[fanfic] Digimon Adventure 02: Fireflies: Chapter 25

[higuchimon]

Story Title: Fireflies
Word Count: chapter: 3,045||story: 73,089

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Tonight just flew by. I’ve heard that time flies when you’re having fun, and I know a lot of soccer practices or visits with Ken or Taichi have just about vanished without me noticing, but tonight was just different. It seems like only a second or two ago, I was just calling her in the first place, and now it’s almost over with.

It’s hard to believe how well it all worked out, too. I’m really going to have to do something to thank Yamato for all of this, pay him back somehow. I wish I knew what I could do. Maybe if I ask Taichi, he can help me think up something. But that can be for later. Right now, we’re just waiting for our Digimon to come back.

I peek over at her now and then. Her hair’s drooping a little from the walking we did, but she still looks fantastic. She’s Hikari. She couldn’t look any other way to me. I hope I still look okay. She hasn’t mentioned anything that would need to be fixed, but I don’t think she would. She’s just too polite.

Then V-mon comes through the trees, and he looks as happy as I feel. I guess he had as much fun as I did. “Hey!” I wave at him and he bounces over to him, eyes shining in joy. “Did you have a good night?”

“Sure did!” V-mon grins cheerfully at me. “We’re going out again tomorrow!”

“Cool.” I can’t help but be happy for him. It’s great that everything is going so well for the both of us. Hikari and I haven’t exactly settled on a second date, but we know there’s going to be one. I wonder what else we could do. Maybe go see a movie? That would be kind of nice. Or go to the zoo and check out some of the animals. They’re really cool too.

There’s a lot of options out there, and I want to find out all of them with her.

V-mon settles down by me and starts to chatter; not quite about what he and Palmon did, but about how great she is. I can see Hikari smiling some, and I know that I am too. He really likes Palmon. I can’t say I blame him. She’s a nice Digimon.

Minutes creep by, and I’m beginning to wonder if we might have to go find Tailmon. We didn’t set up any time limits or anything, but it’s just starting to get to me a little bit. “You think we should go look for her?” I ask at last. I haven’t checked my watch to see how long we’ve been waiting, but I’m about ready to.

“I think…oh, there she is!” There’s a lot of relief in Hikari’s voice at the sight of Tailmon coming through the trees. She looks…neither happy nor sad, really, just kind of in between, but she smiles as soon as she sees Hikari.

“I hope you didn’t have to wait too long for me,” she says, jumping up onto the table in front of Hikari. “I ran into someone I wasn’t expecting to.”

I really wonder what she was doing and where she was. And before I can stop myself, I ask, “Who was it?” Probably not the rudest question in the world, but still, Tailmon does look at me some.

“Just a Mokumon,” she tells me, but when I look a bit more closely at her, I can see she’s all but humming in happiness. There’s more to it than that.

“A Mokumon…” Hikari appears to be thinking about something, then taps Tailmon on the shoulder. “Do you think it’s him?”

“It is him!” All the pretense of being calm falls away from Tailmon and she clings to Hikari so very happily. “He remembered me and everything!”

“That’s great!” Hikari hugs back, and I feel very left in the dark right now. “I’m so happy for you!”

“Uh, what’s going on?” I scratch the back of my head a little, wishing I knew a few more details about what they were talking about. I feel like I should, I just don’t.

Hikari looks at me, and she is every bit as happy as Tailmon. “It’s Wizarmon. Tailmon’s friend from before she met me.” Oh, yeah, now I remember. They told us about him a few years ago, and about how he died protecting them from Vamdemon. I even saw his ghost when we were at the television studio. That was weird.

“He’s finally been reformatted. We didn’t think he ever would be, because he died on Earth and then stayed there for three years,” Tailmon tells me. “But he finally did, and now he’s hatched again. It’ll take him a while to evolve up to his Adult level, though.”

I can tell she doesn’t care how long it’ll take. She’ll be there. That’s what friends are for, after all. “Well, that’s great! Hope I can really meet him someday.”

“I’m sure you will.” Hikari nods, standing up and stretching. “But I think right now, we should be getting on home.”

A quick check of my watch tells me that she’s right, and I stretch some myself. I guess the date’s over with, though you could stretch it and say it isn’t until I actually walk her home. That’s fine with me. “Let’s go, then.”

All of us head out towards the television that’ll be our gate home. Everything’s just ending up perfectly. V-mon and Palmon are happy, Hikari and I are happy, and it looks like Wizarmon and Tailmon are going to be happy too. This is usually where something happens to screw it all up to one degree or another, but I don’t think that’s going to happen this time. At least not tonight. There’s always the chance something will be going on before morning, but tonight doesn’t have that kind of feel to it.

There’s still that non-quiet around everywhere the closer we get to the television; the sound of all those Digimon living their happy lives all around us. It makes the night feel more alive, and it helps to know that we have so many friends around, even if we haven’t actually met them yet.

This isn’t really the walk home that most people expect from a first date, since we’re going to be right in her living room in just a few minutes. But I’ll take what I can get. Maybe next time we can have a proper ‘walk home’, like we did the other day. Either way, I’m still enjoying what few bits of time I’ve got left with her tonight.

“Thank you for everything, Daisuke,” she tells me as we come into the clearing. “It was wonderful tonight.”

I’m blushing. I can feel myself burning at what she says, and I don’t care. Not one little bit. “Thanks,” I duck my head a bit, then look back up at her. I never thought being thanked would be so embarrassing. But it’s by Hikari. So I guess that explains it. “I had a great time, too.”

“We can do this again some time,” she says, fishing in her pocket for her D-3, and I just nod a bit. Boy, she has no idea of how much I want to.

“Right.” I fumble around and find mine. I don’t want to screw this up even in the smallest bit, even now that we’re so close to the end. I want her to remember this night as one of the best no matter what.

Now I’ve got mine out and we stand side by side in front of the television. The light comes, as it has so many other times, and I wonder if it weren’t for the Digital World, would I have ever been able to ask her out? Would I know her as well as I do now, so I’d feel like I could ask her out? We couldn’t have done this, of course. I’m not going to waste my time worrying about what might’ve been. I know what happened tonight and that’s what matters.

Then we are standing in her living room, and her parents are there, watching television and waiting for us. They don’t make it obvious, but I’ve got parents of my own. I know what they’re doing.

“Did you have a good time?” her dad asks as I brush myself off some. It’s different being transported back to Earth. I don’t land on my nose as often as I do when we go to the Digital World. I sometimes wonder if that world has a sense of humor when it comes to things like that. I wouldn’t be that surprised.

“Yeah, Dad. It was great!” Hikari smiles at him, and I don’t think I really want to be here and be interrogated by them, no matter how nice it is. I think I’m a lot more tired than I was just a few seconds ago, and I want to get some rest.

“Thanks again, Hikari,” I tell her. I hope I can stay awake long enough to actually get home. I almost want to go back into the Digital World and take a nap there. I wonder if this has anything to do with the accident. I’m not in any kind of pain, I just get tired easily now. The doctor did mention something like that.

She smiles over at me. “You’re welcome. And thank you, too. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Sure.” I’ll be feeling better after I get some sleep, anyway. “Have a good evening. Let’s go, V-mon.” I wave as politely as I can and head for the door.

Before too long, V-mon and I are on the way back home. I can’t tell offhand if he’s keeping an eye on me or not, and I can’t bring up enough strength to care or not. I just want to get some sleep.

“Did you have a good time?” I think I’m feeling just a little blurry and slurred. Yeah, that’s a good way for how I feel right now. To describe it. I have to kind of focus on what V-mon’s actually saying to get it.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. We had a whole lot of fun.” Describing just what we did is something that keeps me alert enough to get from the Yagami apartment building to the train that’ll take me home. I think I repeat things a few times, too, but V-mon doesn’t care, or if he does, he doesn’t mention it to me.

Finally I can sink down into a comfortable seat. Or at least a seat. Comfortable is optional. It feels pretty good at the moment. I wonder if part of why I feel so tired is just because the date’s over and all of the energy I’d been putting into anticipating it has drained away now. A sort of emotional thing, I guess. There’s other people who’d know better than I would. Too bad none of them are around for me to ask at the moment.

V-mon nudges at me some. Yeah, he has noticed I’m about dead on my feet. “You gotta stay awake so we can get back home!” he reminds me. “I can’t get the door open alone!”

Sadly true. He’s just not big enough. Mom and Dad haven’t even thought about moving the knob so he can either. That would probably cost way too much money. And he doesn’t usually need it, since he’s with me most of the time.

“I know, buddy,” I tell him even when I’m leaning back and trying to remember why I shouldn’t close my eyes. I’ll be sound asleep in just a few seconds if I do that. “I know.”

I think I doze off a little, with or without closing my eyes. It’s hard to be certain. But one second we’re just pulling away from the station that’s closest of the Yagamis, and a second after that, V-mon is pulling at my leg, telling me that this is where we have to get off. It’s hard to put enough brains together to figure out exactly what he’s saying, and then the train is moving off again.

Oops.

My bad.

“Daisuke!” V-mon all but pouts at me and I sink back down into the chair. We can get off at the next station, and it won’t take us too long to get back home. This is just a little inconvenient.

“Sorry, buddy. I’m just too tired to think right now.” That’s a pretty big understatement to make. I don’t think I could’ve made a bigger one if I’d put the effort into it.

V-mon just pouts at me and settles down beside me on the seat. “I know. But don’t do it again?” Sometimes I wonder if he’s more like my partner and best friend or more like the annoying little brother that I never had and am not all that certain that I ever wanted really. But I wouldn’t want to ever do without him.

“Sure. No problem.” I hope I can live up to that. I start to poke myself a little, just to be sure that I can stay awake until we get to the next stop.

It’s still a little hard to grasp that it’s all over with. I can wake up tomorrow without that thought of ‘only this many more days until The Date’. I’ll be thinking that The Date has happened and that I want it to happen again as quickly as we can.

I poke some more. If I start thinking about waking up, I’m going to start thinking about sleeping again, and then I’m really going to be out of it. This is not a good thing, not tonight.

There’s no one else in the train compartment to help keep me awake either. If I weren’t convinced that I’d fall asleep even if someone else were there, I’d try to see if I could get someone to join me. But just standing up would take too much effort right now. There’s maybe even a chance I’d fall right back down again if I did.

So I keep on poking myself, and V-mon helps too. His claws are a little sharper than my fingernails, so I do manage to stay awake until we get to the next stop.

“Okay, let’s go,” I push myself up to my feet, and I am kind of surprised that I don’t fall back over like I thought I would. I get over to the door as it opens up and then V-mon and I are out in it. The thought of calling mom or dad to help me get back home does cross my mind, but only for a few seconds. I can do this.

V-mon’s claws keep digging in me every few minutes on the way back, and I don’t argue. He doesn’t draw blood or anything. He just keeps me awake. That’s what I need more than anything.

Maybe I should’ve just dropped a note to my parents that I was going to stay in the Digital World and get some rest. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done that when I wore myself out doing something. It’s just never happened after a date before. For a lot of reasons.

At any rate, I’m finally here. The elevator doesn’t require a lot of thought to work, and I like that. Just a punch of a button and I can lean back and wait for the machinery to do the work.

I kind of wish Hikari had wanted to come back with me, but that would have just been silly. She was already at home, and for her to go back with me and then back to her place…well, like I said, silly. Really, really silly.

That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been nice to have her around for this walk, though. Maybe I’d be able to concentrate on her instead of how tired I am. I bet she could’ve come up with a lot of ways to keep me awake. Not that I’m going to object to V-mon digging at me. You go with what works, right?

If I didn’t know better, I’d figure that mom or dad were psychic somehow, because they open the door before I can ever get to it once I’m out of the elevator. Mom just smiles and holds the door open for me.

“We saw you when you were coming up to the building,” Dad says, and I nod a little. I should’ve figured it was something like that. Dad should’ve just let me think they were psychic. It’s what I would’ve done. “How are you feeling?”

“Just really tired,” I mumble a little bit as I start on past them. “I just want to go to bed.”

Should I bother to take a bath first? No, I’m not dirty. Mom and Dad both help me along to my room, with V-mon hovering the best that he can for not actually being able to fly. Heh. That might’ve been funny. I wonder if he could get the knack of it if he flew around long enough as ImperialDramon. Or if he hung out long enough with Lilymon or Stingmon. They can fly pretty well.

Mom and Dad don’t help me beyond the door to my room. It’s not that they don’t want to; I don’t want them to. I can manage pretty well once I’m in there and the door’s shut behind me. All I need is to get out of these clothes and into my pajamas. Once I get that done, I lay down on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. I’m tired, exhausted, but I don’t know if I can just fall asleep now that I’m actually on the bed. I hate when that happens.

The evening’s over with. The date’s done. We had a great time. I’m really, really happy.

When I look out the window, I can still see a few fireflies going by, and I smile at them. It was all thanks to them.

“Thanks, guys,” I whisper, and my eyes close. I’m asleep before I know it, dreaming of Hikari and fireflies all night long.

The End