A/n: Hey everyone, hope you all are coping well in the pandemic. I'm still under lockdown so here is another chapter. The beginning is a bit more descriptive but I wanted to create some background about Mimi not fitting in so please bear with it!
Thank you everyone for reading, and special thanks to Clarity23, Reniel Moza,x3loved and meemsshfor taking the time out to review!
Seven
-x-
The first time Sora had met Mimi, she had been humming a French song as their boring opening ceremony dragged along, Sora perturbed by hearing the foreign language had turned around to find Mimi sitting behind her, earphones in and not listening to a single word their principal was saying. She had been taken aback by someone being fluent enough in French to actually sing in it, that she had immediately approached the strange brunette as soon as the ceremony ended. Sora couldn't describe the feeling exactly, but she loved meeting new people. It gave her a kind of rush that she did not experience often, probably because she could find a new love story in every person who crossed her path. Sometimes it didn't always go as smoothly as she wanted it to but befriending Mimi hadn't been difficult, the junior was more than eager to make friends and it had been almost a month later that Sora had realized why.
Theirs was what most people would call a step-ladder school. If you kept your grades up to the mark, you could proceed from Elementary to Middle-school to High-school without ever having to sit for entrance exams. This also meant that almost the whole school was familiar with each other, having known each other since Elementary school. One of the reasons why Sora, Taichi and Yamato were so close too, because they had always ended up in the same class together since they were kids. Mimi's was a different case because she had joined this school during high school, which Sora found out was because she had been settled abroad due to her father's job. She had spent three years in America and three in France, before her father decided to take up a more permanent position in Tokyo.
As interesting as this was to Sora, she knew that this was not the common mentality in their school. It had been difficult for Mimi to make a space for herself in her class as most of the friend circles had already been formed in Middle-school or even further back, and to top it off, the kids were always sceptical about making friends with foreign-returnees. Her only link had been Koushiro, who had lived in her neighbourhood before she had moved out of Japan and had continued to stay in touch with her even after she left. Seeing Koushiro being friendly with the newcomer had made the rest of the students in their year warm up to Mimi slightly, but the brunette's free-spiritedness and lack of understanding of Japanese social etiquette still put her in trouble quite often.
Which is why, breaking up with Koushiro had more or less marked an end to Mimi's social presence in their year. Almost two weeks had passed since Mimi had confronted her childhood friend with her decision and things got ugly as soon as word about their break-up spread. Sora was sure Koushiro had no part in it, in fact Mimi reassured her that he was trying his best to behave like they were still friends in front of everyone, but some girls in their class had taken advantage of the situation to shun Mimi out completely. Sora had expected the backlash, she had even warned Mimi about it and wrongly assumed that they were ready to face it but clearly they had underestimated the craftiness of teenage girls.
The current story going around the school was that Mimi had cheated on Koushiro and when he had confronted her about it, she had dumped him without a second thought.
Every time Sora heard someone whisper this around her she had to fight down the urge to strangle some sense into them. She checked up on Mimi regularly while they were at school and her junior reassured her each time that she was coping just fine and that Sora was just being paranoid about the whole thing, only one day Sora happened to go into the washroom on the same floor as Mimi's class and found the brunette eating her lunch inside a stall.
And that was when the auburn-haired girl furiously put her foot down.
It was only the second day of Mimi eating lunch with them on the roof but Yamato already seemed annoyed with the notion. Since Yamato and Taichi had fought and refused to be around each other in middle school, Sora had rarely eaten her lunch at school in complete silence. But Mimi's addition to their trifecta had suddenly put an invisible tape over her two best friends' mouth. Sora knew she hadn't been fair in suddenly bringing Mimi into their space, but she could not watch Mimi getting isolated from her peers either, so she had hoped that Taichi and Yamato would at least put in some effort on her behalf but she had forgotten how stubborn those two could be. At least Taichi was doing the bare minimum and not shooting pointing glares in Sora's directions, unlike Yamato.
"Do you have any plans after school?" Sora smiled, asking yet another generic question to stir up some conversation and kill the silence. Her first few starters had fired back, when Taichi had just shrugged them off and Yamato had continued his glaring. Mimi, probably uncomfortable by the boys' behaviour had decided to stay silent too, but Sora was desperately itching for a proper conversation so she was not going to give up so easily either.
Taichi shook his head quietly in reply and looked at Yamato, who narrowed his eyes and curled up his mouth in a scowl. Sora had known the two for years now to not miss the silent communication that passed between them, making her blood boil slightly. The thought of Taichi siding with Yamato and not her made her clench her fists ever so tightly and Sora was sure she would've confronted the two of them then and there if Mimi hadn't spoken up at that exact moment.
"Oh! How do you feel about waffles?" Mimi's caramel eyes were suddenly filled with an excitement that Sora had not seen in the past two weeks.
"I love waffles!" Both Taichi and Sora shouted out in unison. It was true that their tastes differed in food heavily, but Taichi and her had always agreed on waffles. From being totally expressionless up until a minute ago, Taichi was now looking at Mimi eagerly and the death glare directed at him by the blond sitting next to him did not go unnoticed by Sora.
"A new place just opened up, two stations from school. And they let you have unlimited toppings of anything!" Mimi gushed, grinning at her two seniors who looked like they had won the lottery, she added happily, "Even tabasco sauce!"
Taichi's enthusiasm faltered a little at the extra comment as he deadpanned and Sora just shook her head knowingly as he asked Mimi. "Mimi-chan, you put tabasco on waffles?"
"Well you know I love trying interesting combinations, it helps develop my palate." Mimi answered proudly, and Taichi's expression mirrored the one Sora had had when she had first seen Mimi dip her finger sandwich in whipped cream.
"That's not called developing a palate, it's called being an idiot." Yamato spoke finally, the scowl on his face still present.
Sora's mouth dropped open in astonishment and Taichi cringed, backing away slightly from both Yamato and Mimi.
"People who are afraid to step out of their comfort zone and try new things, always talk like that." Mimi's reply didn't miss a beat as she shot the blond sitting directly opposite her an icy smile.
Sora wanted to interfere and stop this from getting any worse, but her eyes latched on to a tiny movement, sending her brain down another spiral. As Yamato and Mimi's eyes clashed angrily, the strings around their fingers turned and twisted making the knot connecting the two strings grow tighter. This was the first time Sora had witnessed something like this and her confusion about Yamato and Mimi's fate only grew wider. Why were their strings behaving so strangely? Were they trying to tell her something? Did this connection mean something other than love? These were the questions that rotated around her head, taking her attention completely away from the glaring match between her two closest friends.
Luckily for Sora, Taichi always picked up after her.
"Yamato, come on," he warned his best friend gesturing towards Sora discreetly to get him to understand that the blond was on thin ice already, "not that I support putting tabasco on waffles either." Taichi crinkled up his nose as he shot his junior an amused look.
"I guess I am just mature enough to understand the concept of 'to each their own'," Mimi stated smugly, turning her gaze away from the blond.
"Mature? You?" Yamato scoffed shaking his head in disbelief. Smirking maliciously, he added, "Koushiro sure dodged a bullet."
With her brain continuing to riddle her with confusing thoughts, Sora had only been half-listening to what her friends were talking about but Yamato's words snapped her attention back in place. She couldn't believe that he would say something so insensitive. Yamato had never played nice with anyone, Sora was well aware of that, but he always knew when to draw a line. Clearly today was not one of those days. Sora immediately turned to Mimi only to watch her junior get up abruptly, her lunch falling from her lap and spilling all over the floor as she hurried out without bothering to look back at anyone.
There was complete silence for a minute until Taichi's loud, nervous gulp interrupted it.
Sora locked eyes with Yamato, seething with anger, but she couldn't find the words. Her brain had still not comprehended the peculiar movements of their strings and neither had she understood why Yamato was behaving the way he was. She knew Mimi would be hurting yet again, having being so harshly reminded of her mistake but Sora had run out of ideas to comfort her. Even if she chased after the brunette right now, she would have nothing to say to her. With her mind a gurgling waterfall of these muddled thoughts, she let her body move automatically. She cleaned up Mimi's spilt lunch, wrapped up her own and walked out without sparing a glance at either of her two friends.
-x-
"Sora! Sora, wait for me please!"
Sora heard Taichi's voice from behind her very clearly but she continued walking forward. The sun had just about set and she had just exited the school, a little later than her usual time which she regretted now, remembering that Taichi must have gotten free from his practice and spotted her on his way out.
She was in no mood to speak with him, in fact she was in no mood to speak with anyone because she was sure that she wouldn't be able to explain the depth of her guilt to anyone. Sora had basically pushed Mimi to end her relationship so abruptly with Koushiro that it led to the brunette being shunned by her classmates, all so Sora could set her up with Yamato because that's what the strings told her should happen. Yamato, being oblivious to all of this had shown his worst side to Mimi because Sora forced their interaction, and now Mimi was hurt even more.
All because of her strange ability and her not so strange inability to stay out of other people's business.
Suddenly she heard loud steps right behind her and a few seconds later she was forced to a halt as Taichi caught up to her and grabbed her hand firmly, pulling her to a stop.
"Will you please stop ignoring me?" He asked her annoyed and slightly out of breath. His grip on her hand didn't loosen even after she stopped and faced him, probably because he thought she'd dash the minute he let go and Taichi knew very well that Sora was the faster one between them.
"I can't believe you would take Yamato's side on something like this," Sora spat back angrily at him, there were just so many emotions swirling inside her that the easiest one to pick was rage.
"I'm not taking his side Sora, I know he acted like a jerk today, I already tol-"
"What is his problem with Mimi anyway? What did she ever do to him?" She didn't even let him finish, barraging him with all the questions she should have been asking Yamato. Sora always played the role of the mediator between Taichi and Yamato, making this the first time her and Taichi's roles were switched. She could tell from the twitch in his eyebrow that Taichi was not happy to be in her place at all.
"Look, not everybody is like you where they can get along with anyone. Sometimes people don't like each other and that's that," Taichi shrugged in reply, a frown was forming on his face as he understood that Sora was misdirecting her anger at him and he didn't appreciate it a bit.
"I know what that's like, I don't always get along with everyone." Sora defended herself but her voice lacked some confidence.
"Yeah, right. You're totally not friends with the whole school." Taichi scoffed, rolling his eyes as a he ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
"That is not true. I have people I hate too." Sora replied unthinkingly, she didn't realize the flow of the conversation had completely overtaken her and she was bound to make a mistake soon.
"Name one." Taichi challenged her, smirking infuriatingly.
"Meiko!"
The name slipped out of her mouth so quickly, that it took a few seconds for her to realize what she had done. She clasped her free hand over her mouth as the rage and guilt and confusion inside of her slowly swirled into intense panic.
"What? The transfer student? What did she do to you, I saw you getting along with her just fine…" The frown turned into confusion as Taichi tilted his head, scratching it in hopes of figuring out the meaning behind what Sora had just said.
"No…I didn't…I don't…" Sora struggled to find the right words to explain herself to Taichi in a way that would just make him forget that this conversation ever happened. But it was futile, as her mind had completely blanked out once the moment of panic subsided. And at once, everything muddled inside of her formed into a single tear that slid down her cheek.
Taichi let go of her hand that he was still holding and raised his it to wiper her tear away instead. Silence settled over them as Sora continued to search for the right words to explain herself to Taichi. But the only way to do this was to admit to him that she had a strange power. How else could she explain her dislike for Meiko Mochizuki?
Taichi sighed and ran his hands through his hair, breaking the stillness that had enveloped them.
"Sora, what happened to us?"
She didn't meet his eyes, she already knew where this conversation was heading and there was no reason to hold herself back anymore, so instead of looking at Taichi or even bothering to reply to him, Sora began to cry.
Only this time Taichi didn't move forward to wipe her tears.
"You've put up a wall around you that I can't seem to get past. I don't know what or why you're trying to hide from me. But I know that we weren't like this before. I know that you weren't like this before." He paused, she wanted to look up at him and see what kind of expression was on his face. She had never heard him sound so sad before.
And once again here she was, hurting someone close to her, all because she couldn't reveal her ability to him.
"Sora I need the truth. It's the truth or nothing. So tell me now.
What's it going to be?"
-x-
A/n: Okay so that was a bit shorter (and sadder) chapter than the previous ones but I had these scenes very clearly mapped out in my head. Things will start getting better from next chapter, I promise! Thanks for reading, and reviews are always appreciated.
