Epilogue
A/N: Over at last—Well, I'll miss this story. Hope you all enjoyed it.
Disclaimer: Not Mia Ikumi. The late Scarlet, the late Pilka, and Zalka are all mine.
Four male figures stood outside of Café Mew Mew, worried expressions on their faces. After Ichigo and crew had left to rescue Zakuro, Ryou had got in contact with the aliens. He knew they'd want to know about the danger. Surprisingly, only Kish and Tart were there. Pie, they said, hadn't been seen since the day of Zakuro's capture. However, the two remaining aliens were very worried about their girlfriends, and had agreed to come to the café straightaway to await their return.
Now, they'd been gone for almost a day, and the atmosphere outside the small restaurant was nervous and tense. Kish was pacing, and his dark eyes had that distracted cast they always took on when he worried about his Ichigo. Keiichiro was staring stony-faced at the ground while Ryou, a hand on his long-time friend's shoulder, was glancing around distractedly. Tart (still really a child, even in alien years,) was hunched over on the ground, crying. The four of them had been that way for probably the past hour. They hadn't eaten since breakfast—how could they, when their significant others were off somewhere fighting the most powerful alien they'd ever faced?
Keiichiro blinked. The sun was so bright today, and his constant staring at the sky was leaving brilliant yellow sunspots in his vision. Some of them seemed to be blinking different colors, too, pink and green and even some bright blue.
Darn! These sunspots just would not go away! Keiichiro had been blinking constantly for almost a minute, but there were these four spots, one pink, one yellow, one blue, and one green, that just wouldn't clear from his vision. Also, they didn't seem to be dimming—if anything, they were getting larger and closer by the second…
Suddenly, it clicked. He knew those colors! "Kish! Tart! Ryou! They're back!" Keiichiro yelled, his voice filled with childlike happiness.
The aliens and the blonde human turned to follow their friend's gaze. They too saw the brilliant dots fast approaching Tokyo. Soon, the forms of four of the five Mew Mews became apparent as they approached their café.
When the four girls at last alighted on the grass, their boyfriends could just stare. They looked horrible! Mint was covered with scorch marks, and brilliant crimson tear tracks ran down Ichigo's face. Pudding was flying slowly and awkwardly, if exhausted, and Lettuce's glasses were cracked and her limbs smeared with spaceship oil.
As usual, it was the always hyper (even when tired) Pudding who broke the short silence. "TAR-TAR!" she exclaimed joyfully, running toward Tart with her arms outstretched.
"Pudding! You're back!" Tart ran toward his little monkey ecstatically, and in an instant the two were locked in a tight embrace. "I saved you some candy for your return…" the alien told the Mew.
Pudding just giggled and said, "I missed you, na no da!"
Kish smiled at his friend before rushing toward Ichigo. "My beautiful Strawberry-Cat," he said, "You're okay!" It was rare that Kish showed any concern, but the others could tell he'd been really worried about Ichigo.
"I'm fine, now that I'm back with you, Kish," the cat Mew told him, grabbing him around the shoulders and kissing him in front of everybody. Kish seemed surprised at the bold gesture, but you could tell he was overjoyed that his Ichigo was safe.
Ryou cast a worried glance over Lettuce's smoke-smeared body. "Wow, my Lettuce. You look like that time you asked Kish to teach you how to fly a spaceship."
The porpoise just laughed at that. "Well, those lessons ended up coming in handy, Ryou-chan. I actually did fly one!"
Ryou grinned. You could tell he was proud of Lettuce. She really had gained so much confidence since she first became a Mew. She would never have done something like that just a year ago. He ran his hands through her pretty green hair, while thinking, I'm glad she's still cautious enough to keep herself safe. I don't know what I'd do if she ever got really hurt.
Keiichiro turned from watching his best friend and Lettuce to finally face his beloved Mint. He was a dignified man, but he really had to control himself to keep from running to her.
They had never needed many words between them. They were not ones for cute nicknames, like Pudding, or public passion, like Kish. But Keiichiro's "Welcome back, my little bird," still made Mint's heart swell up when she heard it.
She seemed so cold and stuck-up to her friends. But she really did care for him, and she'd missed him a lot. So Mint Aizawa did something she didn't do often (at least in public). She leaned over and gave Keiichiro a kiss on the cheek, for once not caring who saw. "I missed you too, Keiichiro."
He smiled and put an arm around his pretty girl. Suddenly, concern clouded his face. "But…where's Zakuro? Did you—save her?" Mint saw worry and panic in his eyes as he contemplated the absence of his good friend.
But Mint didn't need to respond. For just then, a brilliant violet figure, accompanied by another one that the boys were sure they recognized, but couldn't place for a moment.
Zakuro landed beside her friends, and the mouths of Keiichiro, Ryou, Tart, and Kish (who had finally broken from his kiss) dropped wide open. For Pie stood beside her, one arm protectively around the werewolf's waist.
Pie whispered something in her ear, and she nodded. He turned to Kish. "What? You knew I had to fall in love sometime. It shouldn't come as such a surprise to you. And close your mouth, or I'll start calling you Kish the Fish." With that, he kissed his Zakuro right in front of his two alien friends, who were practically going into shock by that point.
Kish turned to his Ichigo, who was trying to stop herself from laughing at his stunned expression. He pointed at the kissing figures of Pie and Zakuro. "That," he told his cat-girlfriend, "is going to take some getting used to."
The End.