Chapter Text
When he was younger Taichi's mother used to tell him, "Not everyone is going to like you all of the time," just before laying in, "because while I love you always, mama isn't going to like you not eating your vegetables."
Koushirou Izumi, he realizes with ignominy on his first day at his new school, is definitely someone who does not like him.
It's the rest of their science class that thinks Taichi is a riot.
"Good one, Taichi," someone shouts from the back of the room. Taichi recognizes him from the soccer field just that morning, during team introductions. Most everyone laughing, he surveys, are his new teammates.
"Quiet!" The teacher calls, ushering students to lower the volume of their laughter with both of her hands. To Koushirou she says, gently, "I'm sure Taichi didn't mean to break it."
"I didn't!" Taichi shouts in his own defense. It's only a laptop screen in his hands, but it might as well be a boulder, weighing him to the spot. His cheeks feel like they're on fire as the rest of the class roars with laughter again.
Koushirou's eyes glance significantly over the jersey Taichi had pulled on for the last period of the day, lips pulling back in a not quite sneer, not quite a frown sort of way. His cheeks are visibly burning, too, as brightly red as his hair. When he looks down and away, Taichi follows his eyes, wincing at the keyboard being clenched tightly to Koushirou's chest.
He sucks in a deep breath. "I'm—"
The bell rings.
On their way out, several of his new teammates clap Taichi on the shoulder, none of them able to contain their residual snickering. One of them tells Taichi, "We'll see you at practice!"
Koushirou's already shoving his half of the computer back into his carrying case. His eyebrows are dark, furrowed, as he angrily gathers the rest of his stuff.
"Look," Taichi starts again. The guilt feels like it could crush him, imploding from the inside. His hands are beginning to shake. "I really didn't—"
Koushirou only acknowledges him enough to extend an arm out. It takes him a second before Taichi presses the laptop screen into it. Koushirou, briefly, holds this end to his chest as well, like cradling a lost friend. Even though Taichi knows it's just an electronic—a machine— it feels like he might as well have committed murder today.
"I didn't think—"
"You weren't thinking," Koushirou agrees, shakily. Taichi can't really see his face, where it's buried under the flap of his computer satchel now, but he thinks that maybe, the boy is ready to cry.
Taichi squeezes his hands at his side. He wants to shout— he just wants to be heard, to mend what he had done, no matter how well placed his intentions—
But the teacher stops him. "Can I please have a word with you, Taichi?"
He gets off with a warning. Which is just fine. Taichi thinks he can come up with a million personal ways to torture himself for the rest of the afternoon.
He pulls his needed course books for the night from his locker and slams it shut with a little undue force.
"Trying to break school property now?"
"Sora!" He yelps, slapping his hand over his heart as if to catch it before it can leap from his chest. Along the linoleum floor his books and loose notes scatter where they drop from his grasp.
Sora glares at him, back flush against the locker one over from his. She jabs him gently in the center of his chest with her tennis racket, face contorting between anger and hurt. Disappointment, Taichi reads in her eyes and it makes him feel sick. "I expected better from you."
Taichi looks down, his hand lowering to his side. His stomach feels like one great knot. "I wish people would stop doing that."
"Koushirou's my friend," she pushes on.
"So am I," Taichi mutters to the criss-crossed netting between his gaze and the floor. He hopes Sora misses the crack in his voice.
She lowers her hand with the racket, and with it her voice drops. "The Taichi I used to know would have never broken someone's stuff just for a laugh."
Eavesdroppers mutter as they pass them by. Taichi doesn't bother to look. His cheeks feel inflamed again. Sora silently tells them to pass on with a shake of her head.
When the footsteps quiet, Taichi tells her, "I was only trying to help."
She looks dubious. "By dislodging the whole thing?"
"It was glitching out," Taichi mutters. "He looked like he needed help, so I just— I hit it a little."
"Too hard," Sora tacks on, but any hint of anger from her tone has since dissipated.
"It worked on our old desktop," he laments. "I don't get why—" Taichi tries to gesture when words fail him, hoping Sora can pick up on his frustrations. Her eyes soften.
"A hazing ritual," Taichi repeats. He watches his every step, keeping them in time with Sora's. She's keeping the pace as languid as possible, every drop of her foot on the dirt road purposeful. "You thought the team put me up to it."
"I’m sorry. It wouldn't be the first time they did something like that," Sora tells him. Her racket bounces off her right knee whenever she moves forward. Taichi watches it, entranced, until he almost takes a spill on a sizable rock lodged into the ground. Just down the way the soccer field comes into view. Some of the kids are already chasing the ball back and forth while others are stretching alongside the grass, out of the way.
"They were awful," Sora scoffs, continuing her recall of the events. "They'd put pudding in his cleats and graffitti nasty notes on his locker. During practice they'd purposefully trip him. And that was before he got moved up a grade."
Sora's smile curves wickedly. "I got them back. Right before I quit I poured gelatin in every one of their lockers right before the game. Should have seen it. By the time they fished their uniforms out they were disgusting."
Taichi laughs. "So you could say—"
"You could," Sora interrupts, whapping him gently in the chest with the flat of her racket, smile a bit more genuine, "but you shouldn't."
"— They got their just desserts ."
Sora groans, but there's a hint of a giggle in it. They stop at the tennis courts, still a good distance off from the main field. The pop of tennis balls hitting the court resounds in the open air and Taichi promises he'll come watch a game one day and they leave with a half hug between them.
"Taichi," she calls out to him a beat later. He pivots on his heels, turning back. Sora's fingers are laced tightly around the metal fencing by the entrance. "Koushirou's a great guy. I'm sure if you properly apologize he'll forgive you."
"I tried!"
"I know." Sora huffs a tiny laugh. She pulls her phone out from the side pouch on her bag and presses a few buttons. Taichi watches her brows furrow, lips pursing. "My phone's not working," she mutters, placing it back and shooting Taichi an apologetic half smile. "I'll try to talk to him for you after practice, ok? He usually goes to the observatory when he's upset.”
“Okay,” Taichi agrees, letting out a long breath.
Sora laughs fully and to him it sounds like the precious first notes of a songbird. “Just stay out of trouble."
"No promises," Taichi snorts. He waves her off and then stops at the top of the small hill before the field, looking down at his new teammates. Taichi frowns.
He turns back instead.
Fat, wet plops of rain hit the dirt as Taichi traces his way back towards the main building. Where they hit, the dirt darkens. A few more drops and the mixture of the two elements forms a pasty, globby mess of mud that rides up along his shoes. Taichi brings his backpack forward, digging around the contents until he finds the small portable umbrella under his new textbooks and note papers Sora had helped him gather up from the hallway floor.
"Always be prepared," his mother would tout. She used to keep a spare umbrella in her hand bag, share it with Taichi when it would rain on their way home from the park. Back then Taichi would run ahead anyway, jumping in puddles and making a mess of his new sneakers.
He used to pretend the splashes were explosions, that he was a giant monster on a stroll through a tiny town.
Feeling nostalgic, Taichi takes a running plunge into a fresh puddle. It's still shallow, barely trudges up any water when his feet dive in, but the satisfaction is there. Taichi aims his next jump to the puddle not too far off. He only manages to toe along the edge of it. His sneakers are already ruined— water logged and caked brown. They'd been white just this morning.
When he looks up for the next puddle, red flashes in his peripherals. Taichi watches as Koushirou darts up towards the hilltop path, past a thick treeline and out of his sight.
"The observatory," the school ambassador had told him that morning, pointing towards the large telescope barely concealed by the wild around it, taking up residence between the main school building and the long trek out to the sports fields. "It'll be a television station next year."
He thinks briefly on following, to finally give that proper apology that had been sitting on the front of his mind, but instead Taichi lets his shoulders droop. Trying hasn't gotten him anywhere today.
He tells himself, Tomorrow . After Sora's spoken to Koushirou.
Taichi hops to his next puddle, the wind stinging along his cheeks and nose at the rush of his lunge. The gush of air catches under his umbrella, pushes the ends up and back, allowing the rain to tap along his face and slip through his hair, unbidden. He doesn't mind it.
Down the path Taichi spots a rather deep looking puddle. He takes a few steps back, then rushes towards the pool of water, timing his leap to get the ultimate splash and—
BOOM !
Taichi stills. Around him the waves of disturbed water settle back down into the dirt, and Taichi cannot unroot himself from the spot even when the remaining water soaks in through his shoes to his already soggy socks.
Over the treeline, black columns of smoke twist and thrash in the air. They remind Taichi of angry snakes fighting over prey, like the kind he would watch as a child in the mornings when his mother could not watch him. Against the dark, gray sky, they look particularly vicious.
His ears ring, like the harsh hum of tinnitus. In seconds, schoolmates and coaches push past him, hands clamped over either side of their faces, racing away from the fields with abandon. Some thump into his shoulders, but Taichi barely feels them. He knows everyone's screaming, but over it all is the sound of blood rushing in his head, the pulsing beat of his own heart. His grip loosens, the umbrella falling to the mud and splashing up another storm of rain water and mud. Someone kicks it away, but Taichi only takes note distantly, his eyes still focused on the hill where the fog is black and thick, and terrifying.
The observatory.
Koushirou.
Taichi only splits his gaze towards the open path, eyes darting about it's entrance. Waiting . But the redhead doesn't emerge.
Someone shouts for him when he veers off the main path, in opposition of the rushing students, eyes still locked on the large building atop the hill.