Ch. 4: A Date

"Koneko-chan! Let's go on a date!" Kisshu cheers. Ichigo looks at him with the corner of her mouth up in disgust and her eyes showing the same thing.

She asks, "A date? Are you delusional? No!" She looks away from him on the bench and crosses her arms over her chest.

Kisshu flouts from the side of her to in front of her and leans closer. "Come on, Kitty! Please!!"

It's after school and since Ichigo doesn't have a café to work at and Masaya has a club meeting he had to attend to, she thought she can have some time to herself in the park. She was just relaxing on the bench and enjoying the sun on her face, the sounds of a peaceful Tokyo city, and the feeling the wind in her hair. It actually started to make her hum and that hum soon turned into a song and that song causes Kisshu to appear in front of her. Ichigo's once peacful moment was there and gone as soon as he appeared. Now he's insisting on a date!

Kisshu whines and puts on the sad puppy eyes. Ichigo gulps and flinches back as she sees the dog ears and the dog tail coming out. "Please, koneko-chan!" he pleads with a high pitch voice as he leans closer to her. "Just one date on this wonderful day. Besides you need a rest from all the stress you've been getting lately."

"Uh?" she asks, his ears and tail long gone now along with his puppy eyes.

He asks, "Well didn't you get a whole lot of stress from standing up for me at the café? Not to forget that there is the stress from how your boyfriend seemed to know about my death when you didn't tell him and the suspicion about my friends not making a move against the humans lately." Ichigo can hear the venom in his voice when he mentioned the love of her life so she raises a brow and crosses her arms in front of her chest.

Kisshu rolls his eyes since he knows why she's angry. But he gets on his knees and pleades. "Please, please, please!! I'll never complain about those cards ever again!" Now seeing him like that made Ichigo let out a small laugh.

She tells him, "Fine! But it's not a date, it's a rest."

Kisshu's eyes perk up and his smile brightens on his face. He gets up and jumps up and down, cheering. "Yes! Yes! Yes!!" He flies over to her and gives her a kiss on the cheek. "I knew you like me!"

"Don't get full of yourself," she tells him. "I only agreed because I need the break from reality for a bit. Also, you don't have to stop complaining. I like it when I'm kicking your butt and you're all frustrated."

Kisshu pouts angrly and mutters, "You're cruel, koneko-chan."

"Stop calling me that," she tells him. "So what is on the first things we need to do on this 'rest'?"

He smirks and tells her, "Well I always imagined that when you're on a date with me, we start with kissng." He says this while leaning closer to her face.

When he became only an inch away from her, she ducks and gets off the bench. He looks at her in confusion as she stands up and smirks at him. "Nice try! How about a tour of the city? A walk sounds nice and you never seen the city without getting the idea of destroying it first."

Kisshu rolls his eyes again and asks, "Excuse me but who's taking you on a date?" He stands up and gives her one of his pleasureful smirks that makes her heart skip a beat. She ignores it since it happened only a second and she rolls her eyes this time.

"You're taking me on a rest but I'm taking you on a tour. Now hurry up! We're wasting day light here!" Then she goes walking out of the park and Kisshu shrugs his shoulders before fallowing her. There he was amazed.

"Kitty! What's this?" Kisshu asks, his face brightened up like a child's. "It smells good here."

Ichigo tells him through her teeth, "It's called a bakery and would you calm down for at least five minutes without flying towards some dashboard and flying through it! It's freaking me out and how do we not know that other people can see you? Like seers or physics or something?!"

Kisshu goes up to her and places his transparent finger on her lips the second she let the last syllable escape. She looks from the finger to him as he tells her, "Would you relax, koneko-chan? No one else can see me besides you." He removes his finger as he reminds, "Besides you're the one who told me to stop looking at the city like the most disgusting thing on the planet."

"Yeah but," she tries to say, stepping back from his finger.

But he quickly tells her, "But nothing! Now relax and allow me to do what I please on this little date tour."

"This is not a date!"

"It is in my book." He looks to the side, across the street and he sees something. He asks, "Kitty cat, what's that?"

She looks up and it's an Arcade. She can see why it caught his eyes. The place is full of bright colors, there's human children inside who are laughing and winning tokens, and everyone seems to be having a good time. She explains, "That's called an Arcade. Kids love to go in there to play games and win prizes from the tickets they collect when they win a game. It's fun but very costly."

"Do you want to go in?"

She looks at him in confusion as he's looking at her, waiting for an answer. She tells him, "I haven't been to an arcade since I was little."

"And I see in there people who appear older than you. This is a resting date, remember? Relax and forget about the Mew Mews, aliens, and kirema animas for a bit."

"How can I forget when I see your big elf like ears and know you're an alien."

"Ignore it and stop making excuses."

Then he goes flying off to the otherside and Ichigo watches him fly right through the trucks and cars that could have hit him if he had a whole body. It made her skin crawl even more. When he lands, he turns around and yells, "Come on, Kitty cat! No one else is watching but you!"

Ichigo yells, "Yeah, you're happy about that aren't you?!"

Some of the people look towards where she was screaming at but there is no one. So either she is a weirdo or she's completely upset about the little kids in the Arcade. Instead, Ichigo walks over to the cross walk and presses the walk button. Few minutes later, the light changes to green to go and she walks over to the door to the Arcade where Kisshu was hovering in the air with his hands under his head and leaning back like he's on a solid flat surface.

She tells him, "I'm here!" with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

He lands on his feet and tells her, "Finally! Why did you take forever just to get here?"

"Well unlike you, Mr. Impatient, I can't go through cars and trucks while flying through the air. I'm still solid and I'm human!" she reminds him.

He mumbles under his breathe, "Sadly." She heard him and glares at him. He ignores that and starts flying to the door. "Let's go!" Then he flies right through it and tries her best to ignore it. Wasn't this rest suppose to lower her stress levels? Not increase them!

Kisshu went over to one machine and notices that it's empty. The name is Dance Dance Revolution. "Whoa!! Koneko-chan! What's this?"

Ichigo looks up and sees him at the DDR game. She walks over and answers, "That's a dancing game, sort of. You get on these platforms and with each step that comes up, you hit with your feet."

Kisshu raises a brow at that and looks like he's thinking about it. He tells her, "Try it!"

"What?!" she asks, surprised.

"I want to see you play. I can't play since I can't step on it but you can. I want to to watch! Please koneko-chan!!"

Ichigo lets out a sigh and goes to her bag. She takes out her wallet and takes out a one thousand yen bill. She tells him, "Fine but just this once! This game is expensive."

"You humans and your value of money!"

"Someday, you might understand."

Ichigo puts the bill inside the machine and Kisshu watches in curiosity as it sucks the bill and starts. Ichigo choose what style she wants to dance in, what character, and what level. She choose single, a girl with a blue turtle neck shirt with bright orange pants and short pink hair, and she choose difficult. When it went to the list of songs, she started pressing the buttons to look through them.

"Now where is that song…" she mumbles.

Kisshu is curious as he asks, "What song?"

"Ah, found it!" she cheers. When Kisshu looks, she sees that the song title is 'Love Shine'. Ichigo presses the green button and says, "Now lets see how rusty I am!" Then the music started and the steps appeared. Kisshu watches as Ichigo, at first, looks like she's struggling. He saw that.

"Come on, koneko-chan! You fight better than this!"

"Shut up, Kisshu!" she yells, before turning back into the screen and hits the left step a little early. That's a miss.

Then Kisshu flouts behind her and she gasps in surprise as she can feel his hands on her shoulder and his lips near her ear. "Calm down, kitty. You're so tense. Just relax and have some fun." Ichigo blushes and her heart is beating fast in her chest. He whispers, "Left."

Like he put her under a magic spell, she steps on the left arrow just in time. She's surprise but smiles as he tells her, "Now jump on up and down same time." She does and she hits it right on time.

For the rest of the song, he tells her the steps precisely and she hits them at the right time. She got a marvelous at each step. When the results came up after the song, she got a B, because of all the other misses she had in the beginning. Ichigo cheers, "Yes!! A B!! I thought I was going to get something much worst."

Kisshu backs away and he has on a smug face. "And it was all thanks to my brilliant instructions."

She smirks and tells him, "Well let's see what I can do without your brilliant teachings!" She presses the green button and goes to the next song. She goes through the list and chooses 'Xepher'. "Perfect!!"

Kisshu looks at the level and it's worst than 'Love Shine'. "Are you sure you should try this one?"

She has the smug face as she asks, "What? Don't think I can handle it? Well I'm about to prove you wrong! Prepare yourself to be amazed!!" She presses the green button and the music starts.

Kisshu decides to watch and she was right. He wasn't prepared to see her fly over that platform and get all of the steps right. Surprising thing is that in difficult level, this song is really expert compared to 'Love Shine'. Besides how well she's doing, Kisshu sees that smile on Ichigo's face and the sparkle in her eyes. She actually looks like she's having a lot of fun. He lets out a chuckle and smiles at her. Her eyes are on the screen so she didn't see.

At the end of the song, Ichigo collapses and leans on the metal stand behind her. She waits for the results while feeling completely exhausted and out of breathes. She looks up and she got an AA. That's really good!

Ichigo smiles before jumping up and screaming, "Alright!!" She turns to Kisshu and tells him, "Take that! See how well I can do without your brilliant teachings?"

He tells her, "Alright, alright. You got me but can you do it again?"

She smirks in acceptance. "Kisshu, terrifying alien of the world, I accept your challenge! Prepare to be disappointed!"

After that, she goes to the next song and flies over the platform again. Kisshu just stands by and watches. After playing DDR and getting another chance to play since she got two AA's, Ichigo led Kisshu to the other games. There was one where she had to hit the sharks that came out of the hole and Kisshu was cheering all the way. Then they went to play 'House of the Dead' because Kisshu made her do that on a dare. Surprising, she went pretty far, mostly because she was shooting the zombies more than necessary when they came and tried to eat her. She shot mostly out of fear and Kisshu had to admit that her reaction and screams were very entertaining.

After the Arcade, Ichigo took Kisshu on the tour once again. This time, Ichigo was having a lot of fun, especially with Kisshu - the same alien who annoyed her with his attempts to hold her and kiss her and the same alien who kept trying to kill her on a regular daily basis. This was really a break from all of the stress she's been having lately. Nearly two hours later, both Kisshu and Ichigo are walking through the park and she has an ice cream in her hand. They stroll through the park and are laughing. Some of the humans are looking at them weird, especially Ichigo. However, Ichigo and Kisshu weren't the only ones who walking through the park.

Masaya is walking down the cement path not too far from Ichigo and Kisshu but their paths are separated by a thin layer of trees. He just came from café after practice to visit Ichigo, but they told him that Ichigo is on vacation. So now he's walking home since he doesn't have time to go to her home when she hears her laughing.

"Seriously?!" she asks.

Kisshu answered, "Saw it with my own eyes!"

"Huh? Ichigo?" And who's that?

Masaya looks to the side to where he hears the laughing and not only does he see Ichigo walking with a ice cream cone in her hands and looking up, he also sees Kisshu walking with her or flying next to her. But the weird thing to him is that Kisshu's form goes in and out for him. Like a bad reception on TV. He's there and then he's gone for an instant before he comes back again. Masaya is surprised by this. First off, he thought Kisshu was dead and second, Ichigo looks like she's on a date with him, the way she's smiling and laughing. Out of curiosity, he decides to fallow them while remaining hidden.

Ichigo and Kisshu arrived back at the bench they were before and sat down after a tiring day of walking around. But now Ichigo can't stop laughing.

She tells him, "You're lying!"

"But it's true, koneko-chan!" he tells her. "When Pai made one little mistake in an experiment, he turned yellow for a week! His hair took a month! Then when Taruto tried to do something, he turned part dog, part monkey, and part sloth." Now he's starting to laugh uncontrollably. "He looked so hilarious I thought I was going to die laughing! He had the body of a dog, a face and tail of a monkey, and the movement's of a sloth. It took him two hours to get from one end to the room to the other just to catch me because I teased him." Now Ichigo is laughing herself to tears. Then she smashes her nose into her ice cream.

"Oops!" she lets out, looking at her nose. Kisshu stops laughing and looks up to see her nose covered in strawberry ice cream. Kisshu covers his mouth but Ichigo can clearly see him trying to hold in his laughter. She asks, "What?" Then he cracked.

Kisshu turns the other way and slams his hand on to the ground multiple times while laughing like a maniac. Good thing Ichigo is the only one who can see him, or so she thought.

Ichigo has a pulse on her head as she yells, "Shut up, Kisshu! It's not funny!" She reaches for her pocket to take out a napkin and by the time she was going to wipe away the ice cream, Kisshu's hand grasps her. She stops and looks up in surprise of his hand while his golden amber eyes pierce right through hers.

He tells her, "If I was still alive, I would lick that ice cream right off."

Ichigo turns red and tries to look away. She tells him, "Stop kidding around!"

"I'm not, Ichigo."

She looks back at him and he took that chance to make it look like licked the ice cream off her nose. The ice cream is still there but Ichigo felt his tongue on the skin of her nose and her heart pounded hard in her chest. He backs away from her face and his eyes look so sad and lonely. His hand that grasped hers rises up to her face and gently strokes her cheek. She can feel his thumb but no warmth. Then he looks away and pulls his hand back. He sits back down on the bench and looks away. Ichigo couldn't help but feel pity and guilt for his tormented soul. She knows that he loves her and if his feels are real, then not being able to hold her and touch her like he can in the dream world must be torture. In fact, maybe that's the reason why he keeps telling her to take a nap as soon as she comes home.

Ichigo uses her napkin and wipes away the ice cream. She tries not to look at him as she whispers, "Sometimes, I wish that you were still alive too." Kisshu heard her and looks back at her with shocked eyes.

"Why?" he asks, a bit confused.

Now she's steaming red but she looks back at him and her hand reaches for his face. He gasps as he can feel her touch against his skin but her fingers go right through his face. She pulls them back a bit as she tells him, "Because I wish that I can touch you in the real world like I can in my dreams." Then his eyes became tender and gentle. He grasps her hand and Ichigo's heart begins to pound harder and harder in her chest. Then he looks up and behind. He sees no one.

"Kisshu?" she asks, confused.

Then her ears and her tail appear. She was going to move to hide them away but Kisshu quickly tells her, "Don't move." By the time her eyes look back at his face, he's already right in front of her face. Before she could believe it, his eyes closed and his lips press against hers. She blinks in surprise as her heart is pounding even harder now. His other hand rises up arm and rubs it, causing her to drop her ice cream cone. She didn't care. All that mattered was the touch of his lips against hers. Strange though. Before, she could not feel any warmth from his touch but the touch of his lips feel warm and perfect. Everything else didn't matter anymore. The only thing that did is the kiss. She closes her eyes and melts in the kiss. She can do nothing more. She cannot pull him closer or hold him as tightly as she can because she can easily move pass him. All she can do is remain perfectly still as Kisshu sends shivers up and down her spine with a simple kiss.

Masaya stood where he is frozen. Ichigo, the girl he loves and trusts is kissing her enemy and she appears to be enjoying it. He couldn't stand there any longer. He quickly step away and ran for it. However, he stepped on a stick and snapped it. That caused Kisshu to open his eyes and pull away. He looks around the area cautiously as Ichigo slightly opens her eyes, trying to awaken herself from the trance.

She softly asks, "What's wrong?"

He scans the area one more time before answering, "Nothing." Then he looks back at her and smirks. "You let me kiss you, koneko-chan." That snapped her back from her trance and she's blushing red with embarrassment.

Ichigo looks away and crosses her arms in front of her chest. She tells him, "Well I can't do anything can I? I can't push you off and going through you is just too creepy."

Kisshu however, doesn't take that offensive. He has a sweet smile on his face as he hugs her from behind. She looks at him, startled as he tells her, "Thanks for the kiss, koneko-chan. It made me very happy." Her cheeks flare up even more but she tries not to be happy about it.

"Stupid alien!" she mutters. "You took advantage of me."

"No I didn't," he tells her. "I didn't do a thing. You were the one who wanted to continue."

"You used me!!"