Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon nor do I own the song 'Too Much Love Will Kill You' by Queen.

TOO MUCH LOVE

She never suspected it would come to this. This... impossibility.

Then again, when she was honest with herself, it was exactly what she thought it would end in... even though she never reckoned there would be an ending at all.

Yes, she was complicated like that.

But no, she didn't believe it would. Because good-natured as she was, she had just assumed that it was a given in her life. Something that was there, a habit amongst friends, fun.

That was the naive her thinking.

The less gullible part of her could admit that it wasn't just a habit, and that friends wasn't exactly what they were anymore either. Instead, they were a ticking time bomb with no set explosion clock, playing an exciting teenage hormonal game, toxic and dangerous. It spiced up her goody two-shoes life and overtook theirs mercilessly.

It was so wrong in so many aspects.

Yet for some reason, she could always push that awareness to the back of her mind and let the emotion rollercoaster take her where it wanted, which was usually away from all things morally correct. When she played, she was free – free from any preconception the world viewed her with – and freedom was addictive. It was a convenient feature bad Kari secretly liked about herself.

But yes, she played with fire and she knew it.

So of course, she had some doubts – she wasn't evil after all. And sure, she had contemplated a couple of possible scenarios (although she carefully avoided thinking about the worst-case ones). But no matter which set-up she ever envisioned, she didn't think it would be like this.

Serious, utterly flattering and heart-wrenching to the core.

Love – the most twisted multitasking emotion in existence.

There was no way around it. Everywhere she went, every thought she had, every person she met... it was there. Reality. Everything she tried to ignore but was never able to. The fucked-up situation that she had gladly created years ago and was regretting deeply now.

A nagging conscience told her what her mother had been inculcating since infancy as well: regret always arrives too late, dear, what's done is done.

Those words of wisdom made her flinch, as she remembered how they were only rarely used in an argument with her. After all, she was the perfect child and more often than not, it was her brother who was on the receiving end of them. For some reason, that made her cringe even more.

Suddenly, though, a second nagging force welled up angrily in response to that self-misery. It possessed a fury that overtook her moral compass and filled up her body, spreading from the core of her stomach to her already fiery cheeks and the outer ends of her earlobes, which quickly flushed scarlet as well.

Bad Kari had surfaced yet again.

She countered convincingly that all those previous thoughts were highly exaggerated. Because when you looked at it from a logical angle, one such situation couldn't have even been created if it weren't for the other participants. Heck, she was the fucking mathematical minority! Conspiratorially, she whispered that there was no need for her guilt complex to domineer her the way it did. Because why should she feel like this? It wasn't as if she ever encouraged them to do anything remotely romantic, was it? She never provoked them to kiss her, nor did she ever turn down their feelings boldly. All she did was enjoy the attention she received, and that felt so good that there couldn't have been something wrong with it. Right?

Such sweet irony, she thought to herself, the anger directed towards her ex-suitors was actually at a par with her angelic conscience.

Well, not really. The backfiring definitely won out.

Because enjoying a boy's attention is one thing. And okay, enjoying two boys' attention is another, but still, it's not a crime. Enjoying it while ignoring their feelings and toying with their minds simply because you can, however, is plain selfish. And wasn't she supposed to be the most altruistic person alive? Didn't she strive to live up to that image every minute of the day?

YES.

Then why didn't she?

... because.

She had no sufficient answer.

But what she did was without a doubt anything but altruistic. Not once did she explicitly tell them what she herself felt about them and, as a result, denied them both the harsh truth. She allowed for hope to linger, transforming it into an illusion of future fireworks rather than a force of good.

Just look at where it brought them: a lonely girl left behind to deal with the mess of her best friend hating her and her other friend half-dead, the rollercoaster having finally crashed.

All those disasters that could've been so easily avoided, if only she had made a choice.

The choice.

Between her best friend, who was kind, caring, willing to wait, didn't push her into anything, knew her since kindergarten, listened to her, loved her and would do anything for her, and her nearly just as important other friend, who was adventurous, courageous, stood up for his beliefs, who wanted her and didn't shun to show that to the world, and who made a fool of himself every time she was near in the most annoying and cutest way.

Once upon a time, that choice wasn't even that difficult.

Because back then, she was leaning very much towards picking TK, and even encouraged him to finally make that move everyone assumed was bound to happen. Destiny was involved, she reasoned, so of course they would get their happily ever after. But when he didn't, she started to lose those anticipatory butterflies and one morning woke up feeling nothing but friendship for her meant-to-be soulmate.

She felt regret as well as relief for it – she'd always disliked how people set high expectations for her, just because she was who she was. And if she hadn't opened her eyes and perceived how similar they were then – too much to work – she surely would have come to the same conclusion sometime later in life when things would undoubtedly be more complicated.

And when she did, she also saw Davis. A boy who was just as nice in his own way that she didn't even pick up on until that epiphanic moment.

He made her laugh and had all the qualities of a girl's hero, which was something she'd never looked for in a guy but could appreciate fully now. He was reckless and frolicked through life the same way he frolicked through the park on his way to the icecream booth, laughing at any obstacle that dared cross his path. It was very appealing.

She got closer to him then, attracted to the thrill, and hoped for those familiar butterflies she experienced with TK to start fluttering in his presence as well. But no matter how much she tried, they never did.

That didn't mean that she altered her behaviour towards them, though. No no, she flirted just as much as before, but now, she didn't have any real intentions behind those impulsive actions. But that's fine, she told herself, there's nothing wrong with a healthy dose of hormones. Except that it wasn't healthy. She craved for it. It made her feel wanted, powerful and in control of something in her life.

For once, she was the one pulling the strings, and nothing, not even her blasted attentiveness of surroundings, would take that away from her. She deceived herself and looked at her boys with shielded eyes, not recognising the pain in their eyes nor any real signs that they were more serious about this than her, thus successfully fooling herself into thinking they were in on her game. After all, it was the only possible explanation for their equally flirty behaviour, wasn't it?

Unfortunately for her though, they weren't, and the flurry of emotions quickly spiralled out of control.

She remembered TK finally making that move she no longer wanted and how she just went with it, making him as happy as a clam... Recalled Davis ripping his soul out for her to see that he was still dead serious about her, and how she didn't protest... Remembered that rush of adrenaline coursing through her, telling her not to stop... How she secretly dated both at the same time... for quite some time, too.

And the cherry on top of the beautifully layered cake of doom: them finding out.

That was when morality finally came knocking at her door again and slapped some overdue sense into her.

TK had shown up on her doorstep then, spewing venomous words she never thought he'd use. Least of all for her. Slut, whore, manipulative bitch... just to name a few. She never disputed them – how could she? – and found that the sound of his voice became more and more quiet with every word he shouted. She could hear but at the same time not hear what he was saying, as if she was detached from her body. As if it wasn't her he was yelling at. In a sense, she noted, it wasn't.

Everything went by in a daze.

The final thing he mentioned – which suddenly pierced through that strange cloud of soundlessness and almost knocked her off her feet because of the abrupt volume change – was that he didn't recognise her anymore and that he felt sorry for her, which was totally irrational because he was the victim of her crime, not the other way around. The disappointment dripping from those words of truth broke her and she slumped down to the floor at the same moment that he slammed the door shut.

And if that wasn't enough for one night, two hours later, Davis popped by, basically telling her the same and leaving in a hurry as if scared he would physically attack her for the hurt she put him through. She didn't know which was worse: the quiet tone he used on her – which ironically rang in her ears with full force – indicating that he pitied what she had become or his eyes that radiated the unbearable betrayal she had initiated. Thinking about any of it rendered her mind to pudding.

She locked herself up in her apartment after he left and stayed there, in shock at the unfolding of events.

She didn't hear from them again in person.

That is, not until two weeks later, when she learned that TK had accepted the scholarship programme for writers and was in France now, far away from everything that reminded him of her. It didn't come as a shocker, of course. And if she were him, she would've probably done the same, as geographical distance in such a case is always easier to deal with. But it was only postponing the inevitable. Because the longer she waited, the more she felt like she was losing what was left of them. And she was losing him fast.

It would destroy her.

So she did everything in her might to prevent that from happening. She sent him – no, both of them– numerous greeting cards, "I'm sorry" letters of novel size and begged for them to respond anything, hoping against all hope that she hadn't completely messed up.

Five months after the cataclysm, he sent an 'Okay' back. It was the first step at repairing their precious friendship; scarce but there. She knew that after what she pulled they would never be the same TK and Kari anymore, but knowing that her selfishness hadn't fully ruined them filled her with short-lived joy. At least not everything was lost, she thought, even though she also recognised that she wasn't worthy of his kindness.

As for Davis, she heard from her brother that he had been in a car accident on the night he left her apartment. No, he wasn't dead, he was brought to the hospital, but that didn't console her one bit. His dozen fractures and concussion were her fault nonetheless.

Hearing that, she relapsed in her wallowing in misery, worse than before. Until at long last, Tai couldn't take it anymore and scraped her guilty self off of her couch. She knew he would – he was the only one who could – and him breaking into her littered flat was only a matter of time.

After the tense (and rather embarrassing) sibling confrontation full of cries, hugs, threats, comfort and painful reflections, he pushed her in his car and drove her to the hospital. She courageously entered Davis' room then, actually looking forward to him to giving her a piece of his mind and thinking she couldn't feel worse anyway. It might even give her some relief. But when she pushed herself forward and met with his broken body and lively eyes, he forgave her. Imagine that. She had no idea why, but he did. And that act of benevolence, so in-character for him that she should've seen it coming, positively fried her brain.

She went home after that and packed her things on automatic pilot, leaving with the next plane for America in hopes of escaping herself and everything she had caused.

How did it come this far again? she asked herself, her eyes fixated on the storm raging outside her circular window, looking but not seeing. She could no longer tell. The only thing her malfunctioning mind could grasp was that there was too much. Too much of everything. Too much love, forgiveness, hurt, regret, proximity, distance. Too much of herself.

It killed her.

A/N: Or did it? That's up to you to decide :) Tell me what you think of it in a review! I love hearing what/why you like/hate this! To me, it's kind of heavy material for a girl like Kari, but I could still see her do it. Of course, I watched the dub so maybe the people who watched the subbed version disagree. Whichever the case, feedback is loved :)

EDIT: I'm not hateful, in case you thought I was. I write from her POV and everything that's racing through her mind, so I'm not playing the judging author here. I simply like this kind of informal free discourse better; it gives me space to make a comment of myself here and there. But don't think I don't like her. It's just how she feels about the situation herself. And I just wanted to show that when she makes a mistake, it's a big one, because she's so caught up in that perfect reputation she has going on. "Freedom is addictive" and all that. She is really sorry after all, so she's just human in letting her emotions get the best of her. Please don't mistake this for a hate fic.

EDIT2: I definitely recommend listening to the song (and its lyrics) after reading!

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