The Nonaka household wasn't a particularly loud place.

The eldest resident, Seiko Hata, only ever disturbed the quiet when she cooked, or when she was watching one of those adorable cat videos online.

Her daughter Rumiko could be like a hurricane sometimes, but she was a hard worker, and usually came home exhausted. Aside from the occasional phone call with an agent, where she would force excitement back into her voice, there was little she did to raise the noise level, either.

At thirteen years old, it was Rumiko's daughter, Rika, who was most likely to disturb the peace, though if you asked her, she would tell you it was her mother's fault. She might tell you that anyway, or she might blame any one of the friends she had made over the last year and a half. Most of the times that someone raised their voice in the house, it was an exasperated Rika saying something like, "Mom!", "Stupid rabbit!", or "Come on, Gogglehead!"

As for the house's final occupant, only a select few even knew she was there. She came and went as she pleased, but usually never strayed far from Rika's shadow.

Dinnertime was the sole exception to all of this. On nights when all were present, they were always sure to dine together - even the elusive Renamon. They would talk, laugh, and enjoy each other's company like none of them had thought they could until recently.

Which was why the current silence was alarming. One Hata, two Nonakas, and a kitsune sat around a square table with empty bowls. The younger Nonaka quietly fumed, while the older one bit nervously at her lower lip. The kitsune was silent, which wasn't out of the ordinary, but her widened eyes, flickering between the two every few seconds, certainly were.

Seiko stood and collected the empty rice bowls - usually Rika's responsibility, but Seiko doubted her granddaughter was thinking about it at the moment. The sound of the dishware lightly clinking against each other seemed like banging cymbals in the quiet, and Renamon's ears twitched.

The noise opened the floodgates, and Rika snapped, "You told them what, mother?"

"Just that I thought you might be interested!" said Rumiko, waving her hands. It was difficult to tell if it was meant as a placating gesture, or a defensive one in case her daughter pounced at her like some kind of wild beast. "Just… just might! I didn't try to commit you, or anything!"

"But… uuuugh, you know I don't like any of that stuff," said Rika, scratching at her head with both hands.

"But honey, it's not a photo shoot… I do know better than that," said Rumiko. "I just thought that, given the subject material… you might actually be interested. I don't know, it just seemed like…" She paused for a moment, and her frown shifted into a pout. One of her hands daintily rose to her chin as her eyes watered, flicking between the table and her daughter with every blink. "It just seemed like our interests actually aligned for once, and I got excited, and…"

"No, nuh-uh, stop it," said Rika, crossing her arms and glaring at Rumiko. "I'll buy that you thought that, I can see it I guess, but cut it out with that face. You're not fooling me. And I hate cute things anyway."

Rumiko huffed, puffing out her cheeks in a more genuine, not to mention less flattering pout. "Fine," she said, placing her elbows on the table and resting her head in her hands. Her eyes locked with her daughter's, and it was easy to imagine twin bolts of lightning sparking and clashing in the space between them.

So neither noticed when Renamon rose and went to join Seiko by the sink to aid in cleaning up. Smiling, the house's matriarch turned to her and quietly said, "What do you think about this?"

Renamon stacked two of the now clean bowls with such a soft touch that they didn't make a sound. "I do not entirely understand," she admitted, placing them in a cabinet just as quietly. "Both the connection Rumiko sees and Rika's repulsion to the idea are somewhat alien to me."

"As much as things have improved between them, Rumiko still wants to be closer, if she can," Seiko explained. "Given your unique relationship with Rika, I am sure you understand."

Renamon nodded, and replied, "But the subject matter itself is still strange to me."

"Oh, I'm sure they'll have more to say, and that should make it clear," said Seiko, washing her hands after she finished cleaning the last bowl. "But I'll say this for Rumiko: as much as Rika hates show business, she certainly has that dramatic flair."

Renamon glanced over her shoulder at her partner. Seiko was right, and so was Rumiko, in a sense. She had witnessed the many times Rumiko had tried to make Rika into a model, and while Rika had wanted nothing to do with it, Rumiko had been right that, if Rika wanted to, she had the talent and the looks to pull it off.

So it was now. While her partner clearly didn't want to be a voice actress, Renamon had no doubt she would probably be a fantastic one if she tried.

Rika broke eye contact first, turning away and placing her hands on her hips. "You should ask Gogglehead, if they want a Tamer so badly. He'd be tripping all over himself to do this, so why bother with someone who you know doesn't want to?"

"Because… honestly, honey, I really thought you might," said Rumiko, crossing her arms and losing a little of her patience. "I do think, you know. When Coco - not that Coco, don't glare at me like that - approached me, it really sounded like something that might be right up your alley. Plus, you know, it's summer soon, and they'll pay you. Pretty well, probably, so you'll have plenty of money to run around and do whatever you feel like doing, and…" She sighed. "I mean… come on. It's a new Digimon anime. You love Digimon. You can't fault me for telling Coco I would at least ask you."

Rika tried to glare back at her mother, but unfortunately, she had a point. Now that the initial shock and instinctual repulsion had worn off, she could see how her mom would think that this could be the one gig in the entertainment industry that she could sell to Rika. She took a deep sigh, praying she wouldn't regret what she was about to say. "...and what's it called, again?"

Rumiko's face lit up. "Digimon Frontier! I applied for the lead female role - wanted to try my own hand at this, you know, and thought I might surprise you when you heard your mom in your favorite show. I didn't get that specific part, since it was taken already, but they did cast me... and then they asked if you might want a part. They said it would be an honor to have an actual Tamer involved."

Rika raised an eyebrow. "If the main chick is cast, who do they want me to play?"

"Oh, honey," said Rumiko, taking her daughter's hand and patting it gently. "I know you would never accept a full acting role. What they want…" She grinned. "...is a narrator."

She hated having her picture taken, but the first thing Rika did in the studio was ask someone to get a camera.

"I still can't believe I agreed to this," she thought. "But if I'm gonna be here, I may as well have some fun."

The recording for the first episode was complete, aside from her contribution, but most of the voice cast had turned up today anyway to meet her. The moment she identified the man playing the main character, Takuya Kanbara, she demanded they get a picture.

"You played Matt in the first show, right?" she asked, smiling for the camera.

"Yup," he replied, flashing a peace sign as the flash went off. "Did you watch it, before, you know…" His gaze drifted to the D-Arc clipped to her belt. "Before it all became real?"

"A little, but not as much as my friends," she admitted. "But I did like Matt. Especially when I finally watched all the way through, after D-Reaper was gone."

He smiled warmly. "I hope you'll like Takuya, too. If you have any tips on what it feels like to be a Digimon, let me know. It'll help me play Agunimon better."

"You're voicing one of the Digimon, too?" she asked.

"You'll see," the man replied, an amused smile growing on his face.

Rika stepped into the recording booth, where they had a screen set up, wondering what he had meant by that. She was going into this mostly blind, since she wanted to enjoy the show like her friends, and it would be easier to fight off Kazu and Kenta's spoiler probing if she actually didn't know any spoilers. So, she would be watching the episodes once they were complete, and providing commentary at the end. For future episodes, they needed her to do short summaries of previous ones, too. Lines were prepared for her, but Coco had insisted that she could ad-lib it if she wanted.

She found she actually liked this Coco.

"You're the narrator, but you're also kind of like a guardian angel," he had said. "You're watching over their adventures, and guiding us through them, too. So if you have something you want to say, say it!"

She took the words to heart as she settled down in her chair and said, "Alright, play."

The screen flickered on.

She blinked at the black screen, eyes still wide.

"Wow," she thought. "That… that was pretty good."

The first thing that had jumped out at her was, of course, the opening. Public interest in Digimon must have spurred them to make something new, rather than just repeating the same lines over and over. The second, and this was still the one that shook her the most, was her mother's voice coming from Takuya's digivice. Her mom hadn't said what her role was, but that seemed important.

Plus, it made her realize something she hadn't thought about before - her and her friends' D-Arcs kind of sounded like her mom, too.

Luckily, the rest of the episode had distracted her from that disturbing thought, despite Takuya's cry of "Man, why do moms always have to be right?" when he narrowly dodged getting run over by a truck. She found that, like his actor hoped, she did like Takuya, quite a bit. While he clearly called back to Tai and Davis, his numerous close shaves as he stumbled his way through the episode, and his attempts to bring together a bunch of other kids he barely knew, despite their off-putting personalities, reminded her of someone else she knew, in a good way.

And then he went and turned into Agunimon. She had wondered where the crew's partners were, but after that display, she was hooked. The first show explored partnership with a Digimon plenty. Maybe this one could help people see that being one wasn't so bad, either.

That, and it was really cool. Even if Sakuyamon was cooler.

Really, her only problems were not getting enough of the blue kid, who she identified with already, despite his total silence, and the Trailmon in general, but that wasn't the show's fault. She just wasn't fond of train Digimon after her last encounter with one.

Still, without partners to help guide them, and with Takuya and the mysterious blue kid looking like the only competent ones so far, there was no way the Digital World was going to be kind to this gang. She could say that from experience, and so could her friends, and anyone in the audience who had seen the first two seasons. She looked down at her prepared line… and then discarded it completely as she stood and leaned closer to the mic.

"These guys have no idea what they've gotten themselves into… but, I'll bet you know. Find out… on the next Digimon: Digital Monsters."