This drabbly-thing is focused on Kouichi and his relationships. I've had many a thought about how Kouichi thinks about the others and his mother and his grandmother, and his relationship with them all. This is an old take of my views, symbolized in a dream.
Disclaimer: I own Digimon like I own the sky. Wait... I don't own the sky...
Chapter 4: The Path
There was no sound. No birds chirping, no bugs cricketing and no wind whistling. Just silence, which was the first thing that made little alarms go off in Kouichi's head. The second odd thing was the color, or rather, the abcense of it. There was no green foliedge or blue sky or brown on the ground. Everything was in black and white.
After Kouichi racked his brain trying to figure out where he was, he realized he could not remember how he had gotten there. Or where he had been before. All he could remember was the path in front of him, beconing him forward into the grove of grey trees.
His feet were on automatic, stepping ahead without his acknowledgement. He obligingly complied to the movement, taking his time to study the black and white details and the shadowless landscape he was in.
It came as a surprise to spot a simple sign along his path; compared to the organic landscape, it seemed very out of place. Oddly, the sign did not have any writing on it at all, which made Kouichi puzzle to look at it. He continued down his trail nonetheless, now wondering and confused before he came across an intersection.
There were arrows pointing towards the two different paths that he was to choose from, neither any different from the other. In front of him were tall, obscuring trees and thick foliedge that cut off his view.
He turned to his left and continued down the path, which soon turned out to be an upwards climb. When he reached the top, his mind was trying to comprehend what was sitting in the middle there. It took him a long minute of staring to realize that there were actual words on them, then another long minute to find he was staring at grave stones.
There were only two there, and the black on grey words did not seem to stand out very well, especially while they were smeared over the rocky texture. The character looked too familiar to Kouichi, and he was deathly afraid of what he was about to read... "Kimura"
Something settled in his heart then, making him feel cold and tired. These gravestones were engraved with his grandmother's and his mother's names, and it made his heart clench. The feeling of hot tears were starting to build up behind his eyes, and he scurried down the other side of the hill to get away from the distressing stones.
The path he was on now took a long, looping turn to the right, where he found another arrow sign that mirrored the one on the opposite side. But these actually had writing forming on them. He had to squint and concentrate a little to read it, but then it finally came to him. "Family" and "Friends". Where he had just come from, the arrow pointed to 'family', and the way he was going was towards 'friends'. The oddity of it didn't seem to hit him, and so he continued on, eager to see his close group of companions ahead waiting for him.
Down the dirt trail, through some light mist, dwelling all the while about his brother. Why wasn't he there to greet him before? Kouji was his closest family. But at the same time, they were the best of friends, and he was probably up ahead, waiting for him.
He came around right back to where he started, the blank arrow signs pointing this way and that. But that couldn't have been right, he hadn't seen anyone down the 'friends' path. Takuya, Izumi, Tomoki, Junpei... they were all his closest friends, that he sometimes even considered them his second family. And Kouji, his brother, was closer to him still. How could they not be here?
Both his friends and his family. All of his friends were his family, and his brother was his best friend. They were all both. As that thought went through his head, something behind the sign shifted. The bushes and foliage behind it, they seemed to be hiding something. A trail; the last path.
He determindly walked forward into the bushes, delighted to find that some of the color was now returning. Greens, browns, and the blue sky. Everything was becoming so much clearer.
When he emerged, he was even more happy to find everything there, just as he imagined they'd be, happy to see him.
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Eh, I don't really like this one, but it's been just... sitting there for so long that I can't... leave... it... alone. It bugs me like crazy!
I just needed to get this chapter finished. I have no idea for anything to continue O Yumemiru now... time to go idea-hunting. Thanks for reading!
