This time the context is understandable in the story. No need to specify it, but it has been another occasion to introduce, - let's say I have-, the eldest of the little Orimotos' ahaha: Koujirou (whose nicknames are Kou and Koukou). He's just a baby here ,though, and he just gets mentioned along with his trouble.
The setting has also changed, because now Junpei and Izumi are not living in Venice any more, but in Milan. It's where I headcanon they move because Izumi manages to open a restaurant there and Junpei has become an internationally famous tenor, the thunder of Milan's Teatro alla Scala. MY KIDS SHINE.
XXX
{Grasp those memories in the wind}
It's well known that kids, especially at a very young age, will find the most random stuff around them entertaining.
Once she had heard from an affectionate client her child, -a four-year-old angel with big blue eyes being able to devour a flaming devil, once spotted from afar-, had developed a bizarre interest in shoes. And by that, she meant their whole shoe rack had been in danger from voracious teeth until they had finally made their attention land on edible food.
As far as concerned theirs, they did have a vivid fantasy when it came to looking for ways to have fun while exploring the world…Surely, their two storey apartment, -three, in truth, if you included the terrace-, was wide enough to stimulate the liveliness of a couple of stormy blonde toddlers. Two little tempests that had only needed to learn how to walk, - when it came to the eldest-, and crawl, -when it came to the youngest-, to unleash their immense energy.
If some Saturday evening it had happened to hear their cat desparately meowing because Miranda had decided to conquer the poor creature's bed, the next Sunday she would have never expected to get woken up by noises of steel repeatedly hitting the kitchen's floor. Pots and pans everywhere, a little hole on the miserable floor, which Junpei didn't hesitate to fill as soon as he finally came back home, were the only elements she felt like adding in an explanation on the phone.
Taken in consideration those and so many other kinds of trouble the two had provoked, certainly, a single thud making her instincts itch while she was resting from a hectic day at the restaurant couldn't be that bad.
Yet, it had startled her, imaginary frames of Koujirou climbing out of the guard rails and falling making her beats accelerate at once. Those anxious fantasies that could make any mother abruptly leave the warmth of a bed and a stirring, puzzled, so puzzled husband. After all, as weird as it could sound while speaking about a tenor, he wasn't the one who had been endowed with an incredible sense of hearing. It was like if the impalpable gusts of air would send any minuscule creaking, rustling, suspicious yet imperceptible shifting directly into the woman's ears, no matter if she was busy with some other activity or was sleeping.
"Kou, what in the world are you doing?!"
Her fears had fortunately had no reason to upset her that much. Like she had predicted, the toddler had actually decided to skip nap time to have some adventure down the stairs and in the living room, but his escaping methods hadn't failed that time, either, -and bless Heavens!-
Bless Heavens!
" Ahahah yes, grazie al cielo. And grazie al cielo it has been easier to put him to sleep than usual," Junpei chuckled, joining her on the floor, indeed, on the sea of paper covering it. "If I hadn't already known he has got a talent for creating chaos from the tidiest places ever, I would have believed Fairymon has just visited us and flew away before we could say ciao ." He adjusted his legs' position and crossed them to feel more comfortable on the hard surface, his amused orbs scanning the photos scattered everywhere, from the ones surrounding him like if they were part of some kind of odd ritual to the bunch that had ended up under the sofa. "Brezzo…Petalo!"
She froze in the middle of her task of gathering little piles in her hands to look at him and explode in a wave of laughters. She couldn't really help dropping a couple or three, as it was way too funny to observe him attempting to mimic the Digimon's attacks.
"You do remember a lot, don't you? Even the intonation," She frowned at the nothingness, focusing on some point in the distance to concentrate and take a deep breath.
"Izumi…?"
"Thor…Hammer!" She clasped her hands together and pretended to be about to hit the parquet with all her might, the short blonde locks of her bob bouncing past her flushed cheeks.
She turned to the man with a smug grin he found impossible to exchange, as shocked as she had made him with that sudden war cry. Judging from his agape stare, his mind was being undoubtedly crowded by images of ardent women warriors, valkyries riding the most untamable winds on their horses. She…Had spent enough time with him to have figured out how his peculiar brain cells worked.
"So how was it ?" She asked him not managing to control the intensity of her blush.
"Beautiful," He spat after some instants spent losing himself in her absently. "Fervently beautiful. Mind blowing. Extraordinarily staggering."
"That was much more than I was expecting, but I'll take it. Grazie mille."
They fell in silence for a little while, crawling from a side of the living room to the other to check any possible and unimaginable spot the photos could have slipped in. The tome hadn't fallen from a considerable height, but the impact had still been so disastrous it had almost totally lost its content. Her heart sank in her bosom once she acknowledged they had been lucky it hadn't happened to hit Kou's head.
"Y'know," Junpei's voice distracted her right when she needed it the most. "The funny thing is that I can't really remember that much."
"Oh?" Another stack in her palm, she crawled to where they had created a row of unstable towers, an area of skyscrapers. She knew what he was talking about, so she didn't wait for him to add some clarification to his statement. And it wasn't like he would have: he was being absorbed by the scenes he was scrolling before his eyes with a hint of affection; those scenes he himself had messily put in those huge yet blank pages. "To be honest, I don't either, except when it comes to the colours of the winds and some attacks. Sometimes, though, it feels like I've been losing memories of Digiworld day after day."
"That's…" He pressed his lips, failing at hiding an unwilling gulp. "What I feel like as well."
Izumi perceived a mood swing in his words, a decrease of his cheerful attitude pushing her to get even closer to him.
"Hey, we're in our thirties and we have been feeling like this for ages. Maybe it's all in our head," She brought herself to try cheering him up, but the reality was that she herself wasn't convinced about her own…Lie. Because she had felt it so many times: the sensation of a minuscule fragment of their far adventure disintegrating everytime a newborn sun greeted her.
"If you say so, Izumi," He nodded avoiding her gaze: once more his pupils were being attracted by those shots of life in front of him. "It's just that we have got photos of every journey and holiday we've been in except of that one."
It was only at that moment that a certain realization dawned on her, after years since Junpei had showed up with that enormous book he had bought in Wien and had made her raise an eyebrow in perplexity. At the beginning she had guessed he would use it to collect his thousand and more stamps: back in those days, -just like in the present, to be sincere-, they absolutely had no idea where he could store them to protect them from the power of time. However, he hadn't hesitated to reveal his true intentions as soon as he had finished preparing for the night: he wanted to create a scrapbook, just like the ones from those pretty old traditions that were falling into disuse because of phones and computers.
That day she had scoffed at his plan, defining it so old-fashioned and kinda corny, -but that wasn't really a surprise coming from the kind of man he was-. Still, now she felt like she had finally understood the precious, inestimable value behind such a simple initiative. She could have accepted the urge to hold all those photos against her chest, each of them, if she hadn't heard Junpei sighing by her side.
"It's not fair."
"I know…" She could only whisper, grabbing a frame featuring an even puffier Kou trying standing up on his own. She had the same photo on her phone, but she had never dwelled on its fragility, on the possibility of them losing their devices along with every password and way to recover those treasures.
"No ,I mean, for real."
"What are you talking about?" She barked back, a bit indignant about his nonsense insistence. "I'm deadly serious about this topic, I sw-" And then, she stretched her neck just to find herself in front of a very, indeed, too familiar face. "Where…" She commented, slightly dumbfounded.
"It's the oldest photo of yours your mother gave me and you're not wearing that adorable beanie with the cat ears. In Digiworld I saw you wearing that everyday, for who knew how long. Then, when we came back home, I never saw you with that outfit on again. How terribly unfair is that? It makes me so…So bitterly nostalgic."
She didn't open her mouth at that lovely complaint of his, so flattered and speechless, ignoring that remark about her mother and him having apparently shared some unique quest. Instead, she limited herself hanging her head, unexpectedly feeling so overwhelmed by the heavy amount still awaiting them.
In that confusion her arm reached out and her index touched cold plastic.
"Hell, it feels so wrong to open this memory book without you in that striped crop top, that pink shade everywhere, that funny h- Wow, why are you laughing so much now?"
He interrupted his blabbing monologue because of melodious giggles coming from her, no matter what a huge effort she had put in covering her mouth not to allow them to run away.
"No-Nothing," She was even struggling speaking without stuttering.
"Nothing? You don't laugh about nothing. What is that ?" He pouted in a playful fashion as his hand aimed at the photo she was keeping against her jolting chest.
Yet, she pulled away in time and also managed to stand up, freeing herself from his attempt to trap her in his embrace.
"Izumi! Oh c'mon, you don't want me to chase you in the whole house. We can't do that any more, y' know?"
"Relax, Junpei Caro . I'm just going getting the glue stick and a pair of scissors and…Do we need anything else?"
"Ah," The corner of his mouth seemed to have begun twitching as he repeated that small list, -the incoherent noises were an addition of his, though-. "A pair of scissors, yeah. And the glue stick, hm hm. But what are you planning to do with them?"
She gave her best to make him believe she was staring at him wide-eyed.
"Shall we finally start our own scrapbook? Yes or no, Junpei?" She teased him with a fake scold, her hands on her hips just like she would do whenever she got angry at him. "It has been waiting on that shelf for too long, but now I think I have found the inspiration we need."
"You're right. I have been neglecting it due to my job. Indeed, I haven't opened it since I brought it here. I only could gather some photos here and there. I've never got enough time, dannazione …!
"Fortunately I have got it, then," She winked at him, her waving index making him notice the photo she had been concealing on purpose. She found it hard not to smirk at the sight of his struck reaction.
"No…Who?!?"
"No, nobody gave it to me. I found it at your place before we definitely moved to Italy and I stole it. It's hilarious that you have never seen it before."
Painted with the red of tomatoes on his cheeks, Junpei averted his chocolate irises from where she was standing with that malicious smile making her resemble their naughty cat.
"You held onto this strange taste until your last years of university, but this is the one from Digiworld. I recognized it immediately from the yellow folds. So adorable!"
At least, a memory of theirs, or better, an endearing memory of hers wasn't going to fade that soon.
An awkward stout boy wearing a blue mechanic coverall. The most original subject welcoming someone in a journey through their indelible recollections.
"Neh, Izumi Cara, I think I'd rather use scotch tape…"
"As if I didn't know it would be easier for you to detach it!"
XXX
I had a totally different idea for this, but I'm made like this: my plans get warped, easily turn into something else. And it's fine? I mean, we are on this Earth to follow the wind like Izumi, even if I must admit this silly one-shot would have been perfect to open this collection. Do you think I could organize these chapters in the future? I don't believe it would be that bad tbh…? We'll see, we'll see!
