Chapter 8

"Minomon!" Davis exclaimed, picking up the little critter and twirling around with it. "I've got good news!"

"I can go home?" Minomon guessed hopefully.

"Not yet, but it shouldn't be too much longer!" Davis grinned. "I just got word from Yolei. She said she talked with Ken for a long time last evening and that he remembered a lot of stuff! I think everything about digimon is slowly coming back to him."

"I hope so."

"Don't worry about it!" DemiVeemon piped in. "Ken'll be ok!"

Ken shut his eyes tightly, trying to picture what he'd seen.

The night before, he'd had another strange dream. The little green bug from the dream he'd had previously had appeared again, along with lots of others: A blue and white dragonish creature, a red bird, a white cat with hints of purple on its ears and tail, an armadillo thing, and a weird little orange creature with bat-like ears that served as wings.

Ken held a pencil in his hand and there was a blank piece of paper in front of him. He opened his eyes and started sketching the creatures from his dream. When he was finished, he sighed, dissatisfied with his picture. "I guess I'm not much of an artist," he muttered, putting down the pencil.

And then he heard a beeping sound. He looked around, wondering where it could've come from. It seemed to be coming from his drawer. He opened it, and discovered that the sound was coming from one of the devices he'd found the other day. He held it in his hands, toying with it. He fiddled with it for a while, pushing buttons and such, and then a message suddenly popped up.

'Ken,

I just wanted to see if you remembered how to use your D-terminal. See, we can communicate using them and write e-mails to each other. If you can figure it out, write back when you get this, ok?

Yolei'

'D-terminal?' Ken thought. He didn't recognize the word. He shrugged, then messed with the device a little longer, eventually figuring out how to use it.

Eagerly, Yolei read the message aloud to herself:

"Yolei,

I had no idea that we could write to each other using these D-terminal things. Thanks for showing me. I also figured out that I could write to Davis, Cody, TK, and Kari. Maybe I'll do that later. Thanks again!

Ken"

She wrote back to him:

'Ken,

Let's get together again soon. I want to see you.'

That evening, as the Ichijouji family was sitting down having their dinner, Ken wouldn't eat. He simply stirred his food around, seeming a little disturbed.

"Honey, what's the matter?" his mother asked.

Ken hung his head and messed with his food a little longer. "I…" he began, but suddenly stopped, his face turning red.

"Whatever's on your mind, Ken, you can tell us," his father said.

"I wanna… well… I don't know how to ask you." He looked up at his parents, his face becoming even redder.

"You can ask us anything," his father assured him.

"Well," Ken said, "I want to… uh… have a friend over."

"Oh, that's great, Kenny!" Mrs. Ichijouji exclaimed happily. "Who is it?"

Blushing even more terribly, Ken answered, "Yolei Inoue."

"Aw, now that's a good idea," his mother told him. "She's a nice girl. I think you're starting to be like your old self, Ken."

"So… um… may I? I mean, I… I want to talk to her."

Mr. Ichijouji looked to his wife, who nodded. "Sure," he replied. "We'll have her over tomorrow afternoon."

"It'll be good for you, Ken," Mrs. Ichijouji said. "I've been so worried about you. You've been thinking too much and spending lots of your time alone. I'm so glad that you're willing to try and be yourself again!"

Ken nodded, smiling.

The next day, Ken sat before the door, waiting for Yolei to arrive. He glanced nervously at a nearby clock, and began to wonder what in the world had made him want to invite her over.

Then there was a knock on the door. Ken got up and opened it…

"Ken!" Yolei exclaimed cheerily. "I'm here!"

"Hello," Ken mumbled shyly. Then he took her hand and pulled her inside. "Um… Let's go to my room, shall we? It's-"

"I know," Yolei interrupted. "I've been here before."

"Have you?" Ken questioned. "I didn't know."

"It's ok, Ken."

The two teens made their way to Ken's room. Immediately, Yolei spied a drawing sitting on a little table in Ken's room. She sat at the table, picking up the picture.

"Did you draw this, Ken?" she asked curiously.

Ken sat across from her. "Yeah," he replied. "It's… not exactly very good…"

"It's no million dollar work of art, I'll admit, but it's better than what I could do!"

"Well," Ken said, embarrassed, "I did my best."

"Say, Ken, what are these little things?" Yolei questioned, pretending as though she didn't know.

"Uh… I really don't know. I've had these two dreams, you see." He pointed to the little green bug in the picture. "That one there was in both of them, and the others were in my most recent one."

"Mm-hmm… Well, it certainly is interesting! Do they have names?"

"Names?"

"Sure!" Yolei exclaimed. "You've gotta name 'em!"

"I haven't."

"Then allow me to name them for you! Ok now…" Yolei placed her finger on the red bird. "This one here is my favorite! Call him Hawkmon."

"Hawkmon?" Ken asked, puzzled.

"Yep! He's so awesome!" Then she pointed to Cody's partner. "This is Armadillomon. And this one-" -now she had her finger on the cat- "-will be Gatomon."

Ken just stared at her.

Then she announced the name of TK's partner: "This little guy is Patamon." Next, the dragon: "His name is Veemon." She then placed her finger on the green bug…

"And we're going to call that one Wormmon," Ken said.

Yolei looked to him in surprise.

"Wormmon," Ken repeated.

"It's a good name," Yolei said.

"Wormmon," Ken said again. He looked at Yolei quizzically. "It's familiar," he said. "Why is does that sound so familiar to me?"

"Um… I… I don't know, Ken."

Ken simply sat there a moment, taking it all in. All of the names were strangely familiar. So odd… But he decided to put that aside for a moment, as he had other thoughts in his mind. He looked to Yolei with a serious expression on his face.

"What can you tell me about the Dark Spore?" he asked.

Yolei bit her bottom lip nervously. "How'd you know about that?"

"Davis tried to explain it to me," Ken answered, "but he didn't do a good job with it."

"Well…"

"If you know something- anything- tell me," Ken demanded.

"All I know is that it changed you. It made you a mean person, and corrupted your mind with vile thoughts."

"What? That's not what Davis told me. He said that the Dark Spore made me smarter and more of an athlete!"

"Yeah, it did that too."

"Although Davis did mention that it made me angry," Ken added.

"Exactly."

Ken sighed. "This is so confusing!"

"Forget it, Ken," Yolei advised. "It's all in the past."

"Ugh! Don't you get it!" Ken exclaimed angrily. "I have forgotten! Yes, it's in the past, and that's exactly why I want to know! I don't remember anything, Yolei!"

Yolei let out a soft whimper. "Please don't yell at me," she said timidly. "I'm only trying to help."

Ken glared at her, and she sort of sank back in her seat, as if from fear. He sat there quietly for a while, watching her. Something about her eyes, her face, all of her, made him feel guilty then. His expression softened as he reached across the table for her hand. "Yolei," he whispered, "I'm so sorry."

"It's ok, Ken. I guess it must be really hard for you to have amnesia like this."

"Very hard, but that didn't give me the right to yell at you." He paused, frowning, then went on, "Will you forgive me?"

"Yes, Ken."