Miyako and Hawkmon stared at the plastic food models outside a restaurant in Venus Fort, deliberating over whether to eat there. The place looked fairly expensive, but both of them were starving so much that nearly anything seemed welcome at this point.

"It's a really bad hour, and it's the weekend…" said Miyako. "The line is gonna be terrible."

"Certainly, but I worry that if we continue looking for suitable places, we will end up spending more time than the line wait…" said Hawkmon.

The two of them took another moment of silence to consider whether their venture would be worth it, before they were suddenly cut off by another pair of voices.

"Miyako-chan!"

"Hawkmon!"

In unison, Miyako and Hawkmon to see none other than Sora and Piyomon waving at them. It had been a while since Miyako had seen Piyomon — the incident from the year before had resulted in Koushirou finding a way for them to open Digital Gates much more easily, and her seniors had thus taken to bringing their Digimon into the real world with them more often, but even then, Miyako's busy schedule as of late meant that events aligning like this weren't exactly common occurrences.

"Sora-san!" Miyako waved cheerfully, her apprehension at the intimidation of the long line wiped away from her face.

The two pairs joined up, and, the potential of waiting monotony staved off by company, the four of the passed the time chatting idly about various kinds of gossip.

It didn't feel long before they finally reached their table, and at this point it almost felt dismaying to put the conversation on hold in order to go through the menu.

"Sora~ I want this one!" said Piyomon, gesturing to something that Miyako couldn't see.

"Got it, got it. Have you two decided?"

"I think we have," said Hawkmon, who had made his selection close to immediately. Miyako was biting her lip fussing over two choices, but there was no way she'd be able to pick between them without the urgency of Hawkmon pushing them forward, so she made no protest.

As they waited for their meal, they went back to idle gossip, catching up on each other's status. Sora seemed to be accompanying Piyomon because the two had wanted a break from Sora's university admissions exam studies; of course, having Piyomon around regularly helped ease the burden a considerable amount, but it was nevertheless incredibly boring no matter how one looked at it.

Since talking about things like school and exams easily turned into drudgery, it wasn't long before they ended up gossiping about other people.

"…so Iori got invited to join one of the sports clubs," said Miyako, "but he refused and said he was too busy, but they keep ending up wanting his advice and bothering him for requests! I was thinking, at that point, he should just go ahead and join, or if not, he should just say no…"

"I'm still trying to get used to the fact Iori-kun's in middle school now!" said Sora, stifling a giggle under her hand. "He used to be so small…"

"Well, he's still kinda short," said Miyako matter-of-factly.

Both Sora and Piyomon couldn't help but crack up at this.

"Taichi and Yamato and I have all been studying for exams, so we don't get to talk much these days," said Sora, sighing.

"We don't get to come out like this often…" moped Piyomon.

Sora giggled. "Well, I'm glad you're here! It makes things much easier."

"Do you know much about how Taichi-san and Yamato-san are doing?" asked Hawkmon.

"Well, they've been aiming for some pretty high universities, so it's hard to get a hold of them at all…" said Sora, sighing. "They still talk to me once in a while when we get tired like this, though."

"Mostly Yamato!" said Piyomon.

Hearing this, Sora suddenly made a strange, panicked looking face, and, in a strange, slightly stern tone, went "Piyomon!"

"…Oh! Sorry…"

But it was too late; Miyako had caught it, and was raising an eyebrow.

Sora, in turn, had caught the expression on Miyako's face, and was biting her lip, clearly about to protest but also clearly very aware that saying anything was very likely to dig herself deeper. "It's — it's nothing! He's just been really worried about me as of late, that's all."

"Really now?" said Miyako, with a wide smirk on her face and very obviously not ready to let this go.

Sora sighed a little in exasperation, knowing that she probably would have gotten away with this had it been anyone but Miyako on the other side of the table.

"Miyako-chan. You're not gonna tell anyone about this, right?"

"If there's something you want to say, it'll be safe with us," said Hawkmon. Miyako nodded fiercely, knowing more than well enough that she probably was one of the worst people to entrust with a secret, but so desperately curious that she couldn't bring herself to refuse.

Sora, by all means, should have known better, but the level of irritation and stress she was in seemed to have gotten her to forget what risk she was incurring.

"You know Yamato and I used to be dating a while ago, right?"

"Yeah," said Miyako, nodding fiercely, as if going yes, yes, tell me more.

"And then we broke up after that."

"Mmhm," said Miyako, stuffing some food into her mouth.

Sora sighed and took a breath, with Piyomon eyeing her nervously from the side.

"Well…I think he still hasn't given up on me."

With her food still in her mouth, Miyako made an "mmmmmmmmmm?" noise that somewhat resembled a slide whistle.

"What do you mean by that?" said Hawkmon, curiously and yet nonchalantly, as if he were completely detached from and emotionally uninvested in this situation (he very much was not).

"Sora, is it okay…?" said Piyomon, but Sora was too clearly drenched in her thoughts about this to stop.

"He's not trying anything weird, don't get me wrong, and I appreciate having him around as a friend, but…I can tell something in him hasn't given up, and he's upset about it. But at the same time, what am I supposed to do? We've already broken up, I can't break up with him more, and I definitely don't want to cut him off entirely…"

"Have you talked to him about it?" said Miyako.

"He hasn't said anything, so it's not like I should tell him to give up or something…I just feel bad. I feel like I'm stringing him along, and I feel like it's especially gotten worse after that happened last year…"

Sora put her head in her hands, sighing. There was a long and awkward pause as Miyako searched for the words to respond with.

"…If it's okay for me to ask…why did you break up with him? Did you not like him?"

"I-It's nothing like that!" said Sora, jolting her head out of her hands and shaking them hesitantly. She tilted her head and sighed again. "It was a lot of fun being with him…"

"So if you don't dislike him, are you against giving him another chance?" said Miyako. "I mean, if you're not against it…"

"See, that's what I said!" said Piyomon.

Sora shook her head.

Another awkward pause.

"…It was a lot."

"A lot?"

Sora bit her lip.

"I don't know. I had so many things I had to do, there were so many things I had to deal with, I have to worry about exams…Something like a relationship is too much for me to think about right now."

She took a sip out of her tea and brought down the cup with an ever-so-slightly abnormal amount of force.

"It's fine! Relationships are really overrated anyway! I'll get around to it when I can, but for now I'm fine! I have nothing to worry about!"

Miyako and Hawkmon traded glances nervously, and although both of them were too intimidated to say it, it was clear they were thinking the same thing:

Something feels really off about the way she just said that.

As much as they were trying not to make the topic about Sora's university exams, things inevitably went there anyway, and with that came the inevitable question from Miyako.

"Is there a particular university you're shooting for, Sora-san?"

Sora laughed a little sheepishly. "Well…I'd like to get into a good one, of course, but the truth is, it's hard to pick a specific one…I haven't figured out anything I want to do, so it hasn't really been motivating."

"Ah, I see…"

"It's fine, though!" said Sora, still smiling. "To be honest, I think I'll probably be succeeding my mother anyway…"

"Succeeding your mother?"

"Sora's mom is the Grand Master of a flower arrangement school!" said Piyomon, proudly.

"Oh — ohhhh!"

Miyako had heard about this before, but it had only just hit her that Sora being the daughter of a Grand Master meant she was next in line to be the successor. "Sora-san, that's amazing!"

Sora laughed again, this time with extra awkwardness mixed in.

"It's not that amazing, I'm still in training. There's still a long way to go…I'm my mom's only daughter, so it'll be a lot of trouble for her if I don't do a good job of it…"

"You can do it!" said Miyako, clenching her fists excitedly.

Sora smiled back at her, noting Miyako's enthusiasm.

"Thanks, Miyako-chan."

As they were closing up their lunch, eventually, the conversation flipped on its head.

"Are you still in a computer club, Miyako-chan?"

Miyako's mood suddenly took a massive plummet as she looked downwards, and let out a very exasperated-sounding mmmmph.

"…I don't know. I joined the computer club thinking it'd be fun, but now that Izumi-senpai isn't there, I haven't really been able to get into it…" She sighed. "I think I'm losing it. I don't know what I want to do anymore. I'm jealous of you for having something you can work towards…"

Sora laughed a little. "Well…more like I'm just lucky I happen to not dislike it."

"Still, though…"

"I think you were really good at helping us last year, Miyako!" said Piyomon, full of genuine cheer.

Miyako looked up.

"…Really?"

"You were really helpful," said Sora, "Well, I don't know anything about computers, so I can only say so much, but I think you were pretty amazing."

"T-Thank you…" said Miyako, sheepishly.

"Miyako-san," said Hawkmon, "I don't think you should underestimate your abilities."

Receiving all of the compliments around her, Miyako beamed and slammed her fist into her palm.

"All right then! Even if Izumi-senpai isn't there, I'll be the best person in the computer club! I'll be captain myself in no time!"

"That's the spirit!" said Piyomon.

Sora laughed again and clapped her hands, and Miyako reveled in the moment, thinking about what Sora and Piyomon had just said about her work.

Yeah. If something like that happens again, I have to be ready. I can't keep depending on Izumi-senpai anymore.

It wasn't a thought that she was having for the first time, but it was definitely the first time she could actually feel that with confidence.

…But for now, first, she had to finish this lunch.

[Author's note]

One thing led to another, and this chapter took three months (also partially because something possessed me to start writing tons of meta on Tumblr for some reason). I certainly hope future chapters won't take this long, so I'm sorry about that.

As much as romance tends to be a fairly significant topic (especially in fanfic), I really don't want this fic to be so heavily biased towards romance elements that it overtakes the fic, especially because I think it would be reductive to Miyako and Sora's characters to take a fic intended to touch on the kids' overall lives and constantly railroad into the romance topic, but I figured that the last mention I made of Yamato and Sora's breakup would obviously make people curious about an update on that, so I tried to give as many interesting details as I could from the limited range of Miyako's point of view. The limited point of view is my biggest challenge in working with this fic, but that challenge is part of the reason I'm writing this fic anyway, so what else can I say?

One thing I really appreciated is the difficulty of writing Sora when you're not working from her own point of view. There's a lot of subtleties and things you have to hint at that you can't be explicit about, and it really makes me appreciate how hard it must have been for the original series to pull off what it did within its limited scope. I wonder how many of those hints came across in what I wrote here? Either way, I hope I did her justice in a way that would please Sora fans.