My second story. Exciting! I hope to make this only a few chapters long but I hope you will all enjoy it. As usual I would love to hear feedback; what you really liked or any constructive criticism you have fore me. I look forward to hearing from you. Enjoy!
Disclaimer - I do not own Digimon or any of its characters. I am making no money from writing this story.
"Tai I want to ring the doorbell."
"Ok sure; but can you reach?"
Kari, looking more like a walking winter jumble sale than little girl stood up on her tiptoes and stretched as far as she could towards the doorbell. Her brother eventually took pity on his little sister and lifted her up enough to give the bell a few decisive rings. Whilst Tai still had a hold of the bundle of clothes he seized the chance to try and tickle Kari, but found he had to more or less squeeze into her sides where he knew she was ticklish. Kari still squealed and giggled, writing in his arms and begging him breathlessly to stop. Tai controlled his own laughter and but his poor abused sister down as the door was opened.
"Hello Mrs Izumi," said Tai politely and Kari quickly followed suit. "I'm not sure if you remember me but I'm Tai and this is my little sister Kari," Kari gave a little wave, "we're friends of Izzy's and…"
"Hello, yes Tai I remember you, and Kari it's lovely to meet you," said Izzy's mother smiling down at the two siblings. "Now come inside quickly and get yourselves warm. The rest of Izzy's friends are in the front room and Izzy is just in the kitchen making hot chocolate for everyone," she beamed ushering them inside and shutting the door behind them.
The contrast of the warm and homely apartment with the frozen air they had just escaped made them glad to rid themselves of their excess layers. Their mother and father had been worried about Kari getting ill in this weather, but with their two children pleading, begging and promising to be sensible, they had eventually relented apparently on the condition that Kari wear anything fluffy, woolly or waterproof that wasn't currently being worn by anyone else. So Tai and the multi-coloured Pillsbury Doughboy had trudged their way through the snow in their welly boots to Izzy's house.
"Hey Izzy!" yelled Tai, poking his head into the kitchen.
"Hi Tai," Izzy replied not taking his eyes off of the bubbling pot. "So how are you?"
"Yeah great! But not as great as that hot chocolate smells," said Tai, dropping a not so subtle hint.
Izzy turned around frowning at him, "we can all have some as soon as Joe and Mimi get here. Although," he said biting his bottom lip and turning back to the pan, "I hope they aren't too much longer, I don't know how to stop this from burning."
"I'll help Izzy, don't worry," said a voice from behind them. Both boys spun around to see Matt standing behind them.
"Hey Matt," Tai beamed at him, "how have you been?"
Matt sighed and rolled his eyes. "Dad's been driving me up the wall. He didn't make a Christmas shopping list, so we have to keep running in and out of town to keep getting more things we've forgotten." Tai and Izzy both gave a chuckle at Matt's completely defeated look. "Anyway, it's good to see everyone, I haven't really hung out with anyone since school broke up."
"Yeah I know what you mean," Tai agreed and Izzy nodded. "Yeah this was a really great idea Izzy. Good plan."
"No problem, but, uh Matt I do think I need a hand – who knows how long Mimi's going to take to get ready, let alone get here."
It was another fifteen minutes before Mimi arrived with a very unhappy looking Joe in tow, who promptly reeled off the list of his different ailments ranging from the common cold to very possible extreme frostbite of the nose. As soon as Joe had paused for breath, he and Mimi moved into the main room and greeted all of their friends, Mimi making a beeline for Sora and slotting herself in next to her on the sofa to begin gossiping animatedly about something or other.
"Right kids," said Mrs. Izumi as her husband helped her on with her coat, "we are going out for last minute Christmas shopping. Now Izzy, we may be quite late back, but the heating is on, there is plenty of drinks and snacks, I got some of that millionaire shortbread you like; um let me see, there are plenty of blankets and cushions to make yourselves comfortable. Oh! But if you use the oven, don't forget to turn it back off, and of course don't open the door to anyone, and, oh, is there anything I have forgotten?"
Izzy's father gave a chuckle, "They will be fine! Come on let's leave them to it. Bye kids!"
"Bye bye" everyone shouted back.
"Bye sweetheart" said Mrs. Izumi placing a big kiss on Izzy's cheek.
"Bye mum, we will be fine."
"Alright everyone, have fun" she called as she shut the front door. Everyone pretended not to notice that Izzy had turned a vibrant shade of red.
"Hot chocolate then!" he cried as he escaped into the kitchen. The rest of the children did try very hard not to smirk or giggle.
Once the hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows, and plum crumble with ice cream had been served up, everyone made themselves comfortable on sofas and chairs or under blankets and pillows and began loudly chatting away to each other. Their conversations were interrupted by T.K who loudly piped up suggesting they watch a Christmas film. Everyone began to talk over everyone at once with their suggestions for a film that they would all enjoy.
"Actually guys," began Izzy standing up and slowly silencing the chatter in the room, "I have an early Christmas present for you all."
Before he could continue Mimi squealed, "No!" she cried "Izzy, I haven't bought you a present because we all agreed we were doing secret Santa, and we all agreed that we wouldn't get a present for anyone else as well, it's not fair I don't want to be the mean one who let you down and didn't have a present to give you!" Sora could see Mimi's eyes slowly beginning to well up in frustration and stood up to take her arm and try and calm her down.
"Hey Mimi, it's all right, no one here expects that from you, or from anyone else." Sora said soothingly, and looked to her friends for help. But everyone was looking slightly bewildered, as if their brains were still trying to make sense of the series of events that had just occurred before them.
Mimi's sniffing was beginning to get louder and she tried to contain her emotions, but before the damn could break, Izzy quickly interjected, "you didn't let me finish Mimi," he said impatiently but not unkindly, "this is a special gift for everyone, including me, and I wanted to share it all with you."
"Oh." Mimi perked up at hearing this, her tears forgotten in favour of this new intrigue that had peaked her curiosity.
"So what is this gift Izzy?" asked Sora, settling both herself and Mimi back onto the sofa. "Come on you have got us all wondering now."
"Well," Izzy began as he usually did before launching into an explanation, "I wasn't entirely truthful when I asked you all here today." There was a collective moment of increased interest in the room as everyone leaned forward in attentiveness, waiting for Izzy to clarify what he meant. "It's prodigious that you are all here and I was going to suggest we do something like this anyway, but I didn't tell you the exact truth. You all needed to be here on the day and at the time that I said because – and the reason I didn't tell you was because I didn't want to get your hopes up – is because –"
"Come on out with it Izzy!" Tai burst out unable to bear the suspense any longer.
Izzy took a deep breath and continued: "there may be a chance that the barriers between our worlds is weakest at that specific day and time…" he trailed off looking at the half frantic half hopeful faces all gazing up to him and hanging on his every word.
"I think we may be able to open up a link between here and the Digital World and be able to talk to our partners."