Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon, but the plot is mine... and I guess that Mark is mine too, though I really don't want him... Feel free to take Mark and do whatever the heck you want to him (Except pair him with Mimi, that is), but the plot is mine :)
Yamato Ishida sighed and leaned against the chilled wall next to the front door of the school. He'd looked for Mimi all day, worried that he wouldn't see her before she ran into Mark. Normally it wasn't very difficult to find her, surrounded by her friends, laughing and talking about the latest fashion craze, but every place he looked, he'd found that she was MIA. Well, except for the brief meeting up at the nurses office, that is, which turned into a near disaster... At this point, it was probably going to be too late to warn her that he'd heard a rumor that Mark was cheating on her with another girl, but he still wanted to tell her, just in case she didn't know... He'd ran into Sora in the hallway after lunch, who said that she'd heard that Mimi would be in detention this afternoon for coming in late, but he didn't know if it was true or not. Detention was supposed to get out nearly half an hour ago, and he'd been standing here at the door for almost twice that long, hoping to run into her before she went home, yet she had not emerged from the school yet.
He closed his eyes, soaking in the warm sun that had only now come out of hiding from behind a cloud. He'd hoped that it wouldn't snow, but the weather had become rather unpredictable in the past few years. Scientists claimed it was due to Global Warming, but he knew it was a direct result from the opened portal to the Digital World. While much of the weather had returned to normal in other places in the world, Japan had not, and many of the weather phenomena that occurred were still not typical of the current season. Matt knew it was only a matter of time before people found out why there was occasional snow in July, or a really hot day in the middle of January... and he wasn't looking forward to all of the explaining that he and the gang were going to have to do when that happened.
The door next to him creaked, and he opened his eyes to glance at who had come out. It was Mimi, her head bowed slightly and her books clenched tightly in her arms. She paused outside, knowing that he was there, but she didn't say a word to him. Instead, she simply started to walk away down the stairs, presumably towards her home.
"There you are, I've been looking for you," he told her, but she only lowered her head more and kept walking slowly down the stairs. He stood up and followed her, continuing to talk as he shadowed her movements. "And here I was thinking that you were avoiding me." Mimi stopped suddenly in her tracks at the bottom of the stairs, causing Matt to stumble to a halt just before crashing into her.
"You knew... didn't you..." came Mimi's soft voice. "You knew that Mark was cheating on me."
"..."
"Didn't you." she pressed more vehemently, and Matt gulped nervously. Mimi spun around to face him, lifting her eyes to meet his. They were bloodshot and puffy, leaving a tell-tale sign of why she hadn't come out of the school with the rest of the detention kids.
"Well..." he started, but then trailed off at the furious look she gave him as she raised her head to look him in the eyes. "I..."
"You know what?" she told him in a wavering voice, her whole body shaking as she tried to hold back the tears. "I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear how you found it more important to tease me when you saw me earlier, rather than just flat out tell me about him. That's what friends do, Matt, they tell each other about things that could hurt them!"
"I know that, Mimi!" he cried, distraught at her accusation. "Don't you think I know that?! That's why I came looking for you!"
"Then why the hell didn't you let me know about him when you found me?! Did you think it would be fine if he hurt me, and that you'd play the part of a good friend and help pick up the pieces?! Is that what I have to expect from you?!" Mimi thundered, the tears starting to well up in her eyes as she continued to vent her anger and frustration at him.
"How can you even say that?!" he yelled back, starting to lose his cool attitude that usually kept him calm and rational. "If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't have come looking for you in the first place! I wouldn't be here waiting for you to talk to! I'd be somewhere else, having a good time, rather than standing here, having to listen to a whiny and self-absorbed brat tell me how I'm not a good friend!"
Matt froze, too late to stop the words that came tumbling from his mouth. Mimi's lower lip began to tremble, and the tears broke through, running down her face in a steady stream.
"Mimi... I..."
"GO TO HELL! I HATE YOU, MATT! I HATE YOU!!" she screamed, and took off across the lawn towards the road her house was on, leaving Matt standing at the door alone in a cold wind that sent chills up his spine.
Mimi kept running and running, not wanting to stop or look back at the jerk who had ruined her day. She didn't stop until she passed the small park down the street from her house, at which point the sky opened up and it started to rain. It was a freezing rain that chilled her to the bone, and she cursed her lack of luck, heading to the small shelter and setting her books down on the table beneath it. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the last remaining box of chocolate and cookies. She paused, wondering if she felt like eating them in hopes of drowning the pain in sweet sugary goodness, but decided against risking upsetting her stomach more than it already was. Looking around as she clenched the box in her hands tightly, she spied the swingset that she'd played on as a child. She strode out into the rain and sat down on one of the swings, and Mimi wept, not caring if she caught a cold. At this point she figured it was going to happen anyways. Maybe, just maybe, sitting out in the rain would wash away her bad day, or at least her memories of it.
A face surfaced in her mind, and she scowled, letting the tears fall freely upon the cheap red cardboard she was holding. Mimi found herself furious with him on so many levels, to the point where she didn't know if she wanted to speak to him ever again. And he'd deserve it too, there was no doubt in her mind about that. How could it be that someone who had the crest of Friendship could so thourogh destroy any trust she had in their friendship? Sora would probably back her up on this too. The anger inside of her boiled up as the tears began to fall and mingle with the rain. She remembered how he had teased her in the nurses office, and she wondered what she had ever seen in him that had made her want to be friends with him. This time, Yamato Ishida had gone one step too far... and he was going to get what he deserved, she would make sure of it.
Mimi heard the swing creak slightly above her, and then the next she knew, she was sitting in the mud, the swing lying broken underneath her. She looked up to the heavens and cried out, the sob catching in her throat at the thought of her newest outfit being caked in mud. Just as she thought that she'd finally hit the bottom, she heard a girl playfully shrieking from the road. She looked up just in time to see both Mark and another girl, the girl she had seen him with earlier, running by, trying to get out of the icy rain. She lay down in the mud and freezing rain, completely and utterly defeated, clutching onto her crushed Valentine's Day gift that had only been the beginning of it all... This was by far the worst Valentine's day ever, and nothing was going to make it better... nothing... Slowly she found herself drifting in and out of consciousness...
How long she lay there in the mud she did not know; it seemed like eternity to her broken heart and she struggled to entertain a single thought on anything else. She was shaking now, her body desperately trying to create heat to warm her freezing body, but she found that she didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore, not now that she'd lost the one person that she thought she'd always have, the one she'd taken for granted... And the more that she wanted to blame him for what had happened that day, the more she realized that it had been her own fault. SHE had been the one to yell and scream at him, provoking him to the point where he'd finally snapped at her. And yet now... now that she was as low as the mud, she began to realize just what a fool she had been. She loved him, plain and simple. Actually, the more she thought about it, the more she was sure that she had ALWAYS loved him. But somewhere in her routines and daily life, she'd simply pushed her feelings for him away, unwilling to think for a second that she had fallen for someone who liked nothing more than to tease and make fun of her. Her, the "princess" as he liked to call her, in love with Matt Ishida? The idea had sounded so absurd that she'd simply brushed it aside... yet things looked different from down in the mud. Her will hardened, and her resolve to be sincere about her feelings for him strengthened her heart.
Her body trembling, Mimi struggled to raise her head out of the mud, but found after a few attempts that she could not. Panic struck her like a bolt of lightning and she grew afraid that she would never again move from this spot. She'd always feared death, and this was no exception. She cried out to the world around her, but her sound barely passed from behind her lips. She was cold, frightened, and weak; there was no way that anyone could hear her in her condition, no matter how much she called out. She could no longer shed any tears, so the sky continued to weep for her and her impending doom. Mimi closed her eyes, letting the rain wash over her as it fell, along with any hope that she had of being found. If only she hadn't been so stupid... she only hoped that maybe Matt would find it in his heart to forgive her... once she was gone...
She could feel herself being lifted up and pressed against something soft and warm, but she couldn't open her eyes to see anything. She felt so cold... like snowman on a frigid morning just before the sun came up. The mangled and muddy box she had been clutching was pried out of her stiff hands and Mimi parted her lips in protest, but she could feel herself being carried off somewhere at a rather brisk pace... 'Is this dying?' she wondered. 'Has someone come to take me away to the beyond?' She could feel herself losing conciousness, her body going limp, when she could have sworn that she'd heard a voice that she almost could name calling out to her... calling her name, so gently and softly...
"Mimi... come on Mimi, hang in there... Please Mimi...for me..."
Mimi lay against the warmth, completely confused. Why would someone taking her to the beyond tell her to hold on? This was the last thought she entertained before she blacked out, her body suddenly surrounded in a rush of warm air.
Here's the long-awaited third part. I have not made up my mind whether I was going to have this be a Mimato friendship piece, a Mimato romance, or simply a one-sided Mimato with Matt screwing up his chance with Mimi, or vice versa... or just simply due to the fact that Mimi may or may not live... so yet again, I'm branching it off into another chapter. To be frank, it really depended on what happens this upcoming week and weekend to me personally, so I honestly don't know which one I'm going to end up doing... I HAVE been in a really angsty mood as of late... Well, now that this part is done, please remember to review! And that includes all you people who don't have an account too, as I've allowed anonymous reviews. Who knows, maybe what you say to me in your review will help me shape my last chapter. :)