Reflecting on You
I drop my bag to the floor and sink down beside it with a sigh. Isn't that just great: the one day I need pads I don't have any, and the stupid vending machine isn't working. It just ate my money and gave me nothing in return.
I hate menstruation. It has to be the ickiest part of being female. Five days a month of having wads of absorbent material stuck down my panties and in places where I'd much rather there was nothing at all, and all for what? For the possibility of having kids some day in the future? I don't think I even want to have kids! Ever!
I wish I had been born male. That would solve just about everything, I think. No more cramps, no more headaches, no more mess, no more fuss, no more having to explain why I'm constantly checking out the girls more than the guys at school... Of course, then I'd have to deal with all the guys trying to be macho, who don't give much thought to looking pretty and being nice...
Life was so much simpler before puberty. No one cared that I clung to my girlfriends so much, back then. I was expected to, it's what little girls do, huddle close and whisper secrets, hold hands, hug, kiss each other on the cheek...
Is it just that I haven't grown up? Is that it?
No. I've grown, just in a different direction. Only now I don't know which way to turn to find the sun. Or rather, I do know, but I'm deathly afraid it will burn me to a cinder when its light shines down upon me.
What does that matter when I'm burning myself up from within?
I don't know anymore. I just don't know.
All I do know is that I'm sitting alone on the cold bathroom floor, while my panties are probably beginning to stain, and tears are slipping from my eyes...
"Mimi? Are you all right?"
I gasp as I hear my name, quickly brushing the saltwater from my eyes as I recognise the voice calling me, forcing a smile to my lips. It doesn't fool her any, but I had to try.
"I'm sorry," I say, "It's just been one of those days where everything goes wrong..."
She nods at that, crouching down beside me to touch my shoulder. "Anything I can do to change that?" she smiles hopefully. It's enough to make me want to cry again, but I manage to keep back most of my sniffles.
"I don't suppose you have a spare pad or tampon?"
"Just wait a moment," she tells me, then leaves me alone again. Not for long, though. She's soon back again with a box of tampons, and I smile and accept one of the horrible things and enter one of the stalls to put it in place.
I've never particularly liked tampons. They're simply so invasive. I hate having them in me, feeling them inside me. It's totally gross. The only times I usually use them are when I go swimming or something like that. Otherwise I stay well away from them. Only now I can't really avoid it. What makes it worse is knowing that if it hadn't been for me, she would have been using this tampon, sliding it within herself, fitting it to the inner walls of her body...
I bite my lip against the images, firm my shoulders against the shudders that threaten to overtake me. There's really nothing but a thin door separating us, concealing my actions from her. She can hear every sound I make, echoing loud and clear off the tiled floor and walls.
I wonder what she's thinking. Is she putting images of her own to the sounds I make?
I open the door, all smiles for show. She smiles back. I watch her in the mirror as I wash my hands and face. She's still smiling to herself, her eyes on the floor.
Definitely not thinking about me.
"Shouldn't you be in class?" I ask, ignoring the fact that I should be, too.
"I was just on my way back from the library," she says, "when I heard you."
Was I making that much of a fuss? Over this? How embarrassing. I just hope nobody else heard. It's bad enough that she did.
"Is anything else wrong, Mimi?"
I have to look up at her concerned tone, and am caught by her gaze, reflected in the mirror. I don't dare breathe for the longest of moments, but I just can't tell her what's in my heart, even though it's burning a hole right through me.
"Nothing, really," I hear myself saying.
"You sure?"
"I just - I really need to get out of here," I confess, hoping she'll let me go and not make me stay. I wait with closed eyes for her response, telling me not to be so silly, but instead I feel a touch upon my shoulder and find myself looking up into her warm, brown eyes.
"Come on," she says, taking me by the hand, and leads me out of this awful place and into the fresh, clean air. We have to duck out of sight a few times, but we make it without much trouble at all. Free at last! I can't help giggling at the excitement I feel - and I'm not alone. She's laughing, too.
I can hardly believe we're doing this, sneaking out of school together. It's not like I haven't daydreamed about it from time to time, but to actually be doing it, and with her at my side? I have to wonder: just why is she here with me? She couldn't be risking so much trouble just for me, could she?
"We really shouldn't be doing this," I say, even though I can hardly bear the thought of going back inside that awful school building.
"I thought you wanted to get out of there?" she answers, a slight frown creasing her brow.
"Oh, but what if we get caught? I don't want you getting into trouble over me!" I really don't. I know I can be selfish at times - I mean, I want her with me right now! - but I really don't have the right to ask...
She's smiling.
"It's no trouble to me, Mimi, and we won't get caught!" She squeezes my hand, and I have to smile a little, too. "Now let's go somewhere and see if we can make you feel better."
We're there in short order: the mall. She knows me well enough that she doesn't even have to ask. I'm not quite sure what it is about shopping that I find so soothing; it just is. Maybe it's being able to pick and choose out the clothes and things that make me who I want to be, the little things that just scream out 'Mimi!' to me and everyone around. But this time...
"Oh, Sora, this would be just perfect on you!"
She's never been terribly conscious of fashion, I know, but it's not because she doesn't have good taste. She's always been a little tomboyish, but I think all she really needs is some confidence in herself. Hasn't anyone told her what a wonderful figure she has? I know a lot of girls who would just die to have a body like hers. I guess it comes from playing sport so much. She's really good at it, too - I used to love watching her play soccer more than Taichi or any of the others when I went to cheer at their matches. Taichi's good, but he's just not graceful the way she is. She doesn't play soccer so much anymore, but I don't really care what sport she's playing just as long as I can see her in it. She can really move, no matter what the game is.
I wonder if she likes to dance. There's one coming up for the end of semester...
I grab her by the hand and drag her over to the formal dresses. There's one princess-style dress in pink and white that makes me pause for a moment, remembering the last time I'd worn something like that, back when we were in the Digiworld...
The Gekomon's castle. Life was like a fairytale for me then - I was the princess, and everyone did whatever I told them to do. Well, all the Gekomon and Otamamon, anyway. Just because they hoped I would sing for them and wake their true lord. But I just kept on leading them on.
I was so horrible and mean to everyone back then, even Palmon. I don't know how they could just forgive me like that, I know I didn't deserve it. What I deserved was what my dream had promised... but she was there, helping me even though I'd been behaving so badly.
At least, I think she was there, in my room with me, waking me from that horrible nightmare. I'm almost positive, in fact - but she left so suddenly, disappeared so completely, just as though she'd been a part of my dream.
She's been in so many of my dreams since then I can barely keep track. It's a lot easier than remembering math formulae, though I guess that's partly because I daydream so much in class. I think I might have flunked out completely if Koushiro hadn't been willing to help me study.
I sometimes wonder if Koushiro knows how I really feel about her. He's never said anything, but then he just wouldn't, would he? It's easy to see why he was given the Crest of Knowledge when we were in the Digiworld. I used to think he just buried himself in his computer all the time, but now I believe he pays a lot more attention to the rest of the world than I gave him credit for.
I remember when we were stuck together on the island with that really confusing maze I got lost in. I thought he didn't care when he didn't come charging after me when I ran off like the silly goose I was. He did care, though, and he knew just how best to rescue me from all those twisting corridors. He sees things a lot differently from the way I do, and talking with him really does help a lot, at least when I can work out what he means.
That's why I wonder if he knows - I've never really discussed homosexuality with anyone else, even though we both play the 'let's pretend I have this friend' game whenever we talk about it. If it wasn't for the fact that I strongly suspect he has a crush on Jyou, I'd know he knew - but he does, so I don't. Does that make any sense?
"Mimi, I don't know about this..." she says uncertainly as I hold a royal blue satin dress up against her.
"It'll look great on you, trust me!" I am the fashion expert, after all!
"But where would I wear it?"
"Oh, come on, just try it! Please?"
She gives in to my begging, and we make our way over to the fitting rooms, where we find there's quite a queue. I resign myself to the wait, imagining to myself how beautiful she's going to look in that gown. I almost forget where I am - in fact, I kind of space out so much that I jump when the attendant calls my attention to a newly vacated room.
"Go on," I tell her, my feet suddenly frozen to the floor.
"Not without you!" she denies, and refuses to enter the room without me. "I don't think I'm going to want anyone else seeing me in this!"
It's a little crowded with both of us in there. I don't know where to stand. There's no place where I can escape the mirrors hanging on the walls, no place where I can hide from her sight, no place to look to hide her from my own as she starts to undress...
Her blazer is the first to go - a simple matter, really. One arm, then the other, free from the green fabric; she folds it neatly and places it on the ground. Her skirt is next, buttons and zip undone, then the skirt itself slid down the length of her slender legs, baring her thighs in the process. Her top isn't long enough to conceal her panties - I get tantalising glimpses of pale blue as I try not to look.
Okay, so I'm not trying as hard as I might, but I can't help it - it's really hard to concentrate with such a gorgeous girl stripping right before my eyes. My hands are just itching to get ahold of her, to touch her smooth muscles, to trace the curves of her body and explore what she hides from everyone else...
I have to pinch myself to keep in mind that 'everyone else' still includes me. Will it always, I wonder? I hope not.
I have to close my eyes as she pulls her top over her head, but I simply don't have the strength of will to keep them that way. Tilting my head down somewhat, I peek at her from behind my eyelashes, just as she adds her roughly folded top to her pile of discarded clothing. I make an attempt to keep my eyes fixed there, but it doesn't really work out. My gaze has drifted halfway along her bare arm before I realise that it has, and having gone that far, I just keep on going, up to her shoulder...
Her bra-strap brings me to a temporary halt, as I no longer know where to look: the real flesh and blood back which I'm facing or the more revealing images in the mirrors? Which mirror, for that matter? The front or one of the sides? There are simply too many choices and it's driving me crazy! But my choices melt away as she turns side-on, her arms reaching up to the gown hanging next to the right-hand mirror.
Her position gives me the perfect profile of her breasts, nestled within the cups of her off-white bra. I trail my eyes over the lace edging where it meets with flesh, then down to the slightly darker circles that mark the aureoles around her nipples, mesmerized by their rhythmic rise and fall in time with her breathing.
Far too soon, the material of the gown hides her from my sight once more. I'm left feeling a little weak at the knees, and I can only hope that she's too busy wriggling into that dress to notice that I have to hold onto the wall to stay upright.
There's a twinge in my groin as I shift positions, and the sensation of the tampon moving slightly within me isn't quite as gross as it should be.
Her tampon.
I have this lighting-flash image of her slowly pushing the tampon into my body with her long, slender fingers...
I shove that thought out of my mind and focus on remembering what her breasts look like instead. It seems a much safer area for some reason. Of course, the last time I actually saw her breasts in the pure and naked flesh I was a little bit too young to be really interested in sex. So was she, I think. She's only a few months older than me after all, even though she's a year ahead of me in school.
Looking back now, it's almost painful to see how many opportunities we missed, especially in the Digiworld. We spent so much of our time there fighting evil monsters and searching for a way home - but there were some moments...
"Well?"
I start as the sound of her voice calls me back to the here-and-now of the fitting room, and I blink at the expression on her face. She looks anxious, and maybe a little upset, and for some reason I get the feeling that it isn't just about...
The dress...
Oh, my...
No make up, no hair styling, no accessories, nothing but herself in the gown - and she is such a dream.
Blue has always been a good colour for her, and this rich shade in particular sets off the reddish highlights in her hair, without taking away from her complexion. The cut is an elegant heart-shaped bodice above a flowing skirt - and it looks as though it was designed with her in mind, it fits so well to her curves and lines.
"Wow!" I manage to breathe at last, after several unsuccessful attempts to speak. My eyes are so wide that I feel like they're going to pop right out of my head as I try to drink in the sight of her. If I stare for too long I might just get drunk, she's that heady a vision. My mouth is starting to water, she's that hot - but I know very well just how extremely unappealing the drooling, crazed look can be.
Maybe coming here was a mistake. Maybe I shouldn't have insisted she try on that dress. Maybe I should just jump her right here and now and to hell with the consequences...
No, I couldn't do that.
It is rather tempting, though.
I smile brightly instead, and shower her with all the non-suggestive compliments I can think of. Okay, so perhaps one or four slightly suggestive things slip out, but it doesn't seem like she's noticed.
She turns around to examine herself in the mirrors, and I get a chance to heave a purely internal sigh of regret and relief. I suppose it could have been worse. I could have dragged her to the lingerie department...
"I just don't know, Mimi," she bites her lip uncomfortably as she stares at herself in the mirror. "This isn't really me..."
"But you look gorgeous in it!" I protest.
"Exactly," her rueful smile doesn't touch her eyes as she shakes her head. "I'm not generally a 'gorgeous' kind of person."
"That's not true!" I argue without thinking about it. "You're the most beautiful person I know!"
"Mimi?" Her eyes lock with mine in the mirror, just as I realise what I've said. I search for some way to take it back without sounding like a complete idiot, but then I see -
- her tears...
Even as I watch, one drop of saltwater catches in her lashes and threatens to spill down her cheek. She blinks her eyes rapidly, but it's not enough to hide the conflict I see within them, as the sorrow of loneliness wars with a hope that makes my heart ache.
What do I say? What can I say that won't totally mess things up? What can I say - but the truth? To speak - sincerely...
I'm such an idiot. It's hard to believe I held the Crest of Sincerity, considering the way I've been acting around her. I've been true to myself, but not to her - despite all that she means to me, I've been so cruel. I can only hope that she'll forgive me one more time for being such a fool.
I wrap my arms around her shoulders, folding my arms across her chest and pulling her back into my embrace. Pressing my cheek to hers, I smile at her reflection. Before me I see the girl who means the most to me in all the world. She's the one who holds my hand when I'm afraid, who helps me to stand when I fall, who talks sense into me when I'm being silly, whose lovely smile warms my heart, and whose tears wound me so...
"The most beautiful person I know," I repeat, almost whispering into her ear. "You're kind, even to people who don't deserve it. You're wise, at least when it comes to dealing with other people. You take care of everybody else before thinking of yourself. You try so hard to protect other people from getting hurt, that you sometimes end up hurting yourself - and I wish you wouldn't. It hurts to see you're suffering."
Her brimming eyes are open wide, and a couple of tears do escape, trailing down her cheeks. She's smiling now, though, and I'm glad that I could chase some of the sorrow from her eyes; but -
She isn't saying anything.
I suppose I shouldn't really have expected her to.
"You are beautiful," I tell her again, and my heart twinges inside my chest as I release her from my embrace and turn to one side. "Let's go. We've done enough shopping for today - and you don't need the dress to make you look gorgeous." I'm very glad I got to see her in it, though.
This time I well and truly don't dare look at her, and I guess it's rather obvious from the way I'm staring at the floor. The carpet is quite an uninteresting shade of beige, actually. Someone really ought to do something about the colour scheme in here.
She stands still for a minute or so before changing back into her uniform. I go on not-looking at her as we walk out of the room, out of the store, down the street... The silence is really starting to strain my nerves now, but I simply don't know what to say anymore.
Then she takes my hand in her own.
It's not like it's the first time we've ever held hands, but I can sense from the moment she touches me that this time is very different from before. I sneak peeks at her from the corner of my eye as we walk and catch her darting glances my way as well. I'm rather amazed to look around after what seems like only a few moments and see that we've made it to her mother's flower shop - without running into anything, either, which is something of a feat considering that neither of us were truly looking where we were going.
I'm a little disappointed, too.
"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow," I say, trying to sound like everything's just fine and dandy. I suppose it is, really - I'm not sure quite how much our relationship has changed today, but it looks like things could work out, eventually. I usually hate having to be patient, but some things are definitely worth it.
"I guess so."
I let go of her hand willingly enough, and wave and smile before continuing on my way home. I barely walk two steps before she calls out to me.
"Mimi, wait!"
I turn back around only to see her disappearing into the flower shop. I'm at something of a loss, standing there alone on the pavement, but she soon comes back out, carrying something in her hands. She presents it to me and I almost forget how to breathe. The sweet softness of the rose's scent reminds me, though, and I lean in close to inhale more of its aroma.
"It's lovely," I murmur, looking up into her eyes - and find myself utterly entranced. This moment could last forever and I'd be perfectly happy, I'm sure, because I can't imagine anything sweeter...
"So are you," she replies, proving me wrong, and twines the short stem of the rose into my hair. Her hand stays close enough to my cheek for me to feel its warmth, almost like a touch on its own.
I want to close my eyes and lose myself in that brief caress, but I don't dare look away from her smiling face in case she says -
"Thank you, Mimi."
"For what?" I wonder, a little bewildered.
"For being you," she answers, her words scarcely more than a breath on my flushed cheeks.
She's close - so very close. I move, or she does, perhaps we both do, I'm not sure - but I part my lips just before her own brush against them, as soft as the petals of the rose now in my hair.
It's not enough! I slide my arms around her waist, pulling her tight against me as I lean into our kiss, pressing my open mouth against hers and sliding my tongue along the inside of her upper lip...
Slowly, I draw back just as she does, loosening my hold on her waist just a touch.
"I've never been thanked like that before," I hear a dazed-sounding voice say - it takes me a moment to realise that it's mine. I blink, pinching myself to check that this is really real, and smirk when I find out it is. "I think I could get used to it."
"So could I," she replies smilingly, her eyes now bright once again, with no more sadness lingering within.
There are a couple of passers-by in the street watching us who seem to be having a harder time getting used to it, and their stares irritate me somewhat - but I don't care what they think. I'm holding her, being held by her, and her smile is enough to banish any negative thoughts from my mind. I hug her close, resting my head on her shoulder, as we stand on the pavement outside her mother's shop.
We're together. That's all that really matters.
[Storytime][Fanfics][[email protected]]
