DISCLAIMER: I do not own Digimon or any of its characters. I just like to torture them. Please don't sue.
A/N: I think we all know where this is headed. Oh well. This is supposed to be romantic, angsty, and dramatic, not suspenseful.
Ken paced his bedroom floor. Yet another night he would not be asleep until late.
Why did he care about Yolei's opinion? Why had it hurt his feelings when she'd gotten mad at him? Why did it still bother him? Why couldn't he just let it go?
Wormmon sat on his bed, watching him. Ken had softened in that area, and now Wormmon slept beside him at night. It helped to alleviate the loneliness, Ken had discovered in the two nights Wormmon had been there. It helped just knowing there was someone there who would listen.
"Master?"
"Go on to sleep. I won't get this thought through for quite a while. It's too confusing."
"Are you thinking about the DigiDestined?"
"Yes. I am. Go to sleep."
"Master, did something happen?"
"Yolei and I yelled at each other. Go to sleep." Ken looked at Wormmon directly, scaring him enough to make him lay down in his new spot and close his eyes.
~Yolei and I...what a funny sound not to put myself first.~
"Master?"
Ken stopped in his pacing and turned to face Wormmon. "What is it?!"
"You and Yolei?"
"Yes. After everyone else left she came back and talked to me for a few minutes, but I blew it. The minute she started asking me questions, I got defensive and jumped all over her. We both yelled and she stomped off all mad."
"And that's what's making you pace?"
Ken sat on the edge of his bed, facing his digimon. "I guess."
"So...it matters to you what Yolei thinks?"
Ken nodded. "I don't know why."
Wormmon crawled across the bed and laid his head in Ken's lap. "Maybe you...*care*...about *her*," he suggested.
"You mean, like, love her?"
"Yes, Master. Why couldn't it be that?"
"Why?! Because Kaisers don't fall for peasants, do you hear me?!" Ken yelled, shoving Wormmon away and lying down. He reached above his head and turned the lights low.
But, inside, he was thinking far differently. ~That could be it. This is something I've never felt before and I know I've never fallen in love. I'll go back tomorrow. I'll go every day. I'll see what happens over time...oh, wait, nothing will happen unless I apologize. But I can't apologize! That would be weak. But I guess I could...play favorites...~ Quickly, he hatched a scheme that he hoped would fix things.
The next day at noon, the trays were not carted in, but carried in by digimon and set in specific places. There was a name card at each spot.
"Too weird," Davis said.
T.K., Cody, Kari, and Davis were each at their respective spots, but Yolei was down at the opposite end, next to where Ken had sat the day before.
Everyone sat except Yolei, who went to go get her tray and was going to bring it down to sit in her usual place.
But, just then, the door opened and Ken walked in. He gave her a harsh look and she set the tray back down, and sat in the chair behind it.
He sat where he had the previous day. Yolei noticed that he had a tray in front of him, too.
"Well, aren't you going to eat?" he asked her.
She said nothing, but frowned and lifted the lid off her tray.
Beside the plate laid a single, long-stemmed, red rose.
Her eyes widened in shock, and then she looked up at Ken. "Did you...?"
But he was already eating his own lunch and didn't even look up.
She turned her attention away from him and ate. She noticed that it was her favorite dessert, too, but kept quiet.
Everyone else ate and rushed out, but both Ken and Yolei lingered over their food.
Finally, she asked him again. "Did you put the rose there?"
He didn't look up. But he nodded ever so slightly.
"Why?"
His head jerked up, but not far. She was looking directly into his eyes--over his glasses--when he spoke. She could see the emotion he refused to mention aloud. She wasn't sure exactly what it was, but it was a positive feeling. Definitely there and definitely directed at her.
"Because--yesterday--" he faltered.
~How sweet...~ she thought, then mentally slapped herself. "Is this your idea of an apology?" she asked curtly.
He hung his head, and then sat his elbows on the table and, placing his chin on his hands, stared at her. "I think I did pretty good."
She smiled evilly, gleeful with the insult she had to throw in his face. "For your first attempt ever, yes, you actually did pretty good."
He let his hands drop to the table, making a thud. "Do you always have to do that?!"
She blinked, and shrank down in her seat. "Do what?" she asked, meekly.
"Mouth off. Get an argument started. I don't want to have to walk away angry every time I talk to you! In fact I--" He stopped. He blinked. "Truth is, Yolei, I want us to get along."
She looked down at the rose in her hand. ~Does he mean it as a token of love?~ Then she thought of why it could never be. "Well," she said, calmly, standing up, "Tell you what. You let us go, destroy every Dark Spiral and Control Spire ever made, and any files about them, have your memory of being the Digimon Kaiser erased, and then come back and we can talk about it." Then, calmly, she strode off to her room and locked herself in.
She kept the rose.
Back in the dining room, Ken sat alone--again--wondering what went wrong.
~What's wrong is she's right. It could never work.~ He sighed. For once, something felt right, but now there was finally something worth not giving up--control of the Digital World.
The thought lingered. ~It feels right. The thought of Yolei and me really does feel right. But I don't think she would ever agree. She's too loyal to her friends.~ Ken smiled to himself. ~I make it sound like loyalty is a bad thing. Oh well. It doesn't matter what I think, things will never work.~
Yolei was really confused now.
~Why do I act like he's just another guy? He's not just any guy, he's the cruelest guy who ever lived!~ She paced around her room. ~I wish Hawkmon was here. He made so much sense. He'd know what to do. He always understood me.~
She flopped down on her bed, making it creak. She laid quietly.
At one o'clock she heard Ken leave. ~So that's his plan. He'll be here from noon to one every day. Man, I don't wanna be around him.~ She blinked. ~Why? Why does his presence bother me? He's not being cruel, in fact, it takes away time from his cruelty. I should be glad he comes.~ She knew why, but she was reluctant to admit it, even to herself.
~I'm afraid that he's capable of winning my love, and I can't afford to give him half a chance.~
She looked over at the rose. She'd put it in a bud vase full of water and set it on her nightstand. It meant something, although what he intended it as and what she should take it to mean, she had no clue.
Ken kept coming for lunch every day for several weeks. If there was nothing else good about his personality, he didn't give up easily.
Yolei kept her distance, never directly speaking to him if she could help it. Finally, he confronted her.
She was the last one to finish eating that day, and as she started to leave the room to go be with T.K. and Cody (Kari had started cooking for herself and Davis in their suite), he spoke.
"What's the rush?"
She paused, retracting her hand from the door. "I...I..."
"Are you scared of me?"
She whirled to face him, turning red all over her cheeks. "I'm not scared of you or anything you'd do to me," she scowled.
"You want to hear what I think?" Ken grinned a little, using her own line.
"I think--you're going to tell me--anyway," she stammered, not sure if she really wanted to know.
"Of course I am, but it's still polite to warn people when you're going to be brutally honest," he said, continuing the quote of their previous conversation. "I think that you are not afraid of me, or anything I could do, but you're afraid you'll get to liking me."
She just stared at him. She had only told Kari, and Kari hadn't said a word to anyone, not even her husband.
"I see that I'm getting warmer. Maybe too warm. Yolei, I don't think you understand that I am not always like this. When there is not business to be taken care of, I get lonely. I am--at times--only human."
"But your business is cruel!" Yolei cried. "If you were just Ken, that'd be great, but you're the Digimon Kaiser."
Ken jerked his gaze away from her like he'd been slapped. He stared at the floor as he talked. "I could be good to you, Yolei. I would never discuss the happenings of my day. You'd have digimon servants waiting on you hand and foot. I rule all there is, and you could be right there beside me."
"But I could never live with myself. Ken, before this Kaiser stuff, before you knew there was a DigiWorld, I'm sure you were probably a great guy. But it's all...tainted you. You're not the same person."
"You need never see the Kaiser side of me."
"Kaiser *side*?"
"It's almost like I'm two different people at times, Yolei. Ask Wormmon." Ken checked the time. One o'clock. He got up and left in a rush.
Yolei sat in a chair and laid her head on the table, beginning to cry. ~Why does his offer have to sound so good? Why do I feel this way? Why do I have to fall for him? Why did he ever have to find the Digital World?~
Kari softly pushed the door open. "Another spat, Yolei?"
Yolei looked up, taking off her glasses to wipe off the tears and then replacing them. Wet, salty trails remained on her cheeks. "Kari, he wants to be involved in a relationship. Not just friends."
Kari's eyes widened as she sat down beside her friend. "Yolei..."
"What bothers me is that it sounds like a good idea. He says he's completely different at times. I just don't know." She started crying again, and for a moment buried her face in her hands. Then, suddenly, she looked up. "He said to ask Wormmon."
Kari frowned. "Wormmon is with Ken twenty-three hours a day, so if anyone would know, he would."
Yolei nodded. "Maybe I will."
When dinner was brought, Yolei gave a slip of paper to the enslaved digimon and had it sent to the Kaiser.
Kari, sitting on the couch, sent her a knowing look.
Yolei gave back a cockeyed grin. "Never let it be said that Inoue Yolei gave up without knowing all the facts."
Ken was amazed to get a message from Yolei.
"Kaiser: Remember what you said earlier today? 'Ask Wormmon.' I think I'd like to. If you could have him come down to my suite this evening I'd appreciate it. --Yolei."
~Well, I did tell her to. Could this possibly mean she's changing her mind about me?~ Ken shook his head with the realization. "Wormmon!"
"Yes, Master?"
"Yolei wants to talk to you. Go down there and answer her questions however you feel appropriate. Take as long as she needs."
Wormmon blinked, shocked. "It might make me late for bed. You won't get lonely?"
"Of course not! Kaisers can survive a little alone time! Now go!"
"Yes, Master."
Yolei skipped dinner to wait in her room. Her task had robbed her of her appetite, anyway.
She glanced at the now-withering rose.
~Guess it's about time it bit the dust.~ She took it out of the water, and was about to put it into the trash, but thought better of it. She laid it across her nightstand and left it, and then went into her bathroom and poured out the unused water, and put the vase away.
She went back to her bedroom and laid down on her bed to think.
~Why am I doing this? It's making me so nervous that I skipped a meal. You know when I start missing dinners that I'm not feeling so hot. Why do I care? Why am I even considering this? Is it because I want the chance to get us all out of here, or am I honestly falling for him?~
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the main door opening, then a knock on the door of her suite.
She answered it, at first not knowing where to look, then looking down and seeing Wormmon. "Come in, please."
"You want us to be alone? You're not afraid that I could attack you?"
Yolei blinked. "No, I'm not." After he came in and she closed the door, she told him, "I didn't want to embarrass you with the rest of the DigiDestined there where they could hear me, but the way Ken talks about you, I didn't even know you had an attack."
"I do," he said, "but I've never had the chance to use it. He thinks that even if I digivolved, I would be useless as a fighter."
Yolei knew she shouldn't care, but she was curious. "Would you be?"
"Not at all!" he said, forcefully. "I could help him out a lot!"
"Geez, yell at the girl for being curious. Anyway, I didn't want to talk to you about that."
Wormmon watched her steadily. She noticed that he had a far more commanding presence when Ken wasn't around to make him cower. Finally he spoke. "Well, what *did* you want to talk about?"
"Well, Wormmon, when Ken was here, earlier today, he told me that he wasn't always like the Kaiser, and to ask you, because you would know. So...tell me."
Wormmon glanced away. "Now even he acknowledges it. There might be a chance for him yet..." he muttered, so that she barely heard. Then he turned back to her. "Yes. It's true. At the end of the day, he looks and acts almost like the old Ken."
Yolei frowned. "*Old* Ken? *What* old Ken?"
"You know, the not-Digimon-Kaiser Ken. You remember what the old Ken looked like?"
Yolei nodded. She remembered, all right. Sometimes she could not make that image go away. The tall, handsome fifteen-year-old. Straight dark hair, indigo blue eyes that pierced to the heart of the matter.
"Well, at nights, he looks kind of like that, only older, and he acts a little like he used to, too."
"He's *always* been mean," Yolei interjected.
"No, he hasn't! I knew him before, and he was nice! Kind!"
Yolei laughed. "Are you insane? He was never nice. And certainly never kind."
"You honestly think he was born mean, don't you? That he's always been an evil genius?"
"Yes, I do!"
"Well, he wasn't always evil, and he wasn't always genius! It wasn't until Sam died that he started all this!"
Yolei paused. "Who in the DigiWorld was Sam?"
"Ken's older brother. He died in an accident several years ago. Ken was trying to be just like him, and he was vulnerable. He was susceptible to go under to the powers of darkness. And then when he found out about the Digital World..."
Yolei was quiet. She didn't know this. None of the DigiDestined knew this. She looked up at Wormmon. "I'm sorry...for insulting your memory of the nice Ken. It's hard to believe that he was, once."
"Even I have trouble remembering, sometimes," Wormmon said. "But I never let go of the memory. It's all I have." He almost started to cry, but managed to contain himself.
Yolei, being impulsive, hugged him--gently. "I understand."
He pulled back. "Is that all?"
Yolei thought for a moment. "Just one more question. Do you think he could ever go back? I mean, to being nice?"
Wormmon looked up at her with tear-filled eyes. "I don't know. I've done everything I can think of over the past six years. I'm out of ideas."
She nodded, and let him out of the suite. He left the prison.
Yolei locked the door and ignored Kari's knocks until Kari started asking if she was alive or if Wormmon had hurt her.
"I'm fine, Kari. Physically."
"Want to talk about it?" Kari asked through the door.
"No," Yolei told her, flatly.
"I'll be in the dining room reading if you need me."
It wasn't even ten minutes later that Yolei came into the dining room. "You're not with Davis?"
Kari rolled her eyes. "He's with the other two guys. Something about a video game tournament of a game I can't play for the life of me."
"I guess they never grow up, huh?"
"Well, Yolei, the way I figure it is even if we *are* married, we're still both nineteen. We're both still going to *be* nineteen. It shouldn't make us suddenly grow up."
"I guess not." Yolei sat down and kept quiet.
"You want to talk about it, don't you?" Kari asked.
Yolei nodded. "Kari, Wormmon said that Ken was nice once."
"I suspected as much."
"Well, I guess I did too, but it just never dawned on me that he was *really* nice. I figured he was always spoiled rotten and used to getting his own way." Yolei paused. "Wormmon said Ken had an older brother who died."
Kari glanced up. "That explains a lot."
"How so?"
"Well, I know that if anything happened to Tai, everything would change. I don't think I'd go over to the bad guys, but I know I'd try a lot harder to keep my parents happy, do better in school, that kind of thing."
Yolei nodded and let it sink in. She had several siblings. She had been the youngest of four. Maybe that was what made it different in her case. She didn't have *just* one.
"Do you think he could ever revert to his old self--permanently? Wormmon says he sort of does, at night."
Kari nodded. "I think anything is possible in the Digital World if you go about it the right way."
Yolei sighed. "I don't think falling in love with him classifies the right way."
Kari tilted her head. "That depends. You've told him that a relationship wouldn't work unless he changed, right?"
Yolei nodded. "So you're saying that maybe if I did let myself fall for him--"
"We both know it's not a matter of letting ourselves, it's a matter of whether we can lie to ourselves or not," Kari reminded her. "Remember what we talked about before."
"Yeah, I know. But if I did fall for him, and he realized that, and he saw that I was upset that we couldn't be together, then maybe he would change."
"Maybe. I told you what I think, Yolei. But I don't want you to put yourself in danger for us."
"I just don't know what to do, Kari."
Kari sighed. "These things have a way of working themselves out, Yolei. Like I've said before, follow your heart."
A/N: Tune in next time for more mindless drivel!
A/N: I think we all know where this is headed. Oh well. This is supposed to be romantic, angsty, and dramatic, not suspenseful.
Ken paced his bedroom floor. Yet another night he would not be asleep until late.
Why did he care about Yolei's opinion? Why had it hurt his feelings when she'd gotten mad at him? Why did it still bother him? Why couldn't he just let it go?
Wormmon sat on his bed, watching him. Ken had softened in that area, and now Wormmon slept beside him at night. It helped to alleviate the loneliness, Ken had discovered in the two nights Wormmon had been there. It helped just knowing there was someone there who would listen.
"Master?"
"Go on to sleep. I won't get this thought through for quite a while. It's too confusing."
"Are you thinking about the DigiDestined?"
"Yes. I am. Go to sleep."
"Master, did something happen?"
"Yolei and I yelled at each other. Go to sleep." Ken looked at Wormmon directly, scaring him enough to make him lay down in his new spot and close his eyes.
~Yolei and I...what a funny sound not to put myself first.~
"Master?"
Ken stopped in his pacing and turned to face Wormmon. "What is it?!"
"You and Yolei?"
"Yes. After everyone else left she came back and talked to me for a few minutes, but I blew it. The minute she started asking me questions, I got defensive and jumped all over her. We both yelled and she stomped off all mad."
"And that's what's making you pace?"
Ken sat on the edge of his bed, facing his digimon. "I guess."
"So...it matters to you what Yolei thinks?"
Ken nodded. "I don't know why."
Wormmon crawled across the bed and laid his head in Ken's lap. "Maybe you...*care*...about *her*," he suggested.
"You mean, like, love her?"
"Yes, Master. Why couldn't it be that?"
"Why?! Because Kaisers don't fall for peasants, do you hear me?!" Ken yelled, shoving Wormmon away and lying down. He reached above his head and turned the lights low.
But, inside, he was thinking far differently. ~That could be it. This is something I've never felt before and I know I've never fallen in love. I'll go back tomorrow. I'll go every day. I'll see what happens over time...oh, wait, nothing will happen unless I apologize. But I can't apologize! That would be weak. But I guess I could...play favorites...~ Quickly, he hatched a scheme that he hoped would fix things.
The next day at noon, the trays were not carted in, but carried in by digimon and set in specific places. There was a name card at each spot.
"Too weird," Davis said.
T.K., Cody, Kari, and Davis were each at their respective spots, but Yolei was down at the opposite end, next to where Ken had sat the day before.
Everyone sat except Yolei, who went to go get her tray and was going to bring it down to sit in her usual place.
But, just then, the door opened and Ken walked in. He gave her a harsh look and she set the tray back down, and sat in the chair behind it.
He sat where he had the previous day. Yolei noticed that he had a tray in front of him, too.
"Well, aren't you going to eat?" he asked her.
She said nothing, but frowned and lifted the lid off her tray.
Beside the plate laid a single, long-stemmed, red rose.
Her eyes widened in shock, and then she looked up at Ken. "Did you...?"
But he was already eating his own lunch and didn't even look up.
She turned her attention away from him and ate. She noticed that it was her favorite dessert, too, but kept quiet.
Everyone else ate and rushed out, but both Ken and Yolei lingered over their food.
Finally, she asked him again. "Did you put the rose there?"
He didn't look up. But he nodded ever so slightly.
"Why?"
His head jerked up, but not far. She was looking directly into his eyes--over his glasses--when he spoke. She could see the emotion he refused to mention aloud. She wasn't sure exactly what it was, but it was a positive feeling. Definitely there and definitely directed at her.
"Because--yesterday--" he faltered.
~How sweet...~ she thought, then mentally slapped herself. "Is this your idea of an apology?" she asked curtly.
He hung his head, and then sat his elbows on the table and, placing his chin on his hands, stared at her. "I think I did pretty good."
She smiled evilly, gleeful with the insult she had to throw in his face. "For your first attempt ever, yes, you actually did pretty good."
He let his hands drop to the table, making a thud. "Do you always have to do that?!"
She blinked, and shrank down in her seat. "Do what?" she asked, meekly.
"Mouth off. Get an argument started. I don't want to have to walk away angry every time I talk to you! In fact I--" He stopped. He blinked. "Truth is, Yolei, I want us to get along."
She looked down at the rose in her hand. ~Does he mean it as a token of love?~ Then she thought of why it could never be. "Well," she said, calmly, standing up, "Tell you what. You let us go, destroy every Dark Spiral and Control Spire ever made, and any files about them, have your memory of being the Digimon Kaiser erased, and then come back and we can talk about it." Then, calmly, she strode off to her room and locked herself in.
She kept the rose.
Back in the dining room, Ken sat alone--again--wondering what went wrong.
~What's wrong is she's right. It could never work.~ He sighed. For once, something felt right, but now there was finally something worth not giving up--control of the Digital World.
The thought lingered. ~It feels right. The thought of Yolei and me really does feel right. But I don't think she would ever agree. She's too loyal to her friends.~ Ken smiled to himself. ~I make it sound like loyalty is a bad thing. Oh well. It doesn't matter what I think, things will never work.~
Yolei was really confused now.
~Why do I act like he's just another guy? He's not just any guy, he's the cruelest guy who ever lived!~ She paced around her room. ~I wish Hawkmon was here. He made so much sense. He'd know what to do. He always understood me.~
She flopped down on her bed, making it creak. She laid quietly.
At one o'clock she heard Ken leave. ~So that's his plan. He'll be here from noon to one every day. Man, I don't wanna be around him.~ She blinked. ~Why? Why does his presence bother me? He's not being cruel, in fact, it takes away time from his cruelty. I should be glad he comes.~ She knew why, but she was reluctant to admit it, even to herself.
~I'm afraid that he's capable of winning my love, and I can't afford to give him half a chance.~
She looked over at the rose. She'd put it in a bud vase full of water and set it on her nightstand. It meant something, although what he intended it as and what she should take it to mean, she had no clue.
Ken kept coming for lunch every day for several weeks. If there was nothing else good about his personality, he didn't give up easily.
Yolei kept her distance, never directly speaking to him if she could help it. Finally, he confronted her.
She was the last one to finish eating that day, and as she started to leave the room to go be with T.K. and Cody (Kari had started cooking for herself and Davis in their suite), he spoke.
"What's the rush?"
She paused, retracting her hand from the door. "I...I..."
"Are you scared of me?"
She whirled to face him, turning red all over her cheeks. "I'm not scared of you or anything you'd do to me," she scowled.
"You want to hear what I think?" Ken grinned a little, using her own line.
"I think--you're going to tell me--anyway," she stammered, not sure if she really wanted to know.
"Of course I am, but it's still polite to warn people when you're going to be brutally honest," he said, continuing the quote of their previous conversation. "I think that you are not afraid of me, or anything I could do, but you're afraid you'll get to liking me."
She just stared at him. She had only told Kari, and Kari hadn't said a word to anyone, not even her husband.
"I see that I'm getting warmer. Maybe too warm. Yolei, I don't think you understand that I am not always like this. When there is not business to be taken care of, I get lonely. I am--at times--only human."
"But your business is cruel!" Yolei cried. "If you were just Ken, that'd be great, but you're the Digimon Kaiser."
Ken jerked his gaze away from her like he'd been slapped. He stared at the floor as he talked. "I could be good to you, Yolei. I would never discuss the happenings of my day. You'd have digimon servants waiting on you hand and foot. I rule all there is, and you could be right there beside me."
"But I could never live with myself. Ken, before this Kaiser stuff, before you knew there was a DigiWorld, I'm sure you were probably a great guy. But it's all...tainted you. You're not the same person."
"You need never see the Kaiser side of me."
"Kaiser *side*?"
"It's almost like I'm two different people at times, Yolei. Ask Wormmon." Ken checked the time. One o'clock. He got up and left in a rush.
Yolei sat in a chair and laid her head on the table, beginning to cry. ~Why does his offer have to sound so good? Why do I feel this way? Why do I have to fall for him? Why did he ever have to find the Digital World?~
Kari softly pushed the door open. "Another spat, Yolei?"
Yolei looked up, taking off her glasses to wipe off the tears and then replacing them. Wet, salty trails remained on her cheeks. "Kari, he wants to be involved in a relationship. Not just friends."
Kari's eyes widened as she sat down beside her friend. "Yolei..."
"What bothers me is that it sounds like a good idea. He says he's completely different at times. I just don't know." She started crying again, and for a moment buried her face in her hands. Then, suddenly, she looked up. "He said to ask Wormmon."
Kari frowned. "Wormmon is with Ken twenty-three hours a day, so if anyone would know, he would."
Yolei nodded. "Maybe I will."
When dinner was brought, Yolei gave a slip of paper to the enslaved digimon and had it sent to the Kaiser.
Kari, sitting on the couch, sent her a knowing look.
Yolei gave back a cockeyed grin. "Never let it be said that Inoue Yolei gave up without knowing all the facts."
Ken was amazed to get a message from Yolei.
"Kaiser: Remember what you said earlier today? 'Ask Wormmon.' I think I'd like to. If you could have him come down to my suite this evening I'd appreciate it. --Yolei."
~Well, I did tell her to. Could this possibly mean she's changing her mind about me?~ Ken shook his head with the realization. "Wormmon!"
"Yes, Master?"
"Yolei wants to talk to you. Go down there and answer her questions however you feel appropriate. Take as long as she needs."
Wormmon blinked, shocked. "It might make me late for bed. You won't get lonely?"
"Of course not! Kaisers can survive a little alone time! Now go!"
"Yes, Master."
Yolei skipped dinner to wait in her room. Her task had robbed her of her appetite, anyway.
She glanced at the now-withering rose.
~Guess it's about time it bit the dust.~ She took it out of the water, and was about to put it into the trash, but thought better of it. She laid it across her nightstand and left it, and then went into her bathroom and poured out the unused water, and put the vase away.
She went back to her bedroom and laid down on her bed to think.
~Why am I doing this? It's making me so nervous that I skipped a meal. You know when I start missing dinners that I'm not feeling so hot. Why do I care? Why am I even considering this? Is it because I want the chance to get us all out of here, or am I honestly falling for him?~
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the main door opening, then a knock on the door of her suite.
She answered it, at first not knowing where to look, then looking down and seeing Wormmon. "Come in, please."
"You want us to be alone? You're not afraid that I could attack you?"
Yolei blinked. "No, I'm not." After he came in and she closed the door, she told him, "I didn't want to embarrass you with the rest of the DigiDestined there where they could hear me, but the way Ken talks about you, I didn't even know you had an attack."
"I do," he said, "but I've never had the chance to use it. He thinks that even if I digivolved, I would be useless as a fighter."
Yolei knew she shouldn't care, but she was curious. "Would you be?"
"Not at all!" he said, forcefully. "I could help him out a lot!"
"Geez, yell at the girl for being curious. Anyway, I didn't want to talk to you about that."
Wormmon watched her steadily. She noticed that he had a far more commanding presence when Ken wasn't around to make him cower. Finally he spoke. "Well, what *did* you want to talk about?"
"Well, Wormmon, when Ken was here, earlier today, he told me that he wasn't always like the Kaiser, and to ask you, because you would know. So...tell me."
Wormmon glanced away. "Now even he acknowledges it. There might be a chance for him yet..." he muttered, so that she barely heard. Then he turned back to her. "Yes. It's true. At the end of the day, he looks and acts almost like the old Ken."
Yolei frowned. "*Old* Ken? *What* old Ken?"
"You know, the not-Digimon-Kaiser Ken. You remember what the old Ken looked like?"
Yolei nodded. She remembered, all right. Sometimes she could not make that image go away. The tall, handsome fifteen-year-old. Straight dark hair, indigo blue eyes that pierced to the heart of the matter.
"Well, at nights, he looks kind of like that, only older, and he acts a little like he used to, too."
"He's *always* been mean," Yolei interjected.
"No, he hasn't! I knew him before, and he was nice! Kind!"
Yolei laughed. "Are you insane? He was never nice. And certainly never kind."
"You honestly think he was born mean, don't you? That he's always been an evil genius?"
"Yes, I do!"
"Well, he wasn't always evil, and he wasn't always genius! It wasn't until Sam died that he started all this!"
Yolei paused. "Who in the DigiWorld was Sam?"
"Ken's older brother. He died in an accident several years ago. Ken was trying to be just like him, and he was vulnerable. He was susceptible to go under to the powers of darkness. And then when he found out about the Digital World..."
Yolei was quiet. She didn't know this. None of the DigiDestined knew this. She looked up at Wormmon. "I'm sorry...for insulting your memory of the nice Ken. It's hard to believe that he was, once."
"Even I have trouble remembering, sometimes," Wormmon said. "But I never let go of the memory. It's all I have." He almost started to cry, but managed to contain himself.
Yolei, being impulsive, hugged him--gently. "I understand."
He pulled back. "Is that all?"
Yolei thought for a moment. "Just one more question. Do you think he could ever go back? I mean, to being nice?"
Wormmon looked up at her with tear-filled eyes. "I don't know. I've done everything I can think of over the past six years. I'm out of ideas."
She nodded, and let him out of the suite. He left the prison.
Yolei locked the door and ignored Kari's knocks until Kari started asking if she was alive or if Wormmon had hurt her.
"I'm fine, Kari. Physically."
"Want to talk about it?" Kari asked through the door.
"No," Yolei told her, flatly.
"I'll be in the dining room reading if you need me."
It wasn't even ten minutes later that Yolei came into the dining room. "You're not with Davis?"
Kari rolled her eyes. "He's with the other two guys. Something about a video game tournament of a game I can't play for the life of me."
"I guess they never grow up, huh?"
"Well, Yolei, the way I figure it is even if we *are* married, we're still both nineteen. We're both still going to *be* nineteen. It shouldn't make us suddenly grow up."
"I guess not." Yolei sat down and kept quiet.
"You want to talk about it, don't you?" Kari asked.
Yolei nodded. "Kari, Wormmon said that Ken was nice once."
"I suspected as much."
"Well, I guess I did too, but it just never dawned on me that he was *really* nice. I figured he was always spoiled rotten and used to getting his own way." Yolei paused. "Wormmon said Ken had an older brother who died."
Kari glanced up. "That explains a lot."
"How so?"
"Well, I know that if anything happened to Tai, everything would change. I don't think I'd go over to the bad guys, but I know I'd try a lot harder to keep my parents happy, do better in school, that kind of thing."
Yolei nodded and let it sink in. She had several siblings. She had been the youngest of four. Maybe that was what made it different in her case. She didn't have *just* one.
"Do you think he could ever revert to his old self--permanently? Wormmon says he sort of does, at night."
Kari nodded. "I think anything is possible in the Digital World if you go about it the right way."
Yolei sighed. "I don't think falling in love with him classifies the right way."
Kari tilted her head. "That depends. You've told him that a relationship wouldn't work unless he changed, right?"
Yolei nodded. "So you're saying that maybe if I did let myself fall for him--"
"We both know it's not a matter of letting ourselves, it's a matter of whether we can lie to ourselves or not," Kari reminded her. "Remember what we talked about before."
"Yeah, I know. But if I did fall for him, and he realized that, and he saw that I was upset that we couldn't be together, then maybe he would change."
"Maybe. I told you what I think, Yolei. But I don't want you to put yourself in danger for us."
"I just don't know what to do, Kari."
Kari sighed. "These things have a way of working themselves out, Yolei. Like I've said before, follow your heart."
A/N: Tune in next time for more mindless drivel!