Disclaimer: Again, the lyrics are not mine.

xXx

-Dissent -

(Part IV)

xXx

If Matt found himself pacing anymore that evening, he'd rub a hole into the floor and fall straight into the apartment below him.

"That isn't enough time," he pleaded, looking at Izzy. His blue eyes moved south, glimpsing at the dining table where Tai sat and where Izzy's laptop computer lay open. In the screen was the image of Mimi's pixelly face. Her eyes peered at him beneath a pair of perfectly groomed, but rimpled eyebrows.

"You'll have to make time, Yamato," she said stiffly, jabbing a finger at the web camera. "Hana's set the stage."

Repetition of the plans forged without his knowledge forced his face into his hands. He groaned into his palms, his feet still walking him in tight little circles.

"Damn your girlfriend, Taichi."

Tai issued a disapproving grunt. He crossed his arms and flared his nostrils away from Matt, though the warped look of agitation easily gave way to honest concern.

"She won't be my girlfriend much longer at this rate," he muttered.

Matt scarcely registered Tai's proclaimed doubts. He tread like a man with an itch of the brain, his attentions turned inward, his face locked in a lifeless mask. Hana, meddlesome as she was, had cast the die, rolled his turn when he wasn't ready. Now, he was trapped in its irreversible current, every second that passed bringing him closer to a moment he wasn't remotely prepared for.

Mistakenly, he had thought he could confront Sora when they met by happenstance at the restaurant. He had put too much store in the perceived safety of the setting. Being in public would compel agreeableness, but he had underestimated their resentment, shocked even himself when he had dared to yell back at her. The encounter left him burned and exposed, an image bystanders could use to entertain their curiosity or illustrate their definition of tragedy. He feared what another meeting would summon unexpectedly out of him. If she ran away, would he pursue? If, on the off chance, she stayed, would he flee?

"Matt," said Izzy, his pitch harsh enough to pluck him free from his musings. Matt raised his eyes and blinked the blue back into focus. Three individual glares, each varying in their degree of intensity, fixed on him. The rigidity of their looks strapped him down like the restraints on a hospital bed. He waited for Izzy to continue, but he developed the odd feeling that his friends were the ones expecting a reply.

"…Yes?" he posed.

Izzy rocked infinitesimally on the balls of his socked feet. He brought a loosely clenched hand to his mouth, tapping his lips in a familiar, cogitative gesture.

"I think you ought to be thanking Hana rather than cursing her," he remarked. "She's arranged your opportunity for reconciliation. Sora expects to meet her Friday night to discuss…" He cleared his throat whilst peeping at Tai. "…an outstanding incident. The meeting, of course, is a ruse. Hana has no intention of speaking to Sora that night. The point is that she's ensured that Sora will be at a certain place at a certain time—alone." He paused, no doubt to let the information travel into Matt's swarming brain. "I suggest you take the risk," he advised.

The muscles in Matt's jaw grew taut.

"And if she doesn't want to listen?" he questioned. "The last time I tried to speak to her, we ended up fighting in public. The instant she sees me, she'll leave." Or I might, he added inwardly.

"Perhaps your last approach was ill-calculated," postulated Izzy.

Matt's expression soured.

"All I did was look her in the eye and tell her I had a few things to say," he defended. "Normally, that would be considered the 'proper' approach, but Sora only ended up detonating."

"Take the factors of your encounter into perspective, Matt," Izzy parried, beginning to speak in imperatives. "You had nothing going for you. You ran into her unannounced. You arrived with another girl. You had an audience. You two weren't alone. Tai and Hana intervened. You can't tell me without blatantly lying that you expected nothing less than what you received that night."

With a grimace, Matt turned away, continuing to resist the truth acknowledged in Izzy's insight. But the revelations began to needle him. He had taken none of those components into consideration. His mind had been devoted to a singular aim: to rectify what he had damaged regardless of circumstance. The gesture had been rash, spontaneous, the embodiment of desperation. He had, without even knowing it, pulled a Tai Kamiya.

The epiphany drew him to look at the soccer captain, awareness of their analogous plights burdening him like a yoke clamped over his shoulders. Tai stared back, his gaze stable, charitably open, possibly hitting upon the same realization. His lips pressed together. A hand clenched and beat once on the table surface before he stood from his chair and approached him. Matt's heel slid back, preparing for retreat, but Tai grabbed him by the shoulders, suspending him from further fretful ambling or a hasty escape.

"Matt," he said, speaking into his face. "No one else in this room understands Sora at the level you do. Believe me. I've tried. I've beentrying for years. I…" He turned briefly and glanced over his shoulder at Izzy and Mimi. "We can't communicate with Sora the way you have, can, and do, Matt. It's just not in us." Tai's hold on him tightened. He even went so far as to shake him. "She needs you, Yamato."

His accepted mindset of defeat nearly condemned him. "It's not that simple," Matt was about to say, but he stopped himself. The echo of the excuse he almost let slide from his lips reeled him back to Hana's bold suggestion—that Sora, too, was wallowing in the infinite stretch of isolation. He hadn't been thinking of himself when he found Sora in the Digital World so many years ago, suffering the same crushing darkness that had plagued him. All he remembered roving through his mind was how he understood, how deeply he sympathized with her demons, how the pain he imagined he endured alone could be repurposed to fulfill her need for rescue. There had been no doubt of her need of him at that time and the many instances after. The quickest glance into her eyes, the simplest touch of his forehead to hers, was synthesis.

But time had given way to license, entitlement to the comfort often the result of their mutual understanding. Her needs became secondary to the illusion of his effortless satisfaction. He forgot that to comprehend her, he had to seek her, to pursue her even if her hand was seated warmly in the palm of his own.

Matt brushed Tai aside and covered his eyes with a hand. His head hung limply. He wouldn't mislead himself into thinking that agreeing to meet Sora would be a panacea for their shared problems. Even if she allowed him to speak, there still existed the chance that she would perpetuate their separation; but to avoid the opportunity would be equivalent to denying his impulse to be with her—an instinct he successfully buried under layers of self-pity. He had to take the risk. Sora had taken one herself when she surprised him that one fateful night. It was time he made the gamble mutual.

He removed his hand from his eyes and pointed his stare directly at Izzy.

"You're sure she'll be there Friday night?"

Izzy nodded.

"Hana made it plain. Sora will be at the park at six this Friday evening."

Subtly, Matt tipped his chin up and down in acknowledgment, his eyes already drifting to his closed bedroom door.

"Okay, then," he said softly, releasing the words on a breath. His head turned sharply, and he gazed silently at each of them—Tai, Izzy, Mimi—before he stepped towards his room.

"You can show yourselves out, can't you?" he said tangentially, turning the knob of his door and pushing the panel back.

"Well, yeah," replied Tai, confused. "But what are you d—"

"Good."

He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, ignoring the puzzled murmurs of his friends as he barred them out. His blue eyes centered on his guitar, and he seized it by its neck before dumping himself in his desk chair. Leaning forward, his fingers rapidly riffled through his notebook, furiously paging through for a set of lyrics, waiting to come across the last verses he would tragically write in her name.

xXx

The walk to the park would be good for her. She had had a tennis match earlier but opted not to take the bus back to Odaiba with her teammates. Despite the fatigue in her muscles and the slight ache in the joint of her serving arm, she had decided to walk. Her commute was timed to ensure she would arrive shortly after her appointed rendezvous. Hana's frequent tardiness to events was also taken into account, allowing Sora to wander at a meditative, unhampered pace, much in the way a snow plough sluggishly cleared roads of icy build-up. They would be talking about Tai.

Sora had already apologized to Hana for what the dancer witnessed, but she figured it was about time she and the aspiring ballerina had a heart-to-heart. It was a conversation she had been postponing, specifically because Hana's last boyfriend had cheated on her. Sora didn't want Hana to relive those memories for her sake, but after what occurred last Friday, it seemed the topic was now unavoidable.

Sighing through her nose, Sora tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, her fingertips trembling afterwards. Above her, daylight waned. The refreshing coolness of evening overran the remaining warmth of the sun. Silhouetted against the pale yellow horizon was Tokyo's skyline, and the tips of skyscrapers kissed the twinkling purple wave that descended over the city. Streetlamps switched on, spiking sidewalks with their streaks of light.

Her eyes focused on her white tennis shoes. Patiently, she waited for the cement path before her to transform into the dewy grass of her neighborhood park, for the smell of car exhaust to be absorbed by the lushness of trees and the faded scent of flowers. The urban pretense—the busyness, the distractions—she wanted to fall away, to leave her exposed to nature in its raw form. There was an inexplicable need for her to return to the primary, to trace memories back to their unmarred roots—if only to rid her life of its many current complications.

She crossed Rainbow Bridge and looked out over Tokyo Bay, her red-brown eyes zoning in on a small square of dark green. With night falling, the cluster of trees on Daiba Park blended with the inky blue shadows of the surrounding water, as if a fog had settled over the old, former war battery.

As she approached the narrow strip of land connecting the park to Odaiba's main district, she could hear the gentle lap of the bay waves hitting the park's stone perimeter. Her nose tingled with the cold sensation of the salty air. She followed the path in, conscious of the noise she was making in what seemed so impossibly quiet a locale in so populated a city. It was almost too peaceful, and a part of her wanted Hana to be late so she could sit for a moment in the stillness.

Sora shook her head at the thought. Contemplative time alone would only invoke nostalgia. Left by herself, she would go back to thinking about Matt. She would recall herself embracing him, her face pressed against his neck, his skin bearing fragrant traces of his soap. The low chuckle he'd give when she'd ask him to sing for her, the delicate brush of his hand against hers when he passed her in school. Such recollections would send her speeding through a spectrum of sensation. She would shudder against chills spiraling up her spine, the after effects of which would seep soothingly into her flesh, rekindling in her the safety and warmth felt solely within the loop of his arms. When Tai kissed her the week prior, all she gained was a superficial relief, calming at best, but insubstantial.

Denying that she hadn't wanted the kiss would have been a lie. She hadn't pulled away after all—not until it was too late—but the degree of comfort she had been unconsciously seeking hadn't been reached in him. Or, rather, he couldn't reach the part of her that needed the comforting. Not because she was blocking him, but because he hadn't the influence or capacity to issue the breach. Her moment with Tai only amounted to two things: confirmation that she was still pining for something or someone, and an undeserved fracture in his relationship with Hana.

An aggravated sigh poured from Sora's lips. Never in a million years would she have pictured herself capable of stirring such scandal. Those were instances better left to the dramas she addictively watched in Yolei's and Hana's company. Her life had always been relatively quiet, tame. When she had asked for more adventure and spontaneity in her relationship with Matt, she hadn't expected the fallout that resulted. Her desire for variety sprouted from an obscure admiration toward the way Hana loved. The ballerina-in-training vaunted her affection for her boyfriend, possessed of an audacity that often left Sora privately blushing. She had seen Hana tickle Tai in passing, close every conversation with him with a kiss, and hug him in a way that was both tender and ardent, her hands sneaking beneath the hem of his shirt. All of it was publicly, unabashedly done but rewarded with reciprocation and a happy giddiness Sora foolishly believed she missed.

She had wondered if she, too, could be brazen with her love, daring; but it was an ill-fitted costume. She wasn't Hana. Matt wasn't Tai. Even as she rode the train alone the night she surprised him, she felt a mote of guilt within her. Secrets didn't exist between her and Matt. Her surprises had always been predictable, consistent with her dependable nature. For her, all expressions of love were immanently, unmistakably progressive. Any action that sewed the smallest seed of doubt dealt the opposite, but in her quest for change, she had ignored the sign. Years after her Digiworld adventures and the crest she had been chosen to bear still showed her how little she truly knew about it.

If she were to be honest with herself (and she had reached a low enough point to crave nothing buthonesty), her happiest days were the most simplistic—days where she and Matt sat together in an isolated patch of park, her head leaning drowsily on his shoulder while he strummed his guitar, or the nights they whispered to each other in her bed. His forehead would be against hers, their lips speaking in such low, murmured tones that they could have been talking to each other in a language all their own. In that narrow space separating them, they would exchange what they thought were ridiculous pursuits: her dream of becoming a fashion designer, his of becoming an astronaut.

"I'll name a clothing line after you," she'd tease; and she'd place her hand over the one he'd have covering her ear, his fingertips stroking the curve of cartilage as he'd tuck away loose hairs. His ensuing laughter would tremble through her.

"Only if I get to name a moon after you," he'd reply.

Sora threw her tennis bag on the ground and dumped herself on the nearest park bench, pressing her fingertips to her eyes as she rubbed the water dry. She had sought to avoid falling victim to her thoughts, but it had already happened. A distraction was needed if she was going to make it through the rest of the evening without bawling.

"Come on, Hana," she spoke to the night. "Where are you?"

She checked her watch. It was half past six. Even Hana, who was routinely late to social events, would never forgive herself for keeping a friend waiting so long. The girl lived but a few blocks away.

Sora pulled her cell phone out of her skirt pocket and checked if Hana had sent her any texts forecasting her tardiness. There were none. Just a message from her mother asking (again) what she wanted to do with the box full of Matt's music. Its hulking, cubic shape was an eyesore sitting in the corner of the living room.

'I'll deal with it later,' she texted. 'Just leave it where it is. I'll come back to i—'

She stopped, her thumb suspended and shivering over the keypad of her phone. Her body bristled. Goosebumps rose on every free inch of her limbs. She stood, her phone loose in her grasp. Her eyes scanned her surroundings for the disturbances perforating her heart.

There was music.

It came upon her gently at first, undetectably, as natural and unfiltered as the very air she breathed. Yet its purity was making her throat constrict, her pulse to quicken. These were raw sounds, vulnerable to the elements, sung despite the likelihood of a breeze sweeping it into nothingness like dust. Her foot dragged forward through the grass but she stopped its advance, going so far as to lift the toe back to retreat.

But she could not. Her head would not turn. Her body would not twist. It wasn't so much that she felt frozen in place or rooted to the ground. What she felt was backed up against a cliff edge, balancing shakily on her toes, abandoned with two options: to plunge forward or backflip into oblivion. In truth, there was but one choice—to pursue, and she did, eventually, fearfully making way through the park's well-trod paths.

As she walked, the melody and words that had since been entwined separated. Notes could be distinguished. The harmony of a voice could be heard en clair. Music and lyric rode different waves on the same staff but paired perfectly together. Perhaps they didn't always pause at the same time, but where one rested, the other filled the gap, formed the bridge to carry the other when it felt ready to continue.

Sora couldn't sing or play an instrument to save her life, nor did she know anything about musical composition, but this song she understood. She could dissect its emotions, pinpoint the movements that imbued her with palpitating frissons. Its calm, subdued rhapsody punctured her down to her bones, struck her at the very root of her pain, only to soothe it afterwards like aloe on a burn.

'Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky…'

She choked on a breath when she saw him. Her body came to a full stop, cringing inward as if stabbed by an arrow tip. He sat on a bench not too far from where she stood, his back facing her, head bowed over the charcoal line of his guitar. His hair was bathed in the odd silver mixture of streetlamp and moonlight.

The music stopped, cut off by the discordant shriek of interrupted strings, the dull thud of hands resting against the hollow body. Her heel dug into the dirt to keep from stumbling backwards—or from running away.

He rose. She gulped for air. The phone still in her grasp was held so tightly that her skin was stretched transparent over her knuckles. She heard the beep of buttons randomly pushed under pressure as he turned. Maybe she had arbitrarily dialed the police, or the fire department, or the paramedics who would zip her away in an ambulance for having a heart attack at her young age. Their eyes met as he set his guitar on the ground.

Every one of his movements was watched intently. She was sensitive to every muscle twitch, every blink of those unfathomable blue eyes. Her brain begged for oxygen.

"Sora," he said.

Her head wagged on instinct. The teeth she sank into the cushion of her bottom lip kept contained the whimper scaling up her throat. He spoke her name like it was an apology in and of itself, the first syllable making it easy for the leap to be made, for the tongue to trip up "Sora" for "Sorry." To be reduced to a mere statement of remorse—a trite one at that—was laughable, deplorable. She would not be made a testament to his shortcomings, nor a monument to her own errors. If he would have her stand solo before him, defenseless and exposed, she would not be the balm to his burning conscience. She would not absorb his grief only to become his deepest regret.

"No," she said. Her voice quaked, struggling to find ground in the shifting wave of her emotions.

The crystalline eyes widened, dilating as if shot. He took a step backwards and she bravely made up for the lost space. Her face ached from the tears she held in.

"You will not do this to me, Yamato," she stated, and she chucked the phone out of her hand and approached him—warily, hesitantly, as if she were fighting a magnetic pull or swimming against a river's current.

"Don't," she repeated. "Just please, please, don't."

She willed her tongue to stop speaking, as the movement of her jaw weakened her defenses against her tears. They leaked hot down her cheeks, blinding her temporarily as she dared to look him in the face. How solid he appeared, how perfectly poised he kept himself in front of her, while she was gradually unraveling to shreds. She wanted to touch him, to act on the foolish belief that the feel of his skin on her fingers would restore her balance. But her hands remained lumped into fists, afraid to reconnect with what she so cruelly tore from her being.

He exhaled. She felt it on her face. It was the signal that he was preparing to speak, perhaps re-attempt what she sought to keep from being uttered. Again, she interrupted him.

"Don't tell me things I can feel just by looking at you," she said. "Don't mistake me for someone who can't understand an ounce of what's going through your head." She stepped away, but took a risk and reached out to him, pointing a finger at his chest as she cried:

"Don't you dareturn me into an apology, Yama."

His expression didn't change. The speedwell blue eyes stared back intensely, unblinkingly, refusing to let her out of their sight. Perhaps they feared to close for even the shortest second, worried that in the swift blip of blindness, she would vanish.

Sora battled dissolution, sought to keep herself as present as possible, hooked in the moment that was passing as she breathed. The accusing finger she had directed at him lost its mettle under his dauntless gaze. It curled inward, her knuckle gliding down his chest, roaming over fabric she desperately wanted in her grasp.

"I wasn't planning to," he said softly.

Again, she shook her head, denied him her approval. She stammered for words, her mouth parching, sitting in her jaw like sand. In the seconds that followed, she cursed her inability to reply, to dress her feelings in language he could understand. It was the same state he had placed her in when they had met at the restaurant. It was why all she could say in his midst was "Stop! I'm tired of hearing this!"—a cheap maneuver applied solely to avoid being the one who went mute.

What she was most attuned to was his presence. She could mistake the feverish beat she felt thumping against her temples for his own, trick herself into thinking she could wordlessly infiltrate him the way his music had to her. Her breath shivered when she sensed his fingers hovering by her cheek. The calloused tips traced the curve of her ear, and the sob she had boxed inside her throat came out, released like a cough for air. Quickly, she covered her mouth with her hand, wetting the palm with the water steadily flowing from her eyes.

"I know those words aren't what you want to hear," he continued. His hand found the one she kept over her mouth. Gently, he pried it away, disarmed her, exposed himself to her speechlessness. Her fingers he did not release.

"I don't need you to say any more to me if you can't."

As soon as he uttered the words his expression changed. He turned his head, the hair that fell over his face hiding the wrinkles on his brow, casting shadows over the eyes that went dark beneath shut eyelids. His voice staggered.

"You give me the signal to leave, Sora—" His grip on her hand loosened until he dropped it altogether. "—and I will."

She said nothing. She couldn't. The only way to dismiss him was to say so. There was no gesture for her to express exile—at least to him—and she knew he would interpret her silence as impartiality, which was just as condemning—if not more so—than a spoken reproof. The instant he turned, took the first step backwards, she lunged forward and seized him, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled. The gasp leaving him as he collided with her blew over her ear. His collarbone ran into her lips, leaving the point of contact sore and throbbing.

In silence, she clung to him, shaking, hardly daring to draw breath. She was terrified he would break from her, annoyed by her forcefulness, fed up with her failures of communication. Her mind strove to articulate a need that had been, for as long as she had known him, ineffable. Such a move had never been required of her, and to pray it then was strange and difficult, its unfamiliarity alone urging her to give up her pleas. Yet, still, she adhered to him, soaked in every mite of him through her senses as if it were the last moment she'd ever have in his arms.

In the seconds that passed, she unknowingly believed that she was the one at risk of complete disintegration, unaware that not only had he remained, but he was slowly sinking into her. The return of his touch was timid, sporadic, stunned into spasms she could confuse for tricks of the mind. Gradually, as her fear softened, she felt his fingers rediscover her—delicately and intimately, as if he were testing the new strings of a guitar. They slid over her elbow, scoped the curve of her waist. He treated her like she was a piece of glass, fragile, forbidden, until the side of his head knocked into hers, pressing the wet side of his cheek to her own.

"Sora Takenouchi," he breathed. His voice was silken, composed, regaining its firmness and musicality. Her name had been uttered with the hiccup of a contained chuckle, no longer the murmur of an apology or its pathetic echo. It had been flung from the tongue with a positive lightness, its pronunciation revived, as if it were his own, personal exclamation.

He held her more confidently now, their embrace tightening. She could no longer follow the movement of his hands. His presence was felt all over, suffused into every tactile nerve. She was barely aware of the palm he slid up her neck, the fingers he slipped beneath her chin. Her senses had gone fluid, synesthetic. Sound mixing with sight, scent with touch. The kiss that followed nearly floored her.

She regained balance with the help of the arm he wrapped around her waist, his hand supporting her spine, keeping her close, impossibly close. She dared to lean further in, grinding the toes of her shoes into the dirt to steady her footing. Her eyes closed comfortably, assured that when she re-opened them, he would still be with her. Again, his forehead bumped into hers, and she relished the renewed connection, the dull, rippled pain that rebuilt the bridge between their minds.

From him she summoned strength, her lips tingling with renewed energy as she framed words.

She whispered them into the crevice between their mouths, the sliver of air dividing them and connecting them all the same. One phrase filled that shared, singular space. They breathed it in repeatedly, reconstructing on its foundation the memory of that treasured place where they fed each other their secrets, traded their wishes and dreams—all of it spoken in a language they alone could comprehend.

xXx

Hana leaned contentedly on the rail bordering the park edge, eyeing Sora's and Matt's fused silhouettes with a thin smile on her face.

"You don't think he'll go down on one knee and propose to her here and now, do you?" she joked, turning to face the company to her right.

Izzy glanced at her from the side, the fist he had to his lips hiding any visible reaction. He raised one skeptical eyebrow at her, and she grinned all the broader.

After a pause, he chuckled lightly, his smirk mostly hidden behind the thumb pressed to his mouth. He nudged her in the arm for her frivolousness.

"Good night, Kurosawa," was all he said, before he turned and quietly made his way out of the park.

Hana was conscious of the gap he left behind, her eyes flicking down at the ground his feet once occupied. She sighed faintly and dared to look further up, unsurprised to catch Tai's gaze some six feet away from her.

His posture was poor, his hands in the pockets of his soccer uniform. Judging by how many times he chewed on his lip, she knew he was itching to speak to her, but he said nothing.

Hana cleared her throat and backed away from the rail, crossing her arms against the invading chill of evening. Her green eyes glanced once more in Matt and Sora's direction, comforted to see that the two had yet to separate. She walked on and followed the lit trail out of the park, conscious of Tai's stare on the back of her head, burning holes into her skull.

Easily, she resisted turning around. The night belonged to Sora and Matt. She wouldn't ruin it with her problems, and she was thankful when she didn't hear footsteps behind her, nor feel a familiar hand reach out to hold her back.

xXx

One Week Later…

The only noise audible was the sound of her exhales, regulated, bordering on too deep. Her hands were clenched and knuckled to her hips while she paced around the practice room like a tin soldier. Her green eyes caught flashes of her reflection in the wall-length mirror. A quick turn of her head, and she exchanged glances with the company pianist, who stood from her bench and drew the cover over the ivory keys of a black baby grand piano.

"That's enough for tonight, don't you think?" she said to Hana. The sheet music to Hana's variation of a ballet solo were gathered into her arms, and she and Hana nodded their mutual farewells before the latter turned back to her pacing. The door had barely clicked shut when it opened again, the lock released as if it had been pressure sealed.

Hana spun around, thinking the pianist had forgotten some leaflets, only to see Matt stepping into the room. His guitar case was in one hand, and, strangely, in the other was a gift bag—tall, narrow, with blue plumes of tissue paper sticking out of its top.

"Hey, Matt," she greeted cheerfully. It was a surprise to have him in the dance academy again for her sake, but she tried not to convey one iota of suspicion. They met halfway along the mirrored wall. "What's up?"

He grinned faintly.

"You mean you don't know?" he replied. "I'm Tai's lackey, remember? I have to see you home from now on."

Hana chuckled and poked him in the shoulder for the jibe.

"But, in all seriousness," he resumed, clearing his throat of sarcasm, "I stopped by to… thank you." He paused, then added: "You know what for."

She regarded him for a moment, studying him the way Izzy examined her horrible computer programming work—with folded arms, chin tucked in, and visible indents between the eyebrows.

"I'm glad to have helped, Matt," she said, offering him a wan smile. One shoulder raised itself in an offhanded shrug. "Besides, you know me. I was raised in the city of romance. Any matters of the heart, I stick my nosy little fingers into." She wiggled all ten of her digits at him, like a witchdoctor casting some ancient hoodoo.

He laughed lightly.

"Well, I'm thankful for it... for your mostly unwanted—but still very needed—involvement. Sora and I wouldn't be where we are without yours, and Tai's, and Izzy's, and Mimi's help. So… here." The gift bag he had been holding was brought forward, and when all Hana could do in reply was raise a dubious eyebrow, he jangled it, as if dangling the mysterious object would make it any more irresistible in her eyes.

"What is it?" she asked, silently assessing the item's weight as she took it from Matt's hand.

"Open it," he prompted.

She seated herself on the floor and placed the bag in between her criss-crossed legs. Delicately, she peeled away the tissue paper, Matt meanwhile setting his guitar on the ground and positioning himself across from her.

As she reached in, her fingers closed around a cold, slender, and familiar shape before pulling the secret item completely free of its sheath. Her eyes widened as she beheld the object in her hands.

It was a bottle of wine. Pinot Noir, imported from Burgundy, France.

"Oh, God," she moaned, sticking her palm to her forehead. "I haven't looked at any wine since our chat that many days ago, Yamato."

He chuckled and reached over, plucking the card taped to the bottle's side and handing it to her.

"You should read this first before your relive your hangover."

The dark bottle was set aside, and Hana quickly examined the card in her hands. Its face was decorated with meticulously drawn images of ballet slippers, tiaras, and tutus, and in recognizable, soft, neat script was written, in its center: To Hana.

Smiling, Hana lifted the flap, and in different writing—slanted, sharp, and masculine—she read what she recognized as a French proverb:

'May you never want for wine, nor a friend to help you drink it.'

She giggled immediately, tickled by what would thereafter become an inside joke. Eventually, her snickering petered out, and the full extent of her reaction ended with a grand sigh. She directed her eyes at Matt, feeling increasingly helpless under the flood of his and Sora's generosity. Ultimately, she was unable to contain her gratitude to a mere smile and several bats of her wet eyelashes, and so, without hesitation, she scurried over and hugged him. He patted her gingerly on the back, laughing nervously until his chuckles reduced to an awkward, gravelly tickle in the throat.

"Thanks, Ishida," Hana said, releasing him. "It's a sweet gesture. I appreciate it, especially because I know this—" She scooped the wine bottle back up. "—isn't cheap. The instant there's an occasion to toast, I'll call you up and we'll guzzle this sucker down."

"Just make sure it's something to celebrate," he added. She laughed and eagerly nodded her agreement.

"Don't worry. We're not climbing miserably into the bottle ever again."

A pause followed, the room draining of their merriment as Hana recollected that evening. She glimpsed at Matt across from her and noticed he was looking at the ground, his fingertips drumming against the pale wood floors, probably, like her, replaying what could be summed up as a severe failure in counseling. It was a good thing her ex-boyfriend was the one with the psychoanalytic interests, as she was now aware how awful a shrink she would be. She was, however, excellent at exacerbating other people's problems.

With a sigh, she refolded the card and stuck it back on the wine bottle, preparing to slip it back into its bag. As she gathered up the tissue paper to throw away, Matt halted her with a question.

"We're all right, right?"

Hana stood and looked down, throwing him her typical skepticism: eyebrow arched, eyes squinting, lips pursed as she sucked subtly at her teeth. He didn't look the least flustered, just curious, and she extended her hand, flicking her fingers in toward the palm.

"Don't worry, Yamato," she assured him, pulling him back onto his feet. She swatted him playfully on the shoulder and turned to grab her ballet duffel. "I'm in no danger of falling in love with you." She shrugged. "Yeah, maybe you remind me a bit of Ryo with your silent appreciation for art and your general intuitiveness, but I like my boys brunette, tan, and incurably goofy. Though, I have to admit, your knightly manners can be distracting."

He laughed as he followed her out of the practice room.

"That's surprising. Usually, it's my eyes, hair, or voice that's considered the hypnotizing agent," he played.

Hana shook her head, tsk-ing throughout.

"People these days," she said, resisting a smirk. "Everything is about looks."

She snuck off into the closest restroom to quickly change out of her ballet gear and exited to find Matt talking on the phone, idly walking in figure eights around the empty hallway.

"I'm getting to that, Taichi," she heard him say. "And yes, I'm going to see her home. I'm meeting Sora for dinner in that area of Odaiba, anyway. …No. I'm not going to do this every night until you get your crap together. …Don't peg this on Izzy. If you want to make it up to her, then you just do it. She seems to be in a pretty good—" He turned and froze when she caught him with her glare, her arms crossing over her chest. Her foot tapped testily on the tile. "—mood," he finished. "She's out of the bathroom. I'll call you back. Bye."

"Really?" she said, and repeated it with annoyed inflection. "Really, Yamato?"

"Don't give me that look, Hana," he scolded, his eyes taking on their signature iciness. "You and Tai—"

"Matt," she intercepted, coming forward. She raised a rigid finger at him, lifting it with every intention of giving him a sharp prod in the shoulder or chest, but changed her mind. Instead, she nudged him gently back with a closed fist. "You don't need to worry about Tai. You don't need to worry about us. I'm not going to break up with him."

"Don't you think you should tell him that?" he aptly replied.

"Well, yes," she said, as if it were obvious. "Of course. But…" She shrugged unaffectedly and strode past him as she made way for the academy exit. "…I like making him sweat."

He caught up with her, shaking his head in a pitying gesture, which Hana would have believed if she hadn't caught him smiling. As he came up alongside her, he pointed an accusing finger at her cheek.

"You, Hana Kurosawa, are evil. He'll end up sweating an entire ocean over you."

She laughed wickedly.

"Then I'd better start swimming, eh?"

xXx

A/N: Er… Yay! Sort of happy ending? Well, for Matt and Sora, at least (Not that I made their make up in theleastconvincing, but oh well). Not sure what's going on between Tai and Hana… I wonder what's up with that?

ANYWAY, next chapter will be my super belated White Day one-shot. For simplicity's sake, it will be very glaringly centered on Tai and my OC. So… if it's not your cup of tea, you're free to skip it. After that, it's a toss-up between Hana meeting Agumon and Davis going on a date. Or maybe some Tai and Izzy friendship time. ;)

Now, I understand I attracted a few readers because of these heavily Sorato-esque chapters, so I feel obligated to confess that Sora and Matt probably won't have a chapter devoted to them for quite some while. They will continue to make appearances as a couple, though. I don't expect those of you who have tuned in because of the Sorato mini-story to continue reading further updates, but I just thought it'd be fair to let you all know.

Okay, that's enough blabbing. Thank you all once again for your feedback! And thank you all so much for reading! :D