Well here's another new story.. you would've thought that by now I would be done with writing. But sadly, I've got no life 8D So I'm not done yet. I'm not even close.

Thanks for the 7OO+ reviews on For His Sake! I never expected that the number would get that high, and I doubt that any of my next stories could top that.

And also thanks to you kind people who bothered to vote in the poll :) That's the reason why I'm doing this story. The Strawberry or The Violin won.. by a lot surprisingly.

Well.. here goes nothing...

AGES:

Amu, Nadeshiko, and Nagihiko - 4
Ikuto - 9
Utau - 6

All Adults: Older. That's all you need to know.

Utau and Ikuto aren't related anymore :) Beacause that would screw up my story.

- kindergarden classroom -

"Bye bye Nade-Chan!" Amu shouted out, waving goodbye to her friend.

Nadeshiko turned around and smiled politely. She gave her best friend a quick hug.

"See you tomorrow," She said cheerfully. "Don't forget that we still need to finish drawing that picture!"

Amu grinned. Of course she wouldn't forget. She loved the time she spent at school; it was the only time she could see Nadeshiko. That best friend of hers had to practice dancing whenever she was outside of school.

Nadeshiko's mother impatiently gave the purple-haired girl's hand a light squeeze.

"Nadeshiko," She scolded her daughter. "Hurry up. You have dance practice soon, and Nagi's already waiting in the car."

Amu smiled at the mention of Nagihiko. He was Nadeshiko's twin brother, and Amu always thought the two of them looked really cute together.

Nadeshiko smiled and gave Amu one last wave before following her mother out of the school building.

As soon as the two of them disappeared from sight, Amu turned back around to look at a woman who was leaning against the frame of the door. The woman returned the gaze, her blue eyes filled with worry. Amu frowned.

"Hoshina-sensei doesn't look very happy," She commented like the innocent child she was. 'Hoshina-sensei' smiled and shook her head, her blonde hair swishing against her back.

"No, I'm fine," She corrected Amu. "I'm just a bit worried, that's all. Normally Nadeshiko is the last one to get picked up from school. You're usually one of the first. I can't help but wonder where your parents are today..."

Amu shrugged the whole situation off, completely worry-free. She figured her parents were just taking a while to drive here. She still lived in a childish world, where she could rely on a logical, believeable explanation for anything from her parents. The most she would worry about on the day-to-day to basis was what she was having for dinner and whether her mother had time to stop by a store and buy Amu some candy while driving home.

The pink-haired girl all of a sudden felt a strange urge to go play on the swings in the playground outside. She ran towards the door leading there, her teacher following closely behind her.

- two hours later -

Amu sat on the carpeted floor of the classroom, curled up into a petite little ball. The sky outside was dark, the moon shining brightly, yet her parents still hadn't showed up.

Shockingly, she still wasn't worried. The small girl was more worried about her now very hungry stomach, which her teacher had tried to soothe using random snacks she could find in her purse and around the classroom.

"Amu," She said, sounding very concerned. "Did your parents tell you anything about them being late in picking you up today?"

Amu looked up and shook her head.

Suddenly, the classroom phone began to ring. Hoshina-sensei walked over to it and picked it up.

"Hello?" She said into the receiver.

...

She gasped.

"My god!" She exclaimed. This was enough to get Amu to lift up her head and look at her teacher in curiousity. "Are you serious?"

...

"Don't worry. I'll drive her right over," She said quickly before hanging up the phone. Amu stood up and walked towards her teacher.

"Hoshina-sensei," She said in her adorable-sounding voice. "Who was that?"

The teacher spoken of sighed. She grabbed Amu's small hand and pulled her out of the classroom.

"Sensei!" Amu tried asking again. "What are you doing?"

She got no answer until she was properly strapped into her teacher's car.

"Hoshina-sensei!" Amu said again, tears beginning to form in her eyes. "What's going on?"

"We're going to your parents," The teacher said quietly. That answer was enough to satisfy Amu, so she wiped away her tears and stayed silent for the rest of the car trip.

- hospital -

Hoshina-sensei pulled Amu into the waiting room of the emergency room and led her to one of the empty seats.

"Stay here," She instructed before disappearing into one of the large doors.

Of course, children like Amu didn't like being left alone in public areas. Amu got off the seat, wandering around the waiting room aimlessly.

She eyed the door that her teacher had went through, wondering what was behind that door. What was so urgent that she had to be dragged her and told to wait while something went on on the other side of the door.

Curious, Amu climbed onto one of the chairs and stood on it to get a better view from the glass windows on the door. Inside she saw a long hallway, so long that the pinkette couldn't even begin to see the ending of it.

She saw Hoshina-sensei in the hallway, pacing back and forth in front of a door about three doors down from the one Amu was looking through. There was a nervous look on her face, and her pace seemed to grow quicker with every step.

What could be worrying sensei so much...? And where are Mama and Papa?

The door her teacher was standing in front of suddenly opened. A solemn looking doctor walked out of it, shaking his head sadly. Amu pressed her her face against the glass, hoping to hear a bit of what he was saying.

Unfortunately, all she heard were some low whispers from the doctor. Too quiet for Amu to distinctly hear everything he was saying. But she did see her teacher growing less nervous, but more and more with every word he was saying.

Although, she heard the next thing clearly. Hoshina-sensei had clasped her hands over her mouth, a small horrifed scream escaping her terrified lips. Amu frowned. She was extremely confused. What could be making her so frightened?

~ i s n o w x 3 ~

"You can't be serious!" The teacher gasped. Despite all the other children she taught, Amu seemed to have this strange aura around her. It made her stand out from everyone else, and it made everyone almost instantly love her. And that included the teacher herself, who had come to love Amu as almost a daughter.

Letting Amu know about something like this could crush the little pink-haired girl's heart.

The doctor frowned.

"There has to be some way to save them!" Hoshina-sensei continued. "They still have a daughter to care for, you know?!"

The doctor shook his head again. He glanced again inside the room he had just come out of, where there two bodies on the beds. Both were completely covered by a white cloth each.

"I'm sorry," He said apologetically. "But there was no way anyone could've survived an explosion like that."

The teacher remembered once hearing how dangerous, yet high-paying, it was to work in those chemical labs. Yet Amu's parents still decided to work in a place like that. Look what happened now. Both are gone, leaving their little four year old alone in the world without parents.

"Well, can you tell me which one of their relatives live closest to here?" She suggested. "I can drive their daughter to them. She could stay there until everything gets sorted out."

The doctor smiled and nodded.

"Yes I can," He said. "And by the way, you're a really kind teacher. I can think of so many other teachers off the top of my head that would never go through this kind of trouble just for a student."

Without waiting for a reply, he flipped through a folder of loose papers to look for the piece of information that Hoshina-sensei asked for.

"Oh my," He said, frowning at the papers. "She doesn't have any."

The teacher frowned.

"What do you mean by any?" She asked slowly.

"She has no relatives nearby," The doctor explained. "In fact, the only relatives she does have live all the way in America, and they haven't been seen in ages. I would know, I was good friends with one of them a while back. No contact from them in years."

Hoshina-sensei frowned and thought for a moment.

"Then I'll take her in," She decided. "I'll go ahead and try to find Amu's relatives. But until I do, she can stay with me. My daughter, Utau, has always wanted a little sister anyways. This'll probably the closet she'll ever get."

~ i s n o w x 3 ~

The teacher stepped back into the waiting room to find Amu, curled up fast asleep on one of the chairs.

"Eh... Amu-chan?" Hoshina-sensei said in a soft tone, gently poking the small child. Amu mumbled something in her sleep before lazily opening one eye halfway.

"Ho-Hoshina-sensei?" She asked sleepily, her eyes widening to their full extent when she saw who was standing next to her.

"Come on," Her teacher said to her softly, helping her off the chair. "It's time to go."

Amu was about to follow when she remembered something.

"Where are Mama and Papa?" She asked. Her teacher sighed.

"Just come with me," She said in a voice that told Amu that she shouldn't ask anymore questions. Amu followed that, and was silent until they were back in the car.

Her teacher turned to look at her.

"Amu," She said in her most gentle voice possible. "You're mama and papa... they're not here. They went somewhere, but they'll be back... later..."

Amu's eyes snapped up.

"Did they go to that special place?" She asked quietly. "That special place in the sky, where Mama told me that Grandma is in right now? Are Mama and Papa there right now?"

Hoshina nodded.

"Oh."

To be honest, the teacher was surprised at the short response she got. "Oh." But then again, this was one of those topics where you either cried your eyes out immediately, or you decide to seal all your feelings away from everyone else in your heart and cry it out silently. She figured that Amu was more the the second type.

Amu shrugged. Her pink bangs fell in front of her small face.

"So you'll be staying with me for a while," Hoshina continued. At this, Amu's eyes lit up. The teacher smiled warmly.

That little girl is just too adorable.

~ i s n o w x 3 ~

Amu stepped into the Hoshina's residence, eyes filled with surprised awe. The house was a lot bigger than the one she was used to living in, so she felt like a peasant who just walked into a castle.

Though the many expensive looking items scattered around the house amazed Amu to a great extent, they weren't what held the majority of her attention.

The soft, sweet tune of a song floated gracefully around the house. It was a slow song, full of sorrow yet still filled with the perfect amount of beauty. This song was what Amu focused on. It's sound was the most beautiful thing to have ever reached the small child's ears.

Amu ran in the direction the music was coming from. She ended up in a rather large room located farther back on the first floor of the house. Inside the room was filled with every music instrument, everything from a grand piano to a acoustic guitar.

In the center of the room, a boy stood, playing the violin. His dark blue hair fell in front of his eyes, but he didn't notice as he was so concentrated in the violin. The boy looked to be about nine or ten, five years older than Amu.

Beside him, a much older man sat, listening to the music with an intense concentration, as if he was set on finding as many errors in the song as he could.

Amu, being the naive child she was, did what her first impluse was to do. She bolted into the room and stopped right in front of the boy, startling him. The song stopped instantly.

"Who are you?" He asked smoothly. "And why are you here?"

Eh.. this didn't come out as good as I expected :\ Looks to me like a load of bull-crap.

Review if you want. I don't care. But I still will delete this if there's not enough for my liking.. this I've done for all my fail stories. Which explains why this is only my fourth story in almost six months.

:) I'm sleepy. I'll just end it here.