I had never been in a public school before. The other Digidestined decided that if I was going to be a true member of the team, I had to travel to the Digital World with them. Davis met me outside of the school and showed me the way to the computer room where the Digiport was located. TK, Kari and Cody were already there, along with DemiVeemon, Patamon, Gatomon and Upamon. Everyone was just standing around, talking and joking. I was loathe to ask why no one was focused on our goal of defeating the spire-digimon. I merely inched away from the group and wondered in silence why we hadn't left.

The answer came soon enough in the form of a lavendar-haired pre-teen.

"Hey guys," Yolei Inoue chirped, slinging a bag off her back. She unzipped it and pulled out various tubes and small plastic packages, tossing them on the floor. The Digimon, including Poromon who arrived with Yolei and Minomon who squirmed his way out of my knapsack, rushed towards the pile, unscrewing caps and ripping open the packages as fast as their stubby-armed or even armless bodies would allow. They ravaged the apparent food.

"Guess who I ran into on the way back here," Yolei was saying as she sat down in front of one of the computers. Not one occupant of the computer room attempted a guess. They knew Yolei would be unable to keep a secret for even thirty seconds.

"IZZY!" Yolei cried and on cue, the red-headed Digidestined poked his head into the room.

"Hi, everyone," Izzy said, waving. He was met with a chorus of hello's from the Digidestined and Digimon. "Ken Ichijouji," he said, walking towards me. He held out his hand and we shook. It seemed he required nothing else in terms of atonement from me and I was grateful. "I'd like to discuss multi-variable calculus with you sometime," he remarked.

"All right," I said. Me, turn down math. Yeah, right.

Izzy came with us to the Digital World that day. I noticed right off the bat that Yolei seemed particularly attached to him. It didn't sit well with me; normally Yolei and I stick close together. I don't think it's a conscious effort; at least it's not on my part, but we just seem to fall into the habit of standing together or occasionally riding the same Digimon. I can think of an instance the week before when we wound up with our arms linked at the elbow. The afternoon Izzy came, she practically ignored me in favor of him.

Watching her fawn over him, I think my teeth were audibly grinding. I know Davis heard them.

"Hey, Ken," Davis had said, appearing from behind me, "slow day, huh?"

My only response was a grim nod.

"What's your problem? Today we have it easy. Haven't run into a single spire-digimon all day. Clean up days are the best !"

I was barely listening to him. A part of me wished I had my sunglasses, that way no one would see how much my eyes had narrowed while watching Yolei and Izzy talk about what a shame it was that C++ was nearly obsolete.

"Hah! Someone's moving in on your territory," Davis snickered, his eyes following the same path as mine. "I know what that's like," he continued, gesturing with his thumb to point at TK. "Girls, who can tell what they want? One day they're all over you and the next, you're suddenly a dweeby jerk because some new kid with a dumb hat comes waltzing in and starts making eyes at her. And then he's all like 'I knew her first!' It's not my fault I wasn't transported here when I was eight! Hey, Veemon and I could have totally kicked some Dark Master butt. Oh, and then they start pulling all that 'We make a great team' crap. Just wait." Davis waved his hand like he was a total expert on the subject.

"Davis," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Knock it off."

After a few hours of clean-up duty, I removed myself from the group. Solitude agreed with me. I was surprised that I managed to sneak away without Stingmon seeing where I had gone, but it was more likely he knew that I wanted to put some distance between myself and the others.

"Hiya, Ken."

I had been leaning against a tree, staring towards the horizon, but now focused my sight towards the speaker. Yolei.

"You know," she continued, "I bet you and Izzy would get along. He's pretty smart, too."

I snorted.

"Geez, what's your problem?" she huffed, and dropped herself down to sit beside me. "You're usually not this anti-social. No wait," Yolei amended, "you're just about always this anti-social. You might feel better if you talked to us more. You can talk to us, you know. We'd like you to. You can talk to me."

"There's nothing for me to say," I stated, my voice flat.

"There's gotta be something you want to say," she said, not believing me.

"There's nothing I can say," I muttered.

"Sure there is," she said brightly. "I bet you've got more to say than any of us. You're the genius, remember."

"I know," I said softly.

After a few more minutes of silence, she stood.

"I can take a hint," she grumbled.

"Yolei," I called weakly. She gazed down at me, her warm brown eyes locked with my eyes. She lowered herself slowly beside me again.

"Ken," she whispered. "Don't shut us out." She laid her hands over mine and I just stared at them for a moment. I turned my left hand over so that instead of her palm against the back of my hand, we were palm to palm. The tips of her fingers lightly brushed my wrist. I turned my right hand in the same fashion. A quick glance up showed me that she was looking at our hands as well. She guided my hands so that instead of horizontal, they were vertical, with our fingers pressed together as well.

She smiled brightly and I tentatively let the edges of my mouth curl up as well. A line from a play I had read in school once kept repeating over and over in my mind: Palm to palm is the Pilgrims' kiss.

Yolei squeezed my hands and suddenly jumped to her feet, pulling me up with her.

"Come on!" She shouted! She let go of my left hand and her fingers curled around my right. Hand in hand, she lead me back to the others. Wormmon crawled towards us. Happily, Yolei let go of my hand and scooped up my Digimon. She held tightly onto him, whispering something. She surveyed the group and when she made eye contact with Izzy, she shifted her grip on Wormmon to hold one of her hands in a fist, her index finger excluded. I could almost swear I saw her mouth 'Bingo!'

Author Notes: The Pilgrims' kiss thing is from Romeo and Juliet, by one William Shakespeare. Perhaps you've heard of him. Nice of Izzy and Wormmon to help Yolei snag Ken-chan, ne?

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Digimon related, nor anything related to Shakespeare.