Author's Note: I wrote this for dianaagron and her moody and melancholic playlist edits (find it on her tumblr) as a tribute to our favorite characters, and hers. I took into account all the things she and I love, and therefore have made this a mostly canon-compliant story (imagine between Kizuna and 02-Epilogue, but still partnerless because if TOEI can be cruel so can I), observing most other canon aspects.

Most relevant, in this case, is that Taichi is still advancing his way through the UN (re: 02-Epilogue; I went with an office under the Secretariat and kept it nebulously about the Digiworld but with liberties taken, chief among these being the belief that people would absolutely not handle the discovery of and cooperation with a world of monsters well at all, and in such a scenario Taichi's early pre-diplomat years were likely not fun or safe), and Mimi still owns an online retailer that I've bent towards a non-profit angle (re: Kizuna on the way to 02-Epilogue; again, with liberties taken). Don't read too much into the politics or these professions; this is just storytelling fodder.

All named characters are also canon, but please excuse any missteps; I get hazy sometimes, and it's not willful. The setting is a bit looser, so I leave it to you to fill that in yourself. Finally, please note that this story includes recreational drug use and adult situations, because, well, they grown.

This story is told as a conversation in four parts. Thank you for reading 😊

HOPES

Wouldn't we be quite the pair?
—you with your bad heart,
me with my bad head.
Together, though,
we might have something worthwhile.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody.
We need some kind of tomorrow.

Toni Morrison

Time just flies, but I still carry on
It's been 27 hours
Since we even saw the sun

Banks

"Absolutely not."

Taichi shuts the passenger door with a flourish. "Excellent. I'll see you there."

Her mouth forms a thin fine line across her face, and she watches in stony silence as he strolls around to the driver's side of the hideous rental car he'd picked out, making a show of checking for oncoming traffic on the deserted street. She lets him open his door, stretch out his legs and raise his arms, cracking the knuckles in his hands in that way he knows she hates, then wave an enthusiastic goodbye without looking at her twice. She lets him turn the car on, idling, and tap on the navigation system, then shift into reverse. She even lets him leave.

It's on his third lap around her block, windows rolled down so he can lean on the horn, radio cruising, that he manages to pull a face so ridiculous she breaks, furious even when she's laughing. "Stupid," Mimi yells after him when he drives on a few meters, freezes to a stop, and lurches into a slow backwards roll.

He's smirking through the silver aviators she'd given him, arm hanging out his open window. "And yet you married me."

"And yet I divorced you." He clutches his chest, miming an arrow's puncture through the heart, and she's giggling again. "Still haven't forgiven me?"

"Request pending." He jerks his head with a shit-eating c'mere grin. "Get in, loser. We're going to a wedding."

"Go on, then." She pockets her own sunglasses in the knitted folds of her long woven skirt and lugs her rolling suitcase off the curb, giving it a just hard enough shove for it to sail into the rear tire of his rental. The collision is audible, and he clucks his tongue in exasperation. She's well settled in the passenger seat by the time he's finishing dragging her luggage into the boot, gathering her hair up into a high ponytail so her neck can rest comfortably on the headrest, adjusting the position of the seat, and taking out the magazines from her large tote to lay on the dashboard.

"No," he says, when he sees them while climbing back into the driver's seat. "Get that off."

She grabs them off the dash, grumbling. "Where else am I supposed to keep them?"

"Where they won't decapitate you if we hit something?"

"And are you planning on hitting something?" she asks, returning all but one of the magazines to her travel tote.

"All I'm planning, Mimi," he says in an even lilt, sliding his seatbelt back on again, "is getting through this drive in one p-e-a-c-e."

She hands him the spare water bottle she'd packed into her tote, keeping the other in the cup holder built into the passenger door. "What a feasible goal for someone who kicked off their holiday flying into the wrong airport."

"Not me," he insists, shaking a finger at her. "Just trust that this is the last time I give my assistant full control over my diary."

Mimi purses her lips, "I seem to recall when you made us online reservations for a restaurant in a completely different country, and also blamed your assistant."

"How was I supposed to know two restaurants could have the same name?" He lowers the bottle after another sip, grinning at her. "And we made it anyway, right?"

She makes a sincere face then, shrugging, "Only because Port travel wasn't regulated then."

"Regulation passed and now we're just like everyone else, aren't we?" He turns the ignition on, which only elicits a startled shriek from her. His foot is slammed on the brake despite his not yet having shifted the car into drive. "Jesus, Mimi!"

"No, never mind," she yelps again, hand over her mouth. "I thought I forgot something, but it's fine."

He hovers over the steering wheel. "Are you sure?"

She squints into the early morning sun, gazing up at her apartment complex. "…No."

"I swear I'm demoting him as soon as I get back," he mutters under his breath as the car slowly starts up again.

"Why?" she laughs, "Because he forgot you don't make this connection anymore?"

"How easily you dismiss the only other explanation." He exaggerates his pout, "Or should I be hurt you don't think we're parent-trap-able?"

"I guess I'm just glad you've got unflinching optimists still on your team, if the news is any indication."

"Don't believe the news." He eases himself into a more comfortable posture in his seat after pulling onto the expressway.

Holding the magazine on her lap, she puts out her hands, squaring her fingers as though framing a scrolling chyron banner. "UN Office Declines to Comment on Failed Talks as Security Council Reconvenes for the Eig—,"

"Very cute," interrupts Taichi, raising his voice. It's her turn to cluck dismissively, and she leans forward to tinker with the navigation screen's options. "What are you doing?" he asks, suspicious, but unable to look any closer as he focuses on merging lanes.

"I want to stop for coffee."

"It's barely been five minutes—,"

"So what's adding a pitstop or two?"

His voice climbs higher. "Or two?"

Mimi sighs loudly. "Just follow the route and unclench, will you?"

"Believe it or not," he retorts at once, "I'm actually trying to have a holiday here—,"

"Then try and tap back into when you were actually good at taking holidays."

"I—nope," and he shakes his head, letting his elbow rest on the windowsill of his door to run a hand quickly through the hair over his temple. "We're not doing this only five minutes in."

"By all means," says Mimi, crossing her knees, "sit in silence if you want. But it's twenty-five minutes before our next stop, just so you know."

He's astonished, glancing at her several times between keeping an eye on moving traffic. "You go to a place twenty-five away just to get coffee?"

"Taichi," she says, speaking to him as one might a stupid pet, "when you've had the best, you don't settle—don't you dare." He slides his tongue back into his mouth, grinning widely, and she folds into herself as tight as she can, fuming.

He leans as far over as his seatbelt and attention to the road can allow. "Don't worry, I won't tell him." She continues glowering through her window, and he snaps straight again, chuckling, removing the sunglasses and placing them folded up into his door's cupholder. "Oh, I am so glad you said yes when I called from the airport."

"I thought we agreed silence?" she snaps.

He keeps poking, "Why did you say yes?"

"I ask myself that every day."

He rolls his eyes, smile stubborn on his mouth, and leans his head into his palm, elbow still propped on the windowsill. "It's because it's the first wedding after ours, right?"

"Not the," she corrects calmly. "Our."

Taichi nods, remembering. "Was sorry to miss Catherine's."

"And Willis's."

"I don't think he noticed."

"He did," says Mimi. "I mean, he understood, but we noticed."

"We, huh?"

The look she passes him is enough, and he nods again, saying nothing.

Mimi opens the magazine at last, starting with the first page. "I said yes because I like road trips with you."

At this, he laughs. "We had some pretty crazy ones."

"That time we drove to my cousin's to bring back one of her cat's kittens for Hikari's birthday."

"When Sora got stranded in that blackout."

"Oh, my God—when we went camping with my parents and had to share a cabin!"

He grimaces, wincing, "I couldn't look your mother in the eye for weeks after."

"It's your own fault for never knocking first."

"Why would I knock before opening our own bathroom door?" he exclaims, gesturing in frantic exasperation. But she's heard every version of this argument already and now just shakes her head, continuing to skim over her magazine. "The better moral of that story is that apparently there are no holds barred about anything in your family."

"You knew that going in."

"Yes, but a man needs some sense of mystery, Mimi."

"What mystery?" she snorts.

"I've got secrets." Her chin dips, expression incredulous. "I do," he insists, with just a tinge more earnestness than he likes to show around her anymore. "There's a lot y—," and he stops, because in the middle of his defensive ranting she'd stopped reading and opened the glove compartment, selected a blue ballpoint pen from the small Dopp kit he'd usually stored there during any long car ride, unscrewed the round end of the plastic tube, and shaken out the joint he'd hidden inside. She holds it up to him in silence, and he clears his throat, running agitated fingers through his hair again.

Smiling, she drops the pieces of the pen and the rolled paper back into the case and knees the compartment closed again, dusting off her hands. "There are no secrets about you with me," she preens.

He scoffs, returning both hands to steering wheel. "If that were really true, I wouldn't have SCI clearance now."

"And should you be telling me that?" Grinning at the dark blush flooding his cheeks, Mimi tosses her hair, uncrossing her legs to tap out a victory beat on the floor panel. "You have never been able to keep secrets from me, Taichi, national security related or otherwise."

"And you're better?"

"Naturally."

"I don't know, Tachikawa," he says, stretching the syllables out, "that sounds like a bet."

She looks at him, hearing something else. Then she shakes her head to rid herself of it, of the oddness of that name on his mouth, smoothing over the pages of her magazine with distracted interest. "A game, then?"

He protests, "Uh-uh. I know your games, too."

"Taichi, we've got how many hours to get through? And I refuse to listen to your terrible musical taste all throughout."

"Says the woman who learned how to torrent boyband pop onto her bootleg media player solely because her father wouldn't allow anything that wasn't analog in the house."

Her mouth puckers with an indignant squeal, "Papa wasn't that tyrannical!"

"He invented the concept," barks Taichi through another laugh. "It will never not tickle me, watching people try to make sense of your dad's polemical views on sound engineering—well, everyone except Yamato. Do you remember his face the first time he saw your dad's home set up? I'm pretty sure he was ready to draft his own adoption papers the same night."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Don't try to trick me with random acts of nostalgia. Are you going to play or not?"

He rocks his head to the side, smiling. "What's involved?"

Mimi shrugs, mirroring his posture. "Your five biggest hopes, dreams, fears, and regrets."

He gapes at her, elbow slipping off the door. "Five?"

"Yes, Taichi. One, two, three, four, five." She counts down on her hand in such a way as to leave the middle finger up last, and he knocks his fist gently into her hand. She giggles, settling back into her seat once more, "And you can't use me for any of them."

"Or you me," he says.

She agrees, adding, "Plus, nothing we don't already know about each other."

"But five?" he groans again, head falling back against his seat with a dull thud.

"I'll go first," she announces. "This time next year, I hope I've opened my third office."

Taichi whistles, "Oh, I can see that happening, easy."

She jabs a finger into his arm to hide her flattered grin. "Don't jinx me!"

He weasels out of her reach. "You'd be fine with or without a supernatural challenge, you know that."

"Even so," she mutters, still smiling, "don't go spreading that around or anything. Part of the plan includes buying out a competitor, and we're not allowed to announce that until everything goes through—which is really, really close, but, you know," she shrugs, knees bouncing from the glee of it all.

"Well, shit," he says, both eyebrows raised. "That is a big deal."

"So don't jinx it!"

"You brought it up to me first!"

"Because I'm used to te—," she stops. "Because not telling someone was eating me up. I nearly told my barista the entire thing just last week."

"Speaking of," he says, and reaches for the navigation screen, but she smacks his hand back. "Ow!"

"Don't fiddle with it—you'll just get us lost!"

"I'm just trying to see how much farther it is!"

"Don't think about the time, Taichi," she pesters. "The key to long distance driving is not thinking about the time left. And it's your turn!"

"Fine!" He shakes out his hand, flexing the feeling back into his fingers. "What's it again?"

"What do you hope for?"

"For this game to be over?"

"Very cute." She draws a long breath, "All right, my turn again."

His double take makes her snort with laughter. "Wait, I didn't—,"

"No backsies, skips, or passes, Taichi. You gave a dumb answer and lost your turn."

"Why are you always making rules up as you go?"

"I hope," she interrupts, voice overpowering his to retake control of their conversation, "that…," and she pauses, hesitant, "that I'm able to take care of my parents, when they're older. Sometimes I think that's all I'm really working so hard towards. I hate the idea of them having to be on their own."

Taichi smiles, "Those two will never be on their own."

"Well, that's not true, is it?" she says, voice light. He glances at her, and when she catches his gaze she only shrugs. "Everyone's getting older."

"Okay," he concedes, rubbing the pad of his thumb slowly under his bottom lip, "okay, I'll be serious, too. How about: I hope I outlive Hikari. And I know it will really mess me up, living past her," he continues after a long moment, "but she's my baby sister, right? She has never known the world without me in it. And I can't…I don't want her to ever know this world without me with her."

Mimi nods her head, staring ahead through the windshield. "She should be due pretty soon, right?"

"Ten weeks," he says, "but who's counting."

She smiles, looking at him at last. "How many books have you read?"

"Three, and I've subscribed to, like, six other podcasts," he adds through a sheepish blush. "Miyako sent one to me that's all about postpartum diets or something—,"

"First forty days," Mimi remembers aloud.

He claps the steering wheel, triumphant. "Yes, that's the one. All it did was make me really hungry. We were trying some of the recipes out the other day, and it—well, it's an interesting read." He winces at the slipped reference, scrunching his face to keep from looking reflexively at her, and corrects, "Listen."

She smiles, determined to be agreeable. "Well, I'm sure Hikari will appreciate the test drive."

"I've really been knocking emotional maturity out of the park these days," he boasts.

"How fortunate for you both."

He doesn't take the dare, and only rolls his head the other direction, lips turned into a knowing smile. She bites her own, regretful of this impulse, which reminds her, begrudgingly, "I suppose I'm always hoping to be better at not saying the first thing out of my mouth, especially when I don't mean anything by it."

"Evidently," he replies, overlooking the needless attempt at an apology. She makes a face rather than answer him again, finally picking up her magazine to glance through the advertisements. "I think you have a point there, though," he goes on. "I'd say that I hope I never burn another bridge. Professionally, of course," he adds. "Personal-wise, I think I'm already good about not."

"More than others."

His chin lifts at the tone. "What's that mean?"

"It means people follow your lead a lot of times, right?" She shrugs, noncommittal. "So, you know, that's a good thing to try to keep in mind."

His eyes are already narrowing. "Why's it feel like you're about to tell me about a time I didn't keep that in mind?"

"Not you. Just because of you."

The humor has long since gone now. "Who?" he asks and then tries to swallow the alarm. "Not 'Kari—?"

"No, of course not," Mimi says at once, feeling her pace quicken in her throat. "I shouldn't have said anything—,"

"Mimi—,"

"Koushiro."

He leans forward to angle his gaze better, watching an approaching car nearing their lane. "Koushiro, what?"

"Koushiro didn't talk to me afterwards."

He squints into the side mirror, looking over his shoulder next. "After?"

"After us."

"That's not—," the car eases into the next lane, and he relaxes, switching the indicator off, "—true. What are you talking about?"

Mimi rocks her head to the side and back, not very bothered anymore. "Only for maybe a few weeks."

He tries smiling his way out of a confused cloud fogging his memory. "Nothing, not even those voice-to-text emails of his?"

"I had Takeru for voicemails."

"Jesus, I know. He told me he sometimes records his chapters on his phone and turns them in to his editor that way." Taichi chuckles to himself, "Can you imagine if I sent in one of my white papers like that? USG would throw a fit. And what are you talking about, Mimi?"

"I just told you." She turns another page of her magazine, its glossy coating slipping from a dry hand. She frowns, turning her palm back and forth to look at the skin more closely. Laying the magazine back on her lap, she retrieves her purse from inside the travel tote, opening the clasp. "For something like three weeks, Koushiro did not talk to me."

He's glanced at her a few times by then, always returning to the road. His hands are closed around the wheel, forearms taut. "Kou's one of your best friends."

"You're his only."

He eases a hand off the steering at last, running it across the stubble under his chin. His grunt is paced, thoughtful. "Huh." She finishes with the hand cream and takes his freed hand, squeezing a modest dollop into the palm before holding the steering for him. He leans back long enough to rub the lotion over the backs of his hands and wrists, absentminded, and resumes driving. "I didn't—know."

She leaves the tube in the spare cup holder and picks up the magazine again, perking at a personality quiz on the next page. "We talked it out, when he finally called me back, so it was fine, really. I actually think it was less about you and more about how uncomfortable he gets when I cry."

"You should see him when Daisuke cries," jokes Taichi, but she knows without looking he's not smiling. He continues with the humorous anecdote, and she lets him, knowing the time he needs to temper surprise, dual-minded in ways she often isn't. "Remember when Iori graduated law school? Literal sobs."

"They were not," she chides him, amused either way. She opens the glove compartment once more and finds a functional pen in his bag, returning everything to its place before beginning to mark off her answers.

"You could hear him from across the hall. That's why I was on Kou's phone during the ceremony, texting Dai to quit embarrassing us."

"That was the March you had Daisuke blocked, right?"

He waves a dismissive hand, still thinking. "Only for a week, and only because he spoiled my proposal."

Mimi gasps, pen hovering over the last question, neck wrenched to gape at him as the recollection floods back. "That's right! He even gave me my ring!"

"My ring," corrects Taichi with emphasis, and she rolls her eyes. "I was ready to kill him."

"He was just so excited for us."

"Or jealous."

"You or me?"

That's when he finally laughs. "Of you, for sure. And don't flatter yourself. It's my crying that makes Koushiro nervous."

"Oh?"

He gestures waterfalls down his face. "Literal sobs. And way longer than a few weeks."

Mimi twirls the pen between her fingers and fits her other elbow into the door handle, resting her chin to look out the window. She murmurs, at peace, "I don't remember them anyway."

Taichi does. The first a dead weight, the second, a caved-in tunnel bricked with every word he shouldn't have said to her. The third like still water breaking open, and he could finally breathe. The fourth full of boxes and meetings and practicality. The fifth full of laughter, because he could again. The sixth up every night with Koushiro so he wouldn't have to sleep alone, sitting on Hikari's doorstep drunk in broad daylight, his head hanging heavy on Yamato's shoulder. The seventh and the eighth and the ninth as far as he could get. The tenth and the eleventh not far enough. He no longer lets himself think about the twelfth. Mimi doesn't let herself think about any of them.

"I'm just saying," she adds after a minute, admiring the passing landscape, "that if you're going to talk about bridges burning, then you should know that for just a second, after us, I thought you'd taken our friends with you, too."

The traffic is beginning to swell, and he eases off the gas. "Hey," he says, poking her leg. "Look at me."

She blinks quickly at the unbidden memory, taking a breath, and forces a genuine smile, however hollow. "Taichi, it left as quick as it came. And it wasn't even true."

"Mimi, look at me." But she can be stubborn, too, threading her fingers between his to hold the back of his hand on her knee, still staring through the glass. He says, quiet and soft, "For what it's worth, Kou actually gave me a lot of shit for making you cry."

"Good."

He presses his knuckles into her skin and she shoves her elbow into his, breaking his laughter into a hiss. "How much further?" he asks, nodding at the navigation screen.

She perks up, eyes widening as her mood instantly lifts at the prospect of sugar laced caffeine. "Five minutes, if even that. You're going to want this exit, actually."

He cries out, letting her go to grab the wheel. "That's barely enough time to—,"

"Now!" she yells, and he's swerved off the expressway amid a shower of curses.

"Mimi—for fuck's sake!"

"Slow down on the off ramp—are you insane?" She braces herself, gripping the bottom of her seat with both hands. "I'm actually hoping to get married soon, you know, and it would help to be alive for it!"

He tightens his hand around the wheel. "Here's hoping you aren't as awful a backseat driver with—,"

"The stoplight, Taichi!" The tires screech and the magazine flies off her lap and smacks violently into the dashboard, and Taichi bursts into laughter, vindicated, while she grumbles picking it up. "Turn right here, then it's a left, left, and it'll be on the right—and stop laughing."

"I just really love when I'm right—,"

"You aren't," she retorts at once. "And I said take a right—Taichi!"

He waves her off, unbothered. "It'll reroute in a second."

"That's not the—,"

The car's navigation system beeps suddenly, intoning a mildly forceful Rerouting to Tachikawa Studios in a halting staccato.

His mouth drops open, and the car slows to a creeping crawl at the next traffic light. "You're fucking kidding me."

Her shoulders pinch together, hands clasped between her knees, and she feigns nonchalance. "I actually have a bit of work to do still."

"What w—you're supposed to be on holiday!" he exclaims, staggering with disbelief at her serene posture.

"My holiday starts after I finish two interview spots," she explains simply, and he feels a crick in his neck form from how hard he keeps shaking his head. "We're launching a new line, and everything has to move quickly when these kinds of opportunities come up, and, plus, I left my dry cleaning at the office anyway."

He still can't bring himself to shut his hanging jaw. "This is why you said yes when I called you, isn't it?"

Mimi squints out the window again. "It would have been such a hassle to change my train ticket, and you were already getting a rental, and—,"

His raised hand stops her. "I can't listen to anymore."

"Do I really have to explain myself to you?" she insists, switching tactics. "You take work just as seriously as I do—,"

"—which was always our biggest problem—,"

"I can name ten bigger ones."

"I—," and he shuts himself up, falling so suddenly silent the air seems to collapse with him.

When he doesn't continue, she scoots a little further up on her seat, the belt stretching across her chest. "Don't you sort of wish Port travel was deregulated now?"

Taichi stirs at the mention of the one hope that was always in the back of his mind. He sighs, "You don't think I miss them, too?"

"At least you and Koushiro and Jou get to go," she says, finally, but without the resentment he might have expected from anyone else. "I just hope I get to soon."

"I hope you do, too," he says. "That's what we're all working towards, right? I promise, I'm going to make it happen, for all of us."

Mimi nods slowly, allowing him a small smile. It grows wider when she peers the familiar façade of the new complex. "You can park around the front—no one should be in today but me."

"And me," he adds, curt, and she sticks out her tongue, eagerly replacing all the items she'd removed from her travel tote and kicking the bag under the dash panel to hide it from view. She brings only her purse, impatiently waiting for him to unlock the door after he's stowed the rental into an appropriate parking spot, and bobs her head back inside on her way out. "Do you want to wait in the car or come in with me?"

"In, for sure," he answers, undoing his seatbelt. "This is the new building, right?"

She nods, tucking her hair behind her ears and waving him along. "I'll give you the grand tour."

He bites back a smile at the way she spins around and speeds up to the building's front door, taking a moment to tug out the travel Dopp kit and fold it under an arm before locking the car and following her up the ramped entrance. The interior wall boasts the logo of her company, its trademark pastel and floral graphics a familiar sight, though the scale of it, and of her company, had grown so much in the years since. Past the built-in wall shelves and neatly laid counters of the showroom is a sheer glass wall spanning the length of the open concept floorplan, and Mimi's standing in front of the employee-only door at the far left. She opens it for the both of them, and points down the row of cubicles to the suite of meeting rooms lined with dark veneer paneling, a handsome contrast to the interior's main color palette.

Taichi mouths an impressed expression. "This is a definite upgrade from the warehouse."

"And there actually is an extremely good coffee place next door," says Mimi. "So I was telling the truth."

"I take it that's my cue to go get us coffee?"

"Do what you want," she says, checking the time on her phone, "for about an hour."

His forehead twitches in dismay. "You're absolutely driving the next shift."

Her impatient retort is interrupted by her phone ringing in her hand, and she motions for him to be quiet, which mildly offends him, but she's already walking down the hallway to the last door. He hears her answer the phone after she's stepped into her office, and he keeps quiet, only feeling his shoulders relax when she exclaims, "Mama!" Her chatter continues, but she's left the door open, and he cocks his head, brow arched.

The dry cleaning is laid over the arm of one of the leatherback chairs that encircle an oak glass-top coffee table, and she's opened one of them, kicking out of her flats and pulling off her blouse. She keeps her phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, talking nonstop as she steps out of her skirt and picks up the freshly laundered powder pink pencil dress to undo the zipper along the back. "I know, Mama, but I can't just—," she snaps her fingers when she notices him enter the room, and his jaw flexes, "—not do it. I have a nice set up here, and—," she hisses, breath hitched, when he pinches the small of her back after he zips her into the dress, escaping the retributive reach of the flat of her hand, "—I lined them back-to-back. So I'm not overworking. Yes, Mama. No. No, I can't. Well, I've got to meet a supplier in—oh, gosh, I'm sorry! Yes, okay. Okay, I'll call you after. Love to Papa—what is your problem?"

"Don't snap at me," he fires back, meaning both.

She tosses the phone on the desk, angry, and angles herself before the glass windows of the office wall to check for wrinkles where his pinch had scrunched the delicate fabric. "Do you have any idea how much this dress cost, Taichi?"

"No longer having an idea is sort of a major silver lining," he says, setting down his kit on her coffee table and lounging in one of the chairs.

She bends over to extract two strapped heels from under her desk, only to straighten again and see him dig out a lighter from his bag. "Don't light that in my office."

He waves his arms in annoyance, joint caught between his grimacing lips, and she points to the door, adamant. "Out!" She panics again and follows after him, leaning through the door, "Out, out, Taichi!"

"I'm going out!" he yells back, just as irritated, and crosses the length of the corridor again, stopping when he realizes the only exit he has access to without a key to get back is the entrance. He turns around, grumbling to himself, and spies the kitchenette built behind the office cubicles, separated by a sliding glass door. He pulls it half-way closed behind him, bracing himself against it, and finds his phone in the front pocket of his jeans, unlocking it with his thumbprint. His finger hovers over the mail icon, grimacing at the number of unread emails achieved in the span of a single morning off, shaking his head at the uselessness of out-of-office reminders. He slides the screen back to his address book and finds her near the top of his most recent list.

She doesn't answer, so he barks "Typical!" into her voicemail and returns the phone to his pocket. Moving further into the room, he approaches a window and undoes the latch, raising the sill for fresh air. Glancing back in the direction of the rest of the office and shaking his head at the distinctly peppy tones of her practice interview voice, he resumes attention on the joint and lighter he'd managed to keep on him after she'd booted him from her office, slowly rolling the paper into an even light, and has worked in two hits when his pocket buzzes. He fumbles a bit to balance everything in his hands, a gesture he imagines she's likely mirroring on her end, though with more domestic factors.

"What's not typical," she launches as soon as he answers, her piqued tone as harried as it is anxious, "is you calling me first. What happened? Are you all right?"

"Sora," he breathes in deeply, letting his low enunciation imply the hint for him, "I am doing great."

He writes off her lack of amusement as jealousy, and to his credit she does very little to hide it. "I cannot remember the last time I did that kind of great," she murmurs.

Taichi chokes back a laugh, "Might I remind you that you have a whole entire family of not one but two stupidly beautiful children with the finest looking man I've ever seen?"

He hears her tap on the speaker phone and put the mobile on some hard surface. "Uh-huh."

"I'm serious. Try and name another—and, for the love of God, only say me if he's in earshot." Her "Uh-huh" is laced with less patience that time, which delights Taichi all the more. "Where's Yamato anyway?"

"He took the kids to the park for the morning."

"Must be nice having him off the base two weekends in a row."

"Mm," she agrees, but doesn't let him sidestep too far. "Did you actually want something from me, or do you want to call back when Yamato's here for you to flirt with directly?"

"You know you're the only girl for me."

She cuts past it, uninterested. "I take it the drive is going about as well as I told you both it would."

"Both, huh?"

She's surprised with herself. "Right."

He takes another hit. "What'd she say?"

"Well, you sort of took her by surprise when you called. Me, too, if you want to know."

His impatience leaks into the flat tenor of his voice. "Why's everyone thinking there's some ulterior motive going on? We're friends, yeah? I needed to change plans, and so did she, turns out. A practical decision, Sor, and not without precedent."

Her response is wry, "Someone less defensive might even say kismet."

"If you believe that sort of thing."

"You do."

"Maybe once," he says, bothered by the image the word conjures. He blinks, stubborn, and shakes his head. "And it's going fine, actually. She just said she hoped—well, it's not serious. Right? How serious are they?"

Sora doesn't bother asking for clarification this time, a step ahead. "I don't know. I suppose you'd have to ask her." He grimaces, inhaling deeply, and she hesitates, "You're about as much of a them as they are, you know—,"

"Of course, I know," he interrupts, sputtering a quick cough.

He takes a second to ground himself, and she takes advantage of his pause. "Then what were you expecting?"

He stares down at the kitchen tile through the filtered smoke. "That it'd take longer."

"Okay." She pauses, like she's letting him borrow the silence to be honest with her. "Well, it's already been—,"

"I know how long it's been." He flicks off more ash. "That's the point, right?"

She makes a noncommittal noise, the kind he knew if she were anyone else would have made him wonder if she'd heard him. But Sora heard things he said without ever his having said them. Now, she prods again, "So then why did you call her?"

He doesn't respond for a while. "I don't know. To see if she'd answer, even if..."

He leaves it open, and she falls silent for just as long. Then, finally, he hears her tap the speaker function off and return the phone to her ear. "Listen to me. All right? Sometimes, Taichi, sometimes I think I want your happiness more than my own. And other times I think that's what makes me not always a good friend to you."

"Sora—,"

"Because I should be honest with you, about everything, even what will hurt. I will shelter you, Tai, but I can't let you hide in me, and I don't want to hide you, either. I don't think that's what people who love each other should do, and I really love you. So I will help you figure this out, I will, because I want your happiness, but I can't let you hide yourself in lines you know you can't cross anymore. And I need you to know you can't."

The heel of his palm is pressed into the bridge of his nose, his breath shaky. "Yeah. I know."

Her voice breaks in a trembling sigh. "So can you, please, just call me? Next time? Instead of trying to prove to the idea of yourself in your head that you can handle the day she doesn't answer, or the day you stop asking—will you just please call me first?"

He laughs, passing a hand over his face. "You're signing up for a lot of phone calls."

Her voice kinder now, "Well, then, I promise to send no more than a third to voicemail."

"Oh, look who's got jokes now," he teases, smiling.

"It only seems fair I pick up some of your worser habits."

"Okay—how many times have I got to apologize for the haircut prank?"

"Taichi, you brought my baby home looking like a turnip."

"I have never looked that bad."

"That's not who I meant."

"Fix your dangling modifiers, then."

She laughs, exasperation shattering. "I can't fucking wait to see you, Tai. Get yourself home soon."

"Language. And tell that to Dear President, will you?" He sighs again, "I was ready to drive straight through when she dropped all our plans to stop off at her office."

"Well, Mimi's just always sort of barreled ahead once she's set her—,"

"Shit." Startled, he's tossed the joint out the window in a panic when Mimi slams the kitchen door fully shut, glowering at him through the glass. She holds one finger to her lips followed by two first pointing to her eyes and then to the window he's now trying to close hastily, waving the smoke away. "She caught me."

Sora is neither surprised nor interested in the context. Instead, she's eagle focused on what matters: "Tell me you didn't toss it."

He presses his face to the now closed glass pane, mournful. "I didn't toss it."

She groans, "Taichi! Do you have any idea how long it's been for me?"

"Relax—I'll swing by Takeru's. He doesn't do weddings sober, either."

"Don't—," but something sounds on her end, and the line is muffled with conversation and new voices, one a frantic high-pitched tone that triggers an impossibly doting grin onto Taichi's face. She's back a second later. "I have to go; someone's blankie's been puked in or run through mud. Can't wait to find out which."

"Uncle Taichi'll buy 'em both a hundred blankies, each, if they promise to never grow up."

Her voice is bathed warm. "If I could stop time, I would." There's a crash, and a wail, and another beleaguered sigh. "Tell Takeru thanks for me—and not a word to Yamato."

"I'm signing you up for NA meetings."

"Oh!" she huffs and hangs up, but not before he holds his middle finger to the phone the way he knows she's done to him on her end, as stealthily as she can around two toddlers whose propensity for mimicry continued to astonish and horrify. Chuckling, he turns off the screen and pockets his phone, washing his hands in the kitchen sink, emptying two cups of water from the filtered dispenser, and returning to the hallway to contemplate his options.

Several carefully laid steps take him back to her office, hovering just before the tempered glass door, and he spies Mimi poised at the desk, tablet propped up before her, facing the windows so the morning light floods her skin with color. Hands in his pockets, he leans his temple on the doorframe to watch as she gestures with her hands in response to each question, wrinkles her brow in thoughtful consideration, and flashes a wink after a coy comment.

It's a while until she collapses into the chair after the video call ends, heaving an exaggerated gasp of relief, and he straightens, tapping the glass. Her pout is reluctant, but she's still running on the energy of a successful interview.

"You look nice," he says when she opens the door, and her mouth immediately drops into a tired frown. "Looks like it went nice, too."

"I still have one more to do," she reminds him instead, ignoring his conversation, still cross.

He gestures in disinterest, still resting his side into the doorframe, "I know, I know. Just here to say I'm actually going to go get that coffee now. Do you want something or not?"

Mimi holds the door open with one hand, the other braced on the wall she tilts her head against as she calculates how much time she has for her break. "Flat white."

He dips his head, expectant, and sure enough—

"No," she corrects, chewing her lip, "Caramel cappuccino. No! Um—,"

"It's now or never, Mimi."

She rolls her eyes, loose hair pooling around her shoulder. "Has telling me that ever worked before?"

"Just once." He smiles, still looking at her. "Hey," he starts, turning his face a little into the doorframe, "why did you say yes?"

She doesn't move, studying him with an expression he can't quite name, or else forgot how to read. Her gaze travels the steady return of his own, and she takes the dare. "Because I still can."

"Still, huh?" he asks.

"For now."

He keeps pressing. "Until when?"

Her voice changes. "Until I won't."

He steps her back into the office, closing the door behind him. "Yeah. I thought so."

"Taichi—," she starts to say, burying the surprise in her throat when he again steps her back into the wall. "Oh."

He keeps one hand in his pocket, the other smoothing the hair back from her shoulder, adjusting the tailored hem of her neckline. His thumb grazes her ear, straightening the angle of the simple gold arrow stud, until she sighs at last, and he can read her again. "Rules?"

She curls her fingers around his belt loops to pull his hips flush with hers, lifting her chin to meet his calm desire. "It took me ages to lace them, and I'm not redoing it, so the heels stay on."

His eyes flash darkly, tongue to the corner of his smirk to stay the growling chuckle. "Works for me," he starts to say, until her fingertips trace his lips apart when she cups his cheek, and he moves his full weight against her, so there's nothing between them. Nothing, he tells his head. Nothing.

She presses an absent-minded thumb over his mouth, holding him back. "I still have my second interview," she murmurs, fingers scraping the length of his jaw and down his throat. Her hand settles on a broad shoulder she pushes the flat of her palm against, bringing him to his knees. "Don't leave any marks."

Taichi nods, his hands underneath her dress. "Anything else?" he asks, tugging the lace band to the side.

"Yes," she breathes when he lifts her leg over his shoulder. She drags the point of her stiletto heel across his back, hands in his hair to cradle his head, and holds his gaze as he opens his mouth between her thighs. "Don't kiss me."