A/N: The title belongs to Savage Garden's: Affirmation, cause I like the song. Basically Iori wants to forgive Ken but isn't sure how, so he talks to his cousin.
Knuckles: A_B does not own Digimon, or else Akiyoshi Hongo will sue her. She does not own the 'lazy-days Café', which is an actual place someplace in Te Anau.
A_B: Or Timaru, forgot where exactly.
Ken: *Sweatdrop* A_B owns the character Marcia and would appreciate no one using her without her permission.
A_B: Arigato boys! *Huggles them*
K&K: Aaagghhh! She's in one of her moods!
A_B: Actually I'm supposed to be doing my schoolwork, but this is more fun!
Malaysian Vibrating Pichu Plushie: *Looking utterly adorable* Pi, pi, Chu!
Knuckles: Stop throwing your voice!
Ken: Why do you insist on making that thing a muse?
A_B: Its cute.
MVPP: Pi! Chu, pi, Pichu!
K&K: *Blankly* Meh?
Forgiveness is the Key to your UnhappinessThe café was rather slow at this time of day; strange considering it was when kids all over the city were coming home from school. It was slowest during Sundays. My cousin says its because its known as the 'Lazy-days café' meaning everything moved slowly. She called it a time-shortage distortion. I doubt it though.
Right now she was sitting at one of the outside tables finishing off her schoolwork, wearing denim jeans and a neon orange long-sleeved shirt.
I was coming home from school, Upamon in my arms, when I noticed her. I was coming home from school, but I had been in the Digiworld for an hour or so after school ended. Something was bugging me, something in the back of my mind.
It was Ken, I knew. I just couldn't stop thinking of how he had changed so quickly. I thought maybe it was a trick, but maybe, maybe I could be wrong.
I sigh as I walk up to Marcia, she always seemed able to cheer me up, being the 'silly' one of the family; she was from my mother's side.
"Konnichiwa Marcy-Chan." She looked up from her work and grinned, her sunglasses on her head glinted in the dim sunlight, reminding me of Daisuke's goggles, the way her hair seemed to grow around them.
"Hey, Iori-Chan. Just the lil' dude I wanted to see!" I gave her a confused look as I sat down, pulling my bag off of my shoulder and letting it hit the ground. Upamon gave me a confused look but kept quiet.
"Why?"
"I wanted to ask you about your new friends." I looked up and gave her a confused look. She went to high school with Takeru and Hikari's older brothers; she also took almost the same classes as Koushiro and Yamato. She looked like an older female version of myself; short chestnut born hair, which was messier than mine, and lighter green eyes, which she called Sea green.
She was 14; the same age as Koushiro, although taller than him. She was always easier to talk to than Grandfather, especially about anything to do with other worlds, fantasy, and spiritual things.
"What about them?"
"Well… do you ever make friends your own age?"
"Not that I know of."
"I think they look really nice."
"Uh huh." At this comment she watched me carefully like my mother did when she knew I was having a bad day.
"What's up, Iori-Chan?"
"Nothing."
"One of your friends?" I looked up at her and smiled. She, like my mother, knew me very well.
"Hai."
"Well? What'd he do?"
"He… changed. But I'm not sure if he did."
"Oh, I get it. One of your friends was a real jerk in the past, and since he turned over a new rock, you don't know if you should forgive him."
"Hai… new rock?"
"Leaves are too easy to overturn." I gave her a long look before smiling slightly. "So tell me, what's the problem?"
"You said it yourself. I'm not sure if I should forgive him, he wasn't very nice before."
"Like I said; what's the problem?"
"Nani?" I looked up at her. She'd stopped writing in her textbooks a while ago, most of which were covered in cats, birds, and flowers.
"Iori-Chan, I know you, you never make an assumption about someone. Before anything you wait to get all the facts. Plus it is extremely unfair to judge someone you hardly know by what they'd done, and not by what their doing." I looked at her.
"I… guess so."
"So your friend, lets call him Bob, he-" I sniggered, and Marcia coughed to gain my attention back. "He did some really nasty things in the past, but then he realised what he was doing and he stopped. Well, okay he had a nervous breakdown and then slunk away, but that's the same thing." I stared at her. "Lets put it this way: 'Bob' was mislead, taking the wrong path, which lead from guilt and the sudden flare for power. Everyone knows that's a blind path, right?" I nodded. "Then, you and your friends come along and manage to convince him what he's doing is wrong. He sees the right path, and he wants to follow it, but he's scared of it." I'd understood most of what she said up until that part.
"He's… scared?"
"Hai. See, he thinks, because what he's done he doesn't deserve to walk in the light like the rest of you. Okay, lets say he's like my friend, Darren. Now when left too long with ones own problems they eventually come to the conclusion that everything wrong with the world is their fault. You dig?"
"They… beat themselves up?"
"Uh huh. Now Darren, he started to talk about suicide, and how the world was unfair to him, and how he didn't deserve to have friends, yada, yada… so me and my pen pal Jay, we left all these note lying all around the place, you know, um… being supportive. And Darren, he got better and made even more friends."
"I've met your friend Darren, isn't he the guy who was at the skateboard park laughing at a picture of a banana with shoes?" Marcia sniggered.
"Yup. He got real better."
"Your vocabulary is to be desired."
"Whatever… anyway, so your friend Bob, how was he bad?"
"Well… he was very cruel to some creatures, and he didn't realise they were actually living beings. He thought it was all a game. Then we eventually managed to get it into his skull that what he was doing was wrong. He's been with us for a while now."
"You two don't get along very well do you?"
"Well… he has saved my life a few times, and I him. But sometimes I look at him and I just don't see the Ken that everyone else does. I wish I could-" I stopped, realising my blunder.
"You don't have to listen to everyone else, Iori-Chan. If Ken-San was so horrible before, then just think of how Kind he is now." The way she'd said this, I felt as if I'd been acting extremely immature.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, lil' dude, that when someone realises where they are on the path of life, and where they are headed, and where they should be; sometimes they make a complete U-turn in personality. Say there's this guy who is totally anti-social and his only friends are the people he works with and such. One day he realises: 'Hey, I don't have to be like this! I can be different; I can go out and not get ridiculed for every little thing I say! I can meet new people and not worry about them judging me by what I say! I can be me and not the person everyone sees!' Do you get where I'm going?" I nod.
"I think so. In other words as cruel as Ken was when… back then, he's completely different now?"
"I say the worst trait you find in a person when they're down the wrong path, its opposite becomes their strongest when they find the right path."
"So Ken's Kind now, and I should just stop being a child and forgive him?" Marcia heartily slapped my shoulder and gave a laugh.
"You got it! And don't say 'stop being a child' you sound like an old man of 40. You, my friend, should be a child once in a while."
"I guess."
"Listen, Iori. When you're around Ken, is he uncomfortable around you, dose he seem to want to be with one of the others more than you, like he hates you?"
"Hai. That's it exactly."
"And which friend would that be?"
"Daisuke."
"Good boy, very nice. I know his sister. Now, Iori, maybe you should take advice from Dai-kun."
"Nani?!" Sometimes my cousin tried to make sense in the strangest of ways, especially when she didn't know exactly what she was talking about.
"No, listen. Daisuke has been a friend to Ken when he needed one. Ken is frightened of you."
"Me? Why would he be frightened of me? He's 12!"
"Iori-Chan,"
"Sorry."
"He's scared cause you were all different to him back then, and are different again to him now, but in a new way. He can't see you all as friends because all he can think of is how you hated him when he was cruel, and how you avoid him now he's kind. All he's looking for is someone to forgive him, someone special, who has a good heart and when they say it, would mean even more than when the first person to forgive him said it."
"Like me?"
"Well, you seem to have been hardest on him. Daisuke was the first to see him as a friend, and forgave him, right?"
"Hai."
"And slowly the others followed as Ken tried again and again to prove himself, Daisuke backing him up the whole way?"
"Hai, that's right."
"I said it before, I'll say it again; what's the problem?" I thought about this. The question she'd asked was normally the only thing needed to convince everyone the way they were seeing something was wrong. Basically it meant I had to see my problems in a different way from the one I already saw it. Now, after her lecture I realise, there's no reason not to forgive Ken, and to at least try to be a good friend.
"Arigato Marcy-Chan." She beamed, realising she'd gotten through to me.
"You're most welcome, lil Cuz. Now, shouldn't you be getting home?"
"Hai. Sayonara."
"Bai-bai, Iori-Chan." She returned to her work and I hefted my bag back onto my shoulder and headed off. Upamon looked up at me.
"I thought you'd already forgiven Ken?"
"I… just needed to think… and get it pounded into my head a few times." I smiled and hugged the little in training in my arms. I forgive Ken, and I'm sorry for the way I acted. Marcia was right, I'm not one to make such snap judgements about things, and I shouldn't give up that trait, not for anything.
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A/N: I wuv Upa-Chan!
Ken: Why'd you write that?
A_B: Cause I'm bored, it was a good idea, and… there is no reason is there? Oh well. I mainly wanted to write out how Iori felt about having to forgive Ken, and about taking the first step in that direction.
Knuckles: And you came up with this while doing your schoolwork?
A_B: Oh yeah, a couple of times. Always during Old Testament survey though… What?
Ken: You actually do your work, right?
A_B: …Is there an answer to that?
K&K: *Sweatdrop*
A_B: Anyway, I was thinking maybe I'd write a few more stories about Marcia, if people like her. I just felt sorry for lil' Hida-San not having any siblings and living with his mother and grandfather. Not that I think that's a bad thing! Ja ne!
K&K: Ja ne!
MVPP: Chu! *Waves paw*
Knuckles: Quit it!
A_B: *Sniggers*