Kamia Residence

Wednesday, May 7th

18:00

He regretted choosing to sit next to the window, finding himself nodding off. The warm rays that spilled into the room proved to be problematic for T.K. as he tried his best to study. The fatigue from soccer practice had begun to take over.

"T.K!"

T.K. jerked awake at the sound of Kari's voice. She shook her head at him, "Did you even hear anything I said?"

He smiled warily, "Uhhhh, yes? 'Yes' is the answer you're looking for right?"

She tried her best to hide a smile and threw a wadded up ball of paper at him, "You dork. How are you supposed to listen to my essay and critique it for our test tomorrow if you keep falling asleep?"

He stretched his arms upward. Through his yawn he said, "I'm sooorrryyy, practice just has me beat."

Kari found herself unabashedly staring as he stretched, watching every muscle in his arms and chest as they tensed beneath his tight t-shirt. His abs peeked out slightly from the bottom hem. She fidgeted in her seat. His thin frame had begun to bulk over the past year. She found herself visually drawn to his shape and movement more and more. He brought out a rather strange feeling from inside her; a feeling much different from when they were younger.

Kari turned back towards her desk she was sitting at, trying to compose herself. Clearing her throat, she attempted to speak, "Uhh, um, yeah, well we can't get good scores from sleeping."

T.K. watched her as she readjusted the barrette in her hair. It was grown out a little more now, resting just past the tops of her shoulders. As she was growing up and T.K. began to notice the little things about her; like the way she did her hair and makeup and how her clothes began to cling a little more at the growing curves of her body. He found her nothing short of beautiful.

T.K. rolled himself in the wheeled chair he was sitting on towards her. He scooted next to her, placing his left arm on the back of her chair and leaning into her to get a better look at the paper in front of her. Her body tingled at his warmth.

"Here, let me see." He said, "If I read it myself I'll probably stay awake better-."

He suddenly caught himself off-guard as he was unaware of how close he had placed himself to her. She smelled like vanilla. Her sweet perfume danced in his nose as he felt his temperature rise. She looked so lovely. He found himself overcome with a clutching feeling of excitement, a feeling that he had not been able to shake every time he was close to her; a feeling that had bombarded him ever since the night that she had kissed him.

He backed away slightly and with shaky words asked her, "Um, Kari? Uh...can I- can I ask you something?"

She responded with a high-pitched "Hummm?" as she barely looked away from her paper.

T.K. felt as though his throat were swelling shut, "Umm. So we uh...we never really talked about...that kiss."

Kari's heart skipped a beat at his last word. He tried her best to play dumb, "W-what kiss?"

In all honesty, she had hoped that he would have forgotten about it. She had been proud of herself for taking Gatomon's advice, but she still worried that she may have made a mistake. The kiss, though very small, was enough to create a whirlwind of emotion that she was not able to organize. She feared that she had created an irreparable rift in their friendship by acting on impulse.

Both of the teens were unaware that Patamon and Gatomon were eavesdropping on them from the living room. They strained their ears to hear what they could of the conversation that traveled through the crack of Kari's ajar bedroom door.

"The kiss," T.K. continued. "You know..from when you were fixing me up? After that fight?"

He hadn't stopped thinking about it since that night. He was unable to shake the memory of the feel of her lips upon hers. It was something that he had thought about long before; what it would be like to kiss her, to touch her. But he had been so unprepared by her action that he was unable to fully appreciate it, or understand what it meant. He was driving himself crazy trying to decode it, he needed to finally have it addressed.

"Oh….yeah…." Kari trailed off.

T.K. waited for a moment then tried to probe for a better response, "...yeah...and?"

Kari struggled with her words, "A-and, and what? It was...nothing...no...no meaning behind it or anything." She let out a nervous chuckle.

T.K. made a playful face at her, "You know I can tell when you're lying, right?"

"What? How?"

"You do that cute nervous laugh thing when you're trying to blow something off."

Kari found herself blushing, this wasn't a matter that she wanted to discuss at the moment. However, she knew that T.K. would not let it go that easy.

"T.K. look," she found it hard to maintain eye contact with him as she spoke. She took a deep breath. "I...I do like you. We've been through so much together, in the Real World and the Digital World. You've been my best friend for years. You know me better than anyone else and..you do so much for me. I guess..I guess I just kissed you out of...overwhelming gratitude maybe? I...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it, now I've made everything confusing."

"Yeah, well…" T.K. began, "I mean, I don't think it's that confusing...you know that I like you...don't you?

"Yeah…" she said quietly. "That's a kind of obvious." She emitted a tiny laugh, "I've never heard of anyone buying a girl a diamond necklace 'just because'."

"Well, then, so, did you like it..when you did it?...The kiss?"

She smiled shyly, "Yeah."

"Well, I liked it too."

"I...I don't know. I don't think we should make such big decisions on such a small event you know?"

T.K. chuckled and shook his head, "You're a pain in the butt you know that?"

Kari laughed, "Besides that...that wasn't even a real kiss."

"It wasn't?"

"N-no it was like, three seconds long. A real kiss has to be like...ten seconds long at least I feel."

And before she knew it, T.K. had brought his face remarkably closer to her's. Her breath trembled at his closeness. As she instinctively wet her lips, she found herself unable to speak.

He spoke softly to her, "Then how about we take a chance with a real one?"

It was soft and sweet, just like she had daydreamed that it would be. He tasted like sugar. She found herself overflowing with a deep feeling of relief and safeness. She was discovering what and who her body had been craving for a long time.

T.K. felt like his skin was on fire. He had thought about this moment so many times before that to actually experience it was...invigorating. Her lips were so soft. He wished that he could slow down time to capture the moment for even longer. He lifted his right hand up to her cheek. He wanted nothing more than to hold her forever. T.K. could feel her body relax as she wrapped her arms around him and up his back.

He deepened the kiss and turned their soft motions into harder, more passionate ones. He found an itching feeling of need surfacing. He began to periodically place his tongue in her mouth, and she would match his actions in return. Never stopping, never breaking away, if only for a quick moment to catch their breath. He placed his left hand on her waist and placed his right hand behind her head to deepen their kisses even further. She held him tighter in response. He felt himself become unintentionally aroused as she let out a small moan. His soon followed. Kari felt a tingling, foreign feeling of desire crawl from her chest all the way down to her groin.

"T.K.!" she shouted, nearly winded, as she pushed him off of her.

He struggled to catch his breath, "I'm-I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean too...was it too much?"

She looked at him with wary eyes, "I think you should leave."

"What?" was the only response he could exhale out. He hoped that he hadn't made her feel uncomfortable.

"I can't do this to us T.K."

"Kari…..but," he wanted so badly for her to understand.

"T.K. you mean more to me than anything. Anything in this world. In both worlds. And I can't...I wouldn't be able to live with myself if- if this happened and.. what if it didn't work out? If it ended up tearing apart our friendship? How do we know? How do we know if it would work out?"

"I mean. You never know." he rubbed the back of his head. "You never really know if anything will work out in the end. But...but maybe the ride there to find out is worth it, you know?"

Kari turned away from him, addressing the paper on her desk as if their conversation, their kiss, had never happened,"I think...we should keep this ride right where it is."

"Kari…." his response almost came out in a whine. It was so difficult for him to explain his feelings for her. He craved to hold her, to kiss her, to tell her every wonderful aspect that she had brought to his life. But there was no point in conveying his affections any longer if she did not feel it right to reciprocate. "You're right. I should go." He gathered his belongings and started to leave the room. "I was an idiot for even saying anything."

"T.K. don't be like that." Kari said to him sadly. She could see how much she had hurt him. But his pain now, she felt, would hurt far less than his pursuit and involvement with something, with her, in a relationship that could very well decay.

"Come on Patamon, let's go," he commanded to his partner. Patamon jumped into his gym bag. T.K. opened the front door.

"T.K!" Kari shouted after him as she charged into the living room. She did not want him to leave her feeling this way.

He glanced back at her slightly, "Good luck on your test."

Kari jumped as he shut the door roughly behind him. The sound left her with an awful feeling in her gut. She felt like she was going to vomit. He had no idea how badly she wanted them to be together too. But it was just a step that she was not brave enough to take; a step into the unknown that she was too fearful of. She looked over to find Gatomon with her arms crossed, giving her a disappointed smirk.

"You were being a pussy, weren't ya?" Gatomon asked.

Kari exhaled audibly, "Yes Gatomon. I, Hikari Kamiya….am a gigantic coward."