"Takeru? Are you busy?"
Such a shout from Takeru "TK" Takashi's mother normally heralded one thing and one thing alone in all the fourteen years of his life (well, maybe eleven or ten of them). Trouble. Sadly (or fortunately), said mother had raised him to understand that at certain times, fighting it just made things worse.
Any time she said something like that was normally one of those times.
'...Screw it, there's nothing on TV anyway.'
"Not really." He replied.
"Good. Your friend Sora wants you to meet her and some of your other friends at the station."
Sora? Why would Sora be enlisting his help? Even when she'd been dating Matt she'd never needed any help for birthday presents. And Matt's birthday had passed...
"Uh, okay. Did she say when?"
"Just as soon as possible." His mother replied.
Patamon was as usual, lazing about. TK had to pick him up, despite muttered protests, to get to his hat.
Arriving at the station, he was a little surprised to see Sora was with Jun and Kari. He had no idea Sora was friendly with Jun at all, but then he hadn't paid much attention to who the older Digidestined hung out with now they were all in High School, and he was still in Middle School. None of the girls were particularly dressed up (Though with Jun he had no idea) so it probably wasn't going to be some sort of girl related thing where a boy's opinion was required to be ignored.
"Hi, what's up?" He said, waving. The girls waved back.
"Ah, Takeru! Thanks for coming along. Now we can go!" Jun beamed.
"Go? Go where?"
Sora smirked
"Oh, see, me, Kari, and Jun decided to go shopping... But Kari's mother and brother both seem..."
"Overbearing, over-controlling and over-protective..." Kari muttered.
"...Yeah, that. Anyway, she thinks it's a bad idea for five girls to walk around the city without at least one boy to act as a deterrent to any weirdos..."
TK's brain shut down in horror as it realised what was happening.
He was being dragged on a shopping trip.
Kari understood his aprehension.
"Look, TK, we'll make it up to you... We just needed something to stop them complaining."
TK tried to speak but instead invented a new language.
"Blrugh gha Tai do?"
The girls promptly giggled.
"You mean why can't Tai and Davis go? Or another boy?" Sora guessed.
TK nodded mutely.
"Davis is a pain, and Tai is overprotective." Jun answered.
"And as for Matt, well, he'd probably enjoy it, hanging around with five girls all day... And that's no fun..." Sora pointed out.
The other two then listed off the problems of other males they mutually knew.
"Koushiro is busy... And actually kind of pervy."
"Joe is busy... And actually harder to embarrass."
"Iori is busy too... Even though he'd be more adorable than you are right now." Jun smirked.
"And let's face it, every other guy we know is just Matt. No, it's better to have good old dependable, easy to embarrass TK..." Kari grinned.
"Um... You guys won't be..."
"Oh! That's right! Swimsuits for summer! When we meet Miyako and Mimi in the city we need to all go try them... TK can give a male view of things!" Jun suddenly proclaimed
He was by this point too shocked to protest as he was dragged to his doom. By the time he was aware of what was going on again he was already standing on the train whilst the girls occupied the last three seats...