Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Mew Mew

Title: Opening Up.

Warnings: Maybe a slight bit of OOCness, characters ages have been changed ; so they're roughly all the same age apart from Akasaka-san and Ryou who're slightly older of course

Author: Mairi. (Dark Winged Angel Mairiel).

Proof Reader: Kaoru Saotome

Summary: Masaya cheated on Ichigo, she found out and ran to the Café. Ryou and Keiichiro find out what happened about 3 hours before they open up. Ryou takes a visit to Masaya, warning him off. Now that he has a chance, he's starting to build up the courage to tell Ichigo how he feels about her.

Pairings: Ryou x Ichigo.

Chapter 3 – Holiday Plans

Ryou's azure blue eyes fluttered open, his eyes automatically looking to the clock. When he focused on the time he stretched and got up. He'd only slept for about half an hour or so. Getting up, he remembered that Ichigo was downstairs…or had been. Hopefully she was still there.

He left his room and headed downstairs, making his way to the kitchen and looking into it. Yes, Ichigo was still there, and had apparently only drunk a little of the tea that Keiichiro had made for her a short while ago. He couldn't see Keiichiro around and so made his way into the kitchen and took a seat next to the red haired girl.

"Ichigo?"

"Hm?"

"You ok?" Stupid question, he chided himself mentally. Here he was, trying to cheer her up a little, and his effort felt like it was about to go down the drain. He tensed for what came next as Ichigo glanced to him. For once he felt a little scared.

"Yeah, somehow," she replied, a small faint smile trying its best to come onto her face. This made him relax a little although still feeling a little uneasy with the question he'd asked her.

"Good to hear. Are you planning on staying here until we open up?" he asked her. She nodded in reply to him. Ryou smiled slightly, at the moment he couldn't think of another way to cheer her up. It got a smile out of her, though.

"I'll be back in a bit." He said getting up and making his way out the kitchen again only to stop and look back in.

"Wouldn't happen to know where Keiichiro went would you?" he asked.

"No idea."

"Right."

Ryou had a sudden idea, only he wanted to clear it with Keiichiro to make sure it seemed like a good idea. Eventually he found him in a back room looking at a computer screen.

"Keiichiro, I've had an idea on how to cheer Ichigo up after that incident earlier."

"Oh?" said Keiichiro, as he turned around to face Ryou fully. "What would that be?"

"I say we take a month off and go somewhere. Somewhere that Ichigo could lose herself and take her mind off what's happened. Maybe going outside Japan would be ideal."

"Sounds good, we could discuss it further with the other girls later. Maybe we could let Ichigo choose the place, too."

"Good idea."

Ryou gave him a small smile and left him to his work. Maybe he'd be able to build up his courage more and tell Ichigo how he felt about her. It certainly gave him the confidence he needed. He made his way back to the kitchen where Ichigo still sat. She seemed to have calmed down a little bit. He pulled up a chair next to her and sat beside her.

"How's the tea?" he asked, trying to make a bit of conversation. He'd have to tell the other girls to, just so they wouldn't ask if she'd heard anything from Masaya yet. He didn't want to see Ichigo break down again. Ichigo glanced up at him with her big chocolate brown eyes and forced a small smile onto her face.

"It's nice. I could do with some more, if that's okay," she said.

"Sure it is. I'll go get some for you."

"Thank you, Shirogane-san."

Ryou frowned slightly in disappointment as he got up to get the tea for Ichigo, and also some for himself; he wished that she'd use his first name at times. She'd used Keiichiro's name before. The tea didn't take that long to make up and he was sitting back beside Ichigo again in less than a minute.

"Here."

"Thanks."

"How are you feeling now?" Ryou asked, trying not to trigger anything off as he sipped at the tea.

"A little better actually, I think I'm slowly getting over it already."

"Good."

"Shirogane-san, where did you go to all of a sudden anyway?" she asked.

"I went to talk to Aoyama. I told him off. If he gives you any trouble later on, then tell me and I'll sort it out."

"Uh, yeah…okay. Thank you," Ichigo stuttered while going slightly red. She hadn't expected him to be comforting her, let alone looking out for her like this.

"We're going to cheer you up, Ichigo. We'll discuss the plan later when the others are here. OK?" he said.

"Plan?" she echoed, briefly forgetting most of today's events and giving Ryou her full attention.

"Yep, we're planning to go abroad, or maybe to another area of Japan. But more on that later on, it's nearly time for opening. The girls will be along soon. Will you be okay for the next few hours?"

"I should think so."

"Good, if you want to be alone at any point for a short time then you can always go to my room, instead of in here if you want to." He said, now getting up to place his cup in the sink.

"Huh? Well, okay. Thanks, Shirogane-san."

"It's not a problem, Ichigo," he replied with a small faint smile, "You should go get changed now. We've got fifteen minutes."

"Sure thing."

Ichigo was going to do her best today. Watching that horrible incident earlier had made her depressed, but when Ryou had started to be nicer than usual to her and told her that he'd sorted Aoyama out, she felt a little better from it. She just hoped that she'd be staying happy for the rest of the day.

w00t, here's chapter 3 as promised. It maybe a little shorter than the previous ones. I should have chapter 4 up tomorrow, if not then Friday or Saturday.