I really apologize for this part everyone. I personally think it could have been better than what it turned out to be, especially the stuff dealing with Koushirou for it. Well, don't forget to let me know what you think of this so far, and don't forget to look at my profile here at ff.net for current/upcoming fic information.

Now, as always, I do not own any of these characters or places associated with the show, game, manga, etc*
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Part 20: Busted!!

After Mimi finished talking with Ms. Hanada, she ran into Iori again and talked with him for a while. She explained to him that she was going over to Koushirou's to give him the information she got on the old teacher and that they were both working on the project. Too bad it didn't work out that way.

She decided to go home instead of going over to the Izumi's. It was starting to get a bit late and she didn't want to worry her folks like she had before. She hadn't called to let them know where she was going this time, mainly because her cell phone battery had died on her. She talked to her uncle for a brief while before her phone died on her, though. Besides, Mimi still wasn't all that keen on being out during the evening by herself.

When she got home, she was greeted by her uncle.

*"Konban wa, ojisan."

"Hey Mimi, glad you finally made it home."

"Sorry I'm late."

"Not to worry, Sué isn't back yet, either. She's still out shopping with the kids. Besides, you aren't all that late and we probably shouldn't worry so much over you. You have a good head on your shoulders and you're a smart girl."

Mimi smiled at her uncle as he went back to take his seat in the living room to read his paper.

"Dinner is going to be a bit late since your aunt and the kids aren't back, unless you want to eat now."

"No, I can wait."

With that, the girl ran up to her room and put her books down. She had a couple of calls to make, one being for Koushirou and the other in mind being for Sora and she wanted to talk with Miyako as well. She dialed a familiar number which was answered by Mr. Izumi. He too tried knocking on Koushirou's door to see if he would answer, but just like with Mrs. Izumi, he did not get one.

"I guess he's asleep," the man said, having the same strange feeling as his wife had about Koushirou's silence.

"That's okay. I had something to give him, but I guess it can wait."

"Something to give him?"

"Yeah, for his history project," she explained. "Never mind, though. I'll just talk with him tomorrow."

" I will be sure to tell him that you called. If you want, you can drop whatever it is that you have and we could get them to him."

"That's okay. Just tell him that I will see him in school tomorrow."

"Sure thing."

The man was quite for a moment and spoke up.

"Um, Mimi, did Koushirou give you a call earlier today?"

"No, not that I know of."

"Oh, okay, never mind then."

"Okay! Sayonara, Izumi-san."

The man hanged up the phone, pondering quite a bit. He was pretty curious as to what it was that Mimi had for Koushirou.

"I really need to get this info to Koushirou," Mimi said as she looked over the two pieces of paper Ms. Hanada had given her. "I just know that he would love to see these!"

She stayed in her room a bit longer, thinking about what she should do. She really didn't want to wait until the next day to give Koushirou the information that she had.

Mimi didn't get the chance to "think" too long. Her cousin had run up to her room to tell her that it was time for dinner. A short while before Mimi dialed the Izumis' number, her aunt and two younger cousins had returned home.

"Neechan, it's time for dinner!"

Mimi opened her door and smiled at her cousin.

"Okay, I'll be right down."

She hurried and joined the rest of the family for dinner. During dinner, she started to ask if she could go over to the Izumi's, but she changed her mind and dismissed it. She really didn't want to go over there by herself. She still had a slight fear of going places by herself since her encounter that past Sunday.

"Never mind about going over there, I'll just talk with Koushirou tomorrow."

"He called here looking for you earlier this afternoon," Kichibei said, sipping on a glass of wine. "I forgot to mention that to you when you got home."

"He did?" the girl asked in surprise. "He probably wanted to apologize for his outburst today," she thought.

"Yeah, he sure did," the man nodded as he added some rice onto his plate.

"That's weird, why would he call here and then not be around when I call him back?" she wondered to herself. She then told her family, "Oh well, I guess he got tired of waiting for me to call back. I just called him before Isako came and got me for dinner."

"Is Kou-chan sad again?" Isako asked while eating on a drumstick.

"No, he's just asleep right now according to his father."

The girl started to sip on her drink when her uncle spoke up again.

"You know, quite a few people called for you today; Koushirou, your friend Yuko, and your friend Yamato."

"Is there anyone else that you have forgotten to tell us that called today?" his wife laughed.

"Hey, I'm not used of all of this phone responsibility. I had no idea that Mimi was so popular."

"I'm just teasing," the woman smiled.

Sué started to feed Ton, who laughed playfully. She then decided to ask about Mimi's day.

"So, how was school today?"

"It was okay."

The girl decided not to bring up the pointless argument she had had with Koushirou.

"I did get asked to a dance."

"Ooo, a dance!" the younger girl exclaimed. "Is that like a big kids' party?"

"Yeah, you could say that."

"What dance is this?" Sué asked.

"I was invited to go to the Odaiba Junior High Senior Dance."

"But you aren't a senior," Kichibei pointed out.

"I was invited by one," Mimi explained. "Underclassmen aren't allowed to attend, but if they are invited by a senior as their partner, they can."

The man wasn't sure if he liked the idea of that or not, Mimi going out with a guy in general.

"Who is this guy? Do we know him? Does he know the consequences of what will happen to him if he does anything to harm you? Does he..."

"Kichibei, calm down!"

"Well...I think we should meet this guy just to make sure he's okay."

"He's fine!" Mimi assured him. "Yamato-san is the one who asked me to go to the dance with him and I've known him for almost five years now."

" The local celebrity?"

"Yeah, he's the one that called."

"He's fine, dear. Yamato-kun is a very nice young man. I'm sure you would approve of him."

"Um, hehehe," the man laughed nervously. "I'm sorry about the outburst."

"That's okay," Mimi smiled at him, not at all upset. "You're just acting like a typical father. Mine would act the same way. He used to get over protective of me whenever I would hang out with my old friend Michael and we were only friends."

Mimi's aunt laughed and nodded in agreement.

"Tell me about it!" the woman said as she added some food to her plate. "Your father used to always keep his eye on me when it came to boys and I'm just his sister! Dating was difficult for me with him around. He would grill the guys time they walked into the house. Oh, and your grandfather was even worse!"

"With the way they were, I'm surprised we actually had time to actually go out for the night," Kichibei laughed shortly. He then scratched the back of his head, feeling a bit foolish. "I think I picked up on a couple of their habits."

"At least it wasn't a daily thing," Sué said, remembering when she and Kichibei first dated as teens. "After the first few times--in other words, the first few months--they left us alone and realized that you were a good guy."

"I had no idea that grandpa was like that too."

"Yep, my father was exactly like that, only more strict. He was very strict on the dating policy and a bunch of other things and was very overprotective of his daughters. That is probably why Hanako went out on her own the way that she did due to her feeling that she was being smothered and closed in by my father's rules. Mom agreed with everything dad said, so she wasn't much help in these situations. Both were very old fashioned, which pretty much explains why they were both so strict. Hanako moved to China after finishing her last year in school on some special exchange program and hasn't been heard from since; well, not much anyway. I haven't heard from her in few years now and I don't even know if she has Keisuke's address in America. I don't even know if she has children or if she ever married or not."

"How come I never met Aunty Hanako, momma?"

"Because she lives far, far away, dear, that is why. China is another country, like Mimi used to live before moving here with us. It takes a very long time to get there and you have to spend all day in a plane just to get there."

"That sounds boring! I wouldn't want to sit in a plane all day!"

"Neither would I, but I think going to see my sister is a good enough reason to spend all day in a plane."

Ton started to cry for more juice so Kichibei got him some.

"There ya go!" The man smiled.

Ton laughed happily and accepted the juice cup from his father.

"Is Aunty Hanako nice?"

"Yep, she is very nice, smart, and was a pretty good tutor too when she was in High School. She tutored the majority of her class."

"Do you know Aunty Hanako, neechan?"

"Nope, I've never met her. Dad doesn't talk about her much either."

Tachikawa Hanako was the younger sister of both Keisuke and Sué. She was the rebel of the three Tachikawa siblings and hated the strict ways of her parents and the first chance she got, she moved away. She now still resides in Hong Kong as a school teacher.

"Maybe she'll come back one day. It would be nice to see her again..."

The woman sighed as they all continued with their dinners...
****
Over at the Izumi home, more calls kept coming in from everyone Koushirou had called. Ones from Taichi, Sora, and Jou. They were all told the same exact thing; Koushirou had gone to bed. All three felt that it was strange that Koushirou would go to bed so early and that something had to have been wrong for him to bother calling them in the first place.

"I wonder why Koushirou called all of his friends and what he wanted."

"No phone was a part of his punishment!" Mr. Izumi muttered in annoyance.

"I know, but I guess it is tempting since he does have a phone in his room!" Mrs. Izumi responded irritably and sarcastically.

"Okay, okay," the man said, trying his best to stay calm. "I should have taken the phone away."

"You should have done that in the first place!" she snapped at him.

"Okay, I will first thing in the morning!"

"Fine!"

The woman stormed into the kitchen and opened up the carton of Strawberry Ice Cream that he had brought for her.

"Um, Yoshie...are you feeling okay?"

The woman muttered in annoyance as she went through the kitchen drawers, looking for a spoon. When she found it, she took it from out of the drawer and slammed it shut.

"I'm fine!"

The woman dipped the spoon right into the carton and started to eat out of it.

"If you'd like, I could get you a small bowl, or maybe I cou..."

"I'm fine, I said!"

The woman swallowed another spoon of ice cream while Mr. Izumi backed off. She was very irritable at that particular moment and her being pregnant wasn't helping her irritability either. As a matter of fact, her being pregnant was making her irritability worse. She really didn't feel like being bothered. She was mad at the fact that Koushirou had disobeyed them by making phone calls. What she really wanted to do was knock the door down and to throw away the lock he kept on it constantly. She knew that a boy his age is entitled to his privacy, but this was too much.

"Dear, I think you should get some rest..."

Mrs. Izumi ignored her husband and took the ice cream and sat at the dining room table. Mr. Izumi didn't know what to do with his wife. He didn't want her to stress herself out or anything. That could be bad for herself and the growing baby.

"Yoshie?"

"He has to come out of there sometime and I am not leaving until he does! He didn't eat any dessert and he didn't eat much for dinner! He is going to have to get hungry sooner or later or even if he doesn't leave for food, he has to at least go to the bathroom!"

The man walked over to his irritable wife and hugged her gently.

"I think we should go out and take a walk...to help cool you off."

"I rather I didn't!" the woman said, getting from out of his grasp. "I am not leaving this spot until Koushirou comes from out of that room!"

"But..."

"You can go out if you want, but I'm staying!" the woman said in obvious annoyance, growing crankier and more irritable by the second. "And while you are out, I want some Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, and some Butter Pecan Ice Cream, and I want you to get me nuts, sprinkles, whipped cream, and every other ice cream topping you can find! I have a taste for them!"

The man didn't want to make her more annoyed than she already was, so he agreed to it. He was just hoping that his wife wouldn't do anything foolish while he was gone.

"First she seemed helpless and upset, now she's madder than Koushirou's school principal when he crashed all of the computer lab's computers trying to upload files at the same time to the school's server for his Computer Club. I do not remember her having these kinds of mood swings the first time she was pregnant. At least I do know that she's okay. All she craved was ice cream the first time she was pregnant," he said to himself.

The man was about to walk out of the door to get all that his wife asked for. He then called to her and said, "You can come with me if you would like."

"No, go!" she told him. She then started to speak to him as if he was that of a young child. "I am going to stay here until our son leaves that room! What do you not understand about that!?!"

The man shrugged and left.

"I'm going to talk to him before this night is out whether he wants to or not!" the woman muttered as she stared down the hallway towards Koushirou's room...
****
Odaiba Junior High...

It was very dark out now and Koushirou figured that his school would have been closed by now, but he didn't care. He had to find his article about his parents before he even thought about going to see Mimi. That information was just too vital to him, even if he hadn't read the entire article yet. Another thing on his agenda was to drop by the Inoue's place to talk with Miyako and to apologize for his being so rude over the phone. Being rude was not his thing seeing as how he is always polite and courteous. The only exception to his being rude was everything dealing with Anje and how she had literally pushed him over the edge.

The boy knew that all he had to do was to go down to the computer lab and look for his article. He was pretty much retracing his steps and the computer lab was the last place he remembered seeing it before he acted stupid around Mimi after she had shared her exciting news with him.

Right now, he was trying to figure out a way to get onto the school grounds. He hadn't thought of a way on how to get onto them.

After he locked up his bike, he stopped to think for a moment as he leaned against the gate that surrounded the school. The next thing Koushirou knew, he was lying flat on his back on the school grounds. The gate's doors weren't locked.

The boy got up to inspect the door and smiled.

"This must be my lucky day! Whoever was responsible for locking up, didn't do so correctly."

He decided to close the gate door back and to get back to his original task, hoping that he wouldn't draw any attention to himself or alert anyone. As he continued towards the main doors of Odaiba Junior High, he was getting pretty nervous and had the feeling that something was going to happen, but he dismissed that thought.

When he got to the main doors, just like he expected them to be, they were locked. Luckily, the boy came prepared and dug through his jacket pocket.

"This ought to work..."

He pulled a small, shiny object from his pocket and got an evil smirk on his face. For some odd reason, he had a copy of the school's key.

"I knew that having a copy of the school's key would come in handy one day."

*He always kept one. All teachers and instructors trusted him enough to hold keys for them--he just went on and made copies of them--just in case they were to lose the original copies, but it never came up and he just kept them himself. It's just like the time when all of the children went to the Digital World without telling him, and how he was sitting there, waiting for them when they got back. He had broken into Odaiba Elementary to do so.

After he unlocked the door, he navigated the dark hallway, looking for the Student Computer Lab. He knew that that would be locked and he had a key for that since he was the Computer Club's President. In other words, he had permission to have a key to the lab.

It was difficult, but he managed to find the Computer Lab in the dark hallway. He was now trying to find the key to the lab. He had five keys on him: his house key, the copy of the Odaiba Junior High's key, a copy of Odaiba Elementary's key, his bike key, and the Student Computer Lab key. After he had tried all of the keys, one of them opened the door to the lab. He walked in slowly and turned on the light, his first major mistake. Somebody had seen the light and had run off to get help instead of inspecting the scene.

Meanwhile, Koushirou was still searching around for the article that he knew he had probably dropped. He looked and he looked, but he couldn't find a thing. He searched for a pretty good while, until he finally just gave up.

He decided to check his locker and hoping that maybe he had put it there without realizing it. When he stood up, he heard someone shout out, "Stop!!"

The boy turned around slowly to see a guard and a janitor standing at the door of the Comptuer Lab.

"You're under arrest for trespassing and attempted robbery!" the guard shouted.

"What!?!"
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Comments

Note 1: That pretty much translates to "Good evening, uncle." I don't know if I mentioned that before or not.

I guess I should put up a list of those types of names that I am going to use throughout the rest of this fic, even though I probably should have done this earlier.

Otou: Father
Okaa: Mother
Oji: Uncle
Oba: Aunt
Onii: Brother
Onee: Sister
Ojii: Grandfather
Obaa: Grandmother

Now, the honorifics at the end of those can vary depending on the character. Take Iori for example. He calls his grandfather, "ojiisama" as opposed to "ojiisan," or "ojiichan," etc. Probably because of his politeness and great respect for him.

Or Takeru and Hikari with their brothers like I mentioned earlier. Takeru, as a young child, always referred to Yamato as "oniichan" and Hikari always addressed Taichi as "oniichan." When the two are older, Hikari still addresses Taichi as "oniichan," but Takeru, since he is older, refers to Yamato as "niisan." Jou is the same way with his brothers for the original as well. When referring to his brothers, he called them Shin-niisan and I'm guessing it was the same way for Shuu. I've never heard him address him before, mainly because I've never actually seen an episode where they intereacted with one another.

Now, the only reason I am using "ojisan" for Mimi when referring to her uncle as opposed to "ojichan" or anything like that, is because he was married into the family, not a blood relative like her aunt, which is why I have Mimi referring to her as "obachan."
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Note 2: Okay, I know, unbelievable, right? Well, in that ep of 02 when Hikari was stuck in the Digital World, Koushirou did get into the school somehow. He was mad because no one had informed on what was going on and when the others, along with Taichi, got back from the Digital World, he was sitting there. I didn't even think about that until somebody brought it up at Megchan's Digimon Message Board. I had forgotten all about that episode. I think him obtaining a key for his own personal use is a bit, well, nicer than him actually breaking and entering. ^^