Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, and sadly, I don't own The Offspring, "The Kids Aren't Alright", Plummet, "Damaged" or…anything except a huge cassette/CD collection, the entire Shaman King manga, and some random shit that only means anything to me. I rent.. Property values: 0!
Warning: Realistic violence (child/partner abuse) Cynicism, depressing, my usual.
Timeline: Right after my other fic, "Generation Desenchantee", which despite the title, is in English. If this is the first one of mine you've read, you are going to be very lost. At least read GD, it's a one-shot. Yeah, I know, I'm starting another one, but this one will only be about three chapters or so.
Chapter 1-Damaged
Izumi sighed as she lay against Junpei's non-wounded side on the hospital bed.
"Why don't you just tell someone?"
She turned to him with desperate eyes, "There's help for this, you know!"
Junpei pulled her in closer with the arm he had around her, "I-…"
"You what?"
I hate seeing that look in your eyes. Especially if I'm the cause of that. I'm in love with you. I love you. I'm 12, you're 11, I know all of that…I can't say it, though. I'm not supposed to see the rest of my life with someone. I doubt you do. I don't want to…
"I don't want to lose you," he said aloud, "before, maybe still, maybe it's my fault, I don't know-"
"Don't say that!" Izumi's voice broke, ""It isn't your fault!"
"Well, it's why I never said anything before."
"But you can now. The people here can-"
"Put me in the system, and I'll lose you, and everyone else. Either way, I'm being selfish."
Izumi knew the tales of the system, "and either way, it's a house, not a home."
"Sometimes, I think it's for the best about Riko."
"Your sister who died at the age of three."
"And that's why I didn't tell Kouji that day at the Trailmon stop. What happened to Kouichi there was miserable enough. Dying at three…"
"I understand. I thought being from the West was rough. You're more than anything, from a third-world country, where you've been, and the former Soviet, you're hardly Japanese, and you were in Kobe, in the racist Kansai region when the Hanshin disaster happened."
Junpei laughed, "Yeah, but I look Asian enough; it's not until you see my mother and hear her looking for her house goats." (Note)
"Oh my mother had those moments once, until about three years ago."
"Mum's been here for ten years now."
"Maybe she should pray to Saint Jude."
A nurse entered the room, "Junpei-kun, your mother's here."
Junpei went into full-alert mode. He looked at the bed next to him, in which a girl lay sleeping, "When she comes in, stand by the girl's bed-side, tuck her in and leave."
"But-"
"Please!"
Izumi nodded and went over to the strange girl.
A forty-something tanned woman, siclky skinny, with black hair and dark brown eyes came in in nurse's garb, a shocked look on her wrinkled face, for the real nurse was watching.
"Good night, sweetie," Izumi spoke by the sleeping girl, tucking her in and leaving.
Good job, Junpei thought to Izumi, not daring to look at her.
He smiled at his mother. He knew the drill.
For one, her licence had been suspended for five weeks now, so she hadn't a job to just copme rushing from.
Two, Shocked, my arse. Now we play the happy family game, sickly sweet as burning flesh in a Holocaust oven.
"Oh, my poor baby," she rushed over and hugged him on the wounded side. He knew she meant to do that.
"Hi Mum," he knew to smile even though she grabbed his hand and moved it, causing the intravenous needles in his veins to shift. Licence or no, she'd once been a nurse herslf. She knew what she was doing.
Izumi went to the twins room, where Ms. Kimura was flopped at the foot of Kouji's bed, body racking in sobs.
"Mum please…" Kouichi began.
"…don't cry," Kouji finished.
"But you get out on Wednesday, and the hearing isn't until next week Friday!"
"I just won't ruffle his feathers." Kouji tried to console her, "If I stay with you now, like you said…"
Ms. Kimura sat up, "Yes, he'll have me jailed for kidnapping, and you'll both be stuck in his custody….
"You maybe so anyway, I don't make much,"
"We'll find a way," Kouichi wanted to believe it, too.
"Is this a bad time?"
They turned to see Izumi,.
"No, it's fine," Kouji reassured.
"I guess you're Izumi," Ms. Kimura tried to smile. Her sons had told her their best friends, a couple, a young girl, Izumi, and more so, her older boyfriend, Junpei, had saved their lives.
Kouji was in tears as he told Kouichi and Mum the end of the story. Mum, however, said that if he had died from the shot, he would never have called out after his mother, who, unfortunately, had been the one to shoot him. That they knew, however, was to remain a secret.
Mother's intuition had told her Kouji might have feelings for this Junpei boy.
She didn't care. He was her baby; she'd love him if he was purple.
Ms. Kimura motioned Izumi near, "Izumi-chan,"
"Yes, Ms. Kimura?"
Ms. Kimura took her hands, "Just call me Adelisa. Thank you, for saving my sons' lives."
"Izumi smiled, "A-Adelisa-sama. I only called the ambulance. I guess you know about my boyfriend, Junpei. He told me to do that as he cared for Kouichi and Kouji."
"But you helped, too. I just wanted to thank you. And I want to thank him too."
Izumi inhaled sharply, "He's…here, in room 310….he got attacked that same day."
Inwardly Kouichi heaved a sigh.
Inwardly, Kouji cried for relief. He'd never dare say a word, though. He feared that his new family would shun him. Junpei was with Izumi; he liked girls, and was taken. Kouji wasn't even sure he understood this himself.
So within himself it would remain.
"I don't know what I would've done if the two of you hadn't been there," Adelisa continued, "Would anyone mind if I went to thank him?"
"You look just like your father," Maria Shibayama commented randomly.
Who you used to hurt as we watched, Junpei kept to himself, you blame him for dying, for killing Riko, as if he meant for the car to lose control. Yeah, I look a lot like him, which is why you beat me when you're under the influence, which is most of the time you're awake.
Every child is supposed to learn from their parents' examples. I know I have. I've learned…what to never be.
"Well, I'm going to go back to work, okay?" Maria smiled as she stood.
I'd rather have you cracking a vodka bottle over my skull than play these games. But I'm sure you'll do that many times when I'm discharged. "Okay, Mum, bye"
"Bye, sweetie."
She left.
Junpei closed his eyes, breathing deeply to quell the nausea that had been welling.
They passed Maria in the hall.
Good, it's safe, Izumi thought.
Seeing how pretty Izumi was, Adelisa was expecting a big, strong jock-adonis…
"Junpei?" Izumi poked her head in.
"You didn't run into her….?"
"She didn't even notice us."
"Us?"
"Yeah, um, Kouichi and Kouji's mum wants to thank you."
"For what?"
Izumi sweatdropped, Gee, nearly getting killed to save her kids, maybe? "You'll see."
Adelisa entered the room, and needless to say, his appearance was lower standards than the kids made it seem.
My babies have good hearts, they see past that.
Junpei sweatdropped, "Um, hi, this is an interesting first meeting."
He gestured toward the empty chair, "You can sit and rest if you'd like." The moment he saw her, he knew, she was not just overworked, she must've had a chronic illness.
"Ms. Kimura, right?"
"Oh, please, call me Adelisa," Her voice broke, "You saved my babies' lives, Junpei-kun. I- Thank you so much."
"Well, they're my friends, I did what I could, but it was the doctors and stuff who SAVED them."
A moment of silence passed.
"Are you getting custody of Kouji?" Junpei asked.
Adelisa looked down. "The boys get out Wednesday, the hearing is next week Friday. In that time-"
"I can testify."
Adelisa looked up.
"Junpei, you have enough-" She caught the look in his eye.
"I'll come too, then."
Adelisa looked back and forth, "But…"
"No buts," Junpei smiled, "they're my friends, and you strike me as a very kind person. A little too kind maybe, to do this alone.""Thank you," Adelisa fell into tears of joy.
TSUZUKU: Kouji, a prisoner-locked in the shadows of something no child should face.
Notes:
Kagi- key, yagi- goat.