Shou had been coming around a lot lately. My impression of him wasn't that great to begin with ever since he had come home with Ami that one day and slung his arm around her butt. But from the few weeks that he had been coming over, he wasn't a bad person in general. Like that one time I was coming home with the groceries and the pair of them were already home. He did come and help me carry the bags into the kitchen. And that time I was having car troubles because it wouldn't start. Well with the very few tools I have laying around my house, he did manage to fix it. Don't get me wrong or anything, I still don't approve of him but he is a 'pretty' decent guy.

Gosh summers were hot in Japan, I thought as I fanned myself for what seemed the hundredth time today. I was sprawled out on the couch with my hair up in a high ponytail, a fan in one hand and a cool drink in the other. As for my appearance, I was wearing a white tank top with black polka dots and jean shorts. There was only one thing wrong with this picture – yeah our air conditioner was flat out broken.

Guess who was fixing it, our current handyman of the house – Shou. I got up off of the couch knowing that it'd only make me hotter than I already was. But ever since Shou, I'd been checking up on them a lot lately. Ami was younger than all the other girls in her grade – thirteen and already a sophomore. When I was thirteen I was in middle school. And he was sixteen and a sophomore.

I walked outside and found Shou hunkered over the air conditioner. His white shirt was slightly damp and his dirty blonde hair was pasted to his forehead by the sweat. His faded jeans were slung low on his hip showing off some black Calvin Klein boxers and a tool belt was fastened around his waist. Ami was sitting next to him every once in a while handing him a screw or a part of the many pieces of the air conditioner scattered around them. Déjà vu much?

"So how's it going guys?"

Shou turned around first staring at me with determined brown eyes.

"It's fine – it was just overheated."

No wonder – it had been on night and day ever since the temperature started to rise quickly.

"Oh, well I'll be inside if you two need anything."

"Okay."

"Thanks Amu," said Ami beaming happily at me.

I was heading inside when I saw Shou lift up a curvy metal piece and hold it to his face imitating a moustache making Ami burst out laughing. Even though I didn't fully agree with him, it did warm my heart to see my little sister so happy.

Later

"Oh that feels so good!" I exclaimed in delight when I felt the first gust of cool air blow into the house.

"Glad I could help," he chuckled. "I have to go."

I lifted my head up from the couch and stared at him.

"What? Why? You should stay and have dinner with us after all that hard work."

"Yeah, but my mom would freak out," he muttered simply.

Getting up, I said my goodbyes to him as did Ami who received a small peck on her cheek from him. Deciding to get even with Ami I pulled out my phone.

When he was gone, I held up my phone to her face.

"Look what I have Ami," I gloated happily.

She looked from to my phone and her eyes widened when she saw the picture I had taken of her.

"AMU, DELETE THAT!" she screamed running after me.

Oh yeah, definitely déjà vu.

x

"Hey, Amu can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," I replied easily as I stuffed some chicken and pasta into my mouth.

"Can I go to a party?"

"Birthday party?"

"No – like a party party."

"Alcohol?"

"I don't know."

"Chaperones?"

"No."

"No."

"Amu! That's not fair!"

"You can't go Ami."

"All my friends are going and Shou!"

"If all your friends wanted to take drugs, would you?"

"No…"

"Exactly you can't go."

It was silent for a moment before she jumped out of her seat and stared at me icily.

"Stop trying to act like you're mom! You're just Amu, and you can never replace her!" she shouted angrily before running upstairs.

I stared back down at my bowl of food and immediately lost my appetite. All I could think about right now were the words she had just shouted at me. With my heart pretty torn, I closed my eyes and rested my head on the table.

The Next Day

It would be an understatement to say that Ami was mad at me. She wouldn't even spare a blink, look, or breath in my direction. If I walked into a room, she quickly walked out. If I went out of a room, she would possibly walk back in to get whatever it was she needed.

Sighing, I grabbed the keys and left.

When I got to work, I found Rima just sitting around in my office.

"You come to work late," she accused with a large grin.

"I wish I could stay at work all day," I admitted with an exasperated sigh.

"Okay okay, Dr. Rima is here. Tell me what's wrong…Is it Ikuto?"

"What, no. I'm sick of thinking about him nonstop and killing myself on the inside. Forget about him – it's Ami."

"She's hardly thirteen but she's a sophomore and already has a sixteen year old boyfriend."

"Ikuto's seven years older than you," she noted with an arched brow.

"But I'm a mature adult!"

When she raised her brow again I threw a pencil at her. Releasing a sigh, I rested my cheek on my loose fist and stared at the blonde in front of me.

"She wants to go to this party."

"And you said no, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well you did the right thing, high school parties honestly suck. They either make your or break you. And if you're lucky, nothing changes."

"You've been to high school parties?"

"Tons. Let's just say that my best memories didn't come from those late night parties."

"Oh," I replied lamely, "How are you and Nagi doing?"

"Good, he took me to meet his parents two days ago."

At this my eyes widened to large saucers.

"What happened?"

"Nothing, I almost got along with them the whole evening."

"Almost?"

"His mother and I. Gosh the woman doesn't know how to properly season a piece of chicken. So I gave her some 'thoughtful criticism' and everything blew up."

"Thoughtful criticism?"

Now it was her turn to throw the pencil that had been lying on the floor at me.

Saturday Night

I had wanted to stay home with Ami and try to keep her mind off the party that was being held today, but Tsukasa had other plans for me. And I wasn't actually sure whether to be excited or slightly frustrated. My first negotiation case in months, and with energy bubbling inside of me, I was getting ready at mad speed.

"Ami, I'm leaving okay?"

"Where are you going?"

I ignored the slight attitude she had thrown at me. Of course she'd be more pissed than usual tonight; it was the night of the party.

"Negotiation case."

When she didn't reply, I took the liberty of moving to sit on the couch beside her.

"Listen Ami, I'm sorry that you're upset and angry with me. I get it, but I'd rather have that than you ending up hurt somewhere."

"Whatever."

Knowing my words wouldn't get through to her; I released a large sigh and got up.

"If you need anything, you can call Utau. She's at Kukai's house tonight."

"Okay."

"Bye."

"…"

I shut the door behind me and got into my car.

When I arrived at the scene the parking lot of the drug store was filled with police cars and curious spectators. I zipped my jacket up when a fierce cold wind attacked me and ran towards where Tsukasa, Rima and Nagi were standing.

"Hostage situation?" I asked taking note of the cops surrounding the entrance of the store.

"Thankfully not," answered Nagi.

"We have a suicidal jumper," finished Rima.

Grabbing the number of the man from Tsukasa, I walked over with a surge of excitement and dread slowly growing within me.

Ami POV

When I was sure Amu's car was gone, I quickly raced upstairs and called Shou.

"Hey sugar, what's up?" he replied lazily.

"Hi, can you come pick me up for tonight?"

"I thought you weren't coming?"

"Change of plans."

"Okay, guess I'll come at around 8ish."

"Thanks."

I peeled out of my clothes, and grabbed my strapless black romper. I paired it with my short brown cowboy boots and left my wavy hair open. I lightly traced my eyes with black eyeliner and light pink eye shadow. I wasn't much for makeup. I pulled back my bangs with a small pink bow clip and then applied some colored lip gloss.

In a matter of minutes after I had gotten ready, Shou rang the doorbell looking as handsome as ever.

"You look hot," he said planting a kiss on my cheek.

"So do you," I giggled.

"Shall we?" he asked holding out his hand.

"We shall."

He led me to his convertible where he opened the door for me. Smiling at him softly, I kissed him one more time before sitting inside. The music played as the two of us chatted about random things that people would talk about. Shou pulled to halt where we reached a house with people littering the front lawn and music blaring.

He quickly got out and opened my door for me before we headed inside the party. If I thought the front lawn was littered with people, then you should've seen all the people crammed into the house. The kitchen was turned into something like a bar where alcohol was being served along with water, soda and punch. Half the people were kissing and others were doing naughty things while dancing.

Shou stayed by my side until he saw a group of his friends. He gave me careful instructions to stay by the kitchen at all times, and if something happened I should just scream. I poured myself some punch and just idly drank while I watched everyone dance.

"Hey cutie."

I turned around to see the quarterback of the football team, Jack, standing right before me.

"Hi."

"Want to dance?"

I studied the jock before agreeing. Shou never said anything about not dancing. We got on the dance floor where everyone was jammed pack. I was dancing pretty well, until I felt more people crowd onto the dance floor and rub themselves against me – whether it was on purpose or not.

"What's wrong?" shouted Jack over the loud music.

"Nothing," I lied, "Just thirsty."

"I'll get us some drinks," he said before disappearing into the crowd.

I gently swayed my hips to the music while I waited for Jack to return. When he took longer than I expected, I forced my way through everyone to find him lying on top of one of the cheerleaders on the couch kissing her madly.

So here I was, back at square one standing by the kitchen just staring at people dance. Then I saw a couple of overly exposed girls make their way to me, it wasn't until they were a couple feet away, I saw who they actually were. Saki, Sarah and those other girls who followed them around.

"What do you want?" I snarled.

Saki held her hands up in defense.

"Nothing at all Ami. We just wanted to hang out with you."

"Hang out?"

"Yeah, I mean I thought you were this dreadfully boring girl, but look what we have ourselves here. A party girl."

"Did you come alone?" asked Sarah.

"No, I actually came with Shou."

"Where is h-

"It doesn't matter Sarah," interrupted Saki, "Let's just go dance."

Smiling at this symbol of truce, I followed them onto the dance floor.

x

I wasn't sure what had gotten into me, it must've been all the punch Saki had gotten for me. Maybe I was having a sugar rush, but before I knew it, I was barefoot and dancing with some random guy. In the background, Saki was cheering me on.

The guy then placed his hand on my hips and pulled me way close to his body. From there he slammed his greedy lips on mine and we began a hot make out session. When the music stopped, our turn was down and two other randomly selected people were chosen to go dance.

I walked to an unoccupied bathroom and splashed my face with water and then reapplied my makeup. I pulled out my cell phone from the pocket of my romper and checked the time. It was close to midnight. Sighing, I walked back to the dance floor and grabbed my shoes. Much to my dismay, it was time to go home. Amu was bound to be back by now and I didn't want to be stuck in the middle of one her boring lectures.

I asked around for Shou and finally found him sitting in one of the rooms with his friends playing video games. Actually they were mainly talking. I walked over to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek giving his entire focus to me.

"Shou I have to go."

"Right now?" he mumbled in utter disappointment.

I furrowed my brows together. Usually he'd agree with me.

"Yes, come on."

He got up and wobbly walked over to me. It was so bad, he almost fell. I grabbed him by the shoulders to keep him upright.

"Shou are you drunk?"

"No," he said in a slurred tone.

I wrinkled my nose in the horrible smell of his breath. Rolling my eyes I led him to his car.

"Can you drive?"

"Of course I can."

"Are you sure?" I asked again.

"Well, can you drive?"

"No…"

"Exactly."

He pulled out of the parking space between two cars and got onto the unusually empty freeway.

"This isn't the way to my house Shou."

"Yeah it is, I just wanted to spend some more time with you."

Smiling, I stared outside looking at the lit up streets. Shou slowly started to increase the volume of the radio till it was on MAX and was slowly increasing the speed of the car.

"You're going too fast! Slow down Shou."

"Relax babe, enjoy yourself."

"Shou, you're drunk and you're going to fast – pull over."

"Babe-

"PULL OVER!" I shouted.

He took his attention off the road and stared at me before looking back at the road.

"Fine if this idiot would stop coming closer to me and turn down his light."

Confused, I looked up and screamed.

Afterwards everything went black.

Author's Note

Dun. Dun. Duuuun. Yes, I left it on a cliffy. We are inching closer and closer to the end of the story. So be prepared.

My appreciated thanks to:

xXMidnightNekoXx

TinkToxiixix

CelestialEternity

aznpride16xx

UnlcukyJinx

DarkChoclat

XeMi-ChIx

animefan7272

alchemistlover 14

Animefreaksrock96

kisshu-ichigo

Tsukiyomi Macey

Another note~ For my next story which I'm already itching to write. I'll be taking a small break from all the action and violence this story especially had as well as R.S.A.L did. So my next story and hopefully the one after that will be peaceful.

Read~Review~Enjoy

Neko-Meme