, frowning.

"It's too bad Amu doesn't reciprocate it."

"Maybe she's just confused… kind of like I was," Rima said. Nagihiko nodded again, then got a spark in his eyes, like when he used to chara-change with Temari, before she disappeared.

"We should do something about it!" he said, a determined look in his eye.

"My thoughts exactly," Rima muttered, also with a gleam in her eye.

~A while later~

"Okay, so how do we wake them up?" asked Tadase. Utau started skimming through her book.

"H-have you thought that far?" Ikuto asked, an unnatural stutter in his voice.

"Of course I have!" Utau snapped, quickly. A little too quickly.

"What will you do if you can't wake them up?" asked Rima.

"I'll wake them up!" she spat. Finally, she found what she was looking for. "Amu, Yaya, Kukai: when I count to three, you're going to wake up. You won't remember any of this until tomorrow, when someone says your name. The moment someone says your name tomorrow, everything will come back to you. Got it? Okay, now in order: Amu, Yaya, and Kukai… one, two three!" Their eyes opened.

"What happened?" asked Kukai.

"You were hypnotized. No big deal, was it?"

"That was it?"

"How come Yaya doesn't remember it?" Amu whined. Everyone turned their heads in her direction and stared, jaws hanging open.

"Because you were asleep," Yaya said, using Amu's 'cooln'spicy' tone.

"What the heck happened to them?" exclaimed Kukai.

"Amu," Ikuto said, "Stand. I command you." Grumbling, Yaya stood, and Amu remained seated on the floor. "Now sit back down again." Yaya obeyed.

"Yaya," began Rima, catching on, "There's some pocky behind the sofa over there."

Amu jumped up and dove over the couch, yelling, "Yaya loves pocky!"

"We could have a lot of fun with this," Rima muttered. Tadase looked alarmed.

"But how will they get back to their normal selves?"

"Well, I guess when we say their names tomorrow," said Utau.

"I think she said their names out of order," Nagihiko mused, "Because Amu was sitting in the middle, and Utau said 'Amu, Yaya, and Kukai'. So that's probably how they got mixed up."

After at least an hour of messing with the confused Amu and Yaya, everyone was a bit worn out, and decided to go to bed. When the girls got to their room, Amu went to Yaya's bed and pulled out her suitcase, out of which she took Yaya's pajamas.

"What are you doing?" Utau asked.

"Yaya's getting her pajamas!" she picked them up and walked into the bathroom with them. When she came out, she made a rather obvious statement. "They're too small."

"I wonder why that is," Rima said, somewhat sarcastic.

"Maybe Yaya grew!" Amu exclaimed. Yaya walked over to them, wearing Amu's pajamas.

"These are too big," she stated. Suddenly, the charas flew into the room, looking very worn out. Suu floated over to Amu and examined at her attire.

"Amu-chan, what are you wearing ~desu?"

"My pajamas," Yaya replied. This caused a general confusion among all the female charas. Eventually, they were too tired from working on their 'project' that they decided to ignore it and deal with the situation tomorrow.

Rima quickly slipped out of the room and came back a few minutes later. No one else really noticed, so she quietly walked into the bathroom before anyone could ask where she'd been. Picking up her brush, Rima began to run it through her long hair. Kusukusu came over to her, sitting on the counter in front of her owner. She, too, was very tired, having been digging all day.

While Rima brushed her hair, Kusukusu used the sink to try to wash the dirt off her face. After a few moments, something occurred to her. "Rima-chan, where did you go just now?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You left the room and came right back," Kusukusu said, not too tired to wonder. Rima was deep in thought for a moment. She suddenly realized that she'd completely neglected to tell her chara anything that had been going on in her life over the past few days. Sure, it was partly Kusukusu's fault for being absent, but Rima should have told her something as important as that. After all, this was her chara. It was safe to tell her, wasn't it?

"I went to hug Nagi goodnight," she admitted. Kusukusu stared at her in disbelief, then rubbed her eyes.

"I'm really tired," she began giggling, "I think I'm hearing things."

"What?"

"Did you just call him 'Nagi'? And you said you went to give him a hug?" she started giggling harder.

"Shh!" Rima shushed her, "It's a secret. You can't let anyone know that we're… ahh, what's the right word?" Kusukusu's face went serious, a rare sight. Then she looked kind of sickly.

"This is a dream, isn't it?"

"No, Kusukusu! It isn't! I'll tell you the whole story someday, but we both need to get to sleep."

"Okay," the chara giggled again, "And everything will be back to normal in the morning, right?"

"Wrong. Why do you seem so apposed to it?"

"I'm not! Actually, I'm really happy that you finally realized that Nagi is perfect for you!"

"You sure don't sound like it."

"Well… if Rhythm knows… it could be sort of awkward."

"Why?" Rima asked, picking up her chara as she began to walk back into the bedroom. Kusukusu's face turned pink, and Rima smirked.

"N-no reason," she giggled.

A/N: I'm so sorry! I feel really bad that it took me so long to update, and it wasn't even a very good chapter. At least it was longer. Well, I will try to make the next chapter fluffy to make up for this lame, not very funny, and completely fluff-less chapter. And I can honestly say the next chapter will not take as long. I actually have a lot of it written already… I just have to put it together and add some more stuff in.

Please review!