Just open your eyes

And see that

Life. Is. Beautiful.

Will you swear on your life?

That no one will cry

At. My. Funeral.

~Life is Beautiful - Sixx: AM

There is nothing worse than transferring to a new school in the middle of the year. That was Amu Hinamori's opinion any ways, as she continued unloading cardboard boxes full of her clothes and personal belongings. Her new room was smaller than her last, but one perk was a balcony. She walked out abandoning her work to breathe in some fresh air instead of paint fumes. There was not much of a view, but she loved it all the same. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, to receive the first bit of peace and quiet for months.

"Onee-sama!" she heard her younger sister call for her from her door.

Moment over.

Ami let herself into her room, exploring the room with a look of wonder and curiosity. Amu watched her younger sister with a faint smile on her face. She'd never get to know, never get to live the same way she had. Amu wanted to hold her sister and say how sorry she was, but Ami was so happy. Amu held herself back and smiled at her sister ignoring the fact she was moving around all her things.

"Want to check out this view?" she offered her sister when she began reaching for her perfume bottles.

Ami just gave her a wide excited smile and went running to her. She wasn't tall enough to stand over the rails, just entering kindergarden, so she stuck her head through the rails watching the cars wize by the house.

"How are my girls?!" Amu heard her father ask coming up and hugging Ami from behind. They laughed together as Amu just smiled her small smile. She hadn't yet managed to get herself to laugh, it took her a month to begin smiling again. "So, what do you think of the house?"

"It's...nice." Amu replied. She still wasn't sure what she thought about their new home. Everything was happening so fast, and everything was changing. A new town, a new home, a new school... a new lifestyle.

"Don't worry about school too much," her father tried to comfort her by putting his hand on her shoulder, "I'm sure you'll make friends in no time." It amazed Amu on how little her father truly knew about her. Not that she was surprised, he hadn't mentioned anything about her incident ever since it happened, and it made since he was concerned. That wasn't what was on her mind though. School, seemed unimportant to her. There was so much on her mind that what shallow teenagers thought of her was the least of her worries.

"I know. Don't worry about me so much." Amu answered offering him the best smile she could muster. He seemed content with the reply, for the time being anyway. Right now, to Amu, her family was the most important thing in the world. She didn't want her father to worry about her as much as he had in the past few months. He had Ami to take care of, she needed him more than Amu did.

As they left, Amu regretedly went back to work unloaded boxes. She stumbled across one box with her old things. She had packed these away a few months ago to keep her from looking at, but the curiousity drew her in to shuffle through the box.

She pulled out her favorite band shirt, along with her old music book. She laughed at the recognition of old songs she had written. Then she came across something she stared at for a long time. An old family picture, within a broken frame. The picture behind the glass was of the whole family. They were all attempting to make a cake for Ami's birthday, and it was more or less a complete disaster. The kitchen was a mess and they were all covered in dough and flour. Everyone dirty with smiles. That day was a happy memory, but the picture within the frame itself, was one with memories all it's own. Ones that Amu didn't care to remember as she threw the picture back in the box and shoved it into the corner of her closet.

"Never again." she told herself as she hugged he pillow and laid on her bed, fighting back the tears that threatened her eyes. There were too many bad memories, too much sorrow, and she was sick of crying. She decided before they moved that she would never cry again, no matter what happened to her. Too many cries, too many tears, and with them, there is no room for happiness.

"You've got to choose one Ikuto!" Kukai yelled at his friend out of frustration. He hated when his friend got picky when making a decision. Any other time it would be whatever came first, but when it was a decision like this, he was analyzing every detail. And that, was not Kukai's strong point.

"We've only seen three people. It takes more options than that before choosing one." Ikuto tried to reason with his friend, but he knew he just didn't like everything being on hold, and neither did Ikuto. He wanted to make a decision soon, but he also wanted to make sure it was the right one.

"Yeah, but wasn't at least one of them good?"

"Yeah." Ikuto answered sarcastically with a chuckle, "One sounded like a guy and the other two sounded like cats fighting over fish guts."

"That bad huh?" Kukai asked unaware of how the singers had sounded, just assumed they were descent, "That just goes to show you, never let Tadase tell you who's good."

"That's what I said." Ikuto laughed remembering the auditions and how Tadase was so into it, "The dude listens to too much country."

"I know-Hey! I like country!" Kukai replied defensively, hitting Ikuto on the shoulder as he continued laughing at his friends choice of music.

"What are you two up to?" a voice asked approaching the two boys talking on an outside table waiting for the bell to ring.

"Yo! What's up Nagihiko?!" Kukai asked with enthusiasm to see his friend.

"You two seemed deep in conversation," he observed taking a seat on the other side of the table, "What you talking about?"

"Just the singer problem." Ikuto answered sighing at the memories of the pathetic singers.

"I know what you mean," Nagihiko agreed whincing at the memories himself, "Their voices were real ear openers."

"Guitarists. You guys are just trying to be perfectionists." Kukai complained, wishing he'd been present for their past auditions.

"Maybe drummers as just too laid back." Nagihiko suggested relating to Kukai's constant quotes on everyone 'relaxing' and 'going with the flow.'

"All I'm saying is that singers aren't like instrumentalists. It's hard for them to make their voices good. It's not like tuning a guitar. Either they have good voices or they don't."

"That was almost poetic. You sure you didn't get that from a fortune cookie?" Ikuto asked with a chuckle from Nagihiko as a response.

"Hey, give me some credit will ya? English is the one class I'm actually passing." Kukai tried to defend himself, but he didn't linger on trying. There was just no beating them both in a verbal dispute. Not even in a fist fight could he last. "Why don't we just do what we always do?"

"Because instrumental bands don't get listeners," Ikuto tried to reason. Their band would usually practice songs in a garage with just the music, "And I refuse to sing ever again." Once they had volunteered Ikuto to sing at a practice, and that ended disasterous.

"I don't know Ikuto, I thought you had a beautiful singing voice," Nagihiko commented sarcastically as Kukai bursted out laughing. Ikuto hit him on the shoulder in response as Nagihiko started laughing himself.

"Hey guys!" They all turned around to see the youngest memeber of their band coming towards them. "I got the solution to all our problems."

"No way!" Kukai exclaimed excitedly, "You won the lottery?!"

"What?" Tadase asked confused by Kukai's immediate thought.

"How's that going to solve all our problems?" Ikuto asked amused by his friends outburst and the enthusiasm that came with it.

"Hey, money is the solution to all life's problems."

"There went the poet." Nagihiko commented smaking Kukai on the head to quiet him down.

"What you got?" Ikuto asked getting back to Tadase.

"You're going to love me for this!" Tadase answered excitedly as he shuffled through his back pack.

"I love you." Nagihiko answered in a serious voice making Kukai burst out laughing again. Along with Nagihiko and Ikuto laughing themselves.

"Check this out." Tadase said placing a flyer in front of Ikuto. Ikuto examined the paper explaining auditions for a female lead singer this afternoon.

"Perfect!" Ikuto answered passing the flyer around.

"Nice going man!" Nagihiko replied high fiving Tadase.

"Man, this'll get every girl in the school auditioning." Kukai commented at the girls already carrying around the flyers and showing their friends.

"It had better. It took me forever to make all those copies." Tadase complained recalling all those hours spent working on the project.

"Nicely done." Ikuto complimented. Looking around at all the girls who already had the flyers. Some were just walking to school and met their friends who already had the news. Those who knew the members of the band were staring at the table giggling hysterically at the thought of being the lead singer of the band.

It was pathetic. He probably knew every girl at this school. Some from classes, but most, from love confessions. Somehow he managed to get a conversion every week. He hated all these desperate girls at his school. If he wasn't in desperate need of a singer, then he'd avoid them entirely. Since he did though, he only nodded at girls that waved and shyly looked away giggling.

"Anyone remember a girl with pink hair going to our school?" Kukai asked randomly as the other three stared at him as if he were insane.

"What?" Ikuto asked confused by the question.

"Look over there." Kukai commanded pointing towards the entrance where many students were walking in. One girl stood out from the crowd, with pink hair like Kukai mentioned. Her hair was pulled back in a pony tail, but anything specific about her physical appearance was unknown to him from her distance. She was wearing a pair of torn jeans and a black zipped up jacket. Based on her height, he noted she was most likely a younger student, and because she was walking alone, he assummed she was a new student and not just some girl he never noticed before.

"There's an odd looking girl." Nagihiko commented as he watched the girl make her way to the building, avoiding as much human interaction as possible. "Must be a newbee."

"Probably," Tadase agreed intriged by the weird looking girl. He'd never seen a girl that original before, and it kind of scared him.