I see no need to take me home
I'm old enough to face the dawn
2004:
Joe swallowed hard, holding his ticket tightly. All this stress was irritating the bruise stretched across his back, and he resisted the urge to reach back and rub at it. He had a test score to find. He stepped closer to the poster and hunted through the lists of numbers, looking for the one that matched his ticket.
2047...
He bit his lip and adjusted his glasses as he pushed through the crowd. He could hear the other students' hopeful voices amidst their rainbow of middle school uniforms. Some were friends looking to stay together in high school, others were groups sadly splitting away for the greater good.
2047...
He squeezed through a gaggle of girls in gray uniforms, gagging on the heavy cloud of perfume that surrounded them. He reached back, comforted by the bulge of his inhaler in his back pocket, and ducked below a high five that clapped in front of his face.
"Sorry, man," whoever it was laughed with a distinct smoky stench, and Joe smiled politely to hide his grimace. Hopefully they were happy to have not been accepted, as he was certain Merston High wouldn't be the place for someone like that.
2047...
He pushed and stumbled his way to the front of the crowd, still searching for his number. If he hadn't been accepted, or even if he had but his class number was too low... He shuddered at the thought, trying to wipe the nightmare-ish vision from his mind before he could dwell on the reality behind it. Next to him, a girl in a yellow uniform squealed, throwing her arms around the boy standing beside her. She had short, choppy brown hair, bangs held to one side with a shimmering white and green butterfly clip.
"Lookit, Shinji! We both made it in!"
The boy, striking in his black uniform next to her, smiled and tousled her hair, knocking her large, round glasses playfully. "I knew you could do it, Nana."
"I wish we could have both been in the same class again, though..." She reached up to adjust her round glasses at the same time Joe did, catching the movement with her light brown eyes and giggling.
But Joe put them out of his mind, scanning up the list number by agonizing number. He needed to find 2047. And hopefully nowhere near the bottom.
The more he looked, however, the more his heart sank. He couldn't find himself anywhere on the chart, and the only thing that meant was that he wouldn't be able to go home. Or, if he did, he'd never see the light of another day.
He was suddenly aware of a presence, and he looked over to see that yellow-uniformed girl peering over his shoulder. Well, as short as she was, she was on her tiptoes and looking at his ticket. Joe swallowed his discomfort and stepped away self consciously, noting just how familiar she looked, even if he couldn't quite place her.
"Can I help you?" he asked, words dripping with politeness, and the girl just smiled at him.
"I think you're in my class." She pointed to a smudged number at the top of the posting. "I'm right there, number 4077 in 1-A. It looks like the printer messed up on your number right above mine."
She was right, he realized. If he squinted just so, the splotchy number at the absolute top of the chart could have said 2047.
"My name is Nana Terrano. My parents want me to be a thoracic surgeon, but I'm thinking about becoming a nurse. More interactive with the patients, you know?" the girl chirped with a warm smile. She made a quick bob of a bow and Joe was able to get a closer look at her hairclip. What had at first seemed like a simple butterfly, was in fact, delicately woven together emeralds and diamonds set amongst scuffed white gold. It was beautifully huge, almost the size of Joe's fist, but she wore it with all the grace and elegance of a princess.
"I'm Joe Kido, and I will be a vascular surgeon," he found himself saying and he bowed deeply, biting his tongue to keep from wincing at the pull on his bruise. He knew he should have been studying last night, but he couldn't stop thinking of Gomamon... "It's nice to meet you."
"You too," Nana giggled. She reached out, grabbing the hand of the boy in the black uniform. "This is my boyfriend, Shinjiro Takuou."
The boy, man really, was much taller than Joe, built thick with muscle. His dark hair was cut short and his equally dark eyes were sharp as they looked at him. For a moment, Joe was terrified. Shinjiro looked like he could pick up his father with one hand and wipe the floor with him without breaking a sweat. But then he smiled, so warm and serene, and Joe could easily see how a sweet looking girl like Nana could fall for him.
"It's nice to meet you, as well. I'm going to try and become a pediatric doctor after I graduate," Shinjiro said with such a gentle softness, it was almost disconcerting.
Joe nodded, awkwardly. Now that he had his score, he had to hurry home and tell his father that he'd made the top of his class already. But that brunette girl was pouting at him, squinting as though her glasses weren't working.
"You know," she said. "You look really familiar. Like... Super-duper familiar."
"Maybe you sat next to me in the testing room?" Joe tried. He didn't like her inspecting look, as though she were staring down his very soul. It made him nervous that she would be the first person to recognize him from all those supposed "terrorist bombings" and mass panicking years ago.
"Not that," she said, shaking her head and making her butterfly clip flap its jeweled wings. "Like we were outside. Do you protest at the chemical plant or go jogging down by the Ferris Wheel?"
"I don't have the lung capacity for either of those," Joe responded with a smile that was more of a grimace, thinking quickly of his inhaler. He was starting to sweat, to panic like he always did. "M-maybe when we were kids?"
"Or maybe it was a previous life," Nana said seriously. Then she laughed, a warm noise unfamiliar to Joe's ears. "When I visit my coven tomorrow night, I'll have to ask if they can help me look."
"Your... coven?" Joe blinked at the odd word choice to describe her friends.
"Oh." Nana beamed, holding up the hand that was still holding Shinjiro's. Around her wrist sat a thin silver bracelet, a simple pentacle dangling freely. For a moment, Joe wanted to reach up, to touch the one he'd had hidden under his shirt since his grandmother gave it to him when he was eight. "Some of my friends from middle school got together and we meet up once a week. Everyone says we turn people into frogs, but mostly we drink Starbucks and bitch about our boyfriends – oh, uh, sorry Shinji."
The man smiled, a twinkle in his eyes betraying his silent laughter, and even Joe could find himself attracted to Shinjiro. Before the blush could rise on his cheeks, Joe bowed and turned away.
"I have to go. I'll see you in class, then, Miss. Terrano."
Nana just smiled, waving him off with a sweet, "Blessed be."
Joe was certain, the first day of high school couldn't go any worse.
He'd been woken up that morning, not by his alarm, but by his ringtone. He sat up so fast he almost flung himself from the bed, desperately digging into his pillowcase. He must have hit the volume button in his sleep, and he cursed himself over and over. If his father were to pass by his room and even think he heard the sound of a phone...
He silenced it quickly, desperately, straining his ears to listen for any footsteps, sturdy or stumbling. It was no number he recognized, a telemarketer obviously, and he wanted nothing more than to throw it across the room. When his father didn't fly into his room in a rage, he stood and stretched, trying to wake up enough to look like he was sitting at his desk, studying before classes, for when his father did come by.
He was pulling on his shirt when he noticed his necklace was no longer around his bruised neck: his father's punishment from the night before for Joanne's manic screaming being loud enough to alert the neighbors. The cord, already old when he received it, had finally snapped in the middle of the night and his pendant was gone. For a moment he was panicked, remembering his kindly grandmother taking the necklace from her own neck and placing it about his. The small pentacle had survived his life from Heighton View Terrace and through the entirety of the Digital World, revealed only to one person in the dead of night in a cramped boiler room.
He tore his bed apart, tossing the sheets and pillows, finding the pendant on the floor, under the mattress. He dug in his closet, finding an old pair of tennis shoes and he quickly strung it on a shoelace. He'd have to find a new cord after school – hopefully he'd have enough time before his cram school started to stop by the store. Quickly, he remade his bed, placing his pillows in their proper places and tucking in his sheets to strict hospital corners.
He'd only just sat at his desk and cracked open his textbook when his father appeared, flinging open the door like he always did. Like he expected to find the room crawling with girls or drugs or any other "contraband". Joe shuddered at the memory of his father finding the manga Tai had accidentally left in his bag.
"You're already at the top of your class, and I expect you to stay there," Shou said by way of greeting. "I won't accept anything less – not anymore."
"Yes, Father," Joe murmured to his desktop. Just loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to be considered yelling.
"Give your mother her pills before you leave. I don't need the neighbors hearing her have an episode again."
And with that, the man was gone. Turned on his heel and out the door without another word. It was always like that, though. If the apartment burned down and killed his imprisoned wife and child, he would be more upset about the loss of his precious medical journal collection.
But Shou hadn't locked the deadbolt on Joe's door, so the boy made his way into the master bedroom. His mother was on her side on the bed, still lost in her own mind, shivering from the night of "marital"s she'd been forced to share as payment for sleeping in the same room. She accepted her pills easily, swallowing them dry, and tried to reach out for Joe as he passed by.
"I'll be back this afternoon, Mom," he told her sweetly. "So be good, ok? Let your pills work for once."
Her lips opened, quivering, but no noise came forth. But that was normal, too. Usually when she was depressed, she lost all ability to talk. It was when she was manic that she was truly in danger.
He grabbed his bookbag and ran out the door, locking it carefully behind him. Hopefully, Joanne wouldn't be able to remember how to work the bolt. His deep green, almost black, uniform was still new, and the collar scratched at his aching throat uncomfortably. The books were heavy, pulling at his nearly dislocated shoulder, but he managed to make it to his school on time. His classroom was empty when he got there, so he took his usual seat in the front row by the far window. This way, when his father found out, he couldn't say Joe was being lazy.
Slowly, the room began to fill, chattering groups of students, already first-day friends and cliques forming around him. He thought, briefly, what the other Children were doing now, but he knew. He knew, because he wished he could do the same thing.
They were all lost in themselves. None of them speaking, none of them reaching out for the others.
He could still see that shadow of BlackWarGreymon, the sickeningly green glow of his data that was infecting the very last Digital Gate, one year to the day of his well-intended sacrifice. He was sitting on the bench, Gomamon curled against his chest. The seal's eyes were glassy, holding back tears.
"I just don't know what you're going to do without me," Gomamon was saying. His usually snarky voice cracking. "I always thought we'd be together forever, you know? But this just means that I get to live up the bachelor life again." Joe gave a sob of a laugh. Gomamon didn't know what "bachelor" meant - he'd just heard the word from Tai.
The gate was closing, vanishing, Gennai announcing that it was time. The seal wrapped his claws around Joe's shoulders, tears soaking into his shirt. "Now don't be stubborn," Gomamon warned, "you have friends. Let them help you."
Even now, Joe had to wonder. How much had Gomamon known? The little seal had never said anything about the bruising that would spontaneously appear, but those emerald eyes always noticed. The Children had spent so much time explaining to the Digimon the concepts of family, of parents and brothers and love that was different between friends and couples...
Suddenly, Joe was hit with the need to find his way to the Digital World once more, to try and find his abandoned partner and explain that everything was all right – that what he was going through was nothing more than the price he had to pay for his very birth.
He was just shaking his head, trying to clear away the sadness and darkness that threatened to overwhelm him when that girl, yellow uniform changed to his same forest green, suddenly stood over him, a triumphant look on her face.
"I remember you now," Nana said with a proud grin. "You stole my bike that day that giant Angel-monster descended on the Rainbow Bridge."
Joe yelped, almost falling out of his desk. Thankfully, there was still just enough time before classes were supposed to start, so not too many students were there to snicker at him.
"N-no!" he yelped as conspicuously as possible. "I, I, I have no idea what you're talking about!"
Nana just smiled, seating herself comfortably at the desk next to him. She put her chin in her palm, bracelet dangling its pagan charm freely, and she continued, "And there was that Christmas a few years ago when that T-Rex attacked the concert hall where The Teenage Wolves were playing. I went with my friends after our deforestation protest, and we saw your little pets feed it to a computer."
Joe shook his head so hard he almost flung his glasses across the room. Whether he was denying Nana's accusations or the memory of Sora walking away, hand in hand with Matt, he wasn't sure.
"That's... That's not what happened," he insisted, despite her knowing smirk. "It was a, a mass panic following an optical illusion set up by the TV station to increase ratings." That was what Shou always said had happened that night.
"Then how did an optical illusion blow up a building and fracture my ankle, hm?" Nana asked, and Joe didn't have an answer.
"Look," he whispered, making Nana lean in close to hear him. "Just forget it, ok? Stuff like that won't ever happen again."
"What makes you so sure?" Nana asked.
"Because, I..." Joe bit his lip and looked to his desk. He didn't want to say it, the words spoken outloud would only serve to cement what had happened into reality. "Because I saw his virus..."
Nana frowned, concerned at the tears shimmering behind the young man's glasses. She opened her mouth to say something, anything to help the obviously distressed man next to her when Rini, her friend who had followed her from middle school, suddenly flung herself onto Nana, chattering excitedly into her ear about all the cute boys she'd already met, and Nana promptly forgot all about Joe.
Joe himself was relieved for the distraction, pleased to be away from the center of attention. He was very glad for all of Gennai's doings long ago, destroying any and all evidence of the Children's original fights. He never understood how Matt could stand all that attention from fans for his band, as he much preferred the silence of isolation. He bowed his head and pulled into himself, using every trick he'd learned from Izzy on how to keep from standing out in a classroom as he pretended to read the welcome pamphlet he'd memorized days ago.
It was as the teacher walked in and the classroom finally settled at the sound of the bell, that Joe saw the crumple of paper fall on his desk. He looked up at Nana sharply and she smiled, mouthing the words, "open it" before acting like she was paying attention to their homeroom lecture. Joe tried to look as nonchalant as he could in the front row as he smoothed out the paper, as though it was something he'd meant to do all along. And, as the newly-introduced Mr. Soruko turned to the whiteboard to begin his lesson, Joe glanced down to read Nana's note.
Meet me on the roof after school. I'll tell everyone about the T-rex if you don't.
Joe glared at the brunette out of the corner of his glasses, but she was acting as though he didn't exist. What kind of threat was this? What evidence did she have to back it up, aside a healed ankle and a auditorium full of witnesses that couldn't even remember the band that had been playing that night?
But Joe knew he would follow through. If only for his own cowardice, he would do as he was told.