12-01-2003, 06:11 AM
Heh. Urban, I think you're off by about...oh, a scene or so. :P
Anyway, this is the SCENE. And whether it is a good SCENE or a bad SCENE has yet to be SCENE--I mean, uh, SEEN. ^^;;;
Enjoy scene somethingorotherI'velostcount.
***
Tai stepped inside--
--and was rewarded with a sudden revelation: this place didn't stink of urine with a faint trace of feces, like a men's room would. Instead, there was the sickly-sweet smell of mixed perfumes, a noxious miasma of thick and fruity smells, accented by the bitter odor of hairspray. It had its own stench, for sure, but it was an almost pleasant trade-off.
Once in, Tai took one step and froze again, his body caught between the door and the frame, the knob pressing into his belly. What if there was someone else inside? What if there were *grown women* in there? What could he possibly say that wouldn't have them instantly breathing down his neck? It was foolhardy to think that "Hey, don't mind me, I'm just here to find my sister. Why isn't she with me? Well, y'see, she kissed me on the lips, and then I yelled at her, and..." would go over very well with the more motherly types. He was bound to get knocked upside the head with a heavy purse for just about anything he said. He wasn't even supposed to be in this bathroom in the first place, now was he?
What to do, what to do...
"Screw it." He moved forward and into the room, letting the door fall into place with a louder-than-life clicking sound. He winced, shoulder jerking up towards his face, and half-turned to glare balefully at the door.
Something made a soft shifting sound in the bathroom behind him.
Tai's body tried to jump and spin at the same time. This resulted in one ankle catching on the other and sending him crashing, ass-first, to the ground. The spot where he'd been pinched earlier cried out at the sudden impact, and he let out a tiny wail of protest.
The sound of his cry echoed in the tiled room, then faded into nothingness, leaving him all alone in the silence.
Tai just sat there on the floor, staring at the tile between his legs. He sat, and waited for some matronly woman of thirty or forty to come stampeding out of one of the stalls, screech at him, and clobber him good with her handbag.
No such thing happened. Eventually he looked up and, detecting no one in sight or in sound, got up. There was an insistent pulsing pain coursing through both of his buttocks, but he felt he could stand (ha-ha) that without much effort.
The bathroom was divided into two halves: on one side there was a row of sinks and soap dispensers, on the other a line of salmon-colored stalls. Both stretched from the far wall to about five feet from the door, where they stopped abruptly. The fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling were almost blindingly bright, and did not allow for the existence of shadows. They cast a bluish hue across everything in the room. Tai had to blink several times before his eyes adjusted to the light, and even then was forced to keep his eyes down.
Eyes half-squinted, he stared at the stalls.
"Kari, are you in here?"
Echo, echo, echo, no reply.
He took one step, two steps, three steps, four. He now stood in front of the first stall. "Kari?" He pushed on the door--
--empty. One step, two steps. Push--
--empty. One step, two steps. Push--
--empty. One step, two steps. Push--
--empty. And on, and on, and on. He passed by two stalls whose doors were already ajar, a hefty lump rising like a freight elevator in his esophagus. Maybe the lady with the long nails had been wrong. Maybe he'd misinterpreted her directions. Maybe he'd gone into the wrong building. Maybe the lady had seen a different girl, one who'd already left the bathroom when he'd come in. Maybe maybe maybe maybe.
Maybe she was in this last stall.
The lump settled into place just below his vocal cords as he stretched his arm out and pushed on the door--
--opening the stall, which was just as empty as all the others.
She wasn't in here.
Damn. It.
The lump rose, lodging in his throat and nearly choking him. He made a nasty noise and held a hand to his mouth. He'd almost thrown up. That would've been pretty. A puke-covered boy, wandering around, looking for his sister. Yeah, in that get-up he could get ALL the help he wanted.
"Dammit Kari, where *are* you?" he muttered, and shuffled over to the door.
He had his hand on the knob when a heavy thump filled the room with its sudden, rocking clamor.
The lump disintegrated. His eyes widened, and he turned--this time successfully--and half-walked, half-ran back between the rows of stalls and sinks.
"Kari?!"
No reply.
"Kari, I *know* you're in here." He stuck his head into that first stall, examining every inch of it before moving on to the next. "C'mon, Kari, come out." Second and third stalls were empty. "Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you. You surprised the hell out of me." The fourth and fifth stalls were vacant, as well, and he felt the lump reappear in the pit of his stomach. "Kari, *please* come out." He ran his tongue over his lips, which had chapped considerably in the past thirty seconds. "C'mon, stop screwing around. You're scaring me. C'mon." He heard his voice crack on the second 'C'mon,' and he knew he was sweating like a pig, and that his face was flushed from running around, but he didn't care. What did it matter how he looked, or if his fear was showing through the cracks?
He just wanted to know his sister was safe.
He poked his head into the sixth stall, looked forward, looked right, looked down, looked left, looked up, and STARED.
And then he laughed.
"Shut up," Kari growled.
Tai stumbled into the stall, grinning and chuckling. He pushed the door closed and locked it in place, the whole time trying not to just burst into peals of laughter.
"Now," he began, swallowing some of his sudden good humor. "Do you want to tell me just how you got yourself up there, little lady?"
Kari glared at him from her rather...unique position. Her arms were stretched over her head, where her hands held the coat hook screwed into the back of the door in a deathgrip. Her legs were folded up like a frog's, laid flat against the smooth surface of the door. Her teeth were grit tightly against one another, and her face was even redder than Tai's. Trails of sweat shone on her face. Sister on a hook, get 'em while they're hot!
She looked him straight in the eye and said, "I jumped."
"Did you really?"
"Yes."
"When I came in?"
"Yes."
"So...you jumped in the air, just managed to grab hold of that hook, and hung there while I searched all the stalls? All without making any more than a rustle and a thump?"
"Yes."
"Liar."
"...am not."
"Are too."
"Am not."
"Are too." He leaned up against the side of the stall, still grinning, and watched his sister try to weasel out of her predicament.
"How would you know?"
"I just know. Do you wanna get down now?" His grin was gone now, replaced with the most serious look he could muster.
Kari squirmed a bit, then nodded. Tai could see her cheeks fill with blood as she blushed, and decided to refrain from making any more wiseass comments. He wrapped his arms around her waist, waited for her to let go of the hook, then slowly lowered her to the ground.
When he looked at her again, she too was wearing a somber face. Hers, though, was one to be taken for more seriously than his. Tai immediately kneeled next to her--ending up with his foot in the bowl of the toilet--and peered into her face. He didn't say anything, just watched and waited.
Kari opened her mouth.
"I'm sorry."
Kari blinked and looked at Tai, her mouth still hanging open. She shut it, then opened it again. "What for?" she asked, hands unconsciously rubbing one another, trying to get the pins and needles out.
"For yelling at you. I don't know why I--well, okay, I do know why, but--I can't believe I--can you ever forgive me?" he rambled.
Kari blinked again. She tilted her head to the side. "Why are you sorry? *I* was the one that kissed you. *I'm* sorry."
Tai flinched. He couldn't argue with that.
That wouldn't stop him from trying, though.
"Look, about that--"
"You were mad at me, weren't you?" She wasn't looking at him anymore.
Tai paused to smack his lips noisily a few times, then tried to go on without seeming as panicked as he really was. "No! Why would you think that?"
"I saw it in your eyes." She turned her foot back and forth on the tip of her shoe as she spoke. "Before you yelled at me, I looked in your eyes and I saw that you were very very angry. You were *mad*."
"No I wasn't! I was--" He stopped short, unable to find a descriptor for exactly what he *had* been. "I was--" He snapped his fingers and stammered into a conclusion. "I-I-I was scared! You startled me! I wasn't mad!"
"Liar."
"...am not."
"Are too."
"Am not."
"Are too."
Tai frowned. "How would you know?"
Kari caught his eyes with hers. "Because I saw it."
Kari: 1. Tai: 0. "I'm not mad anymore."
"I know."
"You saw it in my eyes?"
"I heard it in your voice."
"Oh." He swallowed. "Kari...why did you kiss me?"
Kari gravitated to the corner of the stall furthest from her brother. "..." Her eyes were aimed down at the ground.
"Oh, c'mon, please talk to me." He stared at her pleadingly, willing her to communicate. "I promise I won't be angry any more."
She twisted her shirt in her hands.
"I swear. Come on, Kari, when have I ever broken a promise?"
A phantasmic smile touched the edges of her lips. "What time is it?"
Tai scowled, forcing his mouth downward to keep himself from smiling. Sometimes she was too funny for her own good. "*Real* funny, Kari. I'm not *that* bad." *Am I?* part of his mind asked, but he dismissed it's words instantly; he had just discovered that he had something new to say. "Look, I swear on Agumon, okay? Is that good enough for you?"
Kari turned her face towards him. "You promise not to get angry if I tell you?"
"I swear on a big orange dinosaur, I do I do." He half-grinned. "I will not get angry, so help me Agu." His grin, pathetic as it had been in the beginning, faltered dramatically as he looked at his sister. She wasn't smiling. She wasn't frowning. The expression she wore dropped his body temperature by twelve degrees. It was nothing short of apocalyptic.
His mouth was suddenly very, very dry.
Kari began to speak, and he listened.
"I kissed you because...well, because...because I...because..." She slid down the wall until she sat on the floor, her eyes peering between her knees. "Because...because...because..." And then her eyes took on a glazed, glassy look, the look of someone who is detaching their mind from their body to shield themselves from some unavoidable cataclysm. "Because...well, because I just love you. I've loved you ever since you and Agumon came back home...after you went back I just sat in my room and cried. I didn't know why until it was all over and we were out of the Digital World. It's because I love you, and I don't know what do about it."
"Why do you..." Tai felt the lump stir in his stomach. He knew that when Kari said "love" it wasn't the normal kind, the kind that only went as far caring for the person. It wasn't simply platonic, the friend-to-friend or brother-to-sister type of love that's *supposed* to be there. This was pure, untainted and unrestricted love they were talking about here. There were no walls in this love. If the person you loved were threatened, you would think nothing of sacrificing yourself for their safety. If they were hurt, you would do your all to comfort them. If they were happy, you couldn't help but be happy, too.
This was love unshackled.
"Why do you...love me?" The lump traveled up his throat just a bit. Just enough to be uncomfortable.
"Why?" she said, and Tai was stunned to see her smile in her half-dazed state. "I love you because...I don't know why." Her brow wrinkled. "Does *anyone* really know why they fall in love with someone? One time I asked Mommy how she fell in love with Dad and she couldn't tell me. She just said 'It happened, just like that!' and snapped her fingers." Kari laughed. "I guess that's what happened to me, too.
"Today was supposed to be a date, you know." She turned her head to look at him, her eyes suddenly alive and awake again. "Mommy and Dad don't even know we went. I wanted to ask you out all by myself."
*A date?! Ask me out?! Whaaaaaaaaat?!* Tai thought hazily. His mind swam with the concept.
Kari continued. "I got you a prize, I paid for dinner, and I kissed you." She giggled shrilly. "I guess I did everything I was supposed to, if the movies and the books and all my friends are right." She looked around at the bathroom with an exhausted sigh. "I don't know why, but I really don't think any of them are.
"After all, you don't love me," she whispered.
Tai stared at her. "Wh--"
"You love me, but not like I want you to." She stared up at the super-bright fluorescents, tears just beginning to drip from her eyes and roll down her cheeks. "And don't try to deny it," she croaked, voice thick and low. Her eyes closed as she laid her head back and cried.
Tai was caught in information overload. *When did my sister get so wise?! When had her thoughts become so deep? How come I never noticed it?* He goggled at Kari, completely unable to say anything. *Is this what being a Digidestined did to her? If so, damn Gennai and his prophecy!* He made a fist and closed his eyes. *Kari, I'm so sorry...you were the Eighth, the last, and look what it did to you.* He opened his eyes as an equally disturbing thought crossed his mind. *What did it do to* me *? What did it do to* all *of us?*
He looked at his sister, who looked back unblinkingly through her tears.
*And what am I supposed to do about my sister LOVING me?!*
A long silence stretched between them, broken only by the sound of Kari's soft sobs and Tai's labored breathing.
"Kari..." he whispered after a few minutes.
The girl lifted her head to look at him properly. "What?"
"You know..." He swallowed. "You know that loving me is wrong?" He almost choked on that last word.
She nodded. "That's what Mommy said. But I don't really care."
"Y-you told Mom that you love me?"
"Yeah. I don't think she thought I was serious, though. She was making dinner. You know how she is when she's making dinner."
Tai smiled slightly. "Yeah. She can't take her mind off it for even a second."
Another silence.
"You don't hate me, do you?"
"No."
Kari looked into his eyes. "Good."
"I thought so."
"But," she went on. "You don't love me, either, right?'
One more silence, the longest of them all. Kari watched Tai, outwardly calm but inwardly anticipatory, full of little girl energy. If she hadn't been sitting in the corner of a stiff stall on hard tile floor with the weight of knowledge on her shoulders, she would have been bouncing to and fro.
Ten days, hours, minutes--Kari couldn't tell which--later, Tai spoke, his eyes boring into hers, brown unto brown.
"Kari...an hour ago I would've said 'no' right off the bat. Now..." He shook his head. "...now I don't know...I can't even think right now...too much, too soon, too little time to absorb it all." He squinted. "I can't even see properly, let alone think.
"I'm going to have get back to you on this, Kari, because I don't know anymore."
Eyes on eyes. A staring contest with no known purpose.
Tai won.
"Okay." Kari got up and wiped her eyes with her wrists. "I'm going home."
And she opened the door and was gone.
And in her absence Tai began to cry.
***
Okay, someone tell me what I did wrong here. For some reason it doesn't feel right. O_O;;;
agz, concerned
Anyway, this is the SCENE. And whether it is a good SCENE or a bad SCENE has yet to be SCENE--I mean, uh, SEEN. ^^;;;
Enjoy scene somethingorotherI'velostcount.
***
Tai stepped inside--
--and was rewarded with a sudden revelation: this place didn't stink of urine with a faint trace of feces, like a men's room would. Instead, there was the sickly-sweet smell of mixed perfumes, a noxious miasma of thick and fruity smells, accented by the bitter odor of hairspray. It had its own stench, for sure, but it was an almost pleasant trade-off.
Once in, Tai took one step and froze again, his body caught between the door and the frame, the knob pressing into his belly. What if there was someone else inside? What if there were *grown women* in there? What could he possibly say that wouldn't have them instantly breathing down his neck? It was foolhardy to think that "Hey, don't mind me, I'm just here to find my sister. Why isn't she with me? Well, y'see, she kissed me on the lips, and then I yelled at her, and..." would go over very well with the more motherly types. He was bound to get knocked upside the head with a heavy purse for just about anything he said. He wasn't even supposed to be in this bathroom in the first place, now was he?
What to do, what to do...
"Screw it." He moved forward and into the room, letting the door fall into place with a louder-than-life clicking sound. He winced, shoulder jerking up towards his face, and half-turned to glare balefully at the door.
Something made a soft shifting sound in the bathroom behind him.
Tai's body tried to jump and spin at the same time. This resulted in one ankle catching on the other and sending him crashing, ass-first, to the ground. The spot where he'd been pinched earlier cried out at the sudden impact, and he let out a tiny wail of protest.
The sound of his cry echoed in the tiled room, then faded into nothingness, leaving him all alone in the silence.
Tai just sat there on the floor, staring at the tile between his legs. He sat, and waited for some matronly woman of thirty or forty to come stampeding out of one of the stalls, screech at him, and clobber him good with her handbag.
No such thing happened. Eventually he looked up and, detecting no one in sight or in sound, got up. There was an insistent pulsing pain coursing through both of his buttocks, but he felt he could stand (ha-ha) that without much effort.
The bathroom was divided into two halves: on one side there was a row of sinks and soap dispensers, on the other a line of salmon-colored stalls. Both stretched from the far wall to about five feet from the door, where they stopped abruptly. The fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling were almost blindingly bright, and did not allow for the existence of shadows. They cast a bluish hue across everything in the room. Tai had to blink several times before his eyes adjusted to the light, and even then was forced to keep his eyes down.
Eyes half-squinted, he stared at the stalls.
"Kari, are you in here?"
Echo, echo, echo, no reply.
He took one step, two steps, three steps, four. He now stood in front of the first stall. "Kari?" He pushed on the door--
--empty. One step, two steps. Push--
--empty. One step, two steps. Push--
--empty. One step, two steps. Push--
--empty. And on, and on, and on. He passed by two stalls whose doors were already ajar, a hefty lump rising like a freight elevator in his esophagus. Maybe the lady with the long nails had been wrong. Maybe he'd misinterpreted her directions. Maybe he'd gone into the wrong building. Maybe the lady had seen a different girl, one who'd already left the bathroom when he'd come in. Maybe maybe maybe maybe.
Maybe she was in this last stall.
The lump settled into place just below his vocal cords as he stretched his arm out and pushed on the door--
--opening the stall, which was just as empty as all the others.
She wasn't in here.
Damn. It.
The lump rose, lodging in his throat and nearly choking him. He made a nasty noise and held a hand to his mouth. He'd almost thrown up. That would've been pretty. A puke-covered boy, wandering around, looking for his sister. Yeah, in that get-up he could get ALL the help he wanted.
"Dammit Kari, where *are* you?" he muttered, and shuffled over to the door.
He had his hand on the knob when a heavy thump filled the room with its sudden, rocking clamor.
The lump disintegrated. His eyes widened, and he turned--this time successfully--and half-walked, half-ran back between the rows of stalls and sinks.
"Kari?!"
No reply.
"Kari, I *know* you're in here." He stuck his head into that first stall, examining every inch of it before moving on to the next. "C'mon, Kari, come out." Second and third stalls were empty. "Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you. You surprised the hell out of me." The fourth and fifth stalls were vacant, as well, and he felt the lump reappear in the pit of his stomach. "Kari, *please* come out." He ran his tongue over his lips, which had chapped considerably in the past thirty seconds. "C'mon, stop screwing around. You're scaring me. C'mon." He heard his voice crack on the second 'C'mon,' and he knew he was sweating like a pig, and that his face was flushed from running around, but he didn't care. What did it matter how he looked, or if his fear was showing through the cracks?
He just wanted to know his sister was safe.
He poked his head into the sixth stall, looked forward, looked right, looked down, looked left, looked up, and STARED.
And then he laughed.
"Shut up," Kari growled.
Tai stumbled into the stall, grinning and chuckling. He pushed the door closed and locked it in place, the whole time trying not to just burst into peals of laughter.
"Now," he began, swallowing some of his sudden good humor. "Do you want to tell me just how you got yourself up there, little lady?"
Kari glared at him from her rather...unique position. Her arms were stretched over her head, where her hands held the coat hook screwed into the back of the door in a deathgrip. Her legs were folded up like a frog's, laid flat against the smooth surface of the door. Her teeth were grit tightly against one another, and her face was even redder than Tai's. Trails of sweat shone on her face. Sister on a hook, get 'em while they're hot!
She looked him straight in the eye and said, "I jumped."
"Did you really?"
"Yes."
"When I came in?"
"Yes."
"So...you jumped in the air, just managed to grab hold of that hook, and hung there while I searched all the stalls? All without making any more than a rustle and a thump?"
"Yes."
"Liar."
"...am not."
"Are too."
"Am not."
"Are too." He leaned up against the side of the stall, still grinning, and watched his sister try to weasel out of her predicament.
"How would you know?"
"I just know. Do you wanna get down now?" His grin was gone now, replaced with the most serious look he could muster.
Kari squirmed a bit, then nodded. Tai could see her cheeks fill with blood as she blushed, and decided to refrain from making any more wiseass comments. He wrapped his arms around her waist, waited for her to let go of the hook, then slowly lowered her to the ground.
When he looked at her again, she too was wearing a somber face. Hers, though, was one to be taken for more seriously than his. Tai immediately kneeled next to her--ending up with his foot in the bowl of the toilet--and peered into her face. He didn't say anything, just watched and waited.
Kari opened her mouth.
"I'm sorry."
Kari blinked and looked at Tai, her mouth still hanging open. She shut it, then opened it again. "What for?" she asked, hands unconsciously rubbing one another, trying to get the pins and needles out.
"For yelling at you. I don't know why I--well, okay, I do know why, but--I can't believe I--can you ever forgive me?" he rambled.
Kari blinked again. She tilted her head to the side. "Why are you sorry? *I* was the one that kissed you. *I'm* sorry."
Tai flinched. He couldn't argue with that.
That wouldn't stop him from trying, though.
"Look, about that--"
"You were mad at me, weren't you?" She wasn't looking at him anymore.
Tai paused to smack his lips noisily a few times, then tried to go on without seeming as panicked as he really was. "No! Why would you think that?"
"I saw it in your eyes." She turned her foot back and forth on the tip of her shoe as she spoke. "Before you yelled at me, I looked in your eyes and I saw that you were very very angry. You were *mad*."
"No I wasn't! I was--" He stopped short, unable to find a descriptor for exactly what he *had* been. "I was--" He snapped his fingers and stammered into a conclusion. "I-I-I was scared! You startled me! I wasn't mad!"
"Liar."
"...am not."
"Are too."
"Am not."
"Are too."
Tai frowned. "How would you know?"
Kari caught his eyes with hers. "Because I saw it."
Kari: 1. Tai: 0. "I'm not mad anymore."
"I know."
"You saw it in my eyes?"
"I heard it in your voice."
"Oh." He swallowed. "Kari...why did you kiss me?"
Kari gravitated to the corner of the stall furthest from her brother. "..." Her eyes were aimed down at the ground.
"Oh, c'mon, please talk to me." He stared at her pleadingly, willing her to communicate. "I promise I won't be angry any more."
She twisted her shirt in her hands.
"I swear. Come on, Kari, when have I ever broken a promise?"
A phantasmic smile touched the edges of her lips. "What time is it?"
Tai scowled, forcing his mouth downward to keep himself from smiling. Sometimes she was too funny for her own good. "*Real* funny, Kari. I'm not *that* bad." *Am I?* part of his mind asked, but he dismissed it's words instantly; he had just discovered that he had something new to say. "Look, I swear on Agumon, okay? Is that good enough for you?"
Kari turned her face towards him. "You promise not to get angry if I tell you?"
"I swear on a big orange dinosaur, I do I do." He half-grinned. "I will not get angry, so help me Agu." His grin, pathetic as it had been in the beginning, faltered dramatically as he looked at his sister. She wasn't smiling. She wasn't frowning. The expression she wore dropped his body temperature by twelve degrees. It was nothing short of apocalyptic.
His mouth was suddenly very, very dry.
Kari began to speak, and he listened.
"I kissed you because...well, because...because I...because..." She slid down the wall until she sat on the floor, her eyes peering between her knees. "Because...because...because..." And then her eyes took on a glazed, glassy look, the look of someone who is detaching their mind from their body to shield themselves from some unavoidable cataclysm. "Because...well, because I just love you. I've loved you ever since you and Agumon came back home...after you went back I just sat in my room and cried. I didn't know why until it was all over and we were out of the Digital World. It's because I love you, and I don't know what do about it."
"Why do you..." Tai felt the lump stir in his stomach. He knew that when Kari said "love" it wasn't the normal kind, the kind that only went as far caring for the person. It wasn't simply platonic, the friend-to-friend or brother-to-sister type of love that's *supposed* to be there. This was pure, untainted and unrestricted love they were talking about here. There were no walls in this love. If the person you loved were threatened, you would think nothing of sacrificing yourself for their safety. If they were hurt, you would do your all to comfort them. If they were happy, you couldn't help but be happy, too.
This was love unshackled.
"Why do you...love me?" The lump traveled up his throat just a bit. Just enough to be uncomfortable.
"Why?" she said, and Tai was stunned to see her smile in her half-dazed state. "I love you because...I don't know why." Her brow wrinkled. "Does *anyone* really know why they fall in love with someone? One time I asked Mommy how she fell in love with Dad and she couldn't tell me. She just said 'It happened, just like that!' and snapped her fingers." Kari laughed. "I guess that's what happened to me, too.
"Today was supposed to be a date, you know." She turned her head to look at him, her eyes suddenly alive and awake again. "Mommy and Dad don't even know we went. I wanted to ask you out all by myself."
*A date?! Ask me out?! Whaaaaaaaaat?!* Tai thought hazily. His mind swam with the concept.
Kari continued. "I got you a prize, I paid for dinner, and I kissed you." She giggled shrilly. "I guess I did everything I was supposed to, if the movies and the books and all my friends are right." She looked around at the bathroom with an exhausted sigh. "I don't know why, but I really don't think any of them are.
"After all, you don't love me," she whispered.
Tai stared at her. "Wh--"
"You love me, but not like I want you to." She stared up at the super-bright fluorescents, tears just beginning to drip from her eyes and roll down her cheeks. "And don't try to deny it," she croaked, voice thick and low. Her eyes closed as she laid her head back and cried.
Tai was caught in information overload. *When did my sister get so wise?! When had her thoughts become so deep? How come I never noticed it?* He goggled at Kari, completely unable to say anything. *Is this what being a Digidestined did to her? If so, damn Gennai and his prophecy!* He made a fist and closed his eyes. *Kari, I'm so sorry...you were the Eighth, the last, and look what it did to you.* He opened his eyes as an equally disturbing thought crossed his mind. *What did it do to* me *? What did it do to* all *of us?*
He looked at his sister, who looked back unblinkingly through her tears.
*And what am I supposed to do about my sister LOVING me?!*
A long silence stretched between them, broken only by the sound of Kari's soft sobs and Tai's labored breathing.
"Kari..." he whispered after a few minutes.
The girl lifted her head to look at him properly. "What?"
"You know..." He swallowed. "You know that loving me is wrong?" He almost choked on that last word.
She nodded. "That's what Mommy said. But I don't really care."
"Y-you told Mom that you love me?"
"Yeah. I don't think she thought I was serious, though. She was making dinner. You know how she is when she's making dinner."
Tai smiled slightly. "Yeah. She can't take her mind off it for even a second."
Another silence.
"You don't hate me, do you?"
"No."
Kari looked into his eyes. "Good."
"I thought so."
"But," she went on. "You don't love me, either, right?'
One more silence, the longest of them all. Kari watched Tai, outwardly calm but inwardly anticipatory, full of little girl energy. If she hadn't been sitting in the corner of a stiff stall on hard tile floor with the weight of knowledge on her shoulders, she would have been bouncing to and fro.
Ten days, hours, minutes--Kari couldn't tell which--later, Tai spoke, his eyes boring into hers, brown unto brown.
"Kari...an hour ago I would've said 'no' right off the bat. Now..." He shook his head. "...now I don't know...I can't even think right now...too much, too soon, too little time to absorb it all." He squinted. "I can't even see properly, let alone think.
"I'm going to have get back to you on this, Kari, because I don't know anymore."
Eyes on eyes. A staring contest with no known purpose.
Tai won.
"Okay." Kari got up and wiped her eyes with her wrists. "I'm going home."
And she opened the door and was gone.
And in her absence Tai began to cry.
***
Okay, someone tell me what I did wrong here. For some reason it doesn't feel right. O_O;;;
agz, concerned
