"And after that he just slams the door in my face. My face! Ugh, the nerve of him!"

Yamato sighed and re-adjusted the phone to his other ear as his right ear was getting rather hot. "I think you're leaving something out, namely that you were both drunk."

There was an incoherent sound from beyond, which could only mean Mimi was spluttering and readying herself for a rant. Yamato resignedly distanced the receiver from his head. "What do you mean?! I was notdrunk! And it had nothing to do with it!"

He brought the receiver back to his ear. After mentally counting to three he said, "Sure it has. He was drunk, so he wasn't thinking properly. You were drunk, so you gave him that, er, indecent proposal." He frowned, even if she couldn't see it. "Come to think of it, what did you say to him?" In fact, for all the minutes (minutes, really? It felt like hours) Mimi spent huffing and ranting on the phone, and for all the incorrigible sentences that Yamato had forced himself to listen, Mimi hadn't given him the exact details, or even the overview, of what the actual problem was.

There was another indignant blustering. "Indecent? There is nothing indecent with asking a friend to sleep with me!"

He widened his eyes at the ceiling. Mimi? "Well, your jokes are not funny sometimes."

The response was more huffing. "I didn't joke! And that's the point! I was completely serious and he rejected me! The nerve!"

Yamato stretched the receiver as far away as possible from his ear as he stared at it. From his peripheral vision, Gabumon had entered the room and was now looking at him oddly, but he was justified. Had Mimi honestly done that? The Mimi he knew would never be that crass.

"And you know what? He completely forgets that we were both drunk, and now he's telling everyone, including Michael, that I'm a—"

"He did what?" Yamato found himself clenching the phone a bit too tightly than necessary. Forget about Mimi being stupid enough to get drunk and flirt with the wrong guy. Nobody called his friends names. Nobody.

Mimi sniffed. "Well, to be honest, I think that's what I came off as—"

"Yeah? He's an idiot," Yamato growled, "Either way, he was drunk himself. Wait, he didn't do anything to you did he?" At this point, Gabumon was giving him a very apprehensive look for whatever reasons.

"What, so slamming the door in my face is not enough?" Yamato let go of a breath he didn't realize he had held. Mimi, though, rambled on. "But forget about idiot whats-his-face, what about Michael?"

"What about Michael?" Dear whatever gods were up there, what now, was Michael a jerk after all?

"He hasn't called!" Mimi shrieked, sounding thoroughly hysterical.

At this point, Yamato realized, a bit too late, that he should have let Sora handled Mimi. Girls were too emotional to his taste. But, living up to his crest, he instead replied, "Maybe he's busy."

It was the wrong thing to say, because now Mimi wailed and said, "Busy? Busy?!Yamato, he's not supposed to have work now! He's on vacation, for goodness's sake!"

He winced; he had just had to forget that part. Mimi and Michael were on break and they took that opportunity to visit their friends in Odaiba. Oh, hey…"Maybe someone's visiting? Or maybe he's with some other people?" He hazarded a guess.

No, it didn't make things better. "Are you daft?! He always calls! Whenever I miss-called him he'd always call back! Oh, no, no, no! What if he's—"

Yamato flinched inwardly. "Mimi, stop it. He's probably with a friend or maybe his cell phone dies or something."

He wondered why he had even bothered to say all that, because Mimi had taken to ranting over his words. It was beginning to sound incoherent, or maybe he had finally hit his threshold point for wailing on the phone of the day. Maybe he should call Sora and ask her to take over this for him, or even Taichi. Yes, Taichi deserved a little girl problem, if nothing else.

And then the phone suddenly screeched. He winced, stretching his arm again. "—Ignore me like that, are you even listening?!"

He tentatively brought the mouthpiece closer. "I am listening. Just that, you know, I thought that you'd want to vent it all out first and then—"

"Ugh, you're all the same! Men!"

He sighed inwardly, massaging his temple, counted to three, then replied. "Look, if it makes you better, at least you know now that he's a jerk to begin with."

"Of course—"

"So his opinions do not matter," he continued as though there was no interruption, "because he is a jerk, and everyone who knows you knows what you are truly like. And everyone gets a bit tipsy from time to time." As a matter of fact, there was last week's episode with Taichi, Jou, and a random fishing pole…it was rather nightmarish, to be honest.

"But Michael—"

"Knows you the best," Yamato sighed, "I'll say this once and for all, we men might be stupid and insensitive, but don't believe what you see all of the time. Deep down, some of us can be very loyal and perceptive. Oh, sure, there are visual temptations and all, but we know who really own our hearts. My point is, don't fret too much about it. And anyway, this is the…what, tenth time?"

"Second time, you ignoramus!" But she sounded a lot more pleasant, much to his relief. "And that one time was your fault!"

Actually, it was Sora's fault for accidentally knocking over the contents of an experimental 5 alcohol with tea, but he had long accepted that Mimi would forever hold that grudge against him. Most of the time, everyone thought it was a funny incident. So he just hummed in response. "Speaking of which, don't you have somewhere to go?"

"Eh? Where? There's no…Argh! Shoot! You're not currently with Sora, are you?"

"No, though maybe I can call her—"

"Excellent! You're the sweetest guy on earth, you know that, right? Okay, bye, Yamato!"

With a click the connection was severed. Yamato sighed, replacing the phone receiver. His ear was burning, he was still in his pajama (Mimi's call had been his wake up call), and he had an appointment in an hour. He picked up the phone with a heavy heart and dialed Sora's number anyway.

"Um, Yamato, I don't think you really need to do that," Gabumon said, looking at him with concern.

He gave his partner a small smile. "Maybe not." But he had given his word. Yamato was not one to lie. Especially when it was a friend.

The phone picked up on the other end, breaking him out of his reverie. "Oh, hi, Sora. Listen, I was wondering…"