Only You... (君だけを…)
by deina-kun

Disclaimer: Characters are the creation of Akiyoshi Hongo.

Chapter 3

"Mimi-chan," Taichi's sing song voice followed with a poke in Mimi's cheek as they walked up the stairwell that led to the cafeteria. "There aren't a lot of people who transfer into this school. So... how did you get here?" He observed her jokingly, pretending as if she had a big secret she was hiding from everyone.

"Hmm.." Mimi pondered as they continued up the steps, but she looked at him and gave him a smile. "I don't really know."

Taichi dropped his silly act and returned her response with a laugh, "You're a strange one. Hehh.. Let's see.. Where did you come from?"

"I'm actually not sure." she giggled nervously.

This sparked his curiosity even more. 'She really is a strange one. At least she's cute.'

They went through the cafeteria door at the top of the stairwell. A few stragglers in the cafeteria were left, leaving Taichi and Mimi alone in the cafeteria. Taichi smirked as the last student left the cafeteria, "Hehhh."

"Hm?" Mimi paused and turned around to look at him, "What's wrong?"

As he rubbed his finger against his chin, he examined Mimi and felt himself needing to tease her. His grin grew wider. "You know what it means when two students are alone in the cafeteria, right?"

Mimi blinked at him, wondering what he was talking about, but she forgot his question and started laughing. Taichi's grin dropped and he looked at her with a puzzled look, "What's so funny?" He lifted the box of cakes that he carried for her up to his face. "Did I get something on my face??"

"No," Mimi tried her best to speak without giggling too much, "You looked like an old man standing like that!"

"Eh?" Taichi's hand holding the box of cakes dropped and he forced a laugh in response to her laughter. Walking up to her, he placed his hand on her head and messed up her hair. He lowered his head to her level and teasingly stuck out his tongue. "You killed the moment!"

Mimi laughed even harder with his face being so close to hers. Her laughter was contagious, causing him to laugh as well, but the school bell broke their laughter. Taichi paused. "This is bad."

"What is?"

Taichi took hold of her hand with his free hand and began leading her out of the cafeteria. Mimi still wasn't satisfied for not getting an answer and repeated, "Ne, Taichi, what's wrong?"

He looked back at her as they ran and forced a chuckle, "We're a little la--"

"Ahh!"

Their classmates' attention were directed toward them as Taichi and Mimi were in a tangle of arms and legs as they lay sprawled on the hallway floor after running into someone. A blonde head of hair sat up and rubbed his head in pain, wincing and eyeing the dazed Taichi on the floor, "Watch where you're going, idiot."

"Are you all right?" Sora knelt down in between Taichi and Yamato, shifting her gaze between the two.

Taichi quickly sat up and gave quick bows to Sora, "I'm fine!"

"Ahh.. It hurts.." Mimi groaned in pain and sat up, still feeling the daze from the collision. "You shouldn't... have been looking back while you were running, Taichi."

'Looking back?' Yamato's blue eyes widened as he saw Mimi shake her hand from Taichi's grasp and rub her other arm that broke her fall. Yamato began to speak, but Taichi quickly shifted on his knees to turn around and face Mimi, giving her quick low bows in apology, "My bad, Mimi-chan!"

"You're so reckless," she giggled as Taichi began helping himself up.

Yamato stood up and clenched his fists, but walked toward Mimi still sitting on the floor and paused in front of her. She blinked at him and started inching away, expecting him to make fun of her again, but he looked at her with his cold eyes and stretched out his hand for her. It took a moment for Mimi to realize what his gesture meant, but as she realized his intentions, she nervously took his offer and placed her hand in his. He turned his head away and pulled her up to her feet, the two of them quickly pulling their hands away from each other after she was standing. She began rubbing her arm again even though there was no more pain to sooth, "Th.. Thank you."

"Forget about it." Yamato shoved his hands in his pockets and began following the hallway the other classmates went down.

Taichi brushed his clothes off and rubbed his hand through his head. "What's his problem?.." he turned to Mimi and flashed back to Yamato's strange action just a moment earlier and scoffed, "That was supposed to be my job."

"What was?"

Taichi opened his eyes to Mimi's curious stare and he took a step back, laughing nervously. "Nothing!"

"Hehh.. How mean." Mimi pouted her lips and turned away from him. Sora took her by the arm and began leading her down the hall where the other students went. "Mimi-chan, we're already late for home ec!"

"Ah, sorry!" Mimi let out a weak laugh and let Sora guide her to follow the others.

Taichi was beginning to follow them when a something white laying on the floor caught his eye. He looked to find the box of cakes laying sideways and quickly picked it up to check on the cakes. "Gehh...! Mimi-chan!"

"Yeah?" she turned his direction.

"The cakes from earlier don't look good to eat anymore." he scratched the back of his head nervously, "What do--"

"Ah," she cut in and called back to him, "Just throw them away, I guess."

'Heh. I'm disposable.. just like that..?' behind the door of the boy's rest room, Yamato stood with his hand against the doorknob.

She faced forward again, but a lingering thought tugged at the back of her head. The blonde hair of the guy flowed freely in the light breeze as he coolly flicked his wrist to wave at her and hand her the box of cakes. You didn't eat, did you? Thinking back at those words, her eyes grew wide, but she hid it with a laugh and a smile, "Yamato.. likes sweets?"

"Did you say something, Mimi-chan?" Sora looked back at her after feeling Mimi tighten her grip on her hand.

Mimi's face turned red and she shook her hand free and gave a weak giggle, "No, nothing.."

"We're here!" Sora announced in a sing song voice and slid the door open for Mimi. Their classmates wore aprons over their school uniforms and were talking about ingredients among each other.

Mimi froze, "Cooking?.."

"Yep!" Sora went to a station that was empty and began sorting out all of the ingredients and utensils.

Standing where Sora had left her, Mimi was scanning the class left and right for the mess of blonde hair when a voice called up from behind her, "You're blocking the entrance."

The sound of the voice sent chills down her spine as she slowly turned her head to find herself looking up to the cold blue eyes looking down on her. She stammered a few seconds and realized that she couldn't find any words to answer him with. She paused and remembered his harsh tone and she bit her lip, "Why you...!!"

"Now, now." a hand cut between the two of them and caused the two to take steps away, lengthening their distance apart from each other. Taichi stood between them and smirked, "You two love birds can argue outside if you need to. But!!" he took Mimi by the arm and winked at Yamato teasingly. Yamato grew wide-eyed and caught Mimi's surprised expression, but Taichi giggled and pulled her along with him, "Mimi, let's go!"

"Ahh.. okay!.." Mimi let Taichi's selfish pulling guide her but she felt herself subconsciously turn to look back at Yamato who was watching them closely. He closed his eyes and dropped his gaze to the floor. Mimi quickly turned her head away and followed Taichi's lead, unaware that Yamato followed behind the two.

To Mimi's surprise, Taichi threw her one of the aprons that was resting on the table which she almost dropped on the floor, but she managed to catch it in her hands. She sighed at his recklessness and began tying the apron over her school uniform, not realizing Yamato taking the last apron left on the table. "Taichi, you're too reckless."

Taichi pouted his lips and walked to the other side table of cooking area that his and Mimi's groups shared. He took the ends of the ties from Mimi's hands and helped her tie the apron for her. "I did save you, though, didn't I?" He shot a sneer at Yamato who was taking out a frying pan.

Yamato knew the attack was directed toward him, but he quickly turned his head away and cleared his throat. "Quit flirting or the class will end. You." He looked at Mimi who pointed at herself wondering if he was talking to her. "Hand me some oil."

"Why?" Mimi's voice dragged at the thought of being commanded by the demon prince. She was going to ask Taichi to help her, but he already snuck back to the other side of the table and was sucking up to Sora. "Traitor."

"Hm?" Taichi smiled at her and scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Sorry, Mimi-chan. I'd help you, but Sora's my partner."

Mimi's jaw dropped. "You don't mean..."

Yamato faced her with a cold stare as he stood frozen with one hand on the handle the frying pan. "I'm your partner."

"EH!?? Why! Why couldn't Taichi be my partner? Why were we put together?" her head hung in despair.

"We're class representatives. We have to do a lot of these things together. And with the seating arrangement, the two middle seats of each row are partnered together and the seats in the outside of each row are partners. We would have been paired no matter what." he cracked two eggs on the rim of the pan and scrambled them with chopsticks.

"I see.." Mimi nervously played with the front of the apron in her hands.

"Hey, watch this while I check on the rice." Yamato left with Mimi's eyes following his lead.

She sighed and felt herself trembling at thought of having to cooperate with him. 'We didn't do well the last time we had to work with each other..' She took the handle of the frying pan in her left hand and held the chopsticks in the other, poking away at the scrambled eggs. Her mind wandered, 'That time with the big Kuwagamon thing. We could barely stand it when we were trying to run for our lives. He did say a lot of mean things to me, but I said some mean things, too. And he did get me those cakes even though I didn't get a chance to eat them since they were ruined thanks to Taichi. Ahh, this is frustrating!!'

In the middle of her frustration, a hand was placed on hers and took the pan from her grasp. There was smoke coming from the half-burnt eggs in the middle of the pan. She only saw the back of the blonde-haired rescuer and took a moment to register what she'd done. 'Crap.'

"Were you spacing out?"

Mimi felt shivers run down her spine. "Yeah.. I'm so-"

"Don't worry about that. There's only a few minutes of class left." he put another frying pan on the stove. "Scramble some eggs onto the pan again for me."

When Yamato returned, his eyes widened as he looked over her shoulder. "What are those??"

"Scrambled eggs..."

"Here," he placed his hand on hers and showed her how to scramble it on the pan. He added some rice and vegetables on top after, "I thought you'd be able to do something as simple as making fried rice."

"I've never learned how to cook before," she mumbled under the deep blush on her cheeks. 'Well, I never really cooked other than watched my mom cook.' After a few moments, she let go of the pan and took her hand back from underneath his. He blinked and wondered if something was wrong, but she assured him that it was nothing. His eyebrow cocked at the awkward response, but he brushed it off and began emptying the dish out onto a plate.

------------------

"Isn't it amazing, Mimi?" Sora beamed a wide smile as she finished tying her shoe.

"What is?"

"That you and Yamato-kun got the highest score in Home Ec!" she shut the door of her shoe locker and raised her arms above her head to stretch out her body.

"It wasn't anything big. I didn't do much other than burn a few of the eggs, anyway." Mimi giggled and closed her shoe locker. She let out a sigh and stood up to join Sora. "Yamato did most of the work, anyway."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah.." the other girls were getting changed into their PE clothes, so the two of them decided to stay in the locker rooms to chat for a bit. They went over to the mirrors were Mimi needed to tie her hair up. "Hey, Sora?"

"Yeah?"

"You've known Yamato for a while.. Well, it looks like you to do since you guys have been living together." she finished putting her hair up, but she took it down again after finding a strand of hair sticking out.

"Yeah, I guess you can say that." a gentle smile spread across her face which helped to calm Mimi down.

"So that means you two have a good relationship, then?" Mimi undid her hair again.

Sora's face turned slightly pink, "Well, yeah, I guess you can say that, but that comes naturally if you live with someone for so long, right? You get to learn the person's good points and their bad points and hopefully learn to accept their bad points as well."

"Hmm.. You're right." Mimi gave a final tug at her ponytail. The two of them left the locker room and walked out onto the field, "It just seems like he and I aren't getting along very well, and everytime I try to have a conversation with him, I end up saying really mean things. Well, I don't mean them, but I always seem to ruin the conversations, and I'm afraid he might hate me for that."

Sora shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure he's just being shy. He just doesn't open up to people very much... Not even to me, but beneath being cold and mean with his words sometimes, he's really kind and caring."

You didn't eat, did you? Mimi froze. "Geh."

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, it's nothing!" she took in the sounds of the other kids running around and laughing while she and Sora walked nearby the soccer field, 'He really was cool when he did that, though. I was feeling really down since Sora-chan and Yamato had their friends to play with, but I never expected that he'd come to bring me some food. And even some of my favorites, too. But all the times before that... when I met him, he was so rude and commanding! But he did save me from that monster.' she groaned in frustration and paused in her tracks to ruffle her hair, "Ahh, this is making my head spinny!"

"Watch out!!"

"Huh?" Mimi turned to where the voice came from. Her stomach sank as a soccer ball was flying straight at her. Everything stopped. The sound of the ball hitting her in the head seemed to echo across the field, followed by the loud thud as she fell to the floor from the impact.

"Mimi!" Yamato came running from where the ball had come from. He shook her, finding no other way to help her in the confusion. "Wake up!"

"You're doing it wrong!" Taichi pushed him aside and took Mimi in his arms, he took a big breath of air and lowered his head down to her face.

Yamato clenched his fist and began to pull it back to strike at Taichi. "Don't give me this crap when you're just trying to kiss her again!"

Her eyes quickly opened and she let out a loud gasp of air only to find Taichi's face only inches away from her. She paused for a moment and remembered the scene in Primary Garden. Instinctively, she let out a cry of shock and pushed his face away from her. She struggled to get to her feet. Her face burned in embarrassment. "Taichi..."

"Okaeri!" Taichi beamed with a silly smile on his face. She groaned at his playfulness while she stood up. As she finally got to stand up straight, she paused and felt her energy disappear from her, "Eh?" She knew something was wrong when the carefree expression on Taichi's face filled up with terror.

Everything went black.

Author's Note: Please leave a review so that I can know how you think about the story and if I should continue or not!