Can't Get This in the City (CLOSED)

It was pretty easy for Hideo to notice someone was approaching them.  They made no attempt to really hide themselves - in the near-silence of the plains, it wasn't too hard to notice the sound of feet running through grass getting closer and closer.  He didn't know exactly what they were - he could only tell there was a new sound approaching. 

But he could also tell Kuki had noticed them, as she'd moved between him and the source of the sound, which could only mean it was someone approaching them; he'd learned by now that Kuki was a cautious monster, keeping an eye out for anything that could cause trouble for him.

And she had plenty of eyes to watch with, all eight that would be watching them.

Hideo remained lying on the grass, making no effort to turn towards the new arrivals.  He wasn't sure if he even should get up - he was really enjoying being able to lie down like this in peace, and they hadn't caused any trouble yet.  Plus, it wasn't like facing them was going to help him understand anything more about them.

"Yup!" was his response, his smile still standing.  No reason to hide it - though with the number of people surprised by his age, he had to wonder if there was some age you had to be to get a digimon as a partner, and he was just some kind of anomaly.  "I'm nine years old.  If you don't mind me asking, is that really so rare?  Everyone keeps pointing that out, it just makes me wonder if I wasn't supposed to come here until I was older."

"Nobody can tell you when you can or can't come to the Digital World," his partner interrupted, still watching over the pair, "so don't start telling him that he's too young to be here.  Or did you come here just to bother us?"

Hideo frowned.  He didn't really like how aggressive his partner was sounding.  "That wasn't really what I meant by that...but you don't have to be so mean.  There's plenty of space around here, so you guys can lie down too if you want."  He patted the ground to his side.  "My name's Hideo, by the way.  She's Kuki.  So what're you guys doing here?"

His partner shook her head, retreating back to him and lying back down, though doing so on the spot he'd patted down on, though she was still facing the pair.

Hideo was briefly surprised when he heard the other boy speaking back where he first appeared.  He'd thought he'd been the one that sat next to him - but that made it pretty obvious who'd actually sat next to him.  Was she scaring them away?

Hideo rolled over his side, opposite of Kuki, so that he could be facing the pair, though his eyes would still remain closed.  No need to open up when they didn't work, and he'd heard that the stare he had was kinda off-putting.  He'd fix it if he knew how - he was told that he could move his eyes to look more "normal", but whenever he tried that, it just made his eyes hurt.

"Well...I haven't met many tamers so far, but they've all been a lot older than me.  As far as I could tell, anyways.  They all sounded older than I am, at least."  It was the only way he could estimate someone's age, outside of just asking people their age.  Though some people were sensitive about that stuff, so he could only guess.

Or wait for them to tell him.  Repeatedly, like that one girl he met in a cafe.

"Nah, you're right.  They've all been taller than you, so they're probably older than you."  She looked over Buck, assessing him and recalling how tall he stood as he ran towards them.  "Which means you're younger than a lot of tamers I've seen, even if you're older than Hideo."

"So, you go camping around the digital world?  Does that mean you've been all around the digital world?  I haven't really had a chance to check everything out yet-"

"Because he doesn't get a lot of chances to go out here on his own," his partner interrupted.  While that was true, he wanted to just say that he was very new to the whole world of digimon.  "It's kinda hard to get his parents to let him go out on his own.  Because, you know, they don't trust a kid who can go to school on his own to do other stuff on his own."

Also kinda true.

But then again, they didn't know he was here right now.

Hideo listened to Buck talk, propping his head up with his hands.  "Well, my parents kind of try to keep a close eye on me.  It's pretty tough to leave the house without someone coming with me - unless it's for school.  If they found out I was going out on my own like this, I'd get grounded for who-knows-how-long.  You probably have a much easier time getting out than I can.  I'm only really here right now because my brother said he was taking me shopping."

It was pretty fortunate that he could be honest about what he was doing with most of his family.  Though it was his parents that had the most authority over him, and they were the only ones not allowed to know.

"That's pretty precise!" he exclaimed, "I didn't know that time worked differently here.  I just always made sure not to spend too much time away, 'cause then my family might get worried about what's going on.  And it's a pretty big world, so I think they'd take a while to find me.  I try not to spend more than a couple of hours here at a time."

He started drawing around the ground using his finger, though not hard enough to leave any marks.  Though none of his work would be shown, he was doing the math, trying to estimate just what that time dilation would be.  His partner glanced over to see what he was doing, but could only watch with a skeptical glare.  She didn't know he was doing math, and just decided to go back to watching the other pair.

"As long as I promise to keep an eye on him, his siblings are fine making cover stories for him.  They know about me, so they can trust that I won't let anyone mess with him."  She made sure to look the both of them in the eye, just so they knew not to cause any trouble.  "And it's not like we're here causing any trouble, so nobody has much reason to do that.  Not that I'm not ready for it."

She glanced back at her partner, who seemed to be done with his little attempt at art.

"So that's one minute for every seven I spend here..."

"Thinking you could try coming here after school like him?"

"Yeah, but I'd have to go all the way to the station to come here.  I'd probably lose more time coming here and back than I spent being here."

He'd need a good excuse if he wanted to do something like camp here overnight...

Hideo raised an eyebrow when Buck was about to say he was something.  Did he know who he was, or was there someone else he was going to mention?

That thought didn't last long as Buck changed the subject.  "Just my siblings," Hideo corrected, "'cause they also have digimon partners.  I never really knew about it 'till my older sister found me with Kuki.  I was just gonna pretend she was some stuffed toy I got, but my sis knew she was a digimon.  She straight-up asked me why I was carrying a digimon around."

In retrospect, that probably made it easier than explaining why he suddenly got "lost" and obtained some kind of stuffed pink spider toy.

Of the two things that Buck said next, the first stuck out more to the boy.  "You used to live in Canada?" he asked, his interest piqued.  "What's it like over there?  I hear it's always snowing there, and there are a bunch of things that are kinda like deer, but they're even bigger.  Big enough to destroy a car.  And that people in canada eat moose meat every day.  Is that true?"

"Now you're making me wonder what moose tastes like," his partner mused aloud.

Hideo continued listening to Buck talk about his life, ready to interject with his own little comment.  But before he got the chance, Buck's partner spoke up, evidently fed up with how Kuki was acting.

The spider stood back up, meeting the bear's glare with her own.  "Well, I just wanted to make it clear what my expectations were.  If you want to cause something, then-"

"Kuki, please stop that."

This gave the spider pause, looking down at her tamer, her was now facing towards her.

"Say you're sorry."

"But I was making sure they weren't going to do anything to you!"

"And they haven't done anything.  So don't be mean to them.  Say you're sorry."

Kuki let out an annoyed sigh, lying back down with her front legs folded under her head, looking back at the pair.  "Fine.  I'm sorry what I said sounded like I was threatening your tamer."

Evidently not wanting to dwell on that any longer, Hideo picked up where he was going to start, looking back towards where he last heard the pair.  "I wish I could play baseball, but even with the balls that I can hear, I'm still not that great at hitting it.  I have enough trouble just catching them!  Not that I really get a lot of chances to play.  We don't really have any sports clubs at my school.  Or any clubs for that matter."

Evidently, Hideo was able to stop a fight from breaking out between the two partners.  Good.  He'd hate to end a first meeting on a sour note like that.

"Well, it is an elementary school, and there aren't that many kids that go there - it's a school for people with sight problems.  And even then, you gotta be in grade four or above to be able to join a club, and I'm still in third.  Dunno what kind of clubs there are anyways, and if I'm gonna spend more time in the Digital World, I can't really say my club had extra practice without my parents knowing if I was lying or not."

"Basically, there aren't any he can join yet, and he wouldn't know what to join if he did.  And if he joins any, he can't spend as much time with me."

Hideo giggled for a moment.  "I guess you can say it like that."

"Dunno why you can't just have him devolve and pretend he's a toy.  Or just stuff him in a bag or something.  I don't think my in-training form is any bigger than others, and I can fit in one of his bags just fine."

"That's not just a guess.  She's actually tried sneaking in my schoolbag before."  It was easy to notice that weight, plus how she felt inside the bag when he walked. He just wished she didn't make room by throwing some of his stuff out of there - it would've taken forever if he didn't get help.  "I'd do it if it was easy to keep her hidden, but there's no knowing if she'll get spotted without me knowing.  Or just accidentally fall out.  And it's gotta be uncomfortable in there, with books and stuff rubbing against you constantly."

"It didn't even feel that bad, to be honest."  She wasn't even trying to hide what she did, just shrugging it off.  "And I can totally hide around if I need to.  How do you think your parents haven't found me yet?"

"I guess...but it's still too risky."  He looked back towards where Buck was last heard.  "Does everyone hide their digimon from their family?  Like, I understand keeping them a secret in general - people would panic if they knew monsters were real - but is there an actual rule against family knowing?  I know I gotta keep it a secret from my parents, not just 'cause they don't know about them.  They just flat-out won't let me get a pet, and I don't think they'd be fine with me having a big spider."

"Not like there's anything wrong with that."

"So is there any rule saying I can't let them know?"

Hideo nodded as Buck spoke, understanding his reasoning.  "Yeah, I guess that kinda makes sense.  The first digimon I met here was a really big guy, though his arms were really leathery and he had really long fingers."

"It was a Devimon.  They basically look like demons, and most of the time, they act the part.  And they aren't the only really spooky digimon out there, or the biggest.  So it makes sense to keep them away from most eyes."

"Yeah, I guess...but I even gotta keep you a secret.  And you're not a big scary monster."

"Not yet."  A devious grin showed itself on her face.

Hideo went silent, not sure what else to add.  He didn't know what Transformers was, though, so he didn't really have a point of comparison.  Must've been a Canadian show.

Hideo lit back up when Buck mentioned how he hid his partner.  "They can do that?" he asked, taking out his own grey device.  "I'm still not sure what this thing is supposed to do.  Everyone's told me that's it's really important thing to keep around whenever Kuki's with me, but I don't even know how it works.  It's supposed to be proof that she and I are partners, but it's also supposed to do more than that?"

"It's supposed to be one of those things you learn along the way.  Though I never want to be stuffed inside it.  I'll have an easier time understanding what's going on even when I'm in one of your bags.  Promise me you'll never put me inside it."

"Don't worry, Kuki; I was just fine carrying you around everywhere.  You feel nice to hold onto anyways."

This gave the spider pause, her grin first opening into a gasp, then closing into a genuine smile as her cheeks reddened.

Hideo put the device back in his pocket.  "It's all still a big mystery to me.  I still don't feel like I know anything about digimon or the Digital World.  It all just feels so big that I could get lost in it if I'm nor careful."