[OMWK] Chapter 02/4: Rock Bottom (Part 2/2)
✗ 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 I - Part 2] [Chapter II - Part 1]
OMWK ON LJ: [ Chapter I - Part 1] [ Chapter I - Part 2] [ Chapter II - Part 1]
OMWK ON TUMBLR: [Chapter I] [Chapter II]
OMWK ON AO3: [Read Here]
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Dinner is a predictably bleak affair, despite a full five minutes spent trying to work the enthusiasm for it. Trues, Taichi hasn’t been enjoying food to its fullest these past few weeks, but then he was living off instant ramen and other junk food items all through Daisuke’s absence, so there’s nothing suspicious about that. Daisuke’s noodles failing to cheer him, on the other hand, is a bit of a different picnic. There’s a reason Taichi volunteered for every round of recipe-testing, and contrary to what Yamato said it most definitely wasn’t a bottomless stomach.
Tonight though, the dish seems to have lost its deliciousness in profit of the bitter tang of knowing he doesn’t deserve his friends.
(Taichi manages a smile when Agumon polishes off the last of the meal, though. At least one of them is properly appreciative of Daisuke’s talent.)
Taichi pulls his textbooks out as soon as he’s done with dinner, shoulders drooping with the gesture, even as his head fills with cotton. He pushes through it, though: if he stopped studying every time it felt beyond his strength, he wouldn’t have gotten anything done for at least a month.
He doesn’t have time to get fully into it though, because he’s barely cracked the first one open when Agumon asks in a pensive voice:
“Do you think you should see a sychatris?”
“Psychiatrist,” Taichi corrects, before he registers the question and turns around with a frown: “where did you even hear that word?”
“I asked Gabumon how Yamato got better,” Agumon replies with infuriating candor, “after he broke up with Sora and got sick in the head. Gabumon said that’s what that type of doctors was called.”
Taichi stays silent-can’t muster the energy for a shrug even as he looks around his room and notices the pieces of his phone lying next to the door. The screen, clearly damaged beyond repair, nicks at his thumb when he tries to slot the parts back in place, and Taichi hisses.
“So,” Agumon asks again after a moment, “do you think you should see a psychiatrist?”
“No,” Taichi replies around his thumb, “because I’m not sick.”
“But you haven’t been very well for a while now,” Agumon protests, more puzzlement than insistence in his tone, “and Yamato said-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Taichi cuts in, “’Taichi’s going to do something stupid again, blah blah blah’-don’t worry, he told me.”
“That’s not what he said,” Agumon starts, but Taichi’s head buzzes too hard for him to register the words before he says:
“I’m not like him-I’m not sick. I don’t need a psychiatrist.”
“I’m just saying,” Agumon, tries again, but Taichi’s patience is coming apart fast and he cuts his partner off again:
“You’re just saying I should do what Yamato said, or what he did, or what he thinks-or whatever, really.”
“But-”
“He’s all I hear about these days!” Taichi continues, anger burning at his temples, “When he’s not calling me you guys keep telling me I should live my life according to him, well guess what-I’m a freaking adult, and I don’t need anyone to babysit me, let alone a guy who stormed off to the other side of the world!”
“But Taichi, he’s trying to help! You’re not-”
“Not what? Mature enough?” Taichi spits, going from anger to rage, to fury, “Adult enough? Brave enough? I’m not enough of a leader? The war’s over, Agumon! Nobody needs me to be these things anymore!”
“Taichi!”
Taichi pushes Agumon’s paws away from him in a brusque gesture that earns him a long scratch on the forearm, blood boiling a fever into his skin as he all but shouts:
“Don’t ‘Taichi’ me! I don’t care what everybody says, I’m fine! And if you think Yamato knows better than me about this then you can fucking go to him instead of bothering me about it!”
Taichi turns away from Agumon with a strangled exclamation of anger, heart racing with it until it feels like he’s about to faint and he has to scream into his pillow before the whole thing becomes too much. He stays like that for a long while, face shoved into the fabric of his bed until his breathing goes back to something vaguely normal and he finally registers the thirst that’s been clawing at his mouth for who knows how long.
With a grunt, he peels himself off the bed-groans again when he realizes it’s almost eight PM-and half-stumbles to his bedroom door. He almost knocks into Daisuke and Veemon when he opens it, and barely has time to wonder how long they’ve been standing there before Daisuke frowns and asks:
“Is everything okay? Agumon left in a hurry. He wouldn’t tell us why.”
Taichi snorts at that, pretty sure he was loud enough for half the building to hear what went on, but he doesn’t have time to speak before Veemon says:
“He looked kind of sick! Kind of like that weekend after Oikawa-”
“He’ll be fine,” Taichi snaps while Veemon slaps a hand over his mouth, “can I go get some water now, or is the interrogation not over yet?”
“Woah,” Daisuke says, face souring, “calm down, we’re just trying to help here!”
“Right,” Taichi replies, “like you’ve got any reason to want to be nice to me right now.”
He pushes past a gobsmacked Daisuke and, instead of the kitchen, head for the bathroom, where he dives under the hot spray as fast as humanly possible. He finds the living room empty and Daisuke’s door firmly shut when he comes out, heart and gut sinking at the sight, and retreats to his room without a sound.
He’s not sure hows he falls asleep despite the biles burning at his stomach.
{ooo}
Loud banging on the door wakes him up some time later, fast enough that he doesn’t even think of checking the time before he grunts into his pillow-most likely manages to make it sound like ‘go away’-but all it does is make the banging louder and closer to the ground, like whoever is on the other side of the door switched from fists to feet.
“Go away,” he yells, stubbornly keeping his eyes closed even as he angles his mouth away from the pillow so there won’t be any mistaking him this time.
“No!” Yamato yells back through the door.
Taichi’s eyes snap open, and he straightens up fast enough to make his head spin with sudden loss of blood, Yamato’s foot still pounding at the door.
“I’m warning you,” Yamato shouts without a pause in his kicking, “I’m not going away until you open the fucking door or it falls down!”
Taichi knows Yamato well enough to realize he’s perfectly capable of putting his threat to execution, and once his head stops spinning he doesn’t waste time in getting to his feet and padding to the door to the dull rhythm of his bedroom walls’ shivers.
He finds Yamato standing there in a gray shirt and and blue boxer briefs, crazy bed hair framing the redness of his face where pillow creases are only just fading. Taichi watches him grip the door, wedge his foot in the threshold, and glare like he’s daring Taichi to try and break his toes to get out of that argument.
“Picture this,” Yamato says, voice tight and knuckles white around the door frame, “It’s one in the morning, I’m finally asleep after the shittiest fucking day I’ve had in a while, and then my grandfather starts hollering about finding a potato-shaped worm with antennae in the kitchen.”
Taichi’s blood freezes in his veins, and he tries to push the door closed but Yamato won’t have it: he pushes back hard enough to send Taichi reeling back, slips into the room, and pushes the door shut before he continues:
“So I make sure my granddad isn’t having a heart attack there and then, get Gabumon to help him back to bed, and when I finally try to get to the so-called rat who do I find?”
“I-“
“Koromon,” Yamato says before Taichi can even really start his sentence, “crying his heart out on the tiles.”
“Of course he rant to y-”
“And then,” Yamato continues, his glare promising fierce retribution should Taichi try to interrupt again, “when I finally get him to calm down and get here, I find Daisuke all but sulking on the couch because apparently being an ass to one person wasn’t enough to fill your daily quota!”
“All I did was tell him to leave me alone!” Taichi protests at that, “he was being intrusive, and Veemon started talking about-”
“What? How terrible you’re acting?”
Yamato still looks ready to chew Taichi’s head off-or, failing that, tear him a new one-at the slightest hint of a dissatisfying answer, and the thought of it-of having to stay polite and calm when Mister Yamato portaled his righteous butt over to Japan just so he could have a good yelling-turns Taichi’s fear to anger, heat flaring all through his head as he explodes:
“You know what? Screw you! It’s none of your business what goes on in my life-”
“It is when your Digimon comes crying into my kitchen at ass o’clock in the morning!”
“And what are you gonna do about it, punch me in the face?”
“Trust me,” Yamato replies, low and utterly serious, “if I thought it’d help I would!”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Taichi hisses, rigid with fury, voice hoarse from how much he still wants to scream, and Yamato sneers:
“Yeah, sure, nothing in life gives me more pleasure!”
“Well you can go be judgmental somewhere else,” Taichi tells him, crossing his arms over his chest-Yamato’s hands tighten into fists, and he grows at least two shades redder-but doesn’t move-as Taichi steps into his personal space: “All I hear these days is ‘Yamato this’ and ‘Yamato that’, even my own freaking Digimon-”
“Is that why you kicked him out?” Yamato cuts off, face going slack with disbelief, “because he dared to remember someone had a similar problem and tried to use the same techniques to help you?”
“No,” Taichi hisses, heart beating impossibly faster when he steps forward again and Yamato still doesn’t give an inch, “it’s because I’m tired of people always shoving you in my face when you fucking left eight years ago!”
Taichi watches Yamato deflate at that-blink a little-and then something seems to click in his demeanor: he straightens up to his full height, towering over Taichi with all the rigidity of a five inches gap, and suddenly Taichi finds himself stepping back and thinking ‘oh shit’.
“Taichi, did you seriously do this to Agumon because you’re pissed at me for leaving?”
“I’m not!” Taichi insists, voice climbing and cracking on the last word, “but it’s high time people understood I can live my life without you!”
“And what are you gonna do next time Hikari offers advice?” Yamato asks, voice still dangerously low, “slap her in the face because she’s got her own life and you can’t stand it?”
“That’s not-”
“They’re trying to help, you moron!” Yamato screams-Taichi hears something falls to the ground in the general direction of the kitchen, but he’s too caught up in the argument to be embarrassed that Daisuke might hear-“Because you’ve been acting like a fucking depressed mess for the past two months now, and you won’t fucking listen to reason, and we’ve all got enough collective experience to know therapy is an important part of the healing process!”
“Then why not talk about Sora?” Taichi replies in the same volume, hands aching with how tight his fists are, voice grating at his throat until it almost feels like it’s about to start bleeding, “Why not talk about Ken, or Iori, or Takeru-”
“Because I’m your best friend! Because you’re being an asshole, and because apparently I’m the only one who’s willing to actually try and knock your head out of your fucking ass!”
Yamato takes a step forward in anger, and when Taichi tries to step back he stumbles on his futon and falls head over heels on the ground, knocking his head against the floorboard in the process-it doesn’t stop Yamato though, but Taichi refuses to look at him even as he keeps shouting:
“Because when Daisuke came back, he found you living in a fucking mountain of instant ramen and chips bags and Hikari told him you hung up on her the last time she tried to talk about it, because you haven’t called your mother in three weeks-which you’ve never forgotten to do before-and because Koromon was convinced you hated him and never wanted to see him again!”
Taichi screwed his eyes shut at some point of Yamato’s tirade, and he presses a hand against his eyelids now, clammy skin unable to stop the burning there-unable to do anything against the sharp stone lodged in his throat, shattering his breath in some pitiful, fragmented thing he barely gets any oxygen out of.
“I don’t hate him,” he manages eventually, and flinches when the futon dips under Yamato’s weight, “I don’t-I never meant-I’m the leader!”
His voice turns into a whine, and he swallows hard around it, painful and shallow-Yamato’s hand come to rest on his shoulder, fingers pressing into the flesh there, and Taichi has to make an effort not to lean into the touch. Instead, he forces out some kind of pitiful squeak and:
“I can’t just expect you guys to solve my problems for me! I’ve got to deal with it my own way!”
“Aside from the fact that we’ve already established this very idea is bullshit,” Yamato says, voice soft through the hoarseness of too much shouting, “so far your own way includes pushing everyone away from you, saying hurtful things you don’t really mean and-correct me if I’m wrong about that one-hating yourself for doing it.”
Taichi shrugs, but he doesn’t move his hands away from his face as he gulps painful breaths between his wrists. Sometimes, having someone who knows you that well is a real pain in the butt.
“You wanna know who that reminds me of?” Yamato asks after a stretch of silence, and this time Taichi snorts.
“Not really.”
“Too bad, I’m sure you’d know the guy.”
Taichi reaches back to swat at Yamato-ends up knocking against his friend’s knee, hissing in pain and, somehow, laughing about it into his palm.
He wipes at his eyes then, cool wetness collecting on his hands as he does. His backbone pops when he straightens up, staring down at his hands-they’re pale, shining with tears in the thin stripes of city lines that filter in, and Taichi flexes the fingers just to make sure they’re really his.
Outside the room, Veemon’s voice says something, too muffled to hear-either that, or Taichi doesn’t have the brain power required to process the words just now-and then there’s a shush, and silence.
His ears burn.
“Anyway,” Yamato continues without turning, leaning back on his hands, “this guy-let’s say his name is Tamato-”
Taichi snorts again, and gets a light slap on the shoulder for it.
“He did the same thing, and then his best friend punched him in the face-”
“Kicked him in the shin,” Taichi corrects, and Yamato frowns:
“Wasn’t that the second time around? I’m talking about the third. The big one.”
“Whatever,” Taichi shrugs, and while he’s not completely relaxed, he at least manages to unfold his legs from under him, “it doesn’t really matter.”
“It does though,” Yamato replies without missing a beat, “’cause if it wasn’t for the punch Tamato wouldn’t have realized he could-and should-ask for help.”
“You haven’t punched me in the face,” Taichi mumbles for the sake of argument, and Yamato rolls his eyes:
“That can be arranged.”
Taichi turns to stare at Yamato with a shocked look that should, frankly, not be there. It’s not like either of them has ever hesitated to start punching when they felt it was warranted, but the casualty of Yamato’s offer it’s...new. Not bad-nor particularly good-just new. Taichi had forgotten their friendship could still surprise him.
“Seriously though,” Yamato says after a while, “I’m not yelling at you ‘cause I like it. I do it ‘cause-”
“Cause I deserve it,” Taichi admits, gaze shifting from Yamato’s decidedly more awake face to his own knees, “I’ve been a complete asshole these past few months. Especially today.”
“Yeah,” Yamato admits, shifting to sit cross-legged on the futon, “but it’s also because you’re capable of being better than that.”
“Ha. I’m not sure everyone would agree right now.”
Yamato snorts at that, and it takes effort for Taichi not to squirm.
“Yeah,” Yamato says, dripping with sarcasm, “they all hate you. That’s why Daisuke pretty much begged me not to be too hard on you, and Koromon barely even admitted you treated him like crap.”
“I think you got just as hard as I needed,” Taichi mutters.
It takes him a few seconds to catch up when Yamato snorts, and then they’re both laughing at the terrible double entendre, fresh tears flooding Taichi’s face-they don’t burn this time around, though, which is honestly a relief in and of itself.
“Look”, Yamato says a few minutes later, wiping tears of laughter off his cheeks, “people like you enough to forgive your crap. Deal with it.”
Taichi snorts again-it doesn’t devolve into laughter this time, his nerves settled enough not to need the pressure relief anymore-then sighs before he asks:
“What do I do now?”
He’d probably deserve for Daisuke to yell at him for thirty minutes straight, but then he can’t exactly walk up to the guy and ask that favor of him. Sighing again, Taichi brings his knees up to his chest and winds his arms around his legs, while Yamato turns to squint at him:
“You do realize the irony of asking me that just now, right?”
“Shut up,” Taichi mutters at Yamato’s gentle mocking, shrugging the concern off.
As Yamato himself stated, he hasn’t exactly been stellar in the decision-making these days, he might as well take the advice now that he’s finally ready to ask for it.
“I’m still annoyed,” he admits, guts tight with too many things he needs to make amend for, “but clearly you guys were right. I am incapable of dealing with this on my own.”
“Yeah, because depression is a bigger deal than your average cold,” Yamato points out.
“You did it,” Taichi counters, “you were on your own-”
“If you discount the phone calls,” Yamato counters, ticking items off on his fingers, “the emails, the visits, Gabumon’s headbutts, your yelling, my granddad...do I need to keep going?”
“Nah,” Taichi says-it turns into a yawn halfway through, and Yamato answers with one of his own before Taichi finishes: “I think I get it. Gotta be more like you,” he finishes in, only half-joking.
Yamato swears under his breath, closing his eyes and sweeping both hands over his face as if trying to push some patience into himself. To be fair, Taichi definitely had the same reaction to him at various point, so it’s not like this is a shock.
“Let’s go over this one last time,” Yamato groans after a bit, “people aren’t trying to turn you into me, they’re trying to help you with the solutions they know worked for the most similar case we’ve had, which happens to be the way I failed to deal with depression. If you wanted them to take you on beach holidays and jogging trips, you should have done like Sora and gone catatonic.”
“Hey!”
Taichi punches Yamato’s shoulder for that, less than gently, because there are ways to discuss this that don’t make it sound like Sora was just tying to be interesting, dammit!
It doesn’t change the fact that Yamato has a point, though-learning ikebana may have been a life saver for Sora, but it probably wouldn’t have worked as well for Taichi. Certainly, even.
God, but he’s been so stupid.
“Seriously,” he asks, ears burning in shame again, fresh heat prickling at the corner of his eyes when he blinks, “what do I do now?”
“Get some sleep, for starters,” Yamato yawns, “and not just ‘cause I’m tired. You’ll think better once you’ve rested a little. Then, you’re gonna do what you do best: screw your courage to the sticking place and do the right thing, even if it sucks.”
“Will you do the thing where you stay close an pretend you’re not listening in?” Taichi asks, and he’s relieved to see Yamato roll his eyes, as if anything but that was completely unthinkable.
Taichi may be a bone-head, but at least he’s got great friends.
“I missed you,” he admits, the words tumbling from his mouth just as he thinks them, and when Yamato bumps their shoulders together he adds: “I’m sorry I got upset with you. You’ve got a right to live your dream, even if it’s on the other side of the world.”
It’s not even like they haven’t been in contact either, really, it’s just-France is terribly far away, and phoning is just not the same thing as a real sleepover.
“I missed you too,” Yamato says, fondness chasing some of the obvious fatigue out of his features. “You know I didn’t mean you had to start on things tonight, right?”
“Yeah,” Taichi says with an awkward little smile, “but I don’t think Daisuke is asleep, and I’m not going to get any rest until I do this anyway.”
“Okay,” Yamato says with a nods, getting to his feet when Taichi does, “but maybe you should let Koromon sleep on this as well before you talk to him?”
His words are soft, careful, and Taichi nods. He doesn’t like the idea of waiting-was never really good at leaving problems alone, especially when he’s got a solution, or even just the beginning of one. He wants to do this right, however, and right now Yamato is probably in a better position to judge than him.
“I really screwed up,” he sighs, carding a hand through his hair, “didn’t I?”
“Oh, you should have seen me at my lowest,” Yamato says with an easy shrug, “you’re not even close.”
“What did you do?” Taichi asks without bothering to hide his disbelief, “Slap Gabumon in the face?”
“I sent him out so I could lock myself in the bathroom and slice my wrists open in peace.”
Taichi turns back around to face Yamato so fast he almost topples right into the guy. He doesn’t, though, and they stand like that for a long time, Taichi’s hand hanging limply at his side while Yamato shifts from foot to foot, hands moving to his hips like he’s trying to hook his fingers into the belt of his boxers.
When, at last, it appears Yamato isn’t going to provide more detail on his own, Taichi breathes:
“When?”
“Winter after Sora and I broke up, not long after I met Guillaume.”
Taichi has heard the name before-Yamato’s first boyfriend. He didn’t know about the history that came with it, though.
“I...wasn’t ready,” Yamato adds, looking like he’d rather be saying anything else, “things with Sora got-ugly. We got really nasty with each other and then the whole gay thing I-I don’t know. It made sense at the time, but I-”
“Couldn’t explain it if you tried?”
Yamato shrugs at that, and Taichi nods in understanding. He hasn’t given his ‘conversation’ with Agumon proper thought yet, but the motives for it-the things that made him tick and essentially go berserk-seem fuzzy already, like some kind of weird spell came over him and changed him into something he can’t quite recognize.
It’s still him, though, and he’ll have to deal with that soon, but not just now. There’s a more pressing topic, just now.
“No wonder you panicked when I missed that call,” Taichi mutters, the memory of Ken’s anxious face floating at the edge of his mind. Then, barely above a whisper, he asks: “What stopped you?”
“It hurt,” Yamato answers with a grimace that seems to say ‘dumb, uh?’, “and there was a lot of blood. It scared the crap out of me, so I called my granddad. He came home like a freaking hurricane, closed the whole thing up-turns out the cut was too shallow to even work-and then he slapped me in the face so hard I got a headache.”
Yamato half-chuckles, half-snorts at the memory, and Taichi has to bite the inside of his cheek not to scold him for it.
“He made me swear I’d tell my therapist about it-I did, and she referred me to a psychiatrist so I could get some medication. Gabumon refused to talk to me for three weeks straight.”
“Alright,” Taichi manages to say, trying-and failing-to make it sound like a light comment, “clearly, you win.”
“Yeah. Don’t tell Takeru.”
Taichi nods-then, on impulse, he pulls Yamato into a lopsided hug. His friend stiffens a bit at first, but he relaxes quickly enough, and Taichi sighs with relief he didn’t even know he should have felt.
“I’m glad you’re still alive,” he says, the words far too late but important anyway, “and I’m glad you’re enough of a friend to yell at me when I need it.”
“Yeah,” Yamato sighs, head bent to rest on Taichi’s shoulder, “me too. I’m glad I haven’t managed to ruin our friendship yet.”
Taichi snorts, and flicks Yamato’s ear.
{ooo}
Once Yamato has left though the DigiPortal, Taichi takes a look at the golden light slipping out from under Daisuke’s bedroom door, and decides he’s going to need some help.
He ends up standing in front of the door several minutes later, two steamy mugs of hot cocoa in hands, and wondering how he’s going to knock without toppling the frankly obscene amount of whipped cream and mini-marshmallows he managed to stack on top when the door opens, revealing a sleepy Veemon in the middle of a yawn while his free hand scratches idly at his butt.
“Oh,” the Digimon says when he realizes Taichi is there, “hi, Taichi.”
“Hi,” Taichi replies, resisting the urge to squirm or wave, for fear of spilling whipped cream on the floor, “I thought I’d-may I come in?”
Taichi carefully holds the cup out with what he hopes is an appropriately contrite and embarrassed expression, and tries not to look too obviously relieved when Veemon nods. On the bed, Daisuke groans when Veemon shakes him back to awareness, and turns around in the slowest, most sluggish way Taichi has ever witnessed. He doesn’t allow himself to be impatient about it. Veemon waits for Daisuke to blinks at Taichi-for his eyes to widen when he notices the mugs-and hurries out of the room, claws clicking on the floor as he makes his way to the bathroom.
Taichi waits for Daisuke to awaken properly, and hopes the whipped cream doesn’t end up melting on his fingers.
“Hi, Taichi,” Daisuke manages after some more bleary blinking and a lot of squinting, “is that for me?”
“And Veemon,” Taichi confirms, handing one of the mugs over.
Taichi glances at the alarm clock while Daisuke bites half the cream off his drink in one large gulp-nearly nine PM. Hopefully, the neighbors will forgive the noise.
He turns back to Daisuke just in time to see his nose emerge from the ceramic cup, a spot of whipped cream clinging to his nose when he gives Taichi a grin:
“Thanks,” he says, “it’s awesome.”
“It’s the least I can do,” Taichi says, a little too low, while his stomach twists and the distant flush of the toilets punctuates his sentence, “after....”
“It’s forgotten,” Daisuke says, hand swiping at some imaginary speck in the air, “right Veemon?”
“It is if you say it is,” Veemon replies, all but pulling his mug out of Taichi’s hand, “there’s not much I wouldn’t forgive for a treat like that!”
Taichi watches Veemon sit down on the floor and dive into his cocoa with a happy wiggle of his stubby tail, fishing marshmallows out of the drink with delicate swipes of his claws. It makes Taichi smiles, and when he looks back at Daisuke, the latter mouths ‘Tail!’ at him with a fondly mocking expression on his face.
“Seriously,” Veemon says after a bit, “Wormmon explained-it’s like when Ken was the Digimon Emperor. It’s not really you. So it’s okay.”
“It’s more complicated,” Taichi starts, but Daisuke cuts him off:
“You’re sick is what he means. What you did wasn’t nice, but it also wasn’t really your fault, in a way, you know?”
“I pretty much insulted you for trying to help me,” Taichi points out, frustration mounting when Daisuke doesn’t seem to get it, “I called you a bad friend!”
“Yeah, like I said, rude,” Daisuke replies with a shrug,”but also not as bad as you seem to think it is.”
There’s a pause when Taichi tries to figure out how to answer that. If he’d said the same thing to Yamato-when he said the same thing to Yamato, several years ago-he’d have gotten punched in the face. He did, too, once.
Daisuke, on the other hand, seems to have taken it far better than Taichi had any right to expect.
“I treated you like crap,” Taichi manages at last, “even if I’m sick, that doesn’t make it alright!”
“It doesn’t,” Daisuke agrees, “and if you keep acting like I’m not your friend I might think of taking Yamato’s advice and slapping you in the face. But right now, we’re okay.”
“But,” Taichi splutters, unsure why he’s even pressing his luck so far, “I don’t deserve it! Being sick-”
“But Taichi,” Veemon pipes up from his place on the floor, “forgiveness isn’t about what you deserve.”
It takes a long time-and Daisuke’s increasingly amused expression-before Taichi manages to close his mouth after he hears that.
He may or may not have to wipe his eyes again when he leaves the room.
{ooo}
Taichi’s heart beats fast when he follows Yamato into the kitchen of his French apartment the next day. He barely pays attention to the uneven floorboards, the moldings on top of the walls, the authentic baguette discarded on the table. All he’s got eyes for is the way Koromon freezes, and Gabumon waits until the smaller Digimon nods before he exits the room with Yamato.
“Hey,” Taichi tries, mostly because it seemed to work with Veemon last night.
He’s not prepared for the wet note in Koromon’s voice when he says:
“Hey.”
“I’m sorry,” Taichi says, words rushing out of him with the urgency of something absolutely vital, even as he goes to his knees, “I shouldn’t have treated you like that-you were trying to help. It wasn’t right of me to blow up at you, even if I’m not feeling well.”
“I thought you hated me,” Koromon says with a glance at the corridor next to the kitchen.
Evidently, he’s been prepared for the conversation. It doesn’t bother Taichi as much as he would have thought.
“I thought you’d never want to see me again. You swore at me!”
“I’m sorry,” Taichi repeats, “I don’t know why I said the things I said, I never-I’m not even really that upset about being compared to Yamato it’s just-everyone’s leaving. They’re all-I don’t know. Nothing is ever going to be the same again, nothing is, and no one remembers and-and-it doesn’t matter, actually. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I was cruel, and mean, and wrong. I’m sorry. I don’t want to lose you.”
“I don’t want to lose you either,” Koromon says, “but you can’t do that again. I want to help you, but I can’t do it if you won’t talk to me-or let me ask other people to understand what’s going on.”
“I know,” Taichi says, pulling his head even lower, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I said something wrong,” Koromon continues, but this time Taichi doesn’t let him finish:
“You didn’t. It’s me. I got-I’m not sure what got over me. But I shouldn’t have let it hurt you. I promise I’ll do my best to answer your questions from now on.”
Koromon gives Taichi a long, quizzical look-Taichi tries not to squirm too much even as he steals a glance up-and then he digivolves to Agumon with a whistling pop, and pulls at Taichi’s shoulders until their eyes are at the same level.
“Good,” Agumon says, and then Taichi is engulfed into a hug.
He hugs back with all the strength he has, breathes the smell of Agumon’s scales as deep as he can as relief floods every inch of him, dragging tears out of him he doesn’t even attempt to wipe off.
“You were right to leave,” he half-whispers, half-whines, tightening the hug when Agumon tries to pull away at the words, “not because I don’t want you around, but because you deserve better. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to let me hurt you. And I don’t want to lose you a second time.”
“Yamato said I was right, too,” Agumon mutters after a brief, tense pause that ends with him melting into the hug again, “and Papy, too. It didn’t feel good.”
“I know,” Taichi tells him, “but you were still right. Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.”
“That fucking sucks.”
Taichi pulls away from Agumon to stare at him in surprise and, before they know it, they’re laughing themselves silly, nerves seeping out of Taichi with every tears leaking on his cheeks. He hugs Agumon again, tears of laughter turning into tears of exhaustion as easy as flipping a switch, and it’s a relief when Agumon pats his back through it all.
“So,” Agumon asks when Taichi is done drying his eyes and blowing his nose several minutes later, “what are you going to do now?”
“First,” Taichi says with a glance at the mechanical clock hanging above the door, “if you’re okay with it, I’d like to go home and get breakfast.”
“Sure!” Agumon says, usual grin back in place over his lips, “I don’t think anyone here will mind.”
“We won’t,” Yamato pipes up from...wherever he is, really, Taichi doesn’t actually care.
“Okay,” he calls back instead, smiling despite himself, “thanks for the input, eavesdropper!”
Agumon hides his laughter behind his paws, and Taichi smiles at the gesture, before he continues:
“Then, I’m going to book an appointment with a therapist-it’s a bit like a psychiatrist,” he explains when Agumon’s face turns interrogative, “and we’ll see how it goes from there. Deal?”
“Of course,” Agumon says.
Taichi hugs him again.