Sweet Berries {Tokyo Mew Mew}

22) New Fears

After a long night of nightmares and getting up to get glasses of water to calm the nerves, my muscles were still very sore the next morning. We departed to our own homes after the chimera snake had been defeated, careful not to let people see us change back into our everyday forms, and Lettuce and I decided that staying at her place for the night wasn’t so good right after having an extensive battle with her next door neighbour. We wanted to get more answers from her, but we knew it would be impossible after realizing just how brain washed she was. Lettuce stayed over at mine but I could tell we both still didn’t feel safe anymore.

     Our transformed outfits didn’t really cover up our faces and Miku recognized me the first time we met so I was frightened to go outside and show my face. I woke up quite early, though, and seeing Lettuce still sleeping soundly on my bedroom floor, I went to collect a bowl of cereal and came back to eat it in my room, revising my German study book from school. With my eyes firmly set upon the book, a pair of pale hands came from behind me and covered my eyes. My heart jumped but I knew exactly who it was.

     ‘Guess who!’ said Kisshu, his weight now on the bed behind me.

     ‘You have to stop doing that! The only good thing about you being here is that I want to have a talk with you.’ I said, pushing his hands away from my face and setting down my cereal on my bedside table.

     ‘And I you, sweet lips,’ he replied with a grin. ‘What have you been up to lately?’

     ‘I think you know what I’ve been doing.’ I said with a frown, getting up and turning to cross my arms at him.

     ‘Oh, come on, I don’t watch you that often. Although I know you’ve been thinking about me.’ He smirked, flashing his sharp white teeth and getting comfortable on my bed.

     ‘I have been thinking about you but only because last night you set a giant snake on me and Lettuce, followed closely by that Miku girl!’

     His face went blank. ‘I don’t know how many times I have to say this,’ He suddenly turned serious. ‘I don’t know of any other Mew! I haven’t created a chimera anima since last week. I’m starting to run out of interest animals to turn.’

     I went silent for a moment. ‘You’re really telling the truth, aren’t you?’

     Kisshu frowned slightly. ‘Yes. I’m not all about lies and chimeras.’

     We stayed in silence for a few moments as I watched the still sleeping Lettuce. We weren’t exactly whispering but she still seemed to be in a deep sleep.

     ‘So what are you doing here now?’ I finally asked, sitting down at my desk chair, aware I was still in my tiny PJ’s as he looked me up and down. ‘Stop staring.’ I said, blushing but trying to look angry.

     ‘I just said it before. I’m actually quite bored and wanted to know what you were up to.’

     ‘You’re still the enemy. I’m not turning a soft spot on you.’ I said, eyeing my pendant on the bedside table that was closer to Kisshu than it was to me.

     He followed my gaze and rolled his eyes. ‘I haven’t created a chimera today, Panda, so you can relax. Just like I’m doing right now,’ He grinned, stretching out on my bed and placing his hands behind his head. ‘I’ve noticed you don’t relax too often.’

     ‘Not when you’re in the room! Are you freaking insane?’ I was starting to become erratic and worked up but closed my eyes and breathed slowly. ‘You have to agree you’re not someone to have a normal conversation with.’

     ‘Shows how much you know,’ He said, swinging his legs around and sitting on the edge of my bed.

     ‘I don’t exactly have time to talk anymore,’ I kept an eye on the clock and Lettuce as I stood up. ‘If you came here for contact,’ I took two steps towards him, grabbed at his clothes and pulled him into a rough kiss.

     His arms quickly snaked around my waist as he pulled me closer into him, deepening the kiss and making my head actually spin. After a few moments, I pulled away and said, ‘Make that one last.’

     Taking a step back, I pointed towards the window but couldn’t help my flushing cheeks. He grinned and my knees wobbled slightly under his yellow eyed gaze. How did he always manage to do that to me? As I watched him head towards my open window, I couldn’t help but taste a new flavour on my lips, licked them and closed my eyes to savour it. Chocolate and strawberries.

     I couldn’t have been sure if Kisshu noticed me doing that but I liked to think he didn’t as I watched him disappear out through the window but not without giving me a tantalizing wink before doing so. A few moments after he departed, Lettuce began to stir and looked up at me sleepily.

     ‘What are you doing?’ She asked, watching me just standing there, staring at my window.

     ‘Nothing.’

     The next Sunday at work, I had managed to get in a few quiet hours of slow orders until Ryou came up to me and unofficially introduced Mini Berry, finished and ready to go.

     ‘Berry, Berry!’ He chimed, flying out of Ryou’s hands and flying around my head a few times.

     ‘Thank you so much, Ryou. He’s just too cute.’ I said, trying to catch him happily.

     ‘Don’t get too attached to it,’ he said coldly. ‘It’s just for work purposes only. Use him correctly. If there are any more problems with it, just tell me.’ And he left back down to the basement.

     The next hour, I was finished and ready to go home. It wasn’t too often where I had a normal, relaxing shift and Ryou only came up once to give me back Mini Berry. Unfortunately, Lettuce told me that she saw a moving van outside Miku’s house the day after we had our battle but she never saw Miku or the Uncle that day, just the van. I knew time was running out to find out more from Miku but she made it quite apparent that she wasn’t changing her mind any time soon about who she would fight for. Her stubbornness was irritably annoying and I kept finding myself frowning as I remembered how close minded she was. But I couldn’t be too mad at her; she had saved my, and Luka’s, life one.

     After getting home, my mother asked me to get a few things from the shops to use for dinner and I was glad to do it, but tired. Luka had been spending a lot of time up in her room but I didn’t blame her. I figured she was testing out all of her new powers, abilities and animal parts.

     Walking down the street after getting everything on my mother’s shopping list, I had a sudden habit of looking over my shoulder almost every five seconds. That heavy feeling of someone watching me had come back but I couldn’t see anyone in sight when I was five minutes away from home.

      Deciding to take a faster route to my house through a desolate alleyway, I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of a tall man staring at me from the shadows. I couldn’t make out any type of face but I knew they couldn’t have been good because their ears were shaped differently than a human’s, but similar to Kisshu’s.

     They stepped out from the shadows and revealed their face, framed by purple hair in a similar style to Kisshu’s. His face was contorted with rage and I feared for my life and dropped the grocery bags without realizing.