Digimon. Koushirou / Mimi. 1563 words.
Koushirou once read that dancing was the exchange of steps and motions performed with accompanying music. It was then he realized that that was what he and Mimi have been doing all along.
—
It was July and the sun was high in a sky free from the shielding of clouds.
He was eleven and not particularly inclined to appreciate the sunny skies, drying the mud of the soccer fields, encouraging children to play.
It was under the shade of a tree while seeking isolation from the soccer players that he first caught sight of her. Her – sprawled on the ground, with her pink skirt pooling beneath her as she surrounded herself with baskets of flowers he could only assume she picked herself.
It was a quaint image. Pretty, even. But his gaze didn't linger (his parents always did teach him it was rude to stare). There were games to play and puzzles to crack, and young boys always preferred those over watching young girls. The urban legend of their cooties was not disproven yet, after all.
It was only until he heard footsteps over the monotone score of tetris did he look up beyond his computer screen once again. What he saw then was that same girl with a basket of flowers in hand, approaching him.
She stopped a couple of feet from him and gave him a stare he could only describe as expectant. Frazzled, he gulped before pushing himself up from the ground to stand, as if to meet her gaze.
“Um.” He started, with eyes downcast as he fingered the pockets of his too-large shorts with an uncanny fascination.
She smiled brightly (and he saw this because even though he was not looking at her eyes, he caught a glimpse of her lips and the way they curved pleasantly from dimple to dimple). She then picked a flower from her basket and thrust it towards him.
“Here.” she offered, pushing it even more towards him until it was right in front of his nose. “Because you looked lonely.”
This was a really sweet gesture coming from the girl he would eventually come to know as Tachikawa Mimi, but back then he could do only one thing in response to it.
He sneezed.
(After all, he was allergic to pollen.)
With his head bent down, eyes scrunched up and mouth hurriedly covered by his hand, he mumbled “Thank you”. And that, served as his bow to signify the beginning of the dance they were about start.
—
Sometimes, they enjoyed each other's company.
Sometimes, they couldn't stand each other.
Sometimes, it was a peculiar mix of both.
And so it went, back and forth. Side step. Back and forth.
But it always did have something.
—
There was an entire week when Taichi did nothing but hum the lyrics of some American song in bad English. It was an entire week of hearing about nothing but people leaving on jetplanes according to a man named John Denver.
Taichi did this because it was the week directly after Mimi's departure to the USA. Because as their group of friends gathered together to send her off, he and Mimi stood in some sort of unbreakable silence on top of the airport's polished floors.
They stood and he had his hand on her shoulder and she had her chocolate brown eyes on the length of his arm. And they stood as the clock hand ticked by until he, flustered, said, “Take care of yourself.”
Then, she sighed (as if she expected something more) and she nodded (in acceptance) and she closed their gap of an arm's length by kissing him on the cheek.
“You're not allowed to forget about me.”
—
He did not think of their period of separation as some sort of interlude.
This is because this was the time his heart leapt and stopped at the mercy of his e-mail mailbox.
He didn't really understand why. At least, not until the day he got a message describing her tall and handsome American friend, Michael and all the fun she was having in New York. (His heart stopped and raced and did a number of other things he cannot describe.)
It was then he had an inkling.
—
When his inkling grew into acknowledgement and his acknowledgement grew acceptance, he decided it would be best to be honest and wrote her a long and elaborate e-mail that simply ended with “Mimi, it's possible that I like like you, and I really hope you're okay with that. ”
He only realized the magnitude of his situation when he pressed the send button so that night, he tossed and turned in bed thinking of the possibilities and impossibilities brought forth by his letter.
It was 2 am and he was in the middle of turning when his cellphone ringtone (the jingle of his favorite fruit juice commercial he made himself from his computer) filled the room. He was temporarily petrified upon seeing the words “MIMI TACHIKAWA” flash on the screen but soon took a deep breath and pressed the button, placing the receiver by his ear.
For a while, there was nothing but the sound of heavy breathing. He didn't understand what that meant.
“Mimi?” he wasn't even sure if this call was real or if he had simply fallen asleep and was mixing reality with his imagination.
The breathing continued and he was then rationalizing that all the details of this event – his crumpled sheets against his legs, the silent way his ceiling fan spun and the sweat collecting on his ear – were too real to be a dream. After a few more moments, he finally hears her voice. “It's not fair.”
“Fair?” he asked, completely puzzled.
“Y-You're being a cheater. I've waited and waited and waited, and you're not just supposed to write those things down.” Her voice was as high-pitched and quirkily sweet as he remembered, but he wasn't sure if it was the phone connection or if she really sounded as breathless. “Not when I can't see you. Not when I can't answer.”
“I'm sorry?” and it's one half apology, one half request for a clarification.
“Ohhh, sometimes you just … you're unbelievable!” he heard the irritation in her voice (he's familiar with it after all) and decided to let her rant it out as he tried to decipher the secret language of girls, Mimi Tachikawa's specifically. “You're supposed to be so smart but you don't know anything about …”
And then she started laughing, and for a bit he thought she had gone insane. And then he realized, maybe they were both insane. So he joined her in her laughter.
So it was the two of them, laughing, and breathing, and listening. Listening to the sound the other makes, as they waited for their next act to begin.
—
She came back to Japan for a vacation and without telling him, she showed up at his doorstep.
The first thing he did upon opening the door was to look at her, really look at her, because it's the first time he remembers that she's not almost a head taller than him. And he's understandably shocked at the vibrant pink hair, knee-high white boots and short pink sundress, but then he saw the bright chocolate brown of her eyes and her smile (that same smile from dimple to dimple) and he thought, this is Mimi .
So he stood there, gaping at her, thinking about his good fortune and that phone call a couple of months ago and the e-mails that followed. He wondered what changed, will change and what will always remain the same, still standing there.
And all his wondering and thinking and letting his brain do all the work for him made her impatient again so she called out his name, “Kou-kun!”, And leaned forward to kiss him.
There's movement and layers and placing kisses over kisses that he's worried he's too clumsy at it. But then she holds his chest (softly) and he places his hand on her waist (softly) and he realized that it didn't matter.
—
They're lying down on a bed of grass with their fingers entwined while watching stars twinkle and sparkle overhead.
He had been telling her about constellations, astronomy and other scientific things but she had shushed him. So, they were silent and sandwiched between the sky and the ground, as the silent symphony of the wind and their heartbeats played in their ears.
This was romance. And as much lovely love was going to get for two infatuated adolescents in a quiet night.
He smiled, thinking about what he had read about dancing, the steps it took to get them where they were, and the music that accompanied it. And he thought of how their dance, was more a dance of two heartbeats than of any other music there ever was.
—
So maybe, she would fly back to America in a week's time. And maybe, this magic will wear out (he doesn't really think so, but maybe). Maybe one day, they will tire from this dance of theirs – the steps, the missteps, and the moving in the same rhythm of a heartbeat.
But today is not that day.
And this is a dance that will be remembered by every part of the bodies it moved.
END
