She crawled into bed, seven forty-five. She listened to the rain beat against the roof until it silenced and soothed her to sleep. Her phone rang, the caller ID read 'Ryou'. 4:29 AM.
She didn't think twice before reaching for her cell phone and answering the call. She used her left hand to brush through her hair, and used her right hand to hold the phone. She put her sleeping wear, bra and panties, back in order.
"Hello?" She said in a fake voice, trying to cover up that he had woken her.
"Hey, look, I'm really sorry to be calling you this early," The truth was, she didn't care, she had seemed to have forgotten about being embarassed earlier and went back to wooing over the sound of his voice like normal.
"No, no, it's okay, I couldn't sleep anyways." She smiled to herself, sitting up and grabbing a pillow to hold.
"Oh, okay. Well someone threw a brick through the front window of the cafe and trashed the place. Since the rest of the girls worked yesterday, and you didn't, I need you down here to help out. I'll pay you overtime." She inwardly sighed. Even though she would love to spend the morning with Ryou, she didn't want to clean up, especially on her day off. She hung her head and cradled her face in her palm. "You don't have to come if you don't want, I'm just saying, we need some help over here." She inhaled and fake smiled, as if he were there, right next to her.
"Sure, and I guess that you need me there this minute?" She asked, knowing that if he called at this hour, he needed her there this hour. This was something that couldn't wait for noon. She heard Akasaka in the background, and Ryou talking to him. There was a pause, and she waited patiently.
"Uh, yeah, we need you here as soon as possible." She started to get out of bed and headed for her closet, tripping over herself as she walked. She tried to hide her irritated tone. "Do you need a ride? I know you don't have a car." She inwardly kicked herself. It was going to be dark outside and she had to walk. Of course she needed a ride. But it seemed like too much of a hassle.
"No, I don't, but thanks anyways. I'll just walk." She answered, reaching into her closet to grab some jeans. She started to pull them on, with only one hand, the other hand, holding her cell phone. She had declined because she didn't want to be a bother.
"That doesn't seem like a smart idea. Why don't you let me pick you up?" She zipped her jeans and went for the shirt, also pulling that over her head with one hand, and the phone.
"I'm fine Ryou, I'll walk." It was nice of him, but seemed like too much of a hassle.
"I can't let you do that, Ichigo, now that I know that you're going to be by yourself." She had successfully dressed herself. She exhaled and put one hand on her hip, looking for her shoes, but only finding her slippers.
"Don't worry about it, I'm fine-" There was the sound of keys on the other side of the phone line.
"It'll be dark and there are crazy people out there, Ichigo, crazy people that like pretty girls like you. I'm on my way to your house, I'll be picking you up." Ugh, he sounded like her mother. Their relationship was 'I-can't-believe-he's-talking-to-me', / 'he's-such-an-idiot', and she loved it. There was a click, signaling that he had hung up on her, but she talked into the receiver anyways, completely missing the hidden compliment he had given her.
"No, Ryou!" She shoved her phone into her back pocket and grabbed her house key. In slippers, she walked out the front door to the Mew Mew Cafe. It was darker outside than she thought it would be. And it was alot more silent than she ever pictured it to be. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for her to walk. Maybe she should have taken up his offer for a ride. But there was no turning back now, she had already made herself look like an ass. Now, all she had to do, was walk hurriedly to the Cafe and get there without getting abducted. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't said anything to her parents about leaving. So if she ever were abducted than the police would never know where to look! She started to worry herself now. She tried not to look behind, or beside her. It was only about a fifteen minute walk from her house to the Cafe. She could do it. Or maybe she couldn't do it?
She tried to get her mind off of the threat of a dirty old pedophile and tried to think of something more pleasant. Like when she had said her goodbyes to Kisshu after defeating Deep Blue. He had been so sweet to her, he had made her wish that he wasn't leaving after all.
"Can't you just come home with me? My people would accept you how you are. There would be no pollution anymore after having obtained the mew aqua. There would be no judgments of each other, or hurt. Can't you just please, come along with me?" He took her hand and assured her that it would be the better choice. She humbly declined.
"Earth is my home, Kisshu. I can't leave it, I have to stay." This would be the last time that she would ever have to turn him down, this would be the last time that they would meet, and the mark of the last time she never got the hint that he was only battling against her because he loved her. Though all the time they spent together was full of bickering and hurting each other, she was happy to have gotten to peacefully part. She let his hand go and stepped back, waving good bye.
"You're sure?" She nodded.
"I'm sure." They shared a smile as she started to speak again. "Even though the love I hold for you isn't the love that you had hoped it would be," She took Aoyama's hand and looked deep into his eyes. He just stared back at her, the rest of the mews behind them. "I won't forget you. I promise." Kisshu agreed. He started away, the sky rippling around him, when he turned to face the tan.
"Glad you're the man that gets her after all."
In the time that she had been thinking to herself and walking fast enough to beat a bus around the corner, she had found her more than half way to her destination.
And there were headlights.
She looked up from the ground. It wasn't Ryou's car. The headlights were turned off and the car slowed. She started to walk faster. The car came to a stop, and the door opened. From the car, emerged a tall figure. She pushed herself and quickened the pace, but there wasn't a long distance at high speeds that her slippers would take her. She thought about transforming and her hand flew to her neck where the pendant lain. But she wasn't quick enough, there was a hand on her arm, pulling her to the car. She was so caught up that she didn't hear the figure calling her name, and didn't hear his familiar voice. She didn't hear Ryou tell her that he was there now. She pulled in the opposing direction of the car and started the call.
"MEW MEW MET-" She started, but quickly lost her footing and stumbled into a near puddle, produced from the rain the night before. Her yell was short as she laid in the cold water. When she jumped up, she met Ryou's face and felt extremely stupid. Her slippers were soaked, along with the rest of her clothes.
"Ichigo, why the scare? I told you that I was on my way picking you up." She laughed. Not because the situation was funny. Not because someone cracked a joke, but because this was the second time in twenty four hours that last night's storm had soaked her and she was going insane with embarrassment now. "But I see that you left to walk by yourself anyways." He smiled and helped her to the car. Both of them had their minds on the kiss that they had shared the day before, the whole ride to the cafe. Neither spoke for what seemed like a while, but could have only been a couple minutes.
"So, where's your car?" She asked, looking over to him, hugging the towel that he had gotten out of the trunk for her. He kept his eyes on the road as he answered.
"They got my car too, it's worthless. There's no passenger seat door or windshield. This is Akasaka's." Now she felt even worse. First he has to drive over to pick her up at four in the morning on a holiday, second, she soaks his car with her newly obtained rain water. And third, the car belonged to Akasaka. But there were nothing but smiles when she realized that other than the hassle that she had brought on her friends, that she was in the car alone with her man. Or who she wanted as her man. Who she had already half way won as her man.
"Well, I'll have to apologize to him for soaking the passenger seat." She laughed. He joined her.
When they arrived at the cafe, she observed that the front window had been shattered in and broken, the broken pieces of glass scattered about the property. There was a police car parked out in the street and Keiichiro talking to an officer, next to that was what was left of the blond's car. The car was put into park and Ryou shut off the engine. They both removed themselves from the vehicle and headed into the mew mew cafe. The lights were on. Or some of them at least. The others had been smashed and broken, laying among knocked over tables and chairs. The large menu behind the main counter had been torn down completely. Ichigo stood in surprise at the trashed work place. There were pastries smeared about the walls and glass everywhere. They must have gotten to the kitchen too. How could someone do this to such a beautiful place? Ryou put used his hand on her back to guide her up to his bedroom.
"When did this happen?" She asked as they asended the stairs. The blond hesitated to answer, not becausse he didn't know, or that it would hurt anybody, but because he was trying to find an excuse to be alone with her. He had already gotten this far as to get her to come up to the cafe, though it had it's side effects.
"A couple hours ago. I waited as long as I could to contact you." He lied. It had happened just a few minutes ago. Maybe a half hour. He had called as soon as Akasaka had brought up the idea to call a mew to help out. "We had to call so early because, as you know, Tuesday, we're open, and we have to have all this cleaned up by then." That was untrue. They were so popular with teenage girls for business that they had the money to be able to shut down for a day or two. Now he had thought of something to keep her to himself. "You can't stay in those soaked clothes. Either put on your uniform or clothes of mine, you can't be out of work with a cold." She wanted to wear his clothes, but something was telling her to just wear the uniform. He started to sift through his closet, retrieving some papers, maybe proof or something for the cop outside. She didn't care to stick around to hear about legal stuff. So she headed to the employee bathroom around the upstairs corner.
Once there, she produced her new cafe uniform that she just couldn't wait to wear. Removing her shirt and her pants, she slid on the dress. But once again, she couldn't zip the back all the way up. Did it seem slutty to go back to him a second time to zip up her dress? Or maybe it wasn't slutty, maybe it just made her look like she was incapable of taking care of herself. So she tried again to close the dress, but just couldn't get it shut all the way. The child in her was coming out again as she stomped her feet and headed out the door way again. She hesitated at his bedroom door, that was now shut. Her hand was ready to knock, balled in a fist, knuckles facing the door. She didn't want to come off as needy, so she slowly backed up on her way to the bathroom again. She dragged her feet back to the spot where her wet clothes lie.
Maybe it was ten minutes that she spent in the bathroom by herself, trying to zip up the back of her dress. She tried everything, zipping it in the front, than turning it around. That worked until she had to put her arms in the holes. She tried bending backwards to increase the length in her arms, but that totally didn't work. So she sat in the middle of the floor, holding her soaked clothes, wondering if she could bear just wearing them until they had achieved cleaning up the place. She felt the cold air dancing on her exposed skin. There was a knock on the door. She stared in the direction of the noise, who she knew was Shirogane. The blond knocked again.
"Are you alright in there? It's been a while since you first went in there." He asked. That was good that he was checking up on her, but now she was going to seem extremely incapable no matter what. And it was worse now, that hse had spent so long on something so stupid.
"Um, yeah... I kinda, need some help." She stood up and walked to the door, opening it and throwing her wet clothes to the side. His face turned into some sort of an amused expression as he spun her around to hold the zipper, moving it upward. Her back straightened up and she exhaled. She turned to face him again.
"Better now?" She nodded.
"Thanks, yeah, I'm better." She looked down at her slippers that were still wet and still on her feet. "Can I borrow some slippers?" He nodded and lead her to his room again.
"Maybe we need to fix the zipper on your dress if you can't get it up all the way?" She laughed with him.
"Maybe," He bend over in front of his computer and picked up the idem she had previously asked for, handing them to her. She thanked him.
The three ended up spending the whole morning, and afternoon, cleaning up the cafe. Akasaka took care of the front yard and window, while Ryou took care of the kitchen. Ichigo was left to the tables out in the front dining room. There was alot of sweeping and sponging going on. Every now and then, the three would agree on a radio station. And every now and then, they would take a break in the partly clean kitchen for a snack. They set up fans in various places to keep from pretty much melting in the summer heat. On one of the four occasions where they took snack breaks, Ryou had run over to the next sandwich shop across the street and picked up some lunch for he and his friends. The blond and red head sat on the kitchen counter next to each other, side by side, and shared their food. He laughed at her over sized slippers while she played with his hair.
And that was when she realized, Ryou had always been the second in line. As much as she didn't want to admit it, Aoyama always came first. Mint was right, now that he was out of the picture, Ichigo had jumped right on Shirogane Ryou. For this, she felt shallow, like Ryou was second best. He didn't deserve that. The way he looked at her was a deep beaming stare. Their relationship was odd. She could admit that. It was almost like, when they were alone, they could be together, but when there were other people around, she acted hateful or resistant. There were things physiologically wrong with ichigo, but you were sure not to notice it from the outside.
Maybe she should have just gone home with Kisshu to his planet after all, life was tough here on Earth.
After the afternoon passed and the evening rolled around, she gave into letting Ryou drive her home. She gathered her wet clothes, dry now, from the bathroom floor, returning Ryou's slippers to him. The sun had come up, and now they found that it was going down again. She had been surprised when none of the other Mews had shown up to help. Hadn't they been alerted. But what was it to her now that everything was fixed. Window and all. Ryou pulled Akasaka's car around front and Ichigo climbed inside the passenger seat and smiled at her driver. He took her straight home after a long day of work. He turned on her street and arrived at her home, parking next to the mailbox. She faced him and opened her mouth to speak.
"Thanks, see you tomorrow," He didn't say anything, it looked like he was trying to find something to say, or he was getting ready to do something. A couple seconds passed, until Ichigo opened the door and he moved over near her, reaching across the car to pull her close. He kissed her square on the lips. They broke away and now he could speak.
"See you tomorrow." She covered her mouth with her hand and got out of the car, walking quickly into the house, a huge smile plastered on her face. She glanced back at his car, pulling out and driving away, through her family room window. His kisses were different than Aoyama's. She appreciated them more.
I don't like it at all.
I hate this story so bad. The ony reason I'm posting is because I have already written it. Ughh, I hate it!