The Troubles with Cat-Sitting

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...

Around 19:00 (7pm), Tsukasa had pulled into the driveway of the Tsukiyomi residence having just endured a couple hours of terrible, icy roads and hazardous conditions still continuing to occur throughout the night.

Luckily, Tsukasa had managed to place a pick up order at a nearby pizza station close to the house; he had wanted to thank Amu Hinamori for caring for Ikuto Tsukiyomi today, the teenage boy having been left under Tsukasa's care until Ikuto's mother would be finished handling the lawsuit placed again the EASTER company.

As he carried the box of warm pizza and soda cans into the house, Tsukasa noticed that the living room was oddly quiet; Ikuto's playmat and some stuffed toys were laying on the ground near the coffee table next to a brown, leather tote bag that Amu would bring to school. The t.v was on but the volume turned low, with the moving pictures of a young children's tv show playing in the background.

"I'm home! Is anyone here?"

Tsukasa slipped off his outdoor shoes and walked carefully into the kitchen, placing the pizza box on the countertop and soda bottles in the refrigerator. He took notice of the dirty dishes in the sink, having remembered that Amu fed Ikuto not too long ago and frantically called him when the girl was having issues with Ikuto's painful cries after drinking his bottle.

Tsukasa also saw a small, woven brown basket that held not only Amu's four Shugo Chara eggs but also Yoru's egg, respectively representing Ikuto's own Shugo Chara character. However, it seemed that the Charas were out of their eggs, only adding more suspicion to Tsukasa's questions as to where Amu and Ikuto could be?

...

Amu Pov:

From having previously talked with Tsukasa over the phone after the ordeal with Ikuto's bottle, Amu had looked at the clock overhanging near the tv and saw that Tsukasa should arrive to the house no later than 19:00. He mentioned that he would pick up dinner on his way home, provided that the roads would be manageable near the area he intended to stop at.

While rocking Ikuto in her arms and watching the tv screen play a local children's tv show, Amu looked down at her friend, who was silently dozing off. Souko, Ikuto's mom had mentioned before she left that day that Ikuto slept a lot and often required multiple naps throughout the day.

However, as Amu was continuing to rock Ikuto, she noticed a funny smell wafting around the area they sat in- the pink-hair girl scrunched her nose in disgust and turned towards her friend, completely oblivious to the stench that seemed to be emanating from his person.

Amu bent her head down towards Ikuto and took a sniff, closing her eyes and squinting her face. Ikuto needed to be changed again!

Amu remembered the first time she tried to change Ikuto's diaper; she just arrived to the house that same day and after a couple hours had passed by, Ikuto woke up crying. She tried to quickly change him but, due to the circumstances surrounding their past relationship on top of the fact that this job was ideally supposed to be left for Tsukasa, Amu felt that she did a sloppy job and thus shouldn't be left to the task again.

Unfortunately, neither her nor Tsukasa could control when Ikuto was going to have a bowl movement and thus Amu would need to endure the suffering alone.

In addition to the chaos, Amu's three Shugo charas, Ran, Miki and Suu (the fourth egg having gone back in her shell, not quite ready to hatch) alongside Ikuto's character, Yoru had showed up to the house an hour ago having just came back from a meeting with the Guardians to explain the circumstances surrounding Ikuto's level of care and Amu's involvement. The four Shugo Charas were not at all prepared for what they, and unfortunately Amu would have to endure in order to help Ikuto out!

"~Amu, what should we do?~" Ran asked with concern.

"-Oh, Ikuto! What have we gotten ourselves into?-" Yoru sighed dramatically as he floated above Ikuto's head, trying to cover his own nose from the smell!

Amu pondered many ideas, trying to think of the best scenario from this situation. While Tsukasa should be close to the house, Amu didn't want Ikuto to sit for long with a dirty diaper on. However, it was getting late and Amu remembered that Ikuto needed a bath before he went to bed; could she and the Charas bathe Ikuto without exposing too much of him?

... ...

"~Amu, I got the towels!~"

"~Here are the diapers and wipes!~"

"~I found the soap!~"

Ran, Miki and Suu, after having been instructed to gather the supplies necessary to change Ikuto and bathe him, all came into the bathroom alongside Yoru with their respective items and placed them by Amu. Once Amu had been able to get Ikuto to the upstairs bathroom nearest his bedroom (though the challenge of carrying him upstairs proved to be worse than when she got him downstairs), Amu laid Ikuto down on the bathmat and turned the water faucet on in the tub.

As the water poured into the bathtub, Amu started to undress Ikuto: first his shirt, then his pants and socks, leaving the diaper as the last article of clothing to be removed. Oddly enough, Ikuto was calm during the process as Miki and Suu distracted him with a rubber duck and some bubbles they blew from one of the soap containers.

"Yoru, are you ready?" Amu asked the cat Chara with uncertain determination. The two had agreed on a proper plan for changing Ikuto; Yoru would do the "dirty" work by removing the diaper and cleaning his owner, whilst Amu would guide the teen into the bath, making sure that lots, and lots of bubbles would cover Ikuto's sensitive areas.

"-Let's do this!-" Yoru chanted with uncertain encouragement as he went about taking the diaper off, handing it to Ran to throw away; Miki presented the baby powder to Yoru, who poured some of the pink powder onto Ikuto, then Suu gave him the cleaning wipes to finish the job.

"-I'm done Amu! Let's get Ikuto into the bath now!-" Yoru stated as Amu gathered Ikuto in her arms and gently placed the boy into the bath, immediately moving the bubbles around Ikuto's midsection before she went and started to pour water on Ikuto's head, intending on washing his blue hair first before she applied the soap.

Noticing that Ikuto was becoming antsy, Miki gave the little yellow rubber duck to Ikuto for him to play with as Amu washed Ikuto's hair, pouring more water onto him to rinse away the shampoo. As she prepared the conditioner, Amu saw Ikuto slowly chewing on the rubber duck. Smiling to herself, Amu gathered some bubbles in her hands and blew them gently at Ikuto, who started to giggle with excitement as he attempted to pop the bubbles.

"Ikuto, you are too adorable!" Amu squealed as she massaged the conditioner into the boy's hair, with Yoru having taken a scrub brush nearby and started to scrub Ikuto's back. Amu's three Charas sat together on the edge of a small side drawer nearby, watching keenly as Amu and Yoru cleaned Ikuto off.

...

Tsukasa POV:

As he made his way upstairs, Tsukasa could overhear chatting coming from the bathroom adjacent to Ikuto's bedroom. Peering into the room, the door was opened slightly and Tsukasa could make out what appeared to be Amu sitting on her knees over the bathtub with her Chara characters sitting on a small wooden side drawer near the sink basin and Yoru flying about holding a scrub brush.

"KNOCK KNOCK"

Two silent taps against the wooden door was heard. Tsukasa made his way slowly into the bathroom as Amu and the Charas turned their attention to the man suddenly.

"Hello! Hope I'm not interrupting anything here; just came to see where all of you were." Tsukasa kindly stated as he came near the bathtub, just now seeing Ikuto sitting in a big pile of suds and bubbles holding his favorite bath toy whilst Amu shared a smile back as she continued to wash Ikuto off with a cloth she found in a drawer.

"Hi Tsukasa, we are doing good here! Ikuto needed to be changed again so we decided to just bathe him for the night. Are you ok? Were the roads safe?" Amu questionably asked as she handed over the washcloth to Tsukasa, who rolled up his work shirt sleeves and offered to finish scrubbing Ikuto as Amu went to towel herself off (Ikuto was particularly fond of splashing the water in the tub).

"This December weather seems to always be a challenge; today was particularly difficult due to the ice on the roads. Nonetheless, I was able to stop by that pizza station nearby; hope you like cheese pizza!" Tsukasa proudly shared as he unplugged the small plug in the tub, allowing the water to start draining away as Amu handed him a towel to cover Ikuto's naked body.

Wrapping his arms around the boy's figure, Tsukasa picked up Ikuto and carried the teen to his room to get dressed as Amu went about cleaning the bathroom and meeting the duo downstairs alongside the Charas, who were also trying to towel off after having been splashed unexpectedly by Ikuto too.

...

"How are your studies going? Any challenging classes so far?" Tsukasa asked Amu as he, Amu and Ikuto sat together at the dining room table; Ikuto was placed in the high chair once more whilst Tsukasa focused on feeding the boy some mashed up rice and minced pork curry, assuming the pizza would be too much of a choking risk right now to attempt.

Amu sat across the two men, nibbling bits of her pizza slice while pondering the question for a moment. Ever since becoming a Guardian and finding herself facing numerous battles against her enemy, the EASTER cooperation, school at times seemed to be the least important matter (though Amu knew a good education would benefit her greatly in the long run).

None of her current classes were causing much issues; it seemed though that her now apparent aloofness and spacing out situations were causing concerns amongst her peers and family. In particular, Tadase Hotori was taking keen interest towards Amu's wellbeing; the girl still couldn't shake the thought of when she hurt Tadase by lying to him about Ikuto sleeping at her home for a few times as well as when she told Ikuto that she hated him.

Since then up until Ikuto's accident with the EASTER cooperation did Amu start thinking about the importance of the people in her life; how she treated those close to her and how life could be changed in an instance.

"No, I'm doing good in school. To be honest, I just feel so distracted thinking about Ikuto; I just hope he starts showing progress soon" Amu shared honestly to Tsukasa and the man continued to feed Ikuto slowly. Tsukasa offered a small smile to Amu, reassuring her that progress continues to happen everyday that Ikuto is alive.

...

On this night, Tsukasa and Amu, alongside the four Shugo Charas helped prepare Ikuto for sleep as they went about finishing dinner, offering another milk bottle to Ikuto and soon after tucking the teen into his crib-bed.

Amu gave the toy cat to Ikuto as Tsukasa gently placed the pacifier into Ikuto's mouth. Raising the crib's bars to an appropriate height, Tsukasa gave Ikuto a gentle squeeze of his hand as he went to turn off the bedroom lights.

"Goodnight Ikuto, see you in the morning" Amu whispers as she placed a gentle kiss on Ikuto's forehead, sweeping some if his blue locks of hair out of the way.

It started to snow, white emanating the dark contrast of the night.

...

Phew, I feel accomplished! Hope you enjoyed this chapter and come back for more as I continue to update this story! :)