Kate: Heya, so for the next chapter, would you want to see an Amuto, Rimahiko, or Kutau moment? I can try to put one in, depending on which one is requested the most ^_^.

Disclaimer: I do not own.

Chapter: 5

There was something pleasant about Seiyo Village in the summer. Perhaps it was that one neighbor that was constantly outside tending to their garden, or it was the large trees that provided the only source of shade, or maybe it was just the warmth of the air that greeted you every time you stepped outside.

This was the time of the year that Tadase favored. Well... usually favored. If he wasn't around, it'd be a lot more enjoyable. He as in Tsukiyomi Ikuto: Tadase's enemy since that one day seven years ago. Not to mention it was just a year later that Ikuto had met Amu.

Everything went downhill from there.

Brushing the back of his hand against his brow, Tadase glared silently at Ikuto. The blond was sulking in his seat at one of the bowling alley's many tables. In all honesty, he wanted to be the one to teach Yoru how to bowl. But no, of course Yoru chose to ask Ikuto to help him instead.

Why did he even have to be around? Right when Tadase thought Amu was forgetting about him and that he was officially out of everyone's lives, he shows up again, ruining all chances for the blond to finally confess to Amu. He wouldn't deny it any longer. He was in love with Hinamori Amu and had been ever since middle school.

However, that was before he had appeared in her life. Before she had fallen from a tree, landing on him. Before she had volunteered for a summer job, working at a music store that he always went to.

Tadase didn't know if he could bear it any longer. Tsukiyomi Ikuto was just a black cat of misfortune. Everyone knew that. They also made sure to remind Ikuto of that fact almost daily. A week wouldn't go by without at least one person saying that to him. They knew that nothing could hurt him more.

Clenching his jaw tightly, Tadase watched Yoru pout after he had thrown a bowling ball into the gutter. Ikuto said a few reassuring words before ruffling the little boy's hair and picking up another ball, once again trying to show Yoru how to throw it so it would go straight.

Having Ikuto around never did have positive outcomes. In fact, Tadase had never told anyone of this, but he had grown up with Ikuto. They were practically brothers. Even though he was a few years older, he still played hide and seek whenever Tadase had asked him to.

Tadase vaguely remembered that one spring night Ikuto had arrived on the front porch of the Hotori household. He was around the age of five, while Tadase was three.

Ikuto's father, Aruto, had disappeared without a trace just a few months before, leaving the young boy to help his mom in her fragile state. With Ikuto as a constant reminder of her husband, Souko could take it no longer and sent him to live with Tadase.

It was from that point on that Tadase's life had taken a turn for the worse. His dog died, his grandma got sick, his parents were fighting more than usual. When Ikuto left to once again live with his timid mother, who was now re-married to some guy named Kazuomi, the unfortunate events stopped occurring.

That is, until Ikuto was nineteen and he had met seventeen year old Amu. Tadase was searching all over the school yard for Amu, gaining his courage to confess, since it was graduation day, after all. Graduation was the perfect day since if she rejected him, he could disappear, and if she accepted, they could go to the same university and live happily ever after or something.

He had seen Ikuto sleeping underneath a tree. His mom had most likely forced him to show up to congratulate Tadase. Knowing him, Ikuto probably got tired of searching and decided to take a nap.

It was at that moment that Amu fell out of that tree, landing on the blue-haired boy. That was an awkward silence. Ikuto staring at Amu, Amu staring at him. The cat she had just rescued from one of the tree branches struggled his way out of the pinkette's hand and dashed away, leaving the two strangers there to make sense of the situation.

Tadase sighed at the memory. Who would've guessed that six years later, they'd have a son, Ikuto wouldn't have his memory, Amu would still be in love with Ikuto, and Tadase would still love Amu. Life was complicated sometimes.

The blond male idly started twirling his straw around in his ice water, never taking his ruby eyes off of Yoru. Some would call him over-protective, but he figured it was his duty as Amu's friend: to keep her son safe.

He had been so focused on making sure Yoru was safe with the rest of the children from Miki's party that he didn't notice Ikuto take a seat across from him.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were Yoru's father." Ikuto commented with a smirk. "Judging by the way you act whenever he's around."

Tadase forced a smile. "Really? Well... I don't know if I'd want to be compared to that man." He replied, loving the fact that he could talk about Yoru's dad straight to Ikuto's face and he'd have no clue that it was himself. "He was never in Yoru's life. In fact, he wasn't around when Amu was pregnant, either. So... I guess I just feel like her boy deserves to have someone that'd be like a father to him."

Ikuto nodded slowly before looking over at Yoru. Whoever wouldn't want to be a part of their kid's life must have serious problems. They helped create the child, so they should also be around to help raise it. "Did we used to know each other?"

The question took Tadase aback. He wasn't remembering was he? The blond hoped he hadn't said anything that triggered a memory, or Amu would have his head cut off in an instant. "Uhh n-no, why are you wondering?"

"Because even though you're trying really hard to cover it up, I can tell that you're either mad at me or you hate me... I'm trying to figure out why." Ikuto replied as his eyebrows slanted downwards, studying Tadase carefully.

"Oh... well... we didn't know each other that well. We were just family friends." Tadase stated. "I guess I still have some unresolved anger from a few years back when we were fighting over a girl."

This made the blue-haired man smirk. "I'm guessing I got her..?"

"What makes you say that! You think I'm not good enough?" Tadase demanded. "'Cause let me tell you, I will soon be the king of the world and I will have whoever I want."

"Calm down, kiddy king." Ikuto chuckled, clearly amused with Tadase's reaction. "I just figured it was kind of obvious that I got the girl, seeing as how you're still mad at me. If you ended up with her, you would be prancing around right now and rubbing it in my face."

And the blond started sulking once again.

-MEANWHILE-

Kukai frowned. He took a seat on Utau's couch as he tried to picture what the living room would look like after he had finished cleaning it. However, it was rather difficult since he had never even seen the floor of the room.

Utau was a messy, yet tidy kind of woman. In her apartment, there was danger at every corner. But it was perfect for her, because she knew where everything was. Which was why she didn't bother cleaning. Face the facts, when you have a messy room, you seem to know exactly where everything is, but after tidying, you can't find a thing. Which was the case with Utau. This was unknown to Kukai, though, who thought she was just too lazy to clean.

The brunette hoisted himself back to his feet, tip-toeing across the mountains of clothes, magazines, shoes, CDs, make up, and nail polish, over to the opposite end of the room where the kitchen was. Utau never cooked, so she stored the rest of her junk on top of the stove and in cabinets. Kukai could've sworn he had once seen her place shoes in the oven since she had no other space.

This was all another reason why the two never got along. Kukai was a rather clean person who couldn't stand having a pile of dirty laundry in the same room as him. Utau, on the other hand, didn't care. Of course she washed her clothes, but only when she was down to one more clean outfit to wear. She was messy, yet refused to wear a shirt that hadn't been washed since the last time she had worn it.

About once a month was laundry day. That meant getting Nagihiko, Amu, Rima, Kukai, and sometimes even Yoru to help Utau carry bags of clothing down the street to the laundromat.

Kukai shuddered at the memory. Strapping on yellow, rubber gloves, he pulled on a pair of safety goggles before continuing his mission. This was the plan he had come up with as a way of apologizing to Utau, since he had beat her at poker just days before. She was still pissed off about that, and he knew that if he didn't do something soon, she would come up with an even worse punishment.

He was just doing this to get on her good side. If you didn't do something to make up for beating Utau at a game, you'd regret it for the rest of your life.

"Alright..." Kukai began, sitting on an empty space on the kitchen counter. From the dark purple walls to the hardwood floor, everything was a disaster. Before doing anything else, the male pulled on a white lab coat he had stolen from his chemistry lab in the eleventh grade. "Come to Kukai!" He exclaimed loudly as he reached over to the stove, picking up the pile of jewelry.

Just as he was about to sort through it, the door opened, freezing him in his place.

"...You know... I can't really say that I'm surprised." Rima commented in monotone once seeing what Kukai was wearing. Shutting the door behind her, the petite blond trudged over to the couch, where she began skimming through a magazine.

"Thanks, Rima." Kukai said, his voice strained as he reached for another pile of jewelry. "That really means a lot to me."

After dropping all the jewelry he could find into a pile on the window seat, he began moving the couch across the room, then once again froze once hearing the door open.

"...Well, Nagi, you never kno- Kukai, what are you doing?" Amu asked in a panic. Nagihiko slowly closed the door as he shook his head. "You're a dead man, Souma."

Kukai swam through a heap of shoes, shuddering as he wiped invisible germs off of his coat. "I thought that cleaning her apartment was a good way of apologizing for taking all of Utau's money in poker and all. Why is everybody being so dramatic?"

Amu closed her eyes, hoping for Kukai's sake that this was all a dream. "Oh no, no, no. Kukai, I know you did this for all the right reasons, but never, ever clean a female's apartment without their authorization." She said dangerously.

"...Why not?"

"Because first of all, there could be feminine products such as packages of tampons lying around, and also because this is Utau. She knows where everything is and we all know what happens when she can't find something she's looking for!" Amu stated, already grabbing Nagihiko's wrist to look at his watch.

In only a few minutes Utau would be home. There was no way possible that they would be able to put everything back in it's original place. And when the blond got home, she would instantly notice that something was different. That would be everyone's cue to run for the hills.

Kukai was already starting to panic. "But- wh-why do you have a clean place? How was I supposed to know that Utau wasn't just too lazy to clean or something!"

"Kukai, I have a son." Amu replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "If I had a messy house, I don't think I'd be able to find him ever again."

"Wha-what do I do! I can't put everything back the way it was! I've been working on this for... I don't know, an hour or two!" Kukai yelled in a voice so high it made Nagihiko cringe.

Rima just continued to hide her amusement by pretending to read an article about different face shapes. "Oh, Amu, speaking of Yoru, where is he?" She asked, peering over her shoulder at the pink-haired girl.

"Tadase and Ikuto took him to Miki's birthday party at the bowling alley." Amu replied while trying to imagine what the room looked like before this incident. "I think those necklaces were on the coffee table before. No, not tho- yeah, those ones."

Rima raised an elegant eyebrow. "'Ikuto'? Since when did you start calling him by his first name? Getting a little friendly, are we?"

Without having to look, everyone knew Amu would be blushing.

"I-I meant to say 'Tsukiyomi-san'. W-we're not friendly at all, I don't even kn-know him." Amu hurriedly replied without making eye-contact with anyone.

Rima's suspicions grew as a frown formed on her face. She pretended to go back to reading, but continued to watch Amu rush about the room. The blond had noticed that ever since Ikuto had arrived in Seiyo Village just a few weeks earlier, Amu started acting odd.

After a few minutes of thinking, Rima got bored of the subject and shrugged it off while everyone else ran around in a frenzy.

"Kukai, move that a little more to the left- No, your other left... there!"

"Uh... I don't think this is suppose to be green."

"Don't throw it away, just put it back where it was."

"You know, you can help out too, Rima."

"I'm sorry." Rima said in a rather convincing tone. "I would ...but I don't want to." Then she went back to reading.

Nagihiko rested his hands on his hips as he did a quick scan of the room. "I think it's as messy as it was before. Looks good." He commented before patting Kukai on the back, who had begun whimpering. After all the work he had put into it, the room was a jungle once more.

Amu gave the brunette a sympathetic hug and a quick kiss on the head. "You did good, Kukai."

Before anymore words were shared, the door was flung open and Utau stomped inside. She threw her purse on a pile of other purses, then tossed her shoes on the counter. Kukai cringed. He needed to clean.
"I think I was just fired!" Utau huffed, folding her arms across her chest and dropping onto the couch next to Rima. "My pig-headed boss was all like, 'Hey, Hoshina, we have to let you go. You-'". She then went dangerously quiet.

…

…

…

"...Who moved my couch?"

All of them knew it: They were doomed.

Any spelling/grammar mistakes? Please let me know!