The Crack in the Mirror

By Chyna Rose

Chapter Four: Break

Daisuke

Everything was set up for a weekend by the sea. Mimi had booked a small house for the time; one floor, three bedrooms. It sat close enough to the water that it had its own little stretch of beach. We were going in two different cars. Joyu was going to pick up Koushiro, Sora, Mimi, and Taichi in his father's car. Mr. Ishida was picking up the rest of us in his van.

Ken was helping me pack up the rest of my stuff. He spent the night at my house because it was easier than making a side trip to Tamachi for him. Not that either of us minded. I put my art supplies and a bunch of doujinshi into my backpack. Ken was looking through the rest of my collection for ones that interested him -especially Touga/Miki from Utena.

"Hey Ken. Hand me the pencil case over there."

"No problem. Where's Chibimon?"

"I think he's searching through his bedding for food to bring with him."

"Hey Ken."

"Hey Takeru. Chibimon hordes food?"

"Doesn't Minomon? Wait. TK's here?"

"So you can spell my name right."

"Can you wait a bit? I just need five more minutes."

"Why didn't you do this last night? No, wait. Don't answer that. I don't want to know." Takeru said as he flopped (dramatically) onto my bed. He picked up one of the doujinshi sitting there, only to put it down a few minutes later when he saw a couple of pages. Ken put it in his backpack as soon as Takeru let go. Chibimon popped out of his nest with an unopened bag of shrimp chips. Minomon appeared a minute later from a drawer under my bed with Pocky. This cause Takeru to jump off the bed in surprise and land on the floor. (Ken tried not to laugh.)

~~~@~~~@~~~

A lot of people don't know this, but I get carsick occasionally. It has nothing to do with the motion of the car. I just happen to be kinda claustrophobic. Some how, I ended up in the back between Ken and Hikari.

So there I sat with my head buried in Ken's shoulder trying to fall asleep. I really didn't feel well. We were trapped in slow moving traffic in the middle of a tunnel. I felt like we had been stuck there for hours. And I knew that if we were going to stay there any longer, I was going to throw up all over my boyfriends' shirt.

"Ken can you please open the window?" whispered pathetically to him. He opened it and draped his arm around my shoulder.

"Ken, close the window will you? It's freezing in here."

"It's not that cold Miyako."

"Not that cold!? Are you running a fever?"

"The weather report said that the temperature wouldn't drop bellow thirty."

"If you're cold, I could always lend you my sweater."

"That's okay Kari. I'll survive some how. You may have to pry my frozen body out of here when we stop for lunch though."

I smiled and snuggled closer to Ken; resting my head over his heart. Miyako's voice faded into the background as she began a heated conversation with her girlfriend. Takeru and Iori eventually got pulled into it, but Yamato was listening to his walkman and sulking in the front seat.

~~~@~~~@~~~

"Wake up Dai. We're here"

"Hrmmm?"

"The place Mr. Ishida picked out for lunch."

"Mmrgh."

"Come on. We all need to stretch our legs, and you'll be hungry once you get out of the van."

"Whrmmgh."

"Trust me on this."

That's one of the things I like about Ken. He can almost read my mind -at least enough to know what I'm saying when I'm mumbling incoherently.

Once the van was parked, we all filed out. I have to admit that as soon as I got out, I was feeling much better. The smell of teriyaki did a lot to help my appetite. Hikari and Iori claimed a table for four while their respective others went to get the food.

"So what do you want?"

"Some sort of soup; but not miso."

"Sounds good. Why don't you find go find a table."

"Okay."

The table I found wasn't far from where Hikari and Iori were set up. The place was pretty packed, so we were lucky to find something close by. I waved Ken over as soon as he had the tray.

"Beef bowl okay?"

"It's great. What did you get?"

"Udon. Want to taste?"

"How about we split?"

"Sounds good."

~~~@~~~@~~~

"I thought you were over the flu."

"Shut up TJ."

"Testy aren't we."

"Takeru…"

Maybe I should've just stuck with the miso. After we finished lunch, we got back in the van. And after placating them with more food, (Must not think of food… Not good.) our digimon forgave us for leaving them in there while we went to lunch. About five kilometers back on the road, I started feeling really queasy. And after about twenty minutes of arguing with Miyako about having Mr. Ishida pull over, the van hit a bump. A really big bump.

Right now, we were sitting on the shoulder of the highway letting the van air out a bit. Miyako was glaring at me for delaying us. (Like I threw up on purpose.) Takeru was getting a small lecture from his father for goading me. Yamato was still listening to his walkman and leaning against the van. Hikari and Iori were keeping an eye on the digimon. And Ken…

"Way to go Dai. You just single handedly ruined the entire trip."

Ken just threw up. Stupid soup. At least I'm pretty sure it was the soup.

"Miya, it wasn't his fault." Hikari said just before her cell phone went off. Hikari answered it and talked to her brother -explaining why we were running late. Ken slumped down next to me, wiping his mouth.

"Tai wants to know what the last thing you ate was." Hikari asked us innocently as she walked over to where we were sitting. At the mention of food, I began gagging. Ken replied for us.

"We shared a beef bowl and an udon."

"They shared soup. … Tai said that Joyu said that it's probably a mild case of food poisoning and should last a day or two at the most."

~~~@~~~@~~~

I could feel Miyako's eyes boring into the back of my head as I stared listlessly at the passing scenery. I sat in the front seat with the window wide open. Ken slept in the middle row with the pail Iori lent him.

It was pretty quiet. We hit more traffic and were reduced to a crawl. All around us, impatient drivers honked madly. Yamato had dozed off to his walkman, while Takeru and Iori played a card game quietly next to him. Miyako was reading a novel and Hikari talked quietly with Tailmon. Then, without warning, Hikari grabbed the pail. Did I mention that I was very grateful for the open window?

~~~@~~~@~~~

"Don't worry about it Hikari. You didn't do anything wrong."

"It's just that I feel so embarrassed. That normally doesn't happen."

"Normally you sit next to a window. Besides, I think there was something wrong with the beef at the rest stop."

I slumped with Ken on the porch as all our stuff got unloaded. Since all I wanted to do was curl up and die- preferably somewhere warm and with Ken- I didn't really notice the clouds forming on the horizon.

~~~@~~~@~~~

Me, Ken, and Hikari were settled on the couch in the beach house warily considering the broth (not beef thank god) in front of us. The others were in the kitchen eating dinner. Hikari was the first to try it, and after it went down with no problem, me and Ken worked on ours. I managed to make it halfway through my bowl before I had to make a mad dash to the bathroom. After that, I stopped at the couch long enough to tell Ken that I was going to bed.

I crawled into the room the older guys left us and curled up in the first bed I came across. I think I must've dozed off, cause the next thing I knew, I felt Ken's arms snake around my waist.

"Hey."

"Hey. Felling better?"

"A little."

Ken smiled, and I rolled over to face him. Ken has a gorgeous face. His violet eyes are like two deep pools that I could drown in. His hair was like a silky curtain of night. And his smile… His smile had this sweetness that I always found tempting. He was smiling at me now with a warm smile, his body pressed against mine. I leaned over the small space between our lips and kissed him.

Ken kissed me back with a slow heat. I felt our bodies react to the nearness of the other. I slid my hands down his back and pulled his shirt out of the waistband of his pants. He moaned as I ran my hands up and down his back under the shirt. I carefully slipped my tongue in his mouth wile his hands fiddled with the hem of my shirt. We broke away long enough to remove our shirts. I ran a hand down his side, and Ken buried his hands in my hair. I trailed kisses down the line of his jaw to the pale column of his neck. Sucking gently on the hollow of his throat, I felt his hands roam down my back and settle on my but. Ken let his head roll back to expose more of his creamy flesh to my mouth. I nipped gently at him with a low growl. Ken pulled me even closer and ground his erection against mine. My hands found their way between us and I struggled to unfasten his pants as his hands kneaded me. I finally managed to work his pants open and began to slide them down off his hips. Ken kicked them the rest of the way off and trailed his fingers around to help me remove mine. I moaned into his mouth as his hand brushed gently against my hardness. I wiggled out of my shorts and underwear eagerly. Ken groaned as I reached into his boxers and began to draw him out.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Ken whimpered as I stopped stroking him to look at Takeru. I was too aroused to think, much less say anything. Takeru glared at us, grabbed his duffel bag, and stalked into the bathroom.

By the time he came out in his night cloths, me and Ken managed to crawl under the covers. Takeru tossed my discarded boxers and got into the other bed with a book he had brought. (He must've had a fight with Iori cause he told Iori to sleep anywhere but the bed.)

~~~@~~~@~~~

The rain fell quietly against the roof. It was a miserable day; dark, drizzly, and dreary. I was feeling better, as was Ken. Hikari was still getting sick at virtually random intervals. We all tried to find something to do inside. I was lying on my stomach on the bed drawing. Ken was sitting on the bed reading one of the doujinshi we brought. I don't know where the others were or what they were doing. Almost by wordless concession, we stopped with what we were doing and looked at each other.

It turned out that the other guys were watching a movie in the living room. Sora and Mimi were playing cards in the kitchen. We couldn't see Miyako or Hikari, but the door to the girls' room was closed and we could hear music being played loudly inside. So with everybody else busy, we saw no reason why we couldn't be otherwise occupied with a nice hot shower.

We walked through the hallway to the bathroom, pausing every moment or two to kiss. I opened the door long enough to be shoved against the other side of it as it closed.

Ken was just easing my pants down, his mouth tracing the curve of my neck, when I heard a gasp and was confronted with the sight of a naked Hikari fresh from the shower.

"Daisuke?" she asked as she struggled to use her towel as a shield. Ken stopped kissing me, but kept his head buried in my shoulder.

"Kari… I… We…" I stammered. She had taken us by surprise. We thought she was with Miyako.

"We didn't think anyone was in here." I managed to squeak out. Ken was still standing against me, his head on my shoulder. Hikari just gaped at us for a while longer. She then shook herself out of it and wrapped the towel tightly around her body. It took me a while to realize that the only reason she hadn't left was because I was blocking the door.

"Well, I'll just leave you two to…" Hikari said as she left. At the sound of the door closing, Ken lifted his head and looked at me. His face was just beginning to lose the redness of a blush. And as he went to turn on the water, I looked at the mirror as I began to strip.

~~~@~~~@~~~

"What are you doing Daisuke?"

"Looking for some duct tape."

"Why?

I stopped to face Takeru. He was leaning against the doorway eating an apple. For a moment we just looked at each other. Then he took a big bite of his apple, and I went back to looking through the drawer for the tape. Outside it rained steadily.

"Because the mirror in the bathroom's broken. I have to tape it up. If I don't do it, someone could cut themselves."

"Oh. Maybe Koushiro knows where you can find some."

"Thanks TK."

Takeru looked out the window. The window itself was a flowing sheet of water. We could hear the steady drum of the rain on the roof. Even though it had a distinct metallic sound, it was still quiet. In the distance, I could hear the low rumble of approaching thunder.

~~~@~~~@~~~

"Dai? What's going on?"

"I thought I heard something. I'm going to go see what it is."

"Oh. Be careful."

"I will." I grabbed this baseball bat me and Ken found in the closet. (Someone must have left it there.)Lightning flashed, thunder crashed, the wind lashed rain against the windows, and all those other dark stormy night clichés. As I reached the door to the room, a large boom of thunder sounded. The lights flickered once, twice, then went out. Chibimon woke with a start and spotted me.

"Where are you going?"

"There's someone in this house that shouldn't be. I heard him moving around."

"Can I help?"

"Sure. I could use the extra set of eyes and the company."

We carefully moved out into the hall. With the only light that of the occasional flash of lightning, it was pretty creepy. I kept seeing shadows flickering about in the corner of my eye. As we moved from room to room, finding each one jus as empty as it was supposed to be, I started getting a little scared. It wasn't that I was actually scared of whoever -or whatever- it was, it was just that I felt like I was in a horror movie. And I've seen enough of them to know that if I wasn't careful, I'd be able to find out if born digimon got reformatted. The furniture was nothing more than vague, hulking, figures; a darker form of darkness that only hinted that something was there.

I noticed that one of these forms was moving. It crept closer to the closed door of the girls' room. I knew it had to be an intruder. None of the others would be sneaking in the shadows. I stealthily advanced on the intruder, getting a better grip on the bat.

Within a few moments, I was directly behind it. The next moment stretched into eternity. As I started to swing the bat, (I was hoping to knock him out, tie him up, and call the police once the phones came back on.) the intruder noticed me behind him and started to turn towards me. At the split second the bat connected with a solid thwack, a large clap of thunder sounded accompanied with a flash of lighting that lit up the entire room. And in that flash, I saw the dawning horror on his face clearly in his ice blue eyes.

"Someone call an ambulance!"

The lights came on and I saw Takeru lying in a crumpled heap. There was blood on the bat and more pooling around his head.

My god! What have I done? I killed him. I killed Takeru Takashi. My friend and rival -not to mention my boyfriend's half brother's other half brother.

I felt numb. I was dimly aware of the bat dropping to the floor with a hollow clatter, and a pair of arms holding me as I sank to my knees. Outside, I could hear the faint sound of sirens over the rain.