Phantom of the Digiworld

Chapter 1- The Best Day

This had always been Kari's favorite part of her favorite movie. She clutched her pillow tighter as Raoul swept Christine around the rooftops of Paris' famous Opera House while the menacing phantom hid in the shadows. Raoul and Christine sang to each other about how much they loved one another and about how they would spend forever together.

Kari clutched her pillow and sighed as Raoul and Christine shared a perfect kiss.T.K. snorted at her dreamy expression and chucked a few kernels of popcorn in her direction. She retaliated by whacking him violently with her pillow. Of course T.K. did not let that be the end of it, taking her pillow in one hand and grabbing another throw pillow from the couch to attack her with both.

Kari giggled, too interested in the movie to return his pillow war. She took her pillow back and propped it against his side to curl up on the couch beside him.

As Raoul and Christine's romance blossomed, Kari couldn't help the slight feelings of awkwardness it brought about in T.K.'s presence. She'd seen this movie before with him, heck she'd seen countless more romantic movies with him, but the general uncomforting feeling was something new. She couldn't put her finger on why she was all of a sudden nervous around her best friend. Why she would give anything to know what he was thinking while he watched Raoul and Christine…

Oh, well, Kari thought, as she snuggled just a tiny bit closer to T.K.'s warm body.

When the movie ended Kari decided to ignore her disappointment when T.K. rose from the couch to return the empty bowl of popcorn to the kitchen. When he came back into the room Kari sat up and yawned.

"It's getting pretty late. I should probably get going," she told him. "After all, it is a school night tonight!"

T.K. groaned. It was their last night of their winter holiday break.

"Don't remind me," he muttered. "Want me to walk you home?"

"Sure," Kari said with a smile.

It had gotten late. It was dark out when they left his apartment building, and cold. The snow that had started falling that afternoon was quickly piling up on the frozen ground. Kari smiled when she saw a cute snowman some kids must have built earlier on.

"That looks like something we would've have built when we were younger," she told T.K.

T.K. laughed and agreed, remembering the many times they had spent playing in the snow. He walked away as if to inspect the children's creation.

"You know what else we would've done?" he asked her teasingly.

"What's that?" she asked while whipping a snowball at his face.

He ducked, and threw one right back at her, already having prepared it in his hand.

Kari screamed as it hit her arm and dove to the ground to make another. T.K. ducked behind the snowman, but Kari quickly caught him, smashing her snowball into his chest. T.K. screamed in reply, tossing small snowballs towards her.

She grabbed his arm and he twisted as he tried to escape. She would not let go, though, and ended up pulling both of them down to the ground, into the good six inches of snow blanket.

Kari landed almost on top of him as he smiled up at her, his blond hair covered in white snow. She felt another flicker of the awkwardness from before and quickly rolled off of him to lie on her back; the perfect position for snow angels.

They each made one side by side, before T.K. climbed up, and then reached for her hand to pull her up. When she looked down on their snow angels she smiled to see that because they had been lying so close together it almost looked as if the two angel imprints in the snow were holding hands.

T.K. turned her around to brush the snow off her back and she did the same for him, though the snow in his hair was already melting. Her hands were freezing from using them to make snowballs so she placed them in his and began to walk fast towards her apartment complex.

Once inside, Kari made the two of them steaming cups of hot chocolate to drink before T.K. had to brace the cold again to go home. T.K. settled onto the couch and absentmindedly began flipping through channels. Kari brought him his mug and sat down on the couch beside him, instinctively throwing her legs across his.

"I don't want to go back to school tomorrow," T.K. complained.

"Me either. Though it will be nice to see everyone all the time again."

"What do you mean?" T.K. asked. "We just saw Davis, Yolei, and Cody yesterday when we went to the digiworld."

"I know. But before that, I hadn't seen any of them for three days!"

T.K. laughed. "I guess it is a little weird. We spend so much time with them last summer and fall saving the digital world almost every other day. I'm so glad things are finally at peace there now."

"Me too," Kari agreed.

"And it's nice to have someplace warm to go to escape all this snow!"

"Yeah, yesterday was a lot of fun. My mom was so jealous when I told her we were going to the beach. I do like the snow though. It's so pretty and peaceful."

"Yeah, sometimes," T.K. replied. "I'd just much prefer a warm sunny beach to a cold icy winter."

Kari laughed and sipped her hot chocolate. There was nothing extremely interesting on television so they contented themselves with watching the snowflakes fall outside the window.

Around nine o'clock, however, Kari's mom decided that it was time for T.K. to head home before he got lost in the blizzard.

Kari walked with him to her front door and waited while he slipped on his shoes. That awkward feeling began making knots in her stomach when he stood up. Their eyes met for a brief second and Kari's breath caught in her lungs.

"Umm, I guess I should go now," T.K. stammered as he opened the door.

"Yeah, it's pretty late…" Kari replied. Their faces were just inches apart now.

"Okay. Bye!" T.K. said, giving her a little wave with his hand as he walked out and closed the door behind him.

Kari sighed and collapsed against the wall. She felt like laughing, crying, and screaming all at the same time. Just what was going on with her?