Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon.
I don't expect many people to still be here reading this, but if you are thank you very much. Working the equivalent of two full time jobs while raising my son with my wife is tiresome, but we make the most of it. I enjoy writing this story and it will be completed, but they come first. This coming chapter is how shall I put this? An extrapolation of self you could call it. We get some serious fourth wall breaking here, and, in fact it ties into another work of mine called The Adventures of Hackmon and Atsora. It's a fanfiction meta about a possible character writing the story of the Digital Record Series. Let me know in the comments if you would like me to post it. I have only written two chapters so far, but I am thoroughly enjoying it.
Chapter 18: Crosswinds
Being back in the 'real world' did not carry any perks at all. Rei Kurenada even with his strength recovered enough to where he would not dissolve still seemed out of sorts. There were so many variables he had to figure out and he needed some place to collect his thoughts.
Rei remembered the different sensations before he became a digital being, but alas could not feel them. The wind on his face; The scent of a flower; The feel of the crisp summer evening melting into the later hours.
"It certainly is strange," he said to himself walking alone at night. "Digital Monsters could experience all kinds of sensations, but because I'm not originally digital I have lost all of mine," he said sitting down next to a bench.
He leaned back staring up at the sky wondering at it. The sky looked down on both the good and the evil and everything messed up in-between. The stars flickered desperately trying not to be overcome by darkness, but to him it looked more like the darkness could only be repelled by the blinding light that prevented darkness from completing its function. To cover. To swallow. To bind into submission with no hope of escape. Yes, to him that is what darkness truly was.
He took a deep breath wondering if he could even take in the cool air, but this too proved a farce. However, even with his senses warped, he still could pick up an odd fragrance in the air.
"It's been so long," he said one hand over his forehead. "Just what is that scent that cuts through my lack of senses?" he wondered smelling again.
Even now it overpowered him. A deep scent. Roasted coffee beans, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and an assortment of other spices. And lingering in the air, ever so slightly a sweetness called out to him. A familiar one: The icing of heavenly cinnamon rolls.
It had been awhile since he had last partaken of human food. Perhaps it would be a good idea to get a foothold on himself, some closure. Even with immense power and knowledge, without a clear mind and a sense of self, he would be only asking for the Digital Creator to end him.
He arose from the bench taking in the scent once more. "It's time to return to the past, but only for the present, and all for the sake of the future."
Rei Kurenada followed the blissful aromas to a small little coffee shop in the heart of the city. He opened the door noticing the place had a rustic charm. Wind chimes. And wooden cats. There were different Kanji on wooden boards written about talking about 'steam' and 'leaves', but Kurenada paid them no mind.
The place itself did not seem as busy as he thought it would be. Perhaps the food and beverages were no good? And where were the staff?"
He sighed walking over to a booth, sitting down, and looking at a two-sided menu.
The seats were varnished wood, no cushions underneath, and the tops were also dark varnished wood with weird characters of windmills and coffee beans and leaves strewn about them. Something seemed off about this place, though he could not tell what it was.
He looked on the front side of the menu immediately noticing a cinnamon roll, coffee cake, and a few other staples such as sandwiches, baklava, soup, etc. But then on the backside there were a variety of different coffees available. Something about the way the menu looked seemed entrancing.
As he looked at the menu a girl with brown hair came from what must have been from the back of the house for him.
"Welcome to the Leaf Mortar Windmill Coffee House!" she said cheerfully. "What can I get for you?"
"A cinnamon roll," he replied. "And not only that, but a cup of coffee."
"Uh huh," she said writing it down. "A cinnamon roll and coffee."
He looked at her strangely wondering why she had to write down only two items.
She put the pen to her lips wondering about him. "What kind of coffee?"
"I just want a cup of coffee," he said plainly a bit baffled by her.
"It's not just a cup of coffee," she said starting to get annoyed.
"You have a variety of types. Decaf, Cappuccino, Frappuccino, Espresso, Dolce, and then you have varieties as well. I can go on and on here. Just tell me what you want!"
Rei thought about in his mind, but it did not matter to him.
"...A cup of coffee," he said plainly.
She looked at him as if he had been the strangest person she had ever seen.
She sighed heavily one hand on her hand. "All right. Just a cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee," she said walking away. "I can't believe this."
Rei put down the menu staring ahead starting to understand why the place did not have much business.
He then took out his phone and started programming it with his viral digital data all the points he needed to get things started.
Not long after she appeared with his cinnamon roll and his cup of coffee. The aroma of both could not be denied. Even he wanted to salivate if he could with such a delightful treat. And he wasn't even human.
"Here you go," she said pleasantly. She stood their arms crossed looking at him.
Rei grabbed the cinnamon roll about to take a bite, but her presence irked him.
He turned towards her puzzled.
"Well go on," she said positively. "Eat up."
"I don't know how I can," he said plainly, "With you watching me like this."
"Oh, don't worry about the little things," she said. "I just want to make sure you think it's delicious."
"And what if I don't?" he questioned.
"Let's not worry about that till later."
Rei could not help but feel a sense of frustration burning within him. He could easily grab her, force feed it to her, feed off of her and absorb her into himself the way his malice brewed within him. Anyone that dared to threaten him in the digital world would have been in pieces by now, and yet this girl...
...He tried to control his twitching hand and let it go daring to take a bite; each crumb and hint of cinnamon blending sweetly with the icing. Their also appeared to be a pleasant buttery nuttiness to it.
"Well?" she said curiously. "How is it?"
Rei could not deny the taste. Nor could he deny the miracle he could even taste it.
"Delicious," he said keeping himself composed wiping his mouth with a napkin.
"That's great to hear!" she said loudly smiling from ear to ear. "I hope you'll come back and have another bite! Feel free to take a menu with you!"
Rei took her up on the offer and pocketed one though it seemed like an inconvenience. What with technology now-a-days she could have just directed him to a website, but no, she seemed to have a knack for making things hard on herself.
He then sipped his coffee and literally gagged choking on it. The coffee spilled everywhere Rei wanting to scrape the detestable beverage out of his very throat.
"What is this?!" he growled, but she had already left. He had half a mind to make her down a whole pot of it before converting her and absorbing her. He was about ready to get up, but an odd voice stopped him.
"That's what happens with her," a male voice replied plainly. The voice took a bite of something sweet and a sip of coffee.
Rei turned around noticing a man in his twenties, sharp crisp blue eyes and dirty blonde hair. A businessman? He wore a suit and had with him a suitcase with notes and a pen. And yet strangely this man did not seem anything ordinary at all.
He flipped a page making a note and took another bite of what looked like a cinnamon roll.
"If you don't know what you want exactly, she has a tendency to do things horribly. True, any hostess would know how to make a decent cup of coffee, but this girl? She is pleasant and forthright and a real pain, but you could never blame her."
"And why is that?" Rei asked.
"Because despite how she is she always does her best. And when she does her best she lets it all out; her frustrations and her joy. She doesn't keep anything inside. This makes her quite frightening, but also very odd in the eyes of society. And frankly it's only that personality of hers that keeps this business from growing."
Rei wondered about him for a moment, but then wondered less and less as he tried focusing on his own work.
He tried to concentrate plugging in programs on his own makeshift computer, but somehow his phone had stopped working.
He set it down sighing. Could it have been because he had spilled coffee on it? No, nothing of the sort. He had kept an eye on it. And yet it could not work.
He tried searching up Wi-Fi passwords, but there was none for the area.
"What kind of cafe is this?" he said a bit baffled. "There is no Wi-Fi network?"
"Nope," the man behind him said. "This place has no network. You can't even connect to the internet. Everything is done old fashioned."
"That's preposterous," Rei said.
"It's not," the man said stopping to write and looking over his shoulder at him.
"Exactly how so?"
"Because you are trying to use a device that won't be available for another 30 years."
Rei looked at it and looked back at him. With how much he had been able to manipulate digital data he had all but forgotten this notion, but then how did this man know of it?
"How do you know that?"
"It's my job to know," he smirked.
"What do you do?"
"I'm an editor. It's my job to know market trends and where things are going. Though that's not my passion."
"I really don't care."
"Nor should you. But when was the last time you had a real conversation with a human being? One that had not been scripted?"
"Scripted?"
"The way you talk and address others has a tone to it almost hypnotizing as if it's only for a purpose, but never casual. I could tell with your interactions with that young woman."
Rei snickered. This one certainly seemed sharper than most other people he met.
"If I may ask," Rei said, "What are you doing?"
"Oh, you want to know?"
"I'm curious about what the market trends are going to be," he said glibly.
"Well, I could tell you, but that's not what this is."
"It's not?"
He took another sip of coffee. "That's a fan fiction novel I am writing."
"I'm sorry," he said a bit disturbed by the term. "A what?"
"A fan-fiction novel."
"And what in the world is that?"
"It's inspiration. You watch something and you seek to change it- to adapt it into something even better or just continue it."
"If it's the work of someone else what is the point?" Rei asked. "You can't make any profit from it. It's just a waste of time."
"But is it?" the man said with a gleam in his eye. "That's the usual response people have. It's just a waste of time," he said still writing it. "But you know that's not why a fan-fiction writer writes. It's for validation."
"Validation?"
"Yes. They believe after watching or reading something that the content is worthy to an extent, they invest a part of themselves in it. It may not be the whole thing. It might be a part. Or they might combine it with material from another source."
"But how does that validate someone?"
"Well," he said placing his pen down. "It's different for everyone. There is no exact answer. You could consider it like a sports team playing through a game, working really hard, making it to the finals and winning it all. It's that kind of euphoria. It's that sense of accomplishment. That kind of curse," he said still in a positive tone.
At that word Rei stopped him. "What do you mean 'curse?'
"It's the curse of being a fan-fiction writer, no, of being a fiction writer in general. It's never enough. You get one idea. You agonize about it. You complete it like transferring a piece of yourself to paper and yet when you are done your soul is screaming out just to have another part taken out and put to paper. You wouldn't put a part of your soul in something of average quality. So, you hone it, you refine it, and you share it."
"For critique?"
"No," he chuckled. "So maybe someone else can see your message. Every story has a message. And all the parts, the characters, the setting, the character growth, the plot, all of that advances that one message. It translates it to others, and, if you do a really good job other people will be able to see it when they read it."
"So, you're telling me," Rei said, "your story has a message, but it takes the entire work to say it?"
"Exactly," he said. "Each character has a function, and that function leads to the conclusion once you sort everything out. We all are programmed that way one way or another. Even you."
"Me?"
"What if you were a character in a story? And what if you placed yourself in the author's place with all the information you had with you? You would be keeping a record of it, no?"
"A record?" Rei said contemplating the words. What he said seemed to play with his mind. Bits and pieces flowed within him thinking about all of the events so far. Laws, formulas, data, a world, a purpose, a function, all of these things had to have a source. And that source he believed had been the Digital Creator, but, if that Digital Creator also obeyed his own laws, then surely there had to be a record that held this information!
Rei got up a bit startled looking at the man also a bit puzzled.
He put one hand on his head and laughed to himself chuckling. Somehow, realizing this fact; a fact that should have been so obvious had eluded him. And now, if he could write this digital record, no, change it to where the digital world obeyed his laws then he would be able to usurp control. And all he had to do was obtain it; the Digital Record.
All the pieces that he had scattered all started to seem to fit. He in a way wanted to thank the stranger, but his pride prevented him from doing that.
"I'll remember what you said," he said. "And tell that daft hostess the bad coffee is my payment for the cinnamon roll."
The man smirked and resumed writing. "Even you have a part to play. It's always the villain that determines the writer's desire."
Rei heard him but paid him no mind as he started to walk away.
From the backside he heard the hostess girl walk over surprised and happened to overhear a bit of an exchange.
"Where did he go?"
"Who?" the man answered.
"The guy who ordered the cinnamon roll and just a cup of coffee."
"You know, it's weird how you say that last part as if it's part of the actual item."
"Never mind the details!" she exclaimed. "He's got another thing coming if he thinks he can just walk away without paying!"
"Well, actually," the man replied, "He told me that the bad coffee paid for the cinnamon roll."
"What?!" she exclaimed. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I haven't had a chance to," he said. "It's not like you were so busy you could have noticed it yourself."
"I can't believe you!" she exclaimed, Rei opening the door, their voices fading away.
"You're supposed to be my friend!"
"I'm your customer while I'm here," he said. "And we are friends in a very unique circumstance."
Her voice groaned as Rei heard a hand slam down at a table.
"I swear!" the hostess yelled. "You're horrible! You're the worst! Atsor-"
-Rei slammed the door having worn himself of such disastrous welcome in that little coffee place.
He could still feel the pleasant icing from the cinnamon roll lingering in the back of his throat which had somehow mellowed out the bitterness and acidity of his drink.
The wind nipped at him as he sighed into it. Rei stared out, his mind clear, his focus magnified on his next task he had to accomplish. All of it aligned itself in his mind. Everything had been almost completed perfectly. But still, there was one thing he lacked...
He sighed out a bit disappointed. That one thing he wanted to get in the first place he would have to find somewhere else:
"...A cup of coffee."
