A/N: I apologize for not updating in such a long time. I'm busier now than I am during the school year!

There will only be a few more chapters of this fic. I'm going to try to finish it before summer break ends. I can estimate about two more chapters (not including this one) and an epilogue.

The Million Dollar Bet

Day Thirteen

Barking, barking, and more barking!

It was driving Ikuto insane. That dumb puppy was following him everywhere, and now she wanted to follow him onto the roof! What did she think she was—a cat?

Ikuto glanced at the puppy on the balcony as she stared innocently up at him. Jiji now had a red ribbon tied in a bow around her neck, courtesy of Yaya. The dog's large brown eyes shone in the sunlight, and her tiny tail wagged back and forth happily.

The dog would be perfectly fine right there like that, but then she had to go and open her mouth. Annoying little yipping sounds came out, and when Ikuto continued to ignore her, she began to cry.

The deplorable noise was so dreadfully unbearable that Ikuto was forced to consent to Jiji's will. He jumped off the roof, picked up the puppy, and jumped back onto the roof with her.

Jiji, once she was up there, no longer agreed with her own decision. She wanted down immediately. After squirming out of Ikuto's grasp, Jiji's paws met the shingles of the roof, and she slid. The gutter barely stopped her decent as her legs caught in it.

An odd panicking sensation washed over Ikuto for a moment as he watched Jiji loose her footing. All his catlike instincts were telling him to sit right where he was and let the little dog fall. But something else drove him to help, and that something was overpowering.

He jumped to the edge of the roof and scooped the little blond puppy out of the gutter she was barely hanging onto. Her tiny, sharp nails dug into Ikuto's arms, and he cringed as he carried Jiji off the roof.

~Inside~

"Yaya thinks Amu should be with Ikuto," Yaya blurted out of the blue. She, Utau, Amu, Rima and Nagihiko were all sitting in the living room with nothing to do. Amu blushed madly.

"Why's that?" asked Utau.

"Because it sounds better!" Yaya said. "Tsukiyomi Amu sounds much better than Hotori Amu." The girl in question became even more flustered.

"You're right, it does," Nagihiko nodded. By now Amu was speechless.

"It's funny how some names just sound bad, and others work well together," Rima stated. "Like how Hotori Utau sounds awful." She giggled a little bit.

Nagihiko smirked. "Fujisaki Rima doesn't sound bad at all."

The petite blond turned bright red very quickly and hid her face in her knees. Nagihiko put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Rima-chan. I didn't mean to embarrass you," he said. She shook her head.

"Fujisaki Rima," she muttered so quietly that only Nagihiko, who was sitting right next to her, could hear, "Fujisaki Rima is a great name." He smiled and wrapped his arm around her.

"Aww," squealed Yaya, having not heard the last part of the aforementioned conversation, "Rima-tan and Nagi-kun are so cute!"

~A while later~

Ikuto glanced behind him as he walked back to the house. Jiji was following him like a puppy-dog, which indeed she was, and the bow around her neck had come untied. It was hanging loosely and she was tripping over it.

The whole thing was annoying Ikuto, so he decided to help the puppy. Bending down, he picked her up and took the bow off. After stuffing the ribbon in his pocket, he set Jiji back on the ground and continued walking towards the house.

He opened the door and let it slam closed behind him, forgetting the puppy at his feet. Instantly, a horrendous racket erupted from the puppy as she began to cry as if her mother had abandoned her. Ikuto cringed slightly and reopened the door. Jiji leapt into the house, tail wagging, and gazed happily up at him.

Ikuto shook his head and looked away. There was no way that puppy was beginning to seem cute. He walked into the living room to see Yaya jumping around and waving her arms while Amu, Utau, Nagihiko and Rima shouted out different words. Somehow, their conversation had turned into a game of charades.

"We give up, Yaya!" Amu exclaimed. "What is it?"

"Yaya's supposed to be an emu trying to fly! Yaya can't believe you guys can't guess it!" Yaya wailed.

"Yaya, why would you want to be an emu?" Rima asked.

"Because they're so ugly they're cute!"

"That doesn't make sense," Utau said, crossing her arms.

Jiji barked, announcing her and Ikuto's arrival. Yaya squealed and grabbed the puppy, while Ikuto sat next to Amu and began to torment her, pleased to be relieved of Jiji, if only for a little while.

~Outside, where the charas are digging a hole to America~

A clinking sound could be heard as the metal spoons that the charas were digging with hit something solid.

"What's this ~dechu?" Peppe tapped the hard object. The charas gathered around and studied it.

"It's a rock," Miki concluded.

"Is it the earth's core ~nya?"

"The center of the earth!" Kusukusu giggled in delight.

"There's no way we'll be able to dig through that," Iru said.

"I didn't think the earth's core would be this close to the surface," said Ran.

"Keep digging!" Kiseki roared from the top of the hole.

"We hit a rock ~desu," Suu explained.

~Inside, again~

After a while, Jiji had gotten fed up with Yaya, and she retreated to Ikuto's lap. Of course, Ikuto wasn't happy about this, but found it impossible to move the puppy because when he set her on the ground, she'd jump right back into his lap again. Amu found this exceedingly amusing.

Eventually, Ikuto got fed up and left. Jiji trotted loyally behind him, and he ignored her. He walked out the front door, across the yard, over the bridge, and found a pleasant place in the sun to take a nap.

"It's time for dinner!" Yaya yelled, running into the kitchen. Tadase and Kukai were already in there, and they were talking to the charas, who were sitting on the island counter.

"You were doing what?" Kukai asked in disbelief.

"Digging a hole to America," said Kiseki as if it were the most ordinary, every-day thing anyone had every thought of.

"And we hit rock," Rhythm added.

"Why were you digging a hole to America?" Yaya asked, her interest sparking.

"To take over the world," Tadase said, his cheeks tinting pink.

"Oh, well is there any candy around?" she skipped to the refrigerator and poked her head inside. "OOOHHH! Chocolate cake!" Placing the cake on the island counter, she yelled, "Nagi, can I eat the cake you made?"

"Go ahead," Nagihiko's voice called from the other room.

Yaya got a plate out and cut an exceedingly large slice for herself. At that moment, Tadase chara-changed with Kiseki, and insisted that chocolate was for royalty, and a commoner like Yaya shouldn't eat it. In turn, Yaya chara-changed with Peppe and began wailing.

The noise of both of them put together was enough to wake Ikuto up outside. He came back in—Jiji following, of course—to see what was happening. By the time he got there, everyone was in a chara-change, and he soon joined them.

Amu/Ran was cheering for who knew what, while Tadase/Kiseki argued with Yaya/Peppe about the chocolate cake. Rima/Kusukusu couldn't stop giggling, and Utau/Eru was saying something about "looooooovvvvveee". Nagihiko/Rhythm and Kukai/Daichi were playing basketball without a basket and a ball that had appeared out of nowhere. Ikuto/Yoru caught sight of Utau's pigtails and began batting them back and forth. Utau didn't really seem to notice.

The whole first story of the house was a mess by the time everyone's chara-changes had come undone. Amu and Nagihiko cleaned the mess up while Ikuto was forced to make dinner. Jiji kept getting under his feet and tripping him, so there were many puddles and spills of things all over the kitchen floor by the time he was done.

When everyone sat down for dinner, and Yaya placed a portion of the food in a bowl on the ground for Jiji, no one felt like eating.

"Ikuto-nii-san, not to be rude, but what is this?" Tadase asked, stirring the substance in his bowl with a spoon.

"What'cha'got stew," he answered.

There was an uncomfortable silence in which nobody touched the dinner that was prepared for them—not even the dog.

They ended up eating instant ramen instead.

When everyone marched up the stairs to go to sleep, Jiji followed them. As Ikuto crawled into his bed, Jiji stared at him innocently, wagging her tail and panting. She yawned, her long pink tongue curling, and let out a little whine. That noise was one of the most obnoxious things on the planet.

Ikuto ignored her.

Jiji whined again, and kept whining, and whining, and whining. From across the room, he could hear Kukai mutter something inaudible. The puppy stopped whining and just stared at Ikuto.

He shook his head. There is no way that puppy is beginning to seem cute, he thought. After a moment of staring at her, Ikuto lifted Jiji off the floor and set her at the end of his bed. The content puppy curled into a ball and fell asleep immediately. Ikuto rolled his eyes and tried to go to sleep.

~Sometime in the middle of the night~

Rima stared at the dark ceiling, blinking occasionally. She was bored, and couldn't sleep, although she had no idea why. Something inside her wanted to run to Nagihiko, simply to be in his presence. But she didn't want to wake him just so she could be with him. No, Nagihiko was probably sound asleep, dreaming about dancing and basketball. Rima smiled at this thought, hoping it was the truth.

A soft thumping sound startled Rima, and she sat up as she looked around the room. All the other girls were still asleep. A tall shadowy figure stood on the balcony, silhouetted in the sliding glass door.

Rima crept across the room and slid onto the balcony quietly so as not to wake the others.

"Nagihiko, what are you doing?" she hissed. To her surprise, he knelt before her and kissed her hand.

"Milady, I hath come to declare my undying love for thee."

A tick mark appeared on Rima's head as she noticed the pair of headphones around his neck.

"Stop acting silly," she dragged him to his feet. Frankly, the whole kneeling thing had made her uncomfortable. "Why are you here?"

"I've come to serenade you!"

"No! Don't do that!" she protested. Nagihiko cocked his head to the side.

"Why not?"

"Because if you sing, you'll wake everyone else up."

"Oh, good point," he smirked, "I'll just do this, then."

Nagi picked Rima up like a princess and jumped straight onto the roof. She clung to him and wouldn't let go until she was sure the roof wouldn't cave in, or she loose her footing.

"Now why'd you do that?"

"It was Rhythm's fault!" Nagihiko said. The headphones had disappeared by now.

"It's okay," Rima said to Nagi's shock. "I couldn't sleep, anyway."

She sat on the roof and hugged her knees. He sat next to her and did the same as they stared at the sky, silent. Words were unnecessary. Simply being together was more than enough for either of them.

An hour had passed just like that before Nagihiko spoke. "Hey, Rima, guess what?"

"What?" she turned to face him.

"I love you," he said.

"That was lame," Rima stated. He frowned.

"I just confessed my love to you, and you say it's lame?" through the darkness, she could see a hint of teasing in his eyes.

"Well, it was. Had I not already known that, it might now have been lame."

"That's okay. You don't mind a little bit of lameness, do you?"

"As long as it's not lame comedy," Rima confirmed, letting her head drop onto Nagihiko's shoulder.

There was another long, comfortable silence. Tomorrow is our last full day here," Nagihiko commented.

"I know," Rima frowned. "I'm not looking forward to going home."

"It's going to be hard," he agreed. "We're used to this now, and going back to normal life can't be pleasant."

"We won't be able to do things like this all the time, either."

"It's nice living under the same roof. But nothing will really change when we go home."

"What do you mean? Rima raised her head to look him in the face.

"Well, it's going to sound really sappy," Nagihiko began.

"Th-that's okay," her cheeks tinted a light pink and she put her head back on his shoulder.

"Rima-chan, every day I fall even more in love with you. And every day I think that my heart is so full of love for you that it wouldn't be possible for anyone to ever love anyone more. Yet every day, my heart grows another inch, and I dedicate it to you."

Rima wrapped her arms around him. "It's okay to be sappy," she said, "I know exactly what you mean.

"You do?" Nagihiko looked at her in shock, and noted that her face was bright red.

"Y-yeah. That's kind of the same way it is with me."

"Let's not change."

"What?" Rima asked, confused.

"Let's not change. Like it or not, we're going to have to go home. So when we do, let's still do things like this: like sitting on the roof in the middle of the night."

"Okay," she agreed. Nagihiko put his arm around her and rested his head on her own.

"Hey, Rima-chan?"

"Yeah?"

"I really do love you."

"I know," she smiled.

A/N: Sorry for the sappiness of that. I just felt like writing lots of Rimahiko, so I did.

I don't like this chapter. It was sloppily written, but I really need to update soon, so here it is.

Review?