Chapter 2: The Poem
The boys were playing a card game in the upstairs room that had been designated their bedroom.
"So, Izzy," Tai said during a conversational lull, "How serious are you and Tsukiyo?"
"Maybe this isn't the best time to discuss this..." Izzy said in an attempt to get out of answering the question.
"It's the perfect time," Tai countered. "Kari told me you talk about Tsukiyo a lot."
"Almost as much as he talks about computers, if you can believe it," Cody said.
"He's crazy about her," T.K. added.
Izzy blushed a deep tomato color.
"What does Tsukiyo say about Izzy?" Davis asked Tora.
He was a little reluctant with his answer. "She doesn't really talk to me much. But I can tell you," he told Izzy, "that I've never seen her so eager to please someone. Never."
Izzy glanced around searching for some way to divert the conversation. "What about you, Matt? I heard you have a new girlfriend."
"I'm dating a singer. Nothing really serious," he said. "You should ask Tai about his girlfriend, Pearl."
"Pearl and I broke up weeks ago," Tai said, trying to sound casual, but unable to hide a little bit of hurt.
"And what about you, Ken?" Matt turned to the boy who'd been unusually quiet all night. "You get asked out all the time. Has anyone caught your eye yet?"
Ken kept his eyes fixed on his hand of cards. "The girls who ask me out just want to be able to brag; they're not really interested in getting to know me." A teen magazine had recently voted Ken one of Japan's sexiest people. He found that designation very annoying.
"You must have girls clamoring for your number, Tora," said T.K.
"Kind of," Tora answered. He frowned. "But honestly, the girls I know are uninteresting. They either try too hard to be just like their friends, or they try too hard to be different. I'm holding out for someone really special. Like Kari."
"Watch it," T.K. warned. "Kari's my girlfriend."
"Wow. Lucky you."
After a silent couple of seconds, Matt said, "I know what you mean about girls, Tora. There are a lot who are good-looking, and a lot who have great personalities, but they don't often overlap. And even when they do, there always seems to be something missing."
"Maybe you just expect too much," Cody suggested. "You have the ideal of the perfect woman built up in your mind, and you're so busy looking for her that you miss someone even better."
Ken agreed. "The right one may be someone you never expected; you don't even know why you fall in love with her, but you can't help it. And then you're even happier than you would be with your ideal, whose complete lack of flaws could turn out to be a flaw."
"You've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?" Tora observed.
Ken didn't answer.
"You know," T.K. said, "this reminds me of a part in the Tale of Genji when Genji and his friends sat around one rainy afternoon and talked about their romances. Tsukiyo is like the woman the man from the ministry of rites talked about that the others thought he was making up because she was so smart."
"Though her name suggests that lady whose relationship with Genji was used as an excuse to exile him," Ken commented.
Izzy blushed again. "She's my favorite character in that book."
"Why? Because she realized a devoted husband was better than a handsome one?" Tora laughed. "Are you hoping Tsukiyo feels the same?"
Izzy made a fan of cards and hid his face with it.
They discussed which woman in Genji they would choose and why. The most surprising answer was Ken's.
"The Omi Lady," he said.
"The fast talker who always said whatever was on her mind? That's interesting. Why?" Matt asked.
Ken smiled at their reactions to his choice. "I like her sincerity, and her bravery. She made me laugh."
"Some people say opposites attract," T.K. supplied.
Izzy nodded thoughtfully. "Yes. That does make sense."
Ken glanced at him, and realized with a mixture of worry and relief that Izzy now knew the identity of Wisteria.
Tsukiyo had taken the girls on a walk down the road to a hill with a great view of the city lights. They told ghost stories on the way back. Kari told the one about Gatomon's strange encounter with the ghost of Wizardmon.
They were resting in the living room after returning to the cabin when Kari noticed the slip of paper attached to the pine sprig. "What's this?" She picked it up and read the poem silently.
"What is it?" Mimi asked curiously.
Tsukiyo drifted over and read over Kari's shoulder. "A poem."
"A love poem," Kari added.
"Let me see!" Yolei joined them.
"Who could it be for?" Mimi wondered.
"And who could have written it?"
Izzy had come downstairs intending to give Tsukiyo his own poem. He paused outside the door and listened to their speculation. It took him a minute to figure out what happened. When he entered the room, he pretended he'd just arrived. "What's going on?" he asked.
"A mysterious love note," Tsukiyo said, clearly amused.
"Hey, maybe it's from Izzy," Yolei whispered in an unsuccessful attempt to not let Izzy overhear.
Tsukiyo shook her head. "Not his handwriting, he doesn't write poetry, and if it were to me it would be moonlight instead of sunlight."
"Can I see it?" Izzy asked as he came up behind them.
Kari handed it to him. "Maybe you can help us figure it out."
Izzy scrutinized it, pretending to be mystified. "I don't know who could have written it, but it's obviously meant for Yolei."
"Me? How can you tell?"
"Simple: the Kanji used to write 'sunlight' seems very suspicious, as it conceals which pronunciation is intended. One poetic pronunciation for 'sun' is 'yourei'. Whose name does that remind you of?"
"Looks like someone has a crush on you, Yolei," Kari said. "But still, who wrote it? There are eight boys here, and any one of them besides Izzy could be the culprit."
"Well, let's deduce." Yolei could hardly contain her curiosity.
Mimi spoke up. "It could be Tora. The line 'Still frosted from winter's chill' has fuyu in it, like his name. And he seemed to like you."
"Tora! You're right. It must be him."
"I don't think so," Tsukiyo said quietly, but Yolei was too excited about the first theory to consider other options.
"There's one way to find out for sure," said Kari. "You need to write him a poem of your own."
"And set up a secret meeting," Mimi concurred. "I have some scented stationery that would be perfect."
She enthusiastically dragged Yolei up to the bedroom. Kari followed behind, but Tsukiyo remained in the living room with Izzy.
"Right," she said sarcastically.
"You don't believe it's Tora?"
"I know it's not Tora. He would never do something like that. Though I doubt the true instigator left that poem lying around on purpose." She gave Izzy a sidelong accusatory glance. "Besides, I doubt you'd give Tora a page from your notebook."
"You recognized the paper?"
"The moment I saw it."
Izzy was speechless for ten seconds. She knew who wrote it. "When did you figure it out?" he asked.
"If Tora thinks he's frozen, he has no desire to thaw. And since he just met her, the 'pine' reference would make no sense. There are a lot of reasons it can't be Tora. You were sure it was for Yolei—you just came up with the 'sun' reference to explain how you know—which told me you not only let the poet use a page from your notebook, but you knew a secret about the writer that he clearly wants to hide from the world, ergo you know this person very well. You know Matt and Tai very well, of course, but you haven't had as much interaction with them over the past few years as you've had with the younger group, not to mention the age difference argues against one of them. That leaves Davis, T.K., Ken, and Cody. Davis couldn't put a poem like that together if his life depended on it; T.K. is dating Kari—that doesn't preclude him, but Kari would have recognized his calligraphy and poetry style; Cody's youth makes him unlikely, though I wouldn't put poetry past him. And he's shy; just the kind to write an anonymous poem about an anonymous girl, but if he were so poetically inclined, he would not describe himself as 'frosted from winter's chill'. No, only one person could have written that poem. Oh, and it also explains an incident when Ken looked upset after Yolei told him about her new boyfriend. I figured it out the moment you identified the poem's subject."
"Don't tell him you know," Izzy begged. "I'm not even supposed to know."
The other girls returned. Yolei was blushing furiously; the other two couldn't restrain the occasional giggle. Yolei placed an intricately-folded piece of stationery on the mantel.
"Come on, Tsukiyo, we have to leave so Tora can come back and find my reply," Yolei said.
"She's definitely the Omi Lady," Izzy said as he and Tsukiyo followed the others out of the room.
Before they parted ways at the top of the stairs, Izzy pressed his poem into Tsukiyo's palm. "I do too write poetry, but only for you," he whispered. He kissed her cheek gently, then entered the boys' bedroom while Tsukiyo stared after him in amazement.
Davis and Tora were arm-wrestling while Matt and Tai placed mock bets. Cody reclined on his sleeping mat quietly writing in a journal. Ken was studying. They all looked up when they heard loud laughter from the girls' room.
Izzy entered. "Hey Ken, I want to show you something downstairs."
"Okay." He stood up and followed Izzy back through the door. Cody looked up, but the others didn't even glance after them; the geniuses were always talking about things that no one else understood or cared about.
"What is it?" Ken inquired when they reached the living room.
"They found your poem."
His eyes widened in horror. "But I threw it into the fire. How could they...?"
"I didn't tell them you wrote it," Izzy assured him.
Ken sighed with relief.
"But I did tell them it's about Yolei."
He just barely stopped himself from screaming. "Why?" he asked in a shrill whisper.
"Because you've liked her for years and it's time you did something about it. She thinks it's from Tora. She wrote a response." He looked at the mantel, drawing Ken's attention to the folded paper.
Moving mechanically, Ken walked across the room and opened the poem. His eyes flickered as he read it over. "This couldn't possibly be worse."
Izzy took the paper from Ken's limp hand. "It's not that bad," he said with a smile as he read it. "A little clumsy, but at least the meter is good."
"I can't meet her. She's expecting someone else. She'll be so disappointed."
"If you do show up she'll be pleasantly surprised."
Ken just shook his head, dazed. "This is a nightmare."
Izzy sighed. "She doesn't have to know it's you. You can stay out of sight and speak in a whisper. She'd love the mystery."
Ken didn't answer.
"Whatever you choose, just don't be lonely your whole life," Izzy advised. Then he left.
Ken reread the poem.
"When midnight moonlight
Shines on the sudare screen,
At the south corner,
There, awash in moon silver,
For the thawed spring pine I wait."