A/N: Hello everybody! Ours will be updated later today, or later tonight I should say. However, I finished this first part of the companion, and I wanted to get it out here before I forgot. I will update it as I finish parts, of which there are seven. The end is rather planned out. It's just getting there that is causing me grief. Otherwise, this would have been out two weeks ago. To those that are enjoying My Sanctuary or did enjoy it, I hope I can give Noriko the same justice I gave Hikari. If you did not read My Sanctuary, you do not need to read that one first, but it will help a lot towards the end. Also, for those who might read the sequel, Destati, when it is released, it is imperative to read My Sanctuary, if only to know who the main character is and what's going on.
Dedicated to Higuchimon and my readers on AO3 specifically, as well as my good friend Edhla, who needs a new computer.
Warning for: Present tense, implicit homosexuality, alcohol reference, possible alternate character interpretation, and hints of a crossover (less so on this last one). Officially, this fic starts post Episode 50: "Our Digital World" and includes the "Summer 2003" and "The Door to Summer" CD dramas as well as the movies, all of which, including Hurricane Touchdown, I take as canon. It goes all the way to the epilogue, which, for the sake of this, is also taken as canon.
Footnotes at the end, optional as always. Enjoy part 1!
-Growing up is six parts mess and one part magic, and for her, that's all right. No one said it had to be a perfect way up. Companion to My Sanctuary, Noriko POV
Simple and Clean
I.
Thanks for believing in us.
Thank you for trying to believe in yourself.
She knows it isn't going to be easy after that day, after banishing a soul-sucking vampire, assuming the ride would be all simple and pretty was a prerequisite for a beating.
It's harder than I thought.
She has trouble every day, because she knows what she's said and done, and she knows despite the forgiveness, she doesn't deserve any of it. She knows she was cruel, and she doesn't know how to be kind now.
Kawada Noriko spends a lot of time with Punimon alone, holding him close and watching people walk by in groups, envious, angry, but... not willing to hurt anyone now.
It is this conflict that hurts.
She is still lonely now, on the swing or the park bench. Even her friends avoid her now, because she has a Digimon and she pushes them aside without meaning to because they don't.
Trying to make them understand is just impossible.
Punimon doesn't care about them getting it either. Punimon doesn't care about anyone, like she doesn't care about many people.
Does that make me a bad person?
She doesn't know. She wants to know. She is scared to know.
She is scared because she spent a long time being selfish. She doesn't know how to be selfless, but she wants to be.
"What will I lose if I am?"
Kawada Noriko tries not to cry a lot more now that it is over. She thinks of Ken however, and cries, because he has friends and she is alone. Even with Punimon, she is alone.
And she doesn't know how to have friends anymore.
…
Punimon is never a good comfort after school.
He's always hungry and getting into things and she has to keep preventing him from eating the crackers in the middle of the store and leaving crumbs everywhere. A girl from the Digital World, Miyako, always scowls about it. It is never an angry scowl, more of a "I'm going to have to clean that up again" scowl that she seems to have any time a child with a Digimon comes in, even that one with the goggles. Or maybe she just dislikes them in general.
Punimon doesn't actually care about this in the slightest. He's too busy trying to reach the top shelves of food when he can't fly and Noriko has to keep him from ruining the ice creams by shutting himself in the freezer section.
Funny. She never laughs so hard as when he screams curse words at the door in his squeaky voice while he rolls against metal shelves. He glares at her so hard through the bruises on his spikes, but she doesn't care because it's funny and even a bit cute in its own way. Miyako does sigh and shake her head but behind the counter, someone giggles.
She doesn't know why, but Noriko finds it the sweetest sound she has ever heard.
She wonders what it would take to hear that sound again.
…
As it turns out, she forgets about this quickly, because school picks up again and her friends decide to pick her up again and all of Punimon's antics get regulated to being poked every time he tries to eat her bento for the day. It's a little less boring, and it is much less lonely.
However, it is also really freaking loud and sometimes she gets a headache from all the noise and all the people and how much the world hurts. The Dark Seed doesn't turn off and maybe she's not as smart now but she's still noticing things and they're still telling her things and it hurts to try and process the sheer amount of things she observes at once.
She wonders how Ken did it as long as he did and didn't lose his mind.
…Then again...he actually did, didn't he?
She sighs. They were all great, big idiots. She was the worst of them, the greatest of the fools, the most easily brought in and thrown out.
She probably deserves what she gets.
So does she deserve Punimon?
The wind nips at her ears and she sniffles in the chill, not wanting to go home but not wanting to stay at school and being torn between two extremes of people and responsibility is horrible and she's scared to do it. So she sits here and mumbles her way through index cards and self-pity until there is the sound of agitated footsteps. Then Noriko rubs her eyes, pretending they were watering from the wind and not tears of shame and then finds a steaming hot meat bun in her face.
The person holding it out is barely taller than she is, but seems somehow much smaller, petite from being loved by everyone and suffocating under it. Brown hair, a cat in her arms, and gentle, every curve of her body is a gentle slope, this person gives off the aura of goodness.
It makes it even scarier that she's holding out a pork bun.
"You're cold," she says without much in the way of a "good afternoon". "It's not a good day to sit out here."
"Fine for me," remarks the quiet voice of her cat and suddenly Noriko recalls her. She is the one who wanted to be a teacher, in the Digital World. She has a very bright name, too... what is it?
Unable to recall, she takes the meat bun with a tiny emission of gratitude, causing Punimon to peek from his place in her thick jacket. "Mine?" he says without decorum.
"No," she replies affectionately without realizing that is her voice. "Pig."
The girl giggles and with a foggy reminisce, Noriko thinks she's heard the sound before. Her memory is poorer than her observation skills now, and she is wobbling trying to recall the other's name, let alone the familiarity of a laugh.
Soon, it doesn't matter because the girl is gesturing questioningly at the part of the bench next to her and Noriko is nodding before she can stop herself. Then the wood is vibrating because the white cat is purring so deeply at the affection being lavished onto her. It makes her laugh, especially when the cat pays no attention and Punimon huffs with a little well-placed jealousy until she tousles the spikes that make up his head.
The girl doesn't speak for a few moments, choosing to eat her meat bun with a quiet purpose that belies the entire point of the food. It is meant to be messy and defying that seems a bit like blasphemy. Then she says, in a rather odd, but peaceful tone. "It's not easy."
"... Sorry?"
"Trying to fit yourself back in," she clarifies with a small, sheepish smile. The other girl seems to realize that these are hard things to understand, but she wants to try and help Noriko anyway. "Once everything flips upside down, you never can go back. No one ever says so, but it's not easy or anything."
"Having a Digimon?"
"Growing up," says the cat, and the girl looks at her Digimon with reproach even as she pets the white fur.
Noriko thinks on this as she chews a piece of warm dough and meat. It's not easy, she says... so this is normal? "So... it's okay?" At the confused head tilt, she adds. "To be stuck? For things to hurt and be messy and just..." She trails off because she feels the last words are private and maybe not words at all. An ugly pink flush trails up her face until the girl says,
"Yes."
She says it with an equanimity that is envy worthy, a pleasurable sort of resignation in her eyes that belies her tone with an acrid black spot.
It's rather like the Dark Seed, and Noriko finds that endearing, even when the girl and her cat share a look of knowing dissatisfaction with something.
"Growing up is messy," the cat finally says because the girl has fallen silent. "Messy and complicated and sometimes not worth it."
"But it is," the girl mumbles, scratching fur once more. "It's good to shut some doors before the new air freezes the room. (2)"
Punimon grumbles his confusion at this statement and Noriko silently agrees but it's the look of peace on the other girl's face that stops her from asking. Besides, she thinks a part of her understands.
Everyone struggles, even the perfect-looking people. She's not alone. Even on the days she doesn't believe in anyone or anything, least of all herself, she is not alone in that.
It's okay to be a little messy.
They sit in silence a few moments more before the girl apologizes and is called away, called away by the same boy who makes a mess of Miyako's store.
When she goes, with the same distant sort of farewell that began the conversation, Noriko finally recalls what she was trying to the whole time.
That girl's name is Hikari, and she has a beautiful laugh.
(1) Pork buns, or nikuman (lit, meat manju),are a street food served in Japan served from about August or September until spring. Steamed, typically they are kept hot and sold in convenience stores during this time, but there are other kinds served throughout other seasons too, such as 7-Elevens out there serving a chocolate version. They were shown in Digimon Adventure 02 in episode 37, if I'm remembering right. There are recipes all over the internet too!
(2) Hikari is butchering a saying used in one of my favorite shows Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai, which one of the characters says that it is good to let a fresh wind in and chase out the stale air, which is saying good things will happen from letting the outside in. Hikari is trying to twist it a little and say that there are some doors that need to be shut, so the past is able to be put to rest and not destroyed entirely. Unfortunately, Hikari is not very good at saying what she's thinking.
Until next time!