I think the last update was about two weeks ago? Yeah, I think so. Anyways, I wanted to do good by whoever is reading so here I am again. This is another Daisuke chapter, but one that is different than all the other Daisuke chapters. This is the first one that neither Hikari or Takeru make an appearance, I think. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter to be honest.
Disclaimer: Out of tradition, I don't own Digimon.
As he leaned against a street lamp in front of the movie theater that he and Takeru had agreed to meet up at with their respective dates for the night, Daisuke couldn't ever recall a time that he had ever been stood up before. He had just gotten off the phone not that long ago with Megumi, a teenaged model whom he had met and had been seeing on and off again at one of the delinquent parties that his sister seemed to throw about every other week. He liked her well enough, as he did any female that could keep up with him in terms of liquor or 'dancing juice' for the more uninitiated, and he thought that she had liked him as well, at least he did until she had called him to cancel and to say that the two of them together was something that wasn't going to work out. Apparently, it wasn't him that was the problem, but herself.
Despite the shame that others may have felt in his situation, such as the middle-aged man who like him had been leaning on another streetlamp all night just a ways down the street, Daisuke wasn't quite sure how to process his emotions. He felt as if it was appropriate to be melancholic or maybe even depressed depending on how much he had or could have emotionally invested in Megumi, but as he stood there under that street lamp, the light seeming to always find a way to shine on him, he found that he honestly didn't care very much at all. Hopefully, he thought, Megumi would be happy with whatever path she took in life.
He considered just walking off and sending Takeru a text saying that he had to cancel the double date and that he regretted it, maybe inviting that middle-aged man who had also seemingly been stood up out for a beer, but there was something holding Daisuke back from doing that. He wasn't sure what it was, especially since everyone other than him was already half an hour late, but there something inside of him telling him that tonight was worth sticking around for, if only to tell Takeru what had happened in person. Sure enough, five minutes later, Daisuke noticed that a familiar figure was walking in his direction.
"Yo."
He called out to the briskly walking girl who was dressed casually enough with denim shorts and a semi-frilly shirt, one that strategically showed off a single strap of her bra, but he ignored all that and gave the teenaged girl an odd look once he realized that Takeru wasn't with her. She reached him and stopped in front of him, accompanied by the clacking of a pair of heel boots that Daisuke had always personally found to be a ridiculous and most likely uncomfortable form of footwear, and he waited quietly to see if his new companion was going to give him an excuse as to why she was late. He somewhat hoped that Ayano would prove him wrong about the fact that he thought she was going to find something to blame so she could excuse her tardiness, but he was a bit cynical with the female sex at the moment due to his recent sort-of break-up with Megumi.
"Sorry I'm late."
He was silent for a moment, waiting to see if she had anything else to say concerning why she was late, but about a minute or two later, and a suspicious look from his dear friend's significant other, Daisuke was honestly a bit satisfied with the fact that Ayano hadn't offered an excuse.
"Don't sweat it. You and me are the only ones here right now."
She wasn't exactly friends with Daisuke, but Ayano had always thought that he seemed like a nice enough guy. Out of all of Takeru's friends she had always liked Daisuke the best, and part of that was because he was the only one of Takeru's friends that actually seemed to genuinely like her in return. Whether it was the young Iori whom she wasn't sure how he got mixed up in with their group, Yamato who had always seemed a bit distant from all the going ons of everyone else, or especially Miyako who didn't quite make it a mystery that she didn't approve of her being with Takeru, all of his friends seemed to be just waiting it out until their eventual break-up. All of them except for Daisuke.
He was a bit weird at times, she didn't know what the hell that staring at her was all about just a few moments ago, but she thought that Daisuke was harmless enough all things considered. She stared at him for a minute just as he had done with her, and something dawned on her once she realized her current surroundings. At the moment it was just her and Daisuke standing under a flickering streetlamp, and her boyfriend was nowhere to be found.
"Where is everyone?"
"I figured Takeru'd be with you considering you guys are dating and all."
"He said that he would meet me here." she paused for a second as her hands gripped tightly onto her extremely expensive purse, and she was trying to remember whether or not she had gotten into a fight with Takeru recently, "This is the right place, right?"
"Yeah this is the right place, not that it matters since the movie started half an hour ago."
"Oh."
"Yup."
Her hands were still fiddling with her purse as they both stood out there together on that always bustling Japanese sidewalk. She noticed that Daisuke wasn't really paying attention to her, his eyes instead wandering to different random people that walked passed them every so often, and it was with that realization that she wondered whether or not he was actually looking for someone. The plan of the night was in fact supposed to be a fun little charming double date, and she had just noticed that Daisuke's own nighttime partner was nowhere to be found.
"So, where's your date?"
He didn't raise himself up from the streetlamp he had been leaning against, honestly he saw no reason to, and he stayed there remaining quiet since he didn't quite know what to say to Ayano. It was embarrassing enough to admit that someone had stood him up on a double date of all things, but what made it worse was having to admit it to an attractive member of the opposite sex. He didn't care that Megumi had decided against his being in her life, but it was still emasculating having to actually say it out loud.
His eyes moved from the different strangers that he had always had a fascination in watching, as they shifted he took longer than a moment to rest them on the other streetlamp warrior that had caught his attention that night, and then they focused on Ayano instead. She seemed genuinely curious, and he figured it was no harm in letting her know about Megumi once he decided that Ayano wasn't going to make fun of him.
"She bailed. Called me like five minutes ago saying that she wouldn't be able to make it tonight. Something about patching things up with her ex, and wanting to give the two of them another shot at true love is how I think she put it. No biggie."
For a reason that was obvious to everyone who knew the relationship troubles that she had had with Takeru, what had happened with Daisuke was something that stung her heart. She wasn't sure whether or not it made her neurotic or clingy, but a day didn't go by where she didn't have paranoid suspicions about Takeru leaving her for Hikari. Hikari may not have actually been Takeru's ex, but with the way that he so blatantly stole glances at her when they were all together, Hikari might as well have been his former lover. She frowned at Daisuke, trying to hide the paranoia that she feared became more transparent with each passing day.
"I'm sorry that that happened."
"Like I said, no biggie."
Not wanting to look him directly in the eye anymore due to the possible uncomfortable direction that the conversation could take, Ayano turned her head to watch the different people that passed Daisuke and herself as the two of them stood quietly together, Ayano being unsure all the while whether or not Takeru was even going to show up. It didn't take that long for her to notice that Daisuke too had begun watching the strangers around them just as she had, and for a moment she wondered about exactly what he saw. She was an artist and perception was the one thing that was either more complex or convoluted than art itself. She sighed, knowing that her own boyfriend would never see life, or the dreams that she had for that life, in the same way that she saw them.
"I'm gonna give Takeru a call, if you don't mind?"
"Go right ahead."
He watched her out of the corner of his eye, in between watching in hidden awe at the different humans who were surfing the concrete sea that was raging in front of him, his vision also finding a way to rest on the other streetlamp warrior, and didn't say a word as Ayano called a number, waited for it to go to voice mail, and proceed to call it again.
"He didn't answer."
"He wouldn't just bail if it wasn't something important."
It was something he said matter-of-factly, as Daisuke had always had faith in Takeru despite the friction that a mutual love interest had caused them, but he could tell that Ayano wasn't reassured by it. She was still frowning, and it was a sight that greatly contrasted with a different laughing teenager that had just exited the movie theater they were waiting in front of, a random guy having an arm draped around her shoulder. It made him curious, were Takeru and Ayano ever like that strangeland couple whom Daisuke was sure he would never see again?
"And he couldn't even at least send a text saying why the hell he didn't show up?"
"You were half an hour late."
"I still came."
This time, it was Daisuke who sighed. He wasn't sure where Takeru was, or even if everything was even okay, but he hoped that whatever it was that was holding him back, that it was important.
"Takeru can be odd sometimes. I remember one time back in junior high something pretty dangerous happened, and none of us even found out about it until everything was already said and done. He didn't take the time to let anyone know that something was wrong, and just like that he set off to do it. If something is up, I trust his judgment."
Trust was a word that she was having more and more trouble with the longer she was with Takeru. She hated being the girlfriend who nagged or the girlfriend who couldn't help but worry that her boyfriend was going to cheat on her, but with what everything currently was, she honestly thought that things would never be fully okay between them.
"Did that something that you mentioned have something to do with Hikari-chan?"
"How'd you know?"
"It always does."
The wind picked up a bit, and Daisuke just watched as Ayano began clutching at her bare arms. She was troubled, he had been through enough heartaches to know when somebody else was going through the same situation, and he considered handing the girl his jacket. He knew that what she was worried about wasn't the cold, but he figured that it would help if she knew that there was somebody who cared, even in the slightest.
"Damn."
"What?"
"I kind of feel like a jerk now that I've bummed you out."
"Takeru's the jerk, not you."
"I think that's the first time I've ever actually heard that."
"Well, it's true. He's a jackass."
He didn't answer her back as he took a minute to process what she said. He had never seen Takeru act like a jackass, then again he had never had a possible sexual relationship with the guy either, but even then it wasn't his place to judge their relationship or demonize anyone. Like a coin, there were two sides to every story.
"He's a guy who feels like he has certain obligations to certain people. All I'm asking for is for you to trust him."
"If you were in my shoes, would you?"
"Not a chance."
"Exactly."
With that, it seemed to Daisuke that Ayano had accepted something about her relationship with Takeru. He wasn't quite sure what it was that she had accepted exactly, though he doubted that any good would come of it. Her shoulders were slump, her face seemed to be in another world, and to him it looked like she had given up on being happy. He looked out into the different people that passed them by as time clicked away, and wondered about how many dreams of all these strangers would never go achieved. His eyes drifted to the streetlamp warrior once again and thought, was this the last night that he would ever dance in dreamland?
"So now what?"
"I guess I'll take the subway home."
"What, no chauffeur today?"
"I could really use the time to think some things over," she paused as there really wasn't much else to say about her situation, at least not much else that Daisuke needed to know about. He was a nice guy, but she didn't think that that warranted spilling her fears and insecurities to him. Instead, she bowed her head in the manner that she had always been taught, before she gave Daisuke a wave goodbye, and began to walk away, "Thank you, Daisuke-kun. I'm sorry about your date."
He didn't say anything in response, and simply returned the wave nonchalantly as he watched her begin to walk away from him. Despite all the possibilities that were to be had in nighttime Japan, despite all the romance or humor, the night had been a disappointing one so far.
He hummed a song that was stuck in his head as Ayano strolled down the sidewalk with other randoms who had taken to the streets that night, all the while hoping that Takeru could find a way out of the hole that he was digging himself into, but all his thoughts left his mind the moment that he realized that the streetlamp warrior was on the move. The warrior was walking quickly, passing by Daisuke almost without notice, but what put him on nerve was when the warrior slowed down his pace, not that far behind Ayano.
Pushing himself up from his own streetlamp that he had grown accustomed to for the night, Daisuke headed in Ayano's direction. He didn't know what the warrior had planned, or even if the warrior even had a plan, but he wasn't going to risk anybody getting hurt. He was walking faster than most everyone else in the street, causing him to bump into quite a few people in fact, and he was a bit relieved once he was able to make it passed the warrior, who was still walking suspiciously slow behind Ayano. A few elbows bumping into him later, Daisuke made it to his dear friend's girlfriend. She looked at him with a confused look on her face, this growing once Daisuke draped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into him.
"Eh, I didn't really like her anyways. I prefer girls with natural hair colors. In my opinion brunette is the way to go."
She tried to pull away from him at first, but stopped once she felt how strongly Daisuke was holding onto her. This was the first time she had ever seen Daisuke act the way that he was, and she wasn't sure whether or not this was something to be afraid about. She whispered to him, hoping that her impression of him being a nice guy wasn't wrong.
"What are you doing?"
"Look, I'm not just gonna let you walk around at night by yourself and take the subway. It can be dangerous at this hour when you're all alone. I thought that someone was following you."
Relaxing a bit, she lowered her eyes as they walked. If Daisuke was telling the truth, which she was mostly sure was true, she was thankful. She was still a bit uncomfortable with the fact that a guy who wasn't her boyfriend had his arm around her, but she thought that it was okay since it was at least someone who Takeru trusted.
"Don't you have to head home?"
"Do you not want my company?"
She wondered what Takeru would say or how he would feel had he been witness to the current situation. She was sure that he would understand, hopeful that he would feel jealous, but it was that in particular that made her feel uneasy with her own thoughts. She herself had felt envy, for a while it was all that she thought about, but even though it was still something that haunted her, she didn't want Takeru to want her solely out of jealousy. She knew that he didn't love her, at least he didn't yet, but if that were to change, Ayano wanted to know that the love was something pure.
"I don't care."
"Then it's a date."
With the way that he felt her stiffen for a second, Daisuke thought that maybe using the word 'date' was a poor choice of vocabulary. He was considering his options of apologizing or playing it off as a joke, but then he felt her relax under his arm.
"A date, huh?"
Grinning because he hadn't frightened her, Daisuke pulled her in a little closer so he could whisper something to her.
"Yeah, a date. And what's a date without some of this?"
Ayano watched carefully as Daisuke slightly opened up the side of his jacket that she wasn't pressed up against, and was a bit surprised to see a glass bottle filled with a clear liquid.
"Vodka?"
"Afraid you can't handle it?"
"Actually, I'm afraid you can't keep up."
And it was that challenge from Ayano that caught Daisuke off guard. He wasn't sure whether or not the warrior was still following them, and if so whether or not he was still watching them, but he thought that spending some time with Ayano was going to be more fun than he initially thought. So they walked together through that roaring wave of randoms, the both of them finding themselves quite comfortable just exactly as they were. The city lights were shining all around them, and there was one more thing that pleasantly surprised Daisuke about Ayano as they strolled towards the glittering spirits of the night. She smelled like sugar.
Next chapter will be Takeru/Hikari, and will explain why Takeru stood up his female. As I said, I wasn't how I felt, but expect another update soon.
