T.K. was normally one of sound mind. He was rarely flustered by anything that the world might throw at him. After all, he took a lot in a dimension the majority of society had only had their eyes opened to a few short years ago and kept rolling with the punches, only really losing his cool twice the entire time.
He was almost never stunned or shocked by anything that went on in the human world. Things were predictable, meaning that anyone with a sense of pattern recognition would be able to tell when things were going to happen.
So, it surprised Kari very much to find that the morning after the phone call that would lead Ken into a fit of anger, said blond had taken to repeatedly thumping his head against the wall, asking the same simple question.
"How did I get involved in this mess...?"
Kari nervously shifted on her feet as T.K. continued to lower the number of brain cells in his skull until he felt he'd reached the level of stupidity that laced itself throughout the entire situation.
"Um, T.K..." She said, her words just as nervous as her shifts. "I think you should stop now."
"Why?" T.K. asked, continuing his headbanging sans metal rock. "This is what I'm being reduced to. Might as well get a head start."
"Maybe, but I don't want you getting blood on the walls. You might also need the brain cells."
T.K. withdrew from the wall, revealing that he'd been a bang or two too late. A small red smudge sat on the otherwise pristine white wall in the Kamiya residence. A matching line of red liquid slowly made its way down his face. Kari held back a fit of rage. After all, she couldn't really blame him since something that was supposed to be a secret from their families ended up being revealed to the entire world on TV.
And it was apparently supposed to happen on TV, making things that much worse.
Kari's head sunk on her neck. "Wonderful."
T.K. plugged up the bleeding spot on his forehead with a single finger. "Are you concerned about my head or the wall?"
"Not you." Kari said as she walked to get a cloth to clean up the messes. "That paint was brand new, and you just ruined it."
The blond member of the couple rolled his eyes. "Glad to see that you care. How long was I doing that, anyway?"
Kari returned with a pair of cloths. One was damp to clean off the wall, while the other was dry. She handed the dry one to T.K. so that he could clean himself off as well.
"I'll put it to you this way. I had time to rent and watch all six Aliens movies, Titanic, host an outdoor barbecue, insulate the house, find a cure for cancer and figure out if Yolei's hair color is natural or not."
"Oh come on! There's no way you could've done enough research on Yolei's hair! The Pentagon hasn't figured it out yet. The Pentagon for God's sake!" To emphasize his point, T.K. flailed his arms about comically.
Kari giggled at her boyfriend's antics. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, though I don't think I was knocking my head hard enough cut myself."
"You didn't," Kari confirmed as she wiped away the small smear of blood on the wall. "But you did wing yourself on a rusted nail."
T.K. looked over the wall quizzically. He didn't quite believe it when his girlfriend told him that he'd hit himself on an oxidized piece of home improvement hardware. She probably just told him that to-
Wait!
There it was! A bent, slightly rusted nail with a familiar looking red liquid threatening to drip off the end. T.K. blinked a few times, staring at the nail as Kari wiped her cloth over it to clean it off. The situation presented itself in his mind.
Wall.
Forehead.
Nail.
Rust.
Blood.
Oh.
"Crap!" He shouted before running around the apartment in terror. "OhGodohGodohGodhelpme!"
Kari rolled her eyes. "Stop overreacting."
"But I can feel the Tetanus creeping up on me through my bloodstream!"
"T.K..."
Said blond grasped as his neck harshly. "I can feel my jaw locking up on me..."
Kari clenched a fist. "T.K..."
T.K. collapsed to his knees, gritting through tightly clenched teeth. "Itshh...threee...ehhhnt..." With that, he fell flat onto his back and frothed a touch at the mouth.
Kari growled deeply. "T.K...I swear to God if you don't pick yourself up off the floor, I'll beat the living hell out of you so hard you'll never even make it back out my door, let alone to the goddamn Tokyo Dome for your match!"
Moments of silence passed. Neither teen budged an inch.
"T.K..."
More silence.
"Damn it T.K.!"
T.K. held up a single finger as if to make a point. "I can't, Kari. I'm supposed to be dead." And so, he turned his head and drooped his tongue out of his mouth rather dramatically.
Kari couldn't remain angry at her goofy-acting boyfriend's antics. Instead, she played along and forced herself to hold a solemn look. She slowly walked over to T.K.'s fallen form and draped the wet and slightly red cloth over his face. She then clapsed her hands together and sat on her knees at his head.
"Poor T.K..." She said. "He will be missed. He, after all, was such an idiot."
"You know..." The "dead" teen muffled through the cloth. "If it weren't for this towel, I'd probably have a great angle to see your..."
"Watch it." T.K.'s mother, who both teens had forgotten was home and in the living room, growled.
"...angelic face."
"Nice save." Kari giggled.
T.K. pulled the cloth off of his face and sat up. "What I want to know is, how the hell did this happen?"
"Well," Natsuko brought a finger to her chin. "It first started when you walked into the apartment. We saw a commercial that should probably never have been aired..."
"Probably? Hell, I shouldn't even be taking part in this damn fight to begin with!"
Kari raised an eyebrow. "And why not?"
"Because you, of all people, should know how to control her temper and admit when she's wrong!"
"Oh, so now this whole thing is my fault?"
T.K. grasped at the bridge of his nose, hoping to hold back a headache he was sure was coming. This wasn't the way he'd wanted this conversation to go. The only thing he could think of to save him was some kind of interruption that would draw his beloved's ire away from their current topic of discussion.
"T.K.!" Patamon shouted from inside the teen's bedroom. Speak of the devil. "You got an email!"
"Okay." T.K. said as he rushed into this room, not giving Kari a chance to scold him. He picked up the D-Terminal that sat on his bed and flipped open the top to read the email.
To: T.K.
From: Davis
Subject: Dude!
Open your door. It's frickin' cold out here!
T.K. raised an eyebrow. He's not serious, is he? It's summer for God's sake! Deciding that it was best to see what the moron was up to, he left his room and made his way toward the front door.
"What was the email about?" Kari asked as her boyfriend passed her.
"You'll see." Was all he said. He stopped in front of the door and turned to his mother. "Get the rope, Mom."
"With gusto."
Normally, any mother would be upset with their offspring if they tried to give them an order. In this case, however, Natsuko leaped onto her feet and set off to retrieve the constrictive item in question. Kari watched with a mixture of confusion and interest.
"What do you need rope for?" She asked just as Natsuko released a cry of victory upon finding the rope in the fridge.
The fridge.
"Better question, what the hell was it doing in the fridge?" T.K. asked, confused himself. Natsuko nervously scratched at the back of her head.
"Patamon thought it was pasta and wanted to save it for later."
The two teens wordlessly shook their heads before Natsuko positioned herself next to her son. The two stared at each other for a moment before T.K. started a slow, fingers-only countdown.
3...2...1...
T.K. yanked the door open, allowing Natsuko to leap out onto the person on the other side and, in a level of expertise unbeknownst to two of the three teens, commenced to tightly wind the rope around the helpless victim and bind him before he could realize what was happening. With one last yank, the teen's balance failed him and he fell face forward into the Takaishi residence.
"Dude!" The bound teen shouted from the floor. "What the hell?"
"First off," Kari shouted over Davis. "You have no room to bitch! You're costing us an eternity's worth of dignity with this worldwide fight bullshit!"
"Secondly," Natsuko cried out herself. "You're bothering us so early in the morning that the thought of coming over here shouldn't have even crossed your mind!"
"And finally," T.K. jumped in. "You're a dumbass for being cold in the middle of summer! Summer, for God's sake!"
Everyone not named Takeru turned to look at the blond with upturned eyebrows.
"What? I needed a reason to yell at him and you two took the good ones. Anyway, now that the dipstick is here, I've got a phone call to make."
As the blond teen walked over to the family phone, his mother and his girlfriend picked up the tied-up twit and hauled him into the living room.
"Damn, Davis..." Kari groaned under his weight. "Don't you know you're supposed to serve the customers first, not yourself?"
"Oh shut up. I'm not that heavy."
"Speak for yourself." Natsuko growled herself. "I think I just developed a hernia."
"Thanks you two. Way to make a guy feel-mmph!" Davis would've finished his none-too-original quip, but Kari took the time to take the cloth that T.K. had used to clean his head and stuffed it into his mouth as a makeshift gag.
"Good thinking." Natsuko said.
"Thanks. I hope he doesn't contract HIV or anything. That'd be odd for T.K. to explain to everyone."
"Well," T.K. said as he rejoined the ladies and their captor. "I got us an appointment at Ken's. I didn't specify a time, so maybe we won't run into Yolei."
"Oh good." Natsuko said. "I'll give you three a ride, and you can explain what in the bloody blue hell is going on here."
T.K., anticipating such a response from his mother, quickly devised a response as he hefted Davis onto his shoulder.. "It might take a while for us to pound out the details. And Davis." Said rope victim squirmed slightly. "You think you could find us something to eat while we get the basic stuff out of the way?"
Natsuko eyed her son for a moment before agreeing. With that, the four (well, three that could walk) made their way to the Takaishi family car. What should've been a short car ride from there was elongated by unnecessarily congested streets which wore at four sets of nerves.
"Ahhr rree eeeree yeehh? (Are we there yet?)" Davis asked through his gag from the back seat.
"No." Kari growled.
A few seconds of silence passed. "Ahhr rree eeeree yeehh?"
"No..."
More silence. "Ahhr rree eeeree yeehh?"
"No..."
"Ahhr rree-mmph!" Davis had been summarily thumped on the back of the head by T.K., who was sitting next to him. Said spiked teen learned his lesson and kept his mouth shut.
Well, as shut as he could with a gag in it.
A few minutes later, the three teens found themselves riding up an elevator at Ken's apartment complex. Words needed not to be exchanged. The silence and anticipation of the confrontation to come was enough to create the silence that spawns thought.
Well, T.K. thought to himself. Hopefully Yolei won't be there and, if she is, the girls won't start anything.
Well, Kari mused. Hopefully Davis has a legitimate reason for a commercial advertising Ken and T.K.'s fight. Otherwise, he's screwed.
Damn, Davis mulled. This rope's rubbing me raw all over. How the hell does Ms. Takaishi even know how to tie someone up, anyway?
Before the three knew it, they stood before the door that led into the Ichijouji residence. T.K. took a deep breath before thumping his knuckles on the door a couple times. Kari adjusted her captive so that he would be out of sight to whoever was going to answer. A moment later, a familiar looking navy-haired teen opened the door.
"Hello...oh, Kari, T.K. How are you?"
"Fine." T.K. responded, forcing a smile on his features. "How are you?"
"Fine. What was it you two wanted to see me about?"
Kari, who'd easily formed a dark smile of her own, tilted her head slightly. "This." She gave a hard yank, forcing the constricted Davis to stumble into his sight.
Ken sneered. "This'll be interesting."
