AUTHOR’S NOTE (A/N):

This is a fic I wrote for Chibiusa’s Kenyako fanfiction contest. Being a major Kenyako fan, how could I not enter? For anyone who’s curious—this story ended up winning 1^st place. In honor of it doing so, I re-edited it for future references….

According to the rules, I had to write a description of myself. Those of you who are loyal readers of my fics probably already know what I look like from my ‘Authoress-insertions’, but for those of you who don’t, I have decided to leave this part in:  I have elbow-length, dark-blonde hair (what do you mean; is it natural?  Um…ok, fine!  It’s not; I’m a natural brunette, so sue me!), which is usually held back by a thin, black headband (you know…the plastic, shiny kind).  My eyes are a mixture of green/brown; they vary daily between the two colors.  I am 5’4”, and have light tan-colored skin from my all my time in the sun.  I describe my outfit as ‘Authoress’ to be a green, spaghetti-strapped tank top, dark-colored denim jeans with a silver belt, black high-tops, and a necklace, which says “AUTHOR” in silver letters. Is that a good enough description? If not…too bad!

The final rule for the contest was to state my Digimon crush, which is…QUATRE! ^_^

Quatre: umm…I’m not from Digimon, and you know that!

Me: …drat! Caught by technicalities. Oh, well…then I guess I’d hafta say Ken, because Miyako/Yolie likes him, and I am her real-life alter ego, minus the lavender hair and glasses…

Quatre: riiiiiiight -_-‘

Me: Fine; don’t believe me! But anyways, that is all the info required for the contest. Now that I’m pretty sure you all wish I’d just shut up and let you get to the fic, I’ll do so….

“TK!” his best friend, Kari, exclaimed as he walked through the doorway of the computer room.  She ran to greet him in a big hug.  Apparently, Matt had told Tai, who had told Kari. “I can’t believe it!  Your wish is finally coming true!”

Everyone was in a good mood; they had all heard the news…even Davis, who hadn’t acted the least bit jealous at TK’s hug from Kari.  He had been maturing ever since their adventures in the Digiworld, and understood that this was TK’s day to shine.

 “Congrats, T.P!  I’m really happy for you.” He sincerely said, careful to make sure he, yet again, mispronounced TK’s name wrong.

“That’s ‘TK’…and thanks, Davis” TK said with a smile.  He had become used to Davis’ daily screwing-up of his name, and had come to accept it.  Nothing, not even Davis, was going to ruin TK’s day while he though of what was happening that very weekend….

His mother and father had gotten back together, and were to re-marry that Sunday.

“You’re all going to come, right?” TK asked.  His parents had decided on a small ceremony, seeing how they had done this once before, but had told Matt and TK that they could invite all their friends.

Kari smiled, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world!  Tai’s gonna be there, too”

“I would be honored to come.” Cody politely accepted the invitation.

“Cool.  I’m in.” Davis responded

“Perfecto!  Me too.” Yolie exclaimed, before turning to Ken, “Are you gonna come, Ken?”

Ken hesitated.  Sure, these people were his friends now, but he wasn’t sure if it would be right to go to something like this….

“Come on, Ken!  What’s the harm?” Davis asked, before grinning and adding, “Afraid you won’t have a date?”

“Huh?” Ken’s head snapped to attention to that, then immediately blushed at the thought. “Uh…. No.  I’m just not quite sure, that’s all”

“Aw, come on, Ken…gimme one good reason why you SHOULDN’T come?” Yolie exclaimed, with a smile.  Her smile only made Ken blush more.

“Well…I guess I could come then.” He finally replied.

“Great!” Yolie exclaimed, before turning back to TK, “Guess we’ll a be there!”

“So…how dressed up to we hafta get?” Davis asked.

“Well-“ TK began, before Kari cut him off.

“Tai told me it was semi-formal.  That means we should get dressed up, but just not too dressed up, right TK?”

He smiled, “Right.”

“OK…got that, Ken?” Yolie asked.  He just nodded, trying desperately to avoid her gaze the entire time.  Luckily, no one saw he was blushing.  Well, that is, no one but Kari.  Being the most observant of the group, she quickly realized what was going on, smiled, and began formulating a plan….

“Well, how do we look?”  The girls exclaimed as they stepped out of their dressing rooms.  It was 9:00 Sunday morning, the day of the wedding.  All the children had gotten to the church extra early to get ready.  The boys went to the east side to dress, while the girls slipped off to the west side, giggling the whole time with “secrets.”  The boys just rolled their eyes, knowing perfectly well that their female companions had something up their sleeves.  All four girls had gone on an all-out wedding shopping spree the day before, trying to find “perfect dresses.”  Yes, four; Mimi’s parents had given her permission to come and stay with Sora that weekend so she could attend the wedding.

 Turning around, the boys could only gap at the sight before them.  All four girls were in the most gorgeous gowns that any of the boys had seen (well, seeing as I doubt any of them have attended a prom yet, *wink-wink*).  They all wore the same dress, though in different colors.  The dresses were a floor-length, off the shoulder, tight-fitting design.  Mimi’s was pink (obviously), Sora’s was a deep red, Kari’s was baby blue, and Yolie wore the dress in a lovely shade of purple.  Each of the girls wore the slightest hint of makeup, giving her skin a healthy glow to it.

Sora and Mimi went off to talk with Matt and Tai, while Kari went off with TK; she was to be one of the head flower girls, with him as the ring bearer, so they had to be there extra early.   The other boys went to go reserve seats for the different families. This left Ken and Yolie alone for a while.  Ken shifted nervously in his ensemble; he had on black dress pants and a white dress shirt, but he wore no tie or jacket.  However, it wasn’t his outfit making him uneasy….   

“Y-you look nice, Yolie,” Ken said, blushing the whole time.  Yolie noticed this, but chose to give the boy a hard time (just for fun).

“Why are you blushing?  Don’t tell me you’ve never been to a wedding before.”  Yolie spoke up.

“Actually…I never have.  This will be my first one.”

“Oh!  No wonder you’re nervous; you have no idea what to expect, do you?”  Ken shook his head.

“What was your first experience at a wedding like?”  He found himself asking, thankful to be off the subject of why he was really blushing.  Suddenly deep in thought, Yolie sat down next to the boy to answer his question.

“Let’s see…I was probably about five years old, maybe six,” she began, lost in the world of flashbacks.  Ken couldn’t help but notice something different about her as she gazed off into space, her mind remembering, “My older cousin, Aiyeal, was getting married at age 24.  She had asked me to be the flower girl, just like Kari’s going to be the flower girl for this wedding.”  Ken interrupted with a question.

“What does the flower girl do?”  He wanted to know.

“Boy, you really have never gone to a wedding!” Yolie teased him; “A flower girl is one to introduce the marching down the aisle to the front of the room, like the opening of the ceremony.  More often than not, she will also throw flower pedals up into the air, in celebration of the marital joining of the two people.”

“Oh…and that’s what Kari will be doing?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Okay…I’m sorry; I interrupted your story, didn’t I?” Ken apologized.

“That’s okay.  Now then, where was I?  Oh, yes…. I walked down the aisle as the flower girl, and since I was at the head of the ‘parade’, I was also able to watch everything that happened behind me.  In respective order, the bridesmaids, their partners, and the bride herself walk down the aisle.  Obviously, the bride comes at the very end.  Everything else is sort of introducing her.  Once at the altar, the preist performs the service.  It varies with each wedding, so I can’t really be specific on what happens.  I can tell you, however, that is does involve exchange vows of loyalty and commitment, as well as exchanging rings as a symbol of the joinment of the two.”

“Wow…you know a lot about weddings, Yolie” Yolie smiled at this compliment.

“Well, I have been to a lot of them.  Like I said, this was just the first wedding I had ever been to.  Sometimes-” she began, her cheeks growing a little pink as she smiled, “I dream of what it will be like at my own wedding…in the future, of course.”  Ken smiled back at her, but continued with his questions.

“Is that all that is involved at a wedding?”

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, snapping out of her temporary daydream, “The best part is the after-wedding party!  In my opinion, it’s filled with nothing but traditional superstitions, but-“

“Superstitions?” Ken asked.

“Well…there’s one in particular.  Two, if you count the fact that it sorta happens twice.”  Yolie began blushing again.

“Oh?  What is it?”

“Well…the highlight of the party is when the ‘next bride and groom’ are chosen,” Yolie stated.  Ken raised an eyebrow

“The Next Bride and Groom?”

“Yeah…like I said; it’s superstition.  First, all the women who wish to participate gather in a big group.  The new bride will stand in front of the group all with her back to them.  She throws her wedding bouquet over her shoulder, and the women try to catch it.  Whoever catches it will become the next one of the girls to get married.”  Ken burst out laughing.

“You’ve got to be kidding?  THAT’S how they choose the next bride?!?”

“Wait, it gets better!” Yolie continued, a smirk growing on her face, “Next, the groom has to reach under the bride’s dress, and take off her wedding garter (A/N- special thanks goes out to kira for telling me what the damn thing is called….Tanky! ^_^).  Then, he does the same thing with the garter to the guys that the bride did to the girls.  Whoever catches the garter, will be the one to marry the girl who caught the bouquet!  The final part of the tradition is for the ‘chosen’ guy to place the garter on ‘chosen’ girl, as if to signify the…shall we say…’future arrangement’.  Of course, there’s no telling whether or not these things actually come true, but it’s all in good fun, I guess, and many people seem to believe in it.”  Ken grew suddenly quiet before asking his next question.

“How many times have you ever caught the bouquet?”

“Oh…” Yolie looked down, “I never tried.  None…none of the boys I’ve met at weddings ever liked me.  They always hoped it was one of the ‘pretty girls’ who caught the bouquet, so I never thought it would be worth it.”  She looked up again, and straight into Ken’s eyes.  It was then that Ken realized what was so different about her…she had replaced her glasses with contacts.  She looks really beautiful without her glasses…. not that she wasn’t already.

“Are you going to try this time?” Yolie began blushing again, but looked up.

“You think I should?”

“Why not?” he smiled, “You may actually catch the bouquet!”

Yolie smiled at the thought, “That would be nice, and if you caught the garter-“ she stopped once she realized what she was saying.  Ken’s eyes had widened slightly.  Did she just say what I think she did?

“Oh…um…I hafta go.  I’ll-I’ll talk to you later, Ken.” And with that, Yolie ran off towards the church, leaving a dumbstruck Ken to watch her leave.

The wedding itself went beautifully. Kari had made a gorgeous flower girl, and TK was an adorable ring bearer, standing by her side the entire time (but of course, only because he was supposed to in the ceremony…. *coughyeahrightcough*).  Obviously, the bride was beautiful in her gown.  It was a simple design; only slightly more fancy than the girl’s dresses, and in white (duh!).  After the ceremony ended, all those who were attending the party drove to the restaurant, where it was taking place.

Throughout the entire wedding, Yolie did her best to avoid Ken’s gaze, though several times she attempted a peek herself.   At this point, Kari was trying to figure out what had happened; She had been the one to suggest everyone else find something to do so that Yolie and Ken could have some time to talk by themselves.

Kari knew that if only one of them could be brave enough to speak up, they would realize that each likes the other just as much as hoped.  Unfortunately, something had gone wrong.  Kari had seen Yolie running out of the room that adjourned the boys’ and girls’ dressing rooms, tears streaming down her face.  Moments later, Yolie had arrived at the church as if nothing had happened, other than the fact that she refused to go near Ken.  Seeing as they had been partnered up in the march down the aisle, that had been rather difficult, but Yolie had kept a straight face the entire time and not once looked over at the boy walking beside her.

The whole situation was rather hard on Ken.  His parents weren’t able to go to the wedding since they had to work, so he really had no one to talk to now that Yolie was suddenly avoiding him.  She had become one of his closest friends out of all the Digidestined and, without her, he felt lost in the crowd of people who all seemed to know each other well and conversed as such.

TK noticed Ken sitting by himself in the corner of the restaurant, and walked over to see what was wrong.  He knew nothing more than what Kari had told him, so he figured the best person to ask would be Ken himself.

“Hey, Ken!  Why the long face?” TK asked as he sat down next to the gloomy boy.  Ken answered with a half-hearted smile.

“Nothing, I guess.  I just feel sorta out of place.”

“You don’t have to.  Yolie’s here…why don’t you just go talk to her?”  At the mentioning of Yolie’s name, Ken stiffened.  TK noticed this, and asked, “Did you two get into a fight or something?”

“No…nothing like that.”

“Then what happened?  I know for a fact that out of all of us, she seemed to like you most.  Why would she suddenly stop talking to you?”

Ken sighed, and began telling TK the entire story of what happened.  The blonde-haired boy listened intently, not interrupting; yet not really understand what the problem was.  Kari, who had been listening in on the whole conversation, however, did.

“You don’t get it, do you?”  Kari said, walking over.  Ken and TK both looked up in surprise.

“Get what?” Ken asked.

“Yolie really likes you, Ken…but (as hard as it is to believe) she’s really shy.  She sees all the other girls who admire you, and gets scared thinking that you don’t like her back.” Kari explained, “When she accidentally let it slip, she sort of snapped, and lost her nerve to talk to you, thinking you wouldn’t like her anymore if you knew.”

“How on earth do you know all this, Kari?” TK asked, dumbfounded.  Kari just gave them a mischievous grin.

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out, Takeru.” She replied, using TK’s full name to tease him.

“That had got to be one of the most cliché phrases around!” TK protested.

“It may be cliché, but it’s true.” She said with a wink, before walking off.  Ken laughed a little at their obvious display of ‘friendly’ flirtation, slightly jealous that he didn’t have what they did.  Or did he?

“Well, whatever she said, she’s right, Ken” TK spoke up, watching Kari walk away out of the corner of his eye, “So nothing’s going to help better than for you to just walk up to Yolie and have a little talk with her.”

“You really have no idea what Kari was talking about, do you?” Ken asked, matter-of-factly.

“Not a clue” TK grinned, as he walked off to greet more of his parents’ friends and family.

“Just talk to her, eh?” Ken muttered to himself.  Then, he spotted Yolie out of the corner of his eye.  She was talking with Kari over in an isolated area of the room, a worried look on her face as she kept occasionally glancing over in Ken’s direction.  “Oh, well…here goes nothing.” He said, and got up to walk over to Yolie and Kari.

As she saw him coming, Yolie tried to make a beeline for it, but was stopped in her tracks by Kari.

“Oh, no you don’t, Inoue!” Kari exclaimed as Ken walked over, “You are going to stay and talk to him!”

“Hey, Yolie.” Ken said as he met up with the two, not daring to look into Yolie’s eyes.

“Hi” she replied, doing the same.

“Well, if you promise I don’t have to tie you down to get you to stay put, I’ll let you two talk.” Kari said to Yolie, before leaving.  The two just stood there in silence for a minute, before Yolie spoke up.

“I’m sorry, Ken.  Once again, my big mouth got in the way.” She stated, not looking up.

“No, it didn’t. “ That made Yolie lift her head, only to meet Ken’s eyes once again, “What makes you think that?”

“W-well, I know that you have so many…” Yolie wasn’t sure if she could follow down this path again, “…really pretty girls who like you, so why would you even care about plain, old me?” She began crying a little, “It’s just the same at it’s always been…I’m always ignored because I’m not pretty enough.  I figured if we could at least be friends, then I could live with that, but-“ Ken cut her off.

“Who says you’re not pretty enough?”  For once, he stared into her eyes, and didn’t blush.  She did, however.

“Well…” she began.

“Listen, Yolie,” Ken began, speaking softly and gently to her, “I don’t care what happened to you in the past.  And I don’t care about all those girls who follow me around.  They‘re just the teenage version of gold-diggers.”  Yolie had to smile at how he had phrased that. “You’re the greatest friend I’ve ever had, and nothing can change that.”

Her heart sank, “Friend?”  She asked meekly.

Ken nodded, but then smiled and moved closer to her.  He gently wrapped his arm around her waist, and whispered, “After all, you can’t fall in love with someone you were never friends with first.”

Yolie just stared at him for a moment, letting the words sink in.  Then, she smiled as well.

“Attention, everyone, attention!” One of the more…louder of Mrs. Ishida’s friends announced.  Both Yolie and Ken tore their sights away from each other, and turned towards the speaker. “It’s time for the choosing of the next bride and groom!”

A chorus of excited cheers broke out through the room.  All the girls prepared to form the group, when the lady who had spoken stopped them suddenly.

“Hold it, girls!  For once, we’re going to have the guys go first on this!” She announced, bring a few scattered laughs from the crowd, but all in agreement.

Yolie looked back up at Ken, “You gonna give it a shot?”

“Why not?” he smiled, before releasing his grip on her and walking over to where the other guys were.  For the most part, they were all young teenagers and kids his age.  The older men were being held back from participating by their own wedding bands (hehe…ever wonder where the term “the old ball and chain” comes from?  Now you know!). 

As Mr. Ishida went to remove his renewed wife’s wedding garter, Ken walked up and stood between Davis and TK, who each gave him a grin.  Expecting this to be the simple part of the tradition, no one expected any excitement from it, but as Mr. Ishida’s hands came out from under the dress (ok…stop right there!  I KNOW what you’re thinking…and NO!  Get your minds outta the gutter ppl!), they held…a pair of pantyhose?

All the guys burst out laughing.  It turns out this had been a little joke Mr. Ishida and his friends had set up! 

Although she too was laughing, Mrs. Ishida grabbed the stockings from her husband’s hands, and started whacking him over the head with them.  Begging for mercy, he screamed out “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”  At this point, she was laughing too hard to continue her assault, and he managed to grab the weapon from her hands, and give her a quick kiss on the lips.  As everyone calmed down, he reached under again, and pulled out the garter this time…too afraid to try any more tricks.

Mr. Ishida walked to the front of the group and turned his back to them, getting ready to toss the garter.  As the guys got ready to jump, Ken could have sworn he saw Kari secretly signal a sort of message to TK, but he shook it off.  As the groom threw the garter up into the air, all the guys jumped in unison…up…up….

It looked like it was heading somewhere between TK, Davis, and Ken.  As it drew closer, it became obvious who was going to catch it, and he did.

Ken landed on his feet, garter in hand.  The room erupted into a great big cheer for him.

“Way to go, Ken!”

“Wow!  How’d you jump that high?”

“I demand a rematch!”

“Oh, Ken…run!” That last comment was from TK, who saw the group of girls heading towards Ken, trying to be the first to ‘personally’ congratulate him.  Apparently, they were all daughters of Mr. And Mrs. Ishida’s friends.

However, Ken chose for once not to run, and instead ignored all the girls coming up to him.  Overly dressed up females attempting to flirt with him surrounded Ken, yet he ignored them all.  Calmly, he politely thanked each girl for her compliment, and then preceded to walk back over to Yolie, who wrapped her arms around him in a big hug.

“Way to go, Ken!” she congratulated him, ignoring the Death Glares coming from nearly every other young girl in the room.

“Thanks, Yolie…now it’s your turn.” He replied, motioning to where all the girls were lining up for their turn.

“Wish me luck” she whispered, before walking over to join the group.  Looking around, Yolie noticed that Kari was nowhere to be found in the group.  Finally, her gaze rested upon one of the abandoned tables in the back of the room, which Kari was now sitting on top of, with TK sitting backwards in a chair in front of her.  They seemed to be in a rather interesting conversation, for they were ignoring all other events around them.

Ken saw them too, when he followed Yolie’s gaze to see what she was looking at.  He smiled even wider when he watched as Kari bent down and lightly kissed TK on the lips, before gently pulling away.  

As Mrs. Ishida got ready to throw her bouquet, Yolie heard a few of the girls hissing comments at her of how ‘she shouldn’t be here’ and to ‘give up…cause Ken is mine’!  One look over at Ken, however, and Yolie knew she had nothing to fear.  As the bouquet was thrown, Yolie found herself jumping even higher than she thought she could, her hands outstretched to catch those bunch of flowers….

Which she did. (In all honesty…who didn’t see that one coming? Raise your hand, and I’ll fwap you over the head with a spork!.)

Yolie sat on the balcony of the second story of the restaurant, looking out into the stars.  The party had ended about an hour ago, but she wasn’t expected home for a good while, so she had decided to come up here for the view.

She picked up the bouquet, which had been placed down beside her, and sniffed them.  She absolutely loved the scent; the flowers were a combination of lilies, roses, jasmines, and baby’s breath…an unusual combination for a wedding bouquet, but one requested by the bride, for they were her favorite flowers.

“Can I join you?” a voice came from behind her.  Yolie smiled, and replied without even turning around.

“Sure, Ken.”  He came and sat down next to her.

“Kari said that I’d find you up here.”

“Yeah…I told her once that this was my favorite restaurant because of the balcony.  I had my tenth birthday party here, and ended up falling asleep out here afterwards.”

“I don’t blame you for liking it.  The view is spectacular.”  She gently rested her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped one arm around her. Noticing that she still had the bouquet, he added, “I thought you didn’t believe in that ‘silly superstition’, Yolie.”

“I’m a hypocrite…so sue me!” she joked, before picking her head up to look at him, “Actually, I’m not so sure if it’s just a superstition anymore.” She replied with a smile.  He smiled back.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” He responded. She rested her head on his shoulder again before speaking up.

“Ken?  You know before when you said ‘you can’t fall in love with someone you weren’t friends with first’?”

“Yeah?”  She looked up at him, not lifting her head this time.

“You’re the sweetest, most wonderful friend I’ve ever had…and I love you for it.”

Ken smiled back at her, “I love you, too.” He bent down, and gently kissed her.  She kissed back just as gently, for a good while, before pulling away and resting her head back on his shoulder.  Together, they looked out into the stars until they both fell asleep.  Yolie still held the bouquet in her hands, and Ken held her in his….

As so many times before, Yolie dreamt about what her own wedding would be like one day, except this time, a face could be placed on her future husband…. Ken.

*Note:  I realize that Japanese people are usually Buddhist, rather than Catholic, but for the purpose of the fic, just pretend that they are all Catholic…and please, no flames or comments or anything on that. Tanky.

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