disclaimer:...I Do Not Own Digimon
Chapter four
Phone call
"Mom! Matt's coming over"
"I'm in here, Tai-chan" Mrs Yagami hollered, trying to make herself heard above the vacuum cleaner.
"…what? No, Matt's coming over!"
"Can't hear you, Honey"
"Gah!" The teen stormed into the room, finding his mom practically underneath the couch. "What are you doing?"
"I'm cleaning! What does it look like?" came the muffled answer from under the couch.
"Do you really wanna know?" Tai muttered, more to himself than to his mother. He shook his head. "Mom?"
"Yeah Tai?"
"Matt. Is. Coming. Over!"
"Oh! Okay, that I heard"
"Not a moment too soon…"
"By the way, do you have any idea what I've found under this stupid couch?"
"Uh, no?"
Mrs Yagami got up to her feet with a sigh, throwing an empty candy-bag into the overfilled wastebasket beside her. "Other than dust, old food scraps and sweet-paper, I've found a fork, a pen, a five-dollar-bill," Mrs Yagami started to list her fingers. "…a pair of glasses –although those were dad's reading-glasses, nail polish…"
"Oh, my bad" Taichi said quickly, unable to keep from grinning.
Mrs Yagami rolled her eyes at her weird son. "Yeah sure –goggles…"
"I've been looking for those!"
"…a magazine, and I'm pretty sure it's not Kari's…"
"…"
"…and finally, I found a note from your teacher that was supposed to be given to us five weeks ago." She finished, putting her hands on her sides.
"…oh." Tai grinned sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. "Oops?"
His mother gave him an annoyed look. "That's it? 'Oops'?"
Tai opened his mouth to defend himself, but before he could speak, the doorbell rang. His expression changed from deer-in-headlights to extremely relieved. "Matt's here!"
He ran off to open the door, and Mrs Yagami shook her head, sighing. Then a thought hit her and she remembered something she'd forgot to do. She looked after Tai who had just opened the door, greeting his friend more happily than usual. Mrs Yagami snickered. "He always gets away."
Her son's best friend looked at him strangely, asking something that Mrs Yagami assumed had to do with Tai's overly happy mood. He shouldn't be that surprised, though; they'd been friends long enough for Yamato to learn that Tai simply was a very happy person. That was why they were so right for each other –one balanced the other.
Mrs Yagami frowned a little, thinking of the phone call she'd received about an hour earlier. Mrs Itou, Tai's form mistress, had told her about Yamato's little brother's strange behaviour the last couple of days. Mrs Yagami had said that Mrs Ishida had told her about that, and then asked why Mrs Itou was telling her this.
Flashback
"Well, we are trying to find out what might be the cause of all this, since Takeru's silence is also affecting his schoolwork and of course his classmates."
"I see."
"Takeru's teacher gave him some sheets of paper yesterday, since the poor boy didn't want to join the other children. And after a while she noticed that your son were almost the only thing Takeru drew."
"Really?" She paused, wrinkling her forehead. "Is… that a bad thing?"
"I'm afraid it is, Mrs Yagami. In one of his pictures Tai is lying on the ground with a big spear through him, in a pile of blood."
There was a short silence.
"Oh my God…" was all that Mrs Yagami could say. It would later on bug her a lot that she'd picked such a cliché expression. "Are you sure it's Tai? Maybe it's just a… evil character from a movie or a story…?"
"I'm afraid we're positive. The dead boy has got both Tai's kind of hairstyle and goggles. In some pictures it even says 'Tai' above him."
"Oh my God…" By now Mrs Yagami was grabbing the phone so tightly her knuckles were turning white.
"I understand it's shocking to hear, but let's not jump to conclusions. Perhaps Takeru has misunderstood Tai a little and got… well, jealous."
Mrs Yagami frowned in confusion. "Jealous?"
"Well, we've also noticed Takeru drawing pictures of Tai and Yamato together -as a couple. Perhaps Takeru is jealous of their friendship."
"You think? Well I guess they spend a lot of time together, but…" She trailed off, not knowing what to say.
"An other theory is that Yamato and your son actually are having a relationship. I realise this is very personal, but it's important if we want Takeru to get over this jealousy of the two of them and start talking again. It's just a theory, though."
Mrs Yagami hesitated. The thought had never even hit her before and it was a bit strange to even consider the possibility. "I… I don't think… well, at least he's never said anything… I really don't know, Mrs Itou."
"That's all right. Like I said, it's just one of our theories. Takeru's silence can also come from the fact that he's misunderstood Yamato and Taichi's friendship. Maybe there's something he's seen that can be misjudged from a eight-year-old?"
"Yes, maybe so."
"Well, thanks so much for your time, Mrs Yagami. We all want this tragedy to end, and we're ready to help Takeru in any way we can." the teacher's voice promised.
Mrs Yagami smiled faintly; slightly irritated by the over-polite way this woman spoke. "That's very nice of you. And I'll speak to Tai about this, maybe there in fact is something unsettled between them that they just have to clear out themselves."
"Exactly. Well, even if this is a personal thing or if it's something more, let's hope he will trust someone enough to tell. Children carrying big secrets are often depressed or scared."
"I'll see what I can do, Mrs Itou."
"Thanks for your help. Oh, and don't worry about Takeru's mother –I talked to her just before I called you."
"Okay, thank you for telling me this."
"Anytime. Good bye."
End flashback
Mrs Yagami sighed as she dialled the Ishidas' phone number. The teacher's call had been in the middle of her cleaning, so she hadn't had the time to call her friend.
"Ishida's residence?"
"Hi Nancy. Listen, I got a call from Tai's form mistress an hour ago…"
tbc
I know this story is probably too short for it's own good, and perhaps it's kinda lame... but I'm still pretty happy with it so far... maybe the next chapters will be longer
review please! thanks for reading my story :)