Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Digimon Frontier
Title: Warrior's Fear
Character: Shibayama Junpei
Word Count: 999|Status: One-shot
Genre: General||Rated: G
Challenge: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, section B12, write a fic between 950-999 words; Written for the Collect The Legendary Warriors Challenge; Written for the New Year's Mini-Advent, write a fic under 1,000 words
Summary: Junpei hates thunderstorms. Too noisy, too bright, too much for him to handle. Only one thing will help with that. Too bad that one thing hasn't happened yet.
Thunder rolled across the dark-clouded sky, sharp fingers of lightning tearing alongside of it, bringing light through the shadows for a few tingling moments. Everywhere the storm reached, people looked up, some in worry, some in pleasure. No one wanted their work interrupted or to have to change plans because of the weather.
Few there were who looked up in fear. Shibayama Junpei refused to even look up at all, bending over his homework, writing faster and faster. He didn't know if what he wrote made sense, but as long as he focused on that and not on what was going on outside, he was fine.
Again the thunder rocked and the lightning blazed and Junpei's writing picked up. Cold sweat slicked his skin beneath his clothes. Tonight had to be the worst night of all for a storm of this caliber. His parents weren't at home and wouldn't until later; his dad had some kind of party to attend because of his work and his mom chose to go with him, since she hadn't had a night out in ages.
It wasn't the kind of thing that a boy of Junpei's age would be interested in. They hadn't asked if he wanted to come along, and he really hadn't. What he'd wanted was for them not to go at all. The storm had threatened most of the day and he'd wanted them to be there.
And yet he couldn't say a word. He was twelve. He was growing up, he shouldn't be afraid of thunderstorms. But here one rolled over him and he refused to even look out at it.
He'd heard some of his classmates talking about storms once before, about how beautiful and powerful they were. He didn't understand at all how they could think that. He hated thunder and lightning, rain and wind, and while part of him knew storms and rain were necessary, he didn't care. If there had never been another storm, he would have been absolutely thrilled.
Little rains he kind of liked. It wasn't the rain itself, really. It was the thunder and the lightning. Loud noises and bright lights that sizzled the air and made the ground shake and he just did not like it at all.
Outside the rain poured down, a ceaseless curtain of water. If he peeked out, he could probably see a few people hurrying here and there, trying to get out of the wet. But he didn't; peeking out meant that he would see the rain, and if he saw it, he'd have to acknowledge it. And that came so high on his list of things not to do right now.
Lightning flashed and thunder roared and Junpei bit his lip, hoping that it would all pass. In that same moment, the lights flickered a fraction and he refused to admit that a sharp whine made its way out of him. He wasn't afraid. He wasn't ever going to be afraid.
One hand dipped into his table and dug out a candy bar. Eating one of these always made him feel better, even in the middle of a storm. He glanced in to see if he had enough to last through this one and paled.
This is the last one. Oh, this was not good. There wasn't any way that he could get to the store to stock up either, not with that storm there. He breathed in a quick stuttering breath, trying not to think about it.
It was only a storm. It was only light and noise. It wasn't going to hurt him. Nothing at all was going to happen. It couldn't happen. His parents would come home and he would be fine and this was just a storm.
Thunder.
Lightning.
The lights went out.
If anyone had asked, Junpei would've denied to his dying day that he'd actually shrieked when the darkness closed in around him. His hands shaking, he pulled the wrapper off of the candy bar by feel, tossed it in what he thought was the general direction of the trashcan, and hurriedly stuffed the candy into his mouth. He needed to focus, needed the taste to center himself.
It's okay. There's nothing there in the dark that's not there in the light.
The darkness genuinely didn't bother him. A few more flickers of lightning cast moving shadows for the instant or two they existed, but Junpei ignored them, save for his grip hardening on the side of his table. It wasn't the darkness. It was the light. The light that came and went and brought noise and fear when it did.
The chocolate helped a little. He focused on the sweet taste and imagined what other brands he might try when he went to the store after school. What might the other kids like...
Thinking about anything that wasn't the storm helped. Kind of. Junpei could hear his teeth chattering against one another and pretended that he couldn't. I'm not scared. I'm not scared.
The harder he tried to convince himself, the less he actually believed it. He ducked his head, no longer able to work on his homework, and thought about anything and everything else. The amount of thoughts that could do anything lessened by the moment, wrecked by the spray of water against the windows, a sudden flash of lightning and blast of thunder, all of which repeated over and over for far too long.
He wanted to hide under something. Maybe the lightning and thunder would go away if he did. He knew that was ridiculous, and he still didn't care. What kept him from doing it was not wanting his parents to come back and find him like that.
His mother would sigh and try to reassure him that everything was all right, it was just a little messy weather. His father would look disappointed.
So Junpei trembled at his table and wished with all of his heart that the thunder would leave him be.
The End
Note: Thank you for reading and a hope that you enjoyed the story. Please let me know what you thought of it if at all possible.