Author's Note: This is really just a bunch of pretty thoughts in Ken/Kaiser
POV with a pinch of plot thrown in for good measure. I wrote it for my own
enjoyment, cause it was fun to write. I know, I know, I've got tons of
other stuff I could have worked on, but this was just too fun to resist.
Warnings for yaoi -- Kensuke/Kaisuke as well as a smidge of Wormvee just
for adorable-ness purposes.
Beta's Note: Hi! Arina here. I'm the beta. Through some wild twist of events (AKA, bribery on Ry's part), I've also been forced into doing the disclaimer because it pains her to much to admit that she doesn't own Digimon or the characters. So, yeah. She doesn't.
To Sleep, Perchance...
Daisuke isn't what you'd call a beautiful sleeper. He's not someone who lies their calmly, breathing in and out, a dreamy smile across his face. He doesn't look like an angel and he certainly wouldn't strike anyone as dead. Daisuke has a way of defying every cliche he runs into, like that. When Daisuke sleeps... Well, first of all, he usually falls asleep as soon as he hits the pillow. I suppose it's his subconcious reminding him not to waste time on pointless thinking. Sometimes Daisuke ends up on top of his blankets, but usually he's snuggled deep inside them. Tonight, he's shoved most of them off him, giving me a delicious view of his backside and legs, though he's almost deliberately left one edge of the blanket wrapped around his waist. He lies on his stomach, one hand in a fist near his cheek, and the hand closest to me clenching the black sheets on his bed. He doesn't snore anymore, but he takes in deep, audible breathes. He doesn't really shift his entire body that much after he's gotten himself into a comfortable position, but his head seems to swing around every few minutes. His face, as I said, isn't particularly angelic when he sleeps. His face is twisted into a bit of a pout merged with a smirk, and his eyebrows furrow a bit, as if dreaming is the same as thinking too hard. It's all rather adorable.
Why do I watch Daisuke sleep? There's a simple answer to that. Two, actually, depending on what exactly you mean by asking. If you mean why do I believe that I have the right to watch him sleep, it's because he's mine. I'm his too, of course, although I think he's a bit more mine than I am his. He belongs to me and he is my companion. Even an emperor needs a court jester to entertain him. It's not that I regard Daisuke as a jester, of course, even though he is certainly amusing. Daisuke accurately calls himself my "First Mate", and even though the term is usually used on boats, not an emperor's court, the leer that always accompanies the phrase is really priceless.
If you were actually asking me why I would want to spend my time looking at him, then I can give you another simple answer. What else can I do? I know, it's not polite to answer a question with a question. But, one can only plot evil schemes and plant control spires for so long without developing a headache, you know. Why aren't I sleeping then, you ask? I don't sleep.
I can't sleep. To lay down on a bed and actively shut your brain off? Daisuke makes it look simple, but I would never be able to surrender like that. Daisuke trusts everything so easily, but I just can't bring myself to give in and be vulnerable. I take a few catnaps, always with the door firmly locked and all my senses buzzing in alertness. The last time I actually fell into a deep sleep... Well, I can't even remember when that was.
Daisuke's waking up now. He hasn't moved except for a lazy smile that has traced its way across his face. He shifts a bit, pulling the blankets over him a bit more, and opens both eyes slowly. He blinks a few times, then grins at me. "Morning, Love." he says. His voice is more like a sigh. He props himself up on both elbows. "Sleep well? When's breakfast?"
I never told him I don't sleep. He'd get worried and try to get me to sleep, but he'd never understand. It's like I said, he's too trusting. He trusts the world not to stab him in the back. Did you know, even when I first took him away from his friends, before he liked me in the least, he still trusted me enough to fall asleep? Daisuke really amazes me.
"Breakfast will be here soon." I promise. Daisuke sits up a little more, grabs my hand and pulls me into bed with him. I'm wearing satin, in the style most people would sleep in, but that I wear just for pretenses. I've never really lied... Never really told Daisuke that I do sleep. But it's little things, like wearing these pyjamas that make me feel like maybe I am lying.
True to my prediction, we only have a few minutes of cuddling before both of our Digimon enter the room, pulling behind them a small cart with delicious smells wafting from it. "Good morning!" Daisuke's Digimon chirps cheerfully. Wormmon, thankfully, is more subdued, though still smiling. I don't really know how I feel about Wormmon anymore. I know I used to like him a lot, but I can't remember why. After Daisuke and I got into a fight about my treatment of Wormmon, I've definitely grown closer to him, but I still can't help but feel resentful. Why couldn't he be stronger? I've almost come to dread the day he Digivolves. I swear, if he really does turn into a giant butterfly... I'd never hear the end of it! Who has ever heard of a ruler who strikes fear in the heart of his enemies by waving around a butterfly as his trump card? It's preposterous.
Daisuke, true to character, thinks Wormmon is adorable. Even moreso now that Veemon and Wormmon have become close on the same level as Daisuke and me. Daisuke's even suggested "double dating". I don't know where he had in mind, but I refused instantly. Digimon, albeit they can certainly be smart and even wise to some points, are still just computer animated animals. I'm not going on a date and being ogled by two animals the entire time. And make no mistake, they would certainly ogle us.
Daisuke tries to eat delicately because he feels my eyes on him, but he's not particularly good at it. He's much more accustomed to bolting down breakfast in two minutes before rushing off to school. He doesn't have school anymore, though. I tutor him a bit, but for the most part he learns everything on his own. He's actually really smart, despite what the other Digidestined might of thought. He practically devours textbooks.
I'm eating too, but it's a mechanical function. I don't really have to pay attention. I decide to give some thought to it anyway, simply because I don't know what else to do. The food actually tastes pretty well. It's not anything I would have eaten in the real world, but I think Wormmon and Veemon tried to replicate our usual breakfast. There's something that looks like hashbrowns stuck together by melted cheese, though it tastes a bit more like shredded fruit than anything. There's toast, but the bread is homeade, not like the store-bought stuff Daisuke and I ate in the real world. I think there's something that's supposed to be pancakes, though I've never known any pancakes to take on that reddish color... I try one and find that it really does taste like a pancake, albeit one drowned in boysenberry syrup.
Daisuke finished first, but I'm not too long after him. "What are we going to do today?" Daisuke asks. It's usually the same: I work on taking over the Digital World, he devours a few textbooks. Today, though, I think I'm going to surprise him. He'll like it.
I stand up a brush the wrinkles from my clothes. "Get dressed." I tell him. "I've got something to show you." He closes his eyes briefly and the red boxers he slept in change into his usual clothes. Khaki shorts, a white t-shirt and that adorable flame-adorned leather jacket. He doesn't wear the goggles anymore. He gave them back to Tai. Kindly, not smashed as I'd reccommended, but he told me that he didn't want to severe his connections with his friends, even if he was dating me. I could accept that. He hasn't directly fought against them, and for the most part, the Digidestined are an accepting group. Daisuke meets up with them every once and a while in the real world and they do something together. I wonder what they would say if he brought me along one day... I have the feeling they'd be angry. Hikari, that Light girl, understood when Daisuke asked to hang out with them the best, but I think she's also one of the angriest at me.
Daisuke's already made me promise I wouldn't use him as a spy, but I think he's a bit left out on Digidestined information now anyways. They wouldn't tell him anything, even if is still their friend. I don't think they trust him that much. I wonder, if they invited him to a Digidestined sleepover, would they have the courage to sleep? I think most of them would. The girl, Miyako, probably would psyche herself out, convince herself Daisuke was going to kill them all in their sleep, work herself into a panicked frenzy until she finally fell asleep. I think that Knowledge and Realiability boy, Iori, would just lie awake all night. But the rest, Takeru, Hikari, and the older Digidestined would sleep easily.
It's funny, really. The Digidestined keep telling me that what I'm doing in the Digiworld isn't a game, but they never act like it. In the Digiworld, Daisuke and I are players in the game and the Digidestined treat us as such. When Daisuke and I run into the Digidestined in the real world, as has happened once or twice while we were on a date, they treated Daisuke like regular friend, hung out with us for a while, and treated me as, well, not quite a friend, but someone they'd like to get to know nonetheless. It was extremely disconcerting, to tell the truth. Confused my poor Daisuke until he was stammering witless, which, although amusing, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.
Someday I'm going to rule the Digiworld and I'll have beaten the Digidestined so well that they'll be forced to admit defeat, but I think they'd still treat me as an almost-friend in the real world. They treat the Digiworld as a game, even if they refuse to acknowledge it. They play out the stereotypical roles of heroes, and view me as nothing but the cold, heartless villain and Daisuke as the traitor who betrayed them completely. But in the real world, they're normal kids who don't have a reason to hate either Daisuke or me. I think the girl Miyako has a crush on me, even though in the Digiworld she hates me the most venemently and knows perfectly well that Daisuke and I are in love. She doesn't understand, though. Inside or outside the Digiworld game, I'll always be in love with Daisuke.
Daisuke's in front of me, waving his hands in front of my face teasingly. "Hello?" he teases. "Digiworld to Ken!"
"Don't call me that." I frown and slap his hand away. He knows I tend to drown myself in rivers of thought sometimes, but he's also appointed himself the judge of whether I should get kicked out of them. I suppose I should have known better, promising to show him something and then drifting into one of my musings.
"Fine, Oh-Mighty Kaiser." he teases. He knows I don't mind him calling me Ken in the Digiworld, even though I pretend to. I don't like him calling me Kaiser, except in proffesional situations, when he's not my love and he's my partner and we're a strategizing team dealing with unruly Digimon. But I pretend that he's supposed to call me Kaiser. Another game, maybe, but I think it's more than that. "So what are you going to show me?" Daisuke cuts into my thinking. I think he sensed that I was straying into another thinking bout.
"Come on." I take his wrist and pull him through the hallways. He closes his eyes, even though I didn't tell him to. He loves surprises. By now he's been with me long enough not to stumble into walls, how wide to take the curves I lead him through without bumping into anything, and how to avoid the little dips or juts in the floor that make him stumble. He doesn't need to have blind faith in doing this, not really. But he has it anyways.
It takes a few minutes to get to where I'm leading Daisuke. I can't help but wonder what he's thinking. There has to be something going on inside his head, right? Just because he isn't prone to falling deep thought as often as me, that can't mean he doesn't think.
Do we think the same? I can't answer that. Daisuke and I... We're the same, but different. Opposites, yet perfectly identical. It's a paradox, but it's true. He's bold and brash, and I'm cool and calculative. But I can be just as impetuous as him sometimes, and he's been known to strategize and give people that look...
That look. That cold, "You don't mean anything to me" look. I've been on the wrong end of it too many times. He doesn't narrow his eyes, doesn't move them at all. It's just a look that seems to fall through his dark irises, penetrating me through the soul.
Before I saw that look, I thought that the phrase "Eyes are the window to the soul" was just another meaningless cliche that never really meant anything. After all, you can't see anything reflected in the eyes. You can't see someone's thoughts by staring deep into the black abyss of their pupils. It's impossible. You can read their emotions by muscels contracted and retracted around the eyes, but that's not the same as seeing their soul through their eyes.
Except with Daisuke.
He can melt me, infuriate me, amuse me, make me fall in his arms, just with a look.
Like two chocolate laser beams. His eyes should be outlawed. But I'd never want them to be.
We're here. How did I not notice?
"Okay, Dai. Open your eyes." I tell him, leading him to a stop in the precise position I want him to be in.
He pulls me close before slitting his eyes open, making sure his eyes land on me first. He really can be sentimental, but it's almost sweet. He tears his gaze away from me and looks around. It's after sunrise, but it doesn't look like morning yet. Everything is silvery-gray, coated in twisting tendrils of fog. He can make it out, though.
It's a field, filled with lush, springy grass, all sparkling with dew droplets. You can tell just by looking that it's the kind of green grass that never turns into a muddy mess, no matter how many times you run over it. The fog shifts a little, and Daisuke sees them.
Goalposts.
His face lights up. "Ken, really? Is it a soccer field?" he demands happily.
"It is." I tell him, mock exasperated. "Have you been in the Digiworld for so long that you've forgotten what one looks like? I need to get you out more often if that's the case."
He chuckles. "Point taken. Though I wouldn't complain about more dates in the real world." He smiles in that shy, hopeful manner. "I like being with you."
I pick up a soccer ball from the ground, conveniently left there for such a purpose. It's slick and wet, and has bits of grass and dirt clinging to its dampness. "You like being with me? Even if I'm kicking your cute butt at soccer?"
Daisuke snorted derisively. "Like you could."
Truthfully, I'm not so sure I could. Yes, my team crushed his when we played. But that was school soccer, with too many rules and teams with whining jerks who want the ball for glory. This is just us. We both know all the rules, all the not-quite rules. I'm not sure I'll win.
I throw the ball in the air and start lazily kicking it towards one of the goals. "You're underestimating me." I tell him as he tries to steal the ball away and I speed up my pace.
"I think," Daisuke tells me, deftly slipping the ball from the course my feet projected on it, "that you're the one underestimating me."
"Maybe we're both underestimating each other?" I suggest, taking the ball back into my posession.
"Probably." he agrees, but this time he misses stealing the ball back, I shoot, and with deadly precision, I score. Daisuke runs to get it and, without playing around, he begins kicking the ball in a straight line for the goal, no fancy footwork involved, but with a supernatural speed.
This threw me off. When I watched him play, preparing to go against him, he'd always seemed to sense my presence and would use elaborate strategies and dance-line movements. There was none of that here; he didn't need to show off for me anywhere, and he knew it.
He scored.
We played until it got to hot. I'm not sure who won, but I claimed it was me and Daisuke -- who didn't know any better than I did -- claimed it was him. Once the fog had cleared and the sun had begun shining cheerfully on us, we'd been joined by our Digimon who felt the need to participate as the cheering section. I have to admit, I was touched when Wormmon stood up to Veemon and got into an argument over who really won.
Maybe someday it would be interesting to see what he digivolves to. Maybe it wouldn't be a butterfly. Moths aren't so bad after all, and some caterpillars turn into moths, don't they? And really, sometimes he doesn't even look like a caterpillar. He could be the digimon-version of some other insect larva, couldn't he? A mosquito digimon wouldn't be so bad, if it was strong and sucked blood. That would actually be pretty interesting. Though, Wormmon doesn't particularly seem the time to suck blood, does he?
Daisuke and I lay in the grass together. We're both hot and sweating. His face is red and he's panting, his chest heaving as he gulps in breath. He squints his eyes for a moment at the sun, and then I can see his eyes begin to trace the clouds. He's so cute that I have to kiss him.
He grins.
I grin back.
It's not a Kaiser grin, either. It's a real grin. The kind I don't want to give to anyone else, and can't anyways, because he's the only one who could ever make me smile like that.
I love him.
Author's Note: I wasn't really planning to write this at all. It was supposed to be a short snippet, a descriptive bit about Daisuke sleeping. Then the Kaiser came into play and interesting ideas followed. I couldn't resist. I'm sure there's plotholes, I'm sure it seems inconclusive. After all, Kaiser still has the sleeping bit kept as a secret from Dai, doesn't he? But all couples have secrets and they don't all have to be found out and blown into an out-of-porportion fight, do they?
Beta's Note: Hi! Arina here. I'm the beta. Through some wild twist of events (AKA, bribery on Ry's part), I've also been forced into doing the disclaimer because it pains her to much to admit that she doesn't own Digimon or the characters. So, yeah. She doesn't.
To Sleep, Perchance...
Daisuke isn't what you'd call a beautiful sleeper. He's not someone who lies their calmly, breathing in and out, a dreamy smile across his face. He doesn't look like an angel and he certainly wouldn't strike anyone as dead. Daisuke has a way of defying every cliche he runs into, like that. When Daisuke sleeps... Well, first of all, he usually falls asleep as soon as he hits the pillow. I suppose it's his subconcious reminding him not to waste time on pointless thinking. Sometimes Daisuke ends up on top of his blankets, but usually he's snuggled deep inside them. Tonight, he's shoved most of them off him, giving me a delicious view of his backside and legs, though he's almost deliberately left one edge of the blanket wrapped around his waist. He lies on his stomach, one hand in a fist near his cheek, and the hand closest to me clenching the black sheets on his bed. He doesn't snore anymore, but he takes in deep, audible breathes. He doesn't really shift his entire body that much after he's gotten himself into a comfortable position, but his head seems to swing around every few minutes. His face, as I said, isn't particularly angelic when he sleeps. His face is twisted into a bit of a pout merged with a smirk, and his eyebrows furrow a bit, as if dreaming is the same as thinking too hard. It's all rather adorable.
Why do I watch Daisuke sleep? There's a simple answer to that. Two, actually, depending on what exactly you mean by asking. If you mean why do I believe that I have the right to watch him sleep, it's because he's mine. I'm his too, of course, although I think he's a bit more mine than I am his. He belongs to me and he is my companion. Even an emperor needs a court jester to entertain him. It's not that I regard Daisuke as a jester, of course, even though he is certainly amusing. Daisuke accurately calls himself my "First Mate", and even though the term is usually used on boats, not an emperor's court, the leer that always accompanies the phrase is really priceless.
If you were actually asking me why I would want to spend my time looking at him, then I can give you another simple answer. What else can I do? I know, it's not polite to answer a question with a question. But, one can only plot evil schemes and plant control spires for so long without developing a headache, you know. Why aren't I sleeping then, you ask? I don't sleep.
I can't sleep. To lay down on a bed and actively shut your brain off? Daisuke makes it look simple, but I would never be able to surrender like that. Daisuke trusts everything so easily, but I just can't bring myself to give in and be vulnerable. I take a few catnaps, always with the door firmly locked and all my senses buzzing in alertness. The last time I actually fell into a deep sleep... Well, I can't even remember when that was.
Daisuke's waking up now. He hasn't moved except for a lazy smile that has traced its way across his face. He shifts a bit, pulling the blankets over him a bit more, and opens both eyes slowly. He blinks a few times, then grins at me. "Morning, Love." he says. His voice is more like a sigh. He props himself up on both elbows. "Sleep well? When's breakfast?"
I never told him I don't sleep. He'd get worried and try to get me to sleep, but he'd never understand. It's like I said, he's too trusting. He trusts the world not to stab him in the back. Did you know, even when I first took him away from his friends, before he liked me in the least, he still trusted me enough to fall asleep? Daisuke really amazes me.
"Breakfast will be here soon." I promise. Daisuke sits up a little more, grabs my hand and pulls me into bed with him. I'm wearing satin, in the style most people would sleep in, but that I wear just for pretenses. I've never really lied... Never really told Daisuke that I do sleep. But it's little things, like wearing these pyjamas that make me feel like maybe I am lying.
True to my prediction, we only have a few minutes of cuddling before both of our Digimon enter the room, pulling behind them a small cart with delicious smells wafting from it. "Good morning!" Daisuke's Digimon chirps cheerfully. Wormmon, thankfully, is more subdued, though still smiling. I don't really know how I feel about Wormmon anymore. I know I used to like him a lot, but I can't remember why. After Daisuke and I got into a fight about my treatment of Wormmon, I've definitely grown closer to him, but I still can't help but feel resentful. Why couldn't he be stronger? I've almost come to dread the day he Digivolves. I swear, if he really does turn into a giant butterfly... I'd never hear the end of it! Who has ever heard of a ruler who strikes fear in the heart of his enemies by waving around a butterfly as his trump card? It's preposterous.
Daisuke, true to character, thinks Wormmon is adorable. Even moreso now that Veemon and Wormmon have become close on the same level as Daisuke and me. Daisuke's even suggested "double dating". I don't know where he had in mind, but I refused instantly. Digimon, albeit they can certainly be smart and even wise to some points, are still just computer animated animals. I'm not going on a date and being ogled by two animals the entire time. And make no mistake, they would certainly ogle us.
Daisuke tries to eat delicately because he feels my eyes on him, but he's not particularly good at it. He's much more accustomed to bolting down breakfast in two minutes before rushing off to school. He doesn't have school anymore, though. I tutor him a bit, but for the most part he learns everything on his own. He's actually really smart, despite what the other Digidestined might of thought. He practically devours textbooks.
I'm eating too, but it's a mechanical function. I don't really have to pay attention. I decide to give some thought to it anyway, simply because I don't know what else to do. The food actually tastes pretty well. It's not anything I would have eaten in the real world, but I think Wormmon and Veemon tried to replicate our usual breakfast. There's something that looks like hashbrowns stuck together by melted cheese, though it tastes a bit more like shredded fruit than anything. There's toast, but the bread is homeade, not like the store-bought stuff Daisuke and I ate in the real world. I think there's something that's supposed to be pancakes, though I've never known any pancakes to take on that reddish color... I try one and find that it really does taste like a pancake, albeit one drowned in boysenberry syrup.
Daisuke finished first, but I'm not too long after him. "What are we going to do today?" Daisuke asks. It's usually the same: I work on taking over the Digital World, he devours a few textbooks. Today, though, I think I'm going to surprise him. He'll like it.
I stand up a brush the wrinkles from my clothes. "Get dressed." I tell him. "I've got something to show you." He closes his eyes briefly and the red boxers he slept in change into his usual clothes. Khaki shorts, a white t-shirt and that adorable flame-adorned leather jacket. He doesn't wear the goggles anymore. He gave them back to Tai. Kindly, not smashed as I'd reccommended, but he told me that he didn't want to severe his connections with his friends, even if he was dating me. I could accept that. He hasn't directly fought against them, and for the most part, the Digidestined are an accepting group. Daisuke meets up with them every once and a while in the real world and they do something together. I wonder what they would say if he brought me along one day... I have the feeling they'd be angry. Hikari, that Light girl, understood when Daisuke asked to hang out with them the best, but I think she's also one of the angriest at me.
Daisuke's already made me promise I wouldn't use him as a spy, but I think he's a bit left out on Digidestined information now anyways. They wouldn't tell him anything, even if is still their friend. I don't think they trust him that much. I wonder, if they invited him to a Digidestined sleepover, would they have the courage to sleep? I think most of them would. The girl, Miyako, probably would psyche herself out, convince herself Daisuke was going to kill them all in their sleep, work herself into a panicked frenzy until she finally fell asleep. I think that Knowledge and Realiability boy, Iori, would just lie awake all night. But the rest, Takeru, Hikari, and the older Digidestined would sleep easily.
It's funny, really. The Digidestined keep telling me that what I'm doing in the Digiworld isn't a game, but they never act like it. In the Digiworld, Daisuke and I are players in the game and the Digidestined treat us as such. When Daisuke and I run into the Digidestined in the real world, as has happened once or twice while we were on a date, they treated Daisuke like regular friend, hung out with us for a while, and treated me as, well, not quite a friend, but someone they'd like to get to know nonetheless. It was extremely disconcerting, to tell the truth. Confused my poor Daisuke until he was stammering witless, which, although amusing, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.
Someday I'm going to rule the Digiworld and I'll have beaten the Digidestined so well that they'll be forced to admit defeat, but I think they'd still treat me as an almost-friend in the real world. They treat the Digiworld as a game, even if they refuse to acknowledge it. They play out the stereotypical roles of heroes, and view me as nothing but the cold, heartless villain and Daisuke as the traitor who betrayed them completely. But in the real world, they're normal kids who don't have a reason to hate either Daisuke or me. I think the girl Miyako has a crush on me, even though in the Digiworld she hates me the most venemently and knows perfectly well that Daisuke and I are in love. She doesn't understand, though. Inside or outside the Digiworld game, I'll always be in love with Daisuke.
Daisuke's in front of me, waving his hands in front of my face teasingly. "Hello?" he teases. "Digiworld to Ken!"
"Don't call me that." I frown and slap his hand away. He knows I tend to drown myself in rivers of thought sometimes, but he's also appointed himself the judge of whether I should get kicked out of them. I suppose I should have known better, promising to show him something and then drifting into one of my musings.
"Fine, Oh-Mighty Kaiser." he teases. He knows I don't mind him calling me Ken in the Digiworld, even though I pretend to. I don't like him calling me Kaiser, except in proffesional situations, when he's not my love and he's my partner and we're a strategizing team dealing with unruly Digimon. But I pretend that he's supposed to call me Kaiser. Another game, maybe, but I think it's more than that. "So what are you going to show me?" Daisuke cuts into my thinking. I think he sensed that I was straying into another thinking bout.
"Come on." I take his wrist and pull him through the hallways. He closes his eyes, even though I didn't tell him to. He loves surprises. By now he's been with me long enough not to stumble into walls, how wide to take the curves I lead him through without bumping into anything, and how to avoid the little dips or juts in the floor that make him stumble. He doesn't need to have blind faith in doing this, not really. But he has it anyways.
It takes a few minutes to get to where I'm leading Daisuke. I can't help but wonder what he's thinking. There has to be something going on inside his head, right? Just because he isn't prone to falling deep thought as often as me, that can't mean he doesn't think.
Do we think the same? I can't answer that. Daisuke and I... We're the same, but different. Opposites, yet perfectly identical. It's a paradox, but it's true. He's bold and brash, and I'm cool and calculative. But I can be just as impetuous as him sometimes, and he's been known to strategize and give people that look...
That look. That cold, "You don't mean anything to me" look. I've been on the wrong end of it too many times. He doesn't narrow his eyes, doesn't move them at all. It's just a look that seems to fall through his dark irises, penetrating me through the soul.
Before I saw that look, I thought that the phrase "Eyes are the window to the soul" was just another meaningless cliche that never really meant anything. After all, you can't see anything reflected in the eyes. You can't see someone's thoughts by staring deep into the black abyss of their pupils. It's impossible. You can read their emotions by muscels contracted and retracted around the eyes, but that's not the same as seeing their soul through their eyes.
Except with Daisuke.
He can melt me, infuriate me, amuse me, make me fall in his arms, just with a look.
Like two chocolate laser beams. His eyes should be outlawed. But I'd never want them to be.
We're here. How did I not notice?
"Okay, Dai. Open your eyes." I tell him, leading him to a stop in the precise position I want him to be in.
He pulls me close before slitting his eyes open, making sure his eyes land on me first. He really can be sentimental, but it's almost sweet. He tears his gaze away from me and looks around. It's after sunrise, but it doesn't look like morning yet. Everything is silvery-gray, coated in twisting tendrils of fog. He can make it out, though.
It's a field, filled with lush, springy grass, all sparkling with dew droplets. You can tell just by looking that it's the kind of green grass that never turns into a muddy mess, no matter how many times you run over it. The fog shifts a little, and Daisuke sees them.
Goalposts.
His face lights up. "Ken, really? Is it a soccer field?" he demands happily.
"It is." I tell him, mock exasperated. "Have you been in the Digiworld for so long that you've forgotten what one looks like? I need to get you out more often if that's the case."
He chuckles. "Point taken. Though I wouldn't complain about more dates in the real world." He smiles in that shy, hopeful manner. "I like being with you."
I pick up a soccer ball from the ground, conveniently left there for such a purpose. It's slick and wet, and has bits of grass and dirt clinging to its dampness. "You like being with me? Even if I'm kicking your cute butt at soccer?"
Daisuke snorted derisively. "Like you could."
Truthfully, I'm not so sure I could. Yes, my team crushed his when we played. But that was school soccer, with too many rules and teams with whining jerks who want the ball for glory. This is just us. We both know all the rules, all the not-quite rules. I'm not sure I'll win.
I throw the ball in the air and start lazily kicking it towards one of the goals. "You're underestimating me." I tell him as he tries to steal the ball away and I speed up my pace.
"I think," Daisuke tells me, deftly slipping the ball from the course my feet projected on it, "that you're the one underestimating me."
"Maybe we're both underestimating each other?" I suggest, taking the ball back into my posession.
"Probably." he agrees, but this time he misses stealing the ball back, I shoot, and with deadly precision, I score. Daisuke runs to get it and, without playing around, he begins kicking the ball in a straight line for the goal, no fancy footwork involved, but with a supernatural speed.
This threw me off. When I watched him play, preparing to go against him, he'd always seemed to sense my presence and would use elaborate strategies and dance-line movements. There was none of that here; he didn't need to show off for me anywhere, and he knew it.
He scored.
We played until it got to hot. I'm not sure who won, but I claimed it was me and Daisuke -- who didn't know any better than I did -- claimed it was him. Once the fog had cleared and the sun had begun shining cheerfully on us, we'd been joined by our Digimon who felt the need to participate as the cheering section. I have to admit, I was touched when Wormmon stood up to Veemon and got into an argument over who really won.
Maybe someday it would be interesting to see what he digivolves to. Maybe it wouldn't be a butterfly. Moths aren't so bad after all, and some caterpillars turn into moths, don't they? And really, sometimes he doesn't even look like a caterpillar. He could be the digimon-version of some other insect larva, couldn't he? A mosquito digimon wouldn't be so bad, if it was strong and sucked blood. That would actually be pretty interesting. Though, Wormmon doesn't particularly seem the time to suck blood, does he?
Daisuke and I lay in the grass together. We're both hot and sweating. His face is red and he's panting, his chest heaving as he gulps in breath. He squints his eyes for a moment at the sun, and then I can see his eyes begin to trace the clouds. He's so cute that I have to kiss him.
He grins.
I grin back.
It's not a Kaiser grin, either. It's a real grin. The kind I don't want to give to anyone else, and can't anyways, because he's the only one who could ever make me smile like that.
I love him.
Author's Note: I wasn't really planning to write this at all. It was supposed to be a short snippet, a descriptive bit about Daisuke sleeping. Then the Kaiser came into play and interesting ideas followed. I couldn't resist. I'm sure there's plotholes, I'm sure it seems inconclusive. After all, Kaiser still has the sleeping bit kept as a secret from Dai, doesn't he? But all couples have secrets and they don't all have to be found out and blown into an out-of-porportion fight, do they?