A/N: This is the fourth part of the ten-drabble challenge KyoxSakiFan gave me. This drabble's theme is simply "drabble", meaning that anything goes. So I chose a nice Kichigo oneshot. :D
Rain beat against the side of her home with enough force to bleach the paneling. Thunder rumbled and roared on occasion, only causing the girl to shrink further into the safety of her warm bed sheets. A jolt of lightning lit the sky for a brief moment, it's flash signaling yet another bout of booming thunder. She shrieked softly, her yelp muffled by her pillow as she buried her face in it's softness.
"Why did it have to rain tonight?" she mumbled to herself. "It was cloudy today, but I didn't think that it might storm like this…" Beside her, a robot covered in faux pink fur nuzzled up against her breast. "Aw, are you scared too, Masha?" she asked. The small robot blinked his saucer eyes in agreement. She sighed. "I know, me too. But it'll pass soon… I hope."
Now, Momomiya Ichigo was not the kind of girl who could suck up her fear and handle things with ease. No, that was more like Zakuro, or even Minto. She also couldn't laugh off her fear with false bravado like little Pudding. She was more like Lettuce, only less shy. She scared easily and hated haunted houses and never ventured outside of her room (or her bed) during vicious storms such as this. She was meant to be the "leader" of all the friends she named. She was supposed to be the main of the five, the head Mew Mew. But she couldn't stand things like this. Things like this made her feel teeny and pale in comparison. It made her feel insignificant in contrast to the wildness of the atmosphere and beyond. It made her feel weak, like a speck on the vast radar made of Tokyo city.
And she didn't like that feeling. Not at all.
But what could she do? She was tired, and it was three oh seven in the morning, and her entire house was silent save for the blubbering noises that periodically emitted from her own mouth. Taking a deep breath, Ichigo silenced these pathetic noises and tried to stay calm.
"Think happy thoughts," she said, even though she was speaking aloud due to the fact that she couldn't hear her own thoughts over the crash of thunder and hiss of rain. "Think of… sunny spring mornings with sakura petals in the air, and Aoyama-kun, and the beach. Think of… baby kittens and panda bears and… and rainbows after the storm," she said finally, her mind clearing and her eyes opening up to the darkness of the inside of her covers.
The air around her was hot and stale from her own breathing. Timidly, she peeked her head out of her covers and, with closed eyes, drew in a sharp breath of cool, fresher air. As she opened her eyes, she saw more darkness, and her drawn curtains, and heard the rain. But then lightning flashed, and she ducked under the sheets again.
"Rainbows, rainbows, rainbows," she repeated over and over to herself. She kept thinking that if she imagined the rainbow she'd find in the morning when this is over, she'd be happier. "But…" she murmured softly, "But what if it keeps raining all through sunrise?"
"Then there will be no rainbows," a voice answered her.
She would have screamed if she hadn't recognized the all-too-familiar male voice.
"Kisshu!" she gasped. She was used to seeing him around by now; with his teleporting ability, he seemed to pop up just about everywhere. And from a different occurrence (she immediately thought of when she was sick), he knew where she lived.
"Dear koneko-chan," he purred as he floated across the room toward her bed, "I couldn't help but notice the terrible weather above Tokyo this morning, and wondered if you were doing alright. Are you?"
"You came… to check on me?" she whispered, her body slowly emerging from her sheets. She sat up, her strawberry pajamas being colored light purple as blue lighting lit her room for a passing moment. Kisshu was close, and from the lightning she saw that he was wet, too. Soaking wet from the rain. Had he been out in it? Won't he catch a cold? He isn't entirely human, but he isn't not human, either. He's just… a different kind of human from a long-ago race.
"Of 'course," he replied sweetly as he sat down on the edge of her bed. "I knew you wouldn't be able to sleep with noise like this around you. And you're not as old or brave as someone like Mew Zakuro, so you must be scared, right?"
She couldn't say anything. Kisshu had the uncanny ability to render her speechless with his guesses and accusations and suggestions. And, more often than not, with his actions.
He started one of those word-stealing actions just after he said this, too. He leaned in towards her, his hand coming up to cup her face. It was cold and dripping, and smelled like rainfall. She blinked her chocolate brown eyes in puzzlement. Why isn't she moving away?
"Are you doing alright? Are you scared?" he repeated, and his buzzing lips grazed her chin as he spoke.
"Kisshu…" she breathed. He was such a pervert; sneaking into her room at night, sitting on her bed, touching her face. She should kick him. She should slap him. She should do something, because this wasn't right. It wasn't, and yet she couldn't pull away. Ever since he first kissed her while she was walking down the sidewalk, things have never been the same. She felt vulnerable around the green-haired alien, and it disturbed her.
"Ichigo, answer my questions," he said, and his long fingers drew imaginary pictures down the back of her neck. Nimble, gentle fingers, so unlike his fierce actions in battle.
"I'm not scared," she replied finally. And she said it to make him believe that she wasn't a scaredy-cat, no pun intended. But she found that as she said this, it was true. With someone by her side, with her during the storm, she didn't feel afraid or startled by the raging weather. She felt oddly safe, and comforted, even though Ichigo knew she shouldn't. It was wrong, having the enemy – a boy – in her room with her. It would never be safe by moral standards. But in this moment, she didn't feel like she had moral standards.
Kisshu smirked. "I knew you wouldn't be," he said confidently. "Because you're my little warrior."
Wet and cold, he helped himself to the warmth of her body by seeking refuge inside of her bed. She grew rigid, having learned about sexual implications from the shojo manga her friends made her read. But as Kisshu laid down next to her and brought her to lay in his arms, she didn't feel anything sexual about it. He wasn't being half the pervert she knew he was; instead, she saw a new side to him, a kinder side. It shocked Ichigo to no end.
"Kisshu," she murmured, her back to him. She touched his arm, which was wrapped protectively around her abdomen. "Why are you acting like this?"
"What? I thought you'd like this," he purred in her ear, "Unless you prefer me being violent and forceful."
"No," she said too quickly. She corrected herself. "I mean… it's different than what I'm used to, and I wonder why you don't act this way all the time."
A tint of sadness struck his tone. "I can't, or else I might be done away with."
"Done away with?" she parroted in a hushed, horrified tone.
She felt him nod. "My leader, Deep Blue-sama, already knows that I'm, uh, interested in you. But he doesn't know how much. And if he saw me going easy on you because of how I feel, he might do away with me. Now, that could mean 'kill', but that could also mean that he'll keep me on our planet and away from yours. I don't know which, and I don't want to find out because both mean being apart from you."
Her breathing stilled for a moment as her heart sped up a beat. Kisshu said in the past that he loved her, but she never believed it. But maybe, just maybe, she should start believing it to be true.
As her body heat and the course of half an hour passing by dried Kisshu's clothing and skin, she realized precisely how warm he can be. His bare midriff touched a part of her lower back that her shirt didn't entirely cover. She realized that either he was getting a fever, or he had a higher body temperature than her. Either way, she loved his warmth, and sunk against it. Part of her heart tugged in a dully painful way that reminded her that she was technically cheating on Aoyama-kun right now, but a majority of her sleepy brain told her not to care. It was three thirty seven in the morning, and she was tired. So if she fell asleep in another boy's arms, then oh well.
She yawned, and Kisshu began stroking her hair. "The storm is subsiding, koneko-chan," he whispered to her. "You can sleep now."
"Mhm," she hummed sleepily as she shut her eyes. She could feel Kisshu's nose against her jaw, and feel his lips moving to press against her throat. Just one kiss, a small one, like saying goodnight. Then his hands disappeared from her completely, and she rolled onto her back. She could vaguely sense pressure on her pillow, like an elbow digging into it as someone propped up their head to watch over her.
And soon after, Ichigo fell completely asleep.
In the morning, cheery sunlight streamed in from the crack in her curtains. She blinked bleary eyes opened and yawned loudly prior to tumbling out of bed. She drifted to the window and yanked back the curtains.
Above her, dark storm clouds faded into the distance, and the sun shone across her yard. And there, between the clouds and the endless blue sky, she saw a rainbow glistening in the leftover droplets of rain tagging along behind the parting clouds.
She smiled despite herself. What had she been so afraid of? After bad things happen, there's always a rainbow. Indirectly, Kisshu had shown her that. He had shown her not to be afraid, because he was always there for her, even when her beloved Aoyama wasn't.
Ichigo didn't know whether to be content by this or weary, seeing as how that made Kisshu sound like a stalker.
"Then again," she amended with a grin, "He is a stalker."
But he was also her rainbow to fall back on.
FYI: This was written a day before it's actual posting. Currently, it's 3:51 in the a.m. on June 8th, and it's storming. So Ichigo's experience is not too unlike my own, only I don't have a Kisshu-like boyfriend to run to or a rainbow to catch in the morning due to my record of sleeping in late.