totally safe from sexual and violence warnings Davis "You've got to be kidding me!" Izzy looked at me with his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Come on, Davis," he said as I rolled my eyes at him. "Don't be like this. I need you to help me out." I plopped doen in front of one of the computers in the junior high school's computer room. "Tell me again why I should help you." Izzy sighed as I loaded Minesweeper on the screen. "Sora's hooking me up with one of her inconceivably arousing friends on the tennis team..." "'Hot', Izzy," I said. "All you have to say is she's hot." Izzy gave me a "look" and continued. "Well, I'm planning to take her to the Odaiba Youth Day dance at the high school on Friday, and I want it to transpire flawlessly." I already knew what he was getting to. I could feel it in my bones. "That means that I don't want someone to mess this up by incessantly bothering me at the dance...someone, say...Yolei." I rolled my eyes again. I knew that Yolei was far gone over Izzy - hell, she had the hots for anyone with a penis...except for me, of course. And for that, I'm very thankful. Thank God; just even thinking about nerdy Yolei and her nerdy glasses and nerdy clothes...well, face it. She's just a nerd. "I need you," Izzy pointed an index finger at me, "to keep her busy. Take her to the movies, or the mall, or somewhere. You can take her to the dance for all I care, but keep her away from me. Can you do that?" I gave him a look like he just explained quantum physics to me. "You think I'm going to voluntarily go to the dance with Yolei, just so that you can get some from a tennis floozy?" "I like to think of it as an act of courtship with a respectable young woman...but yes, basically." I laughed in his face, smiling at his smug expression. This was hilarious. If he thought he was ever going to put Yolei on me for the night, he had another thing coming. I would never - "I'll pay you!" I stopped laughing. If Izzy was talking about a payment for this most heinous job, then we were in a whole new ball game. "How much?" I asked, crossing me arms in front of my chest. Izzy smiled devilishly, and I knew he was going to give me an offer I couldn't refuse. "I'll do all your homework for a week, plus I'll tutor you in whatever you need help. And I know how much you need help in trigonometry." I frowned and shook my head. Just one week of homework? He had to be kidding me. Maybe if he asked me to take Mimi to the dance. But this was Yolei Inoue we were talking about, not Mimi. He'd have to do a lot more to get this from me. "Make it two, and we've got a deal." I held out me hand to seal the deal. Izzy took my hand in his and shook it. "So we do, Davis," he said. "so we do." It was just one night with Yolei. I thought that I could handle it. Little did I knew just how serious this one little date was going to be.
but caution:
this story contains davis.
if this idea offends you,
please leave immediately. part of a long Sigimon dance series that I will never, ever, ever put up on ff.n...maybe.3:47 P.M.
Wednesday 16 May
Odaiba Middle School
3:12 P.M."You've got to be kidding me," Yolei said as she walked briskly from the school building to the soccer field after school, as I rushed to catch up to her. "Why would you want to take me to the dance? Furthermore, why on earth would I want to go with you?"
Thursday 17 May
Odaiba Middle School
I sneered at her sarcastic tone, matching it with my own. "Well, who else do you have to go with? Izzy? Joe? Ken?"
Yolei's face clouded over, and I could see I hit a nerve. "My parents aren't too happy that I'm even friends with an eighteen-year old boy; they would never let him take me to the Youth Day Dance. Ken told me he was 'washing his hair' -" which neither of us doubted, "- and Izzy said he was too busy formatting his hard drive that night." She looked over to me, her eyes shifting behind her heavy glasses from cold and defensive to sad and vulnerable. "So no, I don't have anyone else to go with."
"Then go with me!" I exclaimed, a little too excitedly, which made Yolei jump a little at my enthusiasm. Okay, so I was a bit over-zealous with asking her, but God knows I needed the homework help from Izzy, and no dumb Yolei was going to stand in my way of getting it. Besides, I had no one else to go with, either, and I wasn't all that thrilled with the idea of going to the Youth Day dance with my sister.
Yolei smiled slyly. "Kari wouldn't go with you, huh?" she said to delibeartely get on my nerves. I rolled my eyes, not wanting to think about what she and T.K. were planning on doing during the dance...or after it, for that matter.
"So neither of us have a date," I said. "so why don't we just...go with each other?"
Yolei stopped short, which, since I was walking behind her in an attempt to catch up with her, caused me to trip and fall into her, nearly toppling both of us over onto the grass. She gave me a sneer, which I could only respond with an innocent, "don't-hurt-me" puppy-dog face, so she wouldn't clock me one in front of the whole soccer team.
Yolei narrowed her eyes and stared me straight in the face. Okay, I can't say I wasn't a bit intimidated. "You pick me up at seven. I have a curfew of ten-thirty, so if you're late, I get to give you one punch in the arm on Monday for every minute you're not there. You have my address, right?"
"Um, yeah..." I stammered as Yolei continued to attack me with demands.
"I don't want to be picked up by cab, bike, bus, or train, and there is no way I'm walking to the dance. Either you get your parents to drive you, or you rent a limo. If I see someone else I want to dance with, I'll ditch you with no questions asked and no guarantee that I'll leave with you. I'll be wearing a white dress, so you buy me a white corsage. You will be buying me a corsage, Davis. You will wear the proper attire for this event; that means you wear a suit. No shorts, no sneakers, no wristbands, no stupid leather gloves -" she pulled my goggles from my head, only to allow them to snap back onto my forehead, with considerable pain and annoyance, "- and especially no goggles.
"I don't want to hear any stupid boy conversation from your mouth, either. When we get to the dance, you do not talk about gross things you've eaten this week, disgusting things Demiveemon coughed up, the latest episode of Gundam Wing -" even though I knew she watched that show without letting on, "- various scabbing wounds on your body from whatever physical activity you got them from, or how much you want to be with Kari instead of me, because that will just be so annoying I'll have to kick your butt in front of half the kids in Odaiba."
I stood there with my mouth wide open and my eyes bugged out. What did she just say?
"Do you have all that, Davis, or am I gonna have to write it on your forehead for you to remember it?"
I snapped out of my gawking session and narrowed my eyes, thinking about how much Izzy was going to owe me after this. "Sure, Yolei. Whatever. Pick you up at seven."
"And don't be late." And with that, Yolei turned down the avenue towards her house, and left me at the corner, wondering how I was ever going to find a suit in two days time.
6:56 P.M.I sat in my parent's jet black station wagon as we drove towards Yolei's apartment building, nervously twiddling my thumbs and feeling absolutely naked without Tai's goggles atop my head.
Friday 18 May
And yes, I was wearing a suit. And I bought a corsage; white, too. I was tempted to buy a bright, ugly pink one and force her to wear it, but I decided that handling a happy Yolei was easier than handling a Yolei that wanted to kill me. She doesn't know all I have to go through to make this night happen. No one does.
My sister June sat on the other side of the backseat, the blue taffeta mess she called a dress spilling over onto the rest of the seat. She impatiently tapped her fingers against her knees, a faint smile creeping to her lips now and then. I decided to be a nice brother - for once in my life - and ask what was up.
"Nothing," she said, desperately trying to hide a grin that just wouldn't be hidden.
"Oh, really."
June smiled and absently played with the fringe on her dress. "I'm on a blind date tonight," she said cheerfully.
I had to make a comment. I looked around me - turning my head once to the left, then once to the right, and returning it to its original position - and responded, "Well, June, I don't see him in the car. Is he, perhaps, invisible?"
June's mood changed from giddy to her regular sadistic self and punched me in the arm none too gently. "No, dorkwad," she said. "I'm meeting him at the dance."
"Oh?" I asked, rubbing my arm. Damn, my sister had some left jab. "What's he look like?"
June rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "I don't know, Davis. That's why it's called a 'blind date'." She turned her head towards the window again and resumed her stare out into the quickly fading Odaiba sun. "I don't really know the guy, anyway. One of the girls from the tennis team set me up with him. She says he's really funny, and smart." She chuckled. "I hope that doesn't mean he's ugly."
Before I knew it, we had pulled up to the apartment building where Yolei and T.K. lived. I saw T.K. and Kari leave the building, hand in hand, and begin to walk down the street towards the high school to get to the dance. I saw June open her mouth to make a stupid comment, but I gave her a "look" and she thought better.
"Well, go ahead," she said instead. "Go and pick up your girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend," I said defenseively. Well...she wasn't. "I'm just doing this to get some tutoring help in trigonometry." If I had told June any more than that, like the job I had set up with Izzy or the homework he proposed to do for me, I knew she would have either told our parents or Yolei, and I couldn't let either of those things happen.
"Well, let's see here," she said, pointing to my clothes. "You bought a corsage, you're wearing a suit, you left your goggles at home..." June leaned over towards me and sniffed. "...and you're wearing Dad's cologne. Oh yeah," she said sarcastically. "This isn't a date and she definitely isn't your girlfriend."
I rolled my eyes at her, and they landed on my Digivice, which said that it was already 6:59. If I didn't get up to that apartment pronto, I was going to get the beating of my life come Monday...and by a girl, no less.
"I gotta go," I said as I opened the car door. Before shutting it again, I yelled at my sister, "And she isn't my girlfriend!"
7:00 P.M.
Friday 18 May
718 Odaiba Terrace, Apartment 4-B
I rung the doorbell to Yolei's apartment, and a very odd-looking, very bald teenage boy answered the door, munching on a club sandwich.
"Um...is...uh...is this...well...I'm...is Yolei here?" I stuttered, not sure if I had the right address. Did I just ring the doorbell to the Twilight Zone, and this was the gatekeeper?
He gave me an "are-you-an-idiot?" look, and yelled into the apartment, "Yolei, your boyfriend's here."
"He's not my boyfriend, dweeb!" I heard from inside the house, the shrill, annoying voice that could be no one else but Yolei. "Did you let him in yet?"
The boy who I only knew as "dweeb" opened the door all the way to let me in, and I walked into the hall of the apartment, holding the white corsgae with shaking hands. "He's in now."
"Well, at least you're not late," Yolei addressed to me. "And don't mind my brother, he's just a dork." Yolei emerged from her bedroom, and my breath hitched in my throat.
She took off her glasses and opted for contacts, which was a start. They opened up her eyes more and stopped her face from being hidden away by those nerdy glasses. A beautiful face, really; her delicate features were now clearly seen without her glasses, and her eyes glimmered with a happiness and joy that I had never seen before. She had put her hair up into a glamourous bun, with tendrils of violet hair curling down, framing her face. It was a lot beter than hiding her long hair under her helmet, which she did in the Digiworld on any possible occasion. Her white, spaghetti-strap dress flowed from her shoulders down to just above her knee, and it made her look like an angel.
She was beautiful. Yolei Inoue actually looked beautiful.
I was speechless as she walked over to me, took the corsage from my hands, and examined it in the clear plastic box, checking to see if I had bought the right one. She handed it back to me and said, "You wore a suit. It looks good on you."
I only then remembered I had to breathe, and I let out a breath, which sounded oddly to my ears like a nervous sigh. "Thanks," I said.
"You're parents are driving us?" she asked as she grabbed her matching white purse and wrap. I nodded, and she smiled. "Okay then, let's go. I don't want to get there late."
"Wait!" I said nervously, a little too loudly for my liking, and stepped between Yolei and the doorway. I gave a toothy grin and presented the corsage. "Shouldn't I put this on you first?"
Yolei smiled - and did I even see her blush? - and allowed me to pin the white carnation on her dress. I pinned it on her slowly, allowing my fingers linger a little longer against the cool skin of her shoulder. I blushed at the thought. This was Yolei. Yolei Inoue. Not some hot model, or a movie star, or even Kari. This was Yolei. Why was I getting so nervous and worked up over Yolei?
Our eyes met as I drew my hands back, and we stared at each other for a moment, neither of us knowing what to say to the other. We just looked at each other, with these blank expressions of misunderstanding on our faces, not knowing what to do next. If Yolei's brother didn't speak up so rudely, we probably would have stayed like that the entire night.
"Aw, isn't that cute," Yolei's older brother said sarcastically. "Let me go get my camera."
Yolei blushed a brighter shade of red and turned defensive on her brother. "Shut up, loser!" She yelled back at him. "Besides, we were leaving anyway."
Grabbing my wrist and nearly pushing me out the door, Yolei said, "Come on, Davis, let's go."
8:45 P.M.I checked my Digivice for the time for the fifth time in three minutes, only to see the disappointing flashing numbers 8:45 and not 10:30, when I would finally be able to escape this hell hole and take Yolei home.
Friday 18 May
Odaiba High Gymnasium
This was worse than hell. I would prefer all the Dark Masters that Tai and the others told us about crashed the party and killed us all, rather than stay here, listening to Matt's band play one corny love song after another, nursing my fourth glass of punch and being labeled as a wallflower.
I thought that maybe, I'd have some fun at this dance. When I saw Yolei looking so nice tonight, I thought that she would at least dance one song with the guy who brought her here...not like I would care or anything. But ever since we walked into the high school gym, all decked out in bright streamers and spotlights, she left to go of with some of her friends and I haven't even seen her around.
It was all for the better, anyway. This gave me some time to think...about what the hell was going through my mind about Yolei. I knew what the terms of this date were when I said yes, and I agreed with them wholeheartedly. Yesterday, I would've said that the more time I spent away from Yolei, the better. But tonight...
I didn't know why I was thinking differently now, but I was. Maybe it was seeing Yolei actually look like a girl - a beautiful girl, too - that made me change my mind about her. Maybe it was because I was actually beginning to like her...or that there was the possibility, that spark I saw in her eyes that night, that she might actually like me. I really didn't know, and from the looks of it, it looked like I was never going to know. Not tonight, anyway.
I didn't care. Yolei was her own person; she could go anywhere she wanted, and I just didn't care. As long as she didn't...
"OH MY GOD!!!"
...go near Izzy.
8:46 P.M."Yolei, wait!" I cried as I pushed through the crowd of teenagers at the dance, trying to catch up to that one girl in white who was frantically running towards the door.
Friday 18 May
Odaiba High Gymnasium
I passed by Izzy, who had a very stern and disappointed look on his face. "Davis," he shouted over the live band's music, "Where the hell were you? I thought I told you to keep Yolei away from me tonight."
"Yeah...well..." I panted as I tried to catch my breath. "Something...happened...I..." I shifted my eyes to take a look at the so-called "inconceiveably arousing" girl Izzy was on the date with...and my mouth fell open in shock. "JUNE!?!"
June stood there, right next to Izzy, her hand intwined with his own. So he was June's blind date for the night, and she was the hot girl he wanted to get busy with!...Ew. I had inadvertantly called my sister "hot." That's just gross.
"What are you waiting for, dork?" she asked, pointing to the gym door, where someone had just left. "Go after her."
"But..." I tried to make the argument, yet again, that she wasn't my girlfriend, that I didn't care for Yolei, that she was just here with me as a fluke...but I knew June wasn't going to believe it, and to tell the truth, right now, neither was I.
"Just go!" June gave me a shove towards the door, none too gently, and that was the end of our conversation.
After sifting through more people to get to the door, I pushed it open, to reveal a mass of white satin folds and purple wisps of hair hunched over on the steps, crying her poor eyes out.
8:47 P.M."Yolei?" I said quietly, slowly walking towards her, hopefully not to make her a very emotional or very angry girl in my midst.
Friday 18 May
Odaiba High
Yolei turned her head away from me, sniffling. I could see little droplets of water on her dress from where her tears fell. Her head was bent down, her back hunched over on the steps of the high school. "Go away," she said in a strained voice. She was trying to hide from me that she had been crying, but so far, it wasn't working. "I don't want to talk to you, Davis."
I sat down beside her stubbornly. "Well, since I'm out here already, I'm not going to go away, so you're stuck with me. You might as well tell me what happened."
She turned towards me, her fragile face riddled with tears, her beautiful eyes red from crying. "He told me he was formatting his hard drive," she said, her lower lip trembling, a tell-tale sign that she was going to start crying again. "But all that he was doing was logging-on with someone else. It wasn't that he didn't want to be here, Davis," she said, looking into my eyes. "He just didn't want to be here with me."
She sniffled, again, and made no signs of resistance - or disgust, as she usually does - when I tentatively hung an arm around her shoulders to bring her in closer towards me. "I don't know why I try anymore," she continued, a single tear falling from her eye. "All of them - Izzy, Joe, Ken - I know they don't like me, but I keep going after them anyway. Is it me? What is so wrong with me that guys don't like me?"
"Hey, that's not true," I said. Boldly, I reached out with my free arm and wiped the tear off of Yolei's cheek with hy finger, and taking in a shaky breath as my skin met with hers. "There is nothing wrong with you. You're a smart, sensitive, beautiful girl, Yolei, and any guy who doesn't see that is stupid."
"So you're saying all those geniuses are stupid."
"I'm just saying that you're choosing the wrong guys for you. You're looking for the guys, out there -" I pointed towards the dance, "- who don't care about you and don't really know who you are. And while you're chasing after all the guys out there, you totally miss the guy..." I touched her arm gently, running my fingers down to her hand, and then grasping it softly with my own. "...right here."
"Davis," she whispered, "are you saying what I think you're saying?" I smiled sheepishly, and I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks in a bright red blush. Yolei smiled, no longer anywhere near tears, and looked me in the eye. "Did you really mean what you said before?" she asked. "Do you really think I'm beautiful?"
I couldn't answer that question. Not with words, anyway. Taking her chin in my hand, I lifted her face up to mine, and lightly pressed my lips to hers. My eyes fluttered closed as I felt her soft lips against my own, and almost immediately she began to respond. I heard her gasp slightly, then sigh as she responded to my kiss, wrapping her arms around my neck, pulling herself in closer. My hands moved from her shoulders and trailed down her back, finally resting on her waist as I pressed my lips harder against hers, and cautiously licked her bottom lip with the tip of my tongue.
When our lips finally parted, I smiled as I raised my hand up to gently stroke her cheek. "What does that tell you?" I whispered, feeling my heart overflow with joy as Yolei grinned at me, and pulled me in for another kiss.