These Are The Nights We Live For, a digimon fanfic

These Are The Nights We Live For

I think that you two have loved each other for a very long time, but just in the wrong order.

("Lovesick")

Red

They do everything in those two weeks.

They wander strange landmarks popularized by travel brochures. They visit museums and ogle art they pretend to understand. They tour universities and ask questions of the flustered campus guides. They sample the full range of sandwich combos available at the all-night corner deli. They pose for staged snaps to message home, watch more movies than they can remember, fall asleep to the stereo blasting new pop sounds. They make small talk with well-meaning adults who like to interrogate teenagers about their life goals on their summer breaks. They have sex on her basement floor. She tells him it isn't because of pity, and he's not quite sure he believes her.

He's been on lots of dates, most of them bad, all of them awkward, none of them close to what he'd wanted them to be. He doesn't know what keeps going wrong, what he keeps overlooking. He's popular at school. He's never had trouble making or keeping friends. He doesn't feel shy talking with girls, even as the other boys turned to that form of teasing that masked a deep insecurity, because he isn't insecure.

But somehow this hadn't made a difference, not to the girls he'd taken out. The dates went okay, mostly. He tried to be funny and make them laugh, like his sister told him. He'd held the doors open and let them sit down first, like his father told him. He'd ask questions about their interests, not just talk about his own, like his mother told him. Sometimes he'd get a kiss at the end, and sometimes they'd let him hold their hand as he walked them home. Once he'd been invited inside, but the girl's brother had hung out with them in the kitchen as they sipped their tea and it had been kind of awkward.

He's never been in a girl's bedroom.

(Sora doesn't count. She's not allowed to count.)

He's never seen a girl naked.

(Not anyone real.)

He's never been on a fourth date.

(He'd only asked once; the girl had laughed.)

The thing is, all these failed forays just make it seem like he does actually pull, and pulls a lot. His teammates are rather in awe of his ability to win dates so frequently, so much so that they hadn't yet figured out how quickly these teenage dramas were over. The constant rotation just makes him look more successful, and he doesn't bother correcting anyone. He doesn't tell anyone the truth about his lack of opportunity, such as it were, actually, except her.

And even then, it actually isn't him who tells her.

It's the pack of condoms peeking out of the inner lining of her knapsack, and the red coloring of his cheeks when he sees them, that tells her instead.

She pulls out the hairbands she'd been searching for and then zips up the bag and launches it at his face, and he has to duck.

"Like you haven't got any," she mocks, unembarrassed.

He sidesteps the question, scooting the bag across the floor with his foot, away from where they're lounging on the basement couch. The door the basement is open, as per her father's only rule with any of her guests, even the ones who they've known since the era of diapers and sand-pails (maybe even especially those from that era). He can hear the upstairs television set lowly airing a sappy romance movie and the quiet chatter of her mother on the phone to one of her friends.

He sighs, regretting his glass face and how he can't keep instinctual reactions better contained, knowing he's about to get into something with her again. On his last night of the trip, too. Just his luck. (Not that he's had much really.) "I didn't know things were serious," he says. No other boys had been over to the house while he'd been visiting, though they'd been out of the house for so much of the time that maybe there hadn't been an opportunity. Plus, she points out, it's her summer break, and he's her entertainment while her friends are away with their jobs, their families, their dramas. He figured she'd said that to make him feel flattered all her attention was on him, but the more he'd gotten to hang out with her parents the more he'd thought it all had more to do with her father's strict rules than another of her on-again, off-again regular offs. Either way, they weren't that kind of friends to begin with, the kind that share details about their bourgeoning teenage dreams. Yuck.

She cocks her head, hair pooling over her shoulder like waves. "It's not so much about being serious as being safe. You know?"

He nods, but it's stiff, and he returns his gaze to the basement television set, clueless as to the plot of whatever dumb drama she'd insisted on watching while he packed. Right, packing, he thinks, glancing around the basement floor, where all of his souvenirs and college brochures and freshly laundered clothes spot the carpet with tiny clumps of laziness and procrastination. He should really get to that soon.

He can see her watching him, and now he wishes he'd lied. Except he's never been a good liar, and the tiny frown at the corner of his mouth irritates her.

She twists forward and her leg stretches, her toes pocking into his side. He doesn't let himself react, except to deepen his frown with irritation. She leans forward. "I said, you know?"

There's nowhere for him to move, and he doesn't want her to think she can move him anyway.

So he snaps, "No, I don't. I think you should be serious first."

If it had come from anyone else, she might have read his words as an insult, a way to tear her down. But he's not mean, not to her, and at some level she understands that he's not talking about her.

"How loyal," she says, because she is mean.

When it doesn't rile him, she sits back again, arms crossed over her chest and her foot still periodically poking into his thigh.

"I'm surprised I'm getting lectured by you of all people."

"I'm not lecturing you, Mimi."

"Miyako says you take girls out nearly every weekend. She says she sees you come into her family's store sometimes. She's seen you—,"

He sinks into the cushions, shaking his head harder with every statement, "Come on, I don't want to talk about this—,"

"Why not? You think you can take girls out that many times and have it be fine, but I can't date boys without having people like you make judgments about—,"

"Can we talk about something else, please?"

"Apologize then."

Now he's indignant. "What for?"

"For being a pig about my sexual choices."

He groans, bending over with his face in his hands. And in spite of how mad she really is at this point, the way he collapses does make her want to laugh. She likes being able to get to him.

"Please don't say things like that—you're like my sister, Mimi. I don't want to think about you that way."

She stabs him again with her foot, and he curls back from her, sliding from the couch to the floor to scoot away. "You'd better not think of me that way. I'm worse than your sister, Taichi. I'm the one you'll never be with."

"My worst nightmare," he says, rolling his eyes.

"Your ten-foot-pole."

"My lost chance."

"Your final heartbreak."

He turns now, craning his neck to look back up at her. "I'm glad you're being safe," he says.

She pats the edge of the sofa cushion, and he scoots back again, his back to the couch and her legs over his shoulders. She resumes her handiwork, now armed with a new stack of hairbands, and gathers up another bunch of his thick hair to make another braid.

"You'd better be, too, when it happens."

He stiffens a little, and she kicks her heels into his sides, making him grunt.

"You think I don't know what all this is really about?"

He sighs, sinking his head down again, until she lightly smacks his shoulder and he raises his chin, careful to remain still so she can continue her careful braiding.

"Everybody's different. Your time will come."

He snorts, "Thanks, I guess."

"I mean it. Those girls are blind."

He laughs again. "Their loss, I know."

"Huge loss." She slips her hand under his chin and lifts his face. "You're a good guy, Taichi. Good guys don't always finish last."

"What a relief," he mutters into her hand, finding this position physically awkward for him to speak from. She doesn't move her hold, though, so he makes do, not minding all that much, really. But she does pinch the skin under his chin a tiny bit at the sarcasm, which maybe he deserves. So he grins up at her, "All right, fine, I believe you. Got any advice for us good guys in the meantime?"

"Yes," she says, nodding hard for emphasis, for once not seeing that he'd been joking. "Don't make everything about yourself or what you get out of it. It's not a contest, and it's not a one-trick show."

"Check," he mumbles again.

"Make her comfortable, and always ask for permission, each time."

"Check, check."

"And listen to her, especially when she's not saying anything aloud. That's always the most important time to listen to a girl."

"Check."

"Also," and she hesitates, "be okay with being bad at it for the first few times," she pauses again, "or for a lot of times. Because you will be, and if she says you aren't, she's just being nice."

"Jesus, Mimi," he groans, shutting his eyes and wiggling out of her grasp at last. "I thought this was a pep talk!"

"I'm not going to lie to you!"

He makes a face, nose scrunched up in a grimace. "How many times does it take to get good at it?"

She laughs, "It's not really about the number. Some people will just stay awful at it forever."

"Is this from self-reflection?"

She kicks her heels again, and this time he grabs her ankles and yanks hard, so she topples forward over his head, his neck twisting with a painful jerk and her elbows scraping on the rough carpet. Their yelps attract attention, and just as she smacks a vengeful hand against his knee in retaliation, squirming over their tangled limbs, her mother yells down through the open basement door, "What was that noise?"

He can tell by the gleeful look on her face that she's about to tattle, so he grabs her outstretched arm, clamping a hand over her squealing mouth, and yells up instead, "Sorry, Mrs Tachikawa—I dropped my suitcase!"

Her eyes go wide at the blatant lie, but he doesn't let her go.

"Oh, well, don't hurt yourself," her mother calls back, footsteps retreating. "And try to finish packing soon. You have a very early flight in the morning, Taichi, dear. Say good night soon, you two!"

"Yes, ma'am," he says, cheerful, and she rolls her eyes in exaggeration at the polite manner.

"What?" he says, amused and finally removing his hand from her mouth.

"'Yes, ma'am,'" she mimics, rolling her head around and batting her eyelashes prettily.

"I would have thought graciousness would have turned girls like you on."

"Girls like me?"

"Little miss perfects."

Her eyes narrow, and he thinks he's gotten under her skin again. She launches up, suddenly, and he falls back, his shoulders ramming against the leg of the couch.

"You making fun of me again?"

"Wouldn't dare," he says, genuinely nervous at the way she advances on him but trying not to let it show. It wouldn't bode well for people to figure out someone like her could make someone like him nervous. He scoffs at the thought, blinking in surprise at himself. There's no way she'd make him nervous. She's worse than his sister.

"I think you do dare," she says simply.

The red coloring is back, warming his cheeks. He can feel it, and thinks maybe she can feel it too, watching her reach out to take his face in her hands.

"Come on, it's just a joke," he tries to laugh, turning his neck to the side, words fumbling when her fingers move his face back to look at her.

"If you want me to stop," she says, "tell me to stop."

And he starts to, he really does, because he's not completely thought this twist through, and the basement door is still wide open, and her mother is still laughing on the phone to her friend upstairs, and the tiny television screen before them is still playing that stupid gawky melodrama, and he does need to finish packing (or even start), and he probably should try to sleep for real soon, and his flight actually is really early, and his parents are probably waiting for him to tell them what he thought of these colleges and whether he could imagine himself going to university so far from home, and he did kind of make a loose date with that pretty brunette in his homeroom for the night after he'd land, and he is sure he'd be horrible at keeping secrets like this from his friends, and he isn't sure he'd be okay with telling any of them this is how it finally happened, and he doesn't want Sora to find out.

She places her fingers over his lips, running the pads against the curve of his mouth when it parts, pressing lightly. "Tell me what you want to do."

His voice is hoarse when he responds at last. "I want to say good night."

Her smile is small, and kind, and she nods, understanding.

"All right."

And then she moves to stand, and his arms go around her waist, and he pulls her back down to his lap, startling even himself at the instinctual movement.

Stay, he says, not making a sound.

Okay, she whispers, not saying a word.

Orange

"I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do this with you forever."

It takes everything in her to not laugh. This idiot. Always act first, think never.

She puts a hand on his face, his skin slick with perspiration, and pats his cheek with a heaviness just shy of annoyance. "Go home, Taichi; you're drunk."

But he's quick, physical, first and always, and before she can even finish her sentence his arm circles her thigh, face burying into the bend of her knee so that she can't squirm her way out without kicking him. That would have been funny to do, but she's learned the hard way what roughhousing with Taichi can lead to. Not that she has anyone else to blame, admittedly.

She wiggles her knee, and his head bobbles from the movement.

"Possessiveness is not attractive," she reminds him, still shaking her leg.

He perks up. "I'm attractive?"

"To somebody," she says, and he bites her, teeth nipping at the soft skin of her thigh just enough to make her hiss, but not enough to hurt. She grabs his face, fingers twisting his ears in warning, and he flinches, head jerking to the side and shifting onto his stomach. The lapse in his attention frees her leg at last, but now she's got another lesson to teach him—until he beats her to it.

She's not quite sure how this happened. As far as she could tell, things had been fine since that night in her parents' basement. He'd been very sweet then, cautious and nervous, quieter than she'd ever heard him be before, so much so that she'd kept her eyes open just in case, carefully attentive to his every unspoken expression, wondering—only briefly, it turned out—whether she'd denied him something real and given him, instead, something…well, something.

This is why Catherine had told her not to date friends, and definitely not to turn them into that weird category of well-except-every-now-and-then. It's extremely rare, Cat had lectured, with that kind of authority all the girls the year above her seemed to possess innately, to be able to pull off emotionless fun and not have it blow up in your face. Except his face had been so cute and so stupid, so wrecked about his lack of experience and dearth of opportunity, that she'd decided, just this once, she'd put someone else first.

(That's a lie; even then, she'd been thinking about herself a tiny bit more, and about how he'd feel, and how she'd feel about being the first one to make him feel like that, and how dumb those girls must truly be. There must have been an ocular epidemic at his high school.)

Of course, that had been then, and this is now.

Now being, in fact, the murky orange dawn of her eighteenth birthday, and a proper, real bed in the spare room of Miyako's family apartment—one of her sisters' old rooms, Mimi's sure, because Miyako's brother probably wouldn't have a poster of Yamato's band proudly taped to his wall, but assumptions are terrible things—her host long since passed out in her own bedroom, her friends littered here and there or wise enough to have escaped before Daisuke and Takeru had found the spare key to Mr Inoue's liquor cabinet and decided to toast the birthday girl with a bottle of champagne that didn't taste like the sour apple juice masking as cheap champagne from the late-night convenience store across the street. Miyako's going to be pissed when she wakes up and sees what they'd done, and Mimi knows it was wrong to condone multiple forms of rule-breaking, but she's been feeling wrong for a long time anyway, so it'd made sense to her at the time—or at least, she'd taken another long look at the recently vacated seat next to Sora on Miayko's couch and decided someone else had to feel as bad as she did tonight.

It's those kinds of impulses that bother her the most, and always in hindsight.

She doesn't like herself when she does things like this.

And if she doesn't like herself this way, how on earth could she ever expect—

Her eyes snap open, lips curling in electric ecstasy, and she feels his mouth make that knowing smile against her. "Fuck," she gasps, seeing colors so bright she's sure he's turned her blind.

Who the hell taught him that?

He pulls back, kissing her wet skin, and says, "Sorry, perv, but we're fresh out," in a sort of apologetic asshole kind of way, and she has enough sense to place a mental curse on Miyako's siblings and their unequipped rooms before sliding her leg up, foot pressing onto his shoulder and pushing him back down, fingers latching onto his hair. He doesn't protest, never does, not with her. He will soon, she knows, and she'll understand then how cruelty feels when it pretends it's not.

But that's not today, and that's not right now, and she's sure she can get away with this again, that they'll still be fine after this, that Catherine is wrong about sometimes-and-sometimes-not kind of friends, that you can't possibly be guilty about feeling this good, that of course he's not being serious and he knows it can't be, that one day he'll stop thinking things like forever when he looks at her in the sunrise.

Gold

The lock clicks open, and her heart stops.

"Oh—sorry," and, with a blush that makes his whole head look like a fuzzy strawberry, he's gone, footsteps loudly stamping their retreat as the door swings shut again.

It's another beat before she feels his forehead coming to a resigned rest on her shoulder, hands covering hers where they're frozen, gripping the posts at the end of his tiny twin bed. "Well, clearly, neither of us have a future career in espionage."

She's still reeling, and he can tell, getting nothing but a smack to his side when he shifts his hips in that way that's always been able to get her attention back on him before. (The first time he'd tried that with her had him convinced he'd broken her; it's also the only time he'd seen that sheen of jealousy pass so openly in the curl of her lips, listening to him tell her how well it had worked on his ex, too). So he sits back on his heels, sliding his hands up her arms to settle on her shoulders, guiding her with him, and she's too distracted to do much other than let him.

He can't read her too well when she's turned away from him—and, fuck, the back of her neck is beautiful, like a goddamn painting—but he knows enough by the way her fingers comb through the loose hair twisted at the top of her head—she's colored it a baby pink this time, with flecks of gold; he likes it on her but he'll never say so—and how she's breathing real low.

So he just asks her, "You okay?"

And that's all it takes, and now she's back again, and she's grinning at him as she swings herself around so suddenly that before he can blink he's pinned down to the bed with her hands holding his face in a kiss so deep he forgets that she's actually never answered him seriously before. But that's okay. He's not quite sure he'd ever done the same, either. Kisses like these prove it especially, which is why the next thing he says, caught up in that spiritual-level transcendence he rises into whenever her lips are this close to his, nipping with a breathless sort of eagerness, is an entirely uninvited, "When are you finally gonna make an honest man out of me?"

Her answer disappears into his mouth, "Dream on, Yagami." And with another peck, she sits up again and climbs off the bed, raising her slender arms over her head and rising to her toes in a languid stretch.

He's staring at her, knowing she's doing this so he will.

"Already do, every night," he says and then laughs when she throws up a delicate middle finger over her shoulder in response.

It's a ludicrous description, he knows, because this girl has never been delicate. She's fire, and gold, and all that glitters, and he's just caught in the afterlight, bewitched, like a fool.

"Come on," he says, dragging himself off the mattress at last, "I'll drive you to the station."

She nods, grateful, and he tries not to look too disappointed. These excuses to come over here, go over there, are just that, excuses acting like reasons waiting for invitations. But today's interruption killed this time turning into anything more so than business-as-usual, injecting instead a healthy dose of awkwardness and maybe even confrontation. The bad kind. The how-long-has-this-been-going-on kind. And—he glances at her, chewing on his lip nervously—maybe even the well-that-was-fun-while-it-lasted kind. Either way, he's going to have a little heart-to-heart with Koushiro whenever he gets back. Or so he thinks, until he's just done zipping his pants and he feels his pocket buzz.

Really sorry, I should have knocked.

He's amused, and a bit relieved, sneaking a glance to confirm she's not noticed, and replies quickly.

nothing to it

The typing dots blink, then disappear, and then, a full minute later—man, she takes forever to get ready to go anywhere—

Just be careful.

wrapping it up, mom, don't worry

I mean of her.

Or at least he thinks that's what the text reads, but before he's even done reading she's opening the door with a bark of, "Train time, move it!" and he rolls his eyes, grabbing his keys from the desk and following her out.

He thinks he should probably say something about what happened, to test the ice now rather than later, because he's never been good about waiting for bad news. He thinks maybe this is the better time to do it, when they'll actually be alone—better check the backseat, just in case; damn their boundary-phobic no-knocking friends—but he also doesn't think there's anything more to say about this strange little arrangement, the stops and starts, the subtexts to every glance. He's not always sure how he ended up here.

She throws her bag in the back and climbs into the passenger seat, and he fumbles with the keys once or twice, thinking about a good way in. He should have known she'd beat her to it.

"Maybe it's for the best," she says, staring cheerfully out the window as he brings the car onto the main road.

He doesn't trust himself enough to think about what that might mean.

"How so?" he asks instead, keeping his gaze away from her, just in case.

"I mean, we kind of couldn't have picked a better person to get caught by. If logic says it was bound to happen, then—,"

"—the logical one is bound to be a hell of a lot less judgmental about it?" he finishes for her, and she shrugs, head cocked so her pink ringlets of hair fall across her glistening eyes in that way that makes he really wish he didn't have to take her home. He forces his tone to be even, assuming that self-assured dismissal mixed with aggressive humor that's always been his recipe for willed blissful ignorance. "Makes sense. Kou's much better than, like, Yamato, for example."

Her eyebrow shoots up, and she looks him up and down. "Oh, so you've thought this through?"

"What, like you can't imagine what he'd say if he'd walked in? The lecture we'd have to sit through? The guy is basically a walking-wagging-finger of I'm-not-mad-I'm-just-disappointed."

Her hand covers her giggling mouth, eyes squeezed shut.

He spies her thin frame shaking with laughter and he keeps going, fueled. "Which is why it's ridiculous that he came after me about us when it's no secret that there's definitely a kinky streak to him."

"Stop," she's gasping now, still chortling, her face in both her hands as she bends over. "Don't make me think of him like that!"

"Don't think of anyone like that!" he laughs back, freeing a hand from the steering wheel to poke a finger into the bend of her neck, making her flinch away with playful annoyance. She grabs his hand when he keeps swatting at her, gripping tight, and he feels his heart lift.

"So you're saying," and her tone is gentle, but careful, noting every word he'd said, still holding his hand, "that you talk to people about us?"

Damn.

He tries not to wince, chewing over the last word with all its awkward textures. "I'm sorry. I guess things kind of got out a few months back, you know, after your birthday party. I didn't even have to say anything really; he's kind of stupid smart about things like this," he adds as an afterthought, suddenly begrudging his best friend's ability to read him so well. Then again, no one could really accuse Taichi of being a closed book. There weren't many sleeves left that didn't have smatterings of his dumb, loud heart.

"Things like this?"

He takes his hand back and waves it around in aimless fashion, conjuring whatever excuses he has left, hoping he hadn't just ruined everything with a joke. "You know, this." He's gesturing to the windshield, of course, but she's learned to read him, too.

There's a beat of silence, and when she still hasn't said anything—my, God, has she really let a whole minute go by without offering an opinion on a subject?—he blurts out, "It's not like we have to make anything out of it. It's not like anyone else knows, so it's fine."

Her face sort of twitches, like a glitch of a screen, and he's not sure what to think.

"So…it's fine?" he prods.

"Well, technically—my parents know," she admits, and the car lurches forward.

Her hands immediately grab onto the dash to stop her body from jolting, and he's yelling, "Shit, sorry—sorry!" while she's gasping a bit from the shock. He slides the car into a stop, pulling over in the circle parking lot outside the train station. And then, in a weirdly nervous voice, "Why do your parents know?"

"You spent two whole weeks in my basement, Taichi."

The panic goes to his head. "They heard us?"

And she actually laughs, her snorts of amusement bringing her back to a centered sense of control while doing absolutely nothing at all to comfort him in his sheer mortification. "My parents and I talk all the time, especially with me being so far away at school. And we have a very open relationship. That's why I'm so sophisticated and worldly."

His bark of laughter just makes her giggle harder. "Says the girl who, earlier this very evening, was blowing bubbles into her water glass to show me how a blowfish would look with pink hair."

Her protest is lost in a squeal, her hands flying forward to grasp him by the arm and pinch, but he's quicker, pulling his fingers through the tangles at the base of her neck and turning her face up to meet his. It's an incredibly uncomfortable kiss, the gear shift and seatbelts and cup holders and elbow rest making nothing about this position conducive to sweetness, but he'll still count it as one of the more romantic moments between them, swallowing her laughter to feel fuller than he's ever been before.

"I want to do something nice for you," he says next, still holding her face in his hands, his thumb tracing her bottom lip in wonder that someone like her could have ever happened to someone like him. "I want to do something you really deserve, the full works."

Her nose wrinkles as her smile deepens. "Take it easy, mister."

"I can't," and he's grinning again, "I feel like I've just been waiting for something to tell me—well, anyway, cat's out of the bag, so why not run with it?"

She covers his hands with hers as they cup her chin. "Let's think about this for a—,"

"Mimi," he interrupts, insistent, "whatever this is, what's thinking going to do? Let's just—let's just make a decision."

She holds her breath.

"Tell me what you want to do," he says.

She's smiling again, gently pulling out of his embrace to smooth back her hair and give an exaggerated yawn. "I want to go to bed," she answers, her nonchalance merciless, until she winks at him and adds, "with you, so let's go back, and we'll talk about the rest in the morning."

"Wait—really?"

His surprise raises her eyebrow, amused. "What did you think I was gonna say?"

He's speechless, shrugging his shoulders, not quite sure how to put to words the sudden merging of realities before him. "You've just always been so—I mean, wow, if this was all it took, I would have had Koushiro's tendency to voyeurism jolt us into giving in a hell of a long time ago."

Her smirk is transparent, and she rolls her eyes. "Well, I mean, I want to talk with him, too. I don't want him to say something to—before we get to, I mean."

He chuckles, not really listening at first, trying to imagine the redhead attentively listening to her explain what happens when two people really like each other, or, maybe in their case, really can't stop shagging each other every time they're in the same city. "Makes sense. We can ask if—,"

"No, just me," she corrects instinctively, before she can stop herself.

But he hears it.

And he's looking at her, and then ahead, and then at the window, and then at his hands, and then at the wheel, and then at—

"Hey, let's go, okay?"

The cheer in her tone makes him cringe, and he laughs, because he doesn't know what else to do. "Is this really happening?"

"Taichi. Look at me."

But he doesn't, so she reaches for his hand again, to make him.

It's that touch that does it, that empties everything from him and makes him hollow. She'd never wanted this, had she? She'd never wanted people to know, did she?

He pulls away, seeing the twitch at the corner of her mouth, and stretches across her chest to unlock the passenger door. Another tug of the handle and the door is cracked open, and he still hasn't said a word.

Mimi's staring, face blank. "Are you serious?"

"Yes," says Taichi, surprising himself at the tone. It doesn't sound like him, but he knows it must have been his voice, because her gaze has hardened and her mouth is thin and tight, and now she's climbing out of the seat, and she's dragging out her bag from the back, and then she's standing on the pavement.

She seems to hesitate, her lips quivering with the restraint, and then, "Taichi, you have to understand—,"

"No. I don't."

Her mouth closes at once, and the car shakes a little at the force of the door slamming shut.

They don't speak again that year.

Apple Green

She doesn't know what she wants in that moment, when his gaze slips so easily over the top of his girlfriend's shoulder to find her watching them from the other side of the room, nursing her drink in a glass touching her cheek lightly, her elbow propped up in her other hand, head tilted to the side. She straightens as soon as she's caught, but is not embarrassed, exactly, or annoyed. It's something else, and rather than figure out what it is, she tosses back the last of the alcohol and shuffles barefoot into Sora's kitchen—God, no, wait, it's their kitchen now, ugh—grimacing into the open freezer as she squints at her next options.

"Watch out for the ice."

She doesn't glance behind her, fingers tightening around the handle of the freezer door. "Huh?"

He kicks the ice cube that had fallen from the tub on the counter to the side, scooting away from harm. "Where are your slippers? Or socks? It's cold tonight."

"But then no one would see my new polish."

They both look down now, and she wiggles her toes, the apple green sheen a bright contrast to the plainly lined tiled floor.

"Oh," and he pauses, "it's nice."

With a bemused sigh, Mimi closes the freezer door and shakes her head. "Koushiro, you can stop trying so hard."

His face twists a little, fingers playing with the collar of his button-up. "I'm not doing anything."

"Exactly," she says, turning to the tub of canned beer and bottled liqueur icing on the counter. She shifts through the selection, uninterested.

He looks like he wants to say something, but she's confused him too much. This is not exactly a solitary occurrence.

"I'm just—I wanted to know if—see if you were okay."

"Why wouldn't I be?" and her voice has an edge to it now, spiteful.

Except he's not good at picking up these kinds of details, despite everything else about him. "Well, because Taichi's—,"

"Koushiro," and she slams a bottled drink onto the counter so hard that the glass bottom cracks, launching a thin fizzy stream straight onto the front of her shirt, soaking the thin cotton with such startling velocity that she jumps back, cursing, while he jumps forward, hastily grabbing a dish towel to hurl the broken bottle into the sink so it can leak itself out down the drain. It all takes less than a second, if that, but there's still the sound of the glass striking the different surfaces and the spraying geyser of alcohol trying to escape, and her yelps over his flustered responses, and now the attention is on them both.

Sora appears first, closely followed by Jyou. He's about to ask what happened, seeing the tiny pieces of glass reflecting in the colored liquid on the counter and seizing up at the any number of household accident statistics that such a terrifying mess could lead to, but Sora interrupts, looking at Mimi's soaked through top and exclaiming, "Oh, Mimi, your shirt!"

Her arms cross at once, and that weird feeling is back, and she's ducking around behind Koushiro to scuttle towards the hallway bathroom, but that means walking past the couple, and her faltering steps almost give her away, except now Sora's got her by the arm and she's guiding her through the living room with the promise of something clean to change into so they can launder out the stain on her clothes as quickly as possible. Her gestures are maternal and considerate, kind and consoling, all the things she's not.

That's the second time that night that their eyes meet, the group in the living room looking quite puzzled at the commotion still in the kitchen and the speed with which these two women have now darted into the bedroom, and Sora's closing the door behind them just as Taichi finally looks away, jaw tight.

"There's a towel on the hook by the door you can use to wipe off," says Sora, already burying herself in the closet to dig through the clean options available. "Now, I don't think I have anything that'll match your skirt, but—,"

"It's fine, I think I'm going to call a cab and head home."

Her head pops out, her expression dismayed. "Already?"

"You all can celebrate, but some of us still have another year of school left. Classes start again in just a week."

Sora won't accept it, though Mimi admittedly hadn't tried very hard with that excuse anyway. "So does Koushiro."

"Someone should put him to bed soon, too, before he runs off his mouth again."

The edge is back, and Sora hears it. She pulls off its hanger a simple V-neck T-shirt with a screen-printed snow leopard on the front, its cartoonish profile outlined in glitter with glow-in-the-dark green eyes that, funnily enough, match the color of her painted toes. She tosses it to her friend, eyebrow raised. "Not like you two to fight."

"We're not fighting," she murmurs, holding the shirt in her hands tightly.

"Oh?" Sora comes forward. "Because usually the three of you would have had turned the party into a rager by now." Mimi doesn't acknowledge the casual third party mention, handing Sora the shirt back so she can free her hands up to pull off her soaking wet one. So Sora tries again, fishing for a smile that didn't used to be so elusive before. "After all, let's not forget the reason why Miyako's parents won't let her host another one of our parties."

"That was Daisuke and Takeru's fault."

"And who goaded them on?"

Her lips curl, and Sora grins back, relieved. She sits on the edge of the bed, holding out her hands. They exchange the shirts, and once she's dressed again the redhead rolls up the drenched top and places it on the floor by her feet, then pats the space on the mattress beside her. Mimi doesn't want to sit.

"I feel like we've been off," says Sora after a minute, hesitant, her eyes shining.

"What are you talking about?" asks Mimi, forcing out a small smirking smile. She combs her fingers through her hair to give her hands something to do, moving to the mirror that hangs on the wall to give her a reason to keep standing.

"We used to talk all the time. But now—,"

"It's just school, and work, plus you and—,"

"Mimi, you avoid me." And the way she says it cuts through any walls she's learned to put up since, and that feeling is back, rising too fast this time. "And I don't know why."

She lowers her arms, staring at her friend's reflection in the glass.

It takes her a moment, and more strength than she expected, to quietly come to the spot beside her on the bed. She keeps her hands on her lap, playing with the fluffy tufts on the rug with her toes. "It's not us. It's me."

And in spite of herself, Sora laughs. "Are you breaking up with me right now?"

Mimi rocks to the side, knocking her shoulder deliberately into the other girl's forearm, and Sora's hands stretch behind her to stabilize her balance, giggling. Except Mimi doesn't pull back, leaning her head on her arm, breathing shallow.

"I don't like myself, Sora."

She says it so quietly that she almost doesn't hear her, or at least it takes a minute for the weight of her words to sink deep, pulling them down somewhere new, and dark.

"Mimi?" she whispers, turning her cheek so it brushes over the unruly curls of her friend's hair.

"I don't like myself like this. I don't like being so mean," she continues, chest rising and falling deeply, staving off what she's afraid will come spilling out if she doesn't grab control again.

"What? Mimi, you're not mean," Sora assures at once, regaining her senses to pull her arm around the girl's shoulders. She squeezes tight. "You're the farthest thing from mean."

"That's not what he thinks."

"Who? Koushiro?" Sora shakes her arm a little, comfortingly. "He doesn't care. Friends see everything, the good, the bad, the dumb. And they don't care. You two are friends for a reason." She pauses, "Like we are. Even if…we're off sometimes."

She holds her breath. "Really?"

"Of course, really," and Sora smiles, squeezing with reassurance again. She raises her other arm and stroke back her hair. "Always."

"I'm in love with Jyou."

Her hand stops, tangled.

She keeps her eyes closed, expecting to feel awful, expecting to feel something, except she doesn't, not one thing.

"I avoid you because I'm in love with Jyou."

Something should have happened next, anything, but it doesn't.

So Mimi pulls back quietly, smoothing down the wrinkles in her borrowed shirt, picking up the soiled one from the floor, refolding it back in her arms. She hesitates at the door, afraid to look back, and against her judgment—fuck it, when has her judgment been good at deciding anything lately?—she leaves without looking back, leaving the door open behind her with a bright, blissful smile on her face to return to the party just long enough to gather the rest of her belongings from the pile of coats and bags on the couch and cleverly sidestep Miyako's tipsy protests to her announcement of leaving. She's out the front door only minutes later, still on a cheerful high, heart pounding—

"Oh," she says, skidding to a halt on the sidewalk.

Taichi turns around, lowering his hand from waving at the cab driving away.

They stand, awkward, facing one another in silence. And then Mimi's tucking her hair behind her ears and stepping forward to the curb, looking up and down the street for the next taxi to pass by.

"Do you want me to call you one?" he asks after a minute, taking out his phone.

She shakes her head, raising her hand at the headlights approaching, squinting to see if they belong to a cab. "If one doesn't come up soon, I'll just walk up a block to the next intersection. They're always some there."

"It's fine, Mimi, I'll call."

"I can walk—,"

"It's way too late. I'm not letting you walk by yourse—,"

"I don't need your permission to go for a walk."

"It's one-fucking-thirty, Mimi, you're not—,"

"Don't swear at me!"

"Will you calm down?"

She throws the wet shirt and her jacket and her purse at him, everything she's holding, all of it crumbling down as soon as she lets go, fluttering to the ground between them with little effort. Furious in only the way he can make her, she stomps back and starts to grab everything back up again, until he grasps her by the wrist, jerking her arm back up.

That's when she sees the streaks on her fingers and palm, the points and cuts prickling over the hand that had smashed the bottle like a canvas in red. "Oh, oh," she gasps, startled that she hadn't felt anything until now, or, really, even now. "When did that happen?" she murmurs.

"Probably when you yelled at Koushiro," says Taichi, his voice low, pulling her closer to use her damp shirt to wrap around the injured hand.

"I didn't yell at him."

"That's not what it sounded like."

"Fine, I'll go apologize then. Is that what you want? Should I go around and say sorry to everyone for ruining their night? Would that make you happy?"

He says nothing, glancing behind her to the taxi that's finally pulled up to the curb. He pulls her forward by the arm, still holding her wrist, and opens the rear passenger door with his other hand. She's about to wrench herself away, suddenly immeasurably furious with the way he has to always leap into hero mode even though no one ever asked him to do anything—God, he's annoying—until she feels the heaviness of his jacket fall around her shoulders, and she watches him gather the rest of her possessions from the sidewalk, sliding everything onto the seat and leaning into the cab to instruct the yawning driver where to go.

She doesn't know what she wants in that moment, when his gaze turns so coolly back to hers, expectant and withdrawn, his hand on the top of the doorframe, waiting without a word for her to get inside and go home, so he can go home, too. Or, at least, she tells herself she doesn't know, but her fingers in his hair and his mouth on her neck, and his hands under her shirt and her heart on her sleeve—they want something else, something familiar, something wrong. Something right.

Emerald Green

Her fingernails on his skin keep him from losing himself in her completely, legs anchored tight on his hips, one hand grasping her thigh tight and the other roughly catching the ends of her long hair as it grips the edge of the headboard. She nips at his ear in that way he likes, making him free his hand from her waist to dive under behind her head and pull her up for a hard kiss. "No, stay," she says forcefully between gasps of air when he tries to shift off of her, and he relents without protest, sinking into her, his mouth making its way down her neck and now her breasts, leaving a final kiss there before stopping, at last, to catch his breath.

"I think we were too loud that time," she murmurs, smoothing back his hair from his forehead.

"Good," he says.

"You're not worried?"

"What can I possibly be worried about after that?"

She dips her chin to nip at his ear again, and he swats her lightly, fingers rubbing all over her face in an exaggerated manner, making her squeal in laughter and try to wiggle her way out. Except she's still beneath him, still around him, and her movements only make him growl low, and he shifts to pull himself over her again, both hands on the edge of the headboard now for support, rocking forward deep enough to make her blind.

"Again?" she asks.

"Again," he promises, and he sits up, pulling his used condom off with care and quickly sliding across the mattress to dispose of it, shuffling through the box in the drawer of his nightstand and taking far too long for her liking.

"Again?" she whines, sinking back into the pillows with her eyes squeezed shut in frustration.

"Again," he answers, unamused himself, or, rather, puzzled. "How many did we go through?"

Her hand shoots up in the air, fingers counting off mockingly. "Well, there's before dinner, then after dinner, then now, and then two minutes from now if you get your shit together before I lose my interest—,"

"We're heathens, aren't we?"

"Oh, the worst kind, yes."

And he kicks his leg to the side so his toes dig into her waist, and she giggles, rolling onto her stomach, and he makes a funny, strangled little sound, staring at her curves. "Don't show me that just when we've run out."

She cocks her head, tossing her hair over her shoulder, and curls herself ever so slightly, just for the effect. He groans again, sinking down and reaching for her across the mattress, "Mimi, I'm begging you, don't, you're killing me," he mumbles, expression wonderstruck, his outstretched hand sliding down the outline of her hips with nothing short of hopelessness.

She slides further just to watch him crawl after her, and laughs when it still works, even now.

"You're so mean."

"Is Yamato home?"

His eyebrow raises, and he pauses. "Really mean."

She rolls her eyes at him before finally standing up, searching for something to cover herself for the trek outside. "I'll just go check his room."

"He always keeps a pack in his closet, on the first shelf," he calls after her, sinking into the sheets as she skips out into the living room.

Carefully inching her way around the messy coffee table and across the room, she tiptoes down the small hallway as she finishes pulling the shirt she'd found—please let this be from his clean pile—more securely over her chest just as she offers a polite but firm knock on Yamato's bedroom door. There's no answer, which she expected, but she knocks again just to be on the safe side, waiting a full beat before entering.

The bed is unmade, and there are some open textbooks on the desk under the corner window, but beside this Yamato's room is the polar opposite of his best friend's, whose chaotic neutral of a pigsty's attempt to be presentable is shoving everything under everything else, in denial of its own messy existence. The blond graduate student's quarters are neat and tidy, and, more importantly, stocked. She finds the condoms on the shelf in the closet, beside a pretty emerald green cigarette lighter and an unopened pack of suspenders that she's sure are a joke gift from Takeru, the image of him ever wearing them making her chuckle. She takes what she came for and slides the door shut at the same time that the bedroom door itself opens.

The small box slips into the dress shirt pocket, her arms crossed over her chest on instinct. "Oops," she laughs, grinning.

Yamato doesn't return the smile, looking tired and more than a little cranky. Anyone else would have thought such a moody entrance would be directed at them, but Mimi knows better, seeing the slump of his broad shoulders under the weight of his knapsack, his motorcycle helmet tucked under one arm.

"Another all-nighter at the library?" she asks, stepping away from the closet.

"Yeah, with Jyou."

Her smile falters a tiny bit, but he doesn't see it with his back to her now, setting the helmet on the bed and dumping his bag on the chair at his desk, beginning to unpack.

"Right," she says, blank. "Well, that's good." She brightens after a minute, regaining her composure. "When're your exams?"

"Two months. Listen," and he looks up at her at last, "I know it's not my business, but you two have to figure out how to be more careful about meeting up like this."

And she laughs, "We're not hiding anything."

"Not this time, sure, but—,"

"Not any time," she interrupts, a flash of defiance burning across her face. "Why would we?"

He stares back at her, his mouth twitching at the corner, like he wants to say something he knows he shouldn't. And she waits, wondering if he will, daring him to try.

Finally, he shakes his head. "It's not my business," he repeats.

"Oh, stop," she hisses back, losing her nerve. "Honestly, you and Koushiro are exactly alike sometimes—,"

"'Course, we are," he interrupts, cool and collected. His blue eyes are sharp, staring at the space somewhere just above her. "We're looking out for who we have to protect."

"You mean from big bad selfish Mimi?"

He drags his gaze down, settling on her at last, and doesn't reply.

She's not sure why the silence hurts so much, and why the room suddenly feels so weightless. She spins around, yanking down the sleeves of the dress shirt she'd grabbed earlier in haste, and proceeds to march back to the door, until he calls after her, "That's not it."

"Then what?" she snaps before she can stop herself.

He's still, his tone shifting to something else, something raw. "My dad's an alcoholic. You think I don't know what someone self-destructing looks like?"

She reels back, offended just for the sake of feeling something new. "I don't—,"

"Sora told me what you said to her," he says.

She feels like he's slapped her, or that Sora has.

He's even quieter this time, almost sympathetic. "And I don't think it's an accident that you come 'round here whenever I'm studying with him, just in case he might want to come back with me here, too."

Unable to think, or even to remember how words work anymore, she says nothing.

"You and Taichi, you're both adults, so I won't tell you what to do. You've got this history to work through, and he's got that other girl he's been trying to get back, and I get that sometimes we just need to be near people who can…distract us." He hesitates, like he's thinking how far he should go. "But I think if he knew what you were using him for, it would break his heart."

There's something funny about the way he says that last remark, something that slips and cracks so clean and sharp.

Her smile is small.

"You don't think he could break my heart?"

Yamato just looks at her, blinking quickly in surprise, and she doesn't wait for him to think of a response. She leaves him there instead, slipping back into his flatmate's room and slamming the door behind her. The walls shake, and she can't stop either.

Taichi, who'd dozed off during the wait, exhausted, doesn't register how frozen she stays against the wall by the closed door. "You were out there a long time," he murmurs instead, face tucked into the creases of the pillow. "Have I got something to be worried about?"

"You lied."

He lifts his chin at last, blinking groggy, brown eyes at her. "Huh?"

"You said you'd broken up with her."

He rubs his face, pushing himself up. "Wait—,"

"Yamato said you didn't."

There's a visible strain in the veins at his neck, his shoulders stiffening as he casts a dark look at the wall separating his bedroom from the rest of the apartment. "Just hold on for a—,"

"What, did he lie, too?"

"That boy scout?" he snaps back. "He's just—,"

"What are we even doing? Again?" she adds, throwing up her arms in frustration.

"You're the one who kissed me that night, okay? So you don't get to—,"

"Don't you dare put this all on me—,"

"I'm not," he protests at once, sitting up straighter. "I haven't—," and he cuts himself off, suddenly unfocused in his spiraling anger, "I mean, fuck, Mimi—how different is any of this from what you're doing?"

She's livid, shaking. "Me? What I'm doing?"

"She doesn't know any more about you than Jyou does me."

The world is shifting again, and this time they both feel it.

"What?" she whispers.

"I'm not stupid." His voice is flat, and empty. "I know how you look at him. Why you come here. Why I let you—,"

"Fuck you."

He breathes sharply, "Mimi—,"

"I am not a mistake. I am not your second choice. I am not your fuck up."

You're not, you're not, you're not, he says, again and again, as he watches her stretch the neck of her cotton dress over her head, her lips moving over more insults she hurls and her hands quivering with rippling fury, and pain. He's sure he's seen this scene play out somewhere else before, he's sure this is someone else's life he's watching, because there's no way this could be happening. He's not supposed to hurt her, he couldn't, he shouldn't be able to—except he has, and he did.

And now he knows he can.

And now she knows he would.

Blue

"I'm taking this personally, in case you're wondering."

"Oh, here we go," and Takeru flounces back on the picnic blanket, spreading his arms up over his head. "Wake me when he's done, will you?"

Daisuke, only half aware of his best friend's sarcastic dismal, clambers onto the last available corner of the checkered blue cloth, crawling on his hands and knees until he reaches her side, sinking facedown into her lap. The intrusion of his bushy, messy, and sweaty—why is he always so sweaty? she panics—into her personal space comes swiftly, and Mimi barely just barely manages to rescue her takeout box from where it had been balanced on her knees, raising it up just in time to avoid creaming his downcast face with barbeque sauce and relish.

"I wasn't wondering, and what are you taking exactly?"

He turns his head to the side so his miserable mutterings are more distinguishable. "You always invite the wrong friends to these things."

"I thought you liked Catherine?"

"Everyone likes Catherine," pipes Takeru.

Daisuke groans again, and she laughs, freeing a hand to ruffle his hair affectionately. "Struck out, did you?"

"It's impossible not to, next to him."

She shifts her gaze up, using the excuse of leaning over Daisuke's prostrate form to look at their friends gathered at the bottom of the hill. She can see Koushiro and Catherine arguing over a skirmish at the makeshift badminton net they've constructed on the flattened grass, the latter gesturing wildly with her hands, and while the former just keeps shaking his head. Behind him, Hikari's swinging her racket around to practice as she waits, and, on the other side, is Taichi, his rolled up T-shirt tucked into the back pocket of his shorts, his racket balanced behind his head on his shoulders.

Then Hikari stops swinging, approaching the team leaders and talking quickly, and Koushiro lowers his racket to dangle at side, foot tapping in that quick, successive way whenever he's weighing options. He hesitates, then nods, and now Catherine's nodding, too, after a short shrug, and the partners divide off again, circling around on their respective sides of the net while Hikari fetches a new badminton birdie to play with. It's then, when the younger team have their backs turned, that Taichi passes off a comment to his partner, and Catherine gives an exaggerated whack of her racket at his leg, and he twists to avoid it, losing his balance and landing on his back, laughing.

"She's just really competitive, Daisuke," says Mimi after a minute. "I'm sure she wanted to play with you, but winning comes first right now."

It's the way Takeru instantly starts laughing that tells her maybe this isn't the best angle to have taken up, and Daisuke proves it by wailing in even deeper despair, "How's that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Oh, that's not what I meant!" she insists, shaking him by the shoulders. "I'm just saying there are different leagues here—,"

"Jesus, Mimi, you're really bad at this, aren't you?" chokes Takeru, wheezing at this point.

"At least she's honest," moans Daisuke, lifting his head up off her lap at last, face in his hands. Then he pauses, eyes wide as they peek through his stubby fingers and meet her skeptical gaze. "Maybe I should get him to teach me?"

"Daisuke—,"

He doesn't hear the oncoming rebuke, caught up his latest scam, and now he's looking at Takeru for a conciliatory supporting remark. "You remember, right? At Yamato's birthday, when he brought home that girl—and then in the morning a different girl walked out of hi—ow!"

Her takeout box comes to a smacking rest on the top of his head, and he grunts, faceplanting into her lap again, his nose squashed against the bend of her knee. She presses down a little more than she needs to, probably, enough to get even Takeru to raise his brow.

"The key to taking someone out is to not try it in public," he advises with a tinge of amusement, reaching over to lift her hands up by the wrist, and Daisuke seizes the opportunity, sputtering as he finally pulls up to sit back on his heels.

"How is someone so tiny so strong?" he says, goggling her, and she straightens, flexing her arm.

"And don't you forget it."

There's another uproar down at the field, and Daisuke's attention—sanity, really—is swept away again, which leaves Takeru to scoot closer to her, crawling by his elbows.

"He didn't get it right," he says, off-handedly, reaching for the tub of blueberries at the bottom of the basket behind her. "That story."

She won't look at him. "What story?"

But Takeru's mouth is too full to respond, and her phone vibrates then, interrupting whatever he might have tried to say next. She takes the call gratefully, not even checking the name first, shoving Daisuke further out of her space so she can stretch herself up and off the picnic blanket and out of earshot.

"Hey, just calling to say I'll be there soon."

"Good. I miss you."

"That's unusual."

She snorts, amused at his ego, coming to a stop several paces from their encampment. Closing her eyes for a moment and breathing deep, she lifts her chin, shielding her face with her other hand as she peers up at a sky so blue it looks almost empty. She thinks about how, before him, such a vastness would have terrified her.

"Mimi? Did you hear me?"

She blinks quickly, guilty. "Hm?"

"I said, do we need to pick up anything on the way over?"

She glances back at the others, spying Takeru and Daisuke, having finished snacking, ambling their way down the hill to join the game again. "Maybe a date for Daisuke. He's striking out with Catherine, or he thinks he is."

He's laughing at the picture of it. "Well, it's kind of impossible not to, next to him."

Sapphire

"It's an act."

That perfectly teased brow rises in something like amusement, the way she might look at a child sick with a stomachache brought upon by too much ice cream.

"I see," says Catherine, eyes twinkling.

Mimi scrunches up her face, finishing her thought only after she's finished pulling up her hair into a ponytail. "I'm just saying, you should be careful about—,"

"I'm much more careful than you we—," and she stops herself, wisely enough, but Mimi still passes her a dark look. Standing up off the bed, she shuffles into a pair of slippers and throws on her fluffy bathrobe.

"Want some water, too?" she offers, but her friend only yawns, shaking her head and stretching back over her side of the bed.

"No, I'm good."

"You've had a lot to drink, Cat. You should have water."

"Yes, ma'am," she laughs sleepily, and Mimi leaves her with another eye-roll.

The house is quiet, and the space a mess. The hazy part of her moral compass suggests the possibility of a long morning ahead of them, and the frantic minutes that will be spent trying to clean up the evidence of a celebratory weekend away before the time to turn back the keys arrives, which, knowing them, will be within the hour of any of them properly waking up. Then again, this inner compass needle hasn't had the best track record anyway.

Well. Maybe, lately. It has.

Tapping her fingers on the kitchenette's tiny table, she glances back in the direction of the room she's sharing with Catherine, and then ahead, again, down the hallway.

It takes three knocks to get any answer, and even then, it's not the one she wants.

"Bathroom." His voice comes from behind her, and she takes a minute to grit her teeth, briefly, before turning her face towards him. He's wearing a gray shirt still spotted with stains from dinner and long pajama bottoms, patterned in a deep sapphire blue. It's not a color he normally would wear, and she doesn't like the borrowed look on him.

Blinking quickly, she snaps, "What?"

"He's in the bathroom."

"Why?"

Taichi just stares at her, his smile growing slow, looking like he doesn't know how he had ever come to deserve such an opportunistic moment. He just gestures with his hands. "In case you haven't figured it out, sweetheart, we're outnumbered three to one here. And this place only has two bathrooms, all right?"

"Don't be so vulgar."

"Vulgar," and he dips forward so his voice lowers, like a secret, "would be telling you that—,"

His hand is on her wrist before anything can land, holding her arm up.

"You didn't used to be like this."

He takes the bait. "What did I used to be like?"

"Not this," she repeats. She pulls her arm back, or maybe he lets her go.

Either way, he's sinking back against the wall now, gaze still trained on her, steady, and when she can't handle him looking at her like that anymore she jerks her chin up, jaw tight and set firm, and crosses the narrow hallway to his side, holding herself against the wall next to him. He follows her movements for a minute, and then turns forward again, so they're both staring at the corridor wall in front of them. The house is quiet, and the space a mess.

"God, Taichi," she hisses quietly. "You make everything so difficult."

"No, see, the problem is we have the same friends."

She breathes deep, still staring at the blank wall. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He shakes his head. "I'm not saying it's anyone's fault. I'm just saying that it's weird not having space to—,"

And then he stops, and then he laughs. "Whatever. A lot of stupid shit was said. What does it matter going over it again?"

She shrugs, irritated. "Fine."

"Fine, what?"

"Fine, nothing."

"That's such bullshit."

She shifts away instead, keeping her eyes closed so they don't betray her. "I don't care if you think it isn't, but it is, and you know it."

"I know that you think about us," he says. And when she doesn't answer, "I know that you think about what might have happened, even now."

She turns her face down into her hands, holding her breath.

"And I know that we were a masterpiece. We could have been a real good one, too."

"Taichi—,"

"No," he's shaking his head, fingers in his hair, amused, "I'm sorry."

He stops, frowning, "No, I'm not."

She lifts her gaze, lips parting, and his eyes are finally clear.

"I can't be around you anymore. We can't keep doing this, still trying to be friends. We can't keep…making this harder."

She remembers his car, and the streetlights, the posters over the bed, and the braids in his hair. Those months they didn't talk, and the nights they didn't either. How he'd looked at her in each sunrise, and how much she liked it when he would, because it meant someone else saw something she didn't.

"No," she agrees, "we can't," because the idea of not being around him, of not having him—

"Okay," and he sounds relieved. "Then we won't."

And she didn't think it would be this easy. To end.

Indigo

"What's it like being right all the time?"

He slides across the bed, making room for her, and she accepts the offer, throwing herself down onto the mattress. Her legs kick around the sheets, knee knocking into his spine, arms pushing him roughly until she's done managing to roll herself up into a cocoon.

"Do you give yourself a gold star when it happens?" she asks when he doesn't answer.

"Sure," and he puts the diary down on the hotel nightstand, lifting his legs up onto the bed and lying next to her, arm holding the pillow up behind his head. He raises the other, and she flops herself closer.

"I knew it." She closes her eyes, sighing, settling into the space under his arm with her head on his chest. She hears the shuffling of pages when he picks up the journal again and growls low, "Pay attention to me."

"Mimi, I have to finish this speech."

"It is finished."

"Something's missing," he mutters more to himself, sliding his thumb across the paper corners, fingers running across the dark, indigo spine, skimming through earlier drafts.

"Your gold star for the day?"

"Mimi—,"

"Here, then, I'll help you earn it," and she wiggles around even more, making him grunt in annoyance when her chin knocks into his elbow as she struggles to right herself without having to release any limbs from the safety of her blanket burrito haven. Sitting up to face him, she blows the tangles of hair out of her eyes and begins. "What do you think it means when he says, 'I'm not sure'?"

"That he's not sure."

"Or when he says, 'I'm not sure that's a good idea right now'?"

"That it's not a good idea right now."

"Or when he says, 'You're not thinking in—'?"

"Mimi," and the humoring tone is gone. "How many times are we going to go over this?"

"Well, I don't know, Yamato. How many times are you going to keep telling me the same thing?"

"It's the same because it hasn't changed," he says, eyes narrowing, and returning to his collection of speech drafts.

"No, it hasn't changed because it's the same."

He glances at her over the top of the book, face twisting. "You do hear yourself when you speak, don't you?"

She grumbles, "That paternalistic snark is not a good look."

His brow creases, unconvinced by the idea, and doesn't reply, but she's lost interest by then, too. Instead she leans forward, bowing her head in thought. "I wish people would stop asking me about him."

"You don't have to answer."

"I know I don't," she says at once, then bites her lip. "But it doesn't help. I know what people think."

"People are idiots," and he draws up his legs again, resting his forearms on his knees, casting a stern look towards her, "who think too much for their own good. So it didn't work out with you both. So what? It doesn't matter."

Her eyes sting. "It matters to me."

Yamato lowers the diary, folding his hands between his knees as his shoulders drop a little, resigned. He nods after a minute. "You're right. I'm sorry."

But Mimi's already shaking her head, sighing. "I knew it would be hard being here. It's harder being alone here, too."

His foot stretches out and he taps her leg with his toes. "Not completely alone," he reminds her.

An arm emerges with gusto, flying around in a wild, exaggerated gesture. "Says the man with all the gold stars. Honestly, what would you do if you were wrong about something, even one thing?"

The smile stretches low and tight over thin lips, his eyes narrowing. "Spiral out. Completely. And then probably be okay, in the end."

The corner of her mouth curls with a tiny smirk, and then she shakes her head again, harder this time, and pitches forward without warning, dropping into the space beside him. "I'm sure you'll earn double with your speech tomorrow anyway."

It's the closest thing to a compliment she'll venture, and he knows it. Smiling, he returns his attention to the draft again. "Without a doubt."

"But when I get married, your speech has to earn at least triple."

"Are you asking me to be your best man?"

"Might as well get put in my order now," she shrugs, peeking out of the blanket folds to wink at him.

"Maybe I should start a side business. First Jyou tomorrow, then Taichi, and now your—," and he stops.

She turns her face to rest her cheek on the pillow, staring at the back of his thin, leather journal. He puts the book down again, stretching himself on his side to face her.

"When?" she asks.

He gestures with a shrug, honest. "He hasn't yet. He just told me he was thinking about it. You know, wedding fever."

"How much do you want to bet he still won't talk to me, even after?"

He says nothing, and she keeps her eyes closed, blocking him out, too.

"I don't want to see him tomorrow."

"Mimi—,"

"Can I just hide here, until it's all over?"

"Mimi."

"Please?" she whispers. "I'll give you ten gold stars, if you say yes."

So he gives up, or maybe he just lets go, and moves his arm around her shoulders to pull her closer, her head tucked under his chin, and her cheek to his chest.

His touch is firm, his voice even more so.

"You spiral out. Completely. And then you'll be okay, in the end. Okay?"

She slips out of herself and into him, seeking calm, seeking safety. Seeking distraction. "Okay."

Fuchsia

"Is this what normal friends do?"

He yawns, one hand covering his face tiredly and the other stretched across her legs. "What are you talking about?"

Catherine leans over, waving the square sheet of paper at him with a laugh. "Do normal friends send obnoxious cards as a single incestuous unit, or is it just your friends?"

His hand slides around her elbow, pulling her arm down, and snatches the card. It's a simple shade of ivory with a funny illustration of a towering wedding cake leaning so dangerously off its tiny table that the depicted couple is cowering, bug-eyed, in fear of impending collapse. Still holding onto her, he flips the folded paper open with his thumb, finding inside a scratchy assemblage of colored ink and unkempt handwriting, varying degrees of legibility, and a few poor attempts at what he can only assume are the hearts from a demented horror picture book. Seriously, how did any of them pass preschool with such poor skills in making basic shapes?

There's one in the far right corner, in penmanship that alternates between the pair tellingly. Congratulations! Can't wait to celebrate with you when you get back! Jyou & Sora

Directly beneath this is another, in a smudgy ink. I want to be clear that I was in no way responsible for or involved in the selection of this card or the decision to include all of the enclosed messages or their tenor of appropriateness to this occasion. Congrats. Kou

To the left: If it couldn't be me, I guess I approve of your second choice. Now go make me a baby! Uncle Daisuke

And next to it, I know there wasn't a ceremony and you both aren't into that sort of thing anyway, hence the courthouse with only family, but you at least HAVE to have a real reception, a HUGE one, and you cannot cop out on this on me, and yes I will plan it, because THAT is how much I love you both. HURRAY ME! Miyako 3 with a small, hastily scrawled, I'll try to contain her, and the party, as much as I can. Congratulations! Ken

On the next page are the rest of the messages, hurriedly written down. There's Takeru and Hikari (What's great about you two eloping is that you're too far away to know and too blissfully in love to care that I spent your entire honeymoon nailing your sister. HA. Ignore him, I love you I love you I love you!), and an impeccably tidy one from Iori (Sometimes the best things in life take you by surprise. Warm wishes to you both, Iori), and Yamato, finally, to round it out (I'm just writing in here as Daisuke keeps watching me to make sure I do, but my real card is in a separate envelope, because I am an adult and this group card idea is ridiculous.). This note is footnoted with a large arrow pointing to the last available space left at the bottom left side of the card, where, carefully printed out, is a brief addendum: It's all fine, I promise. I can't wait to see you both! Love, Hikari

He pulls himself up, releasing her hand at last, closing the card once, and then twice, just to check.

"Maybe it's just your friends who are weird," she pipes up, still amused, and continues making organized piles of their held mail.

"I told you, this is what you're getting yourself into," he says after another moment, slipping back easily into his languid smirk. "It's a package deal."

"I'm starting to suspect as much," she jokes back. She reaches to the floor to grab another unsorted stack of mail, also retrieving her nearly empty glass. Taking a large gulp, she hands it to him, "Make me another? Just half this time. I have an early morning tomorrow."

"Then just quit now," he suggests, already on his feet again.

"Nuh-uh. That's our last wedding wine and today's our last night of the honeymoon. I want to finish everything tonight, or else it won't feel real."

"Here's real," and he bends her over, fingers in her long hair, mouth to her neck with a loud, smacking wet kiss. She shrieks, kicking him away, and he shoves her back playfully, making her fall onto her side on the mattress. He ducks out reach of another attempted kick, shuffling out of the bedroom to the sounds of her hollering an empty retort and promise of vengeance, grabbing his glass from the floor, too.

It's in the kitchen, around the corner, away from her gaze, that he stops smiling. Setting the glasses down on the counter, he steps further back into the room and takes out the envelope he'd picked up along with his drink, the one that had slipped out of the mail pile, in a handwriting he knows all too well.

This one is a much more tasteful card, plain except for a simple embossed wedding bell printed in the center with a real, tiny twist of deep fuchsia ribbon attached to the top as an extra embellishment. He doesn't open it right away, looking for a long time at the front, his thumb and forefinger tracing the edge of the folded paper over and over, with something like panic at the thought of what might be inside.

And then he does open it, ripping off the bandage.

From the bottom of my heart, and with the biggest hug and warmest wishes, congratulations. You deserve to be happy, Taichi. I'm sorry for the times I let you think otherwise.

Love, Mimi

P.S. Don't fly off the handle about Hikari and Takeru. Something tells me it'll last this time.

Pink

"What are you doing here?"

Her mother looks mortified. "Mimi!"

And she blanches, suddenly reduced to the stature of a small, defensive child by that tone of voice. "That's not what I—,"

But he interrupts, smooth, intervening in the family squabble with ease. "I sent you an email a few weeks ago, remember? Work conference?"

She doesn't remember, because she's sure he did no such thing, or if he did, she's sure her parents would have mentioned as much, given the chaos of the past few months in the busy insanity of her move back home. But he's so confident, sitting on the stool of her family's kitchen inlet table, nursing a warm cup of tea and a plate of her mother's famous butter biscuits, looking for all the world as though there were no other place he could more naturally be in this moment, and she can't think of any way to refute him.

"Taichi's staying tonight, so set an extra place at the table, Mimi, dear."

His smile is serene now, and any confusion evaporates with the distinct impression that she's been played.

"Yes, Mama."

"Go show him his room, and then wash up. Dinner's in twenty minutes."

"That's okay, Mrs Tachikawa. I still remember my way around downstairs," he adds cheerfully, and this time, it's Mimi's turn to smirk with delight as her mother responds, calmly, "Oh, I know you do, Taichi," and his face colors at once.

"Come on," she says, swallowing a laugh so big that she feels shivers down her spine, as her mother glances at her with a raised eyebrow before pretending to busy herself with the last of the dishes still simmering on the stove. There's no sarcastic response offered this time, only meek submission, and it's once they're downstairs, safely ensconced out of earshot, that he swings his duffel bag into the back of her knee.

"Jesus, Mi! I thought you were joking all these years when you said they knew."

She ducks back, hand over her mouth to keep her laughter low. "Don't be mad that my parents love and defend me, and taught me how to be vicious."

"Vicious is right," he hisses, shaking his head. "Set up some boundaries, will you?"

"Oh, we're talking boundaries now?" and she folds her arms over her chest. "I'm the one who came home to find you in the middle of high tea with my mother."

"Yeah, and we had quite the catch up, too." He drops his luggage on the ground, kicking it across the floor to the sofa where it still sits against the far wall. "Congrats, by the way."

Her smile softens, just a little. "Mean it?"

And he's surprised by the idea, however small, that she might think he hadn't. "Of course, I do. You're going to be a wonderful mother."

It's the first time she's heard those words strung together, for her, by someone other than immediate family and family-to-be. "We haven't told people yet. The doctor told us we should wait a few weeks, you know, to be sure."

"Well," and Taichi nods, "I'm honored."

She rolls her eyes, crossing the basement floor to settle herself on the couch next to him, elbow braced on the back of the sofa and one leg drawn up under her, so she can face him completely. "Might I remind you that you came by this information by pure happenstance, with your so-called work conference and self-invitation to my family home. So keep that honor to yourself, okay?"

"I am great at secrets," he boasts, and she groans. "And it is a real conference. I didn't make that part up."

The tone interests her, and she wiggles her brows at him. "What's the other part then?"

He's quiet, fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. "A question, more like."

She doesn't answer, waiting with a mocking look of interest, and he sticks his tongue out, falling back against the cushions. "There's something that's never made sense to me about us." Her sigh is loud, on purpose, and he smacks her elbow lightly, "Just one thing," he promises, and she braces herself, dreading the next words out of his mouth. "That night here…was it because you felt bad for me?"

That surprises her, when she's always been sure he never could. "Of course not," and her voice is flat.

"Because it sort of felt that way," he goes on. "Me, a hormonal, pathetic seventeen-year-old, and you, a—," here he stops, pondering, murmuring. "It doesn't make sense otherwise, why you'd do that or why you'd let me."

"You weren't pathetic," she says to break the silence.

"Now that's a lie. Name me one teenager who wasn't a total idiot in high school."

"Yamato."

He pauses again. "Boy Wonder is not a fair yardstick."

"Now, don't be like that. You still measure up sort of nicely, next to him." And she lifts her hands, making a picture frame with her fingers, squinting at him appraisingly through the gap. He looks like he wants to say something, wants to ask something he's always wondered about, but then he regains his senses and shakes the idea from his head.

So she launches forward, shoving him lightly to knock him back to the present moment, to remind him where the line is, and uses that as an excuse to settle her hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly. "I told you then, and it stands true today, that it wasn't pity. If anything," she smirks, wrinkling her nose, to hide the pink blush on her cheeks, "it was selfishness. I wanted it to be me."

The delight at her words is slow to grow, but she can see it coming anyway, keeping her eyes narrowed in a warning look. He ignores it, as usual, and instead laughs, shifting over to face her properly. "Oh, really? I was the big prize then? Wait, do you have my name in a heart in your diary? Oh, please, say that's what I'll find if I went up to your old bedroom right now."

"I regret this so much," she mutters, more to herself, drawing her hand back. He grabs for it, keeping his fingers locked into hers, so she can't skip out of the teasing just yet.

"I knew it. You planned it all, and I fell completely. Like a clueless lamb to the slaughter," he goes on, and she clicks her tongue, sighing irritably. "I knew it."

"I see this revisionist history conveniently has yourself as the innocent one."

"But I was! This naïve, helpless, doe-eyed little—,"

"Don't act like I won't tell your kids about all the things their naïve, helpless, doe-eyed father did, once-upon-a-time."

"Oh, right back at ya, sweetheart."

He's smirking with that stupid, crooked smile, eyes half-shut with the satisfaction of riling her up, like he'd always been able to before. She glowers back, and when his smile doesn't even flicker, her leg twitches sharply and his eyes snap wide, jaw hanging open. He's curling over, coughing, while she stands, dusting her hands mockingly. "Serves me right," she says smartly, "to think I ever missed this."

And she's at the basement staircase, hand on the railing when he calls out, "Mimi?"

A pause, and then a glance, and he's still grinning, despite the haggard wheezing and the ache that anchors deep and sweet.

She's sure he's never looked at her like that before. She would have remembered if he had. She remembers all the others.

He hesitates, and she shakes her head, just ever so slightly, but he sees it. It says, Don't ruin this, not now.

With a cheerful smile, she nods up the staircase. "Come on, family dinner time."

Silver

"That's not even the worst of it," says Sora, stifling a yawn. "The other day, we found her trying to trick the cat into the washing machine."

Miyako gasps, "No!"

Sora shakes her head, face in her hand. "Turns out she was trying to play hide-and-seek with her, or teach her to play, at any rate. If Jyou hadn't been turning the place upside looking for his missing sock, we probably wouldn't have figured out the cat knew how to get inside until the next time we tried dumping in the laundry to a chorus of vengeful meows."

"And you want one," Hikari tells a still shocked Miyako, who quickly regains her voice to protest, "Well, not that one," to which Sora's eyes widen.

Mimi giggles, waving her hand between the women to keep the conversation on task, knowing all too well how quick maternal instincts can shift into gear. "Okay, okay, come on. Give me your finished batches."

Hikari stands to fetch the plastic tub from the kitchen table, carrying it back to the living room for Mimi to use as the holding unit for all the little bags of treats, each one tied with silver ribbon in a perfectly wrapped bow. She counts as she goes, scooping up handfuls by two's, while over her Sora counts again, just to be sure, and Miyako begins arranging for their next round. Their system has kept them remarkably on task, well ahead of schedule, but there's still tons more work to do before Saturday, and they can use all the extra hours they can manage to swindle.

"I think there's only twenty left," exclaims Mimi.

"Hold on," interrupts Miyako, frowning at the tin of round, silver, chocolate-flavored candies they'd been scooping into the favor bags, "I don't think I have enough for twenty in here. Not twenty full bags."

Sora grows alarmed. "Are you sure? I measured it out exactly when I ordered the shipment."

"Double check for me, but it doesn't look like enough."

"That's weird," says Hikari, frowning between the assortment of boxes, bags, ribbons, and paper littering the floor of her living room. "Did we leave some back at Takeru's place?"

"Maybe," admits Miyako. "I'll give him a call."

"There are definitely extra ones at Takeru's, either way," says Mimi, standing up to check in the shipping boxes stacked up by the front door. That's when she sees the collection of shoes in the entrance way, and she sighs. "Wait, I think I know what happened." And she stops just before the end of the hallway connecting the kitchen and living area to the rest of the apartment, shouting, "You idiots owe Hikari two bags of candy! Get out here!"

"Oh, no, did they give the baby candy, too?" and Miyako's on her feet to head into Hikari's room, almost knocking Koushiro over on his way out. He grabs her by the shoulders, keeping her steady, apologizing, but she's already dismissed him, closely followed by Sora. So he casts his shamed glance at Mimi and Hikari instead, the latter trying to politely contain her stress and the former doing no such thing.

"If you were so hungry, we could have ordered take-out," she says, unsympathetic.

"We did," says Koushiro, holding up his phone. "I just got the message that it's ready. I'll go get it now."

"Well, did you at least order for—?"

"—everyone, yes, princess, we did," says Taichi in his lazy drawl, having been booted from the room by a pushy Sora. He shrugs at Hikari, who's sinking back onto the couch with a tired expression. "We'll be back in twenty minutes, with more fuel for your wedding sweatshop."

"Oh, no, you don't," says Mimi, putting a hand on his chest to keep him from moving any more forward. She shoves him back. "If you go with him, all you'll do is eat half the dishes before Koushiro can even drive back."

"I'm a growing boy."

Mimi's face spasms a little, to his utter delight, and the others notice the exchange between them.

"I'll go," volunteers Hikari, interrupting at once. "I need some fresh air anyway."

"It's pretty stagnant and stuffy out there, 'Kari," Koushiro starts to explain, "so I don't know how—," and he grunts when the flat side of Mimi's hand collides with the small of back, striking like a serpent.

"What the bride wants, the bride gets."

"God, I can't wait to see what kind of dictator you'll turn out to be at your own wedding," muses Taichi, and she shoots him a warning glance.

"Don't think I haven't forgotten what you did," Mimi continues icily. "You're going to pick up the extra bags of candy from Takeru's. Hikari will chaperone to make sure nothing goes missing. We need to finish the favors tonight and your humongous lack of self-awareness is putting us behind."

He salutes her, kicking his heels together. "Yes, sir! Right away, sir!"

"Hold on, I'm coming with you," calls Sora, emerging from Hikari's bedroom with a softly sniveling child cradled against her hip. "I have to take her home, Mimi. She has a stomachache, oddly enough."

Both women swivel their heads in such perfect, accusatory unison that Koushiro actually takes a step back, speechless, and Taichi gulps. "She's a kid! She deserves to be happy! How could we not give her candy if it makes her happy?"

There's another gurgle of discomfort, and even Taichi has to falter when he sees her little face scrunch up, bottom lip quivering. He swoops forward to Sora's side, cupping her daughter's tiny head with one hand, "Aw, hey, is it your tummy? Do you want me to make it better?"

The child starts to nod, still whimpering, but Sora's pulling her back, shooing Taichi away. "She just needs to go home. I don't want her to be too sick for Saturday."

"Wait, are you going back?" asks Miyako, returning to the rest of the group.

"There's only so much room in my car," warns Koushiro.

"Right, so you can't come, Miyako," Taichi tells her, and her mouth opens at once to protest.

"No, you can't go," Sora says, shooting him a look. "You're going to eat candy, or worse, give her some more when you think she's feeling better."

"So I am going?"

"But what about prepping the rest of these bags?"

"He can help you."

"No, he can't—," and "—I'm physically incapable of tying ribbon, it's true—," and "—maybe I'll stay then," and "I thought you wanted some fresh air?" and "What's fresh about this humidity?" and "That's what I said, but then she—," and "I mean, just look at these fingers, they're way too fat for ribbon-tying," and "Someone make a decision, please!" and "Wait, who is staying and who is going?" and then a frantic, toddler cry at the rising level of noise.

Sora covers her ears, rocking the girl comfortingly, and then clears her throat over the argument. "Okay, listen up! Taichi, you will cut ribbon and Mimi will make the bows; Miyako, you're coming to pick up the extra candy and to guard it with your life; Koushiro, you're driving us to Takeru's and then to pick up the takeout; Hikari, you're going back to Takeru's and to bed. We'll handle the rest of the to-do list for tonight. Everyone agreed?"

And so they disperse, each assigned a task, with Mimi taking the time in the group's cumbersome shuffle out of the door to fish out the mobile phone from her purse on the kitchen table and check her messages. There's a few unread ones, from her parents, from Jyou asking if she can ask Sora to check on their daughter's runny nose, from Takeru asking if he can eat this bag of candy he'd found, from Daisuke complaining about something Jun had teased him about, and from her one and only: videos of bath-time, of blue-eyed butterfly kisses to the camera, of look who misses you, too.

"Bet you give yours candy," says Taichi suddenly.

She glances at him, unimpressed. "We have a very nutritious regiment, for your information."

"That poor, gene-blessed kid."

And she puts her phone down, sending the last message off, and lets out a heavy sigh. He rolls his eyes, acquiescing to her silent admonition, and settling, instead, on the ground next to the plastic tub of collected favor bags to reach for a spool of ribbon and a pair of scissors.

"You know," she says after a few minutes of quiet work, accepting his strips of silver and beginning to make dummy ribbons to fit the finished bags, "I never really gave motherhood serious thought. But now I have this amazing little person, something so wonderful out of something I would have never imagined before." She pauses, thinking, "It's sort of funny, isn't it? The unexpected ways people come together?"

He nods, looking at something she can't see. "I still can't believe how it happened for us, or how long it's been. Sometimes I think it'll never be long enough."

There's a tenderness that makes her pause, and then she's waggling her eyebrows, teasing. "Plenty of time to catch up, you know."

He smirks, shaking his head, "Yeah, I know. We're talking about it. Maybe we'll start trying next year, after the holidays."

"Aw, a holiday baby."

He chokes back a puzzled snort, "What's that have to do with it?"

Her eyes round wide. "What, you don't do that trick?"

He's looking like he's too afraid to ask, but too fatally curious not to know. "What trick?"

"Count back nine months from a birthday to find when the magic happened."

He's aghast. "You seriously do this?"

"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, it's fun!" she barks when he makes a face. "Like Sora and Jyou, for example. They've also got a holiday baby. And if we assume Koushiro waited the proper amount before he announced whe—,"

"Nope, nope, no, we're not dissecting our friends' bedroom lives."

She's grinning, seeing the deep blush on his cheeks and goading him on even harder at the sight. "Okay, then you, for example. Based on your birthday, your parents probably—,"

He bursts out into horrified laughter, too shocked by the mental image she's just wrought upon his poor inner eye to do anything else but combust into chortling hysterics. His ribbon spool flies into her face and she cries out, managing to swat it away at the last second. It hurls again in his direction, the silver strands unfurling in the momentum, spinning out into the space between them. He launches forward, lunging into the mess to grab at her, his hand grasping at her ankle and yanking her off the couch to another shriek, and now she's collapsed on the ground with him, wrestling through ribbon scripts and leftover treat bags and empty boxes.

She's shouting, "Get out, get out! You're messing up all the bags!" and he's yelling back, "If you want me to leave, you have to ask first!" and neither of them can stop giggling, until her sides are hurting so much she can't sit up straight anymore. He's wheezing, crawling towards her, covering her mouth with his hand to keep her dirty jokes from escaping, and she's grinding her teeth together to try to stop the compulsive cackling, the heels of her palms pressed over eyes, unable to breathe. He's cupping her face by the chin, arm sliding under her shoulders, arching her neck, and he's laughing into her ear, "So ask me—,"

"Ask—you?"

"To—leave—,"

"Taichi," and she's sniggering, tangled so deep into his embrace she doesn't know how she'll ever leave, or why she ever would. "Taichi, I—,"

He's holding her face now, forehead to hers, "Ask me and I will, I'll do it—ask me, and I swear, I will—,"

She catches his hands in hers, covering them as they hold her, onto her, tight, sinking down too far to go back now, even if she tried, even if she could, even if she wanted to. Her throat is tight, and her heart is stiff. "Thank you," she stammers, in the end, out of breath, "for the ribbon."

"Yeah," he says, voice hollow, "you're welcome."

And just when she can't trust herself to look at him anymore, he's smiling again, a small one, tongue curving over his bottom lip, before flashing a wider grin and goofier wink. His arm slips around her waist and pulling her up, and then he's taking her by the shoulders, lifting her gently to her feet with him, and now he's turning her chin up to look at him when he lets go.

She shoves him back, playful, taking the chance then, with her back to him, to wipe off the smeared liner at the corner of her wet eyes.

"Good night, Taichi."

He rubs his thumb under his lip, nodding, understanding, as he walks to the door, breathing deep to swallow the lump in his throat and all of its bitter taste.

"Good night, Mimi."

White

She can't find her jacket in the pile by the door, but she's certain she brought it with her. How could she not have, in this weather? She berates herself, growing impatient with every wrong selection she pulls out instead, until at last she gives up and grabs the coat from the top, the thickest one, slinging an arm through one sleeve on her brisk walk out the door and into the garden.

The flurries have started again, painting the sidewalk a pretty, gentle white, her heels dragging lines through the soft ground behind her, leaving such an obvious trail that, later, he's sure she's done it on purpose. He's exhausted now, haggard and weary with a lifetime weighing down a life, and he's not in the mood to humor their make-pretend anymore, whatever game this is to her. Or maybe he just flatters himself that way, looking for any excuse possible to make up for the universe growing between them. Because what else is there to explain it? How else to explain that look that crosses her narrowed, almond eyes when he traces her footsteps to the railing she's leaning against and she hears him coming up behind her? That flicker of something dark—distrust? dread? anger?—at the sight of him, that disappears so quickly that he might have believed it was just an illusion, would have accepted as much, with anyone else but her. But it isn't a trick. He knows her, and she knows him, and they both know what's still in the dark between them.

He states the obvious, ready to leave. "You stole my coat."

"Only for a minute," she says, resentful that he might get the wrong idea. He wants to tell he'd long since stopped mistaking her actions for what they never were. He knows now, better than anyone, how, with her, it's what she doesn't say that speaks the loudest, that cuts the deepest.

"I still need it back," he continues, reaching her side, stopping just out of arms reach. He can't trust himself any closer than this. "It's an early night for us, and a long trip home."

She only nods. "Early night for everyone, I think."

"Words to live by, these days."

She hesitates, holding the cuffs of his jacket's sleeves clenched in her palms, lifting her face up to catch the tiny speckles of snow, frosting her lashes and cheeks. "This is going to happen less and less, isn't it? These reunions?"

He's not sure what answer to give her, because he's been wondering the same thing.

She nods, slowly at first, and then more strongly, with resignation. "I know they will."

"That's the point, isn't it?" he ventures, thinking aloud.

"Yeah, but—but don't you ever think about—?"

"No."

He interrupts so firmly she should be grateful. These are dangerous kinds of tests, she knows, and their rarity in recent years doesn't makes them any less so. But then, passing the tests unscathed is impossible, the rewards for doing so a danger all of their own. They've gotten better, but only because they'd somehow learned, over the years, not to resurrect the dead.

Her fingers press against her throat, like she's trying to hold the words back, to keep the ghosts where they belong. It's the alcohol, or the cold that does it, or maybe her selfishness and his cowardice, all the things they've grown out of and past, have learned to overcome and mastered of themselves. But nothing every really stays gone. Letting go is just the fiction we tell ourselves to pretend that the narrative of our lives has a we were meant to be or a it was you all along.

She begs him, "Make me stop feeling this way about you. Do something, Taichi, please—just, it's been years and I—I can't...just do something to make it stop."

So he does.

"Okay," he nods. "How's this? I hate that it had to be you, that first time, because I knew it meant nothing to you. I hate that I thought I could make it mean something, and how many times I had to screw up to figure out I was wrong." She clutches tighter, swallowing a shaky gasp, but he keeps going, because he's never been able to say any of this before, and he knows that if he doesn't say it now then he never will. He stares hard at the ground, jaw clenched. "Every day I don't have to think about you is another day I don't have to wonder how else this tortured history we've invented between us is just going to fuck us over. All we've done is deluded ourselves into thinking the shit we've done to each other makes us soulmates."

Her hand drops to her side, and she's staring at him, face blank. She watches him turn back, glaring past her shoulder, looking everywhere but at her. Her voice surprises her, sounding as calm and severe as it does then. "Okay, Taichi. Finished, are you?"

"That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"You think I wanted to hear how much you hate me?"

"I know you don't want me to love you."

Her heart is pounding in her ears. "And you never have."

It's not a question, or a confirmation. But he still turns sharply to look at her, lips parting, breathing deep.

He struggles to explain it, to make her understand what he's never quite understood himself, because it's never been about realizations, or truths, or answers. Not really, not completely. "Mimi, I would invent a hundred lifetimes and create entire worlds between us if it meant I could stop feeling how I do about you. But it wouldn't work. It couldn't. I could never…." And he stops there, at last, because doesn't want to play the game anymore. He wants an end. And he doesn't know how to ask her for it.

She can hear the music wafting through the open doors, the sound of laughter from the lives they've left behind, of glasses clinking together in nostalgic dreams of yester-years and someday-again-soons, of children—hers, and his; their families, and their friends, gathered only steps away—shrieking as they play their games, contented, at peace. She knows he's wondering where she's gone. She knows how good they are for each other, and how happy she is, right now. He knows, too. He knows she's waiting for him. And he knows that she's perfect for him, as perfect as anyone could be for anyone else, a fiction he had all but given up on before he found her, before she'd let him be hers.

"Kiss me."

She won't let herself face the reasons why she says it, or why he listens.

But he does.

"Kiss me, kiss me."