It was a busy day at Café Mew Mew...for Ichigo.
"Ichigo, table eight is waiting for their order," Mint said.
Ichigo rushed to table eight. "May I take your order?"
"Ichigo, can you take this pie to table one for me please?"
Ichigo hurried to table one with the pie.
As Mint kept giving orders to Ichigo, she finally got tired and ran to Keiichiro and Ryou for help.
"Look what Mint's doing!" she complained.
"I see she's doing all the work, while you're not!" Ryou teased.
"DOING ALL THE WORK?"
"I'll leave you guys alone," Keiichiro muttered, backing away.
"How can I work when a certain yellow haired person is always distracting me on purpose?" Ichigo yelled.
Pudding happened to be walking by and, thinking that she was the yellow haired person Ichigo was complaining about, got a bit out-of-control.
"Who, me? What did I do? Why are all you always blaming it all on me? I don't distract you do I?" she argued jumping all around.
"Get back to work," Ryou snapped while Ichigo said, "No Pudding, a certain yellow haired with blue eyes person and there's only one person who fits the description of a yapping boss in this place!"
Pudding went back to work, quite pleased that she wasn't getting blamed.
-----
On the other end, Lettuce and Mint were planning on throwing a Valentine Dance at Café Mew Mew at Valentine's Day.
Keiichiro, how 'bout we throw a special Valentine dance at Café Mew Mew on Valentine's Day?" Lettuce asked Keiichiro as he was walking by.
"Sounds great! Let everyone else know, and maybe hanging posters will also be a good idea," he suggested.
The girls beamed at him and continued talking. The customers overheard them talking and started talking amongst themselves of who they were going to go with.
"Who are you going to go with?" one girl asked another.
"I don't know...hey what about that blonde guy standing next to the red haired girl? He's pretty cute don't you think?"
Ryou and Ichigo heard them and Ryou made a face. He looked at Ichigo and walked away blushing.
-----
Zakuro walked over and asked Ichigo to hang some "Valentine's Day Dance at Café Mew Mew" posters around.
"Could you hang these posters? I don't want to have to do it or I might get glue in my nails. Thank you," she said walking away.
Ichigo took all the posters and started to cover them in glue. She hung up most of the posters and then just had one last to hang. She covered it with glue and happened to see Masaya walking by Café Mew Mew. She stared at him, not knowing where she really was putting the posters on and looked up only to find that she had glued it all over Ryou's face.
Some girls started giggling near by.
"Close the cafe and tell the girls to come to the lab," he said between gritted teeth.
After closing the cafe, the girls headed to the lab.
The guys told them about their new enemy.
"...And that's it so you all could go home now except for you Ichigo," said Keiichiro.
All the girls gave her a questioning look but walked away.
"I need you to pick some flowers for the party tomorrow from the garden," he explained.
"What garden?" she asked. "I never noticed a garden here before."
"That garden," Keiichiro told Ichigo, pointing.
Ichigo walked into the garden, which was apparently behind the restaurant, but didn't notice Ryou spying on her from a tree.
"Wow it's pretty!" Ichigo said.
"These flowers should do."
She bent down and started picking some flowers. When she was done she stood up and started to walk back when Ryou jumped down from the tree.
Ichigo gasped, "Ryou!"
"Here's some more," he said handing her some more flowers from the tree.
"These will do perfect! Thanks," she said walking away but Ryou grabbed her arm, holding her back.
"Do you want to go to the dance with me?"
Ichigo was shocked and was thinking of the answer she'll give him when she started to think about Masaya and if he'd ask her.
"I'll think about it," she said.
"Ok, you have 5 minutes!"
Ichigo was about to say something when the cyniclons attacked.
Ichigo transformed and started attacking.
"Hey Koneko, when's the Dance?" Kish taunted her.
A vein popped out in Ryou's forehead. "I'll take care of Kish and you can fight the monster!"
"Sounds good!" she replied.
Ichigo used her rose bell to finish off the chimera animal.
The next day she was at the park with Masaya.
"Hey did you hear about the dance at Café Mew Mew?" she asked him, hoping that he'd ask her to go.
"Sounds like fun," he said and to her surprise changed the subject.
"Boys," Ichigo muttered.
-----
At the dance...
Ichigo looked stunning in her dress while Ryou looked very cute in his tuxedo. Every girl was staring at him. Ryou started a conversation with Keiichiro, though he kept glancing at Ichigo. Everytime Ichigo looked at him he turned away.
Mint, Zakuro, Ichigo, Lettuce and Pudding were sitting at a table.
"Why doesn't he just ask her?" Pudding whispered to Lettuce.
"Why don't you do something about it?" Zakuro asked Pudding.
"I have the perfect idea you guys!" she exclaimed.
Heads turned to their direction.
Mint pulled Pudding down from her seat. "Not so loud!"
Ichigo wasn't paying any attention to them.
"What idea?" Lettuce whispered to Pudding.
"You'll see," she said getting up from her seat. "Just watch Pudding the great!"
She walked up to Ichigo and pushed her off her seat so she went sliding into Ryou.
Ryou caught her, surprised. Keiichiro went away talking with someone else.
Ichigo muttered a word of sorry and realized that they were getting shoved.
"We're in the middle of the dance floor," she said.
Since they were left with no choice, they started to dance.
As they danced they didn't notice that that everybody was watching them dance beautifully.
When they stopped the cafe roared with applause.
Ichigo and Ryou blushed.
"Kiss, Kiss, Kiss," Everyone else chanted.
That made the two go even more red. They had no choice but to...
When they broke apart they all cheered again and Ichigo, getting all nervous, just walked quickly towards the garden in the back yard.
She noticed a pond and stood beside it.
When she looked back she noticed that Ryou was inches away from her face.
She nearly fell into the water when Ryou caught hold of her and pulled her back.
"Good dancing, but you could have done better," he said.
"And just what do you mean by that?" Ichigo snapped.
"I mean not stepping on my toes and sweating on my shoulders with your hands," he said.
"I never stepped on your toes," she said.
As they talked Ichigo was too busy thinking of a retort that she didn't notice Ryou drawing closer to her.
"So you're saying that you were sweating on my shoulders?" he said.
Ichigo was about to say something when she found herself being kissed by Ryou.
To his surprise, she started to kiss him back.
After all she did like Ryou better than Masaya...in secret.

The End