A/N: OK, here is a *lengthened* version of Back To My Heart. I deleted the entire fic off ff.net without completing it, but I am about to do that now. Past readers/reviewers (whose reviews were deleted, gomen!!!) may notice some changes in the fic. ^_~ Tai isn't such a bad guy, yada yada...the first part is done in Matt's POV, and there is no prologue...to those who were wondering the ages, Digimon Season 02 takes place in 2002, and in Matt's diary entry (2007) he would be five years older than he was then, and this is two years later after the diary entry. But to people who only understand English...:p
Matt-21
Tai-21
Sora-21
Jou-22
Izzy-20
Mimi-20
Takeru-18
Daisuke-18
Miyako-19
Iori-16
(Hikari-18)
Also, I only use the Japanese names for Kari, TK, Davis, Yolei, Cody, and Jou, no others. Koushiro's tempting...^_~ Anywayz, I hope u guys enjoy the *new* BTMH fic. :) ~~J.I.~~
Disclaimer: I don't own anything or anyone from Digimon, like all of da fanfic writers, although I wish I owned Yama-san. ;)
Back To My Heart-Part 1
Matt's POV
June 5th, 2007
Why did this have to happen to me, when my life was perfect just a mere two months ago? I did not kill Hikari Yagami, but no one believes me. It's not my fault. Well, maybe it is. If I had not fallen for her in the first place, and she hadn't fallen for me, she wouldn't have ended up dead or wherever she is now, and I wouldn't have ended up in jail. But I swear-I did not kill Hikari Yagami, but I have still fallen in vain.
I stared down at the entry in the diary momentarily, but then ripping it out angrily, crumpling it up and throwing it halfway across the room, making a noise of disgust in my throat.
Why did you have to die?! I asked myself angrily. It was driving me insane, knowing that my girlfriend had been dead for two years, and I had been blamed. Trialed, being so-called 'proven' guilty, put in jail, and then released because the police had decided they needed more evidence of Hikari's murder. But I still don't think that Tai has ever forgiven me...
God Hikari, my life is never going to be the same without you! My mind screamed in anger and despair, tears rolling down my cheeks. As if it wasn't the first time. Every day I yelled at Hikari, knowing nothing would be solved by yelling at her in my mind, but I needed some way of getting my angry feelings out of me, although I felt shameful afterwards. It wasn't her fault. It was more mine than anyone else's.
I walked purposefully across the room, and crouched down to pick up the crumpled diary entry. Slowly backing myself into a chair and slipping downward to sit on it, I uncrumpled the slip of paper and read it over again. I had said it was my fault in the diary entry, and I was saying it again. If I hadn't ever told Hikari how I felt about her in the first place...
**Flashback**
"So, what are we here for, Matt?" Hikari asked me, stunningly pretty in her spaghetti-strapped, knee-length, slit-up-the-side, figure-hugging, white, sequined dress, as a guided her by the elbow to the fountain in the park, as we sat on the edge, hearing the water fall. For some reason, it relaxed me, although I felt uneasy, having to tell Hikari how I really felt about her. It was now or never.
I froze, turning my head away, trying to avoid her curious, probing gaze, a blush crawling steadily up my cheeks. "Hikari...I..." My hands were folded in my lap, and Hikari put hers over them. "No look Matt, maybe I should tell you first. I love you."
My head snapped up, the blood draining from my face, and I turned slowly to look at her. She had just said it, like that, for no absolute reason to say it. She had no reason to love me. If Tai knew how I felt about her and she felt about me...I shuddered. He would skin me alive.
A strangled noise escaped Hikari's throat, a pink tinge coming into her face. "I...I knew you wouldn't feel the same way about me, so I just had to tell you, like that. Now please Matt, what did you take me here for?" I could hear her choking up, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
Hesitantly I squeezed her hand, tipping her chin up to look at me. Tears now fell uncontrollably from her eyes, running down her face and dripping off her chin to run down her neck, down her dress, spoiling her elegant features for any guy but me. I loved her the way she was, too much I couldn't say. "Hikari... I... oh damn." Tipping her chin even more, so our lips could reach contact, a leaned down slowly and gently kissed her passionately, only long enough for us to taste each other's lips then pull away, licking our lips, still savouring the taste.
"Matt...what was that?" Hikari wondered aloud.
I squeezed her hand even more tightly, accidently digging my nails into her soft flesh. "Hikari...I love you. In more than words can say." I leaned in to kiss her again.
**Flashback Ends**
I slowly licked my lips, tasting salt, then realizing I was crying, two identical trails of tears running down each cheek. Hastily I brushed them away. I couldn't afford to get emotional now. Hikari was gone, and nothing could change it.
I noticed that I was getting drowsy, and checked my watch. It said one o'clock a.m. I yawned, realizing that my body was saying it was bedtime, but I was alert and didn't exactly want to at the moment. But I didn't want to be awake, alone with my memories, either.
Dragging my chair back over to the table, I picked up my diary and paged through it. Halfway through the book, I gasped, thumbing the soft strand of blue velvet that marked the spot. A small, pale-pink, nearly white cherry blossom had been pressed into the page. Hikari had done it, before giving me the diary. More tears slipped down my cheeks.
**Flashback**
"Hunh? Hikari, what is this?" I looked at her, confused.
Hikari looked up at me, her face flushed with excitement and anticipation. "It's a diary, baka."
"Yeah...but what do I use it for? And besides, isn't a diary a girly thing?" I asked, looking at her a little oddly, holding the diary in one hand, that was still stretched out.
"No, baka." Hikari cuffed me lightly on the shoulder. "It's not just yours. It's mine too, you know. We can use it to record all of our memories in, see?" Grabbing my wrist, she pulled me down on the concrete steps of the high school, long-abandoned by students that had left earlier that day for vacation. "I've already put something in it. Take a look!" Happily thumbing through the pages until she reached the bookmark strand, she pointed to a freshly-pasted cherry blossom. "Ooh, I cherry blossom!" I said, hardly trying to resist tucking a lock of her light-brown hair behind her ear. "Our special flower. Say, let's go to the park and pick some now. You know it's in season." I edged over closer to her, knowing she could hardly resist.
Hikari playfully played with a strand of my hair. "All right. Come on, let's go." Gripping her hand, we both stood up and dashed off to the park, along with our memory book-er, diary-to find some more cherry blossoms to put inside the book. We were young, foolish, and completely in love, not prepared for what was about to happen later...
**Flashback Ends**
I snapped out of my daze, glaring at the cherry blossom. "Stupid flower," I muttered. "Our flower. But if it's ours, how come it's in the diary that's in my possession. Hunh?!" In a fit of anger, I threw the diary across the room, to rest my head on my shoulder, laughing insanely. I was truly going insane, over a girl that was dead. Over my stupid memories that never seemed to stop annoying me. If only I wasn't me, these stupid things would have never happened. I'd be fine, not going insane, Hikari would probably not be dead, I would never had ended up in jail...I stared at the floor. Maybe it was just the time that was getting to me. I hadn't gotten much sleep during the past few days, because of all the stupid flashbacks I had been having. I began to stand up, but began to sway as another memory gripped me.
**Flashback**
"May she rest in peace. Amen." The minister quietly finished his speech. We echoed the amen, and I stared balefully at the gap in the ground, where a coffin for Hikari had been lowered into. Her body wasn't there. Her body had been never found.
I looked over at Tai, and his parents. Tai's lower lip was trembling, and his mother was sobbing openly on Mr. Yagami's shoulder, whose face was twisted up in a very screwed way as he tried not to break down as well. Sora walked over and placed an arm around Tai's shoulder, trying to comfort him. I spotted Takeru and Daisuke bawling their eyes out. Mimi was sobbing loudly on Jou's shoulder, and Miyako looked just like Mr. Yagami, trying not to cry, and Iori's face was stone cold. I didn't know what I was doing. I don't think anyone knew my emotions. I certainly didn't, not at that moment, anyway.
"Could Yamato Ishida please throw the last bouquet over the coffin?" the minister asked quietly. Tai nodded gravely to me, and I strode up to the grave, a bouquet of cherry blossoms in my arms, wrapped in Hikari's white, silk scarf. Looking down at the grave, sadness in my eyes, a softly let the bouquet fall from my arms and into the ground. As I backed away, tears filling my eyes, my lower lip trembling, a crew of workmen lifted the sod and placed it over the square into the ground that encased Hikari's empty coffin. Everyone that hadn't been crying burst into noisy tears, but I remained silent, letting my tears fall, staring at the grave. Hikari's grave. I could never get the fact out of my mind that she was dead, and I blamed myself.
After everyone had gone, I remained. Walking over to the grave, I knelt down over the newly-placed sod and laid a hand on my knee, the other clasping our diary, which I had placed on the top of the grave. I prayed softly, hoping Hikari could hear me, wherever she was. I hesitated, thinking to leave the diary with her, thinking she might like to have it, but then reconsidering thinking that she might insist for me to keep it. Standing up, clutching the diary tightly and backing away a few paces from the grave, my eyes roved over the writing on the grave.
Hikari Yagami
1992-2007
May she RIP
Apart in body, to be together in soul
Slowly, I turned, my gaze facing the ground, my eyes shadowed by the blond forelock (^_^'') spilling over them, and walked away.
**Flashback Ends**
I blinked. That was the memory that had been haunting me the most, with dreams that accompanied it. Sometimes I dreamt that Tai was still yelling at me like he had been before, his eyes spilling with tears, but snapping furiously. "You killed her!" he shrieked. "I know you did, spit it out already!" Other times I dreamt that I was at the park, by the fountain, holding a bouquet of cherry blossoms, held together with Hikari's silk scarf. Then she appeared in front of me, her daintily-chiseled face pale and somber, her dark eyes smoky and almost accusing. But as I reached out to touch her, to feel her again, her expression became pained and sad and she disappeared, like a whisper of a song on a windy summer day, something you yearned to hear but were never close enough to grasp.
Slowly I stood up, clutching the diary and exiting the room, walking upstairs through the kitchen, and into my bedroom, where I undressed and slipped into bed, hoping, praying, that I had a dreamless night.
***
That night, I dreamed. This dream had only begun to come recently, and I had not had it much, but it had to be the worst of all.
I did not know who she was exactly, although she seemed familiar. I could be sleeping peacefully one moment, and then my vision would cloud over with a swirling dark mist, accompanied by dead cherry blossoms.
She was dressed in an ankle-length, long-sleeved, heavy black velvet dress with a high-neck. Her eyes were smoky and dull, her hair dull, dark, streaked with silver that had dulled to grey. Her eyebrows were thin, narrowed slightly, blood dripping from the corners of her lips. They opened slowly, and she spoke so softly that I couldn't hear. But as fast as she had come, she disappeared into the swirling dark mist, the dead cherry blossoms spiraling away.
I awoke with sweat dripping off of me, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The dream scared me, more than any of the others. I shuddered, my chest rising and falling , my throat feeling raw and sore. Rolling over on to my side, I saw that I had only two hours of sleep-it was now three-thirty on my digital clock. I could feel tears pouring down my face. If only Gabumon was here. He would know how to help me get rid of these dreams. He would have to. No one else could.
Finding I could not go back to sleep, I slowly slipped out of bed and dressed in the clothes I had been wearing the night before, which consisted of dark blue, cargo jeans and a loose black shirt. Stuffing my slippers on to my feet, I stumbled out into the kitchen and messily made some coffee, which I drank greedily, as I regained awareness instantly. I looked forlornly around the kitchen. The whole house was so...empty. I was alone. Alone, without Gabumon, without Hikari. And so far, nothing seemed to be able to change that.
***
A/N: Okay, I changed it A LOT. I hope you guys liked it...I probably didn't get into Matt's mind that well, but oh well, I tried! :) Please review, and arigato!! ~~Jane Ishida~~