At the last scream, Tai opened his eyes.
Blood racing, he squinted at the glare of the sun shooting through the tree leaves, raising an arm to shield himself. The summer heat gripped him and squeezed trickles of sweat that ran down his explosive head of hair through his headband. Past the park by the apartments, along the street, footsteps clacked and the clean hum of electric engines in traffic revved by everyday standard.
The boy stepped back and dropped his arm to lean alongside the tree.
He wasn't just hearing… all of this. He was not experiencing the plain old day-to-day beat of Odaiba. There was heat, but it came from fire, and lightning. There were people and voices, overloaded with panic, but only shapes of them, and none of those looked like his own. It was freaky, like something out of one of those war documentaries his dad liked.
That was it, right? Maybe it was from some movie he watched or a video game with a rating meant to steer him away. Not that he ever paid those any mind, and the resulting nightmares were worth it.
"Oi, Yagami!" He heard the voice of Jun, one of his classmates. "We doing this or what?"
Tai blinked at the new voice and gave a cheeky grin, adjusting his goggles and standing straight. "Fine! Don't say I didn't warn you!"
He broke into a run after what seemed like his shoes being bound to the grass for that whole time. The movement jiggled his shirt free of the slight dampness that stuck it to his chest after waiting for the rest of the group. It had taken forever and a half for the rest of the soccer team to make it to the park, and now he would have to wait that long for them to catch up again.
Tai bounced on his heels as he entered the clearing of trees that almost parted for kids and their games. Near him and across by several feet stood two goal posts. They were those plastic ones used in commercials and had seen their fair share of use. He and his friends had been playing here probably since they were still in diapers.
The other two kids appeared a good minute later. Their brows glistened with the sweat they worked up. Jun's brown head, caked with sweat, bowed. "Geez. The soccer field ain't going anywhere, you know Yagami?" They were practically out of breath and grimacing while flapping their shirt collars.
Tai sighed. "I figured neither were you guys."
Jun and Kaoru, a black-haired boy in blue behind, were barely holding in their annoyance.
"Look, summer's just started. Nothing's going anywhere!" Kaoru shouted.
"Uh, I am, actually."
"Wait, what?" Kaoru blinked.
"He means summer camp." A girl's voice came. "We're both going."
They all turned to the street where Sora Takenouchi had just cleared the crosswalk to meet them. As far as girls went, Tai figured she was alright enough – she could at least run circles around the others in soccer even if she couldn't keep up with him. She fastened the blue helmet atop her red hair that she liked to call her 'signature look', a bad sign of her inner girl peaking. "Didn't I tell you guys before we got out of school? The buses will be coming to pick us up the day after tomorrow."
"Eh… you… may have mentioned something like that…" Jun said.
"Aw, don't tell me you guys forgot?" It was a given they did. He had been trying and failing as their captain to whip them into shape for the soccer team for a long while. "You were just thinking of playing video games in your rooms all summer, weren't you?"
"N-No!" Jun cried. "Like you're one to talk anyway!"
"Okay, guys, come on!" Sora jumped between the boys. She had a straight face, almost tempered. "Are we gonna play our game or what?"
Another reason Sora was kept on the soccer team, according to their school's coach. She was the one who could settle things whenever the boys got 'hot heads.' It was something he heard she was to keep a close eye on during the summer.
Tai could not help but churn out an eye roll. It wasn't his fault all kids his age wanted to do was sit and stare at their phones all day. That was the whole reason he was being shipped off to summer camp. A chance to disconnect and rejoin reality, said their mothers. A reminder there was a real world outside their rooms, joked their dads.
"Fine." Tai sighed smiling as they walked into the clearing. "Alright, guys. We'll pair up and the first to three goals wins. No goalies today."
"I call Jun!" Kaoru blurted instantly.
"Looks like you're babysitting the captain again, Takenouchi!" Jun laughed. The two boys sprinted to the other side of the field laughing and breaking into their classic gaming wish list talks.
Tai and Sora were both left speechless.
"They do know we're the two best players on the team, right?" Sora chuckled.
"Whatever. They'll have to learn the hard way as always."
The two shared a laugh and took point at their goal by the entrance. A practice game would get those guy's heads straight for as long as vacation lasted. Maybe it would get his head straight too.
Somewhere in the back of his head, those voices were still going.
The kids took their positions. Tai was staring down the browns of Kaoru's eyes and his plump nose. The soccer ball was between them at an equal distance – he was not going to hear their cries of cheating. With Sora's call, Tai's feet moved like lightning and snagged the ball before Kaoru's joints could even twitch.
"Hey! You cheater!"
Called it. Tai's legs and blood were on overdrive now though, so he didn't even look back. A red wall came up in the form of Jun's expanded shirt. Who knows what he was eating between last practice and now?
Smirking, he dribbled the ball between his feet. Jun quickly lost track and jumped the left way, leaving Tai a clear right path. The boy gave a kick and launched the ball into the net in a second. "Goal!"
"Aw, man! Seriously!?" Kaoru whined.
Hot off the first strike, Tai was ready to go full captain-mode on their butts. As he turned back with the first words on his tongue, everything shifted.
A dizzy spell ran through him as the green of the bushes and grass blurred into cold gray. The thick of bushes were now fires of the same volume. Whatever blood was racing through him was either stopped cold or he was numb to the rush. He blinked, over and over, and only on the seventh or eighth blink did everything go back to normal.
He was losing it. It was heat stroke, or stress from the homework that was going to be piling up by the time he'd made it back from camp. Teachers in Japan were sadists to even invent the concept. But the razor white light cut through the trees and into his sight. He clenched his eyelids, and in the glare…
That symbol… again. The sun-shaped one.
He'd seen it long before the daydreams, on every screen he stared at. What was it?
"…ai… Tai!"
The boy's nerves spiked. He turned and saw Sora staring at him like a mother hen. Jun and Kaoru weren't as generous. "Are you feeling okay?"
"Huh? Uh, yeah."
"Out of class and he's still spacing out." Jun laughed. "Come on, captain!"
That slapped him back to reality. "Okay, now you're asking for it!"
His hand gripped the soccer ball and slammed it onto the grass. He could see Kaoru sweating once they returned to starting position, and it wasn't from the heat. His grin cracked into a smirk.
The game started again, playing out the same as before, with Tai swiping the ball and charging like a one-man army. It ended just the same, with a ball crashing into webbing on the other side of the park. The other boys were barely keeping up that round, in fact they were on their knees and panting, clearly showing the lack of exercise. If anyone wondered why their team wasn't winning games…
Kaoru's movements were sluggish by the third round, legs moving at a snail's pace. Tai's were still on fire and blazing a trail to the goal. Jun had the foresight to stand ahead of time to block him as he approached.
"Tai! Pass it! I'm open!" Sora waved from his side.
She may as well have been in another world to Tai's adrenaline-fueled senses. Jun meanwhile seized the moment and lunged for the ball at Tai's feet. He only skimmed his foot and rolled it over, taking a few steps to clear as Jun tripped and fell over. Kaoru's hefty breaths came from behind and Tai had to dance away with the ball again.
"Tai! Come on, Tai, pass it!"
Both boys were together, heaving and littered with sweat and grass stains. They closed in on Tai and pushed him to the starting point again. Humiliation seemed to have lit a fire in them – he'd have to remember that.
For now, Tai smiled again.
His feet picked up and headed for the goal again. The boy brushed past the two like revolving doors with a clear line of sight at the goal. He heard them pick themselves up quick and begin to rush over.
No time. Make it or break it.
Some part of his head screamed: "make it cool."
His foot picked the ball up. Tai hopped and it bounced off his chest, then to his forehead and off. Coming down, he took a leap, shedding sweat drops that shimmered in the midday sun. His right leg came around and gave that ball the kick of its mass-produced life.
It shot forth and drove into the ground. Bouncing, bouncing, rolling… just an inch into the goal.
The event played in slow motion for Tai. That one pure moment of epicness dragged into hours in his head. But he landed, and time and consequence came after. He skidded along the lawn and slammed his face right into the dirt with a tumble for good measure.
There was a sting coming from his knee and the burn from dragging it along inches of itchy grass. Then there was the sting and burn of embarrassment.
Jun and Kaoru's voices came from behind laughing their heads off. "Oh, man! I should've recorded that!"
"Epic fail, dude!"
"Okay, guys. Knock it off." Sora chided them, though they both still laughed.
Tai dragged his face from the dirt, brushing off the grass bits. "Laugh it up, it's still our win!"
"You mean 'your win?'"
"Whatever." Jun scoffed. "Least I didn't just eat a dirt sandwich."
The two boys took the cue to take off, free from his soccer ball-spotted cage at last. They bolted for their bags at the entrance and slung them over their shoulders, snickering all the way. "Well, we gotta get going. Can't watch you play superstar all day, as fun as it is."
"Hey, you should check out that new movie with the kid hero. That's something…"
Off they went, going on about movies, then into games, then into social media or anything that involved electronics. One would think they would show their captain a little more respect. First freaky visions and now just pulling off a move with more than just a button push on a controller? He practically WAS one of their precious video game heroes.
"You're gonna need some ice for that."
He jumped and turned to Sora, none too happy as she leered over him.
"I'm fine, mom. It's just a scratch. Real soccer players get 'em all the time."
"Real soccer players also pay attention to their teammates."
Sora grabbed him by the arm and hefted him up in true tomboy fashion. Tai winced at the jolt that came into his leg. Silently as he could, of course – not like he needed Sora to go full nag mode on him. "I had it covered."
"Yeah, sure. Don't tell me this is the only reason I'm here?"
"I thought kids like to get out and have fun. Pretty sure that's why we signed up for summer camp."
"Well, I know I'm ready to do some hiking and stuff."
Now she was sounding like fun, at long last. "Totally. I'm gonna sign up for every activity they've got. Keep school outta my head for as long as possible." This time, he winced loudly.
"Summer camp's fun but it's not gonna last forever, you know." Sora carried him over, arm on her shoulder, to the side and set him down. It was only a second before she had a bandage at the ready and over his freshly -bleeding cut. "We're only one grade away from middle school, so we are gonna need to think about entrance exams for that before long. Believe me, my mom says as much. So does my dad, whenever he's around."
Tai growled. "Can't you just come out for one game and not be a stick in the mud?"
"I can't help it when you only ever want to show off." Sora sighed, but smiled despite herself. They argued like this all the time. Neither of them could have ever thought one birthday party vomit incident would have led to this. "You never change, do you?"
"Don't see why I have to."
Sora groaned and sat beside him. She stole glances here and there while he just laid back. If this was leading to some kind of confession, he was hobbling home, no questions asked.
"What happened back there?" She asked.
"Hm?"
"You spaced out for a second. I thought you were going to go full celebrity and start dancing around the field."
"Well, that's…" He caught himself before the first word came out. How did anyone start explaining something like that? He was seeing weird symbols and warzones and monsters; that could just be chalked up to a kid's overactive imagination. Worst case scenario, it ended with his parents pulling him out of camp and making him spend every summer in a therapist's chair until he turned thirty.
"Just… something from a video game I played." It might as well have been. Odaiba's malls and theme parks were chock full of game stores and they all just started blending together.
The girl chuckled. "And to think you were calling out Jun and Kaoru for being gamers just a while ago…"
"Come on! Don't compare me to those couch-potato fanatics!"
"Well, are you sure-"
Tai felt a buzz in his left pocket. He pulled it out and flipped the power on. With all the running he did he must not have noticed all the vibrating. His notifications were showing a mass amount of texts. Every hair on his head was now standing on end.
"Oh, no…. oh, no. No, no, no, no!" He jolted and sat upright.
"What? What is it!?" Sora jumped back concerned.
"My mom! She's been texting me like crazy!"
He shoved the phone in her face. All those texts needed but a second to be burned into his retinas. Each text after another showed the progression from a doting mom to a woman on the warpath.
'Tai, it's your mom. I tried calling. Did you remember to buy sunscreen for camp?'
'Tai pick up the phone. I need to ask you to get a few more things.'
'Taichi, you better not be goofing off at the park or something.'
'Taichi Yagami, where are you? Why did I even get you that phone!? Answer me NOW!'
Sora gave him a deadpan look. "Figured as much."
"I gotta go! Gotta store to the run! I mean run to the store! Talk to you later!"
"Just take it easy with that leg, okay?"
Tai scraped up the grass in his haste to get up. In all honesty, he wasn't even feeling that cut on the knee – just a numb pain that barely crossed his mind with every step. It was nothing compared to what his mom would do to him if he came home empty handed.
He made it to the other end of the park with the crosswalk headed towards the apartments. Just a quick shot past to the boardwalk and the convenience store and then make it back home before his mom and sister got back. At least he had enough brains to bring his wallet AND his soccer ball. The boy bounced in place waiting for the light to change, and the sun flashed in his eyes again.
Forget weird daydreams. He had bigger things on his plate right now.
Thanks to everyone for their patience. This chapter was a bit shorter than others I usually write, at least by a few words.
I hope the point got across nonetheless in introducing Tai. Any Digimon fan worth their digivice should know who and how he is, but that's how it goes in stories. When working out his character and personality in the notes, I think I got a piece of myself into Tai a bit, honestly. I'd like to know how you think I portrayed both him and Sora.
This also took a bit longer to write possibly due to a lack of motivation. A lot of things are happening in my life right now and its getting hard to muster up energy. But I am a creative person by nature and I'll keep it going for the long haul.
Onto the reviews:
Nobility: I'm glad you approve so far. I owe a lot of my writing style to blog sites and full-fledged novels. The new anime has its hit and miss moments, but ultimately it's trying to tell a different story from the original, as I am. I can't promise it will be better but it means a lot that you're interested.
AsylusGoji91: Thank you for reading.
Foxchick1: Glad to see you here. Hope you approve of what happens next.
The next chapter will hopefully come sooner. It will be a bit familiar to the anime, but bear with me. Things will start changing once we get into the real action.
Review, favorite, follow! Until next time!
All rights to Digimon belong to Bandai and Toei Animation.
