A/N: Written for challenges from the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum again (link's on profile). One is the Becoming a Tamer King Challenge, Meeting Azulongmon 3 task (write a fic where one of the genres is friendship), and for the Digimon Bingo, the Non Flash Version, no. 161 – spring.
reminiscent spring
They have a beautiful spring this year.
She remembers the year before, when their break had vanished before they'd even realised the time: when they'd emerged from the Digital World as new people chasing after the opportunities in the wind as if they'd never have the chance again. Maybe it was the cutthroat world they'd just left. Maybe it was almost losing a precious friend. But not one of them had noticed the flowers opening their petals to the slowly parting clouds and friendly sun. None of them noticed the pollen that ticked the insides of their noses. None of them noticed the time: that week break they could have still spent together.
It was gone before they could grasp it. Kouichi had still been in the hospital. The rest of them had been patching up other holes. She'd rung Rin-chan, the girl she'd so wronged before. Tomoki had hung about the park, waiting anxiously for Katsuharu and Teppei to show. Kouji had met his mother; Takuya had apologised to his little brother. And then they were back and school and busy learning and preparing for junior high school entrance exams – even busier when Kouichi was allowed to go back and they all pitched in to help him catch up.
She learnt that, despite how it had first appeared, Junpei actually wasn't too good at science. Luckily, Kouichi was okay with that even after falling those first few weeks behind; it was more math and (surprisingly) the two languages he struggled with. Izumi could help with the latter; her Japanese wasn't all that great, but her English was top-notch. Junpei was good at math, and so was Kouji. Takuya wasn't much of a language person and even worse at math, but he had all sorts of things (from teachers, tutors and his parents) to make the learning process that much more smooth, and he was happy to share. Tomoki was the company: he jumped at the chance to learn ahead, and it was the perfect chance.
And that was how summer came up, with them all heads down and studying. Four of them had to take the entrance exam that year. One had already taken it, and for the last of them it wasn't too far away. But it was an excuse to spend time together and catch up as life's strings began to tug in other directions.
Because she also had her other friends: new ones, and old classmates she'd renewed her ties with. And Junpei was the same. Tomoki had a newfound relationship with his brother and new friends as well: Katsuharu and Teppei, his soccer team – and the twins were constantly commuting to each other's houses, catching up on nine years' worth of memories with their parents. Actually, she wasn't sure the twins had many new friends: Kouichi especially didn't seem to have much extra time, since it was usually he who wound up commuting to the rest of them.
The exams came and went, and summer came: an ebb to the rushing tide that had been their life since the Digital World. But they were all separated for those months: she'd gone back to Italy to visit family, the twins had gone with their father on a business trip, and Takuya and Tomoki had gone to their respective soccer camps. Once they'd all returned, it was a mad rush preparing for the new year and their new schools, Izumi and Kouji being the only two together.
Somehow, soon, it was spring again and the anniversary of the day they'd met. And it's a beautiful spring, a spring they can take in this time, because their lives have reached that ebb again. The Digital World was a year behind. They'd settled the things they'd left undone before. They'd adjusted to their new schools, found new classmates, new friends. They'd returned to thinking about the old.
And, this time, they can truly appreciate the spring: that spring that had flown by them in a flurry the year before.