CHAPTER TEN
She wasn't crazy! Hikari thought with a little too much enthusiasm as she hung up the phone. She was right! She was right when she told Koushiro that something was going to happen and it did. She was right this morning when she argued with her mother about the existence of an older brother. She was right. Sitting on her bedroom floor, her past yearbooks and photo albums sprawled around her, six people noticeably absent from places they belonged. She looked at the camera on her lap, the memory card that she had gone through with Koushiro, just yesterday, was somehow tampered with. There were still pictures of Udo and the other band members, but in the ones where Yamato should have been in was filled with blank space or another band member.
Hikari put her phone in her pocket and the camera on her desk and walked down the hall. The pictures on the wall were of her, none of Taichi. His room was filled with her mother's yoga equipment and a treadmill. Even his bag of soccer gear that lived at the front door was gone.
"Where are you off to? Yuuko asked her daughter.
As she pulled her shoe over her heel and looked at her mother with resentment to a crime that Mrs. Yagami had no fault in, Hikari scowled. "I'm meeting Takeru."
"Be back by dinnertime." Her mother responded with an oven-mitt and apron looking alien on Hikari's terrible cook of a mother. Hikari didn't even want to face the thought that Tai's absence had turned their mother into a chef. The yummy smell filtering out of the oven answered this question for Hikari as she opened and closed the front door behind her.
They were meeting at the soccer field. Ken and Daisuke's teams were having a much anticipated soccer game against each other, Miyako had requested that Hikari film it for her, but this seemed to pale in comparison to the problem at hand. They were gone. Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Jyou, Koushiro and Mimi. Apparently they had never existed in the first place. She was now an only child, and according to Takeru, he had the same news. Apparently Takeru's father had seemed like a completely different person too, married even. She decided discovering there was a possibility her mother was a good cook was laughable compared to Takeru's news, and that sharing it would not help their cause.
He was waiting there when she arrived. "Ken's team is winning." He said blankly. They both knew this was not relevant and was just a way to prolong the onset of pain that was going to come when they had to actually say the words out loud. Their brothers and their friends were gone.
A whistle blew, indicating the end of the game and several dozen cheers rang throughout the field. Hikari and Takeru stood by the curb, unmoving and not speaking to each other, but they mutually knew that they had to wait for Daisuke and Ken. The missing brothers would cause emotion in their decisions and the extra points-of-view could help.
"Hey, Hikari!" Daisuke called as he ran up to join them. "Hikari, maybe you should edit the tape, make it look like my team actually won. It'll surprise Miyako and make their relationship more interesting."
"I didn't film it." Hikari replied simply and Daisuke shrugged.
"Good. We can tell Miyako I won."
Ken came jogging up behind Daisuke and chuckled. "Nice try, Davis." Ken was the only one who consistently remembered that Daisuke was trying to change over to an American form of his name.
"Guess what, Hikari!" Daisuke exclaimed, ignoring Ken. "I'm team captain! I guess Taichi never showed up to his meeting this morning, the coach never said anything about it, he just gave me the captain's jersey and that was it! No one even congratulated me, like it was old news!"
Hikari squinted, relieved that at least Daisuke remembered her brother, but her brother's loss of the coveted position on their soccer team gave her the cue to relay the bad news. "Tai's gone." She choked out.
Ken and Daisuke exchanged confused glances, "Gone off the team?" Daisuke asked.
She shook her head and Ken folded his arms. "Gone like how?"
Hikari opened her mouth to speak but closed it instead, averting her gaze from any of the three boys.
"Gone like he doesn't exist anymore." Takeru answered instead. The words hit Hikari like someone had just kicked that soccer ball into her stomach. "None of them do. Yamato, Mimi, Sora, Koushiro, Jyou… they're just gone. Their own parents don't remember them."
"Do you have any idea where they are?" Ken asked, trying to be considerate of his friends missing siblings. "Is it… a Digital World situation?" When he mentioned the other world, he lowered his voice as if it would stop someone from overhearing.
"We don't know." Hikari said softly. "I was thinking maybe they somehow were sent to the Dark Ocean." Her gaze locked in Ken's for a moment and she knew he was replaying his memory of being trapped there, just as she was replaying hers.
Takeru put his hands into his pocket. "I disagree."
Hikari scoffed, of course you do, she thought.
"Remember when we were in New York visiting Mimi and she disappeared? She and the others were sent to another dimension, if you remember." He looked at Hikari's irritated face and Daisuke's uncharacteristically pensive one. Ken looked uneasy, he always did when they talked about their Digital World related experiences when he was still Emperor.
Hikari was tempted to say he was just bringing this up because it related to the story he was writing, but she didn't.
"Well, maybe this is connected. It's the same six of them that went, the six original digidestined. Not including Hikari and myself."
Ken nodded, "I don't know that whole situation very well, but it makes sense."
Hikari scoffed again.
"Stop doing that!" Takeru scolded. "Is it so hard for you to consider that I'm right?"
Hikari opened her mouth to speak, like she had earlier, but this time instead of stopping because of emotions, she stopped because Daisuke butted in.
"Hey, hey, hey now. No need to bring your domestic issues into this situation. Ever thought that you're both wrong? Maybe they're just stuck in the good, old fashioned Digiworld. Some creepy new bad guy is holding them captive and it's up to us to save them!" He struck a dramatic pose and Ken coughed to mask a laugh that Hikari caught anyway.
"I still say it's the Dark Ocean." Hikari said stubbornly.
Takeru shrugged, "Maybe. Or maybe Davis is right."
"What was that?" Daisuke exclaimed, his smile taking up the majority of his face. "Did you hear that, Kenny Boy? Takeru said I was right!" He said Davis was right!" They all watched the ecstatic boy thrust his thumb proudly to his chest.
Takeru's phone vibrated, the noise catching all their attention as Takeru reached into his pocket to check it.
Hikari could see his phone, a blue screen indicating a new message with the name prominently displayed in the middle, almost laughing at Hikari with a snooty French accent.
CATHERINE
She was about to say something but Ken nudged her. His silent warning stopped her again and Takeru spoke, "Well, it's three o'clock." He said as he replaced the phone back into his pocket.
"How about we meet at my house tomorrow morning?" Daisuke asked, still beaming from Takeru's comment.
Three heads nodded in assent and Hikari opened her mouth to speak, holding it ajar for a moment-waiting for someone to interrupt or stop her, but instead, the three boys looked to her patiently. "What are we going to do? We have no plan."
Daisuke put his hands on his hips, "Well, as I am leader, I think the first step is for everyone to find their digivices and bring them. That way whatever we decide, we are prepared."
"By that you mean we're going to the Digital World." Hikari said bluntly.
Daisuke started to talk but this time it was Takeru's turn to interrupted him, "We haven't decided anything. We'll decide tomorrow. Until then we can think of ideas and we'll share them in the morning. Eight o'clock, Motomiya residence."
There were three nods of agreement, Hikari's was more reluctantly than the others, but still present.
They turned to go their separate ways. Ken towards the metro-station, Takeru towards his apartment and Daisuke in the opposite direction towards his. But Hikari stayed. She watched the last of the soccer players packing up their gear in duffle bags and walking away. Taichi should be there.
She shouldn't be waiting until tomorrow to save him. She should be doing something now. Now she was no longer the victim and Taichi was. All of them were. She was their only hope and if there was one way to step out of the victim shoes it was to slip into hero ones. Hikari slid her hand into her pocket and felt the weight of her pink and white digivice as she clutched it in her hand. She was going to do something even if she had to do it herself.