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Imperfection
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III. The Talk
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This was it.
Hikari swore that she had never felt her heart beating so loudly, like it was right now.
Takeru was right there, sitting on his bed, alone, just staring at the wall, doing absolutely nothing.
It was perfect.
(It was terrible.)
She approached him and sat on the bed beside him. They didn't look at each other for a while, but Hikari was positive he was aware of her presence.
Finally, she cleared her throat, and Takeru looked at her. She immediately froze, but she knew–she knew–she had to do this.
"Hey," she began.
"Hey."
Neither of them talked for some time until Takeru spoke up. "So you and Miyako-san went shopping yesterday?"
"Yeah. We bought some new clothes and some souvenirs." She turned toward Takeru. "How was the soccer game yesterday?"
"It was awesome. Japan won."
"That's nice."
Hikari sighed. They couldn't avoid the topic for so long, couldn't they?
Adrenaline pumping through her veins, she said, "Miyako-san also talked to me about… what happened yesterday."
It almost felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, only for another weight to replace it as she anticipated his reaction. Hikari looked down at the floor, refusing to look straight at him, but she could see his shoulders tense and his fists clench from the corner of her eye. A heavy silence hung in the air.
"The guys talked to me about it, too," he finally responded. "And I decided… we should talk about it, just the two of us."
"Same here. So…" Hikari bit her lip. "Where should I start…?"
"I thought I should apologize," he blurted out immediately.
Hikari forced herself to look at him. She tilted her head to the side, urging him to continue.
He sighed. "I shouldn't have kept kissing you. I should've gotten off you right from the start. I don't know what it is that made me keep kissing you, but in my head, I knew what I was doing was wrong." He took in a deep breath. "So… I'm sorry, Hikari-chan."
She was almost struck speechless by his words, and it seemed like all she could hear was the loud thump of her heart against her rib cage that she would do anything to stop. Her palms were growing sweaty by the second.
"You don't need to apologize, Takeru-kun. If anything, you didn't do anything wrong, and it was my fault. I shouldn't have been the one kissing you back. V-mon landed on you, not me, and I should've done something. You didn't know you'd be landing on me, but I could've moved away before you fell on me." Tentatively, she placed her hand on Takeru's. It felt different, but… right. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. Really, I should be sorry." Takeru smiled at her.
Hikari shook her head. "No, I should be sorry."
"I should."
"No, I should!"
The room was silent for a moment before they both burst into laughter.
"Just look at us," said Takeru, his laughter reduced to fits of giggles, "laughing about something as stupid as this." When the room went quiet again, Takeru let out a genuine smile. "I know we weren't together for only a few hours, but I still missed you yesterday. I'm glad you're here now."
"Yeah, so am I." She hugged Takeru. "Also… thank you."
Takeru furrowed his brows. "For what?"
"For… everything. Everything you've done for me and everything we've done together. You mean so much to me that I don't even know how to explain it. Everything we do together just makes me so… happy. I don't know how to describe it. I just know that being around you makes me feel good. And even the kiss…" Hikari flinched. The word "kiss" sounded foreign on her mouth. "I don't hate you for that. I think… maybe I should thank you for that."
"Really? Why?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, honestly. I know that kiss was wrong, but I don't regret it, for some reason. I already told you that everything we do together just makes me so happy, even if I don't realize it at first, because you mean so much to me."
Takeru seemed confused, but he spoke anyway. "Well, you're welcome, I guess." He paused for a moment. "Thank you for everything, too. You always find some way to make me happy. I don't know what I'd do without you in my life, so thank you, Hikari-chan." He beamed, and Hikari couldn't help but smile back herself.
Her smile faded as she said, "I still want to figure out our relationship, though. I mean, what are we?"
"We're friends–really good friends. What do you mean?"
"It's just…" Hikari frowned a little. "After the… kiss, I… I don't really know how to say this, but Miyako brought up that maybe you and I could be… more than friends."
She was internally cringing by now. She could already foresee Takeru's laughter and accusation of this being absolutely ridiculous.
"More than friends, huh," he began, his chin settled on the palm of his hand.
Hikari gulped. "I know you'll probably hate me for saying this, but… for a long time already, I think I've had... um…"
"Feelings for me?"
Another cringe. "Yeah. That. But what if we try this out and it doesn't work? What if we aren't friends anymore if it doesn't work out? I don't want that to happen, Takeru-kun. I can't lose you."
They were silent for some time before Takeru placed his hand on Hikari's shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. I understand what you mean."
Hikari looked up. "Y-you understand what I mean?"
A sheepish smile grew on his face. "Yeah. I feel the same way about you, to tell the truth. But I never asked you out because… I was afraid, too. I've never been in a relationship so I don't really know how it works, and if we do get together and ended up breaking up, I was afraid we couldn't be able to get back to how we used to be, as friends."
Another silence. And then, "So what should we do?" asked Hikari.
Takeru shrugged. "If you want, we could try it. Take this one step at a time and go slowly." He took Hikari's hand and held it in his. "I think if we don't do anything about our feelings, we would never feel satisfied with ourselves, and even if this doesn't work out, we can always think about today, the day we got together, and remember that our bond will bend, but it can never be broken. Everybody makes mistakes, but we can't dwell on those mistakes all the time. We just gotta move on with what we have. If there's something that gets in our way, we'll work it out together."
He paused for a moment before continuing. "I'm not forcing you to do this, Hikari-chan. It's up to you if want to do this. Whatever you say, I'll go with it."
Hikari pursed her lips and said, "Promise me that if this doesn't work out, we'll still be friends."
Takeru smiled. "Promise."
She smiled, too. "Then I'll try, Takeru-kun. I'll try." She gave his hand a squeeze.
He squeezed it back, and leaned in to her. He wrapped his arms around her, gently. She mimicked the gesture, testing the waters, and realized, maybe, this wouldn't be as hard as she thought.
"I know, Hikari-chan," he whispered into her hair. "I know."
"Did they get together?" asked Daisuke in a whisper.
"I think they did," Ken whispered back.
Daisuke, Miyako, Ken, Iori, and the Digimon were huddled under the window outside Takeru's bedroom, their eyes peeled on Takeru and Hikari while making sure they weren't caught.
"Bingo!" Miyako whisper-shouted. "I can't believe it took those two that long to finally get together, those stupid lovebirds."
"Miyako, don't be so loud!" said Iori.
While Miyako was celebrating and Ken and Iori were trying to keep her down, Daisuke had already run away, his mischievous laughter unheard by the others.
"What the–"
"Taichi, what is it?" asked Sora.
"That Takeru," Taichi muttered, storming out of his room. "I can't believe him."
At the sound of his brother's name, Yamato was suddenly on alert. "What did he do?"
But his question was unanswered. Taichi had already left the apartment.
Yamato looked over at Sora. "What was that about?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. He was reading a message on his D-Terminal and he just left."
"Maybe there was something in the message that really got him mad." Yamato picked up Taichi's D-Terminal and read the message. Sora could see his blue eyes widening by the second.
"What does it say, Yamato-kun?" She stood up from her seat on the floor and made her way to Yamato's side to read the message.
July 30, 2008, 9:42 a.m.
To: Yagami Taichi-senpai
From: Motomiya Daisuke
Takeru has decided to "make a move" on your precious little Hikari-chan. Just thought you should know. ;)
Sora and Yamato stood there, staring at the message for some time.
Then, Sora said, "Does Taichi realize that Daisuke-kun is probably just joking?"
"The real question is if Taichi is actually going to fly all the way to Kyushu just to check on Hikari-chan."
They continued to stare at the message, dumbfounded.
"Get in the car. We're finding Taichi."
"I expected you to want to go to Takeru-kun."
"As you said, Daisuke's probably joking. Just get in the car and let's find Taichi."
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fin
A/N: And it's finally done! This chapter was a bitch to write and it's unedited, and I'm still really unsure about this, but I'm usually overly critical of my work so I decided to post this anyway. If there are any grammatical errors, please point them out for me.
So how do you think? Was this any good? Thank you so much for reading this whole thing, and please review!