Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s that time of year again — the time of year when Zakuro begins to feel like a miniature figure in a sparkling, holiday-themed snowglobe.

And everybody wants to see the snowflakes dance.

Her little world enclosed in glass is picked up and shaken this way and that, and Zakuro finds herself thrown here, there, everywhere around Tokyo for photoshoots, commercials, celebrity appearances and promotional events for brands. Wrapped up in the glitz and glam of the holidays, the chaos of the season is only marginally softened by the knowledge that at least she’s being paid double her usual rate for appearances during one of the busiest times of the year for idols of her stature. She’s passed around in her little world of tinsel and fake snow, while she pretends to eat cookies for a camera, but sets them back down on little gold-embellished plates lest her manager chide her about her measurements again. 

She stares out the glass of her little world — the snowglobe of her life — and watches the girls at Café Mew Mew serve tables during a chilly night in mid-December.

Everyone is ordering hot drinks, and the hiss of the espresso machine has been near-constant for the last ten minutes. Zakuro leans up against the wall of the hallway across from the kitchen and picks at her newest set of perfectly-manicured acrylics. They’re the fourth ones her stylist has installed this week. The beds of her nails are beginning to hurt.

She’s dressed in plain clothes — a long puffer coat, and large sunglasses to mask her identity. She never understood why her café uniform hid her identity so well, but without it, she feels exposed while standing around in her place of work. 

“Hey, Fujiwara.”

Her attention shifts to the head of blond hair over her shoulder. She turns to Ryou, who squints at her like he’s trying to read her thoughts. He always looks like he’s thinking too much. She’s fairly certain he is. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Ryou says casually. The greeting is charming, but the charm doesn’t meet his eyes. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes,” Zakuro says flatly. The milk frother begins to screech again. She sighs. “Outside?” 

“It’s freezing out there,” Ryou mutters, glancing towards the back door. “Let’s use my office.” 

He gestures towards the door standing ajar, further down the hall. Zakuro follows him down to the eerie blue glow of the café basement, and headquarters for the Mew Project. Her heels tap, tap, tap on the steps on her way down. The sounds of the café dining room begin to dull in her ears.

Ryou pulls out a seat for her, and settles into his office chair at his usual desk in one corner of the office. His laptop is hooked up to a 3-monitor setup, currently displaying some kind of complex map of Tokyo, marked with colored pins, notes, and a web of colored lines. He has no more than five half-empty coffee mugs scattered across his desk. An impressive count. Zakuro turns her attention back to Ryou, and wonders briefly to herself who gets the least amount of sleep between them. Maybe this conversation will go easier than she anticipated.

“Well?” Ryou says bluntly, crossing his arms. “Strange of you to come in on a day off, Fujiwara. This must be important.” 

“It is,” Zakuro agrees. She reaches down into her satchel bag and pulls out a folded piece of paper. She hands it to Ryou, who takes it from her with a curious expression. “This is my letter of resignation. I’ll no longer be working at Café Mew Mew.”

Ryou stills, blinking up at Zakuro with a bewildered stare. His brow furrows. “I–what?” he mutters.

“Here are my terms,” Zakuro says coolly. “I will continue to work the rest of my scheduled shifts until our holiday closure. After that, I’ll no longer work at the café. I am more than willing to continue as a member of Tokyo Mew Mew and our missions, but I find that the café is no longer of interest to me.”

Ryou stares at her in silence for a few seconds. 

Then, he sits back in his chair. He doesn’t open the letter, toying with it between his hands instead as his eyes flick between Zakuro’s. “Working at the café is part of your contractual obligation as a member of Tokyo Mew Mew,” Ryou says simply. “It’s part of the deal.”

“I didn’t ask to be turned into a Mew,” Zakuro says bluntly. “The least you could do is give me back the very little free time I have, outside of my other work.”

She begins picking at the edge of one of her acrylics again, but keeps her stare on Ryou. She knows her expression is devoid of emotion. She’s very good at putting on the mask. And besides, she’s thought this conversation through many times over the past few weeks. It feels like a recital, instead of a conversation. 

Ryou, however, looks like he’s just been slapped. He lets out a long breath through his nose and struggles to pick back up his composure. Zakuro watches him swallow words back into his throat.

“Are you busy this time of the year?” Ryou asks. 

Zakuro hadn’t rehearsed that question in her mind. She responds with confidence anyway: “Yes. Very.”

“So you’ll be free after the holidays?”

“No.”

Ryou sighs again. He runs one hand through his thick, blonde locks and glances around the basement office as if the computers and blank concrete walls will present him with the solution to his frustrations. 

Somewhere up in the dining room, Zakuro hears a plate shatter.

A few more moments of stiff silence pass between her and Ryou. He finally looks back over at Zakuro and crosses his arms again, still holding the letter in one hand. She can tell by the dejected look in his eyes that he’s going to accept her resignation.

And he does: “Well, I can’t stop you.” He pauses, then: “Though, you’ll still need to come in for meetings relevant to the Mew Project.”

“Understood.”

“And you’ll still need to be on-call when we need you for battles.” 

“Understood.”

Ryou narrows his eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this, Fujiwara? The other girls are going to be extremely disappointed. The café isn’t just for fun. It helps build teamwork if we’re all working here at the café, together.” 

“Yes, I know,” Zakuro says simply. “Unfortunately, I don’t have much of a choice.” 

She can feel the acrylic nail on her left pinky beginning to peel from her cuticle. She resists the urge to pick at it. God, she hates acrylics.

“Alright then,” Ryou says with a sigh. He tucks her letter into the back pocket of his pants and stands. Zakuro follows suit, standing from her seat. “I’ll need to process your final paperwork, but I can take care of that over the next week. When are you next scheduled to work?”

“Wednesday,” Zakuro answers. She begins to follow Ryou up the stairs. “Though, I was going to see if someone can cover for me for my two shifts this week. My manager just booked a job for me in Italy.” 

“Sounds glamorous,” Ryou says over his shoulder as they near the top of the stairs.

“Not particularly,” Zakuro says lamely. It’s a half-truth. She’ll be riding in a private jet, and staying at the Ritz-Carlton in the center of Florence. But it’s work. She won’t be there to enjoy the accommodations. She’ll be there to smile, speak when spoken to, and showcase all of the luxurious gifts by an Italian fashion designer who had a model drop out of his world-famous holiday gala.

Zakuro reaches the top of the stairs, and is immediately greeted with the smell of coffee and chocolate. Laugher rings in her ears like bells. Everything around her is bright, and joyful, and full of the world she sometimes wishes for while a corner of her mind sits occupied with the acrylic nail peeling from her pinky finger.

The glass on her snowglobe has never felt so thick. She peers into the cafe through the whorl of the snow around her, and wonders what it would be like to go a while without someone picking her up and shaking her.

She feels a hand on her shoulder. Ryou gives her a light pat on the puffy shoulder of her coat and forces a stiff smile.

“Enjoy your holidays, Fujiwara,” he says with a nod. “I suppose we won’t be seeing you for a bit.”

“I suppose so,” Zakuro replies. She glances back towards the café, and is surprised to see Ichigo charging towards her like she’s armed with a purpose. 

“Oh great, you’re back!” Ichigo exclaims with a grin. She dumps her serving tray just inside the open entryway to the kitchen and calls over her shoulder: “Hey, Mint! Lettuce! Zakuro’s back from her meeting!” 

Zakuro watches as Lettuce hurriedly finishes attending to her table. Mint leisurely rises from her usual spot in the corner of the café, where she’s taking her tea break. She flits over to Zakuro with a delighted bounce to her graceful steps. Lettuce follows soon after.

Once she sees them all gathering, Ichigo sticks her head into the kitchen, yelling: “Pudding! It’s time for the thing!” 

“Roger that!” comes a voice from the depths of the noisy kitchen. Ichigo dips into the kitchen and begins fussing with something on the opposite countertop, out of Zakuro’s view.

“What’s all this about?” Zakuro asks, tilting her sunglasses down to furrow her brow at the remaining two Mews.

“Well…” Mint starts, glancing over at Lettuce for confirmation before continuing, “...we know how you don’t really like to see family or anything for the holidays, and that you’ve been busy with work. So, we wanted to do something special for you.” 

“I … I don’t understand,” Zakuro stammers. She pushes her sunglasses up her head, tucking them into her hair. “I’ve said before that I don’t usually celebrate this time of year …” 

“W-we know,” Lettuce stammers. “B-but, um … we just thought it might be nice if—”

“Okay, ready!” Ichigo yells from the kitchen. The girls turn to watch. And out from the café kitchen emerges Pudding, who is carrying a beautifully-constructed chocolate mirror cake, with little candy cane detailing and delicate chocolate shavings detailing the edges. Two sparklers sit on top of the cake, and when Pudding draws closer, Zakuro reads the writing on the top, in perfect cursive done in white icing: “Merry Christmas Zakuro”. 

Ichigo and Keiichiro follow close behind Pudding, and the Mews all grin up at her with excitement. “You … made this?” Zakuro asks Pudding, glancing between her beaming grin and the beautiful cake.

“Are you kidding?” Pudding laughs. “I can’t make anything half as pretty as this! It was all Keiichiro!”

“Well, the girls helped,” Keiichiro says with a smile, throwing a dishtowel over his shoulder. 

Zakuro looks, shocked, between Keiichiro, Ichigo, Pudding, Lettuce and Mint, all smiling up at her as the sparklers light up their eyes and warm the surface of the perfectly-glazed cake with her name on it.

It’s the most thoughtful thing someone has done for her in a long, long time.

She’s already received countless sponsorships, gifts from PR companies and brands, and trinkets from other people who she was meant to “network” with in her field. She’s received handbags, wool coats, and designer shoes. She’s received boxes of chocolates and baskets of roses. But the homemade cake with the mirror glaze was better than all of it. Better than anything that came with strings attached, or an obligation, or a promise to promote a brand, a product, a person. It’s a gift. A thoughtful gift, just for her. With no expectations, no obligation to pay the giftee back. No ulterior motive, or pandering. No need to post the gift on social media and tag the person who gave it to her.

Just a cake. And her friends, who thought of her being alone for the holidays. Who wanted to give her something to make her smile.

Zakuro clears her throat, and pulls her sunglasses down over her eyes. She can feel tears forming behind her eyes, and fights them off with a wide, tight-lipped smile. Tears? Really, Zakuro? Pull it together. 

“Thank you,” she says finally. Her voice comes out more gravelly than anticipated. She clears her throat again. 

“Make a Christmas wish!” Pudding insists. “The sparklers are burning out, hurry!” 

“A what?” 

“A wish!” Ichigo chimes in.

Zakuro tilts her head to one side. A wish? What could she wish for? What did she want for? She stares down at the sparklers, and hears a small voice in the back of her mind whisper: more of this. 

More laughter. More smiles. More hot chocolate and broken plates and homemade cakes and making wishes.

More of this, Zakuro thinks as she leans in and blows out the sparklers on her cake.

The girls cheer, clapping for Zakuro as the smoke from the sparklers fills her nose. Keiichiro takes the cake from Pudding and asks: “Would you like me to cut you a slice?”

Zakuro opens her mouth to say “No thank you,” thinking of the way her manager last looked at her when he’d caught her eating a scone before a photoshoot. But she looks at her friends, and the cake, and the way everyone beams up at her with excitement. 

She decides she is going to fulfill her own damn wish.

“Yes, I’d love a slice.”

Zakuro picks the acrylic nail off of her finger. It snaps off with a satisfying click. The Mews begin to usher her to an empty table near the kitchen, buzzing in her ear about how busy the café has been all day.

She catches the eye of Ryou, who stands watching near the end of the hall. She nods once to him. He smirks. A moment of understanding passes between them, and Zakuro knows he'll discard her letter later.

“Here’s your cake!”

Ichigo places a slice in front of Zakuro — and next to it, a cup of black coffee, the way she always drinks it. Mint settles in next to her, bringing her own cup of tea with her and beaming up at Zakuro like she is looking at the moon. Then, to Zakuro’s left, Ichigo settles in with a massive slice of cake that is decidedly enough for two people.

“Alright, dig in!” Ichigo announces once everyone has been seated. “But make it quick, ‘cause some of us still have tables to close out!” 

“Yeah, when are you scheduled next, Zakuro?” Pudding says between bites of cake, crumbs falling on her lap.

“Wednesday,” Zakuro answers. She picks up her fork, and cuts a small piece off the corner of the cake slice. She holds it above the plate, hesitating for a moment. 

“Oh, good! I was worried you’d have to call out with your crazy busy schedule these days!” Ichigo chimes in. 

Zakuro glances between her friends, smiling down at the cake and picturing herself back in the café uniform. 

The snowglobe is starting to feel a little bit bigger.

She takes a bite of cake.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”