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1. The Gathering
“Look, we’re last!” Mimi exclaimed.
“I said I’m sorry!” a harassed-looking Taichi snapped back. But Mimi had already forgotten about him. Palmon in tow, she marched straight through their little huddle, stopping to look up at Jou, with all his weedy height. Jou loosened his collar uncomfortably. She put a hand on her hip and smirked.
“So you found some time in your busy schedule to clear for your friends, hmm?”
Jou took a deep breath. For a second he’d though she meant to hug him again — thank heaven for small mercies. “Well, I’ve had a serious case of eye strain since yesterday. I couldn’t study today even if I wanted to.”
“So you don’t want to?” Her brow lifted.
“… And I’ve got a heck of a crick in my neck, plus I’ve just finished every practice problem in my math workbook. I’ll have to stop off for a new one. It seemed like the ideal time for a break.”
Mimi nodded with a wondering expression, as if she couldn’t imagine needing an "ideal" time for a break. Jou thought about the picture he had in a scrapbook somewhere, a postcard she’d sent them all from Hawaii of her lounging on a beach, as tan as the sun is warm, sipping iced tea in a glass with a tiny umbrella. He tried to imagine himself there with her — scratchy sand in his swim trunks, skin a peeling mess of angry blisters. A seagull making off with his towel.
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea.” He patted his pocket for his kerchief and mopped his brow.
“What are you talking about? Of course it is. The hot spring’ll fix you up right. I don’t have that much sympathy though,” she added, in case her compassion led him to mistake her feelings on the subject of his exam-imposed solitary confinement. “Even starship captains go on shore leave now and then. Do you think you work harder than a starship captain?”
She spun around to throw her arms around Sora, wailing something about horrible friends who are too busy stuffing their faces and make everyone late. Taichi’s indignant response was cut off by Yamato, who, too busy sniggering, hadn’t noticed Gabumon move out from behind him, and tripped into Taichi’s back. They collapsed in a grunting heap. With a cheer, Mimi squealed, “Fan service!” and whipped out her phone camera.
This momentary excitement was distracting enough that no one noticed Jou’s look of utter shock.
Mimi-kun knows Star Trek!?
2. The Clothing
“Excuse me — number one, if you don’t mind,” Jou told the desk clerk.
Like some kind of oracle of fashion disasters, Mimi popped out of nowhere, already slack-jawed and staring. “But it’s gray,” she protested.
“Yes it is.”
“As in gray gray. Not even a sleek, clean-looking silver. Or a multi-faceted granite.”
He felt compelled to dig his heels in. “It’s not ‘gray gray.’ It’s stoic gray.”
“It’s the same shade as the bathroom floor.”
It was. Well… shit.
“Fine, which do you suggest?”
She pointed. “Number three.”
“The blue one?” That wasn’t near as wild and crazy as he’d expected. “Why?”
“Because it matches Gomamon,” she answered cheerfully, and reached over to scratch his partner behind the ears. Gomamon complimented her on her taste. Like he had a clue what colors matched him.
“See, I’m wearing this one because it goes with Palmon’s flower.” Mimi held out her own neatly folded yukata. Yeah, right. She’d picked it because it was pink.
But some battles weren’t worth the fight. “Number three,” he said to the clerk, who shot him a strangely knowing look. Just what did she think she knew?
Mimi patted his shoulder. “Good choice. Suits you. A yukata should be fun. Not drab. Though in some cases, it can’t be helped,” she said with a loud sigh, which Taichi and Yamato reacted to as a single unit:
“No one asked you!”
“Hot dog,” Mimi said, gesturing to Taichi’s brown yukata. “Mustard,” she added to Yamato.
“Mayonnaise,” Sora piped in, holding up her own pale yellow yukata, before the boys could start another shouting match.
“They’re making me hungry,” Gomamon commented.
“You’re always hungry.”
As Jou gathered his yukata and went to find a sash, he came across Koushirou standing stock still, like an extra nerdy mannequin.
“Uh, Koushirou?”
Koushirou seemed to snap out of a stupor. “Jou-san,” he hissed, in a tone filled with urgency. “Mimi-san picks out yukata based on whether they match our partners?”
“… Sounds like it.”
“Right,” Koushirou nodded. “I see. Well that’s. Good. Yes. Okay.” Seeming to run out of words, he slowly turned and trudged toward the locker rooms as if in a daze. Jou paused before following him to reflect on how very weird his friends were.
3. The Bathing
The temperature in the foot bath was perfect. Jou joined the other boys sitting on the ledge as Gomamon drifted around belly-up.
“Don’t go too far,” he said in warning.
Gomamon blinked at him. “I can’t help where the current takes me.”
“It’s not a river. There’s no current. And I can see your back flippers paddling.”
But he was only half-serious. The breeze played gently with the folds of his yukata. It felt wonderful to be surrounded by peace and light-hearted laughter. His shoulders bumped Yamato’s as they perched on the ledge, and that felt good too, the uncomplicated camaraderie of old friends. Exams or no exams, he’d been a fool not to do this sooner.
After a while, as he watched the Digimon teach Meicoomon to swim, he decided it was about time he made a proper introduction to the new girl.
“Mochizuki-san.”
Meiko twirled around much like Mimi. Unlike Mimi, it was from surprise, not unbridled enthusiasm and a penchant for the dramatic. She dragged a hand through her black hair, eyes darting this way and that.
“I-I’m sorry?”
“I’m Kido Jou,” he said, as suave as he could manage. Takeru had a way of making friends with new people right off the bat. Though Yamato took longer to open up, Jou imagined there weren’t too many teenage girls who’d have a bad reaction to being introduced to him. What Taichi lacked in finesse, he made up in easy, unassuming charm. Even Koushirou had become adept at the art of meet-and-greet, provided he didn’t find himself upfront and personal with a pair of round, perky breasts.
Jou’s results were a mixed bag. Some folk warmed to him quickly. Others didn’t seem to know quite what to make of him. Med students were the worst: his nerves were already in a knot knowing he was talking to his seniors, and they couldn’t believe anyone fit the stereotype of overworked jukensei with medical aspirations so perfectly that it was as if the definition existed solely for him.
Meiko turned a deeper shade of scarlet and bowed in such a hurry that she almost toppled over. “I’m Mochizuki Meiko. Nice to meet you.”
She was cute, he decided as he helped steady her. In a very different way than Mimi. But cute all the same.
Speak of the devil.
“Meimei!” Mimi called out, wading toward them. “You getting cozy with our Jou-senpai? Just don’t get handsy, he’s ticklish.”
“N-No!” Meiko covered her mouth. “I-I mean yes! I mean that’s not it! We were just…”
“Hey, let me see your glasses.” Without ceremony, Mimi swiped Meiko’s glasses off her face and scrunched up her nose as she peered through them. “Hmm… give me yours too, Jou-senpai.”
“What are you doing, Mimi-kun?” he asked with a sigh.
“An experiment,” she answered, hand held out expectantly. He ought to be annoyed at the entitlement in that outstretched palm. He ought to be, but he’d already passed her his glasses. Mimi looked through one pair, then through the other, then cycled through them once again.
“Meimei’s give me more of a headache than yours,” she pronounced at last.
Jou shoved his frames up his nose. “Well, good. Glad we got that cleared up. Now I won’t lie awake at night wondering.”
“My eyesight is pretty awful,” Meiko said apologetically.
“It’s too bad we can’t pull your eyeballs out and take a look at how you see the world, Mimi-kun,” Jou couldn’t help adding. Somehow Mimi managed to bring out a most improper sarcastic side of him. “I bet we’d get more than a headache.”
“Ordinary people aren’t ready for Mimi Vision,” Mimi confessed. Her chin stuck out in determination. “Not yet anyway. Not until I revolutionize the world.”
“Here’s to the ascent of Princess Mimi,” Jou enacted a toast with an imaginary goblet of air. “May her reign be filled with jelly beans and disco balls, and plenty of terrible karaoke.”
Mimi beamed. “Thank you, my faithful subjects.”
“And… and a happy new year,” stammered a very confused Meiko, who nonetheless raised her own pretend glass in tribute. Clearly she was well on her way to becoming one of them.
4. The Carousing
He’d always been tall for his age, but never got used to his ungainly giraffe-limbs. Rather than walk, he stumbled through the crowds like a bar fly who’d had one too many, keeping tight hold of his wallet because the yukata hung a bit loose on his gangly body and it had already fallen out twice.
In the baths he almost passed out because Gomamon wasn’t ready to leave when the others were and, like the soft-hearted fool he was, he couldn’t say no to that face.
Then he walked in on Taichi and Yamato in the sauna. Even now, he couldn’t be sure what they’d been up to that had them looking like a pair of toddlers who got caught smearing toothpaste on the wall. But of course it was Jou who interrupted them. And who sat himself down right between them. And who didn’t notice the tension in the atmosphere until it was too late to pretend to hear someone calling him and inconspicuously back out. So he brought up the first topic that came to mind - which happened to be drug-resistant superbugs - and whatever mood he’d disrupted by entering the sauna came to a grinding halt as they contemplated the ways antibacterial soap was rushing them all to their doom.
Later he passed by Koushirou, sitting on a bench in the lockers and mumbling under his breath about feeling “violated” and “is this heaven or is this hell”.
He decided to leave him alone… not wanting to barge in on his moment of personal crisis.
Mimi didn’t bother him again until it was nearing time to leave, when she ducked under his arm just as he pulled it back to throw the shuriken. He missed, but she was already dragging him off to take purikura together. Once more, he considered being annoyed. But, honestly, it was too much effort. After all, he was on vacation.
Besides, he’d been indulging her (and Gomamon) all day. Putting up with the jokes, the pranks, the insistent cries of “Jou-senpai, you’ve got to try these yakitori skewers!” and subsequent force-feedings.
It was nice to eat something other than ramen for lunch.
5. The Ending
“I’m glad you decided to come,” Mimi told him as the bus rolled down the road. “It was worth it, right? Even if you missed a day of studying?”
Jou glanced around. The rest of their group was busy teasing Taichi and Yamato, who were doing their best to act “normal” and failing with spectacular inefficiency. The sauna story had circulated without Jou having had any part in it. Sora had bought them matching fans as a joke, but since they kept using them to hit each other on the head, she’d confiscated the fans and smacked the two of them herself.
Koushirou looked less traumatized now that everyone was fully dressed. Takeru and Hikari made sure Meiko didn’t have a chance to retreat into herself, and for her part, she seemed grateful to be welcomed into the fold.
Gomamon lay asleep in Jou’s lap, belly full, fur gleaming.
“It wasn’t that bad,” he said.
She pouted. “Oh, come on! Admit you had a good time. Admit this totally beats another eight hours repeating ‘the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell’ alone in your room until it starts to sound kinky.”
“Thanks for that!” he about sobbed. “Augh. That I did not need. You just made things so much harder.”
“You’re welcome,” she giggled, and if she caught the innuendo, the moment passed with unusual ease. Everything was playful with Mimi.
In truth, the rule of Princess Mimi had begun long ago. It was tough to pinpoint an exact date, but Jou’s rough estimate put it around six years prior, during lazy summer evenings as the fireflies came out, a time when there was little else to do but indulge the daydreams of whimsical little girls who wore too much pink, and whose laughter made flowers grow.
--fin