sometimes your greatest adversary

nightflame: *coughing and sneezing* augh!! How could I let this story gather dust?!?!? What's wrong with me???

taichi: *buried under a pile of papers* help…me…

nightflame: AHH!! Taichi!!! My muse disappeared!! *starts digging under piles of homework* yea…too much work in college…*finally finds taichi* AHHH!! You okay???

taichi: *breathing in heavily* precious, precious air…

nightflame: err sorry taichi. Yea, this story has been stuck under all this college stuff going on in my life…and I'm here in NY and all this crazy stuff has been going on.

taichi: *still trying to gather air into his squashed lungs* how about…you just write…*pant* and I get my breath back?

nightflame: okay. Nothing has changed since last time, I still don't own digimon, but once my friend takes over the world, she said I can get Japan…so then I will own digimon…muahaha! But until then, I'm not making any money off this (otherwise, I wouldn't be a broke college student) so this is only for your reading enjoyment…so…uhm…enjoy! I decided to write other people's point of views this time. ^_^

(~~~~) denotes scene change

Chapter 8: sometimes your greatest adversary is only yourself

Taichi sized up his opponent.

Tall, sturdy, unyielding. They were around the same height, his opponent slightly taller. Taichi glared. He could do this. His opponent remained stolid, unflinching. Taichi smirked slightly. He could face gigantic demons, vampires, and freaky clown digimon, yet they didn't faze him as much as his current adversary. "C'mon Taichi, where's that famous courage of yours?" he muttered to himself. He scowled. He was losing this battle. He stared at his rival. "Back down" he growled frustrated. Instead, he watched as his enemy stood there, unyielding, mocking him, with the all-knowing attitude that the battle was over before it began. Taichi had lost. Taichi hung his head down in shame. He couldn't do it. He may have held the crest of courage, but this was one battle he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to win. Silently he turned around and headed back to his car. As he got back into his car, he took one last glance at his foe. The brown wooden door stood there, imposingly, the last obstacle between him and his heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mimi Tachikawa sighed frustrated. This was getting nowhere. A pile of papers and stacks of photographs covered her desk. "I should just give up" she muttered angrily. "No one ever told me that it was so hard to write a stupid cookbook" Unbeknownst to the rest of the digidestined, Mimi was in the process of compiling her award winning recipes into a single handy cookbook. However, she soon discovered that writing a cookbook was much harder than it seemed. "I thought I was just going to put in recipes and a couple photos" she muttered. This was all her stupid publicist's fault. He was the only reason she started this ridiculous project. Before her temper got out of hand, the muffled sound of an interlude rang out.

"Eh?" Then she realized where the sound was coming from. Her cell phone was ringing. "GAH!" Mimi shrieked, and raced around searching for her phone. She finally found it underneath a pile of papers. She glanced at the caller ID before flipping the phone open. "Moshi moshi"

A quiet voice rang out from the other end. "Hey Meems"

Mimi sighed. "Hey Taichi. Did you get past the mailbox this time?"

There was silence on Taichi's end. "Yes Mimi" he finally responded.

"And?"

"I couldn't do it Mimi. I had a war with the door and the door won" was the dry response.

"What?? Taichi, believe it or not, you're stronger than a door. It gives way when someone knocks on it" Mimi sighed frustrated. "Besides. It's not the door that's stopping you"

"It's too soon Meems. I can't go through with it"

"What do you mean too soon?? Yamato and Sora have been separated for 3 months now!"

"She might not be ready for this…I mean, and what about Catherine?"

Mimi stared at the phone, incredulous. "Taichi Kamiya! You have got to be kidding me!" she took a breath to calm herself down. "Catherine died 5 years ago Taichi. You have to let her go. You know she would want you to go on with your life. You can't use her to hide behind. You have to acknowledge your feelings or you're going to regret it for the rest of your life" she admonished Taichi gently. "Where's your famed courage of yours?"

"That's the problem. I don't have any"

Mimi sighed. Taichi could be so frustrating. "You stubborn, thick-headed, big haired…"

"I cut my hair Meems, remember?"

"It's a force of habit Tai" she answered wryly. "Maybe you should grow your hair out again. You never had problems expressing yourself until you cut your hair"

"Ha ha. It's not funny Mimi. I just can't do it. How can I? Besides, she'd probably just look at me like I had grown another head"

"While your hair would be rather large, I doubt it'd be considered to be another head"

"Mimi…I'm not talking about my hair"

"I know. I'm just trying to lighten the mood here" was the frustrated reply. She did know what he was talking about. Everything to Taichi ended up back to Sora. Mimi sat there silently. She really didn't know what to say. She had already told him, countless amounts of times to go and listen to his heart; to go back to Sora. And everytime, he told her that he would, yet each time, he'd call her telling how he couldn't make it past the doorstep.

"Maybe I should give up Meems. This is impossible. I should move on with my life"

Mimi bit her lip to keep herself from screaming in anger. Checking herself, she responded in a calm tone. "Then you'd still have to see Sora"

"Huh? Why?" she could almost see the confused expression on his face.

"Because," Mimi continued quietly, "you'd have to ask her to let go of your heart if you want to move on"

"Meems…I…" Taichi faltered. He took a breath before continuing. "What if she doesn't love me? What if she just slams the door in my face?"

"You'll never know until you knock, now will you?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sora stared out her window. It had been 3 months since Yamato had left her. Or had she left him? Three months, and she still wasn't sure if she had figured out her feelings or not. She had moved out of the small home into an apartment that overlooked the park. Her two kids were off playing at Miyako and Ken's home. She was surprised at how well they had handled their parents' divorce. Rika had understood what was going on and had chosen not to comment on it at the time. Later, she admitted to her parents that she liked them better now that they were separated; at least now they talked like normal parents. It had unnerved her to see the two of them always sitting there in complete silence.

Sora smiled softly at her reflection. As ironic as it was, she and Yamato had become better friends since their divorce. But at the same time that confused her. She cared for Yamato…yet when they had been married, she had felt nothing. Her youngest, Li, still didn't understand too much what had happened. All he seemed to understand was that one day, everything was normal, but the next day, his dad no longer lived with them. Sora had done her best to explain to him what was happening, but she had a feeling that although he didn't understand why his mom and dad were no longer together, he seemed to understand that it was better that way. "I have some odd children" Sora murmured to herself, a half-smile on her face. A high-pitched ringing disrupted her thoughts. Sora walked over the phone and picked it up. "Moshi moshi" She waited to hear the person on the other end. "Takeru?"

nightflame: aight that's enough for now.

taichi: WHAT???????? That's so short!!! And you had me lose…to a DOOR!!!

nightflame: erm…yea…I know it's short, but I felt that it's been just way too long since I posted anything, so I had to restart myself. Besides, I finally figured it out.

taichi: figured what out?

nightflame: exactly how I'm going to end this fic

taichi: really?

nightflame: yup. And now that I know what I'm going to do with this fic, I can finally work on my other works in progress.

taichi: you have MORE?? FINISH THIS ONE FIRST!!

nightflame: I will, I promise!!! I only have 1 or 2 more chapters of this one. Then I can finally finish my takari angsty romance. Besides, I have time now that I've taken that crazy midterm. Hey did you notice that the names I chose for Sora's kids are the same as 2 of the kids in 03?

taichi: stop trying to avoid the subject. if you don't finish soon, I'm going to gather all the reviewers into a big mob and…

nightflame: *sweatdrop* I'll finish soon, I promise. I hope you guys liked this chapter…please review!