Goggles Hide My Self
Author's Note: Set during Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna. Enjoy the story and R&R.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or of the Digimon series.
Pairings: Developing Taichi x Koushiro. Referenced pre-canon Yamato x Sora.
Summary:
Yagami Taichi feels bad he rejected the goggles Izumi Koushiro made him. When he goes to apologize, he realizes he has to stop taking Koushiro for granted.
Chapter 2
"I'm glad you're safe…" Taichi hugged Koushiro on the floor of his office.
Kyotaro didn't think much of it, and put Menoa in cuffs.
Everything had been moving so fast. From Eosmon, to the Chosen Children's looming breakup with their Digimon, to Menoa masterminding a mass abduction.
Of course Yagami Taichi would cling to someone he almost lost. It wouldn't be long now before Agumon left his partner.
A perfectly understandable reaction.
But Yamato knew Taichi better than that. He knew something else was up.
It was jarring to Yamato how slow Taichi moved. The same Taichi who'd pushed and prodded for Yamato to move things along with Sora, often laughing and teasing him like a good friend should. Yet here, undeniably struggling, hiding his face and the difficulty he had finding the trademark courage of his youth.
Hiding behind his goggles. The original pair that he'd handed down to Daisuke, but through unspoken events perhaps never to be revealed, returned back to him. To the drawer in his apartment. Or a new pair.
Yamato ruminated whether this was the first Taichi was getting this kind of emotional in front of Koushiro, or whether Koushiro was already in the know. If it was the latter, Taichi inviting him out for beers made a whole lot more sense in hindsight: It must've been at least partially due to Taichi wanting advice on how to move things along with Koushiro.
As always, though, Yamato reckoned Taichi should have gone to Takeru first or simply gone to Takeru instead.
Agumon is also crying, and when Gabumon interrogates him about it, he replies innocently he isn't sure why he's crying.
Tentomon observes like Yamato.
Menoa and Kyotaro are quiet.
Everybody's echoing somebody.
"Taichi-san, please take your goggles off."
Taichi shakes his head beside Koushiro's head, and Koushiro can feel the goggles' plastic grazing his ear.
"Please, Taichi-san. Let me see your face."
Koushiro asks, but Taichi's refusal is moot. He's not actively fighting to keep the goggles on, and Koushiro does reset them over Taichi's hair without Taichi making a childish fuss.
A blast from the past, that face. Both Hikari-san's sick face and Taichi-san's distraught face at his inability to protect her, that time they were searching for medicine in Mugendramon's city.
Eyes quivering while shut. Red attacking the cheeks.
The most vulnerable Koushiro ever saw Hikari.
The most vulnerable Koushiro ever saw Taichi.
Analysis and his gut advised Koushiro to mother as his mother or Taichi would.
"I'm awake, Taichi-san. Thanks to you and Yamato-san. Thanks to all of you. Because you followed my coordinates, Taichi-san."