2004 – New Year, New Problems

Story #6: Rumblings... From Where?

Author's Notes: This story covers Yolei. Look for hints to the future direction of Digimon Adventure 03: The New Order. The names of the brother and sisters come from Wikimon. Enjoy!

Date: 1/2/2004

Time: 3:00 pm

Place: Ai-Mart (family convenience store) stockroom.

Yolei Inoue sighed. She loathed doing inventory duty, but today it was her day to count the stock that her parent's convenience store needed to stay in business. It was essential that she helped in the store in some form alongside her brother and sisters. The irony of having this job was that it was often the only time she could have privacy and time to think about things in life, an irony she was well aware of...

"20, 21, 22, 23... oh, shoot! Did I make sure to count those ones there?" Yolei asked herself. Her mind kept jumping back and forth between various topics related to what had happened at the New Year's Eve battle, and she had a hard time keeping her mind focused on the work at hand. In addition, she had the worry of having to leave Poromon alone, and the fear of having him being discovered by an inquisitive sister or brother was enough to make her want to bite her nails. She didn't think she had those feelings alone, but with siblings these things became even more stressful...

Someone knocked on the door to the stockroom. Slightly startled, Yolei asked who it was. "Could you bring out something for me, honey?" a voice asked from on the other side of the door.

Yolei recognized it as her mother, who was manning the counter at the moment. "Sure, Mom, what is it that you want?" Yolei replied.

"Could you bring me out a case of pouch drinks?"

"Sure, just a sec..." Yolei rummaged around in the stock until she found a case that contained pouch drinks, picked it up and carried out of the stockroom. She squinted as she entered the more brightly lit area of the store proper, but as her Mom took the case from her, something on the case label caught Yolei's attention.

"Prune juice?" she asked herself. "Isn't that what Cody's grandfather likes?" It would explain why something as unappealing as prune juice managed to sell in the store; because Cody lived with his grandfather and mother in the same apartment building, the convenience store located at the ground floor would be the easiest place to get the juice pouches.

Yolei looked up at the ceiling. She knew above her was not only her family's apartment, but two other Digidestined as well, Cody and T.K. In addition to her own problems, Yolei worried about Cody; he was still a little boy, and the battle had hit him pretty hard. She wondered if Cody could hold up under the stress. And T.K.? Well, Yolei wondered if he was in about the same situation as she was, considering that Kari and Gatomon had been hit as well by the revelations.

Yolei suddenly realized that she was acting like a total dork, and blushing she rushed back into the stockroom, hoping no one had seen her. As she rushed back to where she had been counting inventory, she ran headlong into someone. Stumbling back a bit, Yolei noticed it was one of her sisters. She growled in annoyance. "Momoe, what are you doing in here?!? Aren't you supposed to be sweeping the floor?"

"No, Chizuru's doing that today." Momoe replied. "I want to help you with inventory, Mom said I could." (Chizuru was Yolei's other sister).

"No, you'll just be in the way. Now get out!" Yolei ordered, pointing a finger toward the door.

"But Mom said!..."

"Well, you can go tell Mom that I don't need your help. Now out; I've still got work to do!"

Momoe sighed. "OK, I'll go." she sadly said. As she left, she gave a hurt look, and Yolei wondered if she would get a reprimand from Mom once she was finished with inventory work, but for now all Yolei could do was get back to what she was supposed to be doing.

Yolei sighed in exasperation as she started again on what she had been counting. "I guess I should be grateful that I even have siblings; after all I know someone who would give anything to have his brother back..." she said to herself. Sobered, Yolei let her thoughts trail off...

She mouthed out numbers as she counted in inventory, but her mind had now focused on Ken. Yolei knew that Ken had been hit hard as well, and once the dust settled a bit more she knew that Ken would be pulled closer to Kari because Ken and Gatomon could now be classified in the same category: victims of Myotismon. "It's not a question of if, but when will the relationship really begin." Yolei said to herself. The problem lay with how Yolei herself would fit in this picture: on the one hand Kari was her friend because of the DNA-Digivolving and she didn't want to wish her harm, particularly now, but on the other hand Yolei was the one who had been smitten with the thought of marriage to Ken, something that had been tossed aside after Ken was revealed to be the Digimon Emperor and kept down by the shame of doubting Ken's reversion, but now was being brought back to the surface. Yolei knew that, in terms of "deep relationships", Ken had two "choices": her or Kari. Yolei also knew that at least temporarily the pull would be in Kari's direction. She was sure all existing relationships would be respected by Ken, but it was still a problem because it would be known that Yolei would want a "deep relationship" with Ken too, putting her in the pickle of competing with a friend for a guy.

Yolei sighed. She knew that trying to get in the way of anything developing between Ken and Kari would be selfish and hurtful. Yolei really liked the idea of being the one Ken wanted to be with, but knew that she couldn't make that choice for him. Besides, Kari was still a good choice for Ken to be with; T.K. would understand why, and Davis would probably come around about it too. But Yolei knew she would have conflicting feelings if she pushed too hard for her own interests, so she decided to simply let things take their course and let Ken decide who he would hang out with. She felt a twinge of pain, but suppressed it, knowing she was doing it for the good of the team...

Yolei sighed again. This was as much "deep thinking"she could do considering that she was getting distracted again. "Job comes first." she said to herself. She scribbled down some numbers on a clipboard she was holding and moved to another part of the stockroom. Still counting out the various candies and other treats the convenience store stocked, Yolei nevertheless kept looking up, toward not just a concerned T.K. and "bleeding heart" Cody but to hiding Poromon as well... She knew something was rumbling, shifting socially, but where was it going to start, and what would be the extent of it? Yolei wished she knew the answers to those questions, because then it might put her mind at ease...

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Time: 3:45 pm

Place: Inoue apartment, "business room"

Yolei had the door closed; she was tapping the inventory figures into the computer in a room in the apartment called "the business room", where most work that could be taken out of the store area was done in. The program she was entering the data into would do some calculations and spit out a response: surplus, reorder or optimal stock amount. Yolei would then take this list to her Dad and then he would use the list to figure out his purchases for the day. Right now, Yolei just wondered whether she had counted right back in the stockroom, because if she flubbed that job her parents would get really mad at her and she would probably not be allowed to keep taking treats for her friends and the Digimon. Yolei continued tapping in numbers, a bead of nervous sweat forming on her forehead...

Her concentration was suddenly broken when she heard some go "AHHHH!" Yolei recognized this voice as coming from her brother, Mantarou, and alarmed she leapt up and went over to the door, opening it just enough so that she could see what was going on. Peeking out, she saw her brother talking with Dad, who had been napping on the couch when the yell awakened him.

"Dad, it was talking to me, I swear!" Mantarou was explaining.

"Wait... what was talking to you?" Dad asked.

"Yolei's pink bird thing. You know, the one she said she got as a Christmas present from Mimi?"

"From the girl in New York City?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"Did Yolei could tell you it could talk?"

"No, that's what freaked me out." Mantarou explained. "I was in the bedroom Yolei and I sleep in looking for Momoe when something asked for Yolei to get him something to eat. When I turned, there was the pink bird, staring at me! It then said that I wasn't Yolei and asked where she was. I was so freaked I panicked; that's why I yelled!"

"Are you sure you didn't imagine it? You have been doing a lot of work lately; maybe you're just hearing things..."

"I'm not hearing things! I know, I pinched myself just after I yelled just to make sure!"

"Hmmm..." Dad pondered.

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Yolei groaned internally; she was afraid she would soon have to tell, and now she was mad at her brother for tipping off the parents. Hoping she hadn't been noticed, she closed the door again and went back to the computer, again tapping in figures but nervously hoping that she wouldn't be bothered.

However, her hopes quickly came to nothing when she heard knocking on the door just a few minutes later. "Who is it?" she meekly asked, sincerely hoping it wasn't who she thought it was.

"Open this door please." she heard her father say through the door.

"But I'm in the middle of generating your inventory sheet!" Yolei complained, hoping it would be a good enough excuse to cause them to go away.

"The sheet can wait. There's something more important that needs to be discussed."

Yolei groaned quietly. "Oh no, here it comes... thanks a lot, bro!" she thought. She got up again and walked over to the door. Upon opening it, she found a confused Mantarou and a suspicious-looking Dad looking at her.

She blushed slightly, but said, "Yes? What is it?"

"In case you didn't hear," her Dad began to explain, "your brother flipped out when he heard something of yours talk to him, a thing that you said couldn't talk, that had been a present, correct?"

"Yeah, I guess..."

"Well, your brother and I have been think somewhat about what happened two days ago, what you said was a big battle involving some alternate reality and the creatures that lived in it. When we went to the campsite, we saw and heard various creatures talk to the other kids. Now, I don't know how much either of us were able to trust our senses, but when this incident happened we began to wonder if this was true in any way. Can you explain this in some other way?"

Yolei looked surprised, but was afraid that her red face would cause her parents to see through the facade. "What makes you think this has anything to do with what happened on New Year's Eve?" she asked.

"Well, unless you have a better explanation, we are assuming it is related to what happened then. Do you have a better explanation?"

Yolei sighed. She wasn't about to lie about Poromon to her parents again, now that the initial explanation had been brought under suspicion. "No, I don't." she admitted, looking down at her feet in shame.

"Okay, then. Is it related to the talking monsters I saw?"

The response was a mumbled yes.

"Is it one of these monsters, what you called Digimon?"

Another mumbled yes.

At this point Mantarou burst out with, "You see! I knew it had to be one of those monsters, but it just looked too cute to be as bad as the ones on TV."

"Yes, Mantarou." Dad said to him. He then turned back to Yolei. "Do you want me to tell about this to your mom and sisters?"

"Might as well." Yolei stated. "The secret's out, but Poromon is actually pretty nice. He just eats a lot, that's all."

"'Poromon'? Your name for him?"

"His name for himself."

"Oh... I see. All right then. You can go back to your work. After you're done, we can discuss more about this, preferably with the rest of the family present, OK?"

"All right."

"All right then. Since I'm now up, I'll go see whether your mother needs to be relieved. Do you want to come with me Mantarou?" He nodded and they went away, leaving Yolei alone by the door.

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She sighed and went back to the computer again. It was no use getting mad at her brother, and maybe Poromon had made an honest mistake when he opened his beak. She would have to speak to him about that later, but for now she had the sheet to finished. She went at it again, typing in numbers as quickly as she could without messing up. However, her eyes couldn't help but flicker around. She knew change was in the air, and she didn't know if she would like the result of it. But even with that, she had things to rely on. She had the ability (hopefully) to still win the affection of Digimon through treats, and she was still a wiz at repairing computers and such, something that would certainly draw Izzy and Ken's attention. Maybe now she would ask if she could be Izzy's research assistant; she still adored him because of the fame he got as the once-head of the school's computer club, but this would be a strictly professional relationship.

"Change isn't necessarily bad, just hard." she said to herself. And she knew that there would be plenty of change in the months ahead. If she steeled herself to giving in to selfish desires, she was sure she would be able to take whatever emerged over the next weeks and months. Why? Because she was the feisty, determined, tough girl that the Digidestined had come to rely on, and just because victory had come didn't mean the others would let her turn into a cream puff. No, they relied on her too much to let her do that to herself.

Yolei put on a determined face as she continued typing on the sheet. "I'm ready for you, change! Do your worst!" she thought, eyes firmly fixed on the computer screen, showing one thing that won't change about Yolei: she's still a feisty girl...

The End