Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Untitled Daishirou ❯ In which there is a reunion ( Chapter 2 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

. Part 2

by Pilot02
[It Must Be The Goggles]
http://mbg.100megsfree4.com/


Finally, after several hours of walking, we made it back to the small clearing that the house was in. The forest seemed to conspire against us, and the sun had long since set when we practically crawled into the clearing. I could hear the ghosts talking amongst themselves as we approached, and even more so once they found that Daisuke was a boy. The ghosts held the same views on arrival times as my mother.

Daisuke only grinned; he's the only one I know of that can just grin and take it while being interrogated by the resident ghosts. I glared at them until they retreated, leaving us in peace to face my mother and my teasing relatives.

"So, Kou-chan. What am I to say if someone in the house asks me about our activities in the forest? And what about rooming arrangements? Am I to sleep in your room, or is there a spare one that I should take?" I wanted to wipe the innocent yet mischievous smirk off his face as I realized that my cousin had been standing at the window, listening to the conversation.

"Aunt Izumi! Koushirou's brought his boyfriend home!" I swore; everyone was against me then. You could practically hear a pin drop in the house as I walked in, followed closely by Daisuke--that's how well everyone handled it.

That is, everyone except for myself.

I had a horribly strong urge to burn something--being a fire witch tends to bring out some pyromanic tendencies. Instead, I settled for glaring at everyone in between the door and my room.

Predictably, although nothing like this had happened before, my mother gave me the 'we'll talk about this later' look and shuffled us off to my room, mumbling about extra blankets and pillows.

I took the blankets she gave us, fully intending to make Daisuke sleep on the floor, but I turned around to see that he was sleeping on my bed, carefully keeping to one side, his monigid curled up on the foot of the bed.

He looked so innocent, so fragile at that moment that all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around him and never let go--but I shook myself out of whatever feeling had caught me and sighed. After a moment's hesitation I sat down on the opposite side of the bed, then slowly lowered myself into a better position to sleep. Daisuke didn't stir through this, but his monigid did. He blinked sleepily and then gave me the strangest look I had been given in my strangely chaotic life--it was almost as if he was asking me what took so long with his expression.

I forced all the thoughts out of my mind except those focused on getting to sleep, and eventually did just that.

* * *

I woke the next morning surrounded by warmth and filled with a deep sense of security--like it didn't matter at all that I was lying in the arms of someone who I had just met the day before. For an indeterminate amount of time, I just lie there; awake but not willing to make the moment end so soon. My mother, unfortunately, was not aware of the emotional turmoil I was in--/It feels so right! How can this be wrong?/--so she set about making breakfast as usual, and then came to wake me up.

As the door widened, so did her eyes as they took in the scene before her. She blushed profusely as I glared at her, then she quickly ran back to the kitchen, where problems like this didn't reside.

Daisuke woke a while later--I was still in the same position and was unable to see the clock--to the timid knocking on the door that was undoubtedly my mother.

She learns quickly.

Daisuke sighed and tapped me on the shoulder after pulling his arms back from their positions around me. The loss I felt at the absence of his touch was inexplicable and all consuming. I barely was able to focus on his words as he spoke, only managing to mumble a reply that sounded similar to 'yes?' and turn to face him.

"I think that's your mom, Kou-chan. We'd better get up now, don't you think?"

I answered in a reluctant nod. "You can go down, I need to change my clothes. Just... be careful what you say to the family, alright?"

Daisuke grinned, nodded, leaned close and kissed me, and then left.

He kissed me!

I knew it was too soon to know if he were the one for me, but as I was thinking about the occurrences of the last day or so, the words of a long-lost family member came back into my memory. 'Nothing happens accidentally in the forest. There are no coincidences--keep this in mind.'

A grin developed on my face as I got dressed, and remained stubbornly in place throughout breakfast and the interrogation that came with it.

The second we--meaning Daisuke and I--were done eating, I grabbed his hand and dragged him outside, where I turned to face him. Thoughts were racing through my head in drastic contrast to the ones of earlier, as is not unusual for a fire witch--especially a half. What if he was just playing with my emotions? What if he wasn't sincere, and just wanted to use me for some ulterior motive? A hidden agenda?

My eyes closed involuntarily, and then assumed the glare position. "You... what are you playing at here? You think that you can just waltz into my life and shake it all up like this, and I'm supposed to accept that with no explanation? I can't! You'd better start talking." I said in a burst of irrational anger. My grin was gone, and his practically melted off his face as he took a step back.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I never meant to come and make your life miserable; it's not my fault my parents kicked me out. It's not my fault the forest led you to me! Nothing accidental happens here, you should know that by now. Doesn't that mean anything to you? There's always a reason, that's why I went with you." He'd gone an unbelievable shade of pale and the pain in his eyes was evident.

"I... you... I'm sorry, Dai. I didn't mean to be like that, really... I'm so sorry."

"It's all right--I know about the temper that goes with being what you are... I'd better go though. Need to find a place to stay, after all." With those parting words and one last grin, he walked away, V-mon in tow.

He just walked away. From the clearing, from the house, the extended family.

From me.

That's what hurt the most--and it was my fault.

The sadness fell over me and it was like I had been plunged unprepared into a lake in the middle of winter--my chest tightened up, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't talk. A single tear escaped my tightly closed eyes and where it landed a small blue flower sprouted, borne of tears.

* * *

All day I moped around the clearing, not stepping foot into the house, yet never wandering too far from the flower. It was almost as if it had some kind of pull on me--and knowing the forest, it very well may have.

My mother came out on one occasion to see if everything was alright, but she ran back inside before I could tell her exactly to what extent that everything /wasn't/ right. I glanced at the sun later on and determined the time to be around 1:30, and I was a little hungry.

Still, I remained outside.

It was almost as if I subconsciously believed I could bring him back by being stubborn and refusing to put what little time I had spent with him behind me. Consciously, I knew it wouldn't work, but I was too depressed to do anything else.

After finding out that my appetite was shot, I headed to the graveyard. I had to get my thoughts out of my head, and I figured that this was the best way to go about doing it.

One particularly friendly ghost, Mimi, came rushing over to me as soon as I stepped into the small clearing.

"Koushirou, what's wrong? You look like someone just died!" She exclaimed, drawing the attention of several other ghosts. I didn't really want to say what I did next, but it slipped out before I could stop it.

"Not someone, Mimi. Something. It's my heart. I think it's broken."

Mimi, at that point, burst into tears, and the rest of the ghosts hurried to her side while encouraging me to tell them what had happened.

Wearily I recounted the tale of what had to have been the best days of my life and when I was done, tears were streaming down my face and I couldn't stop crying. The ghosts murmured and whispered amongst themselves and I finally got control enough of myself to be able to ask a single question.

"Is it possible to find your soul mate so early in life?"

The answer, as the ghosts told me, was yes, and while the talk was supposed to have made me feel better, I left feeling more depressed than I had been before.

I had pushed away my soul mate, my other half. What could I do about it? The answer to that was, depressingly enough, nothing.

* * *

My little flower was flourishing, I noticed as I walked back into the clearing. It had grown several inches and was now a brighter blue. I stopped to wonder about this but before I had come to a semi-reasonable conclusion, I heard a noise, spun around, and was tackled.

I opened my eyes to see a large reddish dog lying across my chest, Daisuke's goggles around its neck and V-mon on its back.

"Wha...?" I asked as intelligently I could, considering the fact that I had just been tackled and was already emotionally stressed out.

The dog, as if to add to my obvious confusion, seemed to smile at me before licking my face and letting me up. I looked around, drowning in my confusion. If V-mon were here, shouldn't Daisuke be here? And why did this dog have his goggles, anyway? It didn't make any sense to me. I was about to walk back to the house to think when a near laugh like sound reached my ears.

My heart hurt--it sounded like Daisuke's laugh.

I took another step, determined to get back into the relative safety of my house, when the blue flower caught my eye again. It was practically glowing--it actually seemed smug. I turned toward the flower and frowned--a smug flower isn't something you see everyday, after all--then turned toward V-mon. He shrugged and motioned to his left. I turned, and there was the dog again, the goggles still around his neck.

It seemed to me that I was to take the goggles, and I did, gently placing them on my own head. I gave a soft, sad sigh and turned once more to return to the house. It wasn't until a hand laid itself on my shoulder that I turned and saw Daisuke, goggle-less, standing behind me.

My eyes opened wide and I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around him in a tight hug, one that he willingly returned.

"I... where were you?"

"I was wandering around all day, but the forest kept shifting so I ended up here. I don't think I was ever supposed to be anywhere else, Kou."

"I know..."

"So I came to see you this time, instead of wandering off again."

"The dog?"

"Me. I never did tell you exactly what I am, but I know you suspected something non-human. Truth is, I'm not quite one thing or the other. My parents can both change into multiple creatures, but my da's half human. It seems I got his human half, so all I can manage is the dog."

I pulled out of his embrace to look at him and I took in his sheepish expression.

"I don't care. 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet'--and I would love you just as much no matter what."