Part Four: A Secret Discovered
Chapter Thirteen: Déjà vu
The school week had reached its hectic finale and ended with a crescendo of pencils being tossed onto desks and books shoved roughly into bags. For once it seemed as though the entire class were united in a, fuck this shit, attitude towards their workloads. Indeed, when he left the classroom, Tai had heard several different groups huddled in talks about blowing off their studies that evening, or tomorrow, or on Sunday, or even all of the above. The idea was tempting, all of them in fact, he thought as he wandered through the packed hallways. Like everyone else, he had been working flat out for weeks on end and was beginning to feel burnt out. Mid-January could not come soon enough. Maybe he would only do a few hours when he got home and then take the rest of the night off. His parents had gone to check up on his grandmother and would not be back until tomorrow, he could have the TV to himself, unless…
Tai's expression dulled as the thought of Kari floated into his mind. It would be awkward being alone in the house with her. Especially if they needed to have dinner together. No, he couldn't sit there and eat with her, while they both pretended like nothing was wrong. He would spare them both the discomfort and eat his dinner in his bedroom, he decided. And if Kari wanted to watch TV, maybe he would go out. He could always give Teiko a text and find out where she was partying tonight.
Making his way outside, he went to the bike racks, fetched his bike and wheeled it towards the main entrance. Weaving between the milling crowds, who'd want to mill in this cold, he exited out onto the street and was about to hop on when, "hey, Tai, wait up."
Tai clapped a hand over his eyes and shook his head on recognising the voice. He rolled his eyes. What on earth did she want this week? "Hey, Yolei," he said with a slight grimace. The memory of what had happened the previous week still fresh in his mind. "What's up?"
"Not much," she said cheerfully. "I had to come over to this part of town after school to fetch a package for my mom," the girl indicated the brown paper-covered parcel under her arm. "I'm heading over to your place anyway, so I'll walk with you."
Tai elected not to point out that he was already mounted and ready to ride off. Besides, if Yolei was heading over to his place, she would certainly get a chance to yell at him for being rude. Kari might even back her up if the mood took her and she had not yet fully forgiven him for his recent transgressions. It was at that moment that a thought struck him, "if you're going over to see Kari, why didn't she just come with you after school?"
"She wanted to stay behind and discuss something with our world history teacher, but I needed to get over here before the store shut. So We agreed just to meet back at your place," Yolei answered without hesitation.
Tai looked at her suspiciously but dismounted all the same. Perhaps he was just being paranoid, but he could not shake the feeling that this felt a little too convenient. They set off and he indicated to Yolei that she could put her package in the bike's basket, which she gladly did.
After they were out of the vicinity of the school, the girl turned to him and asked, "so how have you been coping since you and Kari broke up?"
He allowed the question to hang in the air for a moment, before curly replying, "fine." He might have known that this had been her intention; fishing for gossip about her new favourite story of forbidden romance. Well, he had no intention of supplying it to her. She was Kari's friend first and foremost. If she wanted details, she could ask his sister.
Yolei took his reply and immediately went on the offensive, "well, I'm glad you can be so blasé about it and have been able to move on so easily. Kari's not been that lucky."
The twin barrels of the lavender-haired girl's shotgun-like attack hit him straight in the chest and he felt an immediate pang of guilt for his sister. The last thing he wanted was for word to reach her, which it certainly would and in less than half an hour, that he had moved on so easily. He sighed. "Ok, so I lied," he said apologetically. "I've only just properly come to terms with the fact that it's over."
Yolei's expression lightened slightly but still indicated that her finger was firmly on the trigger. "What was it like for you, being with Kari?"
"I'm not about to spend the journey home allowing you to indulge your love for forbidden romance," Tai said flatly.
Bang! The metaphorical sound of the girl's shotgun rang in his ears as she let rip with her second shot. "This has nothing to do with me! It's about your sister and the fact that she's struggling to move on. I'm trying to help her, but she's reluctant to open up to me. And since you can't do anything directly, I was hoping you might have the decency to give me some info so I can try and understand where she's at."
Tai sighed. Had that not been his own intention when agreeing to take the girl to see his sister the previous week? He hadn't planned on her finding out about their relationship, but now that she knew, she might actually be able to help Kari move on. "Ok, you win, I'll talk," he said in resignation. "Just put the shotgun away."
The girl flashed him a wicked smile, reminiscent of the ones he'd loved/hated seeing on his sister's face. Apparently, she got the joke. "What was it like being with Kari?" she then reiterated.
After a moment's silence, Tai replied, "blissful. She's perfect in every way."
"How did you feel when you shared your first proper kiss?"
Tai thought back to that night. To sitting on the floor in a pool of his own blood as he slowly willed himself to become numb to the pain of having to suppress his love for his sister. To Kari's arrival and how she had brought light back into his world. How he had broken down into tears as she slowly teased the truth from him. And then that moment when their lips had touched. "It felt so liberating and so right."
Yolei gave him a gentle smile. "How difficult was it for you to keep your feelings for each other hidden while around your parents.
He waited until they had crossed the road before answering, "it was torturous. We had five days alone together because our parents were away… five perfect days." He let out a small laugh, "it felt like we were a married couple, rather than a pair of stupid school kids. Unfortunately, mom and dad came home and all of a sudden we had to go from that to keeping our feelings hidden at all times. I guess you could say that the honeymoon period had ended."
"What happened then?"
"We had to suffer nine crappy days before we could be alone together. Then another six before we had the chance to go on a proper date," Tai answered. It hurt remembering the scant few times he and Kari had managed to be together after those initial five days. He could only hope that the information might do Yolei some good, as the trip down memory lane was not doing him any. He would need another good strong dose of Hawkwind when he got home this evening.
"You guys went on a date?" the lavender-haired girl asked with interest.
From the way she spoke, Tai could tell that the part about it having nothing to do with her had been a fib. Regardless of her good intentions, Yolei was enjoying hearing about his relationship with Kari. Nevertheless, he started telling the story. "We went to a cinema in Minato city after one of my soccer games, then for noodles."
"How did you guys feel?"
"I was nervous at first, especially on the way to the train station," Tai began, recalling the put down he had received from Kari for trying to zone out on her. "I kept thinking that everyone that looked at us could tell that we were siblings and so shouldn't be holding hands."
"How was Kari?"
"She was actually ok. Apparently, she had been a nervous wreck during my game, but forgot all about it when the stand erupted after my second goal." A thin smile crossed his lips and he chuckled to himself as he recalled the conversation they'd shared around the subject.
Yolei gave him a smile. "Did the two of you have fun that night."
"Yes, it was magical…" he said before pausing, the memory of how the night had ended now prevalent in his mind. His sister in tears as she ran from him at the train station and her continued mumbled apologies as he tried to talk to her to find out what was wrong.
"What happened?" the girl beside him asked, her tone suggesting that she sensed something had gone wrong.
Tai didn't answer. Instead, he just kept walking, his mind lost inside one of his most painful memories.
"Tai…" he felt a hand tug at his sleeve and it quickly drew him back to the here and now. Yolei was looking at him with both compassion and concern. "Something happened that night, didn't it, something bad?"
Still he did not respond.
"Tai, this sounds like it's important, which means I need to know about it if I'm going to be able to help Kari."
He took a deep breath before he answered, "when we got back to the train station, I took Kari aside so I could give her a proper kiss before we got home. However, something about the whole situation made her begin to question everything that we had done. All of a sudden she wasn't sure if she could cope with the long, torturous periods between the brief moments when we could be together." He hesitated, wondering if Kari might hate him for sharing something so personal, before finishing, "in the end, she broke down into a flood of tears and ran from me… that was the beginning of the end."
Much to Tai's surprise, Yolei reached out an arm and pulled him into a half hug. "I'm so sorry, Tai," she said softly. "That can't have been easy for you."
He elected not to waste time indulging in the girl's sympathy. He just wanted to get this story over with, get to his room and put Space Ritual on. "I barely saw Kari over the next three days, that was until she messaged me late on Tuesday night and asked if we could go for a walk. We went down to the river and discussed the logistics of a long-term relationship. That's when we decided to end it."
"You miss her, don't you?"
"More than I've ever missed anything in my entire life," Tai confessed.
They crossed another road in silence and for a moment, Tai thought that Yolei was done. However, she then asked, "do you want to get back together with her?"
The question came as a surprise and before Tai could stop himself, he had uttered, "yes."
"Then why don't you?"
"Because I've caused her nothing but pain, hurt and anguish," Tai lashed out, his feelings now raw and untampered. "If I had never told her how I felt, she'd still be happy. Just like she was after she got her hair done and started wearing the sort of clothes she wanted to wear." He watched as Yolei flinched upon receiving both barrels of his very own shotgun. "Sorry," he uttered by way of an apology."
"It's ok," the lavender-haired girl said, quickly regaining her composure. "However, Kari won't see your relationship or you that way. I bet she wouldn't have traded it for anything."
Tai shook his head, but deep down knew that she was right. He felt slightly relieved when he saw the girl fish inside her bag for her cell phone and then busy herself with it. Hopefully it meant that their conversation had come to an end. It did. Five minutes later and without another word between them, they reached the apartment building. Locking his bike in the undercroft, he gave Yolei her package before the pair headed upstairs. And Tai couldn't help but feel a strange sense of déjà vu about the whole situation as he opened the door and the pair stepped inside.