tamachi tamachi tamachi

Tamachi Kids Story

"Ichijouji Ken-kun! Fight me!"

Not able to meet the eyes of the boy addressing him, Ken tucked his shoes into his locker, pulled on his school slippers. Too slow, he told himself. He hadn't been able to duck out of sight in time.

Satou Yuta of the Tamachi Football Club stood with his legs apart, completely blocking the path to the shoe cubbies for the crowd trying to get ready for homeroom. His sandy hair bristled with indignation.

"You threw away my letter of challenge, didn't you? Why won't you scrimmage against me?"

Ken shut his locker, turned away. He walked away from the lockers so Satou would follow him and free up the space for everyone else to use.

This, at least, worked as intended. Satou marched after Ken; there was no better word for that gait, all bent elbows and knees. He's angry, Ken thought, then amended: frustrated. Frustrated why?

Trailing Ken, Satou kept up his one-sided dialogue. "If you won't face me one-on-one, at least lead the team like you used to! Be the mastermind and craft us into a perfect competitive force! None of us even minded your attitude, so long as we kept--"

"Satou-kun." Ken stopped walking. Satou nearly collided with him. "Is winning....why everyone else on the team plays soccer? Do they all...prefer the old me?"

"Uh." Satou scratched his head. "I, um. I don't know that I'd say 'prefer'.....but. Hey, wait! Did you just admit that you know you've changed?"

Turning around, Ken reached into his schoolbag. He pulled out the letter of challenge, opened but otherwise in pristine condition, and offered it to its author. "I apologize for disappointing you," he said. "But I can't be who you want me to be."

Gaping at the letter, Satou looked from it to Ken as if he'd just discovered he'd been trailing a stranger. Clumps of children wandered past, some of them shooting the pair odd looks, others pretending like they couldn't see what was going on. "What...?"

"I can't." Ken turned around again, and it was his turn to nearly walk into someone - a girl heading to the classroom he and Satou had just passed, her round eyes bright and her ponytail pulled tight atop her head with a red ribbon. She twirled out of the way, however, skirt flaring, and clapped her hands together in glee when she discovered whose path she'd just avoided.

"Hey, you're <i>George!</i>" she enthused. "Good morning!"

Ken blinked. "....George?"

"I-chi-<i>jo-u-ji</i>," the girl elaborated, drawing out each syllable. "Write the last part out and you spell it in kana like 'George'! So, you're George."

She pointed to Satou. "And he's Cube. Is he bothering you?"

"It's not written like 'sugar'...." Satou grumbled, but the girl's attention was on Ken alone. Ken bit his lower lip, tried to avoid that sparkling gaze.

"We're fine," he said, and ducked his head - but the girl predicted his movements, side-stepped. She wasn't as tall as she looked, Ken realized, confronted with her head-on. She was shorter than he was, but she held herself up straighter than any other child he'd ever seen. Her shoulders were rolled back, too.

"I'm SO excited to finally get a chance to talk to you!" she continued. "I know people here can get kind of intense, but if you ever need someone to stand up for you, just come and get me, okay?"

"Tachibana Rosa, you're the intense one." A second girl had materialized - no, she'd been there all along, the other girl's sense of presence had just eclipsed her. "Homeroom is starting. We should go."

"That's right!" The girl seemed honestly startled. "Gosh, what would I do without you, Zoo-chan?"

They took their leave, the second girl bobbing her head to Ken and Satou in passing while the first waved her hand and skipped along.

"Don't tell me you don't know them," said Satou, looking at Ken's blank expression. Ken remembered, too late, that he was trying not to meet his teammate's eyes.

"Agh, what hemisphere DO you live in?!" Satou tore at his own hair. "Tachibana Rosa and Kuroki Kazuko! They've been in the top twenty students since we all started here, and now that you're - whatever's going on with you, they're usually top ten! Do you not remember anybody who's never been in a magazine?! Do you even know any of <i>our</i> names?!"

Come to think of it, those <i>had</i> been two names on the scoreboards, hadn't they. Ken's memories of most test boards were covered with a haze of first envy and then disdain. Now he tried not to linger when grades were posted.

The warning bell for homeroom rang. "We don't want to be late either," Ken told Satou, and walked briskly towards his own classroom.  Satou, who was in the same class, bustled to catch up.

"You'll scrimmage me on break today, right?"

"I'm busy." Wormmon would be expecting a call, wouldn't he? He got lonely so easily. And Ken worried. His partner, who he left at home all alone.

"Then, at practice-"

"We shouldn't disrupt the coach's plans."

"Are you trying to break your slump or not? If you don't think I'm good enough to face you, just say so!"

Was <i>that</i> what had been bothering Satou? Then, had all of this been a well-intended attempt to...

Ken slid into his seat, hung up his bag. Took out a notebook and pencil. Used that as a pretext to bend his head.

"....I don't think that," he said quietly. School, it was only school where he still felt like this. Before he hadn't fit in because everyone else had seemed so small. Now they all seemed to be running on treadmills he could no longer understand. "About anyone."

"You are so weird," Satou concluded - "SATOU!" called the teacher from the doorway; "SEATED, SIR!" he yelped in reply, scrambling to his desk. Ken exhaled.

At least nothing unexpected should happen during class.

--

[smash cut to digital shenanigans occurring during class, natch]