Her Angel

Chapter 2: A Stray Football

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

No goal again.

He had never been this bad at football before. If he went on like this, the coach would kick him out of the team.

Lucky for him it was the summer holidays. Hopefully his skills would improve. He didn't feel like going to school anyway. He will face… them. What if he caught them kissing?

'C'mon, Taichi, pull yourself up together. Who cares about them doing anything anyway? So they are going to be a couple and start dating – good. I'll have to congratulate them when I see them again,' he thought dourly.

But he still couldn't understand it. He was the one who got to know Sora first. They'd been best friends for so long. He knew her better than anyone else, if not better than herself. He thought that she had cared for him too.

Obviously he was wrong. So, so wrong. Maybe he really didn't know her as well as he thought. 

Stupid Yamato. What did he butt in for? He didn't see how a pretty boy like him could be better than him, Taichi Yagami. He imagined Yamato's face on his football and furiously kicked it high into the air.

Obviously, he didn't score a goal in the old, rusty goalpost. It landed… somewhere quite far away. Taichi thought he heard a faint yell but he couldn't care less. He sat on the grass with a thump and drew his knees up, burying his face in them. He wouldn't admit it but tears were running down from his face.

"What the-" Koushiro gave a loud yell as he stumbled and almost fell down. He rubbed the spot where he was hit, stars flashing in front of him.

"Koushiro! Are you alright?" Mimi worriedly asked.

"I think so… Where did that come from?"

"I don't know." She said absentmindedly, looking at the sore spot and soothing it over. She lightly kissed it and said "There! It should be alright now." she gave him a mischievous smile.

"Um… y-yeah, it is." he muttered, a light red tinting his cheeks.

She giggled and said "We've been dating for at least a month now and you are still so shy with me, Koushiro."

"Uh…" he looked around for something to change the subject. That stupid football! He quickly picked it up and looked over it. "Wait, isn't this Taichi's?" He pointed to a somewhat smudged mark on the old football.

"That's right! That's those goggles, his trademark!" she looked around. "He must have kicked it."

"Well, I'm going to find him then. How can he kick this killer football and let it bonk my head?"

He set off quickly towards the distance it had came from, dragging Mimi with him. She rolled her eyes, "And I thought if I forbid him to bring that laptop with us and kept away from that computer store in the mall…"

"Koushiro, we've walked a long way now. Can't we stop now?" she whined irritably.

"No, wait, I see him!"

"What? Where?"

"There! That brown hair sticking out!"

They walked over to him and crouched down.

"Taichi!" Koushiro shook him, "What's wrong with you? And why did you kicked that football of yours at me?"

"Kou-shi-ro! Sometimes…" she gave a sigh and rolled her eyes. Taichi was obviously upset about something and her boyfriend was going on about the football.

"Oh, yeah…" a small sweat-drop appeared on him. "I'm so sorry. What's the matter, Taichi?"

A muffled voice said "It's nothing, guys."

"Well, at least look at us! Why are you hiding your face?" she demanded.

He gave an unmistakable sigh and raised his face.

They were surprised once they saw his face. There were tear streaks on his face. He had evidently been crying.

They've never seen Taichi cry before. Perhaps because they were so unused to see him cry or even that the fact that Taichi could cry that Koushiro said accusingly "You've been crying." Taichi had always been the happy-go-lucky one, the brave leader of the team.

Then he remembered, they all had seen Taichi cry before.

They were all outside – all except Sora. Nanomon had kidnapped her and they couldn't go after him as Etemon had appeared. They had been lucky that Mimi and Yamato had thought of rescuing them.

But they couldn't save Sora. Taichi was sitting down, almost like how he was sitting now, and he was crying.

"It's my fault." he gave a loud sob. "It's my fault…"

'Sora!' Koushiro thought, hitting the nail on the head. "Is it about Sora?"

He nodded his head, face still expressionless. He felt too hurt to deny it which he normally would.

"What happened?" Mimi asked gently.

"She-", he managed to stop the tears brimming up and took a deep breath. "She likes Yamato."

Comprehension dawned on both of their faces. "You'll get over it, Taichi." he patted his friend's shoulder.

"But I can't – and I don't want to anyway." he ended stubbornly.

Mimi quoted "A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said."

Both boys stared at her, a sweat-drop appearing on a redhead.

"What? That quote's from a book for school!"

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" he said sarcastically. "Look, I just want to be alone for now, okay?"

Koushiro looked at Mimi and gave her a slight nod, telling her to do what Taichi said. "Here, your football." he put it near him and walked away with Mimi.

Once out of ear shot and sight, Koushiro said somberly "You know, we are really lucky, Mimi."

"Yeah." She gave him a hug. "Do you think he'll be alright?"

"I hope so."

Taichi looked at the football Koushiro just laid next to him and saw the smudged goggles.

"I don't want to lose my new football, Sora." eight-year-old Taichi said to his best friend.

"Then, uh, how about drawing some kind of trademark on it so everyone will know it's yours?"

"That's a good idea! But what kind of trademark should I have?"

"Mmm, how about your goggles?" she pointed to them hanging around his neck.

"Yeah! Let's go get a marker now, Sora!"

They both stood up, and in their haste, their lips accidentally brushed against each other for a second. They grew bright red.

"Um… are you okay?" he muttered.

She shot a shy smile at him, "Yup."

"Um…" Taichi couldn't bring himself to look at her yet. "Uh… last one to my house is a rotten egg!" He immediately ran off, with Sora chasing after him.

He felt for his goggles and then remembered he gave his goggles to Daisuke. His goggles were gone. So was Sora.

Alas, more trouble was yet to come. Far away from another world, a cruel voice blared.

"I'll take my revenge, chosen children!" an evil laugh sounded. 

Author's note:

So who was that evil idiot? Find out in the next chapter! Sorry I made Taichi so sad! And in my fic, Digimon 02 ended like season 1, ok? The digimon are in the Digimon World and no-one able to travel back to forth between the two worlds. Oh yeah, please review, constructive criticism and all!