[OMWK] Chapter 02/4: Rock Bottom (Part 1/2)
✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS
FANDOM: Digimon Adventure 01/02/Tri
RATING: Mature.
WORDCOUNT: 10 685
PAIRING(S): Endgame Taito, though the fic is primarily Taichi-centric. Side pairings include Takeru/Hikari and discussion of past Sorato.
CHARACTER(S): Taichi Kamiya, Yamato Ishida, Hikari Kamiya, Takeru Takashi, Daisuke Motomiya, Agumon, Veemon, Gabumon, Sora Takenoushi, and mention of the rest of the gang.
GENRE: Reaching a breaking point. Also future!fic.
TRIGGER WARNING(S): Depression and discussion thereof, including one briefly mentioned suicide attempt in chapter two.
SUMMARY: In which Taichi has questionable ways to handle his issues, everyone tries to be nice, and Yamato yells at him a lot. Same old, same old, except for the part where they end up kissing.
OMWK ON DREAMWIDTH: [Chapter I - Part 1] [Chapter II - Part 2]
OMWK ON LJ: [ Chapter I - Part 1] [ Chapter II - Part 2]
OMWK ON TUMBLR: [Chapter I] [Chapter II]
OMWK ON AO3: [Read Here]
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Daisuke leaves for an improvised holiday at his sister’s without saying when he’ll be back, and Taichi buries himself in work, studying textbooks and prospective bills until he can’t see straight and Agumon has to drag him away from his desk and into bed. It’s not the healthiest solution by a long short, but it works, and that’s all Taichi has any right to ask for.
If he hadn’t been so stupid, so stubborn, if he’d listened to everyone’s warning, he wouldn’t have to sit alone in an apartment meant for two and wonder if his maybe-not-for-that-much-longer roommate is doing okay. He wouldn’t have to watch Agumon grow concerned and confused in turns, and he definitely wouldn’t have to deal with Yamato calling every day to grill him on his activities.
“I worked,” Taichi half-sighs, half-snaps after a week of that little game, “it’ll be the same tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that-can you please stop stalking my every move?”
“You’re the one who told Ken if I wanted to know how you were doing I should ask you.”
Taichi groans into his cereal bowl at that, and then again when a glance at the clock above the door tells him this is only the start of Yamato’s day. Wonderful, really, that’s exactly what he needed.
“I said it so he’d leave me alone,” he mutters, without any hope of Yamato taking the hint, “I thought that was obvious.”
“It was,” Yamato agrees, “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you alone these days.”
“You’re still convinced I’m depressed,” Taichi snorts without humor, “aren’t you?”
“You still haven’t shown me anything that hints at the contrary.”
“How would you know about that,” Taichi replies, voice intentionally sharp, “you’re on the other side of the planet!”
Yamato, on the other end of the line, falls silent. Taichi’s left hand abandons his spoon to rub at his face, something heavy settling on his shoulders in the blink of an eye. There’s wetness under his fingers, but he ignores it and swallows past the tightness of his throat instead, forcing his back to relax a little while he bends down to rest his forehead on his knees:
“Sorry,” he mumbles after a beat-Yamato doesn’t respond, and Taichi almost curses under his breath. Yet another stunning exploit from the worlds-renowned diplomat. “I know you want to help. It’s just-I’m tired, okay? And the thing with Daisuke put me under the weather. But I’m not sick.”
“I’d believe you,” Yamato replies, “except I also know you wouldn’t tell us if you were.”
“I always tell you when I’m under.”
“Not since the Reboot,” Yamato counters, and Taichi closes his eyes.
It’s not a topic that comes up often between them-as in Yamato and him, of course, but also where the rest of the group is concerned. There are too many things there they haven’t completely digested yet, too many wounds not all of them share, too many bridges none of them has the energy to build.
Too many conversations that, to this day, still hurt too much to be had.
“I know,” Taichi admits, eyes still closed-the darkness, somehow, makes it easier to keep talking, to pretend whatever he says will be gone when he opens his eyes again. “I really flunked out, back then, didn’t I?”
“That’s not what I meant, Taichi.”
“It’s okay,” Taichi promises, and means it-wants to mean it with every inch of his soul-“I know I did. But I’m not doing that this time. I’m not depressed.”
Taichi listens to Yamato sigh after that, splutter for a bit as if considering what to start with. In the background, Gabumon’s voice asks what’s wrong, and Taichi winces because, really, this is the exact opposite of what he wanted.
“What’s wrong is my best friend is being a self-sacrificial idiot,” Yamato replies with more vehemence than Taichi would have expected, “depression is not ‘flunking out’ any more than a broken leg or a cancer is, you dumbass! Or if it is, you’ve got about ten years worth of yelling to catch up with!”
“That’s different!” Taichi protests, eyes snapping open in surprise, “I’m not going to yell at you for that!”
He’s done a lot of yelling at Yamato over the years-in surprise, in fear, in anger, in reproach, even in encouragement sometimes, but never for failing their friends. Sure, there were times his help was needed and he couldn’t give it, but that wasn’t his fault-you can’t just rewrite your brain chemistry through sheer force of will, not even when you’re the stubbornest butt ever created.
“Then why do you assume I-or any of us, really-would yell at you for the exact same thing?”
“It-I don’t think you’d yell at me,” Taichi replies, scrambling for words in a way that leaves him breathless before he’s even started, “I’m just not-I can’t, okay? I can’t be depressed.”
“You can’t decide that, Taichi,” Yamato says and the softness in his voice reminds Taichi of the way he talked to Takeru sometimes, when the kid was down. “’It’s not like you can rewrite your brain chemistry through sheer force of will’, remember?”
Taichi closes his eyes again, pressing the heel of his palm against burning eyelids, and gritting his teeth when he finds them wet again.
“I can’t,” he repeats, voice pitched high with the despair flooding his veins, “I’m the leader! People count on me-I can’t just-give up!”
“Oh please, like you even know how to give up!” Yamato retorts, hotly enough for Taichi to picture his furious expression as if he were here, “You didn’t give up when we File Island exploded, did you? You were just a kid, and you got us all back together. You didn’t give up then, and you didn’t give up later on, ever, because that’s just not what you do.”
“I gave up after the Reboot,” Taichi points out, ears burning with shame at the memory, “if you hadn’t kicked my butt into action-”
“If you’d really given up,” Yamato counters without waiting for Taichi to finish his sentence, “it wouldn’t have made a damn difference. You’re the bravest person I know, alright? Sometimes you just need to be reminded, but that doesn’t mean you’re failing-do you want me to count all the times you had to kick my ass back into action?”
Taichi chuckles despite himself, and wipes a hint of snot on his wrist before he manages a feeble:
“It’s not a contest, Yamato.”
“No, it’s a demonstration,” Yamato replies, the smile audible in his voice. “You say you’re failing us if you’re depressed but you’re not. You’re just sick, that’s all.”
“Okay, but-”
“I know, I know,” Yamato cuts in, “you’re the leader-believe me, I spent enough time resenting you for it back then to remember. You’re good at it too-better than good, even, you’ve gotten us out of more shit than I can count, and we all know that. There’s a reason we’re so comfortable with relying on you, okay? But a team goes both ways. If we’re not capable of picking up the slack when you’re too sick to do your job, we’re the ones failing you.”
Taichi doesn’t have enough words to figure out what the sudden, tight warmth in his chest-his stomach, his hands, his neck-means, let alone express it, so he scrambles for an excuse to end the conversation before he can embarrass himself.
{ooo}
The second week of December turns into the third, and doesn’t bring any sign of respite on the work front. Taichi is called in to sit as an expert in two different prosecutions-in one case, a man’s dog attacked a Tokomon. In the other, a Betamon stands accused of setting a kid on fire. Both of them suck and leave Taichi too drained to give the situation proper thought, condemned to turn the facts in his head over and over and over again without managing to figure out a convincing way to present his arguments which, as he’s come to discover while on the job, pretty much means useless.
“Tell them to ask for a specialist at the stand,” Yamato tells him one night, after Taichi has ranted about the case to hell and back, “Betamons don’t even have fingers, there’s no way any of them could use a match, let alone a flame thrower.”
“I guess,” Taichi says, staring at the the mess of paper sprawled in front of him-maybe Hikari had a point about the whole cleaning up thing-“I still don’t know how to convince them digimons are good, you know?”
“You don’t,” Yamato replies in short breaths, over the noise of a car engine-he must be jogging then, which means it’s actually earlier than Taichi thought-“we’re trying to convince the world they’re people. It means some of them will suck.”
Taichi grunts at that, unwilling to agree despite the truth of Yamato’s statement. So many things in his life-in all of his friends’ lives, really-would have gone horribly wrong if not for the help of digimons. Yes, sure, they’re people, and statistically that means one day there will be digimons on trial for theft, murders, and any number of horrific things the lot of them will shiver about.
That doesn’t mean Taichi has to like the idea though-doesn’t mean he’s ready to just...throw the entire species into an arena they have no way to master, even after seven years of continuous contact between the human and digital world. Every time he thinks of it, he’s reminded of the many things Agumon still fails to grasp, the political and social subtleties he still struggles with after eight years of exposure...and the two of them have an actual, battle-hardened bond. What about the digimons who don’t have that, or whose families don’t accept or care for them?
“This is such a mess,” Taichi sighs, failing to chase the fatigue away when he rubs a hand over his face, “I don’t even know what good I’m doing-I should just quit.”
“Don’t you dare!” Yamato replies immediately-there’s a pained exclamation then, followed by some form of apology in French, and then he repeats: “don’t you dare resign now, Taichi.”
“I fail to see the difference it’d make, honestly. I mean, I did an okay job back at the beginning, but it’s not like I have that much impact over it.”
“Right,” Yamato replies with undisguised sarcasm, “it’s not like you’re the guy who single-handedly created the Department of Digital Affairs, staffed it, organized it, made sure digimons got legally treated like people-”
“On surface,” Taichi replies with a sigh, “but they still have almost 90% chances of losing any trial they’re involved in regardless of the case, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg-they can’t even get proper insurance yet!”
“Yeah, there’s still work to do,” Yamato agrees, “but at least if I get a job with the JSA, Gabumon will get on the payroll. The ESA barely acknowledges digimons exist-did you know they extended the recruitment age last year so they could hire a guy who didn’t have a partner instead of someone who did?”
“No,” Taichi admits, “I didn’t.”
“Well now you do. Look, I know you’re tired and you feel like nothing you do makes a difference, but that’s not true. It’s just the depression talking.”
“How many times will I have to tell you I’m not depressed before you believe me?”
“Don’t know,” Yamato retorts, “how long did it take you to believe me after I split up with Sora?”
Snorting really is the only possible response to that, because they both know Taichi never did. Well, he did, eventually, but not until Yamato went through his third round of therapy, put almost five kilos back on, and Taichi nearly hit him in the face twice. The whole thing was a mess, really, and that’s just the part Taichi was actually privy to.
Honestly, even if he is depressed-he still maintains he isn’t, but he might as well indulge the theory if it serves to make a point-he’s nowhere near where Yamato went back then, and the comparison is frankly exaggerated.
It nags at Taichi’s mind though, nudging at his brain and heart until his pulse quickens in his veins and his blood runs cold with the idea. He’s feeling tired now-goes through the motions more than anything else, and it’s easy to tell someone more passionate would do a better job of it. If it’s just a rough patch, well-he’ll just have to grit his teeth and stick it out.
What if it’s more than that though? Suppose, for a moment, that Yamato is right, that things don’t get better, and this is how he feels about his job for the rest of his days, what then? The Digiworld needs somebody who actually cares, not just a guy who’s never bothered to learn to how to do anything else.
Besides, if Taichi keeps pretending he really is depressed and follows the logic, it begs the question of what happens if he doesn’t get better. Does he let things deteriorate until he makes one mistake too many and finally manages to ruin everything? Does he get number and number about everything and accepts things he should fight tooth and nails?
Because if then-if that’s what’s going to happen-Digimons are definitely better off without him in command.
“I don’t want to be a burden,” he tells Yamato after silence has stretched between them for far too long, “it’s one thing to be a lazy slacker who can’t be bothered to clean his own flat, it’s another to turn incompetent.”
“You won’t turn incompetent,” Yamato dismisses like it’s he’s telling Taichi the Earth isn’t suddenly going to start turning the other way around, “you’re not the kind of guy who’d let himself do that.”
“Was,” Taichi corrects before he thinks better of it.
He remembers being the guy Yamato talks about-for the most part, at least. Sometimes his friends see things he never quite catches in the mirror, but that guy might as well be light years away now, for all the good he does.
“Depression isn’t who you are, Taichi. It’s just something that goes on in your brain.”
“Some people would say that’s what makes it who you are,” Taichi points out, and he’s not surprised to hear Yamato snort.
“People who say that haven’t been depressed. That kind of bullshit only makes it harder to get out of the gutter.”
Taichi has to smile at that-it’s a little stretched, maybe, but it’s sincere, which as far as he’s concerned is another sign he’s clearly not depressed. He knows depressed people can still smile-he’s seen it, after all-but the difference is he means it.
Clearly, things can’t be that bad.
“I guess,” he concedes nonetheless. Then, because it kind of has to be said: “Don’t worry though. I’m not actually thinking of resigning. I can’t do that to Meiko, anyway.”
“Good,” Yamato answers-Taichi thinks he hears something not unlike relief in his voice when he says: “I wouldn’t let you anyway.”
“Right,” Taichi retorts, adding a flippant eye-roll for good measure, even if Yamato can’t see it through the phone, “like you could stop me if I really wanted to.”
“Not directly,” Yamato replies, frightfully matter-of-fact about it, “but I did tell Agumon how bad an idea that would be.”
Taichi’s pen drops out of his hand, and he finds himself actually taking his phone away from his ear just so he can stare at it in disbelief.
What?
“You did not seriously give Agumon instructions on how I should be allowed to give my life.”
“No,” Yamato agrees without the faintest trace of embarrassment, “just a solid explanation on why you quitting would be not only be stupid-because you’re good at what you do-but also extremely damaging to your wellbeing.”
“How dare you-” Taichi starts, only for Yamato to cut him off:
“Look, I didn’t tell him to actually stop you-no one’s going to tie you to a chair until the urge to ruin your life passes. I’m just making sure there’ll be at least one person you listen to that’ll be willing to talk some sense into you.”
“How dare you?” Taichi repeats, not placated in the least by the explanation, “how dare you presume you know better than me how to live my life?”
“Same as you did when I talked about giving up on being an astronaut,” Yamato replies, and Taichi gives up on controlling his volume right then and there to yell:
“You don’t get to direct my life!”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you ruin it because you’re too scared to admit you need help!”
“How would you even know what’s going to ruin my life?” Taichi all but screams, “You’re the one who decided to freaking exit it!”
He hangs up before Yamato can respond to that and throws his phone at the wall hard enough to crack the screen open. Fury batters at his temple, makes his head boil and colors the world red until even the rain outside becomes intolerable and, in a brief flash of concern for his neighbors, Taichi finds himself seizing his Digivice from where it’s resting at the foot of the coffee table, pointing it at his laptop, and transferring himself to the Digiworld without even bothering to check the destination coordinates.
He’s kicking at bushes before he knows it, pouring all the strength of his sudden but seemingly unending rage in the gestures until all that remains is a small mound of vaguely green and blue-ish pieces of smashed leaves.
He swallows against the urge to scream so hard it almost feels like he’s going to choke on it.
{ooo}
He must have dozed off at some point during his improvised relaxation exercises-remembers stomping aimlessly through the forest for a while before the prickling of anger under his skin grew too strong and he had to stop, lie down, and make himself go through every breathing trick he knows of-because when he opens his eyes the sky is definitely darker than it was when he got here. His body aches in all sorts of new and creative ways, including an awkward bruise on his butt from some unidentified object digging into the flesh for too long.
Taichi rubs at his eyes as he sits up, yawning and stretching until it doesn’t feel like he’ll tear a muscle if he tried to get to his feet. It’s still a hassle, but it’s a manageable one, and at least there’s no one to see him wince like an old man. Then, once he stops swaying on his feet, he takes a bleary look around, walks a couple yards farther in the forest...and groans when he realized he’s reached Tramway Lake.
Like he freaking needed that right now.
He sighs, running a hand over his face, and he’s about to turn around when a handful of iridescent butterflies reaches him, fluttering around him until he has to squint to see anything beyond them. He swats at them a couple of time, unsurprised when they don’t back down, and finally resigns to following them to the stupid tramway car.
Taichi hasn’t been there in years-not since he followed the others to retrieve their partners after the Reboot-and the signs of decays are impossible to miss. The tramway itself is covered in flora, for once, vines and grass and flowers growing around, on and inside the old hunk of metal, as if trying to hide it from view, erase it from memory. How did it survive that long, it’s a mystery.
It’s been fifteen years since they came here for the first time-fifteen years full of fighting, erosion, spontaneous data evolution, and one poorly thought-out reboot. By all means, the lake-the beach, the tramway, all of it-should have vanished like an old wound scabbing over, and yet here it remains, ugly and sore as an old scar.
Taichi stares at it for a long time-tries to remember what it felt like, to see it the first time, a pristine imitation of the safer, better known world of humans in the middle of a place filled to the brim with creatures that wanted him and his friends gone-or better yet: dead. The wonder-the relief, the childish hope-has faded, washed away by years of more and more hardships thrown at his face, and although Taichi searches his own heart for a fraction of the things he felt, he can’t find anything but emptiness.
“Why do you all keep staring at random things?”
Taichi jumps and turns around fast enough to tear a hole in the grass, only to end up face to face with a very confused-looking Agumon. He doesn’t move as his partner trots up to him, standing by his side to look at the battered, rusty tramway car and its faded yellow paint.
“Hi,” Taichi manages after a beat, unable to prevent awkwardness from leaking in his meek little wave, “Weren’t you supposed to help out at the Tokomon village today?”
“I was on my way home,” Agumon says with a smile and a shrug, “it’s shorter to go through the woods than follow the road.
‘The road’ is actually more of a dirt trail, meant to ease the way for Digimons unfamiliar to the area on their way to File Island. Taichi never quite learned how the pilgrimage started-some kind of legend, from what he heard, sprouting out from heaven-knows-where after they finally managed to get rid of that freaking virus back in 2005.
It’s only Digimons for now-possibly a handful of Chosen Children as well, though considering a bunch of them have refused contact with the Odaiba team since the Reboot, it’s hard to tell-since Digivices are the only way to open a gate to the Digiworld. Taichi has hear talks, though, of what a mane this place could be if one could only get their hands on it. He keeps his association with the people who think like that to a minimum, and thanks whatever deities exist for each year the portal remains closed, but that doesn’t prevent him from hoping the Digimons will hurry up and put proper touristic structures in place, just in case.
If somebody’s going to make money off the Digiworld, it might as well be the people who live in it, and there’s no better way to ensure that than make sure the place is already well occupied when someone barges in with colonization projects.
“Are you going to answer my question?” Agumon asks, and Taichi realizes he got lost in thoughts again.
“What?”
“That thing has been here forever,” Agumon explains with a shrug that tightens around Taichi’s heart, “but every time we walk past it with one of you, you stop and stare.”
“It’s...close to where we met,” Taichi answers, gut constricting as he clasps his hands together, “and easier to find.”
Pregnant silence slips between them, until Agumon’s eyes widen and he comes up to hug Taichi’s waist, child-like spontaneity always bubbling under the surface of his Rookie form. Slowly, a little heavily, Taichi raises a hand to scratch Agumon’s head behind his ears-a soft spot he made good use of after the reboot forced them all to rediscover one another.
“It’s okay,” Agumon mutters somewhere into Taichi’s belly, his head bobbing with a nod, “I’m glad you remember all of me.”
Taichi nods, and turns his gaze back to the damaged tramway car. One day, enough time will have passed for it to fall out of existence altogether, the metal finally succumbing to the red spots already flourishing on its flanks. The thought presses at Taichi’s throat, and he can’t get rid of it no matter how hard he swallows.
One day, no one will remember this anymore-there won’t be any fading paint left, no wheels, not even a pile of rubble to remind passing Digimons that there was something there, once. Time will do its job, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened, like the lake-a third smaller already-was never there, and the seven kids who sought refuge on its bank never even existed.
In a way, it’s already stated.
No one looks at this thing the way he and the others do after all, not even their partners, why would complete strangers be any different? They’ll see a clearing, a cave, something that was once a lake, and they’ll never know how hard it was to pull a little boy and a little girl out of them. They’ll never know seven children could have died there, and in a hundred other places besides.
They’ll never look at the horizon and think ‘one of our friends died on top of this mountain, and then twice afterward’. They’ll never know what it was like to be called here and then leave, come back, leave again, and then lose everything on the third try like some kind of big, cruel cosmic joke. They’ll never know, never imagine-never care-about the day a lost little boy listened to another lost little boy playing harmonica and they somehow started a friendship that took fourteen years and several thousands of miles to start fraying.
Taichi thinks about all that-lets it all churn around in his chest, his guts, his the softest parts of his heart before he clenches his fist, greets his teeth, and starts tearing at the leaves. He pulls at them with all his weight, tears entire chunks of them off the metal, flakes of paint coming along and landing in his hair even as Agumon tries to stop him-Taichi doesn’t listen. He pulls and pulls and tears until he’s soaked with sweat, almost melting in his winter clothes even as he braces himself against a rust-red wheel to pull at a thicker root.
He’s panting-overheated and gross-by the time he’s done, surrounded by the cold silence of a winter night, and he almost doesn’t notice when Agumon sets a clawed paw on his elbow.
“Taichi,” Agumon says in a gentle tone when Taichi fails to react, “you’re crying.”
“Yeah,” Taichi manages as he folds into himself on the sand, “I know.”
It doesn’t stop for quite a while.
{ooo}
It’s long past dinner time when Taichi and Agumon finally make it back to their flat and find Veemon and Daisuke watching TV in the living room, almost as if nothing happened. Two full bowls of noodles wait on the table next to two empty ones, and Taichi’s stomach drops like a stone when he realizes Daisuke and his partner must have been waiting on Agumon and him for a while before they ate.
“Gone for a walk?” Daisuke asks, more concern than awkwardness in his expression.
Taichi nods.
“I needed a break from work,” he says, which isn’t entirely a lie, even if the causes were more complex than that.
He watches Agumon gather the bowls and carry them over to the microwave as he braces himself to ask:
“I didn’t think you’d be back from Jun’s so soon.”
“Neither did I,” Daisuke replies, managing a little smile to go with his shrug, “but we got on each other’s nerves faster than I thought. Do you want us to turn the volume down so you can work?”
Taichi frowns-almost asks what Daisuke is talking about-before he notices the way Veemon nods at the neat stack of paper sitting next to the TV, carefully ordered according to Taichi’s color-coding system. The pile of dust has been swept out from behind the apartment door, and when Taichi glances at the kitchen, the dishes he kept meaning to wash is gone.
“Thank you,” he mutters, ears heating up faster than he thought possible, “but I think just the image would be enough to distract me.”
He bows a little-in thanks and apology both-and hurries to his bedroom before Daisuke’s worried expression and Veemon’s innocent question-‘Why are his eyes so red?’-turn the weird wobbling of his knees into something even more pathetic.