Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka? (Toki)

As Toki spoke, Talia was going through the archives of her mind trying to think of a name for the goburimon that would be both unique and fitting. “You know…” She paused, not wanting to interrupt the other human speaking. “You in personality remind me of this character named Grendel from an old story called Beowulf. He’s partly the villain, but also partly somewhat misunderstood by humans in his intentions and by the time the story begins he’s never...had anyone able to be on his side.” It was always the crazy mothers who accompanied misunderstood likeable characters wasn’t it? “Hmph. Well I don’t know if I will ever change my views, but I would be very interested in seeing them from the perspective of another.”

He may have seemed grumpy but the goblin was truly listening and curious to what Toki was saying if anything similar to the way a little kid did when they were proven wrong about something but didn’t want to show it. “It doesn’t really matter now, it’s i-in t-the...p-past right?” For some reason he found the term difficult to use - perhaps because the act was so foreign for him and he wasn’t much of a talker or philosopher which made using non-literal expressions somewhat difficult. “And I will do that, I appreciate your words human, I...am not so good at using them. So is my name Grendel now?”

The silver haired female shrugged. “It could be, but it doesn’t make up for the fact he went and disappeared on me. I know I should forgive him but I just feel so...unsure? Is that the word? Eh, you’re not missing much, relationships are waste of time ball and chains if you ask me. Relationships are nice until they start to come with drama, and I do not do drama.” Ugh, and he’d seemed like such a keeper too…Toki’s words made her wonder though...would have the boy really ever have the heart to cheat? Of course he would, he’s stupid.It was almost like she didn’t want to admit her squirrely mind was probably playing tricks on her.

“Heh, well someone has to be the voice of reason among us occasionally...by the way.” Using an ear to tug on Toki’s sleeve to get his attention, the rabbit looked up at him. “Need to talk to you alone for a second.” With Talia distracted giving the newly named Grendel what appeard to be his first ever headpats, the rabbit went aside with the other human. “Talia’s sick, and if you know of any doctors, libraries or places we can look at, that would be amazingly helpfuly. Right now we dont have any direction on what to do and I think we’re limited on time and well...you know.”

The word exaggeration made Simba ponder. “Well, the dragons in Game of Thrones always do seem to be much scarier than dragons in the digital world are! Oooh, what kind of things have you created?!” At times, Simba was like the silly kid who’d be fascinated by a magician doing fake card tricks.  

“It’s not your fault of course...it’s just, you ever try to explain something to someone more than once but they just don’t seem to get it?” It was the fatal flaw of men it seemed, to be as dense as iridium at times. “But I can’t seem to stay mad at him for it - bitter? Yes. Angry? Oddly enough...no.” Maybe she would get over it one of these days, hopefully before…”Talia!” To the left was Simba prodding at her with a claw looking up with puppy eyes. “Can our new friends join us for lunch please?!” The fact he was great dane sized in this form didn’t make the face any less tough to resist for sure. “Of course, but that’s up to them if they want to. What do you say, care to have lunch with us, Toki?”

F-friend?! It was a foreign yet comforting sensation to the goburimon knowing someone wanted to give him a chance at trust, one that seem to put him in a catatonic state mind even for a second. “And just how exactly do humans what to call themselves...Toki was it?”

The rabbit lit up at the mention of K while recalling meeting the Shutmon during her and Simba’s childhood at a park in the human world long ago. “Whoa, K has a daughter now?” Time really did fly in this place it seemed. “Way back when, we happened to run into her in Shibuya when I was just a little Moonmon and Simba was a Koromon but we haven’t really seen her since - though I take it by the fact she’s a mom that she’s doing good?” Children were always associated with good news it seemed, being a parent always seemed to ‘change’ someone after all but was that kind of thing really for her? “I’ll keep that in mind though, maybe we’ll head over there next.” Eh, the rabbit had never seen herself as the maternal type - caring maybe, but motherly? Meh.

“But poems are fun too! Especially the ones by Dr Seuss. I’m not a very good decipher of human language but I do like when Talia reads to us!” Weird how he couldn’t really read, but had easily understood what that megidramon had been saying. “And I can understand dragons who are too wild to be able to orally communicate.” Maybe a kinship thing?  

“Anything in particular you’re feeling? It’s not much, but the digimon in the nearby village gave us some ingredients as payment for helping them out with some upgrades to their infrastructure. I’m not an expert by any means but I do dabble in gadget designs and was in the robotics club in college! It’s more of a hobby than anything though and if I can use it to help others that’s even better.” No lie, finding out her degree required the candidate to dabble in some basic engineering was cringeworthy and intimidating for Talia at first. And yet without it she wouldn’t have ever been able to teach herself the electronic stuff later on once she’d discovered her knack for gadgets. “Aside from poems and martial arts, are you in school or anything, Toki?”, Talia asked with an utmost curiosity to get to know the other human better.

“Hmmm lets see. Grain that looks like rice, a few veggies and a meat that I’m not sure what is but will assume some kind of that vegetarian substitute thing they get from the ground - let’s see what I can create out of this!” She started by cooking the meat (over a large stone warmed by Simba’s flames) so they didn’t mix raw meat with cooked veggies later but put the veggies in after the meat so they would absorb the flavor. It was a process that fascinated Grendel as he sat to watch while continuing to converse with Toki. “Us goburimon hardly cook our own food - we usually just forage on what we can find when we’re hungry - do most humans have an aversion to the consumption of raw food?” He noticed the meat too - it was something he’d never actually had which was ironic considering most other probably assumed goburimon were carnivores who ate bloody and raw steaks.

“Thanks. We’ll definitely go and see her as long as I can convince my tamer. Talia...she...hasn’t been the same since the accident. It’s like its her in that body but she’s...not there, she’s not mentally existing.” They’d spoken out of earshot about it as the girl continued to monitor the food, placing the rice to cook after the veggies were done, covering it with a clean large leaf from a tree, explaining to the inquisitive goburimon that the steam coming from the hot rock would cook and soften the rice. “Err well maybe it’s hard to tell since you didn’t know her beforehand but there’s just something different!”

Simba wagged his tail excitedly exuberating with a positive energy only a child could hold. “The best you could ask for! And the best cook too, wait till you see!” It was a compliment Talia shrugged off as she pulled some acrylic dinnerware from her bag. “Eh, someone’s got to feed you two right? I’ve found I’m not the biggest fan in the world of eating stuff on leaves so I keep these cheapy plates and forks on hand - they’re sturdier and better for the environment than paper but not too heavy to travel with. Now everyone eat up! What are Aylin and your dad and his partner like, Toki?” 

The term game console made Talia practically light up as an old part of her briefly seemed to come to face with memories of her time as an office programmer filling synapses with a positive kind of fondness. “Me too! Before all this digital world stuff, I actually used to work for a gaming company called Overlord Enterprises in the design department.”

And as much as she wished at times there was never any way she could go back to that. It just made her wonder - had they fired her citing job abandonment? Ever looked into what happened to her that she never showed up again? By now they definitely put someone new into her old job or maybe combined with some unlucky worker in the department who was now doing the work of two people so the company could cut corners. “Eh, takes a bit of leg work to learn I’ll admit but once you get the basics down its cut and dry. I’ll show you sometime! And maybe when I get my strength back, you can show me some of that martial arts?”

Because if the twins could defend themselves why shouldn’t she learn? Not that her fists could ever split a mugendramon in half but it would have been a nice thing to keep in the back pocket of her mind in case say they ran into a digimon with a human who wasn’t so friendly. “That would be an amazing position to have! Especially with all these groups that keep popping up. And I know everyone has their own reasons for following what they do, but to assume all digimon are dangerous is just seeing in tunnel vision if you ask me.”

But that was the nature of people right? To jump to conclusions and assumptions. And weirdly enough her biggest issue with organizations like Dats was their sense of entitlement, the fact that they thought they could just go and and alter things in a world that didn’t even belong to them.

The rabbit shrugged. “We’ll figure it out, we always do. At the end of the day we’re a family as silly as that sounds and we’ll get through it as one.” Family...it was a concept that’s context for different people varied as much as a fingerprint. “Also I’m not sure how the whole spirit thing works but next time you get a chance to talk to your guy, can you ask him, when we knew one another, did I ever have a family?” She had more questions than that but didn’t want to be overwhelming or assume that communicating with a digimon of the past was that simple.

As she cooked Talia couldn’t help but smile listening to the rabbit converse with the human, as it wasn’t often she opened herself up to others. “I met Tohru and Simba way back when I was still working in the office. Don’t let her properness fool you - I found these two trying to break into a vending machine!” When it came to humans with spirits, Talia always wondered how they didn’t get lonely or envious not having a partner but it was nice to know Toki had made a friend who seemed to fill that role. “I’d love to! She’s a digimon by the sound of it?” Only because digimon were always nicer than humans.

“I know the feeling ish, my parents got divorced when I was a kid and I always felt a little bitter about their separation - the fact that my siblings and I were constantly being shuttered between homes - always two birthdays, two christmases, two graduation parties, yada yada. But as I got older I realized how much better off both we and they were as a result of it. No kid should have to grow up in a house with a poisonous relationship, ya know?” It was probably to blame for one of the reasons she was having trouble trusting Carlos again. "I just wish they’d somewhat learn to get along so I don’t have to go through the hassle of putting them in separate hotels when they visit. Your dads partner sounds like my boyfriends partner Dio - he's a 2 foot tall impmon with the ego of a sith lord who pretty much expects everyone to bow when he walks into a room - he's quite a riot, and very cute. When you meet him you just can't help but admire his bravery and confidence.”  

“Cutthroat isn’t far from the truth! Mostly in the sense that its a male dominated field but I’m the kind of person who if I really want something, I go for it.” It was part of why she was good at buying limited edition things online for her clients? That and she knew which server to use to crash the site to make the other people waiting go away! “Anytime! Let me give you my email too, so in case you ever need anything of the sort, even just help with anything else, you can reach me. It’s part of the small business I run now, you could say.” She left out the hacking part having wondered if Toki and his morals would disapprove of such a thing..yeah, leave out how the whole hacker slash technically a cybercriminal thing for later when their friendship got past the threshold of judgement free.

She shrugged. “Eh I’m not particularly picky or would even know what qualifies someone to teach martial arts so don’t worry about that.” But if it would help her maybe get around in the digital world faster why not go for it? Who knows, maybe it would even help her feel a bit more self connected again.”I would even be happy to try it now but as I said the accident I had knocked the wind out of me. Once I’m strong again though I’ll show the killer left hook I’ve got!” If she ever would be anyway - but this definitely wasn’t the time to muse about that. “Totally! Our borders could use some mediation, ya know? Someone with a strong sense of cultural relativism like you, who won’t be biased by anyone’s cause!”

In a way Talia could see and understand where Dats was coming from because the truth was not all digimon were friendly and mild mannered. Yet, couldn’t they see it was incredibly wrong to assume that every one of them was unpredictable? The other problem was that not every human who got a digimon was out to spoil and love them. “Like I can get behind the concept of why someone would want the worlds separate but it doesn’t have to be that way if we don’t want it to be! Part of why people think digimon are aggressive is because there’s jerks that get partners and raise them to be fighting machines, treating them like tools instead of family!” That and...humans always seemed to be afraid of things they didn’t know or understand. Still, she didn’t know how anyone could mistreat another being.

“And I hope you do the same, Toki! My brother might be a pain but he’s my twin and I wouldn’t want any- speaking of which...where’d he go?” She suddenly noticed that both the dragon and the goblin were gone. “Keep those wretched teeth away from me, scaled fiend!” Her eyes went first to the goblimon up in a tree swinging his club and then to her brother who was outstretched up towards the tree like a curious dog, even wagging his tail a bit. “But I just wanna play, let’s play tag!” The goblin had no idea what either were since all he knew was fighting and violence and therefore associated most things back to that. “If that means biting me again, I want no part of it!”

It was hysterical, sad and adorable at the same time for the reason mentioned above and for the fact that their personalities and outlooks on life were so polar they’ve might as well have been snow and sunshine. “Simba you stop bugging him, not everyone wants to play games!” “Well thats because he doesn’t know any silly! If you come down Mr Grendel, I can teach you.” That made both Tohru and Talia chuckle but particularly the rabbit as she continued to speak to the man. “Don’t ever tell him I said this, but sometimes he’s smarter than me.”

A lunamon! The girl had never seen one but heard they were very cute and whimsical. “How precious! Tohru’s baby form is a moonmon and a friend of ours thought she would maybe become a lunamon but I just love my little bunny dragon and wouldn’t change her for anything else.” Much to Tohru’s chargrim the girl held and hugged her for a second - you’d think she’d get used to it at this point but it definitely wasn’t less embarrassing each time! “The twins haven’t gotten to mega quite yet, but I’m not in a rush for them to grow up if you can’t tell! But that’s amazing she can reach mega without a partner.”

It just made her wonder, were there more digimon out there like that? For some reason she’d always assumed a digimon needed a human catalyst in order to reach higher evolutions - but if that was the case how would the digital world function as a whole since not every single one got a human partner? “I bet they would like that! It’s weird because even though Carlos and I have had our issues, I still care very much for Dio and would be here for him even if me and his human decided not to be together anymore.”

“Well you have my vote! And don’t worry, thats what holograms are for! If anything we can use technology to make the two of you look separate so that way no one has to know, keep your identity a secret.” It was a brilliant business idea; he provides the power, she the technology and together they would produce an underground crime fighting business - too bad superheroes weren’t exactly an accepted thing in the human world! Ah well, maybe one day. It was ironic though since what she did from behind the screen was heroic in a way and yet she didn’t see that way - for her it was just business as usual, although did accepting form of payment even matter now that she couldn’t leave the digital world. “Right now I can’t really leave the digital world, so keep me updated on anything cool that happens in the real of humans okay?” She didn’t want going home to be like the end of Planet of the Apes after all!

“Okay Toki!” The dragon didn’t really know a ton about boundaries but he did know lots and lots about games so he was happy to teach the goblin otherwise! “I’ll run and you have to catch me because you’re ‘it’! And then when you get me I’m the new it, see?” The dragon bounded off across the field automatically expecting the green digimon to run after him. Grendel meanwhile just stared off a bit confusingly still not completely understanding the concept of this game - well the mechanics he did, just not the…purpose? Goblins were a bit dense when it came to playing you could say! “No intention of doing so, human. In fact...” He surprised everyone by simply dropping his club on the ground before running after the dragon!

“Probably not all, but it seems to jumpstart the process from what I’ve observed! And that digimon who have human partners cannot really evolve without them for a long time.” If at all, though Tohru imagined it was definitely possible with a long amount of training. ”I...guess I could keep that in mind. Its like...I want to forgive but I just can’t forget how dumb he was...but I’ll try, I guess. I appreciate your positivity a ton and it’s something I needed recently.” Sometimes all it took was a Toki to show you how to be practical right? “So how’d you find out you had a spirit?” 

Toki Akiyama

Bless Toki and his (unrealistically) optimistic heart towards the ideologies of people. “I respect and honor that, but the problem is that, if you show them right away you can become a digimon, they’re apt to somewhat overreact because people be like that? I want to believe they would accept you eventually, just make sure you build up to it first.” Winning them over would be the first step of course, but he was so nice who wouldn’t love him? “I don’t know much about public relations, but I can totally get you on TV screens in 16 different countries if I tried! Tohru’s the one who’s good with people.” Plus it was funny to imagine the small rabbit wearing a headset and carrying around a clipboard ordering people around - not that it was that different from what she usually did right? “You mean I have above average social skills?” “No I mean you like to boss everyone around, you could probably be a wedding planner!” Wedding Planner? Were humans that lazy that they couldn’t plan their own events? “It sounds like just another example of your species complacency to be honest.” Talia shrugged. “I have no idea why anyone would hire one, I’ve only seen them portrayed as crazy bossy people in movies!” Weddings just weren’t really something that interested her, especially not after her parents divorce. “Being honest has never been an issue for me, it’s the...drive to want to be around people I guess? I’m just more comfortable working behind the scenes.” She’d been about to say, the shadows, but would that sound too creepy?

“Wait a minute a wait minute, stop the music, I’m not crazy bossy, I’m just organized, it's important to be organized right? You agree Toki?” He seemed like the sensible type who would agree with her on that! “Want to see pictures of the twins when they were small?!” Tohru let out a squeak of horror at that, resisting the urge to pull away Talia’s phone with pictures but being too polite to do so, whyyyyy. “This little blue bulb is Tohru, and the pink one is Simba, and here they are napping together.” She offered her phone for the man to look, where he would see various photos of the two of them playing, koromon chewing on moonmon, moonmon biting her brother for such a behavior in the next picture, amonng other various activities, and one specific one of a white shutmon wearing a red cloak sitting in the park enjoying a pizza with the two. “That’s amazing! You must feel a super strong bond with him, as strong as the one I have with the twins if anything. Different probably though since you guys are...kinda the same person? Do you consider him a separate being or part of who you are? Like your subconscious or something?”

Toki Akiyama