Devil's in the Details

Whoo! My third fic in less than a week! I am on writing fire. Yeah. And God, it feels good to write silly stuff again. Anyhow, this is for DragonTamer94's BitterSweet Blood Contest, and I have no idea where it came from. It's certainly only tangentially related to the prompt (and has really nothing to do with Twilight at all).

This also wasn't written to be part of the Tokyo Ew Ewniverse, since it lacks any sort of meta-awareness. Despite that, it doesn't actually conflict with anything established in any of the TEE stories, so if you want to pretend it belongs there, it would go before the first story. In TMM canon, it specifically does not fit in anywhere.

Disclaimer: Tokyo Mew Mew belongs to its creators, not to me. This is probably for the best.

There was something... Off about Masaya today, but Ichigo couldn't put her finger on it. His skin tone looked a little different from how she remembered it, but they had just gotten back from summer break. Maybe he'd just gotten a lot of sun—or fake tan? He looked a little uneven and orangey. Or perhaps it was that he'd let his dark hair grow out. It had gotten so long, in fact, that he could wear it in two little pigtails. Ichigo wasn't sure how she felt about that.

No, she realized all of a sudden, he looked weird because during the summer he had started wearing color contacts. His brown eyes were now golden-yellow, and the contacts made his pupils look slitted and catlike. Oh, and he was wearing an earflap cap even though it was pretty much still summer. That was a little odd as well.

But whatever. Masaya had been abroad looking at schools all summer, so she hadn't talked to him in quite a while. No matter what weird fashion ideas he had picked up from foreign kids, she had missed him too much not to go up and talk to him.

"Hi, Masaya-kun!" she said brightly. "How was your summer?" It was a simple question, but his face took on a vaguely panic-stricken expression.

"Oh, hi Ki—I mean, Mew I—um, Momomiya...chan?" After he was finished speaking, his mouth still worked soundlessly for a few seconds, as though he didn't realize that the sentence was over. Ichigo just smiled. Masaya must have been very excited to see her as well, since he was getting so flustered.

"I told you, Masaya-kun, you can use my first name!" That wasn't something he had forgotten over the summer. He was just so reserved and polite that she'd never been able to convince him to use even this small informality. This time, though, his unfamiliar-looking eyes lit up. One of his arms shot up as though to grab her or give her a big hug, but he grabbed his wrist with his other hand and forced the arm back down to his side.

"Thank you, Ichigo-chan!" he replied, eyes shining like she'd given him a present. He smiled broadly, but just as quickly clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Aw, c'mon, Masaya-kun," Ichigo replied playfully. "I won't tell anyone that you're all smiley today. I promise, your secret's safe with me: I wouldn't want to ruin your reputation!" She laughed, frankly happy that Masaya was being demonstratively emotional for once. When he tentatively removed his hand, though, his lips were pressed together tightly, which made the smile look uncomfortable. And even through his closed lips, there was the tip of what looked like a pointed incisor visible. Did Masaya get dental work done? Filing his teeth seemed like a pretty extreme thing to do without telling anyone.

"Kit—Ichigo-chan, can I give you a kiss?" She would have expected him to look down bashfully as he said that, but he was staring straight at her expectantly. She giggled, drunk on the happiness of seeing him after months apart.

"Sure, Masaya-kun, but not right in front of school, okay?" She slid her hand into his and pulled him toward some trees in a corner of the schoolyard. He just stood there. Ichigo thought he was playing with her, but when she looked back at him, he was just standing still, shellshocked. "C'mon, silly." she jiggled their intertwined hands, which snapped him out of his reverie.

Under the trees, Masaya screwed his eyes shut and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. Then he opened one eye and cringed, like he expected her to slap him or something. When she just smiled lovingly back at him, he kissed her cheek again—a better kiss this time. On impulse, she snatched his earflap cap away while his eyes were still closed.

"Ha! Got your ugly ha—"

Masaya gasped and pulled back, his hands flying to the sides of his head. But it was too late. Pointed ears—alien ears!—sprung out from their hiding place. He hung his head, and smiled ruefully.

"Well, I guess the jig is up, hunh, Kitten? It was a good try though, you have to admit..." He flinched again, expecting a (well-deserved) slap, but though Ichigo's hand was raised, it stayed where it was. Her brown eyes filled up with tears.

"M-Masaya!" she sobbed. "You're an a-alien?"