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Takeru knows Hikari is pretty.
He knows it, objectively, in the same way all his girlfriends were pretty. It's in how he thinks white and pink are her best colors or what way the sun turns her hair a bit auburn like her brother's.
He knows that she's strong and kind with ruby red eyes that turn crimson when things are too much and pink when she's hurting and scarlet when she's fascinated and he knows her when she is white as snow and dark as blood and-
Right now, across from him, she's a stranger. A beautiful stranger with expectations a person could never meet and he smiles.
"Hikari-chan."
"Takeru-kun."
Her eyes reflect his feelings. Her eyes gleam with much less malice, much more warmth, but all the same, this is … wrong.
Everyone says they should date. Their parents, their siblings, even their friends, everyone human says they should date.
Digimon don't understand the value of it beyond the basics of mating, so they say nothing about it. They don't see the wonder in it, the importance that humans place in it. It's just a part of the data that they take in. Love is a singular emotion with multitudes and that's enough.
So neither of their partners care much either way, except to see their humans happy.
Not that Takeru thinks Hikari would talk about this with anyone, let alone Tailmon. Tailmon has a good heart and a nice head on her shoulders, but she's also skeptical in a way Hikari doesn't allow out loud most of the time.
Maybe he should mention it to someone. Miyako would be a good bet, except she'd tell everyone.
For now, they sit awkwardly by their meals, occasionally coming up with things to say. He knows Patamon is… somewhere in the cafe area. Tailmon slept under the the table.
Hikari laughs all of a sudden, out of nowhere. "This is-"
"Silly," Takeru says. "It's silly. We're friends, why is this so hard?"
If only Yamato were here. He'd call him a bit of an idiot and lead them out of the cafe to do something normal. Something not date-like or weird or even just stopping lost digimon from destroying a building.
Why was this, something they did with their friends all of the time, so different?
Hikari laughs again. "Maybe we should try going for a walk together."
Takeru glances at her. "Want to go to the arcade? I can beat you at dancing?"
The way those eyes glimmer in the sunshine is beautiful and dangerous. "You're on."
She's beautiful.
Takeru can admit this every time they're together. When they were younger, she seemed fragile, needing protection, and in some way, he still thinks so, but it's better now. Everyone needs protection.
Even him.
They try again, at a bookstore, and again, at the arcade, and again, at the park outside of his dad's job.
Eventually, Takeru talks about kissing. The idea makes Hikari's nose wrinkle, like they're both eight instead of sixteen and only adults bridge that gap.
Still, they try.
Takeru has kissed before and knows when he likes it.
He knows he doesn't like this.
He does like, they discover at ten pm on a Wednesday night, touching her. Her heartbeat pulsing under his palm, her breasts when his hair touches the underside from kissing her stomach. Her laughter and polish-free nails scraping at his scalp.
Takeru loves to touch her and when she touches him, like he isn't tissue paper or glass or something that can carve itself out of each other's skin.
But kissing, no, kissing is a reminder that it's ultimately swapping spit. That's not what you're supposed to think when you're making out and not mid-coitus, especially.
Hikari takes it all in stride but that is the mindset of someone who exists on introversion in a family of energetic honesty. She's happy if he's happy and he, they-
They're never happy enough.
She never complains and he- if she could he'd-
God, what would he do?
Takeru knows his idea of what a good relationship is is very skewed. His best idea is his brother and Sora, and they're fumbling as much as the rest of them. Miyako and Ken disagree, which he knows is normal, but Yamato and Sora have a steadiness that comes from knowing and seeing the worst and best of each other in ways that he thinks he's too young for, even now.
Even still, it's like comparing it to his friendship with Patamon. It's not a friendship. Even partner feels like a weak word at this point.
His friends have mostly families with good relationships, and Takeru, though his best wish is for that family around the dinner table that he's missed since he was six, Takeru is very aware it is never happening again and that it's better if it doesn't happen again. None of them are in good enough shape for that.
Still, what does it mean for them?
"I mean," Hikari sips her soda. They're sitting in the Yagami living room. Neither of them dare to go into Hikari's bedroom and face the wrath of a protective Taichi, pointless as it sounds. "It's not as if we're not those things. It's just - My skin crawls."
"That's so great for my self-esteem, Hikari-chan." He says this with all his eyes widened, puppyhood in all aspects, and she laughs, a bit of shame in her face.
It makes him feel good, feel proud even, that not even Miyako got to see her at her sharpest, her most unfiltered.
(And even that, he knows, is restrained. Even this Hikari, he knows, searches for the nicest way to be what she is, while he can only be the most hopeful thing of what he is.)
"That's not what I mean!" She sips her soda again, for lack of a place to move her hands. "Imagine us so steady. Us!"
He imagines it. Them, eight years old, hand in hand. Her eleven and compelled by things much stronger than her. Him, okay in specific voices and mercurial moods. Imagine them, hand in hand and standing tall.
Imagine them, bandaging each other's hurts so they heal, and not so they hurt less. Cuddled under blankets and it's cute and not like moths chasing dancing fires.
Like desperation, loss, and hands clasped haven't made them what they are.
He shivers.
"Yeah," Hikari says, all fondness and no pain. "Yeah."
They don't break up.
It's more or less due to them not dating in the first place, but they don't break up.
Break-ups require an end. Break-ups mean things break and Hikari knows there's not much of them to break. There's too much for kintsugi to make beautiful, so they stick with clear tape and hope for the best.
Daisuke asks if it hurts to see Takeru cheating on her and she wants to laugh. She doesn't but she wants to.
"Not at all!" She smiles it away, the urge to yell that it never mattered, never in the end. "He looks less stressed now."
Ken nods like he understands. Maybe he does, being a younger sibling to someone whose shoes he could never fill even without him around. Daisuke has never been asked to be anyone but himself.
Except, at times a little better, a little smarter, a little more than yesterday, but all parents want that surely.
Daisuke scratches his head. "But he's betraying you."
"He's not," she assures him. "That would imply he was with me out of loyalty and obligation and not because he loved me."
He looks at her with love. It's not the same love, thankfully, so she can squeeze his hand and say that she's all right and it not be a lie.
She doesn't cry, not really. There's nothing to cry about.
After all, they are still together, just in a way that doesn't grind their sharp edges.
"They need to stop asking me out if they're going to dump me."
Iori snorts at these words. It's improper and only possible because he's terrible when their alcohol of choice is beer and their food of choice is gyoza dumplings. He hits his limit much faster. "You need to stop bragging about Hikari-san when you're dating them."
"Why would I lie about her?"
Ken snorts laughter from the sofa. It's just them. Miyako is supervising Hikari's date from afar. Daisuke is on his way home from work, and will join them sooner or later. He promised them ramen, made from scratch and frozen.
Sounds heavenly.
"It's not lying," Iori says patiently, which is a lot of hot shit from the one who hates lying and dishonesty as a defined existence. "To not talk about your best friend or ex-girlfriend like you'd still date her."
Takeru wrinkles his nose freely. Disgusting.
Ken, absolutely two cups in too many, laughs harder. Iori sighs.
Lui looks between them and the digimon, who are playing a game of poker over chocolate. "Is this normal?"
Poor guy. He's new to them, to all of them and the idiosyncrasies that make them all what they are, the things that make them human, as opposed to chosen.
"It's them," Ken supplies and Takeru twists around to huff at him. "They're worse than Daisuke and I could ever be."
That statement isn't wrong, but it's so expansive and unkind it makes him want to throw up. "I'm not holding hands with her in a dragon."
"Yet," Iori says, wrinkling his nose at his next sip. "You have mediocre choices in alcohol, Takeru-san."
"You sip sake with your grandfather," Takeru reminds him, chugging a swig in a way that'd make his brother blush or noogie him. Or both.
Iori sniffs. "Sake is an adult's affair."
They all laugh. Armadimon paws his partner's pant leg and takes a sip. He glances at his phone. "Miyako-san says they're doing fine."
His heart clenches but Takeru breathes out a sigh of relief instead of a slew of curses. "Good. Does she match the picture?"
"Yep. Down to the hair." Iori grimaces. "I hope she's not related to Miyako-san. That's too much purple."
"My hair could be purple," Lui points out and Iori shakes his head.
"It is the energy of the whole thing."
Takeru laughs and takes a dumpling, right as Daisuke slams the door open.
"You could knock," Ken tells him. Wormmon agrees.
Daisuke waves the stock pot at him. "With what hands? Come help."
"I'll help," Lui says before Ken can get up from the chair. Ken hides a smile and strokes a now needy Wormmon on the head.
Takeru sighs. "At least someone might get laid today."
The entire room shifts to roll their eyes at him.
Miyako and Hikari join them late. Ken, Daisuke, and Lui have stolen Takeru's beaten up couch, curled under a quilt from his grandmother and staring at what Takeru thinks is a literary masterpiece and they look ready to break his blu-ray player.
Iori hoarded all the digimon into his bedroom for what seems to be the worst shogi tournament ever designed, but he's pleasantly buzzed enough that Takeru isn't worried about him.
The girls are unfortunately, barely tipsy, so there's no loud yell from Daisuke when he gets dislodged by Miyako's freezing hands to take her boyfriend to the bathroom for … he's hoping it's doing her hair. He doesn't think Ken remembers where he hides the condoms.
Hikari sits beside him at the table. Her gaze is serene and warm, Tailmon tucked into her chest like she's never left that spot.
"How was it?" he asks, because if he asks was she a better date than me the answer might break him.
Hikari takes his hand and squeezes it. "It's not just swapping spit."
Takeru groans. It's quiet, catches Daisuke's attention anyway, but he quails to the power of two smiling faces and goes back to pretending he's not making out with Lui under the quilt. Dirty.
The curse of none of their homes being a private space to any of them anymore.
She smiles. "I like her. She's a bit sparkly, sharp-tongued and all, and struggles to be as straightforward a lot, but… she's strong. I want to be strong with her."
The unspoken statement of "you needed me to be weak enough to be protected, but strong enough to not need someone else like you" mixes like it always does with "I wanted to be that to make you happy, and that's wrong of me to want".
Takeru rests his hand on the beer bottle. It's only his second, it feels like his fifth. He doesn't pick it up. She takes it and sips, then wrinkles her nose.
"You need better taste in beer."
He scoffs"I do not. The others drank it."
"I'd have picked up something else if you asked."
Takeru exhales, long and warm into his hands. "You'd have left if I asked."
"I'm not going anywhere unless you ask," she corrects. "And you won't leave me either."
"I won't." It's an easy promise, because it's the fact of life, hope and light being intrinsically melded together the way they are.
Hikari takes his hand. "Then don't worry about who I love and I won't worry about who you love."
It's so easy for her to say, but it's so hard for him to do.
Takeru loves her though, in the ways that make him punch someone who hurts others because he's hurting, who remembers Devimon's laughter in the darkness, who remembers Sora's breathless possible last request.
She deserves better than someone who shoves their glass shards into her skin, and he deserves better than someone who makes him watch them bleed.
He squeezes her hand back. "Deal. Want to get ice cream for these people to cool them down?"
Hikari brightens and nods. Patamon flies out of his room, summoned by the possibility of a small adventure. Tailmon yawns and settles where she's comfortable.
Nothing has to change, and everything will anyway. That's life, isn't it?