JINX - Tokyo Mew Mew style

I'm just going to warn you, it may seem a bit boring at first but the chapters will get better, I promise! :D

Disclaimer - I do not own Tokyo Mew Mew or JINX. Obviously xD

The thing is, my luck's always been rotten. Just look at my name: Ichigo. Just Ichigo. Did you know in Japan, the word for strawberry is Ichigo? I mean, yeah, strawberry's maybe sweet, but who would want to be called strawberry? And okay, I don't live in Japan. But still. I'm basically a kid named strawberry. If I lived in Japan, anyway. This is the kind of luck I have. The kind of luck I've had since before Mom even filled out my birth certificate.

So it wasn't any big surprise to me when the cab driver didn't help me with my suitcase. I'd already had to endure arriving at the airport to find no one there to greet me, and then got no answer to my many phone calls, asking where my aunt and uncle were. Did they not want me after all? Had they changed their minds? Had they heard about my bad luck --- all the way from England --- and decided they didn't want any of it to rub off on them?

But even if that were true --- and as I'd told myself a million times since arriving at baggage claim, where they were supposed to have met me, and seeing no one but sky caps and limo drivers with little signs with everyone's names on them but mine --- there was nothing I could do about it. I certainly couldn't go home. It was New York City --- and Aunt Aimi and Uncle Katsu's house --- or bust.

So when the cab driver, instead of getting out and helping me with my bags, just pushed a little button so that the trunk popped open a few inches, it wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to me. It wasn't even the worst thing that had happened to me that day.

I pulled out my bags, each of which had to weigh fifty thousand pounds, at least --- except my violin case, of course --- and then closed the trunk again, all while standing in the middle of East Sixty-ninth Street, with a line of cars behind me, honking impatiently because they couldn't pass, due to the fact that there was a Stanley Steemer van double-parked across the street from my aunt and uncle's building.

Why me? Really. I'd like to know. The cab pulled away so fast, I practically had to leap between two parked cars to keep from getting run over. The honking stopped as the line of cars that had been waiting behind the cab started moving again, their drivers all throwing me dirty looks as they went by. It was all the dirty looks that did it --- made me realize I was really in New York City. At last.

And yeah, I'd seen the skyline from the cab as it crossed the Triboro Bridge… the island of Manhattan,in all its gritty glory, with the Empire State Building sticking up from the middle of it like a big glittery middle finger. But the dirty looks were what really cinched it. No one back in Doncaster would ever have been that mean to someone who was clearly from out of town. Not that all that many people visit Doncaster.

But whatever. Then there was the street I was standing on. It was one of those streets that look exactly like the ones they always show on TV when they're trying to let you know something is set in New York. Like on Law and Order. You know, the narrow three- or four-story brownstones with the brightly painted front doors and the stone stoops. According to my mom, most brownstones in New York City were originally single-family homes when they were built way back in the 1800s.

But now they've been divided up into apartments, so that there's one --- or sometimes even two or more families --- per floor. Not Mom's sister Aimi's brownstone, though. Aunt Aimi and Uncle Katsu Aomori own all four floors of their brownstone. That's practically one floor per person, since Aunt Aimi and Uncle Katsu only have three kids, my cousins Minto, Seiji, and Hina. Back home, we just have two floors, but there are seven people living on them. And only one bathroom. Not that I'm complaining.

Still, ever since my sister Emi discovered blow-drying, it's been pretty grim at home. But as tall as my aunt and uncle's house was, it was really narrow --- just three windows across. Still, it was a very pretty townhouse, painted grey, with lighter grey trim. The door was a bright, cheerful yellow. There were yellow flower boxes along the base of each window, flower boxes from which bright red --- and obviously newly planted, since it was only the middle of April, and not quite warm enough for them --- geraniums spilled.

It was nice to know that, even in a sophisticated city like New York, people still realized how homey and welcoming a box of geraniums could be. The sight of those geraniums cheered me up a little. Like maybe Aunt Aimi and Uncle Katsu just forgot I was arriving today, and hadn't deliberately failed to meet me at the airport because they'd changed their minds about letting me come to stay.

Like everything was going to be all right, after all. Yeah. With my luck, probably not. I started up the steps to the front door of 326 East Sixty-ninth Street, then realized I couldn't make it with both bags and my violin. Leaving one bag on the sidewalk, I dragged the other up the steps with me, my violin tucked under one arm. I deposited the first suitcase and my violin case at the top of the steps, then hurried back down for the second suitcase, which I'd left on the sidewalk.

Only I guess I took the steps a little too fast, since I nearly tripped and fell flat on my face on the sidewalk. I managed to catch myself at the last moment by grabbing some of the wrought-iron fencing the Aizawas had put up around their trash cans. As I hung there,a little stunned from my near catastrophe, a stylishly dressed old lady walking what appeared to be a rat on a leash (only it must have been a dog, since it was wearing a tartan coat) passed by and shook her head at me.

Like I'd taken a nosedive down the Aizawas' front steps on purpose, to startle her or something. Back in Doncaster, if a person had seen someone else almost fall down the stairs – even someone like me, who nearly falls down the stairs every single day – they would have said something like, 'Are you all right?' In Manhattan, however, things were clearly different. It wasn't until the old lady and her pet rat had passed all the way by that I heard a click.

Straightening – and finding that my hands were covered in rust from where I'd gripped the fence – I saw that the door to 326 East 69th Street had opened, and that a young, pretty, blonde girl was peering down at me from the top of the stoop. 'Hello?' she said curiously. I forgot about the old lady and her rat and my near pavement-dive. I smiled, and hurried back up the steps.

Even though I couldn't quite believe how much she'd changed, I was so glad to see her – And was so worried she wasn't going to feel the same way about seeing me. 'Hi,' I said. 'Hi, Minto. It's me.' The young woman, very petite and very blonde, blinked at me without recognition. 'No,' she said. 'No, I am not Minto. I am Sandra.' It was then I noticed that the girl had an accent... a European one.

'I am the Aizawas' au pair.' 'Oh,' I said, uncertainly. No one had said anything to me about an au pair. Fortunately, I knew what one was because of an episode of Law and Order I saw once, where the au pair was suspected of killing the kid she was supposed to be watching. I stretched my rust-stained right hand out towards Sandra. 'Hi,' I said 'I'm Ichigo Momomiya. Aimi Aizawa is my aunt-' 'Ichigo-san?' Sandra had reached out and automatically taken my hand.

Now her grasp on it tightened. 'Oh, you mean Ichi-Ichi-san?' I winced, and not just at the girls hard grip – though she was strong, for someone so little. No, I winced because my reputation had so clearly preceded me, if the au pair knew me as Ichi-Ichi instead of Ichigo. 'Right,' I said. Because what else could I do? So much for getting a fresh new start in a place where no one knew me by my less-than-flattering nickname.

'My family calls me Ichi-Ichi.' And would continue to do so forever, if I couldn't turn my luck around.

Sooo, what do you think will happen, and why do you think she's called Ichi-Ichi? R+R please! :D I will try to do one, two or three chapters a day. Normally I will only do one a day though! ^_^