Remember
Chapter Three: A Second Chance
"I want you to give him another chance."
"Tell me one thing. What are you hoping to get outta this?"
"Your insurmountable happiness."
"Bullshit."
"Davis."
"I hate it when you say my name like that. I'm gonna go now, Ken."
"Primary Village at nine."
"I won't be there."
With that Davis tapped the red icon on his phone, turning off the speaker. His finger left a long smear of wet flour and he cursed, using his frilly apron to wipe it off.
"You two are so domestic," said Mimi, hands buried in dough, kneading.
Her kitchen was covered with ingredients, each one in it's own neat little bowl, just like the ones they used on cooking shows. Davis had always thought she had her sous-chefs do it so it looked fancy for TV, but apparently Mimi was fancy all the time. No surprise there.
Davis usually cooked pouring things straight out of their original containers, using nothing more than his eyeballs to know when he had enough.
"You should see how he's been acting," he said. "I swear you'd think we were the ones getting divorced." He pounded on a heap of dough with the palms of hands. "You think it needs more flour?"
"It's a little wet." Mimi grabbed a tablespoon and dumped it over his hands. "Speaking of, I saw Yolei on Saturday."
"Pffft!"
"No spitting in the kitchen!"
"I'm sorry." He wiped his mouth, laughing. "It's just the last thing you said is, 'It's a little wet' and then you…" Before he could finish, he imagined Yolei, rolling her eyes at him.
Stop being so immature.
"Nevermind." He hit the dough so hard the counter shook.
"Please don't hurt yourself."
He looked up to frown at Joe, who sat on a barstool at the kitchen island, typing up some sort of doctor stuff.
"Why not? I'm in good hands."
"I'm off duty," said Joe. His fingers paused and he looked up from his laptop, one eyebrow raising under his lens. "Wait, are you serious? You shouldn't joke about self-harm."
"Omigod, Joe," said Mimi. "Don't go all psychiatric on us."
"I tried to impale myself on a rock," Davis said. "It wasn't sharp enough."
"That's not funny."
"I'm not joking."
"You two will get past this," said Mimi, breaking in before Joe felt the need to medically intervene. "It's not the first time you broke up."
Davis frowned and hammered the dough again. "I thought I was here to pound my frustrations into bread."
"With wine," said Mimi. "Joe?"
"Oh yeah, wine. The perfect companion to depression."
"Please just pour us some."
He did, grumbling about enablers and the code of ethics he was supposed to abide by.
"I miss Palmon," said Mimi. "She always gets me wine without complaining."
"Want me to pick her up from Digiworld for you?" asked Davis.
"I thought you weren't going."
Davis grabbed the stem of his glass with his wrists, not wanting to smear it with flour.
"You're going to drop it and cut yourself," scolded Joe.
"You're here." Davis took a long gulp of chardonnay and grimaced. "Ugh, I hate whites."
"Racist."
Laughing, he set down his glass, watching as it trembled on the granite. "Joe, have I ever told you how much I love your wife?"
Mimi tossed her hair, showing the wrinkled pink scar on her forearm. "Who doesn't?"
"You're a lucky man."
"So are you," she said. "I still remember your wedding like it was yesterday."
"I'm going to leave."
"When you piggybacked her into the reception hall, I literally died." ("No you didn't.") "Oh and when you let her smother you in cake and then you rubbed your face all over hers and she wasn't even mad. Ugh, it hurt. It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen."
"Okay, I'm gonna pound the shit outta this dough now."
"Mimi, let him be."
"Oh, fine, it's just he didn't see her the other day. She's miserable without him."
Davis pressed his palms into the dough without force, letting them sink there. He stared at it for a minute. "I think it's ready."
"Yes. Time to rise these puppies."
They finally went back to baking and after a few more nagging comments, Mimi dropped the subject. Once the dough had risen and they'd thrown it into the oven, they talked about their respective businesses, rolling culinary ideas off each other over wine and an assortment of chocolates Joe had picked up from the hospital's gift shop.
The oven timer went off at the same time the doorbell rang.
"I'll get it," said Mimi. "Can you grab the bread?"
Davis gave her a salute and stood, already a little dizzy from the wine. When she had disappeared into the foyer, he turned to Joe with a shit-eating grin.
"So when are you gonna put a bun in that oven?"
"Oh boy."
"Is that what you're hoping for?"
"Oh sure," Mimi said from around the corner. "I've got wine and cheese and chocolate and Davis and I just made fresh—"
Whatever she said stopped registering the moment he lifted from the oven to find Yolei staring at him.
She hadn't changed at all. It'd only been a couple weeks, but that last time he'd seen her she was throwing her ring at him. It felt like a hundred years.
She looked like nothing was wrong, nice and neat in a pencil skirt she'd probably worn to work. Her long hair was tucked into a bun and her eyes were round and made up under dark rimmed glasses. The soft pink of her lips pressed together into a thin tight line.
"Mimi?" was all she said.
"Bread?" offered Davis, holding out the hot pan until he thought better of it. He sort of hugged it to his chest, ignoring the burn. "What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Mimi invited me," they both answered.
They turned to the culprit who had already gone back to casually sipping her wine.
"You two are so cute," she said. "I'm going to put in the brie."
"Mimi," scolded Joe. She ignored him, pulling a round of cheese from the fridge. He looked between the estranged couple, going red. "I am so sorry."
"It's fine," said Davis. "Bread's baked. Wine's drank. I'm good."
"I'm gonna go," said Yolei.
"Nope, no, you're fine." He put the pan on the counter. "I'm good. This is great."
"You're both good. Sit down."
"Mimi you can't," started Joe, standing up. She immediately put plates into his hands which he grabbed without thinking. "You can't just pull an intervention with people's marriages."
"They aren't people, they're our friends." Mimi buzzed past him while he began to set the table, grabbing another glass from the cabinet and filling it with wine. "This is for their mental health," she added, as if they both weren't there, watching her talk about them.
She forced the glass into Yolei's hands.
"I don't want any," she said, but Mimi was already off, humming as she pulled out utensils. Joe followed her with heated whispers, leaving the two of them sort of alone.
"Oh trust me, you do," said Davis, sitting down at the table and pulling out his phone. He started texting Ken.
She's here
I'm buzzed
I'm gonna say something stupid
I'll go visit the creeper again if you get me the hell outta this
He waited for what felt like an eternity and no ellipsis appeared.
"I know you're there," he grumbled.
"Are you texting Ken?" asked Yolei, peering over his shoulder.
Davis flipped over his phone. "No."
She stared at him, hard, and he couldn't tell if she was mad or something else. "Why do you do that?"
"What?"
"Lie. Especially when it's obvious you're lying."
"I'm not," he lied.
"I don't care if you're texting Ken," she said, taking a sip of the wine she claimed she didn't want. "He's your friend."
"He's your friend too."
The expression on her face seemed to change at that, the irritation quickly fizzling away. She sat down, making sure to leave a chair between them.
"All our friends are the same," Davis said, not sure why he kept talking. "I'm going to see you all the time."
Yolei frowned. "How terrible for you."
"That's not what I meant."
But it was too late, the little bit of something else on her face had already gone hard. "You have other friends. What about the guys in your soccer league?"
"Tai?"
"Sure, fine. Or go hang out with one of the other ones."
"Do you even know their names?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Do you all like jam on your brie?" asked Mimi.
"You can't just claim all our friends," said Davis, thinking back to what she was implying. "Don't you still talk to your college roommate? She'd probably love to get together so you can talk crap about me. Just like old times."
"Blackberry or strawberry?" asked Mimi.
"Blackberry!"
"Strawberry!"
They both drank their wine.
"Water." Joe shoved two glasses full in front of them and then in a low voice said, "You guys really don't have to do this...here."
Mimi came up to the table with the warm loaf presented on a plate with more chocolate and a couple of fresh cut flowers, all neatly arranged. "Relax. Eat. Everything is better over food."
"Mimi, you're sweet, but—"
"I like food," said Davis, reaching over to rip off a piece of the loaf with his bare hands. "I'll get the cheese." He shoved the heel of bread into his mouth and grabbed his phone, escaping to the oven. He stood over it, chewing and glaring at his unanswered texts when he finally saw an ellipsis appear under his SOS to Ken. It disappeared and appeared again.
Great, he was getting a lecture.
He peered back at the table where Yolei was now talking to Mimi in a hushed voice, hand ripping under her hair, loosening the bun from her scalp.
"I mean, you're still friends," Mimi said a little too loud. She had definitely drank twice as much wine as he had and it was starting to show.
"Then why are we like this?" Yolei mumbled, just loud enough for him to hear.
"We're not friends?"
Davis's voice came out way more choked than it should have and he blamed the wine for that too. She turned to him as if she had forgotten he was only ten feet away. Her head shook, eyes flickering away, like she couldn't say it to his face.
"Right." Why did his throat feel so sticky? "Okay."
"You're friends," Mimi interjected harshly. "No matter what happens you're still friends."
He rubbed his eye with his palm. "Can I take half the loaf to go?"
"Davis."
How could she say his name so sweet when she hated him?
"You're right," he mumbled, not daring to look at her. "If we could be friends, then we'd still be together, right?"
His phone started ringing in his hands before he had the chance to read the paragraph Ken had sent him. "Gotta go. Ken's calling."
He stepped outside of the kitchen and then hurried out the front door, swiping the green phone on his screen.
"Still need a reason to leave?" Ken asked.
"Nope, I got one already," said Davis. "Can I come over tonight? I don't want to be alone."
"Sure."
The door opened behind him and his heart jumped into his throat, but it was only Joe. He was unbuttoning the collar of his shirt, looking traumatized, but his voice came out calm and steady.
"Want me to drive you?"
Davis shook his head. "Gonna take the train."
"I'm really really sorry about this. I told her it was too soon to get involved. I didn't know she invited you both."
"S'fine. I get it. I know she's just tryin to help."
Joe nodded, lips pulled tight. He glanced at Davis's phone. "Ken, can you let us know when he makes it there safe?"
"Of course," Ken said over the speaker. "He's good on his own?"
"I'm right here," said Davis. "I'm not drunk. It was just a couple glasses."
"I'll wait at the station for you."
Davis didn't want to argue, so he hung up.
"You might want to take Mimi's apron off before you go."
He looked down at his chest, lined with pink frills and the words Kiss the Cook! written in long cursive letters. He reached behind his neck to untie it.
"Was I wearing this the whole time?"
Joe took the apron and gave him a friendly grasp on the shoulder. "For what it's worth, she never actually said you weren't friends."
Davis pocketed his phone and looked at the door, almost wishing she would come after him, but she didn't.
"Sometimes it's the things she doesn't say."
...
...
"Long night?"
Yolei flopped into the back of the sofa and curled into a tight ball, falling sideways. Momoe's couch was the most comfortable thing ever, which was a good thing since it had become her new bed.
"Don't wanna talk about it."
"I thought you were at Mimi's." Momoe paused the television and looked at her over her glasses. "I would've waited for you. Baby's finally asleep. We're only one episode in."
A series of words were mumbled into the couch cushion.
"What was that?"
Yolei freed her lips. "She invited Davis."
"Are you two really still fighting? I thought you usually just banged it out."
"I regret telling you anything about my life."
Momoe shrugged her shoulders. "Fight hard, play hard. Ugh, babies ruin everything. I miss makeup sex."
"Please stop."
"This is the longest you've been apart since college."
Yolei uncurled from her ball. "We're getting a divorce, Momoe."
Her sister clicked her tongue. "I've heard that at least twice since you've been married. Remember the first year?"
"I don't want to."
"If you can get past all that, you'll work it out."
Yolei shoved herself to sitting and then leaned until her head was pressed over Momoe's shoulder. "What if we shouldn't?"
And when Momoe didn't answer right away, tears sprung to her eyes.
"The problem is on the surface we might make up, but all the fights, they still sit there in the past, adding up. I can hardly remember the good stuff anymore. I'm miserable. He's miserable." She tore off her glasses to rub her face. "We were better off as friends. I wish we were still friends."
"You should go home."
Yolei let out a high-pitched squeak of terror.
"Yolei!" Momoe covered her mouth with the palm of her hand. "You'll wake the baby."
She pried her hand from her mouth and hissed, "You didn't tell me Jun was here!"
She threw her glasses back on to see Jun Motomiya sauntering from the hallway to grab a bowl of popcorn from the kitchen counter.
"You're not the only one who likes to use Momoe's as a safe house," she said, popping a kernel into her mouth. "Never have twins."
Yolei felt her heart clench when Jun plopped down beside them, making the couch cushions sink. "I miss them."
"Just 'cause you and my brother are having issues doesn't mean you're not their aunt, you know."
"Thanks."
"Seriously, steal them anytime." She offered the bowl of popcorn and Yolei took a handful. "Y'know, Davis would probably curl into a ball at your feet if you showed up. He's really pathetic."
"I just saw him," Yolei said, biting back the tears that had been threatening to re-emerge. She shoved popcorn in her mouth and a few kernels flew out as she spoke. "He left almost as soon as I got there."
"Give it a couple more days. Whatever he did, he'll be groveling. That boy worships you."
"Are we talking about the same Davis?"
"My little brother?" Jun looked at her sideways. "How many Davises are you seeing?"
"None."
"It's obvious to the rest of us. Not sure why you don't see it."
Yolei frowned when she saw Momoe nodding her head in agreement.
"What? I can't agree?"
"He makes fun of me—"
"Like a preschool boy in love," said Jun.
"Pushes all my buttons on purpose."
"Please see above."
"Anytime I get mad, I'm crazy." She surrounded the word with air quotes.
"Boys are stupid."
"Finally."
"Look," said Jun. "You might be married to the kid, but I've got the inside scoop since I had to live with him for fifteen years and I'm telling you, he's the crazy one. For you."
"I just vomited in my mouth a little," said Momoe.
"I'm full of cliches when it comes to love." Jun ran fingers through her bangs, and they popped above her forehead in a thick tangled tuft. She looked Yolei in the eye. "I was around to witness the whole falling for you, you know, when you guys had just gotten home after that asshole of a digimon kidnapped you."
Yolei bit her lip and curled her knees into her chest. "I remember. Spring break. Davis covered your room in tampons."
"God, he's such a little shit. He must have spent a small fortune on that prank. Mom was still finding them when they moved. They were hanging from the ceiling like windchimes."
Jun chewed on some more popcorn. "Anyway, I had a sneaking suspicion he liked you then. All he and Ken talked about was if you were okay, if they should go see you, if they should call again, and on and on."
Yolei hugged her knees, feeling her face warm.
"After you finally came over and you guys had that fight, that's when I knew he was a goner. He was a literal wreck when you wouldn't talk to him. Lying around the house and eating and moaning about how stupid he was. I had to resort to giving him a pep-talk, which is not how our sibling relationship works, by the way.
"I've never seen him like that. Not even after the whole Kari fiasco."
A low silence followed and Yolei could feel their sisters looking at each other over her hunched back.
"That was a long time ago, Jun."
She shrugged. "Doesn't make it any less relevant. Especially considering he's acting identical to that now."
Yolei pouted, immediately thinking of how often he acted like he didn't care, shrugging her feelings off like she wasn't worth it. And then, just as she started to get angry, there was some sort of nagging push from another source that made her remember the way his voice shook when he asked if they were friends.
She hid her face in her arms.
"Go home," said Jun. "He's probably waiting at the front door like a sad puppy."
For awhile the three of them binged an old sitcom, munching on popcorn until it was gone. And then, when Yolei wasn't even sure what was happening in the show anymore, she went home.
She stood outside the door for awhile, not sure if she should knock or use her key. And then a sort of resilient anger coursed through her. She was still paying rent and her stuff was there. Why did he get to be the one who stayed anyway?
And a voice bit into the back of her mind as she slipped her key into the lock, sounding eerily like her own.
Because you're the one who decided to leave.
The door opened to darkness and, for a brief moment, her heart stopped, a thousand flashbacks stilling it into terror.
"Davis?"
She turned on the light and found the apartment empty. It looked even smaller now that she'd been gone awhile. Their shared desk (really it was hers) was cluttered with unpaid bills like she'd left it. The chair was shoved sideways, blocking the path to the kitchen, which made her wonder if Davis had been sitting there alone, trying to figure out how to pay them. His coat was thrown over the couch instead of the hook by the door and she nearly tripped over his dirty soccer cleats lying in the middle of the foyer.
She took notes of what had changed, all the little things that normally irked her were left in peace without her to disturb them.
The kitchen sink was clean, something Davis always managed to prioritize despite his lack of tidiness elsewhere. That was another fight they liked to have. His teasing remarks about her being a dirty cook had eventually slipped into snide irritation whenever he found a dish in the sink.
It seemed like all the little things that annoyed them about each other only escalated over the years. But, for some reason, that didn't seem to matter so much now as she walked into their home without him.
The door to their bedroom was half closed and she knocked, just in case he was there. When he didn't answer she stepped inside. There was still a night light plugged into the wall and she used its soft glow to keep herself from tripping over his dirty clothes as she made her way to their unmade bed (one of the few things they actually didn't fight about, because why bother when they'd be back in it later?).
She collapsed on her side, shoving aside an old Gameboy he'd left on her pillow. She laid there awhile, wondering if he had bothered changing the sheets since she'd been gone.
Then she wondered where he was.
Her heart clenched again, feeling stupid for the worry that climbed its way up her throat and burned her eyes.
She curled into the fetal position, dug her D-terminal from the depths of her purse and started typing. She didn't ask where he was, too proud to admit she'd come looking for him.
His reply came a few minutes later.
FROM: Davis Motomiya
TO: Yolei Inoue-Motomiya
SUBJECT: RE: Pulse check
i'm only dead on the inside
...
Somewhere within the backdrop of his dreams Davis could hear the sound of blinds sliding open. A second later, sun burst through his eyelids, forcing him awake. They peeled open to see Ken's silhouette, lit by the morning light spilling through the sliding glass door.
"Why?" he groaned, burying his face back into Ken's couch.
"I told Izzy I'd meet him at nine."
"Why?"
"Because he has other things to do."
"Not going."
"You said you'd give him another chance."
"If you bailed me out," said Davis, half muffled by the cushion. He turned his head to glare at Ken, who had stepped onto the balcony, already drinking a cup of coffee. "Which you didn't."
"When was the last time you saw Izzy?"
Frowning, Davis rubbed his eyes. "Ugh, don't guilt me like that."
"Two birds, one stone."
"You guys are just gonna talk about digicode and all your weird theories and stuff that makes me feel stupid." The moment he said it, he thought of the last time they had all gotten together, Yolei included. He suddenly felt even more tired. "Not going."
When he buried his face again, Ken came inside and put a foot in his back.
"Up."
"When did you get so mean?" Davis whined, pathetically reaching behind his back to slap at Ken's ankle. "Aren't you supposed to be the kid of kindness or something?"
"Being kind is not the same as being nice." His toe dug in. "Sometimes you can't do one without forfeiting the other."
"I like nice better."
"Up."
The only good thing about going to Digiworld was seeing Veemon. The moment Davis and Ken had tumbled out of the tiny outdated television acting as a portal and into a pile of limbs, he was grinning down at them, as if he had been waiting there since they'd left.
"Davish!"
"Hey buddy."
"Ugh, you sound sad," Veemon lisped over every s, making each word starting with it stand out more than it should. "Wormmon said you were sad. I hate it when you're sad, it makes me sad."
"I swear if you don't stop saying the word sad," Davis grumbled. He glared at Ken. Again. "Stop telling the digimon I'm sad."
"Come on," said Ken, Wormmon already propped on his shoulder. "We're late."
It was a good twenty minutes to walk to Primary Village. They passed the swan boat, sitting sad and empty on the lake. Davis tried his best not to look at it.
"Did something happen last night?" Ken asked after they'd walked in silence awhile.
"Not really."
Davis tugged at his fiery bomber jacket. It had grown with him, some adult version of his childhood, still clinging on. Ken's wardrobe never changed when they came. Not since his Emperor days. Digiworld made zero sense.
Annoyed, he tugged off his yellow gloves and shoved them into his pockets. They were miraculously unworn, always like new each time they materialized no matter how damaged they were when he'd left. Izzy used to theorize that Digiworld emulated their desires to make their clothes, but that was probably bogus since their outfits never changed.
Or maybe he hadn't.
He gave a low sigh. "She didn't say we aren't friends."
Ken raised a brow. "I'm not sure I'm following the double negative."
"She sorta implied we weren't friends anymore and when I asked, she just didn't say anything."
"I'm sure that's not what she meant."
"You didn't see the way she looked. Like she didn't want to admit it." Davis kicked a rock with the toe of his boot. "She's right I guess. We don't act like friends."
"Have you guys considered a marriage counselor?"
Davis gave a shrug. "Not really. I think we're both kinda sick of talking to therapists who you can't even tell the whole story too. Feels weird to drag our relationship into all that trauma."
Ken was doing his Ken frown again.
"Yeah, I know our relationship pretty much only happened because trauma, but still."
The air grew tense and the digimon seemed to sense it, staying silent.
"I think, sometimes, that maybe we weren't meant to be together, you know?" Davis kept talking before Ken could object, eyes flickering to his feet. "If we hadn't gotten stuck in that world alone then none of this would've happened. She'd probably be a lot happier."
He rubbed his nose and ran a hand through his hair, suddenly missing the goggles he used to keep there.
"She probably woulda married you."
"That's not what happened," Ken said and his voice sounded so cold Davis didn't dare to look. "You can't judge your life on what if's. That isn't reality."
"Maybe reality got things wrong."
"I think sometimes bad things happen for a reason."
"Or they don't. Sometimes they just happen and nothing good comes from them."
Ken stopped walking. "I know you don't believe that."
The ever-persistent hoard of punimon that frequented Primary Village came scurrying at them then, effectively halting the conversation.
Davis felt tight inside, like his soul was wringing in his body, twisting and churning all the wrong ways. The punimon started jumping all over him as usual and he tried to smile, but it came out weird and forced.
He felt a tug on his shorts and looked down to see Veemon staring at him.
"Everything's going to be okay, Davish."
He nodded, not daring to speak, and rubbed a fist into his partner's head.
"You made it."
He looked up to find Izzy, one arm filled with his laptop (as if you could find him any other way) and the other lifted in greeting. His red hair was cropped short and he wore a mustard button up over a relish t-shirt, making him look like a smart hotdog. He really needed to take Mimi up on her offer to take him shopping.
Tentomon buzzed in the air by his hand, somehow grinning without a mouth.
"Yo, Tentomon, Izzy!" Davis called, trying to sound as normal as possible. "Long time no see."
"Nice to see you," said Izzy. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing off the light scarring on his wrists.
Davis tried not to remember that version of him, the half-dead one hanging by his arms in Animamon's prison. His eyes instantly darted over to the hut where the creeper lived. "So, are you in his fan club now too?"
Izzy followed his gaze. "Ken told me you weren't too excited about meeting with him. That's certainly understandable."
"How are you okay with this?"
Izzy gave a shrug. "It's been nearly eleven years. Animamon's helped more digimon than he's ever hurt at this point." He sat down on a building block and cracked open his laptop, crossing one leg over the other and patting one of the jumping punimon with his hand.
"What about us?" asked Davis.
Izzy's dark eyes raised, immediately turning to Ken who stood silently beside them. Whatever the two said with their nonverbal communication made Izzy grow super serious and he closed his laptop screen to give Davis his full attention.
"What he did to us was inexcusable. I get that," he said. "But something changed in him after he was reborn. I don't know if it was Tzedekmon or just growing up under different circumstances, but he's not the same digimon he was then."
"You said you thought he could change once," Ken added.
Davis's fingernails dug into his palms. "I know, I just… I'm a little bitter right now, I guess. And it's not like I meant I wanted to be best buds with him or anything."
"I asked Animamon to show Davis some memories," explained Ken.
Izzy rubbed his chin and reopened his laptop. His fingers began clicking away without any sort of verbal acknowledgement.
"So, what are you guys meeting up about anyway?" Davis said, trying to steer Ken away from that conversation.
"Izzy and Ken have written a program that can detect growing viruses in digimon and attack them before they start," explained Tentomon.
"So, like some sorta antidote?" asked Davis.
"More like a vaccine," said Izzy. "A new virus had been going around that necessitated our involvement."
"It attacks the digimon in a way we haven't seen before," explained Ken. "It seems to cling to the digicores, destroying them from the inside."
"Woah, wait." Davis put up his hands. "When did this happen?"
"The first case showed up about a month ago," Izzy said, still not looking up from his laptop. "What makes it so unique is that it's fatal, but rebirth doesn't eradicate it. The babies are born ill and...not themselves."
Davis felt sick. "Why didn't I hear about this until now?"
"The virus disappeared nearly as soon as it began," said Izzy, not really answering his question. "There were only a few digimon affected and we've managed to get them quarantined. Now that they've all been reborn, we haven't seen any new cases. The vaccine we've created is just a precaution in case it becomes active again. And since the virus clings to the digicores rather than to their physical data, we need Animamon's help to implement it."
Davis was glaring at Ken now. "I need to know these things."
"You've had a lot going on. I didn't want to bother you."
"Oh, but you don't mind diving headfirst into my personal life."
Ken gave Davis a cool look and turned back to Izzy. "Has Animamon figured out the best course of action?"
"We can start with those most at risk in Primary Village: the youngest should respond well and then we'll move on by level. Hopefully Elecmon will agree. We'll have to let him know the risks."
"So he's a digimon doctor now?" asked Davis, glancing over at Animamon's hut. "Does he even come out of that thing?"
"Occasionally," said Izzy. "I think he still prefers the dark."
And then, without being able to control himself, a loud sharp laughter boiled up from Davis's gut. He laughed until Primary Village went blurry from the tears in his eyes, until Veemon gave an uneasy chuckle just so he wouldn't feel so alone.
"This is nuts," he gasped when the others stared at him, concerned. "I cannot, this is actually nuts. You guys know that, right?"
"Maybe you should talk to him," Izzy said, finally looking up from his screen again. "It helps to understand his motivations. In a strange way they aren't all that different from my own." He ignored Tentomon's attempt to interject and looked Davis in the eye.
"Davis, I'm as much to blame for what you went through as he is."
"I told you to stop saying shit like that," said Davis. "You're as bad as this guy." He gave Ken a rough shove in the shoulder.
"We're all guilty for something," Izzy said, meeting his gaze and holding it there. "I find acknowledging that is the best way to move forward."
Davis couldn't shake those words or the look in Izzy's eyes for a long time. They followed him like a mosquito hunting for blood, all the way to Animamon's hut.
He entered behind Ken and Wormmon, not even protesting anymore. The inside of the cottage was cluttered. Curved bookshelves lined the walls, filled with books and decor that Davis couldn't understand why Animamon would want since he couldn't see.
As if sensing the question, the digimon looked at him or to the left of him, really.
Stupid blind bastard.
Before he could speak, Davis did. "I hear you're good now or somethin."
A small smile pulled at the digimon's lips. "Define good."
He seemed a lot more pathetic like this, fingers passing along the bookshelves in order to guide his steps, all cramped in his tiny hut with his collection of tea and… were those bobbleheads?
"What the—"
"He thinks they're funny," said Wormmon. "TK brings them."
"He would," grumbled Davis, flicking one so the head started to nod back and forth.
Animamon placed his clawed fingers over one shaped like Michael Jordan, because TK would, of course. "They are amusing."
"You can't even see them," snapped Davis.
Veemon flicked him. "Don't be so mean."
"You remember I died because of this guy, right?"
"I enjoy the way they move," said Animamon. "The sound is soothing." The red markings on his face seemed to accentuate the smile there, pulling it into something too clown-like to be okay.
"So you made friends with Izzy too, huh?" said Davis. "I seriously can't believe this."
"And yet you're here."
"Ken keeps forcing me."
"I didn't force you to do anything," said Ken. He looked to Animamon. "I hoped we could try again."
"I didn't agree to that," said Davis. "You didn't even bail me out last night. And why can't you knock it off with the memory stuff? I thought I was just here to have this asshole convince me he's not a complete creep anymore."
"This is more important."
"Than trusting him to put vaccines in digicores? Seriously, Ken? Do you even hear yourself?"
"Just sit down."
Davis stared him down and when Ken didn't seem to budge, he did as he was told, grumbling.
"How does he do that?" he muttered to Veemon.
"Well, he was the Digimon Emperor once," Veemon said under his breath.
Wormmon glared at them.
"The problem with your last visit was your state of mind," said Ken. "You didn't want to remember the good because you were too focused on being angry."
"I'm angry now."
"At me. That's fine, that won't matter. I think you're still in a better place than you were last time."
"Ha!" Davis was so loud that even Animamon seemed startled. The absurdity of that made him cackle all the more.
Why was everything so disturbingly funny? Was he going insane?
"Do I have your permission to tap into your memories?" asked Animamon.
Davis gave a snort, laughter still rumbling in his chest.
"Fine, sure, why the fuck not?"
.~*~~**~~*~.
There's a tapping sound that won't stop, some persistent frantic thump that pulls me from a dreamless sleep.
It's still pitch black, something I'm not all that fond of anymore. There's something eerie about opening your eyes and still not being able to see.
It reminds me too much of dying.
I bury my face back into my pillow, trying to forget, when I hear it again: a sort of pinging knock. I flip onto my back, rubbing my eyes and see my D-terminal glowing with an unread message.
I almost knock it off my nightstand. Fumbling, I let out a curse and manage to catch it in my half asleep stupor. I flip open the top and have to squint to adjust to the light.
There's at least ten unread messages, all of them from her. I open the most recent one first.
FROM: Yolei Inoue
TO: Davis Motomiya
SUBJECT: (none)
open your window
What?
My eyes lift to the partly open blinds and I see a giant shadow hovering through them.
I shoot back and flip off the side of my bed, landing hard on the floor. The rapid pinging, that I now recognize as knuckles on glass, seems more desperate this time.
Half-panicked and grunting with pain, I scramble to my window and pull open the blinds. All I can see is Halsemon's enormous talons, floating four stories above the ground.
Holy… is she insane?
It takes me nearly five damn minutes to figure out how to unlock the window. It sticks when I lift it, making a sound loud enough to wake up the entire apartment complex.
"What are you doing?" I hiss through gritted teeth. "Someone is going to see him."
Then the streetlight catches on Yolei's face and I can see the wild look in her eyes, the tears running in streams under her glasses. She can't seem to catch her breath.
"I'm sorry, I had to, I can't, you—I'm not, God—"
"She's been like this for awhile," says Halsemon.
"Okay." I suck in a breath. "Just, get in here before someone sees you."
She nods, completely frantic, and Halsemon lowers down so I can grab her hand. It's freezing cold and her fingers seem too stiff to grasp mine properly. She puts a leg through the window frame and sort of falls on top of me, wearing nothing but a pair of flannel pajamas and those damn pig slippers.
"It's freezing out there," I snap at Poromon when he devolves and flys in behind her.
"I couldn't get her to stop to put on a coat," he says, fluttering above her head, all admonishment and concern. "She won't listen to reason."
"Dammit." I make her sit on my bed and pull the comforter around her heaving shoulders. I step away to flip on my lamp and her eyes close, squeezing out fresh tears. "What the hell, Yolei? You can't just go riding Halsemon in the frickin open like that. "
"I know, I—" She stops suddenly and a violent sob breaks out of her. One of her icy hands clutch at her chest. "I'm dying," she gasps, burying her face in her knees.
Her glasses fall off.
"No you're not," I tell her, closing the window. "You're just freakin out."
When she doesn't say anything else, I squat in front of her and pick up her glasses, trying to hand them back. She doesn't budge.
"Hey, look at me."
Her fingernails dig through her eyebrows and into her hairline. Her inhales are so weird and sharp that I'm starting to wonder if I should bite the bullet and wake up my parents to call an ambulance or something.
"Yolei." I have to swallow a lump in my throat. "You're scaring me."
I start choking up watching her like this and feel like a giant baby. I know what she's been through and I hate it. Worry claws inside my stomach, wringing it with nausea. I set her glasses on my nightstand and just sort of stop there for a second, trying to pull myself together.
I don't know how to help her. It's like the bathtub scene all over again and the only thing I know is what not to do when she gets like this.
It also brings back a million phantom pains and the memory of her hovering over me while I watched the world fade from view.
I turn back and she's still borderline hyperventilating so I shake off the stupid feeling and go back to her.
"Please don't make me smack you," I say, because at this point that's all I can think of. I know it worked when Kari did it.
She shakes her head and grasps her hair, pulling it behind her ears. Her eyes finally lift and I can barely make out the color of them, just a hint of amber behind red and water. She hides them with her palms.
"I, I keep seeing—" she starts and then I can tell she really doesn't want to finish. Her lips are trembling and she seems to start crying all over again even though she never stopped.
I grab the comforter and rub her arms through it, trying to warm her. "What do you want me to do?"
She pulls her face from her palms and stares at me for a minute, chest heaving between her tears.
"I just, can you just distract me?"
I don't know what she was expecting, but she seems so surprised by my suggestion of Go Fish that she actually stops crying. After fumbling through my bookshelf and spilling a stack of comic books, I find my basket of cards and clear a spot on the floor. Poromon checks on her, fluttering beside her head while I deal. She finally stumbles off my bed, all pathetic sniffles, and pulls the comforter like a hood over her head.
I stand when her knee hits my thigh. "You might wanna see," I say, grabbing her glasses from my nightstand.
She takes them from my outstretched fingers, looking at me weird.
"What?"
With a shake of her head, she rubs tears from her eyes and puts her glasses on.
"Go fish," she mumbles.
I can't really make out her tone: she's either preparing to annihilate me in a game for kindergarteners or she's making fun of me for suggesting it.
We spend the entire game whispering the names of the cards we're fishing for, trying not to wake my parents even though they sleep like rocks. The comforter slowly falls from Yolei's head and drapes over her shoulders, making her look like some sort of puffy purple-headed tick.
After a few rounds, I feel mentally and physically drained. It's nearly four in the morning and I can't help but yawn. I pinch my eyes, wiping away sleepy tears.
Yolei nudges my toes with her stupid pig slippers. "Your turn," she says. Her voice is still off, more flat than panicked now, and not quite her.
"I'm just gonna draw," I say, grabbing a card from the pile. "Already know you got"—I yawn again—"nothin."
"Maybe we should go home now, Yolei," says Poromon, looking just as tired. "It's quite late."
"You can't just fly outta here," I say, flicking my newly acquired card at him. Then a sudden thought springs into my head. "Shit."
I jump to my feet and grab my cell phone from where it's charging.
"What are you doing?" asks Yolei.
"Did you tell anyone where you were going?"
She looks at me blank. Of course she didn't.
"I'm texting your sister so she can cover for you."
"Oh." She doesn't even seem upset. "I can sleep here?"
I can't help it, my whole face goes red and I keep hammering on the keys, not daring to look at her.
"It's the middle of the night," I mutter. "I'll just sneak you out before my parents get up. I can sleep on the floor."
The only other time we spent the night in my room together was in Animamon's world, so it wasn't even really my room and I was still moping over Kari. I'm not sure what to expect now that we're dating, but I don't want to assume we're sharing the bed again.
She doesn't say anything.
When I finish texting Chiziru, I finally look up and find Yolei staring at me with such a strange expression that all I can think to say is, "Sick of Go Fish?"
She nods.
"Strip poker?"
And for the first time she springs back to some semblance of herself, grabbing a sock from the floor and flinging it into my face. She's as red as I am and we both try not to giggle like a couple of little kids when I pull the sock off my ear and ask if it counts as my first article of clothing.
I like it so much better when she's smiling.
I kneel beside her and start to pick up the cards. Poromon huffs about not finishing the round because the little bastard was winning, but he immediately flutters to my bed and makes himself comfortable in Veemon's usual spot. He and Wormmon are doing Primary Village duty again and my bed has felt pretty empty without him there.
Yolei hands me her cards and I start to shove them in the box, cursing when they catch on the edge, forcing me to straighten them out again.
"I can't believe you wanted to distract me with card games," she says. She's looking at me weird again, but she seems more herself, judging me like usual.
I give a shrug and cover a yawn with the back of my hand. "It worked, didn't it?"
She hits me so hard that I teeter over, trapped by her limbs.
The cards go everywhere.
We sort of land on our sides, her thighs squeezing my waist and hands tight on my back. It's like having a frickin boa constrictor wrapped around me. She doesn't let me speak. Her mouth presses into mine and it isn't until we're well into kissing that I remember Poromon and my parents sleeping in the next room.
"Hey." I pull back and her lips follow me. I mumble her name, but the rest of my words get sucked out of me (kinda literally) and I lose what little fight I had.
She's pulled the comforter over us and it's easy to pretend it's just the two of us when the rest of the world has disappeared.
It's not the first time we've made out, but it's definitely different. There's some weird dreamlike quality to it this time. Beneath the comforter, the light from the lamp glows like a sun through fog, making everything look sort of dull and hazy. There's a flush in her cheeks, a pink blooming over freckles you can only see this close.
Her chilly nose starts to thaw and her lips part, taking mine between them. I shift and cradle our heads with my arm, too caught up to care about interruptions anymore. The tip of her tongue slips against mine and heat spreads from my face down to my belly. The little hum that rises from the back of my throat only encourages her. She comes up for breath and pulls me back in to drown with her.
It gets really warm, really quick. Probably because we're hiding under a blanket in the middle of the night with nothing more than pajamas pressed between us. I can feel the inside of her thighs, her hand running up the back of my neck, her chest heaving against mine.
I'm pretty sure she's not wearing a bra and I sort of test it out mid-kiss, letting my fingers slide over the side of her chest.
She stops kissing me, so I try to play it off by slipping my hand back to her ribs. She pulls back a little more and looks me right in the eye. I don't know when her glasses came off, but they did, and I'm not sure if she's glaring or squinting.
Right when I start thinking I should apologize or something, she grabs my hand and puts it back.
Full frontal.
"Shit," I moan and she sort of looks at me funny. I give it a light squeeze and my head collapses back on my arm. "How do you walk around all day not holding these?"
She spits all over my face trying to hold back her laughter and she keeps apologizing while I'm wiping her own slobber on her neck and then kissing her there.
"So soft," I mutter into her skin, palm full of boob. I sort of go limp like that. Well most of me anyway. Then, before I can readjust, her hand wanders south, fingers slipping into the waistband of my pajama bottoms. My eyes shoot open.
"Stop stop stop stop," I hiss, grabbing her wrist before she makes it.
"Only fair," she mumbles over my lips.
She pulls me into her with her thighs and her back arches until her hips press into mine. Part of me doesn't want her to stop while the other is trying to squirm free, which honestly makes the whole thing worse and better.
"Two different bases," I gasp.
"Shhhhh!"
We both freeze.
"You two stop that human nonsense and go to sleep before you wake the whole house," squeaks Poromon.
Yolei is looking me right in the eye when she tells him, "Sorry."
Then she starts laughing, little muffled snorts that she quickly buries into my collarbone. Her thigh is still wrapped over my hip and I know she notices.
"Not funny," I mutter.
"Davis," she whispers and for a second I think she's going to say something serious, but then she lets out a stupid little snort. "Don't be so hard on yourself."
She bursts into another round of giggles and I groan, all hot and bothered and roll to my back, arms splayed over my head in defeat. She doesn't really let me get away. She kisses my cheek, still giddy at my expense and tangles her leg between mine before resting her head on my chest.
Her laughter dies. Then she just sort of hugs me, grabbing my shirt in her fists. I can feel the mood change so I don't resist.
We lay there a minute, catching our breath under our comforter tent, our bodies strewn among a mess of cards and clothes I shoulda put in the hamper. My heart is pounding beneath her ear and I can tell she's listening.
"I wish we could do this every night," she whispers, her voice far tighter than it had been a moment ago, and I know she's talking about more than making out.
"I think I got used to waking up with you. And now that we're back, I keep having these dreams. Bad ones, like when I was sick. And you always…" She pauses and her chest shudders against my ribs.
I hook my arm over her back and try not to think too hard about what she's saying. My hand rests between her shoulder blades and her hair slips between my fingers.
"When I wake up without you there, it feels like you're gone. And I can't, I... I'm so scared I'm going to lose you again."
I want to tell her she won't, that we're safe now, to give her all the words a good boyfriend should, but I don't. I just hold her a little tighter and say nothing.
Because my promises are shit.
