Chapter Text
The students at Onizuka Junior High decided to spend their lunch period hanging around the classroom, talking animatedly among themselves. Ichigo sat near the back of the room with Moe and Miwa, the two girls heatedly debating about the latest celebrity scandal while Ichigo tried to catch a cat nap. She'd stayed up way too late the night before, and it was all stupid Kisshu's fault. He just had to turn a nasty sewer rat into a Chimera Anima and set it loose on the one night Ichigo was alone on patrol. It chased her throughout the city (through garbage and mud and quite a few other unmentionables) until she was cornered in a parking lot, then attacked her. She couldn't take the rat down by herself and had to get help from Lettuce and Zakuro to capture its soul. By the time Ichigo got home and went to sleep, it was after four in the morning.
She had almost successfully fallen asleep to a daydream of Masaya when the door to the classroom opened and a couple of girls came in from another class, one of them waving a newspaper over her head. "There's a new story about those super girls!" the girl without the paper said excitedly, gaining everyone's attention. The Mew Mew team was a hot topic in social media; most of Tokyo's adolescents were the girls' biggest fans, and anything pertaining to the five super girls was considered huge enough to gossip about.
A bunch of students crowded around the two girls as they spread the paper out on one of the desks, jostling one another to get close enough to read what it said. Ichigo looked up at 'super girls' and listened to them chattering to one another. From where she sat, she could see through a gap between a couple of students some words of the article, but not enough to know what it was talking about. Just then, one student called out the title:
"Superheroines Tokyo Mew Mew Save Their Own From Giant Rat!"
Ichigo snorted at the headline. "Out of all the stuff that happened last night, that's what they picked to write about? Those guys don't know the half of it!" she muttered. She laid her forehead on the desk and stewed in her frustration, half-heartedly listening to her classmates reading the article out loud.
The voices of her friends brought her attention back to the present. "What do you mean by that, Ichigo? Did you see something the newspapers didn't?"
"H-Huh?" Ichigo quickly sat up and came face-to-face with Moe and Miwa, who were leaning in close over her desk with confused expressions. Both of them had eyes as wide as saucers, flooring the poor girl where she sat and surrounding her so she was left with no way to escape.
"You said they didn't know. Spill the beans, Ichigo!" Moe demanded, smacking her fist on top of the desk.
Miwa was quick to follow her lead. "Yeah, were you there?"
Oh my gosh, this was starting to fall apart way too fast. Ichigo fumbled to come up with some sort of cover to what she'd said. "N-N-No! Y-You guys, you've got it all wrong!" she stammered, smiling awkwardly at the two suspicious girls. "I just heard it was totally worse on TV last night! The newspaper doesn't, um, give them enough credit," Ichigo explained. They don't need to know I was actually a part of it!
Miwa was ready to believe her, but Moe still didn't look convinced. "And just when did you see Tokyo Mew Mew on TV?" she asked.
Ichigo's mind blanked. "Um... it came on early this morning?" she offered, and let out a nervous giggle.
The blonde girl was about to reply when the bell interrupted her, followed by their teacher walking in through the door. Moe eyed her friend critically. "Your story may check out, Momomiya. But," she smiled deviously, "if I think you're holding out on juicy details ever again, it'll cost you!" She winked knowingly at the flustered girl before she gave her attention to the teacher.
The red-haired girl sighed with relief as her friends turned around and focused on the lesson. She'd seriously dodged a bullet just then. That was way too close for comfort! What if Aoyama-kun ever found out? She heaved another sigh and propped open her textbook, turning to the correct page before using the book as a pillow. This 'secret identity' business is harder than I thought!