by deina-kun
Disclaimer: Characters are the creation of Akiyoshi Hongo.
Chapter 5
Mimi sat up in bed late one night. She got out of bed and felt her way to the door, rubbing her eyes and still in a daze from being half asleep. The hallway was dark, but she'd walked through the halls enough at night to know where she was going. As she turned a corner, she stopped rubbing her eye. "Yamato?"
He pulled his hand away from the the door knob and turned to face her, "Wh-Who's there?"
"It's Mimi," she let out a yawn, but was finally fully awake. "What's in there? I always saw that door when I walked down here, but I've never seen it opened before, so I was wondering..."
Yamato took a step back and stammered in his words. Her eyes quickly glanced between him and the door, "H-Hey, what's in it? Is this a storeroom? Or.."
"It's nothing!" his arms were crossed and raised his head over her, close enough to make her instinctively take a step back.
Mimi lowered her head and began to apologize, but he cut in just after she said his name. The seriousness in his eyes didn't waver, "I'm sorry.. for shouting, but it's got nothing to do with you." He uncrossed his arms and turned to her. "So please, just stay away from here." The expression in his eyes softened, so much to the point that Mimi was speechless with surprise at the change in his mood, and he topped it off with putting his hands together and begging, "Please."
Mimi finally found her voice as he turned to walk away, "Yamato..?"
"I'm going to sleep for today," his voice seemed unsteady with every step he took.
She kept her eye on him until he turned the corner. Her eyes wandered to the closed door, "What could this place be?" she turned to face where she saw Yamato turned the corner, "And anyway, with that kind of attitude, there's no way it could be nothing!" she paused. "I know! It must be where he hides all of his ecchi!" she let out wild giggle as she let her imagination run wild, "I'll expose everything!"
"But..." her cheeriness became sullen once again. She lowered her head as her mind was drawn back to Yamato's pleading, "I wonder why Yamato gave me such a worried face."
"Huh?!" she quickly snapped her head back up and clapped her balled up right hand into the palm of her left hand. "I completely forgot I had to go to the bathroom!"
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"AHH!!!" Yamato, Mimi and Sora were running as if they were in a marathon. Mimi panicked in between deep breaths, "We're late!!"
Sora cut in and spoke in her motherly tone. "That's because Yamato-kun didn't wake up this morning."
"It's my fault?" his voice showed the least bit of agitation with the two girls teaming up on him, but his tone softened as he reasoned with them, "I was thinking about something last night, and it got really late."
"Eh?" Mimi turned to look at him as they continued to run, "What about?"
"I already told you, last night."
"So you aren't going to tell me about it?" she smiled, 'At least I tried.'
He kept his focus on what was in front of him, despite knowing that she had her eyes fixed on him. "If it's true, then it is, but it isn't."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she paused to think for a moment, "A riddle? A spell? Some sort of charm?"
"Who knows?" he was enjoying making fun of her slow understanding.
"Umm... Hey!" Sora's voice called from behind them. They stopped to find her pointing at a door and looked up to find the words 1-A written on the side sticking out from the top of the door.
Mimi followed Yamato to the door at the front of the class and slid it open, hoping that no one would take notice. As Mimi entered the classroom, the homeroom teacher gave an announcement to the class that Yamato and Mimi would be heading the plans for the class' involvement in the school festival. She winked at them, "Do your best, class representatives."
Yamato looked at the teacher with a pitted feeling in his stomach. He walked to the podium with his head down and put his hand on it. Mimi followed and he whispered just enough for her to hear, "I think this is payback for us being late."
She nodded in agreement but turned to face the class and took a deep breath in and started running the class meeting.
At lunch time, Yamato plopped down into a chair in one of the meeting rooms at the school. "I can't believe we're doing a coscafe." He leaned back in the chair to look up at the ceiling, heaving out a deep sigh. In the end, the class voted on hosting a costume cafe. The plan was to borrow costumes from the theater club and serve food while wearing them.
Mimi took a seat next to him, "How come? I think it's going to be fun!"
He groaned at her elated outbursts. Student representatives from the other classes were filing in while the two of them had some small talk, Yamato making it obvious that he didn't want to be a part of the school festivities. He shifted in his chair, facing his back toward Mimi, "Cheh. Mendo-kusai."
"Hehh.. Tsumetai na.." she pouted her lips but he didn't turn to look at her. She settled for propping her elbows on the table and resting her head in the palms of her hands. "I'll put all of my effort into this to make it the best!"
Yamato made no response, but the chair to Mimi's left was pulled out from underneath the table and the white cuff of a school uniform caught her attention. A familiar voice spoke to her, "Ah. We've been meeting each other often."
Her attention was completely taken and she turned to find herself looking through the clear lenses of her white-clothed prince. She blushed at hearing his formal tone, "Senpai!" He stood next to the chair at the head of the table to her left and gave her a warm smile before calling the meeting to order.
To Yamato, there was nothing especially interesting about the meeting. Jyou went over all of the procedures and general protocol for the school festival, absolutely nothing interesting. But past all of the idle instruction he paid half attention to, something was really bugging him. He couldn't help but notice how engrossed Mimi was with watching Jyou speak, move his arms, and even flip a sheet of the notepad over. She sat directly in front of him. So close that he could have done the simplest thing to embarrass her, but her full attention to Jyou made him sick.
The meeting took up most of the lunch period, ending with some sorting of papers and running of forms to different teachers and classes. Mimi spent the whole time assisting Jyou, receiving a warm smile and a thanks for everything she did. Yamato sat at the conference table, watching her and tapping his pen on the table in agitation. The two of them were supposed to be planning out what their class was supposed to be doing for their presentation, but he didn't want to risk facing the wrath of a girl in the middle of infatuating over a guy. He scoffed under his breath, "Girls are so stupid."
In the end, Yamato ended up leaving the meeting room with a stack of paperwork still unfinished. Mimi's share was in there as well. Lunch was almost over and the hallways were starting to empty out since most of the students were hanging out in their classrooms. He was heading toward the cafeteria when Mimi caught up to him and greeted him with a cheery tune in her voice, "Yamato!"
"You're really cheery." his gaze kept looking straight ahead of him as he opened the cafeteria door. Mimi trailed in after him, causing him to wonder, "You're buying lunch too?"
"Well, today we overslept, so we didn't have time to make any bentou." she giggled nervously, "Ah! That's a lot of paper. What are those for?"
"Paperwork for the school festival." he set them down on a table. "Well, it's the work we were supposed to do, but we'll have to finish them later."
"But that's so much work!"
"Yeah.." he placed the stack of paper on a table, "But we'll manage, somehow."
Hearing this, Mimi smiled, "Hey, hey, Yamato. Let's go buy some food."
"Ah, yeah. Let's go." Yamato went to see what was left of the soups they offered.
Mimi was at his right looking over the breads and sandwiches. She let out a squeal of delight as she made her discovery, "My favorite, unagipan! (Eel bread)" She quickly slid the glass door open to grab it, but another hand bumped into hers.
"Ah, you're.." he paused in his words.
Mimi blinked in surprise, "Senpai!?"
"You're here for a late lunch, too?" he asked her. A hint of nervousness could be heard in his voice, but Mimi didn't notice and she just smiled eagerly, hanging off of his every word. Not knowing what else to do, Jyou took the plate the bread was on and held it up for Mimi to see, "It's tasty isn't it? Unagipan."
Mimi looked at it, but a worried look spread across her face, "Ah, yes, but that's..."
Jyou turned his head mid-sentence and went to pick up another plate with bread on it. "I'm fine, I like this amaguripan (chestnut bread), too." he held out the plate with the eel bread out to her and insisted that she take it.
She looked at him and smiled, "Thank you!"
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"What's the matter, Mimi-chan?" Sora sat on the window opening separating the hallway to class 1-A. Taichi stuck out his head through the window and raised an eyebrow. "You seem happy. Maybe even too happy."
Taichi's words caught Sora's attention, "Did something good happen?"
"Ehehe," Mimi giggled. Every word that came out of her mouth made it undeniable that she was completely happy, "You missed it. Senpai gave me the bread that we both wanted."
"That's it?" Taichi groaned in disappointment, "You should've just given it to him."
"But!.." her eyes widened at the thought, but after a quick second, her persona changed, "He was trying to tell me something, but I wasn't really paying attention." she leaned inside the frame of the classroom door and crossed her arms, "I wonder what it was.."
"Well, if it was from Jyou, it was probably important. They don't call him Old Reliable for nothing!" Taichi locked his arms above his hand and leaned inside the window frame. "But someone from the theater club came during lunch."
"Theater club?"
"You didn't forget did you?" he stood up and walked over to her. "I told you that you needed to talk to them about the costumes for the coscafe before you and Taichi left."
"Ah.." Mimi scratched the back of her head nervously. "I kind of.. forgot."
Taichi groaned in aggravation, but it spread out to the other classmates, and they started coming to her with complaints. It grew to the point where Mimi backed herself into the hallway and was faced with her classmates complaining about the turn of events. The bell ending lunch rang, but it didn't put a stop to the growing distrust the students had for her. Her mind was racing. She gave a low bow, apologizing to them all and began running down the hallway. Taichi called out to her since class was going to start soon, but she called out to him as she ran, "Don't worry. I'll do my best!"
At the other end of the hallway, Yamato was walking through half-awake, but the scattered whispering leaking through the hallway windows of his class caught his attention. He barely came just in time to hear Mimi waving herself off from the lessons, but the things their classmates were saying struck a nerve as they kept blaming something on Mimi. "Heh. What is this?"
"Ah, Yamato-chan. Welcome back." Sora gave him and ecstatic welcome, but his mood remained grouchy.
"What happened? Why are people talking bad about her?" he placed his hand inside the window opening and scanned the room, picking up the conversations between their classmates. He let out a sigh and made a run for it in the direction Mimi went. Sora called out to him asking where he was going, but he had already run too far to give an answer.
Mimi walked through the halls without any real destination. School was almost over and she couldn't find the strength to walk back to the classroom to face her classmates when the theater club rejected her requests. After wandering for a while, she found herself looking out over the school ground from the top of the stairwell from the cafeteria that led all the way down to Primary Garden. She let out a sigh and kept her thoughts to herself as she stared at the view. As she was wrapped in her thoughts, the tapping of running shoes slightly caught her attention. The cafeteria door that led out to the stairwell opened abruptly, but Mimi didn't budge. Deep panting filled the silence, the heavy breathing of someone who must have been running around the school for a while.
"So you were here after all," the familiar deep but gentle voice called out to her, "School is almost over and you're out here daydreaming."
She let out a weak laugh and only slumped over more over the railing, "I'm sorry..."
His eyes widened, "What for?--"
"For letting everyone down." she turned around to face him.
His eyes widened at the wide smiled she put on, but he tried his best to hide his bewilderment and talked to her in a cool voice. "This isn't like you."
"What do you mean?" a touch of worry lined the corners of her lips. "Acting as if you know how I usually am."
A silence fell between them. It seemed like it would drag on forever, but Yamato came to his senses and started searching through his pockets to pull out an envelope from his jacket. He held the letter out to her, which Mimi stared at in confusion but she took the letter hesitantly. He searched for words, "You don't have to push yourself so much."
She stared at him for a second, noting that he was talking in riddles again, but as she unfolded the envelope, tears started to flood in her eyes. Yamato noticed this and hesitated but instinctively inched forward to comfort her, "Hey, come on--" She pulled the envelope close to her chest, slightly crumpling it, and gave him a low bow. Yamato was left speechless at the gesture, and it left her speechless too. She wanted to say that she was sorry again, but the word seemed to lump up in her throat. She wanted to apologize for everything she'd done wrong and for all of the frustration she created, but at the back of her mind, the apologies wouldn't make a difference.
She sobbed quietly, just enough for Yamato to hear and he felt himself being drawn to her, wanting to help her out of instinct. He stretched out his hand, but as he did so, Mimi stepped back and ran down the stairwell. His eyes widened, and in the confusion, he only managed to yell after her, "Hey! Wait!" It took him a few seconds to get over the shock of seeing her tearstained face, but the school bell shook him out of it.
Through the door of the cafeteria, the sounds of students' shoes echoed through the doors. He took a final glance down the stairwell that Mimi had run through, the images of the expression on her face pulling at his thoughts, but he turned away and exited to the cafeteria. "How idiotic."
By the time he got back to the classroom, it was empty. The only sounds that could be heard were from students in the classes at the end of the hall loitering. He missed the afternoon trying to persuade the theater club to help them out, and they eventually did after arguing for a while. It didn't take him that long to find out where Mimi was hiding afterward. He fell into his seat and groaned in frustration. He couldn't get the scenes of what happened out of his mind. "Why was she crying?"
He had cleaning duty on top of more student rep work so he had a an hour or two left to get everything done before going home. If Mimi had been there to help him, like she was supposed to, they probably would've finished sooner. To Yamato, it always seemed that she always had problems going on when they had work to do. He sighed and decided that the cleaning duty had to be done, looking at the classroom from the back of the room to the front. "I guess there's no helping it.."
The sun was beginning to sink low when he finished doing the cleaning duty. He made one last stop to the windows looking over the school grounds to shut them, but the view from the window caused him to stop his work. The park bench in Primary Garden's rose garden was occupied and the undeniable head of chestnut brown hair caught his attention, but to her right, a guy with blue hair sat next to her. The two of them seemed to be talking to each other. As he watched, the click of the classroom's door caused him to turn his head to face it. Taichi juggled a soccer ball between his legs but lost focus and sent the ball rolling away when his eyes caught Yamato's stare. "Hey Yamato."
Yamato turned head away to look out the window and let go of the window curtain without giving Taichi a response back. The curtain was pulled back and Taichi spoke behind Yamato. "Hehh.. I didn't think that those two would have something going on between them." Taichi's eyes followed after Yamato, watching his every reaction.
Yamato scoffed and just turned away. "It's got nothing to do with me."
"But it would, wouldn't it?" the tone in Taichi's voice made it seem as if he was challenging Yamato's limits. Yamato paused in his tracks and asked him what he meant, but Taichi just leaned against the wall with a smug look on his face, "Since the two of you are class representatives, most people would think that you both have to spend a lot of time doing the stuff for the class, but it seems more like Mimi's been spending all of her time with Jyou while you're left to do the work of two people. And wouldn't it be worse if Jyou started to take an interest in Mimi?"
A sneer spread across Taichi's lips which he made sure Yamato had a full look of. Almost spontaneously, Yamato walked up to Taichi and took him at the collar of his shirt. "What are you trying to say?"
Taichi only laughed and the smile on his only grew more menacing. "Ohh, scary." He was satisfied, but Yamato knew that he was only toying with him. Not wanting to cause anymore trouble, he let go of Taichi's shirt and shoved him backward. He made a run outside of the classroom and down the hall, leaving Taichi behind with his unchanged satisfaction. "Simple guy."
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"I see, so that's why you're depressed."
"I never asked Yamato to help me with this, but..." she let out a few quiet sobs, letting some teardrops fall onto the slightly crumpled letter she held in her lap, "I caused him so much trouble."
A handkerchief softly brushed against the corners of her eyes, wiping the tears away. She opened her eyes and turned to face him in surprise, "Senpai?"
He gave her a kind smile but shifted his glance to his right to find someone standing in front of them, "Ah, You're?..."
"Ya-Yamato.."
"You," his voice was low and seemed to be agitated, "Have you done your part of the work that you were supposed to do?"
"Ah, sorry... not yet."
A worried look came over his face. He turned around and started walking away, finding nothing else to say to her. For him to not say anything, it seemed worse on Mimi than if he'd just yelled at her or called her stupid. A few tears began to well up in her eyes as she lowered her head, "What should I do... I said such mean things to Yamato. I must be the worst girl in the world."
Yamato returned back to the classroom, relieved to find that Taichi had left, but he slumped into his desk again and ruffled his hair in frustration. The images of Jyou wiping away her tears with his handkerchief stuck to his mind and the things she said kept replaying in his head. After a minute or so of thinking and making his prized hair turn into a mess, he rest his head on his desk.
"I don't think Yamato would even forgive me if I apologized." Mimi said.
"But you are sorry, right?" he asked, looking at her with all of his attention. She raised her head and told him that she was. He continued, "What if you spoke to him about it."
She turned her head away, "But... Yamato seemed really angry."
"Don't worry, I'm sure he'll understand. If you really want to make up, nothing will happen unless you try."
"I guess so." Mimi turned to him with a faint glow of determination in her eyes. "I'm going to go and speak to Yamato!"
He smiled and stood up, thinking that the two should start heading back since the sun was beginning to set low. Mimi agreed and walked with him through the halls, but as they walked together, her thoughts weren't on the instance of the two of them walking together like she usually would, but she kept thinking about their conversation and worrying if Yamato was really mad at her. 'Will it be... okay?'
He rest his hand on her shoulder. The two of them stopped walking. "It will be."
"Eh?" Mimi blinked in surprise.
"He's your friend, right? Yamato."
"You know Yamato?"
"Because I help with the student council work." he smiled and turned to face her. "Ah... you are..."
"Tachikawa Mimi."
"My name is Kido Jyou, a second year." he patted her shoulder. "It's nice to meet you, Mimi."
Mimi watched him walk away and smiled, feeling more confident than before. She turned and headed toward class 1-A since she left all of her things after ditching class after lunch. The door slid open with a click. She paused, after entering, to find Yamato slumped over his desk. She tiptoed over to his side and lightly shook him on the shoulder, but since he didn't budge, she sat on her desk and looked at him from up there as she dangled her legs over the side. "I'm always following behind, I'm always a pain. Everyone's been trying so hard for me and I wanted to return the favor to everyone, but I'm always... That's so unfair! I understand now, I can't just rely on everyone else. I also have to try my best. ...Yamato?"
"You're acting strange." she jumped over and stood up to brush some of his hair away from his face, "Usually, you'd call me boring or annoying or stupid, but you haven't said..."
She let out a gasp. "Yamato? Are you okay?!"
She gave him a few shakes and noticed that he was burning up. "Yamato!"
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Mimi at Yamato's bedside as he slept. She ended up having to bring him home with her had to leave all of the school work behind. "Yamato, I'm sorry. I said such mean things to you. I'm sure you're still angry, even now. The truth is... I never really meant that. I'm really glad that you watched over me." she leaned forward and softly brushed her hand against his cheek. "Thank you."
She stood and walked quietly to her door. Before completely shutting it, she called out from behind the half opened door, "Tomorrow, even if everyone's still mad at me, I'm going to do my best so I have no regrets.."
He opened her eyes after she shut the door, "Tch, what an idiot."
I'm sorry. I said such mean things to you.
"I wasn't angry about that." the images of Taichi in the classroom and Jyou wiping the tears away from Mimi's eyes with the handkerchief flashed through his mind, "I was angry about.." he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
A/N: Please review! (Even if it's a short and sweet "Please continue!")
Question: Should I make the chapters shorter? Or split them up into smaller parts (Chapter 6 Part I, etc)? Is the story dragging/too slow? And should I make it go faster? Any feedback helps!
Also: I'll be adding little spoilers and upcoming events for the storyline in my profile, so click if you dare to know what's coming or if you're itching for more. (I have the whole story planned out.. It just might take a while to write it all out.) But ONLY read the profile after reading this chapter because you'll spoil it for yourself!! You've been warned, hehe.
Changes:
- Miyako is taken out of this fanfic (she might make an appearance later on)
- The homeroom teacher is now female (to balance out the massload of guys)
- All of the Chosen DigiDestined kids live in the mansion Yamato, Mimi, and Sora live in (it's the mansion on File Island in the Devinmon arc)
- I might add three years to everyone's age so that they're all in high school, but I'm not sure yet
- I might axe the difference in uniform colors. Probably separate the Chosen DigiDestined from the regular DigiDestined kids.
Translations:
ecchi - lit. pervert; in this case, she's referring to porn books, etc
mendo-kusai - lit. "troublesome"; in the context Yamato uses it, he means "How annoying." or "How troublesome/inconvenient."
tsumetai - lit. cold (to the touch); in context, Mimi's calling Yamato('s attitude) "Cold"
bentou - Japanese box lunch
pan - bread
unagi - eel
amaguri - (sweet) chestnut