Ch. 4: Photos of Good Memories

"Yes…yes…tomorrow then?...Alright, thank you," Ichigo says in perfect English to the movers before hanging up her phone. Then she puts her hands on her hips and says to herself, "Three o'clock tomorrow. This is going to be fun."

She says that to a storage room full of dusty junk. For the past twelve years, Ichigo and her daughter have been living in a three bedroom apartment. The third bedroom was supposed to have been a guest room in case Ruka ever wanted to have a sleepover. Since that never happened, it ended up being a storage room that's been collecting who knows what for over a decade. Most of it is piled against the walls on the side so there is a pathway to walk everywhere but there are just stacks of boxes, some old computer monitors, a box full of Christmas wrapping supplies, some file cabinets, and other things of junk. Honestly, Ichigo has no idea what are in those boxes.

'And I have to sort what to keep and what not to keep.' She lets out a sigh, scratching her head and then mumbles to herself, "Oh how I wish Ruka was here. Oh well."

With that said and done, Ichigo starts working. She starts with the boxes, really wondering what are in them. Some are full of old clothes, some of Ruka's old childhood things like old toys and drawings, and one of them is filled with achievements the young Aoyama has won growing up. Mostly academic awards, but there are a few fencing ones, too, and one certificate for a Self-Defense class she took one summer.

'I can still remember the bruises Ruka left on her instructor after her final test,' Ichigo reminisces, chuckling nervously at the memory, too. 'Oh how dad would've been proud of her.' The older woman pauses in her actions when that sad thought comes to mind.

Instantly, other memories of her father come to her. How lovey-dovey she would always see with her mom, how much he used to tease Ichigo, how over-protective he was with everything about her, and how he over-reacted when he found out about Ichigo and Masaya dating at 13. Not just those memories. How Shintaro was crying more than Sakura at Ichigo's wedding, how excited he was when Ruka was born, and how much he used to spoil his granddaughter. Ichigo also remembers the early martial arts lessons he used to give Ruka, too, but that hardly matters now when she really thinks about it.

When Ichigo took Ruka to England, they never returned to Japan. Her parents had to make the trips to visit them but as they grew older, those trips became harder to do and Ichigo never visited so they could be together. She never gave her parents more opportunities to spend time with Ruka and now, Shintaro is gone.

A stray tear sneaks its way out and Ichigo quickly wipes it away before she starts sobbing again.

'Come on, Ichigo,' she thinks to herself. 'You need to get this room sorted, packed, and clean. Otherwise, you're going to be here longer than you need to.' With that final thought, she puts the certificate back in the box and closes it before sliding it over to the Don't Know pile. 'I should probably call Ruka and ask her what she wants to do with this stuff. But knowing her, she'd probably say donate it all.'

The next box Ichigo opens, with just one more after this, she opens it to find photo albums in them. She can't see how many since they're piled inside flat but judging by the weight, there are probably quite a few. They're also quite dusty.

'Hello? I don't remember what memories you hold.'

Taking a small break, Ichigo takes out the first one she sees and opens it. Only for her eyes to widen at the first picture she sees, surrounded with written pen messages and cute stickers to help decorate the page. It's the small little photo sticker from the photo booth she went with Masaya when they went to that Red Data Animal exhibit. On their first date…

Ichigo still remembers that day and even though she was probably the only one who thought it was a date, she didn't care. She was so happy because back then, who didn't want to date the boy she had a crush on for months before finally gathering the courage to ask him out?

"Oh Masaya," she gently calls his name. Her eyes soften with sorrow and the love she still feels for her deceased husband. "I wish you were still here with me."

Now if Ichigo closes the album after seeing that one page, then she could continue her cleaning and probably put the box of photo albums in the Keep pile. She could look at it later, if she wants to. But she doesn't wait. She keeps it open and turns the next page to see a picture that makes Ichigo have a hurt expression. It's a picture of her friends posing in front of Café Mew Mew. All of the members of the Tokyo Mew Mew team, doing their own thing that makes them who they once were. Pudding doing a stunt in front of the camera, Ryou backing away from her stunt so he won't get hit with her spinning plates, Lettuce and Keiichiro looking worried since they were café property, Zakuro ignoring everything and looking right at the camera, young Ichigo laughing and smiling, and Mint making googly-eyes at her idol. It's Mint whom Ichigo has such an expression towards. She can still hear the conversation they had a week ago.

"Ichigo, why did you leave and never come back?"

Mint was very blunt. Before, the dinner was going fine. Everyone was asking Ichigo what life in England was like and how Ruka adjusted. Then they all got excited when they heard that Ichigo was moving back to Japan because she didn't want to leave her mom alone. Well, everyone was asking and getting excited, except for Mint. She was quiet the whole time until Sakura left to use the bathroom. Then she went right for the punch and the table went quiet.

Ryou told his wife, "Mint, not here." But she didn't listen to him.

"It's just a simple question. Well, Ichigo?"

Her eyes when she was staring at the Aoyama widow were like her arrows when she was a Mew. Sharp, precise, and deadly. She made Ichigo want to duck and hide while her words had already shook her heart.

"I just…needed to get away. After Masaya was killed, I was devastated and terrified. The police didn't know who killed him or why, so I worried for mine and Ruka's safety. The killer may have spared her but what if he didn't know she was in the house or maybe he was playing some sick game because the multiple stabbed wounds indicated that it must have been a hate crime – according to the police."

"Ichigo-san." Lettuce placed her hand on Ichigo's for an encouraging squeeze. "It's okay. You don't have to explain. We understand."

"I don't." Mint thought otherwise.

"Mint, that's enough." Ryou tried again, but his wife was still defiant.

"We used to fight kirema animas and aliens all the time – one of them being the baddest alien the world has ever seen. And she was scared of one human?"

"The scariest creature alive is not the ghosts or the monsters, or the aliens. It's the humans themselves," Zakuro said, using a tone that secretly indicated Mint to stop. She still kept going.

"But if she would ask us…relied on us like how she used to, then we could have helped her. Kept her and Ruka safe."

"But I couldn't endanger any of you to what this lunatic was planning,' Ichigo defended. "Mint, I am sorry. I truly am but all I could think about was Ruka's safety and I didn't know what else to do. When Masaya died, I didn't know what to do. I felt trapped, helpless, and I thought I was going to suffocate. I couldn't live in fear. I hated that, so I did the only thing I could think. I apologize that you don't agree with it."

Things became silent on the table after that. Ichigo was trying to hold a strong face in front of everyone and a lot of people didn't know how to change the subject so they could return to the light-hearted on they had before. Mint still didn't let it go and after long, heavy moments, she popped the big one.

"So them leaving and also never coming back has nothing to do with it?" Everyone knew exactly what she meant by 'them' and Ichigo wasn't the only one who cringed at the thought.

She finally told her. "Stop it. Please, just stop it."

"You know something, don't you? Those three left because of a supposed disease that was endangering their people and then they never came back."

"If you know the story, then why are you insinuating that I have something to do with that? I didn't release a disease into their planet. I didn't make them leave."

"But you know that their story was completely bullshit!" No one had expected her to let such a crude word escape her mouth and that was when Mint gained the attention of the entire restaurant.

Ryou tried to calm her down again. "Mint, what exactly are you trying to prove here by accusing Ichigo?"

"I'm just trying to understand, like you told me to do, because she left, Ryou! She left for twelve years without no warning and then no contact afterwards. Now she's telling us that she's moving back and we're suppose to welcome her back like those years never happened?! Give me a freaking break. Ichigo, I am genuinely sorry for your loss but believe it or not, that time was hard for all of us! Let me remind you that you weren't the only one who felt helpless and devastated for what happened! You're not the only special one so stop riding your high horse and realize exactly what you lost by leaving! You don't want to tell us what happened, fine. Because I'm done. I am so done with you."

Then Mint left. Collected her coat and walked right out of that restaurant. Ryou had to go after her of course, and Ichigo had to leave the table. Mint's words nearly destroyed her walls and before they crumbled away into dust, Ichigo had to find a place where she could collect herself. She didn't allow herself to break because she knew she had to go back in. Breaking down would most certainly keep her from doing that.

Staring at the picture of 13 year old Mint, the older woman can feel the tears that should have been shed that day coming back. "I'm so sorry, Mint," is all Ichigo can think to say. "I'm so, so sorry but even now, I'm…." She stops herself and allows her words to fade.

'Stop it, Ichigo. You have a room to clean.'

Taking deep breathes in through the nose and out the mouth, Ichigo pushes back her tears again and closes the photo album. However when she closed it, a photo comes sliding out from one of the pages. It came out upside down but as Ichigo watched it glide back and forth down, it flips over and seeing the image became like a knife stabbing and twisting her heart.

That picture may as well be that knife.

She feels the tears forcing their way out again but this time, Ichigo doesn't have the power to stop them. Her eyes start to glossen and feeling that the picture does not deserve to be on the partially dusty floor, her shaking hand reaches for it. Slowly, she picks it up and when she brings it closer for a better look, it breaks her heart.

She didn't want to look at it. She wanted to put it right away but she can't. She doesn't have the will and staring at it just hurts more and more. Finally, the tears come pouring out and she's able to sob out one name before her voice could no longer form words.

The name of the only person in this photo with her when they were sixteen and on summer vacation. When they were both working at the Café Mew Mew and were covered in sweets with frosting and sticky orange juice – both of them laughing at the other's messy face.

"…Kisshu…"


"What the hell are you?"

Like how she didn't respond to her name, the Pied Piper(or whatever the heck he is) doesn't respond to her question. He's staring at her like he couldn't believe his eyes for a moment, then they brighten with a ray of hope. All too quickly, he stands up and is right in front of Ruka. His hands reach for her face but they don't touch her as he examines every inch of her to know for certain.

"You're Ruka Aoyama, aren't you?" he asks, his voice barely a whisper. He still sounds like he can't believe what he's seeing but he's praying really hard that he is.

She eyes him for that look. It's not like she's the great Dali lama. "Are you going to answer my question or not?"

"Hana- chan?"

Ruka eyes widen wider than entrée plates when she heard him call her that. She knows only one other person who would call her that.

"I'll come back. I promise you, hana-chan!'

'Dear god,' she thinks, wanting so badly to step away from this boy but she can't when her back is up against the alley wall. 'But that's…that's impossible!' Accidently, she lets out, "You can't be…"

Seeing the dumbstruck expression and hearing her words, that is all the Pied Piper needs. His prayers are answered and a bright, joyful smile appears on his face. "I found you, hana-chan! I knew I would! I just didn't think so soon when I couldn't find you at your house!"

"Who ar-"

Before Ruka could finish her question, the Pied Piper stops her by cupping her face and without any hesitation at all, he leans down and kisses her. He swallows her words and for a second, Ruka is frozen where she stands and her eyes widen even more as she stares at his closed ones.

What…the..hell…

SLAP

That second only lasted one second. On instinct, Ruka pushes this boy away with all of her strength and before he got too far, she slaps him right across the face. Pied Piper finds himself on the floor again with a stinging cheek. He looks up at her, flabbergasted for the hit as Ruka's face is flushed with embarrassment and anger.

"Who the bloody hell do you think you are?!" she yells at him in English.

Pied Piper looks confused. "Hana-chan-"

"Don't call me that after you just snogged me! We've only just met, sir, and yet you have the audacity to…" She lets her words fall short. She doesn't want to even say anything about this great humiliation. She covers her mouth with the back of her hand, glaring every and all frustrations from today at this unfortunate wide eye boy on the ground. "I don't know who you are but you are gravely mistaken. If you follow me, I will have the police on you in a heartbeat!" Ruka grabs her bag from the floor and rushes out of there.

Pied Piper calls "Hana-chan!" but she doesn't stop. He sits there, peeking out from the alley to watch her run away as fast her legs could take her.

Ruka doesn't stop running until she reaches home. Even when she arrived at the front door, she doesn't slow down until she's slams the door behind her and leans against it – as if to make sure that strange boy stays out.

"Ruka-chan?"

Sharply turning around, Ruka sees her grandmother at the doorway to the living room and Sakura looks at her granddaughter in concern with a phone in her hand. "What happened? You looked like you just ran here from school."

'I sort of did,' Ruka thinks, a little too out of breath to speak just yet.

Before she answers the elderly woman in Japanese, she goes to the window right next to the door and peeks out from behind the curtains. She sees nothing on the streets or anything unusual, period. No perverted, skinny boy with elf ears. That's a relief and she exhales in it, too. "Nothing, grandmother. Just a run-in with a strange boy."

Instead of becoming all worried and overreacting if her granddaughter is alright, Sakura smiles and asks, "And I suppose you took care of it?"

"Absolutely." Sakura laughs to that straight answer.

"By the way, your mom is on the phone," she says, waving the device. "I just told her that you were probably hanging out with friends since she wanted to talk to you about your old stuff."

Ruka takes off her shoes first and neatly places them in the corner before officially entering the house. She asks for the phone and says, "I left school before seeing those people." Sakura gives her the phone and Ruka walks away, answering in English, "Good morning, mom."

"Good afternoon, sweetheart," Ichigo responds. Ruka detects something in her mother's voice and is a little glad she started talking in English so Sakura won't understand.

"Mom, you've been crying."

Ichigo is a little started for her daughter to notice but at the same time, she's not surprise. She tries to sound cheerful when responding, "It's nothing. I was just cleaning out the storage room and found some old albums of your father and your grandfather. I ended up reminiscing while looking through them."

'Those two, again.' Ruka narrows her eyes but doesn't say anything of her distaste as she climbs up the stairs to her room.

"Never mind that. They're just old photographs of good memories. Anyway, how was school?" Ichigo asks, changing the subject.

Ruka opens the door to her room and puts her bag on her desk before heading for the bed. "Repugnant . The teacher kept hounding me on every subject. Trying to guess which subject was my weakest link."

"And you've answered every question correctly."

"Of course. I read the material."

Ichigo laughs. "My little genius. Your grandmother was telling me you had a few escorts to school this morning."

"More like a parade. Airi Fong has quite the motor mouth and she wouldn't just walk down the street like a normal person."

"Sounds like she takes after her mother a lot. Pudding Fong used to do that all the time when we were young. She used to say, 'Make your life as if you're in a parade. It's more fun that way, na no da.' " She's trying to make a joke of it but Ruka is not amused.

"It also makes every person in Tokyo notice you." Her mother sighs.

"I heard that you left school without them. Ruka, they seem like nice kids and I know their parents so I'm sure you can all be great friends. You haven't had a friend since-" Ichigo abruptly stops herself, causing her daughter to raise a brow at the phone.

"Since when, mom?"

On the other side of the phone, Ichigo sits on the plastic covered couch and her eyes close half-way in a bit of sadness. Silently, she cringes for a moment while her hand that's not holding the phone is gripping the corner of a picture in her lap. Quickly, she regains her smile and replies in a light tone, "Since I don't remember when. I worry about you, Ruka. You're young. You're suppose to have friends to gossip with, have boy talks with, and stay up late on the weekends seeing movies or clubbing. Instead, you prefer being on your own."

"I'm better off on my own, mom. At least then, I know I won't be left behind in the end."

"Ruka," Ichigo calls, starting to sound serious, "Being on your own is the same as being left behind. You just don't know the difference."

There is silence between them after that. Ruka narrows her eyes to that last statement and she is trying really hard to hold her comments to herself. She already lashed out to a total stranger(maybe). She does not want to waste anymore energy doing that again, especially to her mom.

So to end it, she says, "I have homework to do. It'll be easy but I still have a lot of reading to do for tomorrow."

Ichigo knows her daughter better than that. Last time she was in Japan, she saw Ruka almost finished with the history text book. But she won't call on her on that. "Alright, sweetheart. I should probably return to cleaning that storage room. I'll talk to you tomorrow, but please, Ruka. Give those four a chance, or at least make some attempt to have fun. You'll be seventeen very shortly and you're only be so once."

"I'll take your words into consideration then. Good day, mom."

Ichigo departs in Japanese, "Good night, Ruka."

Ruka is the first to hang up. She so wanted to be done with that conversation and that just added to the things that stressed her today. She leans back to lie on her bed and stares up at the ceiling. It's just a plane white ceiling with a pink lamp cover over the light bulbs. One thing is for certain, when she gets her stuff she is so redecorating. Which by the way, her mom didn't ask about what to do with her old stuff. Great, she'll probably get another call soon instead of tomorrow.

No one said change was easy and Ruka knows it's going to take a long time for her to adjust living in Japan. What other choice does she have? She can't go back to England and even if she could, what would be the point exactly? There was nothing for her there and there is certainly nothing for her here. The only thing Ruka can do is just suck it up and let it go.

But there is one thing she can't let go so easily.

"Hana-chan!"

'That boy…' The memory of that Pied Piper is nagging at her brain like an irritating fly that won't leave. He acted like he knew her and he said her full-name so he's not entirely mistaken he got the wrong girl. 'How many other Ruka Aoyama's could there be? But what mom said about me not having a friend since someone else. I know she's not telling me the truth but…she can't honestly mean that big-eared freak. That's preposterous!' With a deep exhale, Ruka closes her eyes and takes a moment to clear her mind. Just listen to the silence of her room and small sounds of cooking down in the kitchen.

While outside her window on a tree, the Pied Piper is on one of the brunches to hide in the leaves from the view of others; even the girl he's so intently staring at.

"Hana-chan…you really have forgotten me."


In England, Ichigo rubs her forehead after putting the phone to the side and as she leans her head back against the top of the couch. She's lost count of how many times she told Ruka to make friends or have a life outside her studies. But like every time, her daughter would refuse such an idea. She must be tired retelling her mother the same answer because Ichigo is tired of repeating herself, but what else is she suppose to do?

Then she looks back down at the picture on her lap and sighs, "What am I suppose to do?"

The picture is a different one than the one from before. She's in it, as well as an old alien enemy-turned-friend, but they're both older than sixteen. Much older and they both have children in their arms. More like Ichigo trying to pull away her 5-year old daughter from an equally age boy, whose big elf-like ear is being mercilessly pulled. An alien child with the same shade hair color as Kisshu but with teary crimson-brown eyes instead of a bright golden shade. Poor Kisshu looks just as panicky as Ichigo in that picture if they didn't get Ruka to let the little boy go. Seeing this captured moment, the older Aoyama widow couldn't help but let out a chuckle.

"Poor Haru. Dad got the idea that all boys were enemies into Ruka's head. She abused that unfortunate boy, but…" Sorrow appears in her eyes again and she thinks to herself, 'He was the only true friend she had, and I kept him away from her, too.'

Ichigo's free hand gently traces her fingers on Kisshu's image and she holds back one more stubborn sob that, surprisingly, still remains within her. "I said this before and I still mean it now, Kisshu. I need you more than I ever needed Masaya."