Yarn
A/N: What if each of our favorite TMM couples was given a ball of brightly colored yarn? What would they do with it?
The blue-haired dancer couldn't stop looking around anxiously, hoping no one would see her holding hands with the blonde. "Ryou," she hissed, then immediately blushed.
"Still can't say my name without feeling embarrassed? What kind of girlfriend does that make you, do you think?" he teased. On his face was that cheeky grin she'd come to love.
"Well, you can't say my name either, can you?"
"M-mint." There was no mistaking it—that was definitely the hint of a blush spreading across his cheeks as his smirk slowly disappeared.
A white-and-blue ball dropped from the sky. Reflexively the petite girl caught it in both small gloved hands.
"What is this?" she murmured, passing it carefully to her boyfriend.
He turned it over in his hands. "I think it's... yarn."
"Yarn?" The bird-Mew Mew looked scornful. "And it's low-quality material, too."
"But the color..." Gently Ryou wrapped a length around one of his girlfriend's hair buns. Satisfied, he nodded and pulled a switchblade from his back pocket.
"R-ryou, what are you-?"
"Just hold still for a moment." The blonde neatly cut the yarn, then snipped off another piece of equal length. He put away the blade before wrapping one string around one of Mint's buns. Neatly he tied a cute bow, securing the yarn. Then he ornamented the other bun.
The girl blushed, though she was smiling. "R-ryou."
"I think it looks cute." Ryou leaned in almost teasingly, kissing his girlfriend lightly on the nose.
Mint's blush was charming and cute. "Okay, I'll leave it in. For you."
Zakuro was brushing her long, shiny purple locks when the phone rang. Quickly she set down the hairbrush, crossing the room in graceful, fluid movements. "Hello?"
"Hi, Zakuro."
Normally, as the young lady found hair-brushing to be a calming pastime, but that voice—and its owner—was always welcome anytime, anyplace as far as the Japanese supermodel was concerned. "Keiichiro, hello."
"Can you come to the café as soon as possible, please?"
The urgency in his voice alerted her, and the wolf-Mew Mew didn't bother asking for an explanation. "I'll be right there."
...
"I never said it was an emergency," Keiichiro pointed out with a gentle smile; his girlfriend had burst in as if a Chimera was hot on her heels.
"Yeah, well, you sounded so... anxious that I couldn't help assuming—"
"Here." The brown-haired man held out an elegantly wrapped box. "I found this on the back steps of the café this morning; I'm not sure what it is."
The young woman's slim fingers gently tapped the tag on the present, which bore her name. "Well, let's see what's inside."
Both young people stared at the contents of the box.
"... Yarn?" Keiichiro said at last. "The fibers aren't very fine or high-class, but the colors are pretty." The yarn was dyed in cheerful shades of brown and white. He sighed. "I have no use for it, though; and there isn't much room around here for so much yarn."
An idea began to spark in his girlfriend's mind. "Can I have it, then?"
"Of course."
...
"This is... for me?"
"Of course." The wildly popular supermodel graced him with the smile that launched a hundred magazine covers. "Open it, Keiichiro."
Keiichiro carefully untied the yarn—the hue suggested it was from the ball they'd found last week—and opened the beautifully wrapped box. While the paper was beautiful and the wrapping flawless, there was a DIY quality to it that the young man infinitely appreciated.
Inside was an endearingly crooked hand-crocheted scarf, made of the same yarn as the lengths originally securing the box.
"Did you make this? I thought you'd given up crocheting."
"Well, I admit it was hard to find the time. That's why it took me a whole week." Zakuro smiled shyly, her eyes darting around the room to avoid eye contact with her boyfriend. "It's not perfect, I know—I'm out of practice. But I hope you like it."
"Like it? I love it!" Keiichiro leaned forward, gently kissing his girlfriend on the forehead.
Zakuro smiled, less shyly this time. "Really? I'm glad of that."
Lettuce didn't look for her pile of library books; it was always kept on her desk. As she reached for the topmost novel, her fingers brushed against a soft, round object. Now she glanced at the stack: on top rested a ball of yarn.
It was purple, almost precisely the shade of—A faint blush colored the porpoise-Mew Mew's fair-skinned face as the hue struck a chord in her memory.
Though it was getting late and she was tired, she reached for her doll-making kit.
...
As Pai sat on his girlfriend's windowsill, he sighed as it slowly dawned on him that she wasn't in the room.
The eldest Ikisatashi was about to leave when something on her shelf caught his eye.
Of course he'd known she liked to sew dolls. But this one...
It bore an uncanny resemblance to him. Yarn hair and all.
"Taru-Taru! Look what Pudding found, na no da!"
A soft ball came flying out of nowhere, smacking the youngest alien in the face. "Ow! What was that for?" he growled, albeit playfully. "Pudding! You better watch out!" He dived down a few feet and scooped it up, ready to throw it back.
Then its hue caught Taruto's attention. It was a cheerful brownish-orange, almost exactly the same shade as his best friend's eyes.
"Oi, Taru-Taru, are you gonna throw it or not?"
So the youngest of the Café Mew Mew staff spent the rest of the afternoon playing catch.
"Nya~"
A little black kitten caught the green-haired teen's attention, and he chuckled when he realized who it was. "Hello, Koneko-chan."
She rubbed up against his ankles, purring adorably. Kisshu scooped her up, running his fingers through her silky fur.
All of a sudden he remembered something. Cheerfully he pulled a ball of yarn—almost exactly the same shade as Ichigo's red hair—from nowhere, loosing a thread and dangling it in front of the kitten's nose.
"Nya!" Happily she batted at it with one paw, then paused and shook her head. (Likely that was the cat-Mew Mew's humanity reasserting itself.) The glossy little kitten leaned forward and pressed her lips against the alien boys.
Momomiya Ichigo scrunched up her nose as she dropped lightly to the ground—landing on her feet, of course. "Really? Yarn?"
Kisshu grinned. "For you, anything."
A/N: Ahhh! I'm almost through with these. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing!