Author's Note: Just a little "Daisuke gets over Kari" fic, from one of what seems to be a minority - namely, a Daisuke fan. This takes place after the Digimon Emperor gets taken down. The ending can be considered Kensuke (meaning that I consider it Kensuke) but it's not even remotely graphic, and it can be interpreted as a friend thing. Pure silly sap ^^;; This is my first shot at writing Digimon so... errr.... C&C is appreciated ^_^. There are alot more experienced Digimon writers than I. The song used here is "Only On My Own" from Les Miserables, but I've switched the gender just so it makes more sense. And it more refers to the past than the present narrative, really...
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His name was Daisuke Motomiya.
Not the most impressive of beginnings, a name. But then Daisuke Motomiya did not consider himself the most impressive of people, despite the occasional severe bout of posturing. And everyone begins at their name anyways. It defines a person - codifies him forever in the eyes of the world.
Daisuke Motomiya it was, then. Though he really would have preferred to drop the Motomiya at the moment. Mom and Dad were back in town, he heard. He heard alot about Mom and Dad. How they drove Jun to the mall, or they'd picked up some chips for the weekend and put them in the panty or something. It was kinda weird, really. There were times when he could almost swear that they were made up and Jun had gone off the deep end and they were really both living off of secret social security checks from the Japanese government or something.
But whatever.
He wasn't home to see them in any case.
Daisuke Motomiya had somewhere to go.
And now I'm all alone again.
Nowhere to turn, no one to go to.
Without a home, without a friend
Without a face to say hello to
But now the night is here
And I can make believe she's here.
It was pouring out, and fragments of droplets were hitting the boy's legs despite the large red umbrella he carried. There was a chill in the air, and it had managed to chill it's way through his windbreaker a good twenty minutes ago. He probably should have brought gloves and rubber boots and stuff with the weather. He'd come near to getting splashed by two cars already, and a big cold muddy tidal wave would have just made him dirty as well as cold and wet.
She wouldn't have gotten dirty, of course. Kari Kamiya that is. She had that sort of way about her - like the whole world could be chock full or garbage and she'd come up smelling like roses. Light. Was that what it was? Did it somehow make her more graceful or beautiful or wiser than any other girl he'd ever known?
Naaaah.
He'd never known any girls before her.
It was almost a downpour out, and Motomiya had spent the last few blocks looking down. Down at his feet, and the fleeting patches of dry concrete they left behind. It was luxury he couldn't afford with the digidestined, who always seemed to find a way to catch him when he was even remotely out of it. But that was the great thing about rainy nights, hunh? A guy could just be walking alone, and nobody would care if he was alone and not with some big giant group of friends and being smart and athletic and charismatic and perfect and cloying and annoying and hateable...
But enough about TS.
He couldn't kick the discarded soda can that Daisuke had just seen into a trash bin with half a gallon of water in his eyes, now could he?
He wished Kari coulda seen that. But since when was that anything new?
Sometimes I walk alone at night when everybody else is sleeping
I think of her and then I'm happy with the company I'm keeping
The city goes to bed.
And I can live inside my head.
It was a pretty stupid crush, he knew. Well, okay, he'd known as of about two weeks ago. Before that he was just head-over-heels in love despite SK's best efforts. But hey, let it never be said that Daisuke Motomiya was that stupid. He might not be a Joe or even a Yolei, and the athlete's people skills were a few fractions under nil, but even the blind see a blob of light here and there sometimes.
See, since he'd gone and accepted the whole TJ thing he'd known that he should hate her.
Her.
Kari.
Love of his life, right?
This was the part where he was supposed to have a good cry and swear revenge. Maybe take to evil or throw himself off a bridge or do something else stupid to punish the whole lot of them. 'Cause he knew they deserved to be punished - just like he knew that only a dumbass would have walked out into a downpour with only this stupid umbrella, a bag with a soccer ball in it, and some vague directions to a field on the north side of the city.
But that was the kind of thing that a lesser person than Daisuke Motomiya would have done, even if he didn't know it. Lashing out 'cause of the end of a dream world.
Yeah - wouldn't it be nice for it to be two weeks ago? That would have made this walk go faster. Quickened up the next wait at a deserted intersection and drowned out the stench of passing cars. The redhead had been able to do it back then. Just retreat into his own little shell where she was still his best friend, and he still stood a fighting chance, and becoming a digidestined was his Big Chance to Be Normal.
Two weeks back. He hadn't caught them kissing any anything. Nope. Not that they hadn't or anything, he was sure, but at least that was an image he could and did live without.
On my own
Pretending she's beside me
All alone
I walk with her 'till morning
Without her, I feel her arms around me
And when I lose my way I close me eyes and she has found me
And so the question became exactly what the hell he was doing.
This was incredibly, incredibly weird to say the least. And weird for him meant that it must be monumentally strange, 'cause Daisuke knew from repeated reminding that he was just about the biggest freak ever. It didn't make sense, that he couldn't lose himself in thoughts of her. Forget Light - she had been his Hope. His one big shot at being Normal. There were times when he could almost taste it, and those had been some of the best times just ever. When he could just be walking along - alone, of course - and he'd think about when they were together, and how happy they'd be if they were together. How if she'd only see then everything would be alright again. When Kari had been his friend he'd finally found someone who didn't have to be coerced into being around him. Kamiya's presence made the soccer player someone that he'd always wanted to be.
She'd be at one of Takeru's games then, usually, And Dasuke'd be plotting and planning, and the sun would be out and the the birds would be singing and the world would be bathed in light...
So yeah. Pretty stupid. Thinking that she'd ever see anything in a guy like him.
Oh they were all perfect in their own ways, if not as much as her. Kari, the light of hope. TK, the... umm.. hope of light. Or something. The older kids had already proven themselves, Iori was practically going-on forty, and Yolei at least had light heartedness and good intentions and food to back her weirdness up. And it wasn't like them not liking him was a big shock or anything... Daisuke was used to stuff like that. But she had seemed too good for that. She had been his friend.
In the rain the pavement shines like silver
All the lights are misty in the river
In the darkness the trees are full of starlight
And all I see is her and me forever and forever.
Almost there. Daisuke should be feeling more nervous. The student probably looked like crap with this wind, even if there was nobody out there to see him at the moment. Not that he was a fashion-plate like that jerk Matt Ishida or anything, but yeesh...
So yeah. This was it. The big dramatic scene in the rain, right? Big ol' loser Daisuke, whose one valuable character trait is being too damn stubborn for his own good. Look at him break down and cry because of his horrible crappy life with no friends and little appreciable family, all alone with nowhere to go and a whole world to lose himself in.
He'd been doing alone for a long time. People didn't give him enough credit for that.
Still, Motomiya might have gone for it two weeks ago. Thrown a hissy fit just to make sure that some other people knew that he was even alive. But now?
No way.
See, two weeks ago he'd come to the gradual and painful conclusion that some people are just happier without whole big groups of people around. One of those people being him.
And I know it's only in my mind.
That I'm talking to myself and not to her.
And although I know that she is blind
Still I say - there's a way for us.
Had he been a pity friend? They had almost nothing in common. Frilly pink cheerleaders don't go to soccer games unless it's for their big brothers. And her Infinite Wisdom, though maybe not as infinite as any of them would have liked, was pretty far from whatever was usually going on in Daisuke's head.
The truly bizarre part, though, was not that he was walking across half the city, or even that he had lost his myriad dreams involving Kari Kamiya. The odd bit was that the soccer player was not using the rain to hide his tears, or leaving the digidestined for their own good in some heart-wrenching sacrifice, or even looking depressed.
I love her, but when the night is over
She is gone - the river's just a river
Without her the world around me changes
The trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of strangers
Daisuke Motomiya was smiling.
'Cause as fun as hope is and stuff, it's always kinda preferable to be in a situation where hope isn't necessary. Two weeks ago he'd lost his dreams, his light, and his so-called love....
For something he could touch. And tangible was good. Daisuke wasn't a 'groping around in the dark for cryptic answers' sensitive new age kinda guy. Maybe that was why Kari had got such a kick outta messing with him.
Just a fortnight back he'd been at the field he saw now. The lines were a little bit less white - not just 'cause of the rain, but since the fields had been played on lots and stuff. His own game had been pretty rough - it had been obvious that they were getting their asses kicked. But the championship team coach had come up to him after and said they needed a new player. That he, Daisuke Motomiya, was just the offensive shot in the arm that they were looking for.
And the soccer player had know right away who exactly was behind that.
Yet the athlete had also discovered in that instant, though he might not know it, that to his own immense shock he didn't give a damn. Not about Kari Kamiya or being the leader or being the most popular or most powerful or any of that. The practice after, the conversations, those just kinda reinforced the inspiration. It had come not with a bang, but with a whimper - the sort of realization that leeches into your brain so that by the time one notices it's there one can't recall exactly when or how it came to nest itself within grey matter.
He wasn't sorry, mind you. No bloody way. If there was even the tiniest, minutest, most insignificant part of child of light that had cared about him, she'd realize that there was nothing for him to apologize for. So he'd chased her.. she hadn't done anything. Said anything. He was just an accessory to her happiness.
Aw hell... time to face facts. He'd never understand that girl. Diasuke had enough trouble with what was going on under his own skull.
I love her, but everday I'm learning
All my life, I've only been pretending
Without me her world will go on turning
A world that's full of happiness that I have never know
That was okay, though. 'Cause like Daisuke was thinking - it didn't really matter.
Geeeze - he was so not supposed to be the one to get all mature first. Next thing ya knew he'd actually be doing some useful stuff in the digital world and stick it to hat-boy a bit. Yeah! The athlete bet that they could totally do that next time some DarkMegaUltimateEvilMon came up or whatever.
Someone did need him around. Someone just as lonely as the aforementioned Motomiya. Someone standing in the middle of a deserted soccer field with a green and black uniform plastered to his body, just as lost about this 'one big happy cuddly family of friends' digidestined thing as Daisuke was.
"Hey Daisuke - you're late!" amethyst eyes were laughing at the orbs of their fellow destined child. Daisuke wasn't really sure how he could tell that through the rain, but he'd just go with it.
Unlike the umbrella, which was thrown to the sidelines.
"Geeze, Ken.. only by like five minutes," Daisuke yelped, dribbling the ball a bit. " Lay off!"
And the boy's thin lips were still smiling.
"We geniuses just have a better grasp of basic concepts like using watches, I guess. You have learned to tell time by now, right?" the blue haired prodigy replied, crossing his arms in an almost friendly manner. Or at least Daisuke thought so. They weren't really people kinda people, but it sorta made sense under the circumstances.
And since he'd stopped being the Digimon Emperor, Ichijouji's grin had turned from malicious into just vaguely taunting.
"Shut up!" grinning, the redhead aimed his ball at the other's head with a swift kick that he already knew would be dodged. Pick-up soccer was fun that way. Maybe he could take Ken down a peg....
Kari? Pedestal? Whatever. Later to that. His mind was already shuffling it off next to that underused potion of his brain where care for schoolwork and proper eating habits resided.
Kicking Ken's ass would be far more enjoyable. Especially since he was at least rich enough to buy Daisuke some fries if they did some betting on this little match. Auuugh - he was sooo hungry. Stupid walk. Maybe they'd go to that place on the corner of fifth and...
I love her.
But only on my own.
There's an interesting thing about being alone. Alone is a two-person deal. Someone can only be alone if another person is letting them be alone.
But if two people are alone, and then find themselves together in their enforced isolation... well, they're not alone anymore then are they?
As he moved to tackle his pale opponent in a flagrant violation of non-existant rules, however, Motomiya wasn't thinking about that . Some backwater speck of the now-soaked digidestined's mind was keeping the secret for future consideration. When the time was right, the psyche more understanding, Daisuke would get it all by himself.
He didn't need to be happy only on his own.