[fanfic] Digimon Adventure 02: Fireflies: Chapter 19

[higuchimon]

Story Title: Fireflies
Word Count: chapter: 2,986||story: 55,774

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Landing in the Digital World is always an adventure. I end up face-first this time. Which isn’t all that bad, because I’ve landed flat on my butt before. This is really pretty good. I get up and brush myself off and look over at Hikari.

“You okay?” I hope she didn’t break her camera. She’s been so excited about getting to take some pictures here today. It just wouldn’t be right if something happened so she couldn’t.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” I can’t believe it, she landed perfectly on her feet! I just hope she didn’t get a picture of my bad side. You know, the one that ended up pointing in the air just now. At least if she did, I didn’t see a flash. And if there aren’t any pictures, then it didn’t happen at all. That’s how it works. At least for me.

V-mon and Tailmon are fine too. That’s good to know. The Digimon usually land pretty well. “So, where did you want to get started first?”

Hikari looks around and I guess she sees something that I don’t, because she starts to take some pictures of it. “Right here’s good.” This is why she’s a photographer and I’m not. I just don’t see anything special about some trees and a little stream going through them.

This could be a little boring for me. If I wasn’t me, that is. So while Hikari is oohing and ahhing over moving just a few inches here and there to get what I think would probably be about the same picture, I start to wander a bit with V-mon. Tailmon stays with Hikari, not that I’m surprised about that. I don’t go too far, though.

I wish I’d brought a soccer ball or something with me. Just for something to do right now. I guess it’ll be better once she’s done here and we can go look at something else.

I want to find the really best spot for our date. I’ve thought about a few of them, but I haven’t made up my mind on the exact one just yet. So that’s something I think I need to think about. I should probably get in touch with Yamato soon and find out exactly what he’s making for us. There’s still a lot that I need to do about this date thing. I can’t let everyone else do it for me.

I want it by a lake or a river, I know that much. That kind of image has been in my head since I first asked her. I don’t know if the fireflies will still be around or not, but if they wanted to come visit, I wouldn’t mind.

That picture I drew of them. I still have it. I left it at home, but I’m really going to try and draw it again, just so she can have it without it being all crumpled up. I want her to like it. And I want her to have the best of everything.

“Daisuke?” I look over and she’s holding her camera, but not like she wants to take a picture with it. “We can go look at some other places now.” The way she says it is a little iffy, like she’s not sure if I want to leave.

“Sure, no problem!” I head right back over to her. “Get all the pictures you wanted here?”

“Sure did. I can’t take as many as I’d like to today, though. I don’t have that much film with me.” She looks a little disappointed. This was kind of a spur of the moment trip. I like that kind, but I guess she’d prefer something a bit more planned out.

I pat her on the shoulder some, and she smiles a bit at me. Wow. That just makes it all fine. She’s got such a pretty smile. How could anyone see that and not like her? “Well, you can take as many as you can. Then we can come back again some other time.”

She nods, and we start to move out of the clearing. She points out a few views that she says would make nice pictures, if she had the film for it at the moment. “But I want to save what I have for really good pictures. Special shots.”

I wonder what she means. This is the Digital World. All of it is special! There’s nothing like it anywhere else. I’m really hoping that nothing ever happens to it. Seeing it all destroyed by BelialVamdemon was horrible. I hardly think about that. I like to think about how it looked before, or after Oikawa did his thing for it. I kind of miss him, thinking about that. After all that happened, I really hope he found some kind of a peace somewhere. I like to think he did. I’m pretty sure Iori does too.

We wander around a little more, and Hikari takes a few pictures here and there. I don’t think it’s anything all that spectacular, but that’s why she’s the photographer and I’m not. She takes pictures of some lower level Digimon, the really cute ones, all in a circle in front of an Adult level. I think they were some Koromon and one or two Agumon with a Greymon. It’s almost like a family. I’m not even sure if Digimon have families, not like humans think of them. At any rate, the picture’s cute enough, I guess.

“How are you feeling?” she asks me about half an hour afterwards. “You’re not too tired, are you?”

The doctor did tell me I might get kind of tired a bit easier than usual for the next few days. I think I could probably use a nap, but that would mean not spending time with Hikari, which I really, really want to do. So I kind of lie a little. “Not all that much.” I wave a hand a little carelessly at her. “We’re having all this fun, why go back now?”

I can almost feel a yawn coming on just at the thought of going back home and curling up under the blankets. I don’t like being tired. It gets to me too much. I prefer running around as fast as I can most of the time. Just being active. I guess healing up from what happened isn’t going to take overnight. But I can go to bed early and that’ll be fine.

“If you say so.” I’m not sure if she really believes me or not. I don’t think I’d believe me either, but then again, I know me, so I know not to believe me. “But if you get tired, let me know, and we can go back.”

“No problem!” If I really do get too tired, I can just tell her and we can get back in no time. It’s not like we’ve went all that far. She’s just stopped so many times to look at something to see if she wants to take a picture that it’s eaten up some time.

We keep on going, and she finds a few more views that get her camera clicking. She takes pictures of scenery, of Digimon talking and playing with other Digimon, and a couple of times, some of them wanted to talk to me and she took pictures of that! It’s kind of fun having your picture taken. I wonder if I could have it done more often.

“I’m really glad you’re all right,” she says as we wave good-bye to some of those Digimon that wanted to talk to me. That’s one reason I like coming here. I’ve got a lot of friends. Just about everywhere I go, really. I can hardly turn around without running into someone I know. “A lot of people have been worried about you.”

“I was worried about me too!” I tell her with a laugh. “If I had to spend one more day in that hospital, I would’ve went crazy!”

“Glad that didn’t happen.” Hikari grins at me, and I kind of wonder if it’s possible that I could walk on air right now. Her smile is just…wow. Yeah.

“Me too.” I try really hard to sound too stupid, but with her smiling at me like that, I’m not sure if I do or not. Don’t think I really care that much either, when I think about it. Or when I don’t think about it either. So, I guess I just don’t care about it.

I’m caught off guard by a sudden yawn, and Hikari looks right at me. “Are you sure you’re not tired?”

“Well, maybe a little,” I hedge about. I don’t think she buys it. I’m very sure that V-mon and Tailmon don’t, not with the way they’re both looking at me. If V-mon didn’t look so eternally cute, he’d probably be smacking me around the head. But he knows I’d withhold his chocolate stash if he did that, so I don’t have anything to worry about. Not from him.

She puts her hands on her hips and glares at me. “You’d better not be lying to me.” It’s a very good imitation of Miyako that she’s doing there. I feel almost as if I were looking at the real one. If Hikari were a few inches taller and had long purple hair, anyway. Guess they’ve rubbed off on each other.

“I’m not. It was just a yawn, that’s all.” I think about suggesting we do something more interesting than walk around looking at places for her to poke her camera, but I don’t. This is her time to have fun. Mine was at the soccer field. Fair’s fair, after all.

She glares at me a little more, then softens up. “All right. But we need to go back soon anyway. It’s almost dinner time.”

My stomach likes the sound of that, and makes it plain by rumbling very loudly at me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it actually was using words. Probably something like ‘give me food now’. I suppose we could snack a bit here, but Mom gets upset when I spoil my appetite with Digital food. I don’t know why, it’s just as good as the food she makes and doesn’t take as long to fix, either. It must be a mom thing.

“Okay.” I couldn’t even think about saying no after that little interruption from my stomach. “Where else did you want to go?”

We wander around a bit more, but I guess nothing she sees is good enough to take pictures of, because her camera stays right where it is. So finally we start to head back to the gateway.

“Did you have a good time?” I really want her to like spending time with me. It’s different when it’s a group. I know she’s having fun, because we’re all having fun then. But when it’s just her and me…

There’s that warm, happy, making me feel so good smile of hers. I know I had a good time just by seeing that. Even if all the rest of it had been horrible, which it wasn’t, seeing that would make up for it all.

“I did. Thanks, Daisuke. It was a lot of fun.”

“No problem at all! Maybe next time we can make sure you have a lot more film and really go traveling?” Flying around with our Digimon could give her a lot of pictures to take! I wonder why I didn’t think of that before. Well, good thing I have now!

Hikari smiles as we come back to the clearing with the gateway television in it. “Good idea.” She pulls her D-3 out and I fumble for mine, feeling amazingly clumsy at the sight of that smile again. I wonder if this is how Shuu feels when he’s around Jun? He never shows it if he does. So is it different for him or is it because he’s older than me? It’s not exactly the kind of question I really want to ask him. Just something to think about now and then.

With a whoosh, we’re back in the apartment, just as Mom comes into the room. “Glad to see you back. Dinner’s just about ready. Will you be staying, Hikari?”

She shakes her head, and I can’t help but be a bit disappointed. But I’ll manage. We’re going to have dinner together in just a few days, anyway. “Tailmon and I have to be going. But I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Daisuke!”

“Yeah. That’s going to be fun.” I can hear the sarcasm in my voice, and she just laughs at it. I’d rather not go back to school but there’s not much of a choice in it for me. One day off was all that I got from that explosion. Well, technically two days, but the point is, I’ve got to go back to school now. At least I’ve got my homework done. Ken made sure of that. It feels a bit strange to have it taken care of. I usually do some of it the last minute before rushing off to school.

“Bye!” She waves, Tailmon adding her paw in a wave of her own, and then they’re gone, the door closing behind them. I keep staring at it until Mom waves her hand in front of my face.

“Daisuke! Wake up there!” She prods at my shoulder, the one that isn’t hurt, and I jump a little. “I thought I was going to have to dump some cold water on you to wake you up!”

“Mom!” How could she think about doing that? Hasn’t she ever really liked someone like this? She must have, she married Dad after all. So why would she do that to me? “That’s mean!”

“I’m a mom. I’m allowed to be.” She grins at me, then ruffles my hair. “Get cleaned up for dinner. And you’re going to bed early.”

I’m fourteen. I shouldn’t have to put up with this. But dinner and a nice long rest do sound good, which kind of scares me a little. I don’t normally like that kind of thing. I guess it’s a side effect from being hurt? I could talk to Jyou about that. I remember being told in health class that if you’ve got some kind of lack of a vitamin, you start craving some food that has it, and that’s your body’s way of making sure that you stay healthy. So I guess wanting to get some sleep after what I’ve been through could be my body’s way of making sure I live long enough to heal up.

“Come on, V-mon, let’s get washed up.” It’s easier to do it than it is to argue with mom. Especially when it means I get food afterwards. I’ll do a lot of things for food. I’ll do homework for food.

“You’re really happy about this date, aren’t you?” V-mon asks as I wash my hands. I’m actually scrubbing them; mom tends to check pretty carefully after I’ve been to the Digital World. I don’t know why. I’ve only come home about four or five times covered head to toe in muck and grime because of something some Digimon did to me. She missed the time back when we were fighting Ken when I came back with half the skin ripped off my back because of a tussle he and I had. That was really kind of fun, too. Just as well she did miss that one. She would’ve had a fit.

“Sure am. This is going to be great!” I can’t remember being this excited over anything in the longest time.

I still want to find out who Ken is dating. That’s the second most exciting mystery at the moment. I think over all the people I’m sure that he knows, and just none of them seem to fit. I’ve even thought about some Digimon, just in case. The only one that comes to mind is Wormmon. They are really close, after all, but something about it just doesn’t click the right way. So I guess that’s out of the question too. I know it can’t be Taichi, because he’s seeing Chizuru, and Miyako and Takeru look like they’re cooking up something, so it can’t be either one of them. Mimi lives in America, Sora’s with Yamato. Jyou’s too busy studying to date. Or to step out of his apartment some of the time. Maybe I should try and help him do that sometime.

Everyone else I think about just doesn’t work out for some reason. But I’m going to find out. His recital is just in a couple of days, and I bet whoever it is will be there. I want to find out before the weekend, just to prove that I can do it.

“Hey, you’ve got some dirt here!” I reach down with a washcloth and scrub it out from behind V-mon’s ears. He squirms and giggles, and I tickle him some while I’m there. No one said that I couldn’t have fun while doing this, right? Right. Besides, V-mon’s ears are the most ticklish part of his body. He never likes to wash behind them because of that. He always starts to laugh too much when he tries to clean them. So I have to do it. And if I get him to laugh some, it’s okay. I know when to stop.

I just usually don’t, until I want to. But I don’t mess with him too much right now. There’s stuff that needs doing, and the bed is sounding more and more attractive. Besides, with the magic of sleep on my side, I’m not only going to be hours closer to finding out who Ken’s girlfriend is, but even more important, I’m going to be that much closer to going on my date with Hikari!

Life is good.

To Be Continued