Fate Within a Poem

by Siruyamon (Cyllya)

Counselors, teachers, parents, and other such annoying happy-go-lucky figures of authority are always saying that you should write your thoughts down when you're confused or angry, but when I did that, I got this piece of unhelpful crud.

I sighed, tapped my pencil wearily against my pad of paper, and looked around the park I was in as I thought. It was a cold day, but it wasn't snowing, so there wasn't any fun in being outside unless your mind, along with some oblivious baka, was busy playing tug-a-war with your insides. Insides? No, emotions. My stupid useless emotions were getting in the way again. Anyway, the park was empty.

They say that good and evil wasn't just black and white, that most of it's this huge fuzzy gray line. My emotions seemed to be that way too, as much as I hated to admit it.

Having over-exerted emotions is bad enough, but it's worse when you can't identify them. That's why my head was reeling almost as much as my heart seemed to be. What was it?! Keep writing….

Forcing me to want to die.

Why me? Why did I, Mr. Self-proclaimed-cool-dude, get stuck like this? Thinking myself into a rotted wimpy tearful heap? I was so pathetic….

I finally sank to enough of a low to say, "I am so pathetic," out loud. This was all his fault… well, not really, but I had to blame it on somebody. I looked at my pad of paper. The counselors and such people were wrong; writing stuff down didn't do any good. The words on my paper were gibberish. Useless confusing rubbish that only confused me more.

I ripped the piece of paper out of the pad and read it again, in case I was messed up enough to misunderstand my own thoughts the first time. Excepting the incomprehensibility, I sighed, ripped the paper both vertically and horizontally, and chucked it in a nearby garbage can.

***

The next day, I was walking toward McDonalds. The other DigiDestined and I were planning on having lunch there. Yet I guess I was thinking too much, because I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and smacked face-first into a signpost.

"Fukenzen hyoushiki," I mumbled as I staggered backward. To my surprise, someone caught me under my arms. I looked up, quickly spotting Tai's big chocolate-colored eyes.

"What about an unhealthy signpost?" he asked, "It wasn't the signpost's fault, and I tried to warn you…."

I kinda went blank for a moment, just blinking. Tai looked at me quizzically, so I said, "Put me down."

Don't ask me why I said that; he wasn't stopping me from standing up. So he looked at me even more quizzically, shrugged, and dropped me. I winced as I landed hard on my hind end.

"Come on, can't you walk any faster than you were?" Tai demanded. Before I could stop him, he grabbed my hand and pulled me up.

When I was on my feet I quickly jerked my hand away and shoved both of them into my pockets. I don't know why I was so against physical contact with him, but it made me uneasy and I prayed he didn't notice the blood rush to my face.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Hmm? Yeah, I'm fine," I said too quickly, "Why?"

He seemed to be sizing me up, but he shrugged and started walking in the direction I'd been heading. I fell into step with him.

After a few silent minutes, he held a few pieces of paper in my face, asking, "Hey, is this yours?"

I started to say no, but my eye caught the words, "And coddle the thorns," in my handwriting on the paper that was ripped into fourths.

Another bad thing about writing your thoughts down: They aren't as private that way.

Before I could think, I'd already made an attempt to snatch it out of his hand. Apparently, he'd been expecting that, because he was quick to jerk his hand away. I managed to grab one of the pieces, the lower right-hand square, with the least amount of writing.

Tai had moved a few feet back, so I lunged for the rest of the paper. He moved aside and out of my reach

"I didn't know you were a poet," Tai said casually.

"Excuse me?"

"This looks poetic to me," he answered, waving the remaining papers around. He dodged again as I gave another try to grab them.

"It's not a poem," I said, continuing my futile attempts to grab them.

"You sure about that?"

"Yes! Now give it here!"

"You want this back, huh?"

"Well, duh, baka!"

"Ooh, touchy," he said mockingly and held the papers toward me. I reached for them, but he pulled them out of my reach, grinned, and bolted.

"Hey, get back here! You little thief!" I yelled as I raced after him. I felt my face turn red again… but that was only because I was mad.

Tai was laughing like an idiot. He yelled, "Sorry!" as he ran across a crosswalk, forcing a car to screech to a stop. I was right behind him, though the cars were already stopped. He glanced back at me and yelled, "I didn't steal this! You threw it away!"

"How do you know I threw it away?!" I demanded.

"I saw you!" Tai called back, "I didn't mean to eavesdrop but you're half deaf and you write big!"

Actually, I take up about half a line….

About more two minutes of running at top speed later, we reached McDonalds. It's amazing how high someone can jump when they have a very angry person right behind them. Tai sprang up, grabbed a tree branch that was above his head, and managed to quickly pull himself onto it.

"Give me that!" I demanded, jumping up but slipping off the branch.

"Woah! Down boy!" he yelled, climbing up to stand on a higher branch, "Hurry! Somebody toss him a piece of raw meat so he'll leave me alone!"

It was then that I noticed Joe, Mimi, Sora, and Izzy sitting at a nearby exterior table. I ignored them and jumped again, but I didn't make it as high without the momentum I'd gotten from running so far. Tai and I were both breathing hard from our long run, but he was still laughing.

I backed up, ran, and leaped onto the branch. One of the papers slipped from his hand, and I jumped off the branch to grab it before I could think. He laughed a little harder, having dropped the paper to make me jump down.

"What stupid thing did ya do this time, Tai?!" Kari called from the ball pit in the play area. TK and a bunch of other kids were there with her, all watching me and Tai.

"Oh, sure!" Tai hollered, "blame it on me!"

I popped the paper in the first safe location I could think of—my mouth—and tried my previous method of jumping onto the branch. He jumped down in the other direction and ran laughing toward the ball pit. I jumped down and ran after him. There was no way I'd let him get Kari's help. I wouldn't even consider hurting her, but Tai would beat me to a pulp if he thought I would. A person gains strength when defending a younger sibling.

"Here, Kari, take this," he grabbed the netting around the ball pit for support and leaned toward her, holding the papers out. She reached for them, but I slammed into him from behind. We were suddenly buried in plastic balls of assorted colors.

I felt my face redden again as the two of us ended up wrestling in the ball pit.

"Why won't you just give me that?!" I demanded, but Tai only laughed. As I lunged for him, he pushed his empty palm against my face to hold me back. I used both hands to keep it away and grabbed to papers in my teeth.

"Guys! Stop it!" I heard Sora yell.

"You're too big to play in there!" Mimi shouted.

"This is better than pro wrestling!" someone I didn't know commented.

Since there was no room to grab the papers with my hands unless I let go first, I used my hands to try to loosen his. His hands finally slipped away and I shoved the papers into my mouth. Despite the fact he'd finally lost, he was still laughing.

"What's so funny?" I mumbled through the paper. I stood, crossed my arms, and glared at him through narrowed eyes.

Tai shook his head; his laugh was lighter, but he was still grinning. He said, "C'mon, Yama, we're supposed to eat lunch, remember?" He began wading toward the exit of the ball pit.

I was confused as to his motive of keeping those papers away from me, but another realization hit me even before the blood hit my face—again.

I reluctantly followed Tai, Kari, and TK out of the ball pit and to the table the others had been sitting at.

"What was on those papers?" Mimi asked as we all sat down.

"None of your business," I answered, cutting off Tai's more detailed description. He reached toward my face and pulled my jaw down.

"Did you eat that?!" he demanded.

"Yes," I mumbled, "to keep it out of your hands."

"You know, paper isn't very healthy and…" Joe faded away as I turned my glare to him.

"All that over a poem," Tai shook his head, which soon felt the impact of my hand.

"A poem?" TK asked.

"It wasn't a poem," I said.

"Who cares, now that it's been eaten?" Tai asked, rubbing the back of his head in pain, "Sit down and eat some real food."

***

"Hey, whatcha doin', Matt?" I heard Tai call later that day. I was at the park where the worst of the problem had started. Confetti-sized pieces of paper were floating in the pond in front of me as Tai jog over.

"I didn't feel like eating anymore paper," I said, "But I had to get rid of that."

"Fourth piece, huh?" he asked, "What was with that poem, anyway?"

"Why do you want to know?" I asked, knowing that the best way not to answer a question is to ask one.

"So you agree it's a poem now?"

"No."

"Then what is it?"

"Nothing."

"It had to be something or it wouldn't exist."

"Sure, get technical."

Tai laughed, "As for why I want to know, whether you meant for it to be a poem or not, it still makes a good poem, and I want to know why you hate it so much."

"Because it's just some stupid thing that never should have existed in the first place. I'm glad it'll never see the light of another day."

"Actually, I don't think you can eat your way out of that problem."

"What?"

"Unless you became a cannibal or something…. Hey, don't look at me like that, I was just joking," he took a half-step back.

"What are you saying?" I asked matter-of-factly.

"Uh…I memorized it…" he went on gabbing about something, but anger was boiling up inside of me, and I didn't hear a word of it.

If looks could kill, my facial expression would have made every organic thing on the planet shrivel up and die. My eyes could have melted through solid titanium-reinforced steel, but they didn't melt through Tai.

He stopped his babbling and laughed, asking, "Hey, you didn't take my comment about cannibalism seriously, did you?"

My glare strengthened.

"Did you?" he asked more nervously, backing up. I tackled him, and we both skid across the grass. He shoved me off, jumped to his feet, and demanded, "Hey, what's up with you?!"

I didn't answer; I just lunged and swung at him. I was aiming for his face, but I hit his shoulder instead. He hit me in the face, but with his palm instead of his fist. I tackled him again, and we ended up in the pond. We came up gasping for breath, and I punched him in the eye. He stopped being nice and punched me in the mouth. My bottom lip hit the tops of my teeth and started to bleed.

We threw several punches, but to anyone passing by, it would've looked like we were having a splash fight. I slipped on a mud-and-algae-covered rock and slid underwater. Tai waited until I surfaced and stood before he tried to hit me again. We fought our way out of the pond until we stood on dry land, glaring at each other and breathing hard.

I was still mad at him for everything concerning that stupid piece of paper, but my rage was starting to diminish. However, I had enough pride not to end this battle without putting up a fight. He grinned spitefully, giving me a little more motive to punch his lights out.

Somehow the thought that he looked kind of cute when he had his determined look managed to force its way into my head. This distracted me long enough to let Tai punch me in the stomach. I knocked him aside the head, but that hurt my knuckles almost as much as it hurt his head.

I always knew he was hard-headed….

I don't remember exactly what happened next, I just remember us fighting and me being shocked out of my wits to find the two of us on our knees in the grass with our lips press together…. Tai pulled a few inches away from me; he looked pretty surprised too.

I guess my stupid piece of paper was right after all; love and hate had their similarities. I knew that I'd hated him and had been so angry just moments before he moved his head closer to mine and I didn't resist when he kissed me again.

"I'm sorry I made you mad, Matt," he whispered.

"It's okay," I answered, "I had a lot of rage and confusion. I just took it out on you." Tai looked hurt right before I felt tear slide down my face. There are still very few people I trust enough to cry in front of, and Tai had already been one of them. I said, "I'm sorry."

"Forget about it," he said. He hugged me, and the side of his face brushing against mine wiped my tear away.

Before I could stop myself, I mumbled, "Suki da."

"Suki da, Yama-chan," Tai answered. I hugged him a little tighter. He laughed lightly and said, "Aren't ya glad you wrote that poem?"

"It wasn't a poem."

The End

~~~