The Dance
Wednesday - Youth Day

Wow, you guys review FAST! Hehe...I'm going to have to start writing quicker... ::grin::

7:08 P.M.
Wednesday 16 May
Odaiba High

Joe

Izzy, who stood beside me decked out in a black suit and tie, sighed. "You've got to get over this, Joe," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Just because Mimi wouldn't go to the dance with you, it's not the end of the world."

I sighed gloomily, because Izzy didn't understand. He couldn't possibly understand the kind of connection I had with Mimi...or, the connection I thought I had with her. It hurt like hell to know how she really felt about me, especially after I made a fool of myself in front of her and all her friends on Monday. Mimi Tachikawa really did change when she went to New York, I guess, and there was nothing I could do about it.

But that didn't mean that I had to go into that gym and watch her be with someone else the whole night.

"What if she sees me there?" I said absently, more to myself than to Izzy. "What if she comes over to me? What if she starts talking to me, but then that boyfriend of hers comes along and..."

"What if nothing happens," Izzy said loudly, a bit of annoyance in his voice, "and it turns out you're just overreacting about the entire thing?" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "I really don't get why you're so hung up over Mimi. I mean, she's just Mimi. And she dumped you, anyway. I say, just go in to the dance, have fun, and just forget about our former friend for one night."

I shook my head. "You really don't get it, do you," I said to me younger companion. If he didn't understand why I couldn't just let it be with the whole Mimi issue, then he really didn't "get" it at all. Izzy Izumi tried to understand what I was going through, but he couldn't. He was never really in love; he never had the feelings for anyone as strong as I have feelings for Mimi, although I had heard a rumor that the tenth grade boy had a crush on me a while back. He just didn't seem to understand how much it hurt me every time to see Mimi and her boy-toy together, and how much fun I wouldn't be having at the dance.

Izzy sighed, again, and looked down at his Digivice. "Fuck," he mumbled under his breath, thinking that I didn't hear it. "It's past seven, Joe," he said aloud, tucking the device back onto the belt loop on his suit pants. "I'm gonna be late. Are you going to go in, or not?"

I made no effort to move from my spot just below the Odaiba High front steps, and Izzy rolled his eyes beside me. "Look, Joe," he said in a strong tone. Even though I was pretty stuck in my place, and I wasn't planning on entering the school any time soon, Izzy was still going to go through hell and high water to get me - and him - into that dance. "This is your last Youth Day Dance, right?"

"Right," I mumbled. It was going to be my last Youth Day; I had almost forgotten. Since I was just turning nineteen this December, and I was graduating from Odaiba High next month, I wouldn't be able to go to the Youth Day Dance at the high school anymore; technically, after this dance, I would no longer be a "youth". It would be the last Youth Day Dance where all of my close friends - including Mimi - would be together with me.

"And this is your last summer in Japan; am I right?"

I nodded, and Izzy's observation brought my mind to the possibilities of what would happen after this summer. I had been accepted to a prominent medical university in London in March, and I was to leave Japan in August to get myself acquainted with the campus, as well as the fact that everyone there will be speaking English all the time. The college was very competitive, and I was sure to get a lot of work to keep me busy enough to only have a few days off every year to come back to Odaiba. I guess Izzy was trying to tell me that I only had a few more full days of actual fun left in Japan before I had to go.

Izzy threw up his arms again, but this time, I understood why he was so irritated. "Then what is your problem, Joe Kido?" He asked. "You should be having fun before you have to go to college, not moping around, all depressed about being dumped by Mimi Tachikawa." Izzy put his arm around my shoulders reassuringly - which was pretty funny, considering that Izzy was a good six inches shorter than me, and he almost had to jump to reach. "If you're not going to go in there and have a good time for yourself, then at least do it for me, because if I know you're at home and not at the dance, then I'm not going to have any fun. And if I'm not going to have any fun at this dance because of you, then you will definitely be getting your ass kicked by yours truly come Thursday morning."

I smiled at Izzy's not-so-empty threat: sure, Izzy was never a big fighter, and he spent more time on the computer than in gym class, but if I caused him not to enjoy the first Youth Day Dance he's going to have with a date, there was no telling how he would exact revenge. "I...guess I could just...avoid her," I sighed, and I watched Izzy's face brighten with a wide grin. "And if I didn't go in there, then I dressed in a suit for nothing." I turned to look at Izzy, and matched his grin with my own. "So, what are we waiting for?"

"You took the words right out of my mouth, man," Izzy chuckled, as we walked confidently into the school gymnasium.

I looked around the brightly decorated and dimly lit gym with a faint smile. Kids from seventh all the way to twelfth grade took no time in jumping onto the dance floor and trying the latest dance craze from America as the Teenage Wolves - fronted by Matt Ishida, who looked much more comfortable than me in casual white T-shirt and jeans - played their version of some N'SYNC song or another. I smiled, as Izzy left me standing in the foyer to wait for his blind date at the refreshment table. This didn't seem so bad. I could definitely have fun just dancing and acting stupid tonight, on this, my last Youth Day. And, giving the room a final sweep with my eyes before joining the teens on the dance floor, I hadn't even seen Mimi at the dance at all...

But then, my heart sank, as I noticed my pink-haired beauty cuddle next to her date in their own little corner of the large room. I think I'm gonna be sick, I thought, as I had to push myself to tear my eyes away from the happy couple.

Maybe this Youth Day wasn't going to be as cheerful as I had hoped.

7:26 P.M.
Wednesday 16 May

Davis

And yes, I was wearing a suit. And I bought a corsage; white, too. I was tempted to buy a bright, ugly pink one and force her to wear it, but I decided that handling a happy Yolei was easier than handling a Yolei that wanted to kill me. She doesn't know all I have to go through to make this night happen. No one does.

My sister June sat on the other side of the backseat, the blue taffeta mess she called a dress spilling over onto the rest of the seat. She impatiently tapped her fingers against her knees, a faint smile creeping to her lips now and then. I decided to be a nice brother - for once in my life - and ask what was up.

"Nothing," she said, desperately trying to hide a grin that just wouldn't be hidden.

"Oh, really."

June smiled and absently played with the fringe on her dress. "I'm on a blind date tonight," she said cheerfully.

I had to make a comment. I looked around me - turning my head once to the left, then once to the right, and returning it to its original position - and responded, "Well, June, I don't see him in the car. Is he, perhaps, invisible?"

June's mood changed from giddy to her regular sadistic self and punched me in the arm none too gently. "No, dorkwad," she said. "I'm meeting him at the dance."

"Oh?" I asked, rubbing my arm. Damn, my sister had some left jab. "What's he look like?"

June rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "I don't know, Davis. That's why it's called a 'blind date'." She turned her head towards the window again and resumed her stare out into the quickly fading Odaiba sun. "I don't really know the guy, anyway. One of the girls from the tennis team set me up with him. She says he's really funny, and smart." She chuckled. "I hope that doesn't mean he's ugly."

Before I knew it, we had pulled up to the apartment building where Yolei, Cody and T.K. lived. "Well, go ahead," June said. "Go and pick up your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," I said defensively. Well...she wasn't. "I'm just doing this to get some tutoring help in trigonometry." If I had told June any more than that, like the job I had set up with Izzy or the homework he proposed to do for me, I knew she would have either told our parents or Yolei, and I couldn't let either of those things happen.

"Well, let's see here," she said, pointing to my clothes. "You bought a corsage, you're wearing a suit, you left your goggles at home..." June leaned over towards me and sniffed. "...and you're wearing Dad's cologne. Oh yeah," she said sarcastically. "This isn't a date and she definitely isn't your girlfriend."

I rolled my eyes at her, and they landed on my Digivice, which said that it was already 7:29. If I didn't get up to that apartment pronto, I was going to get the beating of my life come Thursday...and by a girl, no less.

"I gotta go," I said as I opened the car door. Before shutting it again, I yelled at my sister, "And she isn't my girlfriend!"

I sat in my parent's maroon station wagon as we drove towards Yolei's apartment building, nervously twiddling my thumbs and feeling absolutely naked without Tai's goggles atop my head.

"I'm not going in there," I said, my legs frozen in fear in front of the colorful streamer-decorated entrance to the high school's gymnasium. "There's no way I'm going in there."