Panther Blues

-waves- Hi everyone, my name is Neko Bun! This is my first TMM fiction! Ha ha!

The beginning of it may drag along a little, and you may wonder when the plot is going to get tied into the Mew Mews, but I promise it'll intersect soon! Just be patient for a little bit, and while you wait, enjoy Sumono's story. It's impossible for me to tell a short story, so it might get sort of lengthy. I hope you like it! Please read and review!

Disclaimer!
Sumono: Well, what are you waiting for?
Me: Huh?
Sumono: Say it.
Me: But --
Sumono: SAY IT!
Me: ..Okay, fine… I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew…
Sumono: Exactly. She only owns me.
Me: -groan-

"The only obstacles in life are the ones you give yourself."
-Anonymous

Chapter One!

Hi, my name is Kobayashi Sumono, and just recently, my life got really messed up. I mean, really messed up. Even more so than it had already been. I'm recounting the days and trying to understand exactly how all of this happened to someone like me.

...I mean, I'm normal. I live in a normal, tiny apartment with a normal, tiny kitchen and living room. I look just like everyone else on the outside, with the exception of their ridiculously expensive brand-name clothing (ha ha, as if I could afford that stuff). I have normal dark hair and dark eyes, just like most Japanese people. I speak like them. I eat what they eat. My studies and friends are pretty typical for someone my age. So how did this happen? I'm trying to remember the feelings, the locations, the reasons for these weird abnormalities.

Well, you know what? It's all the doing of Takamine Kichiro. All of this is his fault. I'm serious. If it weren't for that slimy, devious freak of nature, I would still be perfectly human. I wouldn't have agreed to go eat lunch at some overly-pink-i-fied little restaurant and get my DNA all screwed up. I wouldn't even have to be here, trying to share it with the whole world, if it weren't for Kichiro.

Confused? I guess I'll start with school.

School isn't the best place on earth. The students misbehave, and a lot of them skip class to go smoke on the street and pick fights. A lot of them have really bad grades. I won't say it's because they're stupid, because I'm actually pretty sure they're really smart. It's just that they're just your typical unmotivated teens. They've got better stuff to do, like watching TV and having what they believe to be ravishing social lives. I don't really like all of this, personally. I'm definately no goody-goody, but I'm not entirely sure I can really accept the fact that the Japanese youth are aimless and disrespectful. So, yeah. School isn't the best place on earth. Of course, I would prefer to avoid it at all costs, but I also want a future. I've seen what happens when kids don't apply themselves. A perfect example is probably sitting in my living room right now, drinking beer, smoking, watching TV, neglecting all responsibilities, and yet still calling himself my dad. Personally, I would rather not become that. School is important. That's why I go.

Anyway, I arrived at school early one morning, and went to my shoe locker, where I was greeted by my friend, Ota Namiko. "Sumono-chan!" she called, apparently really chipper for so early in the morning (personally, I find it impossible to be happy at such hours). She ran up to me and joined me by my side as I started to walk away from my locker.

"Ohayo," I responded droopily, and yawned. Namiko laughed, and then instantly started to indulge me in "this really awesome soap opera she saw last night", sharing every specific detail and quote, talking very quickly like this was the most amazing thing that ever happened to her. She jabbered away while I nodded and grunted absent-mindedly all the way down the hall, and all the way to class, where we sat side-by-side as we waited for our sensei to arrive. Namiko's voice eventually subsided to a dull roar in my brain, sort of like a fly buzzing by my ear. I continued to nod and grunt, but truthfully, I wasn't catching a word of it. Slowly, the classroom began to fill, and I pulled out my notebook and started to doodle on it.

The chair of the desk parallel to mine creaked, and I turned my gaze to see who was sitting there. Next to me was Takamine Kichiro, who was talking to his faithful posse of mindless freaks. He's one of the guys I was talking about - the aimless and disrespectful kind, the type who skips his classes periodically to have a smoke, and do a few other things I've decided to refrain from writing here. Personally, I find him completely worthless, but the rest of the girls love him. He's incredibly popular, which makes sense, because he's so good-looking. Despite his inflated ego and personality disorder, he has about three fan clubs, and a gigantic battalion of admirers.

"…And that's when Kimi came out in this totally cute pink little … Hey, Sumono, are you even listening to me?"

Yeah, so he had a bunch of admirers, but they did not include me - not over my dead body. This guy was probably the last person I'd ever come to even accept. He pretended like he had all of these problems, like being unfortunate and having a sucky life, mainly to get attention. I scoffed at that. How could he possibly know what a miserable life was like? His mother and father probably waited on his hand and foot, the little spoiled brat. How could he even try to pretend he knew what it was like to have an unstable home life? To have to nurse your own fat, delirious dad and do his laundry for him? Kichiro disgusted me.

Namiko poked my arm.

"Hello? Sumomo?"

She paused for a moment, then lowered her voice as it started to sound bubbly and excited. "Oh, my God. Kichiro-chan is sitting next to you…" I didn't really want to respond, because that was the very fact I was loathing most at the moment. "Are you staring at him?" she whispered. I turned to look at her, and gave her an expression of defiance. "Nope. I'm glaring. There is an insane difference." Namiko furrowed her brow. "I don't understand why you hate him so much. What did he do to you?" Oh. Did I mention my best friend is part of that battalion of admirers? Yeah, I'll stick that here.

"He didn't do anything to me."

"Then why the immense and unjust hatred?"

Unjust? Excuse me?

"He's a fricking brat," I hissed angrily, "And he's full of himself."

Namiko looked at me with big, wounded eyes. Apparently, she didn't think so. I had struck a very sensitive chord within her, and it had definitely been the wrong thing to say. I had insulted her great love and idol, hadn't I? She frowned at me, looking incredibly hurt and let down.

"Well, I think he's amazing."

I could only chuckle to that. "Of course you do. You wouldn't know any better," I said, getting a little miffed as well. She gasped. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she demanded. I shrugged.

"I mean what I say."

"Don't you think you're being awfully rude?"

"Not really."

Namiko let out a frustrated little huff, gave me one last, glassy-eyed look, and turned away, standing up to move desks. My mouth fell open. "Oh, come on! Don't be so touchy!" I called, but she didn't even look at me. She picked up her book bag and walked to the other side of the room, face downcast. Immediately, I started to feel a little guilty, and I sighed.

Beside me, Kichiro had stopped talking with his posse, so it was quiet as he eyed me for a moment. He laughed in this weird way, and went, "Catfight?" to me. His friends chortled and ho-hoed rather cruelly behind him.

I decided to engage my hands to make a rather obscene gesture in their relative direction, wishing I had the ability to pound their faces in at school. It wasn't a very wise thing to do, though, because he and his group instantly went on the defensive, all stood up, and crowded in a circle around my desk. Great.

"You know, you aren't a very nice girl, Kobayashi," Kichiro said. "You must be a really awful friend, too." There was a hint of teasing in his voice, which triggered an intense wave of anger to pulse through my veins. I hated it when people teased me, but I remained silent for the time being. He leaned an elbow on my desk and said stared me right in the face with a pair of deep, dark eyes.

I will take this moment to point out how incredibly difficult it is to look the person you hate in the eye when you're pissed. Well, yeah. It's really hard. Your face gets all hot, your fists clench and you get the sudden impulse to lash out and break something (preferably, the person's nose). That's pretty much how I felt at the time. My train of thought disappeared, and I did my best to offer a venomous glare from my own two eyes. "Shove off," I muttered.

Of course, he didn't budge. He was way too proud to listen to anyone, let alone an angry girl sitting at her desk, alone. "How disrespectful," Kichiro declared, and his posse grunted and nodded maliciously. "You really shouldn't speak that way to your superiors."

You know, there's only so much a girl like me - a girl with slight anger management problems - can take. Someone like me hates being labeled as an inferior. Someone like me really, really despises it. It's not like I don't already know that I'm not as rich and cool as everyone else… it's just that I hate being reminded.

My blood pulsed hard through my veins, my heart pounding furiously in my ears. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to get up and box his lights out. How dare he? How dare he say that?

"Shut your damn trap, Takamine."

He flashed a grin. It was the type of smile that was utterly adorable and completely despicable all at once. It only made me even more angry. With his single expression, he was mocking me. I knew it.

"You're quite bitchy this morning, aren't you?"

His eyes were pouring out hurtful, malicious messages with one ego-inflated glance. His smile was unnervingly coy. I hated that guy. I hated that flawless face. My face turned boiling hot. I lurched to my feet, unable to control myself, and before it even registered, I sent a flying bunch right at his jaw.

-

I know what you're thinking. You think I'm a dirty, sexy, fight-picking Yankee chick, and I totally beat the lights out of Kichiro, and the entire classroom cheered me on, and I went home proud and victorious without a single red mark on my school behavioral record because our class's sensei totally despises the bastard, just like me.

Well, get ready for a disappointment, folks.

-

What happened next was Kichiro looked at me with these really big, infuriated eyes. "What the hell is wrong with you, you bitch?" he yelped, his posse erupting in an outroar.

He reached out, grabbed the hair right next to my scalp and pulled so hard that my head went flying down in this lovely cascade towards my desk, smashing it really hard, sending my vision out of whack, everything fading out into whiteness, my breath jagging like daggers in my chest, and then an incredibly immense, pounding pain on the side of my skull above my temple. Then came the warm, sticky feeling of blood dripping slightly from my scalp.

I slowly slid off the desk, feeling my knees buckle as I met the cold floor. My shoulders began to shake. For a moment, I felt like crying. The pain was horrid, but worse was the emotion. The emotion of being lower than someone like him. The emotion of being trampled on. The emotion of resent; sweet, fresh resent, anger and blinding pain. I was dying. I was dying. My breath shuddered out of my shaken frame. Everything faded to black.

Something in the back of my mind started to talk to me.

What the hell? It cried out, observing my current state. What in the name of God is going on?

I'm dying, I informed the voice forlornly.

What? You can't die, you moron. It's only chapter one.

Yeah, but he smashed my head in, I said.

It was only a desk, the voice argued, And you still have loads to complain about later in the story.

Oh, I thought hopefully, really?

Well, sure! Plus, you aren't going to die on a classroom floor, are you? the voice demanded.

I agreed. Yeah, you're right… that would be really dumb…

That's when all of the morning light started to wash over me, bleeding through my eyelids, waking me from my fatal thoughts. I opened my eyes and looked up at my nemesis, and despite the dizzying pain overtaking my head, I stood up slowly, turning to face him. He looked at me, scrutinizing. It was like he thought I was a gnat - I just wouldn't die, no matter how many times I was hit. Well, that was good for me. Other than being a gnat, I mean.

I glared into his eyes, diverting all of my hatred for him through my pupils, refusing the choice of letting myself feel beat up by him. There was no way in hell I could let someone like this get the better of me. I noticed the entire classroom had fallen silent. I was pretty sure it was because they were all waiting to see what was going to happen next, anticipating my next move.

So, I mustered up my energy enough to land my fist in the pit of his stomach. I admit that his abnormally toned abs threw off the force of it, but at least I had gotten to him. A fresh stream of adrenaline started to flow freely through my bloodstream, and I prepared for his rebound, for his fists to go flying at me.

Only, that didn't happen. He went, "Ouch!" really loud, and staggered backwards. For a moment, I was a little confused. I wasn't really expecting it to really hurt him that much. I blinked, feeling the flicker of an easy victory. …And suddenly, I realized why the room was so quiet. I realized why he had cried out in pain. It was fake pain. Because there in the doorway stood our sensei, staring at me with horrified and upset eyes.

---

Yay! Cliffie! Well, Sort of... R and R, pretty please!
-NekoBun