Secrets

All was quiet at the Nonaka residence. That is, until Rika burst through the front door and stormed into the family room. Seiko was surprised to see her granddaughter home so early, and it only cost the old woman a look at Renamon's expression to find out what was wrong.

Another fist-fight at school no doubt, and she'd come home to avoid more violence…Again.

Rika exploded at her Digimon suddenly, from across the room. "Why didn't you tell me there would be trouble today?! If I'd known that she was going to… to humiliate me like that then I would've kicked her ass as soon as looked at her! Why didn't you just tell me?"

Seiko cleared her throat at the sound of coarse language and Rika apologised, but otherwise continued her ranting.

During certain moon phases Renamon had been partially clairvoyant for as long as Rika had known her, and would usually make a point of telling her Tamer of certain feelings she would have upon waking in the morning about the day ahead, be those feelings good or bad, and Rika had made a habit of taking them as omens, warnings to take more care around certain people or things. She'd often used those warnings to prepare for battles, and they had served her well in the past.

But today, the Digimon had been void of any such feelings, and while that wasn't uncommon, her Tamer was anything but fond of being left in the dark.

"If I had known this was going to happen I would have told you, Rika. Forgive me, but I had no feeling of anything this morning."

By now, the conversation –or rather, argument- had left the family room and was confined to Rika's room. Rika tossed her backpack into a corner haphazardly, and collapsed arms spread onto her futon.

Renamon saw that her partner was trying to calm herself down, and decided that perhaps it would be better to discuss this when Rika had finished centring herself.

Rika would be far easier to talk to about her fight and its possible consequences when she had finished locking up her explosive anger. But Rika's anger wanted to talk about it now.

"I can't believe the nerve of that bit-… that girl…" Rika corrected herself, almost swearing again; she knew her grandmother wouldn't tolerate it more than once, and not at all if her mother was home.

"What in hell's name gave her the idea that I was dating Takato, anyway?"

Rika asked no-one in-particular, having finally stopped shouting. Then it dawned on her; if the rumour had started at school, then the other kids – the ones who hadn't seen what she did to people who spouted bullshit about her - would take it home with them.

And Ryo was supposed to be walking her home today… what if he overheard it? There wasn't much she could do about it until he got there, but she'd have to think of something to tell him; if she was pissed, then he'd be fuming.

In fact, he was likely to do more damage than she had, and that was without that massive, temperamental hulk called Cyberdramon breathing down his neck, too – a Digimon with no qualms about swatting people aside, like they were just flies. Rika wouldn't be surprised if Reckless Abandon was part of his core program.

And did Takato know anything about this? More to the point, what would Jeri think?

Suddenly, Renamon brought her out of her thoughts. "Rika, I can't understand why this is worrying you. We both know this rumour isn't true, that you haven't had anything to do with Takato. I… I saw you… at the party, with Ryo… and I know there is something between the two of you."

Rika's face grew dark, and her anger burst free of its freshly-locked cage. "What did you say? You're saying you've been spying on us this whole time?!"

Renamon had expected Rika to be angry, but not to throw it in her face like this. She didn't take sarcasm from Terriermon, and she wasn't going to take this from her own Tamer. The only reaction Renamon could muster that Rika would understand when she was like this was to fight back, preferably with equal force to her increasingly pissed-off Tamer.

"Calm down, Rika! How do you expect me to protect you if you try to keep secrets from me?! I have not been spying on you; I wouldn't do that to you. But if you want me to help you though this then I demand a little respect!"

Rika was suddenly silent, too awed to speak; her anger evaporated in the space of an instant, faced with her partner's seething rebuke. In all the years since Renamon had approached her to ask to be tamed and made stronger, the Digimon had never responded harshly to her like this – not even in the beginning when she'd been little more than a pessimistic bitch. But it was her own fault, and Renamon was right; she shouldn't have tried to keep secrets from her; it was disrespectful, and it was wrong.

For that matter, Renamon had never once talked back or gone against her wishes, either. Renamon had been a loyal and obedient partner to her; was this any way to repay that devotion? Not in the slightest, and well she knew it; the Digimon half of the Tamer team had only recently returned to the Real World, and their partnerships had yet to return to the solid, unshakable bonds that had been before the defeat of the D-Reaper and Operation: Doodlebug.

In short, that meant that her own partnership with Renamon was, right now, best-described as fragile. She had to fix this, now, before it tore a void between them. It would mean doing something that she rarely allowed herself to do: issue an apology for her actions or words.

The light shuffling of padded paws on her room's tatami flooring caused her, finally, to look up. What Rika saw made her mind explode in panic. Renamon was turning to leave.

From somewhere in the vicinity of Rika's backpack, Renamon heard the sound of plastic cracking. She knew what it meant; she'd heard it once before, when Takato's rage at Beelzemon had forced Guilmon to digivolve to Megidramon, shattering their Digivice and unleashing the power of the Digital Hazard, tearing great rends in the fabric of the Digital World in the process. It meant her partnership with Rika, that precious, fragile link that at times was the only thing keeping her Tamer from falling apart, was wavering…breaking.

"Renamon, wait! I'm sorry!! I…I didn't mean to snap like that. But I thought… We thought no-one knew… and we tried so hard to keep it a secret…."

The Digimon halted, a hand on the door, and turned to look back into the room.

"Alright… I accept your apology. But the two of you were foolish, to believe that I didn't know; there isn't a single thing that happens in my Tamer's life that I'm not aware of when I am here. Regardless of whether or not you wish me to be aware of it, no matter what 'it' might be, I know. With Sakuyamon's connection between us, you should know that better than anyone."

Renamon approached the futon purposefully, deviating only to pick up her partner's discarded backpack, before kneeling next to the girl, and placing a hand on Rika's shoulder. Delving into the open pack without taking her eyes from Rika's bewildered face, Renamon produced the girl's injured D-Arc Digivice - the very embodiment of the link between them - and placed it delicately into Rika's hands. The screen was badly chipped in one corner; a hairline crack slithered precariously across the display.

"This needs to be fixed," she said quietly. "We need to fix it, before it falls beyond repair."

Rika's eyes fell upon the damage, and her head dipped in shame. "What…what've I done…?"

This was the most serious trauma their partnership had ever suffered, and of all people, she had dealt it. Now the link between them was all but a killing blow from falling apart. Renamon was right; they needed to fix this, and right now.

The overwhelming sense of guilt fell upon her shoulders like an iron weight, and it forced tears from her eyes. Rika brought the device, their link, to her chest, and clutched it as tightly as she dared for fear of lengthening the crack further. For the first time in a long time, Rika allowed herself to cry, and she wept.

Rika laid her head on her partner's shoulder and, all dignity forgotten, choked back a sob as the tears streamed slowly down her face. Renamon pulled the anguished girl into a soft embrace; ironically, it was during times like this that Renamon felt closest to her partner – when the girl needed her the most. The only way they could be any closer was to Biomerge and become Sakuyamon. Softly, she whispered forgiveness in her partner's ear, and waited for Rika to regain her composure.

A few minuets later, the sobbing became sniffling, and then stopped; tears were wiped away, leaving puffy red tell-tale trails in their wake. Rika did not remove herself from Renamon's embrace, and the Digimon did not loosen her soft hold on her tamer.

Quietly, the air between them began to shine with a dim, white glow, and Renamon felt her ruff prickle a little. She smiled, felt Rika do the same, and the hum grew in volume. The sulphurous smell of hot plastic filled the air around them, before vanishing just as quickly. Rika dared to sneak a look at the source of the stench; her D-Arc's screen glowed sublimely, and the little treasure hummed as it busily finished repairing itself.

"Good as new," she whispered, and smiled a subdued grin at their little blue-and-white link, enclosed tightly in her hand – repaired, and stronger than ever.

---

Crisis averted, albeit narrowly, Rika and Renamon were content to sit like that for a while, unmoving. Renamon marvelled at how quickly Rika, normally closed off, had bared her emotions; perhaps she did not realise that this was they key to repairing their Digivice, and likewise, their link, because she herself hadn't realised until the little thing was already knitting the damage back together.

But even so, it proved that their partnership was fluid, like life itself; they would have their ups and downs, as humans liked to say, but when it truly mattered, when it 'hit the fan', they stood together, unshakable.

Overwhelmed by the sudden, rushing torrent of emotion that had struck her, flowed from her to repair their fractured link, Rika felt more drained now than she had in a long time. She could really use a nap right now, and was entitled to one by rights so far as she was concerned.

But alas, it was not to be. Just as her eyes were ready to flutter shut, her alarm clock chimed to sound the hour, and reality descended on her again. Ryo… she thought, and quickly abandoned the idea of napping.

"Stay; you're tired now, you need to rest," Renamon muttered to her quietly in protest, as she moved to disentangle herself from her partner's grasp, but Rika couldn't remain stationary. She had things to do, likely had fights to break up, and maybe one or two to start as well. He'll just bark and charge in without waiting for the full story… when he's pissed off he's as bad as I am… she thought.

Since his return from the Digital World, he was usually so cool-headed that he was practically cold, but once he kicked off, he could make a big enough mess of someone to make Cyberdramon cringe – and that took some serious doing.

She didn't know what was more frightening about the last few weeks, since they'd started officially, if secretly, dating; the number of snide comments people had made about her spending time with him, or the number of times he'd come this close to mangling those people for daring to make them.

And at that, her mind took off into a world of its own, accompanied by her mouth.

"Who else knows, if we're that obvious…" Rika wondered aloud.

"My mom will freak when she finds out that we're sleeping together. She'll say that we're too young for that kind of relationship, or that I'm not ready. She'll try to stop us seeing each other…

"I think… I think this might be love, Renamon… and maybe I've felt that way for a long while… and if she keeps us apart I'll go crazy without him. I'll lose control if she splits us up… It's bad enough that I have to wake up every morning without him as it is…"

When Renamon silently refused to release her yet, Rika began to twirl her fingers in her partner's ruff absentmindedly. The usually aloof Digimon did her best to comfort her Tamer;

"I know how much it hurts you, Rika; I see the sorrow in your eyes when you open them to find he's not lying there, when you want him or need him, and it hurts me to see you like this. If you're not happy, then I can'tbe happy--"

"And neither can I," said a sudden voice from the hallway, cutting Renamon short.

The two looked up to see Rika's grandmother enter the room, and the solemn-faced old woman took up a seat on the futon next to her granddaughter, opposite the girl's Digimon companion. "But you have nothing to worry about, Rika,"

"I've known about you and Ryo since the beginning, and you know that if it gave your mother and I cause for concern, then we'd have spoken to you about it. You're a sensible girl, if not a little reckless with your temper and your fists, but the two of you have been very grown-up about it all, if I may say so,"

Rika smiled lopsidedly, and her grandmother returned the gesture.

"Trust me, Rika; your mother couldn't be happier for you, and neither could I… if I hadn't threatened to cancel her last photo shoot, she'd have thrown you a party, I think... that's how pleased she is for you. Ryo is such a nice boy, and between him and Renamon, we know you're in safe hands. I know, because I've just seen it for myself."

Rika wiped away a single, stray tear as it began falling, and thanked the two for their support, but now that she'd calmed down enough to think rationally, it was time to stop moping and find Ryo, and start looking for a way to straighten this whole mess out.

Her grandmother left them to it; Renamon nodded to the old woman as she departed with a smile, and Rika began to change out of her school uniform. She hated wearing the stupid jacket, and the stupid shirts and neck-ties drove her crazy. And she refused point-blank to wear the low-cut skirts the girls in her class had been issued at the start of the school year.

In fact, she'd refused to wear the whole damn get-up until the Principle had complained to her mother about it, and 'Makino' had talked her into 'being reasonable'.

But she'd stood her ground on the skirt, at least; she'd insisted on a pair of jet-black jeans, no-compromise, and then burned that damn skirt just make her point – if she wanted to stand out then she damn-well would, and anyone who thought otherwise could float to hell in a hand-basket.

She was seen at school as a hard-core rebel - some thought her plain out of her mind. And that didn't bother her in the slightest. What did bother her was that, in no-time at all she'd seen some of the guys in her grade taking that same leaf from her book – brain-dead sheep, all of them, completely unable to decide something for themselves without someone else's approval.

They did nothing but follow the crowd, obsessed with 'blending in' – and there was little that burned her more. But it was those who'd started copying her that really pissed her off; they honestly believed that they were striking out, daring to be different, but all they were doing was, yet again, following someone else's example and getting into 'the rebel trend'. She'd happily meted out beltings to one or two of them just for having the nerve to call it that.

Stepping out of Rika's way, Renamon retreated to her favourite, shadowy corner of Rika's room, to observe her partner quietly as the girl busied herself with changing clothes and other things; 'preparing for war', was what Rika jokingly called it, and after today's fiasco in the hallway, she might as well have been doing just that.

As she leaned against the wall in her corner, Renamon noted that since her return from the Digital World, Rika had become both more of a rebel towards her mother, and more outgoing towards the other Tamers.

She held a special relationship with Jeri in-particular, as the only other female Tamer in the group that was of a similar age; Suzie was there too, and recently Impmon's partners Ai and Mako had reappeared as well, but it wasn't the same. There was a feeling of tension between her partner and Jeri, Renamon sensed, as though something… unusual had occurred in her absence. It was as though a bond of some kind had been formed between them, one that she couldn't quite understand, couldn't fathom, and in a way that scared her; it felt as though Rika and Jeri were concealing the truth about it – from everyone.

What really nipped at her senses, though, was that it smelled something akin to the bond Rika shared with Ryo, but with a different sort of tang to it; it was an aggressive smell, something… strange… alien to her. And though it came from both Rika and the other girl, it did seem at times to come more strongly from Jeri…

The two often had friendly matches in the DigiBattle card game, 'practice runs' Rika called them, and in her absence Jeri had become almost as good at the game as Rika herself, Renamon had discovered. The other Tamers had even referred to her as the 'Digimon Princess' once, which Rika had laughed and agreed with, much to Jeri's embarrassment.

It was the first time she had seen her partner truly happy since the night they had materialised in Shinjuku Park, the very moment they had returned from the Digital World, and it was a stark contrast, in retrospect, to the cloud of aggression that seemed to envelop Rika like some strange defence mechanism. Hindsight is a fine thing, she thought, with a touch of sarcasm; had I been paying attention when we arrived, I might have sensed the difference in Rika immediately… I should have expected it…

Renamon thought back to her many conversations with Ryo in the Digital World, when she had learned that Rika had been greatly distressed by her untimely departure. It had torn her partner apart inside, to loose her so unfairly. Renamon felt that she at least partially understood what her tamer had gone through; she had suffered emotionally too, with their bond being strained by the distance and dimensional barriers between them.

It had hurt her to be apart from the girl, something she had never experienced before, and although the sting lessened over time as she focused on aiding Ryo's search for the other tamers' partners, it had never truly gone away – she wouldn't let it; it spurred her to make haste when she became tired, and gave her hope that with each passing day she became one step closer to returning to Rika's side.

But it had hurt Rika more so, according to Ryo. Renamon had learned from him that Rika suffered from something he'd called 'Separation Anxiety'. It meant that the girl couldn't handle being parted from those close to her. Renamon knew that this stemmed from the girl's loss of her father.

Rika had confided in her, long ago, that her father was not a part of her life, through no fault of her own, and that it troubled her deeply. Digimon had no literal concept of parentage, they didn't breed in the same way as humans, but she could grasp what it meant for the girl to loose her father. At the time Renamon had sensed that it was painful for the girl to discuss, and she did not wish to push Rika for information, but still, it troubled her partner, so, naturally, it troubled her too.

But nevertheless… it had done things to the girl's mind, to loose her closest friend as a consequence of their great victory over the D-Reaper. It had damaged her in some way; if Ryo was to be believed, Rika would spend days, even weeks, without any contact with anyone except himself and Jeri, and would even shun her family.

And she'd become violent. That had greatly troubled Renamon to learn, that some part of her partner had become so dark in her absence – as a result of her absence - that Rika would lash out at those around her. Ryo had said that Rika only 'got nasty' when someone provoked her, but even so, it had strengthened her resolve to return to the Real World as quickly as--

*pa-tsh!*

Renamon sneezed from the sudden rush of air that tickled her nose, and shook her head sharply before blinking and looked around to see what had ripped her from her daze of thought.

"Snap out of it, daydreamer," Rika giggled, school tie in-hand, at her partner's stupor. "Could you grab me a drink from the kitchen while I get dressed?" The girl asked, Renamon noting that Rika was in the process of rummaging through her wardrobe - mostly composed of denim aside from the few dresses stuffed at the back - while half-naked. Rika had no sense of modesty even in her own home, and the girl's skin glowed positively golden in the afternoon light.

"Of course," Renamon replied, beginning to understand why Ryo, among others, found her partner so attractive. While Rika made a conscious effort to not seem appealing to other humans, even her Digimon partner could see that the girl was beautiful.

In some ways, Renamon realised, that ethereal beauty that Rika possessed became a part of her when they Biomerged. Perhaps she is why Sakuyamon has so much… finesse, the fox Digimon thought, chuckling inwardly, before getting up and moving for the kitchen.

She had noted how Rika had filled out in her six-year absence; the girl was far more a young woman now than when the two had first met, having aged and grown as Digimon did only through Digivolution, and Renamon could have sworn that her Tamer had been stealing leaves from Sakuyamon's book in terms of her beauty and physical growth.

Boys often did a double-take when she passed them in the street, and not because she still chose to dress like them. Her trademark broken heart shirt had long gone, she'd worn it to pieces, along with its healed equivalent, but she still looked as though she couldn't quite decide, in terms of personality more than appearance, which gender she belonged to.

On the other hand, the girl was very much in-tune with her sexuality; Rika was well-aware of the fact that she was a young woman, and she wasn't afraid to show it. She and Ryo were left alone by their Digimon often, and when Ryo wasn't available to satisfy her… Well, Rika knew a number of ways to… entertain herself. The girl had gone to great lengths to make her room as soundproof to the human ear as possible since her first encounter with Ryo.

The thoroughly-human things that Rika chose to amuse herself with when her lover was not present were… alien to her, and as much as Renamon was innately curious to know what drove her partner to abuse herself in such a way, the Digimon did her very best to know as little as possible about Ryo and Rika's physical relationship.

She'd already seen more than she would have liked to, having been witness to what occurred between her partner and Ryo on the night of the Digimon's homecoming party, and had realised at the time that that had only been the calm before the storm. Seiko had openly stated as much to her, as if she had foreseen it all long before any of it had occurred. Perhaps she had even known that Rika would try to deceive them about it…

Luckily, Rika had more important things to do right now, like finding Ryo and cleaning this whole mess up before it blew out of control - which, if events so-far transpired were any gauge, it almost certainly would. Better that Rika focus on finding Ryo and quashing this coming maelstrom than consider locking herself in her room – alone – to do any of those things to herself.

The noises the girl made, the smells her body emitted… they were made for human senses to detect, to understand on a subliminal level. In Digimon… well, it made her hackles stand up just thinking about it. There just seemed something… dark about the whole business, like Rika knew what she was doing was wrong in some way, and that was why she enjoyed doing it so much as she did.

And in truth, that scared Renamon more than any of the other worrying things she'd learned about her partner since her return.