Kari and T.K. slowly walked out of the park, silence working as the only contributor to the conversation. Neither one even looked at one another as they walked down the street that would lead back to the Kamiya residence. T.K. casually crossed his arms behind his head while Kari nervously crossed hers in front of herself. Minutes of silent sidewalk travel passed before either teen made a sound. T.K. exhaled a deep sigh.

Kari took that as a sign of T.K.'s frustration and started crying. "I'msorryTKyouweren'tsupposedtofindoutlikethat..." She stopped speaking when T.K. grabbed her shoulders suddenly.

"Kari! Breathe!"

Kari ignored his command and continued to cry. "I'm...*sob*...sorry..." Her crying intensified.

"Kari!" T.K. shook the bawling girl slightly, oblivious to the looks the pair were getting from random passerby.

"DON'T LEAVE ME!"

"Hikari!"

She stopped crying as hard, seeing the concerned look on her boyfriend's face. Her crying continued to slow until slight sobs were all that were escaping from her mouth. T.K. closed his eyes as Kari calmed herself.

"Now then," he said. "Take a breath." T.K. inhaled deeply, held it for a moment, and released it. He noticed that Kari hadn't done the same. He furrowed his brows a bit.

"See, you're supposed to do that, too." He chided. "Now, inhale..." Both teens did so. "...and exhale." Two breaths were released at the same time. "Okay. Now, try that again, and this time, try to make some sense."

Kari bowed her head. "I'm sorry. You weren't supposed to find out like that."

"You weren't going to tell me?"

"Not until the last minute."

"Why not?"

"Because we knew if we said anything to either of you about what we were getting you into, you wouldn't agree with it and would back out."

"So you were planning on keeping this whole 'cage fight' thing a secret from the one person in the world who might find that information a tad bit important?"

Kari slowly started crying again. "I didn't mean to lie to you."

T.K. embraced his girlfriend. "Calm down, Kari. I'm not mad at you."

She looked up at him with tears still running down her face. "You're not...?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Well, I did lie to you. I kept a secret from you, and I forced you into a fight you weren't okay with from the start. If you're going to break up with me, now would be the time to do it."

"Three strikes, huh?"

Kari nodded slowly. "I'm sorry...ow!" T.K. retracted the finger he'd flicked on Kari's forehead. She glared at him angrily, which would imply that there's some other way to glare at someone. "What was that for?"

"I was hoping it'd knock some sense into you." He said, smiling. "You're going rather crazy here, you know."

"But-but-but..."

T.K. rolled his eyes. "I know yours is nice." Kari glared at him again.

"That's not funny."

"Neither is you thinking that I'm going to break up with you."

"Why not? You've got perfectly good reasons to do so."

"Not really. They're stupid reasons if you ask me. And, if you were to keep asking, thinking that I might break up with you over a stupid reason is rather ridiculous as well. If that were the case, I'd have done it when you and Yolei first beat the hell out of each other." T.K. leaned down and kissed Kari's cheeks, wiping away a few of the tears with his lips. "Now then, enough of this crying nonsense and let's get back to your place."

Kari raised an eyebrow. "Why mine?"

"Because mine is too far away for us to get there by walking and, since you had this in your closet," he pointed to his sweat-stained clothes, "I figure you might have other stuff I could wear. Unless, of course, you're some kind of stalker and only wanted to see me soaked in sweat."

Kari smiled. "A little of Column A, a little of Column B."

T.K. smiled himself. "See there? You look cute when you're smiling. Then again, you look cute when you're all pouty and puffy..."

"Oh shut up."

A goofy grin took the place of the warm smile T.K. had a moment before. "Let's just say you're cute in general and keep it simple."

Kari rolled her eyes. "Yes, just like you like it."

"As opposed to burgers, which I want as complex as possible." T.K. said as he patted his stomach. Again, Kari's eyes did their best soccer ball impressions.

"You're thinking about food again. You're hungry."

"I know." A pair of nearly inhuman growls silenced the pair. Faces raced to see who could turn red the fastest. Kari's won.

"Okay, so I'm a bit hungry too. Let's go get cleaned up and get something to eat. You can have the rest of the day off."

"How gracious of you, my lady." T.K. mock-bowed, earning him a swift smack on the head.

"Quiet, you jerk. Now let's go. I want to get rid of these sweaty clothes." Both teens smiled before capturing each other's hands and beginning their trek toward the Kamiya residence once again.

"When are you supposed to go back to the gym?" Kari asked. The question caught T.K. off guard slightly.

"Tomorrow. The trainer you hired for me said we'd be doing some strike training. I thought it was odd when he told me that. Now I know why we're doing it."

"Do you mind if I go with you to watch?"

T.K. shrugged. "No, I wouldn't mind."

Kari nodded to herself as the couple continued down the sidewalk.

"You know," T.K. said after a few moments of silence. "A thought came to mind."

"What's that?"

T.K. brought a hand up to grasp his chin in thought. "Tai and Davis were in the park with us a little while ago, weren't they?"

"Yeah."

"They couldn't have run after us since Davis' knee isn't in the best shape."

"Yeah..."

"Which means that they had to have followed us in a car."

"Yeah..."

"So why didn't we ask them for a ride back?"

Both teens stopped and turned to one another. Kari looked left to right in thought.

"Aw hell."


Meanwhile, walking in a whole different direction were two teens with completely different (and to many, unnatural) hair colors. The lavender haired teen fumed intensely while the young man with navy hair seemed lost in thought.

"Oooh, I can't believe that Kari Kamiya!" Yolei screeched, more to herself than to her boyfriend. "Who does she think she is? I have half a mind to show her what I think of her!"

Ken didn't hear what Yolei was saying. He was in the process of trying to analyzing what had happened a few minutes ago. Why hadn't Yolei said anything before spilling everything all over the park floor?

"I wish I could jam a piece of my mind into her eye!"

What does she hope to accomplish by putting me through this? Ken asked himself. The answer wasn't clear, like most things Yolei did or said.

"Ken? Can you hear me?"

Is there some ulterior motive behind making me and T.K. fight each other?

"Are you listening?" Ken did something he would soon regret. He absentmindedly shook his head no. Yolei steamed before slamming her heel down on Ken's instep. Said genius yelped loudly in pain and hopped around.

"What the blue hell was that for?" He cried, holding his aching foot.

"You weren't paying attention to me!"

"I was thinking! You know I block everything out when I think!"

"You can't block me out! I'm loud!"

His foot no longer in pain, Ken settled himself down and took a deep breath. He let his mind settle down before continuing on this conversation.

"Now then, what is it you were saying?"

Yolei rolled her eyes. "I was saying that I want to beat Kari up for making me look like an idiot in front of everybody."

Ken took his turn to roll some eyes. "There are two very good points I'd like to make about your previous statement."

"What?"

"One: Everybody who? It was only Tai and Davis who saw that. And by 'only', I mean those were the only two witnesses to the whole debacle."

"It doesn't matter who or how many people were there!" Yolei flailed her arms around for emphasis. She still made me look like an idiot!"

"Which brings me to point number two: You're the one making yourself look like an idiot."

Yolei's eyes widened in shock. Did her boyfriend just call her an idiot? "How dare you, Ken!"

"Pretty easily, actually." Ken grinned, knowing he'd gotten Yolei's attention. "Your rash decisions and inability to control what you say when you're emotional is what's gotten both of us into this mess to begin with."

Yolei opened her mouth to say something, only to freeze when nothing she could come up with would help her with forming an argument.

"See what I mean?" Ken asked, stepping in close quarters with Yolei. "You can't even think to make the argument that it was Kari insulting your hair color that upset you to begin with."

Yolei slowly closed her mouth. He was right; she wasn't able to properly formulate her thoughts when she was angry. Ken stepped a bit closer, staring deeply into Yolei's eyes as the distance between them diminished.

"Do you see now? Maybe if you hadn't acted so much with your emotions and thought about things a little more, we might not even be in this cluster-mess to begin with."

Yolei returned Ken's stare, thinking about his words. She finished what he had started and stepped in to capture his lips in a brief kiss.

"So," she said as she stepped back. "How long did you plan on bullshitting me, anyway?"

Ken shrugged. "Long enough to get you thinking again. Looks like it worked pretty well."

Yolei rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You got me. Now what were you going to do next?"

"I don't know. I didn't think I'd need another step in my nefarious plan to get you to calm yourself."

"Oh shut up. Let's get back to my house. These clothes smell awful."

"You were the one who wanted to keep running. Now you have to deal with the consequences."

Yolei's eyes rolled again. "Don't I know it." She looked at the differences between the amounts of sweat on each teen's shirts. "Why aren't you as sweaty as I am?"

"Because I've been practicing martial arts for a good portion of my life as opposed to just letting my fingers dance around a keyboard."

"Oh shut up. You need to teach me some of that stuff."

"I don't think so. I'm not qualified to teach anybody anything and besides, what we learn isn't to be used as a form of intimidation. If you want to get in shape, I suggest visiting a gym. You can come with me tomorrow. I'm due in for some strike training with the guy you set me up with."

Yolei raised her eyebrows and smiled lustily. "You have no idea how delicious that sounded." Ken merely brought his hand to his face in instant regret.

"Let's...just go clean up and get something to eat." Yolei raised her eyebrows again. "I MEANT FOOD!" Yolei giggled as she wrapped one of her hands around Ken's. The two began a quiet trek to the Inoue residence intent on cleansing and nourishment.