Innocent Games
Sometimes I think I think of myself too much.
How unfair things are. How I get the last of everything, how I deserve it, how I don't, how, when I really think about it, I think the Digiworld made a mistake choosing me at all.
Hawkmon would kill me if I told him that.
And then, after my pity party, I think about how I failed again because someone awesome wouldn't cry about getting left behind, they'd do something about it. So I bite my lip and snuff out the tears and try to get outside myself. It never did me any good to be selfish anyway.
But the memories don't help and neither does the dark.
Because when you can't see anything but what's inside you…how do you get out?
Chapter Seven
The End of the World
The night had come quick.
They had barely made it into the city before the sun started to set. Shadows stretched under skyscrapers and crept around monuments, making Machinedramon's city look even more like something that had come back from the dead. When the streetlights had come on with no sign of the hospital, Tai took one look at Kari and suggested they turn around.
Matt could still remember TK's description of their narrow escape, coming out in one excited 8-year-old breath and a garble of words that only made Matt both glad and guilty he hadn't been there to worry. About his brother's near-death experience or the way Tai sounded less Tai-like when Kari was sick.
Tai was pacing the same way he must have then, back and forth in front of the grand stairway, so absorbed in himself that it took Matt lighting up for him to come to.
"Look at you," he said, "dirtying up those pretty lungs."
Matt let out a low chuckle and pulled the cigarette from between his teeth. Smoke plumed through an open window, brought out as if someone in the night had grabbed it.
"And you, wearing out those pretty sneakers."
Tai gave the toes of his shoes a tap. They were oddly immaculate, the whites still white, almost blinding against his dark jeans. Even his school shoes didn't look that nice.
"They were for the party," explained Tai, rubbing the back of his head. He always had a knack for looking sheepish and confident all at once. It was the exact look he'd had on his face when he was with Sora, before Kari had told them Izzy was gone. "Still breakin em in."
Matt watched him for a long moment, waiting.
Tai shoved his hands in his pockets and collapsed against the window frame beside him. "I had this weird dream."
Smoke settled on Matt's tongue. He let it linger while Tai waited for some sort of recognition. It drifted away too soon, escaping in a stream from his lips.
"About?"
"Izzy. It was like a memory from when we were here, or under here, I guess, but it was really weird. He started talking to me."
"Him talking was weird?"
"Not the talking, per se, more like how he talked."
"Like Izzy?"
A short laugh. "It wasn't the geek-speak or anything. It was... we were both kids, but then he was talking, like it was now, you know?" A bright sneaker thumped against the wall. "It just didn't feel like a memory anymore. I swear he was really talking to me… like he was asking for help."
Tai let out a long loud groan. "I don't know what to do. I can't even find the hospital…I thought I remembered how to get there but everything just looks... off to me. And I have no idea how to get to the sewers, we just sorta fell there last time."
"You think Izzy's there?"
"I don't know, I just-I need to do something."
"You should get some sleep."
"Says the insomniac."
Matt sucked down a long breath of smoke. "I'm on watch."
Tai gave a shrug as if he knew better. "How does Sora feel about you smoking those things?"
Ash scattered out the window. "She hasn't said anything."
"To you."
Matt felt his shoulders tense and tried not to picture the two of them together, chastising his new bad habit. "Why are you asking if you already know?"
"Are you sure you want to room with me in college?" asked Tai.
"Don't deflect my question with a question."
"Are you?"
"I don't say yes lightly, Tai."
"I know that." The sneaker gave the wall another thud. "You don't do anything lightly. You feel the full weight of it first… which has got me wondering about some things. Like why you're smoking. It's weird."
Tai's words settled into his lungs. Matt took another drag for effect.
"Have you met my father?"
"Well, yeah, I sorta expect it when you're forty," said Tai. "Or divorced."
Smoke tightened around Matt's heart and came out of him in a round of dry, hacking coughs.
Tai's hand fell on his back. "You okay?"
Matt shook his head as it lowered into his palm. The burning cherry threatened the ends of his hair. It took a few minutes to compose himself.
A smirk softened Tai's cheek. "Killing you already."
Putting the butt of his cigarette out on the windowsill, Matt opened his mouth to speak, but Tai cut him off.
"You know why I asked about Sora," he said. "We're both worried about you. Meaning I'm actually voicing my concern and she's complaining. About your lungs, but we all know what that means."
"Tell her I'm fine."
"You're so not."
Matt pulled his cigarettes from his pocket. "Starting to second guess that roommate request."
"Don't act like you don't love that we care. See! You're blushing. Do those things really help?"
Shrugging, Matt put a fresh one between his teeth. "So, that dream with Izzy… did it feel the same as before?"
"Except the end when he asked for help." Tai turned, just enough to look out the window and Matt could see the way his forehead creased, like he was feeling an old ache. "I'm sick of memories."
Hundreds flashed into Matt's mind: his broken family, the dark cave and Gabumon, Sora in his bed. He struck his lighter.
Tai held out his hand. "Gimme one."
Matt held out the pack.
"What are you doing?"
The jerk of his hand almost sent the cigarettes to the floor. Standing at the top of the stairs was Sora. Her arms crossed under her chest.
Tai instantly yanked his fingers behind his back. "Nothing."
For a brief moment, her eyes flashed to Matt and he wanted to say a hundred words without talking at all.
"If you so much as touch that cigarette, I will murder you both."
Matt shoved them into his pocket and watched as she stormed away, thinking she already had.
...
...
The television didn't work.
Neither did the Playstation, or the Dreamcast, or his laptop for that matter. His cellphone still sat useless and black like the screen of his D-3. In the dead of the night, without music blaring from his sister's clock radio or the drone of the late show from his parent's room, the apartment was eerily silent.
And Davis had already gone through his entire comic book collection. The pages in the center were all off, words and pictures garbled in the same places as his memory. He almost got up to show Yolei because he knew she'd geek out over it, but decided it wasn't worth the lecture he'd suffer for waking her up. After all, he'd been the one who had whined and moaned about being too sick and tired to search for everyone once that sun had set. So he turned off the light and tried to sleep.
He had been lying there for hours, listening so intently to the sound of his own breaths that it felt hard to breathe, when there was a knock at his bedroom door.
Yolei's voice came through the crack. "Davis…?"
He gave a low groaning, "what?"
The door creaked open and he could see a shadow in the frame.
"Matt is staring at me."
Davis snorted. "Just take him down. Not like Jun's here to mind."
The shadow lingered, silent and shifting. Davis gave another low groan and switched on the light.
They both hissed like vampires in sunlight.
"Too bright," Yolei whined, hiding her face in her oversized t-shirt.
Technically it was his. And it was really weird how lost she looked in it. Davis had always thought of Yolei as "bigger" than him. Though he did have a couple inches on her now. Or maybe just one, but who was counting?
"So, what?" Davis asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes even though he had yet to sleep. "You wanna go check out your place?"
She shook her head and the neck of his shirt fell from her face. "Not in the dark." Her eyes squinted at him.
"You look weird without your glasses." It made her face seem smaller and… less fierce or something.
"Thanks."
"So what do you want?"
Her arms crossed under her chest. "Can I sleep with—in here?"
Davis instantly flushed, unable to break his gaze from the logo on his t-shirt. "Uh… why?"
"Just…" Yolei's bare toes dug into the carpet. "Can I?"
Ripping his eyes away, Davis grumbled, "Fine, you weirdo." He tossed an extra pillow at her and her arms closed too late. It bounced against her middle to the floor.
Yolei sunk into the mess of his room and pulled the pillow against the logo on her chest.
"It's too quiet," she said. "That place really creeped me out. I don't think Izzy's program was supposed to work like that. The way those memories just kept coming…"
Her face sunk into the pillow, muffling her voice. "Everyone left me."
"It wasn't you." Davis pulled his legs over the side of the bed and stared at his plaid pajama pants on her legs. "It was probably 'cause I was pukin. Plus everyone hates me right now."
She mumbled, "no one hates you," into the pillowcase.
"TK and Kari definitely do," he said, watching Yolei's back tremble. "And you'd probably sound more convincing if you weren't cryin."
Caught, she lifted her head and started wiping streams of tears from her cheeks. "It's that time of the month"—a gulping squeak and her face returned to the pillow in shame—"and all I have is toilet paper."
"Gross."
"I had to wrap it around my underwear like a thousand ti—" Yolei stopped and emerged from the pillow to a pile of tampons.
"They're not mine," Davis said before she had a chance to ask.
"What? But why'd you—"
"Prank."
She stared at him.
"Jun used to make me carry them in my pockets for her." He twirled one around his fingers like a baton. "I always forgot they were there. Do you know how much flak I got in the locker room for keeping tampons in my pants?"
Sweeping a hand under her eyes, Yolei said, "That's kinda sweet…"
"I'm taping them all over her posters before she comes home for spring break."
Yolei peered into the drawer of his nightstand and found a least a dozen boxes full.
"I was gonna hang one out of Matt's nose." Davis grabbed a few more and let them rain over Yolei's lilac hair. "Yay tampons."
After she came back from the bathroom and Davis had exhausted all his quips about the menstrual cycle, he offered his bed.
"Just don't bleed on it."
"I'm sure it's seen worse."
When Davis went red, Yolei flicked one of the many tampons still scattered on the floor. "I don't want your nasty fake bed."
"It feels real." Davis gave a little bounce on his rear. "I can sleep in my parent's room. Or you can. Matt-poster free."
"Just sleep in your own stupid bed."
Yolei curled into a ball on the floor, hair splayed over the shoulders of his shirt. Reaching backwards, she managed to snag his bedspread, pulling it halfway off the mattress and onto her side. Davis grumbled and turned off the light.
Sometime in the night Yolei started to cry again. It came in tiny subdued whimpers. When Davis stayed silent, faking sleep, they grew into pathetic sobs.
"Would you just take the bed?" he said after it had gone on for awhile.
The noise stopped and she went very still.
Swinging his legs from under the covers, he gave her back a nudge with his foot. For a minute, she laid there, wiping her face and then, wordlessly, she slumped half her body onto the mattress, backend still hanging off the side.
"What is wrong with you?" Davis asked, scooting sideways.
"Leave me alone." Yolei tugged up her legs until she was splayed like a starfish across the sheets. Her ankle landed on his thigh, causing him to jump up, but the moment he started to leave, her hand encircled his wrist. "Don't go."
"You just said two different things." Davis could tell she was searching his face in the dark and he wondered how much she could see. "Well, which is it?"
"They all left me alone in that place. And you just-"
Davis assumed she was stopping herself from lecturing him and he almost pulled away as retribution, but then she tugged his arm so close his knuckles grazed her damp cheek.
"I don't want to be alone."
"Fine. Alright, I'll stay." Davis gave his hand a feeble pull. "You can let go now."
But she didn't. And then she made room on the bed.
"You're kidding."
Yolei didn't speak and her grip didn't loosen. The silent world echoed the squeak of the mattress as he sat beside her.
"Don't be so weird about it," she mumbled when he stayed still and rigid.
"You're being weird."
She scooted her back into the wall and his wrist went with her until he had no choice but yank her off the bed or lay down before his elbow snapped. Grumbling, he lied on top of the covers and turned away from her before she could make fun of him for blushing even though she was the psycho who wanted to sleep together.
For a long time it was silent. His shoulders tightened with every warm breath on the back of his neck until he was sure he'd developed a permanent knot. He was praying he wouldn't do something gross, like fart or scratch, when he heard her voice, too small and too scared to be Yolei, whisper, "don't leave me" into his hair.
Memories of his childhood spilled over him: crawling into his sister's bed after a bad dream only to be laughed at and kicked out, his father telling him to be a man and go back to his room when he called for his mother, how badly he just didn't want to be alone.
So he told her, "I won't."
After Yolei had finally fallen asleep, Davis tried to imagine it was Veemon warming his back. And then he wondered if maybe he shouldn't, because he had this mental list of things he needed to accomplish in order to consider himself a man.
Score a winning goal ✓
Beat Tai at soccer ✓ (Cody said Tai let him, but Davis knew better)
Win the World Cup (hey, he could dream)
Save the world ✓
Make world famous ramen (half a check, the world just needed to taste it)
Kiss a girl ✓✓
Have a girlfriend (did kissing girls count? He decided he earned one check, half each) ✓
Sleep with a girl
Davis turned to his back and fixed his eyes to the ceiling, trying not to notice the heavy ups and downs of Yolei's breath. He wondered for a minute if this counted. Although, to be fair, in his mind he meant sleeping with...less clothes. Because it wasn't the first time he'd slept with Yolei... or Kari for that matter. Being a digidestined had given him a fair amount of opportunities, even though he had always been far too exhausted or nervous on any of those occasions to think of his list. And there was also that time when the Inoue and Motomiya families got together for New Year's and the kids had all crashed in piles of junk food in I-Mart's stockroom.
But it was certainly the first time Davis had slept with a girl alone. In a bed. His bed.
Long after the sun rose, he was still staring at his ceiling, wishing he could have checked the box off with someone else.
...
...
He woke exhausted.
Dream after dream after dream until he was sure his mind couldn't handle any more. All memories, twisted and forced.
It made Izzy wonder if he had ever been sleeping at all.
Shackles still clung to his sore wrists. His arms ached. And something beside him was moving.
He could hear it, a scraping click pacing the floor. But it was so dark, not even an shadowy outline could tell him it's exact location.
"Fascinating," said a deep harsh voice. "That a human could be the source of such a unique tool of creation." The clicking resumed. " This thing… it speaks to your power of knowledge. I have always admired the power of the digdestined."
"Wh—" Izzy had to swallow, voice sticky from lack of use. "Why are you keeping me like this?"
A low chuckle returned to him. "Because like this, all you have are memories."
"The program can be utilized by anyone," Izzy said. "You can use your own memories."
There was a choking sound-a short scoff. "We both know the memories of one mind cannot fill an entire world."
"The program isn't ready. There'll be glitches," Izzy said, trying to keep the desperation from his voice as he twisted his bound arms. "I can fix it. You don't have to keep me like a prisoner. Please."
"I'm afraid that would interfere. You see, I have other plans and… others."
"Tentomon will find me," Izzy said, unsure how else to respond. "He won't give up until I'm safe."
"Oh, he is welcome." Claws scraped beside Izzy's shackles and hot breath blew against his cheek.
"As is all fodder for my world."
...
...
Things had gotten awkward.
And after it had gone on awhile, Cody found himself wishing he hadn't chased after the light with Joe and Mimi.
It wasn't that he didn't like his predecessor or the bubbly bearer of Sincerity. He just felt left out. And that wasn't because they were exclusive. In fact, they both made every effort to talk with him as they hiked through the deserted forest. Maybe that was what clued him in. They were trying too hard.
He could tell the dynamic of their trio had changed overnight. Joe and Mimi were two of the original chosen children; they fought battles when he was still in preschool. But ever since he woke up that morning he could tell something else bonded them together. Yesterday, Mimi had been flirting relentlessly. Now her and Joe kept each other at a distance, putting Cody in the middle. Cody felt like a third wheel.
He also felt guilty for leaving Yolei alone. Despite the fact that she was three years his senior, he had always taken it upon himself to look after her. He was the calm to her panic. He could only imagine how she'd reacted when they never came back.
Cody wondered if she was here, trapped inside Izzy's computer program or if she was in some other world. Either way, he hoped that Davis was sober by now. He tended to make Yolei mad enough not to panic.
They had been walking along winding paths in the forest for hours, stopping occasionally so Mimi could rest her feet. Blisters had formed from her heels which she now carried in her hands.
Her sweet voice pulled him from his thoughts. "Are you okay, Cody?"
"I'm just thinking about Yolei and Davis."
She looked to Joe. Cody could tell his words had upset her.
"Don't worry, Mimi," Joe said. "They've both been in the digital world on their own before. They can handle themselves until we find them again."
"I'm more concerned about them handling each other," Cody said.
Mimi instantly brightened. "I'm sure they're doing just fine."
Both Joe and Cody looked at her in disbelief.
"Maybe you have been gone too long, Mimi," Joe replied. "We have to pry those two apart with a crowbar when they go at it."
Mimi erupted into a fit of giggles.
Joe went pink. "You know what I mean," he stammered.
Still laughing, Mimi wiped giddy tears from her eyes. "The sexual tension is real!"
Cody cleared his throat in disagreement, recalling a million memories of Yolei (usually changing into various outfits and asking his opinion) and all of them revolving around Ken.
"Ohhhh, Cody's got the dirty details," Mimi said. "Spill."
He shook his head. "I don't think Yolei is interested in Davis."
"Or vice versa," said Joe. "I'm not even in high school anymore and I still get to hear all about the drama."
"I'm not even in the country anymore and I probably know more than you do," said Mimi, shaking her hips a little as she stepped daintily over an oversized root. "And I still say I'm right."
Cody thought of the way everyone was slowly drifting apart. "Things would be a lot easier if we would just stop dating each other."
Mimi immediately stopped and turned on him. "That's stupid."
"Mimi," Joe began, but she put her foot down.
"You don't just not do something because it's hard or inconvenient," she said. "And you don't give up just because you made a mistake."
"I'm sorry," Cody said. "I didn't mean to offend you."
Mimi softened. "We've been through a lot together. I know that doesn't automatically make us compatible, but it makes us close." She seemed to swallow a bit and she looked away.
"I don't feel close to anyone anymore," said Cody.
Before he could move, Mimi had grabbed him into a tight squeeze. Now that he'd grown, they were the same height, but he felt like a child in her embrace. She let him go without saying anything else and her head seemed to hang low when they continued silent in the silent world.
They walked for quite some time before it was broken.
"Oh, thank God!" Mimi squealed. "I love Digiworld."
A vending machine was just ahead, nestled between a couple of trees. Cody's stomach suddenly growled at the prospect of food. He hadn't even realized he was hungry.
Mimi pranced up to the machine and examined its contents.
"I'm sorry about that," Joe said under his breath to Cody. "She can be… sensitive."
Cody shook his head. "I shouldn't have said anything."
Mimi turned around. "Joe?" They both looked like they had been caught when Mimi wiggled her hips, almost in a dance. "You don't happen to have any digi-dollars do you?"
Joe pulled the foreign currency out of his bag of tricks and handed it to her. Mimi immediately kissed him, square on the lips.
Cody averted his eyes, but it was so innocent that by the time he had looked away it was over and Mimi was happily picking out her snack. Joe looked like he was going to try to explain, but only ended up stammering.
Mimi saved him from further embarrassment and handed both boys some Pocky. Sitting on a rock, she popped one in her mouth and rested her sore feet while Cody helped Joe buy more snacks to add to his bag of supplies.
They continued their search through the woods, passing various road signs and munching on snacks in silence. Cody felt heavy. He barely noticed as they came to the end of the world.
...
...
"Maybe we should leave the city."
"We're not leaving."
It bothered Sora how well she could read them: that the passive-aggressive tone creeping into Matt's voice was really empathetic frustration, and the way Tai snapped back really just meant he had no clue what to do. She wondered if they'd always sound the same and if there would be a day when someone else would be the one to notice.
It was one of many reasons she was considering going to college somewhere else. Because even after breaking up with Matt, she still felt stuck between them.
Through no fault of their own.
It's not like they asked her to hover over them like a mother hen their whole childhoods. She was the one who felt the need to make sure Matt remembered to eat before a concert or a visit with his mother. And Sora had volunteered herself to act as a third alarm whenever Tai pity-slept after losing a game (the order went clock, Kari, her).
After all, they only might starve or have to repeat their senior year without her.
It was all their fault.
Sora had stuck by Ken's side since they had started searching Machinedramon's city. She was determined not to intervene in the passive aggressive snappy dialogue, even if it killed her.
Ken was politely quiet, only making small talk when it was appropriate and walking in comfortable silence beside her. Sora did, however, notice the stress lines wrinkling across his forehead and almost asked him what was wrong until she remembered she was supposed to stop being a mother.
Behind them, TK and Kari walked with a just enough space to fit another human between them. Their occasional comments about the city died out with time. It took every ounce of willpower Sora had to keep from trying to break the line of palpable tension that swung between their hands.
Was she really such a meddler?
She pouted. No, she wasn't a meddler. She was a caretaker, a peacemaker. This group needed a mom.
Well, that's stupid.
Cursing Mimi's voice in her head, Sora took to watching Matt's back: the tension in his shoulders and the way blonde hairs came to a subtle point just above the collar of his shirt. He let out an audible puff of air and Sora had to look at her feet to avoid noticing.
It was in that moment that she almost walked into Tai's back.
He was squatting beside a manhole cover and he paused to give her a long look before calling, "TK, help me out with this, will you?"
"Sure."
Matt frowned at his brother as he scurried to Tai's side like he had been called by his commanding officer.
"Do you really think we're going to find Izzy down there?" Matt asked.
"I don't know," grunted Tai as they team-lifted the heavy cover from the street. It scraped against the asphalt and rung loudly through the empty city. "But I gotta go with my gut."
"You're trusting your gut on an empty stomach?"
Laughing, Tai pressed a hand to his middle. "Shut up."
It was the subtle smile on Matt's face that said he knew he had broken through.
They had been pacing the city for hours, looking for the hospital, an entrance underground, anything besides facing the dessert. It was probably a good thing. Without Kabuterimon to fly them over it, they could be stuck out there for days. Tai had an edge to him the entire time, a sort of anxious stiffness to his gait, accentuated by Kari's silence.
"To be honest," Tai said, swinging his legs into the manhole, "I'm lost without Izzy. My memory of this place is one big blur." He gazed at Kari and her lips pursed, annoyed at his hovering.
Sora interceded. "We're all lost without Izzy."
When Tai's sad smile met her, she noticed Matt's fade.
TK gave a commiseratory nod. "I can't even remember my own memory."
Laughing again, Tai lowered himself into the manhole and Sora watched the darkness swallow him whole.
...
...
The morning was strange.
Yolei had woken up stiff. Her body stayed unconsciously still through the night, trying to take up as little room as possible. One leg was asleep and she gave it a little shake only to find Davis's calf weighing it down. He gave a groan beside her, burying his face in his pillow and Yolei suddenly noticed his hand was wedged under her stomach, right below her boob.
She shot up, remembering the night and all that had led up to it like a disjointed dream. Ugh, Davis was never going to let her live this down… then on second thought, he'd probably be too embarrassed to tell anyone she had coerced him into bed with her.
She sure was.
A low snore rumbled beside her and, ignoring the pins and needles running down her leg, Yolei shook his off. When Davis still didn't wake, she planned out her next course of action, because things were already awkward enough without them waking up in bed together.
Cursing his tiny room and the wall blocking her in, Yolei got on her hands and knees and the frame creaked beneath her. Her bum leg stretched over Davis's backend and she carefully snuck a hand around his shoulder, gripping the edge of the mattress. Then, the moment she tried to put weight on her sleeping leg, it went out and her other knee slammed right into Davis's butt.
In a dream-like stupor, Davis snapped to his side and his elbow caught Yolei in the ribs. She grabbed the back of his shirt as she fell sideways, taking him down with her.
They landed in a heap on the floor and it took Yolei crying, "OWWWWW! Ow, ow, ow, OW!" for Davis to come to enough to roll off her.
"What the hell?" he groaned, rubbing his tailbone, still not quite there. "Why does my ass hurt?"
Pushing off the ground, Yolei squealed, "You just hit me!"
"I did not! OW!" He covered his face when another palm wailed into him. "Damnit, Yolei!"
She gave him an angry shove for measure. Then, holding her side, she hobbled to her feet. "Remind me never to sleep with you again."
He looked offended. "What'd I do?"
"You elbowed me!"
"That's it?"
"What do you mean, 'that's it'?"
"Just makin' sure."
"I'm not even going to ask."
"Good." The heel of his palm rubbed his eyes as he found the clock. "Ugh..."
Yolei hobbled to his window and pushed her fingers through the blinds. A sky of grey lit the silent world, drowning in rain.
"Well," she sighed, "it's morning."
"Great…"
They spent the rest of their time in the Motomiya apartment packing. A horde of tampons weighed down Davis's backpack, just in case.
"Do we really have to walk all the way to your house?" Davis whined once they'd made it outside.
"I need clothes," Yolei said, tugging at the miniskirt she'd worn the day before. She sort of missed his baggy pajamas.
She looked around the dead city streets, feeling the chill of the rain pouring around her umbrella. Cars were parked on the curb, but not one was moving. " I don't think we're catching the bus. This is so creepy."
"Let's drive," Davis said, wiping water from a car window. His mouth broke into a wide toothy grin. "Yolei, look. I remembered keys."
"What?" Yolei bent over beside him and sure enough, she could see keys hanging out of the ignition. "Okay, this program obviously takes into account wishful thinking."
"Score. Maybe we'll find a million bucks in the gutter."
"Why the gutter?"
"You don't have that dream?"
Davis insisted on driving even though Yolei was the only one of them who'd taken Driver's Ed. "It's not like I can crash into anyone," he said before proceeding to jolt them forward at a million miles an hour.
"Less gas!" Yolei shrieked and then, "Use your windshield wipers!"
He literally bent in half, head hanging below the steering wheel. "Where they at?"
"Omigod, we're going to die!"
Water splashed up the side of her window and the car swerved sideways.
"Found 'em!"
"Look at the road!"
"Relax, I got this."
"If you don't slow down, I'm going to kill you!"
He actually had the nerve to accelerate even more.
The rest of the ride consisted of them screaming at eachother and hard braking around every turn. Yolei was sure her breakfast was going to make a comeback and she usually didn't get carsick. So when she saw her apartment complex, she shouted, "This is it!" with such relief and authority that Davis turned too sharp, too fast.
Yolei went for the steering wheel.
They slammed right into a streetlight.
The car hissed and Davis's grin broke through her cracked lens. "That was awesome."
Yolei glared. "I hate you."
After popping open an umbrella (in the closed car like an idiot), Davis squeezed through the door to survey the damage. Yolei took a minute to catch her breath before joining him.
The entire front bumper was hanging from the frame.
"Yikes," he said.
"I'm driving next time."
Davis laughed, looking so damn tired and cheerful at once that Yolei had to resist the urge to punch him.
"I like you better when you're hungover," she said.
"I like you better when you're not PMSing."
The rain was so heavy against their umbrella it almost sounded like hail. Yolei pulled her sweater tight. The apartments were as dead as the rest of the world. They came to a stop outside her door, her hand hesitating on the knob.
"What if you didn't remember?"
"Of course I remember. I've been to your house a zillion times."
Yolei took a deep breath and prepared for the worst. Her front door swung open and everything was almost the same. Except the lamp was the wrong shade of red and the art on the wall looked like a mad splash of color.
"Hey," Davis giggled, "pigs."
Yolei found the pink slippers by her feet. The rest of her family's shoes were gone. For a wishful second, she imagined her parents hiding out in her room, where they'd yell surprise and tell her everything was one huge elaborate hoax they'd pulled just to prank her… until she remembered she wasn't that important.
Yolei pulled off her heels and slipped on the little pigs while Davis made himself at home on her couch, kicking his sneakers onto the coffee table.
"Your shoes," she scolded.
"Not your real house."
With a huff, she stormed past him, making sure to give him a nice flick in the ear on her way. It gave her an odd sense of satisfaction to hear him whine all the way to her room.
Inside, her bed was in tact, complete with stuffed animals and Poromon's sleeping basket. She should have come home to sleep. It would certainly beat Matt's creepy stare and getting bruised in the ribs.
Except for the quiet. Even after Mantarou and Momoe went off to college, the house was still chaotic: her parents and Chizuru were always going in and out between shifts at I-Mart. Yolei still had a hard time getting a word in with them about anything else.
After Chizuru leaves, Yolei would have her parents to herself. And then they'd probably try to convince her to work at I-Mart for a living. At least then they'd have some benefit to having a woops baby.
Yolei collapsed onto her bedspread, rubbing fingers under her glasses.
"You dressed yet?" Davis asked from down the hall.
"I've been in here for two seconds," she snapped and then, rolling her head to the side, she stifled a scream. Her hand lashed out, knocking the picture frame on her nightstand to the floor.
"What was that?!"
Yolei was hanging over the side of the bed, picking up the broken shards of glass when Davis bust in.
"Didn't you hear me?" he asked, sounding frustrated. "What happened?"
She looked up at him, anger swelling at the only living thing she could direct it at. "This is your fault."
She shoved the shredded picture into his hand. The faces of her family were twisted: inhuman blobs molded in unknowable positions. She couldn't even tell who was who.
"How is this my fault?"
Yolei jumped to her feet and started pulling open dresser drawers, all empty. Her eyelids burned.
"You and your stupid memory! Everything's wrong. Everyone's gone. I want my family back! I want my clothes back! I want to go home! I hate this stupid program and this stupid place!"
Cursing herself for sounding four, Yolei shoved past him and into the hallway, beelining for the door.
"Where you goin?"
"Cody's!"
Ignoring Davis grumbling at her heels, Yolei headed out in her pig slippers, turned right and marched three apartments down. Out of habit, she knocked. When no one answered she tried the knob.
The door opened to a world of black.
