Home Again
Part One: Leaving
***
Standard Disclaimer Thingy #1: Digimon, all related characters, creatures, storylines, do not belong to me, but the plot does.
Disclaimer Thingy #2: A note before we begin. This story contains a few plotlines and relationships that readers may be uncomfortable with. There will be same-sex relationships later in the story. If any one disagrees with that for religious, personal, or any other reasons, it is advised that they not continue reading.
Another Note: This story is weird.
***
The round, under-inflated black and white ball bounced off the boy's head and landed safely in the soft grass behind him. It rolled a few centimeters before settling safely at the curbside.
"Ow," groaned the spiky-haired red-head who'd been hit with the ball. He sat down in the grass with a sigh. "Stupid ball," he muttered under his breath, rubbing his head.
Something behind him propelled the soccer ball forward and it rolled a few feet past the boy on the grass. "How can a ball be stupid?" a voice questioned.
The boy on the grass flopped backwards, staring at the sky. "I don't know, it just does," he replied, still ill-tempered and not paying the least bit of attention to the voice.
Another boy with large – no – enormous – hair peered over his shoulder and laughed. "It'd be easier to play if you had at least one more person," he observed.
"Yeah? And where am I supposed to find another person?" the other questioned, still not in the best of moods. He sat up and pointed towards the brownstone building a few feet from him. "Miyako's too busy with her machines to bother with soccer – never mind that she's horrible at it. Takeru's too busy with girls," he paused here to insert a face telling exactly just what he thought of that particular activity, "Jyou's too busy studying – always studying, and you're never here."
The large-haired boy shrugged. "I'm here now, Daisuke," he replied. "Wanna play?"
The red-headed boy frowned slightly. "I'm too old to joke with that way, Taichi," he told him seriously. "I know you're too busy tonight – it's Saturday, and you always have some seminar thing to go to."
The elder shook his head. "Not tonight," he replied. "Canceled."
"Are you serious?" Daisuke was beginning to believe him, and he stood up. "They never cancel."
Taichi shrugged. "They did this time," he replied, hefting his jacket and bag over his shoulder. "Come on, let's try to get some of the others to play."
***
A tall man in a white lab coat peered at the small brownstone building the van had parked in front of. "Are you sure this is the place?" he questioned.
The woman in the seat beside him peered past him to view the building. "Positive," she replied. "And I think those children there are some of our test subjects."
They watched the contingent of children exit the building. They appeared to be middle-school age to mid teens. "They've already shown signs?" the man wondered, adjusting his glasses.
"All the signs, sir," the woman replied. "They're all orphans. Some of them have siblings from the first group."
He nodded, pleased. "They'll be perfect then."
***
"I don't know what you need me for," Inoue Miyako complained, sighing. "I've got much better things to work on. This program is almost finished." She clutched the bag with her laptop in it as though it was her lifeline. In a way, it was. No other orphan child under government protection would be allowed near a laptop without supervision or allowed to have her own. She'd built this one from spare parts and pieces, an activity which had required many hours of foraging through junkyards.
"We need you," Daisuke replied, taking her hand and dragging her to the grassy area they'd used for a soccer field. "Come on, drag yourself away from that thing for a moment. It won't kill you."
Miyako responded by poking her nose slightly in the air. But even she knew better than to refuse a game for too long. Daisuke would eventually drag her on to the field, and it was better to agree to play and at least pretend to like it rather than argue for several hours. So she left her laptop in a secure location where she could keep an eye on it from the field, and made Daisuke swear and promise on a million graves that nothing would happen to it.
Takaishi Takeru was easier to convince – Miyako was really the only girl in the area, and she was uninterested in him – and he in her, so he was bored. He had been spending time writing a letter to a pop singer who would probably take no notice of the letter or bother to read it. So, when Daisuke began to try to cajole him into a game, he agreed more readily than usual. Takeru had begun to feel, although he was not yet ready to admit it, that perhaps girls weren't quite as interesting as he'd originally thought.
Kido Jyou was hardest to persuade. A tall, thin boy with dark hair and glasses, he was not in the least what one would consider to be athletic. He was also actively pursuing a dream to become a doctor. Jyou was one of those orphans who was half-pitied and half-admired by the others, because he remembered his parents. His father had worked as a doctor for the government, which was why he was what some would consider lucky – he was allowed to stay in this government-protected house inside a military base and grew up with relatively decent surroundings. It was also part of the reason why he wanted to be a doctor, even though he had, to be fair, a slim chance of succeeding at it.
Eventually, Daisuke and Taichi had to fairly drag the boy from his bedroom and away from his books. "Come on, Jyou, it won't kill you to see the sun once in awhile," Taichi persuaded. Jyou protested all the way, but really had no choice in the matter.
And so, they assembled themselves on the square grassy field. Various military personnel marched past, some amused by the group of children, some annoyed, and some without noticing them. None of the kids noticed them, they were used to being surrounded by soldiers, – most had lived on this base since shortly after birth.
Taichi, not the eldest, but most certainly the leader of the ragtag group because of his boisterous personality and eagerness to be active, set about sorting them into teams. It was only then that he, obviously not a mathematical genius, noticed there were five people. He cursed under his breath and sighed.
"Don't worry, I'll make it even. I've got better things to do," Miyako decided, looking eagerly back at her laptop.
At the same time, Jyou took a step back. "It's all right, I really should be studying. I'll go."
"No way!" Daisuke shouted, and ran quickly to cut them both off. "We're going to play, even if we have uneven teams. So no one's going anywhere." With that he adopted his most severe stare, obviously adopted from various house mothers and teachers over the years.
"Whoa," Takeru said just then, and all heads turned to see just what he was looking at. A tall, thin girl about the age of sixteen had just stepped off a bus that was making its rounds about the base. She was dressed entirely in pink, and her hair had also been dyed that color.
"Who's that?" Miyako wondered. She'd long been rather bored as the only girl on the base interested in being a girl. Most of the female officers were too busy following orders and doing military stuff to be interested in girlish things, and they were much older than her and therefore uninterested in spending time with her as well.
"I've never seen her before," Takeru noted, his blue eyes wide with curiosity and the usual lust a pre-teen boy feels upon seeing an attractive girl for the first time.
As the entire group of five stared conspicuously at the new arrival, the girl, who was carrying a large duffel bag, waved cheerfully. "Hi!" she called, and they could just barely hear her.
***
"Oh good, she's arrived," the tall man observed. He adjusted his glasses with on his nose and glanced back to the woman with him. "What does the report say about her?"
"Tachikawa Mimi. Sixteen years old. Her parents were extraordinarily rich, according to this, and they passed away when she was about four. Since then she's been shuffled through relatives before finally coming to stay with her paternal grandmother. The old woman died, however. One of our agents lived in the neighborhood and spotted the first signs and made arrangements for her to come here." The woman pushed a stray hair from her face. "Should we begin now?"
"No, wait until tomorrow," the man replied. "It'll give us more time."
***
"So you're one of us now, Mimi-san?" Miyako questioned. She was cheerful, which was an unusual state for her, but she had two good reasons. Not only was she no longer the only girl on the base, she also was saved from having to play soccer.
"I suppose so. At least for a while," the pink-haired girl replied with a thoughtful expression. The others had volunteered to help her carry the very heavy duffel bag to the brownstone residence.
"I can't believe you have so much stuff," Takeru marveled. He himself had only three really important possessions, and no where near enough to fill an entire duffel bag.
"Oh, this isn't half of it," Mimi replied, not paying much attention to the blonde boy's shocked expression. "I had to leave some of it with Uncle. But he didn't want me to live with him. Somehow I got brought here." She frowned momentarily. "I'm not sure how that happened, really."
"Most likely you were sent here because no one really wants you and there's some connection with the government," Jyou stated pessimistically.
"The government?" Mimi wondered.
Miyako nodded. "All of us had parents or something that worked for the government," she replied. "My older brother was in the navy. My parents ran a grocery store in Tokyo. The store was destroyed, my parents and siblings killed. My brother died at sea. The government was responsible for me, I had no other family."
"How'd you manage to survive?" Mimi questioned, half shocked.
The younger girl shrugged, adjusting her large round glasses on her nose and looking away. "Luck, I guess. One older sister survived, too, but she was moved somewhere else. I haven't seen her since I was very young."
Takeru offered his story. "My father was in the military, and he and my mother split up when I was about two. I don't remember my father at all, but I vaguely remember my mother. Father was killed, and my brother lived with us for awhile. Then my mother was in an accident." He frowned deeply and shut his eyes as though he was holding back tears. "My brother was here for a while, but was moved. I don't know what happened to him. I've been here since I was three."
"I had a sister, too," Taichi recalled. By this point the group had reached the house and settled on the steps of the brownstone building. The sun was beginning to go down, and the tint of the sun made his skin look slightly orange. He stared at the ground as he spoke. "I don't remember my parents at all, and I don't think she'd remember me if she's even still alive. We were separated, too. I'm not sure what happened to my parents; I don't remember them at all. I don't remember where I was before this."
"My father was a doctor in the military," Jyou stated. "I don't remember my mother. He died when I was about five or six. I remember a little bit of home, but not much." He shrugged.
"I suppose my story is really nice compared to all of yours," Mimi sighed. "My parents died when I was four. I've been living with my grandmother for as long as I can remember. She died recently, and somehow it was arranged for me to come here. I'm not sure why. I don't think either of my parents were in the military."
"It could have been government related," Daisuke spoke up, the first words he'd said since Mimi had arrived. He stood in the doorway behind the steps, arms folded, and the expression on his face clearly indicated he was not in the mood to tell his own story. "Not necessarily the military."
"Is that how it is with you?" Mimi asked, but before there could be a response, a voice from inside the house called "Dinner!" and the group dispersed.
***
Motomiya Daisuke peered lazily at the clock beside his bed. The time read six am on the government-issued digital clock on the nightstand. He would have preferred a more interesting clock – one shaped like a soccer ball, for example, with hands pointing around a circle-shaped field. He'd seen one like that on the television set once, and wanted one – badly – but knew there was no way he'd ever get it. He hardly left the base anymore – and that meant no way to shop even if he'd had much money.
The ceiling in his room had not been painted in many years, probably not since before he was born, and that was a good twelve years ago. Almost, anyway. As a result of the lack of funds for the orphans' home on the base, the paint was peeling in many places. It had become a game for him during times when he couldn't sleep to imagine shapes, faces, images, and such in the cracks. There was just enough sun peeking through the window for him to see clearly, so he reached under his pillow and removed the pad of paper.
There was a creaking sound then, and he froze momentarily in place. Had someone heard him? Was someone else awake that early? The creaking continued then, followed by a sigh, and he let out a silent breath in relief. It was only Takeru, rolling over in the bunk below him. Daisuke removed a mechanical pencil from its hiding place as well and began to sketch quickly on the paper.
The strokes were only an expression of boredom, really. There was a small school on the base that operated off and on throughout the year, but never really on a regular basis. Thus, Daisuke and his housemates were without much formal education. Once, however, he had taken an art class when he was younger, and the lesson had intrigued him enough to allow him to keep doodling.
As he scratched the mechanical pencil along the paper, an almost-forgotten memory returned to him. He had been young, very young, and he'd been with his older sister – a girl he knew existed but could hardly remember. They had been walking somewhere, a city of some sort that he assumed was Tokyo because that was where he was from, and they had seen an artist on the street. Daisuke had watched, transfixed, while the artist quickly made the black marks on the paper transform into an almost photographic representation of the girl sitting for him. And so, the boy's long interest in drawing had begun.
He hardly considered himself to be good, and was so lacking in confidence that he hid his papers and stole a pencil from one of the official offices. Mechanical pencils were the best, he'd decided, because they never needed to be sharpened, and a sharpener was even harder for him to obtain and hide then a pencil and paper. So he plucked a mechanical pencil from one of the offices on base and swiped a few pieces of paper from the school. In the early mornings or late at night, when he couldn't sleep, Daisuke would doodle, scribble, and sketch on the paper.
He hardly paid attention to what he was drawing, so involved was he in recalling the forgotten memory. Lines and shapes appeared on the page without his notice, and the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, lighting the room even more. He was completely surprised when the alarm beside the bed began its harsh wakeup call at seven.
There was no real reason to awaken at seven, but Takeru was a morning person. He enjoyed breakfast and watching the sun rise higher in the air. He also liked watching the military personnel begin their training, marching about officially – and that was usually at seven thirty. The house mothers – the kids never bothered with their names because they came and went so often – would never admit him to leave without breakfast, so he woke a half-hour early, devoured some food and watched the marches. Sometimes, when Daisuke was bored enough, which he often was, or if he was awake early, also a common occurrence, he would join the blonde boy, but not always.
Quickly, Daisuke stuffed his paper and pencil under his pillow and jumped from the top bunk. He switched off the alarm, pulled the blankets from the lower bed, and proceeded to slam the pillow into his bunkmate's head.
"Ow!" Takeru groaned, feigning injury. Daisuke laughed and hit him again.
"Don't be such a baby," he teased. "Come on, didn't you hear the alarm?"
"Yeah? So?" Takeru was grumpy, an unusual occurrence for the morning.
"You're the one that sets the thing, I figured you'd want to get up," Daisuke replied. He climbed back to the top bunk and proceeded to remove the sheets and blankets from his bed, careful not to disturb the hidden items under his pillow. "Besides, it's Saturday, you know, washing day?"
"Yeah, I know, I know," Takeru groaned. He was already awake, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "I shouldn't have stayed up so late last night," he muttered, going through the motions of pulling the covers from his bed.
Daisuke responded by tossing the blankets from his bed, which landed on Takeru's head.
"Ow," he grumbled again. "Is this beat up Takeru day?"
The other boy laughed. "Yeah," he replied. "A new holiday for all of Japan to celebrate! All of the world!"
"Great," he muttered, but wasn't really grumpy anymore. Takeru rarely stayed grumpy for long.
A short while later, the boys had changed into clothes and emerged into the kitchen of the house, carrying their sheets and blankets. They were most surprised to find that the room was not empty as was the ordinary occurrence this time of morning.
"Good morning boys," a tall, dark-haired man dressed in a lab coat greeted them. Takeru and Daisuke exchanged nervous glances before bowing politely.
"Good morning," they greeted in unison.
"I see you're up early today," the man continued pleasantly, adjusting his glasses. "Big plans?"
"No sir," Daisuke replied after a silence, since Takeru apparently had suddenly developed a case of laryngitis. "Just going to watch the marches."
"You need the blankets for that?" he asked, observing their loads.
Takeru found his voice. "No, sir," he managed to state, his voice scratchy. He coughed, clearing his voice. "Laundry day," he explained, more clearly.
"Not today, boys," a voice behind the man spoke up. He was dressed in the usual military uniform, and held an official clipboard in his hands. "Wake up the others, you've got about a half hour to get all your things together. This place is being demolished."
"Why?" Takeru questioned, too curious to keep silent any longer.
"The building's old," the officer replied. "Just get packed."
"Wait -," Daisuke spoke up. "What about us?"
"You're being moved. Get packing. You have a half hour. Understood?"
Again, the boys exchanged glances. "Yes sir," they replied in unison.
…to be continued…
