You carry too much baggage.

As she stared at him, his own serene blues stared right back at her. He looked ridiculous, she thought, with that amused little smirk tugging at the corners of his lips, the glint in his eyes that told her he meant every word out of his mouth.

"You really want me to say it," she said, once again. "Really."

"Yes, and I'm getting tired of this little vis-a-vis," he said, "Really."

Mimi took a big breath, then sighed. "I just don't feel attracted to you, Ishida."

He snorted, an undignified action that caught her off-guard, as he often did. "I think we both know that's not true."

"Okay, so I like your hair," she muttered, exasperated. "And you've got cheekbones to die for, and your eyes are unbelievably blue but really, Yamato, you're not that big a deal."

"This is ridiculous," he said. "You're really not going to admit it."

"What's this all about?" Mimi finally said, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. It was unusual for her to be so closed-off and reluctant, but then, it had been forty minutes since he appeared at her doorstep, completely serious as he barged into her apartment and threw himself on her couch and demanded answers that Mimi had been prepared to never give.

"Just answer the question, Mimi."

"No," she warned him, "You come into my house and you start asking all these questions—are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"So I do affect you," he said, and the surprise and triumph in his face made her do a double-take.

"You're being impossible," she finally said, giving up while wondering what sort of karmic debt she may have been paying. Something terrible, certainly.

"I can't believe you'd choose Taichi, and not me," he finally let out, eyes narrowing. "I wouldn't be surprised to find Daisuke made the list, too."

"List?" Mimi wondered aloud. "What list?" And then it dawned on her, what he was doing, why he was acting like such a petulant child, why he had barged inside without so much as a heads up... "Oh, my God, I can't believe she told you!"

"Don't take it out on her," Yamato was quick to reply once he realised he had spoken out loud. "She was just doing her duty as a best friend."

"She's my best friend!"

"She's my best friend too."

And now Mimi was indiginant for a whole different reason. Her cheeks acquired a deep crimson colour and she was positively seething when she charged on him, throwing a lumpy cushion at his face. She missed, because she had terrible aim and he had freakishly feline reflexes, but that didn't stop her from throwing another, and a third one.

"What do you mean 'she's your best friend'? I thought I was your best friend!"

"You know what I mean. And Taichi isn't?"

"Taichi isn't—you can't be best friends with people you—oh, shut up!"

"It's not a contest," Yamato said calmly, picking up the final pillow without a care. "Will you stop?"

"It's not a—," Mimi stood up, glaring at him. "Get out of my house."

"Come on," he groaned. "You can't be serious."

"You want to know what I think about you, Yamato? I think you're an arse. You think you're too big, too cool, too full of yourself. You don't let people in and you get weird about your family, but then you absolutely refuse to talk about it. I get it, you think it's been too long, but you know what? For a person who's so focused on what happens around him, it's surprising how much you can miss—you have no idea how you make people feel," she swallowed, hard. "I can't see myself being with someone who only wants me peripherally in his life, so that's why."

She had fallen silent at that point, overly excited by the very erratic beat of her voice. Yamato was glancing up at her and his face was a perfect porcelain mask of feigned indifference. He was standing, his hands gripping the back of her couch, but Mimi noticed it was far too tight for him to be entirely okay. Immediately, she started regretting all she had said, but instead of muttering an apology, she kept her lips shut tight. It was, she reasoned, what he had been looking for.

"Well," he finally said. "You certainly gave it some thought." He removed himself from his position, drawing himself taller and squaring his shoulders. Mimi only looked at his face, trying to find a crack, a breath, anything that would betray his thoughts, but his face remained blank. Yamato walked towards the door and wordlessly slipped his shoes on, opened the door and closed it with a quiet thud.

Once he was gone, Mimi realised she was trembling and the impossibility of what had just transpired hit her like a freight train. She walked to the kitchen, poured herself one, and two glasses of water. And then she felt the knot rise to her throat and she was inexplicably shored by what she had said, the way she had made his eyes look so dull when he looked at her. Quickly, half by muscle memory than actual thought, Mimi bolted towards the door and opened it, only to find him on the other side, fist raised as though he'd been about to knock.

He was surprised but Mimi was quicker than him and she tackled him, arms tight around his neck, face turned towards his chest.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "That was so horrible of me, I'm so sorry."

But Yamato, who had been stunned cold from her tight embrace, only finally lowered his hands around her, gently enveloping her within his arms.

"It's fine," he said quietly. "I knew all of that, Mimi. I just didn't think—I was hoping, ah..." and then he stopped, because she was looking up at him and they were so close... "You just caught me off-guard, that's all."

"Do you think I was unfair?" she asked him, her voice small.

"No," he answered honestly, in the way only he could. "I don't think I should've expected any less from you." He separated from her then, and she blushed as she realised how long she spent in his arms. The thought made her dizzy, somehow.

"I did consider it, you know," Mimi finally said, hugging herself instead. "Before."

Yamato took some time in answering and he looked like someone who was about to say something and then changed his mind, grasping for straws. "I can work on all those things, but at the end of the day..." he drew closer, placed his hand on her head and ruffled her hair affectionately, making her breath hitch— "You're just not my type." He ducked the swipe of her hand, and his laughter was all she could hear until he finally disappeared into the elevator down the hall, leaving her a mess of ups and downs, and thoughts of what ifs and should'ves and maybes.

Notes: Have yourselves another not-quite-sad little interlude. I think there was a lot going on in there in my mind, things I didn't really want to write but that were circling me all the time. I'll be very interested in reading if you've got any theories at all about what's happened/is happening in there.