Author's Notes: It's been an insanely long time since I've updated. This I know. I've really only started writing this chapter a month ago, and it's gone at a frustratingly slow pace. But it's here, so all I can say is 'Enjoy.'
Thanks to Sillie, IchigoPocky, Aeris Tsukiyono, Redrum, CSMars, Brennend (good point, and his whole Gennai as second father connection too…will explore that be assured), Chibi Neko-chan, Shadow, diamondrenamon, sakura blossom
Disclaimer: Hmm, nope, Digimon belongs to other people.
ReoccurrenceChapter 10: Reunion
Taichi felt unbelievably uncomfortable. Things had happened so fast. Today was the day. Sink or swim. He'd taken the long way from Yamato's apartment to his home. Home…it was such a strange word, especially as he's never seen the place. Well, he did, just that he didn't remember it. If it were anything like Yamato's apartment, it would be sort of small and packed with odds and ends. And it was, with him here in the middle of living room, both of his 'parents' hanging off him with a death grip and feeling like there was something was going to explode in his head. He was afraid, more afraid than waking up with no memory, more afraid of the first digimon he'd ever seen. He was terrified.
It had started with his heart trying to pound out of his chest as he stood on the doorstep. He'd gotten everyone's blessing the day before and a quick conversation with Hikari earlier in the day to confirm a time. It felt like he was keeping an appointment, not recapturing the lost part of his life. In fact, it felt too wrong to be the right thing to do. He almost turned around to leave, but the shame welling up under his skin kept him rooted to the welcome mat. He was supposed to be brave, right? And everyone had put so much faith in him; he couldn't let them down, could he? With a fiercely trembling hand, he buzzed the doorbell and felt the dizzying rush of blood in his ears and an uncontrollable tremor running through his body. It was like shivering but worse.
The door was opened with a woman, longish hair, blank expression. His mother… It was a jumbled blur after that; he didn't know what happened. He was detached from reality and somehow he had ended up in the apartment with the woman crying hysterically on the doorstep and clutching him with a strength he'd never thought she could muster. Then a man came in to the picture, his father… And then they were on the couch with Hikari giving him a watery smile from the opposite sofa.
It was a strange unsatifisying feeling that here he sat, stone faced and bewildered while the rest of his 'family' radiated such intense emotions. The woman's soft sobs were right against his ear and the man's sniffling in his other, and both of their sets of hands were crushing his own, and Hikari's tears had begun to slide down her cheeks, tracing along her heartbreakingly tender smile. But all he could feel was a frustration inside of him, a screaming, fist clenching anger at himself for feeling nothing, for remembering nothing. His eyes had started to blear over with red hot stinging tears. Why was it so fucking unfair? Why couldn't he feeling anything for these people that cared so much for him?
Hikari must've known his feelings because she went and knelt at his feet and put her head on his knees and held his free hand. Her smile had become damper but hadn't dimmed. Her voice was soft and reassuring and low enough to escape her parents. Taichi half read her lips, half heard her voice. "It's okay…"
He sniffed loudly and closed his eyes then. Hikari, she was someone he could feel something for. The past weeks she'd been nothing less than supportive and kind, and he'd felt close to her. And here she was giving him comfort and trying to soothe him. He cleared his eyes and felt the frustration that was clogging up his chest start to loosen.
It was sometime after that that the questions had started. Lots of them, all of them at the same time, and all the practiced lies that he'd spent the past week memorizing were stumbling on the tip of his tongue and stopping at his lips.
He stared down at a bowl of soup and the huge array of food spread out before him. The man and the woman were sitting across from him, asking different sets of questions. 'Are you hungry?' 'Where have you been?' 'Are you cold?' 'How are you feeling?' 'Where have you been?' He spooned some soup and swallowed it. Slowly the practiced answers came floating up back up to his brain and he let them flow past his lips, anything to shut them up, to hide the fact that he had no clue who they were, and right now, didn't feel like he'd ever want to know.
It was like a recording, the way he answered the questions, one robotic lie after another.
"I was taken in by a family up north."
"No, I didn't remember anything at all."
"They were moving to away so I came to find you."
"I only remembered some things."
"No, I don't know their new address."
He could tell his parents were on the verge of disbelief, but one could hardly argue against the fact that there he was sitting across from them, with no memory of them and a startling unfamiliarity laying between them. It was his father that broke the ensuing silence. "We understand, Taichi." And yet Taichi knew they didn't, not with the way they were looking at him as if it was just a passing thing. It was the truth afterall, his lack of memory. That wasn't a lie; he knew almost nothing about them. But it was a break and he was damned if he was going to let the chance slip him by. He mumbled a low thanks and made a point to yawn widely. He didn't feel sleepy, in fact his body still thrummed with something that kept all his muscles tense and his heart thumping heavily in his chest. But he wouldn't take another second feeling like some freakish attraction that they put on TV shows for people to ogle and puzzle over. It was probably the wrong move to make, at least that's what his parents' identical frowns said, when he bowed to them politely and took his leave for his room.
The room was dark and he had found himself under the blankets in under a minute. The room smelled old and stale, and the blankets moldy and sheets dusty. He felt amazingly dirty all of a sudden, sleeping amidst dust and old toys and posters that he had no recollection of. At one point, his parents must have remembered that he lacked clean linens because there was a soft knock on his door. But he chose to keep quiet and pray that they would leave him alone. One terrifying conversation was enough for today. His silence seemed to work they stood outside his door with a pause, the shadows of their footsteps underneath his door doing a short clumsy dance before silently retreating down the hall.
But he didn't fall asleep for a while, and neither did his parents. They were still talking in urgent and hushed tones when he felt his eyelids slowly weigh down against his eyes and his thoughts and fears and hopes had trailed languidly into quiet. The last fully coherent thought was that he needed to see Agumon and Gennai the moment he woke up.
The morning streamed through the windows of his room with a pale veiled light. Taichi rolled quickly away from the light and coughed as he distrubed settled dust and it seeped down his throat and into his lungs. The shelter of sleep left abruptly as he sat up and tried desperately to expel the tickling in his chest.
Admist his coughing, there was a soft knock and his mother entered his room halfway. She wore a very concerned look. "Are you alright Taichi? Do you feel sick?" He shook his head and cleared his throat violently, and shivered. "Are you cold Taichi? Hold on."
Taichi watched her go and got out of bed, noticing that the morning was rather chilly. He yawned and opened the door, and headed off to the bathroom or at least where Hikari had said the bathroom sort of was, when his mother accosted him and put a soft robe around his shoulders. It was large and his mother knotted the ties around his waist. He stood rigid and embarrassed, and finally shyly looked up at her and offered a thank you.
She frowned slightly then. "You're welcome. But you're so skinny Taichi."
Taichi grimaced and sidled into the bathroom. Was she disappointed? It didn't sound like disappointment, but he had never been called skinny. Then again, he had never heard that tone before; it was a little like worry but with a wholly different feel. Gennai had the worried tone very often what with the occasional crises in the digital world, but had never addressed him like that. Was she unhappy about how he looked? Was he so different from the old Taichi?
The thought made a bitter smile appear on his face and he stared intently at himself in the mirror. He didn't see anything so different, but then again he didn't really know how he looked before. Sure he was a little skinny. Afterall, one didn't get fat in the digital world, not with the running and exercising and fresh air. He wasn't really short like Koushirou either. He could feel the bones of his ribs, but they couldn't be seen. Did she want him bigger, more muscular? Would that make her happy?
He shook his head dismissively and began to wash his face in the sink. In the background he could make out a lot of noise, people talking, furniture moving, random clangs and clinks. As he dried off his face, he remembered his last resolution last night and quickly headed back to his room in search of his digivice. He clasped the sqaurish device tightly and realized to his dismay that his room didn't have a computer. He frowned and his stomach lurched at the prospect of meeting the full force of the two strangers out in the kitchen and living room. Maybe he could get Hikari alone and borrow her computer, if she had one…
His soft footsteps were lost to the carpet and other noises of the apartment. It was hardly morning, only around 9 but the apartment was abuzz in voices and conversation. Was this a regular occurrence? But as he warily made his way down the hallway, someone turned around the corner and blocked his way.
He was actually somewhat relieved to find Yamato standing in front of him, smiling brightly. Something stirred inside of him and he liked the feeling. It was warm and comforting. Like friendship. But another part of him was irritated at how comfortable Yamato felt with the situation while he himself was utterly lost. "Yamato."
Yamato practically broke his face with a grin and stepped closer. "Taichi. How's it going?"
Taichi felt a little gratified that someone was asking over his well-being. In fact, he had the urge to share his frustration at the new situation. Whatever Hikari had told him, he was still so under prepared to meet the challenge. If Gennai wasn't accessible, Yamato would be a good substitute. "Okay I guess." He peered over Yamato's shoulders and thankfully no one was behind him. "Can we talk? Alone?"
Yamato looked unsure over his shoulder but nodded slowly, following Taichi back to his bedroom. He raised an eyebrow at the undisturbed mess that littered the carpet and ran up through the bookshelf and spilled out onto the desk. "I guess they were too shocked to clean up for you."
Taichi shrugged and sat down on the bed playing with the sheets and blankets. "I guess so." He furrowed his brows in confusion as talking and laughter continued to come from beyond his door. "Why are you here so early?"
"Well, we're having an impromptu party. Didn't you know?"
Taichi frowned more and shook his head. Anxiousness grew in his stomach at the prospect of more strangers gathered around to ask him questions that he'd had to lie about and give him profoundly pitiful looks, as if saying 'poor stupid boy, can't even remember how to be human.' Taichi felt suddenly angry again, at no one in particular. What made him so special, to have some accident and lose his memory? What had then decided to turn his second life upside down and force him away from Gennai and his friends in the digital world? He closed his eyes against the self-pitying anger and turned to Yamato. "I hate this."
Yamato made no outward resemblance of sympathy and his face fell away into a serious solemn expression. The air turned exceedingly hostile in the room and he could feel any shreds of hope start to slip away. "Who do you hate?"
Taichi took at look at Yamato's forbidding face and made an effort to dispel the ill humour. He didn't mean Yamato, especially not Yamato. "No, not anyone. Especially not you. I just don't like feeling…" He searched for the right word but couldn't find it, so he settled on 'disconnected.'
Yamato relaxed only marginally, watching Taichi struggle to share his frustration. On one hand, it was ridiculous to expect a complete happy ending. It was only one day ago he officially returned after all. But then again, he couldn't deny that he thought the early invitation for a party this morning was something of a reason for hope, as if Taichi had really just slipped back into his life. But thinking back on the long agonizing road it took to form a relationship between and Taichi and Hikari, his own sister, he should've known better to get his hopes up. Meanwhile, Taichi was still unburdening himself of all the little things that were frustrating, like not knowing what his old favourite food was, how his mother said he was too thin, how he had wanted desperately to go home. That was probably the most hurtful thing to Yamato. Home was still the digital world for Taichi. And as Taichi fell off into an abrupt silence, Yamato could predict how much of a disaster it was going to be when Taichi was forced out into the living room filled with people he had forgotten years before. "There's still a party out there, Taichi…"
Taichi flinched and hastily took a nervous look up at the door. "It's so early."
Yamato nodded mutely and tried to smile encouragingly. "But everyone's there so it shouldn't be too bad. Come on."
A cold sweat clammed up Taichi's palm at the thought of all the foreign attention. "I'm not up to it."
Yamato smiled harder, pulled more at the sides of his mouth. He put a friendly but firm hand on Taichi's arm. "Come on."
Taichi repressed the urge to rip Yamato's hold off of him, but sighed and slowly got up. In the end, Yamato was just like them. Just wanted Taichi to accept that everything he had ever known was of no importance anymore. Gennai, Agumon, the whole Digital world was nothing to be concerned with anymore. He partly knew this when he agreed to come 'home' but he hadn't expected the demands for his assimilation to come so quickly, and from every direction.
He let Yamato lead him down the hall and into the crowded living room. It may have been the strong early morning glare of the sun or the fact that all his friends and their parents were waiting with a collectively held breath for his arrival, but the anxiety in his stomach turned into a sharp and acute fear. And as he shied away from the curious expectant gazes, he landed on Hikari's small genuine smile and found himself feeling slightly steadier. It may take a false smile, a hard mask but he was determined to face this challenge head on. He wouldn't let Hikari's belief in him be wasted.
He shook hands, accepted awed compliments politely and listened to the excited chatter going on between Yamato and Sora and Koushiro and the rest of the group. Occasionally, some adults would come by to size him up and he couldn't fight the involuntary paranoia that he just wasn't measuring up.
"Taichi? Taichi?"
Belatedly, he realized that Sora was asking him something. "Sorry, what was it?"
She gave him a sympathetic smile. "Well, we were talking about school. Actually, Koushiro was worrying over how you were going to get registered in the same year as us."
School? Taichi frowned. "What do you mean school?" Everyone looked genuinely surprised, even Hikari. Taichi thought he was missing something important.
Finally, Koushiro spoke up in his factual, abrupt kind of way. "We mean how we can get you to test into our grade, despite the last four years you've spent in the Digiworld."
Taichi was even more confused. "But I'm not going to school." Judging by the reaction that his words provoked, everyone had taken the opposite for granted. And then he felt suddenly foolish, being stared at by his friends. Of course he had to go to school; he was trying to be human, wasn't he? And yet, he had almost assumed that he'd never have to do the whole school thing. After all, he wasn't like them, not deep down. Why should he have to go to school? It was a ridiculous thought because for all intensive purposes he was just a stupid ignorant child here in Odaiba. He frowned even more, the awe of this new world around him giving way to doubts. He was only here as a visitor, he told himself. But the world was closing in around him, trapping him, pushing him into things he didn't believe himself ready for. With an internal annoyance he berated himself for being so pathetic to be frightened of something like high school, something that Yamato and Sora treated like nothing big.
His silence appeared to be thick and impenetrable as the group lapsed into a tense moment of quiet. This time Sora tentatively tried to break the silence. "But you have to Taichi. It-It's just how it is. Kids go to school."
Taichi flinched at her tone, the kind of pitying condescension, you'd say 'I told you not to go too near the edge' to a little koromon when it got too close to the cliff and slipped and almost fell to its death. He remained in stubborn angry silence.
Hikari knew things weren't going well at all, not with Taichi closed off and defensive and the rest of the group looking at him with varying degrees of pity, sympathy and slight annoyance. Even Yamato seemed slightly fed up. The blond opened his mouth and she just knew it was going to be something that Taichi wouldn't like to hear. "Look, why don't we just drop this for now. Taichi, onni-chan…" She gave him a proud little smile at being able to use the term of endearment. "…we shouldn't push him into things so soon."
Yamato nodded sullenly and stared uncomprehendingly at Hikari. How could she just let these things drop? School was something every normal kid did, and Taichi needed to get himself used to everything as quickly as he could. What was the use of avoiding things? The old Taichi would've never acted like this. "But this issue isn't going to drop." He turned to face Taichi. "You can't ignore this Taichi."
Taichi knew he couldn't, but he didn't want to think about it. There was a small difference in his mind. Almost overwhelmingly, he was homesick. He missed Gennai's mumblings and Agumon's voice and his bed and his room full of odds and ends he picked up walking and playing with friends in the digital world. He wanted to be back under the lake, not four stories above the ground. "I know I can't," he said softly, most to himself. He kept replaying all that he had left behind, his home, his family, his whole life as he knew it.
The party went on around him and people left and food was eaten, but he remained in his own thoughts. His friends' worried looks didn't register and Hikari's soft entreaties were met with distracted silence. There was only one thought running through his head, getting louder and more urgent by the minute. He needed to go home. He needed to go back now. And he knew that he would do whatever it took to be back where he was a brave, normal boy not an outsider in a strange land. Tonight he was going to escape. He was going to run away.
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Author's Notes: Whew, that took me an exorbitantly long to hammer out and I'm not particularly satisfied with it, but I'm sure glad I'm done with this chapter. Drop me a review won't you?"