When I Met You (An Amuto Love Story) ♬♥~Complete~♥♬

Chapter 11: Information In and Out

"I have a family. I have Ami, Nagi, Rima, Ran, Miki, Su, Dia, Kukai, Yaya, Temari-oneesan, and Rhythm-san and now I have new friends too. They're not perfect and they're not my biological family either, except Ami anyway, but I love them just the way they are." She told him "I wouldn't have things any other way."

Ikuto was stunned, she didn't have her family, she was miserable at times but compared to his life, she seemed to be way happier than he was. Amu looked at Ikuto and he told her something that shocked her a bit.

"You know, you're strong. You can handle all of this, and you're still happy. It's kind of annoying, seeing how you can bear all that, but it's worth it for you." He told her "You're happy no one can miss that."

"You make is sound like you're not. You have everything in your life, why be lonely?" she asked him, but in reality she knew full well what it could have been like. She just wanted to hear Ikuto tell her about it.

"Because all I have is meaningless. They're mostly material things and they won't last long." Said Ikuto "Look at it this way, there may be only a few people I can actually talk to. Utau, Yoru, Tadase. There's Nikaidou and Yukairi-san but that's different and I'm not even close to Kairi."

"Kairi?" asked Amu "Who's Kairi?"

"Kid genius. He's got his head in books and he wants everything in order but he's not so bad, I guess…." Stated Ikuto with a shrug

"…does Utau feel that way too?..." asked Amu

"Yeah, she feels even worse some times. You have no idea…" Ikuto muttered the last part but she still heard him.

"Lonely….is that how it is for you?" she asked

"Huh?" asked Ikuto

"You guys are lonely, guess it's true when someone says money can't buy everything." Said Amu

"Money, it can't buy you a normal life…." Said Ikuto

Amu was silent for a while and then it hit her. Ikuto was shifting to another side of him again. Not the perverted side, no definitely not that, but this side, something she hasn't seen yet. "I'd be nicer if he was like this all the time, but I guess that just what makes Ikuto…well Ikuto" she giggled slightly at the thought. She remembered how it felt not having Ikuto around to tease her and it just ended up being funny to her and ironic that she wanted to see that side again.

"Do you mind telling me what's so funny?" asked Ikuto as he saw her laughing to herself

"Nothing, I just had a thought." Replied Amu and she ceased her laughing now.

"Sure didn't look like just a thought." Replied Ikuto

"Honestly, it was nothing." She was now calm just like earlier.

Ikuto smiled to himself, happy to see Amu back to normal again. Then he remembered the cause of all this. "Hey Amu…" he started

"Yeah?" she asked

"I need to ask you something." Amu stayed silent and waited for his question "When you first woke up, you were babbling on and on about something. Something about you and your friends getting 'punished'. I asked you about it but you didn't have time to answer cause that's about when Utau came in the room."

Amu was silent, she knew what he wanted to know but could she really tell him? "Ikuto, it's complicated…."

"I've got room for complications." He simply told her, but she could tell he was serious

"Punished….that's what they'd usually tell us." She started "We couldn't brake the rules, or something horrible would happen to us. That was basically the logic they wanted. If you want to stay in one piece, you have to stay out of trouble."