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The Ocean Between Us

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by Andromeda Rising

Chapter Two

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Daisuke couldn't sleep, even though they had been on the plane for over two hours now and he should be tired. The night before, he hadn't slept more than the amount of time they had been on the plane as he had put off packing, as always, to the very last second. If it weren't for Mimi pulling outside his place in a cab at four in the morning, he might have missed the flight.

He stay still long enough to fall asleep. Each time he closed his eyes, a series of images would invade his mind and he would open his eyes and he found himself disappointed that he was still on the plane, hurtling through empty space, miles above the water.

He annoyed Mimi by tapping his feet, drumming his fingers against the armrests, legs knocking into hers when he would get up to roam the aisles to go use the bathroom, then to get another drink. It annoyed her to the point that that when he returned, knocking his knees into hers on purpose this time and smirking at her, she popped a sleeping pill into her mouth and washed it down with half of his drink.

"I don't think you're supposed to mix those," he said, stealing back his drink.

"Whatever," she said, throwing an arm over her eyes. "You're driving me crazy. Can't you sit still just for one second?"

"I think this would have helped if you hadn't drank all of it."

"It's complimentary," she said. "You can get another one."

"You know, you're welcome for that, by the way. Upgraded you and didn't even get so much as a thank you."

Mimi removed her arm from over her eyes, kissed her fingertips and reached out to fan them over his cheek. Her fingers trailed down to his jaw.

"That's it? Not even a real kiss?"

"That's all you're getting." Her hand trailed down to his chin. "You're going to have to shave quickly when we get to the hotel, by the way. We won't have much time."

"Gee," he said, swatting her hand away, "thanks for the reminder."

"Try to get some sleep."

Daisuke closed his eyes and turned his head towards the window. He squeezed his eyes shut, but he still felt a frenetic energy coursing through him. Within seconds, he was bored of again. He was used to flying for business, but this was something else.

This was finally coming home.

He opened his eyes to stare outside of the window. They were went into flying over the Pacific Ocean now, and he could hardly discern the dark waves below through the small airplane window. He couldn't even see the stars when he looked up. There was nothing interesting to look at.

Sitting there put him in an unusually contemplative mood, which didn't sit well with him. Before long he was looking down the darkened aisles for an escape. He couldn't get up and move, run, like his body wanted him to, legs itching for movement in the space between his seat and the one in front of him.

Daisuke looked at Mimi, who took up all the space a first class seat afforded her, slumping in her seat with a blanket pulled up to her shoulders, her legs stretched out in front of her. She had pulled a sleeping mask over her face and turned away from him. He was sure she hadn't fallen asleep yet, and she looked so peaceful he almost felt bad for what he was about to do.

"Meems," he said, as quietly as he could. Then his voice rose steadily as he hissed, "Meems. Meems."

She stayed still. Maybe she was asleep.

He shook her limp hand. "Mimi. Mimi!"

She woke with a start, banging her head against the back of the headrest. "Huh, what?" She pushed up her sleeping mask, blinking at him, eyes bleary. Her eyeliner smudged when she wiped at the corner of her eye. "What is it now, Daisuke?"

He leaned towards at her, grinning impishly. "I can't sleep. I need you to entertain me."

"Why don't you get your self another drink and turn a movie on?" She frowned and pulled the mask down over her eyes, turning away from him and mumbling, "It should knock right you out. You need to sleep."

"Can't."

"Can't or won't?" She turned towards him again and reached out to lay a hand on top of his, stilling the staccato beat he was drumming against the armrest. "Just stay still. All that nervous energy isn't helping. If you relax, your body will go to sleep. It's okay to be nervous."

"I'm not."

She was starting to nod off again, her voice become quieter and quieter, hand slipping away from his.

"Okay, maybe you're right," he said, sighing loudly for dramatic effect.

She had the mask on, so he couldn't see her eyes, but even then he could see she wore a small smirk as she said, "I'm always right."

"Okay, I give up. You win." He gripped both of the armrests and braced himself for a long night.

He turned on a movie, but nothing could keep his attention for very long and he kept skipping between movies. He laughed quietly to himself, feeling a bit unhinged from the lack of sleep, when he found a movie with Michael in it, but when he glanced to Mimi, he had to restrain himself from waking her up again. She looked kind of cute that way, softer than she ever was in wakefulness, with her hair falling over her bare shoulders in a cascade of waves. But she also looked kind of funny, with her sleeping mask riding up to her forehead and messing up her hair. He almost reached out to adjust it, but she shifted away from him, nuzzling her face further into her pillow.

He watched the movie for maybe an hour before turning it off. It was some sort of spy movie with Michael as the lead, and any other time he would've been on the edge of his seat, but he couldn't focus. It seemed like hours later when he finally started to nod off, then a overhead light went off, followed by a ping that meant they were going through turbulence. He became annoyed as, every time he was about to drift off, the lights came on and that stupid sound disturbed him. Then, as he thought they were finally through it and he could get some shut-eye, the pilot announced over the intercom that if the rest of the time was smooth sailing they would be landing in an hour.

Great. He probably hadn't slept for more than a few minutes by the time they landed, and he had to shake himself out of his stupor as he rose, stretching in the cramped space.

"Wake up, Mimi. Mimi!"

"Not again, Daisuke, what do you want now?"

"But we're here!"

A passing flight attendant frowned and told him to sit down and buckle his seat belt until they were instructed otherwise. He sat, but he didn't relent. Mimi was slow to respond, raising her slender fingers to slip the mask off her head, looking confused and blinking sleepily.

"Mornin', sleeping beauty. It's a beautiful day!"

"Good evening, you mean." She stretched her arms above her languidly before falling back against her seat, leaning her head against it and smiling. "God, you'd think you never travel. Did you get any sleep?"

"Nah," he said, mirroring her smile with a goofy grin. "Too excited."

He felt a spurt of energy after the plane landed, but his arms felt leaden and sluggish as he hunted for his carry-on in the overhead storage compartment. Of course he would start to feel tired as soon as they landed and had to go through the whole process of disembarking from the plane.

They made their way along the channel of people being siphoned through the plane and into the airport, a slow trickle that did nothing to wake him up, while Mimi yawned and loudly complained about her lack of beauty sleep.

"Hey, it's not like you really need it," Daisuke said, trying to make her feel better.

"That's sweet of you to say," she said, examining her face with the mirror in a pressed powder compact as they walked. "But I don't believe you. Look at these dark circles."

He leaned close to her face, narrowing his eyes. "Didn't notice those before."

She put a hand on his chest to push him away.

It was Daisuke's turn to complain as he yawned. "Remind me again why we can't just open a Digital Gate to get back to Japan? It'd save us a whole day. Imagine that."

"Because it's not legal." She snapped the compact and tossed it into her purse, as if that was that.

"But why?" he said.

She rolled her eyes. "You'd think you're all of five years old sometimes."

"Answer the question."

"I don't really understand it either, but," and here she shrugged, "I'm sure it's to protect the airlines' interests. How else would they make money?"

She pulled out her phone and turned it off airplane mode, scrolling through all of the messages she'd missed and sighing.

Daisuke pulled out his own phone. As soon as he turned it off airplane mode, it pinged with all of the missed calls, texts, and emails he'd missed. He stuffed it back in his pocket. He could forget about what was going on over in New York; he was home now.

Or, at least, what used to be considered home.

He couldn't really call this home anymore, could he?

Mimi sighed again.

"What?" Daisuke asked, knowing she wanted him to.

Her thumb had paused over one message, hovering above her phone. "Michael's not coming. His flight was delayed and he wouldn't arrive on time anyway, so he cancelled it, I guess."

"Never fear, Daisuke's here." He slung an arm around her thin shoulders, pulling her towards him. Even in heels, she didn't stumble, keeping the pace.

"Thanks," she said, wrapping an arm around his back and leaning her head on his shoulder. "But you're no consolation prize."

"Hey. If you wanna make him jealous, who better than moi?" he said, wagging his eyebrows and leaning closer to her, hoping to elicit laughter or at least something resembling a smile. "I'll take care of you. Show him how to treat a lady."

He felt relief when she succeeded at making her giggle, and she said, unwinding her arm from around his back to loop it through his arm as they walked side-by-side, "I don't want to be taken care of. I just want him to be here."

"He's still coming to the wedding, right? That's the important part."

"But this is important. To me." She unlaced her arm from his, checked her phone again, then turned it off and threw it violently into the depths of her purse. "Screw it. We're only here for forty-eight hours. I'm going to have a good time with or without him."

"Yeah, I never liked the guy anyway," Daisuke declared.

"Watch yourself, Daisuke."

By the time they had collected their luggage at baggage claim, and stopped by the washrooms so that Mimi could "refresh" herself, he was starting to nod off in his seat again, the coffee in his to-go cup nearly sloshing over the edge. She had only claimed that she wanted to wash her face, but instead, it appeared, she had washed off yesterday's face and applied a whole new one. She kissed him on the cheek when she came back, leaving a sticky impression of strawerry lipgloss surprising him into wakefulness.

"What's that for?"

"It's a thank you for helping me with my suitcases."

Mimi walked ahead while Daisuke struggled to keep the pace. On top of lugging his carry-on bag, he had to drag her two suitcase behind him, too, as she claimed it put her off balance to try to drag both with her at once, but of course it meant he had to walk lopsidedly to balance all three, the bag threatening to slip off his shoulder, then one of the suitcases spinning out. But finally they arrived outside to look for a taxi.

Mimi put on her sunglasses on, sticking her lips out in a pout. "Hmph."

"What is it now?" Daisuke asked.

"Where's our welcoming party?" she said, glancing the phone she held in her hand. "I thought Taichi was coming to pick us up. He said he would."

After a long interval a black limousine rolled up to them, and the driver climbed out of the front seat. "Motomiya party?"

"Well, well," Mimi said. "Looks like he showed up after all."

"You really should be thanking me," Daisuke said. "Do you know how embarrassing it is to be seen dragging around a hot pink suitcase and a leopard print one?" He didn't mention the cutesy stickers and crystal embellishments. "No accounting for taste, Meems."

"What would you know about taste?" She flicked her hair over her shoulder. "Don't worry, it doesn't diminish your manhood any. I promise."

"You're lucky that you're so pretty," he said bitterly as he opened the door for her, and she gave him an irreverent smile over the door. "No one else would be allowed to get away with this."

"I can think of one person who would," she said as she climbed into the limousine.

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"We're going to be so late—oh, I just know it. I hope they're not mad."

"It's not a party until Daisuke walks in."

"Will you stop referring to yourself in the third person?"

They went on like this until they arrived at the apartment building. Mimi walked towards the doors and ushered him through to the elevators, where they pressed the button for the top floor.

"Ready?" Mimi turned to him, once they were in the carriage. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear that had become loosened from the small chignon at the nape of her neck. "How do I look?"

"Perfect," he said.

"That's what I wanted to hear. Now. Are you ready?"

"Born ready," he said, straightening his spine as they ascended.

The wedding shower was being thrown at Momoe's apartment, the last door at the end of the top floor. Music trickled through the door and they let themselves into a small foyer that widened into what looked like a large, minimally decorated living room. There was a dip in the middle of the living room with stairs leading down to two couches that faced each other. The wall opposite to them was a floor-to-ceiling window, allowing for a beautiful view of the Tokyo skyline lit on fire by the setting sun. To the left, the space opened into a hallway, and to the right, a spiral staircase that lead up to a mezzanine. Music blared from speakers all around the room but it seemed almost muted beneath the buzz of conversation, and the atmosphere of the room already warm from all of the bodies that were crowded into the space.

Daisuke let out a low whistle. He ran a finger around the collar of his shirt, trying to loosen the tie that Mimi had done up for him with poor dexterity and surprising roughness. "Nice digs. Kinda small, though."

"I like it," Mimi said. "It's more intimate this way."

They stood, for a moment, scanning through the crowd while looking for faces they recognized.

Right away, Daisuke found Hikari in the crowd, standing on the other side of the room.

He couldn't explain it to this day; even when he tried not to, tried to look at anyone but her, it was stronger than him, this magnetic pull, even all of these years later, after everything and everyone else that he tried and tried to use to make himself forget about her.

She was standing beside Takeru, laughing and smiling and so beautiful, captured in that dying evening light.

No, that was all wrong; it was like she radiated light outwards and it touched everything around her, not the other way around. The two of them, together, looked like a pair of angels, and he could imagine wings sprouting from their shoulder blades, a violent explosion of blood and flesh and bone, a protrusion of feathers unfurling to their full size, wingspans so wide that their wings had to fold into each others'. Nothing earthly seemed to touch them.

But of course, it was just Daisuke's imagination, running away with him. Just his imagination painting them as gruesome and beautiful angels. It was a trick of the light, the angle of the sun that set them alight and blinded him. He felt very small and very far away from them, from her.

He tore his eyes away from her, from them, and surveyed the rest of the room. He found most of the Chosen, scattered throughout the room. He recognized Miyako by her long violet hair, her back to him as she conversed with someone he didn't recognize. Daisuke realized belatedly that the man with long blue hair in a ponytail standing beside her must be Ken. That was a new development.

Daisuke had planned to make a grand entrance, but he lost his nerve when he saw Mimi had abandoned him by the door, skirting around the edge of the room without a glance backwards at him.

"Hey, wait up!" He went after her, regaining his grip on Miyako's gifts. Mimi had, predictably, made him carry her gift, a large and unwieldy box that he struggled to manoeuver with his own remarkably smaller gift balancing precariously atop Mimi's. He danced around the disgruntled party guests, poking them with the edges of the boxes and mumbling, "'Scuse me, 'scuse me," giving them wide, goofy grins and hoping that was enough to earn their forgiveness.

Mimi's target seemed to be the bar that had been set up at the end of the room by the windows. She looked at the drinks that crowded together against the wall like skyscrapers against a city skyline before pouring herself two shots of tequila.

"Going straight for the kill, I see," Daisuke commented after he settled down their gifts with a grunt on another table already piled high with gifts.

She shoved the shot into his hands. "Drink. Now."

"Aye, aye, captain."

He clicked his glass against hers and they both threw their heads back as they took their third shot of that evening.

Back at the hotel, they both downed two of the miniature bottles in their mini refrigerator.

"For the nerves," Mimi said, handing them to him, though she looked nervous herself.

Mimi made herself another drink, a sickly sweet cocktail with a maraschino cherry speared through with a plastic sword. He poured out a whisky neat, almost downing it all in two gulps.

Then they turned and surveyed the party, Mimi putting a hand on his shoulder and using it to steady herself and to try to stand even taller while she was already balancing on four-inch heels. He had the luxury of a few inches on her and his eyes swept the room as he planned his attack. There were so many people, spilling through the doorways and into the hallway and walking up the stairs to the mezzanine, and everyone kept shifting and moving around, and he didn't know who to go to first.

"Come on," he said, finally settling on a target.

"Wait." She set her drink down on the bar and raised delicate hands to adjust his tie, nimble fingers working to undo the tie before redoing it all over again. "It was a bit, ah..." She stuck her tongue out and bit down on it in concentration, eyes narrowed. "Crooked. I'm really not the best at this."

"Will you stop fussing? No one's gonna notice."

"Oh, now you don't suddenly care what people think." She patted it down. "Don't you look handsome now?"

He puffed out his chest in response.

"Don't let it get to your head." She gave the tie one last tug, pulling hard.

"As long as you promise not to be so rough with me."

She laughed, a liquid sound made more syrupy by her drink.

"One more shot of liquid courage?" he said, turning around to pour another drink.

"I don't think so. You're already slurring your words."

That was when someone spun Daisuke's line of vision like a whirling dervish, a flash of violet hair and ombre taffeta and accusing amber eyes.

"And when, exactly, were you planning to tell me you were here?" Miyako said. She reached up a hand to poke him in the chest, hard, with her index finger. "Pouting in the corner. You are such an attention-seeker. I didn't even see you come in!"

"Miyako. You look stunning tonight."

And she did—she wore a swing dress with a narrow bust that swept down into a full skirt, but she looked immensely displeased, glaring him down with her hands on her hips. Daisuke, for his part, was endlessly delighted by the fact she was now shorter than him because in childhood, she had always stood a few inches taller than him, although she had capped off at twelve and he'd had a growth spurt around the age of eighteen. Still, she commanded a presence that made up for her lack of height relative to him, somehow managing to glare up at him and simultaneously making it feel as if she was looking down at him.

"Did you do something different with you hair?" he tried.

"Don't think flattery's going to get you anywhere, you idiot." She crossed her arms.

"Where are your glasses, by the way? You look so much better without-"

"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you," she said, and he gulped, and she continued her tirade. "You're late, and you never confirmed, how was I supposed to know you were coming? I wasn't expecting this-"

He pulled at the tie that Mimi had tied just a bit too tight around his neck. "Give me a break. It's not easy getting here on time when you're with her." He jutted his chin in Mimi's direction.

Before they had come to the party, before they had taken the shots in his hotel room, Mimi took time to get ready in hers, changing her outfit twice, digging through her luggage to find all of the things she deemed necessary to have before leaving. She even persuaded him into helping her find the dress she was looking for, a very specific traditional kimono that was designed by Sora and it just happened to be folded neatly at the very bottom of her leopard print suitcase. She acted surprised when she found it there, exclaiming about it so happily that he couldn't be mad at her for making him dig through her clothes in an attempt to find the exact shade of "sea green" she was determined about wearing that evening.

That didn't account for how long it took for him to shave and get dressed, and for the both of them both to fumble their way through tying a tie.

Miyako turned her head, her eyes lighting up when she saw that Mimi was standing just beside Daisuke, watching the exchange without interjecting for once in her life, though Daisuke would have appreciated the intervention just then. When Miyako looked at her, Mimi beamed and Miyako's frown immediately dissolved into a smile. She rushed forward to embrace Mimi, nearly knocking the both of them over with her enthusiasm. Mimi recovered gracefully, saving her drink and laughing and wrapping her arms around Miyako to hug her tightly.

"Oh, I've missed you so much!" Miyako cried. "Mimi! You're here!"

"I'm here, of course I'm here! Why wouldn't I be? I've missed you so much!"

They clung to each other as if they would never see each other again. They pulled away from each other, and their eyes sparkled while they held hands and talked too excitedly and quickly for Daisuke to keep up. He would never understand female bonding rituals.

He looked between them, eyebrows raised. "I don't get it. You guys are just sayin' hello and you're acting like it's good-bye."

"Don't blame Daisuke for being late," Mimi said, giving him a small smile. "Really, it is my fault."

"Oh, please. You don't need to defend him, he hasn't been on time to anything in his entire life." Miyako shook her head, but when she looked at him, there was something else in her eyes, something sad, and that made him fidget, pull on the sleeves of his dress jacket self-consciously.

Miyako acted like she didn't care, but when she looked at him like that, he knew it was all just an act, a front that she put up to deny how deeply it was that she did care about him. Daisuke suddenly wanted to tell her that he cared, too, but like her, he couldn't find the words, so he wisely kept his mouth shut. He didn't need either of them to start crying right here and now, and he couldn't trust himself not to at the most inopportune of moments.

When his eyes left hers, he was met with the cool blue stare of Ken, all the way across the room. Daisuke raised his hand in greeting and lowered it slowly, watching Ken make his way towards them. He stood up a little taller when Ken reached them, grinning widely.

"Hey, Ichijouji," he said.

"Motomiya." Ken shook his head, reaching out to shake his hand, but Daisuke crushed him into a hug. When Ken wheezed and Miyako exclaimed that Daisuke was going to kill him if he squeezed any harder, he pulled away and grinned apologetically.

"Sorry." He couldn't stop smiling, looking between them. "I just missed ya, buddy."

"It's been a long time," Ken said, more reserved in showing how he felt, though his smile betrayed his reservations.

They took a moment to size each other up, searching for signs of sameness and difference. Daisuke smirked at his friend, who was so different but still so much the same as the last time they had seen each other; his eyes were the same and so was his kind smile, but his hair was a little bit longer, and the way he held himself-the casual way that he held himself, with so much more confidence than before-could only be the result of him growing into himself as an adult. He no longer seemed to shrink back into himself, to make himself small; he stood tall and proud next to Miyako, winding an arm around her shoulders. Daisuke could hardly even believe the change in his demeanor.

(Or the fact that they were getting married, if he was perfectly honest).

"So," Daisuke said. "You wanna tell me how this happened?"

"Pardon?" Miyako said, turning her head to look at his with narrowed eyes.

"How you two got together." Miyako looked like she wanted to hit him, but he kept going. "I mean, it's all still a mystery to me—"

"That's your question?" she said, and then she did hit him, swatting him hard on the arm.

He cringed, rubbing at the spot where she hit him. "What? I'm still working out if this is all a hoax. You sure you guys aren't pulling my leg?"

"I'm not going to dignify that with an answer." Miyako sipped on the dregs of her champagne glass, handing it to Ken when she was done. "Ken, would you mind getting me a refill?"

Ken took her glass silently and disappeared. Only then did Daisuke notice that Mimi had left them, too, wandering off on her own, and he saw her across the room, standing by the couch where Taichi, Sora, Yamato, Jyou and Koushiro were sitting and standing. Taichi and Yamato sat on opposite sides of the couch, Taichi with legs splayed and taking up half the space, Sora sitting between them. Jyou and Koushiro stood in front of them and they were all talking and laughing and Daisuke's heart swelled to see them all together like that again. Mimi went up to Jyou and gave him a warm hug, and then she released him and hugged a girl that was standing next to Jyou that Daisuke hadn't noticed at first-another mystery to Daisuke, a girlfriend he'd heard about but until then never managed to glimpse in person.

All of these new people, these new faces he didn't recognize...

"Whipped," Daisuke said, turning back to Miyako and shaking his head.

"Don't be ridiculous," Miyako said.

"I'm completely serious. Who is he and what have you done with the real Ken? Now would be the time to confess, Miyako."

"He's a perfect gentleman," Miyako said. "Although I guess you wouldn't know anything about that." And before he could get in a word edgewise, she said, "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you alone."

"What for?

"To thank you for coming," Miyako said, her face softening. "I wasn't sure you would." Her hand lighted on his shoulder, this time with uncharacteristic softness. "You'll stay for a while, right?" Her grip was firmer than he had expected, as if she had no intention of ever letting him go.

Staring into her eyes, he was breathless, captured, and he did not know what to say.

How did Miyako have the power to make him speechless like that? He always had something to say, even if it was stupid, thoughtless, reckless. But Miyako could be so fierce, so aggressive, that when she acted like this, all soft and yielding, he did not know how to respond, he became completely disarmed.

He nodded, putting his drink down and rubbing his hands together as if he was formulating a plan. "You're going to be so sick of me by the end of this trip that you'll be begging me to leave."

She rolled her eyes. "You are just incapable of taking anything seriously, are you?"

"I'd say it's my best quality."

Ken returned then, and with a meaningful look thrown over her shoulder, Miyako left the two of them together, under the pretense that she had to go speak to her mother and father.

"Oh, thank God," Daisuke said to Ken. "I thought she'd never leave."

Ken shook his head, but he laughed, almost silently, and put his hands in his pockets. "I've missed your arguments, you know. It's really not the same without you."

"What, now that Miyako doesn't have her punching bag anymore?" Daisuke grinned broadly at him.

"She's calmed down a bit without you here," Ken said. He considered, looking down at his drink, swirling it around. "Thanks for coming. I didn't know if you would."

His voice was quiet, almost timid. Daisuke owned that he was not the most perceptive person in the world, but even after seeing the man that Ken had become, he could still sense that somewhere underneath all that, there was still that scared, small, insecure child he had once known.

It should have worried him, but it didn't, at least not in that moment.

"Will you guys stop saying that?" Daisuke said. "Jeez. What made you think I'd miss this?"

Ken shrugged, hands buried in his pockets. "I had a feeling you'd come. Miyako wasn't so sure, but... I never doubted you would."

"Yeah, sorry, my invitation must've got lost in the mail." Daisuke shrugged. It was a lie, which he wasn't accustomed to telling-he could never keep his lies straight and he never saw the point in any case-but for once, it felt necessary. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and set his empty drink down. "You having cold feet yet?"

Ken shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and chose not to reply, instead saying, "It's good to have you back, Motomiya."

"Right back at ya, Ichijouji."

It was at that exact moment that Daisuke, turning to survey the crowd again, made eye contact with her. She chatted with Momoe at the opposite end of the room. As soon as he looked at her, she turned her head to look at him, fixing him in place like a fly on a spider web.

His first instinct was to turn around and sprint away as fast as he could, but he was too close to the wall and crowded in by the guests, and she moved faster than he could think, moving through the crowd less at the speed of spider and more with the determination a heat-seeking missile.

"Ken, hide me," he whispered frantically, dodging behind his friend.

Before Daisuke could drop and roll underneath the table—the only escape route he could think of in that moment—she was there.

"Daisuke," Jun said, looking even bigger from his vantage in a crouch behind Ken. "I can see you."

But before she could begin, he interrupted with, "Don't start. Miyako's already given me a lecture."

"Oh, yeah? Miyako?" Jun stepped forward and caught hold of his ear and, yanking hard, forced him to up to her level, though at a sideways angle. "If you think Miyako gave you even a fraction of what I'm about to loose on you," she said, mouth too close to his ear for comfort, "then you've got another thing coming. You're in for a world of pain, mister. Where have you been?"

"Owww, stop it, you're embarrassing me," he whined.

"You don't need anyone to do it for you," Takeru said.

Daisuke froze, turning his head to look at Takeru, who had chosen that specific moment to come to the bar to get a drink, or perhaps to witness his humiliation. Curse that lanky, blond-haired, blue-eyed man for somehow always appearing in his most undignified of moments and making him look even worse in comparison.

Daisuke grinned upside down at him. "Takeru. How are you, my friend?"

Takeru smiled, exchanging glances with Ken. "Never better," he said casually, rattling the ice around his empty glass. "You look well."

"Oh, I'm great. Fantastic. Jun, let me go," Daisuke said, trying to crane his neck to look at her. "You can't do this to me anymore. I'm a grown man."

Jun released him finally when a tall, blue-haired man with wire-rimmed glasses appeared by her side. Daisuke could have mistaken him for Jyou, but his hair was a few shades darker, and he didn't have that same nervous tick that Jyou did where he would adjust his glasses over and over again, as if they never sat quite right on his face. The man had a surprisingly calm demeanor to be standing next to Jun without wanting to run the opposite way—and he actually wrapped an arm around her waist, settling his hand on the small of her back.

Daisuke had to resist pulling a face that would contradict what he just said entirely, and that's when he noticed something else on her finger, close to his face, catching the light as she finally released him.

"When—" He sputtered, standing up and dusting off his jacket. "Why—what—"

She beamed up at Shuu. "I wanted to wait until you were here, in person, to tell you."

"So, Jun," Daisuke said, recovering quickly and reaching out to pat her stomach. "When's the due date?" Jun's face reddened slightly and Shuu, for his part, just looked confused. "I can't imagine any other reason why someone would put a ring on that."

Daisuke took a sip of his drink, triumphantly, and nearly spat it out, sputtering and choking when Takeru nudged him in the side with an elbow. He coughed and glared at him Takeru. "Are you trying to kill me, Takaishi?"

"I'll let your sister have the honors."

Jun moved to leave, but not without first glaring daggers over her shoulder at Daisuke and mouthing, Don't think you've escaped yet.

"I'm legitimately afraid for my life right now," Daisuke confessed, watching her go and rubbing at his ear and looking at Takeru and Ken. "What is going on here? Is everyone shacking up? Don't tell me you, too."

"I think I've found that relationships only lead to diminishing returns," Takeru said with a small smile.

Daisuke wasn't sure how to interpret that.

"Don't let Miyako hear you say that," Ken said.

"Why? He's not wrong," Daisuke said, looking at Takeru. "So-o-o, who's the girl? Did you dump her, or did she dump you?"

"Subtle, Motomiya." Takeru raised and eyebrow, but took a sip of his drink, and that small smile was back. "I broke it off with her, actually."

"Of course you did. Do I want to know?"

"It's a long story," Takeru said. "Save it for another time."

"Oh, come on, you can't just drop that after that"-he gestured towards Jun-"and then change the topic."

Ken excused himself when Miyako passed by, giving him a meaningful look that he must have interpreted as a threat, because he followed her to wherever she was going, leaving Takeru and Daisuke by the bar.

"Another?" Daisuke nodded at his empty drink. "Maybe you'll spill if I get enough drinks in you."

Takeru poured them more drinks, ignoring him at first, and then one corner of his mouth pulled up into a smirk as he handed Daisuke the drink. "What about you? Surely you must've had more luck with the girls in America."

Daisuke gave a beleaguered sigh, accepting the drink and nursing it for a bit before saying, "We can't all be genetically blessed like you, Takaishi." He nudged Takeru gently in the ribs with an elbow. "Hey, seriously, I wanna hear more about the French girls. What are they like?"

They discussed the dating and eventually the larger cultural differences in Japan compared to the United States and France, but the whole time that he and Takeru were talking, Daisuke was waiting to bring up Hikari. He kept waiting for Takeru mention her name first, but he never did; Daisuke noticed her flitting throughout the party as they talked, and not once did she glance towards him.

At least that was how he chose to see it, since every time he turned to look for her she was speaking to someone else. She circled around the party, going from conversation to conversation while Daisuke downed drink after drink and stayed where he was. He caught up with Takeru, then Iori joined them, and when Ken and Miyako passed by Daisuke insisted on stealing him away from Miyako.

When Takeru good-naturedly asked if they could also steal Hikari for a few minutes, Daisuke thought, Maybe he really is a goddamn angel, and when Miyako objected he thought, This confirms it, she is a demon.

Miyako harped on and on about how Hikari was fulfilling her duties as maid of honor and then turned to Daisuke and gave him an earful for failing to keep up with his supposed duties as a best man, although he had no idea what this entailed nor had he ever agreed to any such duties.

"I haven't even had the chance to say hi to her!" Daisuke called as Miyako turned away from him, arm-in-arm with Iori.

"You could also go say hello!" she called over her shoulder with an evil smile. "Don't be shy."

Daisuke frowned at her, severely tempted to flip her off, but he refrained. He could go talk to her, but... he had a sinking feeling she didn't want to talk to him. That it was better just to wait for her to come for him. It wasn't like him to restrain himself, but he didn't want to push her even further away from him when she was just within reach again.

His stomach lurched and he didn't know if it was the effect of the alcohol or the thought of coming face-to-face with her again or both. Fuck it, he thought, and took another sip of his drink. One more and his desire to go talk to her would more than likely override his consideration of her feelings.

"So that's why she's been runnin' around this whole time?" Daisuke asked, turning back to Ken and Iori. "I thought she was avoiding me."

"And why would she be avoiding you?" Takeru asked, shaking around the ice in his empty drink disinterestedly, but then when he looked up at Daisuke, he started to sweat.

What did he know? What had she told him?

Daisuke started to feel heat creep up his collar as his mind went into overdrive trying to come up with something, anything, but Ken interjected before he could cook up some half-truth that said just enough without saying anything at all.

"It's not you she's avoiding," he said.

He and Takeru shared a look that was not lost on Daisuke, though he didn't know what Ken meant.

Daisuke looked between them. "Am I missing something?"

Takeru shook his head. "It's really nothing. Just Hikari being Hikari."

Then he smoothly changed the subject, and Daisuke suddenly felt egotistical for thinking that it was only him that she was ignoring—it wasn't like she was running after Taichi, looking after him like she always did, or conversing with Takeru with her back turned to Daisuke.

No, she was fulfilling her duties as maid of honor, constantly checking in with Miyako and the rest of the party guests to make sure they were having a good time without ever once thinking of herself.

Just Hikari being Hikari.

Perhaps she was ignoring them intentionally, but not for the reason Daisuke had thought. He thought she must be angry with him, because she was usually so polite, but she hadn't stopped once to look at him, much less to say hello.

Daisuke became acutely aware, in that moment, of how much he'd missed out on when he'd left for America. For however much he'd gained, he had also lost a lot of things—like these moments between friends, catching up over drinks, celebrating the milestones of their lives.

But he also missed out on the nuances of their conversations, too: he had no idea how to interpret the meaning of the near-silent exchange Ken and Takeru had just had. He didn't know how to interpret half the things anyone was saying, let alone all of the things they weren't saying.

.

.

Hikari, when she finally chose to speak to him, did it at his most undignified moment that night. He hadn't eaten on the plane and he hadn't had a moment to stop for for food, and he only realized how hungry he was when he found himself alone and slightly drunk in front of a table spread with a smorgasbord of cold salads and meats and cheeses, savory finger foods and sweet pastries, and (most ridiculously of all, in Daisuke's opinion) cupcakes monogrammed with K+M.

Daisuke had escaped briefly from the others when Koushiro had joined their conversation, which had turned too philosophical for Daisuke to feel he had anything useful to add, to cram as many bites of the hors d'oeuvres as he could fit into his mouth as he could at a time.

A hand lit on his shoulder and he turned, crushing another fistful of finger foods in his hand when he realized just who it was.

And then he was blinded by light, and the sound of laughter that still, to this day, reminded him so fondly of his childhood, of sun-drenched summer evenings spent on her balcony, of the soft sound of wind chimes.

"Hi, Daisuke." She lowered the camera from her eye, smiling like a kid who'd just gotten away with a prank. "Sorry. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

"Not at all." He swallowed the mouthful, then gulped down his drink to wash it down before he choked. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for something, so he said casually, "What's up?" or tried to, anyway, because his voice rose nervously. He cleared his throat and brushed the crumbs off of the front of his shirt, suddenly all too aware of how he'd been wolfing down food moments ago without any regard for how he looked.

"I'm feeling the snacks. You're in the way," she said. But instead of going around him—and she very well could have—she set her camera down and reached across from him. It seemed deliberate, the way her arm brushed against his, as she reached to take a strawberry tart. He remembered suddenly her weakness for sweets, and she nibbled on the crust a bit before saying, "You look happy."

"I'm in heaven," he said, patting his stomach. "How are you enjoying yourself, Hikari?"

"I'm good," she said, drawing it out so that he wasn't sure if it was entirely sincere. "How are you doing?"

"Good," he said, too quickly, taking another gulp of whiskey. "You look good, by the way. More than good."

He didn't even know how to describe her. He could barely look at her in the eye, let alone take in the rest of her.

"So…" she said, looking away, refusing to accept the compliment. "How's New York?"

"Great, thanks for asking. How are your kids treating you?"

"More like a human punching bag than a teacher," she said with a smile that alluded to more, all the stories that he had missed out on, but she didn't elaborate further.

"I know the feeling."

"Hm," was all she said. She picked up another tart and her camera and turned, as if to leave, but he caught her by the elbow before she could.

"Are we really going to do this?"

"Do what?" she asked, voice feather-light, in that innocent Hikari way that he knew was more calculated than she let on.

"Pretend like..." he said, letting go of her arm. "Like we don't even know each other."

"I should really get back."

"That's not how we talk to each other, and you know it."

"Well, I'm sorry," she said, "but I don't have the time to stand around talking to you all night. Please, enjoy yourself."

He didn't ask if that was a passive-aggressive jab at him from dropping the ball on his own duties, as Miyako had already aggressively reminded him.

"Why don't you cut loose for a bit? I don't think Miyako would mind too much." He pointed at the empty champagne flute she had placed on the table. "You've been holding that same glass all night."

"And how would you know…?"

"Because I'm not as oblivious as you think."

He was pleased to see that, at the very least, he could still get a rise out of her—Hikari never had much of a temper, not like her brother, but he could see the stirrings of it in her eyes.

"It was really nice to talk to you," he said, unable to stop himself now that he had gotten started. "You know, I can't remember the last time we talked like this."

"Well, I can," she said, and she turned around to walk away, abandoning the champagne flute on the table. "It was nice seeing you."

He watched her walk away from him, and he realized, moments later, that he'd probably gone too far. Even though she had started it.

She had started it.

Author's Notes: If you're still following this from when I originally posted it, I am sorry for the delay. I kept editing and editing, then my computer died and I thought I lost all my files (still trying to recover them), and then I found a draft of this story recently. I couldn't stop thinking about it and chapters two and three essentially remain unchanged from the original version, so here it is.

To each and every one of you that have commented, followed, favorited, or are just reading along as I post: thank you. It means a lot.