Genre: friendship, tragedy

Characters (ages): Izzy (17), Matt (18)

Warnings: Themes of death, talk of afterlife

Song: One Week by Bare Naked Ladies

Notes: First person, I knew I was going to do something with this song eventually. I just never thought it would be this.

"I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral."

One Week

Death: A damaging or destructive state of affairs, the destruction or permanent end of something, the end of the life of a person or organism.

The end… of a person.

It could all be broken down logically, scientifically. Death was nothing, focus on the denotation. Death is the end, but haven't people always said that the end is just a new beginning?

It's just too bad the rest of us can't begin it with you…

No, it's inevitable that everyone dies eventually, so we'll surely meet up with Tai again. That is of course, assuming there's something after this. There's nothing scientific proving that, but then again nothing directly disproving. There are Digi-Gods, does that count for anything? Perhaps if anything, the Digi-Gods have a place for him. For all we've accomplished, they do owe him.

"Hey, Iz," a slightly raspy voice greeted.

I was snapped out of my state of shock, and my eyes did a quick scan of the room. Meaningful pictures, awkward small talk, people in black. Now I remember precisely where I am, so I simply greeted Matt with a "hello" before I got a good look at him.

He acted very composed, stone-faced, unreadable, icy eyes, but his voice earlier and his unmistakably puffy eyes and disheveled hair gave it away. It wasn't everyday you see Matt out in public without mounds of gel and poorly spent money in his hair.

Then again, today wasn't any day. It was rare. There must be a percentage for how often someone you know dies, a lesser percentage that you actually care about, an even lesser percentage for those you're close to, but this wasn't my first time dealing with the smallest percent. My parents' deaths… then again I don't remember them, but they are my parents, so that would still be considered close, but closeness and bonding does require time we didn't have so maybe this is my first experience with the least percentile? I wonder if it's Matt's…

Matt! I had forgotten about him, but he didn't seem to mind. In fact, he had found interest in his shoes as he scuffed them across the floor, messy blonde hair shading his face ergo emotions from view. He moved his head up slightly and caught sight of me staring at him.

"I hate these shoes," he stated bluntly as if I had asked him. "They're my dad's, but I don't have any good shoes so- ugh, they don't even fit." He kicked the back of one shoe with the other producing a small squeak and a few heads to turn, but Matt either didn't notice or didn't care.

I looked at him in what I assumed was a thoughtful manner. I wouldn't say he was in a state of denial, more a refusal to acknowledge. He knew, he just didn't want to and so was keeping his mind on other things. That was a very common coping mechanism and a necessary one if you intended to move on, but you do have to confront the problem first. Maybe Matt has to talk about it even if he doesn't want to.

"How's TK?" I tried. I could start here and let the conversation drift over to Matt himself.

He appeared confused for a moment, as though he had no idea why his brother wouldn't be alright before it dawned on him.

"Bad but he'll be fine," Matt replied as he looked right through me. "He's with Kari right now, and she's…" He trailed off with a pained expression on his face. "He's, uh, being strong for her I guess you'd say."

I nodded slightly. Of course he was with her. Sources say he's practically lived at the Kamiya's apartment this past week.

"And you?" I asked raising an eyebrow.

Matt did something that was probably a pathetic attempt at a smirk. "…For this whole week I've been going around whispering 'He's not dead, he's not dead.' I should've known if he really wasn't dead, he would've smacked me by now."

I nodded again. So he has been going through denial. That's only the first step of the grieving process. There's still bargaining, anger, and depression before reaching acceptance. Then of course steps can repeat themselves. I don't believe I've followed the steps very well. I'm possibly in denial right now, but it's not that I haven't accepted his death as fact; it's that I've chosen not to emotionally connect to it and instead launch my mind into the comfort of logic. Interesting, that must be my coping mechanism, reject emotion. It happened in the Digital World, when I discovered I was adopted, and now presently.

Matt and I had fallen into a fairly comfortable silence. He was looking anywhere other than the heart-wrenching faces of the friends and family. My gaze wandered over to a slide show up on a wall with what must have been every picture of Tai Mrs. Kamiya had.

There were school pictures, soccer pictures, an embarrassing baby picture in the bathtub that I was sure if Tai had gotten a last request it would be not to include that one, pictures with family, pictures with friends. I was in quite a few of those ones, usually looking shocked to have a camera shoved in my face. I never did understand the purpose of pictures. Humans have amazing memorization capabilities, and if we could tap into that we wouldn't need pictures to jog our memories of past occurrences.

One picture in particular stuck out. I remembered the whole story behind it. After a trip to the Digital World, we had gotten back to my apartment late on a night where it was pouring down rain so hard you could barely see or stand, and Tai and Matt had some huge history test to study for, but they needed a copy of their history book to do it. We ended up sprinting four blocks to the Kamiya's to retrieve it. We must've studied all of ten minutes before the three of us fell asleep in the family room, Matt sprawled along the couch, Tai bent over the coffee table, me against the coffee table with my head tilted all the way back, all three of us soaking wet, water dripping down onto the history book and their notes. Again, one of the only times you would ever see Matt's hair in any condition besides perfectly gelled.

Such a simple photo, a little section of the life that is Tai Kamiya… was.

I chuckled. There was nothing funny about this, but… it was just so unbelievable that nothing like that was ever going to happen again.

That's why people laugh, isn't it? Not out of joy but confusion. It's a coping mechanism. When things are too ridiculous to fathom you laugh at it.

What was more ridiculous than one of my only friends being dead?

I involuntarily laughed harder until my chuckled turned into a guffaw. I could see out of the corner of my eye Matt watching me with concern and several others glaring at me and probably thinking about how disrespectful I was, but they don't understand. Not really. They saw Tai twice a year for holidays; I saw him every day or at least talked to him… He couldn't be dead, he just couldn't.

I kept laughing for who knows how long, great roaring laughter that could've put anyone to shame. I would calm down for a moment then laugh again, louder. I laughed until I started coughing and gagging at which point Matt clutched my arm for fear of me falling over. Then of all things, I laughed so hard I cried. My eyes watered and the more I pushed the tears back the more they broke through until I wasn't laughing at all and instead crying, balling even. In that moment, I don't think I could've told you why I was crying just that I'm crying because I'm sad.

I'm sad because my friend died.

My friend died because death is inevitable.

Death is inevitable because everything ends.

If only it were that simple…