Chapter Text
Sometimes things change in the blink of an eye. Sometimes they have already been changing, and only when they’re noticed the first time does it all seem to catch up. Elizamon stopped stirring the pot and stared, the beet still bleeding its colors into the mix, not yet diluted into a uniform pink. Somewhere in her wandering mind, which had itself been set free thanks to the muscle memory of routine, she realized she had a routine. Things had fallen into place. It was a new normal, and that itself was frightening. She placed the spoon back into the curry and finished stirring.
The novelty of their shop had been lost on Hikarigahama East after a while. The first month was a flurry - they barely had time to think. Her Darling had never run a business before, obviously he knew next to nothing about how to handle supply and demand. Commandramon couldn’t handle a lunch rush to save his life, but at least he moved boxes well enough. Now, though, things had slowed way down. Just some locals here and there - dinner after work if they were feeling up for it. Quiet. She’d started to like it.
Haruomi didn’t like the quiet, though.
“Just two?” she heard him say from around the corner. Elizamon’s ears twitched to the sound. She turned to prepare the counter, but Commandramon had already pushed in front of her.
“Don’t you have dishes to clean?”
“Already did them. I’ll do this order.”
Elizamon sucked in a breath and held it, molding her immediate irritation into, “You’re getting in my way.”
“We’re a team, aren’t we?” he continued to talk over his shoulder. “Just go help him with the front. Take a break or something, I don’t know.”
This late in the day, it’d cause too much of a fuss to argue. As of now she was actively trying not to cause problems, as much as Commandramon wanted to start them. She settled on a cold glare to the back of his head and stepped down from the stove. Fine. He can clean up the rest of the night if he’s so eager.
Her sour mood fell away when she saw her Darling. Haruomi leaned on his elbows on the front counter, his head tilted to the side in just such an adorable way, a slight grin creeping into the corners of his cheeks. He’d been listening to that old man - Sasatake, if he remembered correctly - standing out in the dusk beyond the window. When she twirled her frills and flew up to the top of a shelf, Pandamon came into view.
“Oh.” Haruomi glanced over his shoulder at her. “Did you hear about the order?”
“Commandramon’s hogging the kitchen, so I assume he’s working on it,” Elizamon said.
The elder laughed, the setting sun cutting shadows across his weathered features. “It sounds like your partners are getting along great.”
“They’re best of friends for sure. Inseparable. Couldn’t be closer.”
Elizamon tucked her arms beneath her and settled into place. “If Commandramon fell into a well, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to get help. Maybe drowning will help him build character.”
“Best friends,” Haruomi said with a nod, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “Say, I was wondering. You think that we can just skip the paying and skim it off the top of rent? I feel like that’d make things easier, right?”
Sasatake shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Best to keep things running in an official sense. Besides, surely after the last few weeks you’re not hurting for cash, are you?”
“Not at the moment I suppose, but it turns out running a business takes a bit more than I thought.” He glanced back at Elizamon in acknowledgement, who beamed with pride in return. Not that she knew much about it at first, either - she was just talented that way. “I just worry about, I don’t know, sustainability or something. What if it slows down too much? What if everyone stops coming?”
“I don’t think you’d ever have to worry about that,” Pandamon added. “But, even in the worst case scenario, you are not alone. We wouldn’t just throw you out onto the street if hard times fell. We’d figure something out.”
“Right.” There’s a detached edge to his voice. Haruomi stares off into the distance, somewhere far away from here. “Right, yeah. We’d work it out somehow. I’m just being careful.”
“You are in good hands here. We all do the best we can.” The old man regarded him with a smile. His reassurance came with a cautious but well-meaning glint in his narrow eyes.
Nobody knew Haruomi’s past. They didn’t ask, and he did not tell. One could assume from the nature of his original Digimon partner that he had a reason to hide such things. This place offered an invaluable second chance, but the rebirth was only in spirit, and old habits were not known for their peaceful passing. Change doesn’t happen overnight. Of course, people remained curious. They couldn’t help but wonder where this man and his partners had come from and where they were going to go.
Sasatake ended up being the last customer after all. Once the last of the sunlight bled below the rooftops and a chill seeped into the air, they closed all their windows and swept up. A normal, automatic evening ensued. Little joys, little sorrows - every feeling that popped on the tongue and disappeared seconds later. Only when she noticed the cold hole in her stomach did she realize Haruomi’s absence. Any reason to go pester him for attention was good enough for her. While Commandramon busied himself with putting away pots or whatever, she floated off down the hall, her Darling’s name already in her throat.
He did not look well. Haruomi leaned against the door of their bedroom, arms tight against his chest, a fist idly resting on pursed lips. Some sharp expression remained fixed on his face while he stared off into space. Even in this low light, he looked paler than usual - haunted.
“Darling?”
The light returned to his eyes, but it took longer than usual to put all his emotions back in the box. “Oh. Sorry about that. I’ll be right over, don’t worry.”
She inched forward. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah. No, I was just…” Even his excuse trailed off. He sighed and looked towards the ceiling. “Just overthinking things. I’m fine.”
“You didn’t look very fine to me! What’s the matter? You can tell me anything.”
“Talking’s never helped me much.” When Haruomi walked past, he jostled one of her ears - a lovely little gesture he always did to distract her. She couldn’t bask in his touch this time around. “Just nerves is all. Let’s go eat.”
The mood had not subsided at all by dinner, and Haruomi, who could put on a fake smile that would fool almost anyone, didn’t bother with the charades. Perturbed as he looked, glaring at a bowl of white rice like it stole from him, even Commandramon had a worried look as he passed his Sapotama over.
“Is something wrong, Haruomi?”
He placed his hand down on the egg and studied the table. “I’m tired.”
Commandramon frowned. “I can go on without e-Pulse for a while if you need.”
“Not that kind of tired, but thank you.” The Sapotama shimmered as a cascade of color poured through it, spiraling into the bottom with a jagged pattern, pulsing with his heartbeat. “Plenty of me to go around. I couldn’t sleep if I let you guys starve.”
Elizamon coughed up her own Sapotama and huffed. “Darling, I mean it! You can talk about anything with me! It’d make me feel better if you did.”
“If it’s not any of our business then that’s just how it is,” said Commandramon. “Don’t be nosy.”
“Nosy? You’re heartless! How is it nosy to want to know why my Darling is hurting?”
“You guys are-” Haruomi placed a hand on her Sapotama. “Not helping.”
Nothing could have shut them up faster. The bated pause that followed did not relent, its silence far from peaceful. Elizamon tasted the disquiet in Haruomi’s e-Pulse; somewhere between sensation and intuition, a facsimile of animal biology inside of her winced at the spoiled calories she’d put into her body. Conflict had a certain quality that felt antithetical to a Digimon’s existence. His e-Pulse, abundant with love as it was, had rotted around the edges.
He couldn’t have hid his feelings from them. Obviously not, since Elizamon and Commandramon both were subject to it by default, let alone that they could read him well enough. They ate. They filled the sink. They finished the motion of the routine. Finally full-circle, Haromi cradled his head and leaned back.
“Can’t a guy be in a bad mood every once in a while? I feel like I have that right. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows.” A chuckle shook his shoulders. He cracked a grin. “I’m turning in early. Don’t bother being quiet when you come in. I’ll already be out before then.”
Elizamon tried to read his expression, but he’d already shoved everything in his heart beneath his bed, all tidied and calm. “I’ll be there soon, Darling.”
The next time he fussed with her ear at the very least felt genuine. “You worry about me too much. I’m not going anywhere.”
That stung to hear more than it reassured her, like a taut string plucked in some room on the other side of the house. The doubt that lived down deep in the programming of her soul hummed, that fear of being alone. Her ears swiveled to the sound of Haruomi walking away, to his steps in the hall, to the wooden slide of the door in its frame - thud. The chord dissipated to the rhythm of an analog clock ticking away.
She hated wallowing, so she turned to Commandramon, “We should talk.”
“Huh?”
“About Haruomi. We’ll do it out back.”
“What is there to talk about? If he’s upset then he’ll sleep on it. If it’s something we can help with he’ll let us know.”
“Out back, Commandramon.”
Elizamon did not wait for another excuse, trotting off through their home. Beyond the kitchen counters and humming refrigerators, around a corner marred with chipped paint, a soft glow filtered in through a thin sheet of curtains. Their storage room would otherwise be illuminated by a lone exposed lightbulb. Still hadn’t gotten a cover for that one yet. At the far end, a door opened up into a yard of wooden fencing between their building and the next. It was a good place to think, apart from the trash.
Taking her usual spot up on top of some mangled wood sheets they had yet to dispose of, courtesy of a past renovation project, Elizamon folded her limbs beneath her and waited. The city wound down all the while, its omnipresent roar ceding the stage to an orchestra of crickets.
After a few minutes, Commandramon dragged himself out the back door. He opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, then carried on as he had been to the edge of the dumpster, which he hopped up onto the lid of.
“I didn’t want to be overbearing,” he finally articulated himself.
“You’re not overbearing enough. He gets into trouble when nobody’s there to help reel his emotions in.”
Commandramon shook his head. “Do you not have any faith in him to sort himself out? You’re totally blowing this out of proportion.”
“It’s not just now! He’s been getting like this all week.” Her tail slapped against the wooden boards. “Look at the big picture. We’ve been here for a bit over a month now. Things are going great! We’re settling in, aren’t we? But once you start settling in, that’s when you’d really start to know whether or not you’re satisfied. And does Darling look satisfied to you?”
“We don’t have a choice, though,” he said. “We’re kind of at the end of the road here, at least for now. We’re lucky to even be here.”
“Exactly! So don’t you want to do everything in your power to make sure he really feels like he’s able to move on from his old life?”
Though she expected him to reply with the same empty arguments as usual, Commandramon held his breath. The patterns of his scales unconsciously caught on the lines of the fence and hid his expression. Only when his mouth opened did the camouflage break on the whites of his teeth. “Maybe… I haven’t been doing enough. Maybe you’re right.”
Of course I am, Elizamon wanted to say, but better to take advantage of this rare moment while she could. “You know him better than I do.” And it hurts to admit that. “So how can we help him? What do we do?”
Lacing his fingers together, Commandramon searched the fence for answers. “You know, you can tell he’s been more relaxed. The fact that he isn’t hiding that he’s hurting as much is part of that.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I’m thinking!” Which by and large never really amounted to anything, she noticed. His hanging foot bobbed up and down. “We… we could get him a gift. Maybe that’ll cheer him up?”
“Really? A present?” Elizamon rolled her eyes, but as she gazed off beyond the shadows beneath the dumpster, a twinkling thought bloomed. “Actually, a wedding ring is exactly the thing people give each other to do that.”
“I’m not letting you marry Haruomi!”
“One, I don’t see how you have any say in that. Two, I don’t see you having any better ideas.”
“Well maybe he’d-!” He trailed off. “Like, ah, maybe a bonsai tree? That he could take care of to…” Her glare shut him up the second time. “Okay, fine. But let’s at least try to be a little more practical.”
“Practical? If you wanted to be practical then just hand him a huge wad of money. He’s always stressing over rent even though that old man’s never going to press him on it.”
“...Hm.”
They went silent. A conversation carried on somewhere blocks away between a man and a woman. A lid lifted elsewhere, followed by the rattling of whatever got dumped in. Crickets in the grassy outcroppings on the outskirts of the road chirped their songs. Her tail thumped against her perch.
In that rare emptiness which the two of them could never normally seem to find, a mutual agreement. Elizamon added, “But where do we find enough money for it to matter?”
“Guess we should just start up a lemonade stand.” The joke was only for him. Though she would never admit it, the urge to even smile crossed her mind. “Digmon can’t exactly have jobs. Most of us that earn anything are partnered with Cleaners. I guess we could roam around the shopping district and ask to help with small stuff? Eventually we’d save up.”
“You’re making this harder than it needs to be. Let’s just be Cleaners for a while. If we catch a large enough bounty it’ll cover Haruomi for months.”
Commmandramon shook his head. “You’re not really getting it. Cleaners are a Digimon-human pair. The whole point is that we’re not dragging Haruomi into this. And how are we supposed to turn in a bounty - we aren’t even legal! They’d take us in, too!”
“So we bring the bounty to Glowing Dawn. They keep the Digimon but turn in the Sapotama, and in turn we keep the reward. I’m not saying we have to make a career out of it. Far be it from us to chase the largest bounties. It’s just a matter of taking down a few smaller ones and surprising Darling with our paycheck. On top of that we get to help Kyo and his friends.”
Commandramon went still apart from the kneading of his claws.
She continued, “Besides, there’s two of us, and we’re not really pushovers are we? Your whole schtick is the element of surprise. You don’t think we’d be able to get the jump on them?”
“I guess you’re right.” He looked back at the house, the troubled expression on his face parting. “Well, if it’s for Haruomi… We could try it. He’s already asleep, right? I know someone that might be able to help us.”
“What? Already?”
“Might have to do a little sneaking around. He’s not quite inside the shopping district. Here, keep low and follow me.”
In the month that they had lived here, Elizamon had not strayed farther from home than the roofs of buildings a few blocks away. Never felt inclined to. She didn’t really have that adventurous gene in her - and besides, this is the only place she could think of where Digimon could roam free. She didn’t care much where Commandramon roamed off to on his own. He, of course, didn’t have to worry so much about being seen by the general public. Even now, in the light of a first-quarter moon without any intention, he was hard to follow when the shadows landed on him just right.
They followed the road until the shops transformed into suburbs, dipping into the alleys between. A tomcat watched with a passing interest from the top of a cracked concrete barrier. Graffiti tags sprawled out beneath it, some so old that they’d been overwritten or dulled. The wind rustled some struggling bushes and carried a plastic bag away. A Saturday winding down.
“You know your way around suspiciously well,” Elizamon whispered as they confirmed the bend they were rounding was clear.
“I like to know my surroundings. I helped Haruomi map out the harder spots to get into.”
“What! Since when?”
“Since the first week we were here. You were busy cleaning all the junk out of the house they gave us.”
“I thought you were just being lazy and forcing me to do it!”
He chuckled under his breath. “Honestly? I was doing a little bit of that, too. Right, down here - we gotta make this jump.”
They passed under the mangled links of a fence that had at one point been torn from its post in the bottom corner. Beyond it, a drainage ditch filled with accumulated soil and the brave weeds which dared to grow in such a place. Despite the obvious erosion, the houses they passed looked at once newer and more artificial. They lacked half-baked patchjobs and clotheslines. No piece of the souls inside lived within the fresh white paint.
Soon the gaping maw of a tunnel confronted them. A loose curtain of moss hung from its upper lip, which jutted out ever so slightly. At the very top, railing and the road beyond, where a car rolled past out of sight. They plunged into the darkness. She could still see, if barely. It was more that she could still hear, her wide ears twitching to the echo as they felt their way through the circular cavern. The acoustics let her know early on that there was an opening ahead, and that it was not quite an exit.
“Hold on,” Commandramon told her. “Wait here a second.”
She watched him fade from view completely. Only by the sound of his footsteps could she tell he rounded the corner. Then, nothing. Completely gone. Elizamon peered around into the clearing to look for him when something shrill and hollow suddenly banged. She nearly slammed her head into the corner from jumping so hard.
Somewhere further down the drainage pipe, two more knocks rang out against a sheet of corroded metal. Beside it, a blotch of moonlight poured through a circular grate above them. Commandramon beckoned her along. She gulped her heart back down from her throat and glared right back.
The tunnel continued up a slope and opened up into a larger, rectangular concrete ditch. The white of the walls reflected enough moon to fully illuminate the space. Several similar tunnels branched away, but there was clearly more industrial trash-dumping than drainage going on. Bricks and broken drywall and stacks of rotting plywood. Entire palettes sat in pieces, brutalized as if a feral beaver had grabbed them by the throat and thrashed them apart. It smelled of paint and chemicals.
“Oh this is great,” Elizamon said. The walls carried her voice up to the open sky above, where the backs of tall buildings loomed over the sides.
“Did you expect a five-star hotel?” Commandramon leaned against a stack of discolored planks, eyeing the darkness beyond the other tunnels. “He should have shown up if he was listening. Maybe it’s because you’re here?”
“Sorry I don’t look the part of a criminal. Guess I’ll go home and grab some more guns and knives.”
“Nehe!” A laugh erupted from nearby, under something. The uncertain acoustics made it impossible to tell exactly where. “A lady-friend, Commandramon? She’s right, this is a terrible place for a date.”
A shape emerged from beneath a scrunched-up sheet of plastic, which appeared to hide yet another hole in the ground. The DemiDevimon spread its wings in an exaggerated stretch, kicking their hideout shut in the same motion. It regards her, a yellow shimmer in its eyes. “You must be the other freeloader that lives with him.”
Elizamon scoffed. “The only date you ought to be concerned about is the one that’s about to be on your gravestone. What’s with this place? Where’s your owner?”
“My owner? Ha! Probably digging his way out with a spoon by now.” They frowned. “Feds got to us real quick after he made me. I managed to give them the slip, but you know humans ain’t so nimble. Been living down here ever since.”
“How do you not starve? Have you been Cold-Hearting people?”
“DemiDevimon’s an informant of mine,” Commandramon explained. “And probably an informant of few others, no doubt. In exchange for keeping watch on whatever’s going on around these parts, or fetching a tiny thing here or there, I give him e-Pulse.”
“I don’t do any hunting, missy.” The DemiDevimon angled the edge of their wing at her. “Digimon that hunt, they’re the ones who get bounties put on them. They know you’re here, you know - the Feds. They know I’m here, too. Thing is, so long as hungry, angry Digimon keep being born into this world, they’re always gonna be chasing bigger fish than us. We ain’t worth the effort if we keep to ourselves.”
With a hum in her throat, Elizamon rolled her eyes towards Commandramon. “First you map the entire neighborhood, and now you tell me you’ve had an informant all this time?”
“You do realize what Haruomi and I used to do for a living, right? It’s always good to keep an ear on things.”
“Can’t ever be too careful. They barely allow us to exist as is!” Folding their wings to their side, DemiDevimon started pacing the refuse. “But talk ain’t cheap! Whadd’ya want? I’m burning precious moonlight here.”
She nodded. “Alright. Can you get your hands on a pair of wedding bands?”
“Elizamon!”
Chuckling, they shrugged. “Things people’d miss if they were gone ain’t so easy to get. Brings a lot more heat, too. But I could! For the right price.”
“We’re not getting wedding rings!” Commandramon stepped between her and his informant. “We came here to earn money.”
“Money? That’s… boring.” Their smile faded. “And something I don’t really have any use for. Neither should you, I think.”
“It’s obviously not for us,” said Elizamon. “Not just money in general. We’re looking to capture some bounties ourselves. We need to know what sort of wanted Digimon are hanging out around here and where we can find them.”
“Do I look like a Ministry plant to you? How should I know! They ain’t exactly posting that stuff up on billboards for anyone to see!”
“Ah. So you’re useless. That’s a shame. Let’s go, Commandramon.”
Before she could turn, DemiDevimon extended a wing towards her. “Hey hey hey, now! I said I can’t find out about bounties, not that I can’t tell where they are! I might have heard something you’d be interested in, eh?”
“I’m not giving you e-Pulse over something I might be interested in. Spill it or starve.”
They shrunk under her gaze, cradling their stomach with a wing. “Yeesh, fine! Two days back the Feds blew through town. I know cuz I recognize the fake utility vans that they always drive. They were with a Cleaner looking for a Keramon. Don’t think they ever found it, though. Never got into any fights as far as I could tell. No way that’s not a bounty, right? I’ll let you know where they lost its trail if you give me some e-Pulse.”
“That’s a little better.” She turned to Commandramon. “What do you think? Is it worth the chase?”
He chewed on the end of his claw. “A Keramon? Here? And it’s evaded the Ministry for this long already… Maybe we should tell Pandamon about it, actually. Sounds dangerous.”
“Don’t be so cowardly. You want to help Darling get ahead in our new life? You need to put in more effort than just cleaning dishes.” Elizamon lifted her arm and presented it with a huff. “Get on with it already. Gently.”
The DemiDevimon’s expression lit up in the moonlight, which looked less like a friendly smile and more like a sneer. They sauntered over and chomped straight down on her forearm.
“Ow! Gently I said, you freak! You wanna end up in a Ministry van, too?”
“Haw do yoh gently eat e-Bulse?” They spoke with their mouth full, teeth digging in to keep her from jerking away. A chill spread across those points of contact and crept up her arm. To their credit, they could’ve been far more forceful. They still could be. She clenched her other fist in case she needed it to bash a skull in. Commandramon not moving from his spot gave her at least some confidence that she wouldn’t need to.
A chilling hunger grew in the pit of her stomach as the DemiDevimon pulled away, sighing into the night air. They licked their fangs. “Haruomi’s e-Pulse always tastes a little bitter. Sweet aftertaste, though. Very satisfying. My favorite customers.”
“I hate it when you say his name,” she said, clutching her arm to her chest. The scales were ice-cold. “Well? Deal’s a deal. Where’s the Keramon?”
“You mean ‘Where did the Keramon lose the Cleaners,’ which is what we bargained for. I don’t know where it is.” They wiped at the corner of their cheek. “And where they lost it was at the construction yard southeast of here. Big machines and half-dug ditches. Most of a parking garage. Think the project caught a snag cuz I haven’t seen a worker there in a week. Not many places to run from there, so the Ministry’s probably waiting for it to come out of hiding. Now that I think about it, the Ministry’s probably the one that paused the project in the first place.”
Commandramon took a step forward, touching at the pockets of his vest - checking that everything was in order and battle-ready. “Sounds like they’re starving it, waiting for it to come to them. It’d be weaker than if they’d rushed in after it, too.”
“But listen to this,” Elizamon said. “If they don’t successfully catch it right away, it comes straight for Hikarigahama East for a snack. See? We’re protecting everyone by going after it. What are we waiting for?”
“I’d, uh, not do that now,” said the DemiDevimon. “You’re half-empty, little lady. It ain’t goin’ anywhere soon. Besides, I’m just imagining the kinda payments you’d have to make if I got those rings, and a shattered Sapotama doesn't make a good customer.”
She didn’t know whether to spit at him or shake his wing. “At least you’re honest. Don’t forget about that offer. I mean it. Come on, Commandramon. Let’s go.”
It must have been the gnawing hunger in her that dulled her senses as they walked the tunnels the second time around, because she lacked even an ounce of anxiety over the battle to come. A giddiness bubbled through her instead. Maybe this simple life was starting to get to her, too? Now there’d be some motion - electricity to push the gears. A fight! She hadn’t had a real fight in too long.
“You could’ve let me pay for the information, you know,” Commandramon said, his voice low to keep the echo down.
“But this was my idea. What, you think I’m not willing to go hungry for my Darling’s sake? This is nothing.”
Fidgeting with his hands, he slowed his pace. “You could have some of my e-Pulse. Split the difference, you know. It’ll make it harder for Haruomi to tell we’ve been up to something.”
“Hmph. You’re his Digimon, alright. You just can’t ever feel relaxed unless you’re the one suffering the most.” She flicked him a grin. “That’s what makes him such a gentleman! Bring it here.”
Commandramon extended his arm. “Less teeth than DemiDevimon, please. Though I doubt you care.”
“Why does everyone assume we need to be biting each other? You know we don’t chomp down on Haruomi, so why would- You just-” A groan in her throat, Elizamon gave up and seized his hand. She coughed up her own Sapotama, glowing bright in the darkness of the tunnel, and forced it into his palm. “There. See?”
The mist inside the Sapotama swirled beneath his touch, excited by the energy that leeched through. Convecting currents breathed beneath corundum glass. Its internal pulse hastened and flashed against the sides of the sewer.
“You can do it by contact, too,” she said. “Though that’s a touch harder. Not worth the effort here, obviously.”
“Where’d you learn this?”
Elizamon pulled her Sapotama away with a satisfied hum, regarding its color like it were a gem. “When I found my previous owner bleeding out on the ground, I tried shoving his own e-Pulse back into him. It didn’t work.”
“Oh.”
She swallowed her heart once more and gestured with a flick of her head towards the exit. “Spare me your pity. We’re well beyond changing the past. Now we worry about the future - specifically tomorrow night. There’s a bounty waiting to be claimed.”