Fic: Captive (4/?)
Author: amarielah
Title: Captive
Fandoms: Digimon
Rating: PG-13 for this chapter.
Pairings: Ken/Miyako
Wordcount: 2,667
Warnings: Kissing.
Summary: Aged-up semi-AU. In which Miyako gets captured, the Kaiser is repressed in all the wrong ways, and things become more complicated than either of them want.
Miyako found that she was much too restless to fall asleep. And it wasn't just because she had failed, though that was certainly bad enough. Without really thinking about it, she reached up and touched her lips--still slightly swollen from the kiss she'd shared with her sworn enemy.
She supposed she should at least be thankful that it hadn't been her first kiss, which had been given two years previously to a boy she'd dated for about a month. Hiroki, his name had been; a sweet enough guy who had turned out to be a little too dull for her tastes. She had liked kissing him, though.
But...she had liked her kiss with the Kaiser so much more.
He hadn't even been that good at it, truth be told. It was obvious that it had been his first kiss. And yet, there had still been something electric about it. Something that had addled Miyako's brain.
Her eyes clenched tightly shut in response to the shame that bolted upwards from her abdomen, and she curled reflexively into a fetal position. She had enjoyed kissing a person that had threatened the life of one of her dearest friends, and she was afraid to think about what that meant. About what kind of person that made her.
What had finally brought her back to her senses, enough to push him away, was the thought that he may have wanted even more. Maybe she could take some solace in the fact that it had terrified her. Still, she couldn't help but wonder...
If that had been his ultimate penalty, what would she have done?
_____
"Woah," said Daisuke, when Miyako entered the computer lab the next day. "Did you get turned into a panda overnight or something?"
Miyako glared. "Well excuse me for having trouble sleeping after my Digimon got captured, you jerk." Even though she had slept through most of the day before, not getting enough sleep at night would always take its toll on her. It had been hell, trying to keep herself awake during her classes.
"Are you sure you're feeling alright?" asked Hikari.
"I'm completely fine."
"Miss Panda here should stay behind anyway, since she doesn't have her Digimon," said Daisuke. Then, more somberly: "It's not like we don't want you to be there, but what are you gonna do without Hawkmon?"
Takeru smiled apologetically. "Daisuke-kun has a point, Miyako-san."
Iori nodded. "We'll all be forced to protect you, and that will make our own attacks less effective." He gave her a pointed look. "Even if it a bad situation, I'm sure you'll find a good way to use the time."
So losing Hawkmon gives me an opportunity to study? There's no way I can be happy about that. Her brain-to-mouth filter was even less effective when she was this tired, and she opened that mouth to repeat this thought aloud. But then, a memory of the previous night--of her leaning in the kiss the Kaiser--flashed in her mind's eye.
Her mouth snapped shut abruptly, even as the desperate need to tell them started to surface. Keeping secrets was one of her least favorite things in the world, but...
There's no way that I can tell them. It will make them so angry that they'll definitely say something to the Kaiser. And then...
She gulped. Hawkmon was more important than her guilty conscience. She sighed dejectedly.
"You're right. I should just go home." Koushiro would be arriving soon, and then they wouldn't need her for anything. She stood up and smiled wide. "Do your best, okay?"
"We will," everyone said together.
Miyako gave them all a thumbs-up and said, "Bingo!" Then, she walked briskly out of the computer room. She had to force herself not to think about Hawkmon, she decided--if all she did was sit around moping, he definitely would have scolded her.
_____
So...Miyako-san isn't with them today. Understandable. She'd be nothing but a burden to them without her Digimon.
He told himself that his disappointment stemmed from an inability to see the amusing reactions she'd have when she realized just how useless she'd become to her friends. Smirking, he wondered if she'd exploded at the Motomiya boy yet, as she had a habit of doing when she got very upset.
The night before, he had found himself compelled to look over footage of her that was still stored in his archive. It was strange, because he had never quite noticed her before; she had simply been one of them. But now...
For a brief moment, he felt ashamed of himself. Why was this girl, an insect and nothing more, so fascinating? Surely he was above such childish amusements; surely he had better control over the direction of his thoughts.
She’s just an insect.
But the shame passed quickly. He hadn't come to the Digital World in order to dwell on such things. If he had a whim, why shouldn't he indulge it? This was his world, after all, and he was free to do whatever he pleased.
"Are you alright, Ken-chan?" asked Wormmon, looking up at the Kaiser with concerned blue eyes.
"Be quiet," replied the Kaiser tersely.
"Alright," said Wormmon. But he didn't move from his place beside the Kaiser's throne.
With a smirk returning to his lips, the Kaiser reached forward to press a button on his console. "I think I'll give them a challenge today."
Then the smirk fell away, and his gloved fingers went absentmindedly to his lips.
Tonight, he thought. I'll see her again tonight.
______
Miyako was in the middle of a particularly frustrating calculus problem when she heard her D-terminal beeping. With a frown, she picked it up and flipped it open. It was probably just one of her friends checking up on her, but the beeping had interrupted her chain of thought.
Meet me at these coordinates.
- Digimon Kaiser
Her eyes widened, and her stomach plummeted into her feet.
I don't have time.
- Miyako
Of course, the Kaiser wouldn't care about something as trivial as her convenience.
Don't try my patience.
- Digimon Kaiser
And, of course, she knew what was at stake if she did try his patience. Reluctantly, she wrote,
Fine. I'll be there in a few minutes.
- Miyako
She booted up her computer with mounting dread. She didn't know if she could handle another one of the Kaiser's sadistic games.
But...what choice did she have?
______
Miyako found herself at the entrance to a dense forest, with trees so tall that she had to crane her neck to see the tops of them. They cast long, ghostly shadows in the fading daylight, and her dread edged into full-blown panic.
"Don't keep me waiting again," said the Kaiser. He was leaning nonchalantly against one of the trees' massive trunks, and Miyako was surprised that he was meeting her in person.
"Just get it over with," she said, before she could stop herself. "I'm way too tired to chat."
The Kaiser smirked. "Get what over with?"
Miyako put her hands on her hips. "Whatever sick game you've got in mind, obviously."
He stood upright and walked towards her. "What makes you think that I'd do anything so predictable?" Grabbing her gently by the wrist, he said, "Follow me."
"Hey!" She yelled, even as she allowed herself to be pulled along. "What's the big idea?"
"Telling you would ruin the surprise," said the Kaiser.
"Wait a load of crap," she all but growled. They were walking away from the forest rather than into it, and the grass was becoming taller. She could hear it crunching beneath her and the Kaiser's boots. But it soon started to thin, replaced by weeds and the occasional dandelion.
They stopped only a few moments later.
"Look up," instructed the Kaiser, and Miyako complied without protest.
Her breath caught in her throat.
They were standing near the edge of a steep cliff that stood above almost perfectly flat land. There was a field of red, turquoise, and pink flowers that lead to the bank of a lake-so large that it seemed to stretch endlessly into the horizon. The sun was dipping into the water, staining the ripples on the surface of the lake a hue of burnt orange.
“That’s so pretty,” she said.
“I know,” agreed the Kaiser.
She shifted her gaze back to him. “Are you going to drop me off the edge, or something?”
His mouth twitched downwards. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. Then, he smirked. “Difficult, I know. But try your hardest.”
Miyako huffed. “So you brought me here to sight-see and insult my intelligence. Got it.”
“In a manner of speaking,” he conceded, sitting down. “We may be here for a while, so I suggest that you make yourself comfortable.”
She sat down as well.
“I actually want to ask you some questions,” he said.
“Really? That’s it?”
“Yes.”
Miyako looked out over the landscape before them. “So then why did you bring us here?”
“Why not?”
Well, she couldn’t really argue with that kind of reasoning. She sighed. “Ask away, then,” she said, but quickly gave him a glare. “Just don’t expect me to say anything that will help you hurt my friends in any way.”
The Kaiser smiled sardonically. “Do you even have any long-term plans worth revealing?”
She had nothing to respond with, and her cheeks colored in embarrassement.
“That’s what I thought.”
She sniffed. “It’s not like your plans are all that great.”
“Not from your perspective. But there’s one question you and your comrades never seem to ask yourselves.”
“And what question is that?”
Even though he was wearing his dark glasses, Miyako got the feeling that the Kaiser’s expressing had just become more serious. “What if I’m going easy on you?”
Truthfully, she hadn’t ever asked herself that question. Its implications disturbed her. “But…why would you be going easy on us?”
“I wonder…” he replied, a small, sinister smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Now, if you’ll recall, I want to ask you questions.”
“Right,” said Miyako, somewhat apologetically. “I’ll shut up.”
There was a pause, as if the Kaiser was gathering his thoughts. And then, “How does it feel to know that your friends are unable to depend on you?”
“It hurts,” she replied, before she could even think about the answer. “I mean, it’s not like fighting is my favorite thing in the world. I hate it, actually. But I hate the thought of my friends getting hurt even more.”
“If you hate fighting so much, why do you even come here in the first place?”
Miyako frowned. “I don’t exactly have a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice,” said the Kaiser matter-of-factly.
“No,” she said, her temper starting to rise. “I don’t have a choice. Do you really think that I can just sit around doing nothing while I know that innocent Digimon are being hurt?”
“Ridiculous,” sneered the Kaiser.
“It’s not ridiculous-you’ll just never be able to understand!”
Suddenly, the Kaiser was much, much closer. “And why is that?” he asked, voice low and dangerous.
Miyako’s heart began to beat much faster, and, when she spoke next, it was much more quietly. “Because you don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
There was silence for a moment, and Miyako was sure that she had crossed some kind of line. But then the Kaiser moved back into his original position. “I don’t care about insects, if that’s what you mean.”
She made a derisive sound. “You’re impossible.” It was too difficult to look at him without getting worked up, so she concentrated on the darkening surface of the lake. “How do you decide who’s an insect and who isn’t, anyway? In the end, we’re all pretty much insects.”
“You are,” he agreed.
She rolled her eyes. “How exactly is your existence more significant than anyone else’s? We’re all just mammals living on one tiny planet in a giant galaxy, which is only one of uncountable giant galaxies in a universe that’s probably infinite.” Unconsciously, her eyes drifted up to the few stars that were starting to appear in the sky. “We’re all so small that it’s stupid to pretend like any one of us is more important.”
The Kaiser didn’t respond for a moment. “If you’re judging it on such an enormous scale, then I can’t really argue with you,” he finally said. “But I think it’s fairly obvious that, with respect to one-another, humans have varying degrees of intelligence, skill, and significance.”
“But what do intelligence and skill have to do with significance? Stupidity can be just as important as intelligence.”
The Kaiser’s tone seemed lighter now. “I don’t disagree with you, actually. That’s part of the reason why I left.”
She blinked in surprise. “Oh,” she said. Had the Kaiser just acknowledged something she’d said?
“This conversation is getting tiresome,” he said.
At a loss for words, she waited for him to continue.
He reached up and put a hand on his dark glasses. “What would you do if I asked you to kiss me again?” said the Kaiser softly.
Miyako’s eyes went wide. “Please don’t,” she said, just as softly.
Taking off the glasses, he said, “Fine. I won’t.” And then, before she had an opportunity to react, he was kissing her.
For a moment, all she could think was, He’s gotten better at this. The kiss was surprisingly gentle, and he began to weave his gloved fingers into her hair, cupping her face between his hands. It was a short kiss, but his face lingered in front of hers after he’d broken it, his arms moving to encircle her shoulders.
He pulled her closer so that his mouth was right by her ear. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Those words were more than enough to break whatever spell Miyako had been under, but she found herself unable to struggle against his hold. There was no way that he could want that,was there? She felt panic-real panic, the kind that clawed its way up your throat and into your brain-and her thoughts began to race.
“Please let go,” she begged, hating how feeble she sounded. “Please don’t do this.”
At that, he pulled back. “Do what?” he asked, voice flat.
Despite her best efforts, she could feel her eyes beginning to burn. “Don’t-“ She swallowed hard. “Don’t play dumb. We’re alone and you’re stronger than me, and…and it’s not like I could stop you.”
Realization dawned in those blue eyes of his-it really was so much easier to read him without those dark glasses obscuring his eyes-but it was soon replaced with…horror?
“I would never do that,” he said, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” said Miyako, giving a short, hysterical laugh. “You’d never make somebody do something against their will, right?”
He stood up abruptly, looking down at her with incredulity. “It’s not the same and you know it.”
She looked away from him, and her heart-rate finally started to slow. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Digimon Kaiser-sama.”
“…Did you really hate it that much?” Then, more softly, “Do you really hate me that much?”
“I guess an insect like me just can’t help it,” she said, voice thick with sarcasm. “You’re just so much better than me. How can I do anything but hate you?”
There was a very long beat.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Inoue-san.”
She heard him walking away, but didn’t move for quite a while. It was only once she was sure that he was gone that she stood up and walked towards the Digital Gate.
All she could do when she got back to her room was collapse in her bed-she couldn’t even muster the strength to get up and brush her teeth. Lying there, it didn’t take long for her eyes to droop closed, but, even then, only one thought seemed to resonate through her mind.
What the hell just happened?