MPC56XB: Snowy memories

Yeap, it was a digimon. And it had just talked! And it was trying to hug Mitsuharu! It was a talking-hugging fireball! The dinosaur just let himself be hugged. It couldn’t be said he was completely comfortable with hugs, but he wasn’t trying to shoo off the small creature either. His arms crossed, the samurai just nodded, as he introduced himself, while the little guy remained to hug him. “The name is Ashikaga Mitsuharu. It’s nice to meet you, DemiMeramon.”

Just to check, Tsukiko took her digivice out. This creature’s name was in fact, DemiMeramon. The blonde guy didn’t seem to have picked any name for him, more than his specie’s. “That’s okay!” She replied with a smile. Denying the little monster was utterly adorable was impossible! He had a small, sweet voice, which made him sound like a child. Very cute, no doubt. “Hi there, DemiMeramon.” A smile on her face, the girl greeted the fireball, who was now hugging her. For some reason, even though she could swear it felt a little warm, it wasn’t burning her or her blue jeans. “Are you… made of fire?” The girl asked, tilting her head.

That previous question was probably going nowhere since Tsukiko didn’t know much about books. She was all about hiking or traveling, but not much about reading. Still, Desmond’s words let the door opened for another inquiry. “From where… you come?” It was true the boy didn’t have a Japanese name or appearance, but Tsukiko couldn’t quite place where was he from. The blue-eyed was about to take a seat next to the man, as he offered, until she heard him asking about their names. “Oh! That’s right! I’m sorry.” The girl bowed at him a little, to then let room for an introduction. “My name is Ashikaga Tsukiko. And my partner is Ashikaga Mitsuharu, as he already said.” She leaned her head a little to her right, pointing with it at her partner. “It’s very nice to meet you two.” Mitsuharu bowed too, greeting the man. She added, finally taking a seat, not too far but also not too close to the man, as she stared at DemiMeramon eat a piece of meat.

The lights began flickering. Once Desmond finished his comment, they had stopped flickering… because they were now completely off. “Oh, God.” Tsukiko muttered. “It seems like that’s the case.” Mitsuharu frowned, looking at the off lightbulbs above of them. Luckily, their closest source of heat and illumination was actually a fireplace, which didn’t need any kind of electric energy to work. “Well, not much that we can do about it.”

The blue-eyed gaze shifted back to Desmond. “So… you just took a seat here without even wondering where the owner might be?” Tsukiko let go a giggle. “Isn’t that pretty laid back from you?”

“The place seems to be empty, Sensei.” Mitsuharu stated, coming down from the second floor, which was completely deserted. “I wonder where the owner might be…” ‘Sensei’ muttered, to then look back at the counter. It had a small door behind it. “Maybe we should go in there and look for someone?” A shrugged accompanied her suggestion. "Or do you rather just staying here?"

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Word count: 848/2000

It wasn’t a secret for Tsukiko that Mitsuharu had the attitude of a hero, most of the times. Nevertheless, it never ceased to surprise her how her partner could go out of his overall distant attitude to make others (digimon or people) feel better. The Bushi Agumon threw what Tsukiko could only define as the coolest smirk ever to DemiMeramon. “Do not worry. You can call me Mitsu.” He said, putting up a thumbs up for the fireball to see. This sight was both a reason to feel proud and endeared for Tsukiko. Her eyes then shifted towards DemiMeramon. “You can call me Tsuki if you’d like. But only if you let me call you Demi.” A short tilting of her head followed, accompanied by a genuinely warm smile.

“I see…” Tsukiko couldn’t help but stare at the creature. He was a fireball, but could still be patted, but could also burn. Digimon were simply amazing. “That’s good then. He does feel a little warm, hehe.” The girl giggled a bit. This was a very interesting species, no doubt.

So Paris, huh? Even when she didn’t know much about France, it was pretty cool to meet someone from overseas. “Yes.” She nodded at the man's assumption. “I do live in Shibuya. How did you know?” A genuine expression of curiosity made its way to her countenance.

Leaving this cultural encounter behind, she just listened as the man explained his motives for just staying there to read, while he waited for someone to appear. This guy definitely didn’t have Tsukiko’s crazy thirst for adventure that had gotten her in so many troublesome situations so far, but that was actually fine. Even when she usually wouldn’t take the politest option most of the times, the pink haired girl could understand Desmond’s way of thinking, and it made a lot of sense.

Tsukiko couldn’t help but staring at the man and his small digimon while they chatted. Desmond and Demi’s partnership was utterly adorable. The blonde man always seemed to be looking for a way of making his digimon feel better, and that was so cute Tsukiko could explode. Not literally, no. She then was forced to going back to reality as the man addressed her. “A… wrapped meat stick?” She asked, a little startled. How would that taste? She probably would pass in finding out. Or... “I think Mitsuharu would like to have one.”

“S-Sensei!” The digimon chided as he approached the resting area where Tsukiko, Demi, and Desmond chatted. “What’s wrong? I want you to try it and tell me what it tastes like to see if I want one. Don’t you want to?”

To tell the truth, the Samurai was quite hungry and, judging by Demi’s reaction upon chewing it, it seemed like the snack tasted good. “I guess…” He muttered, trying to look elsewhere. He was too cool to just admit it straightly. “Could you please give one to him?” Tsukiko asked with a smile.

After staring for just a second to Desmond’s hand, Tsukiko would take it and stand up. “Not really, I can…” She then interrupted her own sentence, reconsidering. “Actually… Yes!” It could be fun to see Desmond leading the way. He had to have an adventurous side, didn’t he?

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Word Count: 1403/2000

Even if it might seem redundant, saying that Demi was adorable was an understatement. He now seemed happy about being able to call Tsukiko and Mitsuharu by some kind of name. The creature was too cute to even be put into words, and it was very enjoyable sharing time with both him and Desmond so far.

Of course, if Desmond had been the first tamer Tsukiko saw inside the Digital World, she would have been a little more surprised than how she was at the moment. “You’re not.” A short shaking of her head ensued. “And now that I think about it, everyone I’ve known seems to live in Shibuya too! That’s very odd.” She raised her gaze while she mused about this matter, but her attention was brought back to reality now that Demi was addressing her. After looking at him for a second, she then turned at Mitsuharu. He seemed to be enjoying this stick of meat very much. “This is good! Thank you.” The grin the dinosaur couldn’t help but show as he chewed on the piece of meat denoted this was delicious. Tsukiko shrugged and took the snack Demi was offering to her. “Thank you very much.” She said, giving a warm smile and taking a bite. It wasn’t like she could just say ‘no’ to that cute little thing anyway. And as a matter of fact, it did taste very good!

Once they were done with their snack, the group made their wade towards the door behind the counter, being guided by Demi’s fire, that had gotten very much brighter. An empty room and an empty kitchen. As they suspected, they were completely alone. Not a single soul to be seen around the whole inn. “Where do you think the owner of this place might be?” Tsukiko couldn’t help but ask as she looked around the place again. “The building doesn’t seem abandoned or anything like that.” In any case, it didn’t make much sense to try and think about something like that, since they weren’t reaching any conclusive statement.

On the other end, they were inside a kitchen. “I think it’s very likely we’re not going to be able to leave this place tonight, Edmund.” The pink haired leaned against one of the counters of the kitchen. “With that snowstorm outside, I don’t think we should take our chances in the cold night.” She continued. “And since we can’t eat snacks forever, what do you say if we look for some ingredients and cook something for ourselves? I suppose the owner won’t mind if we transfer some money into the register at the counter, like if we were staying the night.” Her suggestion didn’t sound bad at all to herself, but she would still wait and see what the blonde man thought.

“Sensei…” Mitsuharu, who had opened up the fridge already, raised his master’s attention. The thing was completely full of all types of food! “Oh god. If the power doesn’t come back tonight, some of these things could get spoiled” Her mouth wrinkling, Tsukiko began to take some of the ingredients out. There were meat, fruits, and vegetables of all kinds! Of course, they didn’t look much like the ones in the human world but Tsukiko was already used to this, and she knew those tasted pretty good anyway. "So what do you think? Should we make dinner?” She threw a short smile to the man as she headed and opened up a shelf to find a lot of noodles and eggs. “Oh, oh! What do you think if we make some ramen?” If the ‘Edmunds’ agreed to this, they would get to work immediately, using Demi’s fire to lighten up the place, the kitchen and unfroze some of the meat, so they could start cooking. While the water boiled Tsukiko chopped on some vegetables and whatnot. She then turned at Desmond, to ask something that had been fluttering around her head for a while.

“So, Edmund…” She made a pause, trying to formulate her question without seeming too intrusive. “How did you and Demi meet each other?” That HAD to be a cute story. Why? Well, it had Demi in it!

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Word count: 2122/2000

Quickly waving her hands in front of her to dismiss the blonde man’s preoccupations, Tsukiko rushed to explain her intentions. “O-Of course! We’re paying for everything. I don’t know where the owner is but I’m sure we’ll be paying even more than what a night costs here.” She couldn’t actually be 100% sure about this, but she was planning on leaving a big amount of money.

Once this was cleared, the group started cooking. “Thank you very much, Demi.” She gave a warm smile to the little fireball as he helped her and Mitsuharu lit up the stove. So far, everything was going perfectly. The samurai separated the ingredients necessary while she poured them into the boiling water, along with the noodles, meat, and eggs. While all of this took place, she actually got to listen to Desmond’s story about how he met his digimon partner. So far, she had never considered the digimon could come out of devices that worked with data or were connected to the web, but it did make sense. However, what the small creature was trying to do after coming out of the blonde man’s cell phone was simply hilarious.

“That’s so funny!” The girl laughed loudly, while she wiggled the broth using a huge spoon. “He was-- actually trying to eat-- your cell phone?” She kept laughing, making small pauses in her sentence as she had trouble to speak. Mitsuharu seemed a bit confused, more because of the reasons Demi might have to think that was something he could eat. Of course, he had been raised by Tsukiko since he was born, so he was never unexperienced regarding Human World stuff. “You’re so funny, Demi!” She said, turning at Demond’s partner. “I bet you were pretty hungry, indeed!” She added. She didn’t want the child to feel like she was mocking him, she just found the whole thing really entertaining. “I hope you had made Edmund feed you with some real food after that.” While the story continued, they had now served the food and were actually having dinner inside the half-lightened up kitchen, while the snowstorm continued outside. 

The pink haired then blinked, while she took some noodles into her mouth by using her fork and listened to the next part of the story. “That actually makes a lot of sense! You might have been kind of startled by this.” And apparently, just like that, snack after snack, the duo had become so close. It was a really cute story; it definitely involved much less fighting and drama than how she met Mitsuharu.

“Do you really like it? I’m glad!” The girl replied to the man complimenting the dish, smiling kindly. Then she giggled a bit upon hearing the blonde man’s joke. “He sure wasn’t!” It was time for her to tell her story, huh? “I still don’t fully understand everything of how everything led for Mitsuharu and me to find each other but, it was sort of like this...” Tsukiko leaned forward on the shelf a bit, to start going through her memories. “One Saturday afternoon, I saw a man I knew go out of an alley around Shibuya, very suspiciously. I admit the curiosity took the best of me and I entered, to find a small red ball just lying next to a fairly big hatched egg. That was Mitsuharu.” She nodded, to then continue with the story. “I took him home and trained him, to then look for that man I knew in order to find out more about this. I knew he had to be related to my partner’s appearance in this world. It turns out he had found the egg in the middle of a battle inside this world, but since he was in the middle of the bout, he dropped it. His enemy had opened up a portal that had sucked him and his partner in, along with the egg. He thought the egg had stayed at this world but it traveled alongside him and his partner. Not long after that, some evil digimon trying to kill him tried to kill me and it got much more complicated but… “ Tsukiko took her digivice out. “This thing appeared along with my D-Terminal, so I officially became Mitsuharu’s tamer."

Once the tale was over, Tsukiko’s eyes widened up. Everything that she could see was starting to crumble. Slowly, a white light engulfed the whole scene and she could see Desmond, Demi, and even Mitsuharu disappear slowly. What was going on? She never actually got to the part of feeling scared because the next thing she knew… She was staring at the roof of the hut she and her clan had decided to spend the night at.

She incorporated her body and then looked at her surroundings. Mitsuharu, Mao, Kissu, Ramma and Pike were all fast asleep on the ground, covered by blankets. She was still in her travel to the brother’s laboratory and her trip was long from being over.

“A… dream?” Tsukiko muttered, issuing a small tilting of her head upon uttering the last word.

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Word count: 2989/2000.

[This MPC is over and ready for grading. An absolute pleasure to do this with such a great friend and roleplayer as Eizer.]