Author's note: Well, this story was originally one part of one huge fic where the characters from seasons 1-4 would all be crammed into one school, with it being a sort of arc at some point. But after looking at it, I think it would do better as a separate piece.

Disclaimer: I will laugh if you think any of these characters belong to me. :3

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Chapter 1: Date Riot

'Daisuke did what?' Taichi's eyes grew wide with disbelief.

'He asked her out.' Takato repeated.

'I think he heard you, Takato.' Wallace clarified. 'He's just getting over the shock.'

'Well, that's just what I heard from Takuya.' Takato added, as he scratched his head apologetically. 'I don't really know the details.'

'Daisuke's really becoming serious isn't he?' Wallace mused. 'I'm surprised Hikari-san didn't reject him on the spot.'

'She's not like that.' Taichi glowered. 'She's too nice sometimes. Come on Takato—take me to Takuya!'

'Huh? But aren't you seeing him after school for soccer?'

'Now.'

Takato gulped. Somehow he knew there was something about this 'sibling complex' he knew he wouldn't understand even if his life depended on it. However, Takato succumbed to Taichi's utterly grim expression and led him down the halls wordlessly to avoid the god-knows-what crazy shenanigans Taichi might and would do. Wallace followed them in faint amusement. Takato sighed. If it concerned a girl, of course he'd tag along. Never mattered which one.

Takuya was laughing hard at a joke Junpei cracked while they, Izumi, Takeru, Jen and Ken were having lunch in the 7-4 classroom. Takuya wiped tears from his eyes when Takato tapped him on the shoulder nervously.

'Oh, hey Takato.' Takuya said, still just recovering from the laughter. He noticed Takato's nervous face. 'What's up, buddy?' he asked.

'Takuya is quite dense.' Wallace commented. Takuya looked at him, slightly irked by his comment, but still oblivious what he meant. 'Can't you feel the menacing aura behind you?' Wallace asked. Jen, who was quick to catch on to the situation, took a step back: this could get messy.

'What do you mean—' Takuya turned around, only to be towered over by Taichi, whose eyes even Junpei could swear were gleaming. Meanwhile, Wallace went up to Izumi. 'Hello, Izumi-san.' He smiled kindly as he touched her face softly. 'Your face looks so cute today.' She blushed a deep crimson and giggled. Junpei had the intention to send Wallace flying, and would have opened his mouth in protest if Taichi's menacing voice hadn't caught his attention.

'Takuya.' Taichi said, slowly and deliberately, clearly trying to sound friendly but desperately failing. 'I heard something pretty interesting from Takato.' Takuya shot a worried, Oh-dear-god-what-did-you-tell-him? face at Takato, who shrugged guiltily. 'It's about Daisuke asking my sister out.' Taichi clarified, eyes still wide.

'Huh?' Takeru gasped in disbelief. Ken shrank a little, and Jen noticed. He leaned over and whispered 'Daisuke's told you, I'm willing to guess.' Ken shrugged. 'Y—yeah. He wanted a second opinion…' He confided softly. 'Don't let Taichi-san hear you, then.' Jen warned playfully. 'I don't think I know him well enough, but it looks as if he's about to scream bloody murder right now.'

'You and Daisuke are very good friends, so you would know, wouldn't you? Is it true?' Taichi stared down at Takuya with piercing eyes. Takuya himself seemed to have had a loss of words, caused by the intimidation of Taichi's feel of massiveness over him. One wrong word, and he thought Taichi might pummel him.

'Uh…I—Uh—'

Izumi managed to pull away from Wallace's charms and decided to step in. 'I heard about that.' She rang. 'Miyako told me about it.' Taichi shifted his attention to Izumi. 'So?' he asked, putting his hands on her shoulders and nearly shaking her. 'What did she say?' Wallace decided that this wasn't a good time to flirt, and took a step back, just as Ken did. 'Join the club, Wallace.' Jen whispered.

'Well' Izumi did not let herself be silenced by his aggressiveness: Taichi was essentially a nice person—essentially. 'Miyako told me that Hikari said that she thought it over a bit, and after I talked to Hikari, she told me she was going to agree to go out with him today.'

'What?' Taichi and Takeru said in unison and disbelief.

'Really?' said Ken and Jen, though Izumi couldn't be sure whether they were enthusiastic, surprised, or just horrified.

'Who knew?' Wallace mused.

'Where is she now?' Taichi asked, almost in a frenzy.

'Well, I think she's having lunch today with Miyako and Juri—and maybe Alice—'

'Where, Izumi, where!'

'I was getting to that?' her irritation rang evidently through her voice. 'I was going to say they were probably going to be in classroom 7-2 or 7-3…' This was when Taichi bolted out the door with Takeru, followed closely by frantic Ken and soon after by thoroughly amused Wallace.

'At least someone's having fun.' Jen thought to himself. Takuya breathed a sigh of relief. 'Man, Takato.' He cried. 'You nearly got me into a lifetime's worth of bruises!'

'Sorry! Wow, who knew Taichi would have such a scary persona?'

'It's called a sister complex.' Jen laughed as he bit into a sweet meat-filled bun.

'You would know, wouldn't you?' Ken commented on the side. 'A house full of siblings, right?'

'Geez. What the heck was all the fuss about anyway?' Junpei said, tearing the edge of a candy wrapper. Izumi grinned in amusement, and tilted her head into a slightly flirtatious smile. 'Boys. They'll never understand a woman's heart.' She sighed. 'Except Wallace.'

'That guy…' Junpei steamed through gritted teeth.

Takeru knew Hikari would be in class 7-3. She had told him so before lunch. As Taichi dove into 7-2's class, Takeru slipped into the next classroom to find Hikari. He only had to take a quick scan of the room to see a familiar face, sweet and pure and angelic—it gave Takeru a feeling of strange protectiveness over her whenever he saw her. He crossed the room to get to her—then stopped. What was he going to say? 'Please refuse Daisuke'? Why should she? Did she really want to go with him? If she did, then he shouldn't deny her something that made her happy. Takeru was caught desperately between two decisions, and inside the two choices were warring, attempting to dominate over one another. He knew inside which course of action he wanted to take, but what he wanted and what Hikari wanted were two different things, he knew. He wanted to protect her, he wanted to make her happy—and if this made her happy, then—

'Takeru!' Hikari noticed him now and beckoned to him. He was caught by surprise, then, smiling as best as he could manage, he went up to Hikari.

'Hi. I thought you were with Jen and Takuya and the others.' She said.

'I was. I just got here now because…They—uh…Some of them left early too, so there wasn't anyone left to hang out with.' He stuttered an improvised reply as he smiled apologetically. 'Sorry to intrude.' He told Juri and Alice, who were sitting across Hikari.

'No problem!' Juri giggled. 'Don't worry about it!' Alice said nothing, but she nodded and smiled slightly in agreement. Suddenly, Taichi made his grand appearance, closely followed by a rather worried-looking Sora and a hard-to-read Wallace.

'Hikari!' Taichi was utterly flushed. He was taking this date business really badly, a lot worse than Sora thought.

'Nii-chan.' Hikari turned around to face him in surprise. 'Why are you here? Did you come to take my food again?' she teased.

'Is it true?' he asked. 'That you're—you're going on a d-date with Daisuke?' he stammered, spilling the words out clumsily, apparently not too familiar with confronting Hikari about these particular issues. Hikari looked at him in utter astonishment at first, then Takeru and Wallace noticed the blush that crept up her cheeks. 'Where did you hear that?' she asked.

'From Takato.' Taichi explained. Before Hikari could ask again, he continued. '…Who was told by Takuya, who was told by none other than Daisuke himself.' Alice sat there, inwardly curious as to how this situation was going to turn out. Juri was, as well, except much more outward and enthusiastic about it. 'Takato knew? Oh, I wonder who else knows about this!' she cried out in excitement. Hikari however was still a little red, but she still tried to smile. Sora sighed. 'Well, more and more people know by the minute, because of Taichi and his crazy endeavours.' She pretended to tweak him by the ear. 'Come on, Tai.' She pulled him away and whispered so that everyone was out of earshot. 'Let Hikari decide for herself. She's already thirteen. As her older brother, you shouldn't smother her.'

'I'm not smothering her.' Taichi insisted. 'I just think that—'

'Please, Tai.' Sora said, putting feeling into the words she spoke. 'Just let her be. It's normal to be concerned, but you should let her make her own decisions. It's a part of life…' Taichi subsided a little. Sora felt his muscles relax as he withdrew his aggressive side back into himself. Meanwhile, Wallace had taken a seat in between Alice and Juri, smiling at them softly and kindly. The two girls smiled in response, possibly with a hint of red on Juri's cheeks. Taichi turned to Hikari. 'Okay, okay.' He said, giving a tone of final defeat into his words. 'I won't get in the way. Have fun, Hikari, I hope it goes well…' That last sentence struggled its way out of his mouth. Takeru watched in defeated misery as Taichi shuffled out of the classroom with Sora. That was his last hope of opposing Hikari's date plan, without the protest having to come from his mouth at all. He sighed inwardly and slumped slightly on the chair he sat on. Alice noticed. Juri, on the other hand, was even more riled up than ever.

'You're brother's awfully protective, isn't he?' she sighed. 'That's so sweet!'

'Yes. Isn't it?' Wallace agreed pleasantly. Takeru gritted his teeth, as he was growing slightly annoyed by Wallace; he had done absolutely nothing about the situation except make a good joke out of the whole thing.

Alice got up from her seat and brushed the crumbs off her high school uniform lackadaisically.

'Are you heading back, Alice?' Hikari asked. Alice nodded. 'I've got to be going now, because I've got some things I need to take care of in my classroom. Takeru.' She addressed, shifting the vision of her ice-blue eyes towards him. 'Will you walk me there, please?'

'Huh? Oh, sure…' Takeru was quite surprised at Alice's request. So were Juri, Hikari, and Wallace. As Takeru walked out of the classroom with Alice, Juri squealed. 'What was that about?' she wondered dreamily.

'Y-yeah.' Hikari said vaguely, looking at Alice and Takeru's retreating figures.

Yeah. Wallace agreed inside. Perhaps she prefers Takeru instead of me… I wonder what I did wrong?

As Alice walked beside Takeru, she hadn't bothered to point out that she was taking the long route to the high school division's building. As soon as the corridors were empty, she spoke without looking his way.

'Are you bothered?' she asked, eyes straight ahead on the hallway.

'Bothered?'

'By Hikari's date, I mean.' She sighed. Why did everyone play dumb these days?

Takeru thought about denying it, but somehow knew Alice would see through it. 'Yeah.' He admitted.

'What are you going to do about it?'

'Nothing.' Takeru said firmly, trying to convince himself out loud that he indeed was not going to do anything for the matter. 'It's Hikari's choice. If it makes her happy, then there's no need to oppose it.'

'I see.' Alice saw her classroom door and stopped in front of it, but she made no move to slide it open. 'You're a pretty sincere kid, Takeru.' She said, staring at the door's handle. 'I can see why you like Hikari. You're both so alike, sometimes.' And she slid the door open.

'I guess I'll see you around.' Takeru said, unsure if he should say much more. 'Yeah. Alice replied. 'You too. And good luck, as well. If anything, you have my support.' And she walked into classroom 1-3 as Takeru turned slightly red. 'Thanks.' He managed to say. 'Thanks a lot.'

****

…So it appears that Alice is a Takari shipper! Hm. Well, I just added that in, since I can kind of see her supporting Takari more than Daikari.

As for Taichi… Well, who knew he could be so crazy.

Also, poor Wallace. He thinks there's some sort of flaw in his flirting techniques, seeing as Alice is so unaffected.