Greetings, everyone. This is my second Digimon story. Unlike my first one, You've got to hide your love away!, this story contains a much serious and darker theme, and that is abuse. By no means am I endorsing such behaviour. This is just fanfiction, and the whole idea just occurred to me one day when I was taking a shower (very random, I know). I decided to write down the idea, and it turned into an almost 30-page word document. I've pretty much spent the past two weeks writing this story, and it's near its completion now. So I decided to post the chapters out bit by bit. There will probably be a total of 5 chapters. Just so you know. This is essentially a Takari fic, but there will also be some Takeru/Hikari/Ken friendship themes and some other characters will be included as well, although they won't play a major role in this. I just personally like these three characters so much that they have to feature a lot in my stories.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED THAT this story contains themes of abuse, assault, and rape. This is an M-rated fic. If you're uncomfortable with any of such themes, I suggest you to leave.

As usual, I recommend everyone to read in 1/2 page size to get the feeling of reading a book.

Without further ado, please enjoy the first chapter.


Chapter 1


To Takaishi Takeru, loving somebody had never been easy. His parents' divorce left a permanent scar in his heart that he thought he would never be capable of loving someone. The very word 'love' sounded like poison to him, for he knew very well that people who proclaimed about love actually did not have a single clue about it. His father vowed to love his mother in their wedding. His mother vowed to be forever by his side regardless of any difference. Look at where they were now.

Lie. Big, fat lie.

That's why Takeru had decided, from a young age, that he would never love anyone. He avoided the word. He sneered at the very word. He laughed at people who expressed it, for how shallow they were, for he just knew that they would not be together forever. He began to put on a façade for others: he would laugh when others laugh, but the smile never reached his eyes, and his mind just kept screaming for them to stop expressing such positive feelings. He felt suffocated seeing affectionate displays. There was just no point in doing so. There had never been love in any friendship or family.

No, none at all.

Yet his adventure in the Digimon World shattered his view. In the world he never thought could have possibly existed, he met friends, companions, brothers and sisters…people and digimons that he could entrust his life to. He learned to truly laugh, following what his heart told him to. Experiencing near-death experience at the delicate age of eight made him aware of the possibility of caring and loving someone else. For that, he could firmly say he loved his partners as they went on protecting the Digital World.

The second adventure that he experienced when he was eleven further affirmed that view. He was surprised by how fighting unknown monsters could actually make him a better person, by beginning to believe in the power of love again. When he finally overcame his scepticism of love, he and his fellow digimon adventurer, Yagami Hikari, became a couple, much to no one's surprise but Takeru himself. He never thought he could enjoy the idea of liking, or loving, somebody. He thought he would just treat Hikari as a friend, or at most a sister, but hanging out with her, holding her hands, kissing her soft lips…now Takeru's world was full of light. Everything was just too good to be true, and he had so much faith in the future lying ahead of him.

Sometimes, one only falls much deeper when one is too hopeful.


'Takeru, I would like you to meet my boyfriend, Tanaka Ryusuuke. Starting from today he'd be living with us.'

The sixteen-year-old raised his eyebrows as his mother, Takaishi Natsuko, introduced a middle-aged man to him. The man had an average face and a well-built body, as Takeru could see his strong muscles under his pale t-shirt. His black hair was tidily cut as if he had just visited the barber not long ago. He looked relaxed and gave Takeru a smile, to which the blond nodded in return. He knew that his mother was seeing somebody, and while he was not too comfortable with that idea, he knew he should respect his mother's choice. Yet to have her boyfriend living with them was such a refreshing idea that he could not help but glare at his mother for that. Natsuko seemed to ignore it, and just briefly told him to be nice to the man. She had to leave for work, so she quickly prepared dinner for the two males and left the apartment.

Takeru, hoping to be nice, tried to engage Tanaka in casual conversation, without revealing much about his true self, such as his identity as a digidestined or his relationship with other people. He learned that his mother would leave Japan for a while, since her company assigned her to work on a project in the United States for two months, and she wanted Tanaka to look after him in the meantime. While Takeru thought that he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, he knew that his mother was just being protective of her younger son. Having lived with his mother for about ten years now, without his father or older brother around, the blond knew how much his mother cared for him.

His mother had been getting happier in the past few months, and Takeru deduced that probably it was because of meeting Tanaka-san, a police officer she happened to meet in a commercial banquet. Takeru did not know the details; all he knew was that he had charmed his mother enough to have him come over and take care of him while she was gone.

To his surprise, Tanaka seemed like a friendly person, and Takeru laughed at a few of the man's joke during their meal. Still, there was something about him that made Takeru shiver, but he could not pinpoint what exactly. He just had a feeling that the man was not as presentable as he seemed.

A week passed by like that uneventfully. After Natsuko left, however, Takeru's nightmare began.


Takeru returned grudgingly to the place he used to call 'home'. He slowly put the key through the tiny holes and got the door open, and he walked in step by step, hoping that he would be alone in the apartment. It was ten o'clock at night, though, and he knew he would be here.

'Where the hell have you been?'

The blond, with his face paled, turned to look at the owner of the voice timidly, his hands clutching to the strap of his bag protectively. He was confronted by a man sitting comfortably on the sofa, with a can of beer in his hand and several empty cans by his side. Takeru knew instantly that he was drunk. Again.

'I was having dinner with the basketball team.' He replied quietly. 'I told you about this yesterday.'

He dropped his head as an empty can of beer flew in his direction, hitting the wall behind him, and the sound of the broken aluminium can echoed in the room. The man stared at the sixteen-year-old, judging him from head to toe, and Takeru gulped. It had become a routine for him lately, but he still was not all that comfortable with it yet.

'Like hell you did.' The man hissed under his breath, and the next thing Takeru blinked his eyes, he was pinned against the wall, with his hands being held tightly by the approaching man. He moaned in pain and shivered when he felt the drunken breath of Tanaka near his neck. He looked away frighteningly, like a prey trapped by its predator, and Tanaka smirked. The man made a strong grip on the bruises on his arms, and Takeru yelped in pain. 'You little, pathetic liar,' he sneered. 'Don't you ever think that I'll believe in your lies. You should behave more like your innocent mother, you know, then maybe I will treat you a little better.'

Before Takeru could protest, he was thrown to the ground, and Tanaka started kicking him in the stomach. The younger man yelled in pain, but that only further aroused the tall middle-aged man, and he was enjoying this more and more. It's been two weeks since Natsuko left, and Takeru was now officially his personal toy. He still had more than a month to play with the teenager however he wanted to.

He unbuckled his belt and whipped Takeru with it. Even though the basketball star tried to evade any incoming attack, the pain in his stomach caused his reaction to be slower, and he received a few grave blows in the arm. Some of his old scars that he tried to hide from others were broken, with blood running out of them. All he could hear was the sound of the brown belt making contact with his body until he was too tired to even protect himself. Tanaka was not satisfied, however. Eyeing Takeru carefully, a wily smirk appeared on his face as he dragged Takeru into the bedroom. He threw him on the bed and began to unzip his pants.

Takeru remembered vividly what happened that night, as he kept trembling for the whole night, trying to get that scenario off his head, but to no avail. The pain was too real for him to even pretend that it never happened. Then he began to weep when the apartment turned completely still.


Takeru was woken by the buzzing of his mobile phone. He could tell it was morning, with all the curtains in the room blocking the penetrating sunlight from glimmering the room, and he reluctantly opened his eyes and looked for his phone by his bed. It was a text message from his girlfriend.

'Are you alright? You've been acting weird these days, and are you even at school now? I tried calling you but you did not answer your phone…Takeru, talk to me please…'

He felt his heart ached at the message, as he checked and saw several missed calls from her. He reckoned Hikari knew him better than anyone did, without a doubt. He had been putting on a façade in school these days to avoid suspicion by others, and he was glad that since it was November now, they had to wear long-sleeves uniform for school, so he could hide his bruises with the white long sleeves. He also avoided physical education and basketball training whenever possible, telling his teacher and coach that he was just not feeling well. In addition to that, he tried to stay by himself as much as possible. Seeing the smiles and happy faces of others frightened him.

He knew Hikari was worried. She already had her suspicion when he kept spacing out or when he refused to be close to her, ignoring her attempt to hug or kiss him. Whenever the brown-haired brunette gave him the look that begged him to talk about it, he just dismissed it and said he was just tired.

What exactly was he tired of?

He fumbled on his bed and stared at the ceiling of his room. He did not want to get up, when his body still suffered from all the pain Tanaka had inflicted on him last night…but then, breathing the same air as the man did was not a pleasant idea to him, either. He usually left before the man got up and went to work, so if he found out that he was still here…

The images of last night dashed into his mind again, and that made him feel nauseated. He wanted to get rid of those feelings, of which Tanaka had his hands all over his body, of his drunken breath near his neck and chest, of the way he violated him over and over again. Takeru's moaning only provoked him to move faster, and he was slapped in the face when he sobbed afterwards. 'Such a little girl, you cutie.' The man's words echoed in his mind.

Reluctantly and carefully, Takeru got up and walked into the bathroom. A shower was what he needed for the moment.


Yagami Hikari wondered what could make the nicest person on earth change that much in such a short period of time. It seemed just like yesterday when Takaishi Takeru was the model student at school: good grades, star basketball player, kind and caring personality, cheerful smiles…now he was often late for school, slept during classes, and often gave a cold shoulder to others. To make matter worse, she felt like he had been avoiding her as well. This was not the Takeru she knew and fell in love with.

'I'm fine. Just overslept, that's all. See you at school.'

The content of the text she received this morning, during 2nd period, kept reappearing in her mind. She recently had already heard complaints from Ken, Miyako and Daisuke about Takeru being cold to them when they ran into each other at school. Hikari was left to wonder what caused such changes when she was a victim of his cold treatment as well.

Just what happened during the past week that could have caused such changes? As far as she could remember, everything was just going fine. She knew that he missed his mother who was out of country to work, and his brother who was on tour with his band. But then, it wasn't a first that the two most important people in Takeru's life were away from him on a temporary basis. Maybe they had a fight before either party left? Then it had to be a huge one for him to be acting like this, for he was the kind of person who would avoid conflicts as much as possible. The basketball team was also on a winning streak, so it shouldn't be the pressure of being the star player of the team. Was it something about their relationship? She shook her head in attempt to get rid of that thought. She didn't recall any instant that their relationship seemed to go wrong. Before this week, he had always been a sweet and caring boyfriend that girls in the school could only dream of having.

Running out of idea, the brunette sighed and tried to find her boyfriend. It was now lunchtime, and the weird Takeru of the week had been hiding in different places instead of having lunch with her and their friends. He kept saying he was tired, but Hikari did not think she could believe in that reason any longer. Things just did not add up. There was something wrong with him, and she wanted to know why.

After several failed attempts, the sixteen-year-old finally managed to locate him. He was standing by a tree that shared a safe distance from the football field. She took a step back at first upon seeing his still figure. He was looking at the students with a blank expression, his eyes devoid of any trace of emotion, his hands shoved in the pockets of his trousers. Hikari shivered. The dark aura that he gave off scared her.

He seemed to take note of her presence as he turned slightly to look at her. For a split second, Hikari thought she saw light in his eyes again, but his blue eyes quickly turned dull in the next second. He just looked at her and she looked back at him. Neither spoke a word. Usually they were able to stay with each other in comfortable silence, but this time it was different. She couldn't read him at all. She didn't know who was standing in front of her.

'I'm fine, Hikari. I'm just tired.'

His words brought her back to reality, as she looked at him more closely. He seemed paler and thinner, even his blond hair seemed to have lost some of its glister when piled with his pained countenance. She reached out her hand and caressed his cheeks. 'Takeru, what's wr–'

Yet she was taken aback by his reaction. As soon as her hand touched his skin, he stepped back out of impulse, as if her hand was contagious with unknown disease. She widened her eyebrows, her mouth agape, and her heart ached. Takeru had a somewhat guilty look on his face, but then he gave her a forced smile. The one that he had been wearing over the past week. 'I'm just not feeling well, Hikari. A little sick, in fact. I don't want you to get sick as well.'

They remained standing there for some minutes, with Hikari looking at him desperately and Takeru avoiding her glances, looking at anything but her eyes. He lowered his head and stared at the ground, thinking of what he should say to break this unbearable silence. He never enjoyed lying to her, but then, what was he supposed to say?

'…I see…' He heard sounds of retreating footsteps, and when he raised his head to where she had been standing she was already gone. Takeru stared at her spot and sighed, sinking to the ground while leaning on the tree for comfort. He could not bear seeing her hurt, but he, as a wounded person, had no clue on what was best to do in such situation. So he just remained sitting there, looking at nothing in particular, until the bell rang and he reluctantly left and walked to his classroom. It was only when he left his spot that he realized he had been crying since Hikari left.


End of Chapter 1


I hope you like the first chapter so far. Please kindly review to let me know what you think. Until next time.