Chapter 4—The Switch

Ichigo stomped out of the café.

The jerk. That jerk. That inconsiderate JERK! Who did he think he was, anyway? Talking to her like that…She stopped walking for a minute at a lamppost. She stared at it for a minute and then kicked it. "JERK!" she screamed, earning a few strange glances from passersby. Ichigo didn't care. She didn't care if they saw her in her pajamas, or if they saw her kicking a streetlight, or if they heard her yelling out random insults. She was too ticked off to care.

Stop Ichigo, she told herself, you need to chill out. She breathed in deeply, like her mom did in Yoga. Breathe out all the negative thoughts…breathe in all the happy thoughts…She walked past a store that had a few things on display. It wasn't really her kind of store: they sold darker, gothic and punkish things. There was a couple of CDs that had bands Ichigo didn't ever want to hear, and a few manikins were modeling some of the clothes. There was a baggy black t-shirt that read "rebel" in messy dripping red letters, as if it was blood; another black shirt that was so tight Ichigo didn't know how anyone could fit in it; and a black leather vest, which she immediately recognized.

"JERK!" She kicked the wall of the building and ran back to her house before anything else could remind her of…him. She managed to sneak in without her parents noticing her; they were still asleep since it as a weekend. But I still have to go to work, she thought. Shirogane didn't believe in days off. Why was he always so frustrating?

She put on her work clothes and started back to the café as slowly as possible. The more time she spent away from Shirogane, the better. Of course then he'd be mad at her for being late… Well, that was his problem. She didn't care whether or not he was mad at her anymore. The spoiled, selfish, inconsiderate little jerk.

She stopped walking one last time to stare at a small rock on the ground. She picked it up and threw it as far as she could. "JERK!" she cried.

……………………………

"Shirogane-oniisan! Looky what I can do, na no da!"

Ryou turned around to see Purin hanging upside down from one leg on the chandelier, spinning two plates on every finger, blowing a double bubble, hoolahooping, and taking orders all at the same time. The customers clapped and threw money at the monkeygirl.

"Arigato! Domo Arigato, na no da!" she said cheerfully as she jumped down without dropping anything (surprisingly). "Purin will be in the park this afternoon, na no da!"

Keiichiro joined the crowd as they clapped cheered again, Retasu recovered from nearly having a heart attack, Minto rolled her eyes at the "childishness" and continued drinking her tea, Zakuro didn't notice anything to begin with, and Ryou said, "Purin, don't chew gum at work," and walked off. Once again, an ordinary day at Café Mew Mew. Just to make it even more ordinary, Ichigo had gone home to change and was now late, like always. Ryou looked up at the clock. She would get there right about… "Now," he said silently.

The door swung open and Ichigo stomped in.

"You're late," Ryou said.

She gave him an icy glare and over to a table to take orders. "May I help you?" she asked grouchily.

The man sitting at the table answered, "Uh, yeah. Can I have a number one and three to go?"

"If you want them to go," Ichigo said, "you have to wait over there." She pointed to a couch on the other end of the café.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know that," he apologized. "But since there's no one else there, do you think you could just give it to me now?"

Ichigo glowered at him.

"Er, um, or I could go wait over there," he said timidly.

"Good idea," she said, walking to another table.

Ryou quickly moved out of her way as she walked past him. Okay, so she was ticked off. She would probably scare off more customers than Zakuro usually did. He should go apologize… But no, he had more important things to do. Like finding out why he was having all those headaches, like the one that he still had from that morning. Yes, he had to do that first.

He looked at Ichigo, who was still apparently in a bad mood. He should at least say something nice to her… "Ichigo," he said.

"Shirogane, unless this has something to do with your demise, I don't wanna hear it."

Ryou quickly nodded and walked away. Well, that went well. Usually he was the one telling her he didn't want to hear what she had to say. Not that she ever had anything important to say. Why did he like her again?

Once again he went over the reasons in his head, and once again he was left thinking that she only cared for Aoyama and she obviously hated Shirogane. He never fully understood why before, but now he couldn't really blame her. And…he really did harass her a lot…Ryou went into his room and locked the door. Right now wasn't the time to think about Ichigo. He needed to find out exactly what was causing his headaches and how he could prevent them. Then maybe…he would try to apologize. But not now.

He opened one of his drawers and took out an injection gun filled with bright blue liquid. The DNA of the Iriomote Wild Cat. He knew that was what was causing the headaches. He took out a syringe with liquid that was a greenish blue color. That was what he injected into himself to prevent attacks that were a side effect from the cat DNA. The antidote, however, also had side effects; when he took it, he wouldn't be able to concentrate, had trouble sleeping, and always have terrible migraines before and after an attack occurred. He stopped taking the antidote about a month before and hadn't had an attack since, and he was able to concentrate and sleep better, but his migraines came quite often anyway. Why was that?

Figuring he should just be grateful that he only had headaches now, he turned on his computer and tried to figure out why, now that he had stopped taking the medication, he was still having headaches. Was it better to keep taking the antidote? Why did the attacks stop when he stopped taking the antidote? He wasn't sure. But he figured he should just find a cure for his headaches before doing anything else.

……………………………………

By the time her workday was over, Ichigo—being Ichigo—had cheered up a lot. She hadn't forgotten she was mad at Shirogane, of course, but she wasn't as grouchy as she had been that morning.

"Ichigo-'neechan! Lookit, no da!"

Ichigo looked up to see Purin performing the same trick she had done that morning. "Purin, are you sure you should be up there?"

"It's okay, Ichigo-oneechan! Purin did this trick in front of Shirogane-oniisan and he said not to chew Purin's gum at work, na no da!" Purin said cheerfully.

At the mention of her boss, Ichigo frowned. "Well, Shirogane never knows what he's talking about." She added, "And I'm not sure I know what you're talking about, but whatever."

"Ichigo-san," Retasu said, "if you don't mind me asking, why are you mad at Shirogane-kun?"

Ichigo's cheeks turned a shade of light pink. "H-he was being a jerk earlier, that's all. I was going to ask him if he could give me a little more respect, like Aoyama-kun said to do, but then he was mean to me, so I just thought it'd be a waste of time." It wasn't a complete lie.

"How is he going to know you want more respect if you don't ask him, Ichigo-san?" Retasu asked.

"Retasu, he should already know I want respect," the catgirl pointed out. "Everybody wants respect. I shouldn't have to ask him for it."

Retasu sighed and nodded. "Hai, I suppose you're right. But…well, I mean, he's always nice to…me."

Ichigo smiled. She had almost completely forgotten about getting her friend together with Shirogane—even if she thought Retasu deserved better. Everyone deserved better than Shirogane. "Well, I'm gonna go home now. I'll see you guys later."

"Bye Ichigo-'neechan, no da!" Purin called from the ceiling.

"Goodbye," Retasu said.

Ichigo waved and headed out the door.

Ryou raised up the vial that contained the new fluid he had created and examined in closely. If his research was correct, this would cure his headaches.

"Well," he said to himself, "here it goes." He gulped down the substance.

All of the sudden his head began to spin; he collapsed on the ground; he felt as if he couldn't breathe. Great. I made it worse.

He coughed roughly and passed out.

………………………

"Ichigo o tabeyou," Ichigo sang quietly to herself as she walked down the street, "Iro, iro furuutsu. Tsumetai aisukuriimu, dore mo minna s—Nya!" All of the sudden, Ichigo's head started spinning. She collapsed on the ground and had trouble breathing. I'M GONNA DIE!

Everything became blurry and she passed out.

……………………

Ryou groaned and rubbed his head. "I'm not doing that again." His voice sounded strangely high… He decided to ignore it. It was probably in his imagination. He stood up and opened his eyes. He was…outside? Why? How did he…The blonde gasped. His hair! It was so…long! Okay, it was only shoulder length, but it was longer than it was before! How did it get like that? Why was it…red? What was happening? And why was he wearing a…a…"Dress?"

Ryou would have died if he didn't know that Ichigo would just bring him back to life so she could kill him again. He realized what had happen. How it happened, he didn't know. But he did know that in about five seconds, even though he was pretty far from the café, he would hear Ichigo scream from his room.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK! SHIROGANE!"