The powers he'd held as Emperor faded from Ken slowly, quietly. It was small things at first: he no longer broke speed records in gym, his soccer kicks were no longer as powerful. It was things that coaches could blame on being tired from running away, accepting rumors that he'd been held captive somewhere.
Even his teachers didn't press it when he stopped topping the charts on tests. From number one, he slipped to two, then to four. But that was ok, it was getting near the end of the school year, everyone was taking a while to learn the last bits being crammed in before winter break.
Ken accepted the odd looks from teachers with dignity, ignored the cruel whispers of his classmates behind his back. He kept his face a cool mask, like the one he'd always worn before. Any outreach of Kindness to others would only mark him as a freak, messed up from whatever had happened. He figured, it was ok. He could take it. He'd been so cruel before, it only seemed fitting that they could be cruel back. He had his parents' love and the hinting of friendship from Davis, and that would be enough to get him through.
Until he finally bombed a test, completely and utterly. The back of his neck had been itching like crazy the night before and he couldn't sleep. He couldn't even study. He could only scratch and scratch until his nails were bloody and he was worried he'd hit bone. Even after washing the wound with burning alcohol and dressing it clumsily by himself with gauze from a yellowed packet in an ancient first aid kit, it still itched. He told himself that it was just a figment of his imagination, his subconscious destroying him for what he'd done.
The words on the test that day had been noting but blurs. He focused more on not scratching, not bloodying his nails, than writing answers, only scribbling anything down as the timer ticked down the last seconds.
His peers, his betters he realized now, had laughed loudly as he looked at the red marker that outweighed his own pen, marking almost every question wrong. There was a number, single digit, circled at the top and the teacher gave him a certain look. This was more than just a reformed runaway trying to get attention.
This was outright failure.
He hid the test in his book bag quickly, keeping his face relaxed and uninterested, though he couldn't stop the slight flush of his cheeks whenever he heard his name behind him, followed by a dark snicker.
He managed to make it through the day, a shaking mess inside a cool exterior. He ignored the calls of "loser" and "dunce" from his classmates as he walked out the gates of his school, just as he ignored the burning on the back of his neck. He would have to disinfect his wound again when he got home.
His mother, Asako, was always very sweet when he came home, rushing over to hug him like he'd been gone for years instead of hours. And his father, Masafumi, clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, unknowingly ripping open some of the scab hidden under Ken's collar.
"How was school, sweetheart?" Asako doted, brushing back his bangs, cupping his cheeks. She always looked like she was on the verge of tears whenever she looked at him.
"I heard you had a big test this morning," Masafumi said with a proud smile. "I bet you knocked it outta the park."
"Actually," Ken murmured, looking at his bag. His mother was pinching his earlobes gently, like he was a lost puppy unafraid of humans. He hated to have to move his mother away, but she let him go almost-willingly as he grabbed his test, holding out the red-dyed page. "I didn't do so well..."
Asako tried to bite back her tiny sob, and Masafumi couldn't stop the disappointment from crossing his face.
"I see..." the father said, taking the test. He tried to read what answers Ken had put, but there were so many corrections, it probably would have been easier for Ken to have not tried at all. He looked to his wife and Ken shuffled his feet nervously. "Maybe... a tutor?"
"Tutor?" Ken asked softly, determined to never raise his voice again.
"Your grades have been slipping a... little... son," Masafumi said, and Ken knew he didn't mean "little".
"It's ok, dear," Asako said, once more squeezing a bewildered Ken to her chest. "Your father and I have been discussing it for a while now, actually. The middle school in Odaiba has some very qualified students who are able to help out kids like you – geniuses who seem to have, well, forgotten how to be geniuses."
Ken nodded dumbly. Where was the support he'd been so desperately leaning on? The mother and father who loved him and only wanted his happiness? He remembered his parents whispering outside his doorway, their words reaching him even in his darkness. Hadn't they realized that Ken's genius had nothing to do with Ken's humanity?
Asako misinterpreted Ken's distant look and she smiled brightly, telling her remaining son, "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be set up with a nice young man."
As it turned out, the "nice young man" Ken had been paired with was none other than Izzy Izumi. The redhead was barely familiar to him, even if his days as Emperor hadn't turned into one big blur. He thought he remembered seeing him only once, long before the Chosen Children came into their full strength.
They met, as the program directed, in the middle school cafeteria, and he hadn't even noticed who had been instructed to take the seat across from him. Piercing black eyes looked him over, and Ken kept his head bowed as the teacher droned boredly, "Izumi will be with Ichijouji."
The man "hmm"ed as he tried to place the last name, then shrugged and moved on to the next duo.
To his credit, Izzy was very professional. He said nothing of the dark days of the Digital world and asked questions only pertaining to schoolwork. What classes was he in? How was he doing in them? What were his grades like before and what were they now?
Ken spoke as politely as he could, whenever he did speak. He couldn't remember which Digimon had been with Izzy, so he couldn't remember what he had to apologize personally for.
When he did try and say something, when he opened his mouth and whispered, "For what I did as the Digimon Emperor -"
But Izzy just shook his head and said coolly, "I'm here as part of the Tutoring Club the same as you. That's all."
With the redhead's help, his grades no longer fell. They weren't improving, but he wasn't slipping any more. Ken's parents were still worried about his place in his class, but there were no more remarks out loud. They just sighed at his test scores and tried to smile, and the whole time Ken felt helpless.
It was drowning him in his mother's unshed tears, in his father's unspoken disappointment. He was torn between being the Ken that made him happy and being the Genius Ken that made his parents happy. But in the end, he knew which one would win out.
So one day, he waited until after Tutoring Club. Izzy had been coughing quietly the whole time, a slight flush to his normally pale cheeks. Ken bit his lip, wanting to ask after the boy's health, but that would certainly be too personal. And he needed ever last bit of Izzy's good graces for what he was going to ask.
The teacher called the end of the session and Izzy, mid-way though an algebra problem, closed his book automatically. He coughed into the back of his hand and set his papers in his bag.
"Next week," Izzy promised. "Have a good weekend."
"W-wait," Ken called softly and Izzy paused, halfway standing. Ken blushed as he was fixed with a curious look. "I... I'm not improving fast enough. Would it be possible to... continue the tutoring?"
"I must be getting home," Izzy said, the first personal statement the redhead had made since meeting Ken. "I have my own homework to do."
"I understand," Ken breathed and he bowed his head. He bit the tip of his tongue and sighed. Should he quit the Tutoring Club? It seemed like such a waste now.
Izzy hovered at the table and, with another tiny cough, he said, "I suppose a second mind wouldn't hurt. I have been feeling a little sluggish today."
Ken lept on the opportunity and snatched his bag. He followed Izzy through the halls of the middle school and down the street. The redhead was calm the whole way, only an occasional coughing fit making him pause.
"Are you ok?" Ken asked once, and Izzy looked at him oddly enough to make Ken glance away.
"Just a mild cold," Izzy explained after a moment. There was a softness to his voice that Ken hadn't heard before, and it reminded him of Davis whenever the boy tried to get him to hang out. "I just need a little rest."
"If it's too much trouble..." Ken murmured and Izzy smiled, a warm expression Ken wasn't sued to seeing directed at him.
"Not at all. I can rest once we're done, after all."
And suddenly they were in front of Izzy's apartment. He opened the door and as Ken was about to politely slide off his shoes, Izzy's parents stepped into the entranceway.
"Oh, you brought a friend over," the young mother said with gentle surprise.
"This is Ken Ichijouji," Izzy introduced and Ken waited. He waited for the "can I have your autograph" or the "a genius in my house?" or even "will you date my daughter/sister/aunt?"
Instead, she just smiled, warmly and openly and said, "Good afternoon, I'm Mrs. Izumi."
And then she waited and, after an embarrassingly long moment, Ken realized he was supposed to speak freely, not wait for a barrage of questions that his answers to could be sold to tabloids. He bowed too low and too formally and spoke too properly, "It is very nice to meet you, Mrs. Izumi. I'm in your son's tutoring program at school."
Mr. Izumi beamed proudly without a hint of underlying shame. "That's my boy, the best and the brightest."
"Not too bright I'm afraid," Izzy spoke with a slight blush that probably had more to do with his father than his fever. He pulled a test from his bag, and Ken spied the increasingly-familiar red marker on it. "It appears my cold has influenced my ability to recall basic biology."
Mr. Izumi looked at the page for a moment, and Ken could see through the thin sheet the 79 at the top. The blue haired boy swallowed hard and for a moment, he panicked. Would Izzy's parents blame him for their son's failures? Would Izzy be pulled from the Tutoring Club for his own tutoring? What would Ken's parents think upon hearing that? Ken felt his cheeks warm and, as he opened his mouth to take responsibility, Mrs. Izumi clasped her hands together with a happy gasp.
"Oh, Izzy, how wonderful!" she beamed and wrapped her son in a hug. "I'm so proud of you, dear."
And Mr. Izumi shook his head, still with that proud smile. "Even without being ill, I don't think I could have gotten half of these right."
"It's no big deal," Izzy mumbled, but he was smiling. He glanced to Ken, black eyes sparkling. "Are you ready?"
Ken licked his suddenly dry lips. Mrs. Izumi leaned in sweetly, offering to make the boys snacks, or tea, or did they want to rest and watch some TV first?
"N-no thank you," Ken told them suddenly and he took a step back. "I'm afraid I forgot something and I need to go home." He bowed to a bewildered Izzy. "I appreciate your time and effort spent on me."
And as Ken tried not to look like he was running away, he remembered what he'd forgot. That Izzy came from a place of unconditional love, and he came from a place of love so long as he was worthy of it.