The Ride
"Don't talk of love, the shadows dance
Luring me away from you
Don't talk of worlds that never were
The end is always ever true
There's nothing you can ever say
Nothing you can ever do.
Still every night I burn."
-- Burn, The Cure
Daisuke and I? We were always good with masks.
I can't tell you exactly when I knew that Daisuke was good with masks - though I'd certainly known of my own propensity for immersing myself in a role for some time before that. Images are addictive, you know. I didn't understand that tantalizing bit of information (despite the fact that a certain amount of cynicism concerning the media should really have enlightened me sooner.. not to mention my utter disdain for the pretentious little masquerade of politics. Amateurs) until I figured out another truth, you see. Kaiser was a child throwing a tantrum. A disgusting, evil creature that did alot of horrible things.. but still a child. Eleven years old, and acting the cartoon villain so perfectly as to make himself a paragon.
I suppose you'll think I'm arrogant for thinking about myself alot. Self-analysis was never one of my strong points, which is funny because most other things always seemed to come naturally to me. Knowledge always just.. oh dear, how can I explain this... knowledge always drained into me. Seeped down into the cracks of my mind like holy water. Which I suppose is the reason I end up going into what Miyako calls my 'frowny moods' ( I don't think I frown though - I have no wrinkles yet, though Mimi swore she saw crow's feet on her last visit. Impossible!).
But I don't like not understanding things. There's that Ichijouji arrogance again - I've never quite shaken that. When people tell you how good you are so insistently for so long I suppose that thin layer of humility one tries so hard to project is bound to be eroded a bit. And so I really can't help thinking that that's not the way it's supposed to work. Me not understanding something, that is. So I rub, and rub, and rub at the unknown until a tiny sore is raw and bleeding.
But I digress. All my thinking has gotten me somewhere - here. And at least I know what path I took.
Daisuke... Daisuke knew all along that things would play out like this, I think, on some instinctual level. The man does not give his subconscious enough credit. But he'd never tell me that of course - even if I am still after all these years his best friend.
Daisuke is good with masks.
Oh. I suppose I've gone off -topic again. I'm terribly sorry, so please do forgive me. I have a tendency to let my mind wander. People, or reporters at least, have always asked me what it's like to be a genius.. and (embarrassing as it is) I honestly can't describe it. There are some things you just know. And some insights that you can only come to come to when your mind jumps from side to side on converging paths of logic. Bolts from the blue that were always there, waiting for you to stumble across them in the infinite spiderweb of information.
So let's start again, shall we?
Daisuke and I? We were always good with masks.
We're sitting here, in the front of his new Ferrari.. umm.. something-or-other ( I know nothing about cars - some things just do not interest me, aptitude for learning or not). He's very proud of the Ferrari. You should have seen him the day he picked it up. All smiles and laughter and with so little mask I think I may have even seen his eyes (no, not chocolate-brown everyone sees.. I'm talking about his eyes. The ones that are hazel and roasted chestnut with a little bit of ash thrown into the mix just to remind you of the more vibrant element which births it). I don't even want to think about how he afforded it. Hikari, probably. That or he sold a kidney. She makes good money taking photos for the Associated Press, while Daisuke pulls double-duty running the restaurant and helping take care of the kids. Which I know he must have calculated. If any of us were to pierce the darkness of a mask, it would be an overly-observant Hikari. Her bizarre sixth-sense quite frankly scares me (I myself am a far more acceptable variety of genetic fluke) and Mimi and Miyako, though sincere to the core, would never look past their mirrors to break open such a well-crafted lie. I really have to hand it to him. I can only hope that I have the same skill.
And of course I do. But that's not the point.
So we're sitting in his car, seated like kings in a vehicle that I should really be paying half the gas for. Yet Daisuke is far too much a proud, obstinate idiot to let me even fund the wear he puts on the tires. Sometimes he drag-races. With me along. Both of us waiting to die as we cruise along some abandoned country road at one hundred miles and hour with the flames painted on the hood scorching he asphalt almost as much as his burning rubber. It's a convertible. Of course. That way the wind can rush through our hair and we're almost - almost - flying on the back of Paildramon and outrunning a herd of Dark and Scary Monsters with childish glee. Even if it is just some stupid punk kid in a used Honda with a rich-boy's allowance to pour into gas and way too much time on his hands. Bah - Daisuke and his macho head-trips. That should scare me more, but living through the digital world has always left me feeling more than a little indestructible. Mostly because I know he'd never let me get hurt, even if the miracle save required some kind of bizarre Deus Ex Machina intervention where magical fairies descended from the stars to drag me bodily away during the split-second before he himself would plummet into ruin. Motomiya's just the kind of person you can feel indestructible with.
Or at least I can. Me, that is. Not the mask. See how this game is played?
He's got the radio on, naturally. Some god-awful pop tune by a woman that sounds like she's sucking enough helium to leave a lesser person in a coma. But that's okay, since he's talking too loudly for me to hear it anyways (And trust me, that is loud. May the inventor of the hi-fi triple-bass stereo system be dragged out into the street for stray cats to feed on his spleen). Something about... little Eikichi, I suppose. He's the younger of the two Yagami-Motomiya brats, and the one Daisuke likes the most. I can honestly see why. That child just has.. the kind of boundless energy that Daisuke can at times only feign. And then just barely. Mind you, Daisuke's had alot of practice - his whole entire life, in fact. So have I. That's what makes us professionals, you know.
And it's also why I know that this mindless chatter about finger-paint or spilled milk is his version of a comfortable silence. We're going at a respectable enough speed that he has to talk about something, after all, since we both know that I won't. This mask is shy and quiet. Around him I don't particularly feel like being shy and quiet, but I can do it all the same and it's a funny little game we play when he tries to draw me out despite my diseased mind having been 'drawn out' long ago when the situation was more advantageous to do so.
Motomiya was smarter about crafting his mask. He didn't go to one polar extreme, and then snap back to another. Sometimes, the numbing inability to assert myself that such actions produced simply burns me. But this mask does not hate. Its temper does not fester (A Word to the Wise: mix your shades when making masks - especially for longterm wear. Black and white are absolute, and absolutely stifling. They often don't match the attire you're interested in for a particular occasion.)
Have you figured out the secret yet?
We turn a corner, and he manhandles the steering wheel like he manhandles everything else - very well. He's quite strong, you know. I have personal experience beyond visualizing the faint outline of muscle under that jacket he used to wear (now he wears a different one. Even masks grow up. And I must admit, though I was rather fond of the thing at the time, a fur-lined flame-embossed bomber is hardly appropriate attire for a thirty-six year-old man. Almost.. funny. Maybe I'll have a replica made sometime, and we can wax poetic about the 'good old days' over the designer cappuccino that has long ceased to be fashionable and I import anyways. Because I can. And because he likes it. You wouldn't think it, but Daisuke takes to caffeine very well. It doesn't even keep him awake at night, and the taste drives him to raptures. Poor Dai. That was a nightmare in college. Especially with his study habits. Thank all things holy for the ultra-concentrated caffeine pill).
Oh dear. I've done that wandering thing again, haven't I?
I know that Daisuke is strong for more reasons that the hockey equipment stashed in the back of this car (which is, by the way, polished to an almost surreal level. I swear - one day he'll leave his wife for this car. But he'd never leave me. Because I always ride with him, and there are only two seats in what Hikari calls the 'mobile death-trap'). I know he's strong because once - just once - he held me.
No, not just the arms around each other guy kinda friend thing. I mean... holding. And no, it is not strange for me to remember one feeble token of physical affection.
He's not hugging me now. Or talking. He's not stupid enough to actually say anything though, talking or not, so we're alright. It's just that we're close to my place, and it's been a long day at work for the both of us. I spend more nights that I care to think about at the Firm (Miziguchi, Matsuura, and Ichijouji Attourneys at Law - they added me to the name despite a few decades worth of corporate tradition just to get me to join. Their signing bonus was only the second largest, but I was more than a little flattered). And I know he's more busy than he'd care to say with the restaurant and the kids. So we both have alot to think about, and the number-one rule of daddyship in either case is that once we set foot in those apartment doors we'll not be given space to think beyond my Satsuko's singing lessons and Eikichi Motomiya's drawing that has to go on the fridge right now.
God I love my daughter. Satsuko. I could show you a picture - lots of them. There have to be at least a dozen stuffed into my wallet, alongside a dog-eared shot that Daisuke and I got at a mall photo booth when we were eighteen. Don't ask me why I keep that. Questions like that make the Mask feel threatened. You understand.
But then I'd be boring you with Satsuko, wouldn't I? The sun rises and falls with children only when they're yours.
Daisuke looks better now, with the fading light in his cinnamon hair, than he does in that picture. Or maybe that's just the sunset on the water and the reality of this situation talking. We're passing over the bridge now, like we do every day. And every day it's beautiful, so he doesn't mind if I stare out at the water a bit and decline to comment on his latest waitress-related fiasco. Because that's just what we do - an unwritten sort of law (a welcome change from the written, I assure you. Those belong in the office).
And that's when, every week or two or three, I think about it.
That picture of Daisuke and I in my wallet is taped to the back of one of my Miyako. They're both very pretty, in their own ways. Miyako is all done up for our fifth anniversary, holding little Satsuko with that grin she's had ever since I met her. The one that seems almost not to require muscle, and just sort of float about on its own. Satsuko does that too ( I love that. We Ichijoujis need to learn to smile). Daisuke's grinning too, in the one of us together, even though it's black-and-white of the cheapest variety instead of a signature Hikari Yagami-Motomiya. But that one just looks pretty because in it he's still a toned eighteen and wearing an amazing denim jacket I helped him pick an hour beforehand and he has an adorable little bit of ice-cream on his nose and he's Daisuke.
What, are you shocked now?
There's a reason I'm telling you this.
I feel his hand inch closer to mine in the Ferrari, and I know he might brush the too-thick fabric at my knee when he reaches for the manual adjustment. On nights like this it tends to happen. I once asked him why he hadn't bought an automatic instead, with all the expensive leathers and computers and strange, seemingly-useless gadgets that this sleek little monstrosity was bought equipped with. But he changed the subject by hitting me in the head with a soccer ball.
Even professionals are entitled to their amateur moments, I guess.
We both know what the other is doing, because we're both just that good. I look past him at the ocean. He looks at the offending appendage which he has just scorched with his touch (though the mask doesn't care, I have rather eclectic opinions on the matter. They include shivering, tingling, and something approaching a moan.) Not for long, mind you. It's just a flicker of his eyes. Like a hummingbird.
And I'm sure he thinks about what I think about. He just has to. I refuse to believe otherwise, for my pride and sanity if nothing else. It's running through his head, that vagrant thought, just as it ravages mine.
The memory of that day in the photo booth. When he fell on me after the shot was taken and then we were together. Arms akimbo and legs more than a little bit tangled. And as he looked down on me in that tiny room I felt the inferno of his breath snake a path along my cheek to two lips. My lips, I hastily had to remind myself at the time. Two lips that at once felt very warm and very cold, as cocoabutter eyes melted to hazel and his gaze (or perhaps his weight too, though I was far beyond noticing any bulk or the jab of the cheap booth stool into my back) pinning me down like an insect. Waiting for dissection.
Then his face moved forward - in mayfly seconds that may as well have lasted a few revolutions around the sun.
"Ichijouji," he had said. No - breathed. A volcano ready to erupt (my apologies - Daisuke and fire are rather inextricably linked in my mind). And his arms were firebrands around my shoulders where they braced us to the wall, while visions of a thousand suppressed fantasies and those nights the mask would not allow to be sleepless danced a tango through my head.
"Motomiya," I whispered into his own lips, perhaps with the conceit that I could pierce them with some tangible essence of me transmitted through tawdry air. My hair was mussed. My eyes must have been lidded, just like his. My mask must have been broken on the floor, just as his was. And in taking up my field of vision, he conquered my whole world.
I hope you'll allow me the possible delusion that his hart was beating along with mind again, for those few precious beats. I could certainly feel his pounding through the thin black fibers of our school uniforms into my chest. Because we were There, and nothing else mattered.
"Daisuke! Ken! Help us carry the packages!"
And they called us, like cold water on a hot tin roof. Our girlfriends. And we leapt to our feet and laughed a nervous little laugh - in tandem I might add. Two hearts do not beat as one without a few side-effects (one of them being matching bouts of extreme embarrassment). And then we put the masks back on, oh-so careful not to break them. They moulded so well to the faces they had been applied to for a decade and we feared for the corrosion that oxygen exposure might wreak on our true skins. We were afraid of alot of things. We were afraid not to like out masks. Which is why we promptly...
Forgot about it?
No. Well, not all the time. Not once or twice a month on the drive home from work when the temperature is right and the top is down and velocity blows his hair back like a tattered crimson banner. He's not slowed the car, but I know very well that he would be speeding if he felt any remote inclination to do so. The traffic cops must have entire squadrons dedicated to the subjugation of Daisuke Motomiya.
No, we'll never forget about it.
Sometimes, a mere fraction of our rides, I'll wonder if he'd ever just keep driving. If we'd speed up and off and into that glorious sunset. But of course it won't happen. Daisuke is too strong and Brave, and I'm too disciplined and Kind. Virtue and vice, I have come to theorize, are synonyms for the same disorder. So noble, so safe, so stagnant in their honorable rightness. We've grown comfortable at the centers of these spiderweb minds of ours, weaving our little castles on clouds with excess thread. And we know - we both know - that reality is far different from those pipe dreams that skitter across a vacant cerebrum on a night like this.
If we kept on going, if we reached the sunset, what if it was nothing but a tawdry set piece instead of the sum of a thousand experiments in technicolor? What if we looked back? We're still afraid.. even now (though maybe I'm manufacturing sentiments for him... my ego has a strong enough imagination to have at one point fabricated an entire empire. But I don't want to think about that). Neither of us could bear for that consuming blaze to have been nothing but some windmill for our jogressed Don Quixote to charge at.
Daisuke and I, we have an Understanding.
I do like Miyako as a person. I really do. Even if she doesn't burn.
And he did love Hikari in a way. I know these things.
And Eikichi and Satsuko... I would take up the cape of the Digimon Kaiser (cursed be his name) for Satsuko. I'd kill for her. No, really. Literally. What? You don't honestly think a mask as well crafted as one of mine can die, do you? That's foolish.
We were Chosen Children, after all. And we're thirty-six for god's sake! That's half our lives we've played over this memory turned daydream (is there really a difference?) We know responsibility. And we know what to do. Though I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging, perhaps we know it best of all.
I'm getting out now. I'm going to travel up the four floors to apartment 5-R and see my loving wife and my beautiful daughter. And I'll read the younger a story until she falls asleep and watch a bad serial with Miyako-chan and then look over the five files that are five less than I probably should have taken home (Satsuko needs help with piano practice).
"We carpooling next week, Ken-kun?" he waves jovially, as I exit my ride and the wind coldly embraces me.
"You know it!" I smile back, "Tell Hikari I said hello!".
"Later!"
And then he's gone, in a cloud of smoke and fallen leaves.
We know responsibility. And we know what to do. Except, of course, how to take them off. Old dogs don't learn new tricks, as they say in America (I took a class).
Daisuke and I? We were always good with masks.
***
note: *shrug* I make it my buisness to try stuff... and vultures still track the carrion of what's left of previous (lame) attempts at romance and comedy. But trying out yaoi just for fun actually wasn't all that bad... mostly because writing 'bout angsty gay and/or bisexual srfts of people is pretty much the same as writing for angsty strait people. Except I expect there's a larger fangirl audience ^_^. This is.. well.. I'm hoping it's at least *different* from you average Daiken/Kensuke, since romance is honestly being done far better by alot more people that I could ever mobilize into some sort of dark army anyways. *sniff* Oh Angst! How could I ever leave you!
This fic was semi-inspired by Shu Lien and Li Mu Bao in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". They brought me to the startling realization that repressed, sad love relationships.. ummm.. rock. Rah?
*runs away*