I have no idea where this came from, but I sort of like it. It's kind of Angsty, which is not normally my thing, but I think I did pretty well. I kind of trailed off in interest by the end, but I hope it isn't obvious. Let me know what you think!!
***
Courage to Cowardice
Taichi heard his Mother's scream from his darkened room and winced, curling further into himself in the corner. He hears his father's angry, drunken roaring and screws his eyes shut, singing a familiar, comforting song in his head to drown out the noise from the living room.
"I wanna sing a song" he whispers in the dark, flinching as he heard the solid thud of a body flying into a wall and glass breaking. "A song to bring Shogunmon around…" Tai trails off, breathing heavily, voice laden with tears. He buries his face in his knees and clutches his hair in desperation upon hearing his Mother's sobs.
"You stupid bitch!" he hears his father yell as Taichi clamps his hands over his ears, taking up his singing louder.
"When he hears my voice, I hope that he likes the sound" The sounds from outside Taichi's room quiets as he sings louder. Taichi abruptly stops singing as his breathing comes harder and faster, his heart racing, his stomach twisting with the terrifying feeling of anxious ritual. He feels the footsteps before he hears them and the room spins with fear as Taichi scrambles to hide somewhere, anywhere, tearing up his fingers as he drags his body across the wooden floor, towards the closet, the window, anything. The door swings open and the dim light from the living room washes into Taichi's room allowing him to identify himself at the bottom of the full length mirror, lighting Taichi's face in a terrifying mottle of old bruises and tears. Taichi can see his father's silouhette in the doorway behind him, bottle of rye in one hand and the other clenched in a fist. And as Taichi screams when his father grabs a handful of his hair and pulls his head back, Taichi thinks quietly in the back of his mind that once upon a time he used to look in the mirror with courage and determination. Now all he sees is the broken body of a child who is too afraid to stand up for himself and his family. Then he sees black and he ceases to think for the night.
Friendship to Animosity
Yamato watches as Taichi slumps further into his chair as the bell rings to signal the end of the school day. He recognizes the bruises and the fear reflecting in his friends' eyes. Taichi turns at that moment to look at him and Yamato flinches and looks away. Anger grows within him, remembering the boy next door who begged a younger Yamato to help him. He remembers the fear, the vomting, the bruise he sported for weeks and the broken arm he sported for even longer. He remembers flinching away from his own father, disgusted that a grown man could treat any child that way. He remembers his friend screaming at him when his Dad was taken away, screaming that all he wanted was for Yamato to stop him, not get him taken away. He remembers trying to explain that it was for the best, that is was what friends did and he remembers bring pushed down and stating that they were never friends in the first place.
Yamato feels sick at the thought of losing another friend because of his interference and decides that this time will be different. He won't be the one to be pushed away and hurt again. He learns from his mistakes.
When Taichi hesitantly comes towards him in the hallway, Yamato pushes him fiercely into the lockers.
"Stay away from me you freak" Yamato sneers at the broken boy in front of him. He spits on him for good measure and pushes through the gathering crowds to retreat to the washrooms. He splashes water on his face to try to quell his shaking hands and trembling heart and looks up into the mirror above the sink, watching the rivulets of water run down his face. Yamato used to look in the mirror and smile at the laughing, goofy faces of Taichi and his other friends behind him. Now all he sees is him, trying to convince himself that he's doing the right thing. Because he is. Doing the right thing that is.
Love to Hate
Sora slowly stumbles home, knowing what awaits her and feels the anger grow in her stomach with each step. She hates her Mother and her love for flowers and her store and her cooking and her kimonos with the pretty red flowers that Sora used to put on and dance around in when no one was around. She hates the fire flowers that are her Mother's favourites and the water lilies in the pond in the back. Most of all she hates her Mother's new boyfriend. He buys her Mother pretty dresses, paintings, vases, anything but flowers because that's her Mother's "expertise". She hates the smiles they share and that when they stay in and watch movies, they hold hands through the entire thing. She hates that when her Mother has problems she calls him and he is over within the hour. Sora thinks that this could be love and hate blossoms within her soul more fruitfully then love ever did.
It consumes her very being; it starts in her hands and her feet, a burning, all consuming feeling that spreads slowly towards the centre of her body. It travels up her veins, pounds through her main arteries, fuels her organs, makes them pulse and writhe inside of her. It takes over her brain, and all she can see is red before it finally takes over her heart. And when it takes over her heart, her entire body is a slave for its disposable use. Sora shakes on the sidewalk outside her house and enters slowly, body throbbing with an unending fuel. Sora's Mother looks up as she enters the house, giving her daughter a strained smile, dark eyes sad and afraid.
"Sora. How was school dear" she asks, standing to greet her daughter. Sora sneers in response, kicking off her shoes impatiently.
"Fuck off you fucking whore" she spits, feeling jubilation fill her as her Mother flinches away. Without thinking she grabs the closest vase, filled with fire flowers and lilies and throws them at her Mother, who deftly evades the missile, watching helplessly as it crashes into a million pieces against the wall. Sora rolls her eyes and heads up to her room, ignoring her Mother's helpless tears. At the top of the stairs she is greeted with her reflection in the mirror and stares for a long minute. Sora used to look in the mirror here and see her Mother at the bottom of the stairs, smiling proudly up at her. Now all she sees is pieces of a family broken apart by a hate so unending and complete that Sora is a little afraid of who she has become. But then she can see Tony walk in the front door and start comforting her Mother and she just rolls her eyes and continues to her room, ignoring the couple downstairs.
Purity to Impurity
The man above her grunts a final time and pants into her shoulder. She lies still, waiting, as she always has. Finally he picks himself up and exits her, running a free hand down her small, lithe body. He grins at her with a slimy look and rolls off the bed to pick up his clothes. Mimi doesn't move, only stares up at the ceiling and waits impatiently for him to leave. The ceiling is blindingly white, dotted with small stars to mock the night sky. Mimi always had a soft spot for astronomy and astrology. Not that anyone knew, or even cared to know. Subconsciously she began listing off the constellations on her ceiling. 'Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Orion…". She is interrupted by the man – she doesn't know his name, never asked really – who speaks.
"Well, thanks for the good time doll" he drawls in a way that makes Mimi's bare skin crawl. She looks over and sees he is putting on his tie. Good, he is almost gone. She just nods to him and doesn't speak.
"How much I owe you?" He questions, digging into his pocket. Suddenly angered, Mimi sits up, frowning and cinnamon eyes flashing in the dim light.
"I'm not a prostitute" she counters, seething quietly on the inside at the jab. The man just lifts his eyebrows and shrugs his shoulders, leaving a $100 bill on the vanity.
"Could have fooled me" he says before exiting her bedroom. Mimi says nothing, staring at the door for a long time. Her room isn't pink, like everyone assumes it is. It's actually a grayish blue colour, she was attempting to go for the zen look, but all she ended up achieving was the feeling of a prison. Slowly she raises her body out of her now filthy bed and stumbles into her attached bathroom. She turns the water on as hot as it will go, attempting to make the crawling under her skin stop. She scratches her long nails down her arms and bare body, trying to get the feel of his touch and smell off of her, but all she succeeds in doing is leaving long, angry red gauges across her body, some of which are deep enough to start bleeding. She isn't worried about anyone noticing, her parents are never home, her friends don't care and the men she brings home from the bar don't care if the girl they're with is broken, it just makes it easier for them. But Mimi can't bring herself to hate them; she's the one who brings them home, who lets them in, lets herself pretend that they care for a little while. It makes her feel special and pretty, even if she realizes afterwards that they never really cared in the first place. Just like everyone else.
She sits down at her vanity, safely bundled in her dark blue robe, long honey blonde hair clipped away from her face and takes a good long look at herself in the mirror. When Mimi used to look in the mirror, she would see a pretty girl filled with promise, surrounded by her loving friends and family, smiling brightly at how beautiful her life was. Now all she could see, in the dim light of the early morning, was a hideous creature filled with nothing but old dreams, empty promises and the caresses of slimy old men. Mimi turns away from the mirror and picks up the $100, shoving it into her wallet thoughtfully.
Knowledge to Ignorance
It all started when he broke his collar bone. He had attempted to stop a fight at school, over who knows what anymore, and had gotten his collar bone broken. It had been pretty painful, and the doctor suggested that he take a few days off of school. Refusing, the doctor had put Koushirou on pain medications, to help him cope throughout the day. And did it ever help him cope. Koushirou was constantly stressed with thoughts of school and work and his computer taking over his mind. The pain medication took away the pain, but as he slowly began to discover, they also took away his stress.
That's all he was looking for really, a way to end his stress. It wasn't like an addiction or anything, just a coping mechanism, just for a little while, until school was over, or until he could handle it all better. His parent's didn't help his stress, his Mother meant well, but was overbearing and his Father was a quiet, self-absorbed man who was not often home. His friends, the small number that he had, were absorbed in problems of their own, ones that he didn't want to know about and his teachers expected him to perform well beyond what he was capable of and he just couldn't deal with all of the pressure. It was starting to get into his head, to the point where he could feel his skull bursting, cracking and leaking out. The medication took that feeling away, made him feel light and secure, made his problems feel solvable again. So when his grades started slipping, he just kept taking them, claiming to the doctor that his collar bone still hurt. And when his friends started to retreat into their own lives, cracking under the weight of their lives, Koushirou threw himself down the stairs to refracture his collar bone and got double the prescription. He wasn't abusing the system, he just needed to feel like he could handle these things.
Koushirou booted up his computer and stared at his reflection. When he used to look at his reflection, Koushirou saw a young man, well on his way to success, vibrant with life and living for the answers. Now, his hair had become thin, his skin sallow, his eyes dampened with exhaustion and stress, and something else. Koushirou opened the pill bottle with thin, shaking hands to get rid of the thoughts that plagued him. As he watched his eyes gloss over, he thought to himself that this wasn't an addiction, just a temporary coping mechanism. Really, it was.
Faith to Neglect
Jyou peeked around the door and into the waiting room. He flinched upon seeing 5 familiar faces there. He should have expected this. He really should have. He'd known they were absorbed in their own problems, drowning slowly in a world that didn't know or care of their sacrifices and battles. He'd been so busy with Med School and then his internship at the local clinic. He should have known it would come to this. They were the digidestined, they never did anything half way; it was always such violent extremes for them.
He looked first at Taichi, sitting stoically in the corner, face neutral but mottled with old and fresh bruises. His brown eyes, when visible, showed gut-wrenching fear. Jyou suspected what was going on to the boy of Courage who was once his leader: Susumu Yagami was a well known raging drunk in Odaiba, but no one whispered a word, out of fear of his drunken rages.
He turned next to Yamato, whose face was also littered with cuts, scrapes and bruises. He was sitting in a sullen position, eyes darting around the room wildly, looking for a fight. Jyou knew that Yamato had cut ties with all his old friends, and had been getting into fistfights with anyone who looked twice at him. The boy of Friendship sat alone in the waiting room, with no one sitting close enough to touch. They knew the boy's temper too well.
Next was Sora, sitting sullenly next to her Mother, who was nursing a nasty head wound. There was an American man sitting on the other side of Sora's mother, her boyfriend who was taking turns looking concernedly at his lover and glaring at Sora. Jyou figured he knew what had happened here too: Sora's crest of Love could not survive her hopes at her parent's reunion being dashed by the handsome stranger, and her eyes flashed with hatred for her Mother and this man for ruining what she thought to be her chance at a normal life.
Mimi was sitting in the other corner, in a tiny miniskirt and a skimpy, deep v necked sweater. Her hair was ratty and unkempt, her eyes dull and lifeless. Jyou was aware of the rumours floating through Odaiba. Since her return Mimi had found her friends unlike she remembered them and had lost herself in a world of alcohol, drugs and sex to escape. If her friends weren't going to hold true to their crests, well the child of Purity wasn't going to be the only one maintaining a lost way of life. And judging by the way she was shifting uncomfortably in her seat, and the STD pamphlet near her, Jyou knew that would promise to be an uncomfortable visit.
Last was Koushirou, sitting across from Sora, twitching every now and then, dark eyes roaming over his friends quickly before licking his lips and looking down at his broken arm. Another broken bone. Although he hadn't treated him before, Jyou knew about the boy's suspicious habit of breaking bones and asking for pain killers. Jyou knew that Koushirou, once the child of Knowledge, had no idea what the pain killers were slowly doing to his body. Jyou also knew his addiction had to stop, before it bested him, if it hadn't already.
His friends were all sitting out there, waiting to be seen - by him no less- to be cured; to be forgiven and to forget and to come together as a team once again. But Jyou had so much to think about: his scholarship, his grades, his internship, his dreams. Could he afford to invest so much time and emotion into a patient – or several in this case? Taking a deep breath, Jyou looked up at the clock and walked into the waiting room.
"I'm sorry to inform you all that the clinic is closed for the evening and if you are in immediate need for a doctor, you should probably go wait at the hospital to be seen." Jyou looked at a black dot at the far end of the room as he spoke, never making or maintaining eye contact. Sora left first, rolling her eyes and muttering that she didn't know why she was there anyways. She was followed by Koushirou, who sped out of the room muttering about pills and then Yamato, stalking out in anger. Mimi and Taichi were the only two who remained, looking at Jyou and then at each other. None of the three spoke for a long while until Mimi slowly got up and walked out the door, not looking back. Taichi rose to his feet and dragged himself out even more slowly, head hanging. Jyou went to the door and turned the lock while watching them – his friends – walk away in different directions. He turned and was met by the mirror in the waiting room. When Jyou used to look in the mirror, he used to be proud of the reliable figure he was, the one who had faith in himself and his friends to do the right thing at the right time; to be there for each other. With a sickening feeling in his stomach, Jyou realized that he wasn't that person anymore. But to be fair, none of them were and he didn't owe these strangers anything. Right?