Author's Note: This can be considered a prequel to Only On His Own (my previous Daisuke-centric songfic) but the narrative holds up by itself. A smidge of proto-Kensuke again - if I do a sequel to Only On His Own (and I may) I'm kinda trying to build up the the whole shounen-ai bit. Y'know - just so characterization isn't coming out of left field. Love as I do the Obsessive S&M Bastard Ken fics, they're being done far better than I could in the likes of Eve Psyche's work already ^_^. C&C is makes me amazingly happy. The song is "After the Fall", by October Project. The series is placed after Genesis of Evil.
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Ken Ichijouji didn't go about things the way that most people did.
Those in possession of a dram of common sense, for example, know exactly what to do when they've lost something. Whine and cry to a significant other who might know where said thing would be, visit a local lost-and-found, or even post an add in the newspaper pleading for a safe return. Mind you, such time-consuming procedures would only be bothered with if the substance in question were fairly precious. Yet Ken's own missing element fell under that category, so the point was rather moot.
He should be doing one of those things. Turning desperate or panicky, even. Perhaps starting a dark, gothic, generically angsty journal. Yet the young genius was attracted to none of those things.
Primarily because he wasn't sure exactly what he was missing.
Alas, his parents saw that differently. His parents had decided that Ken had to be Himself, and to be Himself he had to be Fixed from whatever he had been. Which was apparently not himself, and somewhat broken. Ken wasn't about to dispute that.
A reasonable request, all in all, Especially considering what he'd put them through. But it was hard getting used ot actually acknowledging their presences again, and emotional baggage doesn't just slip away at the snap of a finger.
Ken Ichijouji was trying, though.
He just hadn't imagined that trying would land him in the office of a fairly expensive psychiatrist.
In a city of faces that never look up
Where doors never open, and eyes never meet
Someone behind me was tracing my steps
As I ran
In the fog down a cobblestone street
"Hi Ken. I'm Doctor Isami, and your parents have asked me to talk to you today. Would you like to take a seat?"
He knew that it was expensive because the chair he was motioned to was real leather, the office had a harbor view, and the desk stretched out before him just happened to be imported mahogany. It didn't hurt that the middle-aged woman cooing his name was dressed in what looked to be Armani.
"Certainly," the blue-haired boy slumped himself into the seat.
"Now Ken," the woman flipped through his papers. He must have a file. Great. Just great. "I want you to know that anything we say here is going to be.."
"Strictly confidential," Ken interrupted, bored. Over half the city must know he was smarter than the average preteen by now with the kind of media coverage he got, and still he had to put up with stuff like this. Were they selectively blind or something? Did seeing him in person short-circuit their brains? It's wasn't too difficult of a concept to grasp, the actual intelligence of someone who'd been proclaimed a genius by just about every authority that could do so. Idiot woman...
Oh no.
"Are you alright, Ken?"
Oh god, he must look pale or something, he must look....
Ken wasn't supposed to be thinking like that.
Ken was supposed to be Kind.
Oh god, oh god.. some water. He'd drink some water, regain his composure. Yes...
"F-fine, thank you," Ichijouji reached for the tall, cool glass that had obviously been placed there for uncomfortable patients. Ones just like him.
"Oh course, Ken," the woman, who wore too much lipstick, nodded. " I'll cut to the point of you like. Your parents tell me that you've been having some.. difficulties. With adjusting to adolescence. And your disappearance was fairly traumatic for all involved, I imagine. Is there anything at home you feel might have driven you to run away like that?"
Anything at home?
"I understand that your brother passed on a few years ago. How do you feel about that?" she looked very empathetic. It was, after all, what was trained to do - look like she gave a damn.
"No," the boy's head bowed slightly. "That is... I don't know. I'm sad, I guess."
Yeah - give them what they want Ken. Make them happy. Burn to shine. That's what you're good at, Ichijouji. That's what he would do. And it would be so nice to go back to being him again, wouldn't it?
No. No it wouldn't. He...
In a city of crossroads that never lead home
Where secrets unravel and fates intertwine
Someone was calling my name in the night
As I ran
From a voice that was echoing mine
"But that's not what was bothering you?" the doctor, leaning over her desk slightly, pressed onward impassively.
"Of course it bothered me!" this elicited more of a response. Ken leaping from his seat to be precise. Jumping up and snapping, just like he would have.
The Digimon Emperor, that is.
Forcing himself back into calm, the genius sat back down. This was unacceptable. This was not a boy who was kind, and this was not his camera face.
"I see," she was writing something. Condescending witch. He knew that this was her job, but...
What the hell was he supposed to tell this doctor - this Ph.D.? Oh, no.. it's just that I used to be a megalomaniacal dictator responsible for countless deaths and unprecedented amounts of suffering. And I'm scared I'll go back to being him, since old habits die hard and we always were the same person and I can't pass all the blame for my actions on some stupid evil lake. But hey - it's all good. If I ignore my dark side it'll go away. Really. And don't worry about the runaway thing - that was just me going of to a secret world inside computers that I was trying to conquer.
Yeah - that would get him somewhere. The nearest psych ward.
"What do you want me to say, doctor? That his death was so painful for me and the pressure so great that I had to run away to escape Sam's shadow? That his death turned my home into nothing but a pile of painful memories and an unwelcome onus to succeed? That's the obvious diagnosis, Doctor. You don't need me to tell you that."
Ken, regaining his television charisma, shrugged. It was a relieved gesture, Being humbled before his enemies - weeping even - had been mortifying enough. There was no need to repeat it.
A part of him that could not be ignored wished that he had his whip.
The farther you run
The more you recall
Your loss of innocence
After the fall
"So that's not the problem now?" a penciled eyebrow was arched in his direction.
"No," even a kind Ken Ichijouji had his pride.
"... What about your time away. Did that really help you any?"
"I..." the boy paused. He had to do as much as he could, for his parents if no one else. Even if this woman was the most annoying hag he'd met all year. "I can't forget."
He could not have seen the ghosts in his eyes.
"Did someone hurt you?" the doctor responded to the amethyst haunting immediately, obviously doing her Civic Duty to see if he'd been abused or something. How very, very ironic.
"Oh, no doctor," he blurted, having to clear that up quickly before she got any ideas. "It was a growth experience. Not the sort of thing you forget."
A wry smile touched his lips. Not only was that incredibly apt, but it amused him to be able to use pop-psychology's empty jargon against one if it's practitioners. He wasn't a genius for nothing.
"Well then, Ken, I'd love to hear about how you're doing now."
She almost looked sincere. No wonder the woman made so much money.
"I'm sure you would," her patient smirked.
"Ken.. if you're not going to cooperate, I can't help you. Your parents..."
"Would be so disappointed," Ichijouji once more put words in the woman's mouth. "Fine."
The Digimon Emperor wouldn't have done this for them. He could at least be proud of that.
The farther you run
The more you recall
After the fall
Ken took a second to gulp another bit of water. In a dignified, camera-ready, genius sort of way that is.
"I.. did something. I hurt some people and I feel badly for it."
Did he?
Yes, of course he did...
Sometimes.
All the time.
He should, at least....
"Do those people include your brother?"
That was a stupid question.
"... yes."
"And your friends?"
The young man laughed bitterly, "Doctor, I have an IQ nearly double that of the average person my age. I don't have peers."
Ken, not the Emperor, realized how incredibly arrogant he sounded a second after the fact. Oh well. He did feel bad, and there was that confidentiality agreement...
The grey-suited boy wasn't about to tell her that she wouldn't understand. She'd chalk that up to whiny teen angst, and Ken Ichijouji refused to be so plebeian or predictable. Though it might at least get her off his back.
The doctor, in the mean time, was writing again.
"You feel isolated?"
"You could say that."
Say that it was nonsense, that is. Ken Ichijouji did not feel isolated, because he did not need people, Just as he did not feel scared about what he had been and might become, and there was no possible way he could integrate back into normal society. After all, he'd never been part of it. And he was certainly not going to humble himself by going on some insane search for spiritual fulfillment or hallmark friendship. Because that would be pointless. He had been, and still had the potential to be, the Digimon Emperor. No matter how far he ran from what he had been.
He could hear them calling. Screaming. Feel the wind beneath his cape and the blood on his hands...
He could hear a piece of his soul that didn't care.
In a city of magic that spins out of time
Where God has no image, and Man finds no grace
Something inside me was seeking itself
As I ran
From a shadow who'd stolen my face
"But you feel remorseful for this.. thing you did."
She had a point. He didn't have to be. Maybe.
"Yes," the child of kindness breathed. " It... it doesn't even feel like it was me, to tell you the truth. Sometimes it seems like it was all just a bad dream. But then I'll remember that part of me.. that other person that is me.. and I..."
"I believe," the doctor nodded, " that we've made a breakthrough."
Internally horrified at his lapse, Ken immediately pout his game face back on. She wasn't supposed to get to him. This wasn't going according to plan at all..
Maybe money really could buy anything.
"So what's the diagnosis, doctor?" smarmy - that was vintage Ichijouji. Politely smarmy. Unhealthy as it might be - though he doubted that anything could be more unhealthy than the ill-watered plants in the corner - Ken was a firm believer in repression.
"For a genius, Ken, you're really very normal," was the woman amused by this? That was.. perturbing. But he was not going to do anything about it. Nope. He was going to be understanding, retain detatchment, and preserve his state of mind..
"Hmm?"
"If you looked it up - which I'm sure you will - you'll know that it's classic adolescent anxiety," she was shuffling the papers now, which turned out to be nothing but illegible scrawling, " You feel that you're alone, that no one understands you."
That was because no one did understand him. Breakthrough was a complete misnomer. The blue-haired student hadn't come anywhere near finding out what he was supposed to be looking for through this insipid little exercise. This wasn't going to just make everything all better, no matter how much his parents wanted it too.
Sure, he hadn't known. Some excuse that was. Both Kens hated whiners like that. Oooo h- it wasn't meeee. It was my family's fault or my friends! I had a terrible wounded childhood and lack of love made me feel all baaaaad! Oh, woe! Woe is I! It was so simple to disassociate from one's self - to pass the blame onto some imaginary double
To consider that the Emperor had not been him would be a disrespect to hundreds of digimon.
"Hmph," Ichijouji crossed grey-sleeved arms.
"But you're not alone, Ken," the lady continued. "There are, dare I say, hundreds of young people in this city just like you. People who are a little different, and who don't quite know who they are."
Aaaaah - the miracle panacea of Love and Friendship. A fraudulent notion if he'd ever head of one. Love was a double edged sword if there ever was one, and for most of his life Ken had either been ignored or left beeding by it. Did anyone really think that love, of all things, could save the world? Countless historical studies could support the presumption that it was just as likely to destroy the earth as its inhabitants knew it.
Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly like his old, nonprefereable self, Ken remembered exactly why he'd wanted to leave the idiocies of this world.
"I can't just take away the past. I want to change for my parents, but after every thing we've both done.. I can't forget that. I can't become a completely different, person, a second brand of perfect son, overnight."
"This isn't about them, Ken. It's about you."
Yeah, both hims. The one that wanted to take her advice, and the one that wanted to have her tortured, and the real one between the two who was so much less idealized than either an Emperor or a Destined. The one that didn't ignore either side of his past. Ignorance being a bliss in either case, but eventually nothing but the weakness of not being able to face one or the other...
... wait a minute....
Well, well. Maybe this woman deserve her paycheck after all.
The farther you run
The more you recall
Your loss of innocence
After the fall
"And your prescription, doctor?" the boy grinned with a tinge of innate slyness.
"I'm not about to medicate you, Ken. But I believe we should continue these sessions until you feel more comfortable with me. And...."
Yeah, he'd been expecting that.
"And?"
"Those hundred other kids I talked about?," the doctor questioned, pursing her lips. " Find one of them. Talk to them. You might find, Ken, that we normal people aren't as alien as you think. It would help to have someone around who understands."
Yeah bloody right.
"Are you serious?" Ichijouji asked incredulously.
"Dead serious," she ignored his disbelief.
"... for my parents. And to make amends.. for what I did."
"If that's the reason you feel you should do it. But the root of the problem begins and ends with you, Ken."
You could say that again. If she had any idea exactly what sort of 'problem' he was...
And her suggestion was impossible. There was no one else like him - period. No one who could possible have experienced the Digital World, the rigors of being both rightly reviled and unjustly misunderstood, and the problems of social isolation. Even is he were to lower himself - which he was not - Ken was not about to ...
It came to him unbidden, as most hints of knowledge did. Brilliance works faster than the inner monologue.
"I have just the person in mind."
Daisuke Motomiya.
He'd seen him in the digital world, with the digidestined... hated for being different. Cast out by the people who were supposed to love him for not fitting a particular mold. Taking out his frustrations and trying to gain at least a bit of pride with accomplishments on the real world in places as trivial as a soccer field. Running to the Digital World for some faint scraps of what might have been hope...
It was horrifying.
No, it was terrifying.
"Good. I'll be seeing you next week then."
Lost in his thoughts, the child of kindness allowed himself to be ushered out of the office into a waiting room. A girl with an overbite was called in to take his place while the cerulean-tressed youth waited for his parents.
Caught like a deer in the headlights for a second. To one of such swift mind, the pause in his synapses seemed almost an eternity. It came as a revelation, an epiphany if you will. Opening up possibilities that had not even been considered, leading towards plan that had yet to be pondered.
Begrudgingly, and not a little annoyed with the fact, Ken was forced to start devising a way to pull the boy towards him. To... maybe just.... he didn't know...
As mortifying as it might be, the new scrap of knowledge remained Ken's only lead on whatever he was trying to get. And he always got what he wanted. Not that it made things less embarrassing - though he would be hard pressed to say if that was because of his lack of previous realization, or the nature of his counterpart. Sometimes being overanalytical was a mixed blessing.
But the fact remained that Daisuke Motomiya was just like him.
He didn't notice when his back straitened and the dark circles disappeared from under jasmine eyes. When his cheeks gained a less sickly pall and his expression turned to a calculating sort of hope.
He didn't notice when the charismatic facade developed for the cameras became once more a painless second skin.
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Author's note: Blah. I don't like it as much as Only On His Own. Probably because the dialogue makes my point less coherent. Ah well ^_^. Yeah - I know he's a little out of character considering teh weepy, remorseful Ken in Genesis of Evil. But this is Ichijouji post hissy-fit. And .. well... the Digimon Emperor was neither a seperate person, nor a being without some foundation in Ken's mind... so I thought his mannerisms should rightfully linger a bit. Hope that works ^^