Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. Toei Animation does.
A/N: You don't have to read Repercussions to understand this. You can enjoy this by itself, but that fic adds context to this one.
Ch. 1 On Your Mark
For all the confidence and bravado she had witnessed Tai engaging in countless times, Mimi couldn't quite believe that this was the area that her friend lacked finesse in. It would be one thing if he was just really bad at it. But the worst of it was this: Tai really had no freaking idea when someone was flirting with him.
The first time she saw it happen, it had been in the afternoon and Mimi had been leaving school after her club activities were over. She had been passing by the soccer field and saw Tai sitting on one of the benches, uniform drenched in sweat that grew only damper as he poured a bottle of water upside his head. She had lifted a hand in a wave, about to call out his name in greeting when she spotted three girls huddled near the fence, wearing the green sailor middle school uniforms instead of Odaiba High's blue blazers. Two of the girls were pushing the other forward giggling as she flushed red but walked on determined yet shaky legs onto the sandy practice lot over to where Tai sat, her hands conspicuously clutching a shiny pink bag tied off with a yellow ribbon.
Mimi had clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her shriek of elation. Tai was about to be confessed to and she was here to witness it! She found herself extremely thankful her family had moved back to Japan for her high school years. America was great, but asking someone out there was usually left to the boys. Now here she was with a front row seat to see her friend be asked out and what his reaction would be.
She was too far away to hear their conversation but Tai had seemed welcoming enough to the girl, smiling as if he recognized her and waving to her friends behind her who had began to titter loudly between themselves and clung to the fence's wiring like two startled, overly-excited birds.
The girl had held out the pink bag, head lowered in a slight bow, and Mimi knew from watching countless tv dramas and reading numerous shoujo manga that this was where the love confession would be blurted out.
Tai had grabbed the bag from the girl's hands before she could open her mouth, face lighting up as he peered inside, then had reached out and tugged on one of the girl's pigtails in a playful fashion before bolting off the bench and over to the where the rest of his teammates were doing wind-down stretches on the field.
Mimi had gaped wide-eyed, along with the girl and her two friends as Tai shared the bag of cookies with the entire soccer team who devoured them in the space of less than a minute. She had asked him about the incident later on their walk home together, her curiosity over what the girl had said to him to cause Tai to act the way he had. Maybe she had just mistaken the whole love confession for something else.
Tai had shrugged, not seeming to think too hard about it. "She's one of Kari's friends. She comes to the games sometimes. It was really nice of her to bring the team some after-practice treats. Kari usually does that. She must know she's not feeling well today."
"So, she wasn't… confessing to you?" Mimi pressed.
Tai had thrown his head back and laughed. "Why would one of Kari's friends be interested in an old geezer like me?"
Well, there was a three years difference there and Mimi supposed that Tai might have been embarrassed someone that young had feelings for him. She thought maybe there had been a chance he had let the girl down in such a casual manner to spare her any hurt from a rejection and now was denying the whole thing out of awkwardness.
Oh, how wrong she had been.
oOo
The next person to witness Tai's Spectacular Ability To Not Get A Hint was Sora whose shoe locker happened to be situated directly across from his own so she had a personal front row seat to watch it all unfold.
"Oi, Kamiya-san," called a voice and then a girl was stepping up beside her friend and leaning way too far into his personal space.
She must have been a third year because Sora didn't recognize her from either classes of their grade. She had dark hair pulled back into a tight bun and the longest, slimmest legs imaginable. She towered over Tai by like three inches easily and the fact that her head bypassed Tai's wild hair was saying something.
Tai blinked up at her for a second looking confused for a second before smiling at her. "Hello," he said polite as ever. "Don't think I know you."
"You don't," the girl said not seeming awkward at all by this fact. "Name's Taka. Listen, me and some of my classmates are going to do karaoke over the weekend. You wanna join us?"
Sora had to admire Taka for her tenacity. She didn't beat around the bush. She just straight up went for the direct approach and though her manner was a bit brusque, maybe that was for the best considering Tai wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier at understanding male-female courting rituals. He was always whining to her about how complicated drama shows were with their love scenes and dialogue. Surely on this level, he could realize the reason why a random stranger would ask him out for karaoke.
"Oh, you wouldn't want me there," Tai brushed her off with a wave of his hand. "I've been told my singing voice sounds like a dying cat yowling for someone to shoot it and please put it out of its misery."
Ok, nope, still as dense as ever, Sora thought, suppressing a snort because he had recited word for word exactly how Matt had described his singing to her (followed by a ten minute rant of how Tai was never allowed to touch his guitar again).
Taka glanced in her direction and raised an eyebrow. "It's karaoke, Kamiya-san, not a spot on the Voice. No one is gonna care how bad anyone sounds. That's part of the fun. Look, why don't you bring a friend along. Takenouchi-san, right?"
Sora stiffened at the sound of her own name.
Taka threw a smile her way though it looked more strained and fake than it had with Tai. "You can come too."
"She can't, she's busy," Tai butted in before Sora could speak. The easy-going smile had fallen off his face and now his tone sounded almost defensive. "I'm busy too. So we can't come."
"There's no soccer or tennis practice this weekend," Taka said, her eyes flashing in slight annoyance.
"And we both have other things we enjoy doing outside this school," Tai said closing his locker door with more force than usual. He threw his duffel bag over shoulder before turning to walk away. "Have fun with your karaoke."
Sora rushed after him only glancing behind her once but Taka only had shrugged, twirled on her slender ballerina legs and left like the rejection hadn't affected her at all.
"What was that all about?" Sora asked Tai as he fiddled with the combination to the lock on his bike. His hands were shaking and his forehead was pinched in an almost angry expression. "You do realize she was asking you out, don't you?"
"No," Tai huffed, setting her straight. "She was asking Matt out."
Now Sora was the one confused. "What?"
"This isn't the first time it's happened. It's not always girls either. Sometimes guys want tickets to Matt's concerts for their dates. They figure the closest way to getting a free VIP pass is befriending me. I get a lot of invites to places I'm not interested in so they can try and use that as leverage for me wheedling on Matt to give them special treatment."
Tai swung his legs over the bike and gripped the handlebars tightly. "This girl we've never met before comes up and knows both our names and our club activities and invites us to karaoke? I'm surprised she didn't ask you to invite Matt along as well right there, but she's more subtle about it than the other ones. You gotta be more aware of gimmicks like these in the future, Sora." Tai gave her warning stare before he pedaled off, waving goodbye as he did.
Sora thought back on the whole encounter on her way home, wondering if Tai was right and she had misread all the signs. She supposed he might have been correct and it made her sad to think he had previous false friendships stomped out due to the same thing and angry that people were shallow and insensitive enough to take advantage of Tai like that.
So perhaps Tai took every true attempt of someone who actually was flirting with him the wrong way. Maybe it wasn't his fault that he couldn't tell the honest ones out of all the lies.
oOo
My brother is an idiot, Kari thought as she sipped on her passion fruit bubble tea and watched the cashier shamelessly write her name and number on the plastic siding of her brother's green tea frappe before handing it to him with a wink.
"Are you going to call her?" she asked as they walked along the sidewalk enjoying their beverages in the warm summer heat.
"Call who?" Tai asked taking one giant gulp too many before clutching his head and grimacing. "Aaaah, brainfreeze!"
"Kimi-chan, I guess," Kari said peering closely at the scribbled kanji. "She seemed nice. Is she your type?"
"My what?" Tai coughed, eyes watering from the chill slush of his drink. "Kari what are you talking about?"
Kari sighed and set her tea down on a bench before reaching out and cupping her brother's face between the palms of her hands. "Onii-chan," she said very seriously. "Kimi-chan from the café, the cashier with the curly blonde hair with pink highlights, the one who gives us twenty percent off from her own employee discount code every time we go there, the one who giggles at all your dumb jokes you tell her while she's making our drinks, the one who scribbled little x's and o's beside her name," she pointed at his cup. "Do you think she's cute? Are you going to call her back one day ever?"
Tai pressed his lips together in a pout, his face squished between his sister's hands resembling the very picture of an idiot sandwich. "You mean the tic-tac-toe game we have going on between us?"
It was Kari's turn to receive brain-freeze (metaphorically speaking). "What?"
Tai rolled his eyes and pulled his face away. "Our tic-tac-toe game," he said issuing to the x's and o's that coincidentally numbered three and were lined up diagonally. "You know how I take back the plastic cup every time we return, right?"
"Because you want to be a good citizen and recycle," Kari said feeling like she was having an out of body experience.
"I fill out the next line of x's and o's and then Kimi draws in the last three slots. So far, I'm winning," Tai grinned. "She says if I win again next time she'll give me a sprinkle donut on the house. She is nice, now that you mention it."
"Nice enough to call her number?" Kari asked mentally scratching out that her brother was alone in his idiocy. So was Kimi if she had decided to play along in this foolish charade.
Tai frowned at her confused. "Why would I call the café's number? Too much sweet stuff is bad for you."
Kari wondered how her poor brother had ended up without a shred of social awareness. She would have blamed all the monster fighting they had done when they were younger, but even she took notice when T.K. preened and strutted around her, even if she never acted in response to it.
Maybe too many soccer balls to the back of his head or too much time in the sun had fried his brain and blocked all the pathways receptive identifying courting rituals. Maybe her brother was doomed to live out his days alone.
oOo
The general unspoken consensus among the female digidestined was that Tai was brave, kind-hearted, enjoyed teasing his sister and the younger kids, loyal to his friends, initially wary of anyone unknown intruding into their established friends' group but quick to warm up to them once he saw their character was genuine.
He just appeared utterly clueless when romantic overtures were cast in his direction. It was like stirring oil with water. It did not mix together.
But then Meiko transferred to their school that fateful year and Mimi realized Tai was not the only one lost in the dark about the complexities of teenage dalliances.
"She likes him, Sora, I can tell!" Mimi jabbered excitedly to her friend over the phone. "She's always staring at him and she does this adorable little sneeze thing when she's nervous. And she almost always sneezes whenever Tai catches her looking at him! I mean did you see her face when we took that trip to the onsen and caught the boys half-naked. She couldn't keep her eyes off his bare chest!"
"I try and block out the memories of that," Sora said dryly.
Maybe Mimi had thought it utterly thrilling to burst into the men's washroom and serenade them for her and Meiko to sneak past and search for their partners, but Sora had about all died of embarrassment when they had run into the male portion of their team members.
She felt like she had broken some sort of trust code especially how Izzy had shrieked and dived under the hot water at their arrival on the scene. Matt, whom she honestly wouldn't have minded seeing bare-chested for a few seconds longer, had done the smart thing and retreated back into the sauna. Tai had just stood there frozen, eyes screwed shut like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole. She dimly recalled Mimi laughing and dancing around in the background like it was one hell of a lark. She also faintly remembered Meiko reassuring Tai that it was alright, she couldn't see anything because her glasses were fogged… before lifting them up to ogle the boy's chest in front of her.
Then Tai had screamed at them all to get out and they all had made a hasty retreat, slipping and sliding on the wet floor in their wooden geta sandals.
Sometimes she still had nightmares about that incident only she was the one naked in the washroom and men with no faces were all laughing and pointing at her.
"Come on, Sora, lighten up! These are the few years of our lives where we get to do crazy shenanigans like that and for it to be a fond memory later. Meiko enjoyed it even if she won't admit it. Girl was thirsty. Too bad Tai's too dense to ever pick up on her pining over him."
"Are you sure you're not reading too much into things?" Sora asked.
Mimi had a tendency to overreact to a lot of her own made up fantasies.
"You have to pay close attention to the smallest of her actions because she's so shy," Mimi explained. "Did you also not notice on our way to the bus to take us to the onsen, I said she could ask us about anything? Of course, I was talking about Digimon and such, but her eyes zoomed straight towards Tai before she goes 'anything?' like she wanted to know all about him. I'm telling you, Sora, I'm about to pull my own hair out over these two! Any slower and they'd both be walking backwards! We have to get them together!"
"You shouldn't push people before they're ready," Sora said. "This is not the time to play match-maker."
Maybe she could admit Meiko had a tiny crush on Tai, but regardless if she was too shy to act on it or he was too oblivious to notice her feelings, all of them had bigger things to worry about right then.
And when it was all over, the Reboot, Gennai, Ordinemon, Himekawa vanished, Nishijima dead, and Tai and Meiko each hurting in their own way, there had barely been any time left for a goodbye before Meiko returned back home to Tottori.
They had sent her a care package, each one donating their own personal Christmas present. They had met as a group on the boardwalk to call her and wish her season's greetings and check up on her. Even if it had only been for a short while, even if her partner was gone now, she still remained a Digidestined, still was their friend no matter how far apart they were.
Sora had been just as surprised as everyone else when Tai spoke up and requested, no more like demanded, he be the one to call her and talk first.
She hadn't been surprised to hear Mimi stifle a squeal and tug elatedly on her arm.
"Don't say anything stupid," T.K. warned him before typing in Meiko's number that he had apparently memorized by heart.
Matt patted his brother proudly on the back and Kari smothered a laugh into her hand as Tai glared at them briefly before turning his back to everyone and waiting until Meiko picked up.
"Tai, is that you?" Meiko's soft voice floated from the speaker.
"Umm, yeah," Tai said, awkward as ever.
"How have you been?"
"Fine, uh, yeah, everybody's fine," Tai repeated robotically, twisting his head to look at his friends before angling his face away.
"It's been a long time… since we talked. It's good to hear from you," Meiko said sounding sincerely happy.
Sora watched in amazement as two red splotches ignited in Tai's cheeks at her words. Was he… blushing? Tai never blushed, not unless it was out of embarrassment over some fault of his own.
"Good to be heard," Tai said quietly, his eyes taking on an oddly gentle expression in them, as the color in his cheeks burned hotter. "Did the box come?"
"Yes, it got here today. It was so nice of you. I certainly wasn't expecting you guys to each send me a Christmas present. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
The redness had faded from Tai's face but a fond smile was lingering around his lips as a long silence stretched across the line. Tai shifted his weight onto one foot looking like he wanted to say more but was at a loss for words.
"What's with the silence?" Sora asked, not able to take it anymore.
"Get to the point!" Matt scolded him.
"I knew we should have given him notes," Joe could be heard mumbling off to the left.
Okay, so they all noticed that Tai who usually never had a problem running his mouth now resembled a mortified mummy statue with the bonus edition of holding a phone to his ear.
"Shut up," Tai hissed at them all, before starting over. "Listen, Meiko, I know we all went through a lot together," he said, his tone somber now. "I think about it all the time. No matter what…"
Then he irritatingly paused again to gather his thoughts.
"Keep going!" Mimi shrieked, looking like she wanted to reach past Sora and shake him by the collar.
"Shhh!" Sora shushed her, keeping a firm grip on her arm. As tempting as that image was, she wanted to hear what exactly was so difficult for Tai to lose his resolve several times now. Was he going to confess? Over the phone? In front of everyone? She knew he had guts, but she hadn't even realized he might have liked Meiko like that before.
"What I'm trying to say is, no matter what… um…"
Tai had floundered again, but Agumon had jumped in save him: "No matter what, we'll be friends forever!"
Everyone had laughed and then the phone had been passed around to wish Meiko a Merry Christmas and Tai had transformed back into his usual chatty, joking self before the night was over.
It hadn't been her imagination, Sora decided later. Tai had been a different person for a few minutes talking to Meiko by himself. They all had seen it.
But in the end, it didn't matter if Meiko was the one exception to the rule of girls that actually drew Tai's attention. She lived in Tottori and they all lived in Tokyo. There was no chance in taking their long-distance communication past anything besides friendship.
oOo
The following summer of Tai, Matt and Sora's third and final year in high school and Joe's first year of college, T.K. invited everybody down to his and Matt's grandmother's house in the Tottori countryside.
"Grandma's getting old and she likes making food to take to the street-vendors for the tanabata festival coming up," T.K. explained. "I thought we could help her out and make some memories along the way."
"A tanabata festival?!" Mimi had cried, stars twinkling in her eyes and then there was no hope of anyone backing out of the invite after that.
The younger kids were ecstatic and raring to go as well. Missing out on months of your lives being stuck in a comatose state in a cryopod will make you take pleasure in the simple things. T.K. wanted them all to meet Meiko and was pushing for a reunion between everyone else. Not that anyone was complaining about free room and board for a couple of days in a sprawling house in the countryside with a festival waiting for them. Even Joe decided to go without much griping, perhaps to make up for last time and packed some textbooks to study later.
After everyone had settled in, chosen their rooms, decided on sleeping arrangements and the girls were in the kitchen helping their grandmother with dinner, Matt had pulled his brother aside to dig for information.
"T.K., you're not dating Kari, right?"
"Why, do you want to date her? I don't think Sora will approve," T.K. had teased him with that familiar impish grin. "Besides, you'll have to fight Tai for her honor first. I'm not brave enough to face his wrath yet."
Matt didn't chase after the playful banter and placed a hand on his brother's shoulder to show he was serious. "And you're not dating or planning on dating, Meiko?" he asked carefully.
T.K.'s face flattened out into a blank slate. "Are you asking for me or for Tai?"
Matt sighed taking back his hand to rub the back of his neck tiredly. "Look, Tai's my best friend and I still can't figure out how his mind works. All I know is I've never seen him interact with anyone the way he does with Meiko and I don't know what to make of it. Maybe she's just another girl who he can relate with because she had a Digimon partner too but he didn't grow up with her as a friend so that complicates things for him and he's just being weird. Or maybe he does like her and doesn't recognize that emotion and is confusing his feelings for her as an extended pack-bond with the rest of us. Or maybe he does want to ask her out because he is attracted to cute and shy but he's literally blinded himself to every flirting game known to mankind for reasons I do not know and is too thick-skulled to bring himself to do it in a tame manner. Either way, he's gonna make a mess out of things whatever he does and I don't want you involved, so if you're planning to confess to Meiko, do it before the festival because I'm pretty sure that's when he's going to make a move."
T.K. stared at him in awe. "Wow, Sora is right. You do over-think things too hard."
"T.K.!"
"No, I don't like Meiko in that way even if she is cute," T.K. admitted throwing up his hands. "You're first in my heart before anyone else, remember?""
Matt cuffed him lightly across the head looking relieved. "Good. She's too old for you anyway. She'll be going off to college in a year and you'll be starting high school. It wouldn't work out."
T.K. cocked his head to the side and studied his brother's face closely before smiling. "You just want Tai to be happy and you think Meiko makes him all warm and mellow inside."
Matt didn't refute his claim, glancing to the courtyard outside where Tai was yanking weeds out from where they sprouted between the ground and rock steps. He lifted one hand to wipe the sweat from his brow, and then paused to stare out into space with an oddly vacant expression imprinted across his face. Matt couldn't remember the last time Tai had ever undertaken chores of any nature with good-hearted hard work and a sober attitude.
When they were kids at summer camp, before their whole Digital Adventure, Tai's group had been assigned to gather firewood for the campfire. Matt's group had been assigned to the preparing food for the evening. They had everything set out and had to wait with stomachs growling until Tai's group had waltzed back to camp right before sundown using part of their load of firewood as jousting sticks. Matt had been furious that a guy like Tai whom their teacher claimed had "excellent leadership skills" could be so immature and had told him off for making everyone wait so long to eat. Tai, who had received a terrific gash on the forehead from a misplaced stab and was now sporting a giant band-aid as a badge of honor, only grinned at him and offered him his share of the meal, not understanding the point Matt had been trying to get across to him was that he had been inconsiderate to the others off playing his own game.
Matt missed that version of Tai nowadays. Their last battle with Ordinemon had done something to him. He knew he had been wary before it all, ever since Kugawamon had inflicted such damage and destruction on the surrounding buildings and roadways. Tai's eyes had been opened to the fact the people could get hurt to the point there was no coming back and he had proceeded forward with such immense caution to any suggestion of fighting that Matt had grown a little frustrated with him. Matt couldn't understand how the same guy that pressed them so hard to fight in the Digital World, to not wallow in their grief over their defeated comrades, was now in his eyes, standing by so passively.
"These days it seems like I see more and the less I understand," Tai had said to him on the Ferris Wheel.
"Sometimes I think we expect too much from Tai," Matt had told Gabumon. "Sometimes more than he can give."
Matt had only gotten what Tai was had been trying to tell him until it was too late and he thought Tai was lost forever, swallowed up by the abyss. Sometimes fighting did make things worse even if there were no other options. Sometimes people were hurt irreparably, sometimes by wounds you couldn't see.
Meiko was always cheerful and pleasant over the phone, but Matt knew she still must have nightmares over her whole ordeal and idea of self-worth, still cry herself to sleep at night over the loss of her partner. He knew because he imagined that's what he would do if he ever lost Gabumon. He knew because that's what had happened with T.K. the first few nights after Angemon had been deleted and his Digi Egg still hadn't hatched.
And Tai, who unwittingly had his own panic attack right before Christmas when the elevator had gotten stuck on the way up to Izzy's office, was forced to reveal his own level of PTSD he had been hiding from the others. Although looking back, Matt still felt like a colossal jerk for not realizing in the first place. Tai and Nishijima had fallen together and only Tai had come back. Tai who had been forced to watch his own teacher die in front of him and then go back to the real world and destroy one of his team mate's partners. That amount of trauma changes something inside someone. Matt should just be grateful Tai could still laugh and joke around with them all even if his smile didn't reach his eyes all the way. Even when Matt found himself guiltily wishing for the Tai from his childhood to step through time and announce some hare-brained scheme to get them both into trouble instead of the Tai from these days telling him he was too busy to come over, he had cram school, but not to worry, he'd catch one of Matt's concerts eventually.
Matt was aware some of Tai's changing was due to growing up not just the trauma, and that even if Meiko and Tai ended up together neither of them could magically fix whatever was broken inside them both. They could however find comfort in the pain and loss they both shared and begin to heal. And maybe that wasn't the ideal way for any relationship to form around, but then Meiko and Tai weren't your typical teenagers asking each other out on a date after a meet up at the vending machine. Tai still blushed and stammered over simple sentences talking to her on the phone and sometimes Meiko would have little sneezing fits when he said something dumb like "I wish you were here to watch the sunset with us."
It would be a miracle if either one of them happened to confess by accident or on purpose during this festival if left to their own devices.
Luckily for everyone, Mimi hadn't traveled all this way to leave matters of romance between her two clueless friends in the hands of fate.
TBC...
A/N: I wrote this instead of working on my other Tai fic, hahaha. I'm under a lot of stress (not due to that fic, just other things). And (stupidly) thought I should write a humorous fic to knock myself out of being mildly depressed. And instead my muse gave me fluff and angst rather than the crack I was hoping to dish out.
I have one more chapter to write. I've just been working on this in my spare time for a month and thinking I will never get this finished unless I post what I have now. Because I can't get this freaking story out of my head. Oh, and I have like the vague beginnings of a third story related to this series unfolding in my brain whether I want it to or not.
HALP MEH