Chapter 29
Wormmon had seen that look in Ken's eyes before. He had seen that look
after a long hard day of trying to rid himself of the digidestined back when
he was still the kaiser. It was due to his failure to beat them. His eyes
would glaze over, his face emotionless. Failure. That was the one thing Ken
could never handle.
But now that he was just plain Ken, he had so much more failure then when
he was the kaiser, therefore it was harder on him.
Ken was currently asleep, with Wormmon sitting right next to him. How
could he sleep? For the first time in months, (save for the incident in the
hospital and apartment) Ken hadn't shown a single sign of his old kaiser
self. But last night he had, and it scared Wormmon out of his wits to think
that maybe Ken will go back to his old ways now that's his heart's been
broken.
Ken groaned in his sleep, his groggy eyes slowly opening. It was at least
6:30 am. He was so used to getting up for school at that time that he even
did it on weekends like this.
He grabbed his head with both hands and groaned, shifting back and forth.
"Ken?" asked Wormmon bravely. At this ken sat up, rubbing his eyes
wearily.
Yawning, he looked down at Wormmon, who was afraid he'd get smacked
upside the head like when he was the kaiser. Ken just stared at him, his f
face still emotionless, his eyes still glazed over and a bit red. Probably from
crying. Ken turned his gaze towards the wall, then to his feet.
He just sat there...And sat there...And sat there...
The only movement in the room was their breathing and Ken's slow blinking,
and Wormmon's fast blinking.
Silence.
This made Wormmon uncomfortable. He didn't like silence. Was ken just
going to sit there all day?
"She..." Ken finally spoke, his voice croaking. Wormmon looked up.
"She...doesn't want...to see me...anymore...No Yolei...No ray of
sunshine...no happiness...no more...laughing and...hugging..." ken looked as
though he was about to cry at this point, but he didn't. "No more reason to get up every morning..." he slowly began to rock back and forth.
"She's does this to me before...When we first started going out...She
didn't want to date me because I used to be the kaiser...But she went out
with me anyways...back then it wasn't that big a deal. Sure I was
crushed...but I got over it...mainly cause we hadn't been that close...but
now...I feel like a part of me is missing...Cause we were very close..."
Wormmon took a brave step forward. "So what are you going to do now?"
Ken shrugged.
"Maybe you could call Davis. Go play soccer or something" tried the little
worm.
ken shrugged once again, only this time he started moving towards the
ladder of his bed and began to climb down. He was still in nothing but his
pants, so he got dressed. He wore his usual Tamachi uniform.
He walked out of his room and into the kitchen.
"Oh Hello ken! You're up awfully early! Did you have fun last night at
Homecoming with Yolei?" asked his mother, who was oblivious to Ken's
attitude.
Ken didn't reply, instead he walked past her and into the kitchen and
grabbed a piece of toast and stuck it into the toaster. It popped up after
several minutes and Ken was able to eat it. He didn't put any butter on it,
he just ate it plain, which was very strange for ken.
"ken honey? Something wrong?" asked his mother.
Ken shook his head. "No." he whispered.
"Alright then. Say ken, why don't you invite Yolei over today?"
Ken swallowed his mouthful of toast. "She's busy" he lied through his teeth.
"Then why not Davis? You can go and play soccer" offered Mrs. Ichijouji.
Ken nodded. That was the second person who suggested that. Why not?
About two hours later, Ken decided it was late enough to call Davis.
Besides, he had to get out of this house otherwise he'd go nuts. Too many
memories of Yolei.
"Hello, is Davis there?" asked Ken on the phone.
"Oh yeah, let me go get him. That sleepy head will sleep the day away"
answered Davis' sister Jun.
"Thank you."
Ken could hear Jun on the other side of the phone yelling at Davis to get
up. Davis finally came to the phone.
"yeah? Hello. Who is it?" asked Davis heatedly.
"It's Ken. I was wondering if you'd like to do something today Davis" said
Ken, his voice flat.
"Um...sure. I'll meet you at Odaiba Park in an hour" replied Davis, suddenly
sounding excited. They hung up.
Ken hung up the phone and slowly walked into his bedroom, where he
climbed up on top of his pulled, pulled the covers over him and began to
cry.
Wormmon cocked his head to one side. He had heard the entire
conversation from on his bed save for what Davis said. After several
minutes of crying and moaning Ken calmed down, looked at Wormmon and
said, "Just thought I'd get it out of my system before I saw Davis."
Wormmon nodded.
Ken met Davis an hour later, just like they had agreed. The day was
sunny and happy, the complete opposite of Ken's mood.
"Ken! Head's up!" Ken just had enough time to look over and dodge a fast
moving soccer ball from hitting him in the head.
"Sorry!" came Davis' apology. Davis ran over to ken, who was just standing
there dazed. "Dude, what is up with you today? You're all out of it. If you
didn't want to play then why'd you invite me?"
"I had to get away?" replied ken softly.
Davis cocked his head to one side, confused. "Get away from what?"
"The memories...the pain..."
Davis then realized that this was a lot more serious than he had first
thought. "What happened? What memories? What pain?"
Ken looked over at Davis and looked him straight in the eye. "Yolei and
I...broke up..." Davis could tell ken was trying his hardest to get the tears
at bay.
Davis out an arm around Ken's shoulder and smiled. "Don't worry Ken.
You'll forget about her. You don't need her. You're too good for her" he
said. Ken not but still looked unconvinced.
The rest of the weekend went painfully slow. Davis tried his best to help ken
forget about Yolei, but whatever they did seemed to remind him of
something they has together. Anyway, most of time wasn't even responding
to things Davis said. He nodded every now and then, and said maybe one
word every three hours.
But what Davis was worried about the most was school. If Ken was acting
this way now, how was he going to react when he was in the same area as
Yolei. What will he do?
Davis got his answers Monday morning. Davis had decided that it would be
best if he spent the night on Sunday so they could go to school together.
He wanted to make sure he was with his best friend the whole way through
this.
"Davis" piped up Veemon inside Davis' book bag Monday morning on the t
train. Ken was sitting beside him in his usual dazed state, oblivious to
things around him. "Is Ken going to be okay?"
Davis looked over at ken before he answered. he looked back down at
Veemon, who was now poking his head out of the zipper, and sighed. "I
don't know buddy, I don't know."
When Davis and Ken got to school, they first went into the computer
room like they did every morning to drop off Veemon and Wormmon. When
they opened the door however, there were already people inside.
"That jerk! I'll never forgive him!" Yolei was saying heatedly. The others
hadn't realized that ken and Davis were hiding behind the door.
"Well, like they say, once a bad egg, always a bad egg, or something like
that" mentioned Cody. Their digimon were happily gobbling at some food
Yolei had brought from the store. Wormmon and Veemon saw this and
before Ken or Davis could react they were already munching on the food.
Yolei, Cody, Kari, and TK all looked down and then to the door.
"If that worm's here then so is the other one!" hissed Yolei.
There was no point in hiding, so Davis and Ken reluctantly walked into the
room. Davis was in front of Ken, who had his hands behind his back and his
head low.
Without warning, Yolei snorted and scooped down to grab Wormmon
around the waist, throwing him across the room to ken's feet.
"Oomph..." whined Wormmon when he landed on his stomach and chin. The
rice ball had been so tasty but so rudely taken from him.
Davis glanced over at Ken. He knew that had done it.
Ken looked down at Wormmon at his feet and bent over to help him up on
all his feet. He then stood. Fury tickled at his eyes. He glared daggers at
Yolei. If looks could kill, they say, Yolei would be dead as stone.
"No one..." spat Ken in a dead calm whisper. "Messes with my
partner...and gets away with it."
"Well then" replied Yolei, unfazed by Ken's glare. "Better start giving
yourself a beating for if I recall correctly, you used to beat and throw that
worm around like a dirty old dish rag."
Ken gritted his teeth in anger. The others could do nothing between this
little war between their friends. All they could was watch and see what
happened.
"Well at least I don't look like I just came out of store called, Dirt Poor.
Good god, at least I match. And for one with such giant glasses you
certainly are blind. Can't even determine one color from the next."
"At least I don't cheat on my girlfri-"
"I DIDN'T CHEAT! IT WAS A MISTAKE!" Yelled Ken, cutting her off.
Silence. Yolei and Ken just kept staring at each with frowns on their faces.
"Well, your idea of a mistake astounds me" spoke Yolei at last. "It didn't
look much like a mistake to me!"
"I once loved you Yolei. But you've broken my heart" began ken.
"Oh cry me a river" hissed Yolei.
Ken's hands were shaking as he stood there perfectly straight. Davis
backed away from his spot next to ken as he started feeling cold darkness
seep through Ken. He closed his eyes, as though he was accepting the
darkness within him to come out and take control for a while.
"Oh Ken, please don't do this..." whimpered Wormmon at his feet.
Ken's eyes slowly opened, but his eyes were deep and full of darkness. A
sadistic smile played on his lips as he looked around.
"Ken?" asked TK bravely. Ken looked over to TK.
"Ken? I don't know any Ken. All I know is Kaiser" smiled Kaiser.
He walked up to Yolei. "Thank you Ms. Inoue. Thanks to you Ken has
taken...a little vacation if you will, into the depths of his mind, leaving me in
control for a while."
"Bring Ken back!" Yolei demanded.
"What's this? Suddenly you wish for him to be back? That's not what he
told me when he asked me to take over." replied Kaiser.
"He ASKED you to take control?" asked Davis, shocked.
"Well of course he did. I may be evil but I am no liar" answered Kaiser.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I have a world to conquer. Wormmon!"
Wormmon came gingerly to Kaiser's side, like in the old days.
Grabbing the digivice from his pocket, the digidestined tried pushing him
away from the computer but it was futile. "Give my regards to my parents"
said Kaiser, waving. "Digiport Open!" he cried.
He was about to go in when a bright pink light appeared in front of the
screen, blinding everyone. An unknown force pushed Kaiser into the wall
behind him. The others were able to get away in time.
"Uhh..." moaned Kaiser, rubbing his head. Everyone looked up at the
computer to see Ken's Crest of Kindness floating there in front of the
screen.
"Ken's crest is keeping the kaiser from entering" Kari observed.
"Wow, aren't you bloody smart" hissed Kaiser, standing. "Move aside!"
Kaiser pushed Kari to the side and walked out of the room, the crest
disappearing as soon as he left.
"That was...odd.." commented Cody. Everyone nodded.