content warning: drowning, divorce, separation
"Baku (獏 or 貘) are Japanese supernatural beings that are said to devour nightmares."
Hikari is back in the ocean. The waters toss her with such force that she can't tell the surface from submerged.
But now it isn't just waves. Squinting her eyes against the torrents' spray, she sees thousands of shadows streaming into the currents. Each shadow is a familiar face: a fallen friend, or fearful child, someone she might have known from class, or passed on the street.
She tries to fight. She flails every limb to push them with as much might as her tired body could muster, but it is too much. They bear on her without end, swarming closer until she sinks into the sea where there is no air, no breath, and no reprieve. Nothing but the endless turning of tides, and the darkness to disappear into.
No, she is still one thing.
Blocked by shadows and barely discernible, but she is certain it is not simply imagined: the warmth of Takeru's hand in hers.
There is no sense to it. She finds no other sign of him, no movement or limb, not even a sound But she cannot deny this warmth pulsating in the palm of her hands — his warmth.
On this alone, she will trust him.
Placing her faith in his hand, she finds just enough force to push herself to the surface for one final breath, before allowing the waves to take her where they will.
That's when it finally speaks to her.
The TV is too loud, Takeru thinks as he rubs the slumber out of his eyes. What is there even to watch this late? All good anime end at seven.
Mama always scolds him when he needs to turn it down, but she never does anything about Papa. Just cover your ears, close your eyes, and you could be dreaming sweet dreams again in no time , she says. He works all day , just let him have this.
Well, Takeru's never seen him work. In fact, he barely sees his father at all. He's out the door by dawn, and only back past bedtime. Sometimes, he isn't even sure they live in the same apartment.
But tonight, Takeru's going to give him a piece of his mind. It's beyond the boy's bedtime, but if Papa wants to live under Mama's roof, then he has to follow Mama's rules, just like the rest of them.
The child rises, careful not to disturb his brother sleeping on the same futon. He makes for the living room, guided by the little star night light plugged into the wall.
"This again? What about the kids, huh? I guess you want me to quit my job?" shouts the television from outside their room. Must be some TV drama tonight , Takeru thinks with a yawn.
When he peers through the crack of the door though, it isn't the TV. It's his father.
The man stands stiffer than ever, facing his mother by the sink, a soapy plate still in hand.
"What do you need a job for? Do I not work hard enough? Do I not earn enough for you?" he howls.
He knows he shouldn't watch this, but he can't look away. He is so confused. If anything, Mama has too many jobs. She cooks all the food, cleans all the rooms, and sometimes even takes them to the grocery with her. Papa's only job is to turn down the TV.
After a pause, she rinses the plate and replies, "It's not about the money, Hiro."
Takeru has barely a second to consider the crack in her voice when a hand jerks him hard by the arm from behind. "Get back in bed," Yamato wails in a loud whisper.
But it's too late. His brother pulled him rougher than he ever had, and it hurt . Before he finds the cry fleeing his throat, or the tears falling to Yamato's hand over his guilty mouth, the last thing Takeru sees is both his parents turning to face the boys' bedroom door.
A heavy silence, until the crash of glass — the plate. The clanging of keys, and the slamming of doors. As they lay in their futon, eyes shut, wide awake, their only wish is that their mother could stop sobbing across the thin apartment walls.
Takeru can't stop either. When he starts to hiccup, he feels his brother's hand stroking his arm. But Yamato doesn't say a word, and Takeru knows why. The tears fall only faster while he wonders what would have happened if only he had just covered his ears, closed his eyes, and dreamed.
Dreamed.
That's right. A dream. And when he finds Hikari they'll get to the gate and escape, because it's only a dream.
"But it isn't" , says a dark distorted voice from a distance. It is distinct, but muffled, and strangely familiar. A voice that he has dreamt before.
Devimon?
He turns in his futon to face the voice, but there is no one, only the morning sun streaming into the boys' room.
As he opens the door, he finds his parents leading Yamato to their bedroom.
When his mother notices him, she says, "We'll talk to Yamato first. We'll talk right after, okay baby?"
Takeru nods.
So he waits. Even the chance to eat candy for breakfast isn't enough to hype up an appetite, as he wonders what awaits him behind their bedroom door.
Something in his tummy tells him he already knows. Yamato, exposing his sins — that he was up past his bedtime, that he planned to tell Papa off. He is ready to confess, to say sorry for watching the grown-up talk, and that he'll never do it again.
But he doesn't get the chance. The door erupts with shouts. The last is Yamato's, before the boy storms out of the apartment. His father soon follows, grabbing his keys and light on the way out.
It's just Takeru and Mama, but maybe she's enough. He'll cry, crawl on his knees, and ask her to forgive him, for causing this mess and making everyone upset. She'll shush him with a kiss and say it'll all be okay by dinner.
The apology is still caught in his throat when she tells him to pack.
As the cab enters the apartment driveway, Takeru wonders where Yamato is.
He heard his mother make reservations for a hotel, so in his backpack are two pairs of pajamas — one for him, and another for his brother— and his favorite rubber duck. (Because all hotels have pools, right? It's the strangest time-out he'll ever have, but maybe it'll help everyone calm down.)
He wasn't sure what else his brother might need, but his mom probably has it covered, in one of the many suitcases they stuff in the taxi trunk.
The rest of the family arrives as his mother is about to shut the car door. They all hang speechless in this moment, evading eyes, until the driver bellows out.
It is only when his mother says, "Take care, both of you," that something dawns on Takeru.
Through the car window, he turns to his brother for answers, for his same old smile that tells him everything will be alright. The older boy is looking straight at them, in the faded t-shirt he's always had, hair ruffled as it's always been, with a face Takeru has never seen before.
Yamato's little lips are pressed in the longest frown he's ever made, eyes glaring in the midday sun. As the car engine roars to life, the older boy's chin quivers. He gulps, as a single tear falls to his pursed lips.
That's all it takes for Takeru to wail the whole way to the hotel.
No. Takeru thinks, shaking the tears away. This is all just a nightmare.
But it's not, returns the familiar dark voice, drawing closer, clearer. Takeru turns to face its source, and finds no one but his mother, kneeling down to talk to him, in their new apartment in Setagaya.
"I'm sorry I can't bring you to your first day of school," Mama says. "I just can't miss this interview. Maybe this time..."
"It's okay, Mama, I can go by myself," he replies with his sweetest smile.
"That's my good boy," she says, as she envelopes him in an embrace. She holds him so close he doesn't even need to notice the new shadows under her eyes, or the fresh creases on her forehead.
Takeru likes being a good boy. He likes to help his mother with the dishes (he can't yet reach the sink, but he could bring the plates all the way there) and to not cause any trouble while his mom is looking for work. Maybe if he were good enough, Mama wouldn't have to leave for work, and they could go home.
"Are you sure you know the way?" she asks before they part at the apartment front, to which he replies with his proudest, "Hai!"
Yamato always used to walk him to school, even when the older boy started elementary and the kindergarten was a whole block away. But that was before — before his brother started hating him (because why else hasn't he come to play?) Now Takeru is on his own.
He knows each turn and corner to get to the new kindergarten. He counted them all when they went for the registration, the orientation, and some-other-tion. He's waiting for the second crossing lights to change when he sees him: the older boy with blonde ruffled hair, just across the street.
Nii-chan! He knew his brother wouldn't let him walk alone.
He follows the boy across several suburban streets. He calls out, but his voice is too small and he is always too far — always a sidewalk away, or one turn behind.
Finally, when Takeru is only a few steps away, as the bells of the elementary school ring nearby, a boy from behind calls out some foreign name, and the blonde boy turns.
Takeru's heart sinks.
The tears well up so fast he can't even read the school signs, or the street names. He wishes for Yamato, for Mama, or even Papa to come pick him up and bring him home, to their real home, before he ruined everything — with their futon on the floor, their little nightlight, and the TV on too loud.
Instead, he cries on the sidewalk, because he is lost and alone, and it's all his fault.
"No", he says, lifting his head. "This isn't happening, This isn't real," he shouts.
"But it is," says the voice that had echoed in all his worst nightmares, its name almost on the tip of his tongue. He turns and turns to find the source, but sees only the buildings melt and mesh around rise and fall and rise again, until he finds himself back at the base of Big Sight, by the statue of the Bakumon, the holy beast of dreams.
"It's all real," says the voice, ringing clearer, closer than ever before. He arrives at its name just as it says, "And we have to accept that, Takeru-kun."
When he shouts her name, she emerges before him. The warmth of her hand in his, now suddenly apparent, as if it was there all along.
This is the part where she pulls him up, and guides him with her light back into waking.
But she is not light tonight. At least, not only. She stands a patchwork of shine and shadow; a twinkle in one eye, and twilight in the other.
From the lock of their hands he could see it: strokes of shadows creeping up his own arm from hers, infecting him with its dark thread.
"We need to accept it, Takeru-kun," she says delicately.
He knows he could let go, cut the contamination from its source, but he can't. No, he won't. If Hikari is going to fight this darkness, he won't let her fight it alone, and if they were to fight it tonight, they would at least be fighting together.
So he holds on. A chill crawls up his arm, but he doesn't watch. He fixes his eyes fast on hers, lest he lose sight of her again. He puts his faith in the calm of her voice, and the warmth of her hand, so inviting that he reaches for the other as well.
When the statue of the beast of dreams roars to life, he doesn't even flinch — stilled by the serenity of her smile, despite the strands of dark and light that rally on her face.
The monstrous beast raises its tusked trunk into the sky above them, before pouncing on the pair. When it swallows them whole, he isn't even afraid, only in awe. Inside the creature, the darkness falls from Hikari, as she glows brighter than she ever has before. The light is so blinding, Takeru must turn away, and that's when he notices what surrounds them.
A thousand shadows of fallen digimon, of captive children, of lonely paths and empty apartments — fragments of a thousand forgotten memories — dance about them in some solemn symphony, all fully formed and finding shape in this new light.
This is the last thing they see, before they awake to reality, crashing into the Odaiba shore, on the dawn of Marine Day.
a/n: This was a trip but I promise we all debrief in reality (no more funny business) in the third and final chapter T_T
This was written for Takari week 2021, but I didn't finish it in time ^_^;