A/N: Phew, over the halfway mark. I can do this. Here is where it starts moving back into synchronicity with My Sanctuary, towards the end anyway. By the way, sex is implied, not stated towards the end of the first scene and start of the second. If someone feels like it warrants an M rating, please let me know. Thanks!

chromate, thanks for the kind words! I don't blame you on the pairing thing. The other story to this had it just happen mid-story. Threw me really off balance, so it had to be made in here too. There's not much on the Seed Children despite them being an important plot device. Oops.

Enjoy everybody!

IV.

Graduation is only aflutter because people want it to be.

She wants to be as happy as everybody else, but it just isn't possible right now. She's too tired, too relieved.

She doesn't cry during the ceremony. Really! She doesn't... okay, it was just a little bit. Nyaromon doesn't laugh.

She sees the original twelve Chosen while she's there, giving friends their congratulations. Or at least she sees most of them, waving at Ken and Daisuke's surprisingly equal expressions of 'yes-we're-proud -of-you-too.' And it feels nice to know that, but she still wants to go sleep for a week. Without too much thought in the matter, she looks for Hikari, and she is quickly found trapped in the embrace of her older brother and in deep discussion that is simply a bit too complex for her to want to ask about.

Despite that, the two wave, and Noriko waves back. It's easier to do now, what with all the fuss with Iori and Miyako still being a right twat, Hikari is still a refreshing sight but not enough to fluster her in public. She has experienced a little bit of love by now. It doesn't really make it any easier to look at her and not think what-if but she does it and keeps her dignity as best she can.

Growing up isn't easy, but Noriko feels like her attempts are working a little better than they used to be.

Her eyes meet Iori's and while they are still friends, eye contact is still as hazardous as mentioning the whole affair around Miyako, but she does smile at the pretty thing that is Iori's new girlfriend. She blinks in puzzlement but Noriko only rolls her eyes and heads towards the school gate. She wants Nyaromon, she wants dinner, but most importantly, she wants to talk to Keiko.

They are each other's temporary, and they know it, but she wants to enjoy it while it lasts.

Keiko hugs her the second her feet touch the floor of her friend's house, and they almost hit the floor, but they're both giggling, and the happiness is really there because she's done it, no Seed mishaps, no truly horrible power-plays, she's lived for herself and managed to head towards her dream without realizing it and it's great and beautiful and horribly messed up.

The fear is back and even if it is back, what can she do about it? What is she going to do now?

She thinks about these things and then immediately forgets them because Keiko is holding her hands and kissing her mouth and being too gentle, too prompting.

Not strong enough.

And it feels wrong.

Not wrong, because during high school, Noriko is starting to guess at what 'right' is for her, but not 'right for her' and it makes her sad because today is supposed to be happy because she's done it, she's honestly done the one thing that as a child seemed impossible.

She shouldn't be crying now, but she is and the tears aren't disappearing and she realizes some of them are Keiko's. It hurts, hurts dearly and greatly, and she wants to smile and wipe them off but doing that is a lie.

So instead she says, "Daisuke?"

Keiko nods, and her brown eyes are almost the color of mud and it's horribly unattractive. She doesn't ask who, Noriko's told her countless times, but lets herself be pulled into a clumsy hug with her friend's free hand stroking her hair and doesn't say much with it. Noriko knows her dress shirt is ruined now, and doesn't quite care because she's feeling all types of cowardly and too many of daring when she leads them back to Keiko's bedroom. She feels the emptiness of the home pressing around her and can't help the turbulence of 'maybes' in her head mixing with every other feeling that she had at that moment.

Through her tears, she smiles and asks. "Want to play pretend?"

…

She doesn't really regret this little foray into a part of love and lust until she goes home the next morning and is interrogated by her parents. Nyaromon just laughs at her. Brat. She doesn't regret, but she doesn't feel much towards it either. It was a mess, clumsy fingers over wet skin and noises of dismay and even disgust a couple of times, but it happened and she couldn't go back and change it.

Keiko had been half-asleep with toast in her mouth when she had left, disheveled and half-blind in a search for a shower, but there were no more tears for either of them. There was just acknowledgment and determination and a lot of sad things in the world that couldn't be erased but had to be written over.

"Your parents are mad," Nyaromon trills, giggling like a little sibling seeing their big sister getting their comeuppance. "You probably should have called."

"I was in emotional turmoil, litter box," she quipped, sitting on her bed and rubbing the kinks out of her legs. "Also, they had my cell phone."

"I know," he says, trying to sound serious. "I'm just telling you. I'm supposed to protect you."

"Unless you can make condoms from bubbles, nice try."

Nyaromon snorts and Noriko realizes they are the best partners for each other because these are the comments Nyaromon always says and loves when she says while she is ashamed of herself half the time for thinking them unless they're alone. She laughs, knowing this, and settles back against her headboard, ignoring her father's knocking and threats to break down the door and take away the computer because they won't stick and his shouting is hilarious to listen to.

She thinks of Hikari and there is finally a twinge of guilt. But it isn't enough to reduce her to the wreck she was for some reason yesterday and instead she thinks the girl wouldn't mind.

If it even mattered anymore.

…

Summer flies, she has flings, and she plays matchmaker.

Keiko is funny to watch when she's looking at Daisuke like a wet puppy, but actually pushing the two of them together is even more entertaining. Takeru winks at her when she does this and she giggles, noting how the spiky-haired boy seems even more of an idiot with a cute girl than usual.

Noriko herself tries asking a guy out, just to see. She finds herself bored and cuts it off fairly quickly. Nothing personal, but the man seems set on things that aren't her and not worth fighting about.

So she lets him go, appreciates the experience, and keeps moving forward, trying to get ready for college, for being an adult.

Ew.

Could you still be a Chosen Child if you were an adult? She wonders this, she wonders this very often. Ken thinks so, if his even more frequent visits to the Digital World are anything to go by, and so did the others who had been since the very beginning. They keep hope alive (no offense Takeru) and it makes her feel happy to see them so fervent in believing everyone belongs.

More Digimon appear as her summer goes by and even the old lady crossing the street has a Kotemon helping her now. Kind of makes the nice neighborhood kid moot but it's cute anyways.

She takes up rollerblading, usually falls most of the time, laughs the other half, and waits for her college acceptance letter and the ensuing bills to pay over it.

She hates growing up. Responsibility sucks.

Somehow being responsible for herself is more upsetting and daunting than saving the world but maybe she's still a kid enough to find the utter awesome in doing that.

Or maybe she's just lazy. Either one.

Either way, when college kicks in, she can't afford a dorm so it's a part-time job for bus fare and home economics to learn how to fend for herself when she is actually in an apartment. Cooking is fun, she realizes quickly, working with her mother to learn how. She likes moving her hands, likes seeing a result come from her work, even if it's only temporary.

Perhaps that's what Keiko likes so much. Then again, hers are also sweeter. Noriko tends to avoid the house when Daisuke is there, not just because Keiko has a horrible poker face whenever they see each other but because sometimes the air is just saturated with food and while she loves them both it is like smelling baking pretzels in a food court in America. Extended metaphor? Yes.

She doesn't admit to being lonely, mostly because Nyaromon will pitch such a fit if she does. But it is odd having less time to spend with her friends than ever, especially now that Takashi, a fellow Seed Child, has started high school and is miserable. He's a good boy, though, good and hard-working, and is polite enough to send her an email before blowing up her phone. Which is more than she can say for Hiroshi, who has all the decorum of a dramatic woman. She would know, her mother had gotten pretty horrible as puberty went on.

She scribbles at papers, watches Nyaromon try to chew his own tail and almost succeeding sometimes and mentally decides that someone needs to open up a Digimon day care because her partner is bored. She chuckles at him and works harder at passing tests and covering material and trying to figure out just what it is she works best at and before she knows it, the year is half-over.

And she runs into Iori.

…

They end up getting coffee. He's only here for a couple of hours because Rosa is here taking her language classes and studying into medical interpretation and she apparently forgot her flash drive at his house.

"How did she end up missing that?" Noriko teases, earning a roll of the eyes and a pleased flush.

"You would never guess," he deadpans, grinning anyway. "You look exhausted."

She snorts. "You say that to every woman."

"Only the ones that worm their way into my heart."

She chuckles. "I like apples."

Iori snorts. "That's crude."

She laughs harder. "I'm a crude person. Subtle as an anvil." He sighs, rolling his eyes and pulling out his law book. "Oh you would, wouldn't you?" She giggles with delight at his mortified expression, which for Iori is basically a raised eyebrow and an open mouth. "I'm kidding, Iori. You suit the side of justice."

He shakes his head, a blush on his face even when Armadimon crawls back over from getting his half-eaten cookies. "I just... I want people to get the second chances they deserve."

Noriko knows who he's thinking of, and she softens her smirk into a real smile. "You're a good guy, Iori, you know that? Too good for someone like me. How does Rosa handle it?"

He smiles and shakes his head. "I dunno, it's got to be difficult. How do your dates handle you?"

"With kid gloves and good reflexes."

They both laugh until Rosa arrives and at her affronted face, just laugh harder.

It's good to have friends.

…

"Dorms are expensive," Hikari sighs.

Noriko rocks back and forth on her bed, idly pondering how long it will take before the room checks are done, and agrees. "And they still make us pay for laundry."

Hikari grimaces and Noriko grins at her through the older woman's bangs. "Don't remind me," she huffs, sitting back on her desk chair and trying not to spin in it like a six-year-old. It's hilarious to think about, and see, because in the two weeks they've been roomed together, she's done it five times.

And that's the times Noriko's caught her at it.

Nyaromon seems to like Hikari's lap better than hers, not that Noriko blames her, but he's frequently there whenever homework is being done. It's like an unconscious filling of the void that is a lack of a partner in Hikari's presence.

To be honest, it's actually really effing scary.

After all, everyone's been getting partners like it's going out of style since she was ten and to see one of the first not have theirs and worse yet, be calm about it, was awkward.

Noriko decides not to ask. Not just because there are probably some etiquette laws in place about it, but because she's probably faking so hard she doesn't know it.

Also, because the nightmares have still not ended (and it's almost been ten years, she needs a therapist even though culture sneers at that) and Hikari is always gently talking her about them, even when there are finals the next day or it's three o clock in the middle of Mother Nature's temper tantrums.

Woman is a saint.

Noriko is jealous of that.

It's also everything that she still likes in Hikari.

She is such a sap.