AN: This is my first humor fic, so apologies if it's not funny. This is my entry for Graceful Sora's Summer Love Taiora Contest. Other couples include: Takari, Kouyako, Mimato. Enjoy!!!!





A Summer Contest


Tai Kamiya was hanging out at the beach, soaking up rays and having the time of his life. As he dozed off in the sunshine, he began to daydream of his one true love, Sora Takenouchi. In his dream, Sora, with her perfect figure, was running toward him, wearing a bikini. Tai tried to kiss her, but she laughed and ran away. He followed, the sweet laughter ringing in his ears...
Suddenly Tai sat bolt upright, the dream shattered. He really was hearing Sora's laughter, and she really was walking right by. Tai immediately realized two things wrong with the picture. Problem 1) Sora was not walking with him; she was walking with another guy. Problem 2) The other guy was Matt! Jealousy washed over Tai in violent waves. Without knowing what he was doing, he sprang to his feet, shouted a battle cry... and rather ingloriously tripped over his towel as he attempted to beat Matt into a bloody pulp for hanging with Sora.
"Whoa, chill out, man, you'll mess up my hair!!!" Matt yelled.
Tai grunted as he got up and tried to spit the sand out of his mouth. "You (puwah) unhand (hack) my girl!!!!" he cried, trying to look as imposing as it is possible to be when wearing flowered swimming trunks and nothing else while emitting a steady stream of sandy spit from one's mouth. "You know what, Matt? I think this has gone on long enough! You and me right now, we battle for Sora!!"
"But Tai..." Sora tried to interject.
"Not now, Sora, we'll talk after I whip his sorry butt."
"Hey, Tai!!" Everyone turned to see T.K. and Kari waving excitedly. Tai turned to Matt.
"This isn't over, Matt. We'll settle it later." Everyone ran over to T.K. and Kari, who were sporting shovels and buckets.
"Hi, guys! What's with the buckets?" asked Sora.
"Well, T.K. stormed the castle, climbed the barbed wire fence, held off the attack dogs, foiled the lasers and defeated the dragon around our house to ask me to come build sand castles with him!!"
"T.K.!!!! How dare you foil the anti-dating system I set up to protect Kari!!! How dare you even look at my sister!!"
"Oh, Tai!" Kari laughed. "We had this whole thing planned out a month ago, remember? You're the one who said I could go in the first place!"
"I was not!"
"Was so!"
"Was not!"
"Was so!"
"Was not!"
"Was so!"
"Enough of this!!!" Sora thundered. "Tai, if Kari says you said it was all right for her and T.K. to go on a date, then it's all right for Kari and T.K. to go on a date and that's final!!"
Tai gulped. "Y-y-yes, my dear!!" Everyone else sweatdropped.
After a few seconds of silence, T.K. resumed talking. "So anyways, we thought it would be fun to build sand castles and we went to the beach and saw you guys. Hey, do you want to join us?"
While T.K. was talking, a devious plan was forming in Tai's head. It ran something like this: "Beach. Sora. Matt. Not good. Contest. Sand castles. Good. Beat Matt at sand castles, Sora like Tai. Good idea!!"
Tai yelled out, "Okay, Matt, I challenge you to- hey!" he yelled, as Matt cut in with, "Build sand castles for the fair hand of Sora, yeah, yeah, I know, Tai. We could read your thought bubble."
To which Tai responded with, "Dang!" and a mental image of Matt being buried in the sand while Tai laughed.
"Oh well," said T.K., "Let's hold the contest right here! Tai and Matt each get one hour to build a sand castle and the best one wins! Sora can judge. Sora, come with us for ice cream while they build. Do you have enough money for the triple-sized-quadruple-fudge-chocolate-blast-marshmallow-cream-topped..." His voice faded out as the trio disappeared toward the ice cream stand.
Tai glared at Matt. "Let's get... huh?" A quick scan of the area revealed that Matt was halfway done with what looked suspiciously like a full-scale replica of St. Basil's Cathedral (You know, the big onion dome thing in Russia). "Hey!" Tai shouted. "No fair!"



Fifty-nine minutes later...


"There!" shouted Tai, putting the finishing touches on his creation. "Sora shouldn't be able to resist me after this!!"
And indeed, no mortal girl should have been able to resist Tai's sand castle. It was inspiring, it was cute, it was strong, it was beautiful, it was...
"A pile of sand with 'castle' written on it? Yeah right, Tai, Sora's really gonna go for that!"
Tai whirled around. "Matt!! You weren't supposed to look at mine until Sora had finished deciding between my glorious castle and your puny... tall... fortress... looking... thing..."
Tai trailed off as he craned his neck to see a large, imposing fortress glaring ominously at him. The next thing he knew, a large group of knights on horseback had burst out of the fortress' artfully constructed sand doors, heading right towards Tai's... er, "castle".
"Wait! Stop! STOP!!!!!" Tai yelled as the knights tore through his "castle", leaving hoof marks imbedded in the surface of the sand. The label "castle" was now transformed into "UcaUtUU"(AN: The U's are supposed to be like the hoof prints, okay? -_-;)
"NOOOOOOO!!!" Tai wailed. "How can things get any worse?"
"Ohhhh Taaaaaiiiiiii!!!!!! Ready for judging?" a singsong voice called.
"No! It's Sora!!" he thought. "Wait, Sora!! I'm not ready yet!!" he screamed.
"Too bad, Tai!" Kari yelled back. "The hour time limit is up!"
As expected, Matt won the contest. Sora was angry that Tai had put so little effort into his castle, and angrier still that he would insult her intelligence by labeling the mess 'cat'. Tai was seriously considering joining the knights (who had returned from horse riding) in their drunken revelry inside Matt's fortress in an attempt to forget the shame, when a flash of red and purple caught his eye.
As Tai struggled to pull his face from the sand where he had buried it in his sorrow, the flashes resolved into an obviously happy Izzy, who was showing off water skiing moves (AN: Can you imagine Izzy-kun in a swim trunks? ^_^) to an obviously impressed Yolei, skiing beside Izzy. Tai had time to begin thinking of another devious plan before his lips finally released from the sand and snapped back into his face, propelling his body several yards backwards.
Tai's devious brain immediately began recalling the devious idea, allowing Tai to snicker deviously about it until Matt pointed out that the devious idea could be viewed inside a thought bubble clearly marked "Devious Idea: Challenge Matt To Following Deviously Devised Contest" and accepted the challenge before Tai could even voice his devious idea.
The Devious Idea was to challenge Matt to the Deviously Devised Contest of: WATERSKIING.





Later... on the docks...

"Okay, Matt, let's get ready to battle!!" shouted Tai.
"Tai, don't you think we should practice first before going out?" said Matt. "You know, get a feel for the skis and water?"
"You wimp!" laughed Tai. "Practice is for babies. Oh wait, that's right, you are one."
"Shut up, Tai! And anyways, the practice would help you more than me."
"Yeah, right, Matt! I'm going to beat you so bad you'll wish that... that..."
"What?"
"I don't know! Being a genius isn't all fun, you cretin!!!!"
"Matt, Tai, would you just shut up already and start so I can choose already?!?!?!?!" shouted a slightly irked Sora.
"Coming, Sweetcakes!!"
"Oh for the love of hair gel..." muttered Matt.
After Tai had wrestled with his water skis for about fifteen minutes, he and Matt lined up side by side on the dock. They signaled to Yolei (driving the boat pulling Tai) and Izzy (driving the boat pulling Matt) that they were ready to begin. With a smooth purr from the boats, Tai and Matt were pulled from the dock to land gracefully in the water. Or at least Matt was...
Tai on the other hand, had somehow gotten his ski stuck on the dock just enough for him to lose his grip on the handle of his rope, resulting in a resounding belly flop. Everyone winced at the sound. After much panicked screaming by Tai, a panicked Sora was able to pull him from the water and begin a clumsy panicked version of CPR, which a panicked Izzy yelled at Sora not to do, because it might result in cracked ribs, which only panicked Sora further.
Eventually Tai was reassured by Joe (who happened to passing by) that he was in no danger of dying, and without further ado, the two contestants had re-entered the water with no further mishaps on Tai's part. It was when the time came to do anything else but balance on the skis that things started happening.
Matt performed the first trick, a stunning spin and flip combo. Tai, in an effort to better Matt, tried to perform a flip by cutting across the wake of the boat. *Heheheh...* thought Tai. *Watch this, Matt!!!* Unfortunately for Tai, he pointed his ski tip down too far just as he met the wave created by the boat, the effect being nearly identical to the end result of tripping. Tai was dragged screaming behind the boat, the tape he had used to tie his hands to the handle not doing him any good. The boat hit a wave and bounced upwards, with Tai being jerked into the air. By some miracle, he came down on his skis and was able to regain his balance as he was swung out to the side by centrifugal force. The knot holding the rope tying Tai to the handle chose precisely that moment to come undone, the result being that Tai went shooting across the water, past the knights from the castle (now in full armor doing a pyramid while on water skis), onto the beach, and exactly into the tree that grew at the beach's end.
Following another emergency visit from Joe, Tai was reassured of his physical health. His mental state, however, was another matter entirely. Matt had been declared winner of the contest (big surprise there, huh?) and Tai had put himself into a self-imposed exile of sorts under the tree. Matt eventually came over to Tai.
"Hey, Tai, how ya feeling?"
Silence.
"You're not still upset over losing the contests, are you?"
"Fine!" yelled Tai suddenly. "Take her! You won, just take her and leave me in my sorrow! You don't have to rub it in."
"Yeah, well, you see, Tai, you, um, how do I put this... You didn't have to fight for her."
"WHAT!!!!"
"Yeah, the only reason Sora was walking with me was to advise me on the best way to sweep Mimi off her feet when she comes for a visit next time. I want our first date to be memorable!! We were actually almost done talking and were just about to look for you."
Tai said nothing, just sat there dumbfounded.
"So, aren't you even going to go claim your prize?"
"Huh?"
"Sora. She's waiting for you down by the... never mind." Tai had picked himself up at Matt's words and had propelled himself down the beach and into a passionate liplock with Sora.
"Ahhh, love..." Matt sighed. He continued staring dreamily at Tai and Sora (and T.K., Kari, Yolei and Izzy, who had followed the older couple's lead) until a shriek of "Why don't you ever do that to me?!?!?!?" accompanied by a sharp slap turned him around.
"Yahh!! Mimi!!" Matt yelled. Then he noticed the person standing right behind Mimi and his jealousy began to boil over. "Michael..."

THE END



AN: Kind of a lame ending, don' cha think?? My sister (who helped me brainstorm ideas for this fic- thanks so much sis!) has assured me that it is funny, so I trust it to her judgment. I leave it up to you to imagine what happens between Matt and Michael over Mimi... Heheheheheh... Please R&R!!!!

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