Chapter 21: Epilogue
With Ikuto's arm wrapped tightly around my waist (for the past week he hadn't let me out of his sight. It was like he'd lost his memory all over again) I watched Emily and her seven friends assure themselves that they weren't forgetting anything. The plane sat idle some meters away. Emily, with her red hair gleaming in the bright sun, turned around and smiled at the Guardians (and Utau who was also there seeing off).
"I'm so sorry about all the trouble we've caused." she apologized. I shook my head,
"Not at all." Truth be told it was kind of her fault all this happened, but I was glad I'd been able to help her. Plus, she had opened our eyes even more to the world of Charas, and the greed of people involved in them. We weren't going to ignore the problem of Hollow's Eve. No, they'd hurt Ikuto too many times for that.
A part of me still wished we had killed that Phineas guy, but instead he had a life sentence in jail for attempted murder. Of course our claims that Walker had anything to do with this were proved false by all investigations. Nagihiko had been right; Walker was tricky.
Emily sighed, bringing me back to reality, "I'll miss you guys." Then she looked at me with a happy smile that reminded me of my first impression of her. The crazy idiot girl.
"I'll miss you the most Amu-chan!" I grinned,
"I don't know what we would've done without you through all this." I admitted. Though that was only half true, but I pushed down the part of me that kept saying it was mostly her fault.
Emily turned to leave as her friends began shuffling on board the plane, muttering their half apologies half goodbyes to us as they went.
"I guess the Guardians are going to need a new Ten of Hearts..." Tadase mumbled. Emily turned abruptly to glare at him. With hands on hips she shouted,
"If you value your life then you'll think twice about replacing me! I was, am now, and forever will be the Ten of Hearts of the Guardians! Got that?" Tadase's eyes widened with surprise and a touched of fear. He started stuttering unintelligibly. Then Emily started cracking up,
"I'm kidding!" she managed to say through her hysterical laughs.
"EMILY-CHAN! The planes gonna leave without you and I don't think you can swim from Japan to California!" Emily rolled her eyes and muttered to me,
"She forgets with the Yin Yang Jewel back I can fly." then she turned her head and called back,
"I'll be there in a second!" Then she proceeded to hug each of us. Even Tadase, which surprised me. She must have been going crazy with all the airplane fumes.
She grabbed her bags and climbed up the stairs into the plane (it was one of those small ones where you have to enter it by going outside the actual airport building). Just before the plane doors closed she yelled as loud as she could over the noise of the rest of the airport,
"THANK YOU!"
The next day was a Sunday. It was rather early and I sat at my laptop searching for an episode of an anime that shows on a channel I don't get, when suddenly I heard the "ding" sound that my email made. I switched windows and was surprised to see Emily had emailed me. I looked at the clock. She couldn't have been home for more than an hour and yet she was already emailing me. I clicked the email and started reading. It said:
To: amuletpunk
From: amuto4eva
Hey Amu-chan! XD guess who? XD I got home a little more than an hour ago... did you know flights from Japan to America take 11 hours? I only just got on my computer because my parents kept wanting to talk to me about my trip. Of course I couldn't tell them half of the truth because most of it involved Charas! Not only that I didn't understand half of what they were saying! Plus I kept answering them in Japanese cuz I'm so unused to English. And I'm really tired because I couldn't sleep on the flight, and Andie kept whining because her laptop battery died and she couldn't watch anime, and then Valerie was talking about this anime I don't know called Kaze no Stigma and I got really confused. Then I got out my laptop to watch LuckyStar, but then Samantha took it and started watching all these American shows that I have no interest in! And then my battery died too! And I have one of those new macs with the really long battery! Barbara was depressing herself over everyone who died in every anime she's ever watched. Then she and Veronica started talking about Naruto, and suddenly everyone was talking about Naruto! Well except me and Ambra... we're not really into Naruto and so we started drawing. Anna... I think the whole time she was insulting one person or another. And out Charas! Don't get me started on our Charas! They caused so much trouble on the plane and I think the flight attendants think we're obese or something because we ordered like twice as much food as we needed because of them! Everyone around us thought we were crazy you should've seen it!
I laughed to myself, but before I could click "reply" I heard an unexpected chuckle behind me. I nearly fell out of my chair and then I saw the blue of Ikuto's hair and sighed.
"Stupid perverted cat! Don't sneak up on people! And I could've sworn I locked my balcony door!" I grimaced at him, but I knew that he could see the pleasure dancing in my eyes. He smirked and held up two what-used-to-be-paperclips.
"I picked the lock." Then he looked over my shoulder and smiled.
"Well aren't you going to reply?" I stuck my tongue out at him.
"I was about to before you gave me a heart attack!" Ikuto just chuckled and clicked the "reply" button before I could. Then he picked me up out of my chair and sat down.
"Hey!" I protested, but then he proceeded to pull me on top of his lap. I blushed powerfully.
"Pervert." I muttered, but then started typing.
To: amuto4eva
From: amuletpunk
Emily-chan! It's good to hear from you! *Laughs * sounds like you had a pretty fun trip! I never got to ask you, what with the whole evil organizations after the Embryo and the Ikuto losing his memory thing, what's San Francisco like? Last year the Guardians and I almost went there, but then there was that plane crash and we never made it. It's only been eleven hours so not much has changed. Ikuto's here with me! He nearly gave me a heart attack (I didn't even know he knew how to pick locks). After you left I think Tadase started crying.
After I typed that Ikuto brushed my hands from the keyboard and added "He's a jerk face, but don't worry Keiko slapped him and then he stopped blubbering." I sighed, leaving the comment in just to make Ikuto happy and then continued writing:
Now Tadase's on super king mode and won't stop yapping about finding a new Ten of Hearts as soon as possible so he isn't short one 'commoner'. It hasn't been a day and all he does is spam everyone with possible Ten of Heart candidates. This morning Utau sent me an email where she was basically going crazy because Kukai's graduating this year. Hey wait! He's the same age as you! So doesn't that mean your graduating this year too? That's so awesome! Anyway Kukai's graduation is really soon and before all the St. Patrick's Day/Hollow's Eve stuff she'd been wanting to do this huge event. Now she's rushing to get everything done. You should send her an email trying to calm her down. And Yaya wants you to email her too bye the way. Well you probably know that cuz I'm betting she's already spammed your inbox right? By the way... Do you live on the internet or something? Now that I think of it, at school you always had your computer with you! No matter what! XD Reply soon!
I clicked the send button and there was that awesome "woosh" sound the sending thing always makes. I sighed. I hadn't sent such a long email in my life. Usually my emails consisted of, "How's it going", "I'm fine", "My Charas are going crazy again", "Love you Ikuto", and other short things like that.
Ikuto hugged me. and purred like a cat. I giggled a little. He'd been slowly getting his energy back. Now he was almost 100% and that filled me with happiness.
Then Ikuto said seriously (to my surprise),
"That day... you broke up with me." my eyes widened and I stared at him. I hadn't really thought about it since then. I'd been too happy about his memories coming back that I'd completely forgotten.
"Yes... Ikuto... I'm not sure we can have a relationship when... when... so many people are out to get me... and because of Easter I'm sure there are a lot of people with a vendetta against you as well. Its too dangerous."
"Hmmm." Ikuto murmured. Then he smiled, taking my chin between his thumb and index finger, and brought my head up so I was looking at him.
"Will you marry me?" he smirked, as if he were asking my out for coffee, as if it wasn't supposed to be the most important thing in a girl's life. I stared into his indigo eyes.
Suddenly my sister Ami (age 9 who had never lost her ability to see charas) slammed open my door screaming,
"NEKO-SAN!" she grabbed Yoru and ran. Ikuto and I sweat dropped.
Author: MWAHAHAHAHA! I'm evil
Crazy amuto fans: WHAT THE ***********************! YOU ****ING ******* PILE OF ************ WITH A ************ YOU ******* HOW COULD YOU *****ING *************** THAT WHEN IKUTO ASKED AMU TO MARRY HIM!
Amu: *sweat drop *
Ikuto: Back back you crazy fangirlz don't make me use my smexy kitty ikuto powers!
Crazy amuto fans: !
(Random Crazy amuto fan in the back): I'll marry you Ikuto!
Crazy amuto fans: NOOOOOO! MARRY ME IKUTO-KOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIII!
Amu: BACK BACK YOU CRAZY FANGIRLZ! HE'S MINE!
Crazy amuto fans: YAY!
Author: ?
Crazy amuto fans: we're happy either way :D
Author: ... Review please, cuz this is the last chapter of ten of hearts in case you didn't get the memo.