Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Never Let Me Down Again ❯ Chapter 2

NEVER LET ME DOWN AGAIN--Part 2

kaeru_hime@hotmail.com

 

 

 

By the third time one of the Chosen Children got caught--or, well, caught himself being really, really gay, the only person who cared was Daisuke.

 

Ken woke up worried, which he'd mostly grown out of by high school and never much liked returning to. Daisuke had gone out the night before to nurse his gloom over Shiori somewhere a little less oppressive than the apartment, and with a little more alcohol. Ken had let him go, and only now regretted the fact that he clearly hadn't been paying enough attention to what part of his breakup cycle Daisuke was currently in.

 

Morose, drunken Daisuke always dragged himself home or called Ken to come get him when the world got to be too much. Unfortunately, if he'd been moping for long enough already, drunken Daisuke sighing into his beer always ran the risk of turning into drunken Daisuke cooking up elaborate schemes to make himself feel better that even sober Daisuke had better judgment than to attempt. Usually Ken tried to keep an eye on him until the worst of the wild flights of fancy passed. If any of them, god forbid, actually worked, Daisuke would latch onto it with the more manic energy than even he usually possessed, and then the only thing for it was to ride out the rebound--

 

"Ken!" Daisuke flung the door open hard enough to bounce off the wall and strode into the apartment grinning. His shirt was buttoned wrong, and Ken could only imagine what he'd done to get his hair to look like that. "Ken, we're supposed to be friends, I can't believe you've been holding out on me all this time."

 

Ken blinked at him. "I certainly haven't intentionally been keeping anything back from you," he said tentatively. Daisuke snorted and hip-checked the door closed behind him. Ken could only pray the neighbors wouldn't have them evicted. They hadn't yet, so perhaps they were deaf.

 

"Dude, you never told me sex with guys was that awesome! What the heck, you've been doing that for years and never told me!" Daisuke threw himself into one of the chairs in the kitchen, unwisely, then winced and sprang right back up again. Ken blinked again. That was...unexpected. Not the weirdest or worst thing Daisuke had ever done on a rebound by far, but distinctly surprising.

 

"I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it," Ken pointed out mildly, and Daisuke snorted.

 

"Bullshit, you just went on about 'personal connections' and 'meaningful communications' and stuff. You so owe me. You're taking me to all the gay bars so I can see what I've been missing, got it?" And Daisuke flounced off towards the shower, trailing a somewhat dazed and giddy-looking V-mon in his wake.

 

 

 

People ask Ken, quite frequently, about what's led him to put up with Daisuke as his best friend for all these years. Ken meets people and revels in their presence and then lets them fall by the wayside constantly, so what on earth is it about Daisuke, of all people, that's kept Ken so firmly and implacably by his side?

 

Ken has dozens of different answers to this, and most of them he'll never speak out loud. He never tries to explain that Daisuke, out of everyone, has seen every last shadow on Ken's soul and never run from a single one. He never tries to put words how much the very first hand extended in true friendship meant to a frightened, lonely eleven-year-old boy, how the thousand hands now held out every day to a witty and self-assured young man could never quite compare, no matter who's offering them. These are private things, and the only people who could ever really understand them, the only people Ken would trust to say it to, already know anyway.

 

So instead, Ken says something about Daisuke's sense of humor, or his unflinching loyalty. More often than anything else, he says, "Even after fourteen years, he can still surprise me."

 

That element of surprise is what he likes about being friends with Daisuke, Ken reminds himself now, or at the very least it's a part of the package he signed up for a long time ago. If he'd ever pictured having to turn his best friend down for a casual fling of no-strings-attached sex, today wouldn't be nearly as interesting, now would it.

 

"I'd be perfect," Daisuke explains, waving his hands expansively and narrowly missing knocking over his soda. "You like having sex with hot guys. I like having sex with hot guys. We're both hot guys! I don't know why we didn't think of this before."

 

"Daisuke, we have completely, irreconcilably different attitudes about relationships," Ken points out. "You want a monogamous, devoted long-term relationship. I can't give you that."

 

"No, but that's what I'm saying, what if I don't?" Daisuke insists. "Not right now, anyway, and hey, so, if it's only for a little while, then we stop having sex just like you always do anyhow, and nothing gets changed!"

 

Life without Daisuke would be impossible, would be bland, boring, and dull. On the other hand, Ken thinks at times, it would inarguably be easier as well.

 

 

 

 

The second time one of the Chosen Children got caught gay, it was Ken, although he would argue the terminology given half a chance. Ken self-identifies as a philosophical bisexual, attracted to the spirit and the mind of a person without wasting discrimination on considerations like gender. Jirou taught him that. Jirou may have been a bastard, but he was right about more things than Ken even now likes to give him credit for.

 

Ken met Jirou in a class on Gender in Society, his second semester at the University of Tokyo. The professor had taught Ken's introductory sociology class on Dynamics of Oppression his first semester, and he'd had a free space in his schedule. He only realized the first day that three quarters of the class, professor included, was female. Ken blushed at the odd, creeping feeling of intrusion and planned to keep his voice down for the semester and learn.

 

Jirou didn't. Ken couldn't help but be drawn to him from the first class, one of the only and easily the most obvious boy in the class. Jirou wore eyeliner and spiked his hair, and had no problem arguing with the other students or even the professor on subjects of feminism and roles in Japanese society. Jirou caught Ken watching him and grabbed his wrist after class one day, pulled him out into the hallway and demanded as much as suggested they study together.

 

Jirou kissed like an oncoming storm and drew lines like lightning across Ken's skin with his fingertips. His favorite place to study was outside, under one of the many trees on campus, one arm resting on the back of his dozing Bakumon and feet tangled together with Ken's just above the ankles. Half the time, studying lapsed into nothing but theorizing and debate, Ken arguing his points with a low, driving calm, Jirou gesturing at the treetops as he grew more and more impassioned.

 

"Love is one of the greatest gifts of mankind--sorry, and digikind," Jirou proclaimed, and Ken nodded in agreement because who could help but agree? "And yet all we do is put boundaries and limits on love, on what connections we may have with other human beings. Why shouldn't I connect with whoever I want? Why shouldn't you?"

 

Ken followed Jirou to parties and connected with people in a way he hadn't since Miyako left. Sometimes they connected by talking about politics over beers, and sometimes they connected in somebody else's bedroom. Sometimes Ken connected with two people at once. Daisuke gaped at him a little bit, and Ken never did quite manage to convey the glory of human relationships to him. Above all, Ken built his connection with Jirou, in tea shops, under the campus trees, in bed. Jirou had barely been aware of the story of the Digital World, but Ken explained it all, haltingly around the parts eight years hadn't quite helped him to face.

 

Then Ken overheard Jirou laughing at a party-- "sure, some kind of chosen child, like he thinks that makes him special? And he's still all torn up about some stupid pranks and kid's stuff he did when he was in elementary school. I used to wear a towel as a cape and pretend I was king of the apartment block, and you don't see me still angsting over it--" and found his fist connecting, quite satisfyingly, with Jirou's face.

 

One set of bruised knuckles later, Ken found himself musing that experiencing people didn't have to mean trusting them, after all.

 

 

 

 

"First of all, you of all people know I don't do romantic relationships, Daisuke," Ken is saying on the other side of the kitchen table, because he's not listening. Smart as Ken is, he can be awful slow sometimes. Daisuke got it all figured out by bouncing ideas off V-mon on the walk home from the ramen stand. Now he just had to get Ken up to speed.

 

"This wouldn't be a romantic relationship. Dude. Can you picture me, being romantic at you?" Daisuke snorts at the absurdity of it. Ken's not somebody you bring flowers, Ken's somebody you hang out with watching bad movies on cable until three in the morning and sometimes bring food at the office when he's on a hard case so he remembers to eat.

 

"That'd be pretty ridiculous!" V-mon chimes in. Ken glances down at him and smiles in that soft sort of way that Ken only ever turns on children and digimon,

 

"Yes, I suppose it would be," he says, and then looks back up. "I still don't understand why me, though. If you're just looking for a fling--and you and I both know how you are with flings--"

 

"Yeah, but see, those were always with people I didn't know," Daisuke says blithely, waving a hand to dismiss a couple of pretty terrible one-night-stands. "I'm not like you, Ken. You can go have sex with a total stranger and have it totally mean something, or whatever, because people like you that fast. I can't get comfortable when it's somebody I don't really know." There's no way he'd spend the whole time worried about how stupid he looked or if he was making weird noises with Ken. Ken nods, slowly, like he's starting to get it, but he doesn't look quite convinced yet.

 

"Ken, I'm not saying it's gotta be serious, I just think it'd be fun--"

 

"But it is serious," Ken interrupts, like he's shoring up his objections now, and Daisuke had better batter them down quick or he'll never win. "It isn't just a game you pick up and toss aside. Even when it's fun, it always has meaning."

 

"So you'd share that with all those people, but not with me? Your partner? Your best friend for thirteen years? I'm good enough to Jogress with, but not this?" Daisuke presses, leaning forward across the kitchen table, widening his eyes as far as they'll go.

 

Ken looks trapped, and Daisuke knows then and there he's got him.

 

 

 

The first time is awkward.

 

Ken would have expected that, if he'd ever thought to picture it. He'd be lying if he said he'd never had a sexual thought about his best friend, of course; Daisuke is all lean muscle and movement, and the year Ken was nineteen and exploring the joys of skin and sweat and the male form for the first time he saw Daisuke half-naked in a one bedroom apartment a dozen times a week. It simply never seemed necessary, after all they'd been through together. There was little farther they could know each other, little behind the fleeting thoughts than pure lust, and Ken could satisfy that far more productively anywhere. Daisuke was never for sex. He hardly needed to be.

 

This, then, is strange, so strange. Ken's pressed his lips to another's many times before, and always learned something by the way they kiss--is it wet, is it gentle, are their lips soft or dry or chapped and bitten, is their tongue sly, or playful, or demanding? The lips on his now are Daisuke's, and for a moment even asking that question seems like a violation. Anything of Daisuke he hasn't learned so far, he has no right to know. Ken shuts his eyes.

 

Then Daisuke's hands close around Ken's shoulders, and his tongue invades Ken's mouth, attacking and inviting all at once, and Ken would laugh if he weren't busy because he was wrong. There is nothing in Daisuke's kiss that he was not meant to learn, and nothing he did not know already. Daisuke starts to walk them backwards towards the bedrooms, then stops in the living room, first bold, then hesitant. Daisuke kisses like a straightforward attack and like he expects Ken to attack in return. It is so odd to have someone in his arms that feels more like homecoming than discovery.

 

Ken pulls back enough to grab Daisuke's hand, the same hand he's taken since they were eleven years old. "My room," he breathes. "You haven't changed your sheets in at least a week." And it is so odd to know that.

 

They pull apart to remove clothing once Ken's shut the door behind them, stripping separately instead of ripping at shirts and pants while clenched in an embrace. It grows cold and surreal again, then; they've split off to prepare themselves as if for battle, like Daisuke's readying himself to march off to face a challenge and Ken stands at his side all platonic loyalty, no heat. They stare at each other for a moment when they're both naked. Daisuke hasn't lost any muscle tone since he was nineteen. Ken is usually much better at this.

 

Ken steps forward, too hesitantly, to lay a hand on Daisuke's chest. Without warning, Daisuke laughs, seemingly at nothing at all. Ken blinks at him in confusion, but Daisuke just grabs him and reels him in close, one hand on Ken's wrist and the other around his shoulders, pulling him in until their hips meet and Daisuke can bury his nose in Ken's hair.

 

"How'd you get so pretty, anyway?" Daisuke asks, which Ken's heard a thousand times in bed, and out of Daisuke a thousand more. He knows better than to wonder how he's gotten himself into this--it's Daisuke, and Ken could never really deny him anything. Ken buries his fingernails in the skin of Daisuke's shoulders, making him gasp, and pulls him down to the bed. Daisuke's chest presses up against his. He can feel Daisuke's heartbeat.

 

 

 

 

 

Takenouchi Sora has been making it her business to stop people from trying to set up their friends, family members, and distant acquaintances for years. She carries the crest of Love and wields it as a devoted anti-matchmaker. It's practically a part-time job.

 

"No, I'm not going to help you set up Ken and Daisuke," she sighed, looking Miyako squarely in the eyes. "If they really want to be together, they'll work it out on their own. Why would you even want to see them together anyway?" It was nice that Miyako seemed to be over Ken, more or less, but Sora knew this wasn't likely to help.

 

"Because Ken needs someone who'll knock some sense into him and Daisuke's the only other one who'll put up with him for that long. And they're already obviously in love, they're the most important people in each other's lives, and--" Sora reached out and put a hand on Miyako's shoulder, quieting her building rant.

 

"That's up to them," she said softly. "You can't see everything about their relationship from the outside, because you're not in it. You don't know what's best for them."

 

"Well, neither do they," Miyako grumbled, and Sora had to nod.

 

"Yes, but they're the ones who get to pick what's not best for them if they want to."

 

Miyako sighed and flopped down next to Sora on her bed. "But if it's not Daisuke, then what's the point?" she grumbled into a pillow, sounding more lost than truly angry. Sora stroked her hair. Miyako raised her head and blinked up at Sora blearily.

 

"Sora?" she asked. "Was it any better...I mean, when Taichi and Yamato...did it..." Sora bit her lip and made herself shrug.

 

"Love means letting people make their own decisions even if what they choose isn't what's best for you," she said. "Whether you think it's what's best for them or not, it shouldn't make a difference, because love means respecting that choice."

 

It shouldn't make a difference but it does, of course. It's one thing to accept a friend's right to make themselves happy however they choose, even if that happiness isn't with you. It's another thing, Sora knows, to accept a friend's right to make themselves unhappy--even and maybe especially if the friend doesn't seem to think they're unhappy at all. Even if the friend really is completely content with his or her life, and you're the only person who fears they're not. Even if maybe they really are just making themselves happy without you after all.

 

But if there's one thing Sora knows her way around, it's giving advice. She counsels clients all day and comes home and counsels her friends and family. She's the worst hypocrite in the world, as much advice as she gives out, given how many times it's just some variation on 'back off and mind your own business'. One thing Sora knows is how to keep it simple. If Miyako needs to be talked out of playing matchmaker for two people that seem to be doing perfectly well on their own, with a little bit of oversimplification of the problem and some avoiding of Miyako's own issues, Sora can do that. If Miyako needs a shoulder to cry on over an ex-boyfriend she's not quite as over as she'd like, Sora can do that too, but just like everybody else, first Miyako's going to have to ask.

 

 

 

 

Takeru sits down at the computer to check on email while Hikari and Tailmon lay out things for breakfast, Patamon on his shoulder, cheery and determined on another new day. Granted, it's another new day of working as a low-level intern at a huge publishing house where most of his bosses don't even know his name, and the pay is terrible, and even if he does get ahead he's going to have to put up with so much politicking and soothing important people's egos that he doesn't even know if he wants to stay in the publishing industry or what his degree in arts and literature is even good for, and today is cabbage soup day in the office cafeteria, and he'll probably end up working on budget reports all morning and get told to redo them all afternoon even though they'll be fine to begin with, but the point is, it's another new day.

 

There's always room for things to go better today than yesterday, after all. And it's morning, and mornings always make Takeru cheerful. Oh and hey, somebody updated the digiwiki last ni--

 

Takeru makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. It sounds something like a cat stuffed inside a set of bagpipes and then swung repeatedly against a wall.

 

"Takeru!" Hikari drops something on the table behind him as she rushes over. Takeru can't tear his eyes away from the screen to see what. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

 

"Not...not wrong, just..." He raises a finger to point at the screen. Hikari and Tailmon lean forward over his shoulder, Tailmon resting one paw on his head for balance. Takeru must be in shock, because he can hardly feel the claws.

 

"October Seventeenth," Tailmon reads, as Takeru stares and Hikari gapes. "'Have totally started having sex with Ken. Now I get what the big deal is about! Don't worry, the Great Ichijouji hasn't sworn off the rest of the world or anything, but until I track down the girl of my dreams, the Motomiya-Ichijouji Smokin' Spectacular Bachelor Pad of Awesome is home to more Motomiya-Ichijouji smokin' hot lovin' than you can shake a stick at. Go team!'"

 

They all sit in silent shock for a little longer. There doesn't seem to be much else to say.

 

"Maybe it's Daisuke's idea of a joke?" Takeru offers hesitantly. It'd be a pretty weird joke, but Daisuke usually likes pretty weird jokes.

 

"Miyako is going to flip," Hikari says, standing upright as if in a daze. Tailmon has to scrabble against Takeru's shoulder and head to stay perched on Hikari's back. Takeru's going to have to put iodine on those scratches later.

 

"I am never sitting on that couch again," Takeru hears someone say, and then realizes that it's him.

 

 

 

 

Ken had sex for the first time like a year before Daisuke. At first Daisuke hadn't been sure what to feel, because first of all, who wanted to have sex with Miyako anyhow, but second of all, what the hell was Ken doing having sex before him? It was their last year of high school, and Daisuke'd had like nine girlfriends while Ken only had the one. And the one was Miyako. Who, sure, was pretty good-looking now that she'd grown up and had boobs and hips and didn't always wear those glasses all the time, but she still had a tendency to scream about things and threaten to put Daisuke in a headlock.

 

If Ken wanted that, hell, Daisuke could put him in a headlock, and then he could go get a cool girlfriend, like Kazue. Who was not having sex with Daisuke. And who turned around and left him at the zoo when he asked. Which brought Daisuke right back to the real issue, which was that Ken was having sex, and he was not.

 

"I don't even know what the big deal is," Daisuke said sulkily, and then completely contradicted himself by adding, "Come on, what's it like?"

 

They were in Daisuke's room instead of Ken's for once, supposedly studying, but Ken knew it all already and all the studying in the world wasn't going to get Daisuke into a national university. They could hear Daisuke's mother's Alraumon vacuuming in the hallway, humming to herself happily. Alraumon was kind of a goody two-shoes, but Daisuke figured that was kind of fair, since she was his mom's partner instead of her kid. Alraumon'd flip if she caught Daisuke and Ken talking about sex, but by the sounds of things, she'd swiped Daisuke's iPod again, so they were safe.

 

"I'm not going to talk about Miyako behind her back like--"

 

"Dude, no, who wants to hear about Miyako?" Daisuke interrupted hurriedly. "I'm glad you guys are in love and all, but seriously, never tell me. I just mean...sex, Ken. It's not right for you to hold out on me like this. So tell me!"

 

Ken's thoughtful look, the one Daisuke knew so well, got all faraway and dreamy like he'd been for the past couple of days, which was how Daisuke even knew something was up in the first place since it wasn't like Ken would ever just tell him things. "I can't talk about it without talking about her. It was with her. It was...very nice, and very much a private matter, and I really don't know what else I can tell you."

 

No matter how much Daisuke badgered him, Ken didn't give him much more than that. At first he'd been annoyed, but later, way later, Daisuke figured it had just been a sign of things to come. Sex and Ken went together, like Daisuke and soccer or Takeru and his hat. Ken was as good at seducing people as he was at everything else, and Daisuke just had to follow along behind and do something completely different, because he and Ken were never even going to be in the same league.

 

 

 

 

 

Daisuke seriously wants to know why they never tried this before.

 

Ok, it was a little weird at first, especially since Daisuke's only ever been with like two other guys, and the first one was when he was drunk and the second one, too, a little. He was kinda worried, maybe, in the back of his mind, that sex with guys maybe stopped being fun while he was dating Mitzuki and this was all just a big mistake, but he was totally wrong. Ken is good at this shit.

 

Ken's gone to work from head down to Daisuke's toes finding all the tiny little spots that Daisuke didn't even know could make him twitch, or moan, or yelp like a puppy with a stepped-on tail. Which again, should be weird, because it's Ken, and that's a lot of power to give somebody who knows all of Daisuke's weak spots already. But because it's Ken he just uses that knowledge to make Daisuke shiver and gasp and come, not for anything weird or bad or evil.

 

Daisuke trusts Ken more than anybody else in both worlds except for V-mon, and the thought of V-mon knowing about everything Daisuke does and likes and wants during sex grosses him out so much he has to stop and push Ken off him until he can make the mental images go away. V-mon and Wormmon, for their part, have spent this time developing new and increasingly complex variations on Go Fish in the kitchenette, far, far away from the action, which is how it should be. So far Daisuke and Ken have made use of both bedrooms, the shower, the couch, and the living room floor, not to mention the desk and the wall in Ken's office, but at least the kitchen table is still safe for now.

 

Then Daisuke has to tell Ken what went through his head to make them stop, and then he makes the mistake of saying something about Stingmon that leaves Ken looking shocked and horrified, and then they both have to go take a cold shower to get over it. Of course, that's easier when they shower together, and maybe it's not so much a cold shower as lukewarm or maybe even hot, and by the time they stumble, dripping wet, back to their bedrooms to dress, their digimon aren't particularly on their mind.

 

Daisuke doesn't have to work today, but he yanked himself away from Ken's bed and Ken's cock--and seriously, all these years, how did he never get to know the awesomeness that is Ken's cock?--to get down to the soccer field for four hours this afternoon, and now he's home. It's Ken's turn to do the dishes again, even though he usually forgets, but maybe Daisuke can grab Ken while he's all soapy by the sink and press him up against the counter and--

 

"Are you going out tonight?" he asks. Ken's dressed all in perfectly pressed gray and black, almost too tight for him, looking shockingly younger than Daisuke's seen him in ages. He didn't even know Ken still had his old school uniform. Ken looks over from shuffling a pile of papers into his messenger bag and nods.

 

"Stakeout tonight. Watching to see if a man my clients suspect of corporate espionage is meeting with a competitor. Nobody ever notices high school students." He bends down to pick up his laptop from the floor next to the sofa and slide it into his messenger bag. Daisuke blinks. Ken isn't much broader or taller than he was a few years ago, but his uniform is definitely tighter than when he first wore it to Tamachi High School. Daisuke can't imagine anybody not noticing him in that.

 

Ken straightens, tugging the strap of his bag over his shoulder, and looks at Daisuke quizzically. "I won't be home until late, so don't worry about us for dinner. Wormmon or I will step out to get some food later while the other one keeps watch."

 

"Right." Daisuke totally shouldn't be relieved that Ken is going out to work instead of going clubbing or something. Even though he clearly has no idea what he looks like in his old uniform and should never wear it out of the apartment ever again. Ken's going to sleep with other people, that's part of the deal. If Daisuke's also kinda put out that Ken's going out to work instead of staying home with him, well, he's missing out on a night of great sex and his best friend is abandoning him all afternoon and evening.



"Yay! Daisuke and V-mon junk food and movie night!" V-mon exclaims, already scrambling towards the takeout menus in the kitchen. Daisuke grins at the enthusiasm. With everything with Mitzuki, he's totally been neglecting his partner lately. Ken'll be home later, just like he always is.

 

"You're on!"

 

 

 

 

Ken loves his job. It snuck up as a surprise to him, not to mention all of his classmates in the Law program at the University of Tokyo. There's more strange hours and late nights than fame, fortune, or glory in being a little-known private investigator, and despite Daisuke's faith and the Batman mug he'd insisted Ken take for his desk, he's no World's Greatest Detective yet.

 

Ken always intended to strive his utmost to make a difference in the world, as duty or penance or some strange deep-seated altruism he never could explain. He'd intended to be a lawyer, perhaps, or a politician, but he couldn't see the courage in himself for direct activism. However much he might want to change things, Ichijouji Ken was not the man who could stand up and shout about them. He'd rather work through the back door, in thankless silence, and ensure things were done the right way--but there was hardly a career designed for that.

 

In the end it was Wormmon, of course, who made it all clear, Wormmon who found him staring blankly at a brochure for the Tokyo National Police Academy and crawled up his leg into his lap.

 

"Ken, why do you think you want this?" Wormmon asked. Ken stroked his head absently as he thought.

 

"There are so many terrible things in the world," Ken said, staring past Wormmon into an empty distance, lost in thought. "I thought it was just me, once, or that true evil could only be found in the Digital World, but there are so many terrible things that happen to so many good people. I have to do something about it."

 

Wormmon nodded encouragingly; Ken could feel his head bob under his hand. "And when you say 'do something about it', do you mean you want to punish the ones responsible, or help the victims, Ken?"

 

Ken blinked and refocused, staring down at the little green creature in his arms. "Oh," was all he could say.

 

"I know you, Ken, and you don't have it in you to spend your whole life hurting other people for their mistakes," Wormmon said, and of course he was right, brilliant Wormmon, who'd always known Ken better than Ken knew himself. "Why don't you think about finding ways to help fix what they've done wrong, instead?" And without waiting for any response from Ken, Wormmon hopped down and crawled away, leaving Ken in a whirl of new possibilities.

 

Police, of course, were hired by the state to catch criminals before they acted again. Lawyers concerned themselves with justice, as though punishment could ever truly be fair, as if most punishment couldn't be heavier and lighter than deserved all at the same time. An investigator hired by those in need, though, could try to help put things right instead of fighting an impossible battle to punish the wrong.

 

Ichijouji Ken, Private Detective. Ken smiled. It had a nice sound to it.

 

 

 

 

Koushiro meets Jyou at the Hikarigaoka portal at 6 PM sharp. Working for the project has more than a few perks, and the ability to walk past 'Restricted Access' signs with only the flash of a badge is one of the best.

 

Jyou is scruffier than usual and weary-looking, peeling slightly from a digital sunburn that Koushiro is sure the rest of the medical team took copious measurements of upon re-arrival. In short, he looks approximately as though he's been camping out in the Digital World for the past month, and badly needs a strong drink and a hot meal not cooked by Digitamamon. Since Koushiro has seen the travel logs that vouch for the first part, he steers Jyou quickly towards a nearby restaurant where they can get the second. Well--Koushiro hasn't been in the kitchen here, so he can't actually vouch for lack of any Digitamamon, but you don't see too many Perfect-level digimon around the real world just yet.

 

Jyou looks more relaxed once the first glass of sake has gone down. Gomamon has his chin propped up on the edge of the table, and for once he's not devouring everything in sight, although that may change once the food actually shows up. For the moment, it's just nice to be sitting down to a dinner with an old friend.

 

"So what've I missed while I was gone? A Unimon stepped on my laptop the first week, and you wouldn't believe what it took to get anybody else to part with theirs even for official data after that, so I haven't checked the digiwiki in weeks. Anything exciting happen?"

 

Koushiro shuts his eyes and groans. "Oh, not this again," Tentomon buzzes.

 

"Was it something I said?" Jyou wonders. Koushiro has to open his eyes again, if only to find his sake glass.

 

"Apparently Daisuke and Ken are sleeping together." Jyou opens his mouth to say something, and Koushiro raises his glass to forestall any remarks. "Not dating, which I've gathered half the Chosen Children have been secretly rooting for over the past six or seven years, merely having vast quantities of, quote, "no-holds-barred, no-strings-attached sex", as Daisuke was so kind as to tell as all in excruciating detail. As you can imagine, the commentary has been explosive."

 

"Yeah, I bet." Jyou, at least, looks sympathetic. Jyou has a concept of propriety that, out of all the other Chosen Children, only Hida Iori seems to share.

 

"Oh wow, finally! I wonder who won the betting pool?" Unfortunately, Gomamon too seems to have no such sense. Jyou claps a hand around his digimon's snout and has the good grace look embarrassed.

 

"So, tell me about the research," Koushiro says, desperate for a change of subject. Jyou frowns.

 

"It's so hard to tell whether some of the other researchers have any concept of digimon as living, breathing, thinking creatures at all. You'd think they didn't have their own partners standing right there next to them. Some of the things I've had to stop them from doing in the name of science...I don't care if Gizamon are virus-types, it's just not right."

 

Koushiro winces, thinking of some of the things he's seen on his own side of the project, where it's even easier to forget that digital doesn't actually mean fake. "Bastards," he says. Jyou toasts him to it.

 

 

 

 

Daisuke's never actually had sex with someone he's known for more than a year before. None of his girlfriends have ever lasted that long.

 

Daisuke's never cheated on anybody, and he's never dumped anybody. He's not sure he'd even know how. That means some number of dozens of girls have come to him, usually with some explanation, sometimes not, to tell him that Motomiya Daisuke wasn't good enough to have in their life. It's different every time, but even Daisuke can spot a pattern. Unfortunately, half the girls say something about how he's too serious too fast, and the other half say he's not serious enough. It doesn't make sense.

 

Yumi somehow managed to say he was both, which was a new low ever for Daisuke. Yumi's the closest he's ever been to sleeping with someone he's known as long as Ken, even though that's kind of a ridiculous comparison. They dated for seven months. In Daisuke's opinion, that's a pretty damn long time.

 

Yumi was an art history major, a year below Daisuke in school. She had a nice laugh and pretty eyes, and she'd tap Daisuke on the nose when she was making fun of him so he'd know she didn't mean it much. Daisuke was so in love with her it felt like he'd never been in love with anybody before, three months from graduation with no real plans but to start working full time at Old Man Kuwabara's ramen stand, with Ken about to go off to law school, or police school, or Mars, or who knew what. So Daisuke did the only obvious thing, and asked her to marry him.

 

He asked on a day at the beach in the springtime, while V-mon and Wormmon tussled in the surf and Ken and Lunamon played Go twenty feet away. She laughed, first, like he was making a joke, and then looked at his face and her smile grew strained, but never fell.

 

"I'm going to go swim," she said, and ran towards the waves without another word. Daisuke stared as she went.

 

Then she wouldn't answer or return any of his calls, not later that night or the next day or the day after that or the day after that. Daisuke didn't see her again until after he'd finally decided they were broken up, after he'd cried himself out on Ken's shoulder for a whole day and a night, until he'd filled a box with all the stuff she'd left at their terrible, tiny little apartment and snuck out with it while Ken was in the bathroom. He brought it with him on the train out to her parents' house in the suburbs, where she still lived, and then he stood out on the lawn and threw rocks at her window until one of them accidentally smashed it and she had to come down and yell at him about it.

 

He shoved the box at her and started to yell at her right back, but he realized within a sentence or two that he had nothing to say. So instead Daisuke just stood there on a sunlit little patch of suburban lawn, at 8:00 on a Thursday morning, mussed and bleary from a night without sleep, holding a box of his ex-girlfriend's possessions and staring blankly ahead as she yelled.

 

"You never really cared about this relationship, so either stop playing around, or stop pretending like you aren't!" she shouted. "You don't want to marry me, you never wanted to marry me, and even if you did I could never have a husband who shows it like you! Go--just go home and marry Ken."

 

She'd grabbed the box from his arms and stormed off back to the house just before Daisuke heard the police sirens coming around the corner, and V-mon dragged him off so they wouldn't be arrested. Daisuke rode the train home staring at anything that crossed his path in blank silence. He hadn't had a clue what she'd been screaming about then; mostly, he'd just wanted to sleep.

 

Daisuke is kind of starting to figure out what she meant.

 

 

 

 

The sex, of course--the sex is unspeakable.

 

Ken knows sex. He's had more of it, with more different people, than a man with a lesser memory could remember. He knows the beats and the breaths and the patterns of it. He knows the thousand ways in which every new partner is different, and a thousand little tricks and moves, brushes of skin-on-skin and lips to mouth and fingers to clit and cock, to tease out how this one, in particular, is individual. He savors every new gasp he learns to make, catalogs exactly what it takes to finally move each partner past the point of breaking.

 

And yet Daisuke isn't following any of the rules, because Ken can't remember how or when things got flipped but his hands seem to be tied to his own headboard and he's having trouble thinking at all. Daisuke's tongue is doing terrible, wonderful things to the skin along Ken's hipbones and stomach, but it never lasts long enough because he keeps raising his head to meet Ken's eyes and grin. Daisuke, Ken thinks blindly to himself, never looked so much like a wolf. And then he's down and licking some more, down along the line of Ken's inner thigh, tiny laps just brushing across the skin over Ken's balls, everywhere but where it aches. Ken's played with ties and handcuffs and orgasm denial before, of course he has, but this is different. This is Daisuke turning the game back around on him.

 

Daisuke bites, hard but not enough to draw blood, just into the innermost crease where Ken's thigh meets his body, and a high-pitched whine that Ken didn't even know humans could make tears its way out of his lips. Daisuke raises his head again, damn him, and looks Ken over from top to trembling toe, taking in every inch of this shattering submission. He meets Ken's eyes and there's a spark of something serious there, for a moment, before he leans up to brush his lips over Ken's in the swiftest kiss. Then he drags his mouth back down Ken's body, from his collar bone along down across his nipple, and down past the sharply raised ridges of his hip bones, and down. Ken whimpers.

 

 

 

 

The sex, of course--the sex is unbelievable.

 

Daisuke never really thought about what it would be like with someone who knew him as well as Ken. He's had girlfriends who were pushy in bed, who'd shove him down flat on his back and ride him, or who'd get into all sorts of kinky things trying to get a reaction out of him, but not one of them could read him like Ken can. Ken just has to glance at his face, or hell, his shoulders, at how tight he's clutching the sheets or the carpet or the cushion of the couch, to be able to tell exactly how much Daisuke's holding back. Daisuke's figured out by now that he takes it as a personal challenge.

 

Which is fine, because Daisuke's totally been considering it his own personal challenge to make Ken lose his cool for something like fifteen years. He's wondered, once or twice, what Ken was like in bed, and now he knows--he's as totally self-contained and in control as ever. Luckily for him, Daisuke'd like to think he's pretty good at making Ken lose some of that control by now. He's not going to say it doesn't get hard to concentrate--heh, hard--when Ken starts in with those Sex Master Ichijouji moves of his, but Daisuke's a good friend. He will prevail.

 

And if sometimes prevailing means pinning Ken down on the couch with Daisuke's own heavier body weight, holding him down so he can't move to get any friction on the coarse weave of the cushions, and burying his teeth in the muscle on the side of Ken's neck while he thrusts so hard and deep and slow that Daisuke thinks he might just lose his mind if Ken doesn't lose his first....well, hey. Sacrifices must be made.

 

 

 

 

Given enough time, Daisuke has always been able to talk Ken into anything. Over the years it's been great, especially because Daisuke can't talk the other Chosen Children into anything any more without Ken to back him up. Daisuke admittedly maybe kinda abused his 'leader of the Chosen Children' privilege back in high school, trying to work out ways to handle half a dozen hyperactive digimon used to burning off energy beating up bad guys on a near-daily basis. There was only so much fun to be had evolving Chibimon to V-mon and taunting Jun about how her Chicchimon hadn't moved beyond the Baby II stage.

 

Technically, the government was still 'monitoring the safety of prolonged exposure to the Digital World'--which meant sitting in rooms lit only by huge walls of computers and running tests that ignored half of what they'd hired Koushiro to tell them. Technically, they were trying to 'engage in peace talks and negotiations with high-level Digital representatives,' which meant sending Taichi and Agumon out on wild goose chases to talk to all the Ultimate-level digimon they could find and try to drag them back to Tokyo. Taichi had tried for years, without success, to explain that even Ultimate-level digimon didn't actually rule the Digital World, and also, nobody ever dragged an Ultimate anywhere.

 

Technically, thanks to those government scientists putting up shields to keep normal people from opening up portals on purpose or by accident, it was supposed to be even more impossible to access the Digital World now than it had been during those years in between the original Chosen Children's adventures and when Daisuke and his friends were called. But hey, technically Daisuke's best friend had spent more time than anybody else on the planet hacking the code of the Digital World, which anyone could have thought of if they'd stopped to wonder about it for five minutes. So technically it looked like the government wasn't paying attention to the Chosen Children at all, and technically the government probably didn't want them playing Digiball in the park by the school anyway.

 

As far as Daisuke was concerned, that meant they couldn't complain when all six of the younger Chosen Children snuck back into the computer lab at Odaiba Elementary and Ken got them all past the barrier just about every other week. As technically as the government wanted.

 

Digiball was awesome. It was Daisuke's own invention, so the rules were a little fuzzy, but none of the digimon ever really seemed to mind. It was like soccer, only with three humans and three adult- or armor-stage digimon on each side, and not stepping on your partner was at least as important as figuring out where the ball went. Also some of the players could fly, and anyone on four legs could use their front feet but nobody was allowed to grab the ball in their mouths because that was gross, and the goals were thirty feet wide. That part was Ankylomon's fault. He wasn't fast, but he made a damn good goalie.

 

"Pass it here, Angemon!" cried Hikari. Daisuke raced to intercept them to the goal. Watching a seven-foot-tall angel play soccer stopped being funny the first six times he'd helped kick Daisuke's ass. Plus Holsmon was still on all fours because Shurimon kept accidentally slicing the ball in half with his feet, and Miyako was a worse soccer player than even Jun, so he and Ken were already at a disadvantage. Or, well, they would've been, if it weren't him and Ken.

 

Angemon passed. Hikari dribbled the ball expertly while Nefertimon flew close, ready to catch Hikari's pass in midair and bounce it back down into the goal. Daisuke saw a flash of brown out of the corner of his eye--Holsmon going in for the intercept, awesome--and a blur of green right next to them, Stingmon ready to take the ball and get it back down to the other side of the field if Daisuke could just get it away from Hikari...

 

Daisuke tripped over his shoelace and tumbled wildly right into her. The momentum knocked them both end over end, and Hikari grabbed out wildly for support, accidentally latching onto one of Stingmon's wings as he rushed in to catch them both, which made him jerk reflexively up into Nefertimon and Holsmon's low-diving path too quick to avoid. Daisuke winced and closed his eyes against most of the resulting pileup until all the startled shouts and thumps of people landing on his legs had stopped.

 

"Daisuke! Are you ok?" Daisuke bravely cracked an eye to look for XV-mon, who'd at least been safely out of the way in goal, and came face to face with a wall of brown feathers. Hikari's wide, worried eyes popped up over the top of Holsmon's back, appearing so suddenly that Daisuke couldn't help it. He sat up just as far as he could manage with a giant bird-thing on top of him, and started to laugh.

 

After a moment, he heard the first titters of answering laughter around him, timid at first and then growing, Hikari's tinkling giggle, Holsmon's low throaty chuckle, XV-mon's hearty belly laugh. Miyako and Takeru had to be gathering around, he recognized their voices, and Iori was either still running down the field as fast as short legs could carry him or didn't think it was funny, and then--there. There was Ken, that quiet sound of amusement that didn't ever quite come unrestrained, relaxing for once just enough to join in the merriment of the people around him. That was all he needed. Daisuke relaxed and let his head drop back down to the mud. Totally a perfect day.

 

 

 

Sex with Daisuke is weird right up until it's not, and perhaps the quickness with which it seems good and normal is the weirdest thing of all.

 

For such a huge thing, changing something that's such a big part of his life, Ken's life barely changes. He and Daisuke still head off to work, often at the same time in the evening, and Ken still taps phone lines and discretely follows suspicious characters and hacks into computer records and bank accounts while Daisuke...argues with his boss, or whatever it is that goes on at that ramen stand. Daisuke never calls when Ken's out too late at night, but he always comes by the office around 10:00 on the mornings after Ken hasn't been home at all, with a bag full of food and a stern look. At home they sit on the couch and play video games, and if Daisuke's taken to tackling Ken in victory and kissing him senseless, it's definitely better than being accidentally clobbered across the head by his flailing arms.

 

Ken has realized many times before just how much of his life is defined by Daisuke, and striven to maintain enough other friends, other interests, to keep himself from just fading away into the other man's shadow. That was his problem for too much of junior high into high school, moving through life as the silent gray shape to Motomiya Daisuke's right. Sex, if Ken had been given time to marshal his many apprehensions over the entire plan, must not be allowed to change that. Ken cannot help but fear finding himself tied ever closer to the side of one he'll never bring himself to leave anyway.

 

So it is with some surprise and some relief that Ken finds himself, at the end of a case, having lunch with a lovely and terribly grateful young architect he's just un-framed for murder. Ichirou can't stop grinning. It's a good look on him. Ken flashes on Daisuke once, for no particular reason, and then realizes that this meal and this meeting have nothing to do with him.

 

Ken has been moving amongst architects for the past week and has learned more than a few things about structural stability, but Ichirou talks about buildings in terms of grace and art, sketching sweeping curves and sharp lines across the tabletop with his fingertips, blinking up at Ken through a fringe of bangs as though asking him to understand. Ken is enraptured by all of it, the joy, the relief, the passion for his art, the tolerant affection in his Bokomon's expression. Just knowing that he caused some of this is enough.

 

Ken's stilled Ichirou's right hand on the table by covering it with his own, and is about to suggest that they meet for dinner, when his phone beeps out for a text. Ken fishes it out of his pocket and then has to bite his bottom lip to stifle a laugh.

 

"I need to go," he says apologetically. "My roommate's gotten a hand stuck in the garbage disposal again, and if somebody responsible doesn't show up I'm afraid XV-mon will rip the entire unit out of the wall."

 

"Oh no," Ichirou says, mirth dancing in his eyes. "By all means, save your sink. And thank you again, Ichijouji-san--Ken. I am forever in your debt."

 

"No need to mention it," Ken waves him off, and goes.

 

Ken can't even regret the missed opportunity for sex, because after he carefully frees Daisuke's hand with a screwdriver and a little bit of cooking oil, Daisuke decides he needs to show his gratitude right then and there, on the kitchen floor, cooking oil optional. Ken isn't sure what V-mon and Wormmon are muttering about darkly as they scamper towards his bedroom, but he's soon too distracted to worry about it.

 

 

 

 

 

Daisuke, Ken knows, has sex for any number of reasons--out of lust, out of boredom, simply for fun. Ken can understand, of course, but he can't exactly empathize. Sex has always been about the closeness of it more than the thrill, for Ken, even before Jirou's philosophies, ever since the first time.

 

Miyako could have gotten into any women's college in Tokyo with her grades, but Ken hadn't dared insult her by bringing up the idea. It was only as she gathered all of their friends to help her carry boxes full of books and hair scarves from Odaiba to Chofu that he started wishing perhaps he'd had a girlfriend with a little less brilliance and independence.

 

It was far enough for Miyako to have a tiny little dorm room and a bathroom she shared with three other girls, which was only a change from her bedroom at home in that nobody made her leave the door open when Ken came to visit. The first afternoon, they kissed, and kissed some more, longer and deeper and more clutchingly than ever before. Miyako's hands crept up inside Ken's shirt before he dared slide his hands under hers.

 

She got impatient and tugged, forcing his shirt up over his head, and only then pulled back to meet his eyes, looking peculiarly vulnerable. "Ken?" she asked softly, and he had to swallow before he nodded. Her hands had to guide his in unbuttoning her blouse, around to the clasp of her bra in back. The single window faced east, and the moving afternoon sun cast the whole room into shadow although the day outside was bright. She wore a skirt that day, although she'd rarely worn skirts in high school when not in uniform. She took it off by herself. He'd never seen her naked before.

 

The next bit is all flashes of skin and fumbling in Ken's memory, his fingers slipping on the button of his own pants. He never asked where she'd gotten the condom, only gave thanks that he didn't manage to rip it putting it on. He remembers, though, clearly as Osamu's voice, as the first grip of Daisuke's hand in friendship, as Wormmon's death, the look in her eyes as he held himself over her.

 

"It's okay, Ken," she said, and raised one hand to brush across his cheek. "You won't hurt me. I want this."

 

The rest was sloppy, hesitant, jerky, but also so unbelievably warm. Miyako was everywhere, clutching tight around him, the smell of her skin, the brush of her hair, and her eyes never once leaving his. Her hands grasped his upper arms, pulled him close. He could hear his own blood rushing in his ears.

 

After, when he rested his head on her chest and held her, and tried not to shake from the enormity of it all, he realized that the beat of her heart under his cheek was keeping the same time as his own. Of course. How could two hearts do any differently? He'd only ever felt this close to another person, this merged at the soul, once before.

 

"That was fun," Miyako said unexpectedly, breaking the silence and surprising Ken into a laugh.

 

"It was," he admitted, and tilted his head up to kiss her. He could stay like this forever, just so long as her heart kept beating next to his in time.