I'm going to miss him

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Dedication: This is for my best friend Liz, with whom I must part in just four short days. Inspired by a comment she made a long time ago about the plausibility of a friendship between Jyou and Daisuke (if anyone could ever get them to meet) and by the fact that many aspects of our friendship mirror the one they might share. I love you, Liz and "I'm going to miss you like the plague." Please stay in touch. I don't want to loose you.

Many thanks as well to Rachel Lynn, who was kind enough to beta this for me the evening I sent it off to her. I don't know what I've done to deserve you, Rae-chan, but thank you all the same for just being there and being you.

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Free

By Kymaera

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I'm going to miss him. I'm going to miss him terribly. Horribly. Desperately. And there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing I can do about the fact that my friend is leaving. Leaving for college. Leaving for life. Not leaving from my life, necessarily (oh, gods I hope not), but leaving and finally being able to have a life. Away from his father. Away from the overprotective, controlling, foolish father he was required–commanded–to answer to for eighteen years. Eighteen fucking years. Eighteen years during which he was forced down an unfit path by a father who didn't doesn't probably never will understand him. A father who pushed and prodded and controlled his every fucking breath; trying to mold him into the perfect son his brothers had refused to be. Unable to see past his own selfish wishes for someone in the family to "follow in his footsteps." And he almost succeeded. Jyou's strong, gracious, reliable self has almost allowed his father to have his way. Almost. Because Jyou can't stand to see people he cares about get hurt. Especially when he is the one inadvertently inflicting the pain.

But now he's free. Free to step out from the oppressive shadows of a father who never bothered to care for what he might want and a mother who never bothered to stand up for him. Free to step into the light and try, for the first time, to figure out who he is.

But that step into freedom–that step towards life–is taking him away from me. And I hate it, selfish as that is. Because I'm so afraid that, in the course of figuring out where he belongs in this crazy, messed up world, he's going to forget. Forget the "life" that he's leaving behind and everything associated with it. His family. His friends. Me.

I'm so afraid. So afraid that I'm going to loose him. That he's going to go off and I'm never going to hear from him again. And part of me knows that's foolish. We've been friends for an eternity, it seems, although it's really been less than four years. There's nothing we can't talk about and nothing I don't want to share with him, even when it's hard. Even things I won't tell Jun, and she's the closest thing I had to a best friend before him. But he's going through things that I've never had to deal with, and I don't know how to help him. Don't know if I can help him. I'm afraid that our lives are headed in different directions and there's nothing I can do to stay with him.

Gods, I'm going to miss him! I don't want him to go. But I know that he has to. For his sanity for the preservation of the beautiful, stubborn, caring, over-protective, loving worrywart he is. And his father would break him of that. Because that's the only way Jyou would ever conform enough to become what his father wants from him. And he tried. Oh gods he tried. He tried to do what was expected, tried to be perfect. And it very nearly did break him. But he found strength. I want to say he found strength in me, that I was able to give him such a gift, but I'm not sure it would be true. He found strength–somewhere–and was able to bear his father's demands, all the while setting up a way out and counting down the days until he could use it.

And that day is here and he's going and I'm going to miss him. And I'm thinking in circles, but I can't help that. I feel like my whole being is at war over this. Logically, I know he has to go. Rationally, I know this is right. But when have I ever been logical or rational? Especially when it fucking hurts to think that he's leaving and moving on with his life and he'll no longer be there when I need him and everything comfortable and familiar about my life is going to hell in a handbasket because of this.

But I can manage to subdue those feelings this time. I can manage to let logic and rationality shine through because I know that this is best for him and that he needs this more than I need him even though it hurts, because I care for him and want him to be happy. And all I can do is hope that he will remember me. That he will remember his shrimpy, spunky, soccer-obsessed teenage friend who loves him beyond reason and will miss him terribly. Remember, as he forges a new life for himself, to keep in touch and come back when he's figured out who he is and where he belongs.