There was something off about the rose hued Mew. She was currently seated at one of the tables, half an hour before the customers were scheduled to come pouring in. Keiichiro immediately noticed the crestfallen expression that was plaguing her normally cheerful expression. Perplexed and apprehensive over the young girl, the chef made his way towards her, mindful that he made sure that his kitchen wasn't going to end up in flames and that there was a peace offering his hands.
"Ichigo," he murmured softly, as if he was dealing with a wounded creature. "Is there something the matter?" As he inquired over her day, he gestured towards the plate, strawberry shortcake taking up residence in the center.
Instead of answering him quickly or dispelling his concern for her for something trivial, she merely took up the fork from the plate and played with the pastry. If anything, his question only rattled her being, as seen when her shoulders slumped forward and her hair neatly covered her eyes. The tall brunette looked down in astonishment; was she actually refusing to eat! Granted, she did eat some of the inventory, but this was serious! Never had he seen her actually refuse her primal desire to sate her appetite for his specially prepared treats. Especially since it was her favorite flavor, strawberry.
Taking control of the situation, Keiichiro sat himself down and pulled the dish away from her. His steady eyes watched as she did nothing and sat almost like a demure doll waiting to be played with. With her hands plastered to her lap and her head bowed forward, his buried fatherly instincts—honed with his relationship with Ryou—rose from the grave. Sighing softly, he glanced at his creation sadly and started to speak.
"Bottling up your emotions isn't good for you, Ichigo. Especially if those emotions interfere with your work." He purposely left the sentence hanging, knowing that the pink haired girl picked up on the double meaning behind the words. Instantly, a reaction could be seen from the girl's side of her conversation.
"My work," she screeched unintentionally. She raised her eyes to meet his, fire burning with murderous intent. Tears had tracked their way down her cheeks, her hair seemed to be frizzing with anger, and she seemed to hiss. So, it seemed that her double life caused by Ryou and himself seems to be the cause of her emotional instability today. A small sliver of guilt oozed slowly into Keiichiro's subconscious, only the fact that with her as the leader she was able to stop the aliens from bearing down on Earth seemed to squash that emotion down. "My work! This isn't work, this is slave labor!"
Keiichiro only smiled gently at her, understanding dawning clear in his eyes. A snarl rose up in her throat at that facial expression. How dare he be so patronizing to her!
"I do everything for you people and I receive nothing from you except more work!" Her petite form stood up so abruptly that her seat went crashing down to the floor. Inwardly, the chef winced with distaste. Already they had wasted a fortune on the broken plates, but now he had to pay for the peeling paint for the chairs?
Keiichiro was dragged kicking and screaming from his mental accounting as he saw that Ichigo was still raging at him. It also came to his attention that her ears and tail had come out with her emotional unbalance that came with her screaming at him. He raised and eyebrow at this sight, noting that it was a delayed reaction. Hmm, seems as if she was trying to control her emotional urge to let everything out…which meant she was improving. A small grin materialized on his face at that fact.
"Aliens, experiments, undercover stuff! This isn't what I wanted from life! You know what I want," she asked threateningly as she loomed over the table. Keiichiro only let his lips tug upwards in reply, a motion that seemed to anger the young teen even more. "I want to live a normal life with my friends, to hang out with my boyfriend, and have nothing to do with you, your stupid experiments, and those stupid aliens!"
Keiichiro gave a startled gasp as he saw her figure lurch over the table and her hands grip the sides of it, a sure sign that she was going to lose it. From his examination, he saw that her breathing was changing rapidly and her fists were clenching and unclenching around the wooden side of the table. Already, there could be some indentation from her advanced strength granted to her because of her cat DNA. Since he didn't want any harm to come to him, the store, or to his employee, he gave it a few seconds to let her cool down before he started speaking sense to her.
Moving slowly as to not startle her into a battle ready mode, he slightly pushed his chair away from him and stood. Hesitantly, he watched as the girl's cat ears seemed to prick with his small movements, flattening on her skull as the scientist had done nothing but stand at attention. Her entire stance seemed to speak volumes, a promise that she would not hesitate to attack if she was crossed the wrong way. The regular jingling of the bell that was wrapped around the tail only interrupted the silence that had pervaded between scientist and experiment, employee and manager.
It had set Ichigo's mind on alert.
Keiichiro was at ease despite the danger the girl had presented to him.
"Are you done yet," the chef whispered. His voice was small, escaping his lips like the wind that barely stirs the branches of a cherry tree. His demeanor was poised and relaxed, unlike the heavy breathing and heavy swishes that Ichigo displayed with her restlessness. Although the redhead had said nothing, she acknowledged his peaceful statement by her ears relaxing on amidst the fine strands of her hair. However, her arms were still locked on the table and her tail was rigid and upright. The girl was willing to listen, but she was still angry. That was good, Keiichiro amended. They were able to communicate and possibly reach a diplomatic conclusion to the conflict.
"Yes," the girl mumbled in assent.
"Good. I know that you're upset and I am willing to talk it over with you. Why are you so mad all of a sudden," Keiichiro addressed the problem. "You mentioned your boyfriend, Aoyama was it? Does it have something to do with him?"
Ichigo nodded her head dumbly; only the pitter-patter of fallen tears affirmed her answer. Exhaling almost silently, he was lamenting the fact that he hit the nail right on the head for getting it right on his first try. It wasn't like that he didn't want to help the young teen, far from that, but…He still didn't understand how these types of relationships work, his only experiences coming from the time spent with Rei. And well, it didn't turn out like he hoped to.
"I thought as much…" He mused. "Does this have anything to do with the one-sided relationship that you have with the alien?"
Ichigo jerked from her bowed position over the table and looked up at her employer with apocalyptic eyes. He braced himself for a yelling session from the girl, yet it did not come.
"I do not share a one-sided relationship with him," she seethed, taking care to not dent the table further. Her ears, that were once relaxed, rested snugly against her skull, again in an alert mode. "And yes," she stretched out the words in a scathing manner," it might have something to do with that."
Keiichiro tallied the possible emotions that were hindering her ability to think rationally. Using his skills at being a great diplomat, he could sense anger, irritation, a hint of rebelliousness, and…ah, so that was what he sensing all this time. Fear. Fear of the unknown, for the future of the Earth, possibly doubt of her skills as a leader, fear of the alien race that wanted Earth for their own…Fear of her feelings that reached out for both the kendo student and the mischievous alien that tried to kill her. (It was times like these that made the man grateful that he was not compatible for the Mew Mew experiment and that he wasn't a girl.)
Seeing as that the twenty-one year old wasn't reacting towards her bitter tongue, Ichigo began to take action.
"It's so hard! So hard to just go to school and try to forget that I'm different," she exploded. Her hands left the table, leaving crescent moons dotting the edge. Her free appendages gripped the sides of her hair, pulling like it was her safety net. "I go there every day and everyone is normal." She heaved long, drawn out breaths, like she was going to die if she didn't have the substantial amount of oxygen in her lungs. "Moe and Miwa stare at me sometimes because they know something's wrong, but they trust me that I'll tell them someday! But I can't because-because!" She wasn't able to finish her sentence because she collapsed onto the floor beside the chair that she had discarded earlier.
Taking action the older gentleman stepped away from his side of the table and hastened towards the girl's side. Rubbing circles on her back, he offered words of encouragement to her. Minutes ticked by as the two huddled in each other's embrace. After her many bouts of sniffling and shielding her eyes from seeing the paternal understanding in the man's eyes, Ichigo pushed away and curled into a fetal position.
"It's not just them, you know. Sometimes when I go and fight, I see Kish and he looks at me…I get these feelings, the same feelings that I get whenever Aoyama is around me." Terror and embarrassment radiated from her form as she rocked back and forth in her horizontal position. "I don't want these feelings…they interrupt me while I sleep, when I work, when I try to do my schoolwork…" Well-manicured hands rubbed her eyes, palms up, like she wanted to rub the images away from her mind. "Sometimes I don't want to sleep because I know that I will never escape from his nightmare that you and Ryou put me through!" At those words, Ichigo seized up and lost control, sobbing harder than before.
During her rant, Keiichiro began to realize things that he didn't before. Was it morally right to have started this project by endangering young woman? Was it right to experiment on those who didn't agree to this in the first place? Was it right that Ryou and he were…ruining these girls' lives? Guilt seemed to paralyze his mental processes. The questions revolved around and around in his mind as he surveyed the flailing girl with a critical eye.
It seemed that while he was contemplating his feelings on the Mew Project, Ichigo seemed to realize that she might have crossed the line from complaining to actual insults. Always the goodie-goodie, she tried to make up for her mistakes by sitting up and looking at Keiichiro pitifully.
"I-I didn't mean it! I'm so tired and I feel like I'm cheating—"
"Hush now," he whispered. He encircled his arms around her waist again and maneuvered her into a position easy to carry her bridal style. Slowly, he walked to the back of the café where there was a bed if there was a medical emergency. As he did so, the cat in Ichigo began to fall asleep, causing her to snuggle further into Keiichiro's body heat. A light blush coated his cheeks, but he ignored that sensation by placing her gently on the bed and tucking her in. While she slept, her body reverted back to her normal state.
As he stared down at her sleeping body, he decided to do another simple act that could brighten up her day.
He placed the uneaten strawberry pastry at the bedside stand, hoping that when she woke up, she might have the energy eat it.
"Get some rest, I'll talk to Ryou," he whispered as he closed the door.
Even if she didn't hear him, he promised to resolve her conflict.
"Ryou, do you ever feel bad about doing this," Keiichiro questioned. He was currently frosting one of his daily specials, taking care to make sure it didn't smudge.
"Doing what," Ryou replied. Confusion was evident in his eyes as he leaned against the doorframe leading to the kitchen area. It wasn't every day that his friend asked for a special conference concerning the project. "Building a café with too many calories that may or may not increase the average teenage girl's weight?" While he was joking, there was still a serious undercurrent.
"Ichigo broke down today, it seems that her responsibilities are weighing her down. If we're not careful, she could break," Keiichiro confessed as he finally sliced the cake into serving pieces. "You should have seen her Ryou…I'm not sure if what we're doing is right."
It was no surprise that the heavy silence, which followed after his blunt statement, was his only reply.
When Keiichiro turned around to meet his friend's gaze, there was no one there.
"Fine," the brunette muttered softly as he went out to serve the deserts. "But I don't want any of the girls to be hurt because of your stupid mistakes."
I always got the feeling that when it came down to it, Ichigo was always emotionally susceptible. If the series had taken on a more darker tone, her character might have gone through several breakdowns and possible therapy. Then again, I'm surprised none of the girls were emotionally scarred with aliens attacking, fighting/killing monsters, and the high risk of getting killed. Plus, it was kind of odd that no one thought that it was kind of illegal toexperiment on humans without consent. I wonder how Ichigo's parents would have reacted to that. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed and that none of the characters were too OOC.