Chapter 08 : Painkiller
Taichi
I wonder how many times I had thought 'This is insane' in the
Digital World...well, now I know what real insanity is. My best
friend may be suffering from it. I was sitting on the back of the
couch outside of Yamato's room. His parents were in there with
him, talking to him. Izzy had tried to call Mimi, Jyou, and our
parents but the storm had cut us off. Sora and Izzy went home. I
stayed, my parents would understand. ... Matt and I had had rough
times before, thrown punches, gotten in a lot of fights, but we
were still friends. We could always talk to each other. Always.
'Cept now. Takeru's gone. I had been shocked, I had grieved, I
had sort of gotten over it. There was nothing I could do. Too bad
Matt didn't feel the same way. Damn, if only he did. 'D'save all
of us some trouble. At the funeral, I heard Mimi trying to cheer
him up. Hell, that worked out //great//. He had, more or less,
cussed her out and told her to leave him alone. Mimi, had taken
some offense, but presissted.
Yamato almost threw a punch ,but instead he took a disgusted
glance at Takeru's coffin, called Mimi one more name, shoved her
and ran off. I had cursed under my breath and taken off after
him,...hell, I thought I'd be able to catch him in a minute. But,
Matt must've been excersizin' somewhere cuz he was damn fast! I
chased him, he ran faster. I couldn't catch him, and I used to
runnin', with soccer and everything. I ran, and ran. And fuckin'
ran some more.
I had to stop a few times and catch my breath, and those were the
times Yamato ran fastest, to get away from me. At some points I
acknowleged Sora and Koushirou behind me, but I didn't pay much
attention. We had gone past endless hills filled with
gravestones, then into the forest beyond it. And it started to
get dark. And I had skipped soccer practice for this.
I wasn't able to see Yamato anymore then, he was way ahead of he.
And then, in the forest, he could have been in the trees and
watch me pass him by. I had been worried, Hikari had told me
about her dreams of Takeru's killer, hunting the rest of us down
and stuff. What if they were true? Oh yeh, I'm the brave one.
Crest of Courage and all that crap. I was being freaked out by my
little sister's nightmares.
I had slowed to a walk, soccer or not, I could not run endlessly
for an hour. And hell, I still had no idea how Yamato had done
it. Sora and Izzy caught up with me, both tired and panting. We
walked the forest, looking for our friend. It was really dark
now, sun gone and clouds still covering the sky.
We eventually made it through the forest. We saw that we were at
the edge of town, the 'bad' neighborhood. The ground was mostly
dirt, and a several yards away from the forest was a huge
dumpster. The first sign of life we saw was a huge black rat.
Sora kicked some dirt at it and it ran off sqeeking. The as we
walked closer, we saw Yamato. If I didn't know better, I would
have thought he was a maniac.
Maybe he is. His hair looked like it had been through a few
hurricanes and and a mud slide. His face was had some dark spots
of dirt and/or mud on it. His gloves were torn, his jeans were
torn. "Yamato! What the hell are you doing!?" Sora had
demanded. Yama had given us one hell of a psychotic grin and
revealed what he was holding in his hands. A knife. And a
groutesque looking dead rat. "What the fuck!? What are you
doing!?" I had asked.
"Killing rats and pretending they're you." he had
answered. Koushirou had looked disgusted; "Yamato..."
And Matt lost his cool; "Yamato what!? Yamato, you're
insane!? Yamato, deal with it!? Yamato, everything will be ok!?
Yamato, you're completely and totally fucked up!?!?" he had
screamed, Izzy didn't reply. Our friend had turned his back on us
and said; "Yeah, I'm fuckin' fucked up. What are you going
to do about it?"
We had stood there for a few minutes. Then he turned back and
faced us again; "Just leave me alone. I'm going to find
Takeru's muthafuckin' murderer..." "Matt, it's not
worth it! All for what?! Revenge!?" Sora had told him.
"Fuck off bitch! What are you worked up about!? You don't
care! You all don't care! You muthafuckin' selfish
bastards!" Yamato then pointed the knife at us; "You
don't care, so quit fuckin' pretending, and leave me alone!"
"Why are you doing this!?" I had screamed. Yamato had
glared at me and wiped off some dirt off his chin. I remember the
scene perfectly. And it creeps me out. The fact that it had been
about an hour ago didn't help. Matt's answer was this: "It
takes away the pain." Killing rats had taken away his pain?
WHe had pretended that the rats were the murderer? And us? What
if he can't find anymore fuckin' rats?
There was a loud thump on the door of Yamato's room. The door
opened. Ms.Takaishi was crying. Mr.Ishida was backed into the
door, he looked shocked. I leaned and looked closer. Yamato was
standing there, his expression was of pure rage.
"Yamato..what's happened to you..?" his mother sobbed.
His father shook his head and exited the room, Ms.Takaishi
followed him out. Yamato's dad looked at me, "Maybe you can
talk to him, Taichi..." he muttered, and walked away. Yamato
averted his glare to me; "What are you going to say to me,
Tai?" I gulped; I didn't know. This was not my friend.
© Kiriska