This is another little oneshot of mine. I got the idea after a bad dream I had. Enjoy!
Your humble servant,
xXKuroTenshiXx
I had never understood Ryou at all until that day.
He was always so...bipolar about me, I suppose. One minute he was teasing me without provocation, the next he was asking me to kiss him. Every day with him made me more confused, like venturing deeper and deeper into a dark, damp cave. Every conversation led from nowhere to nothing, until that one day in the café.
Everything was going as usual. Pudding was doing her tricks, Mint was sipping her tea in a corner table, Lettuce was helping Keiichiro make icing in the kitchen (or rather she was being made to keep away from all of the dishes), Zakuro was...Zakuro, and Ryou was off doing stupid Ryou things that he claims I wouldn't understand. I was, of course, doing a balancing act of my own with eight people's orders precariously positioned on my arms.
"Okay, I've got two lemon meringue pies, one blueberry tart with whipped cream, one without, one chocolate soufflé, one vegetarian quiche, one frest fruit crêpe, a chocolate éclair wih strawberry filling, and eight darjeeling teas, side sugar. Is that all?" After delivering the gallimaufry of pastry and shoving through the swing door of the kitchen, I plopped down on a bar stool, tired and sore. "Surely, this isn't worth ten bucks an hour." I said, my hand under my chin. "Ichi-chan! Don't be blue! It's fun to work, na no da!" said Pudding, rolling on a ball into the kitchen.
"Pudding-chan, please don't do tricks in the kit-" Retasu spoke too soon as Pudding slipped and ran into a pile of freshly cleaned dishes. "Oh...whoopsie, na no da." Immediately noting that my break was over, I huffed and grabbed a broom in the corner. " It's all right, Pudding. Do me a favor and take my tables while I clean up."
"Roger, na no da!" She skipped off, happy to be of "service". Yes, it was a normal day at the humble Café Mew Mew.
Well, mostly. I'll get to that later.
Anyway, I had just finished sweeping up the plates, and I had sat down to relish the last three minutes of my break, when Ryou came into the kitchen. "Ichigo, get back to work," he said, reflexively as he sat down. "I'm on break, Ryou."
"Tell that to your paycheck." He said, sneering at me. Rolling my eyes, I slid off of my stool and washed my hands. "Why I stay here and put up with you anymore is beyond me."
"You just can't admit how much you love seeing me everyday, huh?"
That comment made me particularly angry. "Oh, sure, I just love seeing my inconsiderate, rude, jerk-wad of an excuse for a boss for six hours everyday, on top of taking the bulk of the workload for said six hours, in which I could be called to save all of humanity at any time of the day! Yeah, I wouldn't trade that for ANYTHING!" I was three inches from his face when my rant ended. Ryou's expression was placid, which told me he was angry. "Well, if you hate your life so much, who am I to stop you from leaving?" His voice was calm, another sign of his obvious anger. He stormed out of the kitchen, and stomped up the stairs to his room.
I groaned and almost walked out of the kitchen. "Ichigo-san?" said Keiichiro, not taking his eyes from the pastry he was folding. "Yes?" I said, rubbing my temples with exhaustion.
"I'm not saying that you're wrong to be upset at Ryou, but you have to understand the position he's in, too."
"And just what is that? Sitting on his butt at the computer, ordering us around, getting richer, and then teasing me to his heart's content?" Keiichiro chuckled a little before becoming serious again. "Not necessarily. He also has to live with the daily grief of being completely without a family at sixteen, deal with the side effects of incompatible cat DNA, stay up until ungodly hours of the night to scan for any sort of unusual activity, and be reminded almost daily that one of the few people he truly loves appears to hate his guts." I knit my eyebrows together, upset at the things I had said.
"Has he even tried telling this girl?" I said, interested. Keiichiro smiled, enjoying a personal joke. "In his own way, yes." I set my chin in my hands, my elbows propped on the table, curious about Ryou's mystery girl. "Why doesn't he try telling her outright? She'll never understand if he skirts around the point." He scrunched his lips to the side of his face in thought. "He's a little nervous about it. She just got out of a messy relationship, and he doesn't want to jump into things too fast."
"Well, he'd better step to it, or someone else will snatch her up again!" Keiichiro chuckled. "Perhaps you should explain that to him. I certainly can't seem to get through to him and you can if anybody." The entertained smile on my face faded, suddenly upset. "Why would he want to talk to me? I said such mean things...Keiichiro, what do I do? I mean, sometimes he gets on my last nerve, but he's still important to me." Keiichiro met my eyes. "You're important to him too, you know. All of you girls are. Why else would he risk his humanity for you all? He'll forgive you if you just talk to him for a little while. I promise."
I smiled, satisfied with his answer. "Thanks, Keiichiro-san."
"No problem." As I walked out, I was sure I heard him whisper silly girl. I ran up the stairs to Ryou's room and knocked on the door. "Come in." I walked in and shut the door carefully behind me. Ryou was turned to his desk, typing in several line codes as quickly as I could type a word or two. "Hey, Keiichiro. I had some suspicions about some slight tremors in the Aichi prefecture, but they've gone down since. Oh, and we're going to need to order more flour and sug-" He finally turned around to face me, his expression turning sour. "Well, look who's here. Come to throw more insults in my face, or were you going to take a more physical approach and throw cayenne pepper into my eyes and set fire to my scalp?"
"I just came to talk to you, alright? Gah, you're already upsetting me!" I said, flinging my hands in the air. I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Look, I'm sorry I said those things. It was rude of me." His expression softened a little, and he sighed, looking down. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't tease you like that. You don't deserve it at all. No matter what I say to you, just remember that I said that." I blinked once. Twice. Three times. He really wasn't joking!
"Oh," I stuttered, not expecting such a response, "Then, I can't help but wonder," I sat on the ledge, letting my left leg hang out of the window, "Why do you tease me so much?" He looked away. "That's...a long story."
"I think I can handle it." He shut his eyes and sighed deeply as if he were prepping himself for the upcoming speech. "Ichigo...when my parents died, I thought I would never be able to love again. I miss both of my parents, but I hated being without my mother especially. She loved me like no one else did. I felt very empty.
So, I immersed myself into my father's Mew Project in order to try and fill that void in my life. Every day I did nothing but collect facts and compute figures. I worked and worked and worked. Then, after years of time and work, I had the DNA. I had you five girls all picked out. Yet, I still felt unhappy. My life was full of little fleeting pleasures and then sadness. Alcohol, motorcycles, a few girls here and there, but nothing lasted.
Then, enter Momomiya Ichigo. Immature, hedonistic, silly little Momomiya Ichigo." He grinned to show his jest. "I swear, Strawberry, you got on my nerves like no other. And yet...I found myself waking up in the middle of the night wanting to see you. I would go out of my way just to bump into you everyday." My eyes opened wide. "I grew to enjoy your little mannerisms. When you would trip or tilt your head or drift off. Then...I found myself loving them." Just in time, I noticed I hadn't been breathing. "I...I love you, Ichigo." That did it. I gasped and jumped a little, not expecting those words, exactly.
The next few moments were a bit of a blur.
For some reason, there was a screw hanging out just below the ledge. My leg scraped against it when I jumped. I yelped and pulled it up to see. With my other hand, I groped for something to hang onto. Not noticing it was wide open, I fell throught the open window.
"ICHIGO!" I saw Ryou dive through the window to me before my world went black.
I woke up feeling as though I was being weighted down by several hundred pound sandbags. I groaned, feeling a sharp pain in my head. "Ichigo? Sweetie? Shintaro, she's awake!" Mom. What was she doing in Ryou's room? With difficulty, I opened my eyes. I was in a hospital bed. Mom was at my side looking teary eyed. "Oh, hi, honey. You fell from a two-story window."
"Speaking of which, what in the world were you doing in some BOY'S room, hm? I want ANSWERS, young lady!" I sighed. "Daddy, I was discussing a matter of some importance with Ryou." It wasn't a lie. "Pfft. I knew you taking a job where BOYS were present was a terrible idea." Mom rolled her eyes and brushed some hair from my face. "You're very lucky that Ryou was there. He managed to grab you and protect your head in midair before you hit the ground. Sort of like a cat." I smiled to myself. Then it clicked. "Ryou! Where is he? Is he hurt." Mom looked at a space to my left. Wondering what she was looking at, I turned my head to find Ryou sitting in a chair, his left arm in a cast.
"Oh my goodness, Ryou, I'm so sorry! Are you hurt?" He smirked at me, oddly pleased. "I'm fine, Strawberry. It's just a break. I'll be all healed in six weeks. Sakura-san? Do you mind if I have a moment alone with Ichigo?" Dad opened his mouth wide to speak before Mom clamped it with her hand and smiled. "Of course, dear!" Dad started crying a little as Mom dragged him out, giggling.
"You're already on first name terms?"
"Well, with your mom. Your dad, however, has yet to speak to me directly." I chuckled. "That sounds like him." Then I remembered, "About what you said earlier..." He stood and walked to my bed, "What about it?"
I sat up. "Well...I think I might...I mean, maybe..." He grabbed my chin and pulled my face to his, stopping five or six inches in front of his. "I don't have all day, Ichigo." I took a deep breath, "I love you, Ryou." I stared into his eyes, determined to get a response. He smiled a little before saying, "I have waited so long to hear you say that." Without wasting anymore time, he carefully touched his lips to mine. I couldn't help but smile. He pulled away to smile at me some more. "Momomiya Ichigo, now that I have you, I'll never let you go." I feinged being deep in thought, "I think I can live with that." He kissed me again, and I could've sworn I heard a battering ram against the door as he did.
Let me know how you liked it! Criticism is welcomed and appreciated. Thank you very much for reading my story.
Your humble servant,
xXKuroTenshiXx