30A/N: First fic alert! The real author's note is at the end, because I am trying not to give anything away. That's why this may seem a bit confusing. That's the fun! Try to guess the bigger picture. (It's not too hard)
Still in My Dress
Why do you build me up (build me up)
Buttercup, baby,
Just to let me down (let me down)
and mess me around
And then worst of all (worst of all)
you never call, baby,
When you say you will (say you will)
but I love you still
I need you (I need you)
more than anyone, darlin'
You know that I have from the start
So build me up (build me up)
Buttercup, don't break my heart
Mimi was bored. No one was paying attention to her and it was boring. Actually, it was only Matt and Catherine who were with her. They were both being very quiet. Matt was staring at something that was nothing, and Catherine was immersed in playing 'Snake' on her cell phone. As far as Mimi could tell, Catherine did not seem too good, because she kept on muttering French obscenities under her breath.
Mimi dipped her finger into her tea to check if it was cool enough to drink yet. It was cool, but it was incredibly bitter. Looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to her, Mimi reached across the small café table and took a handful of Sweet & Low packets. She carefully set them down next to her plate. Then she picked one up, level with her face, and briskly began shaking it, flicking it with her wrist, until it had flicked back and forth ten times. She then carefully tore off the tiniest bit of paper from the corner of the packet, placed it lightly onto the tea saucer, and then poured the sugar into the tea, making the sugar fall from higher to lower levels, like bartenders did sometimes when they poured drinks to impress her. Maybe Matt and Catherine would be impressed and pay attention to her. She repeated this process, shaking the sugar packet closer and closer to Matt's face.
Matt had his head propped up by his arm, and was staring sullenly into his sandwich. But Mimi was getting to him. It must have been the tenth time she was shaking that dumb little packet of sugar into her dumb little tea.
"Would you stop it?" he asked.
"Stop what?" Mimi questioned, not looking up at him, as she began shaking another sugar packet.
"The shaking, it's annoying."
"It's not at all annoying. I'm just putting sugar into my tea. It's a free country." Before she could pour it though, Matt grabbed her wrist, gently took the sugar packet out of her hand, and threw it harshly onto the ground. He turned to Mimi, who looked deeply engrossed in the tea she was briskly stirring.
"That's disgusting, Mimi. You must have put nine packets of sugar into that," he said.
"It tastes good."
"It's just like sugar water. The sugar absorbs all the tea flavor and all you are left with is sugar water. It's disgusting. It's a waste. You could have just bought water and put sugar in it."
"But then it'd just be sugar water."
"That's what it is right now."
"Look Matt, did you buy the tea?"
"Of course not."
"Then why do you care? It's my drink and I can do whatever I want with it."
Catherine, annoyed, looked up from her cell phone. "Merd! Pleaze be quiet! I was up at forty-one points! I have never gotten zat far in zis funny little game before. You two have disrupted me with your pathetic petty arguing!"
"It's not petty at all, Catherine. Mimi is wasting perfectly good tea by adding twenty packets of sugar to it. It's disgusting. It's repulsive—"
"Oh mon dieu, Mimi! Is that Sweet & Low? That is, how do you say, artificial sweetener! Do not you know that that can give you cancer?" said Catherine.
"I like a little danger," Mimi replied as she rolled her eyes at her tea.
"Catherine, she's been having it with her tea for practically ever. Does she look like she has cancer?"
"Look at the label. Have not you ever read zee packets before? Zee label it sez warning, can cause cancer!" said Catherine as she grabbed a packet from the sugar holder.
"Oh shut up Catherine. What losers reads sugar packet labels. Anyway," Mimi said, pointing triumphantly at the empty packet she had picked up from her saucer, " It causes cancer in mice. I'm not a mouse."
"Hey I heard about those tests," said Matt, changing his mind about his sugar cancer position. "If you give mice enough truckloads of that crap, they get cancer. Mimi's so small anyway. Did you know that she's anorexic, Catherine? And she's been eating that fake sugar forever. She thinks it will make her less fat, don't you Mimi? You'll be the first documented case of cancer in idiots from eating too much fake sugar, Mimi. Won't that be exciting? You'll finally get all the publicity you've always wanted."
Mimi snatched the sugar packet from Catherine's hands. She ripped it open and poured the sugar down her throat, keeping her eyes angrily focused on Matt. She had swallowed it in two seconds. Then she threw the packet harshly down onto the table, as if it was a mug of beer she had just finished chugging. The force with which she slammed down the packet shook the table, making her tea spill onto the tablecloth.
"I do not know what it is like in France, Catherine, but Matthew very well knows that I live in America and it is a free country, where I can drink my tea without being harassed for putting just a little bit of sweetener in it. It's a tradition I have."
"Oh cram it, Mimi. And don't Americanize my name. And that is not a little bit of sweetener."
"I do not understand her, Matt. I am solely looking out for her safety. It is an unhealthy tradition!" Catherine said, faking mock sorrow for Mimi and her poor unhealthy tradition. "And what is zis anorexa, Matt?"
"Oh please, Miss Shrimp salad on a lightly toasted croissant with a tomato, and no lettuce s'il vous plait." Mimi said, in a perfect imitation of Catherine's voice, which surprisingly was not too different from her own. "I've been going out with you for the past two days, and that's all you ever order. Shrimp salad must have fifty grams of fat. It's unhealthy. And you always order it. So it's a tradition"
"Well that's because it tastes good!"
"And my artificially sweetened tea tastes good."
"It's not tea. It's sugar water," said Matt.
Sora was lying on the couch, her ankles crossed and propped up on the coffee table. One finger was absently twirling her shoulder length red hair, the other holding the remote control she was using to channel surf the TV to which she wasn't paying any attention. Her best friend was sitting stolidly next to her, staring at a point in space that obviously only he could see.
Sora finally clicked off the television.
"It's been two days, Tai. Two days! I've been wearing this dress for two days straight!"
"I know that."
"Well how would you know?"
"I've been counting."
"What?"
"I've been counting the minutes. You know there are an awful lot of minutes in two days."
"How do you count minutes? You're not wearing a watch and there's no clock in this room."
"Well you convert the seconds into minutes."
"So you know I've been wearing this exact same dress for two days."
"I know."
"I haven't showered or anything."
"You probably should."
"So you've been sitting here for the past two days. Haven't you been bored?"
"I haven't been sitting here the entire time. I was sitting here the first day, but the second day I had to leave and go to work for a few hours. When I came back, you were still on the couch."
"I've probably needed to go to the bathroom."
"Probably."
"So I haven't really been sitting on the sofa for so long."
"It does seem like you have been though," Tai replied. "It doesn't surprise me that you haven't noticed. You've been rather oblivious."
"I have not been."
"It's too dark in here. I need to open the blinds," he said as he got up off the sofa.
"Tai," she said, sitting up straightly, "I haven't really been that pre-occupied. You're exaggerating."
"Sora, tell me what the weather outside is like then."
"It's very cloudy. And dark. And rainy." She smoothed out the wrinkles of her dress.
He opened the blinds. "You're wrong. It's cold, clear, and 32 degrees Fahrenheit, 0 degrees Celsius outside. See what I mean?"
"You count too much."
"And you don't think what you eat is disgusting, Matt?" said Mimi, changing her course of attack, "What exactly is that on your plate.
"Mimi, it's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
"But that would be apple jelly, wouldn't it be? And the bread, that's rye bread. And didn't you ask the waiter to make sure he added raisins to it? And let's not forget the mayonnaise. That is an aberration. It is not just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It is peanut butter with apple jelly, mayonnaise, and raisins on rye bread. It is a disgrace to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everywhere." Mimi looked to Catherine for support.
Catherine was staring disgustedly at Matt's sandwich. "Zat is horrible. How disgusting! How can you eat zat?"
"It tastes good. It's normal," said Matt defensively.
Mimi looked pityingly at Matt, her syrupy voice filled with fake affection. "Honey, my sugar and tea, is normal. Catherine's shrimp salad, is normal. I know you mean well, but that mutation of a sandwich is gross. You are mixing food genres. Am I not being clear enough?"
Mimi moved her tea to the right, and moved a glass bowl that had been lying in the center of the table to her place. "Let's say that this is a garden salad. Are you with me so far? It is a very pleasant, healthy salad, filled with, oh, let's say, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and tomatoes," she looked towards Catherine, who nodded approvingly, at the last word. Tomatoes were good. "Now, the chef wants to make the salad fancier, because he is having a nice guest over for dinner. So he adds a bit of arugala, mixed greens, some Parmesan maybe, green peppers, red peppers, it's a very nice salad. These vegetables are to the salad as my Sweet & Low is to my tea. You do understand so far, don't you?"
"You lost me for a moment, but I'm pretty sure I'm capturing the gist," Matt said dryly.
"Well good then, because here is the tricky part. This chef is quite amateur, and becomes a bit too overzealous. He adds watermelon and strawberries to his salad. And suddenly, the salad is destroyed. Do you understand, why, it is destroyed, Matt?"
"I'm sure you'll tell me Mimi."
"Because watermelon and strawberries are fruits. They belong in fruit salad, not vegetable garden. The chef mixed genres. Fruit salad."
"Tomatoes are fruits, Mimi."
"Matt, no one puts tomatoes in fruit salad. You are entirely missing my point."
To Be ContinuedA/N: I know it probably was not too good and did not make too much sense and everything but this is the first thing I've ever written and posted on the internet and it just makes me very nervous. This was the intro, kind of a tease. I just want to hear what you think before I continue…I'm trying to stay close to the show. There WILL be romance, I swear. I'm sorry if it's confusing so far, or you don't get the part, but trust me, it gets better. I wanted to be different, and that is very hard when there are thousands and thousands of digimon fics here already. I'd love to hear what you think! Is the Catherine French accent too annoying? I'd love to answer any questions!
~Annie