Unless my rich uncle buys me Toei for Christmas, I don't think I'll be owning Digimon anytime soon. 

This is the penultimate part. There's a brief epilogue to come.

And I'm really curious . . . . Did the book\play end in the same way as this does?



DANCING

PART 5

LIFE AS A FAIRYTALE


Later, in a little while, in the middle of the gentle rain,
cover up my pain.
My weakness will be washed away,
since I will begin to run.
~ Yasashii Ame, Araki Kae

I wonder at what a short time ago it was -
the injuries that came to an end
every time that you were near
when I shone far.
There were eerie fissures -
many sad incidents, but how many were they?
Now, I understand.
I watched intently, you were there and they ended.

Your eyes were very beautiful -
I watched, and I changed.
The sky served as your eyes,
but your own eyes were always sensing things.
They were the reflection of memory.
~ Reflection, Araki Kae (and, yes, she is obviously singing about Takeru in this one. :P)


"Give me three seconds to throw on my tux and we can go," Takeru called as he kicked off his sneakers at the door and walked through to the living room in his socks. He frowned when no response came from Hikari. She didn't have to work Fridays and all her classes on the day were morning ones, so she should have been home hours ago. Their apartment was dark and quiet; the helium balloons he had bought bobbed silently in the gloom. He batted a silver one away from him as it drifted past, "Are you home, Hikari-chan?"

There was still no reply from her.

He ran a hand through his shower-damp hair, breathing deeply and collecting himself. He had to be sensible about this. There was no point in jumping to the worst possible conclusion. In all likelihood, Hikari had gone straight to the university's LAN to work on her photographs without stopping by their apartment, without discovering the surprise he had planned for her. She would come home later that night and they would laugh about the confusion.

However, the white note cards lying on the table showed that up for the self-deception it was. In his thick, black writing, they spelt out his invitation: Odotte hoshii desu ka? Do you want to dance? Only Hikari could have removed them from their balloons and arranged them in the correct order. All the clever theories in the world could not deny the simple facts of the matter: she had read his message, and had left for the LAN anyway, if that was indeed where she had gone.

He sank heavily into their overstuffed sofa. She was probably avoiding him in her discomfort over what had happened that morning. He couldn't blame her; he had also felt pretty awkward when she had come through to breakfast. As much as he had tried to forget them and carry on as if she had said nothing, her words had hurt him. They still kept coming into his mind, bringing with them the same sharp pain, the same strange fear.

After they had had sex that morning, she had fallen into a light and disturbed sleep, but he not been able to follow her example. Instead, he had lain awake and thought about life without Yagami Hikari. There would be no more of her familiar clutter around their bedroom - her robe over the chair, her photographs on the floor, her make-up on the dressing table. There would be no more of her surprise attacks with her camera in which she delighted in catching him at the worst conceivable times. There would be no more of her spontaneous picnics where she would spread a blanket on the lounge floor and make endless, horrible sandwiches for them. There would be no more Sunday mornings when she would lie with her head on his lap and listen to him read her his stories. There would be no more sleepy midnight conversations when she returned home late from work and wasn't quite ready to fall asleep. Life without her would be very cold and empty.

His eyes went to the photograph on the mantelpiece. It had been taken at their wedding - not the official, posed one that they had sent to all their friends and relatives, but one that Sora had snapped while they weren't looking. It showed him and her sitting together in the garden of the hotel at which they had had their reception. Her head was resting on his shoulder, his arm was around her. They looked so innocent and so happy, as if they truly believed that all the days ahead of them would be happy ones.

The question she hadn't answered returned to him with painful inevitability - did she regret marrying him? If she could go back to that evening when he had smiled at her and asked her to marry him, would she have changed her mind and said 'no' to him? Since she couldn't, was she planning to divorce him?

He sighed. Maybe life was like a song that returned to the same chorus every time. Maybe he and Yamato couldn't avoid making the same mistakes and paying for them in the same way as their parents had. He knew his brother's marriage to Yuu was falling apart rapidly. He had seen it when he and Hikari visited them for Christmas. The old, hard look had returned to Yamato's eyes, and Yuu had never stopped smiling once in their presence. He had heard her crying at night, though, when she had thought they were asleep.

"Maybe we're just terminally screwed up when it comes to love," he thought, "If I can't make it work with Hikari, then I can't make it work with anyone . . . ."

The back of his neck prickled at the thought. When had his marriage been reduced to proving that he succeed where his parents had failed, that he wasn't as dysfunctional as his childhood had been?

"I'm home," a quiet voice broke into his thoughts.

In surprise, Takeru looked up to see Hikari standing in their bedroom door, leaning against its frame with one arm. She was dressed in a blue peasant blouse with daisies embroidered around its neck and a faded, denim skirt. She was barefoot, and her one leg was twined around the other. She was holding a brown envelope in her hand, with which she was tapping her thigh. She chewed nervously on her bottom lip.

"Why didn't you say so, when I called?"

"I-I needed time to think before I saw you, Takeru," she said hesitantly, "I needed to think before we spoke."

"Why did you need time? You know you can tell . . . ." he began in confusion, then stopped in mid-sentence as he realised what she had meant. He felt himself go cold. If she needed time to think, to choose her words, she could only have one thing to say to him. He had been dreading it since that morning, but had not thought it would come so soon. He continued in a flat voice, "I get it. You were trying to think of a kind way of breaking it to me, but . . . there isn't one. I should know. If you want a divorce, Hikari, I  . . . ." he trailed off, his voice choking in his throat, so that he was unable to finish the sentence. Hot tears rose in his eyes.

"A divorce? Us?" Hikari repeated, sounding genuinely shocked, "God, no. No, no, Takeru, I . . . ." she crossed the living-room to come and stand in front of him. She held out the envelope to him, "Here. You need to have this."

Not moving to take it from her, Takeru frowned at the envelope. Manilla and official-looking, it was the sort used by banks and doctors. A new possibility rushed into his mind. Hikari was perfectly healthy and been for years, as far as he knew, so she could have only been to the doctor for one reason alone. He looked back up at her in excitement and fear, "Are you . . . are you . . . pregnant?"

"Takeru, you know perfectly well I'm on the Pill," Hikari stuck out her tongue at him, then sobered, "No, this is just a cheque for the money you spent on my dress. I had it refunded. Take it already."

He stared at her disbelievingly. He remembered her telling him the other day that she had not wanted to spend his basketball money on a dress for herself, but had thought she would change her mind when she saw the one he had bought for her. Maybe it had not been as perfect for her as he had thought at the time, "You took back the dress?"

"Yes. And here's the money for it."

"You keep it," he pushed her hand gently away from him, "I don't want it."

"Nor do I," she dropped the envelope onto his lap, before folding her arms across her chest and tilting her chin defiantly. He had seen the same, determined look on Taichi's face hundreds of times, when he had dug in his heels and was prepared for a fight. He met her stare levelly, deliberately picking up the envelope and setting it on the cushion next to him. In case she had forgotten, Ishidas could be pretty stubborn as well.

"I'm not going to get it, you know," she said in resolute tones, "It's your money, and I can't take it."

"Well, then it'll just have to stay there," he shrugged, getting to his feet, "What do you want for dinner? I can do miso soup or something, if you don't mind eating a bit late."

Her forehead crinkled, "Aren't we going to talk about this?"

"What more is there to say? I bought you a dress. You returned it, because you didn't like it. And now we have more than the usual amount of change in our sofa. End of story."

"No, Takeru, I loved the dress," she replied quietly, dropping her gaze to her feet, "It was the one I wanted ever since I saw it."

Exasperation seeping into his voice, "Then why'd you return it?"

Hikari let out her breath with a sharp puff, her head snapping back up to look at him. Her eyes glittered. There were bright spots of colour on both her cheeks, "Because I love you more! Because I damn well want you more!"

"And I love you. What would be so bad about accepting a present from me?"

"It would be selfish! I know how much the camp in America means to you. I don't want to be the one stopping you from . . . from living out your own dreams."

"It's just a stupid camp, Hikari. You're much more important to me."

"And it's just a stupid dress! You're much more important to me! Why don't you get that?" Hikari shouted. Her hand went to her mouth in an instinctive gesture of shock. Takeru stared at her, equally stunned, not knowing what to say to her in return. They had had their share of arguments in their months of marriage, but his wife had never raised her voice in one of them. He might shout and storm, but her anger was always chillingly, impeccably polite.

However, oddly enough, her furious words had broken some subtle tension between them. For the first time that day, he felt himself relax slightly.

Slowly, she lowered her hand and continued in a softer voice, "I don't need a fancy dress to dance, Takeru-chan. All I need is the right partner, and I've found him. If he still wants me?"

His love for her warm within him, "You know he does."

Smiling up at him, she slipped her arms around him and snuggled her head beneath his chin. He tightened his own arms around her, burying his face in her hair and breathing in its wild flower scent. Holding her, he felt the hard, cold knot in his chest dissolve. It was like waking up from a long nightmare to see blue skies and the sun streaming through the window. . . . 

Impulsively, he lifted her up off the ground and spun around with her. Hikari gave a little yelp of surprise, her arms going to his neck and her legs wrapping around his waist. Her dark hair whipped around her and her eyes sparkled, as he turned her in circles.

"What are you doing?"

Dizzily happy, he asked, "Takaishi Hikari-san, will you go to the dance with me?"

"Like we are?" she laughed, looking down at his grey-green poloneck and black jeans, "Takeru! We can't!"

"Why not?" he paused to kiss the hollow of her throat, "Who cares about what you're wearing? You'll still be the most amazing, beautiful, wonderful woman there."

"And I will have the cutest, sweetest partner. So, why not? Let's go!" she kissed the tip of his nose, then pulled back slightly to look at him with a solemn expression on her pretty face, "I've been such an idiot, Takeru-chan. I've been an idiot for letting Miyako's question get to me. It made me wonder if my life might be better without you, if I'd have more fun, more money, more free time, more whatever without you. . . .But I've realised that it's a stupid question. If my life stopped having you in it, none of that would count, because you're the person who makes me happy. And, if I ever had made you think I didn't want you anymore, I'm sorry. I'm so - "

"You don't need to apologise, love," he said softly, then placed his mouth on top of hers. She parted her lips in response, and the kiss deepened. She shifted position in his arms, unwrapping her legs from his waist, pressing the length of her body against him. Her feet were still in the air, her toes pointed like a ballerina's. He felt warmth spread through him like starshine.

Suddenly, he heard their apartment's door bang open behind them. High heels clickety-clacked across the wooden floor, and Miyako's voice began to gush, "I'm so, so sorry, Hikari. . . . .," she cut off in mid-apology with a gasp, "Oh my god. . . Hikari, who is making out with Takeru and who is now going to be even more pissed with me because I walked in on them."

Takeru's cheeks were burning, as he broke away from his wife. He didn't even want to think how they must have looked, what she must have thought they were doing. Hikari buried her head in his shoulder, her own cheeks crimson.

"That's why you knock, Miyako," Daisuke's voice added weakly, "Hey, you two."

Takeru heard Hikari give a muffled, little groan, and guessed the reason. She knew the other boy still loved her, and tried her best to keep from causing him any more pain than she already had by her marriage. It was why he had been the first person she had told about their engagement: she hadn't wanted him to hear it from one of the others, and think she had cared so little for him that she not bothered to tell him herself. He felt no jealousy at that.

Still embarrassed, Takeru set Hikari on her feet and turned around to greet his friends. Twisting her chiffon shawl nervously around one hand, Miyako was giving them a sheepish grin. She was wearing a silvery-blue slip of a dress that sparkled with rhinestones. Another shimmering arrow of the stones decorated her lilac hair, sweeping it out from her eyes. Behind her, Daisuke was scuffing the floor with a shiny, black shoe, an uncomfortable look on his face. He was dressed in a classic tuxedo, complete with a white rose at his lapel and a black bowtie at his throat.

"Hey, Daisuke, Miyako," he said as naturally as he could manage in the circumstances.

"Hi," Hikari added, tugging her skirt back into place, "Can we get a ride with you to the dance? As you can see, we spent all our money on our party clothes . . . ."

"You aren't going dressed in that, Takaishi Hikari!" Miyako exclaimed in horror, her apology evidently forgotten, "And, Takeru, aren't you at least going to put on a tux or something respectable?"

His wife smiled up at him before she replied, "I don't know, Miyako. I think we'll be fine just the way we are."

*

NOTES:

· Before the medical students begin telling me that women on the Pill can and do get pregnant, I'm aware of that fact. It's ALMOST 100% proof against pregnancy, however. Studies in Sweden show that only 17 pregnancies occurred in 40 million hours of use. (I so don't want to know how they got those facts, actually.)

· A note on the Japanese suffixes: -chan is obviously very affectionate. However, Takeru and Hikari are more using it because they've grown up together, rather than because they're married. –san can more or less be translated 'Mr' or 'Ms' with the same degree of politeness as that implies in English. Takeru is obviously being grandiose there.

*

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