This is the longest chapter yet, though that doesn't really surprise me, given the subject matter. I have... a certain kinship with Tk for just the reasons that this fic will detail. Anger, as I have discovered, is a disturbingly powerful thing.

"When one has been angry for a very long time,

one gets used to it. And it becomes comfortable,

like old leather. Finally... becomes so familiar that

one can't ever remember feeling any other way."

- Patrick Stewart.

TK.

If anybody ever asked him, TK would tell them that he never dreams.

This would be a lie. He has dreams all the time; he just can't remember them afterwards. He only knows they happen because every now and then he'll open his eyes, realise it's still three am and that his heart is pounding like there's half a dozen Botamon bouncing around inside his chest. Or that there are red marks around his fingers where Patamon had resorted to biting as a means of waking him up. TK has the same genes as his brother, and Matt could sleep through an apocalypse if he had to. It takes a lot more than one bad dream to wake a Takashi.

TK isn't sure why this is. The last dream he can remember having was a bad one, and that was years and years ago now. He thinks sometimes that maybe he's reliving it every time he goes to sleep. He doesn't remember dreaming about it because he doesn't need to. The memory alone is enough to keep him going.

...The memory alone is enough to scare the hell out of Cody, make Kari cast him worried glances, and Ken flinch whenever their eyes meet for more than a fraction of a second.

Which is weird, because TK isn't angry with Ken anymore. The anger dissolved a long time ago and was replaced with joint study sessions, subdued phone calls, and debates about the plots of the latest thriller novels, but...

Well. That's the thing, really, isn't it? Because TK isn't angry with Devimon anymore either. He isn't angry with BlackWarGreymon. He isn't angry with Owikawa, or Puppetmon or Etamon... Hell, VenonMyotismon had creeped him out, but TK isn't sure he's angry with him anymore either, because it's actually difficult to be completely mad at someone who, for whatever horrible reason, gave you a few moments of the deepest happiness you've ever felt...

So no –TK isn't angry with anyone in particular.

He's just angry.

There are a lot of directions in which he can point this anger. Some days he's angry at Matt for never being there, or his dad for taking his brother away, or his parents for separating. Other days he's angry at Daisuke for not thinking hard enough before opening his mouth. Or he's angry with himself for not knowing the answers on a maths test or for not living up to the Crest he's supposed to personify. But none of these sources feels very specific. None of them feel like they're quite the right reason for being angry. It's just hostility transfer in progress, working his anger out of him via whatever routes it can find.

TK knows what really made him angry. But...

Well. That battle was over a long time ago, wasn't it? Maybe he is still angry with Devimon in a way. It's not a tangible anger, and there's no target to point it at, but it's there. It's anger towards a memory which isn't aware of him. Anger for all the things he could've said and didn't, because he was only eight years old, just a little boy and he hadn't known...

It's the stuff he said when he had Ken's body pinned beneath his own, hands at his throat, voice that TK barely even recognized as his own screaming in his ears. And it's only now, two years too late, that TK starts to realise that it hadn't been a good time to fight at all.

Wrong target. But be damned if letting it out hadn't made him feel better. For a while, at least.

It's like something that Matt said once. TK can't remember how old he was at the time or how the subject came up in the first place, but come up the subject had: Anger is a feeling just like anything else. The longer you go around feeling something the more familiar it becomes and the more you start noticing its absence. You can't imagine it being any other way. It's like a pair of old jeans that're falling apart, but that you hang onto anyway because they're comfortable and familiar...

And Anger and the Hope are tied together, aren't they? You can use anger in different ways. You can let it rage inside of you or channel it into a target. Some of the greatest achievements in history came about because somebody was angry enough with the way things were, and hopeful enough that they could make a difference, to try and change the world.

And with his friends around, it's easier. They talk to him, sometimes saying nothing in particular and sometimes saying everything important. They sit together in parks, each others rooms, and the backs of classrooms and just talk constantly. Sometimes one of them says something that worries the others a bit, and so they talk about that too, and TK can start to look at what he's thinking in a completely different way when he's seeing it through someone else's eyes.

It must look strange to others, who see them all sitting together and talking and laughing just like any old friends –but also like something much, much deeper. Their crests have bound them together tighter than any normal friendship could. They reflect him, and absorb him, and he absorbs and reflects them back. They make him see the worth of the crest he bears. Because every person defines themselves in relation to the people around them. TK's hope is as much defined by Kari's light and Davis's courage as it is by himself. Hope comes from without as well as within.

Eventually, TK knows, he'll get round to telling them how angry he feels, and then they'll look at him with a wry "duh, really? We hadn't noticed" expression. He'll tell them about the dreams he can't remember, and Davis will probably start recounting a seemingly random dream that he had once, and somehow (TK isn't sure how, precisely) they'll help him work it all out, just by talking with him.

Eventually. But for now, the old, worn out jeans are a comfortable fit, and he's not sure he can let them go yet.