Schism ~ an adventure in shounen ai with the occasional flock of strangeness by ShiniJekka
Silly Author's Sobstory: These people aren't mine, and I swear they were never in my bed.
Silly Author's Ramble – As usual, I'm sorry for the wait. I couldn't get near this til I fixed chapter 3 and worked on When to Bicker a little, and even after that I procrastinated til the guilt set in. It think guilt may be my main motivation. I started this chapter with a basic knowledge of where it would head, and then (per usual) the characters ignored me and did whatever they want. No respect, I tell ya…. Daisuke's POV at the beginning... he's fun, but hard somehow. Watch for a switch to Ken near the end -- you'll see it, don't worry. The quote used in this chapter, and in the title, is from Hesiod's Works and Days. I know the omake is stupid. Bear with me.
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Chapter 4 – His Long Wings Beating…
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My rival sits nearby, innocent, silent…
Waiting.
"Homework!" I declare aloud, pointing a finger at the pile sitting quietly on my computer desk.
Alright, one of the piles. The only one with books in it. I'm not the cleanest kid on the block, but I like my room with a healthy amount of mess attached. Besides, Chibimon likes to nest in the mounds of clothing I leave on the floor.
"Homework?" he asks in a squeaky yawn, one huge eye peering open at my pose.
"Homework!" I agree, pointing with extra vigor. "Your time is up! I, the Great Motomiya, have come for you! You may have … er... thwarted me in times of past... or, the past... as in past years... but! Not THIS year! I will defeat you, homework! I will write the papers, memorize the tables, even build that stupid little birdhouse I'm supposed to build! Homework… prepare to be subjugated!"
I strike a very, very valiant pose (I used to practice this one in front of the bathroom mirror) and wait for the applause from my small blue pal.
"Subjugate?" he asks, pulling himself out of the pile of clothes and waddling closer, blinking curiously. "Whassat mean? An' why are you twitching?"
"It's one of Ken's words," I answer, un-posing and rubbing at the muscle that just cramped up. "It means, like... to make submit, I think."
My digimon friend eyes me strangely, then shakes his head and wanders back over toward the bed.
"I'm not even gonna ask..."
With a sigh I slump back into the old wooden chair (which I don't think is very good for my back... very.. what's it.. ergo.. numerical), propping my feet onto the desk and eyeing the stack of work like a gunslinger, staring down a foe across a dusty stretch of road. It's not that the work was hard, it just took up way too much time on nice sunny days. Plus, finals upcoming or not, studying was really, really, really boring.
Ken. I haven't really seen him much since the picnic a few days ago. I wonder if he's at home, staring at a stack of homework right now, thinking …
Okay, I don't know what he'd be thinking. "Mwah, this is easy for my geniusness!" or maybe not because it's getting harder for him lately, or maybe (maybe!) he's thinking of me like I'm thinking of him?
It makes me happy to think things like that, though I'm kinda always thinking about Ken, on some level. At suppertime I think "I wonder what he's eating" or "Ken would hate this meal.. wait, I hate this too.. anyone sane would hate this meal". Anytime I look at a soccer ball or a book or a computer or a cellphone, or see someone in grey or with sleek, shiny hair.
I wish we lived closer together, but I guess that's kinda greedy. All we really need to do to be together is jump into the nearest computer.
How many couples can say that?
On the other hand, how many couples were once archrivals on a digital field of battle? How many couples have to deal with small companions constantly setting them up? (They think I don't notice, but the joke's on them.. I'm Super Observant Daisuke, I even surprise Ken with my insight sometimes!)
Erg. There I go again. I've got Ichijouji on the brain.
And it's obvious that I'm not going to get one single character of homework written today. It's a damn shame that there wasn't a class about Ken, cos I wouldn't have to study for it (although I might just anyway). Hell, I could probably teach it.
For instance, when you talk to him? If he ever says "I .. I'm fine," that means he's not, and it's your job to push a bit more. But if he says "I'm fine, Daisuke" with a bit of oomph on "fine" then you're pushing in the wrong direction and you need to change tactics. If he switches "Daisuke" to "Motomiya" then you've made him mad, and you might be in real trouble (it's usually a good point, then, to look to Wormmon for help). On the other hand, if you manage to get him to use "Dai-chan" (ah, that sends flutters right through me) then you're doing perfectly. And when he starts to look down and to the left, like, and ignores that bit of hair that tends to waft into his eyes, then he's thinking and depressed (I've told him he thinks too hard but he doesn't seem to want to stop).
A lot of this is from trial and error. It's a little hard, poking and prodding around the shell Ken's made, looking for ways in. He's a pretty handy craftsman, I guess, because the walls around him took me nearly forever to get around. Once I did, though… I dunno. It's like the man who takes forever to climb that mountain but finally does one day and finds Nirvana on the other side or something. Sometimes that's what I feel like; the luckiest guy in Odaiba. Or like a guy about to fall down a mountain. I dunno.
"You're not defeating the homework," Chibimon points out so kindly as he bounces up and down on my bed.
"I'm leading it into a false sense of security," I sniff, snatching him out of midbounce and applying a light noogie. He squirms, giggling, craning his neck to look up at me with this kinda absolute adoration that makes every single hardship I've ever gone through worth it.
Yeah, he looks a lot cooler in his other forms, but there's something to said for cuteness.
"I'm hungry, Daisuke," he says suddenly.
"Me too, kinda," I agree, setting him on the bed. "I think Jun's still home, lemme see if she's planning on making supper."
"But I wanted real food."
I hide a snicker. Jun isn't the best of cooks, but between the two of us she's certainly the better. We try to practice on nights like these, when our folks are out on business, but more often than not we only cook up disaster.
"Just hold on a minute, maybe I can convince her to order out."
If there's one constant thing about Jun, it's her love of older boys.
If there's a second constant thing, it's that she's somehow always foiling my plans. Maybe that's the duty of an older sister or something (she takes a weird amount of pride in it) but go figure the one night I go to seek her out for something, she's getting ready to leave.
"What do you want, shrimp?" she asks, sounding kinda annoyed and eyeing me as she laces up her boots. I myself would rather be seen dead than walking around town in the black and white striped skirt and pea green haltertop she's got on (I also know she would BE dead if SEEN by our parents around town in that) but hey, it's not for the fashion-smart little brothers to question the vision of the older sisters.
Bomber jackets are the thing, man. And shorts. And goggles. Ken is the only person I've ever seen who's able to make scarves look though, and Takeru is the only person I know who can choose the dumbest hat in the world. Tai told me once that he wore an even worse one, their first venture into the Digital World. I'm betting Takeru just has really bad hair.
Jun is staring at me… did I forget something? Oh! Right.
"I was gonna ask what you wanted to do for supper," I say with a tragic sigh, "but now I see you're leaving for an adventure."
"Whatever. I'm going to a movie with Himiko and Keiko, if anyone asks." She yanks the edge of a stocking up a little more and stands, looking at herself in the mirror.
"Yeah, all the no other people who're here," I quip, rolling my eyes. "Forget it, I'll just whip together some noodles."
"Try not to poison yourself," she practically sings, adjusting her hair (similar to mine, but what is cool on me is just scary on her).
"Whatever."
I leave her to her primping and head back into my room to tell Chibimon the news. I'm not a bad cook, by any means (I'm really practicing on my noodles! I think I may be on to something!) but I … how did Ken put it? I "lack a certain culinary grace".
He knows how to make "I burn down the kitchen" sound so pretty.
A ball of blue fluff leaps at me as I open the door my room, and soccer-born instincts (or maybe battle-born.. or maybe big-sister-born) help me snatch him out of the air and hold him at arm's length. He squirms and giggles.
"Daiiiisuke! What'd she say, what are we getting, is it pizza? Pizza?"
"Afraid not, little guy; Jun's splitting. Looks like Daisuke's home cooking for us."
He (my greatest pal, my best friend) manages not to flinch all that much, grinning feebly.
"Well, you're getting better at those," he says slowly. "I'm sure it won't be too bad…"
Grumbling, I toss him back onto the bed, sweeping the room with a gaze, and spotting them on my closet door.
The items that are perfect for time such as these.
The items I wear to war.
I snap the goggles in place onto my head. Fists clench.
It begins.
"Kitchen!" I roar, booting the door back open and pointing at the stove in raw, fiery defiance. "I will DEFEAT YOU!"
And end up staring, frozen in pose, at my sister, who is halfway out the door and talking with the slim, slender, graceful, blinking, beautiful, perfect, extremely bewildered looking…
"You have a guest," Jun says with a smirk.
"Hello Daisuke," says Ken.
Thankfully people are so used to my whacky antics, Ken doesn't really ask what I was saying to the kitchen or why. I think he accepts that maybe he'll never understand my weirdness, like I eventually understood that I'd never understand his sadness.
Tonight, he seems to have fallen slightly back under the shadow. That's what I call it, in my own head, when the past catches up to him and he withdraws, or gets stiff, and silent, and bitter. He lets his bangs shade his eyes and never moves to tuck them, or he sits with his back arched, like he's compressing into a ball.
It's a bit different tonight, from the usual. He isn't arched or slouched, he's stiff and tall, and awkward. He doesn't dip his head down, but rather holds his chin up, the muscles of his face pulled tight. A different sort, yeah, but definitely back under the shadow.
Luckily for him, he happens to be at my house.
"Daisuke's gonna cook!" Chibimon sings, hopping from foot to foot as he stares up at the both of us from the table. Ken smiles slightly at him, the action not quite reaching his eyes, and he leans his gorgeous navy-clad self against the warm tones of the kitchen wall, arms folding over his chest.
"Perhaps you'd better point me toward the nearest fire extinguisher, before you begin..?"
"Traitor," I mock-growl as my digimon rolls onto his back, giggling.
"Safety first," Ken murmurs, and I feel more than see his amethyst gaze sweep over the interior of the room.
"Ne, ne!" Chibimon suddenly cries, leaping back to his feet. "Where's Wormmon, Ken? Or Minomon! Did he come?"
My back is to them, and my front to the stove, but all senses are tuned to Ken. The pause goes for a moment longer or so than I expect, before the light, boyish alto answers.
"He stayed at home. He was… embarrassed."
Odd.
"About what?" my digipal asks for me.
A longer pause. The hand that was adding noodles to the water has stopped completely, and after staring at it for a minute or two I remember, oh hey! That's my hand! And it should be cooking!
"Because I came here to … be with Daisuke."
I may be the only person on Earth who would hear that sentence the way it's meant to be heard. See, there was just the teeniest emphasize on 'be with'. I teach Ichijouji 101, so I noticed it. It means that he means more than just 'be with'. He means BE WITH.
My innards just turned into jelly.
"Alone? Why alone? What are you gonna do alone? Aren't things fun with more people? Daisuke, aren't they?" Chibimon asks, highpitched voice coming in a fast stream.
Ken hardly ever initiates our little bouts, let alone when he's depressed. To think that we're so close, that he came here, to me…
Maybe for comfort? Or looking for something… for me? What I can give him?
And what is that?
"Daisuke, aren't they?" A bright, confused, dear chirp.
"…Daisuke?"
A low, honey-slow echo.
And what is that?
I set the chopsticks down on the countertop, spinning on a heel and planting my hands on my hips with authority.
The reply I mean to say never makes it out of my mouth. I make the mistake of glancing from Chibimon's bright, questioning eyes, to Ken's.
And they're practically smoldering into me.
He …
wants me?
"I…"
I'm drowning in a sea of smoky purple black.
"I should be wearing an apron!" I yelp, darting past both of them and into my room, closing the door behind me sharply. Hand still on the knob, clutching, I lean against the door and breathe, hard.
Because Ken wants me, finally, and it's all finally right.
But something is also terribly wrong.
It isn't that I can't explain it… I think maybe I could, if the words existed. For all I know, they do, but I just don't know them. Ken might, but I'm not about to ask him for the words to explain what's wrong with him.
There is something, though. I can feel it, when I'm trying not to. Like it's at the corner of my eyes and if I look head-on it runs away to hide. And whatever it is…
The door at my back gets a soft knock from the other side.
"Daisuke?"
"… Just a second, Ken. I need to find my apron."
I need to get my heart out of my throat and back where it belongs.
"Daisuke… may I come in?"
His voice, soft and hesitant, full of hope and worry and… well, it's full of Ken. I realize I'm overreacting or something, I must be. Or else I'm just suddenly scared, like he's coming on too strong. That's stupid, though, and I know I'm not the smartest guy but I'm not stupid. Maybe it's the shift of rolls; Ken suddenly wants romance and I'm the one shying away.
Well, to hell with shy. I stop leaning on the door and open it, and there's my Ken, standing with his head slightly askew, indigo hair drifting in front of eyes that can't quite be amethyst and not quite obsidian. Automatically I reach out to brush it behind his ear for him; he never does it on his own when he's depressed.
Quick as a bird, he has my hand in his own, raising it to his mouth. Shivers zip up and down my spine as incisors brush against the pad of my thumb.
"Ken…" I start huskily, gaze darting to the kitchen behind him. "We really… the noodles.."
"Let them burn," is the low reply.
"But Chibimon…"
"He figured out what I meant by 'be with'," the prodigy I love says with a smirk. "He's in the living room, with the television on quite loud."
Blush runs over my face, like a trail of fire. Like flames on a bomberjacket.
"O-oh… Well…"
He's closed the door behind him.
My room is suddenly small and cramped, and someone seems to have stolen all the air. I'd find whoever took the air and get it back, only I'm too busy forgetting how to think, because Ken is now drawing the shades to my one window and flicking off the lamp, fingers travelling with a quick efficiency. Slices of silver, bars of streetlight through the blinds, slide over his otherwise grey form as we both move – me, backward, and he advancing.
Everything turns grey in the dark, did you ever notice? Grey like his school uniform, that he hates. He says it makes him feel that the whole campus is colorless or drained, sucked dry of life. Like he should escape from it. Like he…
How the hell am I thinking about stuff like that when the most gorgeous boy alive is in my bedroom, with eyes like that? Staring, peeling away layers, calculating eyes, nearly all iris despite the lack of light, dark purple like inkblots.
Eyes that tug at some part of my memory, but I trip on the edge of the bed and sprawl, graceless, before it can connect right. And – and oh my god – and, he's just bending over me, with his hands on either side, and his hair hanging down, the light tips brushing my face, which must look so stupid right now, because I'm just staring, staring at his eyes and down a little to his lips, which are parting and zooming in and before I know what's going on he's –
Kissed.
Me.
Of course I know this is just weird of me. Ken and I have kissed dozens (and dozens!) of times, and it always makes my breath catch and my heart stop, but there's something this time that has me in this weird deer-in-headlight state. It feels like… like…
Okay. Emotion roll-call. First in line, obvious lust. Explained for by boyfriend who's on top of me. Next up is fear. Could be nerves or shyness, but that doesn't seem quite right. After fear there's … guilt? Like I've betrayed something?
"Wait, Ken," I choke, shaking my head so fast the goggles must vibrate. "Give me a second."
A glint in his eyes sparks the room, and he raises his head slightly, watching me from the lower corners and over his nose.
"You have exactly one second," he purrs.
We both pause.
And he grins, teeth white and perfect and feral.
"One."
Panic surges up through my throat like an ocean, and before I know it I'm moving my arms to ward him off, one palm connecting solidly to his chest, the thud loud against our breathing and the rustle of my sheets. He grabs the hand and holds it there, to his thin sweater, and his eyes bore into mine.
Through the fabric I feel his bodyheat, his inhaling, his slow, lazy heartbeat. How can he be so calm? I'm shaking like a leaf, here, pulse a mile a minute and mind racing right along with…
Wait.
Suddenly I think I know what it might be like to be a genius. Several different things I'd noticed right from the start of the evening shift into place, snap together, and abruptly it's so clear. The posturing, the phrasing, the eyes, the fact that he's got me lying on my bed and yet it feels like I'm cheating on him… and Wormmon's absence.
Next trip to the Digiworld, I might as well go looking for the Digimentals of Instinct and Idiocy, for knowing from the start and ignoring the facts anyway.
"Is something the matter, Daisuke?" he asks with Ken's voice, the grip on my hand absolute.
Something must have shown in my expression (stupid, stupid open-faced Daisuke!) because the smirk that'd been flashing onto his face for split seconds suddenly gets free reign. I swallow, and shiver.
"Our hearts," I finally tell him, remembering Courage. "They're out of synch."
He shifts slightly, setting more of his weight onto the bed, and me, and my wrist creaks slightly in his grip. And he hisses.
"Do tell."
I'm angry. Furious. Wailing, inside, and screaming for someone to tell me what's gone wrong, but it's just us two, so for the most part I'm angry.
"You're not Ken," I tell him.
An old, snide humor slides over his features. I remember that sneer.
"Do tell," he says again, and shifts again.
Remember Courage.
"Get the hell off me," I growl, letting my eyes narrow. He throws his head back and laughs, a sharp bark that manages to piss me off even more. He thinks I'm not a threat to him?
He thinks I haven't learned anything from my Ken? I'm so furious I can taste it, hot and coppery, and some corner of my brain realizes I've bit my tongue or something, but that hardly matters at the moment. The rest of my brain is pulling together some sort of plan, which ends up being 'use your other hand and punch him'. Which I do.
He pulls to the side, swift as a snake, my fist only grazing the side of his cheek, but I get the instant I need to bunch my knees up between us and thrust him away, making him stumble across the floor, but before I can sit up I remember he's still got hold of my hand, and he's yanking me along with him.
Remember how I could teach Ichijouji 101? Now we get to the part where Ken happens to be a freakin' GOD at Judo, which is evident in the way that my own room blurs around me as I'm tugged this way and that, and slammed onto the floor, and suddenly pinned by his much lighter form.
"Damn it! Get the hell OFF me!" Flailing, straining, thrashing around, only to have him laugh at me, leaning in close, noses brushing, his breath in my mouth.
"This is very much a Hesiodic moment," he tells me, which for all I know is French or something, but I'm busy noticing that his hair got all mussed up in the tussle and it's sticking this way and that.
And now I know. I knew it wasn't Ken. Now I know who.
He continues, sing-song like, as through I wasn't swearing and shifting beneath him.
"'No sense in your crying'," he murmurs, "'You're in the grip of real strength now… And you'll go where I take you, songbird or not. I'll make a meal of you if I want, or maybe… I'll let you go.'" Grinning madly, he tilts an arm just so and pain shoots up my whole shoulder, and I'm wishing I took a martial art along with soccer or that his head was a soccer ball.
"Tsk," he sighs. "Do you know the end of that passage, Daisuke?"
If I open my mouth I'll groan, or my shoulder will fall off, so I grit my teeth and glare with all my might. In a perfect world, laser beams would shoot out my eyes, but this is the real world, ne?
"I suppose you wouldn't. Hmph. It goes like this: 'Only a fool struggles against his superiors. He not only gets beat, but humiliated as well.'"
Figures. Egomaniac.
"Did we learn anything from that little adventure in quotation, my Daisuke?"
"I'm not your Daisuke," I spit, "and you can take your stupid quotation and go screw yourself."
He snorts, moves again, and I swear to god my shoulder's about to dislocate, but I'm more worried about the gleam in his eyes.
"'Screwing me', as your elegant terminology puts it, is exactly why you are here."
Okay, forget Remember Courage, let's go with BLIND PANIC!!
Enter the miracle.
Or my crazy good luck. With the sort of sudden strength you get with blind panic, I somehow squirm right out of his grasp, and even he looks surprised at that. Well, I'm not giving him another chance at this.
I guess there IS something to be said for home turf. Peeking out from under my bed is the old baseball bat I got as a child, back from when Dad used to try to spend time with me. Ignoring the pain, I snatch the handle and whip it at his legs as fast as I can handle.
CRACK!
The sound he makes reminds me of when our neighbor's dog went bonkers. He clutches at the shin I just whacked, and I launch myself at him, tackling his midsection and we both smash into the wall.
There's a stillness, plaster dust falling around us, as we just stare, glare, and hate at each other. I'm dimly aware that our position has me straddling him, and that his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and that the dust in his hair makes him look old.
"Do you prefer it on top?" he asks quietly, a corner of his mouth twitching into a grin. "Worthy adversary?"
I shove him, as much as I can, and his back thuds against the wall but he's still staring and grinning.
"How dare you," I snarl, fists clenching. "How dare you show up again, here. How dare you think you could fool me, pretending to be him, you… … you…!"
"Say it aloud," he offers, head tilting. "Make it real."
"Where's Ken?" I ask instead.
"You're sitting on him," he replies with a laugh, all amused and delighted like. I shove him again, this time rewarded with the sound of his breath slightly knocked out.
"I want him." I swallow down the urge to punch him right on that mocking grin. "I want him, and not..."
And not...
"Say it and make it real!" he demands, like thunder in my ears, so I squeeze my eyes shut and the fists get tighter, I think I've lost feeling in my fingers, and louder than his voice is the blood in my ears, and why am I always doing what he tells me to, not when he's Ken but when he's…
"Kaiser," I tell him, to feel him relax and feel myself nearly break apart with the awful truth I've faced. "Digimon Kaiser."
"And here I thought you'd forgotten," he sighs, shaking his head. "I was almost disappointed."
"Wherever the hell you came from, you can just go right back, alright? No one wants you here. Put Ken back and go the hell away."
Or I swear to GOD I'll
"That's Friendship talking," he surmises. "And anyway, don't you know that this is your doing to begin with?"
Blink.
"What's THAT supposed to mean?!"
"Did I use too large a word?"
"HOW is it my doing?!" I raise a fist and stare him down. Taichi calls this the Motomiya Death Glare. It has failed to impress any teachers. It also fails now, but damned if it doesn't make me feel better.
"If I tell you everything," Kaiser says, "then you'll never learn."
If he's even telling the truth, then, if I brought him here I can damn well send him back.
Er. Somehow.
"Is that an idea I see lighting those delicious cherry oculars," he asks lazily, "or are you realizing what amazing things we can do from this position?"
"Why don't you just shut up?" I snap, and for good measure I give him another harsh shove, even though they aren't really doing anything.
We both wince at the sharp, painful noise his head makes as it cracks into the wall. I think he wasn't expecting that one. I must be right, because he looks awfully confused, his eyes swirling like fog before clearing into the cobalt-shaded amethyst I should have been looking for all night.
And he says, "Daisuke?"
And I say, "Ken?"
So now MY head hurts.
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We can't really talk to each other, after that. Daisuke insists on inspecting my head, constantly murmuring his apologies, when all the while I feel that I ought to be the one begging forgiveness.
I have no idea for what.
I have no idea how I got here. Or why he's skittish around me, glancing from the corner of his eye when he thinks I won't notice. Or where Wormmon is. Or the pain in the shin, and my head, and the disarray of our clothes, and the burning pan of what used to be noodles.
Per usual, I turn to escapism. I don't wonder. I don't question. I hide my eyes from the monsters, thinking they'll vanish if unseen.
Even the smallest of children know better.
But it is a method I cannot leave behind… even knowing the monster it created the first time. I use it still.
We found Chibimon in the laundry closet, stuck under a load of blankets, dazed, panting, and saying he "just felt a quick shove". Daisuke hugs him tightly, and says nothing. I say nothing.
He picks up his D3 and walks into the other room. He'll be just a minute, he says, he wants the others to come over. We need to have a meeting, he says, and he won't tell me why but I won't ask, therefor it's of no real consequence.
I won't say it aloud, for that would make it real.
Instead I slip my own D3 out from my pocket, finger sliding over the smooth, black surface, and step gingerly through the mess of Daisuke's room. An apparent warzone.
And, as usual, I escape.
"Digiport open."
The Digital World holds little beauty for me today; perhaps it is still there, resplendent, shining, green and promising, but I have no eyes for it. Confused, bewildered, miserable… frightened.
I wish Wormmon were here. I consider making the quick trip back to my apartment, relish in the notion of scooping him into my arms and warming myself. I'm so cold.
I don't know where I was. I don't know how long I was there, but I remember the picnic, and then it's … murky. Indescript. Dark, and cramped, and drowsy. Can a place be drowsy? Was it even a place?
It was… like being tossed aside, unwanted, left in a damp hole at the edge of the world while the rest of life turned and walked away.
It was all of that and yet not. Once I think I was back on that foggy street, the one I dream about incessantly, with my brother and his message that maybe I'll never receive. Once I was in the desert, where I once built a base and created the second monster of my life. For a moment maybe I was in Daisuke's room.
Or maybe it was, all of it, in my head.
Walking aimlessly, I come to a rock wall standing without sense in the middle of the field. No more unnatural than a telephone booth, or a bus, is it? Back to it, I slide to a seat.
I wonder why I seek solitude in times of turmoil.
As though I crave it.
If it weren't for Wormmon…
"If it weren't for Wormmon," I whisper, "I'd think I had been destined to be alone…"
"But you aren't alone."
My own voice answers me, and I snap my head up to look so fast I knock my still-sore cranium into the very wall that's supporting me. Terrific. Why bother saving braincells now, anyway?
Because if I'm seeing this, I have to be crazy…
"You've never been alone," the Kaiser says, as he strides forward, his boots crushing the plants before him, his glasses glinting, his back to the sun, and the twin elliptical stretches of cape stretching out behind him, breeze caught in the thick fabric.
"'His long wings beating'," I murmur, hugging my knees to my chest like a child. He stands over me, tall and looming, shadow stretched over me.
"'Thus spoke the hawklord'," he agrees, lips curling into a grin.
I don't think I can simply turn away from this one.
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--End chp 4
Adult Detective Ken: …. .
What? What's your problem?
ADK: Why'd you DO THAT?!
*shrug* Cos that's what was supposed to come next.
ADK: But.. but..
Stingmon: Ken!! Don't worry!
ADK: Wh-.. Stingmon?! Where have you been?!
He's been helping me read other fanfics. I gave him free stuff. *nod, nod*
ADK: ….. Stingmon?
Stingmon: I couldn't help it. The fics were good.
ADK: What free stuff?
Stingmon: …… So what did I miss?
Ken's upset because his younger self is an escapist schitzophrenic.
ADK: I WAS NO-.. …. What free stuff?
Stingmon: Read and review!