#digitalworldbound

Thunk. Floosh.

Several seconds of silence ensued. Two pairs of eyes met, pooled with mirth and perhaps a little bit of regret. Takeru blew out a giggling sigh, which was a mistake on his part because it sent a puff of flour through the air.

Flour, which caked both of their faces. Because Hikari, in her attempt to measure the amount they needed for the cookie recipe she’d found online, had accidentally tipped the entire bowl, and now they were both covered in it.

And so was the kitchen counter. And the floor. 

“Oops,” Hikari whispered, although her expression threatened to break into a grin.

“Oops,” Takeru echoed with a tiny, held-back smile of his own.

“I don’t think that was supposed to happen,” Hikari said.

“...probably not.”

Hikari whisked her gaze around her kitchen, knowing that this mess was mostly her fault but finding it funnier than anything else. So when her composure broke and she finally began laughing, she couldn’t find it in herself to stop.

“You—you look ridiculous,” she gasped out as she doubled over in a fit of giggles.

“Me?” Takeru didn’t even sound offended—just equally entertained by their predicament as he, too, collapsed with laughter. “You look ridiculous! It’s in your hair!”

One of Hikari’s hands found the top of her head, making Takeru laugh harder because she’d only made it worse.

A doorknob jostled. Hikari and Takeru froze at the sound, meeting each other’s gaze again, and Hikari whispered in horror, “Uh oh.”

“We should hide.”

No sooner than Takeru suggested it did they follow through, but neither of them had time to find good hiding places—instead merely settling for ducking behind the counter—before the Yagami apartment door opened and two boys stopped in the entryway to remove their shoes.

“We’re back,” Taichi’s voice called, followed by the sound of shuffling. “There was a long l—oh. Where’d they go?”

“Gotta be here somewhere,” came Yamato’s voice. “Their shoes are still here.”

“Yeah, I see that. I have eyes.”

“Just making s—” Yamato stopped talking, and his footsteps came to a halt as well. Then, in a quieter voice: “...what the hell?”

Hikari bit her lip to keep her laughter at bay. She stayed hidden with Takeru as Taichi voiced his confusion about Yamato’s words, before probably seeing the kitchen for himself.

“Oh my god.”

Yeah. They were so screwed.

“What even happened in here?” Taichi went on. “How d—wait. Hikari, Takeru, I can see you.”

It was only when he stepped around the counter that Hikari started giggling hysterically again. She gave her brother what was supposed to be an guilty look—but, in all honesty, was more cheeky than anything—before drawing herself up to her full height.

“Hi, Nii-san,” Takeru said humbly to Yamato as he stood by Hikari’s side.

“What did you do?” Yamato asked.

“We were…” Hikari paused to scan the flour-covered kitchen with sheepish eyes. “...making cookies?”

Hook.

“Cookies,” Taichi echoed, deadpan.

“Uh huh,” Takeru said with a firm nod. “Cookies.”

Yamato gave Takeru a hopelessly fond look. “Kiddo. We told you we’d be back from the store to make dinner tonight.”

“I even recruited Yamato so Kaa-san wouldn’t kill us with her monstrous cooking,” Taichi added.

“But…” Hikari trailed off as she glanced at her best friend, who pouted. She took this as an opportunity to show off her best pout, too, aiming it at her older brother. “...we wanted something sweet.”

Line.

“Hikari. It’s like, four-thirty. We’re going to be cooking soon.”

“...and?”

Yamato and Taichi shared an exasperated look, which almost elicited another stray giggle from Hikari. Almost. She was still pouting, after all.

“Fine,” Yamato caved, surprisingly before Taichi. He sighed. “After dinner.”

Taichi’s expression turned sour. “Dude!”

“What? I can’t say ‘no’ to that face,” Yamato said and pointed at Takeru’s masterful puppy eyes.

Her brother, however, looked back at Hikari. Her pout deepened, and for a few seconds, Taichi stood strong. But only for a few seconds.

Sinker.

“Ugh, fine. Fine, we’ll make cookies after dinner,” Taichi relented with a sigh of his own. “Now help us clean up.”

Hikari’s pout disappeared in an instant, replaced by a grin.

yamato was tasked to prepare the food, takeru and hikari were in charge of decorations, sora was busy with the scrapbook, and koushirou had to make sure that everything was in place. jyou and mimi were running the errands, buying party hats and balloons, paper plates, and the like. their respective partners, sans gomamon and palmon and agumon, were patiently waiting for them on one side of the room.

“agumon sure is doing well by distracting taichi,” gabumon said. “do you think he has any idea?” he asked no one in particular.

“i hope he doesn’t,” koushirou responded. “i know this is a last minute idea but i think we can pull this off.”

tentomon nodded. “i agree.”

they continued to work again in silence, with only takeru and hikari whispering and giggling from time to time. finally, they held up all the papers they had, most of them a drawing of taichi with the group, or him with takeru and hikari, and even a banner that greeted him.

“jyou-san is tall,” takeru said. “he can reach up to high places!”

“and we’re back!” the door opened and in came mimi with palmon, jyou, and gomamon. “we have everything we need!”

“did you get the small balloons rather than the big ones?” koushirou asked.

“of course!” jyou said with pride. “mimi wanted to get the big ones but i had to remind her that we could only blow air in small ones.”

mimi giggled.

“ah, jyou-kun, mimi-chan, you’re back.” the matriarch of the yagami family had decided to check up on them once again. their digimon partners once more had to play pretend, mimi and jyou had to balance their purchases and their partners. “is everyone okay? i brought apple juice.” she laid down a tray on the table and smiled when she saw takeru, hikari, and koushirou took one each. “i have to thank you once again for doing this for taichi. he hasn’t been himself lately, right, hikari-chan?”

hikari nodded. “i’ve been worried.”

her mother kissed the top of her head. “i’ll leave you guys back to it. have fun!” and she left the mini -function room, allowing the digimons to move freely.

“can i have some apple juice?” gomamon asked.

they only had an hour left before agumon maid taichi run around in circles. while everything seemed fine, things began to go south.

while jyou was hanging up the greeting banner, koushirou slipped on one of the drawings, causing the banner to rip and for jyou to fall. he ended up hitting some of the paint that the two young ones had used and spilled on the floor, close to where sora was fixing the scrapbook. she gasped when she saw some mixture of paint seeping inside the paper. mimi was watching the exchange which took away her focus from the balloon she was trying to blow air into. as she let loose, her lips parting from the rubber, the balloon’s lips opened wide, making her stumble back a little as she did not expect the air to fly to her face. this caused yamato to drop what he was holding to catch her. unfortunately, the food he was carrying had sauce and thus stained the soup nearby.

the digimons watched in horror at the scene that had unfolded in front of them.

“let’s help them!” piyomon exclaimed. but all the children looked at their digimons, held up a hand and shouted, “no!”

the digimons stayed put.

“oh, i’m so sorry, yamato-san,” mimi said as she looked at the food that may have become…not so edible. “i know you worked hard on this.”

yamato sighed. “it’s fine. i guess a disastrous scene wouldn’t be complete if we weren’t a part of it.”

that made mimi giggle, but when yamato looked at her, she stopped. yamato smiled and began to laugh, she joined in.

takeru and hikari, who had been looking at the paintings and drawings that they made, were frowning. they knew it was no one’s fault but they did work hard on it. although, it seemed as if they had a bright idea at the same time. they beamed and looked at each other. “i’ll get the papers,” takeru said just as hikari announced, “i’ll get more art supplies!”

but as soon as she opened the door, she came face to face with her brother. he looked at her, blinked, looked behind her and blinked twice, then at agumon. “what is this?”

agumon laughed nervously. “surprise?”

the children inside the room all looked at each, hikari even turning back. then they all grinned. “happy birthday, taichi!”

“happy birthday, onii-chan!”

taichi looked around the room and smiled. “this is some surprise isn’t it.”

“sorry,” koushirou started, rubbing the back of his neck. “i started it.”

sora laughed. “we didn’t expect it to be this way but….”

“what matters is that we’ll still all have fun!” jyou exclaimed.

“give us just a few minutes, taichi-san,” takeru said. “we’ll clean up.”

taichi shook his head and entered the room, agumon closed the door behind them. he kneeled in front of sora and looked at the page she was working on.

“don’t do anything funny to this scrapbook,” she warned.

taichi gave a wicked grin. he dipped his finger in the wet paint and dragged it along sora’s cheek.

“taichi!”

everyone laughed and ran to their spot. taichi once again dipped his finger and smudged it on agumon. “come on!” he called the digimons. and the digimons happily jumped from their spot.

This isn't exactly related to Stardew, but Chloe was brilliant and thought Jun would go for a wolf cut in college, which I think fits well!!

Jun loves Elliott and aspires to be him. Also, she has yellow and purple joycons along with knock off pastel joycons.

Hikari would adore Stardew Valley and the animals!! She loves all the girls but she is definitely a Leah stan.

She doesn’t like how lonely Abigail is :(

Taichi only started to play because Hikari adores the game so much. He isn’t far in but so far he likes Alex the most.

He loves mining and murdering slime

Yamato plays it on his downtime for the story and make his farm successful and make grandpa proud

He likes his chickens and gives them cute names :)

Yamato, seeing Sam: “he just like me fr 🥺”

He kinda comes off as a Caroline fan ngl

Jyou's a big fan of Harvey of course. He physically nods his head in agreement whenever Harvey gives advice to the player.

Yamato, Jyou, Ken, and Iori have their own, secret world together to do Simple and Calm things.

Koushiro is obsessed with demetrius and his experiments. He lowkey wishes he was marriageable.

Ken gives everyone gifts to make them happy because he’s a sweet guy (it also makes him poor).

Ken memorizes every characters birthday so he can get extra hearts

He dislikes the game not allowing him to give more than two gifts a week :(

Iori is just there to Farm ™️

Jun and Miyako's sisters have a world together and Miyako pops in every now and then

They fight over who’s the favorite of the bachelorettes because they’re silly

Miyako is there to fall in LOVE and has one save file for each bachelorette/bachelor

Although her favorites are Elliott, Alex, Haley and sometimes Emily (bi queen)

She’s also tried mods which allow her to marry other characters

Sora constantly accepts and finishes quests to help people in the game.

She befriended krobus in the sewers and is bffs with Linus

She also loves her horse very much horse girl Sora

Takeru owns all the hats and is obsessed with the hat store obviously.

He dresses up his kids with the hats so they all match.

Mimi loves the outfits !! Her and Sora have their own farm where they just decorate like the sims

They also name the animals after their friends

“I think taichi should be a duck >:)” “Mimi no-”

You bet they have a bunny named “hikari”

Unlike Miyako, Daisuke ignores most of the people and focuses on mining and making cash

Also the arcade games!!! He loves the cowboy minigame

Miyako and Takeru make fun of his farm because they think it’s pathetic (it’s actually decent but don’t tell Daisuke they think that)