Namida Chapter 1:

Unconscious

Ichigo was walking home from the Café in a bad mood. Aoyama had broken up with her for being a Mew Mew, and she came into work in tears and asked for some time off. Did Ryou care that she was sad and having a bad day? No, of course not. He made her clean dishes for four hours for being late. And then Pai had attacked downtown, and she had to fight him off with only Mint and Lettuce for backup. Pudding's sister was sick, and Zakuro had a photoshoot. They managed to defeat the Chimera Anima Pai sent out, but Lettuce got injured thanks to Mint shoving her by accident. And of course, since Ichigo was the leader, she got blamed for it, even though it was totally Mint's fault. On top of all that, Ichigo's parents had left yesterday for a three-week cruise in Fiji. So now she was heading home alone, with no one there to greet her.

Suddenly Ichigo tripped on something, and fell. Annoyed, she looked back- and nearly fell over again in shock. What she had tripped over was Kisshu, who was lying unconscious in the middle of the sidewalk. Ichigo sighed and went back to figure out why he was lying there. It sure wasn't going to be easy if anyone found him, and despite the fact that she claimed to hate him, she certainly didn't want him dead. She wasn't that kind of person- most of the time, anyways.

Going back to Kisshu, she gently turned him over, seeing if he was injured. Strangely, he didn't have any injuries on him, not even a scratch. She felt his forehead- no fever, either. That's odd, she thought. There's nothing wrong with him that I can see or sense; why is he unconscious? She contemplated her options on what to do. She could leave him here, but that seemed wrong. She could take him to Ryou- but Ryou would torture and kill him and then start in on her for something else that she apparently did wrong. She eventually sighed and went with option number three- Take Kisshu home, and wait for him to wake up to find out what happened. It wasn't like anyone was there, and Ryou hated her, so he wouldn't really care if she decided to skip a few days.

That decided, Ichigo picked up Kisshu and walked down the street to her house. He had been surprisingly close to her house. She vaguely wondered if it was a trap, but figured if it was, she had her pendant, and could protect herself.

She opened the front door, and went in. She listened carefully to see if anyone unwanted was there, but she didn't hear anything. Then she started thinking. I could put Kisshu in the guest room, but if he wakes up and I'm not here, he's probably going to freak out because he will have no clue where he is or how he got here, Ichigo thought. Sighing, she went upstairs, and put Kisshu on her bed, then took off his boots and pulled a blanket over him. Then she went to her closet and pulled out a sleeping bag, in case Kisshu didn't wake up before she got tired.

It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't tried to wake Kisshu up. She tried shaking him; no good. "Kisshu? Can you hear me?" Ichigo asked, softly at first, then getting louder. After shouting didn't work, she tried pinching him, poking him, slapping him- nothing worked. After about an hour, she gave it up, and went to make herself dinner. Another idea occurred to her, and she decided to see if the smell of food would get Kisshu to wake up. So once she was done reheating the lasagna her mother had left in the fridge, she took it upstairs and sat down at her desk to eat.

By the time she was finished, though, Kisshu still wasn't awake. Maybe he's in a coma or something, she thought. If so, though, I guess he'll be here a while.

Ichigo finally decided to go to bed, and figure this out in the morning.

The next morning, she woke up to find that Kisshu was still unconscious. Knowing she couldn't just leave Kisshu at her house alone, whether he was in a coma or not, she promptly decided that seeing as she wasn't keen on school anyways, she would just play hooky until Kisshu woke up.

Two days later: Kisshu was still unconscious, and Ichigo had decided he probably was in a coma. She had turned off her cell phone after the fifteenth time Ryou called her, which meant no one could contact her. She knew he had tried the house phone, but it had caller ID as well, so she knew who was calling.

Ichigo spent most of her time in her room reading or doodling, and she had started eating in there as well, because sitting at the dining room table alone was pretty depressing.

On the morning of the fourth day since she had found Kisshu unconscious, Ichigo got up and did her usual routine. When she came back, however, someone was knocking on her window. Sighing, she went over to the window- and saw Ryou looking in. Knowing he had climbed the tree outside her window, she sighed and opened the window. Before he could say anything, Ichigo said, "I'm not letting you in, and you can go to hell for all I care, you evil bastard. I'm sick of working for you, and if you came here to try to get me back, it's not going to work. Now get out, or I'll push you out the window- and make sure you fall all the way down. Get out of my life."

Ryou seemed stunned by this little speech, and didn't say anything. "I'm giving you one chance to tell me what you want, and then I'm pushing you out the window," Ichigo said.

"I haven't been able to contact you, so I wanted to see if you were okay," Ryou said.

"Might I ask why the jerk who's been making my life a misery since I met him wants to know if I'm okay?" Ichigo asked.

"Because I care about you," Ryou said.

Ichigo just snapped then. "You could care less whether I live or die at the hands of the aliens," she snarled. "Don't pretend to be something you're not, Blondie." With that, she shoved him out her window, and watched with a look of satisfaction as he fell all the way down to the ground. She watched him get up, then slammed the window shut, and locked it. She then proceeded to lock every window and door in her house, and went back to her room. She closed her curtains, and was about to sit back down at her desk when a soft groan from the bed made her look up sharply.

Kisshu appeared to be stirring, and Ichigo warily sat down at her desk, watching him. He slowly opened his eyes, which were slightly unfocused. Suddenly it looked like he was in pain, because he squeezed his eyes shut again, putting a hand on his forehead.

Ichigo decided to take a chance, and asked, "Kisshu, are you okay?"

She watched as his whole body went tense, and guessing why, she said, "I'm not going to hurt you. Are you okay?"

"My head is killing me," Kisshu said. "Can you talk more softly?"

"Is this better?" Ichigo said in almost a whisper.

"Yeah…" Kisshu said. "Why am I here? And where is 'here'?"

"You're in my room, and you're here because I found you lying on my sidewalk, out cold," Ichigo said in the same soft voice. "I thought you were in a coma."

"Why?" Kisshu asked.

"Um… you've been unconscious for nearly four days," Ichigo said. "And nothing I did would wake you up."

"I've been unconscious for four days!?" Kisshu asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Ichigo said. "I don't know what caused you to wake up today, though."

"Where's Taruto?" Kisshu asked.

"I don't know; he wasn't with you when I found you," Ichigo said. "What happened to you, Kisshu?"

Kisshu sighed. "Taruto and I have been trying to convince Pai that we should form a truce, and stop listening to Deep Blue," he said. "We've been fighting about it for weeks, but things came to a head a few days ago. We started fighting, and it got out of hand. Taruto got knocked out by one of Pai's attacks, and I used my powers to get him out of there before Pai killed him. I don't exactly know where on Earth I sent him, though. Pai and I continued fighting, and it's pretty obvious that he knocked me out and abandoned me. You said you found me near your house?"

"Yeah, you were lying on the sidewalk," Ichigo said. "I didn't know what else to do, so I brought you back here, since my parents are gone again."

"I'm surprised you didn't bring me to Blondie," Kisshu said.

"Blondie spent the whole day the day I found you yelling at me for being late, even though the reason I was late was that Aoyama broke up with me," Ichigo said. "I know he could care less about my feelings, so I decided that I'd bring you back here, rather than leave you to the mercy of that evil jerk."

"Thanks, Koneko-chan," Kisshu said. "Are you still working for him?"

"Doubtful, I pushed him out my window this morning," Ichigo said. "Why he tried to climb in my window is beyond me, though."

"Maybe he's insane," Kisshu suggested. He opened his eyes again, and flinched. "Uh… do you mind turning out the light?" he asked. Ichigo did so, and Kisshu sighed.

"Do you know if you can take human medicine?" Ichigo asked. "I have headache medicine."

"I'd need to know what's in it," Kisshu said.

"I'll get the bottle," Ichigo said, and went to the medicine cabinet, then pulled out some Advil. She took it back to Kisshu, and said, "Are you able to read it, or do you need me to do it?"

"Do you mind?" Kisshu said.

"No, but I might not be pronouncing some of this right," Ichigo said. "The ingredients all have weird names."

"I'll figure it out," Kisshu said.

Ichigo started reading out the ingredients, and when she was finished, Kisshu said, "I think that's fine."

"Okay, you need to swallow it whole, so I'll go get some water," Ichigo said. She left and came back with a glass of water, then poured out two pills. "Can you sit up?" she asked Kisshu.

"It's going to hurt, but yes," Kisshu said, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He looked at Ichigo, who handed him the two pills and the water. He took them and drank some of the water, then put the rest down on Ichigo's bedside table.

"Maybe you should go back to sleep," Ichigo said. "It'll help the medicine work faster."

"I need to find Taruto," Kisshu said. "Pai could kill him, and if someone helped him, they'd probably go down too."

"The only person I can think of who would help Taruto is Pudding," Ichigo said. "I'll give her a call, k?"

"Be careful," Kisshu said. "I learned the hard way that even your closest friends can become your enemies."

"I will," Ichigo said. She got out her cell phone, ignored all the missed calls, and dialed Pudding's number.

Finally, after three rings, Pudding picked up. "Hello na no da?" she said.

"Pudding, it's Ichigo," Ichigo said. "Where are you?"

"Home, why?" Pudding asked.

"Because I don't want Ryou to overhear this," Ichigo said.

Pudding's voice was serious as she said, "This has something to do with the aliens, right, na no da?"

"Yes. Do you know where Taru-Taru is?" Ichigo asked.

"Promise me you won't tell if I tell you," Pudding said.

"Promise me the same," Ichigo replied.

"Hai," Pudding said.

"I promise," Ichigo said. "Can you tell me where Taru-Taru is?"

"He's here with Pudding, but he needs to rest," Pudding said. "Why, Ichigo-oneechan?"

"I've got Kisshu over here, in similar condition, and he's worried because he doesn't know where Taru-Taru is," Ichigo said.

"Tell him Taru-Taru is safe," Pudding said.

"I will," Ichigo said. "Pudding, Kisshu says Pai is still out to get them. Can you find a way to bring Taruto here, and maybe stay with me too? Kisshu says that Pai will kill Taruto and anyone who helped him."

"Pudding can try to bring Taru-Taru to your place, but Pudding can't leave her siblings," Pudding said. "Pudding will make sure to be safe, though."

"Alright," Ichigo said. "Do you think it's wise to get Lettuce on board?"

"Not yet, na no da," Pudding said. "Lettuce-oneechan still won't disobey Ryou. We have to get her to see that he's evil before getting her to help us. And we definitely can't tell Mint-oneechan or Zakuro-oneechan."

"I know," Ichigo said. "I'll tell Kisshu what you told me; you try to get Taruto here."

"Pudding will try her best, na no da," Pudding said. "Oneechan, be careful."

"I will, and you do the same," Ichigo said. She heard Pudding hang up, then snapped her phone shut.

Kisshu was looking at her, and she said, "Taruto is at Pudding's house, and she'll try to bring him here. I told her to be careful, and I know she will. We'll do our best, k?"

"Thanks," Kisshu said softly.

Ichigo smiled and said, "Sure. Go back to sleep, I'll be right here."

Kisshu nodded slightly before falling back to sleep.

Okay, another idea, while I work on Kitten Love and think of ideas for Depression. Please review!