Mailroom Palaver

Part 7

Amu had been fumbling through her purse when she first met him.

After another argument with her boyfriend, she was more than ready for bed. Perhaps a good, long bath beforehand, too.

Wiping all traces of Tadase from her mind, she set her thoughts on the task at hand: getting her mail. She frowned. In order to get her mail, she just had to find her dang letter-opener.

Shutting the glass doors behind her, she glanced up to make sure she wouldn't trip.

Her gaze caught on the back of that blue-haired guy who always seemed to check his mail at odd hours, like herself.

The pinkette's attention turned back down to her purse to continue the search for that opener-of-envelopes.

Just when her fingers wrapped around it, her heart plummeted to the floor at the dropping sensation of her foot tripping over the other.

Feet scrambling out from under her, Amu groaned as her chin hit the tiled floor. She watched as her letter-opener tumbled out of her grasp and across the tiles, rolling to a stop at the black shoes of the blue-haired stranger.

Amu watched from her spot on the floor as the handsome stranger bent down. A fair hand reached out and plucked it up, expertly twirling it around slender fingers as he rose back up to his feet.

Amu's honey-colored gaze dragged up the long-limbed body, stopping on the pleasant face of the boy. His strong features were accented with a prominent jaw line, sharp nose, and firm cheekbones. Not to mention the brilliant blue his eyes were.

She scrambled to her feet upon realizing she had been staring. They met halfway, Amu a blushing, embarrassed mess once they came face-to-face.

"You might want to be careful with that," mystery boy teased with an upward quirk of the lips.

Amu was about to provide a response as she reached out and took back her letter-opener, but a mischievous wink from her mailroom buddy erased all words from her mind.

And now, in present day, Amu found herself standing in his apartment to return his cat's plush bear.

Ikuto called out from his music room at the end of the hallway.

Gripping Yoru's bear tightly, Amu silently admired how much nicer his apartment was compared to hers. Not only were his floors hardwood but he even had an extra room which he used to store all his musical instruments.

Then there was herself, who was stuck in a hamster-cage apartment. Heck, it was worse than a hamster cage. She didn't even have a wheel to run around on.

She poked her head into the spare-bedroom-turned-music-room and, with wide eyes, had to hold back a proclamation of how she was moving in whether he agreed to it or not.

The room was extravagant. Old records and posters of musicians painted the walls. Two large desks sat on opposite ends of the room with sheets of music neatly stacked in thick piles while a keyboard rested against one wall with a guitar leaning against it.

Ikuto's violin was placed on the floor in its case beside the desk he was currently sitting at.

Amu's eyes dragged from one desk to the other, her expression coated with disbelief. The boy wrote too much music.

The blue-eyed boy glanced over his shoulder at her, "What's up, Amu?"

He turned back to look at his music sheet, seeming to be on a roll with creating his latest musical piece.

Although he couldn't see her, Amu waved Yoru's stuffed bear. "Found this under my bed," she answered and leaned down to scoop up Yoru.

The cat eagerly nipped at his toy bear and bat at it with his paws.

Amu stroked the cat affectionately and wandered over to where Ikuto sat. She peered over his shoulder. What caught her gaze wasn't so much his latest piece of music but more so the piece of toast in his hand.

With an evil grin and a swift movement, she reached over his shoulder and plucked the toast out of his fingers.

Ikuto made a noise of dissent. He shot her a frowning look of annoyance and watched her take a bite of his perfectly buttered toast.

After she was content with making him suffer, she easily slipped it back into his hand and scuffed her hand through his blue locks, leaving them a tangled mess that defied gravity even more than usual.

Ikuto muttered a small, reluctant thanks before he dejectedly resumed eating his late-night snack.

"You're a butt," he uttered grumpily.

With a triumphant smile, Amu ignored his sour remark and proceeded to scan through his music. She made her way over to his other desk, rubbing her nose affectionately against Yoru's fur in the meantime. She flipped through the multiple scatters of paper with Yoru purring happily in her arms.

"Crap, Ikuto, you composed all this?"

Her tone of voice failed to conceal how impressed she was. With wide, curious eyes she ran her fingers gently along the well-used sheets of paper. Her fingers paused on one sheet music entitled, 'Honey.'

Amu was about to call Ikuto out for having just discovered his favorite food, but as her eyes wandered across the page, she realized that it wasn't the food he had written about, but a girl.

A girl with bubbling laughter and a bright smile. A girl who never lost faith no matter what troubles were thrown her way. Who trusted far too easily and wore her heart on her sleeve. Who came alive at odd hours of the night and never failed to make others smile despite what mood they were in. A girl with eyes like honey.

Amu slowly turned to look at Ikuto, who was still busying himself with the paper in front of him. She watched his beautiful eyes flicker across the page, half-hidden beneath long eyelashes. The crease had appeared between his eyebrows and the corner of his lips was turned downwards. She watched in silence as he lifted his pen and slowly thumped it against the long, thin bridge of his nose before quickly bringing it back down to the page.

'A girl who came alive at odd hours of the night,' Amu re-read. The sentence troubled her. No matter how hard she tried to deny it, there was a tugging at her heart, making her want to believe that he had written this song about her. After all, she did happen to be in the mail room or laundry room at weird times in the evening.

But had Ikuto really been paying attention to her habits? Was she the reason he, too, checked his mail at nighttime?

She frowned and dared to use the voice she was sure she had lost.

"I-Ikuto, can I ask you something?"

He had leaned back in his chair to look at his work from afar. He still hadn't noticed the song she had found.

"Let me guess…you want to know how I got so attractive."

Amu rolled her eyes, "Nope, pretty sure that's not it."

"One day you'll ask," he promised slyly.

Yoru snuffled into the crease of her elbow, bringing feeling back into her limbs. Her heart seemed about to burst. Blushing a dusty pink, Amu swallowed once and spoke again.

"Why do you check your mail…at odd hours of the night..?" She asked, unsure, after her honey-colored eyes flickered across that line again.

The words seemed familiar to Ikuto, as well, as he turned around to look at her with a blank face.

She watched as his eyes paused on the paper in her hand. After a beat, the blue orbs slowly moved up to meet hers and Amu felt her heartbeat grow louder in her ears. She found she couldn't move, even if she wanted to.

Finally, Ikuto spoke, but didn't remove his gaze.

"Because that's when I get to see you."

The sincerity in his voice made her blush deepen as her lips parted to allow more air into her lungs, as her nose seemed to stop working.

Seeming frustrated with the lack of attention he was getting, Yoru whined loudly and dropped from Amu's arms, bringing her back to reality.

She tore her gaze away and set the paper back onto the desk. Staring sideways, she refused to make eye-contact, feeling her painfully obvious blush continue to grow at the reality of the situation: Ikuto liked her and she hadn't even noticed the signs.

"Wh-when? For… how long?" her voice was soft, shy.

Ikuto breathed out a chuckle and dangled his pen over his sheet of paper, watching it swing back and forth. "I don't know, Amu. …Probably since the first time I picked up your letter-opener."

It always came back to that dang letter-opener, didn't it?

Amu smiled softly at the realization. Setting the stuffed bear onto the desk, she awkwardly swung her arms back and forth before clearing her throat. It was then she realized she was probably expected to give an answer.

Heart thumping against her ribcage, words tumbled out of her mouth without her being able to stop them.

"Well, I've left my dinner to cook so I should probably make sure my apartment isn't being burned down."

She left the apartment as quick as she could without it being too obvious.

That was not how she planned for things to go down. At least she hoped to have been able to voice to him how she felt, too.

Stepping into the elevator, she gave out a horrified groan and dragged her hands down her face, wishing she could peel off her skin. Leaning back against the elevator wall, Amu cringed, then groaned, then scowled at herself.

She needed to give Rima a call.