13Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon.
A/N: So… this is my take on Mimi's departure for America and, well… how she and Izzy might have started a relationship. I hope I did all right with both their characterizations. *cringes* But feel free to tell me if I did a crap job.
Oh, and this is dedicated to Elite Beauty, who requested it. :)
Enjoy!
xXx
- Long Distance -
xXx
It had been announced, sometime during the beginning of the year, that Mimi would be moving to America. She had invited all of her digidestined friends for a dinner party of no specific occasion, which was never an odd request of hers—she loved to throw parties—and so her friends arrived with the happy expectation of good food, good conversation, and good fun.
Towards the end of the evening, amidst an intense game of Egyptian Rat Screw, Mimi had stood abruptly from her chair. She cleared her throat and tapped her dessert fork on the thin crystal of her water glass.
"I… I guess you're wondering why I invited you all here," she began, with difficulty.
Tai had just slapped his palm on top of the back of Matt's hand, preventing the blond from swiping the pile of cards on the table top.
The room fell silent.
"I thought this was just for fun, Meem," Tai said. He could feel Matt trying to free his hand from under his grip.
T.K. agreed.
"Yeah, Mimi. You do sweet things like this for us all the time."
The girl with the confession to make felt exposed in the light of their doubt. Her grasp tightened around the glass in her clutch. She swallowed.
The honey-hue of her eyes gleamed with the sting of saltwater, her ears oblivious to the dubious proclamations passing from her friends' lips: Kari, Sora, Matt, Joe. Only Izzy said nothing, his dark eyes examining her in the way he would look at computer problems—with determined patience.
"Ugh, I can't do this anymore!" Mimi muttered under her breath. Her naturally high-pitched voice made her sound like a mouse gibbering to itself. Tai was about to turn his attentions back to his card game, ready to cry victory in front of Matt's face, when Mimi's fingers tightened and her arms tensed at her sides.
"I'm moving to America!" she shouted, and then she fled the room, leaving everyone else stunned in motionless silence.
Her announcement became a thought that pervaded the lives of her friends in the months before her departure—some more than others. Tai and Matt could only give her words of encouragement. Kari and Sora bestowed on her many hugs of comfort and promises to keep in touch. Joe and T.K. reminded her often of just how dearly she would be missed.
It was only Izzy who treated her as if her public broadcast had never been made. He went so far as to talk to her about what classes he planned on taking in high school, knowing full well that she wouldn't be joining him, Sora, Matt and Tai as they graduated into the awkward era of full blown adolescence.
Unsurprisingly, such nerve on his part left Mimi more upset than she already was, and during such instances, she would quickly end their conversation and tell him to leave, claiming that he was, firstly, "infuriating," and, secondly, "insensitive." Though, more often than not, he was both simultaneously.
He had known Mimi long enough to tolerate her harsh, but rare, judgment of him. It was a well known tendency of his to become so engrossed in his own thoughts that he phased entirely out of reality; and perhaps he did, but never in her company.
It was an unspoken truth that regardless of how he was feeling, regardless of how trite and eye-rolling her daily news was, he was always aware of her. He attributed such involuntarily given attention to the one time he had consciously ignored her in the Digiworld.
She had found him in some old ruins during Devimon's reign of terror, the pieces of File Island drifting apart and carrying their scattered comrades with them. He had been focused on the conundrum of a turning of black gear, and she had begged him to see the bigger picture of things—that their friends needed help—and he had zoned her out, only to have her, in a fit, run off nearly to her doom.
If anything, Izzy was more troubled by the way he himself handled his interaction with the girl who would leave Japan in a matter of months. It would have been easier for him to say to her what she wanted to hear, to be like their other friends and tell Mimi that she would be missed and that she would have a new adventure waiting for her in her home halfway across the world.
But whenever he was tempted to comfort her in the expected manner, his tongue grew heavy as if bearing a falsehood, and he would swallow down his oft rehearsed, "It's going to be all right, Mimi."
Yet, while he lay on his bed at night pondering over how he could express himself honestly without being seen as some insensitive jerk, the girl who was beginning to frequent his mind had concerns of her own.
Unbeknownst to Izzy, she had gone to the other males of their group seeking out an accurate analysis of his behavior toward her.
"Does he just not care?" she had whined to Tai, Matt, Joe and T.K. one afternoon.
The boys were gathered in her living room, Tai lying down on the floor, tossing a soccer ball in the air. The other three sat on the sofa adjacent to Mimi's armchair, looking at her hunched in her seat. She had her elbows on her knees, chin cupped in her palms, a pout on her pretty face and her eyes glancing not at them, but out her living room window.
"I mean, I told you all I was moving about three months ago," she continued. "I leave for America in four weeks and all Izzy still has to say to me is…"—and here she affected her version of Izzy's low, precise tenor—"'Guess what, Mimi? I've been asked to judge at the city's Brain Bowl, and I'll be president of computer club next year. Sora and Matt are already rumored to be this year's Homecoming King and Queen, and Tai's starting in the school's varsity soccer team, blah blah blah!'"
She stomped her foot on the ground, startling Tai who had been idly throwing his soccer ball up and down while she raged.
"Does he just think that I'll sit here and be happy that he and all of you guys are going to be doing all of this stuff while I'm gone?" she fumed. "It's never, 'Oh, Mimi, I wish you'd be here for all of this. I wish you'd be here to see me judge the Brain Bowl. I wish you'd be here to be my date to the Homecoming Dance…'"
Mimi's lips clamped shut after she uttered the last words, the red flush of agitation on her face blooming into one of embarrassment.
Tai's soccer ball stopped its ascent up into the air and as he caught it, he sat up, looking at Mimi in the same bemused way as the other boys on her sofa gazed upon her.
Under the spotlight of their stares, she could do nothing but hug a sofa pillow tightly to her chest as she lowered her eyelids.
Tai had been the brave one to ask the question all brewing in their minds.
"Do you like Izzy, Mimi?" he asked.
The impertinence of such a curiosity drove him and the rest of the boys out of her home, abandoned on the welcome mat of her apartment with a loud door slam. Mimi had stormed off to her room, grabbing her phone and dialing Sora at the soonest moment, and she spent roughly the next two hours complaining and crying to the gentle-hearted girl whom she considered the sister she never had.
"I think you need to talk to Izzy about this, Mimi," Sora had advised her. "It'll make you feel a little better talking to me, but you'll feel much better if you talk to Izzy about it."
Izzy, too, was bombarded with pleas to meet with Mimi, though from the males of their group. He resisted, as was expected of him, asserting that whenever he did speak with Mimi, things always ended on a sour note. He'd happily tell her about his future prospects, and she'd run off unleashing her torrent of theatrical pules, leaving him with flashes of that time in the Digiworld where she had left him alone in the ruins with his computer and his thoughts, too confused to do anything but stay where he was and too cowardly to get up and run after her.
Finally, and at Tai's aggravatingly persistent behest, Izzy caved. He emailed her the day before her one-way flight to America, and she agreed to meet him that same evening.
They rendezvoused at Odaiba Rainbow Park, which was a convenient halfway point between their two apartment complexes. She was sitting on a bench when he arrived, and she turned and stood when he called her name. Neither of them made any further approach toward the other. The distance between them was fixed, could be measured in meters, or, more accurately, dread.
"I'm here, Mimi," stated Izzy at last. His gaze on her was unusually severe, as if their meeting in that spot was a heavy tax on his time, as though he had something else—something more important—to go to even though he had been the one to contact her.
She didn't like the way he spoke. He had stated the obvious, and he was never the one to do that. He always delved deeper, believed that beneath the surfaces of everything, there were mysteries yet unsolved, questions that needed answering, and that he would be the seeker who would unveil those secrets.
"Well," she began, mimicking his tone, "I won't be. Not much longer, anyway."
The red eyebrows only wrinkled, the angle at which they curved steeper than previous. The unbending stare steeled itself.
He said nothing.
Something broke in Mimi, like a canvas being torn in half, fibers being shredded, ends getting split and frayed. The shout that ripped from her throat almost made the air ripple.
"So you're just going to stand there?" she exclaimed. "Ever since I announced that I'd be leaving, you've been acting like this!"
Her glare intensified at the rearrangement of his eyebrows, the furrow being replaced with a skeptical arch.
"You've been completely insensitive to the fact that I'm moving to America," she explained, without lowering her volume. "We're friends and you just keep rubbing it in my face that I won't be here to continue my adventures with you and everyone else." She inhaled deeply and wiped her eyes with her hand. "It's like you don't even care," she said, almost whimpering. "It's like you're immune to sympathy, or empathy… or something."
She crossed her arms and glowered at the ground between them, upset over her ineptitude to express herself.
Izzy's hands clenched. The way she was talking about him brought back echoes of the first time he ignored her in the Digital World, how she thought him reclusive, unfeeling, absorbed in his own world and his own problems and oblivious to everyone else's—most immediately, hers. She couldn't have been more wrong, her judgment severely, but understandably, misguided. He wasn't expressive like Tai. He didn't complain about the minutiae of his life like Joe. He wasn't free with his happiness like T.K. He wasn't even secretive like Matt, who would open up after consistent prodding.
But he, he just kept everything inside, let it sit in his gut and gather mass, deflecting all attempts to share what he hid with feigned preoccupation, or some rude quip that portrayed disinterest. Everything would remain unspoken until a retelling was unavoidable—forced out of him by circumstance.
Mimi had placed him in such a position.
He called her name.
"What?" she replied, bitterly. She glimpsed at him once but turned away, but an intuition of hers told her to look again, and when next she did, he had taken a few steps toward her.
"I'm sorry you feel that way," he said, in his natural monotone, "but you've been misinterpreting my behavior."
She was tempted to roll her eyes. Of course the blame would fall to her. Izzy was incapable of error, as if he were some computer programmed for perfection.
"But that fault is mine," he admitted, casting his head down. "It was never my intention to appear insensitive to your plight, Mimi. You're easy to read, like code, but you're difficult to reason with—also like code. You see things one way or you don't see it at all."
Her reply was a mere, 'hmph.' Thankfully, Izzy was nonplussed by the discourteous gesture.
"I don't tell you these things," he continued, "—my being president of computer club, the homecoming dance, high school classes, all of that—I don't tell you them to upset you."
"Well, they do," she spat.
"I know." Izzy winced. "At least, I should have known." He paused. "Mimi."
A slight tremble scaled up her legs when she saw his feet invade her vision, how the window of the stare she had directed to the ground was breeched by the toes of his sneakers. She looked up, warily.
"I tell you these things because I don't imagine you not being here," he said.
Her perfect eyebrows wrinkled. Her nose twitched.
"Izzy, I'm moving thousands of miles away—halfway across the world. You can't be that delusional."
"I'm not," he stated firmly. Since when was he ever delusional? His world was justified by reason, logic. Everything had form because it made sense. "Distance isn't quantified in miles or hours. It's defined by your effort to bridge a connection. We live in the digital age, Mimi. Physical distance means nothing if information can be transmitted from one place to another at lightning speeds."
A subtle sigh escaped him. He was getting technical. His exhale was one soft enough that he hoped Mimi wouldn't hear it, but she did, and the faint release of his frustration touched her. She wanted to reach out and take his hand, but she knew that Izzy was repulsed by physical contact, and she respected that. She kept her hands to herself.
"I'm not going to tell you you'll be missed, Mimi," he said, regaining his nerve. "I'm not going to tell you that you'll do fine and be fine in America. I won't. To do so implies that you will be separate, that you will be gone from m—" His lips closed. "…here," he amended. "And I can't acknowledge your absence."
Mimi watched him closely, her heart pounding inside her chest. With what he confessed, she couldn't help the questions that formed in her mind. Why? Why couldn't he accept her absence? Did she really mean that much to him? She couldn't imagine that being true.
He spoke again before she had the opportunity to find out.
"So I'll tell you everything that will be happening here while you're in America," he said. "I'll email you everyday, if you want. I'll keep you informed. I never said those things to emphasize your distance from us, Mimi. I told you all of it so that you would feel included, that even if our other friends are content to wish you farewell, I'll just tell you that I'll email you later."
His words were brutally honest, if not uncharacteristically idealistic. The vast expanse that was Koushiro's mind could conjure up several solutions to a problem, but always with consideration to determining factors. Keeping in touch was too simple, too pure, too overused to actually hold any promise.
"And the time difference?" she posed. "The fact that we'll be occupied with school and other activities—meeting new people, going to new places? None of that presents any problems?"
"Of course it will present difficulties," he replied, smartly. His face softened in light of her offense. "I never said the solution was flawless," he continued, more gently, "that speaking it would render it a continuing reality. It will require equal amounts of effort on both our parts, Mimi."
He paused, his left hand flexing unconsciously.
"That is," he said, "if you're willing."
Her answer was prompt, as if it had been waiting for release since the start of their conversation.
"I am," she stated firmly and repeated it. "I am."
She stepped forward, looking straight at him but reaching for the hand that kept curling and uncurling as if it, like his mind, had choices it couldn't decide on. His jaw went limp at her touch, her hand cold but resolute in its grip. Seconds passed where paralysis attacked his body, but it flew from him like a waking dream, leaving imprints of shock in his bones quelled only by the comfort of her presence, her stare revealing both her innocence and the maturity of her comprehension.
He summoned the courage to squeeze her hand back, and when she smiled, having received the message, he mirrored the favor.
"Everything will be all right, Mimi," he told her.
"I know," she said. "I know."
xXx
The following morning, her friends saw her off at the airport, all of them loitering in the wait area with her as they anticipated her departure. They passed the few hours before her flight with stories of their Digiworld adventures. In between anecdotes, they snacked on food gleaned from the various airport restaurants.
When they were restless, they explored together, Tai leading the group through gift shops and duty-free outposts, jokingly telling Mimi to stock up on Japanese souvenirs to hand out to the strange Americans that she was bound to befriend.
"Don't go teaching anyone the Pocky game, Mimi," Tai teased, shaking a box of the biscuit sticks at her.
She laughed. They all did, sufficiently occupied by their giggles that no one noticed Mimi and Izzy exchange brief glances, the faintest of smiles crossing their blushing faces.
The hours passed too quickly, and before any of them knew it, Mr. and Mrs. Tachikawa had announced that they needed to start boarding the plane. The laughter from before was replaced with a sullenness, heads beginning to hang as one of their own took the first step toward a life away from them.
Mimi hugged each of them goodbye, trying to dam up the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She laughed as often as she could, but she didn't consider herself very brave. She wasn't, really.
And so she wept, the first to start the trend among her friends. Even Tai and Matt, as proud as they were, were not exempt from wiping at their eyes as she said her goodbyes.
Only Izzy remained unfazed, meeting her with a smile and a glimmer of optimism in his bright stare. It was with him that Mimi hiccupped the last of her sobs away, and the pout on her lips gradually inverted.
He spoke to her softly.
"It's a twelve hour time difference," he said, handing her a slip of paper. She grabbed the edge, hoping he would continue to hold his end. He did. "So, when you arrive in New York in approximately…" He checked his watch. "…thirteen hours, give or take, it'll be morning or afternoon the next day here in Japan…"
He continued talking, but Mimi didn't quite hear him anymore. She just stared into his face, following the movement of his eyes as they shifted from the paper to her. Her mind was striving to memorize every detail of him in person: the short, red hair, the eyebrows perpetually furrowed in concentration, the deep blackness of his eyes.
"I'll email you, Izzy," she said, cutting him off. Her fingers closed around the slip of paper half in her possession, and, consequently, over his own hand.
Blushing, he nodded his head repeatedly, aware of his verbosity and the delight it seemed to instill in her. She giggled.
They waved grandly at her as she filed into the passenger line with her carry-on luggage, bookended by her mother and father who looked on at her group of dedicated friends and returned the courtesy.
With all the noise they were causing, some assumed the girl with the bright pink suitcase and the pink, fringed dress to be some sort of celebrity, and she was, to a degree, but only to a select few.
Izzy and the others stayed until Mimi had safely boarded, and then they left in silence, beginning the slow, unfamiliar process of getting accustomed to her absence.
Except for Izzy.
He returned home and went about his day as usual. He spoke to his parents briefly about Mimi's departure. His mother told him of plans that weekend to go school shopping. He flipped through the latest issue of Computer Magazine that came for him in the mail.
The following day was spent upgrading his computer or painstakingly searching the internet for the latest hardware worth purchasing for optimum performance. A break was afforded in the form of Tai calling him over to play video games. He and the former leader of Digidestined passed a few hours punching controller buttons and yelling at the television screen and eating the food gladly prepared by Mrs. Kamiya.
"So what'd you and Mimi talk about when you were whispering all hush-hush with her before her flight?" Tai ribbed, nudging Izzy with an elbow. He sent him a wry look while chewing on a huge bite of onigiri.
All Izzy could manage was a glare annoyed enough to alert Tai that he was treading into 'It's none of your damn business' land. The soccer player shrugged.
That night, just as Izzy had climbed into bed and closed his eyes, his mind replaying the events of the past few days, his phone beeped.
He woke abruptly, but tiredly, apparently having slipped deep into slumber in the fifteen minutes that had passed since he had dipped under the covers. Flipping his phone open, he noticed the notification of a new email, eyes widening in the dark. He sprang out of bed.
His desk chair was swiftly yanked out and he sank into it, the wheels moving and the seat swiveling him to the side as he switched his computer on.
In the dimness of his bedroom, his monitor screen glowed brightly, bathing his face in its ethereal bluish light. He rubbed consciousness furiously back into his face.
Moments later, a window popped up on his screen, its image blurry at first, full of static before it cleared and revealed a face he dared not ever forget. He noticed the motion of a hand swishing back and forth, the blink of a pair of honey-colored eyes, the curve of a smiling pink mouth.
He grinned back and waved in the lens of his web camera, pronouncing his greeting with the utmost relief.
"I'm here, Mimi."