It was late afternoon when TK and Kari returned to the beach to find everyone else naked and laughing in the lake. Most of their digimon were napping, although Gomamon couldn't resist playing around in the water with Betamon.
"Hey, guys!" Davis called from the lake where a rather large game of Marco Polo was being played. "Come on in! The water's great!" TK and Kari glanced at each other and quickly shed their clothes to join the others in the cool water of the lake. The group played around for several hours before they eventually wore out and returned to dry land. Mimi pointed out the obvious lack of towels to dry off with, but TK and Matt had a fairly simple solution. They moved to the sunniest part of the clearing and lay down.
"What are you guys doing?" Sora demanded.
"Drying off," TK answered nonchalantly.
"Care to join us?" Matt added. Soon everyone was lying in the sun. After a while Rachel spoke up.
"Am I the only one who finds this unnerving?"
"What?" Tai asked.
"All of this. Going skinny dipping, just lying here naked with each other. I mean, it's nice, but no one seems very unnerved by it."
"Why should we?" TK wondered.
"Well, Tai, aren't you worried about TK seeing Kari naked?"
"Why should I be? He's seen her naked before." All of the newer digidestined stared at him.
"We were trapped in the digital world for a long time," Izzy commented. "At first, the seven of us were pretty self-conscious about it, but after a while, we realized that we had to be practical. We started bathing together and everything, so now it just doesn't seem that unusual to us."
"When Kari joined us after we bet Myotismon," Joe picked up, "we were back in the same boat as we were before, only with one more person. At first we tried to keep the boys and girls separate, but after a while we just gave up and went back to the way we had been doing it before."
"TK and Kari have seen each other naked dozens of times," Matt commented. "The two of them were practically inseparable in the digital world and TK had promised Tai that he'd watch out for Kari. He took his responsibilities fairly seriously," he laughed. TK and Kari were both chuckling by now.
"Remember when Tai first caught us bathing together?" Kari asked.
"I don't think I'll ever forget that," Joe laughed. "We had stopped for the night a week or so after we returned to the digital world. Mimi had commented that Kari needed a bath earlier, so when we stopped to make camp Kari disappeared and so did TK. Matt, Sora and Tai went looking for them and found both of them in a hot spring not to far from camp, dressed as they were at birth." By now everyone was laughing. "They rest of us came running when we heared Tai yell and found him yelling at the two of them while Sora and Matt were laughing their heads off. Tai finally managed to calm down a little and asked TK what he thought he was doing, and with a perfectly straight face TK just said, 'Bathing.'" This sent everyone into howls of laughter.
The rest of the day went by with out incident. The group finally put on some clothes after they had dried off sufficiently and sat down for another meal made up of what was left over from the first one. They stayed in the digital world until it started to get dark, at which point they began to gather up their picnic supplies and began to get ready to leave. Finally, Cody brought up something that had been bothering him.
"Isn't it going to be hard to get out of here?" he worried. "It wasn't easy finding this place when there was a lot of light, what about now that it's almost nighttime?" Kari shrugged.
"We never came here on foot anyway." Cody still looked confused. "We fly," she elaborated.
"Or swim," Gomamon piped up.
"But not all of our digimon can fly," Cody pointed out.
"We'll handle it," TK assured him. Then he turned to the waiting digimon. "Ready guys?" A chorus of 'Yeahs' confirmed it. "Then lets get going."
Gomamon digivolve to … Ikkakumon!
Betamon digivolve to … Seadramon!
Byiomon digivolve to … Birdramon!
Hawkmon digivolve to … Aquilamon!
Wormmon digivolve to … Stingmon!
Veemon digivolve to … Exveemon!
Tentomon digivolve to … Kabuterimon!
Patamon armor digivolve to … Pegasusmon! Flying Hope!
Gatomon armor digivolve to … Nefertimon! The Angel of Light!
Everyone pilled onto one or another digimon and soon they were all flying or swimming across the lake towards Digitamamon's dinner. They split up at the dinner, the Odiba digidestined going one way to use a TV to get home and the American going the other to get home. The group emerged from Sora's computer at five in the afternoon. They had left at eleven that morning. TK and Matt began to gather up their belongings to leave.
"Where are you guys going?" Ken asked.
"Practice," TK shrugged. "We've got to get ready for our concert."
"Can I come along?" Kari asked. She typically came along to practices, as did Sora. TK and Matt were the only one's in the band with steady relationships, however, Jordan and Cale both liked Kari and Sora and welcomed their presence at practices. As of such, TK's answer surprised her.
"Not this time," he replied, shouldering his backpack. Kari began to protest, but TK walked up to her and silenced her by placing his index finger on her lips. "We need to get this practice in with no distractions. You just don't need to be at this one." Kari moved her head away from TK's hand.
"Why not?" she challenged. "I've been to a lot of your practices before, and you guys have done just fine. So what's so special about this one?"
"Please," TK pleaded. The couple looked into each other's eyes for a few moments and finally TK won the battle of wills.
"Alright," Kari pouted. TK kissed her on the cheek and he and Matt left.
The rest of the month flew past for the digidestined
as well as for all the fans of Children of the Night, TK and Matt's band. The band had changed significantly from its
original incarnation. They still tended
towards rock, but they were also known to delve into pop and even jazz from
time to time. The changes had been met
with approval from their original fan base and had gained them even more fame.
The night of the concert
finally came and the city of Odiba came alive. As always, the digidestined had front row
seats. None of them had seen TK or Matt
at all that day, which wasn't unusual for a concert day.
This promised to be the biggest concert of the year, since the group had formally announced that this would be the last concert in the foreseeable future due to personal reasons. As always, the digidestined meet in the park outside the TV studio so that they could all travel to the concert together. Their mode was carefree and full of hope, since in five days, they would all be leaving for Kyoto.
They arrived at the tent about an hour before the concert was to start. Tickets had been sold out for days before hand, but there were still people trying to buy their way in. The group showed their tickets and were escorted to their seats.
"So, do either of you have any idea what the surprise is?" Mimi asked Sora, who sat next to her, and Kari who was next to Sora.
"No idea," Sora admitted.
"TK didn't want to tell me," Kari agreed. "Whatever it is, it's something really special." The interior lights began to dim and a deep base cord strummed through the crowd. Dead silence reigned for several seconds before the curtain rose and the crowd began to cheer.
TK was foremost on the stage as the main guitarist and vocals. He was decked out in a pair of ripped blue jeans, black hiking boots, and a black tee-shirt with an oriental dragon print on the front. Matt was next to TK as the base player, but back a little since TK was the one singing this song. Matt was dressed in black jeans and a silk button up shirt that was blood red in color. Jordan was back on the keyboard in jean-shorts and a green 7-up shirt. Ryu was on the other side from the stage from Jordan on the drums. He was dressed in a pair of jeans, but he was shirtless, showing off several of his tattoos.
Their first song was greeted with resounding cheers and Matt took up singing duties for the second one. The concert lasted over an hour, during which the band played mostly rock and heavy metal with a few pop pieces scattered through out. The band played their final song of the night and then TK stepped up to the microphone.
"We just want to thank everyone for coming out tonight. This will be our last concert for the time being. We all have worked so hard in the last year or so and we just need to calm down and spend some time with our family and friends. You have all been a great crowd and we're really glad that our last concert was such a hit." The crowd let out a roar of applause that took almost a minute to die down. "Now we have a bit of an encore for you," TK continued. "This song is an older piece and a lot of bands have done renditions of it, so we thought we'd take a crack at it. It's different from what we usually play, but we hope you like it." TK left the mic and walked back to where Matt was standing and the two exchanged a few words, then TK returned to the mic and began the open notes to the song.
Sha la la la la la
La la la la la la
Sha la la la la la
La la la la la la
(I hear a song
It makes me think of a girl
I used to know…
I sing along when I hear it
on the radio now…)
Hey now where'd we go?
Yeah days when the rains came
Way down in the hollows
Oooh yeah playing a new game
Laughing and a running
hey hey hey
Skipping and a jumping
Hey yas
In the misty morning fog
Oh baby
Yeah my heart's a thumping you
My brown eyed girl
(my brown eyed girl…
my brown eyed girl)
You my
Brown eyed girl
Do you remember when?
(do you remember when?)
Yeah we used to sing…
Sha la la la la la
La la la la la la
Sha la la la la la
La la la la la la
(I hear a song
makes me think of a girl
I used to know)
Hey hey hey
(I sing along
When I hear it
on the radio now…)
Now that the years gone by
Yeah now that I'm on my own
I saw you just the other day
But my baby…you have grown
I cast my memory back there Lord
Sometimes…I am overcome
just thinking about it
Making love in the green grass
Behind the stadium with you
My brown eyed girl
You my
Brown eyed girl
(my brown eyed girl…
my brown eyed girl)
You my
Brown eyed girl
(my brown eyed girl…
my brown eyed girl)
You my
Brown eyed girl
Do you remember when?
Yeah we used to sing…
Sha la la la la la
La la la la la la
Sha la la la la la
La la la la la la
Sha la la la la la
La la la la la la
Sha la la la la la
La la la la la la
I hear a song
It makes me think of a girl
I used to know
Hey ya hey ya hey ya hey
I sing along
When I hear it on the radio
Now
I sing along
When I hear it on the radio
Now
