Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Never Let Me Down Again ❯ Chapter 4

NEVER LET ME DOWN AGAIN--Part 4

 

 

 

Motomiya Daisuke is a grand gestures kind of guy, not a words guy; and if the grand gestures never quite turn out the way he plans, well, he's just not very good at those, either.

 

A Motomiya is direct. A Motomiya makes no bones about what he or she wants; a Motomiya goes straight for it and doesn't back down until it's his. Or hers.

 

"And no brother of mine," Jun informed Daisuke tartly, "just sits around and mopes about it!"

 

She slammed the door of his bedroom as she walked out in a huff.

 

"Stupid sister," Daisuke muttered, and kicked at the door. "What does she know. Like that ever got you anywhere!" he yelled, although she probably had her iPod on and her own bedroom door closed by now. He sighed, and fell backwards onto his bed, and stubbornly refused to cry.

 

"Chasing around after some guy for this long like it's ever going to make a difference. Like you don't just look like a fool," he muttered at the ceiling. Chibimon sprang up onto his chest and peered thoughtfully down, blocking Daisuke's careful contemplation of the spiderweb in his corner.

 

"Do you mean you, or Jun?" Chibimon asked curiously.

 

"Tch," said Daisuke, and closed his eyes. "Does it matter? A Motomiya spends his whole life chasing after something he's never going to get, remember? It's a family trait."

 

"So why are you in here moping instead of out making Hikari change her mind?"

 

"Maybe I'm done taking after my sister," Daisuke said hotly, opening his eyes and raising his head to look Chibimon straight on. "Maybe I don't want to look like an idiot any more, hunh? And you never stopped me. Maybe after she told me to my face she wouldn't date me if I were the last man on Earth, I thought I should do what she wants!" Daisuke levered himself up a little more with every sentence until Chibimon tumbled backwards down Daisuke's chest. Then he let himself thump back down onto the bed.

 

"This must be what giving up feels like," he said to his ceiling. "I've never done it before."

 

"Then maybe you shouldn't--"

 

"I should, Chibimon," Daisuke cut him off. He couldn't see, but felt Chibimon right himself and slip off Daisuke's left side. A moment later, the little digimon tucked himself into the crook of Daisuke's left arm.

 

"What does it feel like, then?" Chibimon asked hesitantly. "Giving up?"

 

"Empty," Daisuke said. "Like I've lost all hope. Like I don't have the strength to fight any more because I know, no matter how long or how hard I try, I'll never get what I want, because there's not even a chance." He closed his eyes. The insides of his eyelids weren't much more interesting than his ceiling, but at least he didn't have to watch his vision blurring with tears.

 

"Some things are worth fighting for even if you don't think you can win," Chibimon pointed out. Daisuke nodded.

 

"And sometimes, fighting just makes it worse," he said. "Sometimes you just have to give in."

 

 

 

 

The problem with giving up, of course, is that like anything else, it tends to become a habit.

 

"Are you sure we shouldn't just go pack and move to another country before he gets home?" Daisuke asks V-mon. The digimon gives him a withering look. Great. Even V-mon knows he's pathetic. Daisuke's suddenly kind of glad he left Takeru and Taichi behind after they shoved him on a train to Minami. He doesn't need more of an audience for this.

 

This is supposed to be the part where he comes to terms with being a total failure and tries to get to a point where he remembers why life is worth living without Ken. This isn't the part where he works his hopes up all over again over somebody who's already told him not if he were the last guy on Earth. Daisuke's used to giving up on girlfriends and getting over lovers. He doesn't know if he could ever get over Ken, but he doesn't know if he can handle throwing himself at Ken if Ken doesn't love him, either.

 

That's the thing, though, the reason he's even toeing at a rock at the bottom of the path up to Miyako's house and not already on a plane to China. Taichi's right. If he means as much to Ken as Ken means to him, then Ken has to love him back. That means there's a chance, maybe even a better-than-good chance. Daisuke might be used to having to resign himself to losing people he'll never get back but he's still a Motomiya, and no Motomiya would ever just sit there in the face of a better-than-good chance. Not for Ken. Ken's worth fighting for with no chance at all, if Daisuke didn't love him too much to make him suffer through that.

 

Of course, the thing Daisuke doesn't get, the thing that makes him want to run and hide in a hole or something, is the part where that means, if Ken really doesn't love him back, then maybe they were never really friends in the first place. How could they be, if Daisuke always thought he was as big and important and essential a part of Ken's life as Ken is of his, and if that was always just a lie? Liking someone enough to put up with them isn't the same thing as loving them so much Daisuke thinks he might burst.

 

"We're here," says V-mon, and when Daisuke doesn't do anything, reaches up to ring the bell himself.

 

So either Ken's been lying to him their whole life, or he's lying now, about their whole life. Daisuke doesn't know why Ken would do something like that, to him, not if Ken really cares as much as he says he doesn't, but he's sure as hell going to find out. Either Ken's been lying to him for thirteen years, or he just broke Daisuke's heart for no good reason. Either way, Daisuke's going to kick his ass.

 

Daisuke might not be great with words, but he's had a lot of practice at kicking Ken's ass.

 

"--sit right back down at that computer, Noboru, I've got it!" he hears, before the door is abruptly pulled open. Miyako glares at him, Daisuke's only a little bit scared of Miyako, though, so he glares right back.

 

"He's in the server room," she says finally, stepping aside to let Daisuke and V-mon into the house. "Close the door if you're going to argue in there, the boys are here working. He went in there to go to bed yesterday afternoon and he's mostly been staring at the ceiling ever since."

 

"Yeah, he does that when he's really upset with himself," Daisuke says, brushing past to toe off his shoes and continuing right by towards the rest of the house. "On the left, right?"

 

He totally ignores the two bespectacled computer geeks in the big room full of desks and beelines for the smaller server room just off it. It's freezing; the window is covered over with blackout curtains and only used for the single air conditioner unit. He shuts the door behind him.

 

Ken is lying, fully dressed, on top of the blanktes of a futon rolled out on the floor, against the opposite wall from all the big server machines. He doesn't move when Daisuke comes in.

 

"Get up, Ichijouji," Daisuke says, taking the two steps over and bending down to shake Ken's shoulder roughly. "I've got to talk to you."

 

 

 

Ken knew this was coming. He'd hoped, selfishly, to be spared any of Daisuke's grandest gestures, but he'd never expected, never really wanted, to go without seeing Daisuke again for too long.

 

He just wishes it weren't this soon. This soon, Daisuke hasn't given up and sought him out for an apology. Daisuke's here for another round of an argument Ken isn't sure he has in him. This is an argument that too much of Ken wants desperately not to win, and he knows for certain that that's why he needs to.

 

"Daisuke," he says, sitting up on the floor. Best to stop this before it starts, then. "Motomiya. You don't understand, do you?"

 

"Understand what? Why you lied to me about being in love with me?" Daisuke looms over Ken, all determined aggression written from the set of his feet to the expression on his face. Ken can read him much too dangerously well.

 

"Do you actually know me?" Ken answers a question with a question, pushes Daisuke aside slightly so he has enough room to stand, to walk away towards a wall just to get some space. "You've been my friend for a very long time, Daisuke, but do you really know me at all?"

 

"I don't know," Daisuke says, and that's unexpected enough to make Ken turn to look at him. His fists are clenched, his teeth are gritted. Daisuke determined, Ken could be ready for. Daisuke in pain and self-doubt is...hard. "Do I? Are you the Ichijouji Ken I know? Because the Ichijouji Ken I've known for thirteen years remembers what it was like when we fought evil with the same heartbeat." Ken flashes on Miyako's words about Jogress, and snorts.

 

"I could take over the Digital World in about three months," is what Ken says. Wormmon jolts upright on the futon. Daisuke just looks confused.

 

"It would be easy. I'm old enough to learn from my mistakes. All I'd have to do is seal off all the gates between the Digital World and the Real World, and after all that time in high school nobody knows more about international gate codes than me." Ken closes his eyes. It's easier, when he can see the lines of code and battle maps instead of the puzzled betrayal on Daisuke's face.

 

"No Dark Towers," he starts. "It's easier when the whole populace doesn't have to be made unwilling slaves. I just need some strong first followers and some propaganda, and a few Dark Spirals for the worst of the rebels." He still has the code, backed up in a few different places, among the many external hard drives and defunct desktops still in storage at his parents' apartment. "Most of the digimon will follow me already. I'm one of the Chosen Children. If I come to the Digital world and tell them I'm saving them from the rest of the humans, they'll believe me. When the blueprints get out for the factories they want to build on Digital World soil, the oil refineries, the Digital World fisheries, they'll believe me." Most of those wouldn't even need to be made up. Ken's seen the contents of Taichi's briefcase. "Like any dictator, I impose my will. Soon enough they see that I'm not needlessly cruel. If they fall in line, they can live as they want, and if they rebel too hard, they come back brainwashed or not at all. "

 

"What the hell, Ken? Why would you even want to do something like that?"

 

"Power? Revenge? It doesn't stop there. Within a few months, somebody--Koushiro, I'd bet, if he and Miyako can stand to work together for more than five minutes at a time--breaks through my seals on the digital gate. They come with armies to depose me, and when my digimon see humans invading their world with weapons and force to attack their beloved dictator, it only reinforces everything I've said. I don't need to put dark rings on them to make them fight for me, they'll do it of their own free will."

 

The dark chuckle is almost necessary here; at any rate, Ken doesn't stop it slipping out. He opens his eyes. Wormmon is shaking, poor thing. V-mon is about to attack him right in the middle of Miyako's server room. And Daisuke looks freaked.

 

"Once I own the Digital World, I might as well invade the real world myself. After all, most military computers still crash when exposed to Digital World attacks. A squadron of jet fighters against a fleet of Airdramon? They wouldn't stand a chance."

 

"We'd stop you," Daisuke stammers. "We'd find a way. But Ken, I don't understand. Why?"

 

Ken sighs and tips his head back against the wall. He feels old, suddenly, like he's been old since the second grade, in ways even Daisuke can never fully understand. "I don't want to," he says. "But I can. You need to know I can. You must know it would be that easy for me."

 

"Wait, is that what this is about?" Daisuke asks. He takes a step towards Ken, then another. "You think I don't know what you're capable of? Ken, I've pulled you back from that edge before, remember? I'm not afraid of you. Having me there can only make it easier to resist, right?"

 

"No, Daisuke." Ken shakes his head. Poor, beautiful Daisuke, always thinking he can beat anything. "Having you could make it so much worse."

 

 

 

"Ken, this isn't you," Daisuke said. Ken's bedroom was too dark, and Ken still wasn't looking at him. Wormmon, he realized suddenly, was nowhere to be seen. "This is the Dark Seed talking."

 

"The Dark Seed is a part of me. It has been as long as you've known me."

 

"Maybe so, but it doesn't usually make you try to blow up digimon!" Daisuke's fists clenched. Like hell was he letting Ken get away with any of this. "Stand up, Ken."

 

"I'm sorry?" When Ken said those words, Daisuke knew, it meant he was actually sorry he hadn't understood you the first time, like it was his fault you couldn't speak understandable Japanese. When the Kaiser said them, he meant you'd better not have said what you both knew full well you'd just said. Daisuke knew the difference. It just wasn't going to stop him.

 

"I said, stand up!"

 

"Daisuke, can't you see that I'm busy here." The light glinted off the computer screen in the dark like the light off the Kaiser's visor.

 

"Yeah, but I can't punch you while you're sitting at that stupid computer!" Enough was enough. Daisuke grabbed Ken's collar and hauled him to his feet. Dark Seed or not, Ken was still a scrawny kid who hadn't eaten in three days. Daisuke felt some satisfaction in the startlement on Ken's face as he suddenly found himself standing; at least he could still feel some emotion.

 

"You're so upset about Miyako that you're letting that thing win," Daisuke declared hotly, inches from Ken's face. "And it's not like I don't get it, ok, you're not the only guy whose heart's ever been broken, but she's not the whole world, and she's not the only person who ever cared about you, and in fact, as one of the people who do care about you, I am not going to let you do this just because it hurts!"

 

"Let go of me," Ken gritted out. He didn't actually try to break free, though, which meant there was still Ken in there yet. The old Kaiser would've had Daisuke down on the ground begging for mercy in about five seconds. An opening was an opening, so Daisuke shook him by the collar a couple of times for good measure.

 

"Stop being a jerk," he demanded. "Think about your parents. Think about Wormmon. Think about me."

 

"What about you, Daisuke?" Ken snapped. Hands like steel vises closed around Daisuke's wrists, fingers hitting pressure points until Daisuke had to loose his grip on Ken's collar with a little gasp of pain.

 

"Ken, you have this crazy medical condition where a big chunk of evil can take you over and try to conquer the world whenever you're depressed enough to let it. I just want you to look me in the eye and tell me you can't remember a single good thing worth fighting for." Ken hadn't stepped away; he was still standing, almost nose to nose with Daisuke, meeting his eyes without a blink. It wasn't a Ken expression, but the Kaiser wouldn't have listened at all, so Ken couldn't be too far away. Daisuke hoped.

 

"Even if you don't have a girlfriend, you have friends, Ken. The others all care about you, they don't want to see you do this to yourself. I love you. Wormmon loves you. Have you thought about what it would do to him if you went evil again, hunh?" A flinch; of course Wormmon would be the key. Daisuke let his voice soften a little with it. "Remember what it was like when you got him back last time? Do you remember how much it hurt him last time, what you did? Do you think he deserves that again?"

 

"It wouldn't be like that," Ken objected, turning his head away so is hair hid his face. "I've learned better, he'd be an equal now."

 

"You know better, Ken. If you start conquering worlds and murdering digimon like that, if you decide you're that much better than everybody else, that means Wormmon, too. That means you think you're better than all your friends. You're spitting in the face of everything we felt when Paildramon jogressed, everything me and the others ever did to save your life, everything Wormmon ever went through for you, because you're saying you're better than us." Ken's shoulders shook a little, a shudder or a sigh, Daisuke couldn't tell. "Do you really think that, Ken? Do you think you're better than us?"

 

"I..." Ken stammered, and didn't shake off Daisuke's arm when he dared to wrap it around his back. "I..."

 

"Do you think you're better than Wormmon dying for you?" Daisuke asked. "Because I don't think you do. I think you love Wormmon, and your parents, and the rest of your friends way too much to put any of them through that again. I think you're stronger than that."

 

Ken as much fell into Daisuke as limply let Daisuke wrap another arm around him and pull him close; with his head resting heavy on Daisuke's shoulder, that next shuddering breath definitely had the edge of a sob.

 

"It just hurts," Ken whispered, and Daisuke nodded; even if Ken couldn't see him, their heads were close enough for him to feel the movement.

 

"Yeah, heartbreak does," Daisuke agreed. "I've been there. But it's not the end of the world, I promise."

 

They stood like that for a moment, swaying a little, Ken's head still resting on Daisuke's shoulder while he pretended not to cry and Daisuke pretended not to notice. Finally, he raised his head a little and wiped at his eyes, pulling back enough that Daisuke dropped his arms and let him go.

 

"I'm suddenly exhausted," Ken said, looking drawn and pale and above all, inarguably not the Kaiser again. "I should go to bed."

 

"No way," said Daisuke firmly. "You've been sleeping for three days. You're going to get Wormmon, and we're going to go right to the Digital World, so you and me can teach all the Baby I's in Primary Village how to play Digiball until you remember there's good things in the world again. Understand?"

 

"If you say so," agreed Ken, with the tiniest hint of a smile just raising the corners of his lips. "Thanks, Daisuke."

 

"Any time," Daisuke promised. "Don't ever make me kick your ass again, but if you need me to, I will. Any time."

 

 

 

"I don't get it," Daisuke says flatly. "You're saying being around me makes you want to turn evil?"

 

V-mon keeps his eyes wide and on the action as he sneaks around behind Daisuke, as quiet and low to the ground as he can make himself. It doesn't seem to matter too much--Daisuke only has eyes for Ken and Ken doesn't seem to be looking at much--but V-mon's not going to be the one to distract either of them.

 

Wormmon gives him a grateful look as soon as V-mon crouches down next to him, but then he's back to staring at Ken and quivering. V-mon can't blame him. Jogress is Jogress, but partners are forever, and he hasn't been this worried about Daisuke getting something wrong in years.

 

"You're saying that all this time we've been friends you've somehow been holding back, but if we date or whatever, it'll be too much for you?" Daisuke accuses.

 

"It would be when you left," Ken says, calmly. "You're close enough to save me now, but if you come much closer there won't be enough to hold me back when you go." Wormmon's antennae droop, and V-mon nudges him consolingly even though he's pretty sure Ken's right. If Daisuke ever decided to take over the world and V-mon couldn't talk him out of it, he'd have to follow him, too, and Wormmon's about the loyalest digimon V-mon knows. You can't stop your partner from doing something you'll help them with, even if you know it's not right. That's just the way it works.

 

"Who says I'm going anywhere?" Daisuke asks, and takes another step forward, narrowly avoiding stubbing his toe on some computer part one of Miyako's stupid computer nerds left on the ground. Ken jerks back and only succeeds in jamming his elbow into the wall. "Seriously, Ken, you're not making any sense. You're not evil. I know you're not."

 

"But you're not really sure if you ever knew me at all, are you?" Ken asks. "So you said."

 

"Why are humans so stupid?" V-mon can't keep himself from whispering in exasperation. "Why can't they just kiss so we can go home for dinner?"

 

Wormmon shoots him one of his more worried looks, like he's about to beg for help stopping Ken from doing really stupid again. "Ken's afraid," he says, which is sort of obvious and also really dumb on Ken's part.

 

"What's he afraid for?" V-mon whispers. "Daisuke likes him way more than any of the other girls."

 

Any response is cut off, though, because Daisuke's voice has been rising, and now he's almost yelling.

"Maybe I'm just not good enough for the great Ichijouji! Maybe you've been faking it since we were eleven, what do I know? What, you can have sex with me, but you can't date me? You can yell at me to pick up my laundry, but you can't date me? You can be friends with all of my friends, invite me over for dinner at your parents' house, live in the same apartment as me, ask me for help when you want backup on your cases, and drink the last of the milk, but you can't date me?"

 

V-mon slaps a paw to his forehead as quietly as he can. So ok, Wormmon's not the only one with a partner who's kind of dumb.

 

Ken is glaring back at Daisuke so fiercely that for a split second, it almost gives V-mon the shivers remembering the Kaiser again. Ken pats him on the head and sneaks him extra cookies when Daisuke is off on dates, not to mention he's Daisuke's best friend, but he's scary, sometimes.

 

"What do you expect me to do without you?" Ken asks, not so loudly but with at least as much force. "You already own my life! How do you expect me to survive if I give you even more, when it gets taken away?"

 

Daisuke is an idiot. "Why does he think Daisuke's going away?" V-mon whispers.

 

"Ken thinks everyone important goes away," Wormmon explains. "Even me..." He sinks even farther down into the futon, only his antennae sticking up to wave back and forth.

 

"Wait, you think it's your fault?" V-mon glances over at the humans, but they're just arguing, still. "You came back, right? He should really know by now that some people just aren't going to go away, no matter what."

 

"I tried to tell him..." V-mon rests a companionable arm around Wormmon's back.

 

"They're not great at listening, are they?" he asks.

 

"I can't let you promise to stay with me like that, knowing you may someday change your mind," Ken says. "Even if it's only that you've grown beyond romantic interest, or that in a few months or years we don't fit together in such a way any more. You know me too well. You'd always know everything I've just told you, that if you left me, it would trigger the Dark Seed, and without you to stop me I could enslave the entire Digital World. I would be holding whole worlds hostage for the price of you staying with me, whether you continued to love me or not." Ken shrugs. "No relationship could withstand that sort of blackmail, whether it's intentional on my part or not. I could never do that to you."

 

"No," Wormmon says miserably. "But I hope he starts."

 

 

 

Daisuke has at least gotten two things figured out. One, he was wrong before, totally, completely wrong. This is Ken at his most frustrating, maybe, Ken thinking way too hard about his time as the Kaiser and a certain few incidences of grievous bodily harm over the years, willing to throw his whole life away because he's got an obsessive fear of commitment and abandonment and some inexplicable conviction that it's for somebody's best, but it's definitely Ken. He's exactly the same guy he's ever been, and he stopped talking to Miyako yesterday but he's standing here arguing with Daisuke now. He totally loves Daisuke back. He's just scared and, oh yeah, being an asshole about it.

 

The second thing is that he's not sure what he's going to do when his gradual, one-step-at-a-time progress across the room gets him within arm's length of Ken, but it's either going to involve a punch to the face or kissing Ken senseless. Fear is fear, and Daisuke can respect that, will hold Ken's hand and help him through it for the next eighty years if he gets a chance, but right now Ken is trying to do this all on his own. He really, really ought to know better by now.

 

"That'd be a really good argument, Ken, except I'm not afraid of you. I don't think you will try to take over the Digital World. I think you've got plenty of friends other than me, and I think if you ever really tried, Wormmon would find a way to stop you even if neither of you think he could." Wormmon and Ken are so alike. Neither of them ever really believes they're capable of half of what they can really do. "Also, I don't have to be afraid of you not to break up with you. It's been thirteen years, and I'm not going anywhere."

 

"It's not the same thing." Ken's got so much presence, even now. He's in a glorified home office, standing in a corner between the big metal box of an oversized air conditioner and a filing cabinet with two drawers missing. Daisuke almost feels like he's approaching a trapped animal, but instead of cowering Ken's pulled up to his full stature, dry-eyed, as implacable as a mountain. Daisuke has never met anyone who can loom dramatically in shadows like Ken.

 

"I've seen you almost every day for more than half my life! All I want to do is stop seeing other people, tell our friends we're dating, and agree on sushi Fridays every week for the rest of our lives. How is that different?" Daisuke asks. "If dating me is too dangerous, then why is it so okay that we've been us so long?"

 

"You've always had the hope of marrying one of the girls you've dated, going off to your own life eventually," says Ken. "You're not thinking about what it means to promise to give that away. You'll want that freedom back--"

 

"Did you seriously just say that I won't want to leave you until I promise not to leave you?" Daisuke interrupts. "What, so you were just counting on me breaking up with every girl I ever date until we're both seventy-year-old bachelors without all of our own teeth and I can't even get one to go out with me? Your logic sucks, Ken."

 

"It's easier to be resigned to the day you belong to someone else when you haven't begun swearing to be mine, Daisuke," Ken snaps, fierce. "You've always been going to leave eventually. Someday some girl with a little more patience and less stupidity than all the rest will actually see what she's got."

 

"Hah! I knew you thought I was worth dating." Daisuke grins. "And catch up, that girl is supposed to be you, okay? Only not a girl, but I don't really care, because I've spent ten years trying to figure out if I could move you into the spare bedroom whenever I got married, or I'd have to sneak out and spend all my time in your office just to see you and make sure you remembered to sleep. I don't need some girl to share a shitty apartment with and argue about the milk and the dishes and go to bed next to for the next eighty years. I want that to be you."

 

"You can't promise that, Daisuke," Ken says in exasperation, and Daisuke takes another step forward. Two more, and he'll be in punching and kissing distance.

 

"I just did, Ken." Step.

 

 

 

In retrospect, Ken really did not think this through.

 

Item one, agreeing to add sex to their relationship in the first place. Convincing himself that a few shared orgasms between friends who already helped file each other's taxes wouldn't change anything, that was immensely ill-advised. Miyako was right, of course; Daisuke's an incurable romantic and Ken is too easily caught. There hasn't been anybody else in a month, because of course, when Daisuke doesn't have a girlfriend to distract him, so much more of Ken's time belongs to him. Ken's been...satisfied, for lack of a better word. He got himself into a situation where he could go lax, rely on Daisuke to provide far more than the majority of his meaningful human contact, and let go of some of his stranglehold on outside social interaction. Now Ken is long past any line he might once have drawn for not letting Daisuke take over too much of his life, and Daisuke is, as any fool could have predicted, in love.

 

"You can't promise that you won't change, that your emotions won't change," Ken argues. "You can't promise to stay with me forever in one breath and not to stay purely out of obligation in the next. They're mutual contradictions."

 

Item two, failing to plan for the eventual dissolution of their sexual relationship sufficiently. Well, entirely. Ken had panicked, he could admit that to himself now, panicked and sent Daisuke off in the throes of rejection. If Ken had been thinking instead of simply reacting to the realization that his whole world was about to come tumbling down, he might have been able to salvage something. A calm, easy conversation, perhaps with a hug at the end, might have saved their friendship.

 

Instead, Daisuke took enough time stewing somewhere to decide to chase Ken down, blazing with righteous anger and a dozen other emotions that Ken can barely begin to read. There may even be real romantic love in there, beyond whatever confused mix of friendship and codependence brought this on in the first place, for whatever good it does, but if Daisuke were really heartbroken at the thought of losing Ken he'd be a full day into a pit of depression and moping by now. This is a battle to him now, Ken knows this side of him well enough, and he's determined to have Ken his way or die trying. Ken is terribly, increasingly certain that after today he's the one doomed to end up dead inside.

 

"That's called life, Ken! Do you think your parents knew for sure when they got married they'd be in love this long?" Daisuke asks. "D'you think somebody gave Hikari and Takeru magic powers to know they're always going to want each other like they do now? They just know they're better together than they are apart. Just like us."

 

Daisuke takes one more step, and his hand darts out without warning; Ken is at the wary ready to dodge a hold or a kiss, but Daisuke just grabs Ken's left hand in his right and holds it there, hanging between them.

 

"We've always been better together than we are apart," Daisuke says.

 

"The more I have with you," Ken struggles to explain, slowly, evenly, not thinking too hard about the weight of Daisuke's hand in his like it belongs there, now and for thirteen years and forever to come, "the less I am without you."

 

"You don't need to be without me, Ken," Daisuke says, and pulls their joined hands up. He presses Ken's hand against his own chest, right over the rib cage. "It's the same time as yours, and you know that. It belongs to you, just don't try to break it again. You're stronger than you know, and I'll keep telling you so, but the important part is that we make each other strong even when we're not there to say so, okay?"

 

Daisuke's heartbeat is sure and strong under the press of his hand, and yes, Ken is sure, probably beating at exactly the same rate as his own. He focuses on the one part of that statement he can actually respond to.

 

"If I'd really broken your heart, you'd be moping on a couch right now."

 

"Nah," says Daisuke. "That's only for people I don't already know love me back."

 

"What if I don't--"

 

"Yeah, you do."

 

"You can't know--"

 

"Yes I do."

 

"Daisuke, I can't--"

 

"Yes, you can. How many times do I have to tell you, you don't have to do things alone?" Daisuke asks. He reaches up to put his other hand on Ken's right shoulder, draws himself just slightly closer, so they're only a handspan's width apart but not actually touching. Ken's palm is still flat on Daisuke's chest.

 

"Think of it this way," Daisuke says. "Either you can run away and lose me now, or you can stick around and face the risk of maybe losing me later. Maybe it'll hurt more that way, but probably there's not much worse it could get, and maybe you won't lose me at all."

 

It's the worst ultimatum Ken's ever heard, but it's also got a point.

 

 

 

 

Given enough time, Motomiya Daisuke can talk Ichijouji Ken into anything.

 

Miyako's known this since she was fourteen, when Daisuke first talked Ken into contravening international law to get them into the Digital World just to have a picnic. She doesn't have a whole lot of doubt as to how the conversation taking place in her server room is going to come out. Particularly since the walls are thin enough that, once she planted herself firmly at the high-speed analysis computer nearest the door, she could hear three-quarters of it.

 

"There is nothing in that server room you need right now, Yamashi Noboru, so you can sit right back down and play minesweeper until I say so."

 

"But..." Noboru sounds startled, probably because he's been working on the computer directly behind her all morning. Miyako wears glasses to work for any number of reasons, but she wears glasses bigger than her head because she figured out in the eighth grade how to use reflections on the lens to tell what's going on behind her.

 

"But nothing, now lower your voice and don't you dare interrupt them!" Miyako keeps her own voice at a low hiss. Nothing is going to disturb those two until she says so.

 

Given time, Daisuke could talk Ken into building him a rocket to go to the moon, but Miyako's only going to give them about another two hours in her server room. They may not have much backbone between them, but Ren and Noboru do own half the company, and there is work that actually has to be done. Just because normal people take Sunday off doesn't mean computer programmers don't know how to make the best of it.

 

"Daisuke, I really--" Ken says, muffled but clearly audible through the door.

 

"I made tea!" Noboru's Kamemon says brightly from the doorway to the kitchen.

 

"Shhhh!" say Miyako, Hawkmon, Neamon and Ren, all at once.

 

"Wait, are you eavesdropping on my friends' relationship problems?" Miyako whirls to ask Ren.

 

"Your friends' relationship problems are in our server room!"

 

"Still, you could show some manners and not--"

 

The door to the server room slides open, cutting off Miyako's tirade before it gets up above a loud whisper. Daisuke stands there, looking sheepish enough that Miyako wonders how much the boys in the server room have overheard of the boys outside of it.

 

He's not holding Ken's hand or anything, but Miyako totally knows the glint of victory in his eyes by now, and she bites her tongue to keep from squealing about it. She's not a fourteen-year-old girl. She's just a little like one, sometimes.

 

Ken steps out of the server room and considerately slides the door shut behind him, to keep the climate control in. He's cradling Wormmon like something precious, or like somebody's convinced him he's been an ass for two days and had better make up for it.

 

"Thank you for letting me use your spare room, Miyako. I really appreciate it." Ken gives her a small, polite bow, and Miyako nods in return. She cedes the analysis computer to Ren, who pounces as soon as she stands up, and shows the boys out.

 

"Any time, Ken. You guys want to stay for lunch?" She doesn't know what they have in the house that isn't leftover takeout or instant ramen, but...

 

Daisuke and Ken share a wordless glance, then both shake their heads. "Nah, we're going home," says Daisuke. "But come by the noodle stand while you're in town sometime, I'll make you something good, okay?"

 

"Okay!" Miyako waves cheerfully as the boys head down the path towards the street, V-mon trotting happily beside them. Finally. A perfect ending.

 

"Now can we finally get some work done?" Noboru whines when she heads back into the main computing room.

 

"I'm not stopping you," Miyako says, and logs on to her own usual terminal. She has some backlogged work of her own, after spending a day and a half taking care of Ken, but it can wait another ten minutes. She has a wiki to update.