Chapter 2: The Simplicity of Coincidence

A/N: Hello everybody!

First of all I'd like to thank you all for your support, reviews and PM!

And of course I'm genuinely sorry for the late update. I would've written the chapter faster, but I got distracted by watching Clannad and Clannad: After Story and a couple of other series. I know that I'm late with watching it, but in case you didn't watch it yet... I can just highly recommend Clannad and Clannad: After Story to everyone here. And in case you watched it and want to talk about it, you can message me whenever you want! (Seriously, I'd like to talk about it right now.) I'm also currently thinking about writing a story for the Clannad fandom, but I couldn't decide yet whether to do that, even though I've already got a couple of ideas.

Besides, with school getting busy and me doing plenty of other activities, I'll likely read less fanfiction from now on. I also try to update this fic regularly, though I don't know whether I can do that.

Disclaimer: If I would own Digimon, this would air as a spin-off of Digimon on TV.

(Sunday, 24th June 2007)

It was a rather calm afternoon in room 314.

The teen genius Ken Ichijouji was rather relaxed, which was rather unusual for him, mainly because of all the exams he had now as a Senior High student. Still it was really enjoyable for him to spend a week in Kyoto, especially because of the interesting topics that were on the class schedule.

The first afternoon (or what was left of it after their arrival) passed by without anything unusual. The teen genius mainly spent it together with Daisuke and with his other, new friends, talking about their own schools and cities, though only Takeru's view was interesting, since he was the only one of the group who lived outside Odaiba.

However, it didn't take Koushiro much time to interrupt the talk that was now mainly led by Takeru, whose social skills were visibly rather good. He just needed to point out that they were supposed to be at the hotel restaurant in five minutes, at least according to the e-mail they received a couple of days ago.

But since a couple of minutes were still left, the residents of room 314 decided to go down as soon as possible. After entering the elevator, that was supposed to bring them straight down to the lobby of the hotel, Daisuke decided to brake the now prevailing silence.

"By the way, do you have any siblings, Takaishi-san?"

Ken was the first one who noted the blonde's obvious reaction to this little question. The smile he had a second ago faded slowly away, though he still managed to keep a small grin on his face before he answered.

"Yes, I've got an older brother, and he lives with my otousan."

Daisuke, without even thinking about the answer he got from Takeru several seconds ago, decided to ask the question Ken decided to avoid. "But why does he live with your otousan?"

Again Ken was the first one who noted Takeru's tensioned reaction, even though Koushiro and Daisuke noted it as well. Takeru's teeth gritted, obviously as a sign of discomfort. This time his gaze almost fell to the ground, with his sapphire blue eyes getting simultaneously empty.

Though, only a second later the blonde teenager managed to calm down visibly. He even let out a small laugh before he calmly answered, "My parents' are divorced."

Obviously Takeru tried to suppress what he really thought in this very moment, yet almost nobody seemed to realize it, since the other people inside the elevator were busy with enduring the terrible silence inside it.

The sapphire-eyed teenager quickly realized how tensed the atmosphere became. Now it was his turn to loosen the atmosphere and Takeru was well aware of this. That's why he let out a quiet laugh before he playfully smacked Daisuke's shoulder.

"You don't have to be embarrassed, Motomiya-san," Takeru calmly explained, "You said nothing wrong."

In the first moment Daisuke didn't want to believe what Takeru said, but, knowing that Takeru tried to loosen the tensed atmosphere among the residents of room 314, he decided to accept what Takeru said and to smile, for the sake of everybody inside the elevator.

Beside this little incident, nothing interesting happened between the residents of room 314. Soon after that they arrived at the hotel restaurant, which didn't seem particularly elegant or classy, though this wasn't a surprise, since they were still in a typical hotel for students and backpackers. But the restaurant was still pretty empty, beside the 60 High School Students that were part of this project.

The group sat down at the only empty table in the small, crowded restaurant. The walls were painted in a simple white colour with a small gray tint, only the thin blue checkered lines were slightly outstanding. The table arrangements also didn't seem special, though the western atmosphere spread by them implied the country of origin of this hotel. But Takeru couldn't deny that the simple style added a reassuring aura to the whole room. As well Takeru could easily recognize the big buffet in the background, but he couldn't see yet what was placed on it. Seemingly they all could make use of it.

But what Takeru completely faded out as he analyzed the room was the young adult standing in the middle of it. As Takeru noted him, he immediately paid attention to him and what he said. Yet a part of his mind became absent again as he tried to identify the role of this young man. Obviously he was dressed in a rather casual way, with his usual, neat pair of jeans and the light brown short he wore. His dark brown hair was messy, not as messy as Takeru's, but still. However, he seemed to be pretty self-confident during his speech, at least according to his body language. He had a firm stand, his hands were supporting what he said and his eyes were constantly focused on the people around him. Besides, the man looked definitely too young to be permanently employed at a governmental organization, he seemed to be a student rather than another employee of the MEXT.

But, sadly, the attention Takeru paid to him slowly faded away, since he was well aware of the fact that he just said all the usual things that were mentioned on such trips. However, it didn't take Daisuke long to disrupt the blonde's trance.

"Have you heard that!?" the goggle-head whispered as he smacked Takeru into his sides with his right elbow, "We can do whatever we want between 4:00PM and 8:00AM as long as we're back at the hotel after 11:00PM! Isn't that great? We can literally do whatever we want," he happily said to Takeru, who answered this question with a smile that was mixed with a raised eyebrow.

"W-what!?" Daisuke now answered to Takeru, with his voice being slightly too loud, "I didn't imply that... Though, some of the girls here look nice," he finished as he glanced around.

Takeru, on the contrary, trying to focus on the speech again after the little tease, only managed to hear the last couple of sentences from the so-called supervisor.

"So we expect you to be here at 8:00AM, all of you being ready to eat the breakfast and to leave the hotel quickly after that towards your school for this week," the male calmly announced before he continued, "Now go and enjoy our dinner and I'll see you again!" he finished before he quickly left the restaurant.

This was the sign for everybody to get something to eat. Takeru, however, decided to wait until most of the other people already got their meals, hoping to get into a smaller turmoil. Completely on the contrary, Daisuke burst away towards the crowded buffet on the other end of the room, panting as he come back and being welcomed by the small giggles of Koushiro, Ken and Takeru.

"There's nothing to laugh about!" Daisuke stated, now being not as calm as he was in the moment he left towards the buffet, "At least I've got everything I wanted."

"Okay, okay, we're sorry," Takeru answered as he still proceeded to stop the giggles that emerged his mouth, "But now we should also get something to eat, shouldn't we?"

A mere second later he received a couple of nods before he went, together with Ken and Koushiro, towards the buffet. Knowing what he did want to eat, Takeru managed to leave the buffet pretty fast as he suddenly bumped into a person.

"Oh, sorry," Takeru said as he started to laugh in a slightly awkward way, "I just didn't pay enough attention but I-"

It was another rather unusual moment for Takeru. Being the open, polite person he was, Takeru wasn't used to be in a loss of words. But the coincidence became strange in this very moment. It seemed almost ridiculous to him, hence Takeru just managed to think about one thing.

'I-isn't she the girl I saw today on the train!?'

The astonishment was also written on his eyes, hence he was glad that both Koushiro and Ken were still too busy with searching the right food for themselves. His sapphire blue eyes were shot wide open for the umpteenth time that day, though the girl was luckily astonished as well because of the coincidence. In addition to that, both teenagers also noted something else. It was the same thing they already noticed on the train.

'Why does this face look so ridiculously familiar to me?'

An endlessly long second passed by that was filled with utter, uncomfortable silence. None of them had any logical idea what to do after such an uncomfortable silence. Gladly the girl decided to take the initiative. As she walked away, Takeru let out a barely audible sigh of relief, mixed with the joy over the decision to talk with her properly as soon as possible.

The blonde had no clue why he became so nervous in this situation. Even though her smile looked adorable (at least according to Takeru), he didn't expect to react in such a way. Slowly Takeru went back to his place with a smile on his lips that grew larger with each second because of the decision he made in this very moment. He was sure that this was going to be a great week. But there was one thing the blonde didn't notice.

It was Daisuke, who observed the two the whole time with a mischievous smirk on his face.

"Come on, don't you really want to play pool with me, Ken?!"

Ichijouji Ken knew that his life would be rather boring without his best friend Motomiya Daisuke, but he still needed some moments for himself.

"Sorry Daisuke, not this time."

Daisuke wasn't automatically upset, but the hopes he had to be ableto play pool in the lobby went immediately down after hearing Ken's rejection. But he still didn't give up, though he decided that he shouldn't ask Koushiro, seeing him typing furiously on his laptop.

He just let out a sigh before he remembered that he had two options left. But since he didn't want to ask Hikari in this moment about that, Daisuke knew that he could only ask his other roommate.

"How about you, Takaishi-san, do you want to play pool with me?"

Daisuke expected to get yet another rejection, though he couldn't judge anybody for that, in particular since he didn't know Takeru well, to start with. He mentally prepared himself for the following words as suddenly...

"Sure, why not? I've already planned to go playing pool with someone."

Obviously Daisuke didn't expect such a joyful answer in particular. And even though he was glad to got such an answer, he still thought that it'd be funnier to play pool with Ken, since he simply knew him better. But on second thought Daisuke also realized that this would be a good opportunity to make a new friend.

It didn't take the two long to arrive at the blue-painted lobby of this western-styled hotel, while being busy with guessing the nationality of the two foreign-looking people who spoke to the receptionist with broken English. After a minute, the two people left the lobby towards the city center, leaving a rather startled-looking receptionist back.

With both of them having no skills at all (and playing pool for the first time in their lives), it was a match on an equal footing. But the match wasn't pleasant for the two because of the well-balanced competition. Mainly the frank and friendly talk managed to loosen the atmosphere between the two. It was a talk about their schools, what they expect from the upcoming week and also about their friends.

Though the last topic reminded Daisuke of something he wanted to ask Takeru. Yet Daisuke wasn't sure how to approach this topic, but, hoping that a sincere and direct question would bring the best result, he decided to point out what he thought in a direct way. Though, he stared at the blue-green walls of the neat hotel lobby for ten seconds before he decided to ask.

"I've got a short question, Takaishi-san," Daisuke started as he took another deep breath, "Are you interested into the girl you gazed on during today's dinner? Because I can help you, if you want to."

Obviously to Daisuke's astonishment, Takeru started to play this topic down. The mahogany-haired boy honestly expected to get another answer as that.

"Not really," Takeru started as he shot the '7' into the left back hole, "You can't just get interested in a girl after a couple of seconds. It needs a little longer, but you'll also understand this one day," he finished his sentence with a little smirk as he handed the racket to Daisuke.

"Whatever," was the only word Takeru heard as a response of Daisuke. "I am sure that you are wrong this time," the mahogany-haired teenager said as he tried to shot the black 8 into the back left hole, but he failed by inches.

It wasn't long after that as Takeru decided to change the topic. With Daisuke immediately exclaiming how much he'd like to talk about his own friends, Takeru didn't have a chance to decide something else.

"...so that's why Ken and I became became friends. We met two years ago as he changed schools into mine and entered my football team. I have also plenty of other good friends, but you can basically say that Ken is my most important friend. How about you?" he says as he handles the racket over to Takeru.

It took Takeru only a moment to answer, yet it felt like an eternity to him. The blonde knew that he was supposed to say the truth, even though he was the person who disliked it the most. "Okay, I'm not going to say any lies, so... " he started before he took another breath, "Although I'm a person who socializes pretty often, I don't have a person I could call a best friend, since I move regularly with my mother each three years because she has to work in different places," Takeru explained his own situation.

It wasn't difficult for Daisuke to realize that this was a topic Takeru tried to avoid (also because the tall blonde accidentally smashed the white ball out of the pool table). Perhaps because his friendships were always destroyed by the frequent removals? Daisuke definitely considered this as a possibility, so he felt really sorry as he apologized for being so rude again. But, obviously opposite to Daisuke's expectation, Takeru smiles warmly before he says three words that were the biggest possible relief for Daisuke.

"That's no problem."

Just those three small words were enough for the teenager to feel liberated from all the mistakes he made. After getting the white ball and the racket from the blonde back, Daisuke easily managed to shot the '8' into the right hole. It didn't take Takeru long to be rather playful with Daisuke again.

"I'll get my revenge," Takeru calmly said as he smacked Daisuke's shoulder in a playful way.

It didn't take Miyako Inoue long to appreciate the atmosphere in her room. Being a rather talkative person, the lavender-haired girl quickly started to like all the other people with whom she was going to spend the upcoming week.

Miyako still couldn't believe what happened to her. Beside the one empty bed (obviously the fourth member of their room didn't manage to drive to Kyoto on time), the other beds were occupied by other members of her school, the Odaiba Senior High School.

Mimi Tachikawa was one of them. The teenager instantly admired the older chestnut-haired girl, even though she never talked to her back in Odaiba. She saw her once in a while, but this was the time she decided to make a new friend. It didn't take Miyako long to realize that she and Mimi were on the same wavelength. Only half an hour after meeting Mimi, she already considered Mimi as an older sister to her, even though shivers went down Miyako's spine while thinking about the words 'older sister'.

The third resident of their room, Hikari Yagami, was someone Miyako could see perfectly as her younger sister, a person she would always help in every single kind of situation. Miyako quickly glanced at the brunette before a smile escaped her lips. Even though Hikari was one year younger than her, she seemed to be rather mature, or so Miyako thought.

In general the lively girl was happy that she could still have some contact with the two girls even after this trip, considering that they all attended to the same school. Beside that, Miyako was also rather happy because of the room she was living in. It was as if somebody designed the room just for their group, with the walls being painted in a clear, white colour with little red stripes on it. The

three beech-made wardrobes had a calming, reassuring effect on the whole room. As Miyako gazed out of the window, she could easily recognize a couple of star constellations on the firmament. It was a real change in comparison to her boring everyday life.

Even though the girls knew each other only since a couple of hours, they already acted with each other as if they had known each other since months, or perhaps even since years. The past hour was filled mainly by laughter and joy because of the stories they shared. Obviously Mimi was able to share the most stories, being the oldest one of their group. Though, her stories were mainly interesting because of one person: the infamous Taichi Yagami. Having been in the same Senior High School as he since years, she also had a lot of stories inside her had she did want to share. But it didn't take long for her to realize that he was Hikari's older brother, mainly because of the embarrassed face Hikari had whenever she heard such a story.

(Monday, 25th June 2007)

It was a rather quiet morning inside the hotel.

Nobody assumed that something interesting or worth mentioning happened during the past few hours, hence everybody was glad to head to their school by feet. After all, most of the people enjoyed such a walk trough a neat city, while carelessly chatting with your friends. It was something that naturally enhanced the atmosphere among all the people.

As they arrived at their destination, the North Central Kyoto Senior High School, everybody could easily identify their school building, considering that everybody already knew that they were supposed to spend all their time in one part of the school, so that nobody would disrupt the lessons of everybody else. Hence even their breaks were supposed to be at different times.

Just a mere minute later, most of the people were already sitting inside the gym of the school. Even the gym wasn't impressive. After all, the lessons were supposed to be held at another typical Senior High School. After arriving inside the gym, the representative of the MEXT entered the standard-sized stage. Even this part of the morning didn't impress the students, since he only talked about the topics everybody already expected him to talk about. It was yet another speech about young people being Japan's future, hence nobody was surprised to hear those words. As well the representative mentioned all the future technologies they were to learn something about, which was basically the most interesting part of his monotonous speech inside the gym. The light gray walls of the gym also didn't reduce the monotonicity of his speech.

As the speech ended, a couple of young-looking teachers entered the stage, while everybody could see the representative quickly driving away from the school, perhaps towards another meeting he had. Just this little scene was enough to loosen the atmosphere among the students again. The teachers started to explain their situation soon after that. Given that they were looking pretty young, they started their explanation with mentioning that they were students as well. So they also considered the following days as an occasion to learn something, since those students were going to be teachers one day (given that they were currently studying at an university in order to become teachers one day after finishing university).

The speech of the students ended soon after that, which was followed by handing over the timetables for the upcoming week. The students were rather loud, though luckily nobody had to scream inside the gym in order to understand the other people. Not long after that, the students stood up from their seats in order to get to the classroom they had to go. Still, a couple of minutes were left before the lesson started.

Which led Hikari to search for Miyako, hoping that she would be in the same class as her. Not soon after starting to search for her, she felt the tap of someone on her shoulder.

"This fell out of your bag," the boy said as he gazed into her auburn-coloured eyes with his warm cobalt ones, "I thought that you want it back."

But, as much as he expected to hear a 'thank you' from the girl. She was at a loss of words in the first moment. Not because she was nervous, but rather because of the ridiculously high amount of coincidence.

'Isn't he the guy from the train and from the dinner?'

This led her to be silent for one little moment, though this was enough for the blonde guy in front of her to ask what happened. While Hikari also noticed the bright smile on his face, she thought about a logical and possible answer. All the noises around her (which were mainly made by the students who were chatting to each other), another idea entered her mind.

Why not smiling back?

Not long after having this very thought, Hikari decided to smile back, just before the first words left the gap between her lips, "Hello, didn't we also see each other yesterday at the train?"

The smile on the blonde's face became even bigger, though this seemed impossible. He waited a couple of seconds before he eventually gave his answer. "Exactly," Takeru started before he made yet another little pause during which he bowed slightly down, "My name is Takaishi Takeru. Would you mind to tell me your name?"

"Yagami Hikari," Hikari said as she also made a little bow, "And I already saw that you hang out with my classmates. So are you maybe also from Odaiba Senior High?"

"No, we're only roommates here. But you're also from Odaiba High!? I really start to like your school," he answered calmly, which was followed by a barely audible chuckle from Hikari, "Anyway, no, I live in Yokohama, so don't live very far away from Odaiba."

Only for a mere second, Hikari bit her lower lip. It was something that Takeru didn't notice, yet it showed that Hikari actually expected him to live directly nearby her and how much she disapproved of that. But in the moment she wanted to answer something in order to break the silence, a loud and high voice disturbed the two.

"Hikari-san!" the voice exclaimed, "I've been searching for you. We'll be late for class!"

As Hikari turned herself around, she just saw the left arm of Miyako tapping on her shoulder. Hikari could easily see that Miyako wasn't mad at her, which calmed Hikari a bit down. Not long after that, Hikari decided to go to hers and Miyako's classroom.

It wasn't long after they said goodbye as Daisuke approached Takeru while throwing his left arm around his shoulders.

"Smooth bro, very smooth!" Daisuke exclaimed as he started to chuckle, which was followed by a rather annoyed glare from Takeru.

End of Chapter 2

A/N:

That's it, that was chapter two!

Sorry that it turned out rather short, but, after getting a couple of requests that my chapters should be shorter, I decided to make them rather short from now on. Besides, school, driving lessons, sports and watching a couple of different series (and reading a couple of books) kept me busy, but I did want to update my fic.

Truth to be told, I'm not really glad with this chapter either. It felt sort of forced, but this is necessary for the latter chapters.

Reviews are appreciated! I try to perfect my writing style, so any reviews, positive and negative, are appreciated!