Takeru is getting fed up with walking now. It's been days and days and they just walk all the time. He hasn't said anything since the house in the forest, but the trees are thinning out now, and surely they have to find something soon? He's beginning to wonder if they'll keep going forever.

They stop when the trees run out, and stare at their future surroundings. Takeru can't remember ever having seen so many buildings before. There's a short distance between the end of the trees and the start of the… He frowns. It has a name; he's sure of that, but the word hovers just out of his reach. Buildings. Lots of buildings all together. It's… it's a…

He stops and turns to the girl. Maybe she'll tell him what it is, and then he can stop worrying. But the girl is staring out over the city with an equally worried look on his face, and- city! It's a city! Takeru almost laughs; he's so happy that he worked it out. He can know things!

"Poyo!"

Without thinking, Takeru picks Poyomon up and hugs the little blob. The good feeling is catching - it's just what he's needed to cheer him up after all this walking and feeling awful. Good feelings should happen more often.

"Takeru?" the girl asks, and he flinches. Is she going to tell him they have to keep going? That he's wasting time? He looks up, wary.

"What is it?" he asks.

To his surprise, she's smiling at him. "Oh, nothing, I… it's nice to see you in such a good mood, is all," the girl says. "It's been a long time since-"

She looks away and clears her throat. "Anyway. What made you happy?"

Takeru grins, and points at the buildings. "It's a city," he says. "I didn't know the word at first, but then I did. And it felt good."

The girl smiles. "It is a good feeling when you remember things," she says. "Do you know how you did it?"

Takeru frowns, thinking. "I'm not sure. I was trying really hard, but then… it happened when I stopped thinking about it."

"Poyo poyo!" his companion cries, hopping up and down. "Poyo, poyo poyo!"

The girl looks just as excited. "Maybe that's it!" she says. "If we can find a way to trigger the memories when your guard's down… It must be blocking them somehow. Oh, if only I could talk to the others: I'm sure Kou-"

She stops abruptly, and looks away. Takeru can see her face turn all pinched and pale.

"What's wrong?" he says. "Why did you stop talking? And… who are the 'others'?"

"Nothing!" she cries. "Never mind. I was just getting carried away. We should… we should keep walking. See what's in the city. I wonder which one it is."

He frowns. "There's more than one city?" he asks, following her across the rough, dry ground between the forest and the start of the buildings. "How many are there? And are they all as big as this?" He runs slightly ahead, turning to walk backwards in front of her. Will she answer his question?

The girl smiles, another real one which reaches to her eyes.

"Well, all cities are different," she says. "I just hope we'll be able to find food. We're pretty low on fruit."

He sighs, and hugs Poyomon again. Apparently she's just going to talk about finding food and walking again now. They stay silent as the city approaches, and it's not until they've been walking for - in his opinion - way too long that anything happens.

The girl stops sharp in the middle of the street. "It's getting foggy again," she says. "We should find somewhere to wait it out. There's not point wandering around when we can't even see where we're going."

Takeru blinks. It's only now that the girl has pointed it out that he notices the thick mist, drawing in on them and making the city vanish into the clouds. Sighing, he nods and starts looking around for a good place to go. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the girl watching him with an odd expression on her face. She glances down the street, and then back at him, eyebrows descending in a frown.

"What?" he says, looking right back at her. "You're staring at me all funny."

The girl shakes her head quickly. "I was just…thinking, is all. Takeru, how do you feel right now?"

He frowns and shrugs. "I dunno," he says, looking down at Poyomon. "Kinda tired and hungry, I guess?"

"So, the good feeling you had… it's gone?"

Takeru stares at her. "What good feeling? Like I said, I'm just tired and hungry. That's not a good feeling at all."

She seems as though she's about to say something, but doesn't speak. The odd look on her face almost makes her look sad, and Takeru wonders what the matter is. But before he can ask, she has turned towards a building, and waves for him to follow her inside. Takeru looks around. It is pretty foggy outside. Maybe they're better off waiting inside for the weather to clear.

The building turns out to be the most disappointing place Takeru has ever seen. It has all the things he recognises and more - chairs, tables, bookcases, and other furniture that reminds him of the cottage - but there's no food anywhere, and the girl doesn't seem to want to play any games. Once they realise there's nothing to eat they just sit there, cold and hungry.

Takeru can't remember ever having been as hungry as this. It's so bad that it hurts, and he feels dizzy and tired. He's miserable, and doesn't even look up when Poyomon calls to him. Why bother? Everything is rotten. There's no boy, and the girl is being quiet, and they're both lost. It's… it's…

He frowns. There's a word for how he's feeling, and he doesn't know what it is. Of course, there are lots of things which he doesn't seem to know, but this one feels…out of all the words, all the things he doesn't know, he should know this. It's not right. Something's very wrong, and he can't quite place it, but the longer he sits there, the more he starts to be sure that he's all back to front. Are they giving up? There's nothing else they can really do, so it sort of makes sense, but what happens next? What happens if they stop looking? What happens if they don't find food, or the boy?

The girl is sitting facing away from him, with her knees drawn up to her chest and her head hanging low. She looks pretty sad, and that's not right either. But what can he do? He stares at her, feeling lost and confused. Everything's all mixed up and strange, but he's so dizzy he's not sure what's right or wrong any more. And slowly, without knowing how, he starts to feel like he's done this before. Being hungry, and lost, and trying to find someone, or something. It's jumbled, because he doesn't really think it all happened in quite the same way, but…

Poyomon hops over to the girl, a little flash of white moving out of the corner of his eye, and he turns sharply. For a moment, he expects to see a white cat going to comfort her instead. He stares at his friend. Poyomon.

Takeru hasn't thought about why he's always been with Poyomon before. It's just… one of those things, really. Like the sky being blue on a sunny day, or dreams being bad and scary. But suddenly, he can't help but wonder. Why is Poyomon Poyomon? Why is his companion a little white blob? It's not wrong, like the crying boy in his dreams, or not knowing words when he wants to, but it's not exactly right, either. Poyomon should be…different.

And now he can't stop thinking about it, or wondering why he's suddenly thinking like this. He's always been with Poyomon, hasn't he? Poyomon never changes, never leaves. Never-

Pain splits his head and he cries out, doubling over and screwing up his eyes. It stops almost as suddenly as it begins, but he feels terrible, because all of a sudden he's sure that Poyomon did leave him - something happened, something really bad. A tall black figure with outstretched arms and wings looms in his mind, laughing at him. He tries to close his eyes tighter, but the figure doesn't leave - it's in his head, and he can't escape. It laughs and laughs, and he's sure he can hear someone calling his name, but what's the use, what's the point: his partner is gone and he's all alone, and there's no promise this time to see each other again. It's over, and he just wants to scream and yell and break everything in sight; hit anything or anyone who gets close because it hurts. Nothing can fix this, so he'll smash it all and they can see how it feels…

…But that's not right.

That's not him. He doesn't remember this. Doesn't know where these bad feelings have come from, because he's not alone. Poyomon hasn't gone anywhere. He's here, pressing against Takeru's leg and poyoing urgently, and although the laughing figure in his mind is still there, when he opens his eyes, Takeru can see his friend - strange or not, he's here. The laughing fades, and Takeru looks up to see the girl is staring at him, hands over her mouth. She looks really scared, and for a moment, Takeru feels the same way. Is it his fault? What has he done?

They're sat in the building in the city, but as Takeru looks around he half expects to see sand dunes outside. This is all wrong. Where is he? What's going on? He turns to the girl again, and for the briefest second, he's sure he knows her - memories bubble and almost surface in his mind before fading again, leaving him feeling lost and alone.

"Poyo?"

No, he's not alone. He has Poyomon, and the girl is here, even if he isn't completely sure who she is. And after all, she promised, didn't she? That he wouldn't be alone? Promises are important. Very, very important. You have to believe in promises, you just have to.

And there, rising up in his mind, is the memory. Small and isolated, a tiny fragment from somewhere deep inside his mind. He blinks, shocked, because it really doesn't make any sense - and yet he knows it's right. It's real. It really happened, and he knows now why he can't stop thinking about promises. He made his own, somewhere in a strange place, in a time he doesn't exactly remember, to one of his friends. And he doesn't know why, but he can remember that feeling, too. How sure he was that he'd keep it. How he had to, no matter what.

And he's not alone.

The girl kept her promise. He should too. No. Not the girl…

He swallows, trying to make his throat less scratchy. His voice is still a little hoarse as he asks:

"Hikari? Are you okay?"

A.N.: Hot damn, we made it! Honestly, I almost held off for another chapter, because I have been going back and forth for ages now trying to decide what the first real memory should be. It seemed kinda cliché for it to be Hikari's name, but then... to get to anything else really would have meant dragging things out and screwing up the pacing something fierce.

Well. It's the first notable memory, anyway. This chapter also contains (unless I have majorly screwed up) the first use of another word that I have been intentionally avoiding until now. I could say what it is, but hey. Where's the fun in that, when I can let people work it out? Please do let me know what you think of the story so far - I am enormously grateful for any and all reviews. Thank you so much to everyone who has already reviewed, favourited or followed, too. I am aware that this fic kinda starts out in a weird place and goes from there, so I really wasn't expecting it to go down so well when I started!