Part Two: His Secret

Chapter Fifteen: High hopes

Monday had come… and gone. The overcast skies from the weekend had brought a bucket load of rain crashing down upon Odaiba. At lunchtime, the younger DigiDestined, minus TK, had met up at lunchtime for the second week running and had made plans for the four of them, plus Ken, to meet up this coming Friday. At the end of the school day and after a long talk with Yolei, Kari had made the decision to go and see TK again. While the boy had clearly been making a joke the previous week (about seeing her again this Monday), it felt like too much of a light-hearted conversation starter for her to pass up. So like the previous two weeks, she had gone to meet him after the creative writing club had finished. She had caught the smile on his face that he'd tried to hide with a shake of his head. While she'd had to put up with a frosty demeanour, TK had definitely started to melt since two weeks ago. Keeping the conversation away from their relationship, Kari had asked him more about his plans to write down some of their adventures in the Digital world. For the second week running, asking him about his writing had worked like a charm. Even if he'd known exactly what she was doing, he had not been able to resist talking about his passion. Eventually, just before they parted, he had caught her by surprise and asked her a question, "so what are your plans for the future?" It was only then when faced with the question upfront, did she realise that she didn't have any. Her depression having robbed her of any hope or ideas about what she wanted to do with her life. Ultimately, she had been forced to answer, "I don't know." After they went their separate ways, Kari had been left with something to ponder. What did she want to do with her life?

The rest of the school week had passed with little incident. She had gone over to Yolei's on Tuesday to study and then to Davis' place on Thursday to help him with his math homework and then, as a reward for finishing, pounded him into the ground on Super Smash Bros. Melee. Like the previous week, Kari had barely seen hide nor hair of Tai, except at mealtimes. Her brother virtually sealing himself inside his bedroom between one school day ending and another starting.

Come Friday morning, her mom had received a shock phone call saying that her grandmother had fallen ill and had been taken into hospital. While it did not sound life-threatening, it had been enough for her mom to hastily make plans to go and visit her that night and stay the weekend. Her brother had automatically been exempt from the trip due to his schoolwork and, after swearing on Gatomon's life that she would not get a tattoo, body piercing or do anything else to change her appearance (yes, her mother had actually made her do that), she had been allowed to stay at home too. Her mom had even left her with money to buy food as she would not have time to prepare anything before leaving. The irony of the whole situation had not been lost on Kari. Had the option existed three weeks ago to go with her parents, she would have taken it immediately. However, today she had actively made a promise on her Digimon partner's life in order to be allowed to stay.

Kari parked her bike in the undercroft and removed the shopping bags from the basket. She'd gone to the store on her way home so she could make something for dinner before she went out for the evening. Climbing up the stairs, she entered the apartment to find it empty. Her father must have gotten away from work early and so her parents had already left. Tai, on the other hand, would only have finished about ten or fifteen minutes ago and so would still be on his way, assuming he planned on coming straight home. A quick check of her phone told her that was not the case. "Hey, am going to hit the computer lab, have got some work that I need access to the school's system to finish." She looked at the time; 15:55. Her friends planned to meet at 18:00, so she had little choice but to make dinner now and hope that Tai came home soon. If not, he would have to reheat it himself later on.

Entering the kitchen, Kari emptied the groceries onto the work surface and set about the task of making ramen. If she had not been going out, she would have made Tai his favourite to try and cheer him up, however, that would have to wait until tomorrow or Sunday. By quarter past five, dinner was ready but there was still no sign of Tai. With little alternative, she sat down at the table to eat by herself. After she had finished, she went for a quick shower before heading into her bedroom to get ready. Since last Sunday she had been working on making a new outfit from clothes her mom had bought her and tonight seemed like a good night to demo it. And since she did her own laundry, her mom had not yet noticed what she had been doing. From beneath her bed, she pulled out her CD box, selected Crises and put it into her stereo; its green artwork having won it the honour.

The music started and Kari turned her attention to the wardrobe, withdrawing what had once been a pair of plain blue jeans. However, she had cut the left leg off at the knee and used her fabric spray paint to colour the remainder neon yellow. On the other side, she had cut open the knee, sprayed the top half black and the bottom neon yellow and then used stencils to spray the words Digital and Punk on the top and bottom halves respectively, using the alternate colour. She would pair these with the matching converse she'd painted two months ago. For upper body wear, she had dyed a white vest black, put two slashes across its front and a large diagonal one down the back and flecked the edges so it gave the effect that she was bleeding neon yellow blood. Jewellery consisted of the black choker from , an old black and white checked fabric wristband that she had painstakingly sat and painted so the colours matched the outfit and a silver necklace shaped like a lightning bolt.

Sitting down at her desk, Kari painted her nails to match the colour scheme. The neon yellow nail polish haven taken some time to track down. She then applied eyeshadow of the same colours and a black lipstick she'd picked up at the store on her way home. Standing up she turned to look in the mirror and felt a rush of excitement at how well the outfit had come together. Some wax to mess up her hair finished it off. Before leaving she picked up her short denim jacket and placed her cell phone and purse in the pockets. She would have preferred a black leather one to go with this look, but that was beyond her means at present. Leaving her room behind she glanced up at the living room clock; twenty to six. Tai was still not home, but she needed to leave or she would be late. However, when she reached the apartment door, it opened for her.

"Tai," she said in happy surprise when his mass of chocolate brown hair appeared in the doorway.

"Hey, Kari," he replied as he stepped across the threshold, "are you going out?"

She looked him up and down. His skin was pale and there were large dark circles under his eyes; he appeared to be exhausted. Kari immediately felt a pang of guilt at going out and leaving him like this. For a moment she thought about cancelling, but it quickly got washed away in her excitement. However, it did not stop her commenting, "you look terrible, Tai."

"I'll be fine," he replied, even his voice sounded tired. "It's just been a really long week and I'm feeling beat."

Kari did not pause to question his reply. "There's ramen on the stove, all you need to do is heat it up. After that, you should go for a nice hot shower and then get some sleep."

At the mention of sleep, Tai let out a yawn. "I'll be sure to do that. Now you go out and have fun."

She reached up and gave him a quick hug before taking a few steps backwards. "How do I look?" she asked, giving him a smile.

She watched as her brother's tired eyes took in her appearance. "You do all this yourself?" he asked.

"Yep!"

There was a slight pause, possibly for his tired brain to cobble together the sentence, before Tai said, "you look amazing, Kari."

She gave him another quick hug and a peck on the cheek before turning them around and stepping backwards out the door. "Get some rest, Tai," she said with a smile.

Her brother returned the gesture with a weak one of his own. "Have fun, Kari," he said before softly closing the door.

She turned and headed towards the stairs.

##

It was 6 pm on the dot when Kari arrived at the bowling alley where they had all agreed to meet. Her brief exchange with Tai had cost her what little leeway she'd had. However, as she approached the front door and spotted her friends milling around outside, it quickly became apparent that she was not the last to arrive; Davis was running late.

"Hey guys," she greeted, addressing the other three that had made it on time.

"Hey, Kar… holy crap you look awesome," Yolei exclaimed as she turned to face her, jaw almost hitting the sidewalk.

"I think it's my turn to punish Yolei for checking out girls," Ken said smoothly, clearly extracting some measure of revenge on his girlfriend for what had occurred the last time they had all met up. "Hello, Kari," he added, nodding his head at her.

"I wasn't checking her out, simply complimenting her on her outfit," the lavender haired girl fired back hotly. "There's a difference!"

"Yeah, the difference is that if it was any of the guys doing it, you'd be the first to call it ogling," Cody chipped in; the boy had become a lot braver after having taken a growth spurt and spending some time in the gym.

Yolei made to round on him, but Kari elected to intercede. "People, there's no need to argue over little old me," she said with a sassy grin. "I like you all equally."

"Causing trouble again, Kamiya." As a collective, the assembled members of the group turned their heads to look at the late arrival. "You go to all that trouble to put us back together only to set us off fighting amongst ourselves. You really are evil now," Davis added with a wide grin. "For what it's worth, you look ridiculously hot."

She gave him a wink, "nice of you to notice."

"Hey guys," Davis then said to the remainder of the group.

Kari raised a hand to cover her eyes and shook her head. He could be such an airhead sometimes. Three, two, one…

"Why the hell does she get a compliment and I don't!" Yolei yelled, turning the rage Kari had prevented her from unleashing on Cody onto the goggle head instead.

Davis' noticeably took a step backwards and raised up his hands to shield himself from the girl's assault. "Because you're already spoken for and I don't want to get on the wrong side of Ken," he replied quickly, obviously not seeing the issue.

"Or maybe it's because you think she's prettier than me!"

Before Davis could reply, Cody turned to Kari and said, "should I give him a shovel to help dig his own grave with?"

She had to stifle a laugh, as she had no intention of turning the girl's wrath in their direction. For like a rampaging bull, Yolei had a tendency to round on anyone who drew her attention. Fortunately, Davis did exactly as Cody had predicted.

"Well, yeah, I mean she is…"

"WHAT!"

"There's no point getting worked up, Yolei," a new voice said from behind them. "Davis will probably have a thing for Kari until the day he dies."

The argument ceased as everyone turned their heads.

"TK," Kari said softly, unable to utter anything louder due to sheer amazement. "You came."

"Don't go getting all mushy on me, Kamiya," the blonde haired boy replied dryly. "I only came because I needed some help remembering in what order Ken sent his flunkies after us. That and I hoped it would stop you bugging me every Monday after creative writing club."

Instead of replying, she shot Davis a look that said, 'now would be a good time to clear the air'.

The boy nodded in response. And she got the distinct impression that he would rather apologise to the other boy than go back to being chewed out by Yolei. "Hey, TK," Davis said as he held out a hand, "we might have beat each other up, but in the end, neither of us got Kari. So no hard feelings?"

She watched the pair's eyes lock and for a moment it felt as though her heart was in her mouth. Since she had never really expected this eventuality to arise, she hadn't bothered to suggest to Davis what he might say beyond being the one to offer peace. However, if she had of done, it would not have been a, 'we both lost so let's get over it', approach. As a few seconds of silence ticked by, Kari became increasingly worried that she would have to say something to try and broker an agreement.

However, TK then took the offered hand. "I guess we have something else in common now," he said with a wry smile, "so no hard feelings."

While the others made their welcomes, Kari breathed a sigh of relief. Yet at the same time still could not believe that TK had actually come. It seemed that everything she had thought impossible three weeks ago was now actually happening. If she could make this work, maybe she would have a shot at getting all twelve DigiDestined in the same room together after all. Internally she shook her head, that was getting way too far ahead of herself. What's more the rift between her brother, Matt and Sora was quite possibly worse than the one between TK and herself at its peak. Add her into the mix and it became a barrel of gunpowder. The other girl would not likely have forgotten their fight and how her face had been clawed.

"Are you coming?"

The sound of a voice directed at her drew Kari out of her musings. She looked up to see TK staring at her and that the others had already gone inside. "Sure," she replied and followed him into the building. "Are you going to be able to play?" she asked when her eyes fell on his cast.

He held up his other hand, "this is my good hand, remember?" She actually had to think for a moment before recalling that it was true. "You didn't seriously think I would break the wrist of my good hand over you?" he then added with a humorous laugh.

Kari joined in. While the comment had contained a dig, she let it slide. If this was what TK needed to do to try and help himself be around her, she would tolerate it for now. Hopefully, given time, he would be able to accept her as a proper friend once more and not feel the need to pretend to himself that he still disliked her.

##

They had split into two teams of three to play two games of bowling. Davis, who for some reason seemed to think that, because she could now kick his ass at video games, Kari would now rule at everything, immediately called dibs. She had watched in amusement as TK, who had somehow managed to keep a straight face, said, "she's all yours," before promptly aligning himself with Ken. As he passed her to join his new comrade on the other side of the divided, he'd whispered, "he's never seen you bowl, has he?" He had given her a smile when she had replied, "nope." Yolei had naturally joined Ken, leaving Cody to team up with Davis and herself.

Just like old times, they had all shared a laugh at Davis' expense when Kari had taken her first turn. This was compounded when it transpired that, like with almost everything else in life, Ken was a great bowler. It was in that regard, after his team had pounded Davis' into the ground that the goggle head asked, "you know I've always wondered, if Ken is so good at everything, how on earth did we manage to beat him time and again when he was doing his whole Digimon Emperor thing?"

Everyone turned to look at Ken who, with a smile, replied, "I used to ask myself that all the time."

They all laughed before Yolei said, "I always thought it was because we worked so well together as a team."

Ken grinned, "funny, I thought it was because you had better Digimon on your side than I did." He received a punch in the arm from his girlfriend for that comment.

"Maybe it was both," Kari suggested, "or maybe neither. However, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that it wasn't Davis' brains."

Everyone bar the boy she'd singled outburst into a fit of hysterics. When he began to protest about how unfair the comment was, Kari shot TK a wink. "Hey, that's not funny. I'm just as smart as all of you bar Ichijouji."

Like they were back on the lanes, Kari had set up the pins for TK to effortlessly knock down. "Sorry, Davis, but only you are dumb enough to want Kari on your team without ever seeing her bowl."

The laughter erupted once more as they all stopped at the desk to exchange bowling shoes for regular ones. They then hit the arcade, where Kari proceeded to beat all five of them, one after the other, at Street Fighter. When they eventually left, they headed to the same pancake shop from two weeks ago, the conversation splitting three ways while they walked. Inside, they followed a waitress to a table flanked by a pair of red booths. When they were all seated, Davis and Ken were still discussing the arcade.

"…I'm telling you, she's like some sort of video gaming assassin. She handed my ass to me at Mario Kart after the last time we hung out and then Smash Bros last night," she heard the former say.

"Hard to believe, but based on the thrashing she just gave us, I'm inclined to agree with you. Do you think she really can beat Tai?"

It was only upon hearing her brother's name that Kari gave any thought to him since she had left the apartment. He really had looked dreadful, she mused. Maybe she should have stayed home to look after him. She felt the guilt that had been washed away earlier by her excitement return with a vengeance. He would have cancelled any plans to stay home with her if it had been roles reversed. She was a terrible sister, doubled by the fact she was supposed to be in love with him and tripled given how he had reacted upon finding out her secret. As fun as this evening had been, she now felt a need to go home. However, given that she had orchestrated events and that TK now seemed to have settled back into the group, she could not bail. Glancing out of the window, Kari's eyes were drawn to the blood-stained sky; a result of the sunset. When a feeling of dread washed over her, she could only hope that the view before her was not an omen.