-x-
you miss him
-x-
Kari has spent most of the day on the couch with Miko, switching her attention between the Tv and the equaling entertaining Drama unfolding in her family's living room. Mom has been making her rounds, cleaning and doing laundry and trying to wrangle procrastinating, unorganized Tai into packing for camp. It's been a thrilling saga from start to finish and Kari has been enthralled since 9 o'clock this morning when it started. Tai insists that he has everything he needs, but Mom, of course, thinks differently.
"You're going to forget something important and then you're going to hear that little voice that sounds like Momma in the back of your head saying 'Tai, I told you so!'"
Tai's clever response is to mumble Tai I told you so in a poorly pitched imitation of their mother's voice under his breath and to slink away to go take his shower.
The living room is half dark, light streaming over the dividing wall from the kitchen and blinking colors from the Tv. Dad is watching the news, and Kari doesn't bother mentioning the flame monster that she sees - fluttering like static across the screen, first there, then not - during the story questioning the rising heat.
She can hear the shower running. The apartment fills with the muffled sound of rushing water, the scent of shampoo, and Kari dozes against the arm of the couch. Some time later she wakes up to Tai thumping around in his socked feet. When she lifts her head to see if anything's going on, he's leaning over her with this big smile, pushing a hand back through her hair.
"Hey, pipsqueak," he says softly, "Sure you're not hungry? I can make you some soup or something."
Making a small, noncommittal noise, Kari loops her arms around her drawn up legs and hides her face. Her stomach isn't as wobbly as was was this morning. She didn't say anything earlier when Mom asked, thinking it would be smarter to survive off peanut butter crackers and orange juice instead of whatever she might come up with.
"Yes, please," Kari says into her knees, grateful that Tai asked.
He rubs her side, rough and affectionate like she's the family dog, "Alright, then, comin' right up." Kari smiles, propping her chin up to watch Tai over the low dividing wall. He rummages in the lower cabinets, pulling out the rice cooker. Ten minutes later, Kari climbs into a chair at the kitchen table, tomato rice soup warming her cheeks as she leans over the bowl, appreciatively inhaling the rich smell. Tai's is actually soupy - every time Mom makes it, it either turns directly into mush, thick like a stew with no broth at all, or the rice is all burned and it's a sick brown color. Neither of them is what you'd call "fit for consumption".
Blowing on the surface of the soup, Kari gingerly lifts the warm bowl to her lips, and Tai plops down in the seat across from her, an arm thrown over the back of the chair and one foot propped in the seat. Tai watches the Tv, though he's not as invested in the news as Dad is, his chin resting in his hand. Mom goes back and forth across the living room, putting up the rest of the laundry. It's quiet, and the atmosphere only reminds Kari that her brother isn't going to be here this time tomorrow.
He's going to camp, and it'll just be her, Mom and Dad.
The thought makes Kari sad, and she sets her bowl on the table, watching the bits of rice swim in and out of the red murk.
Tai notices, drops his arm and looks at her closely.
"What's the matter, Kari?"
Kari chews her lip.
"It's nothing," she says, managing a small smile as she lifts the bowl again.
She doesn't want to say anything to make Tai not want to go. He's been looking forward to this trip all summer, and all his friends are going, but Kari knows all she has to do is admit that she isn't feel well, or say she doesn't want him to go because she'll miss him, and he'll stay. She prefers to be honest. She wishes she could say it and not feel like she's taking something away from Tai in the process. Her stubborn big brother - it makes her tired just thinking about all the energy she would spend trying to convince him to go again when he's already reluctant.
He's more of a mother hen than their Mom is.
Kari doesn't mind so much. Tai's the best big brother in the world, after all, even if no one else really sees it - she has friends and classmates who are always annoyed by their siblings, who don't understand why she gets along so well with hers and look at her and Tai like they're an oddity. Tai never seems to notice, so Kari never lets it bother her.
She just wishes she wasn't so sick all the time, so he wouldn't have to worry.
-x-
Tai has a hard time adjusting to being home.
It still blows his mind just being able to eat every day, whenever he wants. He inhales food like it's going out of style, all those days of going without burning bright in his memory when the hunger starts pawing at his gut, and it's only afterwards that he remembers. He doesn't have to walk for miles from one impossible destination to the next; doesn't have twelve others looking to him for guidance, expecting him to know where to go or what to do.
Sometimes it really hits him hard, how normal everything is again, and it feels like he doesn't have anything...
And he can't sleep at night.
It's easy at first. He's comfortable and cool and in his own bed for the first time in months, and he falls right to sleep. But once the novelty of it wears off, once he gets used to it again and it becomes routine, Tai lies awake at night staring at the underside of the bunk for hours. It's too quiet in the house, too still. Occasionally the air kicks on, but the mechanical white noise that he's heard all his life is suddenly no comfort at all. Tai kicks the blankets off because they're smothering him, tangling his legs so he can't even move.
He throws his pillow to the foot of the bed.
"Hey, Kari." He barely raises his voice, half hoping she won't answer, "You awake?"
There's a small noise from above, Kari shifting as she turns her head toward his voice. Tai wonders if she's been awake this whole time, too; if she's been listening to him toss and turn and has just been waiting on him to say something.
"Not really," Kari says, and despite being heavy with sleep, her voice is soft and understanding. Tai thinks she's too little to sound like that. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing. I just can't sleep."
His eyes are heavy and he digs the heels of his hands into them. This is driving him nuts. He's exhausted, he can feel it, but his brain won't turn off. It's not even thoughts or anything that's keeping him awake, it's this restlessness - some weird feeling sitting heavy in his chest. But that's stupid and too hard to explain.
Overhead, Kari yawns; a sound muffled under her hand, barely even a sigh.
"You miss him," she says.
Something jolts in Tai's chest.
"What...?"
"Koromon."
"Oh." That feeling slowly balloons out until it fills him up. It chokes his throat and stings his eyes. Tai's voice wavers out, breaks a little, "Yeah…"
-x-
When Kari comes home from school - leaving Davis and the others alone on their daily foray into the Digital World with an apologetic smile and a promise to join them tomorrow - she hopes Tai is feeling better. It's not often that he's the one staying home because he's sick, but her brother is resilient, if nothing else. Kari expects to find him exactly where she left him: bundled up on the couch with the comforter from his bed and blearily watching Pokemon reruns.
Low noise from the Tv greets her as she pushes open the apartment door, letting in the cool October air and a scattering of leaves from the wilted plant under the plaque bearing their surname. But as Kari toes off her shoes and steps up into the kitchen, she sees that the living room is empty. The television is on, but there's no one watching it. Tai's orange comforter is in a rumpled, open cocoon at the furthest end of the couch, as if he's just recently left it. A few narrow Sprite cans are on their sides on the coffee table and his socks are in the floor. Shrugging out of her jacket, Kari leans forward to peer into the open door of the bedroom they still share.
Her mother is sitting on the bottom bunk, humming softly to herself. She's just starting to fold clothes out of the laundry basket between her feet, and Kari turns to give the living room another once-over, hugging her jacket in her arms.
"Where's Tai?" she asks, brow furrowed.
Yuuko draws out a low hum in thought, shaking out a pair of long-legged jeans that are unmistakable Tai's - grass stains that go on for miles, so ingrained they just don't come all out in the wash anymore.
"He should be right there on the couch, sweetie."
Of course, Kari is looking at the couch - and her brother isn't on it.
Gatomon chooses that moment to show herself, poking her head up over the arm of the chair. Kari smiles when she sees her partner, but the joy is short-lived. Gatomon's ears are laid back, twitching against a noise too soft for Kari to hear over the din of the television, and as the feline digimon nods her head back toward the door, a small sinking feeling settles in Kari's chest. She notices the bathroom door is not quite closed all the way, wonders how she could have missed it on her way in; she strides back and pulls it open.
Tai is heaving his guts out into the toilet, his whole body shuddering under the force of being sick. His hands are in his hair, scooping it back from his face. He lets out a low moan afterwards that sounds even more pitiful echoing around in the confines of the porcelain bowl, and Kari grimaces in sympathy, her nose wrinkling against the sharp smell in the air as she hangs onto the door.
"Oh no," she says softly, "You're not feeling better at all."
Tai lifts his head out of the toilet bowl long enough to reach back and grope blindly for the edge of the door. Letting it go, Kari flinches as he snaps it closed.
A blanket seems to fall over the apartment, then, filtering out everything else. Despite the barrier separating them, Kari is still acutely aware of her brother. The noise from the television seems much quieter than before, the sunlight beaming in the balcony windows muted and dull. Kari presses her shoulder against the bathroom door, sinking down into a crouch and hugging her arms around her legs. Slowly, Gatomon abandons her place in the chair and comes to rub her head against Kari's knees. Kari can't help but smile, raising a hand to rub behind her partner's ears and under her jaw.
"Thanks for staying with him today."
"He wasn't any trouble," Gatomon says, trying to sound off-handed, but she cants her head to one side, her ears falling back. Kari is near enough, now, that she can hear it, as well, when Tai starts retching again, and the weak sounds quiet both of them. Tentatively, Gatomon asks, "Do all humans get sick like this?"
"Sometimes."
"Are you going to get sick, Kari?"
"Probably." Kari smiles, though; takes Gatomon's face in both her hands and gently ruffles her fur. "You know me and Tai have to share just about everything."
She often forgets there are so many differences between their two worlds, and things that are perfectly normal in the lives of a human are perturbing and strange to a digimon – even one as savvy as Gatomon. She's accustomed to playing it cool, but she doesn't hide her concern for Kari well at all.
"It's just a stomach bug," Kari assures her, "He'll be alright."
Gatomon doesn't seem convinced. She closes her eyes and rests her chin against Kari's knees, and they sit like that in silence for a while.
Eventually, Gatomon goes out onto the balcony for a catnap and some fresh air, glad that her partner is home and she's relieved of her brother-sitting duties for the day. Shifting a bit so her feet don't fall asleep under her weight, Kari lingers at the bathroom door until well after it's quiet inside. From her bedroom, she can hear her mother humming to herself, the rasp of dresser drawers opening up as she puts her children's clothes away.
Slowly, Kari stands and eases the bathroom door open again.
Tai has spread out on the floor, curled on his side with his head cradled in his elbow, his other hand pressing a damp washcloth over his face. He doesn't move when he hears to door creak open, doesn't tell her to buzz off, so Kari drops to her knees, shifts forward to sit right up against his back. She doesn't like seeing him like this.
Tai is her rock.
Kari practically wraps herself around him, curling her smaller body over his - as if pressing as closely as possible might make him less sick, might make him hurt less. It's worse somehow knowing that he's probably glad it isn't her. The big dummy would rather be sick, himself, than have to watch his little sister suffer. Kari rests her head against his ribs, her hand tucked under her cheek, rubbing her free hand up the center of his back. Tai's breathing is so short and even, she almost wonders if he's fallen asleep.
He probably hasn't gotten much rest today, so she lets him.
Yuuko finds them like that a few minutes later, when she emerges from the bedroom and wonders where her children have gone.
She plants her hands on her hips, standing in the open bathroom door.
"Oh, honestly! You two are the saddest pair I've ever seen!" Her voice startles both of them. Kari lifts her head, blinking open her eyes and realizing she dozed off; and Tai groans beneath her, shifting to bury his face in the plush bathroom rug. Yuuko claps her hands sharply, trying to urge them into movement, "Come and lay on the couch, for goodness sake!"
-x-
Kari notices, probably well before Tai himself does, the changes in her brother as he leaves adolescence - maybe because she is touching him constantly, maybe because she spends quite a bit of time looking at him. It's no secret, she thinks, that there isn't much about her brother she would change. He is bossy and overbearing at times; he has no filter to speak of between his brain and his mouth, so he can be very insensitive without really realizing; he forgets his own size, and his strength, and isn't very coordinated off the soccer field, so he is constantly tripping and bumping into things, and hurting her on accident when he gets it into his head to wrestle with his petite sister.
But all of these things are Tai, and Kari couldn't imagine him any other way.
So when he begins to change, slowly but surely, she notices.
He gets taller, broader, his muscles more pronounced.
One afternoon, Tai is sitting on the couch minding his own business when Kari climbs into his lap. She throws her legs over one of his, hooking her knees around his thigh, and scoots in as close as possible. She takes his face in her hands, and Tai is still trying to focus on the soccer game, watching an intense play with his fist clench and a yell waiting in his throat - he turns his head without looking at her, his brow knotting.
"What is it?" he asks, not hiding his annoyance at the invasion of his personal space.
Kari rolls his cheeks under her hands, smushing his face as she pulls him slightly forward.
"Kari! Let go, what do you want - ?"
"You're scruffy."
"What?"
She paws at his face, her fingers rasping over his jaw and neck. It takes Tai a few seconds to realize what she's talking about - it distracts him, and he laughs, "Well, yeah, stupid, I'm not a baby anymore." Kari chuckles softly (anymore) and pulls his face down to hers. She rubs their faces together, smiling broadly as the rough stubble at Tai's jaw scratches at her smooth cheeks, their noses bumping when she switches sides. Tai protests, "Hey - knock it off!"
Kari laughs, "It feels funny."
-x-
Tai doesn't rise early by any means, but he wakes up well enough on his own without needing an alarm of some kind, shrieking and beeping and jolting him out of his well-deserved rest. He hates alarm clocks. And his has taken quite a beating over the years because of this. Most of the time, he doesn't even bother setting it, but that's fine.
He has a pretty good internal clock.
Somedays, though - well, it just decides not to work, too.
On one of those rare mornings, Kari is awake well before he is. At some point, Tai becomes aware of his sister moving around the room in the half-dark, getting dressed and gathering up her things for school, her voice soft as she talks with Gatomon; when she cuts on the overhead light, the upper bunk casts his bed in shadow so he doesn't have to flinch away underneath the blanket. Tai dozes, face-down in the pillow, until the bed creaks and dips, the blankets shifting as someone climbs in.
Kari lays herself out on his back like a cat trying to sun, her legs stretched out along his on either side of his hips, her narrow elbows tucked in between his shoulder blades as she cranes to one side, trying to see his face over his shoulder. Her hands slide around his neck, cupping his face, and Tai grunts at the intrusion.
It turns into a long groan of disapproval when Kari vigorously rubs his cheeks, smooth fingers scratching at the stubble lining his jaw.
"Are you going to get up and shave this morning?" she asks, laughter in her quiet, teasing tone, "You look like a deer with his antlers half-shed."
Kari kicks her feet lightly, bumps her socked toes against the backs of his calves; the rocking motion, the smell of her vanilla body spray as it slowly wafts over him, only makes him want to go back to sleep. Tai moans drowsily, turning his face further into the pillow and trying to shrug off the persistent hands petting his face. They move into his hair, instead, combing it up away from his neck and worsening his already outrageous bedhead. Tai breathes out a sigh into the pillow, his voice rough and tired, "Time is it?"
"7:30," she says promptly, smiling and leaning her weight to one side. Her hands are still in his hair, rubbing his scalp, and that's not helping. "If you get up now you'll still have time to eat something before we go~"
Tai hums in response to this, but he can't get motivated.
He's still numb and warm and comfortable and he doesn't want to move.
Kari moves for him; she has tried easing him out of sleep, so now, apparently, it's time for action. Sitting up, she bounces on his back, once, hard enough to push a disgruntled noise out of him - but also high enough to whack her head against the underside of the bed above. Tai hears the crack, the murmured, "Ouch..!" as Kari lifts her hands to touch the back of her head. Her legs squeeze his sides. Tai huffs a low laugh into the pillow, his body shaking with amusement.
Kari ignores him, trying to preserve her sense of dignity.
"Come on, sleepy head!" she says, raising her voice and drumming her hands against his back and shoulders, "You're going to regret it if you don't get up!"
Tai's attempts to throw her off are halfhearted at best.
His sister is wide awake and agile, letting him roll and kick and flop his arms uselessly without once losing her position. She wallows, smacks, and pulls at him until he has no choice but to get up. It's a small blessing there's no shrill whistle in his ear.
Tai lifts his face out of the pillow, "Alright! Jeez!"
He shoves himself up onto his hands and knees and Kari topples to the mattress as he finally off-balances her, her legs still thrown over his back, hair tousled from the fall. Tai pins her down effortlessly with his elbow, grinning as he bears his pillow down over her face in an attempt to smother the sound when Kari shrieks with laughter, kicking her feet.
"I'm awake, now," he says, "Are you happy!"
But Kari knows better than to leave him in the bed, even if he is moving around; she plants her feet firmly in his stomach and shoves him back. Caught off guard, Tai takes the blankets and pillow with him as he flops over the edge and into the floor, landing in a tangled, disoriented heap with one leg still on the bed. If he mumbles "Fuck...! Kari!" under his breath, trying to right himself with little success, Kari pretends not to hear such profanities.
Taking a wide step over him, Kari leaves the bed with a grace her brother does not possess. She combs her hair back into place as she moves toward the door and smiles beguilingly over her shoulder, "Now I'm happy~ Come on!"
Tai pulls his pillow back over his face and groans.
-x-
-BobTAC