Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Digimon Frontier
Title: Haze of Dreams
Pairing: Junpei x Izumi
Word Count: 1,000||Status: One-shot
Genre: Romance||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Diversity Challenge: section B, #13: write a fic of exactly 1,000 words.
Notes: This is a companion fic to 'Rules Are Rules'.
Summary: [one-shot, Diversity Challenge, Junpei x Izumi/Izumi x Junpei, companion fic to 'Rules Are Rules'] The morning after Spin The Bottle is played, Junpei wakes up from a sweet dream. Or perhaps to a stranger reality.

Junpei pulled his blanket on top of himself. He'd been in the middle of the most wonderful dream, and he didn't see any reason why he should wake up from it just yet. He'd kissed Izumi.

No, much better than that, she'd kissed him. Sure, it had been because of a game of Spin the Bottle, but did it matter? She hadn't had to do it. He'd even tried to tell her that she didn't have to, since he'd just kissed her hand.

But she'd done it. She'd touched her lips to his and everything in his brain simply shut off.

I wish she really would do that. He sighed; he knew he'd have to wake up eventually. But if he could just stay in this dream a little longer, was that so wrong? He didn't have to tell her about it when they saw each other again. She likely wouldn't want to know.

But here, he could dream that not only had she kissed him, but she wanted to do it again and would do it even without having a bottle to blame for it. That he could ask her to go out on a date and she'd not only say yes, but she'd admit that it was a date.

He'd asked her before. Sometimes she said no. When she said yes, she usually would find a way to bring the others along. They had fun like that, but he wanted something more.

He'd dreamed about being rejected by her before and those were dreams he really wanted to wake up from. Not like this one. Not when he could still feel the press of her lips against his and if he squinted right, he thought he could catch a glimpse of his reflection in the glass of water by his bed, and wasn't there a tiny bit of lipstick there?

Probably his imagination. Just something to go along with the dream.

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe they'd had that party. He hadn't dreamed that part of it. And maybe they'd even played Spin the Bottle. Izumi liked games like that.

But she hadn't kissed him. Not on the lips. With only six people, there were only so many combinations that could happen, and without even having to talk about it, they'd never done lip to lip contact. It had all been a game. Nothing more than that.

And yet…it felt real. As much as he wanted to tell himself it was all a dream, if the most vivid one of his entire life, there was that soft murmur in the very back of his mind that said it wasn't. They'd had a first kiss.

Maybe I should ask someone. That wasn't such a bad idea. Everyone else had been there, they would've noticed something. And they'd tell him, if he asked the right person.

Takuya, he decided, after only a moment of thought. He trusted all of them to tell him what really happened, but another vague whisper, something with even less to support it than the thought of being kissed by Izumi, said that the twins should not get involved in this. Part of him still thought of Tomoki as a child, though he knew full well the other wasn't, so he was out of the picture. That left Takuya and Izumi, and he wasn't sure if he could look Izumi in the face this morning, let alone ask about a kiss that might not have happened.

He fumbled for the cell phone, flipping through the contacts, and trying not to think enough to realize there was a smudge of lipstick visible in the pale reflection. He hoped Takuya would be awake, at least enough to answer his question.

"Junpei?" Takuya sounded awake, at least. That was one good thing. "How're you feeling? You were pretty out of it last night." "I'm all right." Junpei levered himself to a sitting position. "I wanted to know…I think I dreamed something really strange and I wanted to find out if it really happened or not." "Hold on, I think I know what this is." Takuya sounded a little strange himself and Junpei wished that he'd had his morning shower. He couldn't think properly until he'd stood under the hot water for a while. "And if you dreamed it, then we all did."

Junpei blinked several times. That wasn't even close to what he'd imagined that he would hear. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I am! I mean, I don't really want to say anything about it, because…well, you know. But it really did happen."

Junpei tried to remember how to breathe. It wasn't easy. "You mean…I mean…" Izumi kissed him. Izumi really had kissed him.

"Yeah. I guess we should say something, but I don't know what, really. It's just…like nothing I've ever seen before." Takuya sounded downright disturbed about it! Junpei rubbed at his forehead; if he hadn't known better, he would've thought they were having two different conversations.

"So Izumi really did kiss me." And for some reason, Takuya wanted to say something about it? Thought it was weird? How could it be? Why would it be?

Takuya's reaction to that wasn't at all what he'd expected. "Huh? Oh, yeah, that's right, she did. Yeah, that happened too, I guess. I can't say I really was thinking about it."

Now Junpei wished that he had one of those fancy new cell phones that showed you the face of who you were talking to. "Takuya, should I call back when both of us are actually thinking?"

Perhaps now it had sunk into Takuya that whatever he was talking about, Junpei wasn't. "Yeah, that might be a good idea. Just…don't talk to Kouji or Kouichi yet, okay?"

"Uh… sure." He didn't know why, but he agreed anyway. This was something better discussed after a shower. "Later, then?"

"Later."

Disconnecting, Junpei stared at his phone. What in the world had happened last night?

The End