Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Digimon.

A/n: I had to watch a few Digimon episodes just to remember a bit of the characters' personalities. Anyway, here's the first chapter.

Joe is 19. Tai, Sora, and Matt are 18. Izzy and Mimi are 17. ect

Summary: It's been a while since the Digidestined defeated Malomyotismon. Life seemed to be running smoothly, but lately Tai's been acting strange. Is it just high school matters? Or is he hiding something that could endanger himself and his friends?

Cruel Pain

Chapter 1: Life So Far

Riiiing.

The first bell rang and school was just about to start at Odaiba High. Kids were scrambling to get to their right destination, which was straight to class. This time the tardy policy had been enforced, and no one had dared to even question it. If you weren't in class on time, it was the Principal's Office for you. This whole week was going to be a tardy sweep, or so they called it.

Everyone began to scream their goodbyes to one another and returned their friends' hugs before they headed off to class. The halls slowly became less and less crowded. Nearly everyone had gone to their classes early.

Sora was running down the halls frantically, hoping to get to class on time.

'I am not going to be late on the first day of that stupid tardy sweep! Why is it that my class has to be at the far end of the school?' she thought to herself as she began to pick up her pace.

As she turned the corner, she immediately bumped into someone, causing both to fall to the ground.

"Oh, I am so sorry. I should've looked where I was going and…Tai?" Sora watched as the boy stood up and brushed himself off.

Tai looked at her emotionless. "Yeah, you should've looked where you were going. You've always been so clumsy," he said rather harshly and walked right past her in the opposite direction.

Sora was taken aback by his choosing of words. She helped herself up and watched as her best friend walked away.

'Wait a minute! Doesn't he have the same class as me?' She was definitely confused. Whatever his problem was, she would have to deal with it later. Right now she had to get to class pronto.

The red-headed girl finally reached the door to her class and rushed straight in before the teacher could even notice. As soon as she took her seat next to the windows, the second bell rang. Sora took a deep breath of relief. She was thankful that she had miraculously made it to her class on time.

Once the teacher finished writing on the school board, he turned and faced his class. "Okay, it looks like you all made it to class on time. That's good. Seems that the tardy sweep actually has a positive effect on you guys," The teacher said as he laughed to himself while everyone just gave blank expressions. "Ahem...anyway, let's get started on today's lesson."

Sora hadn't paid much attention to the daily lessons. Her focus seemed to be on the empty desk beside her.

'That's strange. I haven't seen Tai at school for three days and all of a sudden I run into him in the hallway... the nerve of him!' She thought angrily. 'He can't even recognize who his friends are anymore! How dare he speak to me that way!'

True enough, Tai's been acting different since the first day of school, and that was a whole four months ago. He became distant from everyone and had wanted to be left alone. Even Kari, his younger sister, noticed the strange behavior too. His outgoing, fun personality is now that of a rebellious type. He had been getting involved in many fights, in school and even outside. He avoided all of his friends, ignoring them like they didn't even exist. Every time Sora tried to confront him, he would just brush her off and walk the other direction.

Lately, Tai's behavior had been getting worse. He hadn't been showing up for most of his classes and often ends up in the Principal's Office. Sora, along with her DigiDestined friends, noticed that he was beginning to hang with the wrong sort of people...the kind of guys who play pranks and look at girls all day long. What a jerk!

Tai had also become a bully. The other day, he went around demanding money from a couple of people, and sometimes he would threaten them if they didn't hand it over. What caused him to act like that?

Sora was disgusted and at the same time upset that her best friend could end up like this. It was horrible and heart wrenching. She just wished everything would go back to the way it was before. She missed having a best friend who had always been there for her.

Lunch...

"Finally class is over!" Sora said as she stretched a bit before heading to the lunch room. Her stomach growled. "Boy am I hungry." She started walking when she saw Matt running towards her.

He caught up to her and placed his hands on his knees. "Oh, hey Sora."

Sora looked over to her boyfriend Matt, who was practically out of breath.

"Man, your class is far."

She smiled. "Hi, Matt. I see you ran all the way here just to get to me first." She laughed a little as he regained his composure.

"So...I didn't make you late to class this morning, did I?" He asked knowing that they should've gone to class earlier. They loved enjoying their morning together. It made their relationship more romantic.

"No. I got to class on time, although I almost didn't make it," Sora answered. She leaned up and kissed her boyfriend. Matt gave in and returned the gesture. As soon as they pulled back, Matt gently took hold of her hand and led her to the lunch room.

"We should hurry. Our friends are probably waiting for us," he said as they both headed in the same direction.

The two didn't notice that they were being watched from afar by a pair of angry chocolate eyes. Tai emerged from the shadows and stood in the empty hallway. His look was furious. He felt as if he was betrayed by his own best friends and he wasn't sure why.

"They don't understand," Tai said to no one in particular. He walked down the empty corridor with his hands in his pockets.

Tai looked ahead and saw Kyle, one of the popular boys, heading towards him. He smiled.

"Hey, Kyle. Didn't think I'd see you here."

They walked hand in hand towards the table to meet their long time friends, who were eating their lunch eagerly. Izzy looked up at the approaching couple.

"Hey guys!" Izzy waved at them.

"Hey Izzy!" Matt waved back as he and his girlfriend sat at the table. "You guys started eating without us." He pointed at the food and wrappers.

Mimi took a sip from her drink. "We were waiting for you guys, but you took so long. We figured you two were busy...as always." Mimi winked.

Sora blushed at the statement. "We were just a little late that's all. My class is at the far end."

"Right," Mimi said in a sarcastic tone. "And to think you want me to believe that."

Izzy decided to change the subject. "You know it's been a really long time since we all hung out together as digidestined. I was just thinking. How about we all meet up this weekend, including Davis and the others? We could commemorate all the victories we had and just remember the good old times."

The others nodded in agreement, except Sora.

"What about Tai?" she asked. They all began to frown. "Would he even want to go? He hasn't really said a word to us for weeks now."

"Maybe he doesn't want to be our friends anymore." Mimi pouted and folded her arms across her chest. "He could at least open up that big, loud mouth of his and tell us his problems."

Izzy sighed. "He's been acting unusual since the beginning of the year. Do you think maybe he's moved on from being DigiDestined?"

"Life's probably too hard for him. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Tai in a while. I wonder what he's up to," Matt pondered.

"Probably up to no good," Mimi muttered with a squeamish look on her face. She continued eating the rest of her lunch before lunch was over, which was in about ten minutes.

Sora had almost forgotten about her little 'incident' earlier. She turned towards Matt to meet his eyes. "Wait! I saw Tai this morning right before I went to class!"

Matt looked surprised. "Tai? He was here this morning?"

"Yeah, I sort of bumped into him while running in the halls."

"Well, what happened? Did he talk with you?" Izzy asked, curious to know if Tai had actually stopped to converse with her. It's been so long since he had talked with any of them.

"No. Actually, he just got a bit angry and walked away. I don't know what's wrong with him. He sure doesn't seem like himself." Sora stared at her shoes.

Matt gave a serious face. "That's it! I'm going to talk to him no matter what. He can't just keep dismissing his friends like this." He got up from the table and began to search for their 'leader'.

Sora got up after him. "Matt, wait!"

Izzy and Mimi watched the two leave the table. After a while they, too, went to go look for Tai. Unfortunately, none of them could find him anywhere. Matt became angry.

"I don't see Tai around here." Izzy said looking off to the crowds.

"Where does that asshole disappear off to?" he said gritting his teeth together. "Once I find him, I'll make sure to knock some sense into him."

Sora held onto his arm. "Maybe we should just leave him alone. He probably isn't even here. Let's go and—" She was interrupted by the sound of people shouting.

Fight! Fight!

It was coming from inside the halls.

Everybody began to rush to the halls to see the fight. Matt, Sora, Izzy, and Mimi followed as well just to see what all the commotion was. However they couldn't see anything due to the large group of people in the center of the hallway.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

"Oh Darn. I cannot see a thing!" Mimi jumped up as high as she could, but it was no use. She couldn't see anything. "Can you see what's happening Sora?"

"No, there are too many people." She then looked around. "Hey, where did Matt go?"

Matt tried to make his way through the crowds, and what he saw frightened him. There in the center was Tai wrestling Kyle on the floor. Tai found his way on top and was practically choking him. Kyle tried fighting back, but it seemed that Tai had the upper hand.

The crowd kept on cheering them on, enjoying the show played out in front of them.

Fight! Fight! Fight! The crowd continued to shout.

Matt couldn't believe what he saw next, the image of Tai holding a switchblade right at the boy's neck as if to kill.

A/n: Okay, here's the first chapter of 'Cruel Pain'. Wow! I'm not really sure how it would end, but I might have it end up as a Taiora. But hopefully you guys would tell me what you think of it so far, right?