Author's Note: I am SO loving where this story's headed! So... we don't find out who the "peeper" was from last time in this chapter, but in the next chapter, there will be a clue at the end, so look out! Haha! Yes, I know this part of the chapter is way longer than what I said it was going to be, but when I got to "that point", it just wasn't ready to end, so I had to keep writing. But it turned out really great in the end!

Those who reviewed have been really great so far and you had some interesting thoughts on the whole TMM series, whether it was the anime or manga. Thanks to one of you(you know who you are... hopefully), I'm more open to the idea of PaixLettuce as opposed to what I used to think of them being together. (I've always liked PaiZaku and KeiLett. Now, I don't really care who ends up with who.) And it's given me some ideas for those hardcore PaixLettuce and ZakuroxKeiichiro fans. So keep reading if you want to find out who ends up with who! Tee hee! XD

Chapter 3
(Part 2)

Back in Ichigo's room, she was sitting on her bed, still trying to make sense of the afternoon's events… and of herself. On the one hand, she couldn't decide whether to choose her boyfriend over her friends, or vice versa. On the other hand, she couldn't understand why she was listening to Ryou's advice. It seemed as though things had suddenly gotten so complicated in her life. Well, it wouldn't be the first time.

Deciding this was getting her nowhere, Ichigo decided to call someone she knew she could always trust no matter what. Grabbing her cell, she dialed a number.

"Hello?" The person answered.

"Hey Ringo! It's Ichigo."

"Oh, hi Ichigo! What's up?" She asked.

"Well, I'm still trying to figure out who to believe: Mint, Zakuro, and Tasuku, or Masaya?"

"Well, let's see. You have known Masaya a lot longer- as Mint said- but you do know the other girls way better. If it were me in your place, I'd go with who I know better. It would be too hard to figure out who I love more since it's so close, so the person- or people in this case- I know better would be my best bet of who to believe.

"Look, you know all of us very well, Ichigo. You know that none of us would ever lie to you about anything, unless we broke something of yours and wanted to be funny about it. That would most likely be Pudding and Mint. Uh-oh! Sorry, I was babbling. Anyway, if you're still unsure of who to believe, then just go with your gut-instinct. That should help in any situation. I would say to go with what your heart says, but sometimes, it gets confused.

"Like, you want to be faithful to Masaya, so your heart would tell you to believe him. But you also want to be loyal to your friends. Gut-instinct is the best way to go with this. I'm sure of it. Yep!"

Ichigo frowned in thought. "Hmmm… Gut-instinct, huh? I'll try it!" She smiled at her choice.

"That's the way! Well, I have to go. My brother wants me to do something."

"Wait a second."

"What is it?"

"I was wondering why you and Pudding were fighting."

"Oh, that," Ringo chuckled. "We were just fighting because everyone else was fighting and we felt left out."

"Oh!" Ichigo laughed at her friends' silliness. "Okay then. Bye Ringo!"

"Bye Ichigo! I hope you figure it out."

"Thanks. And thank you for everything."

"No problem! Bye!"

"Bye!" She hung up and sighed as she lay back on her bed. Alright gut-instinct... Do your thing, Ichigo thought. Two hours passed by. It was now eleven o' clock at night and she was starting to get really tired. Before she knew it, she was asleep and dreaming.

~DREAM~

Ichigo is running through a field of wheat (A/N: It's a dream. Don't judge.) and sees a light in the distance. It's night time, so she can barely see what it is. Form what she can tell, it's a person. As she gets closer, the person turns out to be Masaya! (A/N: Oh, gag me.)

She calls out to him, but there's no sound and she's confused. When she nears him, Ichigo trips and everything is in slow-motion. She reaches for Masaya's hand, but he takes it away. She keeps falling forward and hits the ground. Or, at least, she thinks it's the ground.

It's different and softer and… split in two? Come to think of it, she felt two arms around her torso. Did Masaya finally catch her? But he's still standing in front of her, a look of disgust on his face. Then… Who had caught her? This is when it finally dawns on her to look.

She turns her head to see… Ryou?! What is he doing there? And why is he the one who caught her? As she studies his face, she sees anger and hatred. That's when she notices who he's looking at.

Looking back up at Masaya, she gasps at the sight of him. It's not Masaya at all anymore! It's Deep Blue! A wave of fear suddenly flows through her body. She shudders and Ryou tightens his hold on her. He is now holding her bridal style over his knee.

Again, she tries to speak and is successful this time. "Masaya… What happened? Why do you look like that? This isn't real. This isn't real, right? Please, say it isn't real!"

"Forget him, Ichigo," Ryou says grimly. "He's changed. And he'll never be the same 'Masaya' we all knew."

"But… He's still my Masaya. I still love him!" Ichigo struggles to get out of Ryou's strong hold.

He restrained her fast. "No, Ichigo! You'll just get hurt!"

"I don't care!" Ichigo manages to get out of her safety grip and runs to Deep Blue.

She gets closer to him, only to be greeted by a cut to the throat from Deep Blue's sword. She screams bloody murder and falls to her knees; hands clasped to the wound to stop the bleeding.

Deep Blue prepares to slice her skin again when a gray cat gets in the way, and gets cut instead of Ichigo. Realizing nothing is happening to her, Ichigo opens her eyes to see the action take place right in front of her.

"Alto!" She croaks. Then, the cat changes form to Ryou and falls to the ground. "Ryou!!!" She manages to scream. Only then does she remember that he was holding her just a minute ago and wonders when he transformed into Alto.

"I'm okay. Just run away from here!" Ryou shouts, holding his left arm.

"But… you're hurt… and it's all… it's all my fault…" She whispers as she smoothes his hair, no longer concerned about her injured throat.

"Don't say that! I don't ever want to hear that from you!" He yells at her. She's taken aback and jumps at his outburst. "You mean too much to me to… I care too much about you to… to let you say that… about yourself."

"Ryou…" Ichigo takes Ryou's head in her lap as he looks at her warmly.

"I have to confess something. I… I always liked teasing you. But it was never to be mean. I just… I just liked seeing you get all worked up over such trivial things. It really made my day. What I'm saying is… I… I lo…" And then he died in her arms.

Ichigo burst into tears and shook him a little. "What?! You what?! Ryou! Ryou, please speak to me! Don't leave me now! Come back! Ryou, come back!" She hugged him to her blood-covered chest and cried into his golden blonde hair.

"Would you like to join him?" A menacing voice questioned.

"Yes! I'd do anything to be with him again! I'd give anything…" She sobbed.

"But Ichigo… I thought you loved me." This voice was Masaya's. It was sweet and innocent, but forced. Much like it had been at the café.

She looked up at him and frowned as anger flooded her body. "Used to. I used to love you! Not anymore! I don't care who you were when you killed him, but now Ryou is gone and I won't ever see him again! I-!" She starts realizing what she's saying and quiets down, her face is confused. " I… loved him. I love him." Then, she gets angry again- even more this time- and stands.

"How dare you kill my Ryou!? You'll pay for you're most evil deed!" The next thing she knew, she's clad in her Mew Mew uniform and holding her Strawberry Bell. "Strawberry Surprise Power-Up! Strawberry Flash!" This attack was new and much stronger than her other ones. Not to mention, it really did the trick. Deep Blue/Masaya was gone and never coming back.

She changed back to her regular self and attended to Ryou. "Ryou! Ryou, everything's okay now. You can wake up." She stares at him hopefully as she's starting to feel light-headed. She's lost a lot of blood already and she was due to die any minute now.

"Please, Ryou… open your eyes. I want to tell you how I feel about you. You were telling me earlier, weren't you? Before you died. You were about to tell me you love me. I accept the feelings, Ryou. And I return them with all my heart. So please… Won't you wake up?" She watched him and after a long time, finally decided he wasn't coming back either. "Ryou!" She cried.

~END DREAM~

"Ryou! Ryou! How could you leave me?! Ryou!!! Ah!" She woke up and realized it was all just a dream. What a… what a terrifying… horrible dream! She thought. She would have said it out loud, but the fact that she was breathless and her hand was strangling her throat, didn't help with that too much.

She jerked her hand away from her neck and breathed deeply to calm herself. "Why did I dream that? Does it mean something? But what, I wonder." She looked at her alarm clock and saw that it was six in the morning. "Well, there's no use getting back to sleep now. Guess I'll just plan the events for today."

Surprisingly to her, it only took an hour for her to complete the list, considering the fact that she had decided to plan all events for the three weeks. (A/N: That's right! She decided this when ya'll weren't looking! Haha!) In case they ran through the list before the three weeks was up, she thought they'd either hang at the café or her house to watch movies. And possibly get to know each other even better if they didn't know enough by that time.

"Well, that's done. But now I'm bored. What should I do? Oh yeah! I'll call Ryou to see when he wants to meet and I'll tell him what we're doing." With this thought in mind, Ichigo got up to get her phone and plopped down on her bed. She dialed the café's number.

"Hello..?" Ryou finally answered- albeit, a bit groggily- after about five rings. (A/N: Oh my gosh, that's a lot of rings!)

"Ryou? You sound sleepy. Should I call later?" Ichigo asked casually.

"Huh? Who is this?" He demanded confusedly.

"It's Ichigo, who do you think?!" She shrieked; a little annoyed that he couldn't tell it was her. Honestly, you'd think he would know.

"Mmm… Ichigo who?" Ryou yawned. (A/N: Oh my gosh! That's just cute! I can almost see him yawning while rubbing his eyes in such an innocent way… ~sighs~)

"You idiot. You're still half-asleep, aren't you?" She sighed (A/N: Hey! That's what I just did! ~sweat drops~ Gomen. Read on!) "It's Ichigo Momomiya. You know, the girl you turned into a cat to save the future of the planet and keep it clean? Ringin' a bell here?"

Ryou was silent for a while and Ichigo thought he'd fallen asleep. She was just about to hang up when he answered. "Hey Ichigo. What's up? Did you need something?"

"As a matter of fact, I need to ask when you wanted to meet up for today."

"Mm. Why don't you come over right now?" His voice was seductive and Ichigo was startled by it.

"Huh?! B-but… I-I don't want to-"

"Come on, Ichigo. We'll have some fun," he insisted using the same tone. He sounded more awake, though.

"A-are you just teasing me?! If you are, I'll be so mad at you."

"Be mad at me for what?" He questioned. He was using his normal voice now and was quite confused. "And why are you calling me so early?"

"Don't even start with me!" She warned, but thought that he might've been asleep this whole time and finally woke up completely. "Uh! You know what? Never mind. You're off the hook."

"Off the hook for what?" Poor Ryou was still confused and was now getting just a little irritated that Ichigo wouldn't tell him what was going on.

"You've been half-asleep since I called you, huh?" She finally answered correctly.

"I guess… When did you call me?"

"Just now genius. Wow, you really were asleep, weren't you?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever," he answered hastily, wanting to get to the part about him being 'off the hook'. "Why'd you say I'm off the hook? What'd I do?"

"Well, this is a little embarrassing- for both of us, really- but you were still kind of asleep, but you sounded like you were finally wide awake. It's what you said that got me so worked up." She blushed at the thought as she explained it to him.

"What did I say?" He was a little calmer now and only curious about the situation.

"Um, well, you might have asked that I go to the café right now to have some fun and I might have thought you were meaning something perverted by that…" She trailed off, too embarrassed to continue. (A/N: As if she could continue. That was the whole story.)

"Oh! Uh-huh… Wow, that is embarrassing," he chuckled.

"You're laughing?"

"Well, in all honesty, I don't really know how else to react to this I don't usually act this way when I wake up, especially when I'm on the phone. Sorry about that."

"Uh… No problem…" She replied nervously. Why's he suddenly being so nice? She wondered.

"Hey, I vaguely remember you saying you needed to ask me something?"

"Oh, right! Um, when do you want to meet up today?"

"Depends on where we're going."

"How does that work?" Ichigo asked incredulously.

"It doesn't. That's just how I am. Look, you just learned something new about me and the day hasn't even started yet!" Ryou enthused.

"Actually, I know you well enough to know how you are," she admitted.

"Could you sound any more disturbed about it?"

"Sorry. I guess I should tell you what we're doing. I was planning to go to the park and get an ice cream. You know, take things slow at first. Don't wanna jump right into it when we're trying to become friends."

"That is a good idea, but even so, how do you always make everything seem childish?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, just now. You said we should take things slow if we want to be friends. I don't know, but it just seems childish to me."

"Well, excuse me for having a different way of phrasing things!" Ichigo pouted, even though Ryou can't see her. "You're such a meanie, Ryou."

"I didn't mean it like that. Whatever." He sighed. "We'll just make it for ten. That okay?"

"Sure, but why ten?"

"Because I need at least two and a half hours of more sleep before we do anything. And I suggest you take this time to get more sleep, so you're more adapt in case we end up at each other's throats. And you know it could happen."

"B-but… I can't sleep…"

"Why not?"

"Bec-because… I had a dream. It was rather horrible."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Well, yeah, but not with you of all people. There are only three people I trust enough to tell it to because I know they'd keep it secret. And even then, I wouldn't tell them."

"Let me guess: Mint, Ringo, and your boyfriend." He said 'your boyfriend' flatly.

"No way! I mean, Ringo is one of the ones I'd choose, but I can't even tell Masaya about it because he was in the dream."

"I should've figured as much," Ryou muttered.

Ichigo ignored him. "And I definitely wouldn't tell Mint because she'd go blabbing to everyone about it, and then I'll be embarrassed for life and never live it down, especially from you!"

"Why do you care so much about what I think?"

"I don't!"

"You just said-"

"I know what I said! Just forget it!"

Ryou sighed exasperatedly. "Hey, why don't you come over?"

Ichigo gasped. "That's exactly what you said earlier!"

"Okay… But I'm wide awake this time and I swear I'm not being perverted about it."

"How can I trust that? You've been known to-"

"Whoa! Hold up… When have I ever-?"

"When we first met."

"Huh?"

"When you and Keiichiro took me to the café for the first time, you showed me my mark."

"Oh, you thought that was perverted? Geez, Ichigo. I was just showing you the mark because I thought it would be easier, or else you would've been searching all over your legs. I thought it sped things up. I'm sorry that you thought I was being forward."

That's the second time he's apologized, she thought. What's up with him? "I-I see. So… Oh! And I hit you when that happened too. I'm so sorry! I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't thought you were trying to touch me."

"Actually, you kicked me, but it all turned out fine in the end. You got over it amazingly quick."

"Hmmmm…" Ichigo moaned. Apparently, she was feeling really bad about her misunderstanding.

"But seriously, though. Come over so we can talk. Might as well, since we're both awake."

"Um… Okay. See you soon."

"Bye."

Ichigo hung up and sat on her bed for a while longer. After about five minutes had passed, she got up to get dressed, and then went downstairs to find a note from her parents on the breakfast table. It said that they were going to be gone for three weeks and to find somewhere to stay during that time. Setting the note back down on the table, she went into the kitchen where she found breakfast her mother had made for her.

After breakfast, she went back upstairs to pack for a three-week stay and returned to the downstairs. Making sure there were no safety hazards (stove left on, heater sitting next to drapes, etc.), she walked towards the door and realized she'd forgotten her list of events for the three weeks. She quickly ran upstairs and was back at the door in less than a minute. Checking once more that she had everything she needed, Ichigo walked out the door (A/N: Locking it, of course.) and headed for the café.

End of Chapter 3
(Part 2)

Me: There ya go, Ringo. You got your speaking part and it's still chapter 3!

Ringo: Yay! Thank you!

Me: So... That dream... I personally liked it. And I'm not just saying that cuz I wrote it. I didn't think I'd have the brainpower to write something that well! (Shut up those who want to take that comment and tease me with it! Grrr!)

Now, I know some of the things/ideas I put in this chapter were either used in other fanfics and I'm really sorry (especially since I never got permission from those people to do this), but it just came out through my fingertips and it just fit so well with my story and I love that kinda stuff so much! I beg of those- who had those ideas in their stories first- to PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSE not murder me for it! Or torture me in any way! GOMEN! ~sobs~

Ringo: Oh, Froggy, I'm sure they'll forgive you. It was a harmless mistake. As long as you say you're sorry, I'm sure it'll be just fine!

Me: Thank you Ringo. ~sniffs~ You really are kind. ... NOW! I would like everyone to review! Pwetty pwease? With a strawberry on top? Or in Ringo's case... With an apple on top??

Ringo: Arigato! ^^