Little Surprises [Ryouta]

Ryouta came home that day after a particularly tiring day from Digital World courier service. Job are fine, most of the work is done by Ilbert anyway... then again, Ryouta was the one who need to do the talking and such. It was tiring, but to see those Digimons smiles when they receive the package and letters was worth his time. Then again, lot of asses made it doesn't worth it either. He was particularly sweating after trying to catch up a train for a sale in supermarket. Since he doesn't work in this world, he need to adjust his budget accordingly. There are time where Yuu's taste doesn't fit his afterall... for example, bacons. He's not too fond of it.

"Huh... what?"

It ended up that Yuu was out and they... they double-bought groceries. Maaan. Talk about some sort of information overlap. However... the last part... made his jaw drops.

Mana.

Mana is here. He... he's already really elated, but... the mention about that her memory is shaky made him a bit... a bit afraid that she actually forgotten about him. How would she considered me now that I'm literally just like that teacher who kidnapped her? How would she react when she saw me now, someone unstable that would snap if he got too headache-y? ...This is sucks.

But regardless, he opened the door and muttered "I'm back."

He goes to the kitchen and put down the grocery in front of the fridge and start putting it in. Should he tell Yuu? Oh right, he should...

He tried to reach for his phone, but...

Crap, I left it in the station. Ryu came out of his bag soon, then bounces toward the sofa where he finally rested. Oh right, it's been a tiring day for him too.

Hmmm, the fridge was a bit too full, but he guessed he can make several new things with the items available. He start by taking out some salmon that they bought about five days ago, then some eggs... ah, right, maybe he can make some sort of donburi with these... but just then, he heard sound of someone approaching. He stopped himself from his current activity and looked to that direction and found...

....the girl. She does indeed looks really different... however, what made him really curious was not that, but the fact that there stood a Kodamon that looked different from the one before...

"...Aya...?" accidentally slipped from his mouth, but he quickly rectified it.

"Hello to you too, I guess..." he smiled back, probably his happiness accidentally radiated itself too much. It's hard to not run to hug her, but he knew that it'd be way too much even for the girl. "Yeah, mmm, how to say this? Nice to meet you again and glad to see you're home, name's Noguchi Ryouta. I'm your cousin, see. Well, very far cousin, I guess. I mean, our grandmothers are cousin, so that made us... cousins, but very far cousins? So we're like third cousins I guess! Anyway, are you hungry? I'm about to cook because... apparently me and Yuu overlapped in our grocery duty and forgot to tell one another directly..."

Then, she looked at the unfamiliar Kodamon. "Sorry for the suddenness, may I somehow have your name, miss?"

We were lovers, so what his heart wanted to say. In fact, he probably stopped for a second while seasoning the tuna. He looked up to her to smile once again, swallowing his inner desire to tell that to her. He cleaned up his hand first and pulled two chairs, one shorter and another taller and put it near Mana.

"Why don't you sit first? Because the story will be looooong I guess."

He goes back to the kitchen and works on other ingredients. "Noted. Then I assume you're Isana's daughter?" he asked back, wondering if that was the truth. Isana... her egg is still missing somehow, yet he knew that the plant lady doesn't exactly have any sort of disagreement with him. More like, she was like his mother and grandmother both in term of how she acted... so he guessed that she'll eventually find her way to him again.

Ryu who was dozing suddenly woke up at the unfamiliar voice. At first she thought it was Ayaka, but... that voice was different.

"I'm Ryu, aniki's partner! Are you Ayaka's sister?" he asked happily.

Ryouta coated the salmon on batter and began cooking the sauce. Nice smell of ponzu sauce wafts from one of the cooking utensil.

"Well, then, let's begin... we met about a year ago near an apartment complex. You used to live near there and... well, you was if I have to say, rather cheeky. I was surprised that you're Yuu's sister considering how different two of you were. I was with Ryu--back then he was a Babydmon. I was jogging and I met you... you're with Ayaka and... well, how to say, I guess it was an interesting first meeting. Ayaka cannot absorb normal food back then, so I helped you to dig her a hole and plant her on the ground, then give her some water... plant stuff, you know." he tried to omit the fact that she was PANICKING at his action. "...Well, you can say that was the beginning our our friendship."

"Mana... was..." his eyes darted from Ryouta to Mana, then to Ryouta again who shook his head calmly. He looked  at Suzuran who asked a harmless question. "Un, Mana is my friend... well, I guess so far I know, anyway. She loves scalies and exotic animals, I guess? I mean, Ayaka ever turned into a big Salamander... I think she was ecstatic back then."

Ryouta merely chuckled and start frying the salmon, then turned around to face Suzuran. "You two really are sisters in some way. Luckily not. She's fine as far as I can remember... Maybe, in fact, she grows VERY QUICKLY, quick enough to leave most of us in the dust? She was a great fighter for sure... but do you mind if I asked what's going on with her? I mean, I didn't saw her here somehow."

He flipped the salmon, listening to Mana's urging to continue, but... he only made a sad smile.

"...mmmm... I dunno, are you ready for something out of ordinary, then? There are lot of painful memories that I'm sure that would only weigh you down. Would you rather know it... or would you rather know it immediately? I don't want to somehow force my view to you, but... I think this will be opening some old wound, especially because... your life isn't really all butterflies and rainbow. In fact, it's nearing something that would make a young, thirteen years old girl say 'I quit!'. How you have such willpower, it made me really... really amazed, I guess."

He sat aside the salmon now, then pours the ponzu sauce, and scooped some rice.

"What about you, Suzuran? What would you like to eat?"

"Hmm, well if you referred to your sister, I think it was a looooong story... There was something related to broken relationship... but Ayaka sure pulled lot of Dragon to her friendship circle somehow..." Ryu muttered, seem to be a bit pensive about it. "Penny for example, are dragon, and there's... uh, Notfoxy-san... Blake was it? He was a Dorumon... so yeah, lot of thing happened, but she somehow pulled lot of dragons... Oh yeah, there's also Ryusei the Agumon."

Ryouta merely chuckled and nodded. "Sorry, you two are just too similar. At least to me. Well, I bet both of you would try to deny it, but it's amusing regardless... also you two really similar to isana too. Also, knowing Ayaka, I guess she's waiting for the right time. Calling her lazy... I think it's bit uncalled for. I mean, she's probably one of the Digimon I respects most for both her wisdom and her patience... Although she's really scary when angered."

He looked at Mana and sighed. He put the meal for four on the table and tried to think about it again. "Well, I guess I'm going to be kicked by Yuu or something but... I guess eventually we need to talk about it."

He approached her, opened his wallet and took out a picture.

It's somewhere in Whitewater, but there's Ryu in Slayerdramon form, a Lord Knightmon, an Alphamon, and Ayaka. Posing with them is a blond haired girl with eared hoodie that covers her swimsuit. She looks very snappy kind. Beside her is a boy with athletic build, bandanna on his head and a bandaid on his cheek. Then, there's a babyfaced yet very muscular teenager that posed with a victory pose while hugging Mana... Mana that was back then. The boy's very cheerful looking face is different than the mature Ryouta right now.

"...This girl is you," he said, while pointing at the photo. "It was a double date in whitewater..."

Then he looked up at her. "Tsumura Mana, you were my girlfriend," she smiled sadly. "At least until we're suddenly separated."

"...Well," Ryu looked aside, seem to thinking that 'yes, they're very hard to deal with'. "...I dunno if I'm hard to deal with or I got big ego, but they sure... do... and I think lot of her acquaintance are... like that. There was this bird who seem to be hellbend in trying to make her his wife or something. It was creepy if you have to ask me," the Petitmon shuddered as he said that. "Well, I don't know what happened to him though."

Ryouta merely smiled. "I said it few minutes ago, though. You must've missed it. I asked if you're Isana's child. She was... very helpful toward me. We got separated for unknown reason, but she was... yes, around. I have no idea how come it happened exactly, but Ayaka was very hellbend on collecting her data back... and well... she came back, I guess! I guess it's nature of plants. You might think they're frail, but they always spring back to life once the time is right. Such tenacity is needed when growing in suboptimum place, I guess!"

Still, Mana's reaction probably expected, so Ryouta doesn't feel anything that much about it either.

"...Let's say, as of why you're like this, I have no idea. Mine came from absurd use of biomerge I heard. I theorized that you're like that because the same thing happened to your sister... or your brother, I should say. Digital world is funny like that. It can even change a person's gender. Your sister... was a he, you know? A complete man, and it's not like she suddenly decide to change her gender. I don't have any photo for that, but... well, I know it sounds too farfetched anyway in logical mind..."

He pointed at the girl first. "This one is Takamiya Karin, she was like your sister figure. A bit snappy and overall unfriendly, but she's like jawbreaker I guess. Over here is her boyfriend Itou Yuuki... he's like me and Karin's leader. A bit killjoy, but overall a fun guy to tease. These two are their partner."

Of course Ryu tried his best to advert his eyes from that remark. That remark was honestly almost hit on spot.. actually, it hits 99% on spot. "That bird man's name is Ankh. He was... crazy. Crazed with power, crazed with desire to reform Digital World. For some strange reason, Isana-san hated his guts more than anything. In fact, I think she nearly hatched from her egg out of fury toward that Digimon. He... how to say this? He wanted a world where the strong protected the weak and the weak doesn't have to suffer... but it was too much of an ideal world for me."

"The fact that the world was too ideal and his action was way too strange also is an... unbearable thing, so to say. He seem to want to go to a dictator route and enforces his own world view toward everyone. In the end, I think it's something that sides too much to the weak. I'm not saying the sentiment is bad, but... there won't be anything good coming from sheltering the weak unnecessarily. In the end, it's like promoting laziness. Everyone would feel there's no need to be strong or improve. In that sort of condition, eternal peace will come, but at the same time, it's also ruin, I guess," Ryouta said.

Though Suzuran's words made Ryouta smiles ever so slightly. "Isana would probably say... 'Human might bores you out, and they talk thing that might bring no interest to you, but you never know when it'll be useful, so lend your ears to them even if you need to clean up your ears afterward.'"

Though, the comment about Yuu's gender apparently made Mana think it's TMI. Ryouta apologized quickly, but took out a paper and several colored pens.

"...You said you wanted some explanation, right? Well, I wasn't there, nor I actually remembered what happened since a year ago, but... I have theory about what happened."

He draws two circle that barely intersects. "Just say the left circle is Digital World and the right one is ours. Apparently it intersects at Shibuya Station and only there. I haven't heard that there is any other gateway... I guess other than the river... But anyway, Japan is the only place where it intersected... now, when we goes to Digital World, apparently our body doesn't turned into Data, it still keep its physical form. But... if there's parallel world, what stopping there's another parallel worlds? Maybe you entered to one of those wormholes and ended up how you are at the moment. It's just a theory, but I think it's a possibility.

...Muscly phase, I'm not even sure how to say about that, but you used to like these, so I think I just built them naturally to please you? As for the other four, I have no idea. I'm still looking for them, but no dice so far."