Author: The next song on Kyandi's playlist is "Fearless" by Olivia Holt.
It had been three days since that last battle. Ryou sat in the basement and stared at a blank screen. He couldn't understand it.
"They've been quiet lately," Keiichiro spoke, seeming to read Ryou's mind.
"Yes. Too quiet. It has me worried," the blond confessed.
"What do you think they're up to?" Keiichiro asked as he sat down a tray with two cups of tea.
"No idea," Ryou answered in a foreboding tone, "but I'm sure we'll find out."
"Right," Keiichiro got up and left the room. He came back carrying a briefcase. "We may need her to use this."
"Keiichiro, that is…" Ryou began.
"Yes. It's the one that we unearthed at the archaeological site." He opened up the briefcase. A stone scepter rested inside.
"Do you think it will work?" Ryou asked.
Keiichiro replied, "I'm not sure."
Kyandi Coffman walked down the street with the other mews. They were out in their human forms again, searching for the Mew Aqua. Kyandi was, of course, playing her otome game. She had almost finished Alan's story. She was reading the final lines of the game and then the ending screen popped up. "Super Happy Ending" it read, displaying a Pirate's treasure chest with hearts flying out of it.
"What? 'Super Happy Ending'? I joined the Rika pirates and am on his ship and his kisses me and… 'Super Happy Ending'? No wedding? Not even an, 'I'll be by your side for the rest of my life'? What a rip off! Eduardo's ending was better than this! Come on! The entire game got me all doki-doki, and now it ends like this?" Kyandi humphed and put her hands on her hips. (1) "I should write otome games. I could make them end better than this."
"Do you like writing, Kyandi-san?" Retasu asked.
"Yes, I suppose so," Kyandi answered with a shrug. "I'm just saying: I'm a teenager and I could write something better than this. Isn't the whole point of an otome game to get a girl excited? I'm just mad right now."
"Yo!" someone jumped down from an overpass and frightened the daylights out of Ichigo.
"Hello, Shirogane-san," Kyandi nodded at their boss.
"Shirogane, don't scare me like that!" Ichigo snapped.
"Did you find anything yet?" he asked.
"N- No, not yet," Retasu stuttered.
Minto crossed her arms. "It's not as if you've made it easy. What are we supposed to do? This city is too big! It would help if we had some idea of where to look."
"Masha," Ryou commanded the fluffy robot at Ichigo's side, "fly back to the lab and tell Keiichiro to narrow down the search area."
"Roger!" the robot squeaked.
Masha flew off toward the café. As he flew, his sensors went off. "Chimera Anima! Chimera Anima!" he chirped. He followed his programming codes and flew to the source of the alert. Something was on the top of the Tokyo Tower. Masha surrounded it, examining it. "Bird's nest? Bird's nest?" He clumsily flew into the object. "Masha made a mistake. Bad Masha. Don't complain. It's not a Chimera Anima."
The next day was Wednesday. Ichigo and Kyandi walked to school together. Ichigo suddenly realized something. "Oh! Kyandi-chan! I'm in the seventh grade. You're in the ninth grade. Shouldn't I call you Kyandi-sempai?"
Kyandi shrugged. "It doesn't really matter to me. We didn't have these honorifics in America. Besides, I'm pretty sure that we're well enough acquainted to be familiar."
"Oh, is that so? Arigato, Kyandi-chan!" Ichigo said with a smile.
After school, Kyandi and Ichigo both had to go to the café on Ryou's orders. But as the girls changed into their normal shoes, Kyandi spied someone by the door. "Ah. Aoyama-san," Kyandi murmured. Ichigo snapped her head up.
"Hello, Coffman-sempai," Masaya Aoyama nodded in her direction. He looked over Kyandi's shoulder and smiled. "Good afternoon, Ichigo-san."
"G- Good afternoon, Aoyama-kun," Ichigo replied, stepping out from behind Kyandi.
"Hey, Ichigo, I was wondering if you wanted to go somewhere with me," he told her.
"I would love to, but I – I really have to go to the café today," the redhead mumbled.
Kyandi took her caramel brown hair out of her ponytail and wove it into a braid coming down from the side of her head while she waited for the two lovebirds to finish talking. Finally, Ichigo sighed and looked back at her teammate. "Are you coming, Kyandi-chan?"
"Yep," Kyandi answered with a nod, tying off her braid and following Ichigo all the way to the café.
"He was waiting for me…" Ichigo sulked as they changed into their café uniforms. "He was waiting for me, Kyandi-chan. Aoyama-kun was kind enough to wait for me, and I had to turn him down because of this search for the Mew Aqua." Ichigo sat her ruffle onto her head and frowned. "That's it! Today I'm giving Shirogane-san a piece of my mind."
After their work at the café had ended for the day, Ichigo stood in front of Ryou, while all of the other waitresses watched behind her. "We're not going to find the Mew Aqua at this rate," Ichigo complained.
"Don't give up. Don't be impatient!" Ryou responded. "All we can do now is to keep searching. You guys have some free time anyway, right?"
Ichigo's eye twitched. "Free time?"
"Yeah," Ryou replied. "I know that you have nothing else to do anyways."
Ichigo's face turned red as Ryou's words echoed in her ears.
Kyandi, who had seen this coming, began a commentary similar to that of a newscaster. "And then, Mt. Ichigo erupted. And that, boys and girls, is how Shirogane Ryou died."
Ichigo exploded in a scream of rage. "I do have things to do! Even though he's busy, he was waiting for me today! Meanwhile, I go looking for the Mew Aqua in vain! The other girls are here too; they're sacrificing their personal time as well." The other Mews all nodded at Ichigo's true statement while the redhead continued to vent her frustrations. Her cat ears and tail popped out from their hiding place and she began to hyperventilate like a madwoman.
"Oh, she's snapped," Minto observed in amusement.
"Maybe she hasn't had a date with Aoyama-san in a long time," Retasu guessed.
"It's true," Kyandi nodded. "This has been the third day in a row that he's wanted to walk with her in the park, and she had to turn him down because of work."
"Shirogane-oniichan hit on a touchy subject, na-no-da," Bu-Ling murmured.
"'He was waiting.'? Ah. That Aoy-something," Ryou concluded.
"Don't call him that!" Ichigo roared, putting her angry face very close to Ryou's. "Because you say that Tokyo's in danger, I'm working hard looking for the Mew Aqua without even seeing my boyfriend! HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT I HAVE 'NOTHING TO DO'?"
"It's our duty. It can't be helped," Ryou retorted.
Kyandi scoffed. "Sure. I'd love to see you out there, walking around and waiting for your body to glow for once."
"I can't," Ryou glared at Kyandi. "I'm not a Mew Mew."
"That can be fixed," Kyandi said with an evil raise of her eyebrows. She turned to Keiichiro. "Akasaka-san, please be a dear and fetch me some of that Mew Mew making serum." Keiichiro sweat-dropped at this request.
"Shirogane, you are such a slave driver!" Ichigo yelled. Whirling away from him, she shouted, "Geez! I hate you." Then, with some very dramatic stomping, Ichigo moved toward the exit of the café.
"Ichigo-san!" Keiichiro called after her, trying to stop her. He winced as the door to the café slammed loudly. Ichigo was gone. He turned back to Ryou. "This time, Ryou, you've gone too far."
"Ouch," Kyandi said, staring at door through which Ichigo had just left. "I knew she was ticked, but I didn't think that she was that angry. Maybe I should go calm her down."
"I don't know why she gets worked up over such a little thing," Ryou complained.
Kyandi stared at the floor before rising up from the chair in which she had been sitting. "Ichigo is a simple girl," she stated stoically. "For girls like her, love is all they have. It's their world." Kyandi turned and looked darkly at Ryou. "Don't be the reason for the destruction of her world, Shirogane. Otherwise, she may very well become the reason for the destruction of yours." Saying this, Kyandi turned and left the café, following after Ichigo. She didn't even get to see the expression of shock on Ryou's face.
"Maybe that girl isn't a good-for-nothing after all," he muttered as soon as the door had closed.
Kyandi followed Ichigo. "Ichigo-chan! You forgot your uniform and your school bag!" she called after her.
"Geez! I did," Ichigo mumbled. "But, I can't go back for them now. I don't want to see that stupid Shirogane's face."
"I thought you might say that," Kyandi smiled. "You want to go shopping until you cool down?"
Ichigo looked over at Kyandi solemnly, and nodded. Her cat appendages retracted.
Kyandi and Ichigo walked side by side. Kyandi felt naturally protective of the redhead, and walked on the car side of the sidewalk because of that. "It's funny," she thought. "I've never trusted… anybody. But somehow, when I'm with Ichigo, it's just impossible to keep my guard up. She's so innocent and naïve. She's kind of like a little kid. She rattles on and on about things that are really important to no one other than herself. It's really strange… I can see any of the other Mews having a secret agenda. Zakuro's aloofness, Minto's snobbery, even Retasu's shyness could all be a mask. And of course, Bu-Ling has an agenda, but it isn't a secret; she wants money. But Ichigo… I didn't know that it was possible for a person to be this open. And it's because she's this open that I think… I think I can trust her. I think that I might actually be able to have a real friend, for the first time in my life.
"So... Ichigo is my friend now, huh? Ichigo Momomiya is friends with Kyandi Coffman." Kyandi got a bit of a wicked smile on her face. "Yeah, we're friends. And if anyone makes my friend upset, they have to answer to me."
"It's just, I really love Aoyama-kun," Ichigo sighed sorrowfully. "I hate not being able to spend time with him."
"Yeah? I would sympathize, but I've never had a relationship like that. Sorry," Kyandi said politely.
Ichigo stopped and stared at Kyandi. "Oh, Kyandi-chan! I'm so sorry that I've been so inconsiderate!" The redhead quickly folded her senior into a hug.
Kyandi balked at Ichigo's sudden wave of emotion. "W-Why?" she sputtered.
"Here I am blithering on about how much I love Aoyama-kun, forgetting that you've never been in love in your entire life. I'm ashamed of myself. I should be glad that I have love now, regardless of how difficult it might be. I'm really sorry. Will you forgive me?" Ichigo pulled back and looked Kyandi in the eyes, her brown ones on the verge of spilling tears.
"Ichigo," Kyandi smiled, "it's really okay. I don't know what love is like, so it's not like I know what I'm missing, right?" Kyandi's blue eyes sparkled as she tried to get her friend to calm down. She looked for an answer – somewhere, anywhere – and found it right behind Ichigo. "Look. This is a jewelry store. Do you want to go inside?"
"Okay," Ichigo nodded.
The two girls laughed and walked into the store, looking around. Kyandi found a cute necklace strung with green and blue beads. There was a clip in the middle of the necklace: a place for someone to attach a charm. Kyandi pulled the necklace off of its rack. "Hey, Ichigo, look. Isn't it cute?"
"Yeah! It's pretty," Ichigo smiled.
"I think I'm going to get it. I haven't spent any of my pay from the café yet," Kyandi replied. She checked the price tag. "It's also really cheap: only five hundred yen. That makes sense, since the beads are plastic."
Kyandi paid for the necklace and the two girls left the store. They walked back to the café and changed back into their school clothes before leaving with their school bags in hand. They walked home together. "Thank you for calming me down, Kyandi-chan," Ichigo said as they walked on. "I need to remember to be grateful for the things that I do have, instead of getting angry over the things that I don't."
Kyandi felt a little bit embarrassed. "No problem."
"Oh, this is your house," Ichigo said with a smile. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, Kyandi-chan!" Ichigo waved as she ran, leaving Kyandi behind.
"See you tomorrow, friend," Kyandi muttered quietly as she raised a hand in reply. The girl with the caramel brown hair sighed and walked through the door with a smile on her face. But the smile soon vanished.
"You're late again!" Jack Coffman roared at his daughter. He raised his hand and slapped her across the face. "It's eight o'four! Where the h*ll were you?"
Kyandi Coffman was quickly reminded why she didn't make friends.
Author: 1) 'Doki-doki' means 'excited in a way that makes the heart race'.