Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Digidreams Do Come True! ❯ Iori’s Troubles... ( Chapter 9 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Relaxing Pikachu 
The young boy is reflecting on the past and seems to be going through some "growing pains" and wondering if he's actually worthy of being friends with Armadimon.
Surprisingly, while on his way home, he meets up with a classmate, who of which he insists on walking home due to holding her up, but neither makes it to their destination...
Anime/Manga: Digimon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mystery / Adventure / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 05.07.2007 | Updated On: 03.15.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 5.2K | Visits: 546 | Status: Work In Progress
The young boy is reflecting on the past and seems to be going through some "growing pains" and wondering if he's actually worthy of being friends with Armadimon.
Surprisingly, while on his way home, he meets up with a classmate, who of which he insists on walking home due to holding her up, but neither makes it to their destination...
Anime/Manga: Digimon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mystery / Adventure / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 05.07.2007 | Updated On: 03.15.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 5.2K | Visits: 546 | Status: Work In Progress
It is now for the traditional and honorable Iori. The young boy is reflecting on the past and seem to be going through some “growing pains”. Surprisingly, he meets up with a classmate, who of which he insists on walking home due to holding her up, but neither makes it to their destination… Now, I do not own anything dealing with the Digimon anime, game, manga, etc. Bandai and Toei have those rights.
Chapter 09: “約束を破ってしま 356;ました! ぼくはきみの友情 395;ふさわしくありませ ;ん!”
“Yakusoku wo yabutte shimaimashita! Boku wa kimi no yuujou ni fusawashiku arimasen!”
“I broke my promise! I am unworthy of your friendship!” Iori’s Troubles...
It was early evening, and the young Iori was currently helping his grandfather at his dojo; his grandfather’s specialty being Kendo. Hida Chikara was a retired police officer and taught Kendo to pass the time. The now 11-year-old Hida Iori still attended Odaiba Elementary, currently in his fifth year. Since Iori was advanced, and excelled well at the art, he helped to assist the beginner class, under his grandfather’s supervision.
He had grown a bit within the past couple of years, maybe about the height Daisuke was when he was 11. His hair was pretty much styled the same, as he believed in keeping such trivial matters simple; his mentality in general was pretty much the same, and stuck to tradition whenever possible. He was also still very polite. Lately, though, the usually perceptive, attentive Iori would let his mind wander.
‘I really do miss spending time with the others sometimes. We rarely ever talk to one another anymore, especially where she’s concerned. I’ve known her for most of my life, but now, she always seems to be too busy.
‘And then there’s the fact that I really miss Armadimon, even more-so lately, but I know I wouldn’t be able to face him if the opportunity were to come up. I feel that I’ve lied to him. That I’ve betrayed him.’
“Iori, come on, now,” an older, bald male called, “I need you to concentrate on cleaning since all of the sessions are over.”
The boy shook off his ill thoughts, his grandfather handing him a broom. “I’m sorry, grandfather.”
“What’s wrong, Iori? You seem to be blanking out a lot, lately.” Iori bowed to him and apologized again. He really didn’t want to get into what was bothering him. “I know that you have something on your mind. It is always better for one to express his feelings as opposed to holding them all in. It’s not healthy for the mind or the body, and your technique has been very sloppy lately.”
“Nothing is wrong, grandfather.” A forced smile found its way to Iori’s round baby-face. “I do have a bit on my mind, though.”
“Exactly my point. Maybe you should go home if you don’t want to talk about whatever it is that's bothering you.”
“No, please let me stay. It is my responsibility to help you. I chose this particular responsibility, and I must now honor it.”
“No, go ahead,” he gave him a knowing smile, “I can handle the rest, since the most tedious work has already been done.”
“Yes sir,” Iori bowed obediently, “I will do so.”
Iori left to change out of his Kendo gear, grabbed his jacket, along with his bag filled with his Kendo equipment, and strapped his shinai to his back. He thanked his grandfather for letting him leave, but before he was able to get within a kilometer of the door leading towards the hall, his grandfather called to him. He turned to face him. “Yes sir?”
“You remind me of your father more and more everyday,” he told him with a proud smile while pulling on his bushy mustache. “He was the exact same way when he was your age with the secrecy.” Iori frowned slightly, not really caring much to be compared to his deceased father. “He kept secrets about girls too since he was so shy,” he added on slyly.
“Wh-what!?” Iori’s cheeks went red from embarrassment. “I-I don’t have any secrets about girls!”
“You better hurry on home now.” Chikara realized that his grandson didn’t want to acknowledge his “obvious girl problem”.
Iori hurried out into the hallway, slipping into his sneakers. He then ran out of the building a good distance before coming to a brisk walk, growing, once again, lost in his thoughts.
‘I feel so insignificant right now. It’s true, I do have an eye for a girl, but she doesn’t even realize it, and still sees me as ‘the younger brother’ she’s never had. I find this all confusing. I want her to notice me in the way that I surprisingly notice her, but that’s a bit unlike me, and it seems that my feelings for her have grown from when I was younger. I don’t know what’s making me feel worse, my strange, unnecessary girl situation, or my guilt dealing with Armadimon. I feel as if I let him down. I still seem to have trouble with trusting and forgiving people.’
As the walk continued, the more bothered he became, especially since he’d had that one-sided conversation with his grandfather. ‘Why did ojiisama have to say that I reminded him of otousan? How did he even know that I was thinking of a girl? Unfortunately, I don’t know much about my father since I was so young when he died. I only know of him through stories.’
Iori came to a street corner, waiting for the light to change so that he may cross. ‘If I could only remember the good times I had with my father, but I haven’t any.’ The light changed, and he continued on, his head hanging gloomily. ‘All I remember is my mother being sad...so sad. All I remember is her crying when she found out my father wasn’t coming home for dinner with us. Okaasan had prepared a special dinner that night. Right after that, we found out that he wasn’t coming home. He didn’t come home because those thieving radicals shot him!
‘I shall never forgive the person who actually pulled the trigger, but I do respect my father for taking the bullet, as it was very honorable. The person who murdered my father apologized to my mother and to me after his trial, along with his accomplices, and he, the main one, said he had changed. The system, somehow, forgave him, and he is a free man today. He claimed that the shooting in general was an accident, therefore, he was never charged for my father’s murder. He wanted my mother and me to forgive him and his accomplices for their supposed mistake, but he doesn’t deserve any forgiveness. He made okaasan sad, and made her cry for a long time. I will never forgive that! He took something away from us that we can never bring back. I can’t forgive them, ever!’
The preteen stuck to that logic even to this day. He still hadn’t forgiven the man who had killed his father, even though he truly had changed. Iori just felt that it was some kind of a trick to work on his sympathies.
‘I will never trust them, or people like them. It’s been a little over seven years since he passed away. *I told Armadimon that I was going to be more forgiving, when in reality, I honestly haven’t. Whenever I meet a person, I still question his motives in the back of my mind if he’s had a shady past. I’ve really let Armadimon down.’
Iori heaved out a sigh as he came up to a corner store, not watching where he was going. A person exiting the store didn’t notice him either, causing the two to bump into one another, and knocking the other person down.
“Hey, didn’t you see me!?”
“*Hontou ni sumimasen,” Iori apologized with a bow. He helped the smaller person up, and handed her back her poignant-smelling grocery bag.
She brushed herself off before taking the bag from the boy. “You should really watch where you’re going.”
“I am really, very sorry,” he apologized again. “I had a lot on my mind, and I didn’t see you walking out of the door. Please forgive me.”
The girl began to grin. Iori obviously didn’t recognize her, but she surely recognized him. “Well, look at who it is. It’s Iori-kun, one of the quietest, and nicest, boys of Odaiba Elementary School that all of the teachers love.”
“Tezuka-san?”
She grinned. “The one and only, and how many times do I have to tell you, call me Eiji!”
The outgoing, 11-year-old Tezuka Eiji was a bit smaller than Iori, and was also a classmate of his. Her long, aqua-blue hair was pretty much her trademark (it was always tied up in a single semi-messy pony-tail with a butterfly clip), as well as her flare-legged jeans that she constantly wore, along with a plain, close-fitting T-shirt and a bracelet, decorated with butterflies. Iori had just always assumed that the girl liked them for some reason since she always had butterflies decorating something. Her desk at school had small trinkets on it, and her backpack was also decorated with butterflies. It was a mystery to him. She was quite popular amongst her peers, but never seemed to let that go to her head. Iori always found the way she was around others amazing. She seemed to have the ability befriend everyone and seemed to get along with everyone, similar to Daisuke in some ways.
Even though the two went to school together, the two were merely just acquaintances and never saw one another much outside of school. One thing Iori observed about Eiji, was her tendency to talk. She would always give extra long explanations for such simple questions asked of her. One thing he always found a bit...odd about her, was her name. The name Eiji was pretty boyish; then again, he figured that it fit her. She wasn’t a “girly-girl”, but not quite tom-boyish either. She was a bit in between.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I was just doing some marketing for my mother. She ran out of garlic for some strange new recipe of hers. She needed garlic salt, garlic bulbs, minced garlic, that chopped icky garlic that you scoop with a spoon, garlic juice, and garlic powder.” She scrunched up her nose as she looked down into the bag. “I don’t think I forgot anything.” Eiji shuddered slightly. “To be honest, I don’t want to try any of her new recipes! Garlic isn’t all that good, and I hate it.
“I can tell you this much,” she leaned over to Iori, and laughed a bit, “a vampire wouldn’t come within 10,000 kilometers of our entire apartment building. I’m surprised our landlord hasn’t kicked us out yet.
“I also volunteered to pick these things up so that I could buy something edible to eat for myself! It’s experimental year with her, and this month, it’s, ‘how many ways can I use garlic in my dishes to drive my daughter crazy’. Last month, it was, 1001 ways to prepare different onion-based dishes. My brothers and I cried for the entire month! She’s been weird lately, but go figure mothers, right?”
Iori didn’t respond, as he had gone back to his own thoughts. Eiji arched an eyebrow up at him, noticing his distant look. He was being a bit rude, which was surprising since he usually went out of his way to be polite. “Iori-kun, is something wrong? Thinking about it, you’ve been keeping to yourself a lot and you’ve been more quiet than usual too. What’s wrong?”
“Y-you wouldn’t understand,” he sullenly answered.
“Try me. I would like for us to become better friends, and friends don’t keep secrets from each other. I don’t mind listening to what you have to say.”
“I’m sorry Eiji-san, but you really wouldn’t understand what’s bothering me.”
“At least get whatever is bothering you off of your chest. It’s not good to hold in your feelings.” She turned her head away from Iori. “I learned that the hard way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen my family and my two younger brothers, Keizo-kun and Hiroki-kun.” Iori nodded. “Well, they’re my half-brothers. We have the same mother. The man you see with my family, is not my real father. He’s the father of Keizo-kun and Hiroki-kun, but he’s in no way related to me.”
“Not your real father?”
“Nope. My real father died a long time ago. He died so long ago I don’t remember much about him, other than the bad things.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I never knew.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she uttered darkly. “He wasn’t the best person in the world from the little I do remember of him.” Iori gave her a curious look, which the girl picked up on. “I know my mother doesn’t like me talking about this, but I don’t care what she thinks. She feels like I shame her whenever I bring up the subject and likes to act as if it never happened at all, but all I remember is arguing and my mother crying a lot. I remember him hitting her. I remember crying because I would hear him hit her or either I would see it.
“The worst was when he hit her because of...me. He was after me, but my mother kept him away and got hit instead. I remember seeing blood...so much of it. He hit her very hard in the face, causing her mouth and nose to bleed.”
Iori was very stunned over hearing such a story. He couldn’t even fathom going through such an ordeal. He was surprised that Eiji was talking about it so openly, especially with him. Her tone of voice seemed to vary between sadness, fear, and anger.
“After he was done with her, he left and I remember I was crying because ‘mommy’ was hurt and she was crying a lot too, but tried her best to hold back her tears. She told me not to worry so that she could clean herself up. She was trying to act normal, but looking back now, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. She was doing it for my sake.
“A while later, the phone rang; my mother answered it. The call said that my father was in a bad accident. My mother told me that he wasn’t coming home. I didn’t feel upset or anything since I was too young to understand the whole concept of death entirely yet. As the years went on, it started to bother me that I didn’t feel guilty over my father’s death.”
‘I wonder why she would feel guilty over it in the first place?’
“I felt that it was my fault that he grew angered and left in the first place since my parents’ argument had something to do with me. My mother kept telling me that it wasn’t my fault, but I didn’t really believe her. I still blamed myself for that night. I held that guilt within me for years until I couldn’t take it anymore. I became withdrawn from my family and grew so depressed, that I just didn’t want to deal with the world or anything anymore. I would think, ‘if I can turn my own father into a monster, who’s to say that I won’t manage to do it again with somebody else?’
“About a year ago, I got sick and missed school for a while.”
“I remember that vaguely...”
“I was very stressed out, and all of the symptoms I had were psychological and showed signs of extreme depression. My mother just told the school that I’d come down with a bad flu. I was actually going to a Child Psychologist in Shibuya and still go sometimes in hopes of my not relapsing.”
The girl kicked at the ground a bit, since there was a bit of an uncomfortable silence between the two of them. The only sounds heard, were those of customers entering and exiting the convenience store that they were still standing in front of. “Wow, I’ve never told that in such detail to pretty much anyone, not even my best friend,” she told him with a small, uneasy laugh. “I guess I feel that I can trust you, Iori-kun.”
Iori wasn’t sure how to respond to the girl or how to react. The story was a bit intense and depressing. ‘She always seems so cheery and happy, but who would’ve guessed that she had such a dark past.’
“See, Iori-kun, that's what happens when you don’t share your feelings, especially ones dealing with guilt,” she warned direly. “You become either violent, suicidal, depressed, or in my case, stressed and sickly. You're too bright and smart to let that happen to you. You should tell someone how you feel, or let somebody know what's bothering you so that you can resolve the problem. If you don’t, it might just eat away at you until you crack. If you don’t want to share it with me, do me a favor and please tell someone. I hate to see you so down.”
Iori was quiet for a brief moment. She told the boy, “bye”, and began to walk off.
“Eiji-san, wait!” He walked up to her. All she’d said made a whole lot of sense.
“Hm?”
“Y-you’re right, I really shouldn’t keep in what’s bothering me, but my situation is quite trivial compared to what you’ve been through.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, it’s just that my situation is a bit...strange. I feel as if I’ve deceived a good friend,” he finally got out. ‘I can’t discuss Armadimon with her. I’m sure she doesn’t know of Digimon and I definitely don’t want to discuss my girl situation. It’s a bit embarrassing.’
“Strange?” She scoffed. “I highly doubt it. The weirdest situation I’ve ever been in were when those strange monster things attacked here a couple of years ago, and that big scary vampire-looking monster that was here three years before that. He tried to take all of us kids away and held us at the convention center.” Iori nearly choked after hearing her say that. He couldn’t believe his ears. “Oh no,” Eiji groaned, “don’t tell me that you don’t remember them either? Nobody that I know of remember those monsters attacking here.”
“You know about the Digimon that invaded the our world two years ago?!”
“Oh, so that’s what they’re called. Well, those ‘Digimon’ made a pretty big mess. When that happened, I was about nine. It’s a bit fuzzy, what happened two years ago, but the vampire one I remember pretty well. I think I remember some kids fighting against it with monsters of their own.”
Iori led Eiji back towards the front of the convenient store, both sitting on the bench in front of it. “What else do you know?”
“As I said, nothing much. I mainly remember seeing them and battling, but it seems as if I’m one of the few that actually remembers it. It’s like everyone was brainwashed or something. How could anyone forget something like that? They caused so much damage! I just don’t get it.” She gave Iori an inquiring look. “How do you know so much about them, and how did you know that they were called Digimon?”
“I’m trying to figure out how you remember them,” he pondered while rubbing his chin. “Normally those who didn’t have anything to do with Digimon, like come in contact with them, usually end up forgetting ever seeing them. Also, those who didn’t have some type of a specific task pertaining to them, like helping to defeat the evil ones or to help their world, usually doesn’t remember them.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute!” the girl exclaimed, practically jumping from her seat. “You’re one of the children, aren’t you! You’re one of the children who helped to get rid of that big scary monster I saw almost two years ago!”
“Yes, Vamdemon in his true and final form...BelialVamdemon.”
“You were one of them, weren’t you?” He nodded sheepishly, finally realizing that he’d given off a bit too much information. “Wow!! So that means you were with the good Digimon monsters, right?”
“Yes, and the technical term is actually Digital Monster. I had my very own Digimon partner called Armadimon.” He explained pretty much everything to the girl with ease. Talking to her seemed to be very enlightening, and he enjoyed it very much. He went into how he was a Chosen Child and the details of what had happened in that final battle almost two years earlier.
“Wow, being a Chosen Child sounds like it could have been fun, except for having to fight all those bad monsters. Too bad you had to leave your Digimon...Armadimon was it...behind.”
“Yeah, it’s Armadimon.” Iori sighed. “I really do miss him.”
“And who would have guessed that the brain, Ichijouji-san, was once evil! I remember when he went missing for weeks, and now I know why. I remember my mom talking about it!”
“I still find it a bit peculiar how you know of Digimon if you’ve never had any real contact with them.”
“Maybe I have and just don’t remember.”
“That is a possibility.” Iori looked down at his wrist watch, his eyes nearly bugging out. “Oh no, I should have been home almost an entire hour ago!”
“Same here for me. I’m sure my mother needs her garlic.” She snickered a bit. “I’m glad I had a burger, fries, and a cola so I won’t have to sample her French Garlic Soufflé.” She stood up. “It was nice talking to you, Iori-kun. We should do it again some time. I’ll see you later, and remember what I said about keeping everything in.”
“No, wait Eiji-san.” She turned to face him once again. “W-would you mind if I walked you home?”
The young girl looked up at Iori in pure astonishment. A person she truly admired had just offered to walk her home. A person she had purposely intended on meeting up with. After purchasing her items in the store, she noticed Iori walking towards the door of the convenient store. She hurried herself out so that she’d bump into him on purpose just so she’d have an excuse to talk to him. “Walk me home?”
“Yes; it's the least I could do for holding you up. I’m sure your family is worried about you.”
“Okay, but what about your family?”
“I will worry about that later,” he stated confidently. ‘I’m surprised that ojiisama didn’t pass by us, unless he used a form of public transportation to get back home.’
The usually talkative girl was at a loss for words, her cheeks going slightly pink. She gave him a smile. “Hida Iori-kun, I would be happy if walked me home.”
With that, the two left the store and headed towards Eiji’s apartment building, but unfortunately, the two never made it...
Author’s Notes
Note 1: This is pretty much my take on why Iori had such a problem where trusting and forgiving was concerned and expanded on it. I always felt that his father being killed had a lot to do with it, so maybe the people who did commit the heinous act asked for forgiveness, but he couldn’t give it to them due to the fact that they had committed such an evil sin. And how people like that, really can’t change. If this is the case, this truly explains why Iori had such a difficult time trusting Ken, and gave him the cold shoulder. It, obviously, takes a lot for Iori to trust a person if he or she has done something completely wrong in the past and one must obviously do something noteworthy to obtain Iori’s trust.
As for Iori’s father’s cause of death, he was killed while on-duty. He was killed while trying to protect a government official, and was praised for it. In other words, he “died with honor”.
****
Note 2: Hontou ni sumimasen, simply means, “I am very sorry” or maybe, “Please excuse me.”
Chapter 09: “約束を破ってしま 356;ました! ぼくはきみの友情 395;ふさわしくありませ ;ん!”
“Yakusoku wo yabutte shimaimashita! Boku wa kimi no yuujou ni fusawashiku arimasen!”
“I broke my promise! I am unworthy of your friendship!” Iori’s Troubles...
It was early evening, and the young Iori was currently helping his grandfather at his dojo; his grandfather’s specialty being Kendo. Hida Chikara was a retired police officer and taught Kendo to pass the time. The now 11-year-old Hida Iori still attended Odaiba Elementary, currently in his fifth year. Since Iori was advanced, and excelled well at the art, he helped to assist the beginner class, under his grandfather’s supervision.
He had grown a bit within the past couple of years, maybe about the height Daisuke was when he was 11. His hair was pretty much styled the same, as he believed in keeping such trivial matters simple; his mentality in general was pretty much the same, and stuck to tradition whenever possible. He was also still very polite. Lately, though, the usually perceptive, attentive Iori would let his mind wander.
‘I really do miss spending time with the others sometimes. We rarely ever talk to one another anymore, especially where she’s concerned. I’ve known her for most of my life, but now, she always seems to be too busy.
‘And then there’s the fact that I really miss Armadimon, even more-so lately, but I know I wouldn’t be able to face him if the opportunity were to come up. I feel that I’ve lied to him. That I’ve betrayed him.’
“Iori, come on, now,” an older, bald male called, “I need you to concentrate on cleaning since all of the sessions are over.”
The boy shook off his ill thoughts, his grandfather handing him a broom. “I’m sorry, grandfather.”
“What’s wrong, Iori? You seem to be blanking out a lot, lately.” Iori bowed to him and apologized again. He really didn’t want to get into what was bothering him. “I know that you have something on your mind. It is always better for one to express his feelings as opposed to holding them all in. It’s not healthy for the mind or the body, and your technique has been very sloppy lately.”
“Nothing is wrong, grandfather.” A forced smile found its way to Iori’s round baby-face. “I do have a bit on my mind, though.”
“Exactly my point. Maybe you should go home if you don’t want to talk about whatever it is that's bothering you.”
“No, please let me stay. It is my responsibility to help you. I chose this particular responsibility, and I must now honor it.”
“No, go ahead,” he gave him a knowing smile, “I can handle the rest, since the most tedious work has already been done.”
“Yes sir,” Iori bowed obediently, “I will do so.”
Iori left to change out of his Kendo gear, grabbed his jacket, along with his bag filled with his Kendo equipment, and strapped his shinai to his back. He thanked his grandfather for letting him leave, but before he was able to get within a kilometer of the door leading towards the hall, his grandfather called to him. He turned to face him. “Yes sir?”
“You remind me of your father more and more everyday,” he told him with a proud smile while pulling on his bushy mustache. “He was the exact same way when he was your age with the secrecy.” Iori frowned slightly, not really caring much to be compared to his deceased father. “He kept secrets about girls too since he was so shy,” he added on slyly.
“Wh-what!?” Iori’s cheeks went red from embarrassment. “I-I don’t have any secrets about girls!”
“You better hurry on home now.” Chikara realized that his grandson didn’t want to acknowledge his “obvious girl problem”.
Iori hurried out into the hallway, slipping into his sneakers. He then ran out of the building a good distance before coming to a brisk walk, growing, once again, lost in his thoughts.
‘I feel so insignificant right now. It’s true, I do have an eye for a girl, but she doesn’t even realize it, and still sees me as ‘the younger brother’ she’s never had. I find this all confusing. I want her to notice me in the way that I surprisingly notice her, but that’s a bit unlike me, and it seems that my feelings for her have grown from when I was younger. I don’t know what’s making me feel worse, my strange, unnecessary girl situation, or my guilt dealing with Armadimon. I feel as if I let him down. I still seem to have trouble with trusting and forgiving people.’
As the walk continued, the more bothered he became, especially since he’d had that one-sided conversation with his grandfather. ‘Why did ojiisama have to say that I reminded him of otousan? How did he even know that I was thinking of a girl? Unfortunately, I don’t know much about my father since I was so young when he died. I only know of him through stories.’
Iori came to a street corner, waiting for the light to change so that he may cross. ‘If I could only remember the good times I had with my father, but I haven’t any.’ The light changed, and he continued on, his head hanging gloomily. ‘All I remember is my mother being sad...so sad. All I remember is her crying when she found out my father wasn’t coming home for dinner with us. Okaasan had prepared a special dinner that night. Right after that, we found out that he wasn’t coming home. He didn’t come home because those thieving radicals shot him!
‘I shall never forgive the person who actually pulled the trigger, but I do respect my father for taking the bullet, as it was very honorable. The person who murdered my father apologized to my mother and to me after his trial, along with his accomplices, and he, the main one, said he had changed. The system, somehow, forgave him, and he is a free man today. He claimed that the shooting in general was an accident, therefore, he was never charged for my father’s murder. He wanted my mother and me to forgive him and his accomplices for their supposed mistake, but he doesn’t deserve any forgiveness. He made okaasan sad, and made her cry for a long time. I will never forgive that! He took something away from us that we can never bring back. I can’t forgive them, ever!’
The preteen stuck to that logic even to this day. He still hadn’t forgiven the man who had killed his father, even though he truly had changed. Iori just felt that it was some kind of a trick to work on his sympathies.
‘I will never trust them, or people like them. It’s been a little over seven years since he passed away. *I told Armadimon that I was going to be more forgiving, when in reality, I honestly haven’t. Whenever I meet a person, I still question his motives in the back of my mind if he’s had a shady past. I’ve really let Armadimon down.’
Iori heaved out a sigh as he came up to a corner store, not watching where he was going. A person exiting the store didn’t notice him either, causing the two to bump into one another, and knocking the other person down.
“Hey, didn’t you see me!?”
“*Hontou ni sumimasen,” Iori apologized with a bow. He helped the smaller person up, and handed her back her poignant-smelling grocery bag.
She brushed herself off before taking the bag from the boy. “You should really watch where you’re going.”
“I am really, very sorry,” he apologized again. “I had a lot on my mind, and I didn’t see you walking out of the door. Please forgive me.”
The girl began to grin. Iori obviously didn’t recognize her, but she surely recognized him. “Well, look at who it is. It’s Iori-kun, one of the quietest, and nicest, boys of Odaiba Elementary School that all of the teachers love.”
“Tezuka-san?”
She grinned. “The one and only, and how many times do I have to tell you, call me Eiji!”
The outgoing, 11-year-old Tezuka Eiji was a bit smaller than Iori, and was also a classmate of his. Her long, aqua-blue hair was pretty much her trademark (it was always tied up in a single semi-messy pony-tail with a butterfly clip), as well as her flare-legged jeans that she constantly wore, along with a plain, close-fitting T-shirt and a bracelet, decorated with butterflies. Iori had just always assumed that the girl liked them for some reason since she always had butterflies decorating something. Her desk at school had small trinkets on it, and her backpack was also decorated with butterflies. It was a mystery to him. She was quite popular amongst her peers, but never seemed to let that go to her head. Iori always found the way she was around others amazing. She seemed to have the ability befriend everyone and seemed to get along with everyone, similar to Daisuke in some ways.
Even though the two went to school together, the two were merely just acquaintances and never saw one another much outside of school. One thing Iori observed about Eiji, was her tendency to talk. She would always give extra long explanations for such simple questions asked of her. One thing he always found a bit...odd about her, was her name. The name Eiji was pretty boyish; then again, he figured that it fit her. She wasn’t a “girly-girl”, but not quite tom-boyish either. She was a bit in between.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I was just doing some marketing for my mother. She ran out of garlic for some strange new recipe of hers. She needed garlic salt, garlic bulbs, minced garlic, that chopped icky garlic that you scoop with a spoon, garlic juice, and garlic powder.” She scrunched up her nose as she looked down into the bag. “I don’t think I forgot anything.” Eiji shuddered slightly. “To be honest, I don’t want to try any of her new recipes! Garlic isn’t all that good, and I hate it.
“I can tell you this much,” she leaned over to Iori, and laughed a bit, “a vampire wouldn’t come within 10,000 kilometers of our entire apartment building. I’m surprised our landlord hasn’t kicked us out yet.
“I also volunteered to pick these things up so that I could buy something edible to eat for myself! It’s experimental year with her, and this month, it’s, ‘how many ways can I use garlic in my dishes to drive my daughter crazy’. Last month, it was, 1001 ways to prepare different onion-based dishes. My brothers and I cried for the entire month! She’s been weird lately, but go figure mothers, right?”
Iori didn’t respond, as he had gone back to his own thoughts. Eiji arched an eyebrow up at him, noticing his distant look. He was being a bit rude, which was surprising since he usually went out of his way to be polite. “Iori-kun, is something wrong? Thinking about it, you’ve been keeping to yourself a lot and you’ve been more quiet than usual too. What’s wrong?”
“Y-you wouldn’t understand,” he sullenly answered.
“Try me. I would like for us to become better friends, and friends don’t keep secrets from each other. I don’t mind listening to what you have to say.”
“I’m sorry Eiji-san, but you really wouldn’t understand what’s bothering me.”
“At least get whatever is bothering you off of your chest. It’s not good to hold in your feelings.” She turned her head away from Iori. “I learned that the hard way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen my family and my two younger brothers, Keizo-kun and Hiroki-kun.” Iori nodded. “Well, they’re my half-brothers. We have the same mother. The man you see with my family, is not my real father. He’s the father of Keizo-kun and Hiroki-kun, but he’s in no way related to me.”
“Not your real father?”
“Nope. My real father died a long time ago. He died so long ago I don’t remember much about him, other than the bad things.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I never knew.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she uttered darkly. “He wasn’t the best person in the world from the little I do remember of him.” Iori gave her a curious look, which the girl picked up on. “I know my mother doesn’t like me talking about this, but I don’t care what she thinks. She feels like I shame her whenever I bring up the subject and likes to act as if it never happened at all, but all I remember is arguing and my mother crying a lot. I remember him hitting her. I remember crying because I would hear him hit her or either I would see it.
“The worst was when he hit her because of...me. He was after me, but my mother kept him away and got hit instead. I remember seeing blood...so much of it. He hit her very hard in the face, causing her mouth and nose to bleed.”
Iori was very stunned over hearing such a story. He couldn’t even fathom going through such an ordeal. He was surprised that Eiji was talking about it so openly, especially with him. Her tone of voice seemed to vary between sadness, fear, and anger.
“After he was done with her, he left and I remember I was crying because ‘mommy’ was hurt and she was crying a lot too, but tried her best to hold back her tears. She told me not to worry so that she could clean herself up. She was trying to act normal, but looking back now, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. She was doing it for my sake.
“A while later, the phone rang; my mother answered it. The call said that my father was in a bad accident. My mother told me that he wasn’t coming home. I didn’t feel upset or anything since I was too young to understand the whole concept of death entirely yet. As the years went on, it started to bother me that I didn’t feel guilty over my father’s death.”
‘I wonder why she would feel guilty over it in the first place?’
“I felt that it was my fault that he grew angered and left in the first place since my parents’ argument had something to do with me. My mother kept telling me that it wasn’t my fault, but I didn’t really believe her. I still blamed myself for that night. I held that guilt within me for years until I couldn’t take it anymore. I became withdrawn from my family and grew so depressed, that I just didn’t want to deal with the world or anything anymore. I would think, ‘if I can turn my own father into a monster, who’s to say that I won’t manage to do it again with somebody else?’
“About a year ago, I got sick and missed school for a while.”
“I remember that vaguely...”
“I was very stressed out, and all of the symptoms I had were psychological and showed signs of extreme depression. My mother just told the school that I’d come down with a bad flu. I was actually going to a Child Psychologist in Shibuya and still go sometimes in hopes of my not relapsing.”
The girl kicked at the ground a bit, since there was a bit of an uncomfortable silence between the two of them. The only sounds heard, were those of customers entering and exiting the convenience store that they were still standing in front of. “Wow, I’ve never told that in such detail to pretty much anyone, not even my best friend,” she told him with a small, uneasy laugh. “I guess I feel that I can trust you, Iori-kun.”
Iori wasn’t sure how to respond to the girl or how to react. The story was a bit intense and depressing. ‘She always seems so cheery and happy, but who would’ve guessed that she had such a dark past.’
“See, Iori-kun, that's what happens when you don’t share your feelings, especially ones dealing with guilt,” she warned direly. “You become either violent, suicidal, depressed, or in my case, stressed and sickly. You're too bright and smart to let that happen to you. You should tell someone how you feel, or let somebody know what's bothering you so that you can resolve the problem. If you don’t, it might just eat away at you until you crack. If you don’t want to share it with me, do me a favor and please tell someone. I hate to see you so down.”
Iori was quiet for a brief moment. She told the boy, “bye”, and began to walk off.
“Eiji-san, wait!” He walked up to her. All she’d said made a whole lot of sense.
“Hm?”
“Y-you’re right, I really shouldn’t keep in what’s bothering me, but my situation is quite trivial compared to what you’ve been through.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, it’s just that my situation is a bit...strange. I feel as if I’ve deceived a good friend,” he finally got out. ‘I can’t discuss Armadimon with her. I’m sure she doesn’t know of Digimon and I definitely don’t want to discuss my girl situation. It’s a bit embarrassing.’
“Strange?” She scoffed. “I highly doubt it. The weirdest situation I’ve ever been in were when those strange monster things attacked here a couple of years ago, and that big scary vampire-looking monster that was here three years before that. He tried to take all of us kids away and held us at the convention center.” Iori nearly choked after hearing her say that. He couldn’t believe his ears. “Oh no,” Eiji groaned, “don’t tell me that you don’t remember them either? Nobody that I know of remember those monsters attacking here.”
“You know about the Digimon that invaded the our world two years ago?!”
“Oh, so that’s what they’re called. Well, those ‘Digimon’ made a pretty big mess. When that happened, I was about nine. It’s a bit fuzzy, what happened two years ago, but the vampire one I remember pretty well. I think I remember some kids fighting against it with monsters of their own.”
Iori led Eiji back towards the front of the convenient store, both sitting on the bench in front of it. “What else do you know?”
“As I said, nothing much. I mainly remember seeing them and battling, but it seems as if I’m one of the few that actually remembers it. It’s like everyone was brainwashed or something. How could anyone forget something like that? They caused so much damage! I just don’t get it.” She gave Iori an inquiring look. “How do you know so much about them, and how did you know that they were called Digimon?”
“I’m trying to figure out how you remember them,” he pondered while rubbing his chin. “Normally those who didn’t have anything to do with Digimon, like come in contact with them, usually end up forgetting ever seeing them. Also, those who didn’t have some type of a specific task pertaining to them, like helping to defeat the evil ones or to help their world, usually doesn’t remember them.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute!” the girl exclaimed, practically jumping from her seat. “You’re one of the children, aren’t you! You’re one of the children who helped to get rid of that big scary monster I saw almost two years ago!”
“Yes, Vamdemon in his true and final form...BelialVamdemon.”
“You were one of them, weren’t you?” He nodded sheepishly, finally realizing that he’d given off a bit too much information. “Wow!! So that means you were with the good Digimon monsters, right?”
“Yes, and the technical term is actually Digital Monster. I had my very own Digimon partner called Armadimon.” He explained pretty much everything to the girl with ease. Talking to her seemed to be very enlightening, and he enjoyed it very much. He went into how he was a Chosen Child and the details of what had happened in that final battle almost two years earlier.
“Wow, being a Chosen Child sounds like it could have been fun, except for having to fight all those bad monsters. Too bad you had to leave your Digimon...Armadimon was it...behind.”
“Yeah, it’s Armadimon.” Iori sighed. “I really do miss him.”
“And who would have guessed that the brain, Ichijouji-san, was once evil! I remember when he went missing for weeks, and now I know why. I remember my mom talking about it!”
“I still find it a bit peculiar how you know of Digimon if you’ve never had any real contact with them.”
“Maybe I have and just don’t remember.”
“That is a possibility.” Iori looked down at his wrist watch, his eyes nearly bugging out. “Oh no, I should have been home almost an entire hour ago!”
“Same here for me. I’m sure my mother needs her garlic.” She snickered a bit. “I’m glad I had a burger, fries, and a cola so I won’t have to sample her French Garlic Soufflé.” She stood up. “It was nice talking to you, Iori-kun. We should do it again some time. I’ll see you later, and remember what I said about keeping everything in.”
“No, wait Eiji-san.” She turned to face him once again. “W-would you mind if I walked you home?”
The young girl looked up at Iori in pure astonishment. A person she truly admired had just offered to walk her home. A person she had purposely intended on meeting up with. After purchasing her items in the store, she noticed Iori walking towards the door of the convenient store. She hurried herself out so that she’d bump into him on purpose just so she’d have an excuse to talk to him. “Walk me home?”
“Yes; it's the least I could do for holding you up. I’m sure your family is worried about you.”
“Okay, but what about your family?”
“I will worry about that later,” he stated confidently. ‘I’m surprised that ojiisama didn’t pass by us, unless he used a form of public transportation to get back home.’
The usually talkative girl was at a loss for words, her cheeks going slightly pink. She gave him a smile. “Hida Iori-kun, I would be happy if walked me home.”
With that, the two left the store and headed towards Eiji’s apartment building, but unfortunately, the two never made it...
Author’s Notes
Note 1: This is pretty much my take on why Iori had such a problem where trusting and forgiving was concerned and expanded on it. I always felt that his father being killed had a lot to do with it, so maybe the people who did commit the heinous act asked for forgiveness, but he couldn’t give it to them due to the fact that they had committed such an evil sin. And how people like that, really can’t change. If this is the case, this truly explains why Iori had such a difficult time trusting Ken, and gave him the cold shoulder. It, obviously, takes a lot for Iori to trust a person if he or she has done something completely wrong in the past and one must obviously do something noteworthy to obtain Iori’s trust.
As for Iori’s father’s cause of death, he was killed while on-duty. He was killed while trying to protect a government official, and was praised for it. In other words, he “died with honor”.
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Note 2: Hontou ni sumimasen, simply means, “I am very sorry” or maybe, “Please excuse me.”