Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own digimon.

A/N: Oh man, I'm such a procrastinator. But alas! I've found the decency to continue, though I am quite sleepy right now, there's school tomorrow, and a dance the next day! Lordy, lordy, lordy. Anyways, I've made the stranger completely obvious, but whatever. Fanfic HO! (Ho? Hoh? Ehh, whatever. XD)

"Taiichi." It wasn't a question because Mimi knew exactly who the stranger was, with no need for confirmation. Yes, it was Taiichi, that she knew, but what she wanted to know was why he was there.

"H-hey, there," was all Taiichi managed to stammer out. He studied her: how her hair never fell down in the same place on the contours of her face, but she still ended up looking beautiful anyway, just like before. He also studied how she was a reality, and not at all a delusion.

Mimi didn't bother to look up, because she was scared to look Taiichi in the eyes; she could feel his stare. She cleared her throat, afraid that when she spoke, she would be too surprised to create any sounds. "H-how have you been? We haven't seen you in a while."

"I've been good. Not as good as I could've been if we were still…" Taiichi stopped himself just as soon as the tension built up. He cautioned himself to avoid the awkward subject because it was just too early in their "reunion" to be talking about how he moved, and it was stupid to build up tension again in what was barely a conversation. "So how are you?"

"I've been great." Mimi smiled. Still trying to avert Taiichi's gaze, she glanced at Yamato with a hint of both regret and sorrow in her eyes. She looked back down to her feet. "A-anyways, I've got to get to class."

Mimi finally looked up at Taiichi with what would have been her parting words, and she felt a longing that she hadn't felt for ages. She felt drawn to him, and he fascinated her as equally as he had before. The two of them remained silent, and merely stared at each other, and neither made another move.

Yamato stood aside, quiet as ever, for the situation was quite awkward for him. He knew that the girl of his dreams, whom he had only been able to have once his best friend had gone, was slowly drifting away from him right before his eyes, and he was powerless to stop her. The boy who had been best friend, and his girl friend were the two people he cared about most, yet he knew that to them, he was only second after one another. With one last glance at the two, equivalent to Taiichi's longing glance at Mimi blended with the similarities to Mimi's remorseful glance at Taiichi, Yamato walked away to his class, unaware to whether or not the two noticed if he'd gone.

Later that night, Taiichi was not-so-sound-asleep in his bed. He was actually quite the opposite of this: he was restless, and could not sleep even no matter how hard he tried. It was ironic that it was in this same bed that he awoke, ignorant to the fact that today would be the day that he would be reunited with his first love, Mimi. It was quite gruesome, actually. He hadn't known that his best friend, Yamato, was in love with the same girl that he was in love with.

"Eh…heh. It must've slipped my mind, I guess."

That was what Sora said. She said it while observing her feet, which practically gave her lie away. Taiichi turned from his side-ways position so that he was facing the ceiling. There was a window in his room, and the shadows penetrating the room danced on the opposing wall, adorned with light from the moon. He sighed when he realized that he was still in love. It was no secret, though. Ever since Mimi, he had only gone out with one girl, and their relationship only lasted a few days. One reason that this relationship was cut short was because Taiichi couldn't handle being with someone other than Mimi, while the other reason was that Taiichi had accidentally called Michiko, his current girlfriend at the time, "Mimi." All hail subconscious desires forcing their way through irrelevant words of the unsuspecting victim. Sarcastically, that's how Taiichi felt at the time, anyway.

Morning's return was exposed through the disappearance of all the dancing shadows, and by the piercing ring of Taiichi's alarm clock. Feeling a bit like an insomniac, for he was that night, he was almost tempted to press the snooze button, but felt a sort of "motivation" to go to school that morning. He stood up to get something to eat when it dawned on him: he had seen Mimi yesterday, after an eternity of not.

And she was going out with who was his best friend way back when. Taiichi groaned and mumbled his negative thoughts aloud to himself. "You had your chance…not your fault…family…moving…" All throughout the internal affliction going on in his mind, he knew that deep down he was ecstatic and completely excited about school today. It had been a week since he helped his family move back to his hometown, and only the second day since he had started school again, but he never felt so alive in a while, and he remembered quite well that the last he felt this alive . Though the conversation contained nothing but small talk, he could still feel the chemistry, and could still feel the energy drawing them near each other. They were still vulnerable to the spell that had been cast on them so long ago, and that spell had revisited yesterday. Taiichi regretted so much that the spell was broken by the startling ring of the late bell, because he felt as though he could look into her eyes for an eternity and never get tired of her beauty.