Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Matter of Perspective ❯ Sora ( Chapter 19 )

DISCLAIMER: See previous parts.

A/N: I decided to give Sora one more chance to defend herself, since I know that most of you out there probably hate her guts. She never did anything much to deserve it either -- aside from being terribly boring, and dating Yamato. In this particular fic, though, I really want to stress that the problems with their relationship aren't her fault. Not that you'll like Sora if you don't, but...we're officially in countdown now, folks. Only five more parts 'til the ever-lovin' end. I just hope this has been as much fun for you guys as it has been for me. ^_^

She'd wanted to think. Out of her apartment, so that she wouldn't have to deal with her mother's unsubtle little comments and insinuations. So that she wouldn't have to try and resist the ever-growing temptation to spit them back in her mother's face. Just a few minutes to herself. Was that so much to ask?

Footsteps on the pavement. Left, right; left, right. Keep them even, keep them steady. No thoughts, just her footsteps. Walk. It wasn't real if she didn't let herself think about it.

His head on Taichi's shoulder, Taichi's hand lifting his chin, their mouths --

Left, right. She hadn't meant to overhear anything. She really wasn't the sort of person who went around deliberately listening in on private conversations, whether or not she knew the people speaking. It was just that she'd gotten stuck. Left, right. Stuck watching.

-- head on shoulder, hand lifting chin, mouths pressed --

She had a tree in that park. Well, all right, maybe it didn't exactly belong to her, but none of the other children had ever wanted it. The bark was sticky with sap, and the branches were so thick that she could only ever see straight down when she sat among them. There were lots of better trees for playing games, but Sora had felt sorry for the tree no one else ever used. Back when she and her mother lived in Hikarigaoka, she had made a point of sitting in it every day after school.

-- mouths pressed --

Going there had been stupid. Stupid, and childish. Left, right. She'd even scraped her knees when she tried to climb because mini-skirts were never meant for that, and yet being in among those dappled leaves again had made her feel better. It was something simple and familiar in the midst of her own increasingly complicated life. Left, right. So why had she glanced down at that tiny noise and spoiled everything?

-- mouths pressed together --

At first, Sora had dismissed the blonde girl who stumbled onto the bench under her tree. There had been a brief twinge of concern because she had no idea how to explain why any eighteen-year-old would sit in a tree this late at night, but in the end she had decided that it didn't matter that much if this random girl thought she was strange. She would give Blonde Girl ten minutes to leave, then climb down anyway and try to act casual. If Taichi hadn't come along with his unmistakable head of wild brown hair, she would have done just that, too.

-- sliding back but not away, why wasn't he pulling away --

Left, right; left, right. Almost home now. Yes, she could see her own condominium. Her mother would be worried. She had been out for a long time now. How long had it taken them to stand up? How long had the two of them spent kissing like that under her tree? Torturing the captive audience to their little confessions because she could never have hoped to slip away unnoticed. Besides, hope was Takeru's moniker. What did she have? Love.

"I love you, too, Taichi."

Only it sounded wrong in her head. She wasn't hearing what Yamato had said to Taichi under her tree not ten minutes ago -- she was hearing what Yamato had said to her so many, many times over the last five years. Always too, because he had never, even once in all that time, said that he loved her without being prompted...and now that, along with a hundred thousand other details that had seemed so insignificant at the time, came crashing down on her head. They left bruises.

She opened the door to her apartment, hung the key on its hook, moved towards the closet, and then dropped her coat on the floor instead. She didn't have the energy for that. All she had to do now was make it back to her room before her mother could intercept her. Left, right.

Too late. "Oh, there you are, dear. Did you have a nice walk?"

For a moment, Sora seriously considered just going into her room like she hadn't heard anything. A strained conversation with her mother was just one more thing that she didn't have the energy for, and she knew it would be strained -- like every other time the two of them had even briefly exchanged words in the last week. The aborted dinner on Sunday night had obviously confirmed all of her mother's darkest suspicions about Sora's unsuitable boyfriend, and she was just waiting for her to admit it.

The separation hadn't even been that bad. Not really. Oh, talking to him at school was sort of awkward, but no more awkward than it had been ever since this whole thing began. If anything, Sora thought she might have felt less uncomfortable once she no longer had to worry about how they touched or who saw it. And...and there was something else, too. Some deeper sense of relief, like she'd been carrying this heavy thing for ages and then suddenly dropped it. She was fairly confident that ending a relationship shouldn't feel this way, but couldn't say for sure. After all, she'd only ever had one relationship before.

"But this doesn't feel wrong, Taichi."

"Yes," was what she ended up saying flatly. Maybe too flatly, but she didn't care. Couldn't bring herself to really care. "I had a very nice walk, but I'm tired now. So I'd really love it if I could just get to bed without any of this nonsense. If that's okay with you, Mom."

Her mother gaped at her, apparently stunned that she wasn't the only one who could be inexcusably rude. She was still gaping when Sora went right into her room and slammed the door without waiting for a reply. There would be time enough to apologize in the morning. If she felt like apologizing. Sora changed into her nightgown and fell gracelessly into bed, wondering how she would ever explain what she'd seen in the park when she hadn't even dared to mention their 'temporary breakup'.

The bed squawked when she rolled over, and Sora quickly discovered how fast she could move with adrenaline coursing through her veins. A large and extremely pink feathered head poked its way out from under the blankets. Bright blue eyes regarding her sleepily, Piyomon yawned.

"Sora?" she asked, as if she doubted it. "What time is it? I tried to stay awake until you got back, but you were out for ages and ages."

Sora had to smile at that. She got back into bed. "I know, I'm sorry. I don't really know what time it is, either. I got...sidetracked."

Sleepy or not, her digimon spotted the half-truth immediately and scowled. "You can tell me! Maybe I'll be able to help somehow!"

Right. And I suppose you can make Yamato-kun love me again?

No. No. He still loved her. He had to. He was just confused...just confused and...and...

And she struggled desperately not to cry. She wasn't a fool, whatever Yamato might have played her for, and she couldn't just pretend away all the things she'd seen. No matter how much she might have wanted to try. But it hurt. It hurt so very much.

"I saw Yamato-kun," she began carefully, willing her voice not to tremble. Still not completely sure why she was telling Piyomon in the first place. "In the park...with Taichi."

The digimon ducked her head, looking confused. "So, you stopped and said hello?"

Such an innocent question. That would be the obvious thing to have done, wouldn't it? She allowed herself a slightly rueful smile. "No, I didn't stop and say hello. I don't think they ever even noticed me. They probably wouldn't have...done what they did...if they'd known I was watching."

"You eavesdropped on Yamato and Taichi?" Bright blue eyes went wide. "But you've told me a million times how rude that is!"

Had she really? Oh, yes. Of course, that was only because she hadn't seemed to understand the meaning of the word. Sora struggled for a moment to organize her thoughts. "And I meant what I said, Piyomon. This was more of an accident than anything else."

Besides, so what if she had? What did it really matter, when Yamato was cheating on her...if she could still call it that. Technically, she was only his ex-girlfriend, but she had thought they had an agreement about that. Maybe she had misunderstood? If Yamato thought she was only pretending to still care about him, then what he had done was much easier to...god! Why was she defending him?! She knew what she'd seen and she knew what it meant. Why couldn't she just hate them both?

In the silence that had fallen, it was rather hard not to notice the intent way in which Piyomon was studying her. Analyzing, almost. As if trying to decide whether she should actually say what she wanted to say. It made Sora's stomach clench unpleasantly.

"Sora?"

"Yes? What is it?" And why was she suddenly afraid of the answer?

Piyomon seemed to be avoiding her eyes. "Yamato and Taichi...they were...they were doing something, weren't they? Something they shouldn't have been doing."

It made her blink in a slow, painful way. Her eyes were burning. "What makes you ask that, Piyomon?"

"Well...I mean...Gabumon said..."

Gabumon said. "Did he?"

Her digimon nodded wretchedly. "I'm so sorry, Sora. I really am. I thought that maybe -- that maybe I was wrong about the feel of it -- but Gabumon was so sure..."

"The feel of it?" Sora repeated. She knew the digimon had embraced her, but even when Piyomon's wedge-shaped head dug into her belly, it was so vague and faraway.

Another nod, even more wretched than the last. "The feel. It's...I don't know how to describe it. There's just -- there's nothing there. When you're with Yamato. Gabumon says he can feel something, but that only made us more nervous..."

Everything, everywhere, stopped. She wanted to ask, but in a way she thought she already knew what Piyomon was talking about. The clenching in her stomach intensified, like someone had tied a knot down there and was slowly but relentlessly tightening it. Breathing was difficult. All she could think was that Piyomon felt nothing from them, not just from Yamato, but from them, and that didn't make sense because she really did love Yamato. She was sure of it. She loved him. She loved him!

"You're lying," she whispered. Hadn't even realized she was speaking, but there were the harsh words she'd wanted to say.

Naturally, Piyomon looked stricken. "I'm not! Why would I lie to you, Sora?"

It was a good question, wasn't it?

Yes, a very good question.

She didn't have an answer. All she had was desperation.

I love him. I do. He's everything I could ever ask for.

And he was. From the very beginning, Yamato had been the epitome of the perfect gentleman. He was sweet and handsome and polite. He never got upset with her no matter what. They had argued about very little, and being around Yamato made her feel so special. She only wanted him to be happy, and she really had thought she was succeeding.

Except that...sometimes, just in the middle of one of their dates, Yamato would get very distant. There were quiet, brooding moments where his eyes glazed over and he stopped smiling. Where he just stared right through her. It hadn't happened very often in the beginning, but in the last few months -- well, Sora had tried telling herself that she should have expected that sort of thing. Of course someone like him would get lost in his thoughts from time to time, and he wasn't doing it any more frequently. Oh, she had tried so hard not to see the truth, but...deep inside, Sora had known he wasn't happy.

And she hadn't been happy, either.

She did love Yamato, and maybe she always would. But she knew what Piyomon meant. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd gone out with her boyfriend and had actual fun. Yes, their dates had always been perfect, but recently they'd felt downright mechanical, like something that came with a script you might want to memorize. It was just a rough patch, really, but with Yamato's sudden change...everything had fallen completely apart. Her boyfriend, her perfect boyfriend, had disappeared and left nothing but this weak uncertain girl in his place. The Yamato she knew would never have come so close to bursting into tears if she refused to let him kiss her. He had been so much stronger than that.

Or at least looked it. Not for the first time, she wondered whether she had ever known Yamato at all. It wasn't a happy thought.

Not like Taichi, right? His unassuming best friend turned lover. God, how long had that been going on? How long had she assumed exactly the wrong thing? It had seemed like the obvious idea at the time, but now she felt so egotistical. So very blind. At least she no longer had to wonder why Hikari hated her so much. Under these circumstances, it was understandable. Dating the person her brother loved...and who seemed to return the feelings.

Why hadn't her digimon said something sooner?

"Because I couldn't be sure," Piyomon replied defensively when asked. She had obviously not recovered from being called a liar. "Sora, all I had was a feeling! It's not like you glow or anything! Gabumon told me that Yamato keeps what he feels really controlled most of the time, and I know it sounds stupid now, but I really did think maybe...maybe that had something to do with it..."

"It doesn't sound stupid," Sora countered. She reached out gently and stroked the digimon's soft feathers, wanting so very much to soothe her injured feelings but not quite sure how to go about it. Could she just apologize? "I'm...I'm sorry I said you were lying, Piyomon. I know you would never do that -- I'm just upset about everything right now."

That seemed to work. Piyomon smiled. "I know, Sora."

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes, but then Sora frowned thoughtfully. "You know something about love, right?"

"A little."

Her digimon seemed cautious, and that made her hesitate. She really shouldn't have cared about this. Shouldn't have wanted to make sure. After all, wouldn't there have been some satisfaction in knowing that someone was going to make sure Yamato understood exactly how she felt right now?

But she still loved him. She wanted him to be happy.

Even if it wasn't with her.

"Piyomon...do you think Taichi really loves Yamato-kun?"

Bright blue eyes regarded her closely, so she probably looked every bit as conflicted as she felt. But then the digimon nodded to herself and sighed. "Gabumon seems to think so. I'm a little less sure because I haven't seen the two of them together that much. Why? Do you think Yamato would like that?"

She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the question. "I know so, Piyomon. I know so."

They were simple words. Such simple, simple words. But saying them somehow made it all the more real. When the ache in her chest became unbearable, when she realized that nothing had ever been harder to say or hurt more when she let it out, then Sora knew to cry.

End Part Nineteen