Love or Hate? (Part 4)
By Firenze

A/N: I gave up on this fic again in like March, but once again, I felt like coming back to it. If I could only just finish this part, there'll probably be one more and then I'll finally be finished with this series. I'm so sorry there's been such a huge gap between each part. I mean, December to March, March to May... And it's not like I didn't have the idea either.

Thanks so much, Taigurl, for that great plot! Sorry I hadn't finished it much sooner. Well, this may not have come out the way you imagined, but I tried, and then I added a few ideas of my own.

In case you guys forgot what happened in the story and you don't want to read the three parts over again, or you haven't and just don't want to read them at all, there's a big recap at the beginning here to refresh your memory. Anyway, here's part 4!

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All three girls stared at Sora in bewilderment, with their eyes so wide they'd probably pop out, and their jaws nearly unhinged. For a long time, they found it hard to even speak.

"How -- how --" Mimi stammered. "How could you do that, Sora?"

"Yeah, you had us thinking you were purely the victim in this story, but look at you! First you don't even give Taichi a chance to apologize, and then when you decide to open up, you start smooching with Yamato!" Miyako cried incredulously. "And in front of Taichi, too! You said you hate Taichi... Well, no offense, but Taichi should probably hate you equally as much!"

"None taken," Sora said firmly, "because trust me, he did."

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The hours, days, and weeks seemed to have flown by, and yet just dragged on at the same time, until months had passed since Mrs. Takenouchi died, since Sora first got mad at Taichi, since Yamato and Sora kissed, and since pretty much everything in Taichi's, Yamato's, and Sora's lives had gone wrong.

Sora strolled down the sidewalk, her hands in her pockets, but she wasn't focused on where she was going; just mindlessly drifting like a dandelion puff in the wind. As usual, there were just too many things on her mind. You'd think she'd be used to having so much to worry about by now. But no, it kept getting more and more and more complicated by the second.

'Let's see... It all started when I got that phone call... That I heard that my mother was dead...' Hastily, she turned her thoughts to something different. 'Then Taichi tried to ask me out... He tried to ask me out! Why did I say no? I thought it would only worsen things if I did... Well, look how it turned out because I didn't! He could've helped me... But I said no and rejected him for no reason... And then he had to take it all out on Mama... He didn't know -- but he still had no right! No one should say that about someone's parents! ...But I...but I used to...

'Am I being too unfair to him? I ignored him then, no matter what he did... So Yamato had to come to me, to talk, or so I thought... Was it me? He told me to give Taichi a chance, and all of a sudden, we were kissing! I was the one who did it... I said I loved him; I did it all! He was just too nice to do anything about it...or was he? Did he want that as much as I did? But why? I love Taichi! And -- and -- well, we should be even now, then.' She gave a satisfied nod, and kept walking.

'So why doesn't he think we are?'

Taichi hadn't taken what he saw very lightly. Before Yamato or Sora could do a thing, he ran off as fast as he could. When Taichi was running full speed, the only way you could catch up to him was with a car. Right when she and Yamato pulled apart, and Yamato noticed Taichi, he speeded away... Sora didn't even get to see the expression on his face. And she didn't think she wanted to.

It seemed almost natural at first for him to not want to talk to her or Yamato. Of course he wouldn't be able to face either of them. He loved Sora so much -- maybe too much -- and Yamato was his best friend and had known that for years... So why would he continue his pursuit after Sora? The pesky phone calls stopped, he never tried to come by her house, he never talked to her, avoided her at all costs at school, and in the unlikely occasion that they managed to be somewhat near each other, he'd inch away without another thought. It was avoidance, the same thing she had done to him. But she kept thinking of it as him being a wimp unable to deal with his situation... So if he, the courageous one, was a wimp, what had she been?

Much time didn't have to pass for her to hate the eerie silence instead of the ringing phone. She yearned for him to call...for anything; the homework, how she was doing lately, just to say 'hi...' Not a chance. She really, truly missed him. Had she been wrong to think she could just trash all her love for Taichi and then transfer it to Yamato? Was she even really in love with him?

This took even more thinking. Was it really love? And if it was, why didn't she know? How could she still be in love with Taichi, even after what he did? Too many questions raced through her head. She struggled to clear them all away, clutching at her aching head. Too many questions, worries, thoughts... She needed rest.

Ice cream! She noticed the sign right in front of her, and it only just hit her how far she had walked. Wow, she was on the other side of town, and startlingly close...startlingly close to Taichi's house...

"No," she said firmly to herself. "I'm getting ice cream, getting ice cream..." She pushed the door open and walked up to the counter.

"Can I help you?" the worker asked.

"Oh, yes, sure. I'll have... A double scoop of--" '--of mint chocolate chip and very berry strawberry in a waffle cone...' It was what she always ordered, for as long as she could remember. Suddenly, she had the urge to try to something new, get something else, something different.... She paused, glancing at all the flavors. "A vanilla milkshake...no, maybe a banana split. Ooh, a hot fudge sundae would be wonderful, but -- hmmm... Wow, I've never tried that flavor before... Ummm..." Her head only started spinning more.

"Hello? What will you have, Miss? Miss?" the man asked curiously.

"Sorry!" she said quickly. In the end, she got rid of all her confusion in her mind and ordered a simple two-scoop waffle cone with mint chocolate chip and very berry strawberry. It was what she first thought of ordering... It was what she always ordered... Why did it take her so long just to pick it, if it was what she always knew she wanted?... The situation seemed very familiar...

The man handed her the cone, she paid for it, and once she had the ice cream with her, she could hardly think of anything else but eating it all up. That was until she saw who was sitting alone at a booth, swirling ice cream around in a cup with his pink plastic spoon. She hesitated...and then gathered her courage to walk over to him.

"Hi," she said quietly, but he didn't even look up or acknowledge her presence. "Can I -- can I sit here?"

"Sure," he said, which surprised her. With a delighted smile, and scooted into the bench opposite of him. For a brief second, he made eye contact with her. "I was just leaving." Then he stood up, holding his ice cream in his fist so tightly that the cup crushed, getting ice cream all over himself, and he tossed it in the trash can perfectly.

"Taichi..." she said helplessly. And he hadn't even finished his ice cream...

* * *

"'I turn around, I can't see what's behind me'-- No, no, no, no, NO!" Yamato said furiously, resisting the urge to take his bass and bring it crashing down on every single member of his band. And it was a new bass, too... His dad had actually given him money to buy a brand new bass instead of trying hopelessly to repair the humongous crack running down his old one... And now he couldn't think of anything but cracking someone's skull with the new one.

The guys glared back at him, unmistakably as angry with him as he was sick and fed up with them. "What is it now?" the drummer demanded.

"You!" Yamato replied. "How hard is it to play that rhythm, huh? We've been practicing this song for years, and now all of a sudden, a week before our biggest concert ever, you can't even play it. *I* can practically play this, and I have no clue how to play the drums! We should know this song by heart, but you can't play the right rhythms!" He then glared at every other person and picked them off one by one. He pointed at the guy on electric guitar. "Let's see... You're squinting at your music and playing like this is the first time you've ever seen it in your life! And you! You're supposed to be backing me up on vocals, but you're singing like you've got laryngitis!"

"I do have laryngitis, you dumbass," he retorted in a hushed, croaky voice. "I told you, but no, I had to come... What's the matter with you?"

"Yeah, you're being a total control freak, Yamato!"

"Yeah, well, this is only the biggest gig in our lives!" he shouted. "And we're gonna make total fools of ourselves in front of thousands -- yes, you heard me -- literally tons of thousands of people!" He kicked his microphone stand down, and then slumped onto a wooden crate used as a chair. He dropped his blonde head into his hands and sighed heavily. "We're so screwed..."

"We can pull this all together in a week if you'd stop dictating and started encouraging and helping us, instead of listing every tiny mistake we made and not trying to actually fix it," the guitarist snapped.

"You fix it!" Yamato said in another sudden outburst. "We're beyond fixing. We aren't supposed to be fixing, this should have been done weeks ago! We're supposed to be polishing; glazing over what's already perfect and making it more perfect!"

"It can't ever be perfect. Nothing is perfect. Perfection is just an empty word."

He looked up slowly, hearing such familiar words... He had instantly recognized the voice, but he must have been hearing things... "Sora?"

Sora stood there, casually leaning against the wall. "I was passing by and I heard shouting. Considering you're not a heavy metal group or anything like that, I figured something was wrong."

"Of course it's wrong! Everything in my life is wrong!" he groaned. "And why are you here; I thought you stopped talking to me ever since...since...yeah."

She nodded. "I just...just wanted to see how you were. I saw Taichi this afternoon."

"And?"

"Nothing. He walked off," she replied. "I just -- I just wanted to know if you had talked to him lately."

"Are you kidding? Me talk to Taichi? Taichi talk to me? Taichi wouldn't even get a peek at the biggest, closest, best soccer championship game in history, if I were standing anywhere near the direction." Yamato traced his finger against the shiny surface of his new bass. "If it's any consolation, he hates me a lot more than he hates you."

"Yeah, well, I hate us too," Sora remarked.

"So why are you here?" he asked once again.

"To see if we could somehow patch it up...or something." She shoved her hands in her pockets and squirmed uneasily. "But you know...it's kind of clear right now that...that..."

"That?"

"That our situation is beyond fixing," she finished and walked away.

"Why does that sound familiar?" their drummer said with a snarl.

Yamato stood up and looked at all his band mates with his blue eyes, in which all the ice had melted away from. "I'm...I'm sorry about everything I said... I shouldn't be so hard on you guys--"

"But you're right," their guitarist claimed. "We've got our biggest show to pull off, and we're nowhere near being ready."

"We've just got to work harder, is all," he muttered. "We can do it, we'll just have to give 110%. So let's take this from the top again." They started playing, and it sounded a whole lot better than it did earlier. Maybe his little pep talk did some good, or his harsh words finally had their impact, but whatever it was, it was a start. But Yamato still couldn't shake his feelings for the concert. 'I have a bad feeling about this...'

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"Hold up, hold up," Miyako said suddenly. "I've got a confession to make."

The three girls stared at her. "What is it?"

"Well, Sora, you've come to the part about the concert... I've really, really got to tell you something."

"Can it wait?" Mimi asked impatiently. "I want to hear all about Yamato's big concert. He didn't tell me a thing about it!"

Sora, Miyako, and Hikari all looked away. "I don't wonder why..." Hikari said softly. "Sora, just tell the story then."

"But--!" Miyako protested.

Mimi looked her in the eye. "It can wait. I really want to hear this story!"

Miyako sighed and hung her head in defeat, and Sora picked up where she left off with her story.

"So it was finally the big day of the concert... The Teenage Wolves had been preparing non-stop and had just been constantly practicing and preparing, until they were so worn out that they fell asleep using their instrument cases as pillows. They had no other life than doing the best they could to be close to spotless perfect when they performed. Everything seemed perfect...but on the real day, everything started to go wrong..."

"Yeah, first the drummer couldn't find his drumsticks, and then --"

"Excuse me," Sora said timidly. "Miyako, what are you doing?" Mimi and Hikari nodded, and looking at her and wondering the same thing.

"Oh sorry," she said, sweat-dropping. "Well, you know how Koushiro and I help the Teenaged Wolves with their sound and all... I was just there to witness it all firsthand, and I don't know..."

"You want to tell the story?" Hikari guessed, and she nodded. "Well, why not?"

"Duh, because this is Sora's story here," Mimi said obviously.

"My story has to do with Sora and Taichi and Yamato's story," Miyako said. "It has -everything- to do with the story. And I have a confession to make."

"What is it?" Sora asked.

Miyako looked down. "Okay, this may take a while, but trust me, it's really important. I found out about this whole situation when Taichi went to Koushiro and told him all about it. He had this plan, and it was really difficult, so Koushiro went to me for help, and then all of it started..."

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Taichi dragged his feet into his room, threw his duffel bag against the wall, and slumped on his bed. His team had lost another game. It had been so disappointing, because this was one of the worst teams in the league. Taichi's team was supposed to have been the best. And it was a shut-out, 7 to 0.

Maybe it was his entire fault. Those months ago, ever since his heart had been broken that way, he just hadn't been himself. He hadn't been playing soccer or acting at all like himself. Now he just wanted everything to be how it was before. He wished he could just turn back time and erase everything, or find some way to fix it in the present...or pure and simple. To get revenge.

Fixing the situation seemed nearly impossible. But there were lots of ways to get revenge. That would still make him feel better. After all, he wanted nothing more than to see Sora, but mostly Yamato, to get what they deserved. Thinking a while, he realized he had hurt Sora enough, hadn't he? It was Yamato who deserved this!

Who was supposed to have been his friend, on his side? Then who went to Sora and ended up kissing her? Yes, it was all Yamato's fault. Taichi thought of various ways of revenge -- ones that weren't so violent, perhaps. He looked to his calendar and studied it. A grin spread across his face as he realized what was scheduled for next Saturday.

* * *

"You want me to what?!" Koushiro asked in surprise.

"I dunno, mess around with Yamato's concert, screw it up, and I've got this idea. Miyako and you synthesize and help with the Teenaged Wolves sound, right? Well couldn't you--" Taichi whispered something in his ear.

"I couldn't do that!" he exclaimed. "First off, Yamato is our friend. Second of all, this is like their biggest concert so far. This performance just might make or break their careers, if there happens to be some recording exec. there. And most importantly, he's our friend!"

"You don't know what he did," Taichi said in a low voice, with a tinge of bitterness.

"Hey, I don't know what happened with you and Sora and Yamato, nor do I care. I just don't want to get myself in the middle of all this."

"Come on, please? I need this, Iz!" he pleaded.

Koushiro sighed, thinking about it for a long time. After a while, he decided. "Okay, I'll do it."

"YES!" Taichi said excitedly.

"But this stuff sounds kind of complicated," he told him. "I'm gonna need some help."

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"And this is how I come in," Miyako explained.

"But what's Taichi going to do?" Mimi asked, looking at the three other girls. "What's with the synthesizing stuff? What's his plan?"

Miyako, Hikari, and Sora looked a little uncomfortable. "You'll find out," Hikari told her hesitantly. "Keep going, Miyako."

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"Yeah, so on the concert, there's going to be a whole bunch of speakers," Miyako explained to the band. "There's some really big ones on each side, and then there'll be--"

Koushiro popped his head into the studio. "Miyako, can I have a word with you?" He looked nervously at the band, especially Yamato, and struggled to avoid eye contact with him.

"Sure," Miyako said cheerfully. She left the room, to let the Teenaged Wolves look at a blueprint of their stage. "What's up, Koushiro?"

"I need your help."

"Sure," she agreed. "With what?"

"To sabotage the Teenaged Wolves concert," he said bluntly.

"What?!" she cried out. "I can't sabotage--"

Koushiro clamped his hand over her mouth, and she gagged and tried to wriggle free. "Shhh! They're right there!" he whispered fiercely. "Please, Miyako, hear me out. I can't do this alone." He let her go.

"Why are you doing this anyway?" she demanded. "We're part of the crew!"

"It's a favor for Taichi," he told her.

"I can't do this, Koushiro. I've been working way too hard to screw it up on purpose--"

"Listen, all we have to do is--" He whispered the plan in her ear.

"But why?" she asked, puzzled.

"It's a long story. I just need an answer now, yes or no?" he said impatiently.

"Koushiro, I don't know..." she said unsurely. "I just don't think I can ruin this concer--mmmphrrm!"

Koushiro had seen Yamato walking out of the room they had been in, and in a desperate attempt to stop Miyako from what she was saying, he did the first thing that popped into his head. Maybe it was stupid, maybe it was one of the smartest, bravest things he had ever done. Whatever it was, it was unexpected. He grabbed Miyako by the shoulders and kissed her as hard as he could.

Yamato's eyes went wide. 'I think I should give them some privacy,' he thought, and went back.

Koushiro noticed that he was gone, and he drew back from Miyako, gasping for air. "Whew, that was close," he said, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

Miyako's eyelids flew open. "What was that for?" she asked breathlessly, staring at him in disbelief.

"Just -- never mind. Will you do it?" he asked one more time.

She looked into his eyes, still startled from the kiss. She just said her first reaction. "All right."

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The girls all giggled and whooped and cheered.

"I always knew there was something going on with you and Koushiro!" Mimi said proudly.

Hikari threw a pillow at Miyako, glaring at her. "What about Ken?"

Miyako blushed. "I -- I -- um --"

The three girls stared at her expectantly, waiting for her answer... Did this mean she really didn't have a crush on Ken anymore? Did this mean that she had something going on with Koushiro? Which genius was it?

"I -- I -- I --"

"Well...?" Hikari asked.

"Well, anyway, with the story..."

"Hey!" all the girls cried indignantly, but she kept going.

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The next day, Koushiro, Miyako, and Taichi all met at Koushiro's house to talk about their plan. Koushiro sat in front of his computer as usual, opening up the sound system program. Miyako sat on a chair backwards, resting her elbows on the back of it, and watching Koushiro. Taichi just sat on the bed, tossing darts at Koushiro's dartboard, on which Taichi had tacked a picture of Yamato.

"Okay, I've got it!" Koushiro announced, just as the dart hit Yamato's picture squarely in his forehead.

Taichi sat up. "Okay, what now?"

"Well, you get the tape recorder," Miyako told him, "and you speak right into here--" she held up a small microphone-- "and it'll record it. Then we can fix up all the sound waves and stuff and make it sound like Yamato's voice. That's the most difficult part -- besides, of course, playing it at Yamato's concert."

So Taichi gave his speech, trying his best to make his words sound like things Yamato would actually say. He even did a pretty good impression of his voice, but they still had to fix it up. After a very long, frustrating time, the three finally thought they had the perfect thing.

Koushiro recorded it onto a tape, and then held it up triumphantly. "We've got it!"

And so Phase One of their plan was accomplished. However, the Phase Two wouldn't be that easy...

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Okay, so as usual, I babbled on so much that it took up an entire part. Don't worry, part 5 should be out soon -- and when I say soon, that means two months, minimum. Just kidding...I hope. Well, in part 5, you'll find out exactly what Taichi's plan was and how it completely ruins Yamato's concert. Hopefully it'll be the last part...or not.