Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Amethyst Hell ❯ Amethyst Hell ( One-Shot )

A/N: Angst, angst, angst. The word is hardly my middle name, which is probably why I never submitted this when I first wrote it. I still don't know if it is to my liking, but perhaps someone out there will appreciate the casualty of Digimon that is Osamu. His younger, more prominent brother manages to steal the spotlight more often than not.

Disclaimer: Osamu is not mine. His feelings are his own.

~Amethyst Hell~

It is a fool who believes that the answers to the infinite questions of the universe lie within the physical capacity of a human brain, or the emotional capacity of a human heart. History has proven time and time again that such a body does not exist. Neither in single form, nor multitude combined.

But I always suspected the world to be a foolish place.

Humans, the self-imposed gods of the earth, would like to believe that the solution to any posed riddle can be obtained somehow. It's in our nature. We treasure knowledge, wisdom, understanding. Intangible comfort; we crave it.

Well, I don't.

Mankind seeks to answer questions that were never posed, and sacred are the few who can even minimally grasp the rules that keep our feet firmly planted on the earth, or why the arch of one's foot is shaped in the manner perfect for walking. Why there is dirt to scatter and let fall behind in microscopic bursts of beauty as we trample over our chosen path. Why we are here at all.

It's the age-old question that can't be ignored. Those who don't understand only want to push away the subtle beauty of just living to make room for the comprehension that they will never obtain. Those who can would trade it in in a second to see only a flicker of the world through the eyes of ignorance. Blindness reaches beyond the realm of the physical.

Perhaps some would see it as vanity to rank myself at the level of "genius"; I wish it was. For then I wouldn't have to think the way geniuses do, because I wouldn't really be one. Only a kid, like I should be, who longs to be unique with some hidden talent. A child. He wishes he could be a violin virtuoso, or a great artist, or and award-winning writer, or a world-renowned physicist. But not really. Because with any great aspiration comes the unseen. The hidden depression, the fear of failure. The unhappiness. And he moves on to different occupations. Ones that don't offer such unseen sorrow.

The children compromise what they think they want, if it offers promise. They'll lie to themselves. Which is fine. A world of truth would be a harsh place indeed.

My parents told me never to lie. I wish I could, if only to myself.

I'm admired. My teachers study me with awe that hasn't been worthy of their use until it was cast in my direction. My parents would live and die ten times over in violent ways that would boggle the mind if they thought it would keep me safe. My brother, my brother Ken, would smile at me with such admiration, such love, such undiscovered emotions that I can't even identify, it could melt the devil's heart.

When I was younger, I used to sit up in my room with a textbook that my mom had bought at a high school book sale. I was always so fascinated with numbers, she thought I could look through the pages. You know, take a look at what I'd be learning later in life. Or at least spice up the dull black and white writing with some of my crayons.

She didn't predict that I would come to the dinner table with a sheet of notebook paper that proudly displayed an understanding of second year algebra far beyond the years of the previous owner of the book. Yet even behind my seven-and-a-half year old smile, an aura of emptiness clouded my chubby little face.

My father said something corny and fatherish like, "Great job, sport!" while hiding the fact that he had not the slightest grasp of the significance of the variables on the page. My mother naturally bubbled some instantaneous praise that all mothers come equipped with. I don't know how valid Ken's opinion was, as he was only five and could barely manage to identify the scribbles as math, but his wide-eyed "Wow..." hit me in a place that my parents had missed. I could have tripped over my own shameful pride as I shoved my notebook off to the side and went to retrieve my chopsticks from the drawer.

The fact that I was a trophy didn't bother me as much as it would some people. I had friends who scored one goal in a soccer game and their parents never let them forget it. In comparison with some of the monsters that roam Japan, my mother and father were pretty humane.

But if ignorance was a genetic Ichijouji trait, it clearly skipped me. I wish I could have been as lighthearted as Ken, who was so oblivious to the troubles of the world he seemed to float.

I could never float. The heaviness that weighed me down was contained, not within the math problems themselves, but in the knowledge that identifying trigonometric functions is useless in the long run, the knowledge that a ten-year-old should never possess. The heaviness that comes with having a faint grasp on the concept of quantum mechanics, a concept that no child should understand.

But I guess I could never have rightfully called myself a child. A child contemplates how the world works and, in his natural capacity for curiosity, seeks answers. No child ignores the world around him, seeing no beauty, only explanations and facts and the inevitable phenomena that keep it spinning.

I once stood in the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. My reflection offered the sullen image of a preadolescent child who embarrasses his teachers with his skills and embarrasses the neighborhood with his abilities and scares himself with his knowledge. It's knowledge that the reflection can't shake.

I stood in front of the mirror, gazing into the eyes that I had known all my life. Shades of blue and purple blended together to form an alluring, mysterious stare that has the power to charm and seduce, frighten and comfort. The eyes that were echoed when Ken was born.

I stood there, clutching my father's razor blade, staring hard at my reflection as I brought the sweet edge dangerously close to my wrist. The flesh on my arm tingled briefly under the coolness of the metal before it fell into the sink with a clatter, my trembling hand hypnotized by the eyes in the mirror that were so much like Ken's. Except that Ken wasn't tortured by the pain of knowing too much and not having the ability to turn it off. When he begged me to explain something "cool" to him, his gratification came in small smiles and awestruck sighs. So what if he never understood what the hell I was talking about. I gave him something that nobody else could, and he adored it.

And he gave me something that nobody else could.

It was for that reason that I dropped the razor blade. In a meaningless world where a literary analysis of writing that is considered to be beyond profound and the concepts of DNA offer no sympathy, Ken was able to redeem me.

Yes, there were instances between us that offered less than perfection, but they were only born out of the conflicting emotions of my love and my jealousy. Ken was still so innocent. He wasn't troubled by the meaning of life, he only basked in its mysteries. All that reigned in him was his natural curiosity and affection. I hated him for possessing the ignorance that I could never have, but I loved him for infiltrating some of that purity into my soul.

For brief moments at a time, I was able to adapt my perception to see the world through Ken's eyes, and forget that my blurred vision saw too much.

I decided that to simply quit living wasn't an option. Whether out of bravery or cowardice, I'll never know. Even if the majority of my life was lived in aimless but infinite intelligence, what Ken brought to me and what I brought to him in return was enough to give it meaning.

I was never convinced that any law of physics or obscure medical diagnosis that I was capable of learning could solve too many problems beyond the immediate posed, but for a moment, as my fingers delicately placed the razor blade back in my father's shaving kit, I believed that my existence was worth more than I had given it credit for.

How ironic that I got hit by a car two days later.

How fucking ironic.