Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ The Walls Between ❯ Unto the Ends of Time ( Chapter 11 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Just as he hadn't gone straight to his parents' apartment, Daisuke didn't come straight back home either.

There was a bridge that crossed a small canal in one of the many parks in Tamachi, and it was here that Daisuke had met Ken frequently in years past. Although Daisuke was no fan of sitting still, Ken was a quieter and more thoughtful boy, and so they had spent many a lazy summer afternoon in the area, just talking and counting clouds and, by Daisuke's reckoning, wasting time. The bridge had no formal name that either of them was aware, and so they had always referred to it simply as "their bridge."

As Daisuke wandered the district, always in the general direction of home, he suddenly shook himself out of his thoughts and found himself walking toward the fanciful arch of bridge. The wrought-iron railings, fashioned to resemble dragons and roosters chasing each other across the span, stood out in silhouette against the quicksilver water in the canal; it was like a cardboard cut-out from his memory. Already, someone was standing on the bridge, one foot kicked back onto the toe and arms folded on the railing, looking down at the water. This fit well into Daisuke's expectations, and he stepped onto the bridge with the intention of taking a similar pose a few meters down from the lone watcher. The sky was dark and glowed golden-pink with haze, and the scent of the blooming cherry trees rode faintly on the air. It would have been a nice night to stand close to Ken on their bridge, arms around each others' waists, watching the world pass by on distant sidewalks and talking about ridiculous things; the night was chill enough to discourage others from the doing the same, yet not cold enough for a person in a snug jacket and wrapped up in a lover to be uncomfortable.

This thought gave Daisuke a sharp pang of regret as he moved toward the apex of the arch. Why hadn't Ken told him about his father? Why couldn't he love Ken unconditionally, trust Ken implicitly, the way he wanted? Why did things have to be this way?

And why did the lone gentleman in the black overcoat have to turn out to be Ken?

Daisuke stopped as soon as Ken glanced over his shoulder toward him, struck dumb by outrage for a few seconds before he said, "Fuck. Can't I even get one fucking evening to myself? Are you stalking me?"

Ken regarded him silently, his eyes made black by the dim ambient light until a slight change in posture made his glasses catch the light of a distant street lamp. Daisuke felt uneasy, unable to see Ken's eyes. "How was your father?" asked Ken finally.

"He's alive." Daisuke considered turning around and going elsewhere in his aggravation, but that would feel too much like a retreat. He had no reason to surrender their bridge to Ken; he had just as much, if not more, right to loiter here. So he propped himself against the railing above the cold water, not far from where he'd intended to end up in the first place. "You can start with your fucking excuses now, if you want." The words tasted like ash.

"I don't have any excuses," said Ken quietly. "Just my reasons."

"Oh, pardon me, I didn't know there was a distinction." A part of Daisuke yearned to step closer to Ken, to slide into his warm embrace, to forgive all. This was the weak part of him, the childish part that had a difficult time standing up against his wiser, cynical bitterness. Daisuke was able to beat it back into place without difficulty, and he didn't move.

"There is. I should have told you. I just ..." Ken paused, and then said, "You were so happy, Daisuke. And there really was nothing you could have done."

Picking at a chipped place in the black railing paint with his fingernails, Daisuke said, "So that gives you a right to withhold information about my own family from me? Because I was happy?"

"No. Of course it doesn't. I said they weren't excuses."

"I'm really fucking happy right now. Can't you tell how happy I am? My dad could have fucking died and my boyfriend didn't trust me enough to tell me about it. Yeah, idyllic, my life."

"Daisuke, just ... listen to me for once. I know you're angry, but just listen to me."

"I'm listening. I would like nothing better than to hear a fucking good reason for this." I would like nothing better than to forgive you. He bit his lip and looked down at the water.

Ken paused then, and when he continued it was in a far lower tone. "I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that what your father had wasn't dangerous. Pulmonary embolisms do kill people. But by the time your mother called, he was already at the hospital, and people who die from embolisms don't generally make it that far. Once he was at the hospital, there was an extremely good chance that he'd live through it."

Daisuke eyed him sidelong. "How do you fucking know that?"

One shoulder, clad in black leather, shrugged. "Same way I know anything. I don't remember, really."

"I don't see a fucking 'MD' after your name. I don't know why I should believe you. Besides, even if you're right, you just admitted that he could have died anyway. Most people don't make to the hospital, but some do and die anyway! I should have been there. That could very well have been my last chance to see him, tell him I love him, and admit that it was me who shaved the neighbor's cat when I was eight. Okay? You didn't have a right to make that call for me."

"Daisuke, he could still die tomorrow from something unrelated to the embolism. He could have a heart attack, or choke on his dinner, or be hit by a car just like Osamu, or by heaven he could be hit on the head by a falling meteor." Ken's voice picked up a note of passion, an emphatic flavor that Daisuke heard so rarely from him. "Anything could happen. Any moment could be your last chance to tell someone you love him."

Quiet descended then, underwritten by the distant sounds of city life and the rustle of the tree branches comforting each other in the wind. After a moment, Ken continued, "You were so happy. You were so beautiful. There was no point in making you unhappy over something that you couldn't do anything about, and which was going to turn out well in the end anyway."

"You didn't have the right," said Daisuke.

"Are you worried about your father right now?"

Thinking back to the man he'd just left, Daisuke said, "I suppose not." His father was a little more subdued now, but he seemed to be in good enough spirits, and he gave off no signs of weakness or failing health. "No, not really."

Ken nodded a little. "Would it have improved your opinion of him to see him laying in a hospital bed like an invalid?"

"It wouldn't have fucking hurt it, either. Maybe you have a dysfunctional relationship with your family, but I fucking respect my dad, and I'd still respect him even if he needed help to take a piss. Do you understand that?"

Shifting a little to face Daisuke, Ken said, "Yes, actually I do. That's kind of how I feel about you."

"Don't change the fucking subject."

"I'm not." Ken continued to speak in the same low, reasonable tone that he'd started with, a tone that splashed across Daisuke's smoldering rage like soothing water. "I love you, Dai-chan. I can't help that. I've loved you for most of my life. I think about you all the time, and I always have. I would do anything for you, no matter what. Remember when you used to ask me if I would still love you when you got old and ugly?" Daisuke didn't answer, and Ken said, "I will. I can't imagine a world in which I don't love you." It was hard to remain angry in the face of such gentle reason, but Daisuke still had a good stock of anger yet.

"What has this got to do with you not telling me that my father was in the fucking hospital?"

"All I've ever wanted was for you to be happy. Can't you see that?"

"I do. I've seen you do some really fucking insane things in an effort to make me happy. Guess what? The lunacy isn't working."

"Dai-chan ..." Ken took a step forward, and Daisuke took the same step back. He wasn't feeling very affectionate at the moment.

"Don't 'Dai-chan' me. I'm not falling for it this time. You had no right to keep this information to yourself, and I'm angry about it. I'm not going to stop being angry about it."

"I know," said Ken softly.

"So why did you do it? You wanted me to be happy, do I look happy, Ken? Was this the reaction you were aiming to get? Because this is the reaction you're fucking getting!"

"I'm trying to explain it to you, but you're still not listening to me." The soft, reasonable edge of Ken's voice did not leave it, but it took on a slightly hard aspect with these words. "Look, let's pretend that I had told you right away. What would you have done?"

"I would have gone to the hospital and held my dad's hand! What the hell do you think I would have done?"

"Wouldn't you have been worried? Wouldn't you have been upset?"

"Of course."

"And for what?" Ken leaned sideways against the bridge railing. "Your father would have been fine anyway. I knew that, but reason just doesn't work with you half the time. All you would have seen would have been your father laying there ill, and you would have driven yourself half-insane over it."

"You didn't know that."

"Yes I did. And look, I was right. You're not worried now, because everything alarming is past and you've seen that your father is perfectly fine now."

Daisuke looked away, chewing on his lip. His instincts demanded that he remain angry, that he'd had a right to know, but there was a definite truth in Ken's point of view. He had been spared a lot of worrying by Ken's completely unfair actions.

"Besides, there's also your father to think about."

"How do you figure?"

"A man needs some dignity, Daisuke, and there's nothing less dignified than falling seriously ill. There's nothing quite like having your mortality on display to cut all the dignity out of you."

"Mom and Jun were there. It wouldn't have made all that much difference for me to be there too."

"Sons are different than wives and daughters. You respect your father, and that's good. He needs you to respect him, because if you don't, that means he failed."

"I'd still respect him. He didn't ask for this, and he didn't bring it on himself."

Ken took a step forward again, and this time Daisuke didn't back away quite so quickly. "Don't you see? It doesn't matter what you really think of him. It's his perceptions that matter. If he perceives that he's lost face to you, it doesn't make a difference for you to say that it hasn't happened. This way, he can pretend that the illness didn't happen, because you didn't see it."

Daisuke considered this - it was all true. But then he shook his head and said, "No matter how you twist this, I still had a right to know, Ken!"

"I'm not twisting it. You asked me why I did it. I'm just telling you."

"Sounds more like you're trying to justify it."

Ken frowned slightly then, the most minimal turning-down of the corner of his mouth. "If I didn't think it was justified, I wouldn't have done it. I gave everything careful consideration."

"And where did my feelings come into consideration? How much did my right to know count for?"

"I always think of you first," said Ken quietly. "Always."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

Ken sighed, and looked for an instant as if he wanted to approach Daisuke; at the last second he turned toward the water and stuck his hands in his pockets. "You just don't want to hear me, do you?"

"I am hearing you, and nothing you've said gives you a right to keep things like this to yourself."

"I know that. Maybe you're right, and I should have told you, but I didn't. I thought I was doing the right thing, and I still think I did the right thing. I just ... I love you."

Ken looked at him, then, with his glasses catching the light and turning his eyes into flat panes, and Daisuke sighed. "This is going nowhere, is it?"

"I don't want you to hate me."

"Ken-chan ... I don't hate you! I could never hate you. Don't even say things like that."

"I did it for you. I do everything for you, you know, directly or indirectly. And I know that my choices are often bad ones, but you have to understand ... I didn't want to hurt you."

"Well, you did." Daisuke turned his back on Ken and folded his arms, unable to vocalize exactly what he felt was so wrong with this. All of Ken's reasons were good and true, but something just didn't add up, and he couldn't figure out what, exactly, that something was.

After a moment, he heard Ken approach and felt arms around his waist. He didn't pull away; the nippy bite in the air slid away with the advent of Ken's warm body behind him, and Ken's long jacket on either side of him. I want to forgive him ... I want to love him without question ... How can I forgive this? He put his hands over Ken's at his waist.

"If you want to be angry at me," murmured Ken in his ear, "that's all right. It's better than you tearing your heart out needlessly."

"Stop being so fucking noble," said Daisuke.

"I'd do anything for you." Ken's hands moved down the planes of Daisuke's hips to the fronts of his thighs. "I love you so much. I'd rather see you angry at me than see you hurting."

Daisuke closed his eyes, wrapped up in Ken and shivering with the very real possibility that they might be observed out here, engaged in a public display of groping. While that would likely result in a hefty dose of embarrassment and nothing more, it still wasn't something Daisuke was inclined to court. Even so, he couldn't bring himself to push Ken off, or twist out of his grip. It felt so perfect, so right, to allow himself this tenderness following his earlier musings on the passage of time. It was like renewal.

"Don't think this means I'm forgiving you," he murmured, although there was no venom in the words. His self-imposed isolation from Ken felt unnatural, and so it felt completely natural for it to crack.

"I know," said Ken. "Just don't hate me. Just let me love you."

"I don't hate you," said Daisuke. He did squirm a little then, and when Ken loosened his hold, he turned around to face his lover. "Why do you do these things to me? Why can't we just be a normal couple and have fights and make up and go on with our lives?" He leaned back a little, resting his rump against the bridge railing, and Ken rested against him with pale hands gripping the cold black metal on either side. Daisuke felt trapped, but not unpleasantly so, and this wasn't exactly an unfamiliar sensation anyway.

"I'm trying. I'm trying so hard for you." Ken nuzzled his ear, and the warmth of his breath against Daisuke's cold ear was heavenly. "But how can you blame me for wanting you to be happy? You're so precious to me."

"I don't blame you for wanting me to be happy. I blame you for the way you go about it." His rage was almost gone now, melted like ice in the sun of Ken's palpable affection; he put his arms around Ken's shoulders. "I don't understand what I want to say."

"Then don't worry about it." Ken began to kiss his neck, and Daisuke suddenly wanted to pull back again, escape Ken's embrace. This was starting to feel less like comfort and more like seduction, and Daisuke certainly didn't want to start anything like that on a bridge in a park in the cold. Actually, even if they'd been snug at home, he wasn't sure that he was in a mood to screw Ken. Despite lowering his guard, Daisuke still felt vaguely yet distinctly disgruntled at Ken, and that effectively killed any nascent lust that might be instinctively evoked by the physical contact.

He didn't wiggle free, but he did say, "Ken, don't," and push Ken backward a little. After a moment of confused resistance, Ken drew back.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

"It's okay. Let's just go home, okay?"

It was warm at home, out of the cherry-scented breeze. Ken, solicitous of whatever Daisuke might want, took his jacket and put it away, and then tucked him onto the couch with a blanket and the television remote control before disappearing into the kitchen to boil water for tea. Daisuke dully flipped channels, not really interested in any of it, searching for something to catch his attention and unsurprised when nothing did.

Today had been such a bitch. This time yesterday, his life had seemed perfect, his future assured. Secure in Ken's affluence and love, he'd been free to make whatever choices he liked, without worrying about whether or not he could make the rent, or keep his electricity from being cut off. His offhanded comment to Ken earlier that afternoon, about wanting to attend college, hadn't been his first thought on the matter, although it had been the first time that he'd considered it seriously or mentioned it aloud. Always before, there was a question of how to pay for classes, with the most workable option being student loans. It was a sort of gamble, that way, since there was no guarantee that a college degree would improve his life; he might end up right back where he started, only saddled with hundreds of thousands of yen in loans. But now, things were different. He'd known before asking that Ken would approve completely of any attempt on his part to further his education. It had been slowly dawning on him through the past few weeks that what Ken said about his job was correct - he didn't need to work. He could quit his job and try to get into a school if he wanted, and there would be no negative consequences of it.

The idea of being able to go back to school on Ken's financing had been a giddy one, and Daisuke had been happy. He'd been happy with Ken. Life-altering decisions were easy to make when one had a safety net.

Daisuke didn't feel nearly so secure now.

"Here," said Ken, and Daisuke found a delicate porcelain teacup presented to him. Setting down the remote control, he took it and carefully sipped the hot tea.

Ken sat down in the chair and said, "I'm sorry."

"Stop fucking saying that," said Daisuke, with no rancor whatsoever.

"Will you believe me if I do?"

"I believe you now." Daisuke set down the teacup and gathered the blanket around himself like armor. "I believe that you are utterly and totally sorry about what you did, and I believe that you would do it again instantly if the situation ever came up again. I can forgive you, Ken. I'm just immensely disappointed that I can't trust you not to do it again, and that makes me unsure if I should forgive you."

Ken looked at him silently for a long time; Daisuke glanced down after a few seconds to pick up his teacup again and fiddle with the translucent green liquid. Finally, Ken said, "All right. I deserve that."

He stood up and moved toward the bedroom, pausing to run a hand idly through Daisuke's hair as he passed behind the couch. "I can't change what I did, and I can't change what I am. I wish you would trust my judgement. I knew what I was doing, and I did it for you. I still think that you're better off this way. If you can't trust my judgement, at least trust that I love you."

Daisuke didn't reply, busying himself with his tea, and after a moment Ken moved off. Resuming his idle channel-surfing, Daisuke gradually finished off his tea.

That's the one thing about you I do trust, without question.

Flipping past a news program, Daisuke sighed as he caught a glimpse of a man in a suit, looking like the embodiment of Authority, speaking into a microphone. Politics. He moved on.

I know that he loves me.

A game show. This also failed to hold his interest. Commercials running on two channels, then a nature program, in which a predator cat leapt onto the haunches of a fleeing gazelle.

Is love enough?