Hikari and Koromon cried, screaming his name over and over again.

Yamato fell to his knees, sinking to the sand, eyes glued to where he had last seen him. Wishing that he would show up.

He could just stick one hand up from between the cracks on the ground, then the other, and finally hoist himself up before anyone even got the chance to help.

He would then laugh it off, maybe cough out some sand, most likely rasp out a stupid joke that would make Yamato want to push him back down to wherever he had fell in the first place.

Or he could let out even the tiniest sound, give a sign that he was still there, and Yamato would rush into his help before he could realise what was happening.

Anything.

Or maybe he was back in their world, like once before. Maybe it was his twisted joke to make everyone worried, make them loose their hope and their mind, before appearing again when the situation and everyone needed him the most. Because honestly, that was just like him in a way. Always making a scene when he could.

But Yamato knew he had fell.

Someone's hand came to rest on his shoulder. Or maybe it had been there a while already, he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything, anymore. The hand squeezed, then let go.

The goggles in his hands felt wrong, foreign - he shouldn't be holding them, but no one else should either. No one should touch them, except... well, him.

But he kept them, hang them on his neck so that they wouldn't drop anywhere and get lost. He tried to think that he could return them later, because that was the only thing that could keep him relatively sane.

Yamato watched as Takeru stopped Hikari, further away from the rest of them, the pair falling to the sand. She had tried to go there, where the ground was probably still unstable. Her cries could be heard from miles and miles away, he was sure of it.

No one approached Koromon.

Yamato didn't realise that he was crying, before he couldn't see anything anymore due to his tears. Touching the goggles now hanging from his neck, he scrambled up from the sand and dried his eyes with the back of his free hand.

Koromon's screams, the screams of his name, got louder the closer he got. And the pain in Yamato's chest grew simultaneously. He finally got to him, scooped the digimon into his arms and into a tight embrace.

Koromon kept screaming.

Yamato screamed inside.

.

.

.

Sora was the first to question it aloud, whether he was gone or not.

Yamato knew just how close the two had been, ever since they were little, and he felt really self-centred once he realised that of course she would be as affected as he was. Sora for one probably had even more reasons than he did. And it was unfair, because that also meant that she had more memories to treasure.

All those years they had spent bickering and fighting. All the times he had come up with something else to do besides watching a soccer game. All the times he hadn't, even as a joke, joined the other kids and their digimons into the light games in the past years. Because he always had a reason not to, either band practice or something else.

Yamato now, more than anything, wanted those memories too.

.

.

.

After the years that they had been friends - their fights, all the battles fought side by side, after basically sacrificing themselves together for a prophecy, after everything that had stitched the two of them so close...

It still felt as if he was there, somehow. It was as if he could ring the doorbell any second, any minute, just casually walk into the room and drop down to the floor. Demand some snacks, because he too would be hungry after the day they had been through.

He could still sense him. As if a part of him had melded into Yamato, permanently, and that part still hadn't left and disappeared. He hadn't left, not fully - at least according to the feeling that he had inside.

He couldn't be gone, not for real.

All their friends circled around the topic, some were avoiding his name just like Yamato had been doing so far. Except that he was avoiding speaking altogether, the best that he could. Everyone knew what they were doing, there was no point telling what their next move would be. No one needed a new leader. That, and it wasn't really a spot he wanted to take.

Gabumon leaned against his side gently, close enough to touch, his usually annoying warmth now being the only thing he felt truly comforted by. The digimons were eating as much as they could, trying to restore the energy they had lost before. The only thing, besides the munching, was the sound of Koushiro's keyboard.

Hikari had come down with a fever and was being taken care of by Takeru. Maybe it was better, in a way. Yamato wasn't ready to face her just yet. He knew that she could blame him for what had happened, at least he blamed himself. The three of them could have all been saved by Omnimon, not just Yamato and Meiko. He should've told Omnimon what to do, he should have said something.

Maybe the last thing Yamato had heard him say wouldn't then be his own name.

He had thought, all these years, that nothing could ever happen to one of the toughest people that he knew. Had known. The latter felt like someone tried to carve his heart out of his chest with a dull knife. He still knew him, he would always know him, that wouldn't change. No matter what.

Gabumon carried Koromon around, every chance he got, reminding Yamato of how he had cared for his little brother when they had been younger. Maybe the bond the two digimons had formed wasn't much different from the one of their human partners. Maybe they too felt like they needed to look after each other.

Yamato wasn't sure how Koromon would handle it all when he would regain his energy, but he would be there for the digimon until the end. He would be there for Koromon, for Hikari, for Sora - for anyone who needed him, because he himself felt like he could drown any minute.

.

.

.

Yamato had to leave the room after Koromon had evolved into Agumon: after the digimon had said that he would still come back and when he would, Agumon would be ready to fight by his side.

He leaned against the wall, listening to the calm chatter of his friends that continued in the next room. It was unfair, the calmness. Something that was said made everyone laugh. His chest hurt.

He wanted to go back in there and scream at them, question everyone's friendships and their hearts - question how much they had loved him, because it seemed like no one really cared at all anymore. But he didn't, because he knew that they cared. Of course, they did.

Even though they needed to concentrate on other things at the moment, like saving the world for one, he just wished for someone else to break apart and cry like they had just lost everything. It would show him that his own feelings were normal, that others were just as messed up inside as he was, and that he wasn't alone.

Knees buckling, Yamato slid down to the floor and hid his face against his arms. He had never thought that losing a best friend would hurt as much as it did.

.

.

.

Time went by so slowly, that a few hours felt like a day. Nothing had really changed so far. Yamato wanted to break everything he saw, everything he touched, and at the same time he wanted to make everything whole again.

Which was why it was tearing him apart to watch the city before him, that was once again suffering due to the digital world. A part of him wanted to see it like that; buildings collapsed, structures cracked, and even worse. But then afterwards, when there would be nothing left to destroy, he would watch it be rebuild once more.

And he wanted to throw the damned goggles down from the balcony, as he watched the sky that was once again messed up due to their world and the digital world being connected. He didn't, though. He would never get rid of them.

Also, Gabumon came to him just in time, the digimon's blubbered words and hugs taking his mind of things. For a few seconds at least, because he really couldn't stop thinking about him for much longer.

Taichi.

He couldn't stop thinking about Taichi.

When the sky changed once again, a new distortion appearing right in front of him and growing larger, he put the goggles on with great force.

He didn't need them, in the end, which itself spoke volumes of the danger they were in.