Author's Notes: This fanfic deal with bulling and specifically Japanese bulling which is its own brand on its self. Also, the main characters are not meant to be thought as a pairing but what ever floats your boat.
My head crashes and burns, without relying on tears
Inoue Miyako looked around the school yard as she entered Odaiba Junior High School. She had turn up almost an hour early, and was already walking through the campus, getting to know the place. She smiled as she saw her reflection on a window, her hair with a few clip and clad on her green uniform, she was the image of a junior high school girl. Her face had thinned over the summer vacation and she had grown a few centimeter, which had caused her father to claim she looked very grown up indeed.
Miyako hummed one of Mimi's songs, Wish, as she climbed the staircase to the second floor. She passed the science labs and as she pecked curiously into what looked like the computer lab, she yelped and crashed into the window when someone startled her.
"Ouch!" The girl put a hand to her forehead in pain, as she tried to make out where her glasses had fallen.
"Oh, I'm sorry Miyako-san. Are you alright?" Izumi Koushirou apologized and bent to pick the glasses himself. The girl smiled and nodded back as she accepted and put them back on.
"Good morning, Miyako-chan." Takenouichi Sora smiled as Yagami Taichi and Ishida Yamato echoed her.
"Good morning, Koushirou-san, Sora-san, Taichi-san and Yamato-san." The girl bowed formally at the group. "Please take good care of me."
"Of course, Miyako-chan." Taichi grinned a bit embarrassed and patted the girl on a shoulder. "Well, since we are all together, we should give her a tour. If you need anything you will also know were to find us."
"Thank you, excuse me for the trouble." Sora smiled and took the younger girl's hand, much to her inner joy, and guided her after the three males.
"Think nothing of it, Miyako-chan."
Miyako had the strange feeling that people get when they are being observed. When the bell had rung, their home teacher had each student present themselves before starting the classes for the day. When break time come around, some girls and mainly boys asked her if she knew Sora, Taichi, Yamato and Koushirou. The four were apparently famous in the school, Taichi and Sora as sport stars, Yamato for his band and Koushirou for being on the top of his level.
Some girls were outright glaring at her from a corner from the room, and the girl felt like back when anyone saw her with either Takeru-kun or Ken-kun in Elementary School. Most girls weren't't to happy to see a girl near their crushes. Most ignored her in favour of cursing, silently because they were afraid of her brother or because they found her pretty and good enough for him, Hikari-san. If fact, some girls had gotten jealous of her for being friend with Hikari-chan herself so she had learned quickly enough to ignore the stares.
"Stay still!"
Miyako struggled as two girl tried to held her down and two other with boxcutters on their hand tried to cut her hair. Her glasses had fallen during the struggle and one of the girls had step on them.
"You don't want to get hurt, do you?" The leader asked sarcastically as the younger girl already sported a cut on her right cheek and on the left of her neck as well as lost a chunk of her hair. The girl cried out as she received another shallow cut on her hand. One of the girls holding her growled and hit her on the back of the head with her fist causing her to fall to her knees.
"This is what you deserve for thinking you are at the same level than Ishida-san and Yagami-san." The leader smirked darkly as the group left.
Miyako stood up slowly and began to back towards the school to search for a bathroom, she had to clean herself up before thinking of going home.
Ishida Yamato sighed as he exited the classroom, he had cleaning duty with another classmate who had never shown up, so had to clean up alone. The blond yawned as he made his way throw the hallway looking down the window. He stopped when he saw what seemed to be a group of girls bulling another, scowling, he began to run towards the exit only to crash into a girl near the first floor bathrooms.
"Sor..."He muttered but stopped when he saw that it was Miyako who he had crash it and the state she was in. "...Who were them?"
"... No-one... It was no-one." Miyako looked at the floor as she answered.
"...I doubt that is nothing." Yamato lifted her cheek and hissed at drops of blood rolling down her face and neck. When the girl remained stubbornly silent he sighed and graved her hand. "Come on, we will clean you up in my apartment."
"... I'm sorry."Yamato never before wished to really hit a girl, now he wanted to hit five... and really shake one.
"Miyako-chan! Miyako-chan! What has befallen to you?" The girl sighed as her digimon jumped from his hidden space as soon as he saw her. She had already had a hard time dogging her family questions, it was her mother who had finally stopped her siblings joint effort and sent her to her room to rest from her first day of school. Of course, as soon as she entered her room and Poromon saw her with bandages, her partner had jumped to interrogate her to. But to kept on lying, specially when her cuts were burning with the strain, her head was about to burst with a headache from the emotional strain and plain old exhaustion caught up with her and she simply hugged her partner in response.
"Miyako-chan?" The digimon asked more softly.
"…Some girls… some girls didn't't like me being so close to Yamato-san and the others…" The digimon, noticing that tears had began to run silently from the girls eyes hugged her back to the best of his ability.
"But they are our comrades!" Poromon cried hotly.
"They just see a normal four eyes girl messing around with the school idols Poromon." The girl rubbed her eyes and sniffed a little before smiling weakly at his partner. "Don't worry, if I ignore them, they will stop it… This is not the first time this has happened…"
"But surely someone has do something! They have brought harm to your person!" The pink puff shot back.
"Teachers just turn a blind eye to this kind of thing, Poromon. Normally, the bullied one just bears it or changes schools…" Miyako stated flatly.
"How, how can they bear to let such treatment carry on on their charges!" Poromon demanded.
"… It's a great shame to have a bullied child, that why I never said anything to my parents… Most believe that the bullied brought it onto themselves…" The girl trialed off and refused to speak or answer to any more of her digimons questions.
"Miyako-chan! What happened to you?!" Sora exclaimed as she saw the other with not only short hair but bandages on her face, neck and hand. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, Sora-san. I had an accident yesterday on my way home." The red head frowned when the younger girl didn't meet her eye. She looked at Yamato, who had strangely enough by the younger girl side in concern but the boy shock his head and muttered "later". "I have to go to class, thank you for your help, Ishida-san."
"Yamato-kun?" Sora knew Miyako enough to know she was only extremely formal when she was pissed and could not scream at the top of her lungs to the object of her anger.
"... I tell you during lunch, Taichi will want to hear this too."The blonde glared ahead of him as they made their way to their own classrooms.
"So, what's going on?" Taichi inquired.
After the bell had rang, Yamato had gathered Sora and Taichi and took them to a secluded spot on the school yard. The brunette had noticed that his friend was annoyed about something, but when he asked Sora she claimed to not know anything beyond that something had happened to Miyako. The blond growled and throwed himself gracelessly to the floor.
"Yamato-kun, what happened?" Sora kneeled more carefully on the floor and put aside her lunch, Taichi imitating her.
"You know I had cleaning duty yesterday, right? Well, when I was leaving I saw some goddamn girls attacking Miyako-chan! And when I found her she insisted nothing had happened to her! The girls cut her!" Sora's eyes widen as Taichi's face darkened to match Yamato's angry one. "She refuse to tell me who did that to her..."
"But, isn't't it a bad idea for her to be alone?" The holder of the crest of Love asked concerned. "If those girls found her again..."
"I ... mailed Koushirou-kun about it. They are eating with the computer club." Yamato sneered.
"But why would they do something to her? She only started here yesterday!" Sora exclaimed.
"I think it is sort of your fault. Remember when we just entered and the seniors gave you a hard time? Maybe some of the girls got, you know jealous, and we had to stick to you for a month least they hurt you?" Taichi scratched his head as he pointed out. "You know how popular Yamato is now."
"It was partly your fault too, thank you very much Taichi." Yamato muttered darkly. But it was true, some of the girl had gotten violent with Sora and the two had indeed stuck close to her for a while. Of course, Sora had been popular herself even back them as a football and now a tennis player and many of her former friends had attended high school with them so the problem had been more minor. But Miyako was older than most of her friends and tended to have more male friends than girl friends. Girls tended to find her too much of a know-it-all and a tomboy. And the fangirls had gotten only more rabid with time.
"Well, we will simply had to stay close and make sure none of those girls try anything funny." Taichi smiled and graved his lunch. "Now, I don't know about you but I'm hungry."
Miyako was embarrassed when she noticed that her older friends had become sort of a unofficial guard for her the following weeks. Even when Koushirou-kun, Sora-san and her parents and siblings asked, she refused to tell who attacked her but had ignored the girl's warnings and refused to part with her friends, even if they had allowed her to. So she had meet most of Koushirou's class and the computer club, even joined, was a regular face on Sora's classroom and was known to have either Yamato or Taichi dragging her to buy lunch on the cafeteria or for help on a thing for the band.
The purple haired girl winced when she opened her shoe rack and found them covered with an unidentified substance. She decided to forgot them and when a teacher asked her what she was doing with her outside shoes on school she told him she had an accident the day before and they were at the moment too dirty to wear.
"... You sure seem to be having "accidents" those past weeks, Miyako-chan." The girl turned her head to see Yamato waiting for her on the hallway leading to her classroom.
"Good Morning Yamato-san." Miyako, while annoyed, knew the teen was only looking out for her and eventually had forgiven him for telling everyone what had happened... only after getting him to swear that he and none of the others were going to leak a word of it to her younger friends of course.
"Morning. I think Koushirou was looking for you for something, he should be waiting by your classroom." The blonde was absolutely pissed that the girl had still not say a word of who had attacked her, specially when Sora had walked right into a follow up attack which prompted them to not leave her alone even a moment, be it before, during or after school if she was in the premises. Sora had recognized one girl but with Miyako refusing to talk and saying the girls would tire eventually, they couldn't't do anything until they seriously harmed her.
"Miyako-san!"Miyako yelped as a hand grabed her shoulder. Turning, she was greeted to the sight of the now very much taller Hida Iori and not much changed Takaishi Takeru. The younger boy had hit a grown spot and was now her height if not taller, much to her secret annoyance. The silent, studious boy had also started to get his fair amount of fangirls, much to his discomfort and her glee, it was time for people to see how cute her little boy was.
"What happened to you?"The boy's voice had deepened too."Those injuries..."
And that was the exact reason she had been avoiding the two for the last days, at least until the bruises healed a little, the cut would take too long and were likely to scar. The hair was out of question, as she had to cut it to shin level to look half way decent. And Iori know she hated it short because both her sisters and her mother used it short.
"...I had an accident. You know how clumsy I can be, Iori-kun." The girl smiled at the boy. "I have to go Iori-kun, Takeru-kun, but I will be there on Sunday at the park, okay." Hopefully by then the bruises would be gone and Mimi and Hikari wouldn't't eat her alive with questions.
"...Okay, see you then, Miyako-san." The blonde smiled as the girl climbed on the elevator and disappeared as the doors closed. The boy beside him remained silent.
"Iori-kun... those were no accident." The blonde finally spoke.
"...Can you ask Ishida-san, please, Takeru-san." The boy bowed as if asking a great favor of the other. Considering that the purple haired girl had often looked after the boy as a baby and young, well younger boy, it was like asking him to take care of his sister for the brunette.
"I will do that."
"Ishida residence, Ishida Yamato speaking." The voice on the other side come a little muffled. Probably his brother was cooking and balancing the phone on his shoulder again.
"Yamato-nii, is me, Takeru." There was a silence then the noise of thing being put away and a person sitting down.
"I take you finally saw Miyako-chan."The younger blonde narrowed his eyes as his brother stated the problem so easily.
"So you knew something was going on!" He cried.
"I go to the same school Takeru." The other chided him gently if evasively.
"What happened to her? She was hurt! Iori-kun is worried, I'm worried! Those were not "accidental injures"!" Takeru was lucky his mother was not back from work yet or she would be worried by the urgency on his voice. On his couch, Iori sat rigidly, refusing to leave until he was assured his sister was alright.
"...She made me promise to not to tell any of you. I already told Taichi, Sora and Koushirou and she was pissed with me. However we are making everything we can so it wont happened again. Koushirou spoke with Jyou so he wont say anything on Sunday and so should you to Daisuke-kun. Taichi will do the some at some point of the week with Hikari-chan."
"What do you mean wont happened again? What happened? Yamato-nii?" Takeru was starting to really get worried for his friend at his brother tone of voice.
"She refuse to speak of it. Sora tried to speak to her and she shut her down for days. Tsunomon spoke with Poromon and he said that she spoke of it once and in very general terms. I think she is trying to ignore anything happened to her." The voice turned darker and firmer now. "Listen, we will give her some time but if it happens again then we are dragging her to Mimi-chan and Hikari-chan and force her to talk. But for now we are waiting okay? And take care of yourself and make sure Iori doesn't't show up here with his Kendo stick." The click announced that his brother had hung up and he turned to his DNA partner and both their digimons with less than happy news.
Miyako was on one of the rare occasion where no-one could keep watch on her and was making her way to the changing room. A group of her classmate were gossiping behind her and she heard her name more than once. The constant presence of her older friends and her new or announced friendship with more of the older students had alienated her a bit from her female companions, while some of the male had grown interested on her when she had fixed a malfunctioning CD-player during a lunch break a few days prior. Her friendship with Taichi and Sora was also a bonus. Apparently, being a girl who could fix electrical appliance and knew the school soccer and tennis star got you a long way. Some of the girls had warmed up to her, but not pass occasional "hello" or enforced pair-projects.
She yelped when a hand shot from a corner when the group passed a hallway. She heard the group discuss intervening and the sound of footsteps indicated that they had either deserted her or left to get a school teacher. Apparently none of the friendly part of her class was there, nor the Sora fans or the sympathetic kind.
"Inoue-san, I thought you would understand such a simple message as the one we gave you." The purple haired girl glanced at the speaker. Nakamura-san, a Senior and president of one of Taichi's fanclubs, she was one of the girls who had attacked her a few weeks prior.
"Apparently she is not a very bright one. Make one wonder why one such as her commands such undeserved attention." That was Fujitaka-san, another upperclassmate. Two girls behind them nodded. Miyako sincerely hopped her own classmates called a teacher if only because her last encounter had already left scars, physicals ones.
"And one has to wonder why almost grown up women have to resort to bully an underclassman they should be taking care of." The five startled as a female with straw colored haired spoke from the hallway, one that Miyako bagely recognized from her class. With her arms crossed, she didn't't look to happy to see the four bulling the younger girl.
"Get loss, underclassman, unless you want to get into trouble too." Nakamura tried to grabe one of the girls arms but the other hit the hand away, apparently quite strongly by the look of pain on the older's face.
The sound of footsteps was back and the four girls looked at each other and decided to scramble, it was not worth to get in trouble with a teacher because of the two girls.
"…Um… Thank you…Ah?"Miyako was embarrassed to say she didn't't remember the name of her rescuer.
"Asano Hanako. Nice to meet you." The two girl bowed as a group of girls from their level passed the hallway to the gym.
Asano Hanako turned out to be a rather taciturn girl who got left out if not included in group activities in gym class. Since Miyako was in good terms at least with good part of the boys and some of the girls, they didn't't comment when the rather outcast girl got shoved into their teams.
"Miyako-chan! Is so long since we last seen each other!" Miyako laughed as Hikari, in a rare show of emotion hugged the older girl. "Oh, you cut your hair. You look really beautiful!" Miyako flushed at that. She had never considered herself very beautiful, and to have her friend saying that to her, even with the hairstyle she hated so much make her feel much better.
"She looks like Ken now, ouch!" Daisuke cried out as someone, later claimed to be Yamato stomped on his foot. Lucky, the purple haired girl did not hear the despective comment.
"Miyako-chan! I missed you so much!" The gulp gasped as a taller, now chestnut haired girl embraced her warmly. "Hikari-chan is right, you look very good with short hair, but I think that you look even better with it longer. After all, it is a wonderful color."
Miyako flushed harder as her role model, apart of Koushirou, complimented her. And smiled happily when Ken shyly mentioned for them to walk down from the hill where the TV from where they had transported was located. The chosen children and digimon had gathered together to held a picnic and catch up with each others on the digital world, since it was the easiest for Mimi to meet them there than fly to Japan.
"Guys! Come on! The food will get cold!" Mimi called from below enthusiastically. She, however, had token one look at Miyako and, waiting for a moment when when Hikari and Hawkmon distracted the purple haired girl, dragged Sora to a corner of the picnic she had brought along Michael and Wallace. By the looks of it, she had extracted the truth out of her for she had proceeded to mother Miyako the rest of the day, much to the joy, if confusion, of the girl.
Wallace and Michael apparently also picked up something, because they showered the girl with attention, much to her embarrassment and joy, and Ken poorly hidden discomfort. Daisuke, thankfully, and as a show that he had indeed grown up some, keep quiet about Miyako changes of actitude and haircut, and just patted the indigo haired's shoulder.
Miyako noticed that Asano Hanako mostly keep to herself and eat alone for the next week. She also was rather good at sports and was well received by the boys past the first awkward moments when Asano stood silently before the group like a statue. So one day before Yamato or any of the other could come to drag her for lunch she approached the girl nervously.
"Ah, Asano-san." Miyako bowed respectfully and the other blinked at her. "I was wondering if you wanted to eat lunch with me, er, us?"She corrected herself as she noticed Sora entering the classroom and waiting patiently for her.
"Why?"The girl asked flatly. Miyako began to sweat as she struggled for an answer.
"Er, well, you helped me, and you always eat alone, but its not that its strange or wrong or that I think you should change, I mean, I wanted to thank you, but is not just because of that and ah-"The red head stood up interrupting Miyako ramblings.
"If it makes you happy." The girl then picked her lunch bag and made her way towards the waiting redhead.
When Ken asked to meet them after school, Daisuke agreed , when he noticed that Miyako was absent, the group moved silently to a nearby park to talk.
"Ah, I don't mean to be presumptuous but Inoue-san was acting strange since she enter Junior High School and I wonder if you could tell me why." The boy asked as they settled down. Minomon on his lap, as serious as a little caterpillar can look.
"Yeah, I noticed that too, well it was kind of difficult to miss her hair but she seemed, I don't now, subdued?" Daisuke scratched his head nervously as he added.
"Yeah!" Chibimon said agreeing with his chosen.
"My brother asked me to not questioned her." Hikari said as she gripped her knees, Tailmon patting her leg. "I'm really worried about her. She had cuts on her face..."
"My brother said the same. He said to give her time, that she would open up us." Takeru smiled encouragingly as Patamon settled on his hat. He patted his DNA partner shoulder comfortingly. "I'm sure she will come around, Iori-kun."
Hanako turned to be a bit of a bookworm and the second daughter of a Karate dogo who was almost expelled when she started a fight with two upperclassman on Elementary school because they were bulling a younger boy. She was also hopeless with computers and Miyako tutored her, or transcribed all she did in paper, into the machine. The redhead, also learned about Miyako current situation and offered to keep her stuff with her. Due to her increasing reputation as a dangerous girl to cross, and the fact that the girl gave her no choice, she accepted. Soon, the two girl began walking together to and from school, meeting at a bakery that served as middle mark.
"Bye bye, Hanako-chan!" The purple girl waved as her friend and her separated on their way home.
"Good bye, Miyako-san." The other girl called back. Her reddish hair, almost yellow, had was no longer getting strange looks and mutters of "delinquent" and "ruffian" from elderly people. That she used her skirt pass her knees and dark blue polish didn't't help her case. Miyako though that the girl was simply a little different on her views than the rest.
"Its Miyako-chan!" Miyako puffed her cheeks at her, a feint scar hardly visible by now. Her hair had grown a few centimeters and was now at shoulder level instead of chin one. "He, he, Poromon must be waiting for me. I did promise him a treat tonight."
The girl walked down the streets as the sky turned amber, Hanako and her had stayed late with Koushirou working on a project. She gripped the bag with the piece of cake she had bought for Poromon tighter, it was his favorite and she didn't't want to send it flying accidentally.
"Nee, if it ain't Inoue-san!" A voice cried in a fake surprise voice. Miyako stiffed as she turned to see five familiar girls. They had never followed her at home and the pranks and abuse at school had almost disappeared so she had thought herself safe.
"You should pay attention to where you are going, Inoue-san, you would not want an accident to happen!" Nakamura smirked as the five advanced at her. Throwing caution to the wing, Miyako began to run. However, she knew Sakamoto was on the track team and she was not going to make it to her apartment in time. 'Where to go? Where do I go?!' She cried desperately on her mind as the five girls gained ground on her. People observed as she runned from the five but none intervened. She turned and changed course in hope of losing them until she found herself trapped between the rushing traffic and the five girls. In the distance, she heard a familiar call and she recognized the neighborhood as the one where Yamato-san lived when a hand pushed her in front of a speeding car.
The sound of sobbing was the first thing she heard as she awoke. Her eyes feel to heavy to open, put she could feel people on the room and needles on her arms. Also, something was on her face, a soft presure and a hard thing was restraing her right leg. Her ribs ached as did her head as she finally opened her eyes and saw a monitor which showed her vital signs.
"Miyako!"A voice cried as the face of her mother filled her vision. She tried to smile but was to tired, she wanted to sleep. Her mother squeezed her hand and murmured she was so gland her baby was alright.
Miyako found out later that the voices she had heard had been Taichi-san and Yamato-san's who had been walking to the later apartment. They had seen the five girl chasing her but had been unable to catch up in time. They had declared to the police that the girls had pushed her into the car way and it was not a suicide attempt and in fact the girl had been bulling her for the past few months. In the end, the teenagers were held legally responsible and brought to a jury. As Miyako was still in the hospital at the time, she was excused to attend.
It took her time and the constant presence of her friends to keep her studies up and her positive uplook. Hanako had almost twas glued to her hip, giving the evil eye to any unidentified person who dared to speak to the purple haired girl. Even Mimi had somehow come from the United States and after scolding the girl, had hold her as she finally cried the experience out. It also took all the kids patience to convince it was not Yamato, Taichi or Iori's fault that the girl had got hurt.
In the end, after Miyako could no longer feel the pain of her injuries, she realized she could smile sincerely once again.
The End.
Author's Notes: While I think I explained it enough in the fic, Miyako reaction to being bullied is entirely in character for a Japanese child and is more normal for the child's parents to transfer, in this case her, to another school than bring it to the actual school authorities unless it is lifetreating. Also, it is not unusual for the child to hide the fact from friends and family as this is considered to be extremely shameful and Miyako for all her loudness, is a very insecure child.
Also, this kind of abuse is definitely not unheard of in Japan, weirdly enough by the more common girls than the "gangsters types". And Miyako, being cute but nerdy and in very friendly terms with people who would be very popular in their school, aside of, in the strange scale of anime hair, being some mutant type of red hair, another unusual thing, would attract this kind of thing like a magnet.
Title is a reference to Miyako's theme song, which is oddly or extremely fitting, they all are.
This fic completely disregards the fact that everyone and their grandmother got a digimon at the end of zero two. They battled the Seven Lords, VenomVamdemon or someone who showed up after the Kaizer but it was a bloody battle and the twenty minutes into the future certainly didn't happen. That was the crappiest ending and final show-down on of history of anime, games and other media kind. Ends Rant.
