Warning: Daisuke angst, PTSD, past injuries
Chapter Seven - Blue - 1986
Motomiya Daisuke is grateful for one thing in his life, and that's ramen.
Well, no he's grateful for a lot of people, but that's harder to admit. Being grateful for the existence of ramen is like, a no-brainer. People? People are much harder. He nearly trips on the doorway, arms laden with groceries. "Oi, Ken, c'mere and help your aching partner!"
"Shut it you," came Miyako from the dining room table. "I can carry a few bags."
"Yeah you can," Daisuke agrees. "But Ken's just being lazy."
Miyako snatched a few of the bags. "No, Ken's on internship. You forgot again."
His cheeks color and guilt rises up in the depths of and sours the banter. "Oh… right." He scratches his cheek with his now free hand. "Sorry."
Miyako looks at him with the look he often equated with "are you okay?" in a nice but still annoying way. Especially after-
The looming shadow of a monster taller than all of their partners combined, a green light pointed at their heads.
Being locked in a tube alone for months on end would do that to you.
"It's fine," she says with a shrug and carries it all over. "I thought you'd be working late."
"We considered it." He sets the rest of the food down with a grin. "But something exploded and there was a fight so since I was in the back we had to close up."
"Good enough for me." She begins digging around for her favorite tea, which of course he bought extra of. "Mimi-san called this morning."
"Yeah? Did she get that gig?" God he hoped she did, there was nothing more awful to him than the agony of waiting for the slender possibility of doing well and risking not paying rent.
"I think so." She places vegetables on the table and washes a bit of cabbage. The rice cooker dings. "She was pretending like she could keep a secret so I bet you that was it."
"She's probably waiting to tell everyone all at once." Daisuke rummages through the fridge. "Hey, what do you want to do on Sunday?"
"Sleep, mostly."
Daisuke laughs. "Yeah, fair enough." He finishes moving things around, taking out food that Ken had forgotten in his busy, late nights, finding ends and bits he could hopefully still mulch into dirt and donate to the nearby school's gardening club. "How's the tech shop?"
Miyako lets out a groan. "I miss bigger monitors!"
Daisuke laughs so hard his stomach hurts and he has to stop and sit down. Miyako doesn't say anything when he does, but her hand rubs circles into his back until the phantom pain leaves him a little more able.
"Someone should have told me adulthood hurts more," he says after a while. "This shit sucks."
Miyako nods and settles beside him after guiding him towards the couch. Even now, after years of doing it, years of practice and comfort and fights about it, the feeling still rankles, the hollow uselessness still rankles, his anger at the god who couldn't have fixed them before poofing off into the old universe and dying burns. But the helplessness is the worst of it.
Everyone seems to understand, and Daisuke is sure they get it in their own ways, but Daisuke resents people he shouldn't now, because it's not their fault they got out physically all right while the adventure just really got real for him.
And it's times like today that he gets why Hikari-chan left and it still makes him taste bile.
"She emailed me today," Miyako finally says and there's no question to who.
"Oh thank god," Daisuke says and he means that too and fuck, god this, this is so hard why didn't his parents warn him about this? All this complicated bullcrap, why can't people just talk? Heck even Ken talking about his dark feelings is better than nothing! "Any explanations for why we lost touch this time?"
"She got married."
"She what." Daisuke's mouth drops open. "And I'm not even allowed to cater?"
Miyako snorts. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get to have her taste your heavenly spice bomb of death."
"Don't even joke she'd tell me to put horseradish in it." He whistles. "I'm jealous of her husband, whoever he is."
"Same."
"Same," calls Ken as he knocks the door open. "To whatever it is."
"I want to marry Hikari-chan," Daisuke shouts at him. "And she's getting married!"
Ken frowns, jacket still slung over his shoulder like a heathen as he meets them. "Well, doesn't everyone?"
"I'll fistfight you for Takeru," Miyako tells them both, eyebrows going high and pretending like she can actually make a fist nowadays for longer than a solid minute.
"You'd probably win," Ken answers, sitting on Daisuke's other side with easy (easy now, not easy before) affection and an arm on both of their shoulders. "But that doesn't mean you don't want to marry Yagami-san. And why are we talking about that in the first place? And what about Iori-kun, he probably feels abandoned."
"The only man Iori would date willingly is Takeru and maybe Jou but they'd only last until they left the building," Daisuke says too cheerfully because it was hilarious to think about in comparison to the rest. "Hikari-chan got married and I didn't even get to cater."
Or meet the guy. Or give his favorite best friend speech he's been reserving for Takeru since that day at the Dark Ocean or whatever. He sighs, all the fight and fun taken out of him. Ken rests his chin on Daisuke's head, which is a bastard move because the bishounen shouldn't be taller than him. "Why isn't she home?" Daisuke murmurs.
Ken frowns, Daisuke can feel it. "Technically she is."
He wrinkles his nose. "I guess." He's still not happy Taichi kept that from them for years, but to be fair when would it actually have come up in conversation? "Why isn't she here?"
It's a question they've asked a lot over the past near decade. The gates are healthy now and there are idiots working on a free standing gate or something and she has a D-3. The digital world cannot be that bad without them when there's no monsters out there in their human world.
He almost wishes he agreed with Yamato-san a little more often, especially to live in the ignorance that their future spawn will likely be the ones taking their place in the battles for the world (and really he struggled to think his parents had worried much before, because they hadn't really understood, and Jun had been a handful on her own and even more besides).
Gods, he actually misses his sister.
"And even if she wasn't," Ken adds. "It'd be worse with all of us over there."
Daisuke can almost imagine it. His dumb leg, Miyako's ruined hands, Iori's back when it's raining… they'd be dead before eighteen and he already knows what Hikari-chan can do when she thinks her brother's dead, he doesn't want to imagine her being sure four people she loves are dead.
Even if he'd come back as like, a weird looking veemon or something. That'd be pretty cool.
"Still annoying."
"Don't worry you get third or fourth crack at whacking the snot out of her," Miyako says, shoving a baby carrot at his nose. "After me, and her brother, though you'll probably have to fist fight Takeru for third spot."
"Speaking from experience," Ken says wryly. "It's not as easy as you think."
Daisuke turns himself around and hugs them both. "I love you guys."
Miyako looks at Ken over his head (he can feel it) and grins. "We love you too, idiot. Now, come on, let's read the rest of this message and get to Iori's. I hear his girlfriend is going to try and sneak him cranberry juice instead of grape juice."
Daisuke's arm twinges but he smiles because yeah, that… sounds hilarious actually. Iori's got zero taste buds, and Daisuke met culinary students who smoke.
Daisuke thumbs his ID under his palm out of habit because he's not nervous, nope. He does this once a week, every Tuesday that Taichi's in Japan, which is a lot of them because he's still a junior in his department, never mind remaking a familiar one and he only gets trips to America on Mimi's quarters and dimes and he happens to know enough people in other countries who realized, again thanks to Mimi, that Taichi was trying to help mitigate the problem. Otherwise he does it with Meiko, who is very nice actually and often sends him home with handmade signs for festivals.
Of course, when Daisuke had suggested helping out, Yamato had told him to shut up and make more noodles, while Taichi had suggested the same thing, but more political.
People need to like you more than me, which means you gotta be a better cook than my mom. Sounds like a harder job.
Which… okay fair. He doesn't actually want the politics of the whole thing, he just wants to be useful. Which sounds like something a kid would say, and he knows he should say it and just be honest about it, and no one will mind barring some ribbing that comes from the position, but he still isn't looking forward to it.
So he compromises by visiting Taichi on Tuesdays for lunch, handmade by him, and Taichi returning the favor with gossip and translated politics and whatever Koushiro is doing.
Ninety-nine protocol and security checks later, and more than one person begging for tips on broth, he makes it to the door just barely on time and hears Taichi's low, "it's unlocked." before coming in.
"Someday you're not gonna knock," Taichi says, not looking up from his paper, highlighter tight in his grip.
"Someday you'll be ready for me." He sat on the couch of his senior's office, once again marveling that any of them other than Koushiro has an office that's not in their house.
"I'll never be ready for you. You're too much for one person to handle."
"Don't flirt in the office while I'm in here."
Daisuke nearly drops their lunch at the sight of Meiko sewing, sitting on the other squishy chair. He scans her, thoughtfully, eyes narrowed.
"What?" she shrugs, a far cry from the mousy, broken girl he'd met at the end of the world. "There's no good flirting if I'm in no shape to help."
Daisuke wants to laugh, but it comes out as a weak croak. He sets the food down on the tiny table and gestures with his hands. "You're… uhm…"
Meiko blinks at him. Then she turns to her fiancee (husband? No one's quite sure but he thinks that month out in Okinawa talking to some random family was their equivalent of eloping.) and says, "You didn't tell anyone? Really, Taichi?"
"I knew I'd forgotten something," Taichi says with a foxlike grin and Daisuke throws an eraser at him from his pocket. His senior gasps like he's been punched.
"He's predicting a girl," Meiko says, still hiding a smile behind her glasses. "For his sake I hope he's right."
Daisuke tries to imagine a little Taichi with pigtails running around, or, worse in his opinion, a new Hikari-chan. He's not sure which scares him more.
He thinks of a whole host of things to say, like complain about this being another secret kept by their oh so mighty leader. But his heart isn't in it. He knows how much they've wanted a kid despite being aware of what risks it would be, that Taichi was willing to throw away all they were working for to do it and that they'd been failing since graduation. Messily. And everyone's given them a wide berth because though they are the cheesiest of the couples, they are also the most volatile and Daisuke is pretty sure if any parent decides to passive aggressive her kids Meiko will not hesitate to kill them and Taichi is more than happy to stand there and be attractive about the whole thing so people can't be mad.
"Congratulations," he finally says, because that's the most truthful thing. And because he is terrified of what that baby is going to be when they can walk.
Taichi smiles at him and man that crush from when he was nine is still going strong.
"I am sorry, you know," Taichi says and receives a baffled stare.
Daisuke scratches his head. "For what?"
"We should have looked for you."
Daisuke goes cold.
Because yes he is the optimist of the lot of them, and he's resented them, resented them long and hard even if there was good reasoning behind it. Even with Hikari-chan happy to gallivant off in not growing up and leaving them behind, he's still the one who believes in miracles, in the best of people at their worst and at some point the anger had just not seemed worth it no matter how it simmered. But it hadn't gone away.
"We should have," Taichi says. "But we were scared and stupid and I…" He rubs his eyes, not in a crying way, but in the way that turns them red as blood. "Hikari almost died when she was born."
Daisuke flinches because he can't imagine it. She had been sick a lot, but never died, never dead.
"Well, okay no, she's nearly died more times than I have fingers and toes," Taichi continues, wearily and without thought. "And she wanted to go after you. She wanted to do… terrible, awful things to make sure you were okay because that's what life is, that's what it does, that's kinda been how we survived here on earth. That's what it becomes and light is… finicky like that. But I'm her brother. I couldn't let her do that. And Yamato couldn't let Takeru do anything without proof. And I still should have. And you were hurt. She was my responsibility, but so were you lot, and I failed to do that. And I'm so, so sorry." He bows his head, but he's still at his desk so it feels weird.
Daisuke swallows. "It's a little late to… to bring this up Taichi-san."
"No," Taichi says, looking at him with blood red irises still. Daisuke glances at Meiko, who is sipping tea like she's heard this before gods she's gotten terrifying. "Not for me it isn't. And forgiving me isn't something I expect in the cards. But I needed to say it, because things are going too fast for us to keep up."
"Too fast for-"
And then the year hits him. It's 1986. In their world, Jou-san would be born next year. And then Taichi-san and his friends, and…
"We can either not have kids, or…"
Taichi nods. "1995 is coming. And, if we're lucky, Hikari will come with it. But even if not, even if I failed you lot, I'm not failing our kids."
And Daisuke, funnily enough, believes him.
"I know you won't, Taichi-san." And there is the miracle, burning in his chest. "And I won't fail yours either."
For a moment, seeing the way the three of them share a look, Daisuke feels all right.
"C'mon," he says. "Let's hurry up and eat. And I can get to planning your baby shower because no one told me Hikari-chan's getting married. I've gotta keep up with this."
Taichi dropped his pen. "She's what."
Oops.
