Yay! I'm back, but this time I'm writing from inside the walls of FDU (Fairleigh Dickinson University for those of you NOT from NJ). Ahhh…college life, gotta love it. Haha, anyway. Here's the second part to "Love is Blind"…and yes, I've decided to keep that title…oh well. This is significantly shorter than the last chapter. I suppose you could look at it more like an interlude, where we delve into TK's mind and his past with Kari a little more. Nothing too big here, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Well, I don't own Digimon. Read, review and enjoy!
Love is Blind
I closed my Literature book after an hour of reading the 'short story' that our teacher had assigned. The said short story was thirty pages long! And these textbooks don't exactly have small pages with big print on them! So, needless to say, I was just taking a break. I walked out of my room and glanced in the computer room to see my mom hard at work on the column that she's been writing this entire week. I'm not even sure what it's about. She's always too busy to talk about it anyway.
Continuing into the kitchen I poured myself a glass of milk and leaned against the counter as I sipped it. Now that my mind was temporarily off of the story I had been reading for class, it immediately began to drift to Kari again. I couldn't comprehend what was happening to the two of us. We seemed to be growing apart, not drastically, but I could sense it. Kari wasn't always concentrating on me anymore. It's as if she was completely content with the idea of us being best friends, and because of that, thought it was acceptable if she acted interested in other guys. Almost as if she were taking our friendship for granted. I mean, technically she's not doing anything wrong, since we're not going out or whatever, but it still hurts. I want to be the one she focuses on most often in a group. I want to receive the secret smiles and laughs that I had assumed were specially reserved for me. Suddenly, all of that didn't seem so special anymore. Now it only appeared to be a smile shared between friends and a laugh that was no different from the other laughs she gave everyone else. Whatever magical luster that I had imagined our friendship was encased in before, seemed to disappear.
Maybe I was being too harsh on her though. We both just entered high school and would be meeting a lot of new people. Maybe she was just trying to make a good impression all around and didn't want to appear so wrapped up in one person. She was never one to close people off or distance herself from anyone, so maybe she felt she needed to make other people feel special and appreciated around her too. After all, the two of us go way back. We were part of the first Digidestined. We were the youngest in the first group of people that saved two worlds. Heck, both of our Digimon have angelic digivolutions that allow them to work together.
I frowned at that though. Those were only labels. Digidestined, youngest heroes, angel digimon…who really cares about all that? It doesn't define our relationship. You can't base a friendship or relationship on labels and icons. It was just silly. Where was the real connection, the real passion? Surely, I couldn't try to sum it up in mere material things?
Annoyed at my weak attempt to try to prove to myself that Kari and I were special, I slammed down my glass of milk on the counter behind me. At least, I though I slammed down my glass of milk on the counter. That was until I heard a loud crash and suddenly felt my left pant leg showered in liquid.
"TK! Is everything alright?!" My mother called from the computer room.
I impassively looked down at the spill and said, "Yeah…just dropped a glass."
"Oh TK! Are you hurt?" She yelled as she ran to the doorway to look at the damage.
I shook my head at her, saying, "Don't worry about it, I'll clean it up. Sorry about the glass."
I walked to the hall closet to get the broom, dust pan and the mop. I hear my mother softly say "Alright," before she retreated back into the computer room. I brought the cleaning supplies back into the kitchen, carefully avoiding the shards of glass and bent over to sweep the shattered glass into the dustpan. As I bent over to start cleaning, I felt my necklace slip out from underneath my collar. Dazedly, I watched as it swung in front of me, the gold plate catching the light from above. Slowly, I placed the broom and dustpan on the floor and stood up. I took the pendant in my hand and held it up in front of me, studying the exquisite design on the front. This pendant…how could I forget? Surely, this shows how important I am to Kari.
You see, Kari gave this to me exactly one year to the day after we all defeated Malomyotismon. She said it was like our anniversary because we had all worked so hard to save two worlds. She threw a party, inviting all of the digidestined, but asked if I could arrive early. When I got there, she gave me this necklace. It's a 14kt gold dog-tag like pendant, but on the front it has the symbol of the Crest of Hope, and on the back, Chosen Child Takeru Takaishi is engraved on it. The pendant hangs from a gold chain. It's really something, and I was totally surprised when she gave it to me. I was even more surprised when she held up her own version of my necklace. Hers was rose gold, with the symbol of the Crest of Light engraved on the front and Chosen Child Hikari Kamiya on the back. I remember the smile on her face when she said, "You're my best friend, and now we have something to show for it."
I thought back warmly on that day. I had been so happy when she gave that to me, picking me out of everyone else, even Yolie who was her DNA digivolution partner. It was then that I started to really think about how close I was with Kari, and how much closer I wanted to get. During the wars in the Digiworld, none of us really had time to think about relationships, well, not seriously anyway. Saving two worlds does kind of become your only focus, even when you are going through adolescence and all the fun side effects that go with it. So, even though I may have known I felt somewhat differently towards Kari, I wasn't even given the time to worry about developing my feelings for her. Now that all of that is finally done and over with, Kari is all I seem to think about.
I was smiling, lost in my thoughts when my mom suddenly yelled "TK!" I jerked backwards into the counter and let my necklace fall back against my chest. "What are you doing?!"
I looked at her with a confused expression for a moment, then glimpsed at the floor, remembering I had a spill to clean up. I looked up sheepishly at my mother and started to speak, "Sorry, I kind of-"
"I don't want to hear it TK! Go finish your homework! I'll clean it up," she yelled, sighing as she walked past me to retrieve the broom and dustpan from the floor, which were now dripping with milk too. I quietly left the kitchen, knowing not to push it when my mom was upset.
I got to my room and flopped down on my bed. I snatched the Literature book off of my floor and placed it in front of me and resumed reading the infinitely boring story. Steeling myself for a long read, I grabbed my portable CD player from under my bed, and put on the headphones. Immediately I began to relax as I heard the soothing tenor voice of my brother coming through the headphones. Listening to his band's latest CD always calms me and puts me in a good mood. So, feeling slightly better about the whole Kari thing and listening to my favorite CD, I started reading.
I few hours later I had finally managed to make it through all of the reading. I checked my clock and realized it was nearly 11 already. Well, I suppose it was my fault for starting my homework so late anyway. Sighing, I closed my book and tossed it back into my backpack for school tomorrow. I hopped down off my bed and got ready to go to sleep. I stepped out into the hall and walked over to the bathroom, looking in the computer room as I went. My mom was still up, working on that column, so I just stepped inside for a moment and told her I was going to bed. She bade me a quick goodnight, hardly glancing in my direction, then refocused on her paper. Frowning, I turned and left to go get ready in the bathroom.
When I was finished showering and what not I returned to my room and lay down under the covers of my bed. Tomorrow morning I would talk to Matt about what's going on with him, Tai and Sora. Tomorrow I would start anew with Kari, showing her just how great I could be. Tomorrow would either be the start of the best year of my life, or the worst year to come.
(A/N – See? I told you it was much shorter than the last chapter. But do not fear faithful readers, I'm already hard at work on the next chapter for it will be a very important one! Later days!)
