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It had been a few days since Mikey had messaged you online saying that he was grounded, but today you were finally going to meet up again. Ever since he had found your cat for you, and you didn’t chase him away after the initial shock, he had stuck to you like glue. He didn’t have a cell phone, yet somehow was on one of the many social media platforms. So you made an account there just to message him.
You had hung out together a few times, whenever Mikey could sneak away from his brothers for a bit. You had shown him a few of your favorite tv shows; he was teaching you how to skateboard and use his nunchucks. All in all, you always found something to do and honestly had a lot of fun together. You had heard a little about his last human friend, who only put up with him as a front, but was actually a bad guy. You didn’t understand why they wouldn’t like Mikey just for Mikey. He may be a bit impulsive and dumb, but even you could see he had a big heart and was kind.
Today he had sent a message saying he wanted you to meet his brothers. You had heard a lot about them from Mikey, but it appears they had heard nothing about you, as you could hear them berating Mikey as you made your way up the fire escape to the roof.
“Are you kidding me Mikey!? After what happened last time, we thought you would’ve learned your lesson.”
“And we’re supposed to be ninjas, unseen and unknown. The more people that know of us, the more dangerous it is for us.”
“But Nekojin is nice! She’s just a regular person, like April! She doesn’t even have any kidnapped parents!”
A smack echoed from the roof, along with Mikey's little cry of pain. You reached the edge of the roof just in time to see Mikey and one of his brothers wrestling on the ground. It looked like Mikey was losing. So you decided to break up the fight by announcing your presence and clearing your throat.
“Um, hey there everyone.” You gave an awkward wave as 3 turtles jumped to attention while one popped up from where he was sprawled on the ground to come hug you.
“It’s about time, Nekojin! They almost decided to leave without even meeting you!” Mikey cried as he lifted you up in a hug and twirled you around. You couldn’t help but laugh.
“From what you tell me, they have a reason to be cautious; don’t take it to heart Mikey. We’re all here now, so let’s get to introductions,” you said as you patted his back before he set you back on your own two feet.
“You’re right, everyone, this is Nekojin, Nekojin, this is everyone!” Mikey proudly introduced you. He never was one to get hung up over the details of things.
“I guess that leaves it up to me to guess names.” You chuckled, eyeing each of the turtles in front of you. “Okay, let’s start with the easy one, tall, looks like a nerd, you must be Donnie.” You reached out a hand to the turtle with the purple mask. He almost looks surprised at the offered hand, but gives you a firm shake none the less.
“Lucky guess,” he mutters. “Good luck with the other two.”
“Well, I do have a 50/50 chance of just guessing it, but I don’t think I need luck.” You moved in front of the next turtle. “Pretty green eyes, probably has anger management issues from how you had Mikey on the ground when I walked up. You must be Raph.” You held out your hand to the now sputtering turtle.
“I don’t have anger management, wait, pretty eyes??”
“I didn’t say that!” Mikey chimes in.
“No, you just said they were cool. I think they’re very pretty.” You winked at Raph, who now had a faint blush on his cheeks, but somehow made it through shaking your hand. “Which means you must be the annoying yet dependable leader, Leo,” you said to the last turtle in the blue mask. He gave you a very firm handshake.
“Mikey must’ve told you a lot about us then,” Leo commented, still not relaxed at all after introductions. “You guessed all our names pretty easily.”
“Oh no, Mikey sometimes complains about you guys, but we usually hang out and find stuff to do together rather than talk about our life stories.” You tried to defend your friend, but you knew that even when trying to be cautious, Mikey was still a bit of a blabbermouth. He had definitely told you enough about his brothers to be able to easily guess which was which.
“So how’d you get the name Nekojin?” Donnie asked, only slightly dreading the answer he knew was coming.
“Oh, you know how Mikey is.”
“I gave it to her!”
“He found me crying on my rooftop after my cat had escaped my apartment.”
“Ais was blocks away, I can’t believe he got that far!”
“And after I finished screaming and got over my shock, I realized that it was really sweet that Mikey went out of his way to find my cat after he heard me crying.”
“She can scream really loud.”
“Mikey basically adopted me as his friend, and honestly I didn’t mind. He did find Ais after all.”
“And I found out right away that Nekojin is a bit of a crazy cat lady.”
“I do adore my cats; I was devastated when I thought Ais was gone. Like I’d be able to find him on the streets of New York.”
“But crazy cat lady sounds mean! I couldn’t call Nekojin that, not when she’s so nice.”
“So he visited with new cat related nicknames.”
“Ohhh, so that’s why you were obsessed with cats for like a week then Mikey,” Donnie interrupted, remembering Mikey borrowing his laptop a lot during that time.
“Yeah! And that’s when I found the perfect name! Nekojin means cat person in Japanese.”
“I looked it up; it means a literal cat person, a human with cat features.”
“But it sounds so cool! So we both agreed on that for her nickname.”
“And that’s how I got the nickname Nekojin!” You ended with a bow, Mikey following your lead with an extra flourish. “Anyways, it’s really nice to meet you guys, I hope we can get along too.”
“She can go skateboarding with us! She’s not very good yet, but I’ve been trying to teach her,” Mikey said excitedly, happy to be able to do something with his friend and brothers.
“You’ve been teaching her?? It’s a wonder she can even get on the board then!” Raph exclaimed, laughing at the idea of Mikey being able to teach.
“Getting on the board is easy, and I can skate around. Mikey even showed me how to do a kick flip. He’s a fine teacher once you’re on the same page. You may be cute, but I doubt you’d have the patience to teach me like Mikey has. So please don’t act like you’re so much better than him because of a few IQ points. You look like you’re more muscle than brain anyways, so the difference might not even be that much.” Raph grinded his teeth in anger while Leo and Donnie laughed at your burn.
“Haha, you tell him Nekojin! High four!” Mikey raised his hand and you cheerfully slapped it.
“High four? Don’t you mean high three?” Leo asked, confused because no one on the rooftop has four fingers.
“Well I have five fingers.”
“And I have three.”
“So add them together and divide by two.”
“And you get high four!” And we gave each other another high four just to emphasize our point.
“That is so dumb and yet somehow makes total sense…” Donnie mumbled, in shock that someone was even mildly in sync with their goofball brother.
“Oh! I almost forgot! Donnie made us T-Pods, so I finally have a phone,” Mikey said excitedly, getting out his new phone.
“Yay, I can finally delete that social media account then!” You squealed, getting out your own phone so you could exchange numbers. “I only made it to message you anyways, this will be so much easier. Oh, and feel free to give my number to your brothers too. You never know when you might lose your T-Pod and they need to find you. It’ll be one less place to check.”
“Right right, I already lost one piece of tech Donnie made the mistake of giving me; whose to say there won’t be more?” Mikey agreed good naturedly as he typed in your number. “I’ll just text it to them.” The moment he finished his sentence, three dings were heard, coming from the other turtles.
“Well, I wish I could stay longer and get to know you guys, but we’ll have to save that for next time. I just saw the time and I really need to get to bed,” you said as you gave Mikey a quick side hug and waved to the others as you started back towards the fire escape.
“Got to get a full eight hours of sleep, I understand. We’ll see you later, I’ll text you when I’m free, Nekojin!” Mikey waved bye enthusiastically as you disappeared back down the side of the building. “Isn’t she really nice, guys?” Mikey asked his brothers, who were standing a bit shell shocked at the whirlwind meeting that just happened.
“Uh yeah, she really is.”
“Makes me wonder how she’s hanging out with you.”