2004: New Year, New Problems
Story #4: Doctor or Vet?
Author's Notes: This story is the fourth in the series, and covers Joe Kido and his question about the future. Also look for brother Jim and the rare appearance of Joe's mom! Enjoy!
Date: 1/2/2004
Time: 1:30 pm
Place: Kido residence, Joe's room
Joe Kido slumped by his desk, flanked by two stacks of books. The stack on his right consisted of medical textbooks showing the various intricacies of the human body and its diseases while the stack on the left consisted of similar books showing the intricacies of animal bodies and diseases. Joe blew out a heavy sigh, as he knew what the two stacks represented: a choice of study, and one he had to make soon, as to which profession he would enter in order to fulfill his wish to become the first person to medically care for the Digimon inhabitants of the Digiworld. The problem lay with not knowing whether a Digimon's "inside story" would be more like an animal on Earth or like a human's; to date, he knew of no confirmed medical scans, whether through X-rays or other methods, that had been performed on a Digimon in the human world, rendering any depiction of internal organs and systems highly speculative. Furthermore, the concept of partnership presented a large practicality barrier: when a Digimon could talk back to you and is meant to protect you, you were far less likely to do something medically without their consent. This would undoubtedly prove to be frustrating to both Joe and anyone else who would want to do research on Digimon (at least Izzy and probably other curious minds in the Digidestined group) as their own partners would likely be very hard to use and other Digimon would be hard to get consent for research as well.
Joe worriedly leaned back in his chair, wondering how he was even going to get started. He knew it would be very hard, if not impossible, to do both studies at the same time, so he wished he could be more selective in his studies, but he knew that right now it was not likely that he could be more selective; the problem was a simple lack of knowledge about Digimon anatomy. But Joe knew that he would have to do something medically related for Digimon; his fighting experiences in his first adventure with Digimon had convinced him of that, and the recent revelations had reactivated his determination to try. Frustrated at being a doctor's son and yet unable to help injured or dying Digimon, Joe had eagerly embraced doctor training that before had been forced on him by his father, but because of the previously mentioned problems he was soon stymied by a practicality question, now coming into sharp focus as the year 2004 began.
The only thing that kept Joe from abandoning the whole idea altogether was a profound sense of responsibility, that only he would have the capacity to even try to be a doctor. He felt it was a niche only he would be able to fill, at least for a long while. "After all," Joe said to himself, "I've been filling niches all along. Out of all the Digimon, only Gomamon is proficient in water. Out of all the kids, I am the oldest and most determined to be protective. There are just things that only I can be, and it's my responsibility to fill them as best I can. It's why reliability is my crest; I need to be reliable because otherwise certain roles will never be filled." Whatever faults he may have had early in that first adventure, his commitment to being responsible had long since outweighed them. Both his commitment and his ability to fill niches were best expressed in one memorable incident...
It was during the first adventure, after Myotismon had come to the real world and had sealed off Odaiba with a fog barrier. Joe and T.K. had been caught on the opposite side of the barrier from the other Digidestined and they had set off to try to get through the barrier. During that trip, MegaSeadramon, one of Myotismon's servants, attacked them as they tried to get through the fog, and by saving T.K. from drowning he had managed to get Gomamon to Digivolve to Zudomon, his Ultimate form, for the first time. MegaSeadramon was defeated by Zudomon and both Joe and T.K. were traveling on Zudomon's back when they noticed someone floating in the water. Pulling him in, they found it was a Digimon which was carrying what he said was the Crest of Light and was looking for "the Eighth Child", the reason for Myotismon being in the human world in the first place, and Gatomon, who he said was the child's Digimon.
Initially and understandably (because of past experience with Gatomon) both Joe and T.K. were very confused about what he was saying, as the Digimon looked like one of Myotismon's bad guys, but, as Joe later commented, "We had no idea what had been revealed about Gatomon, and with all that was going on we weren't sure about much of anything." Nevertheless, Joe decided against chucking the Digimon (who, of course, was Gatomon's friend Wizardmon) back into the water, partly because of the bad condition Wizardmon was in but also to give the Digimon, who as far as they knew could be either telling the truth or lying about the Crest, "the benefit of the doubt", not wanting to mess things up just in case what he was saying was true. Heading toward the TV station, the source of the fog, Joe's practicality was to play a small but important part in the following battle by bringing Wizardmon to the battle site. "Without that," Joe acknowledged, "there would have been no sacrifice, no miracle and no victory. Myotismon would've won that day." Joe now thought of that chain of events as the prime example of how he viewed his position and contribution to the Digidestined, and (quietly) something to be quite proud of.
Joe had heard of the phrase "There are no small parts, just small actors." He generally thought that phrase applied to both himself and Wizardmon, and he was reasonably sure that Gatomon thought the same way in terms of that phrase. In fact, it was a quiet acknowledgment and appreciation by Gatomon for the "small part" Joe and Gomamon played in her redemption that formed the basis of the relationship between them, the quiet "something" that passed between them the few times they talked with each other and always made Joe feel better about himself. Opportunities to build on that fact were limited ("after all, Gomamon likes water and Gatomon really doesn't, so how do you get them to do something fun together?" Joe stated as a summary of the problem), but the existence of this quiet appreciation prevented the relationship from disappearing altogether.
Besides, Joe also had a kind of "daydream" which centered around Gatomon. Normally, he wouldn't cherish dreams much because he figured they would never come true, which would make him feel "down" and make him even more pessimistic, but for this "daydream" he was willing to suspend disbelief ("if bringing Wizardmon to the battle is all she has to thank me for, then that's good enough for me." Joe would say). The basic idea was that Joe would become proficient enough at surgery that he would be able to remove the scars under Gatomon's gloves. Of course, he may not become able enough to do that, she may refuse ("perfectly understandable; they have a purpose, reminds her of what she had to go through to become what she is now." Joe thought as an explanation) or simply he would be too busy (which he doubted, as he thought he would definitely always make time for her). Nevertheless, Joe would keep this dream in mind as he studied, use it as a reason why he was studying. Other reasons would certainly come to mind, but this was probably one of the better, or at least more encouraging, reasons...
Suddenly, Joe's thoughts were interrupted by banging on his door. "Hey, Joe!" came a voice from the other side. "Let me in!"
Startled, Joe jumped to his feet and rushed to open the door. He opened the door, but couldn't see anybody. "Hey, Joe, down here!" came the voice. Slightly confused, Joe looked down only to spot...
"Gomamon!" Joe exclaimed, still confused. "What are you doing here?"
"What, you've forgotten about me already?" came Gomamon's slightly sarcastic reply.
"No, I just thought you were eating lunch."
"I don't know what I want to eat, and I can't tell your mom to show me anything that doesn't have fish in it!"
Joe sighed heavily. "She doesn't understand you." he said. He scooped up Gomamon and headed for the kitchen. As he did so, he bumped into his older brother Jim, who was staying at the house for the day. Stumbling back a few steps, Joe glared at Jim.
"What's your beef Jim?" Joe exclaimed in a fairly loud voice (somewhat unusually for Joe). "You've already ruined my day, thank you very much, so why are you pestering me now?"
"Sorry!" Jim hastily apologized, brushing himself off.
"Yeah, well, 'sorry' just doesn't cut it right now!"
"But Joe...!"
"Didn't you think half a second before you started going on and on about where Gomamon was when you arrived this morning?!? Did you realize how much you embarrassed me? I was hoping my 'stuffed animal' excuse would keep Gomamon a secret, until you started blabbing on and on about where Gomamon was! You didn't even wait 5 minutes after getting in the door!"
"Come on, I thought they knew already!" Jim responded as an excuse.
"Knew about Digimon and the Digiworld, yes, but Gomamon no! Didn't you stop to consider that possibility, particularly since you never told Mom and Dad much about why you decided to start researching Digimon with Sora's father?"
"Well..."
"There you go. Case closed. Shouldn't have been blabbing without consideration."
"But bro...!"
"Not listening!"
"But, come on...!"
"Not listening!" Joe stated as he continued to the kitchen, now in rather bad mood. It was bad enough that Jim had paid a "surprise visit" the day after Joe had presumed he and Sora's dad had gone back to Kyoto, but Jim's endless questions about Gomamon and his whereabouts had broken Joe's cover for the white seal Digimon, and he had been forced to tell right then and there. Needless to say, Joe was more than a little miffed at his brother at that moment.
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Joe entered the kitchen, mumbling angry words to himself. He sighed and asked, "So, what do you want to eat, Gomamon?"
"Can I see what's in your refrigerator?" Gomamon replied.
"Hmmm...let's see..." Joe said as he approached the refrigerator. He stooped down and let Gomamon crawl onto his back so that he could peek over the shoulder while Joe opened the refrigerator door and started looking inside...
Meanwhile, Joe's mom had entered the kitchen. She noticed Joe rummaging around in the fridge and said, "Joe, what are you doing in the fridge? Please close the door unless you know what you want and can't find it."
"I'm looking for something." Joe replied, pushing around various containers and bottles.
"Looking for what?"
"Looking for something for Gomamon to eat."
"But I prepared some sushi just for him. Why won't he eat it? He's a seal... right?"
Joe turned to look at his mom, a bemused grin on his face. "Mom, I already told you. He's a Digimon, not a seal. And it's wrong to think of him as a seal. He can have things that don't have fish in them, and I'm not sure he's interested in sushi right now. If you give him more choices, maybe he'll find something he likes better than sushi."
Mom looked confused. "Are you... sure about this?"
"Positive."
Mom shrugged. "OK, he's your friend, not mine. I just thought he would only be interested in fish..."
Joe shook his head and chuckled to himself as he returned his attention to the fridge. "Boy, you've got a lot to learn about Digimon..." he said to himself.
Joe rummaged around a bit more, then Gomamon noticed a small styrofoam container in a corner. "Hey, what's in that container?" Gomamon asked.
"Hmm...I don't know, Gomamon..." Joe replied as he reached for the container. He pulled it out of the fridge, closed the fridge door and put the container on the table. Joe opened it to reveal an uneaten cheeseburger and some french fries.
"Where did that come from?" Gomamon asked Joe.
Joe thought for a moment, then said, "I think it was from two days ago; don't you remember going to a restaurant for supper?"
"Yeah, after that victory."
Actually, it wasn't much of a victory supper, as Joe remembered it. They should have been ecstatic that the evil plaguing them was finally destroyed, but the revelations had hit them all like a sledgehammer, and whatever joy they had was tempered by the sorrow of Oikawa's "death" and the anger (some more than others) that it had been an evil they thought had been defeated long ago. Combine this with the efforts to feed the Digimon "on the sly" and no one had much of an appetite. Joe had ordered two burgers and large fries, thinking he could split with Gomamon a burger each and half of the fries, but neither of them were in the mood to eat much, so between the two of them they only ate one burger and about three-quarters of the fries. Joe remembered depressingly that it was like that with everyone else who was with them...
"Hey, Joe, you left the fridge door open!" Gomamon loudly said, snapping Joe out of his depressing remembrance. He hastily rushed over and shut the door, thanking Gomamon for reminding him.
"That's what I'm here for, Joe!" Gomamon replied, grinning his ever-likable grin.
Joe chuckled; sometimes Gomamon could be just so goofy... After a moment of recovery, Joe said, "So, uh... do you want that?" Gomamon nodded.
"Well that's good, but how will you eat it?" Joe asked.
"I have my ways." Gomamon replied, flashing another grin. He then started taking bites off the top of the bun, happily chewing away at bread.
Joe chuckled again as Gomamon flashed one of those adorable "little kid chewing with the mouth open" looks. "All right then, just make sure you wash your face when you're done, OK?" Joe ordered. Gomamon nodded, then plunged back into biting at the burger...
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Joe shook his head as he left the kitchen and returned to his room. Gomamon could be such a ham at times... "But that's not a bad thing." Joe thought. "After all, I needed someone like Gomamon so that I could learn to 'lighten up'. I mean, I was rather uptight after first meeting him..."
Joe reentered his room. The stacks of books were still there, and still taunting his efforts to become the Digiworld's first M.D.. Joe's mood immediately sunk back down to a confused and frustrating sense of hopelessness. He sat back down at the desk, seeming to have gone nowhere of what he figured was a course of fifteen minutes.
Joe again heard knocking on his door. He turned as the door opened, only to find Jim standing in the doorway. Joe's face immediately turned into a scowl. "What do you want? Go away!" he angrily pushed out.
Jim sighed and rolled his eyes. "Look, I know you're upset at me right now, but I couldn't help but notice all the books you seem to be surrounded by."
"Yeah? So?"
"Joe, you maybe getting worked up about something you don't need to worry about right now."
Joe raised a suspicious eyebrow. "What do you mean, 'right now'?" he replied.
Jim sighed and said, "Right now there are more pressing issues for you guys to fact than trying to figure out the anatomy of Digimon."
"Like...?"
"Well, uh, let's see... Ken is still fairly well known, and it seems inevitable that the existence of Digimon will have to be revealed to the general public, and it seems he would be the most likely way..."
Joe thought for a moment; maybe Jim had a point... "What exactly are you trying to get at here?" he asked his brother.
"My point is is that are bigger things to worry about. I'm not saying that what you're doing isn't important; what I'm saying is that if you take care of the important things of now, everything else will fall into place."
Jim smiled before continuing with: "Just have a little faith in the future. Deal with the issues of today and tomorrow will fall into place."
Joe thought some more... "Hmm... you sure about that?" he said, looking really confused.
"Hey, just wait a month or two and you'll see what I mean. Oh, and by the way..."
"What?"
Jim briefly glanced around to see if anyone else is around, then said quietly, "I haven't told anyone else yet, not even Mom and Dad, but the professor and I are going to be staying a semester here in Tokyo and we'll be giving a short series of lectures about Digimon at the university. Since you and Gomamon are going to be an important part of this, I wanted to let you know first."
Joe was a bit stunned. "You mean, you're doing this within the next couple months? Shouldn't you and the professor wait at least until after the summer?"
"The longer you wait, the more likely bad things will happen to make that job harder. Besides, it's just going to be a gentle introduction. Sure, the media outside the university may cover it, but think of it as a 'trial introduction' for the future."
Joe knitted his brows for a moment as he thought long and hard about this, then shrugged and said, "OK, I...guess. So, are you going to tell everyone else?"
"The professor is going to do most of the telling, but now that I've told you I can help him spread the word."
"I just hope the others don't flip out when they hear the news..."
"Oh, don't worry, I think they'll understand."
"Hmm... all right, if it's what you and the professor really want."
"Thanks! Believe me, you won't regret this decision!"
"Sure..." Joe felt an uneasy, "butterflies in the stomach" kind of feeling, like he had made a mistake in consenting. But there was no way to know for sure, at least right now...
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Joe sighed as he went back to sit at his desk. Out in the hall, he heard Joe walk back out into the hallway. Joe felt weary and a little worried as a result of what Jim had just told him.
"Introduction to Digimon at the university..." he pondered. "Well, it's gonna happen sooner or later, so it might as well be now, before the monster attacks can be linked directly to Digimon. And besides, Jim has plenty of cute Digimon to use as a counter attack against the accusations that all Digimon are big and rampaging creatures: Gomamon, Gatomon, Cody's Armadillomon, Patamon... Yeah, it may not be a mistake after all..."
Joe usually wasn't very optimistic about much of anything, but here he found good reason to be optimistic on this. Sure, there would be a lot of problems and probably some concern amongst the others, but done properly it would be a big boost to their cause and form a good base upon which other attempts to showcase Digimon to the public could be built upon.
Problems... there would always be problems he would have to face, even now after the victory. There was the schooling of course, but there was also the uncomfortable feeling that he was going to be part of a major social shift that would happen sooner or later, and he generally didn't like upsetting the status quo as a matter of principle. Also, he would probably have to keep an eye on Cody ("the poor kid must be tied up in knots right now, knowing that it was Myotismon controlling Oikawa..." Joe worriedly thought), but nevertheless Joe could now feel enough at ease to concentrate on his studies.
And study he would. Not just to fulfill his dream of being the first doctor of the Digiworld (noble as it was), not just to see the smiling faces of those he treated, not even to advance the frontiers of knowledge, but as his responsibility, and as his way of showing his concern for others (particularly exemplified in his pet dream about Gatomon). He would do it, not just for himself, but for others, others like Gomamon, like Gatomon, like Armadillomon, even others like Wormmon, for all Digimon and the humans which they are partnered to.
Joe smiled; he had found his reason to start on the stacks of books. He picked the topmost book of one of the stacks, opened it and began to read it over, now sure of the "why"'s and no longer caring about the "what if"'s. It was his responsibility; that's what it boiled down too, when Joe was honest with himself...
The End