Noise and Kisses
When Mimi moves back to New York, one of her old friends is not particularly happy. Will the school play bring them back together?
A/N: Welcome to my first actual fic I've written in like.. 4 years. I hope it's worthwhile! It kinda drags on at the beginning, but it'll get better - I PROMISE! I don't own Digimon and all that good stuff... Oh yeah and since I'm Canadian, High school starts in GRADE 10!
Here's everyone's ages/grades (I don't care if it doesn't correspond with their actual ages/grades):
Mimi, Koushirou - 16, Grade 11
Taichi, Yamato, Sora - 17, Grade 12
Miyako, Hikari, Takeru, Daisuke, Ken - 15, Grade 10
Iori - WHO CARES?!
Jyou - In University. We won't be hearing from him. Much.
Anyways, without further adieu - here's "Noise and Kisses"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Supper time!" called out Mimi's father, Keisuke, as his wife, Satoe, finished setting a home-cooked meal out on the table. He sat down at the head of the table and started scooping rice on to his plate. Satoe sat down opposite him, and also began helping herself to the warm feast. The dining room fell silent, the only noises coming from the slurping and chewing of food. The silence lasted for nearly ten minutes before Keisuke stood up from his chair and stomped on the floor, booming, "MIMI! IT'S TIME FOR SUPPER!" He sat back in his seat, grumbling and shoving his face full of rice.
"I don't understand what's going on in that girl's head," Keisuke fumed, "She's been acting up ever since her sixteenth birthday. What's happened to her, Satoe? I just don't understand."
"Would you like me to go check on her, dear?" inquired Satoe, "Would that make you feel better?"
Keisuke nodded, and Satoe placed her utensils down and pushed away from the table, excusing herself. From the kitchen she headed downstairs, past Mimi's pink bathroom, to the large room with the mirrored double-closet that Mimi claimed as her own. Satoe knocked quietly on the tightly shut door. She knew she was treading on soft ground, as she could hear the sobs coming from inside the room. She pressed her ear to the door and also heard some sort of depressing music; music she could only imagine belonged to some mix tape labeled "Songs To Slit Your Wrists To", or something of the sorts. Mimi did not answer the door, nor did she yell a response to Satoe, nor show any sign that she had heard her mother knocking. Satoe slowly opened the door just wide enough that she could peek inside. What she witnessed made her see the reality of all the things Mimi had told her in the past week since her birthday had passed. And suddenly realizing what she had to do about it, she ran upstairs to devise a plan with her husband.
"Well?" Keisuke questioned when his wife returned to the table.
"I didn't actually get to talk to her," Satoe replied, "but I know what's going on, and I have an idea. You might not like it, but just listen to me, alright? Mimi is downstairs right now bawling her eyes out over old pictures of her friends in Japan - you remember Sora Takenouchi, don't you dear? And that Ishida kid? And Yuuko and Susumu's boy, Taichi?"
"Of course I remember them, dear," Keisuke said as he nodded in response.
"Well their pictures are spread across her bed right now. She's listening to some kind of angst-ridden music, and she's crying and grasping onto that stuffed toy they gave her as a gift before she left. I've talked with her earlier this week, Kei, and she told me how much she's missing her friends now. I can only imagine it hurt her when her sweet sixteenth birthday was spent with Michael rather than with her old friends she knows and loves. We took her away from those friendships at a terrible time in her life! When you're a teenager, that's when you need friends the most. I knew she missed them, I just never knew it was this bad..."
"And what exactly do you propose we do about this!?" Keisuke bellowed, "I certainly did not intend to hurt my daughter in moving her to New York - I only hoped to protect her!"
"I know, honey, I know," Satoe responded calmly, "but I think... I think we should send her back to Odaiba - until she finishes up high school. She can stay with your parents, or perhaps her aunt. We have enough money to send her out, and we can protect and support her from afar. She's a strong, independent girl, and she's growing up - whether you like it or not - and I want her to grow up in the best place possible. And I think that place is back in Japan, where she belongs."
"Satoe! That's... you're... I can't believe you would suggest-", Keisuke stammered.
"Think about it, Kei! She's miserable!" she remarked, "I want my daughter to be happy... don't you?"
"Of course I do, Satoe! But..." he started, "No! There's no way in hell I'm sending her back there! I don't want her to be anywhere if she's not under my watchful eye!"
"I'm putting my foot down!" Satoe hollered, "this time I'm making the decisions! I'm calling my sister right now, and we are sending Mimi back to Japan! You'll thank me this time next year when Mimi comes back to visit us - she'll be smiling and laughing again! I know you want that!"
With that, Satoe stormed off to her in-home office to make a phone call to her sister, Asuza Tojigamori. After an hour and a half of chit chat, the arrangements had all been made - Mimi was to be moving in with her aunt in less than a week.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Do you really need all this?" Satoe asked, holding up a stack of very old crayon drawings. Mimi had been packing the last bit of her luggage with her mother before they headed out to the airport. Her mother took the stack of doodles and shoved them into the box full of recycling.
"Mom!" Mimi cried, "Think of all the memories you just threw away!"
"There'll be plenty more memories to be made, Mimi. You don't need to hold on to everything," Satoe reassured her. Mimi nodded sadly as she stuffed her last pair of pants into her bag. She knew her Mom was right.
"Well," Mimi said, standing up and dusting herself off, "That's the last thing. Guess that's that, huh? I can't believe I'm really going back... I can't thank you enough, Mom."
"Oh, you're very welcome, sweetheart," Satoe replied, embracing her daughter, "Anything for my little girl..."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Come on, Tai, you idiot. Pick up your goddamn phone," Yamato mumbled as he dialed his best friend's number for the seventh time.
"Yo yo, Tai here!" came the response on the other line.
"Finally!" exclaimed Yamato, "Where the hell have you been?! I've been trying to reach you for the past twenty minutes!"
"Oh, hey Matt! Sorry, man - I was in the shower. What's up?" Taichi replied.
"What's up?!? We're supposed to be at the airport in half an hour - that's what's up! Have you completely forgotten - today's the day Mimi's coming back!"
"Oh yeah! Yeah... about that..." Tai began, "Can we make it quick? I wanna take Sora on a date afterwards."
"Yeah - a date in my backyard! Don't tell me you forgot about the barbecue, too?" Yamato retorted.
"What?! Barbecue?! Oh man... this blows!"
"Shut up, Tai. My Dad and I are picking you up in ten - be ready. And try not to be so obnoxious in front of Mimi," Yamato remarked before he clicked the phone off. As he hung up, his father wandered into the room, buttoning up a dark grey dress shirt.
Yamato's father, Hiroaki, was close friends with Mimi's Aunt Asuza, and had arranged for the two of them to transport all the digidestined to the airport to welcome Mimi home. Hiroaki would take Yamato, Takeru, Hikari, Taichi, Sora and Iori. Asuza would take Koushirou, Jyou, Miyako, Daisuke, and Ken. After meeting Mimi at the airport, they would chauffer the kids all back to the Ishida's place for a barbecue, arranged by Sora and Yamato. Mimi and Asuza would stay the night at the Ishida's after what was sure to be a long night of partying, and Mimi and Asuza would depart in the morning.
"Ready to roll, Matt?" Hiroaki asked. Yamato nodded in response, and the two headed into the garage to their van, and then off to pick up the rest of the gang.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The gang stood around the Arrivals/Departures part of the airport, waiting impatiently for their old friend to finally arrive. They were all talking amongst themselves; some were excited for the barbecue, some just excited to see an old friend, and some were not excited at all.
"Do you think her hair will still be pink?" Miyako wondered, "Or maybe it will be something new! Like blonde! Oh, Mimi would make a fantastic blonde!"
"I hope it's still pink," said Hikari, "I thought the pink looked really nice on her."
"Who the hell cares what color her hair is?" Taichi groaned as he wrapped his arm around Sora.
"Oh, Tai. Don't be so harsh," Sora pleaded.
"I mean it! It's enough that I gotta be here to greet Mimi, when I'd much rather be out doing something with my girlfriend - I don't need to listen to some teenaged girls jabber on about what color hair she's sporting!" Taichi spat.
"Well, your girlfriend," Sora snapped, as she removed Tai's arm from around her and took a step away from him, "would like to remain here to greet her best friend, thank you! You can leave if you feel that you don't need to be present for this."
"Then maybe I will leave!" Taichi retorted, "I mean, it's not like I care about Mimi!"
At that moment, Mimi had been barely a foot away from the group. Her plane had just arrived, and she thought she would sneak up behind and suprise her friends. Unfortunately, she was the one who received a suprise when she heard Taichi's words. She dropped all her luggage onto the floor, causing a large racket from her massive amount of bags, as her eyes welled up with tears. The noise of the dropped bags startled the digidestined, and they all turned around swiftly to see what the problem was. There were a few gasps of "Mimi!" as the group realised the source of the dropped luggage.
"Maybe it was a mistake... me coming here," Mimi mumbled.
"No!" Sora exclaimed, scrambling to pick up Mimi's bags, "Of course it wasn't a mistake, Mimi! Don't listen to Tai! He's just being a jerk!"
"Yeah, don't listen to that dickface," Yamato offered as he retrieved one of Mimi's many pink suitcases, "He's just being an insufferable loser, as always."
"You take that back, Yamato Ishida!" Taichi exploded, forming his fists into tight balls.
"I'll take it back," Yamato replied, "when you take back what you said about Mimi, you bastard!"
"Oh yeah?!" Taichi challenged, as he lunged at Yamato, fists flying. Yamato stepped casually out of the way, and Taichi landed face-first on the linoleum. At that exact moment, Hiroaki had approached the teens, Asuza trailing behind him, both oblivious to what was going on. None of the digidestined had even realized that their two drivers had dissapeared, but were very thankful that they chose this time to show up; no one wanted to see Taichi and Yamato make complete fools of themselves by making a scene.
"Hey, kids!" Hiroaki started cheerfully, "Are we all ready to go back and get this party started?"
"Party?" Mimi inquired.
"Yama and I arranged a barbecue at his house in celebration of your return!" Sora nodded.
Mimi grinned excitedly, "Awesome! Let's go bring the house down!"
