Miyako was sitting at the table with a piping hot bowl of soup in front of her, which Hawkmon was clearly salivating at, but despite the incredible energy of deliciousness emanating out of it, her eyes were directed away from it and at the other side of the table. On said other side was Ken, also staring at said paper, holding the tip of a pen to his mouth.

Thankfully, the soup hadn't gotten cold yet by the time Ken had circled a few things on the paper, turned it around, and passed it to her.

"So your vocab is pretty much right for the most part," he said, "but you still have a lot of structural problems. Firstly, the adjective here should be after the noun, and not before. Remember that Spanish doesn't have particles, so you have to make sure your order is right. Secondly, the gender here is wrong, it's feminine and not masculine, and also you forgot to add la before it too. Thirdly, you're missing some vital sentence parts, you can't just drop them like you can in Japanese just because the context is obvious. Finally, this should be passive and not active, although I'm not sure why it asked you for this when you're not supposed to have learned it yet…but it's like the difference between kakeru and kakareru, so you would have to rearrange the whole sentence to involve fue escrito instead of escribe, so that ends up messing up the entire thing…"

"Ah, I see…" said Miyako sheepishly, tracing her fingers over the parts Ken had circled.

"I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on it, that was a lot…"

"No, no, please! I want to get it right, so you should point out everything that's wrong." She momentarily pushed the paper aside and started digging into the soup. (Hawkmon, eyeing her from the side, took her digging in as a sign he was now allowed to start on his own meal.) "Most of the people on the exchange program are also going to be Japanese, and I'm not going to learn very much from them, so I need all the help I can get…"

"Ahaha, I suppose…" Ken started cutting into his own plate now that he'd finished with the paper. "But I think you might be trying to go at this too fast. I said with the passives that you weren't supposed to have learned about this yet, so you shouldn't push yourself too hard…"

"I guess you're right, but I only have a week left…"

"Miyako-san, I think he's right," said Hawkmon, who had somehow finished the entirety of his dish already. "If you push yourself too hard, you won't remember anything at all, and it'll all go to waste, so you should take it easy."

"Well, yeah…" said Miyako, with a resigned tone that didn't indicate her being very happy about this.

"I think it's admirable that you're trying so hard, though!" said Wormmon, cheerfully (he had also already finished his plate).

"I think so too," said Ken. "I'm sure most of the other students won't have been trying as hard as you are, so you should be proud of yourself."

"Yeah…" Miyako stuffed another spoonful of soup into her mouth, although she still didn't look convinced. "Yeah, I guess…"

Once Miyako and Ken had finished their dishes, the two of them went back to language studying, with Wormmon and Hawkmon getting bored and starting to pick up card games on the other side of the table. Normally the two of them would have felt pressured to not hold the waitstaff too much, but there weren't many other people in the restaurant, and the staff was already familiar with them as regulars – so the feeling of being able to take their time was considerably higher.

After an hour into it, Ken recused for a moment to head to the bathroom, leaving Miyako at the table with Hawkmon and Wormmon. While washing his hands at the sink, he stared at the mirror.

Miyako-san is leaving in a week.

Noticing the back of his neck was sweating – odd, since it wasn't particularly hot in there – he cooled it down with some of the sink water.

We're probably not going to be seeing each other as much after this, because she's going to be busy all of the time and in a different timezone, but we still have the group chat and if push comes to shove we can still visit each other through the Digital Gates…

He turned off the sink water and walked out the door.

I'm anxious and I don't know why…

Once he stepped out of the door and headed back towards the table, though, he was stopped clean in his tracks by a very unpleasant scene – what looked to be a man in his early-to-mid twenties with his hand planted firmly on the table, hovering over a very unamused-looking Miyako.

"Come on, be a good sport," he said, pushing his face even closer towards Miyako's. "You've got to have some kind of social media, right? Instagram? Snapchat? Don't tell me you don't even have a cell phone? You gotta give me something, I won't bite…"

"…I would really prefer not, you creep," said Miyako, who looked like she wanted to sock him in the face and was only refraining because she didn't want to get kicked out of the restaurant.

"Wow, so much attitude! Man, you're a real bitch, you know that?"

Miyako bit her lip to the point it looked like she was growling at him. "I…I already have a boyfriend, so leave me alone!"

Still watching from the other side of the restaurant, Ken felt a sensation in his chest as if his heart had momentarily stopped. The shock at Miyako's lie was also visible on Hawkmon and Wormmon's faces – it was fortunate that the man was clearly not paying attention to them, or else she'd have been outed immediately.

"Oh, really? I certainly don't see him anywhere – "

Being quite the fast thinker and realizing what Miyako was trying to do, Ken managed to pull himself together quickly enough to bolt over to the other side of the restaurant, push the man aside, and glare at him.

"Do you have a problem with my girlfriend?"

The tone of his voice was much harsher than normal for him, and in the corner of his eye he could see Wormmon, Hawkmon, and Miyako's startled expressions, but he continued to stare the other man down.

The man sighed irritably.

"Bitch."

And with that, he turned around and walked out of the restaurant. Feeling his blood boiling, Ken sat back down at the table.

"…I'm sorry, Ken-kun," said Miyako sheepishly. "It was the only thing I could do on the spot…"

"No, no, I understand…" Ken felt like his heart was still racing from the experience, but he was doing his best to make sure it wasn't visible on his face. "It didn't matter what you did, with those kinds of guys, they won't listen unless you actually bring another man into the equation…"

"Y-Yeah. Thanks for understanding."

Miyako giggled a little bit, with a hint of embarrassment in it.

"Ah," said Ken, "you don't need to be embarrassed about it, please don't worry! It's a pretty normal thing to do!" He laughed a little bit, hoping it would make her a little more comfortable.

"You were really scary though, Ken-chan!" said Wormmon.

"Did a very good job scaring him quite thoroughly," said Hawkmon, crossing his wings and nodding.

"R-Really?" said Ken, flustered. "Well…To be honest I just wanted to get him away from here as soon as possible. I think it'd be real bad if an actual boyfriend were that scary…"

Miyako giggled again, and Ken could still sense a hint of embarrassment in her voice. Ah, I feel bad, there's no need for her to still be worried…

"You're too nice, Ken-kun!" she beamed, and Ken saw her whip out her trademark grin.

After the two of them had decided not to burden the waitstaff any further, Ken offered to take Miyako home – not something he usually did, but the incident from earlier had set him on edge. Miyako had initially protested on the grounds that she didn't want to make him go through the work, but Ken insisted enough that she had to relent.

"…so the team at Pompeu Fabra University was actually working with them, so I'm thinking I should probably contact them and show them my portfolio!"

"That sounds really amazing, Miyako-san," said Ken, with his best I-don't-entirely-understand-this-stuff-but-I-support-you-nevertheless expression.

"Ah, but the thing I'm probably going to miss from home the most is the food. I mean I know I could ultimately probably try to get some from home once in a while but it's not the same as being able to have it every day whenever I feel like it. And I'm also gonna really miss…"

They reached the door of Miyako's apartment.

"O-Oh." Miyako knocked on the door. "I just realized…unfortunately I have a meeting tomorrow, so we can't meet tomorrow. Is the day after okay?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

Behind Miyako, the door opened to reveal Chizuru behind it. Miyako waved at him cheerfully and walked into the door.

"We're very grateful to you for taking your time to help her, Ken-san," said Hawkmon, following her through the door.

"It's no problem! Then, see you the day after tomorrow."

"Let's play again!" said Wormmon as the door closed.

Once the door had closed, Ken found himself still standing in front of it for a while, doing nothing but stare at it.

"Ken-chan?" said Wormmon, still clinging onto his shoulder. "Is something wrong?"

"A-Ah? Oh. It's nothing," said Ken. "Let's go."

It had been thirty minutes since Ken had left Miyako's apartment, and he had still not left Odaiba. In fact, he hadn't even boarded the train yet.

"Ken-chan, something's wrong, isn't there?" said Wormmon. "You don't look good."

"Sorry," said Ken, "I just need some air, I'm thinking…"

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I…want to talk about it, but I don't really understand myself, I guess…"

He wandered past the Odaiba-kaihinkōen station and onto the port deck, looking out at the water. His phone vibrated, and he pulled it out to see a message from Miyako in private chat – presumably she'd assumed he was already back in Tamachi, or at least on his way.

Thank you for today, as always (*^▽^*)

Ken hesitantly moved his finger over to the message bar and started typing slowly.

Thank you too. See you soon.

And sent.

Miyako-san is leaving in a week.

That statement was still turning around in his head, even though this fact was something he'd known for months already. This was bothering him far more than it had any right to. It wasn't like he was going to suddenly lose all contact with her. She was a regular poster in the group chat, and she'd probably be posting pictures all of the time. If he really, really wanted to, he and Daisuke and Iori and Takeru and Hikari could organize a get-together and go see her – or they could even surprise her. It would be so easy to do, so why…

He absentmindedly scrolled up his private chat with Miyako, the messages all filled with When do we meet today? and Sorry, I'll be a little late and Thank you for today! It really helped! and all sorts of messages about their recent meetups. Miyako, in her usual last-minute fashion, had been the one to suddenly ask him to help her two weeks prior, and said private chat had been nearly empty before then. Ken had been very happy to finally be able to help her with the favor, especially since his Spanish was something he had particular confidence in, but…

"Hey, fancy seeing you here!"

Ken looked up his phone to see Daisuke next to him, with V-mon following behind carrying what looked like a shopping bag.

"A-Ah. Daisuke…"

Daisuke, quickly noticing that Ken's expression looked a bit dazed, immediately dropped the grin. "Hm. You don't look very good. Wanna talk about it?"

Having fetched drinks from the nearby vending machine, Ken and Daisuke sat down at a bench at the pier. Wormmon had brought the deck of cards he had been playing with earlier with Hawkmon, so he immediately picked up a new game with V-mon.

"You just got back from helping Miyako, right?"

"Yeah…" said Ken. "She's leaving in a week, so we're cracking down a bit these days…"

"Must be nice. I'd like to try learning too sometime, but English already takes too much out of my head…" Daisuke sighed. "But you're doing her a big favor. She'd better be grateful…"

Ken laughed, a bit weakly.

"But, look, Ken," said Daisuke. "There's definitely something eating at you, isn't there?"

"Y-Yeah…" Ken looked back at his phone, opened his private chat with Miyako, and closed it again. "Miyako-san's leaving in a week, and for some reason that's been stressing me out…"

"Huh? Really? You know she can take care of herself, right? She's pretty tough."

"Yeah. It's not that I'm worried about. It's more…"

"Ah, well, I get it, don't worry." Daisuke sighed. "We're not going to see her as much anymore. I mean, we already don't see each other that much right now, what with school and all that, but now it's pretty much gonna be nothing but the group chat. It's not the same, you know."

"Yeah…"

Ken nodded, but somehow it felt like that answer alone wasn't doing it.

"Well, I'm sure she's gonna have lots of fun and all that and she's going to send us tons of photos to try and make us all jealous. Or she's even gonna start bragging about the cool new people she met or something like that…"

"Y…Yeah…"

Ken nodded, but his face had fallen even further. Daisuke, clearly noticing that the last statement seemed to have gotten even further to him, suddenly made a very ahhhhhh noise and sighed.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause as Daisuke took a swig out of his drink, drank it to the bottom, and lazily tossed the can at the nearest trash can.

"…Ken. Be honest with me. You like her, right?"

Wormmon was clearly too fixated on his turn in the playing card game to notice what Daisuke had just said, but V-mon's eyes were now looking above his hand with a very oooooooooh, here it comes look.

"A-Ah?! Daisuke? W-What makes you say that?!"

Daisuke stared at him for a second, and then looked at V-mon – and then the two of them started spontaneously laughing. Wormmon looked up in confusion.

"Are – are you serious?!" said Daisuke, choking back mouthfuls of laughter. "Are you being serious right now?"

"Oh my God," said V-mon, looking like he was about to explode himself. "I think he doesn't know. He seriously doesn't know."

"You're telling me you don't know?"

"Daisuke!" yelled Ken, agitated. (Wormmon, next to him, was now extremely confused on what was going on.)

"No, that's just…that is hilarious." Daisuke and V-mon spent another thirty seconds (in front of a very annoyed Ken) getting as much laughter out of themselves as they could, and Daisuke put a hand on Ken's shoulder.

"Ken. Listen to me." He let a few more laughs slip past his lips, and continued. "You think I didn't notice the fact you suddenly get all weird and nervous every time she asks you in particular for something? Or that you get all particular whenever you talk about doing something for her? Or how you get really, really enthusiastic to do said favors for her? You didn't notice at all?"

"I…"

"I mean, I didn't want to bring it up because I figured that'd be weird, but I can't believe you didn't notice. My God, are you really that dense?!"

"I-I…"

Ken looked back at Wormmon, who seemed to be in just as much shock as he was.

"I…"

In fact, Ken had known it for a long time. It had just not been something he wanted to consciously think about.

He liked being around Miyako a lot, and the last two weeks of meeting for her Spanish tutoring had been so much fun – both of them were capable of getting into such long-winded conversations, and her passion for topics she loved was infectious. Whenever he brought up something related to his own psychology studies, she listened with gusto – and in fact was able to pick up on it shockingly fast, even more so than the way some of his classmates would. Hanging out with her was so much fun, and he had started to look forward to their regular meetings, feeling dismayed every time they had to end. If only we could do this all the time –

If only we could do this every day –

Forever and ever and –

But any time his mind had gone in this kind of direction, he had abruptly put a stop to it. Because if he continued to entertain thoughts like this, the relationship he'd cultivated with her over the last eight years, as a fellow Chosen Child, as a friend –

Daisuke sighed.

"Well, if you really had no idea, that at least explains why you haven't asked her out yet. I was almost getting annoyed…"

"I can't ask her out!" Ken blurted the words out without even thinking, and Daisuke grinned.

"So I was right."

"L-Look…" Ken shook his head. "I can't…do that to her…And…"

Daisuke snorted. "Do that to her?"

"I mean…"

V-mon had cajoled Wormmon back into playing cards with him, but Wormmon was now too nervous to focus on the game because of how much he was staring at Ken nervously, and V-mon was still clearly biting back his laughter.

"You know Miyako's been calling you cute for as long as we've known each other, right?"

"I mean, she calls a lot of boys cute…"

"What, have you ever seen her call me cute?"

Daisuke's last statement was too much for Ken, who suddenly burst into laughter at the joke, despite his mood. Daisuke picked up on the laughter, and grinned.

"Look, okay. She thinks you're cute. Like, she really thinks you're cute. Actually, she's been calling you cute ever since she first laid eyes on you, like, even before…" He waved his hand. "…that whole thing. And it's not just that she thinks you look cute, she talks about your smile being cute and your laugh being cute and everything you do being cute. So, frankly speaking, if you ask her out, I don't think you have much to lose here."

"B-But…"

"And, on top of that, well…"

"Hm?"

"Well, there's another reason I think you should ask her out."

Daisuke sighed and looked back at the ocean front.

"You know how I used to have a huge thing for Hikari-chan?"

"…Yeah."

Even though he was the one recapping the story, Daisuke winced, as if the sheer act of mentioning it was causing him to cringe. "Man, I was always harping on about that, how embarrassing. Amazing she put up with me during that time. Anyway, so I had this thing for Hikari-chan. She was really cute and all that, and I wanted her to notice me real bad. And I did really like her a lot, so I wanted to be the one to make her happy, like the stupid little preteen I was."

"Well, I don't think that's a bad thing?"

"Maybe not," said Daisuke. "But, well…then this and that happened, and we went through all that stuff eight years ago, and then we hung out and played and after a while I realized…"

He fell silent at this part, somewhat lost in thought.

"You realized?"

"I didn't actually know if I wanted to date her."

He took out his phone and scrolled through the group chat, stopping every so often on Hikari's messages – she, like Miyako, was quite the regular poster.

"I thought, what would happen if I asked her out? And then I realized…I had no idea. Hikari-chan's a nice girl, and she'd probably agree to let me take her to a café or something, and then…that would be it. I realized, I don't actually know that much about her at all. And she's smart, she probably realized that from the beginning, too, and that's why she was humoring me whenever I talked about liking her. And I was the idiot this whole time…"

Daisuke chuckled lightly at himself, and continued.

"But that's the thing, see…I look at you and Miyako, and she makes you laugh all the time, and you say things that make her super excited. And she's always worried about you, all the time, and you're always worried about helping her. So even if you look past the whole thing about her thinking you're cute, and you pretty obviously thinking she's cute – "

"Daisuke…"

"Okay, okay, I'll stop. Anyway, I think it would work out. I don't actually see it going badly, and I think you don't have much to lose, so in my opinion you should go for it – "

Daisuke stopped in his tracks as his eyes went over the clock on his phone.

"Oh, crap! I'm gonna be late and everyone at home's gonna be mad. Sorry, I'm gonna have to cut this short, but…"

He stood up and laughed awkwardly.

"Hey, V-mon, we gotta go."

"Aw, man, and I was winning…"

V-mon put the cards down, picked up the shopping bag he had been carrying earlier, and jumped off the bench. Daisuke put his phone back in his pocket, started walking away, and looked back.

"Sorry for leaving on an awkward note like that. But think about it, okay? And cheer up! Hit me up if you're still feeling down about it."

Ken was left to watch them walk away, with Wormmon looking at him with concern.

"Ken-chan…"

Ken sat on the train seat in silence, typing out a message to his mother apologizing for being late. After sending it, he put his phone back in his pocket and looked glumly out the window.

"Ken-chan…"

Wormmon crossed the seat next to him to go onto his lap. "What do you think about what Daisuke-san said?"

"I…I don't know. We've both known Miyako-san for a really long time, and he's probably right. He knows her really well too. But even though I know that, I…"

Ken traced his finger on the side of the window, looking outside as the silhouette of Odaiba got further and further away.

"Wormmon…what do you think I should do?"

"Hmm…"

There was a long pause as Wormmon took the time to think.

"It was good advice, but I think you should take things at your own pace. But even if you don't ask her out…I think you should at least tell Miyako-san how you feel."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, you're really worried right now, right?" Wormmon crawled up his arm and onto his shoulder. "And when you see her again you're going to get more and more worried. And now that you know how you feel about her, the more you have to keep every time you talk to her. And the more you keep this from her…"

"…the more it's going to get awkward."

Ken nodded. Wormmon had a point – as much as he was worried about ruining his relationship with her if he asked her out, the truth was that now that he knew this consciously, there was no way he would be able to face Miyako again without having this in his mind. There was only one way out, and it was to be honest about it – no matter what the consequences.

"Thanks, Wormmon."

"So what are you going to do? You shouldn't push yourself if it's too much, of course."

"No, I…"

Miyako-san is leaving in one week.

"This is something I need to tell her to her face, and before the gap between us starts getting wider."

Wormmon nodded in silent agreement.

Ken pulled out his phone, opened his calendar app, and opened the entry for his meeting with Miyako in two days. Opening the notes section, he wrote only the few words –

Don't forget.

[Author's note]

Hello, everyone. It's me, Shihanne. It's been a while, hasn't it?

I'm back from my hiatus, after my stubbornness about canon compliance meant that I ended up recusing from writing anything while tri. was going on (among many other reasons). If you think my love for Ken/Miyako has diminished in the slightest, though, you've got another thing coming.

I haven't seen Kizuna yet, so I don't actually know if this fic counts as canon-compliant, but the truth is, even in the absence of other factors, I don't think this can be compliant anyway because the fact that Ken still attaches a -san honorific to Miyako's name by the time of Kizuna makes it rather unlikely they're dating by that point. So this is more of a plot bunny I had from being inspired by Kizuna's premise and press materials rather than something that may actually work all that well with its canon. But then again, I guess its potential canon compliance depends on how you interpret it, and, more importantly, how you think Ken's little venture will turn out ~ Wish him luck, I suppose?

In case you're disappointed about where this fic ended: sorry, how Miyako responds would have to be told in another story, since it would be better done from her perspective. Perhaps that will be done another day. Perhaps not.

I don't know if I'll go back to writing fanfic as frequently as I used to before - or even at all - since so many other things have been taking my attention in my life recently, but I hope you did enjoy this one. If you were following Glasses Girl, I'm afraid to say that it'll be on hold until at least by the time I've seen Kizuna, if I do get back to it. So since I can't make any guarantees at all, I hope you at least enjoyed this one.

[Edit] I ended up reading a very long psychological analysis (written by a Japanese blogger) on why a guy might still use -san on his girlfriend. Good to polish my knowledge of Japanese propriety better, but hey, maybe this could be Kizuna-compliant after all. Your call.
[Edit 2] I watched Kizuna and listened to the drama CD, and...! It was not canon-compliant after all (on multiple counts). Oh well. It was worth a shot.