A/N: Written for the Tale in Fragments Challenge, 10 prompts List 1, prompt #03 – blossom, and for the Female Character Appreciation Competition (with Ruki), both on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's in my profile).
Enjoy. :D
Picnic Day
3. Blossom
Ruki comes home with her skin a healthy flush and her eyes bright from laughter, if tired. Rumiko cannot help but smile. Seeing a child happy is always a treat for a mother, and she'd seen Ruki sad or angry too many times.
'Had fun?' she asks lightly.
'Mmm,' Ruki murmurs happily, a spring in her step. 'Let's go to the hot springs, 'kaa-san. You and me and obaa-chan and Renamon.'
Rumiko is surprised, but doesn't see anything wrong with the suggestion. She has no photo shoots the coming weekend, and a hot spring are always a nice place to relax. 'What brought this on?' she asked.
'Hmm…we haven't had a family vacation in a while.' Something Ruki hadn't cared much about in the past. 'And I want to show Renamon the hot springs of the real world.'
Rumiko couldn't help but smile at that; Renamon has been good for Ruki in more ways than she can count. She'd helped that little scrunched up bud grow into a beautiful happy flower – and Rumiko couldn't be happier. Really.
Except sometimes she wishes she could have been the one to make Ruki happy.
'kaa-san?' Ruki asks, looking at her. Her expression gives nothing away, but she knows what her mother is thinking. Unfortunately, she can do little about it; she and Renamon share something no-one else who isn't a Tamer will never understand. The Digital World was more accessible, but the desire for power was less in this newfound peace after the D-reaper. In fact, the wild Digimon did not want to grow and evolve, for fear they might revive the sleeping beast.
'It's nothing.' Rumiko shakes her head. 'So what did you do in the Digital World?'
'Had a picnic.' Ruki shrugs. 'Hung out; the boys were being boys, so we girls went to the hot springs.'
'I see.' Rumiko wonders why Ruki asked for the hot springs specifically then.
'Renamon can't appreciate the Digital World ones,' Ruki explains, answering the unasked question. 'In the Digital World, what you feel is what you expect to feel.' She shrugs. 'So if you don't know how the springs usually feel, they don't feel like much. If you remember it's data and not water, you don't even get wet.'
'I see,' Rumiko says again, wondering how that would be. It sounded interesting; a hot spring would probably feel like a dream, if one had dreamt it. 'You sound like you had fun with your friends.'
'I guess.' But Ruki is grinning so it couldn't have been bad. And she's more chatty than normal. 'Which reminds me; 'kaa-san, do you want to come along some time?'
Rumiko is surprised; she's never thought about going to the Digital World, even though she knows it's possible now. It's always been her daughter's world: Ruki's, Renamon's…and her friends. Like the adults had no place in it. Like a fantasy island too far away.
But she is curious and she does want to see this place her daughter loves so much, the home of her guardian angel and best friend.
'We're going to have a busy weekend,' she says lightly. 'Which one's first?'
'Uhh…' Ruki blinks, having not thought of that. 'There's a market in the Digital World…next week?'
'Yes.' Renamon steps out of the shadows she'd been standing in all that time, and Rumiko's heart skips a little beat. She's still not used to that. 'Next Sunday.'
Rumiko has a photo shoot scheduled, but she can easily move it to Saturday. Coco will probably be happier about it; he'd been grumbling about having plans on Sunday too.
'Next Sunday it is,' Rumiko notes. 'And I'm free this weekend, so hot springs then. We can come back on Tuesday or Wednesday.'
Ruki's school is closed for the Autumn break, so they don't need to worry about that. And Rumiko's next meeting is on a Thursday, so she doesn't have to worry about that either. And Ruki's grandmother – Rumiko's mother – has no plans; they still had to ask her about the hot springs, but neither of them thought she'd mind.