Part Three: Their Secret

Chapter Eight: Lost for words

The weekend had come to an end and Monday morning had brought with it a light drizzle. At 7:00 am sharp, Tai Kamiya had been woken as per usual by his alarm clock. However, when he had reached out a hand to hit the snooze button, he'd come into contact something soft and skin-like. And it had not stopped the incessant beep-beep noise. Grudgingly he had been forced to open his eyes to discern what unholy obstacle was preventing him from going back to sleep. He'd found the bright eyes and smiling face of his sister beaming at him as, involuntarily, his brain started to wake up. Against his will and in a manner that suggested she had been enjoying herself far too much, Kari had dragged him out of bed and practically thrown him into the bathroom to shower. When he had eventually arrived in the main living area, he had found a pot of coffee, a glass of orange juice and a sizeable omelette waiting for him on the dinner table. His sister had given him a good morning kiss before he'd sat down and wolfed his breakfast. They had talked a little about the weekend and agreed that their intimate moments had been wonderful. She had then seen him out the door with another kiss and he'd headed for soccer practice with a smile on his face.

Tai had been on fire that morning. More awake than usual and having had a proper breakfast that he'd fully enjoyed, he'd ran literal rings around his teammates in their running exercises, felt sharper than he had in weeks on the pitch and capped the whole thing off by slotting a hat-trick passed the opposing keeper in the half-hour game they'd played. Needless to say, both he and his coach had been much happier with his performance. It had been a good start to the day.

Morning classes had then followed and while he had caught himself briefly daydreaming about Kari, the impact on his work had been negligible. In fact, it almost felt like the past two weeks had never happened. Had his sister experienced a similar immediate turnaround in fortune after confessing her secret to him four weeks ago, Tai thought as he entered the lunch hall. He was about to head for the same table as his soccer teammates when he caught sight of Matt sitting by himself. The conversation he'd had with Kari regarding the blonde-haired boy and Sora yesterday was still fresh in his mind. He'd given a lot of thought to what she had said about whether or not he had ever been in love with the red-head and realised that she might be right. Upon reflection, he had been so hot and cold with Sora, so should he/ shouldn't he, that he'd not so much left the door ajar for Matt, but virtually opened it wide and rolled out the red carpet. If he had truly been in love her, he would have acted on those feelings far sooner. On that point at least he really couldn't hold a grudge against his old friend. Taking a deep breath, Tai headed for the boy's table and sat down.

"What the hell do you want?" Matt snarled without even looking up from his noodles.

The aggressive nature of his words almost got Tai's dander up straight away, but somehow he managed to reign his temper in. Doing this for Kari, he told himself before opening his mouth to say, "I thought we could talk."

"I thought you didn't bother with words anymore and simply hit people."

"Your brother had his hand on my sister after she had told him to back off," he said, unable to fully keep the anger from seeping into his tone. "And for the record, I only shoved him away. He was the one who then came at me."

Matt raised his eyes and shot him a glare so cold it would have liquefied nitrogen. "I don't give a crap about any of your bullshit, Tai. You protect Kari like she's some little angel, but you have no idea how much she hurt my brother and didn't even bother to explain herself. Then she attacked Sora and you still took her side."

He had to dig his nails into his palms in order for him to resist the urge to yell. Taking a breath through gritted teeth, he then responded with, "it's not her fault TK wouldn't believe the truth. And Sora was just as much to blame for that fight as Kari. Not to mention Sora gave as good as she got." While his first point had been true and the second more or less accurate, the third was nothing less than a complete distortion of events. Kari had more than gotten the better of Sora and left the girl with three claw marks on her face that Gatomon would have been proud of.

Matt let out a howl of mocking laughter. "You just did it again. Sora had to get those claw marks stitched and was lucky not to scar." The blonde boy then fixed him with another icy look, those blue eyes holding not a single shred of remorse for what he was about to say, "wake up and smell the coffee, Tai, your sister's a bitch."

He snapped. In a fit of rage Tai leapt to his feet and slammed his hands down on the table so loudly that the noise travelled across the entire lunchroom and drew the attention of almost all the assembled students. "Say that again!" he roared as the vein in his temple began to throb and his arms shook. All thoughts of diplomacy were long gone. One wrong word from Matt now and he would finish what he started that day they'd last fought.

"Look at you," the other boy sneered, "all set to beat me up because you can't hack the truth. I'd tell you to bring it, but I'm done indulging you." Matt calmly rose from his seat and picked up his tray. "And in case I wasn't clear enough, go fuck yourself, Tai."

He was only a heartbeat away from diving across the table at the other boy when a stern voice stopped him dead in his tracks, "is there a problem, boys?" It was Mr Nishimura; the vice-principal.

"No, Sir," Matt answered with a sly smile, clearly he had seen the teacher coming and timed his parting comments perfectly.

"No, Sir," Tai echoed, feeling the sudden burst of adrenaline begin to ebb.

"Good, then let's keep it that way," the burly man replied in a no-nonsense tone. He lingered until Matt had walked off, then returned to scouting the room for any other potential outbreaks of trouble.

Tai sat back down and began picking at his lunch. That had been an unequivocal disaster. Not only had he completely failed to make any sort of peace offering, but had let Matt get under his skin to the point that he now hated him more than ever. It looked like Kari would have to be disappointed when it came to getting the entire group back together. Picking up one of his sister's homemade sushi rolls with his chopsticks he popped it in his mouth, hoping that its great taste might help alleviate his now soured mood. Forcing his mind to recall one of his intimate moments with Kari, he completely missed the fact that someone else had just joined him at the table.

"I've got to hand it to you, Tai. No one else gets under Matt's skin nearly half as well as you do."

He looked up at the sound of the voice to see Izzy sitting across from him. "Thanks for reminding me," he said bitterly, stuffing his mouth with another sushi roll.

"In fairness, you couldn't have picked a worse time over the past year to try and bury the hatchet," Izzy continued, seemingly unfazed by the coating of frost that had covered his words.

Tai rolled his eyes and knew he would probably wind up regretting taking the bait but asked nonetheless, "how come?"

The other boy made him wait until he'd opened his own bento box and taken a swig of black tea before answering, "his band is on the brink of breaking up and he and Sora have been fighting a lot recently. I'm surprised you haven't noticed, they've not exactly been making an effort to hide it."

"Kari's got me listening to far more interesting stuff than The Teenage Wolves," he said dryly.

"I was talking about Matt and…" Izzy started to admonish, but then saw the slight smile on Tai's face and sighed. "The point is, Matt's been like a barrel of gunpowder recently and you're equivalent to one of Greymon's Nova Blasts."

Tai stabbed one of his salmon maki with one of his chopsticks. "So it's my fault, is that what you're saying."

Izzy held his hands up. "Easy, Tai. I'm not saying that you're to blame for what just happened. However, you and Matt have always been able to get under each other's skin without intending to, especially when you're not getting along."

"Well don't worry about it, I won't be trying to talk to him again." He picked up the salmon maki and pulled it off the chopstick with his teeth.

"While I'm not saying you should do that, I would advise against it for the time being. However, I would like to know what prompted you to try."

Sighing, he took a long drink from his water bottle. "Kari's been feeling a lot better these past few weeks and began patching things up with the younger DigiDestined."

"What do you mean, Kari's been feeling a lot better? Izzy asked. "I didn't realise there was something wrong with her."

"Neither did I until four weeks ago. It turned out that there was a lot about her I didn't know."

"Like what?" Izzy probed.

Tai reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. Flipping it open he scrolled through his pictures until he found one of Kari dressed in her short red-tartan skirt, black t-shirt with red writing from and her black choker; her hair like a lit match. He held the device out to Izzy and laughed when the boy's mouth fell open and he did a double-take. "That's Kari!"

"Yep. She's either buying her clothes from places like or heavily modifying stuff our mom bought for her. She also loves albums by Mike Oldfield and is starting to get into Pink Floyd."

Izzy took another long stare at the picture before handing his phone back to him. "I can't imagine your mom is happy with her new look."

Tai laughed, "she went nuclear when she saw her new hairdo. Only since I was the one who took her to Teiko to get it done and paid for it, I took the brunt of the explosion."

The other boy winced at what Tai could only imagine was his brain's conjuration of the moment. However, he doubted Izzy had imagined anything close to the truth. "How is Teiko," he then asked curiously. "I take it you still keep in touch with her?"

"Yeah, she's good. She finished her traineeship earlier this year and is now a fully-fledged stylist at a place called Shockers."

"Sounds appropriate," Izzy remarked, "she always was a bit of a live wire. I'm actually surprised the two of you never hooked up, you were always pretty close."

Tai laughed internally, recalling his failed date with the turquoise haired girl. It felt good to be able to think back on it and not feel a crushing weight from remembering that it was the catalyst to him admitting he had feelings for his sister. In that respect, he had no qualms about saying, "We actually went on a date two weeks ago, but found it to be far too weird. Turns out we've been good friends for far too long to make it work."

"That's a shame," Izzy commented between mouthfuls of black tea. "Anyway, you were telling me about Kari."

"Oh, yeah," he paused for a second to remind himself of what the initial point had been. "Kari and I spent some time together a few weeks ago, where I found out about her new likes and dislikes and that she'd been suffering from depression."

"Is she ok?" Izzy interjected.

"She's doing a lot better now that she's able to be herself," he answered quickly before continuing, "anyway, the whole point is that after she started feeling better, she began patching things up with the younger DigiDestined. Long story short, all six of them went bowling on Friday night."

For the second time, Izzy's mouth fell open. "All six of them! You mean she and TK have actually made up?"

"I don't think they're quite friends again yet, but apparently he unexpectedly showed up and it soon felt like old times."

"So that's why you tried to talk to Matt," Izzy deduced, spot-on as per usual. "You hoped that if Kari and TK could patch things up then there was hope for you and Matt."

He nodded. "Kari told me about it last night and asked if I thought there was any chance the whole group would be able to get together again. I guess it was pretty stupid of me to think that asshole Matt would be willing to at least hear me out."

"I wouldn't quite put it like that. You just tried to talk to him at a particularly bad time."

"Yeah, well like I said, I won't be trying again," Tai said, reaffirming his earlier stance.

Izzy looked ponderous for a moment before saying, "while the problem may be between Matt and Sora, and you and Kari, your forgetting something important…"

"Which is?"

"…there are four other people in our group if we exclude the new DigiDestined for a moment."

"What's your point, Izzy?" he asked irritably.

"My point is that if you really want to get everyone back together, you don't have to face the problem head-on. Let some of us help lay the foundations before you try and build a new bridge."

"If you want Matt telling you to go fuck yourself then be my guest," Tai scoffed, not convinced that any of the other DigiDestined would get any further if they suggested to the blonde-haired boy that he come talk to him.

"You know I try to remain neutral and maintain good relations with everyone so would be less likely to trigger his dark mode. However, I was not talking about myself."

"Who did you have in mind, Joe?" he snorted.

"No," Izzy said smoothly as he looked him in the eyes, "Mimi."

This time Tai burst out laughing. Granted the queen of all things pink would be a sound choice, as she had the uncanny ability to continually badger, bribe or blackmail someone into submission as though it were no more complicated than painting her nails. However, there was a gaping flaw in the other boy's master plan. "Mimi's in the US and her powers are useless when you can simply hang up on her."

Izzy gave him a triumphant smile as if he had just played a trump card, "she's moving back to Japan in the next couple of weeks."

Tai looked at him, a mixture of awe at the boy's omniscience and annoyance at having once more fell victim to it spread across his face. "When did you find this out?"

"Unlike you, I keep in touch with everyone," Izzy admonished, still smiling. "Her father recently got a transfer back to his companies Tokyo office and so the whole family is moving back to Odaiba."

He shook his head, "does she know what sort of a shit storm she's coming back to?"

"I've kept her well informed about the situation between the other DigiDestined, yes," Izzy replied. "However, while we wait for her to get back, you could always try talking to Sora. She'll be far more likely to talk to you than Matt is at the moment."

"How come?" he asked with interest. Given the blowout they'd had followed by her fight with Kari, Tai doubted that Sora would be any more willing to talk to him than Matt had been.

"Not only has she been fighting with Matt recently, but I hear she's also been at loggerheads with her mom too. While she's been avoiding everyone, I think deep down she's feeling quite lonely and could use a friend who understands her right about now."

"I suppose this is where I come into your equation?" he asked, already seeing the other boy's train of thought.

"Precisely. I know you and Sora have had your issues.."

"Put lightly."

"…but the two of you were very close friends for a long time and your relationship is nowhere near as combustible as the one between you and Matt."

"In other words, I'm not a Nova Blast," Tai said with a slight grin.

"So long as you don't lose your cool I think we can safely downgrade you to a Pepper Breath," Izzy chuckled.

He let out a longsuffering sigh, "ok, I'll consider giving it a shot."

"In that case, I wish you luck. It would be nice to get everyone together again."

"Yeah," Tai admitted, although internally he thought it was a pipe dream.

The pair finished their lunch while Izzy asked him about a message Davis had apparently sent to everyone, telling them to watch their backs for the video gaming assassin that was Kari. The other boy listened intently to his explanation about discovering how good his sister was with a green turtle shell, amongst other things. However, all the while he could not help but think about Sora and what it meant if Kari was right about his feelings, or lack thereof, for her. If so, then it would make talking to her that much easier should he decide to track her down.