Hellooo everybody!! SORRY SORRY SORRY for the very long wait! I've been beat from everything, having finished my hitsukarin fic, as well as being steamrolled over by all the work for my first book, which is coming out this year! _ Anyway, here's your long-awaited chapter!! Please enjoy and review!
"I'm okay, really! We can be best friends, Sora! Just like always! Just forget about anything I ever said, okay?"
"Sora? What's wrong?" Catherine asked.
"Huh?" The red-haired girl looked at her blonde friend for a moment, blinking. "Oh, no. I'm fine,"
Sora looked up ahead at the brown-haired boy talking and joking around with his friends down the corridor.
Tai…
Chapter 9: Just Be Friends
"Tai! How's it going, mate?"
Tai felt one of his soccer buddies thump him on the arm and winced. "You didn't have to hit me so hard, dude!"
"Pshh! It takes a lot more than that to hurt our star soccer player, you know!"
Tai laughed as another teammate came and slung an arm energetically around his neck. "We've got soccer practice after school today, Captain! No being late again, you hear?"
"Yeah! You've been late to the last two training sessions! What's with that?"
Tai smiled, but inside he felt hollow. Oh yeah… that's right. Both those times I had been chasing after Sora. His eyes darkened as he thought back to what had happened the other day. Of course, Sora could only ever think of me as a friend.
I guess… that's the way it'll always be, huh? He thought to himself and chuckled cynically.
---
"…What the heck is that girl's problem??" Matt snarled.
"What?" Tai asked, somewhat absently.
"Tachikawa!" Matt exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. "She won't speak to me! It's been a whole day!! She keeps ignoring me!"
Knowing you, I'm not surprised. "Why do you even care?" Tai asked innocently. "I thought you couldn't stand Mimi."
This only irritated Matt even more. "Exactly! So who does she think she is, not speaking to me like this!"
"You must've done something worse than usual to piss her off so much," Tai said. "What did you do?"
Matt grumbled and sunk down lower into his seat, resting his chin stubbornly on the desk and thought back on how he had interrupted Mimi and Shin's near kiss. His face flushed and he looked away. "Nothing."
The two friends looked up at the front of the classroom, where Mimi had pointedly not turned around the whole lesson, not even to glare at Matt. Beside her was Shin, smiling charmingly and making pleasant conversation with her as usual.
Tai watched the eraser bounce off Mimi's chair and land on the floor next to the rest of the contents of Matt's pencil case.
"…Somehow I don't think throwing things at her is going to help, Matt."
---
"Sora?"
"Yeah? What's up, Catherine?" She looked critically over at her friend, who was sitting beside her.
Catherine looked down at her desk, with a frown on her desk. She kept turning the pencil in her hand over and over again. Then, she lifted her head and looked over at a desk near the back of the room.
Sitting at the desk was a blonde boy with a furious scowl and a pencil case that was practically empty. Next to him with a doubtful look on his face was a brown-haired soccer player.
Sora didn't have to follow Catherine's gaze very far to know where she was looking. Catherine looked wistful, her face slightly pink, before she lowered her gaze away again.
Sora was silent. Then she smiled knowingly. "Oh."
She snuck a glance at Tai herself, feeling her heart sink, thinking of what had happened between them.
She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together.
---
Mimi was leaving her Maths class when she felt someone tap her on the shoulder.
"…eh? Shin?" Her face turned pink.
He smiled a little. "Uh, I'm in a hurry, I've got to catch a bus, but before I go, I've just got to ask…"
"Yeah?"
"Um… about yesterday…" he shyly ran a hand through his hair.
Mimi flushed bright red, embarrassed. "Yeah?"
They both stood there, at the side of the corridor, watching the rest of the students swarm past them. Both of their faces were bright red remembering the embarrassing interruption yesterday.
"I was going to ask if you wanted to do something with me this Friday." Shin said with a small smile.
Mimi blushed. "This Friday?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "We could go see a movie or something… y'know… like…"
"…a date?" Mimi whispered.
He nodded solemnly again.
Mimi brightened and smiled an adorable smile. "Um, yeah! I would love to-"
"Sorry. She's busy." A new voice cut into the conversation.
"…what?" Shin frowned.
Mimi turned around and immediately her hackles went up. "MATT!!"
"You heard me," Matt said, ignoring Mimi, "I said she's busy on Friday."
"Wait, Matt!! You-"
"Then how about Saturday?" Shin attempted.
"No can do, man. Saturday's taken too."
"MATT! YOU LISTEN TO ME, I-"
"Anyway, since Mimi's so busy, I guess it's just too bad!" Matt said with a sympathetic sigh and a shrug. Then turning around before Shin could utter a reply, he grabbed Mimi's wrist and pulled her away.
Mimi was furious. "MATT! Let go of me!! What the hell was that for? I HATE YOU!!" She spat out.
"Shut up," Matt growled through gritted teeth. Shin was still nearby and listening to Mimi scream.
"Oi." Shin was calling out to the two of them from down the corridor. The hallway was slowly clearing up. "Ishida, what are you up to?"
Mimi started to agree with Shin and retort that Matt was a horrible selfish liar, but Matt clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Nothing," he said nonchalantly. "…didn't you have a bus to catch?"
---
This isn't so bad! Tai thought to himself through gritted teeth. This isn't too hard at all!
Tai snuck a look at the red-haired girl walking beside him without a care in the world and felt his heart ache. …not.
This is all my fault!! Tai sighed silently. I never should've said anything! What was I thinking?
It had yesterday when he'd admitted his feelings to her and was rejected. The worst thing was, what that hurt the most was that Sora was so sorry about it. It had cut him, watching how sorry she was, so concerned about him, about hurting him. Because it meant that she had only seen him as a best friend.
He'd told her to forget about it, forget that he'd ever said anything, and looking at her now it seemed like she had. She had no problem pretending that it had never happened; the one that couldn't forget it was himself.
AHH! CRAP!! Tai screamed to himself in his head. Why did I have to go and do that for, for crying out loud! I didn't have to tell her how I felt! What was I thinking? If I hadn't opened my big mouth then everything would be okay right now, it wouldn't… it wouldn't be like this!!
"Hey… Tai?" Sora spoke up suddenly.
Tai almost fell over. His whole face went bright red and he tried to shake himself out of it, gritting his teeth. "Y-yeah? What is it?" It was as though his voice was too loud.
She looked at him for moment, red eyes searching. Then her voice lowered as she murmured, "I'm sorry, Tai."
He felt his heart ache a little. "N-no!" he cried. "I told you, it's okay! It doesn't matter, just forget about it! Seriously, I told you before…"
Sora looked up at him seriously.
He felt his heart beating out of his chest. He couldn't meet her gaze; he looked away and said, quickly, strongly, lied: "It'll be okay."
And he smiled at her, harder than he ever had before.
Sora blinked.
Smiling, he tightened his grip on the schoolbag slung over his shoulder and started to walk ahead of her. "C'mon, Sora! You wanna go to the arcade before I walk you home?"
She looked wide-eyed at him for a moment; before her face broke out into the delightful smile he loved the most. "Okay!!"
---
"OW!!" Matt swore as he ripped his hand away from Mimi's mouth, looking down in horror at the bite marks.
Mimi was positively quivering in ager and crossing her arms angrily across her chest started to stomp off away from him.
"What the heck was that for??" Matt shouted.
"What do you think??" Mimi snapped. "I hate you! You dickhead!"
Matt glowered at her for a moment, before looking down at his aching hand and then snickering to himself.
"Hey, Mimi!" He called out as he hurried to catch up to her.
"What do you want now??" She hissed, marching off with a flick of her long pink hair.
He couldn't help himself; a wicked grin appeared on his face. There was nothing he enjoyed more than bugging her, pissing her off, and generally being a jerk. "You doing anything on Friday? How about this weekend?"
Mimi stiffened and slowed down for a moment. She looked angry at first and then for a second, her face fell and looked genuinely upset. "…nothing anymore. Thanks to you."
Matt suddenly felt a little off balance watching her disappointed face. Quickly snapping himself out of it, he grinned mischievously again.
"What?" Mimi looked at him suspiciously.
"In that case, since I suppose it was partly my fault, I'll take you out somewhere."
"What?" Mimi looked like she'd swallowed something bad.
"You heard me," Matt said quickly, shrugging and shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'll take you out on Friday."
---
"Tai! Tai!"
Tai turned around to see his best friend running up to him, in her hands two ice cream cones. He grinned back at her and Sora held out his favourite flavor to him.
I can do this, he thought uneasily to himself as he took the ice cream from Sora and then watched her grin carefreely up at him.
I'm such a moron… and I'm totally screwed… but…
He felt like he was holding his breath when he was with her, because he had to be careful now. He had to hold back, stop himself from wanting to hug her, from wanting to hold her every time she smiled at him. But he didn't mind… not really...
He was such a liar. He told her he didn't mind. That nothing mattered anymore, it'd be all right, they'd always just be best friends, nothing would change. But it was too late. Inside, he kept hurting but he'd grit his teeth and bear it.
"Tai?" Sora was saying, cheerful- without a care, so unlike him right now.
"Yeah?" He looked down at her.
It had been okay. It wasn't so hard to forget for a moment, just hang out at the video game arcade like they always used to do. We're best friends. He thought to himself, over and over again. We're best friends; we'll always be best friends and nothing else.
Sora was quiet for a moment, her red eyes distant. For a moment, it looked as though she, too, was in pain.
And then she looked up and smiled at him. "Tai, would you… do a favor for me?"
And he smiled at her the way he always did, ignoring his own pain, because she was his best friend. "Yeah?"
'cause after all it was better to be hurting beside her than not be with her at all.
End of chapter 9! Once again, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!! I know this chapter is LATE LATE LATE!! *assumes dogeza position and bows repeatedly*. I know this chapter was kinda filler with so much Mimato, but I'm setting the stage for Sora to take over. Yup, you heard right! This is the last time you'll hear from Tai personally in this fic! I guess you can say we're halfway through- Sora's side of the story is starting next chapter!! Sorry again for the loooonnngg wait! Please review and tune in next time! ^_^ emichii
