I.
fool's gold

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She was seventeen when Mimi dropped by her flower shop, showing off the magazine she stole from her mother's collection.

"It's a wedding special edition!" Mimi exclaimed, flipping each page with starry eyes. "No way! Why does everything look so pretty? I sooo want to get married quickly now!"

It was easy for Mimi to lay her choice on Elie Saab's strapless dress and a Tiffany's necklace that she believed would finely highlight her décolletage. She was, however, struggling to decide whether it was necessary to use a veil, because she somewhat believed it would hide her hair-do—which was also still in debate between a wavy side-sweep or a chignon in her natural light brunette. She quickly made up her mind after seeing a tulle veil with a leafy floral crown.

Unknowingly, they spent the rest of the afternoon planning out their imaginary weddings that were certainly beyond what they could afford.

"Someday," Mimi propped her chin, "I will have the most majestic wedding ever in the world with Michael, sailing above the Princess from Tokyo to New York so that all of our friends can attend!"

Sora giggled at how illogical the idea was, but stopped when Mimi pulled her hands and held them tightly.

"Promise me you will arrange all the flowers at my wedding."

"What? B, but I can't—"

"You can! You are, after all, the daughter of the Iemoto!"

"Mimi, you know I am not my mother."

"The least you can do is to arrange my wedding bouquet, and there's no way I'll let you refuse." She let go of their hands only to lift one of her little fingers. "Swear to me, Sora!"

Sora knew she didn't have many options in hand, so she sighed and linked their pinkies. "Alright, alright. Just don't regret it if it makes you want to throw it away immediately."

"Impossible. I'll get the hang of it for the whole celebration. It is your artwork, after all."

It would be Sora's indeed, but somehow Mimi was the one who felt more confident.

"Then if you do my wedding bouquet, what shall I do for yours, huh? A makeup?" Mimi continued to ponder. "I guess you'll be the one who gets married first, anyway—ooh, I bet Yamato will look dashing in a suit and tie!"

"Mimi!"

They stayed until it was time to close the shop, but that was years ago. The flower shop was closed for good when Sora went for college, leaving reveries and predictions that were proven wrong in the future time because Mimi was going to be the one who got married first.

The dress may not be branded with the name of a famous designer, but it was beautiful nonetheless. They found the dress in a novel boutique near Kichijoji, owned by a young woman who was willing to indulge all of the requests, which could be quite troublesome knowing it's Mimi. She felt content though, having her dress tailored to her taste exclusively for her big day.

In the end, the only jewelry she wore was a pair of pearl earrings from her grandmother, but she managed to keep her flower crown and veil—just as Sora managed to keep her promise to arrange a bouquet for her.

It took her some nights to get it done, and when she thought it was because she was having a hard time juggling between the bouquet and her works, she realised that apparently, she was just a perfectionist like her mother. Considering she helped Mimi pick the dress and accessories, she should easily reflect on the apparel and make a bouquet that matched their colours. However, it wasn't that simple when she put in the weight of hanakotoba and everything that her mother lectured her entire life.

"Close your eyes," Sora pleaded the moment she entered the bride's room. Just when Sora thought her best friend couldn't get any prettier, there she sat in front of the vanity, looking like God's greatest creation.

"What is it?"

"You made me promise, silly."

Mimi glared when she realised what it was and promptly obliged. Smiling, Sora revealed the bouquet she hid on her back and put it between Mimi's palm. "There you go."

Mimi opened her eyes to gaze down, and the moment she found the bouquet on her lap, she almost screamed ecstatically. It was a combination of white lilies and anemones, with a hint of red roses and enough leaves to represent her liking on greens. She turned to Sora, jaw dropped and speechless, but Sora knew her well enough to interpret such expression and chuckled about it.

"Tell me the meaning!" Mimi finally gushed, holding herself not to shake her bouquet too enthusiastically. "There must be a meaning, right?"

Sora nodded. "White lily—shirayuri—is for purity, similar to the anemone that means sincerity." Both the best quality about Mimi that Sora would forever admire.

"And red roses—benibara, of course, means … 'to be in love.'"

She gulped unconsciously, but somehow Mimi managed to catch it.

"Sora…" she started, a hint of guilt in her tone. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know," Mimi lowered her tone. "With all of this. I feel worse finding out that you keep our promise, and to think that you will have a speech on—"

"Mimi." Knowing what she was trying to say, Sora cut her in. "Don't. I love you more than anything in the world. It is my pleasure to be your maid of honour—" it felt weird saying such a foreign word with her dialect, "—and taking part to fulfill your dreams of having the most majestic wedding in this century."

She stared right into Mimi's eyes, trying to be as sincere as her best friend, and when she realized those caramel eyes started to glaze, she broadened her smile.

"Now don't cry. You'll ruin your makeup. We don't want the groom to look at smudgy mascara while reciting his vow."

She patted Mimi's cheek laughing, contagious enough to make Mimi giggle too.

At one point, Mimi realized that there was no such thing as a cruise between Tokyo and New York, so she had her wedding at a hotel in Shibakoen—on a glass-roofed chapel, surrounded by lush green forest served as the background of the altar. She didn't have to hold weddings in two countries anyway, now that she was marrying a Japanese.

A French-Japanese, actually; but he never felt so attached to the heritage, considering the only thing he inherited was blondish hair and a pair of cerulean eyes.

Sora knew because he told her so when they were dating in high school.

It was a long time ago. She moved on. Otherwise, she would crash this wedding at instance, wouldn't she?

As the maid of honour, one of her jobs was to walk down the aisle before the bride and her father. However, Sora couldn't handle the burden if she had to walk by herself, so Mimi let Sora walk together with the best man that turned out to be the younger brother of the groom himself.

"Takeru!" She found him near the entrance along with a foreign-looking girl. Turning his head, Takeru widened his smile and yelled her name in return. He rushed to hug Sora tightly, and when they pulled apart, he couldn't seem to let go of his hand instantly from her shoulder.

"Long time no see. You've become so tall."

"I am. Thank you for preparing the wedding, Sora. I feel gutted as a best man not being able to help much."

"You're miles away from home, so don't worry. How's Paris anyway?"

"I wish you could come someday. It screams fashion just as you do."

"That explains why you are looking so exquisite."

"Well, if it's true, I have to thank someone for that …." He asked the girl before to come closer, and when she did, Takeru's hands scooted over from Sora's shoulder to hers.

"Sora, this is Catherine."

Takeru didn't have to point out who she was; Sora often heard the name from some stories. Sora offered her hand and said the only English greeting that would not sound weird in her mouth since it had the same pronunciation as "hai." Fortunately for her, Catherine spoke Japanese quite well so they could properly get acquainted for five minutes, right before the organisers gave them a cue to start the wedding. Takeru sent Catherine to the guest's seat before he came back to stand beside Sora.

Looking over the shoulders of the bridesmaids and groomsmen in front of her, she could see the groom walked in pride to meet the priest at the altar.

Mimi's voice from the past echoed in her mind. Yamato is indeed dashing in suit and tie.

Who knew that she was actually the one who would become his lucky bride?

Sora's grip on Takeru's arm turned to steel, only to be noticed by the young man.

"Are you okay, Sora?"

"Mm-hmm."

She couldn't look at Takeru. Not when he looked like a carbon copy of his brother.

A soft tune from piano escorted them while walking down the aisle before Wedding March filled in. The whole chapel shifted their attention once again to the door, and Sora swore the moment Mimi showed up hand in hand with her father, even the angels held their breath from heaven.

The wedding went splendid, even though Yamato sounded bashful when he said "I do" and Mimi could not hold herself to cry when they finally kissed each other among the cheers of spectators. They moved to the ballroom for the celebrations, where Yamato gave their first speech as husband and wife. After the first toast, Takeru stood up for his speech, followed by Sora and the parents. Sora was so invested in preparing the wedding that she wasn't able to write a heart-warming speech just as Takeru. She even flustered herself while reading it out loud, but the toast at the end saved her from further embarrassment.

The party didn't stop after the guests left—or at least for the twelve of them. They ascended to the thirty-third floor, occupied a private lounge overlooking the Tokyo Tower. Mimi had changed into a much shorter gown that helped her roam freely. She made each of her friends sing, but they knew that the bride would eventually come out as the winner with her divine voice.

It was indeed a crazy after-party where they crashed the karaoke machine and binge-drinking, but Sora, overwhelmed by the whole situation, decided to sit by the barstool, having herself a glass of margarita while gazing at the city lights under the dusk. Daisuke and Mimi were going to have their second duet of the night above the mini stage in front of the TV screen.

"I must say that your speech wasn't as bad as it seems."

She turned back. The first thing she noticed was the loose tie, just before the infamous bushy hair that defied the work of gravity.

Sora chuckled. "Taking the pleasure to make fun of me already, Taichi?"

Taichi grinned before suited himself beside her. "Compared to Hiroaki's, yours is much better."

"So you say that my speech should be on the same level with a middle-aged man's diction?"

"Now you make yourself sound old."

"Just so you know, I took half of the speech from the internet. I know I can't compare mine to Takeru's anyway."

"You can't set a speech from a person who studies literature in France as a benchmark, Sora."

"And he got himself a Parisian as a girlfriend. A genuine species from the most romantic place on earth to help him with the speech. I lost from the very beginning."

"Oh, yeah—Catherine. He seems so chummy with her."

"Jealous, Oniichan?"

Taichi snorted when he realized Sora was making fun of his sister complex. "Yeah, I wish I also chased her the moment she was being introduced to us." He went to Paris with Yamato, Koushiro, and Takeru for their coming-of-age trip, and that was when they met Catherine for the first time. "I mean, I'm as handsome as Takeru, right?"

Sora rolled her eyes.

"In your dreams, Yagami."

"But it's true. Maybe if I were the one who dated her, Takeru and Hikari wouldn't break up and we would have their wedding today instead."

Taichi probably didn't mean anything when he said that. If anyone could be offended by such words, it should be Taichi himself because there was no way he would let his dearly beloved sister to get married before graduating from university. Strangely, Sora felt a sudden irritation by Taichi's analogy. It was as if there was a possibility of Mimi and Yamato not getting married today.

As if she and Yamato could be the ones who walked down the aisle as husband and wife instead.

Drinking the last quarter of her margarita, she could feel him staring at her with concern, seemingly knowing that there was something wrong being unspoken.

"How do you like your sky today?" Taichi had his own peculiar way of asking how she was doing, using the same sentence every time just because it contained the word "sky"—sora. She could not remember why he used how do you like your sky rather than how is the sky today in the first place though. It was like asking what Sora wanted for her coffee, which was something he wouldn't often ask since he was already so familiar with her choice of caffeine. He was, after all, her best friend next to Mimi, having known each other since they sat in the same class in grade school. They even joined the same football club and always went to the same school until they parted ways for college.

But for her, Taichi would always be the one where she could cry her heart out, even when she frequently did that without literally crying for as much as her pride stood in the way.

Sora lamented at the stage. Yamato just pushed Daisuke for being so intoxicated, and Mimi decided that her husband should be her next singing partner.

"Gold." Sora couldn't think of any other way to answer. She chuckled sarcastically while pouring her next shot. "Fool's gold."

She knew that Taichi would eventually find out if she lied, so she decided to be honest from the very start.

"Do you know the word?" she asked. "Apparently, there's a mineral called pyrite that looks exactly like gold; only it's not really a gold. That's why they call it fool's gold."

Sora devoured the alcohol slowly, cold glass entwined between her long fingers.

"I love Mimi. She is my best friend, and I am willing to do anything for her, and that includes ensuring her marriage goes smoothly. But when I stood at the side of the altar, watching her walk down the aisle, there's something insides me slightly hoping that I was in her position."

She continued. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not jealous. I've moved on. I even thought about telling Yamato's nasty habits while we were dating in my speech." She laughed with no enthusiasm in her eyes, only to stop abruptly. "…no. I lied. I really didn't know what to write in my speech. I secretly prayed so I won't have to give any speech, but apparently that is something I should do as the maid of honour."

She didn't care if she was exaggerating the word, making it sound so odd in addition to her dreadful accent. She hated the word already. She wished she had never been appointed as one.

"Ever since we broke up more than five years ago, this is the first time I feel so… regretful." Her words become incoherent. "Actually, I'm not sure if this is a feeling of regret, but I just wish that Yamato doesn't move on and settle down so quickly when I'm still alone and unsure about many things. Even if he really had to, at least he can do it with other women besides Mimi."

At that moment, her subconscious whispered the right term: angry.

Nevertheless, she couldn't say it out loud. It was the same way that she couldn't write about Yamato's foolishness only because she didn't want people to think that Mimi stole her maid of honour's boyfriend. The same way that she couldn't crash her ex's wedding because after all, it was also her best friend's greatest day.

"God, I feel like I'm the most selfish person in the world," she muttered, not having the courage to face her friend. Her eyes stung; she felt like crying if she revealed her face. She waited for Taichi to judge her like he always did, but it was not Taichi who grabbed her wrist afterward so that she finally looked up.

"What are you doing here?!"

It was Mimi.

"You too, Taichi. Why did you guys separate yourself from the crowds?!" she demanded with a high-pitched voice, microphone still in her hand so that her voice echoed in the whole room. "You only sang once, so you should sing again!"

"Well I—"

"I mean Sora, not you. You're an appallingly bad singer."

Others were laughing at the way Mimi managed to shut Taichi off.

"Come on, pick a song!" One forceful pull was all it took to get Sora away from the bar. While Mimi was busy selecting a song for her, Sora glanced at Yamato, now sitting at the end of the sofa which was closest to the stage where she stood. He didn't give any particular expression even though she knew he was exactly looking at her.

But when Mimi straightened her head up after she picked a song and roared something to reheat the party, Yamato shifted his gaze slightly so that he stared at his wife—with such a soft look.

The same look he gave after she accepted his confession in high school.

And that was when Sora knew she had been defeated.

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disclaimer: Digimon owned by Toei/Bandai and Akiyoshi Hongo.

reference:
(1) Chignon means low bun, apparently one of the most popular wedding hairstyles.

(2) Princess is the name of a cruise.

(3) In my understanding, iemoto means the headmaster of a school that concentrates on Japanese traditional art. In this term, Sora's mother is an iemoto of an ikebana school besides owning a flower shop.

(4) Hanakotoba is the language of flowers in Japanese.

(5) Since I am not very familiar with the western concept of a wedding, writing the first chapter requires a lot of research. I think Japan doesn't have a maid of honor culture even in their western-style wedding, so that's the reason why Sora felt so strange (but of course, Mimi has her different view lol). For further reference, the wedding venue is based on Mori No Chaperu/Forest Chapel at The Prince Park Tower Tokyo—you can find it on Google and admire it for a long time. It makes me want to get myself a boy to get married to later (HAHA).

notes: 25 April 2020. (Edited on 13 February 2022)

I moved to Melbourne for school in late February, and I think I should start writing something in English more often to get used to my assignments. I never feel confident about my writing in English as it is not my first language. Feel free to correct me should there is something that feels off.

This shouldn't be the ending of the first chapter, but I got so drowned I didn't realize it's been 3000 words already.

This fic is inspired by a series of fanart with the Chosen Children under the different colours of sky (I think if you google Digimon pretty often, you know which fanart I'm referring to). Also because you can shorten my pen name as sky, so… yeah.

And yes, as much as I ship Takari, this won't be the one.

Stay safe everyone!