A/N: Hi, I have no excuse except that work does not let me have a head-space to write fanfiction. But here I am in a 3 week long lockdown due to COVID-19, updating this story after almost two years. To everyone who patiently waited, and reviewed the previous chapters, thank you I hope you enjoy this new addition!

Five

-x-

Finding Takeru had not been difficult, spotting a tuft of blond hair from afar was a talent Sora had developed since her elementary school days. It seemed that the younger blond had grown a little bit impatient from waiting for Taichi and Sora to arrive. As soon as Sora caught up to him at the reserved table, he rushed off saying his friends were waiting for him without giving her a chance to even greet him properly. And just like that she was left alone at the table, her eyes quickly scanned the room for familiar faces but she found none. This wasn't good, she thought to herself, she wasn't ready to face Taichi alone as she hadn't come to terms with the overall situation yet. She had been counting on Takeru's great ability to read the room and fill the silence that was bound to develop between her and Taichi, but her saving grace had decided to skip away towards his social circle.

About ten minutes had passed when Taichi finally appeared at the table, carrying a tray with drinks that he set down gently and took the seat farthest from Sora, immediately taking his phone out to avoid looking at her after settling down in his seat. She wanted to scowl at him but remembering how badly she had treated him during the train ride here, she tried to keep her reactions in check. This is why this situation was so difficult, Sora thought, she wasn't sure about who was wrong and who was right. Fights are easier to conclude when things are easily chocked up as right or wrong but she couldn't just pin all the blame on Taichi since most of why she was frustrated was her own fault.

And as once Sora began to think about all of it calmly, she realized that firstly Taichi had managed to keep his match a secret from both his best friends, which was a big feat in itself considering how much he loved talking about soccer all the time. Secondly, the fact that he'd done this not so much for Yamato, but for her sake was so painstakingly obvious that it had driven her guilt meter all the way up to max. He knew Sora so well that he'd clearly predicted that she would not have agreed to skip either of the events and would have tired herself out in the process on their weekend off. Even more guilt inducing was that Taichi himself woke up early on a Saturday, cycled to school and played a match till half-time and still showed up for Yamato's gig without once complaining about the situation. He had stressed on the friendly and practice bit, but Sora knew him well enough to know that he never played a game without giving it his all. Thirdly and lastly, without even asking her what she wanted, he'd gotten her a strawberry milkshake topped with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream which is exactly what she had been craving since morning.

In conclusion, it was impossible for her to stay mad at Taichi and she had no choice to but swallow her pride and apologize.

Sighing in defeat, Sora picked up her milkshake from the table and took a slow sip from it. The movement caught Taichi's attention and he finally made eye contact with her.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out quietly the minute their eyes met, "but if you would've just sai-"

"If I would've said anything you would have made a big deal about everything." He interrupted her, rolling his eyes in annoyance.

Sora huffed in response and took another sip of her shake, "Well I made a big deal about it anyway."

The tension on Taichi's face eased up a little as he smirked in reply, "That you did."

And finally the air around them was lighter and Sora could breathe a small sigh of relief and properly enjoy her milkshake, "This is what I'd been craving since morning, thank you Taichi." She smiled at him, pointing towards the shake.

"Well, you know me, I know you better than you know yourself," His trademark grin appeared in an instant and he looked her directly in the eye as he continued, "which is also why I know you weren't mad at me for making us late but rather something else. Whenever you're ready to talk about it, let me know."

Sora was stunned into absolute silence. She had no idea how she should react, if she nodded then she would have to admit, to herself and to Taichi, that the real reason she had been so angry was because of Meiko being in his house. Then she would have to explain to him why she had an issue with Meiko to begin with, which would only make her sound like a bitter, controlling old maid and Taichi would end up hating her. As these thoughts spiralled in and out of her head, all Sora could do was lower her gaze in distress and her silence cleared Taichi's doubts better than any words could have.

The sound of a guitar filled up the cafe as Yamato and his bandmates took the stage, a few cheers went up around the room as they played a few random tunes to check if their equipment was working well or not and intentionally or not, to fill the gaping silence between Taichi and Sora. At the same time Takeru returned to their table, trailing behind him to her surprise were Mimi and Koushiro.

All other thoughts went straight out of her head as soon as she saw her two juniors next to each other as a couple for the first time. To strangers, they'd look like a perfect 'opposites attract' case but to people who really knew them, it would be obvious that something between them didn't fit. Somewhere deep down Sora felt relieved, she could now focus towards Mimi for the rest of the day and not think about how she was going to fix things with Taichi. Mostly because she wasn't even sure what she was supposed to fix with Taichi in the first place.

"I ran into Mimi-chan and Koushiro-san near the entrance and invited them to our table since we had extra space." Takeru chirped as he took the seat next to Taichi and both Koushiro and Mimi passed him a grateful smile as they settled down, Mimi next to Sora and Koushiro between Takeru and her.

"Mimi-chan, you didn't even tell me you were coming! Not fair!" Sora pouted, happy to shift all her attention away from Taichi.

"Well it was kind of a last minute decision…" Mimi smiled sheepishly as she trailed off. The smile didn't reach her eyes and her voice lacked its usual level of enthusiasm. She didn't follow up on her statement and turned to face the stage, turning her gaze away from her boyfriend next to her.

It was obvious to Sora that something was off about her junior. Usually the younger brunette was always pumped up for events like these, more so than anyone else, but right now any sign of excitement on her face seemed forced and what really astonished Sora was Mimi's cold demeanour towards her date. Clearly the two must have fought on their way here and Sora wondered if today was generally meant to be a good day for couples. Not that she considered herself and Taichi as being in the same category, not even close she reassured herself.

One thing Sora really liked about her junior was her ability to enjoy the things she wanted to enjoy no matter the situation. And little performances at cafes were just the kind of things Mimi loved, so for her to forego any interest in it, Koushiro must have messed up really bad. The only silver lining Sora could see was that she could now go back home with Mimi instead of Taichi and save herself another long, awkwardly silent subway ride in the same day.

"Last minute?" Taichi raised an eyebrow at Koushiro questioningly, who just shook his head urgently, pleading with his eyes for his senior to not say anything else but the damage was already done.

Mimi's expression hardened further and she shifted her chair slightly away from Koushiro. Taichi passed Koushiro an apologetic look as the latter slumped in his chair, understanding very well that any hope he had of making it up to Mimi had just been trashed. Takeru watched this whole exchange with an amused look on his face and he tried to catch Mimi's eye but the brunette was hell bent on keeping her attention glued to the stage, so eventually he gave up and turned to look at his brother as well.

Once Yamato began to sing, all the confusion, anger and guilt and the turmoil of emotions disappeared from within Sora in an instant. When Yamato had just joined the band in middle school, all his songs had always been about pain, but she had noticed that in the past few years, the blond had started writing more about hope, more about the possibilities and watching and listening to him perform had become something that Sora truly cherished. And sitting across her were two of Yamato's biggest fans, occasionally cheering and occasionally loudly singing along with him, and every time Yamato's gaze fell on them, just seeing Taichi and Takeru once would put such a bright smile on the blond's face, a sight so rare that Sora hoped for more such performances, where nothing but Yamato's music mattered.

Once the performance ended, Takeru suggested that they wait at the back entrance because there was no way that his socially anxious brother would just walk into the middle of his fan base. As they made their way around the café, Koushiro tried to get in a word with Mimi, although Sora couldn't hear them she could pretty much imagine how that conversation was going. She didn't even know what Mimi was mad about but she knew Koushiro was in for a long ride. Sora had only managed to sneak one look at Mimi during the performance and she'd noticed that the brunette was trying very hard to supress her enjoyment in order to seem angry, but her eyes showed just how much she was entranced by the music. But for her to completely turn that look off as soon as the gig ended just pointed towards the fact she wasn't going to let off Koushiro so easily and made Sora even more curious about what could have possibly gone so wrong.

As they waited for Yamato to show up, Takeru filled in Taichi with details about all the boys in their year who had expressed an interest in Hikari lately and Sora could only roll her eyes at this. Mimi was busy on her phone and Koushiro cleverly joined in the other two boy's conversation by agreeing to supply some spying gear to his senior.

Sora slid closer to Mimi and bumped her shoulder slightly to get her attention, "Did you enjoy the show?" she asked quietly, not wanting the boys to pitch in.

"Well yeah, it was my first time seeing them perform," Mimi replied, a small smile on her lips, "You always talked about what a great singer he is and I was able to finally see it in action today."

"I'm glad. You didn't seem to be in a good mood when you arrived so I was a bit worried," Sora beamed at the brunette. A normal reaction from her junior put her mind at ease.

"That's another story I should save for our trip back home." Mimi chuckled softly.

"Oh yes, please announce it very loudly that you want to go home with me," Sora pleaded playfully. The brunette finally broke into a full smile as she nodded in response.

"Come to think of it, wouldn't this be your first time meeting Yamato?" Sora wondered out loud.

"Yes, I think so," Mimi scrunched up her eyebrows as she tried to remember if she had actually talked to the blond ever before, "I mean I've seen him in the hallways at school many times but I don't think I've ever spoken to him before."

"Oh you should definitely tell him how much you enjoyed his performance, Yamato gets so uncomfortable when pretty girls compliment him. It's so much fun to watch him squirm," Sora giggled and received a light punch in the shoulder from Mimi before the latter gave in to her urges and giggled together with her senior.

"Well as long as Sora-chan thinks I'm pretty," the brunette winked in response.

Now that she'd gotten Mimi back to lighten up, Sora herself felt much calmer. At the back of her head she knew that the conversation between her and Taichi had been cut off by Takeru's timely appearance with Mimi and Koushiro but her best friend wasn't one to forget things like this easily. Come Monday morning, he'd be waiting for her down the street across from her house as usual but there would be an invisible wall between them and he wouldn't break it down until she came clean to him about everything.

Mimi linked her arm with Sora as they shifted closer towards where the boys were standing and in that instant when she looked at Mimi with her sweet smile and her caramel eyes filled with a spark, Sora wondered if it would be okay to tell the brunette everything.

If there was someone in Sora's life who could understand the dilemma and confusion that she was facing because of her ability it would probably only be Mimi. The brunette was the only one who shared a bit of Sora's worldview on romance. Mimi would understand why Meiko's presence irked Sora, she would understand why Sora couldn't be honest with Taichi, maybe she would even understand what it was that Sora felt for Taichi, something Sora couldn't understand herself. But once they would be through with her problems, Mimi would ask her about her own string and there was no way Sora would be able to lie to her and there was no way that she could tell her junior the truth either.

Maybe there was a way through which she could seek her friend's advice without actually telling her about the red strings, Sora mused.

Her phone buzzed suddenly breaking her long train of thought and she quickly fished it out to find a text from her mother. She heard Yamato finally come out of the café and Taichi and Takeru shower him with compliments with a side of teasing. She chuckled slightly as she typed out a reply to her mother, without even looking at the blond she could tell he was already heavily embarrassed. Even Koushiro went up to Yamato to praise the show, which led Sora to shut her phone and join the conversation happening in front of her.

"You were great as always, Yamato." She smiled at her best friend, keeping her compliment simple so as to not burden him with more embarrassment.

Mimi unlinked her arm from Sora's and put her hand forward looking straight into his eyes , "I don't think we've officially met, I'm Mimi."

"No, I don't think we have," Yamato replied monotonously, still slightly flushed from the performance, was quick to put on his stoic face as he shook the brunette's hand.

"You were pretty good out there, I enjoyed the show quite a lot." Mimi smiled, a bit more charmingly than usual.

And it happened when they withdrew their hands.

If Sora would not have been standing so close to Mimi, she would not have even noticed it. Yamato and Mimi's eyes met for less than a second, neither displaying any emotion of any kind, but as they pulled back from the handshake, Sora watched with widened eyes as the string on Yamato's hand that had been stagnant and unmoving for so many years now, moved slightly forward and met and entangled itself with a new string that had suddenly jutted out of Mimi's hands.

Shocked to her core, Sora lost her grip on her phone and it fell through her hands on to the street with a loud thud, the sound of her screen cracking echoing loudly across the street.

-x-

A/N: Reviews are always appreciated. If the lockdown goes on for any longer I may just end up updating this sooner than later. Also, wash your hands and stay indoors!