Part Two: His Secret
Chapter Three: Wish you were here
Four notes, that was all it took. Four beautifully haunting notes that had sent a shiver down her spine and she was hooked. After making her bet with Tai over Teiko, Kari had promptly gone over to the CD player and put Wish You Were Here on. While a completely different animal from her Mike Oldfield albums, it shared a common thread in that the music took centre stage. The five tracks may have had lyrics, but they typically served only to complement, not dominate the compositions. When the final keyboard notes faded out, she knew Iowa had been right, this album was something special.
Opening her eyes, Kari turned to look at Tai. "I don't know about you, but that just blew me away."
She watched as her brother took a few slow breaths. His facial expression telling her that he had been stunned. "I never knew music could make you feel this way," he eventually said. "The sheer amount of emotion that guitarist conveys is unreal."
She nodded her head in agreement. "Looks like I've got another set of albums to research and collect." Turning to glance at the clock, she then added, "I'd best go make a start on dinner. It'll take me a while so why don't you go play another video game."
"Maybe I will," Tai replied as she stood up. "Unless you need my help."
"Is that your way of trying to sneak into the kitchen, Tai Kamiya?" she replied playfully.
"No... I..."
"If you so much as look in at what I'm cooking..." she intentionally left the threat unspoken.
She found the look of horror on her brother's face to be rather amusing. So much so that the thought of serving him a portion of the unspeakable evil that lurked in the fridge crossed her mind. However, that would just be plain mean. Crossing the apartment, she entered the kitchen and began sourcing what she needed to prepare the meal. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tai get up and head for his room. By the time she heard noise coming from the TV, she had everything ready. For tonight's dinner, she planned to make some of her brother's favourite dishes. Salmon and cucumber maki (sushi rolls) to start, followed by pork katsu with sticky jasmine rice and sweet chilli sauce for the main and churros for dessert. It had cost her the last of her birthday money to buy everything, but given how much she suspected Tai had spent on her yesterday, it paled in comparison.
It took just over two hours to make all three courses and by the end of it, Kari felt drained. However, she still had to serve. She just hoped everything worked out ok. The churros were still in the freezer and she had no idea how well they would fry when it came time for dessert.
"Tai, dinner's ready," she called out to him.
"Ok," he called back, sounding rather frenzied, "just gimmie a.. OH NO, YOU DON'T!"
Kari smiled to herself as she heard him yell a few choice phrases at the TV, he seemed to be enjoying herself. Picking up the plates of sushi, she made her way to the table and sat them down, just as she heard Tai yell, "YES! Take that you filthy sod!"
She sat down and waited for him to join her. "Have fun?" she asked once he was seated.
"Yeah," he replied, sounding slightly breathless, "sucker almost had me there."
"I could tell," she laughed, watching him glance at his plate.
"Wow, Kari, this looks amazing!"
"Then tuck in," she said, picking up her chopsticks.
She waited on Tai trying a piece before eating anything herself. Not that she was using him as a guinea pig, rather his opinion mattered more than her own appetite. Uncharacteristically, her brother took his time in picking up a piece, putting it in his mouth and chewing.
"This tastes even better than it looks," he said in awe after properly swallowing.
"I'm glad you like it," she replied, giving him a warm smile and feeling a small bubble of pride swell inside her.
They ate the sushi rolls in comfortable silence with Tai maintaining his formal manners throughout. Perhaps her threat of serving him the creature from the casserole dish had made a more profound impact on him than she'd intended. When they had finished, Kari took the used crockery to the kitchen then plated up the katsu. She watched as Tai's eyes widened upon her return, drool almost escaping his salivating mouth.
"Kari, you really didn't have to go to all this trouble just to feed me," he said when she set the plate down in front of him.
"I know I didn't, but I wanted to," she replied, echoing what he himself had said to her yesterday in Shockers.
Again she waited on his seal of approval before starting, which came in the form of a look of complete serenity spreading across his face. The bubble of pride swelled slightly more, two down, one to go. Her mind wandered to the freezer where her churros were hopefully solidifying enough to maintain their shape once dropped in the pan of oil. This was the first time she'd ever tried to make them and according to the recipe she'd found online, they could go drastically wrong.
After they had been eating for a few moments, Kari decided that now would be as good a time as any to broach a subject that had been bothering her since yesterday, one she'd tried to push to the side in her elation. "What are you going to say to mom about my hair?"
She watched Tai think for a moment before he answered, "I'll tell her the truth if that's what you want?"
Kari gave him a puzzled look, "what do you mean by that?"
"You've been a lot happier these past two days and not just because you told me your secret last night."
She gave him a solemn nod.
Her brother gave her a reassuring smile, "you shouldn't shut yourself away anymore. It's important for you to be… well, you. Even if that means other people have to accept that you've changed."
She thought about this for a moment. Tai was right. How could she go back to being the 'innocent child of light' after having been liberated these past few days? The answer was simple, she couldn't. She laughed, "unless I permanently wear a hat when around mom and dad, they might as well find out everything in one go."
Tai shared in her laughter, "then I suppose that settles that. I'll meet you after school and we'll come home together. That way you won't have to face mom alone."
"Thanks, Tai," she replied, although she could not help but feel guilty. She knew fine well that her brother intended to throw himself atop the live grenade that would be their mother once the woman saw her. She would have to find some way of making it up to him.
They finished the Katsu and Kari once more cleared the table. When Tai motioned to get up she halted him in his tracks, "we're not done yet."
He gave her a tentative look as he sat back down, "please tell me you didn't find one of mom's dessert disasters in the freezer."
"Actually I did, but don't worry, it's gone to a place where it can't harm anyone," she said as she opened the freezer door.
From the table, she could almost hear her brother wipe the sweat from his forehead. Pulling out her tray of churro's she gave them the once over before turning to the stove and heating a pan of oil. When it reached the correct temperature, she picked up one of the thin doughnut style sticks with a pair of tongs. Here goes nothing, she thought as she placed it into the oil. For a moment it looked as though it might lose its shape and turn into a fried piece of goop, only for the outside to start crisping. When she pulled it out it had transformed into a golden brown ridged stick; perfect. Wasting no time, she fried the rest and served them with a dusting of cinnamon and icing sugar, a scope of vanilla ice cream and a chocolate dip.
If Tai's eyes had been wide before, it was nothing when compared to how he looked when Kari sat the dessert down in front of him. In awe, he looked over at her, "when mom and dad get back we need to have a serious family meeting to discuss you doing the cooking instead of mom."
"I don't think dad's brave enough to second you on that motion," she replied.
Tai took a bite out of his first churro, the heavenly expression returning to his face. "Bring some of these to the meeting and he might. They're divine."
Kari chuckled as she tried one for herself. They were slightly too sweet for her tastes. Perhaps adding a dash of salt to the mixture would solve that problem. When Tai had finished, much like when they were younger, she slid her plate over to him. "Here, you can finish mine if you want."
Her brother looked between her and the plate, a mix of longing and guilt on his face. "You don't have to…"
"You'll enjoy them more than I will. They're slightly too sweet for me."
'Grudgingly', her brother accepted her offer and practically cleaned the plate. "So what do you want to do now?" he asked.
She gave him a smirk, "you've got an entire mountain of dishes to wash." A look of horror spread over his face, however, before he could reply, she added, "your kitchen ban is lifted. Just in case you try to use that as an excuse."
The expression on Tai's face changed to one of confusion, "wait, why do I need to do the dishes?"
"Digitamamon rules," she replied simply. "You either pay for your meal in US dollars or you do the dishes until your bill is paid."
"That's not fair!" Tai exclaimed.
They both knew she was joking, but it was fun nonetheless. "It wasn't fair on Joe either, but that's the rules." In a flash, she narrowed her eyes and pulled off a rather impressive impersonation of the large egg Digimon, "now get in that kitchen, or I'm going to get angry."
Her brother visibly jumped. "Ok, ok, I'll go if you promise never to do that again."
Kari stood up, walked around the table and patted him on the shoulder as she collected the plates. "And you're supposed to be the bearer of courage too."
"I don't think you realise just how scary you can be," he replied as he stood up and followed her into the kitchen.
She flashed him a devilish look, "oh I know just how scary I can be. It's you that doesn't."
When she burst out laughing he quickly joined in. "I'm getting worried about what I've unleashed."
"You should be. Now, let's get those dishes cleaned."
They cleaned up the kitchen while exchanging wisecracks and doing funny impersonations. Afterword's, they headed back to the sofa to finish up the weekend. Tai picked a film, Terminator 2 after which he wanted a Mario Kart rematch. She gave him exactly what he asked for, a backside full of green turtle shell as she beat him for a second time. This was going to become a recurring thing she realised. By the time she was getting ready for bed, the third of her new albums blasting through her headphones, Kari felt somewhat at peace with the world. Walking out onto her balcony, she gazed out towards the horizon; there were clouds gathering. An omen pertaining to the return of her parents perhaps? She pushed it aside for now. What happened after she came home from school tomorrow was a little later on. She wished to enjoy the last moments of this weekend without worrying about the fallout. And she did not fail to see the irony in that thought. When she'd left school on Friday, she had expected this weekend to be hell. Only for it to turn out to be quite the opposite.