Author's Note : I didn't want to write another fic before seeing the next episode or two, as I try not to contradict (or at least blatantly contradict) what occurs in the series itself. However, I'm sick and freakin' tired of waiting for Fox (hereafter officially renamed "Fux") to screw up their nerve and show the damnedable things. I've read translations of the Japanese spoilers, obviously, but without actually seeing the episodes, I can't guarantee that this will not contradict future storyline. I apologize in advance if it does.

--Irhista Scetare Lhail

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"Can I talk to you?"

"Sure, you know I'm here for you. What's on your mind?"

"No, I don't mean like this. Can I meet you somewhere?"

"Uh, sure. Does it matter where?"

"Not to me. Does it matter to you?"

"I'm not the one who wants to have this conversation, Ken."

"Right. You know that little place around the corner from my school?"

"The one where the high school students hang out, or the one next door?"

"The one next door. They serve mostly American food there. Can I meet you there in about an hour?"

"No problem. Hey, Ken ... are you all right?"

"Yeah. Just meet me there in an hour for lunch, okay? I'll pay."

"Never let it be said Motomiya Daisuke turned down free food."

"It won't be said by me."

Daisuke ran the conversation over in his mind as he waited outside the named restaurant for Ken to arrive. The phone call had really surprised him; Ken had made his feelings about hanging out with the other Digi-Destined quite clear, and had thus far turned down two separate offers to hook up with the group. Having made the second offer more or less behind Miyako's back and over her objections, Daisuke couldn't say there had been no relief present when Ken turned him down again. He also couldn't say that he'd liked being flat rejected like that. It had taken almost two hours before he'd convinced himself that the rejection hadn't been personally directed at him.

He was considerably more optimistic about this meeting, though. Not only was it happening at Ken's behest, but it would just be him and Ken, and maybe by now Ken had had enough time to sort out his feelings. Even if Ken never agreed to prowl around the digital world with the rest of them, that didn't mean that the two of them had to avoid each other, did it? He understood that the other boy needed a bit of time to himself after what had amounted to a nervous breakdown, but Daisuke couldn't help thinking about him, and it took a lot of willpower not to call him, email him, or go check up on him at home again. Especially not to go check up on him at home again.

When Ken's slender outline rounded the corner and started down the sidewalk toward him, Daisuke checked the time on his Digivice. Precisely one hour after Ken had called. He grinned. Naturally.

"Hello," said Ken, and glanced at the blue Digivice in Daisuke's hand. "I haven't kept you waiting, have I?" He was carrying a slim black case, a briefcase, or perhaps a small computer.

"No, I got here early." He tucked his Digivice away and said, "Want to go in?"

Ken nodded and opened the door, holding it open for Daisuke. The inside of the restaurant was quiet, crowded with people eating lunch and people waiting to each lunch, and decorated mostly in sandy earth tones. The same people who had been studiously ignoring Daisuke for the past ten minutes suddenly couldn't be attentive enough.

"Ichijouji-san," said a waiter, bowing quite low. "Your reservation is ready, if you'll follow me?" From the look on Ken's face, he wasn't impressed, but his reply was a polite enough assent.

As he followed Ken and the waiter to a quiet corner table, Daisuke said softly, "You really rate."

"I come here a lot," said Ken. "People notice me. I can't help it."

"Hey, I'm not complaining."

The table was semi-private, with rather high partitions dividing it from the rest of the restaurant. The waiter left them with a pair of menus and a fresh pot of hot tea. Upon opening the menu, Daisuke was extremely glad that Ken had already offered to pay. There was no way he would be able to afford having lunch here otherwise, not unless his allowance went up a lot.

"I've never had American before," he said. "What's good?"

"All of it, actually," said Ken, pouring two cups of tea and setting one in front of Daisuke. "Try a steak."

"How about if I just let you order," said Daisuke, closing the menu and putting it down.

"If you like." Ken sipped his tea, and went silent, staring hard off into the restaurant. Sneaking a glance that way, Daisuke saw several people looking abashedly away.

"I'm starting to see why you don't like being famous."

Ken shrugged a little, setting the teacup on its saucer. "Given the choice between fame and fortune, I'd take fortune and privacy any day."

Daisuke wondered if all this constant attention was one of the things that had driven Ken into the digital world. It wouldn't surprise him if it was. Ken fiddled a moment with the teacup, and Daisuke found himself watching the graceful movements of the other boy's fingers. This was the closest he'd been to Ken in days, and it would be so easy to reach across the table, take his hand, draw it to his lips ... To distract himself from this line of thought, Daisuke said, "So what'd you want to talk to me about?"

"Your pardon, Ichijouji-san," interrupted a very soft voice. Both Ken and Daisuke turned irritated looks on the interloper, who proved to be a young woman of about sixteen standing a polite pace away from the table. "Could I trouble you for your autograph, sir?"

Daisuke had to credit Ken with the ability to make an immediate switch of attitude. "Certainly," he said, all traces of irritation wiped clean away. The girl offered him a small book, a pen, and a brilliant smile, and Ken dutifully signed while Daisuke occupied himself with his tea and locked down an iron clamp of self-control. Delighted, the girl commented that she had seen Ken's last game, and asked if he was planning on becoming a professional soccer player. Ken doubted that he would, which seemed to disappoint her, although she concealed it well. Then Ken returned the autograph book and pen to her, and she excused herself back to her own table, where she and several female friends fell into excited conversation.

"Man, I hope they don't all end up over here," said Daisuke. "We'll never get our lunch."

"I brought my laptop," said Ken, his dark eyes twinkling. "It's got a Digiport on it, if they try it, we can just escape."

Daisuke laughed. "That's a little extreme, isn't it?"

"Maybe a little. More tea?"

The waiter chose that moment to appear. Ken divested himself of the menus and ordered steaks for both of them, which rid them of the waiter as well.

"Tell me something, Daisuke," said Ken. He look down at his teacup and began to stir his tea, although Daisuke hadn't seen him put anything into it.

"Sure."

Ken looked up then. "What do you think of me?"

That was an unexpected question, although it made Daisuke's heart flutter. "I think you're a really neat guy, Ken. I think you scare me sometimes with how smart you are, and, well, I find you really attractive." Daisuke could feel blood rushing to his face with this admission, although it wasn't anything Ken didn't know already. He decided not to mention any of the many reasons why Ken was so attractive, on both physical and emotional levels. It might not sound very good to say that half of what Daisuke found so irresistible had been Ken's Kaizer persona: dangerous, untouchable, and masterful. It definitely wouldn't sound good to say that the other half was how beautifully damaged Ken was now, how in his asymmetrical pain Ken had somehow become ten times as alluring while broken than he could ever have been while whole. Daisuke didn't entirely understand how this worked, but he knew that it was the wrong thing to tell Ken.

"I guess I just don't understand why," said Ken, as if determined to thwart Daisuke's silence on the subject. He resumed moodily stirring his tea. "I did some really awful things to you."

"That's okay. Don't worry about that stuff, I've already forgotten it." Daisuke smiled, hoping the smile would lure Ken out of his darkening mood. It would only work if Ken saw it, though, and Ken wasn't cooperating. He thought about reaching out to tilt the darker boy's head up, but he knew that if he touched Ken, he wouldn't be able to stop touching him.

"Well, I'm glad one of us can." Ken tapped the teaspoon on the side of the cup and laid it in the saucer before taking a slow sip of tea. "I want you to know that I'm ... sorry, for what I did before, when you came to cheer me up. I didn't intend to do that."

"Why are you sorry about that?" asked Daisuke, genuinely confused. He found his hand unconsciously going to the side of his neck, where Ken had kissed him, and a fresh rush of desire struck him at the memory. No, not now. "It was nice."

A flash of dark blue as Ken eyed him a moment. "You don't have to say that just to spare my feelings."

"I'm not sparing your feelings, Ken. I liked it. Do I have to prove it?" A little more vehemence entered Daisuke's tone than he'd intended to put there, and he regretted it immediately when Ken sighed.

"I'm sorry, Daisuke. I guess I just have a hard time believing that anyone would like me." There went the spoon into the tea again. Daisuke stifled an urge to grab it.

"Well, I do."

"I especially have a hard time believing that you would like me. I never gave you a reason to start." Ken frowned down at his tea, then up at Daisuke. "I almost feel like something outside my control is pushing me toward you, and it scares me a little. If you hadn't stopped me the other day, Daisuke ... I wouldn't have stopped at all. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to sit here, this close to you, and not kiss you?"

Daisuke blinked, going still. There was a ring of familiarity in Ken's words, something that fit so perfectly with what Daisuke already knew, but hadn't known that he knew. "I ... think I have an idea," he said. Why wasn't he surprised that Ken was able to codify and put into words something that Daisuke knew only on a visceral level?

Another interruption then as their lunch arrived. Beef was so expensive in Japan that Daisuke had never been able to try it, and the scent was strange and tantalizing. Forks and knives were provided along with the more familiar chopsticks, and Ken had to show Daisuke how to hold the fork properly to get the steak cut up into small enough pieces. After butchering the meat, Daisuke abandoned the strange implements and ate with the chopsticks instead.

"Is it supposed to bleed like this?"

"Yes," said Ken. "If it doesn't bleed, it's overcooked. That white stuff there is supposed to go on the potato."

The challenge of eating foreign food succeeded in calming Daisuke's nerves somewhat, and his irrational desire to move around the table and kiss Ken gradually subsided. They ate mostly in silence until Ken said softly, "We're too young for this, you know."

"Are we?"

"Mmm. You don't think so?"

Daisuke considered. "I had a major crush on a girl in my class last year, and I still have a crush on Hikari."

The look Ken gave him was a lot sharper than Daisuke expected; it was something he might have expected to see from the Digimon Kaizer, and for some reason he got a pleasurable chill. "Why Hikari?" asked Ken, in a very soft tone.

"I don't know." Daisuke took a last bite of meat and gave the matter some thought. "I've just really liked her, ever since I met her. I think what little consideration she gives me is just pity, but I still like her."

Ken set down his chopsticks, and suddenly Daisuke had a hundred percent of the other boy's attention, possibly for the very first time ever. He found it highly disconcerting to be the sole focus of Ken's concentration, and shifted a bit in his seat.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Ken said, "I do believe I'm jealous."

"Of what? Believe me, nobody is more aware of the fact that nothing will ever happen between me and 'Kari than I am."

"That's not the point!" snapped Ken, proving that the Kaizer wasn't dead, merely sleeping. Daisuke suppressed another shiver of excitement. In a somewhat lower tone, Ken continued, "I'm not jealous of anything you've done. I'm jealous that I don't have all of your heart."

"Oh." Actually, now that Ken had pointed it out, it was rather obvious. Daisuke scratched his nose and said, "Sorry."

The frightfully intense look shifted away as Ken picked up his chopsticks again. "I'll live." He went silent for a moment, and Daisuke sensed his attention sliding back out onto its customary several tracks. "Actually, this makes this ... compulsion of mine all the more disturbing."

"Why?"

"Think about it. You have a crush on Hikari, a girl. That means you're normal, Daisuke."

"What, are you saying you aren't?"

"Yes," said Ken, and there was an acid undertone of bitterness in the word. "I'm not normal in any other respect, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that I'm not normal in this one. But that's not what I was trying to say. If you're a normal, heterosexual boy, and yet you still like me, what does that mean?"

"I don't know," admitted Daisuke, mildly embarrassed at this topic. Honestly, he'd never really thought about it that way. Being attracted to Ken had just seemed so easy and natural, but now that he thought about it, he wasn't attracted to any other boy he knew. "You're right, that's weird."

The bitterness was back in Ken's voice when he said in a low, I-don't-want-to-be-overheard tone, "No weirder than wanting desperately to sleep with you when I'm only eleven."

Wanted. Daisuke was wanted, and desperately at that. He had to close his eyes, overwhelmed by desire. He indulged in the delightful, ticklish feelings for a moment, and then beat them back down with thoughts of cold showers. When he opened his eyes again, it was to the sight of Ken's dark eyes gone misty with thoughts of his own. Damn, but that didn't help at all; with his eyes soft and unfocused, and his mouth relaxed rather than tightly guarding his secrets, Ken was unsettlingly effeminate, and shockingly beautiful. There was something exotic about the way Ken so readily switched between fragility and uncompromising dominance, something disturbing and wild that concealed itself beneath the cool ambivalence that was shown to the rest of the world.

Ken returned from wherever he'd gone, licked his lips, and looked away. "Do you understand how difficult this is for me?"

Not trusting his voice, Daisuke could only nod dumbly. Ken continued, "I had a feeling you might. That's why I have to stay away from you, Daisuke."

"What?" The words washed over him like a splash of ice water.

Very quietly, Ken said, "I don't know how long I can keep my hands off you. It gets more and more difficult every time I see you, and if I keep seeing you, someday I'm going to run out of self-control."

Daisuke stared at him. This wasn't happening. "This isn't happening," he said.

"I have to stay away from you. I have to." This last was almost whispered, and Ken closed his eyes as if willing himself to believe it.

"Ken ... Ken, no," said Daisuke, almost pleading but he didn't care. "It'll be all right."

But the dark head shook, and Ken whispered, "I'm sorry. Can't you see how wrong it would be? We're too young, and Daisuke, you're too straight, and I'm too ... too tarnished."

It was the tarnish that Daisuke loved best, but how could he say that? "Please, Ken, don't do this to me."

"I have to." His eyes opened again, and the twilight was within them. "I couldn't tell you over the phone, it wouldn't be fair. And I couldn't tell you without making you understand why."

"But ..." Daisuke hesitated, unsure if he really wanted to go this far, and then he decided that he had nothing to gain by not saying it, and everything to lose if he didn't. "But Ken, I love you."

Ken's eyes closed again, and for a minute it looked like he might start crying; he didn't, but the internal war was awful to behold. "I love you, too," he whispered. "And I love you too much. Don't say any more, you're making this hurt so much more than it has to." A moment later, with the tears finally mastered, Ken wiped his nose on his napkin and said, in an almost normal tone of voice, "Things might have been different if we'd been a little older." He picked at what was left of his lunch, and then dropped his chopsticks onto the plate and poured some hot tea into his cup.

Watching Ken shut down his emotions like that stunned Daisuke, and at the same time made him ache for the other boy. There was something decidedly tragic about the fact that he was even capable of it, much less that he was doing it now with the same ruthless efficiency that marked everything he did. Daisuke suddenly felt like a voyeur, eavesdropping on a legacy of pain that left its mark in this ability of Ken's. He wanted so badly to take Ken into his arms and just hold him, but of course that was the very thing Ken feared.

Daisuke remained silent when the waiter reappeared, and while Ken declined desert and paid for the meal. He felt vaguely detached and unreal, as if this entire afternoon had been just an unpleasant dream from which he would awaken at any moment. Not see Ken anymore, not even just to hang out as friends ...

"Daisuke?" said Ken. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah," said Daisuke, reacting on automatic, even though the end of this horrible lunch date might be the last time he ever saw Ken. There was a sharp knock when Ken retrieved his laptop, and accidentally rapped it on the edge of the table; the sound made Daisuke jump. He wished it would make him wake up and find out that he'd dreamed this entire day.

Outside the restaurant again, in the oily breeze that carried the scents of metal and gasoline and several restaurants and innumerable people, Ken said, "I'm sorry, Daisuke. Please understand why I have to do this."

Daisuke couldn't bear it any longer. Moving slowly, so that Ken could draw back if he really didn't want to be touched, Daisuke raised his hand to the other boy's cheek. Ken trembled delicately, but didn't retreat, not even when Daisuke rose up a bit onto his toes and brushed his lips against Ken's.

It was his last hope, and it didn't work. Ken's lips parted and he let out a soft, despairing moan, but Daisuke could feel the unyielding rod of self-control behind it. Although Ken clenched his fists, his arms remained at his sides, rather than going around Daisuke. Wrapped up in a tight net of self-denial, Ken stood and allowed Daisuke to kiss him, and when Daisuke finally pulled away, he quivered like a plucked guitar string with the effort required to keep himself from chasing Daisuke's lips. It would have been heartbreaking even if Daisuke didn't love him so much. As it was, Daisuke felt like something vital was being ripped out of his soul.

With a forced lightheartedness that he definitely didn't feel, Daisuke whispered, "Goodbye, Ken. I'll do what you want."

"Thank you."

Walking backward, feeling like he was making the greatest mistake of his life but with no clue how to change Ken's mind, Daisuke abandoned the one he loved. He told himself that he could be strong about this, that he could live without Ken until the other boy decided that it was safe for them to be around each other again, that he could wait until Ken changed his mind. But when he rounded the corner, all he felt like doing was collapsing to the ground and waiting to die.