Well, for the first time ever I have decided that this was just too long to be a one-shot. So, I made it into a short story of three chapters. Each chapter can be seen as a one-shot, only with the same background storyline. If you don't like one of the pairings involved, you can just skip that chapter.

O, and I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew of course.

It's silent in the cemetery, as it is supposed to be. The only sound there is to be heard is the peaceful singing of the birds and the wind that makes the leaves in the trees rustle under its light touch. There is a scent of sad sighs in the fresh spring air in combination with upcoming rain. Clouds come rolling in from sea, but it'll still take a little while before the rain will actually start.

A young girl uses this opportunity of not yet raining to replace the flowers on the grave she is sitting in front of. She tenderly wipes away some sand from the stone and caresses the pink flowers in the blue vase. "Good afternoon, sensei" she whispers "How have you been?".

Blossom floats down towards the ground, its petals touching the young girl and the graves around her. Its pink colour matches with the healthy blush on her cheeks, but contrasts heavily with the broken look in her brown eyes. No, not even broken. Empty. It is a shallow look. As if nothing brings her joy. The look of one damned.

She doesn't cry. She's stopped crying a very long time ago. It's no use, you know. What good can tears do? It doesn't bring anyone back to life. Nothing brings anyone back to life. Death is inevitable and irreversible. If there's something she's learned the past few years it is that.

"I'm sorry I didn't visit last week. I had to perform at the birthday party of one of your old students. I could not turn the offer down, I'm a little short of cash nowadays… Nothing to worry about, of course! I can easily handle it".

Yes, easily handle it… Not really. She's almost broke. But she's got a lot of appointments for the upcoming week, so she just has to bear with it for a little longer. It'll be over again soon enough and everything will be fine again.

The girl remains silent. Normally she tries to come up with something fun to tell, but she can't think of anything. Her life isn't that great at the moment.

Eventually she just begins to tell her sensei about the party she performed on. Not that anything special happened, but, well, she has to do something, right? She talks for about an hour, babbling on about insignificant things like she knows her sensei always used to love. She puts up a happy face and talks and talks and talks. Until she really can't talk anymore. That's when she closes her mouth and stands up. "I have to go now, Heicha is waiting for me. I'll come back next week. I'll be sure to bring you some new flowers, then. Enjoy the rain!". And gone she is. The young girl with the brown eyes and blond hair walks down the path of the cemetery, in the direction of the exit. Her smile is gone.

It's been a year or three now since the fire. She remembers it like yesterday, though. She saw it. She saw it from afar. She remembers the horrible feeling, as if she'd walked straight into a horror film. Her eyes filled themselves with tears when she didn't even know what was happening yet. She just began to run, run, run towards the kindergarten. That's when she saw it. The fire.

She's never been more afraid in her life.

That's all you're going to hear about it, though. She never talks about that sight. Never. Not about the screams she heard, not about how the building collapsed right in front of her eyes. Not about when she felt a pang of relief because all of the children had been picked up already by their parents an hour ago. Not about the moment she realised who was still inside. Or, who had been inside. Who had surely died. Not about the horrible moments of waiting till she heard it. The news. Not about how many times she heard: "I'm sorry for your loss" those days. Not about how her smile had faded and her tears had eventually stopped. Not about anything at all. She keeps her mouth shut and her face straight.

As she walks on she passes a large, old tree that's been on the cemetery since the beginning of time. On the branches, hidden between the leaves, there is a narrowed caramel eye watching her. It belongs to a young boy, about seventeen years old. His eye looks cold and his expression is emotionless. He has a bitter air around him and his clothing is dirty. But most striking is the black eye patch he is wearing. His exposed eye carefully follows the sight of the young girl through the cemetery.

The girl doesn't notice him, she's completely unaware of anyone's presence. She's so used to being alone in this small cemetery and she comes on such unusual times that she's just forgotten that there is a possibility someone else is also there. She just walks on, coming closer and closer to the big gate that is the entrance and exit of the cemetery. Until she suddenly stops in the middle of the path and turns to a gravestone. The boy's eye watches as she squads down in front of it and smiles lightly. "Good afternoon, Heicha".

Yes. Even though all of the other children had been picked up already, Heicha had still been with sensei. Because she hadn't been there to pick her up. She had had to work that day and it had drawn out quite long. So she had called sensei and told her she'd be later to pick Heicha up.

That had killed them both.

If sensei wouldn't have stayed there for Heicha, she'd be alive right now. If she had just picked up Heicha on time like she promised she would, they'd both be alive right now.

The girl clenches her hands to fists and finds that she can still cry. Salt drops fall down on the earth, which greedily sucks them up. She buries her face in her hands and her shoulders jolt. "Heicha… Heicha…".

Two hands place themselves on her shoulders, their grip tight and comforting. Startled the girl jumps up, her hand sliding to her necklace to hold its pendant, her facial expression immediately turning suspicious and alert, although she is still crying. When she turns around to face the one that startled her she narrows her eyes.

She recognises the boy in front of her from somewhere… Slowly she takes him in. He doesn't seem surprised by her jumping up. He seems very hard to surprise. The bitter air around him makes her shiver a little.

At the same time the caramel eye of the boy glides over her body. "Yo. Monkey". The girl's eyes narrow a little further. "Monkey? That's an insult". The boy sniggers and runs a hand through his brown hair. He looks at her through a tress that hangs in front of his eye. The caramel seems to burn, in a way. "It's true, isn't it?". "I don't know what you're talking about" the girl answers unsurprised. "Why, what a shame" he answers in a soft voice. They remain silent for a little while. "Who are you?" she then asks him in suspicion. He sniggers softly again and reaches out his hand to caress her face with his fingertips. "Don't you remember me, then? Now that is an insult, monkey". She goes through her memory to search for a face like his, but if she ever met anyone with an eye patch like he has she would have easily recognised

him. She stares into his one caramel eye and takes in his face. He is pale. He is tall. He is bitter.

"Don't call me that, you midget! One day I'm going to make you cry for real!".

Her eyes widen. He smiles.

"Ta…ru…to…". "Good afternoon, Pudding". Pudding's mouth falls open. "But… you… how…". She looks completely puzzled, although the tears have stopped falling. There are now only tear marks on her cheeks. He watches her shock in amusement. "What happened to your ears?" she asks. Taruto blinks. Of all the things he had expected her to ask… "It's something Pai came up with a couple of years ago. A way to hide them. It's very technical, so don't ask me 'bout the details, 'cause I don't know them. It's not my thing". "But… how… you…". "You're repeating yourself, midget ". "Shut up!". She's still got that puzzled look on her face.

This is impossible. After six years… he's suddenly here? Taruto, the alien she befriended when she was supposed to fight him. That time in her life seems to have been ages ago. Hundreds and hundreds of years. So much has happened since they left… so many things have changed… so many people… have died…

Taruto cups her cheek to look her in the eye. There is a worried flickering in the bitter caramel. "Hey, you okay?". Pudding stares up at him and slowly shakes her head. "No. Not at all". Taruto sighs and runs his hand through his hair again. It seems to be a tic. It does look incredibly hot, though.

She feels a blush run over her cheeks because of thinking that, but Taruto doesn't seem to notice. "So I thought" he answers seriously "You look like you've been through hell, monkey". Pudding sniggers mirthlessly. "O, but I have. I most certainly have".

She feels his fingers encircle her wrists, immediately noticing the cold they spread, and when she looks up into his eyes again they're standing in front of one of the benches in the cemetery on twenty feet distance from her little sister's grave. Taruto sits down unmoved, pulling her down too. "Sit down and talk" he demands. Pudding sits down next to him, but does send him an indignant look. "Don't you pull me down like that, Tar-Tar!".

For a second they both remain silent, frozen. The word echoes through the air.

Tar-Tar…

She didn't really mean to say it. It just happened. Very naturally. Taruto smiles a little shocked smile and looks her in the eye. Pudding blinks a couple of times and then smiles carefully too. Yeah, they're still friends. She sees that now. One way or another that hasn't changed at all in the past few years. As they keep on staring the other in the eye Pudding slowly begins to get a bit nervous, a feeling she remembers from liking a boy in her class a couple of years ago. She gulps and can't help but feeling the cold of his skin on hers turning into a burning heat.

"Well, talk" Taruto repeats. He looks curiously at her. But Pudding looks back with the same curiosity. "You first" she demands in her turn. "Why that?" he asks indignantly. "Because you already know something about what has happened to me" she says, gesturing at their surroundings "And I am just dying to know what happened to you". Shamelessly she stares at his eye patch, knowing he won't mind. "O…" he says softly while touching it "That…". "Yes" she answers "That". "It's nothing" he says casually while leaning back "Just some battle scar. Didn't even hurt that bad". "Battle scar?" Pudding repeats alarmed, her eyes narrowing again "How come you've got a battle scar?". Taruto looks at her in surprise and laughs. "Why, I've fought. That must be clear to you, right?". Pudding blushes and looks away. "I figured that" she mumbles "You know what I meant. Why would you fight?". Taruto shrugs his shoulders. "Well, if someone attacks me I fight back. That's just the way things go". "Why would anyone attack you?". She seems so surprised by this idea, as if there would never be a reason good enough to attack him in her eyes, that he feels something strange in his chest. He doesn't show, though. He's not the type to show his feelings or anything like that. He used to show them a lot, he knows that. But he's changed. Everything's changed.

"I have a lot of enemies, midget". "Enemies?". She gets more surprised with each sentence he speaks. "How come? You saved your planet, didn't you?". Taruto remains silent and looks away at the cemetery. Pudding stares at his pale face. "Didn't you?" she carefully repeats. Now Taruto looks back at her and she can see the bitterness of his air very heavily in his caramel eye. "We did. But we also betrayed our great leader. For that, we got punished". Pudding's eyes widen and her mouth falls open a little. "You saved… your planet…" she tries to comprehend it "And you… got punished?". She falls silent for precisely one second. In that one second he can see something rising from her heart into her eyes. Something strong and burning, like fire: rage. "In what kind of disgusting way do people associate with each other on your planet?". She really seems to be angry, an adorable frown on her face and her hands clenched to fists. Taruto takes her clenched fists into his open hands and gives her a penetrating look. "Don't misunderstand, you. We're usually not that cruel. But we killed our leader, our God. The one we worshipped most of all. Of course we got punished". "Even after saving all of their lives?". Pudding still can't believe it. That is just so… wrong. Not natural. Taruto's turn to snigger mirthlessly. "They didn't want it". A short silence. "Excuse me…?" Pudding then asks. "They didn't want to accept the Mew Aqua" Taruto says slowly, articulating every word very carefully "We presented it to our leaders after explaining what had happened and they didn't want it". "They didn't… want it? Even though it was the thing that could save them?". "No". "That's ridiculous!". Pudding throws her hands into the air in indignation. Taruto grabs her wrists again and pulls them down, sending her a penetrating look. "Maybe. But it was the situation we were in. They wanted to destroy the Mew Aqua and put us away in some nasty dungeon. But like hell we'd let that happen! We're soldiers, for Gods sake! They really should have known better…". Pudding stares at his face, urging him to continue. He sighs and runs his hand through his hair again, immediately taking her hand back in his after that. "I wanted to stay and fight, but Pai said that retreating was probably the best thing to do on that moment if we still wanted to save the planet. Kisshu agreed after calming down, so I was forced to come with them. After five years of being chased and attacked we finally managed to find a way, or, well, Pai finally managed to find a way to put the Mew Aqua into the ground and revive our planet. Our leaders, who had till then believed the Mew Aqua was something evil, saw its beauty and stopped chasing us down". He touches his eye patch with one hand. "Not before I lost an eye, though". "How…" Pudding doubtfully tries to ask "How did it happen?". He looks at her. "Dagger. Hurt like hell". Pudding's eye twitches in pure horror. Taruto laughs mirthlessly again. "It's nothing, really! You should see Kisshu, he took most of the hits…". Pudding ignores him completely and without knowing what she's doing she moves her hands towards his face and asks him with her eyes if she can take off his eye patch. His silence gives consent, so she carefully takes off the thing, not yet looking at his scar until she has put it down next to her. Then she goes to sit on her knees on the bench so she can look him in the eye easily and finally glances at what once was his left eye. What she sees repels her as well as it makes her want to touch it. Let's just keep it to that. Her fingers reach out and carefully she touches the thin, maimed skin. "Awful…". Her voice is not more than a whisper of loathing. Not loathing for what she sees, but loathing for the fact that it is there. Loathing for the reason it is there. She looks at Taruto, who suddenly looks like a lonesome little boy. He's definitely been through a hell too, she can see that. Just one that's different from the one she's been through.

She crawls onto his lap, face to face. "What are you-?". She interrupts him by placing her arms around his neck and embracing him tightly. "Poor Tar-Tar… I'm so sorry…". Taruto is absolutely frozen, his eye widens. But with this old friend, this girl he's so very much in love with, this little monkey embracing him tightly he realises that this is what he has been longing for someone to do for years. No, for her to do. He's longed for her. Terribly. So he just returns her embrace and lets their pain mingle in their touch, reducing it from a heavy fire to a little flame. The comfort they both find in that embrace is so big they'd thought it was impossible. Yet it's there. And they enjoy it as much as possible.

"You're not leaving me again, are you?" Pudding asks him after a while of just holding. Her voice trembles and so do her lips. He smiles. "Of course not" he says softly "I can't, even if I wanted to. I need you, midget". "I need you just as much…". "Tell me all about it, sweetie". Sweetie… where did that one come from? "Later" Pudding only sighs "I'll tell you later…". "Fine with me" Taruto answers while loosening his grip a bit so he can look her in the eye. Pudding stares at his scar and then carefully kisses it. "A kiss and all goes away…" she whispers when she sees his stunned expression. Taruto smiles enchanted. "Really?" he asks while bringing his face closer to hers. Pudding blinks. "Let's try…" he continues before pressing his lips onto hers in a soft, sweet kiss that is nothing like she's ever felt before. So she just closes her eyes and kisses back.

And it is true. With this embrace that's even closer than the one of a moment before they feel the little flame of pain be reduced to a tiny little spot. It'll most probably grow back into a flame when their lips won't touch each others again, but that doesn't matter to them on the moment. Because now they know the other will always be there to help them reduce the pain again. They're together now. Everything will be fine.

They both cry.

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