Hi, minna-san. Sorry I got this up so late…I was working on my other stories. So…this one is a bit more romantic than the other ones…which actually weren't at all, but it is anyways and rite now I really don't know how this will work out…ok then. Pleez read and review! Ja ne!
Kari…
Chapter 4: I Would Die For You
T.K. took a deep breath. It hurt, but the very pain of the blood transfusion reminded him that it was for a cause - saving Kari.
The sight of her on the hospital bed made him wince with pain, as if he were the one experiencing it. He could feel her hurt. He had always been able to know what she was feeling and what she thought…it was like they were linked by a mental connection. When she cried, he would know. When she was feeling down, he would know and always comfort her. It was like animal instinct to just be there for the other, like they had done from four years old.
But what would he be without her? They had always been together, best friends, sharing secrets. And now one of them had hurt the other, he thought, as the nurses withdrew the needle from his arm.
Suddenly, in the midst of all the confusion, the door burst open, and Davis Motimiya came running in.
"Hey, T.A.! What did you do to my girl? And what were you doing with her in the first place? Dragging her over to your house just to piss her off? She would've spent more time with me and I wouldn't have pushed her into a truck anyways - "
T.K. stood up, anger in his usually peaceful and kind eyes.
"I did not push her into a truck! You know I didn't, and Kari is not your girl! And for the last and final time, my name is not T.A.! It's T.K.!"
Davis shrunk back under T.K.'s furious gaze and whimpered something that sounded like "mimblewimble" before creeping out the door.
T.K. took a few steps forward, ready to go after him, then stopped and sighed, running his fingers through his dark blond hair. He wasn't usually like this, letting his anger go at Davis, who wasn't really a bad guy, but was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
He turned around to check on Kari, who was still breathing irregularly. He caught the sleeve of a doctor that had rushed back inside the small room, yelling into the doctor's ear to make himself heard.
"How is she? Is she okay?"
The man, who was barely four years older than Takeru himself, looked at him, no emotion in his eyes but a brief flicker of pity.
"She might need a transplant…but right now she's doing just fine, man. You just relax. Your girlfriend will be okay."
Despite himself, T.K. flushed. He knew it was true - that he and Kari were practically an official couple - but he still felt funny hearing it from other people.
A beeping sound shook him out of his thoughts and he jumped up again, worried that something wrong might have happened to Kari. But it was just Tai's pager, which was quickly stuffed back into it's owner's pocket so as not to distract the working medical staff.
T.K. looked frantically around the room, feeling somehow left out and desperate for something to do. "What can I do?" he asked a nurse who had, in her task, come closer to where he was standing nervously.
"Well, if you could go to the equipment room and bring us a electrocardiogram, hook it up, and start it, then I suppose you would be helpful, but I'm guessing you probably won't know where it is anyways. If you really want to help - and I'm not trying to get rid of you - you could just go down to the waiting room or something to give the staff a bit more space, okay?"
T.K. nodded his assent reluctantly, and the nurse gave him a fleeting smile before striding quickly out of the room.
He slowly walked out of the room, trying to get a last glimpse of Kari before he left, and down the hall to the waiting room.
…where he waited. And waited. And waited some more before sighing resolutely and heading home, to where he could mull everything over and sulk in his bedroom.
******************
At seven in the morning, his phone rang loudly, shattering him out of his pleasant dream about Kari and himself indulging in a…*fascinating* activity.
Groggily, he reached over and picked it up.
"Hello?" he croaked.
Tai's loud voice rang sharply in his ears.
"Look, creep, I don't know why I'm doing this, but it's for Kari. Okay?"
T.K. drew in his breath. News - about Kari!
"She just woke up and asked me to tell you to come to the hospital. It's an emergency, she said, and she's getting worse. You'd better come - if not for her sake, then mine."
He hung up.
T.K., breathless with fear, hung up as well, his hand shaking madly as he replaced the phone, and immediately snatched a coat from a corner of his room, hurriedly threw it on, and ran out the door, neglecting the prospect of a note for his mother, who would be obviously worried.
As he arrived, his car wheezing and puffing from its long journey, Tai was waving furiously at him and yelling something incoherent from across the parking lot. T.K., running as fast as he could towards him, drew level with him and they both ran back inside the hospital as quietly as they could, their footsteps nevertheless echoing in the deserted hallways.
"She…woke…up…all…of…a…sudden," panted Tai. "Then she was…asking…for you…and her vital organs were failing…or at least that's what the doctor said when he ran in…"
"Again?!"
"What do you mean again? She can't help it if the same thing happens to her two times in a row, can she? It's not like she can actually choose how to die!"
Tai is back to his old sarcastic self again, thought T.K. ironically. As if that will help his sister.
******************
They wrestled with the doorknob, yanking the door open to reveal a doctor standing beside Kari's bed, shaking his head worriedly.
"Doctor…?"
He turned around, his face expressionless.
"I'm sorry, but…her organs are failing rapidly and there is a lot of internal bleeding, like I said before to Taichi. At this rate…" he stopped and stared at the floor.
Behind the hard mask, Tai could sense a real sorrow, a pain inside that the doctor was obviously trying to hide.
"She has only four hours to live."
******************
"Four hours…" whispered T.K. as he sank to the ground in front of the doctor, his face paling.
"Oh…God…what can we do? To help, I mean…to make her…more…comfortable? …have a positive look on things before she…?"
Tai's question went unanswered, but he dashed to the phone, which was hanging on the wall close to the door, and proceeded to call all the old and new Digidestined - Sora, Mimi, Matt, Joe, Ken, Izzy, Yolei, Cody, and even Davis, who stomped in yelling about how they had interrupted his so-called date with a girl (whom everybody knew hated his guts) but immediately quieted when he saw Kari, with a little help from T.K.'s physical persuasion (kick - "OW!").
The group stood silently by Kari's bedside, remembering their times with her and each lost in their own memories.
She's like - well, practically, after Tai and I get married - a little sister to me, thought Sora sadly. It'll never be the same when she's gone. Tai's house will be empty of her laughter forever…
Mimi Tachikawa's face was dotted with tears. I never had a real chance to get to know the girl…but there will be a gigantic hole in the unity of the Digidestined, and in our hearts.
Matt sniffed back a tear, for the young, avaricious, and spirited sister-in-law he would never have.
Never…
Kari would never be there again.
******************
Two hours…two hours and thirty minutes…the time passed by quickly as each of Kari's companions pledged their eternal friendship to her and reassured her as well as they could. They each spent fifteen minutes recalling memories and chuckling at the good times they had had together, and for a while Kari seemed to be as healthy as she had been before.
But the clock was ticking…and she wouldn't have much longer to live.
Three hours and forty-five minutes…
It was T.K.'s turn. Words were not needed as the pair stared lovingly into each other's eyes, relishing the moment, and the affection between them grew.
T.K. raged deep inside of himself at the helplessness he felt at not being able to do anything while Kari was dying, at the futility of trying to defy death. He would have given his own life to keep her alive.
The other kids watched the heartbreaking scene sorrowfully. They knew it would be a life lost, but a love kept.
A light gone; the hope remaining.
******************
Kari was fading. He knew she was, but he couldn't bear to say goodbye. She was paler, weaker, and more pained by the minute, and while T.K. wrung her hand, frustrated, he could feel her fingers getting colder. He hugged her closer to warm her, patted her shoulders, whispered fervent words of encouragement in her ear. But he knew that it was useless.
With the last few minutes of her life, Kari weakly pulled T.K.'s head down to hers.
"T.K…I…"
He nodded his support, trying to hide his immense pain.
"I…I love…"
She fought for breath, to say the most important words of her existence.
"I…love…y-"
A loud beeping sound broke the relative silence, and from Kari's lips escaped a last sigh, a breath of her life.
"…you…"
A life lost, but a love kept.
A light gone; but the hope remaining.
******************
I'm sorry, minna! I was just feeling…so…melancholy, I just HAD to do that to her…*sniff sniff* it's so saaaaad…p-pleeze…*sob* review…*breaks out in loud wails while the audience turns away, embarrassed*
