This is not a lemon, but it sure comes close. I mean, like, *real* close. It's mere millimeters from lemonry--but it remains on the clean side of the line...well, the slightly clean side, anyway.

This story contains strange, unconventional things. You have been forewarned.

I do not own Digimon. I do, however, own a large plot of land in Antarctica. Or so my lawyer tells me. ^_^

This is Season 01, or, rather, shortly thereafter.

And on with the show!

~~

_agz_

~~

Tai was jacking off to a different beat, his eyes fluidly dancing from panel to panel.

"Oh, Hotaru-chan..." he whispered, his body shifting with every downstroke his hand made on his rigid phallus. His other hand, while not nearly as active, was nonetheless busy as it held open Tai's copy of the "Submission Saturn" doujinshi. Some of the pages were visibly crusted together, and, as Tai did some manual maintenance, white flakes could be seen falling away from the mass and landing gently on the equally white sheets, where they dropped into blank anonymity.

Something in his balls twitched, and Tai gripped his dick tighter. He was almost there. Climax was just over a rise that was masturbation itself, he could see it from here. Just a little more, almost there, three, two, one--

"TAI!"

He froze, hand stuck on an upstroke.

"TAI!"

He thawed, and the hand holding the magazine flipped it closed and, in a flash of flesh and paper, dipped in and out of the crevice between the mattress and the frame of the bed. Now you see it, now you don't. There is nothing up my sleeve.

"TAI!" He could hear the ominous sound of shoes, thumping on the hardwood floor of the apartment, coming down the hall, coming towards *him*. Panicked, he shoved his still-hard member into his underwear.

"TAI!" A rattle as a hand closed around the doorknob. A subsequent rattle as it began to turn.

*Where the hell are my clothes?!* Tai raged silently, looking all around for the pair of brown shorts he always wore, and had put on the edge of his bed just before beginning his little foray into the world of self-pleasure. Now they seemed to have disappeared, maybe sucked into one of the many transdimensional vortexes that occur naturally in a young person's bedroom.

Tai tossed his sheets aside with frustration. Wherever the shorts had been, they were gone now, and that was a Bad Thing.

"TAI!"

He threw a blanket over his lap just as the door swung open with startling force, slamming against the wall and bouncing back, vibrating slightly.

"TAI!"

"God! Don't you knock?!" Tai yelled, throwing one hand up in the air in exasperation. The other hand held the blanket tightly against his body. He took no risks.

"TAI!" Kari yelled a seventh time, both of her hands clenched into fists, arms bent and held near her body. "Tai, there's a fair being held in Kichigaisakka Park today! Can you take me? Canya canya canya?" She bounced from toe to heel with excitement, rocking like some mad inmate.

Tai ran his fingers through his hair in irritation. "Can't Mom take you? I'm busy." Beneath his other hand, his erection twitched, and he almost smiled.

"Nope!" Kari chirped cheerfully. "Mom 'n Dad are gone. It's just you 'n me!"

"WHAT?" Tai bellowed. "When did they leave?!"

"Just now. Mom said they won't be back for a few hours." She stuck the tip of a finger to her mouth and looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Daddy said they were going to a motel. I don't have any idea why. Do *you* know why--"

Tai's face abruptly did its impression of a ripe tomato. "Er...I have no clue, Kari!" he said shrilly, waving his free hand in the air, as if trying to ward Kari's curiosity away from the thought. "I wouldn't think about it, if I were you."

Kari looked at him, and for a fleeting moment Tai thought she was going to call him out on his lie. He gulped and tried frantically to think up some more bullshit to feed to her.

With a big, toothy smile, Kari said "Okay!", which relieved a considerable amount of pressure from Tai's chest. Then, holding her hands together behind her back and swiveling her hips slightly, she repeated "Can you take me?" Her eyes immediately became wet brown polished crystals, begging silently. "Please?"

It was this puppy-dog look that finally broke Tai's resistance. "Fine, fine! I'll take you! Now can you get out? I have to get dressed."

"'Kay! Make it quick!" Kari hopped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Tai sighed with relief. Maybe now he could finish masturbati--

Tai blinked, and looked down.

"Aw, shit," he groaned, looking despondently down at his erection, which was slowly shrinking before his very eyes, as though it had somehow sprung a leak and the blood inside was swiftly fleeing its tissue prison. Instead of the mighty spear of flesh and fluid that it had once been, it was now a measly little pocket-knife, flimsy and useless, a tiny pink worm.

"Well," he grumbled, "I guess that's that." He pulled up his underwear and began the hunt for his shorts.

* * *

Once the door was closed behind her, Kari pumped her fist.

*Yes!* she thought, grinning. *Today is my day! Ohhhhh, today is gonna be GREAT!*

Still grinning, she did a little spin across the floor, the spin terminating with her hands clasped together in front of her, eyes gazing up at the ceiling, big pink hearts inflating inside them.

"Oh, Tai..."

* * *

"Tai?"

Tai kept walking.

"Tai?"

He kept walking.

"Tai? Tai--"

He clenched his fists twice, listening with a strange satisfaction as the joints in his fingers made scattered popping noises, and kept walking.

"Tai?" Kari repeated, one hand playing nervously with the edge of her shirt. "Tai, you--"

Tai's ears stopped hearing three seconds after he heard his name. He cracked his neck this time, turning it this way and that, that way and this, side to side, up and down, and kept walking. They were quite a ways from their apartment building now.

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!"

Tai jumped, arms jerking backwards, his shoulders hunched and his head jutted forward in a sort of full-body spasm. His eyes were huge and his teeth were gritted behind stretched lips. He stood stock-still on the sidewalk, looking like a freakishly realistic statue of a high-grade schizophrenic.

He remained frozen in that pose for a dozen seconds, then, with markedly jerky movements, he turned his head to look at his sister.

Kari smirked and let her whistle drop back against her chest, the little ball inside jingling merrily. "Tai, you forgot something."

Tai parted his still-grit teeth just enough to say "*What*?" before letting his jaws snap closed again.

"The money," Kari said simply.

Tai stared.

Kari rolled her eyes and rummaged in her pocket. "It's in here *somewhere*..." she muttered. "Ah! Here." She held out her hand, which was stuffed with bills of various values. "Mom told me to give it to you. It's for the fair." She smiled sweetly, and added "Just for you and me."

Tai blinked, and suddenly found he could move. He turned on one heel, took the money from his sister, and counted it. His eyes widened as he did so. It was a lot of money. A *LOT*.

"Tai, is something wrong?" Kari said. "You look weird."

"No, I'm fine," he lied, stuffing the bills in his pocket, unconsciously looking around, as if to spot some incoming pickpocket or thug who knew, just *knew*, that Taichi Kamiya had about seven months worth of allowance in his pocket. They were in the bushes, for sure, ready and waiting to jump him.

*There's no one in the bushes, dumbass,* he scolded himself. *You're just paranoid.*

*Just for you and me,* Kari had said. *Just for you and me.*

*You* and *me.*

Tai thought about the amount of money in his pocket. He grinned.

"This might be fun," he muttered to himself, rubbing his chin. "There's my share, and then there's her share...of course, it has to be even..." He did some quick math, and his grin widened. "Not bad, not bad..."

An insistent tugging--on his shirt, he realized--brought him back to planet Earth.

"Taiii..." Kari whined, tugging some more. "Are we going or not?"

Tai rubbed his hands together. "Yeah, yeah, we're going. Take my hand, all right? I don't wanna lose you."

Kari nodded and took his hand. She felt her heart flutter and her body tingle with heat as she felt the flesh of his palm and fingers close around her own.

*Today is gonna be GREAT!* she cheered silently.

* * *

"We're HERE!" Kari crowed, raising her clenched fists as high as her arms would stretch, grinning widely, her eyes shut tightly with glee. "We're here we're here we're HERE!" She jumped up and down next to Tai, who looked on with a smile.

*I haven't seen her this happy since...* he paused as something sour filled his soul. It may have been regret and remembrance, but he was unfamiliar with either one and couldn't really tell. *...since she was last with Gatomon. In fact...* Tai rubbed the tips of fingers against one another, thinking. *In fact, I don't think she's been herself for the last few weeks. She's always sitting on her bed and staring off into space nowadays. I wonder what's gotten into her...*

*Aren't* you *sad that you no longer have Agumon at your side?* an acidic voice inquired from just beyond his frontal lobe. *Don't* you *miss the one being in the universe who may have truly been destined to be your friend, from here to eternity? Haven't* you *been more than a little somber these past two months? Or have you been too busy jerking off to notice?*

*Shut up, brain.* A scowl flickered in and out of existence on Tai's face. He was more than a little bit irritated at the unrelenting Voice of Inner Tai right now, but he didn't feel like that gave him the right to ruin Kari's first truly happy day in months. He pushed the Voice into a dusty corner of his mind (where it couldn't be seen behind large boxes marked "7th Birthday" and "The Time That Cat Peed On Me In Front Of My Friends") and just soaked in Kari's undiluted happiness. It didn't take long for a genuine smile to grow on his face.

Kari looked up at her big brother, who looked back, grinning.

"Shall we?" Tai said, gesturing at the Park with both hands. "Ladies first, of course."

Kari giggled. "Of course. But only if you hold my hand again." She held it out, open and inviting.

Tai held her hand, and they entered Kichigaisakka Park.

* * *

Two sets of eyes could be heard audibly blinking.

"...whoa," Tai muttered, staring. His mouth desperately wanted to gape open, but some subconscious part of Tai said no, that would make him look like a fish. It stayed shut.

Kari, however, had succumbed to the urge, and her mouth hung open, her teeth glistening in the noon light. She, too, was staring. "...yeah. Whoa."

There was a pause, a moment of quiet between brother and sister that was quickly filled with the sounds of laughter and chatter that drifted from deeper within the Park.

In a burst of synchronized sound that was somewhere between a whoop and a laugh, Tai and Kari cheered. Some passers-by gave them the cursory "You're Crazy" looks, but neither child noticed, so engrossed were they in the sight before them.

Neon lights shined down from the signs of booths and vendors, which lined the Park's paved paths like good little soldiers around the red carpet. Each had their own ware to share, any little thing; a little something for you and the missus there, sir? These watches are solid silver, sir n' ma'am, I can give you to them at half price, I can I can.

Beyond these booths Tai could see various and sundry games, set up astride and within the path, each with their own theme. Frog Pond Toss, Ring Around the Bottle, Darts, Car Racing, Fishing...Tai's eyes danced from game to game, unconsciously taking in the prizes as he saw them. He felt a line of drool escape his now-gaping mouth as he spotted a rack of Playstation games behind the counter of a booth labeled "Aces Wild". Each row of games on the rack was denoted with a number rank: I, II, and III. On the I rack he could see a copy of Final Fantasy VIII.

He *wanted* that game.

Tai, drooling and mindless, began to wobble over to the booth, one hand groping futilely at the air, as if trying to clutch and claw at the game. He took six clumsy steps forward--

--and pain shot in wild jets across his nerves, making him stumble, the front of one foot catching on the back of the other, tipping his balance. He waved his arms in the air, trying to regain equilibrium, but the hand of Fate went ahead and pushed him, and he fell.

He landed on the stones below shoulder-first, and groaned. He held his shoulder with one hand and his ass with the other.

"What...THE..." he wheezed, rubbing a spot in the middle of his left buttock. "*Kari*..."

His sister stood over him, her arms crossed over her chest, a look of almost motherly amusement on her face. She looked down at him pityingly.

"You spaced out, Tai," she said. "You were like a zombie. Wipe your mouth, you're drooling." She tried not to giggle, and failed.

Tai shot her a disgruntled look as he wiped away the line of slime dripping off his chin. "Was it necessary to *pinch me*?" he barked.

Kari giggled again. "Yup."

Tai rolled his eyes and pulled himself up. "You could've just yelled at me, or something."

"I did. You didn't hear me."

"I didn't hear anything," he muttered, brushing dust off his shirt and shorts.

"That's what I just said!" Kari chirped, grinning.

Tai sighed. *Sisters.* "Look, I'm gonna go play this game over here, you stay here and--" He blinked, and looked around. "Hey, where'd you go?"

"Tai! Over here!"

Tai turned to the right. Kari was standing next to a Water Gun game, an excited look on her face.

"Tai! I wanna play *this* one!" She pulled herself onto the stool and grabbed the gun by both handles. Five other kids joined her on the other stools, each passing bills along to the operator, who pocketed them in turn.

"But Kari, I--"

The operator looked at Kari, then at Tai. He rubbed two fingers against his thumb--"money, please?" the fingers said.

Tai fought the urge to sigh and went over to pay.

* * *

Kari peered along the barrel of the water gun she held, her tongue clamped tightly in the side of her mouth and one eye closed. She was trying desperately to get her gun lined up with the little target at the bottom of the water meter before the operator could start the race. Out of one corner of her eye she could see the other kids fumbling with their guns, trying to figure out what exactly they were supposed to do with them.

She chuckled inwardly, her thumbs poised threateningly over the gun's twin buttons. She was ready to kick some ass.

In the other corner of her eye, Kari saw Tai. He was handing money over to the operator, who looked rather bemused. She didn't know it, but her brother was less than pleased with this predicament.

While half her brain was focused on keeping her gun aligned with the target, the other half dedicated itself to watching her brother, who was now standing a few feet behind and to the left of her, his hands in his pockets, all his weight resting on one leg. She didn't see the slightly annoyed expression on his face or the irritated tapping of his fingers against the insides of his pockets.

All she saw was her big brother, standing there and watching her.

Something in her chest inflated, and she snapped both of her eyes forward. She would beat this silly little game in the name of Tai, and no one could stop her! No one!

A head poked out from the other side of the game booth, and Kari's concentration slipped as her eyes automatically turned to look at the face that went with the head.

She blinked.

It was a boy, about Kari's age, with oddly pointed brown hair and equally brown eyes. He, too, was blinking, and for the same reason: both felt that, somehow, they were meeting in the wrong place and the wrong time, that they were in some way going against an unknown and unspoken rule that governed the universe.

Kari began to smile at him, then stopped. Her eyes rested on the thing in his hands.

It was a water gun that looked just like the one she held.

The boy was the enemy.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

He narrowed his eyes right back, and took one hand off his gun to point a single finger in her direction.

"I'm gonna beat you!" he said.

A fire, which had been slowly burning at a few twigs in the middle of a forest clearing in Kari's soul, exploded into an all-out blazing inferno. She shook her fist defiantly at the boy, a look of angry confidence on her face, and focused once again on the target.

Oh, that little boy was going *down*.

* * *

Tai gave the operator his most withering glare as he parted with his money. The man was thin and balding, and the area between his mouth and his nose kept doing a little twitch that reminded Tai of the twitch of a rat's snout when it smells something it likes. It was both amusing and unnerving, and Tai felt himself unconsciously edging away from the guy, who was leering as he pocketed the money.

Once he felt he was at a safe distance, Tai returned his attention to his sister, and found himself startled. She was hunched over her water gun, her arms splayed at either side of her body, elbows pointing in opposite directions. He could see the muscles of her back pushing against her shirt, and the way the tendons in her neck pulled the flesh up, looking like strings caught under silk. Sweat trickled through her hair, onto the protruding tendons and down the back of her shirt. He watched these lines of liquid as they traveled across her skin, glistening in the afternoon light.

*Whoa,* he thought.

He would have said even more if he'd been able to see her face, which was even more-tightly knit than her muscles. The expression on it was caught somewhere between frothing anger and crazed determination, which made her normally sweet face look horribly vengeful. It was rage beyond her time, something heretofore never measured or even *felt* by most children her age.

All in all, she was handling it pretty well.

*I'm gonna beat ya I'm gonna beat ya I'm gonna beat ya--* her mind ranted. *Gonna beat ya gonna beat ya gonna beat ya gonna--*

*DING!*

"And they're off!" screamed the man with the rat-twitch, taking his hand off the starter bell.

Kari's thumbs were down before the bell had gotten even halfway done *DING*ing. Water jetted in a thin-yet-powerful stream from the mouth of her gun like a horizontal geyser, rushing through the air, uncaring and unseeing and unfeeling and--

--and it hit the target with a THWACK! that rang in Kari's ears longer than the bell had. Instantly the blue water in the tubular meter a few inches above began to rise, rise, RISE!

Her ears full of THWACK!, her eyes full of red, and her heart full of love, Kari fought with all her young might to keep her stream straight and true and on the target, which was barely half the size of a quarter. Through the plastic of her meter she could see the--

--ENEMY--

--little boy on the other side. He was glaring at her fiercely, his teeth gritted against one another, his eyes hidden behind a red haze that seemed to have invaded and conquered most of his upper face. The water in his own meter was less than an inch short of Kari's, and gaining. He snarled soundlessly at her and hunched even closer to his gun.

Her stream wavered and hit the paneling just to the left of the target, water splattering all over her. The boy's meter was now a mere centimeter away from catching up to her own.

Kari fought the urge to snarl back and, with titanic effort, forced herself to focus once again on the target before her. The target was all. There was nothing else. The target was all.

ALL.

The stream realigned itself with the target, and her meter jetted up in a sudden burst of manic speed that spread the gap between her and the boy and--

*DING*

Kari blinked. The THWACK! left her ears, the red dropped from her eyes (the love, however, faded gently and sweetly away), and she suddenly felt like she'd never been so relaxed and peaceful in all her life. She looked around, taking in all the disappointed kids that were shambling away, the flashing lights at the top of her meter, and the sound of Tai congratulating her. This last she latched onto immediately as she carefully pushed herself off the stool, which was a bit too high for her, and landed gracefully on the ground. She grinned up at her brother, who grinned back, and in that moment she felt that all the world was well and good.

Then someone ran up behind her and kicked her in the ass.

* * *

Kari was just hitting the top of her arc when her brain kicked in and finally began to tell her that, yes, you WERE just kicked in the ass, and yes, you DID go flying, and yeah, sure, you ARE gonna kill whoever's responsible when you land.

It was only as the arc was reaching its end that Kari realized she was not going to be landing on her feet, oh no. Her arms pinwheeled wildly in a desperate attempt to push herself into some other position, any position, just so she wouldn't end up--

--she hit the ground face-first, shredding a knee and an elbow on the same side and cutting her chin open so that it gushed blood and she bit her tongue filling her mouth with bitter copper taste--

Kari groaned, and slumped.

* * *

Tai had just been approaching his sister to congratulate her when she had suddenly became airborne. He stopped short and watched with startled awe as she rose up into the air, peaked, hanging in the air over the concrete, caught in time, and then came back down--

--HARD.

He heard her groan--a sharply agonizing sound that shook him to his bones and made his skin crawl as if made of writhing maggots--and in an instant was there by her side, pulling her to her feet, hands unconsciously checking her for injuries.

He saw her cut chin, and the ragged blossoms of blood that were her knee and elbow, and anger swelled like a thunderous roar in his belly. Who would dare? Who would *dare*? How *dare*--

Tai's head snapped from side to side look for the culprit.

He found one, and growled.

A little boy with strangely-pointed brown hair stood, shaking, not five feet away. His fists were clenched tightly enough to make the fingernails bite into the skin of his palm, and his face was consumed by a shifting red haze, which threatened to rip from his face, ignite, and burn everything around him. His teeth were gnashing, enamel clashing against enamel, while his tongue flailed like a caught snake in his mouth. His eyes, while hidden behind the haze, were undoubtedly glaring at the little girl with the cut chin and bleeding knee and elbow, who was now coughing violently. He didn't seem to notice Tai, who was holding onto his sister tightly and glaring at the little shit with all his brotherly fury.

This boy's remaining time on Earth was now very short indeed.

"Are you okay?" Tai muttered, never taking his gaze off the boy.

Kari gave a hacking wheeze of a cough, then nodded. Tai could see her shooting fiery glares at the boy between coughs, and knew with angry clarity that she was on the verge of tears.

"Put some pressure on your chin and knee, okay?" Tai whispered to her, moving her hands even as he instructed her. "There. That'll make the blood stop if you do it long enough." His eyes found the boy again, and narrowed. "I'll be right back..."

Tai stood, took a grand total of five steps, grabbed the kid by the shirt and slammed him against a nearby light pole. He watched with a mixture of loathing and excitement as the haze dropped out of the kid's face, which was suddenly slack with fear. The kid's hands wrapped around Tai's wrists and struggled to push him away. Tai's grip tightened and he thrust the brat up against the pole a little. The hands dropped and the boy began to shake.

He pulled the kid up close so their faces were only inches apart.

"Don't ever touch my sister again, you *hear me*?" he snarled.

A glob of snot was jolted from the kid's nose as he nodded vigorously. He looked ready to cry, like he was about to crack, but Tai wasn't finished just yet.

"I didn't *hear* you."

The boy swallowed and Tai could hear his teeth chatter. "I'm never guh-guh-gonna touch your sister again," he blathered, the stuttered consonant knocking the snot free. It landed on the kid's shirt and began to dribble down. "I puh-promise."

Tai grinned, and it must have been a horrid thing to see, because the kid started to bawl seconds later. He lifted the kid as high into the air as he could, ready to drop him--

"DAVIE! There you are!"

--and then a girl with rather big hair ran over and snatched the boy out of his hands, spun around with the goober in her arms, and hugged him tightly.

Tai blinked.

* * *

Sometime between blinking and seeing the girl had turned, and now faced Tai. He took the barest look at her face before his eyes dipped down and instantaneously locked themselves on her breasts, which quivered tantalizingly under her thin, pink cotton shirt. So round, so so round...

He noticed he could see the points of her nipples pressing against the tight fabric, and half his brain slumped into a numb void, a black hole of conscious thought. His mouth hung slightly open, his breath coming and going in thin puffs. His penis, which had remained flaccid and quiet since Kari had barged into his room, rose with a cry of glee in his shorts and dived for those beautiful tits.

A giggle--girly and somehow sensual--brought Tai's eyes back up, and when he found himself looking into the girl's face, he blushed wildly and looked away.

The girl smirked--he saw that out of the corner of his eye--and he suddenly felt a strong desire to run like hell. He dared a glance back in that direction, and felt a sneer tug violently at his lips.

Little Davie was clinging to the girl's leg, his face simultaneously indignant and fearful. His lower lip trembled like an old fogey's hand. His eyes were shiny with crocodile tears. He looked ready to piss himself.

*But,* Tai thought, *he also looks a bit too victorious to be really scared, doesn't he? Little fucker's faking.*

He looked back at the girl, and wished he hadn't. The smirk had grown into a grin, and it was a shark's grin, one that smiled and snarled all at once, then tore you limb from limb.

"My name is June," she said, sticking out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

Tai took the hand with more than a little trepidation. "I'm Tai. It's...nice to meet you, too." *Oh, how I wish I could mean that,* he thought, eyes on her chest again. *Oh, how I wish.*

They shook hands, and Tai could feel how soft her hand was, and his head filled with helium and his dick with blood. He shuddered when that hand left his, and wondered if this was how all girls made you feel, so hot and clingy and uncomfortable in your own clothes.

Suddenly she was on him, all *over* him, her arms wrapped tightly around his midsection and her breasts pressed right up against his chin, where they made him feel all tingly and sweaty, and then he realized she was kissing him, that her lips were on his cheek and she was *kissing* him--

"OW!" they screamed together.

* * *

Kari brought her foot back down to the ground, a look of protectively self-righteous loathing on her face, which was pulled tight in a grimace that made her features so out of proportion that looking at it was akin to looking into some furious caricature. She snarled--Tai thought later that it sounded remarkably like a cat's screech--and grabbed June's shirt.

"GET. OFF. MY. BROTHER," she roared.

Birds fled their perches in the trees above. Children screamed in terror over in the next street. One geriatric a few blocks away keeled over and died. A young businessman who happened to by passing through pissed himself. The whole park shook with the sound of Kari's lioness yell.

June, who'd been the focus of Kari's aural attack, just stood there, her arms slack around Tai. Her knees knocked, and all of a sudden she realized that it was in no way safe for her to continue to be where she was.

"Er..." she murmured, slowly pulling her body from Tai's as she spoke. "Um...thank you for finding little Davie here...and...um..." Her eyes darted from left to right. "I...uh...havetogonowbye!" She leapt from Tai, pushing him backwards and nearly knocking him off his feet, flashed over to little Davie, took his hand, and ran the hell outta there.

"Hey, wait--" Tai yelled, far too late. In a wink she was gone, the only sign of her passage a swirling trail of dust, curling into a tan spiral in the air. Watching the spiral twirl in upon itself, tightening into a single brown knot, Tai realized with half his mind that he'd just been robbed of his first semi-sexual experience.

A low rumbling sound to his right brought Tai back to the situation at hand. He slowly turned to face his sister, a slipping state of dread dropping into his gut.

It further fell, and passed right through him like some emotional diarrhea.

Kari patted her stomach, which growled again in open defiance. She looked pitifully at Tai, her other hand clenching and unclenching.

"Tai, can we go get some food?"

Tai nearly fell flat on his face.

"Um...yeah, sure," he said, smiling shakily. *Now what had all* that *been about?* he wondered as he held Kari's hand. *She looked PISSED.* "What do you want to eat?"

Kari screwed up her face, one eye squinching closed. Tai was suddenly taken by how undeniably cute she looked with her face in such a horrendous figuration.

"...can we get some pizza?"

"Sounds good." Tai grinned. He'd had a hankering for pie himself. He started off in the direction of the pizza vendor, which he knew was in the park often, then realized with a start that his sister wasn't with him--again.

"Dammit all--"

"Hold on, Tai, I have to get my prize!"

Tai slapped his forehead. They'd nearly walked away without the prize, the whole reason he'd been dragged through all this in the first place!

"'Kay, got it!" Kari chirped as she ran back to him.

Tai looked at her, and his eyes bugged when he saw what she was holding.

"Do you like it?" Kari asked cheerfully.

"It" was a massive pink bear nearly as big as Kari herself. Its eyes were big black ^'s and its shiteating smile was just an equally black curved line. It was pink to the point of neon, and covered in little sparkles and laces and cute rainbow tassels. It wore a bright yellow blouse that was lacier than any wedding dress and covered in more sequins than Jessica Rabbit's infamous red slip.

Tai fought the urge to vomit and laugh at the same time. "Of course I like it!" he lied. "It's great!"

"Here, you can have it!" she said, and shoved it into his arms.

Tai blushed and tried to push the gaudy bear away from himself. "Er, no, that's okay K--"

But Kari wasn't there. She was already running up the path, heading for the unseen pizza vendor.

Tai stood there, the bear shining and sparkling in his arms, blinked, and then broke into a run after her.

"KARI!"

* * *

Kari could hear her brother behind her as she weaved her way through a forest of legs, and could hear, even louder, the grumblings and whinings of the people the poor boy was pushing past. She couldn't see much from where she was, but she knew where she was going. It wasn't her first time in this park.

An especially hairy knee bulged in her vision, and Kari jerked away from it, barely avoiding having her nose knocked in. She laid a slap on the side of the person's thigh then slid away before the slapee decided to return the favor.

"KARI!"

Grinning, she brushed her short brown hair away from her eyes and kept moving, knowing it was around here somewhere, somewhere...

"KARI!"

She stuck the fleshy edge of her palm in her mouth and bit down on it lightly, her mouth grinning around her teeth. She ducked between a pair of slacks and two very shapely legs as she tried to keep herself from giggling madly with anticipation. She nearly shook with the force of her contained chortles, which threatened to burst from her like frenzied atomic particles.

"KARI!"

*Uh-oh.* Tai was getting closer. She squeezed between two pairs of legs that were exceptionally close--were, in fact, rubbing against one another. She glanced up as she literally passed through, and grinned as she saw it was a kissing couple. Then she realized that both were men, blinked, and quickly continued her trek through the tangle of limbs, ignoring the cries of anger that came from above whenever she happened to trod upon a toe or two.

"KARI, COME BACK HERE!"

*Sheesh, he's* close *all of a sudden...when did* that *happen?* Kari thought as she edged around a giggle of girls with ice cream cones, making nervous "eh..." noises as drops of cream slid off the scoops and descended through the air, passing dangerously close to her.

She stepped out of the forest and into the free air, and sighed happily.

All was going to plan...

* * *

Tai's struggles through the throng were infuriating and embarrassing on an infinite amount of levels. The most basic of these were gathered in a simple triad: irritation at his sister for just running off like that, infuriation at the people congesting this part of park, and embarrassment from being laughed at by the aforementioned people. The disgustingly cute stuffed animal in his arms was the source for that laughter. Tai desperately wanted to just toss the thing into the air and run from it as fast as he could, but he knew the consequences. He didn't like to see *that* look on Kari's face; it made him feel as though he was the biggest prick in the universe.

Someone chuckled behind him, and Tai blushed. He did his best to ignore it, though, and continued to push his way through.

Suddenly his hand flailed into open air, and he stumbled out of the crowd and into a concrete clearing--and right into his sister.

"Kari! There you are!" He put a hand on her shoulder, hoping it would prevent her from dashing away again. "Don't ever do that a--" He blinked, and opened and closed his hand. Nothing. She was gone. "--gain." He scowled, his eyes drooping half-closed and his shoulders slumping. "..."

He was glad to see that, this time, she hadn't gone too far. The pizza vendor--just a little metal rolling cart with a canopy, and a little menu clipped to one support rod--was maybe twelve feet away. The guy behind it wore a burgundy red apron and a lot of even redder pimples, each of which gleamed nastily in the sun. He grinned at Kari when she poked her head over the top of the cart, her eyes travelling across the three pies that laid on the surface, trails of steam rising up from them. As Tai neared the cart, he noticed that the guy's teeth were chained with bright silver braces.

"What can I get you?" the guy asked. His voice was surprisingly deep and solid. It didn't seem to belong in the body it inhabited.

Kari eyed each pie, then pointed at the middle one.

"Pepperoni it is, then." He slipped a slice from its place in the pizza and onto a flimsy paper plate, the bottom of which was immediately soaked with grease. He handed this to Kari, who took it with both hands.

The guy--no more than a kid, really--glanced up at Tai and grinned again. "And for you?"

"Um..." Tai examined his options. "Sausage."

"Gotcha." He got the slice and gave it to Tai, grinning ceaselessly.

Tai noted that, while the smile never shifted, the guy's eyes slipped down to the bear, widened slightly, then returned all-too-quickly to Tai's face. He felt irritation tickle at his brain, but did his best to shake it off and grin back at the guy. "Thanks. How much do I owe you?"

The guy told him, and Tai stuffed the bear into his armpit and reached into his pocket--

"Why thank you, little lady."

Tai blinked as Kari passed the vendor some bills, who in turn passed her her change. She grinned innocently at him and tilted her head to the right. "Let's go sit down."

Tai nodded. He wanted to put that stupid bear down, and *quick*.

"Let's go."

* * *

They walked together, side by side, towards the tables, which were clustered opposite the pizza vendor. The whole area was just a

rectangle of concrete surrounded by bushes and trees that stretched far too high for most people to see over. Two sides of the rectangle were lined with vendors--for ice cream, pizza, hot dogs, ramen, and other such fast foods. The next side was lined with tables of the same make and model. All were circular in nature, all curves and rounded edges, and each one was topped with a massive umbrella. A few dozen people, in groups or couplets or, occasionally, alone, were scattered among these tables. They chatted and chirped and sat silently alone without end.

Kari took the initiative and led the way, heading for a table in the corner. Tai followed without heed; he didn't really care where they sat.

There were three seats. Tai placed the bear in one and dropped down into the chair closest to it. He realized his feet were aching, and fought his immediate urge to kick off his shoes and tenderize his soles a bit. He took a bite of his pizza instead.

Kari climbed into the chair and placed her napkinned slice on the table. She gazed at it for a little bit, picked it up, and nibbled on it. Her appetite had somehow evaporated into thin air. She wiggled uncomfortably in her seat, her shirt swishing back and forth.

Tai ripped another chunk of pie off his slice and chewed slowly. Grease began to seep between his teeth, and shreds of cheese slid down his throat. He leaned forward, his elbow resting heavily on the table. His head lay in his hand, cycling up and down with every rise and fall of his jaw.

Kari's hands gripped the edges of her chair as she wiggled some more. Her gaze rested on her feet, which were kicking at the air under the table. It rose only long enough for her to notice the obscuring wall made by the long branches and green leaves of a very ambitious bush. Once this information had been noted and recorded her eyes returned to her feet.

Tai was contemplating the cash in his pocket. If he could just convince his sister to let him go back to that one game and try his luck, all would be well and good. Kinda. It'd be even better if he knew, without a doubt, that he could actually get that game.

*Someone's won it already, I bet,* he decided with a scowl. *Yeah. Someone else got it. They're probably at home right now, playing it. Yeah. It was a lost cause. It's too late now.*

Kari's hands were turning white as her grip on the chair tightened and tightened. She was unconsciously gnawing on her upper lip, which was beaded with sweat. The salty taste of it didn't register in her mind in the slightest. A breeze ran its course across her body, and she shuddered involuntarily. The feel of even that mildest of winds was like an Arctic gale on her skin.

*Now? Do I now? Now?* she thought frantically. *What about now?*

Tai chewed and gulped down the crust of his pizza, then burped. He grimaced for a moment, then his mind returned to its pessimism and his face was slack again.

*Now.*

Tai blinked as he felt the table shake and rattle underneath his arm, scattering his thoughts to the farthest reaches of his brain. He looked up, blinked twice confusedly, and said "Hey, why are you on the tabl--"

His words became white noise as his sister's lips touched his.

* * *

* * *

Fall is here, hear the yell

Back to school, ring the bell

Brand new shoes, walking blues

Climb the fence, books and pens

I can tell that we are gonna be friends

Walk with me, Suzy Lee

Through the park, and by the tree

We will rest upon the ground

And look at all the bugs we've found

Then safely walk to school

Without a sound

Well here we are, no one else

We walked to school all by ourselves

There's dirt on our uniforms

From chasing all the ants and worms

We clean up and now it's time to learn

Numbers, letters, learn to spell

Nouns, and books, and show and tell

At playtime we will throw the ball

Back to class, through the hall

Teacher marks our height

Against the wall

And we don't notice any time pass

We don't notice anything

We sit side by side in every class

Teacher thinks that I sound funny

But she likes the way you sing

Tonight I'll dream while I'm in bed

When silly thoughts go through my head

About the bugs and alphabet

And when I wake tomorrow I'll bet

That you and I will walk together again

Cause I can tell that we

Are going to be friends

--"We're Going To Be Friends," by