His best friend's funeral, and he missed it.

Most of the time Ryo hated himself for it, and most of the time he thought Ken hated him for it too, judging by the way he was never online, he never answered his e-mails, and the one time he picked up the phone instead of having his mother answer it, he had hung up. Not that he blamed him.

He read about the service for the boy genius in the newspaper, visited the grave on his own, walked to the Ichijoujis' apartment block instead of taking the train, forwent the lift in favor of taking the stairs. He lifted a hand to knock on their door, had second thoughts, put his hand down.

Then knocked anyway.

Several moments passed before Ken opened the door, enough time to think, maybe I shouldn't have come, maybe they're not home, maybe I shouldn't be here, maybe I can still run for it and maybe they'll think it was just an inappropriately timed prank, maybe—

Ken blinked up at him. Ryo noted the black wristbands he was still wearing a week after the funeral.

"Ken, I—"

The door slammed shut, and he could hear Ken's voice, low, making excuses.

In less than a second, Ryo flashed through his options: Leave. Knock again. Go away, buy a wig and another jacket, come back, put on his father's accent, and try to sell Ken an encyclopedia. Open the door.

The encyclopedia idea was strangely tempting, but he opened the door. "Ken!"

He found himself faced with not only Ken, but his parents, all three of them staring at him. Quickly, he bowed. "Sorry for the intrusion, but..." He had never been good with voicing his sympathy, especially not now, when he'd rather just keep it to himself and carry on with his selfish grieving. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Ken sighed, and ushered him in before his parents could say anything, showed him to his and— no, just his now – room before his mother could try and pretend everything's fine and say he's too thin and offer him brownies. Apart from the framed photo on the desk beside the monitor, this could have been the last time he saw Osamu, and any moment he would just walk in and—

"You didn't come," whined Ken, and Ryo had to remind himself that Osamu wasn't walking into the room ever again.

"I know," he said, feeling slightly ridiculous having to answer to the wrath of a mourning nine-year-old, "but Russia had been planned for months and I'd just gotten back at three that morning and I was jetlagged and—"

"You weren't there," Ken insisted, and, defeated by this logic, Ryo sunk heavily onto Osamu's old bed. It still smelled like him, and for a moment Ryo remembered the last time he'd been here—

hands tangled in hair and coming away sticky with gel
lips on necks and teeth on ears
glasses digging into cheeks
thanking the Harmonious Ones that Ken was playing video games in the lounge
four letter words left forever unspoken

—before realizing that Ken was still there and waiting for a response.

"I know," he repeated.

Ken sighed, threw his arms around him, and sniffled into his shoulder for ten quiet minutes.

-

"Go on," said Ken, indicating Osamu's old computer, "he'd want you to use it."

"Only if he was there to kick me when it looked like I was going to break it," Ryo pointed out.

"I could kick you for him," Ken offered generously.

It took a moment for Ryo to catch on. "Ken, was that a joke?"

Blushing slightly, Ken looked away. Ryo smothered a grin as he booted up the PC, but his lightening mood crashed again when the monitor prompted him for Osamu's password. "Er..."

Murmuring an apology, Ken reached under the mouse pad and pulled out a few scraps of paper with Osamu's handwriting on them, then selected one and handed it to him. "This one's the most recent, but apart from your name at the start, I can't read it."

Trying to decipher Osamu's deliberate yet angular Cyrillic, Ryo blinked suddenly and swallowed hard. There it was, like a message from beyond the grave, in one run-on blob with numbers randomly interspersed: Ryo, ya tebya lyublyu. Ryo could have cried. Instead, he merely typed it in and let Osamu's computer automatically connect to the Internet, before glancing back at Ken. "So, um..." he said, casting about for a topic of conversation.

But Ken was looking at the monitor instead. "Am I supposed to kick you now?"

Ryo's gaze rushed back to the screen, where something that could only be either a particularly well-animated video game sprite or a digimon was chuckling breathily and passing his hand over a clock. The sudden appearance of War Greymon and Metal Garurumon confirmed it was the latter. "Oh, no..."

Ken pulled out a drawer and, after a moment of hesitation, retrieved the digivice inside. "They're digimon, aren't they?"

"Yeah, they are," murmured Ryo, engrossed in watching the ensuing battle. This wasn't good at all... Especially not when the digimon he'd once worked with got taken out by a Catastrophe Cannon and reverted to their child levels.

"W... W-War Greymon..." Ryo stammered.

"Ryo, what's going on?" demanded Ken. "What are digimon doing on the computer? Again?"

"They're on the Internet," Ryo deduced, "that evil thing's on the Internet and Taichi and Yamato are trying to stop it but they can't and—" He stood, stricken. "They need our help!"

"What are you planning to do?" Ken said quietly, and for a moment Ryo was reminded of Osamu, although he never would have asked him so gently.

He started pacing in ever-widening circles around the room. "I don't know, I don't know, there has to be some way we can help, something we can do, at the very least to show our support..."

Ryo was on his second time past the bed when he stopped almost mid-step. "I've got it!" Ken looked at him expectantly. "We'll send them an e-mail!"

Ken's expression was skeptical enough that Ryo had to blink away his vision of glasses and spiky hair. "How is that going to help?"

"We'll wish them good luck," Ryo informed him, pulling up a browser and logging into his free e-mail server, "they'll know we're behind them."

Typing fast, he hit Send, and watched the other window as Taichi and Yamato suddenly appeared in the window, and Agumon and Gabumon warp evolved back to their ultimate levels. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours; Ryo was too busy watching the battle to watch the clock, and Ken was watching with him, both of them cheering War Greymon and Metal Garurumon on. Ryo was more shocked when they jogress evolved into Omegamon than when Omegamon won.

"An e-mail from that Taichi guy," Ken observed.

Ryo opened it and read the e-mail aloud. "Thank you so much, everyone, we couldn't have done it without you. Thank you all. Thanks again, Taichi. He likes his thank you's, doesn't he?"

"I don't blame him," said Ken, smiling.

Suddenly the smile wiped off Ken's face. "Why is the screen flashi—"

-

His best friend (or had they been more?)'s little brother, and he was on the other side of the digital world with one of the world's most ineffective digimon to protect him.

Most of the time, Ryo hated himself for it, and most of the time he thought that somewhere, Osamu's spirit must have been hating him for it too, especially considering how many times he'd said that Ken would always be safe in the digital world because he'd always be with him.

At least there was the Reload Machine to keep in contact with Ken, which was more than he could say for Osamu. But all the same, the separation rather than the endless archaeological digs were what got to him on this 'trip' to the digital world.

He almost didn't care any more that the digital world was torn in half, or that Milleniumon was back again. This time, he was doing this for Ken, to get Ken out of here, to make the digital world safe for Ken to come visit and play in again.

Every day, he spared a thought or two for Osamu: I'm sorry.

I love you.

This piece and the first part are named after the two movements of Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Opus 119.