137

Regrets

"As well regret the things that the tide has washed away, which destroys and cleanses and crumbles, and spares the minutest shells." – Lord Dunsany

As Koshiro was in the midst of his conversation with Gennai, another of the Chosen Children – Iori – arrived at Odaiba Mansion. He had made plans to meet with Takeru and the others later that day – just to hang out, eat at a restaurant together, and have some fun – but that was not the reason he had come.

Though there wasn't anyone among them who didn't wish that the recent tragedies and battles had never happened, the group's ordeals had at least had the welcome effect of drawing them together again. Without a cause to unite them, they had drifted apart in the months since BelialVamdemon's defeat, but the darkness that had come and passed this summer had reminded them of all the small, bright things that they had begun to take for granted. Time spent with family members, a night's restful sleep, good food, and friendship, both with their fellow Chosen Children and with their other classmates – all these things had assumed a new significance after what had gone by.

Iori was at Odaiba Mansion that afternoon for the sake of one of these brightnesses, though in a way it pained him as much as it comforted him. He considered the visit a pleasure, but also a duty, one he had already performed more than once before. He was here to see Chiho.

In some respects, her recovery from Panimon's attack was progressing well, but this was primarily thanks to her apparent inability to remember the events of that terrible night. For the most part Iori and Chiho's parents accepted this as a kind of blessing, and yet nothing could have been clearer testimony of the intensity of the trauma the poor girl had undergone.

Mrs. Ugaki let Iori into the apartment. Chiho was there waiting for him in the living room. The door to her bedroom remained closed. Since her return from the hospital, she'd been sleeping on a futon in her parents' room while the damage to her own room was being repaired. She'd yet to set foot again into the place where the assault had occurred. Perhaps, in spite of her amnesia, her subconscious associated the place with horror.

"Hi, Iori-kun," Chiho said, smiling up at him as he approached the couch on which she was seated.

"Hi, Chiho-chan," Iori said as he sat down beside her. He returned her smile, a little sadly. As always, he was glad to see her, but he always felt an emotional twinge on these visits. Fairly or unfairly, he still blamed himself in part for what had happened to his girlfriend. Though he told himself it was irrational, he kept thinking back to the events of that week and thinking that if he'd only paid more attention to her, done something differently, or worked harder to stop what was happening in Tokyo, things might have been different. If he had realized that he and the others were under surveillance, and had warned her not to try and visit him as she had done the day before the assault, maybe she would not have been targeted.

Naturally, he never said anything of this to her. For the most part their conversations skirted all topics pertaining to what had happened. They always talked of other things – happy things, and things that were not necessarily happy but were at least sane and normal. Things that had happened at school, or on the dates they'd had… things from before the incident.

"How is Upamon doing?" Chiho asked. "I'm starting to miss him." As on his other recent visits, Iori had not brought his partner along, on the theory that maybe Chiho's parents wouldn't like to have a Digimon in their home just now.

"He's fine," he assured her. "Hopefully you'll see him again soon."

"You know, I think I had a dream about him, but I can't remember when. Actually… you were in it too."

Iori had felt himself involuntarily tense at the reference to dreams, but he immediately relaxed, his curiosity getting the upper hand of both his negative associations and his pleased embarrassment.

"Ah… really? What was it like?"

"It was nice at first," she said. "We were in a pretty, old-fashioned place. It was night, and there were cherry trees and a pond."

Iori looked at her with an odd expression.

"What happened?" he said. "It…"

"Well, it was fine for a while, but it turned into a nightmare. A zombie – I guess it was one – came out of the pond, and…"

Iori listened to her description of the events that followed without saying anything, though he began to sweat and feel cold at the same time. Chiho spoke lightly enough at first, but he thought he could see signs, as she went on, that the dream – the experience – had made a deep impression on her. He knew, of course, exactly when she had dreamed it. The same night he had, when she lay in a hospital bed and he in the blackness of Leng's evil monastery.

Chiho made no allusion to Iori's father – whether out of tact or because she had forgotten that detail of the living corpse's identity, Iori couldn't tell. He wondered if it might cost her a shock to see Hida Hiroki's photograph.

Her outline of the dream ended with her being engulfed in living blackness, followed by a sensation of falling. Iori groped for a response to the story once it was over.

"It… sounds like it was scary," he said.

"Yeah," Chiho agreed. "It turned into a nightmare."

Iori stared out the glass door to the apartment's balcony, too wrapped up in gloomy reflections to really see anything. No wonder Chiho had had nightmares after what had happened. The sense of guilt nagged at him again. He was about to shake it off and focus on being present and having a conversation when Chiho herself broke in on his thoughts.

"But," she said, "even though it was scary, I had this feeling that it would be alright. Like you were still fighting for me somewhere, even though I couldn't see you anymore. That's just the way you are, you know?" She smiled at him, but being unable to read his expression looked quickly away. "I hope I haven't said anything strange…" she said.

"No," Iori reassured her. "It's… it's nice of you to say."

It was true, of course. He had fought for her – in the dream – and would have fought for her in the waking world had he been given the chance. If only he could have been there for the fight against Panimon! But it had been left to his seniors to avenge Chiho, while he…

He started a little when Chiho gently rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm glad…" she murmured. About a minute passed as they sat together like that. Iori thought about the apologies he wanted to make but shouldn't, and what solace was left to him and to her in the wake of what happened.

Then Mrs. Ugaki entered the room, and Chiho stood up with a hint of her old vitality in the movement.

"Want to go somewhere, Iori-kun?" she asked.

In his peripheral vision Iori thought he saw Chiho's mother pause a moment, but then go on with what she was doing.

"If that's okay…" he said. Understandably, Chiho's parents were a little reluctant nowadays to let her out of their sight. But Mrs. Ugaki gave him a slight smile.

"Just be careful," she said.

"We won't be gone long," Iori promised, though Chiho made a mildly sour face at him for it. He followed her to the door, took a moment to slip his shoes back on, and then walked out with her into the sunlight. Over the next hour he did his best to forget the shadows of the past. Nothing could change them. Chiho still needed him, here and now, and he would do his best to be there for her.

When Takeru leaned back in his desk chair with a heavy sigh, Patamon opened his eyes where he lay not quite dozing over on the bed. The sigh broke the silence, since the sound of typing had stopped a minute or two before. Seeing that his partner didn't intend to say anything, Patamon perked up a little, and then said something himself.

"Hey, Takeru, are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask, Patamon?" Takeru mumbled in a tone suggesting he didn't care about the answer.

"Well, you gave that big sigh just now…" Patamon said, his voice trailing off as if he hesitated to say more.

"Oh. I'm just having trouble with writing this part."

Takeru had been working on his chronicle of the Chosen Children's adventures. Rather than ask what part he referred to, Patamon instead persisted with, "Is that all?" Takeru didn't respond. Unable to see his partner's expression from his position, Patamon went on, timidly, but with a note of eagerness in his voice. "It's just that, you've seemed kind of… you know… down, for a while now. Even though the trouble with the Dark World is over. Is something wrong?"

A few more seconds of silence passed. Takeru's hands curled into fists where they rested in his lap and then relaxed again.

"Yeah," he said at last.

"What is it?" prompted Patamon.

Takeru suppressed another sigh and turned round in his chair. He didn't really feel like talking about it, but part of him recognized that it might do him good to get it off his chest. He fumbled for how to begin. Should he come right out and say it? It occurred to him that Patamon might not understand. After all, Patamon himself…

"Hey… Patamon?" Takeru said. "When you destroy a Digimon, how do you feel about it?"

Patamon thought about that for a few moments, sitting up now, with his wings folded behind him.

"Well," he said, "I guess I don't really like doing it, but it's a good thing, right? Because they were an enemy, and we had to beat them to keep people safe, right? It's a relief to know that you and everyone else aren't in danger anymore."

For a while Takeru didn't respond. With his eyes on the floor, he finally said, more as if speaking to himself than to his partner, "And it's not the same, is it? Because Digimon don't really die. Even Devimon…" His voice trailed off, and again his hands clenched and relaxed. Patamon looked curiously on, unsure both of what was wrong and of what he could say to help. Takeru went on with an impatient gesture.

"I almost killed Sato Katsu, back in the World of Darkness, when Hikari-chan was in danger. If Daisuke-kun hadn't saved her, I would have pulled the trigger."

"But you didn't," Patamon pointed out.

"But I would have! And I know that there was nothing else to do, and that Sato Katsu was an evil man, but that's not the point. I was willing to kill someone."

He paused, still staring at the floor, not meeting his partner's eyes. He wondered if Patamon thought the speech was hypocritical of him. They had destroyed many Digimon in the past, and even if they'd done so only when there was no other option, the deletion of those enemies had never weighed on his conscience the way the thought that he'd almost killed Sato had in the past week.

"But you didn't."

Now Takeru slowly looked up with a strange expression on his face, as if he couldn't quite believe that Patamon had just brightly chirped those words at him as if that said everything. Patamon was actually smiling at him, though the smile faded a little before Takeru's expression. Takeru himself was trying to think of what to say. How could he explain to his simple, innocent little friend what he meant? He thought hard for a minute, trying to put into words the moral complexities he was grappling with, but couldn't frame the problem to his satisfaction. In the end, all he could do was give up and smile back.

"Maybe you're right, Patamon," he said. "It's just…"

"What?"

"Nothing," Takeru said. He turned back to his computer. "I'll be fine. Don't worry."

"I'm always here, Takeru," Patamon said. "If you need me."

Takeru looked at him with a smile more genuine than the last. "I know," he said. "Thanks, Patamon."

After all, Takeru thought as he began typing up a new paragraph, there's nothing I can do about it now. I'll just have to live with it. What would happen when the time came to write that part of the story? But he pushed the thought aside. A few minutes later he closed the file and stood up to stretch.

"It's almost time," he said to Patamon. "Let's go meet the others."

Patamon gave his enthusiastic assent, and flapped across the room to his partner's waiting arms.