Antiseptic:

Taichi and Jyou

iorekbyrnison

Sometimes Yagami Taichi believed that Kido Jyou could be the most evil person on the planet.

Okay, so that wasn't exactly true, but the blue haired future doctor was certainly in the top ten, somewhere below the Dark Masters and above Taichi's 5th period math teacher.

Of course, Taichi owed such thoughts to a combination of Jyou's future career and his own penchant for injuring himself almost daily. Antiseptic certainly wasn't Taichi's favorite invention, but Jyou carried it around along with a roll of bandages specifically for instances when the brunette, in his infinite soccer stardom, managed to scrape his knees numerous times while taking a particularly spectacular yet gravity defying dives to steal the ball and score a goal.

Taichi winced as the sting reached the wound. Sure, he was used to this feeling. It haunted his dreams sometimes, when they were particularly innocent, but that didn't stop the former leader from hating it. "Jyou! That hurt!"

Jyou merely glanced at Taichi over his wide rimmed glasses before shaking his head and jabbing the cotton swab once again against the brunette's knee. Taichi growled and hissed at the pain frowning in indignation because he just knew the warrior of reliability was using his longish blue hair to cover a smirk. Jyou was enjoying this. He always did.

"Taichi, if you didn't do such crazy things on the soccer field then I wouldn't have to fix you up after every game." Jyou was finally pulling out the bandages and Taichi let out a sigh of relief.

Flailing his arms a bit the brunette exclaimed, "But did you see that goal? It was the greatest. The others were all in place and the goalie didn't even see it coming. We were awesome today and you know it!"

Jyou smiled fondly at his friend's enthusiasm. "Well, I'm glad you felt it was worth it."

Taichi glanced down at the kneeling boy who gently placed a bandage over his wounded knee before gathering his supplies back into his ever present medical bag. Suddenly the warrior of courage was smacked with an overwhelming sensation of deja vu. Jyou and he had been in this situation far too many times to count. It was as natural listening to Yamato play music or watching Koushirou calmly type programs into his laptop. Whenever Taichi was broken Jyou patched him up without complaint. It wasn't for practice in the field. It wasn't because Taichi asked him too. Jyou simply did it because they were friends and cared for each other.

Taichi had always marveled at the changes that the Digital World had wrought in his often worry riddled friend, but he had never thought on it so deeply. This Jyou, calmly situating his bag upon his shoulder and beginning to walk towards their waiting friends was not the young nerd back in the Digital World worried about one disease or another. He was not the boy who felt he needed to prove to himself and others the merit of his crest. This Jyou was reliable through and through.

"Jyou?" The boy stopped and turned back, something in Taichi's voice compelled him to listen and remember this moment. Watching his leader, the person that had taken them through the Digital World on courage and faith alone Jyou stood caught between Taichi and the rest of his friends.

It took Taichi a moment. He was no longer the leader of the digidestined and his friends were all going on without him, but that didn't mean he couldn't relish the moments they all still shared. If his friends represented the future, then he might be okay with being a representation of the past. Such things were important as Yamato was always telling him and Taichi honestly couldn't take the feeling of not knowing why he was so attached to things already committed to memory. Looking towards his blue haired friend and further back at the rest of the digidestined that had come to view his soccer game Taichi felt himself growing smaller and yet larger at the same time. The things he remembered, the adventures in the Digital World, the unfinished feeling in his soul, and his friends surpassing all that he could ever become were all things that he could deal with if they all lived happy lives.

"Is something wrong Taichi?" Jyou was frowning now because even he could feel that maybe something was coming to a close. Taichi merely looked at his friend and smiled a dazzling smile than ran through to his brown eyes and bathed the warrior of reliability as well as the rest of the digidestined with a warm glow. It was a smile of the past. It was the smile Taichi gave when he was proud of his team or when he was taking watch over the sleeping digidestined those long lonely nights in the Digital World. That smile was the sincerest that Taichi could produce and it seemed to light his face.

"Thank you for always being there Jyou. You're the most reliable person I know." And somehow when Taichi said it, those words struck deep into the blue haired boy's soul. Something had just happened. Something had happened that was irreversible, terrible, and yet wonderful at the same time. It would be a long time before the future doctor figured out exactly what it was, but Taichi had begun to walk towards him signaling the end of the conversation so Jyou too turned and walked towards their waiting friends completely missing the words that slipped out of the warrior of courage's lips.

"I'll be the past if you all can just keep working towards the future."

And then the brunette joined his friends, the scent of antiseptic wafting around him and its sting traveling upwards before finally resting in his soul.

-AN: I don't know what to think of this chapter at all. It was supposed to be relatively simple and slightly humorous, but as you can see that did not go as planned. I have three POV chapters to complete: Ken, Hikari, and Koushirou's. I originally already had Koushirou's planned out and in fact, it's already written, but I don't think it fits into the vibe of the story anymore, so I may rewrite it or maybe just edit it. To those of you who are reading this fic and are wondering where the heck I am going with it, just be patient. I'll get there eventually. I don't know how quick my updates will be for the next week, but I would like to get a chapter up for The 7th Child as I've been neglecting it quite a bit. I also have work and homework, but I'll try to get up the Ken chapter next. Hikari and Koushirou's chapters will take a lot more planning on my part.

I would like to take a second to thank you all for the positive reviews and for the adds! Things like that encourage me to keep writing. :)

More Soon! Please Review and thank you all so much for reading!