Title: Good To Be Home
Romance: Kenta x Ruki
Notes: For the purposes of this story, Kenta and MarineAngemon have a telepathic link to one another.
It was good to be back in Tokyo at last. After six years away, Kitagawa Kenta was ready for some decent food and to catch up with his old friends. They'd communicated by e-mail and phone very frequently, but there was just nothing at all like actually being there with them. That was what he'd missed the most. The actual physical being there with his friends. To have them reduced to tiny voices through wires and words was survivable, but there was nothing quite like hearing them with his own ears, right there in the flesh.
Are we home yet, are we home yet, are we home yet? He grinned to himself at the voice in his mind. To a lot of people, hearing voices in your head meant it was time to move into the loony bin. To him, it just meant his partner was awake.
MarineAngemon fluttered just to one side of him, looking all around in his eagerness. Kenta grinned, grateful as always for the cheerfulness of the fairy creature. "Yeah, we're home. Well, almost." When his parents had died in an earthquake just before he'd made the move to New York, he'd sold their apartment to finance his trip. He hadn't really thought that much about coming back then. I don't think I was thinking about anything then except wanting to get away for a while. Get some perspective and all that. Guess I went about as far away as I could. He'd been away for five years. That was definitely long enough.
Once he'd decided to come back, though, he'd needed a place to live. That was easily taken care of, too. The Internet was a wonderful thing, and he'd been able to use it to get a small apartment rented before he'd even left New York City. It had come furnished, which was definitely a good thing, and meant the only thing he had to do was get some food. But that could be taken care of in the morning. Right now, the only thing on his mind was finding a good takeout place and then heading home to deal with the jet lag.
"Let's go, Renamon. We've only got an hour." The voice he heard was quite familiar, though he hadn't heard it in quite a while. He glanced over where it had come from and felt the familiar shock at seeing Makino Ruki in the flesh.
It had been five years since he'd seen her last. Back then, she'd been a gawky fifteen year old, tough as nails and with a fiery temper that had fueled her zest for life. She had still been insisting on dressing in T-shirts and jeans, and her hair was tied back the same way it had been when she was ten.
Now, she was tall and graceful, the gawky stage very obviously having been outgrown. The last he'd heard, she'd spent several years training with Jenrya's sensei, and it showed in the way she moved. Her hair was still as red as fire, and still pulled back into that same style it had been for the last decade or more. Her light violet eyes were full of the same fire and spirit they had been since he had first met her. She was dressed casually, though not in jeans and a T-shirt. Today's outfit was a pair of slacks and a pale green silk blouse, with a bag of what looked like school books over one shoulder.
"Ruki?" He called her name without even thinking, and felt a silly grin creeping up on his face as she turned to look at him. Whoa, she looks great. Better not say anything, though. Remember what happened when Hirokazu tried that. One of his memories...he still wasn't sure if it was a fonder memory or not...was of Ruki trouncing Hirokazu quite thoroughly when he'd made a comment about how she looked in a dress.
"Kenta?" She looked a little surprised to see him, but she was smiling. That was a good sign. He hadn't expected her to recognize him right away, after all.
He nodded quickly. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything." He waved to Renamon as the fox Digimon faded into view just behind her partner, and the vulpine nodded briefly but silently, a simple acknowledgment of his existence.
"You're not. I was just heading out for something to eat. It's my lunch hour." She looked at him a bit curiously. "Hey, if you're not busy, care to join me?"
For a moment Kenta wondered briefly if he'd wandered into some kind of alternate universe. Ruki had grown up a lot from her early standoffish days when he'd first met her, but this was the first time in his memory that she had willingly asked him to do anything with her that didn't involve him getting his rump kicked at the card game. "What?" was the only word that managed to work out of his mouth, and she rolled her eyes.
"You look hungry, and I know I'm hungry, and I know a place we can get a good meal. We are friends the last I checked, and friends do that kind of thing for each other."
Kenta fought back the blush with force of will and nodded quickly. "Yeah, you're right. So, where is this place?" She called me her friend. The friendship between them was a given, but at the same time, it was a bit startling to hear the words coming from her.
"Juri's Place."
He shifted his glasses and blinked in confusion. "Juri's place?" He knew he'd missed some things, and this felt a little familiar, but he couldn't place the reference right away.
"Juri's Place." There was a faint shading of meaning in the word when she said it that was the source of his confusion. "It's Juri and Ryo's restaurant."
"Oh!" Now he remembered what she was talking about. When Mr. and Mrs. Katou had died in the same earthquake that had killed his own parents, Juri had wound up inheriting the bar her father had ran, and had developed it into a family restaurant. Ryo's fame hadn't hurt when she was looking for a wider clientele, since most of his fans were now growing up and having families of their own, and they still remembered him. He'd heard about the name change of the place two years earlier, along with the news of Ryo and Juri's engagement.
Ruki strode off at a quick groundeating pace, and he followed, watching as Renamon leaped through the trees easily. MarineAngemon floated along beside him, and appeared to be grinning. At least Kenta thought he was; since MarineAngemon's usual expression was a happy smile, it was hard to figure out when he meant to be grinning and when he didn't. Are you glad to be home, Kenta?
"Definitely, my friend." Kenta hurried along after Ruki, feeling something strange deep inside of his heart. It sang and danced and was in general being rather annoying. He was fairly certain that was not good, but with the jet lag trying to sneak up on him, he couldn't be positive. "Definitely."
"Kenta!!" Juri hustled over from the kitchen as soon as she saw him coming in behind Ruki. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming back!?"
He grinned as she gave him a cheerful hug, marveling again at how much she had improved over the last decade or so. "What can I say, I like to surprise people." A movement out of the kitchen proved to be Akiyama Ryo, who joined the group with a grin.
"America definitely agreed with you, Kenta." The young man looked his friend up and down, and Kenta just grinned. He knew he'd grown fairly tall, and there were other changes as well. I'm not Hirokazu's shadow anymore. He cared deeply for his long-time friend, and looked forward to seeing him as soon as he could, but it was nice to be his own person.
"What do you guys want?" Juri stepped back and looked all business-like, rattling off the specials of the day as Ryo guided them to their seats. Juri's Place was a family-run affair still; Juri cooked, Ryo seated people and handled reservations, and Masahiko cleaned up.
"The sushi sounds pretty good." Ruki commented, and Kenta agreed quickly and very eagerly.
"You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get good Japanese food in America!" He declared, hearing his stomach rumble just at the thought of real sushi. The stuff they'd had in the 'specialty restaurants' left a very great deal to be desired.
Ryo chuckled softly. "Oh, I think we would. Alice has told us all about the food they've got there. No wonder she decided to move here." He grinned for a moment, then headed off to deal with some new customers, while Juri got the rest of their order and headed to the kitchen, leaving Ruki and Kenta there alone except for their respective Digimon. Though with Renamon being as silent as a shadow, and MarineAngemon audible only to Kenta, that was the next thing to being alone, really.
"So, what do you do?" Kenta shifted the small bag of clothes he'd been carrying with him off of his shoulder and down to the floor, hardly noticing as Ruki did the same with her bookbag. "I mean, are you in college or what?"
"I'm still in college." She nodded briefly. "Business school, actually. I want to own my own company once I graduate."
"What kind?" He toyed a bit with a chopstick, and wondered if he'd still be able to use them after all those years of using a knife and fork.
"Right now, I'm not sure." Ruki shrugged. "I've got a lot of ideas, but nothing I've been able to pin down. If I'm realistic, I'm probably going to have to spend a few years working for someone else." There was a faint aura of distaste about her for that. He wasn't surprised; she had never been the type to take orders very well. But she could do it if she had to, he was certain of that. "What about you?"
Kenta shrugged lightly himself. "I went to a couple of years of college in New York, but I wanted to come back here to finish things up. I've been thinking of studying medicine of some kind, but I don't know."
"I never really thought of you as a doctor." Ruki examined him with a critical eye. "But you might be a good psychiatrist. You're kind of easy to talk to, and that's good in that job, or so I hear from the one my mom goes to."
He blinked briefly. That was something he hadn't heard of. "Your mom goes to one?"
"Yeah." Ruki grinned faintly. "I like to say that I drove her to it when I was younger, but I didn't. Much. It's all the pressure she was under as a model. Even though she's retired now, she still likes to go talk to him." Violet eyes twinkled. "I'm not all that certain, but I think she might like him."
As the conversation flowed on, Kenta found himself feeling very comfortable with Ruki. Before he'd left, they hadn't really been that close, but they had talked a few times. This time was different, though. He was just glad he wasn't stammering and stuttering in her presence like some kind of lovestruck fool. That would have been about the worst impression he could have possibly made on her. Why am I thinking about that? He'd had a crush, yeah, but that had been so long ago, and so much had happened...heck, the crush itself hadn't lasted that long, only a few weeks. He'd dated a little while in New York City, and some here before he'd left, but no one had ever really touched his heart.
I kept comparing them to Ruki. He reminded himself a tad harshly. Of course, there was no real comparison. Any other girl he'd met or thought of or heard of definitely suffered just by his memory of the fiery Tamer.
He knew that she had dated a few people over the last few years, but as far as he knew, she'd never dated the same person twice, and didn't really seem that interested in finding anyone on a permanent basis.
And that makes you very happy, doesn't it? He didn't react, he'd had too much practice at concealing whenever his partner was talking to him. MarineAngemon was very good at hiding when he wanted to be, but his comments were always clear and precise in Kenta's mind. That had caused a few moments of embarrassment before he'd learned to deal with it.
What are you talking about? He continued to eat and chat with Ruki, not letting the secondary conversation in his mind interrupt the flow at all.
You know what I mean. You like her. There was an extra nuance to the word like that Kenta wasn't all that sure he approved of, but there wasn't much he could do about it. He could feel MarineAngemon's mind easing away from his own as the small Digimon continued to eat, and he found himself paying more attention to Ruki.
She had definitely grown up into someone more than worth paying attention, not that she'd ever been the type that someone could ignore, if they were stupid enough to try that in the first place. He could tell she was paying attention to anything he said, and he very courteously returned the favor himself. Listening to her was a pleasure in and of itself, and one that he was beginning to think he could get used to.
All too soon the meal was over with, and Kenta reached for his wallet instinctively. Ruki shook her head. "This meal's on me." She grinned. "Call it a welcome home gift."
Before he could say anything to confirm or deny, she'd already handled the bill and he was left there in shock. He could feel a tang of smugness in his mind that could only have possibly come from MarineAngemon, and he did his best to ignore it for the moment. Paying attention to him would only make things worse.
As Ruki came back, something shifted inside of him. He knew she was going to have to go back to class soon; her lunch break was almost over. It had been an hour he knew he'd never forget, no matter what. He wanted more like them. So he was going to do what he could to get it. "Hey, Ruki, thanks a lot." He smiled at her, and she grinned back, reaching for the bag she'd sat beside her. "I don't even think I've gotten my money changed back to yen from dollars!"
"No problem." The redhead favored him with a smile and started away, then stopped when he called her name again.
"I was wondering, if you're not too busy, would you like to maybe go see a movie or something this weekend?" Kenta kept his eyes on her, wanting to see just how she reacted. If she looked disgusted or amused or anything like that, he'd find a way out of it, somehow.
She didn't look any of those, however. She looked...intrigued. That was something he had to admit to himself he hadn't been expecting. "Yeah. I think I would like that." Her lips curved lightly into a grin. "Nice to see you home again, Kenta."
As the red-haired woman left, Renamon flowing silently ahead of her, Kenta took a deep breath. "It's good to be home." Then something sank into him and he banged his head on the table. "I forgot to ask where she lives!"
"You looked as if you were enjoying yourself." Renamon murmured the words quietly, but she knew her partner had heard them.
Once, Ruki might've pretended she didn't understand what the vulpine creature had said. This time, however, she only responded, "I did. Kenta's nice to talk to, and I have missed him." Kenta was the only one of their group who had left the country, and though e-mails had been frequent with all of them, and the occasional phone call had come through, it hadn't been the same.
Ruki had found herself thinking about Kenta every now and then, a tad wistfully. She'd told herself that it was because she hadn't really gotten close to him the way that Hirokazu and Takato were, and that she was missing the chance to have another friend. I think that really bugged me because of everything that happened in the Digital World. She had been stuck with them for a while, and though back then they had been kind of a pain, now she looked back and wondered how things might've been different. Well, that's then and this is now.
And now meant that he was back. She hadn't really been expecting to bump into him, or to enjoy talking to him half as much as she had. He is really easy to talk to. Our Digimon are a mirror of us a lot of the time. I'm a fighter, so I'm partnered to Renamon. Takato still has the open and wide-eyed mind of a child most of the time, so he and Guilmon are a perfect pair. MarineAngemon can heal and is fearless. So what does that say about Kenta? She hadn't been lying; she really thought he would be a very good psychiatrist, and he was very easy to talk to. She definitely hadn't forgotten that it was thanks to MarineAngemon they had gotten out of the D-Reaper, and the memory of being Sakuyamon and getting the effect of the little 'mon's healing ability.
"You did forget something, Ruki." Renamon's voice held just the faintest tang of amusement. "If you're planning on going out with Kenta this weekend, it might be useful if he knew where you lived. I believe that sort of information is rather important between dating humans."
Ruki flushed deeply, and the protestation that she wasn't actually dating Kenta died on her lips when she realized that Renamon was right. "Well, I can fix that." She pulled her PalmPilot out of her pocket and quickly tossed off an e-mail to Kenta giving the location of the small apartment she'd moved into after starting college. "Come on, it's about class time again."
As Friday rolled around, Kenta was beginning to feel just a little nervous about the two of them going out. He'd scoured the newspapers looking to see where would be the best place, and he'd worried himself into a frazzle trying to figure out why she had agreed to go out with him in the first place.
Guess I'll have to ask her. He wasn't afraid of what she might say, but it would probably be a very good idea to find out just how they both felt about things before they went very far.
He looked down at the movies and times he'd had written down, then checked his finances again. Just who was paying for what hadn't been settled, but he figured they'd work that out when it was time. Why am I so nervous? It's just Ruki...uh, I guess that explains it.
A swift, sharp knock on the door heralded her arrival, and he stared at it for a moment before going over. "Hey, Ruki!" He grinned as he opened the door and saw her there, Renamon eternally by her side.
"Hey." She grinned lightly back at him, then motioned briefly to her partner. "Renamon isn't really all that comfortable in movie theaters, so she's going to be patrolling the city for trouble. She just came over to make sure I got here safely."
Kenta grinned back; he was fairly sure that even if Ruki had been alone, if someone had dared to bother her, they would have severely regretted it. "Sounds like a good idea. Hey, MarineAngemon, you want to help her? You guys can keep busy while we...uh, keep busy too." That didn't exactly sound very smooth, but he didn't care.
Sure. You two have fun. There was a twinkle in his mental voice, and Kenta watched as the two Digimon slipped easily through the opened window. You have fun. I'm just a thought away.
Kenta looked back at Ruki and shrugged. "You ever notice that you and I are the ones with really psychic Digimon? I mean, MarineAngemon and I can speak to each other telepathically, and you and Renamon always seem to be aware of each other..."
"It does come in handy." Ruki shifted a little, and the full light from inside the apartment fell on her. Kenta tried not to drool as he saw her directly for the first time. Her hair had been undone from it's usual style, and it was longer than he remembered it. It lay gently across her shoulders and spilled to about halfway down her back, neatly brushed and combed. She had only the faintest dusting of makeup, not quite enough to be visible, just enough to enhance her already fair features. He didn't know how to describe how she was dressed; the names of the various female items were completely foreign to him. But he knew that she was incredible. "Kenta?"
He jumped a little and flushed faintly. "Uh, sorry." Kenta scrambled in his pocket for the paper where he'd written the shows and times down on. "I wrote down a list of things we can see, I thought it'd be better if we picked them out together instead of just pointing one out and saying 'we're going there.'" He tried not to look too eager for any given movie.
Ruki nodded briskly and took the list, looking it over quickly before pointing to one that he'd been hoping she'd pick. "That one look like it should be good."
"Then let's go." Kenta headed out of the apartment, Ruki politely closing the door behind the two of them, and they headed out for their date.
Ruki had dated before, it was nothing new to her. The guys had been nice, mainly because most of them were too nervous to be otherwise. Only once or twice had she gotten the feeling that if Renamon hadn't her partner, they would've tried something. Dating Kenta was something entirely different. He wasn't afraid of her in the slightest, he wasn't nervous about Renamon, and wouldn't have been even if her partner had been there. If he was nervous at all, she was fairly sure it was because it was their first date, not because of her.
It's kind of strange to be dating Kenta. It was strange, but at the same time, something about it just felt nice. It was hard to put into words, since this was the first time she'd spent any prolonged time in his company for years. He was always in my mind even when he was out of the country.
It was rather odd, all things considered. The two of them had never been close as kids, but the few times they'd seriously interacted on anything stuck out far more clearly in her mind than anything else. Juri thought for sure I was gonna end up with Ryo. He's so not my type. Battle-partner, yeah. Life-partner...not happening. Besides, there was no way in any world she would date Ryo when it had been obvious to her from the time she was twelve onwards that Ryo and Juri were head over heels for each other.
Just what is going on here, anyway? She wondered as they bought their tickets and headed into the theater. I know we're on a date. He asked me, I said yes. I'm having a good time. Better than I thought I would. She knew that this was a tad silly, going on a date with someone she couldn't claim to know all that well, but she trusted Kenta. He was Kenta, he couldn't harm a fly. He wouldn't harm a fly even if he could. Everything she'd ever known about him pointed towards him being the gentle soul he'd always been, who let himself get walked on by Hirokazu when they were younger and yet had so fiercely protected his new partner on their way back home.
I'm not in love with him. That was plain and simple. They had just re-met after a long separation, and there was a lot about each other that they really needed to know. She liked him, a great deal more than she'd ever really thought possible, and the odds were fairly good that if they kept seeing each other, that the day would come when she did love him.
It wasn't that bad of a thought, either. Oh, sure, he wasn't the kind of guy that every girl dreamed about, but Ruki wasn't every girl. He had his own kind of charms.
"I've been wanting to see this movie." He commented as they sat down. "I've heard really good things about it."
"So have I." She settled into her seat and tossed a piece of popcorn into her mouth. "I can't wait to see the dinosaurs. The special effects are supposed to be 'out of this world'."
Kenta grinned at her. "I guess we'd be the experts on if something really is out of this world, wouldn't we?"
"Yeah, I guess we would." The two of them made small talk until the lights went down and the movie started. Random comments flew back and forth, muttered just for one another's ears, as the previews for other movies went by, and finally the feature presentation began.
Despite the traditional view of movies as a place for girls and boys to pay more attention to each other than what was on the screen, when Makino Ruki went to the movies, she went to watch what she'd spent yen for. However, this time around she couldn't help but pay at least even attention to her date. Most of the people she'd went to the movies with had been more interested in how far they could get. Kenta turned out to be a lively and interesting film-watching companion, who muttered comments and observations that frequently matched her own views. Who would have ever thought he'd be a horror movie buff? She'd always mentally pictured him as the type who'd be hiding under the sofa as the slasher ripped his victims apart.
"So when did you start liking things like that?" Ruki wondered as they headed for the restaurant some time later.
"Just a few years ago." Kenta remembered. "One of my neighbors dragged me to a horror movie film festival. Ten straight hours of watching turned me into a fan."
Ruki poked him lightly in the shoulder with a grin. "So that's what we should've done instead of jumping out from behind a tree with a mask on." Both of them laughed at the memory of Hirokazu's way of attempting to get Kenta to watch a scary movie with the group.
"Funny, Ruki, funny." Kenta rolled his eyes at her. He hadn't been scared by Hirokazu's joke, but he hadn't been in the mood to watch anything scary after it either.
"I thought it was." She flashed a grin at him, and he threw one right back at her.
The lights of Tokyo were too bright for them to see the moon or stars, but that didn't really detract anything from the experience as they walked along. Not that either of them was really paying that much attention to the view overhead. They were both incredibly more interested in one another.
Dinner passed in a kind of blissful haze. They weren't yet in a stage that could be described as 'love', but it was perhaps the stage right before it. Ruki had often mentally compared herself to flame, and in Kenta, she sensed the balancing force of water. It was perhaps an overly simplified way to think, and definitely no way to fall in love, but it was how she was thinking at the moment. Yeah, I think I could love him. The problem, of course, was if Kenta felt the same way about her. There just was no way to really ask that politely, however, and she had the feeling if she just burst out with the question, he'd be too flustered and shocked and possibly even offended to answer properly. This business of love could get very irritating.
"So what do we do now?" Kenta wondered as they paid for the dinner and headed out. He glanced up at the sky, then mentally sighed. "Cancel that. It's getting kind of late, we should probably head home."
Ruki checked the time herself and sighed just the faintest bit. She'd been having a lot of fun. Then she grinned. "It's not that late, really. Why don't we go for a walk before we go home? It's a nice night, and I think we need to relax some anyway."
"All right." Kenta was just as reluctant as she was to let the evening end. I know it has to, but I don't want it to.
The two of them headed to the park, not really having to discuss it. "I don't think we've ever come here like this...together." Ruki glanced around through the thickening gloom to the small buildings where once card games had been played. Other kids came here now, while the few times she and the others played, it was in one of their houses. They still kept the skills up; it was more for the fun of it than anything else now though.
"I always used to come with Hirokazu or Takato." Kenta looked at them, remembering all the things that had happened all those years ago. He'd never once dreamed that the things they'd played with were real somewhere. Seeing things that he'd only seen on cards had been amazing. But what was most amazing was the tight friendship and bonds that he'd gained from it. Before the game had turned real, he had only been really close to Hirokazu. After it was all over, he was one of the team.
Slowly they went through the park, recalling days and events that had occurred years and years ago. Even more slowly, the conversation began to taper off, and by the time they'd left the park, they were silent. No words seemed to be necessary any longer as they headed back towards Kenta's home.
"This has been one of the best times of my life, Kenta." Ruki told him honestly. "I'm not even sure why you asked me, but I'm glad I said yes."
He nodded slowly, feeling himself flush just a little. "I'm glad you said yes too. Heck, even I don't know why I asked you. It just seemed to be the right thing to do right then."
"You're a really nice guy." Ruki watched him as they stood outside his apartment. "I really like you, Kenta." Her light violet eyes never left him for a moment. "Would you like to go out again? Next weekend?"
Kenta felt his heart skip a beat, and grinned a trifle goofily. "I'd love to."
The two of them looked at each other for a few minutes, then Ruki leaned down to brush her lips gently across his cheek. "I'll see you soon."
"Yeah." He stared at her quite dreamily and smiled broadly, waving slightly as she entered the elevator and the sliding door blocked his view of her. She kissed me. Wow.
Kenta took a deep happy breath as he entered his apartment and slid into a chair, barely noticing MarineAngemon entering through the window and mentally chattering to know what was going on. It was definitely good to be home.