"Ken-chan, what's eating you?"
Wormmon was perceptive as always. Ken was in a terrible mood. His thoughts were flying all over the place, from Daisuke to Paildramon to his past as the Digimon Kaiser to...Ryou. Ryou! He hadn't thought of Ryou in a long time. In fact, he hadn't heard from Ryou in over three years!
"Him," Ken replied simply. He wondered who Wormmon would think of.
"Do you mean Osamu?"
"No, definitely not."
"Daisuke, then?"
"No."
"Then what's the matter, Ken-chan? Who is he, and why is he making you suffer?"
Ken paused for what seemed like an eternity before he spoke. "Wormmon, do you remember Ryou?"
Wormmon brightened. "How could I forget Ryou? He was the first human who treated you the way you deserve to be treated, with kindness. Ryou was a great guy!"
Ken grimaced. "He was." He gave Wormmon a meaningful look before he continued. "Do you think, perhaps, he's still alive?"
Wormmon didn't answer. The two of them sat together in silence for about twenty minutes, fidgeting from time to time. Neither bothered to get up when the doorbell rang.
"Ken-chan," Ken's mother sang from the front hall. "Your friend is here!"
Ken and Wormmon slowly looked up from their silent reverie, wordlessly watching Ken's door slide open.
"Hi, Daisuke," Ken whispered succinctly; he went straight back to reminiscing.
"Hey, Ken." Daisuke waited for a response, but he was only met with a sigh. Daisuke may have been a reckless type of person who never thought things through, but he wasn't stupid. He could tell something was up. "Ken, buddy, what's wrong?"
"Ken-chan is busy thinking about Ryou," Wormmon warned. "You'd best not disturb him."
"Who is Ryou?" Daisuke blanched. When no answer came, Daisuke became even more unnerved. "Was Ryou a--a boyfriend of yours, Ken?"
Before Daisuke had time to think, Ken was on his feet, one hand wrapped in Daisuke's collar and the other around his neck. Ken's face stopped a mere inch from Daisuke's, and his scant eight words were filled with poison.
"Don't talk about what you don't know, Daisuke."
Daisuke knew when to give up. He saw the shivers that ran down Ken's spine, and he could feel Ken's left hand, still gripped tightly around his throat, trembling. Ignoring the beads of sweat beginning to appear on Ken's face and neck and the rage in his eyes, Daisuke, being Daisuke, just shook his head and casually said whatever felt natural to him.
"Will you tell me about him, then?"
Ken snapped back into reality as he remembered Daisuke's rather unique logic. It brought him back to the present just long enough for him to let go and sit down again. Of course Daisuke didn't know anything. And of course Daisuke wasn't afraid to admit he didn't know. Of course Daisuke demanded that particular bit of knowledge. That's just the kind of person Daisuke was.
"He was the first person I ever met in the digital world," Ken began, taking Daisuke back to the very beginning. "He and his V-Mon were my and Wormmon's companions in the digital world back before I became the Digimon Kaiser, before you and even Taichi-san even knew about the digital world...." Ken continued the explanation for about two and a half hours, detailing his and Ryou's adventures and misadventures through the digital world. He even explained in as much detail as he could remember the day he and Ryou finally managed to defeat Millenniummon, the day that Ken saved Ryou from danger, but was afflicted with the dark seed which led him to become the Digimon Kaiser.
"And then," Ken continued, finally wrapping up his story, "Ryou was called into the digital world again. I was sick from the dark seed's influence, so I couldn't join him, even though I really wanted to. But I saw everything that happened to him through my computer. The other children in the digital world all taunted him and teased him. Ryou persevered, and after countless battles, he and Taichi-san found out that the other tamers had just been using him, were just manipulating him so that he would be strong enough to defeat Moon=Millenniummon. He finally managed to defeat Moon=Millenniummon, a digimon even more evil than Vamdemon or Daemon. But the moment I saw Moon=Millenniummon's defeat, the signal from Ryou's digivice disappeared, and I never heard from him again."
"Wait a minute. Hold on. Back up! He had a V-Mon? Like mine?" Daisuke stammered. He thought every chosen child got his own unique Digimon that no other chosen child could bond with. Did that mean that his Digimon was a copy? Or was Ryou's the copy? But V-Mon was one step ahead of him, noisily popping out of Daisuke's backpack, ready to join the conversation.
"I remember Ryou! I was his friend, sure, but I wasn't his Digimon partner! I've always been your partner, Daisuke!" He hugged Daisuke for effect, and Daisuke cheered up.
"Ryou's Digimon partner was Monodramon," Ken sighed. "He was a nice Digimon, though I only met him once."
"The Digimon tamers are different from the chosen children, Daisuke," Wormmon explained, resignedly watching Ken sigh, reminiscing. "Tamers don't need to be paired up with their partner Digimon to make them evolve, and they don't form as strong a bond with their tamers as we chosen Digimon form with our partners. V-Mon was yours all along, and he'll be yours forever!"
"Yep!" V-Mon grinned. "That's right! Besides, I evolve into a completely different Digimon when I'm with a tamer than I do when I'm with you, Daisuke. And I like you the best of all!"
"So then what's the problem?" Daisuke asked, slightly relieved but still considerably worried. He hoped that Ken wasn't secretly harboring romantic feelings for this Ryou. He didn't know how he'd handle it if that were the case....
"Ryou's been missing for over three years now," Ken whispered, his voice cracking. The volume of his voice slowly began to escalate as he lost control. "I haven't seen or heard from him since before he defeated Moon=Millenniummon. But I know he won, because now the time in the digital world is connected to that of the real world. So why hasn't Ryou gone home yet? His parents must be worried. I know mine were when I was only gone for a few weeks. The only conclusion I can come up with is that he's trapped somewhere in the digital world, and I'm responsible." Ken winced at the idea, and tears began to well in his panicked eyes.
Daisuke carefully placed a hand on Ken's shoulder. He was still concerned that Ken was perhaps romantically involved with this Ryou, but he also knew how much Ken tended to worry about others, especially when he suspected that it was his fault when others got hurt. "Don't worry about it, Ken. It's not your fault. It doesn't sound like what happened to Ryou could have been prevented, no matter what you did."
"It's this stupid dark seed," Ken spat, his voice boiling with hatred. "I watched Ryou suffer the cruelty of having been manipulated, and I was too sick to do anything about it. The other Tamers cruelly mocked him, degraded him, belittled him. They destroyed him. And I couldn't do anything about it! Not a thing!" Daisuke didn't say a word. There was silent tension in the air of the room.
"Then he went on to save the digital world," Ken whispered, broken. "He became the greatest tamer in the digital world because of all the pain he went through, and he defeated one of the greatest evils the digital world has ever known. If I had saved him that pain, he never would have been able to succeed. Is it so wrong that I would have stuck by him, destroyed those who would dare to put him down, even if it meant the end of the digital world as we know it? Would I really have done that, when push came to shove? Is it really okay that they did that to him? Is preventing what happened to him okay, either?"
Tears began to well in Ken's eyes as he struggled between the two conflicting absolutes. Daisuke noticed and gave him a firm hug, hoping to calm him. The tears stopped, but Ken still looked absolutely miserable.
"I'm such a terrible person, Daisuke. I would betray my friends for the world, and the world for my friends. I don't deserve to be your friend."
"Ken, don't talk like that! You know you're better than you say." Daisuke narrowed his eyes. "You are a chosen child, after all."
"I'm also the Digimon Kaiser," Ken moaned. "Explain that away for me, will you? Tell me why I always hurt the people I care about."
"Ken, you know you're-"
"Ask Wormmon!" Ken spat, his body trembling under Daisuke's strong grip. He turned around to glare at Daisuke. Their faces were barely an inch apart. "Ask Wormmon, my best friend, what I did to him every night in the digital world! It's not pretty! I whipped him, I slapped him, I stabbed him with knives, and I kicked him around like a digital soccer ball! Did you suppose I didn't think, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I was actually hurting a living being, a person who cared about me? I'm certain that in the back of my mind, I knew it all along. Yet I did it anyway. I did it because I thought I was better than them, than you. I thought that it was the right thing for the weak to suffer. Because of course, why should the strong suffer? Why should Ryou suffer just because he's stronger? He shouldn't! He…he…" Ken trailed off, sobbing again.
Daisuke seized Ken's shoulders and shook them firmly. "Don't think like that!" he almost shouted. "Ken, I know you're a good person!" Daisuke took a deep breath to regain his composure. "If you weren't," he whispered, "our hearts wouldn't be able to beat as one. Remember when XV-Mon and Stingmon jogressed into Paildramon for the first time, and you could see straight into my soul? Well, I could see yours, too."
Ken didn't say anything. "And you know," Daisuke smiled. "It was a pretty nice soul. You're filled with all kinds of things. Courage, and honor, and strength, and kindness…. Ken, you're such a good person; you're the best person I know!"
"Th-then…" Ken stammered "why is it that I c-can't keep that feeling out of my mind? Wh-why is it that I still feel like I've betrayed Ryou, no matter which choice I would have made had I been better?"
"Sometimes," Daisuke muttered, "there are just times when cruelty is needed. There are times that doing the right thing leads to suffering. This was just one of those times."