This chapter was written by PocketRat (Toyhouse) The1Lady-In-red (DeviantArt)

“All right, come on! We got some chores to do!” Ikki stated with a boisterous laugh as he grabbed Izumi by the wrist and began leading him out of the dining hall.

“H-hey! I’m not some maid here and I’m certainly not going to do chores that aren’t mine!” Izumi replied harshly. His voice was laced with annoyance and slight anger. He hated doing the chores at home so what made this man think he’d be going to do them here? Oh, that’s right… this man didn’t know… Because he kidnapped him.

“Er… Were you watching me prior to the kidnapping or was I just a random grab,” Izumi questioned as he picked up the pace, he felt like his arm was going to be torn off with how quickly Ikki was walking.

Ikki acted like he was thinking upon the question, however, a wide smile spread across his face before he looked back at Izumi. “That’s a secret~!” The man said in a cute tone of voice as he gave a wink.

Izumi grumbled in anger. He would at least like to know a bit about where he was. It wasn’t like the people at home would care that he was gone, they didn’t care at all about him… for all, he knew they were celebrating his disappearance.

“All right mister handsome, stop your brooding and look around! The master might be having some guest over at some point so he requested that we-“ Ikki began but was quickly interrupted by Izumi.

“No, you. I’m not taking part in this.” He stated flatly.

“WE, are going to be cleaning it up. The quicker the work the faster you and I can dance together!” The last thing Ikki said was mostly a joke, but he wouldn’t be completely against dancing with Izumi.

Despite the groaning and moaning that Izumi did, he was forced to in the end work alongside Ikki…

“Hello darkness my old frienddddddddddd” Ikki had begun singing (rather horribly mind you) about twenty minutes into the cleaning. Izumi figured he hadn’t started beforehand as they had been pulling the curtains off of the windows which required Ikki to get on the ladder, which Izumi would have gladly allowed to fall if the wretched singing had started when he was on it.

“Can’t you try to sing a little more quietly? Or better yet, find something else to do?” Izumi tried to question as nicely as possible, although it was beginning to get hard as he was starting to develop a headache.

“How about… I ask you some questions and you answer. If you do, I’ll stop singing” Ikki responded as he stopped scrubbing the dusty and dirty floors.

“Fine… ask away.” Izumi let out a small sigh of relief as the ear-splitting singing stopped.

“How do you like the mansion so far, is it to your liking?” Ikki questioned curiously as he started scrubbing the floors once more, his gaze dropping to the floor to focus on his work.

“It’s a very spacious place, yes, but because it isn’t yours nor mine, I’m unable to go and really get a good look of the place. If you really don’t want me to feel like a prisoner here, I would love to visit the courtyard when it isn’t raining.” Izumi replied with honestly as he slowly began scrubbing the floor as well. His gaze, however, lingered on Ikki for a moment longer before dropping back down.

“I’m sure the master wouldn’t mind us walking around. Just don’t go picking any flowers, I doubt he’d appreciate that very much…” And that was how the conversation went on. By the time they had finished cleaning the two of them had become a little bit closer and learned a bit more about each other.

At some point during the conversation, Izumi had also started asking questions about Ikki who responded very quickly back.

“Well… the rains gotten worse, I doubt tomorrow it’ll be any clearer, but on the next sunny day we get I promise to take you to the courtyard so long as my work allows it.” Ikki stated with a sort of warm honesty that made Izumi’s insides feel as though butterflies were fluttering around.

“Well, why don’t we start on our way to the dining hall. It’s almost dark and we must’ve skipped lunch we were having so much fun.” Ikki added with a smile before turning and unlike the other times, he allowed Izumi to follow him.

Maybe Ikki wasn’t so bad after all.