Disclaimer: Digimon is Toei's.
Author's Note: This just popped up in my head. It's a little one-shot ficlet in Taichi's POV to In the Eyes of Perfection, years back, before everyone changed so much. I can't write angst very well, but I suppose this is more an attempt at angst than general.
MY BEST FRIEND
By Ascendo Tuum
She's my best friend. Best friend—the words sound slick and heavy like thick cake icing on my tongue. So artificial.
I watch her as she runs around the field with her friends, her body coated in a thin sheen of sweat. She's playing soccer with her teammates, like she does every day after school. She doesn't know I come to her practices. She probably wouldn't want me to, say I'm wasting my time, and should be studying or something else.
But I'm not. The time I spend watching her, it's almost like time spent with her. I think I might love her. I can't be sure though. We're best friends; we love each other in that way. Maybe I'm confused about the way I love her. Do I love her like a best friend, like she's a sister to me, or do I love her in that great passionate way, like she's my true love?
I sigh and shake my head. Were someone to hear my thoughts, they'd probably deem me a fool, thinking silly things. True love. Where did that come from? That's something Mimi believes in, Mimi with her fairy tales and her picture-perfect life.
I'm straying. I should be watching her, the way I always do, hidden behind the endless stretch of dirty bleachers. I'm ashamed to have her discover my presence. I don't want her to see me. In a way I feel like I'm spying on her, invading her privacy, as I watch her from the corner of my eye.
There is a sudden roar and quickly, I raise my head. She's slapping high fives with several nearby girls, and I'm judging from the wide grin on her face that she's just scored a goal. Good for her, she practices so hard.
I smile, I'm so proud, like she's my daughter and she just took her first steps. That's my girl. She's so talented. Wait, no not like that. I'm proud of her like... a big brother, or even a father. Yes. No, that's wrong too. I love her, with all my heart, with all my everything.
My mind mocks me, taunts me. Careless thoughts are thrown at me.
"She doesn't love you. You're just a good friend. You're like a brother to her. That's all."
"No," I say firmly, "no. She's more than that. She's better than that. She's—"
The shrill shriek of a whistle pierces the air, and the coach waves back her girls. Practice is over. I look at my watch. Half past six. They've been on the field for nearly two hours and a half, first doing warm-ups and drills, before advancing onto an intense game.
She walks over to the cooler, pulls out a bottle of water and hands it to a waiting friend. She takes out another one—it's the last one—and is about to open it when she sees another girl jogging over, looking faint, looking desperate for some water. I watch her. I know what she's going to do; she's going to give that girl the water instead.
I'm right. I know her. She's so giving and kind-hearted. She's always thinking about her friends, always putting their needs before hers. So compassionate.
She makes me smile. I love her. I know I love her, and to convince myself I say it softly.
"I love you. I love you Sora Takenouchi."
The words leave my lips like little birds learning to fly for the first time. Hesitant, but full of meaning.
A hand goes up to grip the chain-link fence, and I am half standing, half being supported by the metal barrier that separates me from her. What hurts me is that she will never reciprocate my feelings. She will never say "I love you" back, or come running to me, a sweaty heaving mess, screaming that she's won the game.
Suddenly, a sleek dark blue sports car comes to a screeching halt near one of the field's exits. The driver's door opens, and out steps a blonde-haired man.
I purse my lips and sigh again. I can't hate him, he's my best friend. Deep inside me though, I know we will always be rivals first, and friends second. Envy, I give into that quality so easily. Our friendship was always so uneasy, always wrought with the tension that one of us was better than the other in something and this unbalance was unacceptable.
Yamato is an enigma to me. He was always distant, and although I would never doubt his good intentions, sometimes I wonder how she could see love in him.
She turns her head, her beautiful brown hair like a halo around her head, and notices him. Going off into a sprint, she runs towards him and envelopes him in a hug. She's smiling so hard, her eyes are so bright—she kisses him. They share a quick kiss before parting and then she looks shyly into his eyes.
I am hurt. I am jealous, I admit it. I want to be in his position; I want to be the one standing there, be the object of her adoring gaze. I want to be her boyfriend.
It hurts that she'll always just think of me as "Taichi, my best friend." Her eyes twinkle still when she looks at me, but not in the same way that they do for Yamato. Fleetingly I wonder about Mimi. Doesn't Sora know that Mimi and Yamato are a couple? Or at least were, before Mimi moved to America? Why is she with her best friend's boyfriend?
The thoughts tumble out of my head as easily as they entered, and I sigh sadly.
My best friend... my best friend. The words are sharp like daggers, and they're piercing my heart. I shouldn't be envious. Yamato's not a bad person. They're good for each other. As much as I hate to admit it, they're good for each other. I guess there is truth in the saying that opposites attract. It hurts me though, to accept that idiom.
I choke back a sob. I am Taichi Yagami, I can't cry. Not over her. She's not worth it. She doesn't know how I feel, probably never will. All she probably sees in me is a guy with a goofy sense of humor, a guy she can play soccer with. But I want to be more.
I want to be the man she can rely on when she's down, the man she can hug when she's feeling upset, the man she can trust to know her deepest secrets, her darkest fears, the man who can comfort and love her the way she should be loved. I want to be the man that she sees in Yamato.
I look away. The tears are brimming and burning my closed eyes but I refuse to be weak. I will not cry. This is unchangeable. I have to accept this. I refuse to give into the temptations of deceit and malicious plots to get her attention and take her away from him. I'm above that, beyond that. I'm her best friend. I can't be selfish. It's not right.
Oh Sora. You're not my best friend. You're my one and only love. But all you see me as, is just a best friend.