Part 2: Mimi and Michael's Night Out!
Mimi was surprised at the person she saw. Instead of finding someone that could harm her, she found it was the complete opposite. There stood a boy, a bit taller than her with bright blonde hair.
"MICHAEL!! HOW COULD YOU SCARE ME LIKE THAT AND HOW DID YOU CHANGE YOUR VOICE THE WAY THAT YOU DID!?!"
"Because you look cute when you're scared," the boy laughed as he showed her a small, square black object. The object also had a few buttons on it. Michael was speaking into the back of the small box, which could change the sound and pitch of your voice. "I guess you can take care of yourself," he said, still laughing. "I was just testing you. I didn't think you were going to take a bat out on me!"
The girl swung the bat threateningly at him, but in a playful manner.
"I could so hurt you right now!"
"Sorry, sorry," the boy apologized, stifling his laughter.
"Who let you in?"
"Your mom did," Michael explained, sitting down on Mimi's bed. "I noticed that she was all dressed up, like she's going out someplace."
The boy took out an object from his coat pocket.
"Never mind that, though. I brought a CD over for you." He tossed it to her. "I know how you like this group."
"Sugoi!" Mimi exclaimed, tossing it back. "Pop it in!"
Michael went over to Mimi's Radio/CD Player and popped in the cd. Mimi put the bat aside and enjoyed the music.
"I really like this song!" Mimi said while bopping her head to the tune.
"Yeah, I know and you sing it so well too," Michael complimented. "You sing better than they do!"
"Thanks for bringing this over!"
"Sure thing."
Mimi still lived in Manhattan and was now 15 years old. She was wearing a dark green skirt and a red sweater and white stockings and she had her regular hair color, but it was still its same length. She was also skipped up a grade so that she could be in the normal grade as most American 15 year olds, 10th graders. She is now in her sophomore year in high school along with her good friend, Michael, who was also a Digidestined and 15.
He was her best American friend. She was also still quite popular. She was in quoir, captain of the cheerleading squad, and head of the Pep Squad. She also took a dance class. Another club she was in was the "Foreign Language Club" which interested her tremendously. Especially since you learned about other cultures and in this club, there were a lot of different languages that made up the club; the most being French and Spanish. She was currently learning Spanish. She felt that Spanish was easier to learn than the other languages her school offered. The other types of languages that was taught at her school, were, Chinese, Japanese, German, and Italian, which made up the rest of the club.
"Would you care to dance my dear Mimi," Michael asked with a bow, as if he was a perfect gentleman.
"Sure thing," Mimi nodded.
Mimi got up and started to dance to the cd Michael had brought over. After the current song finished playing, both sat down on Mimi's bed.
"Wow, dancing can be tiring at times," she said between breaths.
"You're a good dancer, though," Michael complimented once again. "I could never dance all that great."
"Well, I'll show you how to dance, just like with my..." Mimi trailed off and got quiet.
"What's wrong, Mimi?"
"I was just thinking about the time I taught my Palmon how to dance," she frowned.
"You miss Palmon, huh?"
Mimi nodded sadly.
"I miss Betamon too," Michael sighed. "We all had good times together."
"It's been almost two years since I've heard from Palmon. If only we could go back and see them. I hate the fact that every time a gate just happens to open, it's because the Digital World is in some type of a crisis. Couldn't we all just have a nice quiet day where nothing goes wrong in the Digital World?"
"My guess is that everything is still okay since a gate hasn't opened and none of your friends from Japan have mentioned anything about there being trouble over where they are," Michael said. "And everything on our side is okay. Stephen and the others haven't mentioned anything about there being any trouble either."
"True," the girl said plainly. "After we got back to the real world, Koushirou sent me an e-mail and said that he and Miyako tried my idea of opening up another gate to the Digital World with his computer, but it just wouldn't work." The girl sighed and continued on. "I'm starting to wonder if we're finally too old to go to the Digital World." The girl then started to mutter a bit to herself and frowned. 'Wish I could go back five years and spend time with my Palmon all over again. I really miss her...'
Michael saw how upset Mimi was and decided to try his best to cheer the girl up.
"Let's find a way to cheer ourselves up," the boy suggested. "How about we go out to a movie and have ourselves some dinner. My treat. It's about five now."
"Well, dinner out would be nice since mom and dad are going to go out tonight to a dinner party," she explained. "I really didn't feel like sitting around the house all by myself anyway."
'So that's why Mrs. Tachikawa was all dressed up,' the boy concluded in thought. He then turned his attention back to Mimi. "Great, grab the paper and let's find ourselves a movie!"
Mimi nodded and left the room. Within moments, the girl returned with the Flair section of the paper and both started to look through it to see what was playing. It took a while, but the two decided on catching an 8 o'clock movie. A comedy starring Jim Carey. Neither one of them cared for him much, but the other movies playing weren't ones they were too interested in seeing. They were loaded with either sex or a lot of violence and the two had been through enough violence to last them a life time.
The other movie they could choose was Star Wars Episode III, it had just come out, but the problem with that was that the tickets were sold out for all the showings. That was their first choice actually - even though Mimi wasn't into the Sci Fi stuff much - until Michael reminded Mimi what happened when they tried to get tickets to the second movie that was out a couple of years earlier. The first week it was out, it was booked, booked, and overbooked.
"Let's go," Michael said. "We'll be back by at least 11:30. Do you think your parents'll let you stay out that late? I know mine won't mind since both are currently out of the country. Dad's filming his latest movie in Switzerland and mom is with him and doesn't come back til this weekend."
"I'm sure they won't mind; besides, mom and dad will probably still be out and what they don't know won't hurt them," the girl smiled mischieviously.
"Sneaky," Michael smiled approvingly.
"I better go let them know, though."
Mimi went and got her parents' permission to go, who said it was okay.
Mimi then grabbed her jacket and headed out the door of her house along
with Michael.
A few hours later, they returned home laughing from the movie they had just seen. Michael was about to go home, but decided to walk Mimi in first and to call his folks - which currently consisted of servants - to let them know that he was still at the Tachikawa home and was planning on staying for a while, especially after Mimi asked if he could since her folks were still out. After he did that, they went back to Mimi's room and started talking about the movie and how they actually enjoyed it.
"I guess Jim Carey isn't too bad," Mimi said, still laughing over the movie they had just seen. "This particular movie was actually pretty funny. Now some of his movies just totally repulse me, like Dumb & Dumber!"
"I know what you mean," Michael agreed with a laugh. "At least the title of that particular movie wasn't an understatement! It was dumb!"
"Okay, now tomorrow I can't hang out with you because I have a Foreign Language Club meeting," Mimi explained while hanging up her jacket.
"Oh really," the boy asked while laying down on Mimi's bed.
"Yep," Mimi nodded. "We're talking about Japan in this one. I know I'll really enjoy it and I can tell everybody else all that I know about Japan since I'm from there and also to make it clear that the Chinese and Japanese are different. I also promised to sing a few Japanese songs that I know."
"Cool, what songs did you choose," the boy asked.
"I decided to sing a few songs by one of my favourite singers, AiM," Mimi smiled.
"Is she the one who used to go by the name Maeda Ai?"
Mimi nodded. "Yeah, she started going by the name AiM in about 2000 so people wouldn't confuse her with another singer by the same name. She's much younger, the other Maeda Ai, than AiM, but there was still a bit of confusion."
"AiM is a pretty cool singer."
"I'm going to sing, I Wish, Itsumo Itsudemo, Ashita wa Atashi no Kaze ga Fuku, Itsu Demo Aeru Kara, Find Out, On the Hill~Kaze wo Kanjite~, Like A Candle, and a song called Super Girl. I really like all of them and many more," the girl said excitedly. "Everyone really wanted me to sing them since they like the way that I sing. It's like I'm practically giving a concert to the entire club tomorrow."
"Well, you do have a pretty voice, and you actually sound similar to her."
"I'll never be as great as her," Mimi said while shaking her head.
"But you are," Michael insisted. "I've heard her songs and I've heard you sing plenty of songs in Japanese as well; you sound great! Maybe even better than her."
"Oh stop," Mimi blushed.
"Hey, it's true, but what are you going to do for music? I doubt that you could get any of the strings or the marching band members to play those songs since it'll take more than one night to learn the music to play them."
"I have my Radio/CD Player with all of the karaoke versions of the song with the background vocals, I'll sing to that," she explained.
"All of those songs have karaoke versions of them?"
"Well, no. Find Out, Like A Candle, and On the Hill~Kaze wo Kanjite~ don't, but not to worry about that."
"But how are you going to sing to the karaoke of a song if the karaoke doesn't exist?"
"Koushirou and Miyako."
"What about them?"
"Well, a while ago when I promised this, I really wanted to sing those particular songs. I asked them if they knew of a way for me to, and Koushirou told me that he could easily filter out the vocals using some audio editting program. Both he and Miyako work on the sound for Yamato's band."
"So they filtered out the main vocals?"
"Yeah, they sure did."
"But wouldn't that sound a bit bad quality wise?"
"Yeah, probably, but they did a terrific job on it! You'd never guess that these three songs weren't original karaokes. They sent the songs back to me through e-mail in mp3 format and I burned them onto a blank cd, along with the other songs I mentioned."
"Wow, those two are good."
"Hmm, I really ought to bring some props, or better yet, do something to create a Japanese type atmosphere, you know?"
Michael nodded.
"Oh, I wish you'd join, Michael. You're pretty good with Japanese and since you've lived here in New York all of your life, you already speak Spanish fluently."
"But I have my Karate lessons and I'm already up to my second brown belt, that's why I can't join and I also have to go to a swim meet," he reminded her. "I'm surprised they're having a Swimming Club meet so early this year. They always seem to fall on the same day, the Foreign Language club and my Karate lessons."
"That's right, I forgot about that," Mimi said while resting her hand on her hip. "The club is looking for more multilingual students. You'd be the perfect candidate since you know both Spanish and Japanese."
"And don't forget, I know a little bit of Italian, not much worth talking about, though."
"Hey, can't you speak Chinese too?"
"Yeah, I can speak a little, but reading is too difficult for me. I started trying to learn that to see what the actual differences were between the Chinese and Japanese languages and cultures, especially since my father filmed most of his movies there," Michael explained. "I only know the Spanish because I lived here for so long and since the majority of the people in my neighbourhood were Japanese-American, I decided to learn it and became somewhat fascinated with the culture. I was about eight at the time. But eventually, more people would move away. I had no one to speak Japanese with and I was starting to forget some of it, until you came along."
Mimi smiled at Michael. She was glad that she had met him as well.
"My English teacher asked me if I would like to earn some extra credit. I, of course, agreed and she told me that we had a new student who didn't know much English and was from Japan. I wasn't sure if it was going to be such a good idea. Since our old Junior High School didn't have Japanese as a language, we didn't have a teacher that taught it, and my English teacher knew that I knew a bit of it because of my mom mentioning it at one of their PTA meetings. They had been calling around for a while, asking the parents of the students if anyone was fluent in Japanese. I'm glad that I did tutor you in English now. You caught on pretty quickly. The Spanish I've been speaking since I was really little. My mom spoke it a lot so I picked up on it."
"I didn't think that I caught on so quickly, but you were so patient with me," Mimi smiled. "Pienso que aprender español es mucho mas facil que ingles."
"Wow, you've been practicing, even though that's pretty much book Spanish," Michael said with an approving smile, as if he were a teacher that was proud of his student. "But do you really think so? You really think it's easier to learn Spanish than it is to learn English?"
"Sí, tambien, francés es mucho mas dificil que aprender que español," Mimi nodded.
"So you think French is harder than Spanish too?"
"Sí," Mimi gave Michael a sly look, "pero japonés es mucho mejor."
"I guess Japanese would be better for you since you're from Japan," he laughed. "By the way, are you sure about singing Super Girl?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I've heard it before, and it's nice, but there's that one part that doesn't sound too pleasant and you know how the kids are at our school," he warned. "Some have dirty minds." He then laughed. "I'm starting to think it's an American thing."
"Hmm, I never thought about it but the song is really nice. I'm going to take my chances with it," Mimi said. She then winked at Michael. "And I doubt it's just an American thing. It's probably just a teenage thing in general."
The boy laughed.
"Well, good luck from me, but you'll probably do okay anyway."
"Okay, which song do you want me to sing first," the girl asked. "I should get in some last minute practice."
"How about Itsumo Itsudemo," Michael suggested.
"Okay," Mimi agreed. "I really need to practice with that one a bite more since there are no background vocals, only music. I Wish is another."
Mimi got quiet again from mentioning the song, I Wish.
"Mimi?"
"I'm sorry," Mimi apologized while forcing on a smile. "I'm just remembering the time I had to sing to awaken Tonosama Gekomon (Shogun Gekomon). The song I sang to awaken him was I Wish."
"Man, everything seems to remind you of the Digital World," Michael observed.
"I know, even my computer does."
"The computer?"
She nodded and continued on.
"It reminds me of going to the Digital World and of Koushirou. He's a total computer nerd and figured out the majority of the things that went on with his laptop while in the Digital World concerning our Digimon," she explained. "Besides, we did travel to and from the Digital World two years ago through the computer."
"That's right, but I feel there's more to the way you are feeling than what you are telling me."
She nodded slowly.
"I am also kind of homesick right now," she confessed.
"I figured something else was up. You've never mentioned anything like that before."
"I don't hate it here," she said with a frown, "I just really wish I were back in Japan right now."
"Mind my asking why?"
"No, I don't mind," Mimi said while shaking her head.
"I'm all ears," Michael told her while sitting up.
"Well, it's my friend, Sora," she started. "She is having terrible boy trouble right now. I just wish I were there to give her some moral support, you know."
"Yeah, you girls need to stick together when it comes to those kinds of things," he smirked.
"Michael, I'm serious."
"What kind of boy trouble is it? Let's see if I can give a suggestion from a guy's point of view," Michael offered.
"Well, she's currently dating this guy, but in secret. It's been this way for almost two weeks now. She doesn't want to tell her other guy friend because she has an idea about how he feels about her and her secret boyfriend is best friends with her guy friend. He feels the exact same way."
"Do I know these guys?"
"Well, you know of them, but that's not important right now. What do you suggest they do? I told her that they should both tell their friend. It's better to hear it from them than from somebody else."
"I was going to say something like that," the boy seriously responded. "It's tough keeping something like that a secret. I'm sure their friend would find out eventually and it'd probably make him feel worse. Is Sora really good friends with this guy?"
"Yeah, best friends. He's her best guy friend."
"Then she should tell him," Michael said again. "It'll mess up their relationship if she doesn't. Best friends shouldn't keep secrets from each other, especially over something as trivial as that."
"Well, I just hope she makes the right decision and tells him what's going on," Mimi said. "If not her, at least her new boyfriend."
"Man, talk about a love triangle," Michael laughed.
"Yeah, well...let's just hope everything goes okay."
The girl decided to get off the subject and start practicing her songs.
"Forget about that. Let me get that cd with the songs I plan on performing tomorrow. I'm going to use my karaoke machine instead. You go set it up and hook up the microphone." Mimi started to mutter as she searched through her dresser drawer for her cd. "Now where is it..."
All of a sudden, Mimi's Radio/CD Player started playing.
"Did you turn that on," Mimi asked, looking back at Michael.
Michael shook his head.
"I was about to ask you if it automatically comes on or something."
The Radio/CD player started to glow, and the room started to fill with wind. Because of this, Mimi instinctively grabbed onto Michael's arm. It was like a hurricane was hitting her room.
"Michael," Mimi shouted over the high winds, "what's happening!!"
"I don't know but we better try to get out of here," he shouted back.
They both ran to the now shut door, which had been blown closed due to the wind, and tried to open it.
"Hayaku (Hurry), Michael!" Mimi shouted, moving some of her long hair from out of her face.
"I can't, the door is stuck," the boy told her while still trying to pull the door open. "It won't open!"
All of a sudden, a beam came from the radio and shot the both of them. They screamed as the light surrounded them. They then felt themselves being pulled into the light, which caused the two to spontaneously clasp hands.
"Michael!!"
"Mimi, don't let go!"
The two now found themselves in a strange tornado like structure. Right now, it felt as if the two were trapped inside of a water-less washer.
"I...can't...hold...on..." Michael said, feeling Mimi's hand slipping from out of his.
Both screamed as they were forced apart and went flying in opposite directions.
"Mimi!!!"
"Michael...nooooo!!"