"Is The End Near, Tai

"Is The End Near, Tai?" – Chapter 1

Tai waited for Sora to wake up. He lifted his guitar out of a bag beside him. He strummed it impassively, then, using her heart monitor as a metronome, played a few of his favorite songs to pass the time. Matt and Mimi would be coming soon, but he couldn't care less. It had only been 5 hours since he'd found himself bound to a love seat on the moon, only 4 since he'd told Sora he loved her, and only 3 since he'd found out the heartbreaking secret. Everything seemed to be so far away to him. The only thing he understood was that Sora loved him, and that she could die soon…

Matt and Mimi were hand in hand outside the door as Tai played "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". They looked at each other silently, not knowing what to do. Tai set down his guitar and walked over to open the door. Matt and Mimi looked at him with confusion. "I knew you were out there. Come inside and I'll tell you what really happened. Well, actually, you'll guess a lot of it, if you know we were on the moon and remember what happened last night… Harvest Moon helped me too."

Matt quickly shut the door behind him and they sat down in the chairs near Sora's bed. He glanced at Tai, then he looked at Sora. "Okay… Prove it."

"Your portraits were in the hall going down to Harvest Moon's chamber." Tai responded slowly. "The symbols in the corner for just you were your crests, but I can't remember the other one…"

"Okay, you were there… But what's up with Sora?" Mimi asked almost cautiously.

Tai stared at the floor suddenly. He could barely say the single word that shocked Matt and nearly made Mimi faint. "Leukemia."

Two hours and several "cryings" later, the story was told. Matt, who was known as the "tough guy", was crying softly. Tai, meanwhile, was sobbing into his arms. Mimi simply counted the holes in the tiles on the ceiling, one by one. They all had their own ways of dealing with deep sorrow, and it wasn't too long before Matt and Tai had begun playing an old country ballad softly, with Mimi still counting tiles on the ceiling as if her life depended on it.

Finally, they had calmed enough to just sit. Sit and watch Sora's bed for any signs of motion. Tai and Matt were having a silent argument on leaving, they kept mouthing at each other and staring daggers into each other. It would've been funny if it was any other situation, but this was serious. Mimi stopped it all. "Hey, break it up. Matt, leave if you want, personally I'm going to get a snack and come back."

"Fine, fine, I'll come back, but first, I need to wash up." Matt replied. Matt and Mimi left, but Tai stayed, his amber eyes never straying from Sora's still motionless body. And just as they walked out the door, a doctor came in.

"Any signs of movement?" she asked Tai.

"No." Tai shrugged.

"You know, she might die lying there."

"I want to be here until the end."

"Are you her boyfriend or something?"

"Close to that. We're not really going out or anything, but still, we're a couple."

"Okay…"

The doctor checked the monitors. "Well, no wonder!" the doctor whispered. "That just needs to be up a notch…" She turned a knob and Sora shuddered. "Your girl should wake up soon. Call be if you need anything."

"Sure."

The doctor turned, and with wonder in her eyes,

Tai strummed his guitar again, then picked up into a short song. He stopped midsong and pulled a journal out of his pocket. He printed legibly (but barely) on the page. "My life is totally awful. I'm too depressed to write. More tomorrow."

Matt and Mimi came back in as Sora stirred again. It won't be long now. he thought. It won't be long at all.

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Okay… It sucked, right? Well, I think it did, but I'm not sure why, so if you don't mind telling me, PLEASE go right on ahead. Bye! Oh, and BTW, I don't own Digimon.