Chapter 5—Explanations

"AAAAAH! AAAAH! AAAAAAH!" Ichigo stopped screaming and looked at herself in the mirror. "AAAAH!" How could this be happening? What was going on? How did she get in Shirogane's body?

Ichigo had been scared before. Mostly because of a horror movie she watched, but still. But this—this made watching The Ring as scary as watching Barney, because there is nothing scarier than finding out you've just turned into your worst enemy. Especially if your worst enemy is the opposite sex.

"AAAAAAAH!"

Why did this have to happen to her? Nothing ever happened to any of the other girls. She was the one who turned into a cat; she was the one who one of the badguys was madly in love with; she was the one Shirogane chose to pick on; she was the one that was stalked by a fat cat; she was the one who had to find all the other Mew Mews; she was the one who's animal DNA always acted up; she was the one who couldn't seem to ever say the right things around her crush; she was the one who chose to help Retasu get Shirogane to like her; she was the one who thought it would be okay to spend the night with him; she was the one who had to be in the body of the jerk that dared to be called her boss!

Ichigo wondered, if she was in Shirogane's body, what happened to her body? And more importantly, what happened to Shirogane?

Her eyes became wide as she realized what happened.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"

Ryou ran into Café Mew Mew as fast as he could.

"Ichigo-san, did you forget something?" Retasu asked.

Ryou almost ignored her, until he realized she was talking to him. "Forget? Yeah, that's it, I…forgot something."

"Did you hear Shirogane scream?" Minto asked. "Talk about a girly guy."

"Shirogane is very manly!" Ryou said defensively before he could stop himself. Keiichiro, Minto, Purin, Retasu, and even Zakuro, stopped what they were doing and stared at Ryou with wide eyes. "Er, I mean…he'd be very manly…if…he was a girl!" Everyone went back to what they were doing.

Minto laughed. "Good one." Retasu looked mildly offended, but Ryou thought nothing of it.

"I'll go see what's wrong with Ryou," Keiichiro said.

"No!" Ryou shouted. "I mean…no." He laughed nervously. "I'll do it. I mean, I was gonna go up there and ask him something anyways."

Keiichiro smiled. "Alright, Ichigo-san."

Ryou almost passed out again—being called Ichigo-san—but decided he could do that later; he needed to talk to the real Ichigo right now.

He quickly went upstairs to his room and tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. Right, he had locked it. He took a deep breath, looked around to make sure no one was listening, and knocked lightly on the door.

Before he could say anything, Ichigo spoke. "Who's there?" she asked quickly. "I-I'm really busy right now and I can't talk!"

"Ichigo," Ryou said softly, "it's me. Open the door."

The catgirl covered her mouth with her hand to keep herself from screaming again. That was her voice! She was talking to herself! Maybe it was her conscience? Or just voices in her head? She was going insane! She couldn't go insane! Aoyama-kun probably hated insane people! "I said go away!" she shrieked again.

Ryou winced. Even though it was his voice, Ichigo made it sound so…girly. "Don't say it like that. You make me sound like a sissy."

Ichigo gasped and realized exactly what he meant when he said, "it's me." She made her way cautiously to door and hastily unlocked and opened it; as if touching it would give burn her hand or something. Ryou stood on the other side, arms crossed, staring up at her impatiently. Of course seeing herself made Ichigo completely forget that it wasn't actually her she was seeing. "AAAmph!"

Ryou put a hand over her mouth to stop her screaming, which was as difficult to do as it was funny looking, since both teens had recently had a major change in height. "Shut up, baka-ichigo!" He removed his hand. Fortunately, she was now over the screaming stage. Unfortunately, she had just entered the panicking stage.

"Shirogane! What happened? What did you do to me? I want my body back! I'm gonna be stuck like this forever, aren't I! I don't wanna be you! What about Aoyama-kun? He'll hate me! My parents will disown me! Keiichiro will fire me! You'll fire me! My grandma won't send me money for my birthday anymore! I WANNA BE A NORMAL GIRL!" She began to hypervinalate and Ryou looked around nervously to see if anyone was watching.

When he didn't spot anyone, he pushed the girl…er, boy, into his room and locked the door. "Ichigo," he said, "you need to calm down."

"Calm down? CALM DOWN? WHY THE FRICK SHOULD I CALM DOWN? I'M STUCK INSIDE YOUR BODY, SHIROGANE! I'M A GUY! THINGS CAN'T GET ANY WORSE THEN THIS AND YOU'RE TELLING ME TO CALM DOWN?"

Ryou sighed and plopped down on his bed. "You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?"

Ichigo had gotten over the panicking stage and was now in the extremely-ticked-off stage. "You did this on purpose! You did this because you hate me! You can't stand me, so you turned me into you! You conceited jerk! All you think about is yourself! You didn't even consider that this would be THE MOST SUCKY EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE!"

The redhead—who had been a blonde until just recently—looked like a cross between frustrated, surprised, and confused, and it was all because of the girl (or boy; he wasn't sure what to call…it yet) standing in front of him. He was frustrated with her uncooperative behavior, he was surprised because he was now in her body, and he was confused because now she thought he did this on purpose. "Ichigo, do you honestly think I want to be in your body? I'm not having any more fun than you are."

She opened her mouth to snap a comeback, but she realized that it was true and anything she said would make her look like more of an idiot then she already did. "O-Okay… Then what happened?"

Ryou hesitated to tell her the truth. He now knew very well that the supposed antidote he had created was the reason he had switched bodies with the catgirl, but she'd kill him if she knew it was his fault. However, he decided, she deserved to at least know what really happened and she would find out eventually anyway, knowing Ichigo. He took a deep breath, knowing it would probably one of the last breaths he'd take after he told the girl. Or…boy.

"Well?" She put her hands on her hips and began tapping her foot impatiently in a very feminine-like manner.

"Don't do that," Ryou said in disgust. Sighing again, he said, "I've been having headaches lately."

"So?"

"Really bad headaches. I—""Shirogane, I could care less about your personal issues right now."

Ryou put his hand up to his head. He could feel another migraine coming on, but it wasn't from his cat DNA. "I was trying to create an antidote for my headaches," he said as if he hadn't heard her. "There was a 97.2 chance of it working, but unfortunately the odds didn't matter. Something went wrong when I took it, and we switched bodies. Or at least that's my guess."

"But why wouldn't you switch bodies with someone else?"

Ryou struggled to keep his face from flushing. "I believe it's because you recently had the most…physical contact…with…me."

Ichigo was not as experienced in keeping herself from blushing. "O-oh. I see." Her voice was low, attempting to hide her embarrassment.

Ryou was quick to change the subject. "But what I don't understand is why it didn't work. Even if there was a chance of it failing, the results shouldn't have been this drastic. It was only a cure for headaches. Sort of a pumped up Advil."

"You're the scientist, not me," she said with a shrug. "Well, actually I am sorta the scientist now, but I'm still not as smart as you 'cause you still have your own brain. I mean, you do have your own brain, right?"

Ryou couldn't keep from smiling a little. "Yes. We still think and act like the same people."

"Oh, well that's good…I guess." Ichigo's thoughts went to her crush, and how much he would hate her if she acted anything like Shirogane.

Ryou frowned. He could tell when she was thinking about Aoyama. She always had that look in her eyes; that dreaming sort of look that he longed to see when she was with to him. Shut up. She's already gotta guy. There's nothing you can do about— Wait. There was something he could do about that, wasn't there? He couldn't hold back the smirk that came over his face and soon found himself plotting the many things he could do to his advantage in Ichigo's body.

"What are you so happy about?"

He snapped out of his trance and looked up at…well, himself. "Nothing."

"Well," she said, heading for the door, "we'd better go tell Akasaka-san about this, or else—"

"No!" Ryou ran in front of her so she couldn't leave. Okay, so she hadn't tried to kill him yet, and although he wanted to keep it that way, he couldn't let her tell the brunette about what happened. "I-I mean, no. There's no need to tell Keiichiro about this."

Ichigo looked confused. "But can't he help us?"

"Look, this is only temporary. We don't need Keiichiro to know."

"Oh, that's good," she said, relieved. "But Akasaka-san might be able to help us get back to our own bodies sooner, right?"

"Well, I don't think he can…" He stopped. There was no use lying. "I don't…want him to know."

Ichigo cocked an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because…if we tell him, I'll have to tell him I wasn't taking my…medication. And that would make him angry."

"Medication? For what?"

Ryou put his hand behind his head. What could he say? Telling her was definitely not an option. She'd pity him, and that would be bad. Dumb girls. They always felt bad for people. Why couldn't she just hate him like she was supposed to? He considered what he could say. He couldn't tell her the truth, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to lie right now (he had trouble lying when he was nervous). There was only one other option. "Ichigo," he started, "if you don't tell Keiichiro what happened, I'll give you a raise."

Ichigo stared at him wide eyed. "A—A raise? Like, as in more money?"

Ryou nodded.

"Um, well…h-how much?"

He considered. "Fifteen bucks an hour."

Ichigo didn't know what to say. Fifteen dollars? That was…a lot. Especially considering Shirogane's standards. She forced herself to recover from her shock. "Are you trying to bribe me?"

"Is it working?"

She thought for a moment. "Make it seventeen dollars, and I think it will."

Ryou smirked. "Deal."

"So…what exactly should we do?"

He shrugged. "Live each other's lives for a week. It shouldn't be that hard. All I have to do is whine and complain all the time."

"And all I have to do is be a bossy jerk," she shot back.

Ryou ignored her comment. "I guess you're parents will be worried if you don't get home soon." He stood up to leave.

"R-Right," Ichigo said. "But Shirogane!"

He stopped. "Yes, Ichigo?"

"Don't screw up my life. Okay?"

He smirked again. "Sure. Just as long as you don't screw up mine."

"Oh, and Shirogane?"

"Yeah?"

"This is only temporary, right?"

"Right."

"So…how long?"

Ryou paused. Oh, he knew she was going to kill him. May as well get it over with. "Approximately a week."

"A WEEK?" Ichigo's face turned red. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"