Drabbles: Love - part 7
Title: Love. Drabbles #61-70
Rating: PG
Fandom: Digimon (Daikeru)
061 - Sensual
If you were to ask a 13-year-old Daisuke what precisely set him on fire, what enflamed his heart and soul and senses, he’d answer you in one word.
Hikari.
He’d say that when he looks at her, all dark hair, crimson eyes and skin that radiates innocence and light, he’d say that when he looked at her, his eyes would well and his heart would implode.
He’d say that he couldn’t quite place what she smelt like, but if he could place it, it would be a flower of some sort, lilies or carnations or roses. Her skin, when he brushes discreetly (or not so discreetly) against it, feels like the soft underside of petals, only softer and smoother and maybe more like poured milk.
She has a voice like liquid heaven, a voice that rolls off her tongue and into his heart. She sounds like the angels on all the foreign films Jun used to watch.
Daisuke doesn’t know what Hikari tastes like, but he thinks he’d like to find out one day.
If you asked him the same question, two years later, he’d say the same thing. The same carefully selected words would tumble out of his mouth, only the way he spoke, his tone of voice would be different.
He’d say that this was what he believed two years ago, that nothing could compare.
He’d say that this was only because he hadn’t seen Takeru yet. Not for real anyway.
062 - Hot
“Christ.” Daisuke said, and yeah, that pretty much summed everything up.
Takeru was collapsed on the tiny sofa in their apartment, Daisuke sprawled at his feet, and it was hot.
Like, really, really hot.
The sun was practically throbbing through the window panes, emphasising the non-existent breeze. And it was hot.
Like, really hot.
Takeru can’t remember if he mentioned that.
It was one of the few days they both had off, free from work, and if the weather wasn’t so violently heated, they’d probably be cuddling. Or having sex.
Only they’re not.
Because it’s hot.
Like, really hot.
“Next summer, we get air-con.” Daisuke mumbles, shirtless and sweaty on the floor.
Takeru nods. Yep.
063 - Dark
Even before the digital world, Takeru was afraid of the dark. It wasn’t all out terror, wasn’t a hysterical child crawling into mummy’s bed. Just a tad of anxiety, a quickened heart rate, a sharp intake of breath.
He didn’t tell anyone, even though many had their suspicions, and maybe that’s why he never grew out of it. Never had anyone talk the fear out of him, never had anyone comfort him, or chase away the monsters stalking in the shadows.
So when he moved out of home, moved into his new one, he thought that maybe that was that. Maybe this anxiety wouldn’t follow him. He was wrong.
He wakes with a start, all quaking body under the thin blankets. His heart pounding viciously in his chest. The alarm clock flashes 2:15 am.
Very early. Very dark.
A thousand memories are hitting him full-force, wall after claustrophobic wall circling him, forbidding escape.
The raucous voices of fighting parents fill his ears, Angemon’s death flickering across the back of his eyelids. His breathing has quickened, sweat drips down his forehead.
Every ounce of him is aching, and maybe if he could stand up, if he could get out of bed and take the five and a half steps to the light switch, then it could all be over.
Only that would wake Daisuke up.
Daisuke.
Beside him, said boy lets out a particularly loud snort, rolls onto his side, and wraps a tanned arm around Takeru’s pale body.
Ah.
064 - Glimmer
Daisuke and Miyako have never been close.
There are a thousand reasons why, but it probably stems from before the whole digital-world thing, stems from Miyako thinking Daisuke was an idiot, from Daisuke thinking Miyako was a whore.
If they’re perfectly honest with each other, these opinions still haven’t changed, even though they’ve been ‘friends’ for a number of years now.
This is why Daisuke isn’t exactly sure why they’ve ended up here, just the two of them, in this tiny café on Tabai St.
“You have no idea how lucky you are, Dais.” She says, pulling the violet hair off her back and over her shoulder. Miyako leans back in the small wicker chair, basking in the heat.
“What do you mean?” He responds, taking a sip of coffee.
“To have Takeru. To, y’know, be loved. I’d kill for that.”
Daisuke shrugs, “What about Ken?”
Miyako snorts in reply, picking up her purse and laying it on her lap, “What about him?”
“Aren’t you guys, like…an item?”
“I wish.”
Quirking a brow, Daisuke looks Miyako in the eye, hidden behind her classy, thick-rimmed glasses.
“For real?”
“He doesn’t…” Miyako stops, struggling for the right words. “He just…He’s just him, he’s emotionally constipated. You know Ken.”
Daisuke nods. He knows Ken.
“I just, I love him, I really, really do. But it would be nice to know that, nice to think that maybe he feels something for me too. I mean, we’re supposed to be dating or something and he just…I dunno.”
“Yea.”
Miyako closes her eyes, slouches in her seat, and Daisuke thinks that maybe she’s starting to tear up. Maybe this is getting to her more than he’s ever noticed.
“Miyako…” She looks up, and yeah, she’s teary, “Miyako, Ken loves you. I mean, he treats you…I’m not very good at this, but he treats…he looks at you different. Softer, I dunno. And if he doesn’t, well, he’s a bigger idiot than I first thought.”
She laughs a little, croaks it out from the depths of her throat. Her voice is quivery, and her eyes are still watering, only maybe it’s for a different reason. Daisuke hopes it’s for a different reason.
“Thanks, Dais.”
065 - Soft
Daisuke, to be frank, wasn’t quite sure what to make of this.
Well, sure It was…fluffy, cute even, and It really did appeal to his inner-PMSing-teenage-girl, but guy’s didn’t really do this kinda crap, did they?
“I can swap it if you want…y’know, for-“
“No! I mean…no.”
“Ok.”
See, the thing was, even though It was cute, and fluffy, and cuddly, he was in fact a guy. A very, very masculine, muscly, buff sorta guy.
And really, if you only look at that argument, he should’ve let Takeru take it back.
Only, well, that wasn’t really fair on It was it? Or Takeru for that matter.
After all, It really was fluffy…and cute. And he hadn’t had one since he was little.
If you didn’t know Daisuke very well, you’d say at this point he was cuddling the bloody thing…but he wasn’t, he was just, well, clutching it in an exceptionally masculine way to his chest.
“I…well, y’know, it could be what’s lacking from my bedroom.”
“Ok.”
So, yea, the teddy bear was kinda cute, but Takeru thinks it has more to do with the fact that Daisuke’s getting soft.
066 - Hard
“Jesus, Takeru.”
The blue eyes of the boy in question are darker than usual, glowering via the mirror at the other boy in the room. Takeru’s pale fingers are fumbling with his black tie, wrapping and tangling till the tie is more crinkled and creased than Daisuke’s.
“What now, Dais? Seriously. I am not in the mood for this sort of bullshit.”
“Well done, Takeru, mature. Push it all back on me, for fucks sake.”
Daisuke’s polished shoes are resting by the door, and he stalls hesitantly on his way to make a grab for them. “Takeru…” And he really has grown up over the last few years, or at least he’s tried to. “If you don’t want to go, or…you don’t want me to go-“
“It’s my mother’s funeral, Daisuke.”
“I know.”
The silence slaughters them both, and Daisuke does his laces so slowly, so as not to have to wait, not to have to stand there and watch Takeru fumble in this slow-motion agony.
“What do you want me to say?” Takeru murmurs, fingers still toying with the skinny part of his tie.
“I…” Daisuke’s red eyes are blurry, tearing up a little, and he feels ridiculous standing here, 32-years-old, complete with untied shoelaces.
“Why is it always so hard for me to get through to you?”
Takeru looks him straight in the eye for what feels like the first time that night, “Because it’s so hard for you to just listen.”
067 - Cool.
The thing about popularity is that, no matter what people say, they always want it. Whether they admit to this or not though, is an entirely different story.
Daisuke reaches 15, before he finally gives up on the prospect of him being popular. He still wants it, just; he knows he’ll never be the coolest kid in Odaiba High School.
It’s not like he’s unpopular, well, he’s got a solid group of friends, no creepy-ass enemy or rivalry…well…
Unless you include that thing with Takeru. But really, he’s pretty sure that doesn’t count since they make out in the toilets after most wayward arguments.
068 - Skew.
Takeru tells Hikari that he thinks he might be in love with Daisuke long before he even knows for certain.
Hikari stares at him for what feels like half an eternity. Long and drawn, and her eyes are so big and blank that it might scare him a little.
She opens her mouth several times, mouths words that she can’t find the voice to actually say. Can’t say ‘that’s nice’ or ‘I’m happy for you’ or ‘how can you know this for sure?’
Hikari thinks Daisuke’s wormed his way into Takeru’s heart and head, she thinks he must’ve done something to him to make him feel like this, because, c’mon, it’s Daisuke.
This picture Takeru is painting her, this happy couple of boys, this picture is distorted.
It’s wrong and skewed because it isn’t supposed to be Daisuke standing behind that white picket fence with Takeru, it’s supposed to be her.
069 - Rough.
By the time Takeru got home, Daisuke had broken two lamps, knocked over a coffee table, and thrown a bottle of sake at the wall.
Needless to say, he was not in a particularly good mood.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Daisuke snarled as he threw himself onto their tiny, second-hand sofa.
Takeru didn’t say anything, just stared a little harder, tilted his head.
“Nothing.” Daisuke stated. “I was fired.”
Sighing heavily, Takeru sat beside him, ran pale fingers through the other boy’s hair. “It’ll be fine.”
Daisuke snorted, and rolled onto his side.
070 - Plain.
To Iori’s 21st, Miyako brings a tall, unattractive boy with green-tipped hair, an accent that no one at the party can quite place, and a personality that no one can quite talk themselves into liking.
Somewhere over the course of the night, Daisuke and this boy manage to get into a fistfight, at which point Takeru drags Daisuke home, and Miyako pays for a cab to come pick up her date.
She spends the rest of the night with Hikari, telling her how she can’t even remember the guy’s name. She only brought him to make Ken jealous.
It wasn’t working very well though, as Ken had spent the whole night either talking to Daisuke or to the skinny, pale girl that he had brought with him.
Miyako leaves at two in the morning after several shots of vodka and a couple tequilas. She doesn’t notice Ken’s nostalgic eyes on her as she leaves.