So, Takeru x Hikari shippers:
Remember how 02 ended? I do. Remember how Digimon Tri gave us one ship tease for this ship and Takeru many girlfriends? Me too, fam.
Wrote this all in a day, just to get this feeling off of my chest.
Disclaimer: I do not condone cheating in real life.
Their one time affair began in a simple way. Unplanned, but not unexpected. Maybe the idea had been there all along. Shared between them, only unspoken.
She happened to be in Kyoto for a business trip, was supposed to do a survey for the school kids' trip next month with a co-worker. Only her co-worker had bailed on her at the last minute. Which she didn't mind, really, because it meant she would have some time for herself, in a nice ryokan paid for by the school. It would also be the first time in a while that she had any space to be by herself.
He happened to be in Kyoto to do some research for his new novel. It would be easy to look up information online, but he was more used to this, gathering information by walking around and taking pictures, even talking to people, sometimes. He was so good at talking to people. He was handsome, had a nice smile, carried his camera just like a young aspiring journalist. He always said he was old although he wasn't really: that year he had just turned twenty eight. Young. And so was she.
By that age, they had both been married for a few years. Their spouses knew each other, were known among their group of friends, the DigiDestined. Their kids even went to the same kindergarten, and were all good friends.
They found out that they were both in Kyoto from their DigiDestined group chat. Amidst all of their friends saying they envied them, they agreed to meet in a restaurant. It was a busy, hole-in-a-wall type of place with good reviews. They ate Kyoto style meal sets, drank a lot sake just like they had done so many times before, with their other friends or just them alone. Kyoto salarymen were drinking around them, loosening their ties and letting off steam.
They both could handle their drinks, as both had been heavyweight social drinkers back when they were in college. They were still sober on their sixth bottle of sake when she asked him nonchalantly, "Will you spend the night with me?"
He didn't answer right away, was instead staring at her with serious expression. Straight eyes, no smile. The meaning to her request was clear. This was the first time the idea of an affair ever came out of her.
It's not like they never had a chance to have an affair before this. In contrary, they had had so many. In Tokyo where they both lived, they met at least once a month, in their group hangouts or to catch up over a cup of coffee with just the two of them. Their friends knew them, their spouses believed in them. No suspicions, no jealousy. He had loved her in the past and she had loved him, but there was never any reason for anyone to believe there was something more to their friendship.
Her question was a decisive moment. She had asked him with her eyes looking at him straight and unwavering. It was to show him that she had said what she had not because she was drunk or lonely. She wasn't lonely. He wasn't. They were both fine. They had always been. He finished the sake in his cup and said yes.
Her ryokan room was quiet and lovely. Flower arrangements on the low table and ukiyo-e painting on the wall. Fresh fragrant of flowers and trees. Two fluffy futons. For sure the room was meant for two people. Not friends but loverbirds maybe, or a couple in their honeymoon. They turned down the offer for the ryokan dinner, smiled when the lady staff remarked how handsome he was, how good they looked together. They had always looked good together, had always looked like they were meant for each other.
They listened to the staff lady's footsteps on the corridor fade in the distance, turned the lights off and made love. Each of their movement flowed smoothly, naturally, like breathing, like this was something that had always meant to be. Their bodies, their desires, fit each other so well. No words were ever needed.
Afterwards, they both wrapped themselves in the sheets and sat in the darkness, sharing a small patch from the moonlight coming through the windows. Cicadas were singing outside, in the warm summer night. Their bodies felt warm lying against each other. They still hadn't spoken to each other. Instead they were feeling all kinds of emotions, rushing like waves beneath their skin, between the pace of their heartbeat, but regret was not one of them. He could feel what she was feeling, and so could she.
For a while it was all silent except for the cicadas until he heard the sound of her tears hitting the tatami floor beneath them. She was crying, only she made no sound, and wasn't sobbing. She didn't look sad. They knew the tears were not from sadness or guilt.
He reached for her chin softly. Lifted her face and kissed her. He whispered to her while looking into her eyes, "Hikari, I'll always love you more than anyone else."
She smiled through her tears at the statement, and would continue smiling at it for years to come whenever it comes up to her memories. Such a simple and innocent statement, warmhearted and meaningless. She kissed him back. It was warm and wet from her tears.
"If we outlive our spouses…" He began, but she silenced him with a soft look, a shake of her head. He understood.
Not everything in life has meaning. They never knew exactly what was the meaning of this night they had spent sleeping with each other. Perhaps they simply didn't need to know, didn't need to put a frame in which they would think about the night in their narratives. They didn't need a narrative to understand what had happened between them.
When the morning came they went on their separate ways, him to the Kyoto streets, her back to Tokyo, to the house where her husband and her children lived.
The next time they met again in Tokyo they were calm, casual... as they had always been their whole lives, even when they were left with just the two of them. They talked with a light voice, a smile... sitting and drinking their coffee with such an ease of gesture, with body languages of two good old friends. Their closeness was electric, but it had always been that way, so their friends, their families, were used to it. Nothing was amiss. No one sensed anything, or was suspicious.
They never had another affair. Or even talked about what they had done. It's not like they didn't have any chances to do it. They had them. They always did. They just never took them, or said anything about taking or not taking them. They simply didn't.
But they didn't pretend their affair never happened. The night they had shared existed in their eyes when they looked at each other, or in their lips when they smiled to each other from across the table, across the room. It existed within their bodies; in the way they had memorized the softness of her lips against his, or the warmth of his fingertips on her skin. Those memories, warm and distant, had become a language only they knew and shared.
It just happens that the world we live in is not perfect. That life consists of small and big imperfections. Things do not always go the way you want them to. In fact, they almost never go the way you want. You can tell the world to behave and again and again it will not listen. The world will always defy your expectations. That's just how it is.
If we outlive our spouses… He had said that. But she had shaken her head, and he had understood.