Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon or the characters contained therein. So you don't need to threaten me with lawsuits.

Unbroken Hearts: Chapter 3

Sakuyamon floated in the air within the canyon, the air radiating a bright, pink light as Sakura blossoms blew around her. She looked at the canyon wall, feeling a mixture of happiness and worry run through her and she spoke at the lone figure that was climbing down into the gorge on what looked like Azulongmon's beard like some kind of epic hero. Kind of like Indiana Jones, only he was a kid with goggles strapped to his forehead. Sakuyamon flew closer to the boy, as she now had his undivided attention. The chaos was trapped, possibly for good, but that wasn't her main concern right now. All that mattered to her was the boy that was holding onto the strands of hair, watching her with wide, amazed eyes. Sakuyamon drew even closer to the boy until she hovered right in front of him.

"Takato?" She asked as she placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"Oh, yeah. Thanks," the boy responded, still staring at Sakuyamon in a dazed fashion. Almost as though a force was moving her, Sakuyamon leaned towards the boy's face, her lips parting as she came closer.

"It was nothin'…" Sakuyamon said softly, just before her lips met Takato's.

RIIIIING!

"AAAAAGGGHHH!"

Rika Nonaka sat up with a cry as she heard her mother's alarm clock blaring throughout the house and looked around uncertainly, taking in her surroundings before falling back on her bed and breathing a sigh of relief. She wasn't back in the digital world. D-Reaper had long been destroyed. And she didn't kiss Takato…

Wait a second, thought Rika as she connected two things together. Kiss… Takato?

The next thing Rika knew she was running towards the bathroom, knocking her mother out of the way with a quick apology and slammed the door shut. In a second she was leaning over the toilet and dry heaving.

After a few minutes, Rika came out of the bathroom, blushing profusely and again apologized to her mother, who looked at her worriedly and asked her if she was all right. Rika replied that she was and told her not to worry. Closing the door to her room Rika clasped her hands to her face and groaned.

I can't believe this, thought Rika as she leaned against her door. I just… dreamt… no, worse… fantasized! … About kissing Takato! And yesterday, at the park, blushing… and… oh my God! The dresses! Aaargh! I can't believe I asked Renamon about… that!

Heat once again flooded the girl's face and she sagged to the floor and buried her face in her arms, waiting for the renewed blush to go away. After a few minutes she raised her head and looked to see if Renamon was around.

She wasn't.

Good. I don't think that I could explain that dream to her. Heck, I can't even explain my actions from yesterday. I admit that after Gogglehead 'saved' me on Locomon, and even afterwards when he mode changed I felt… something for him, but it wasn't like this! And it went away after a while too. So why has it come back, now?

A memory of the arrow piercing her shoulder came to mind and she rubbed her shoulder unconsciously. For one moment, Rika looked like a lost little girl before her face hardened once again.

No way! I refuse to believe that I got shot by some stupid… 'Cupid' like digimon's arrows! That just doesn't make sense! It's so stupid even I can't believe that I thought of it. That would be something one of the moron twins would think of, or even Gog…

An image of the brown haired Tamer flashed through her mind again, and Rika felt her body flush. Stop thinking like that! Rrrrgh… maybe I just better lie low for a while until whatever this is wears off or something. It would probably be a good idea to avoid the park, or better yet, Gogglehead all together.

Renamon phased into view inside her room with her breakfast in hand and noticed that Rika was up.

"Oh," said Renamon. "You're awake. I thought that you would be resting a little longer after yesterday…"

"W-well," Rika stammered, and cursed herself. She usually didn't stammer. "I was sort of thinking about staying in today, and just… hang out. Rest, like you said. Just, be by myself…"

Renamon cocked her head to one side. Rika was acting differently for some reason, and it wasn't just the stutter either (oh yes, she had caught that). She seemed nervous about something and that wasn't like her. Perhaps she should ask her what was wrong.

Before Renamon could even prompt the question, Rika's cell phone rang and she quickly picked it up, not bothering to see who it was.

"Hello?" She asked, and a second later her eyes widened, and her face bloomed once more a lovely shade of red so dark that it caused Renamon to suddenly worry if her Tamer was coming down with a fever. She raised a paw towards Rika's forehead but the girl leaned away and held up a hand as she chewed her lip nervously.

"T-Takato? Why are you…? Oh, yeah. Last night." Renamon sighed with relief. With that last sentence Rika now sounded a little more like her old self, though her stuttering out Takato's name worried her a bit. And then there was her whispering the Tamer's name in her sleep last night. It was so unlike her, and so drastic a change that Renamon began to seriously wonder if the girl was sick. Now she had heard of a condition that humans could have that was called love sickness that had some of the symptoms that Rika was showing now, but she had immediately disregarded it at the time. After all, she had heard it from Terriermon, which, since it came from him, was immediately suspect to questioning.

Now it seemed as though she was going to have to pay the little rabbit-dog a visit.

"The park?" Rika continued. "I don't know, I was hoping on staying in today… no! No! I'm fine! Why would you even ask if I was all right? What? Do you care that much that you have to know how I'm doing every second of the day?" Rika's eyes now seemed to take a hurt look to them. "I'm sorry Takato, it's just that… I had a really off night last night and I'm not in the mood for doing anything." Suddenly Rika's eyes flashed dangerously as over the phone Takato said something that Renamon couldn't quite make out, but it seemed to be said in a joking tone. Apparently Rika didn't think that it was funny.

"Fine," Rika growled, though oddly it sounded more like a farce. "I'll show, if only to prove to you that I'm not a little kid who needs to have their nose blown, unlike some people I know. What? I don't care! It's too late to take it back, I'm coming! Same place as usual right? Okay, see you then."

Rika hung up her phone, and groaned as she got to her feet and got out her clothes for the day. Renamon looked at the girl questioningly.

"Problems?"

Rika shook her head as she held up her t-shirt with the full heart on it. Her mother had given it to her when the D-Reaper had first shown up in the real world, and she wore it ever since that day. For some reason though it held her attention longer than usual, and she just stared at the full heart with a look of nostalgia. As she looked at it, a voice flitted through her mind.

"I just wanted to say that that shirt looks good."

Rika once again felt her face flush as she remembered that moment in the tunnel when they were going off to confront the D-Reaper, and Terriermon had made some comment about Renamon and Guilmon sitting in a tree. Rika had looked to the side and caught Takato staring at her, and the boy had immediately snapped his gaze away, blushing and humming quietly to herself. There had followed an awkward moment there when Rika had demanded what was up, and at first he had sworn it was nothing, and then turned around and complimented the new shirt that her mom had given her.

Oh, no… Rika thought almost despairingly, but nonetheless felt a small smile curve on her lips. A paw placed itself on Rika's shoulder, startling her out of her memories. Looking over her shoulders, Rika found herself looking into the face of a concerned digimon.

"Rika…?"

"It's nothing, Renamon. Just… thinking." Again. That excuse sounded so lame.

"I need to get dressed now, Renamon, so if you don't mind?"

"Of course." The vulpine digimon turned to go, but Rika stopped her.

"Hey, Renamon? Back when we were in the digital world, when we first merged into Sakuyamon; did I ask Takato if he was okay? And I don't mean the others, I mean only Gogglehead."

Renamon thought back to that day for a moment before nodding. "Yes, I believe you did. Why do you ask?"

"No reason," replied Rika. "I'd better get dressed so that we can go to that Tamers meeting that Takato is organizing at the park. Probably going to be about that digimon we encountered last night…" Rika trailed off as she sensed Renamon leave her room. Didn't matter. Renamon could probably guess what it was that she was talking about anyway.

Takato hung up the phone and scratched his head in confusion. Rika didn't sound like her usual self when he had talked to her. Well, except for that part around the end when he had made fun of her about needing to be put on bed rest and missing her curfew, but even that didn't sound like she was very angry about it. She had sounded unusually… something. Takato couldn't think of the right word, probably because he had never really associated her with the word fear (except for that one time with IceDevimon) or anything even remotely close to it. Had he, he probably would have thought that she sounded nervous, but since he didn't… well, he was basically clueless. Takato looked over at his partner, who was watching him patiently.

"Rika's coming to," the boy said to Guilmon before doing a quick headcount of who was going to be there. Let's see… Henry, Jeri, Kazu, Kenta… that's just about it. Well, with the exception of Impmon's partners and Susie, but they're a little young for that sort of thing anyway. Oh, and Ryo, but I can't seem to find his number in the phone book. In fact, I'd almost swear that he had gone to the digital world again, just like he did before the Parasimon invasion. I wonder why he did that…

"Hey, Takato!" Called out a familiar voice that the boy didn't expect to hear today, or believe that he would hear again, though he quickly berated himself for thinking like that. Turning, the young goggle wearing Tamer looked at the confident face of one Ryo Akiyama and smiled at seeing his comrade in arms again. Comrade because the older boy didn't come around enough for Takato to call him a friend, but he still liked to see a familiar face again. In a lot of ways, seeing Ryo was like trying to get Rika to smile (even though she did it more often now). Rare, but always good to see; kind of like a buried treasure. Takato chuckled lightly.

"You know, when Kazu and Kenta see you they're going to flip."

Ryo grinned. "Maybe I picked a bad time to stroll through the park then. I take it that you're expecting them today?"

Takato nodded. "Not just them, but everyone else. Well, except maybe for the younger ones but you get the idea, right? We're having a Tamers meeting today, because last night something really weird went down and a digimon slipped by us…"

"Maybe you should hold off until the others get here before telling me," said Ryo. "Or do they already know?"

Takato shook his head. "Just me and Rika. We were the only ones there…"

Ryo laughed. "I don't believe it. A digimon got by that Wildcat? I didn't think that was possible. Guess the age of miracles isn't over after all."

Takato smiled. "Yeah, I guess so. But she's been acting kind of weird since then. She didn't sound like herself when I called her up and told her about the meeting. She actually wanted to not show up today. Can you believe that?"

Ryo frowned. "Didn't want to show up, huh? Wonder why? It's not like her to let her pride go un-avenged like that. Did anything happen to her in that fight?"

"Not that I could see really, though I thought that she had been hit by the digimon because I saw her getting off the ground when I showed up. Couldn't really tell though because Guilmon and I were still running through the fog."

Ryo nodded. "Well, it's probably nothing but maybe we should see about keeping a close eye on her for now. Are you going to ask Henry what he thinks when he gets here?"

"Nah. It's probably nothing. I mean, it's Rika. What could be wrong with her? She didn't have a scratch on her when I saw her, and she didn't sound like she was hurt either so I don't see any reason to worry."

Ryo nodded again, though not quite agreeing with Takato's reasoning. He'd keep an eye on the fiery girl just to be on the safe side, but until then he wouldn't push the issue.

"Okay," said Ryo. "If you say so. So when's the meeting?"

"Soon. Rika was the last Tamer I called, so the others should be coming in soon."

Suddenly, an enthusiastic voice could be heard echoing across the park, sending birds into flight and causing the two boys to look in the direction of the disturbance.

"YO! RYO!" Called out Kazu as he ran the remaining distance towards the Legendary Tamer, unable to contain the happiness that he felt in the bottom of his soul at the sight of his idol. "ALL RIGHT! YOU DIDN'T TELL ME THAT YOU WERE GOING TO BE IN TOWN, TODAY! THIS IS AWESOME!"

"And this is why I didn't tell anyone that I was going to be here," said Ryo under his breath as he sweat dropped and put on a fake, nervous grin. Takato did likewise.

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