Illusive Dreams
Chapter Five

August 13, 2003

...

The dark slid into the room unnoticed. A shadow beneath their feet. It crept across stone like a curling tendril seeking the light. It was silent in the tension, lurking in the heated words exchanged, slipping down like a slow oil leak from his frosted gaze. His fingertips oozed black.

"Matt..." Tai's voice went wary and a strange calm settled between them. "Something's wrong with you."

It webbed between pale fingers: a churning miasma boiling in his grasp, reaching, dripping out of him like poisoned water.

Matt's voice a plea. "I know." And then he turned to her, his icy gaze singling her out, his darkness surging for her light.

It burst from all sides, his body the epicenter. Kari was sure when it was over there would be nothing left: a corpse of the friend they used to know, his bones the only remnants of the vehicle for the monster he let in.

Her digivice grew hot at her side and before she could call on Gatomon, it disintegrated into pixels and ash. She looked to her partner: her beautiful soul mate from another world, her best friend.

Gatomon stared back with empty sockets.

The rest of her body followed, eaten by the darkness from the inside out. The cave erupted in chaos. A firm hand pulled Kari from her shock, yanking her back. Tai's shouts were the last words she ever heard her brother say.

She couldn't even remember what they were.

...

March 13, 2013

...

For a long time she hovered over the toilet bowl, her arms shaking against the rim, the small meal from the night before swimming in sick beneath her chin. It took all her strength to move.

Kari got up like she had a thousand times before. Her eyes glazed, the world moving by in slow motion, her head thick with fog. She walked without seeing, moved without feeling, the memory slid into the deepest part of her until she could function again.

Her feet dragged across carpet fibers, stumbling toward her bed until she heard her name. She stopped, looked up and found her father's boyish smile.

"You okay, sweetheart?"

It took too long for her to put on her brave face.

He frowned. "Should I call your mother?"

"No, Dad." Kari slipped fingers into her hair, smoothed sweat drenched strands behind her ear. "I'm fine."

He stood from his place on the couch and hooked an arm around her, already smelling of hops and yeast. Kari felt her stomach churn.

"I miss him too." The bottle in his hand pointed to the entryway.

Kari's eyes followed glass to the shrine there. Tai's portrait grinned with the same boyish smile as their father. Flowers and candles enshrouded him and burnt incense dusted the rim of his picture frame.

"I know, Daddy." She gave his hand a squeeze. "I'm going to talk to him for a minute, okay?"

"Okay, baby."

Kari left her father in his place and the volume on the television lifted, drowning the apartment in the sounds of the first soccer game of the season. Her arm wrapped around her middle as she settled on her knees, touching the frame with her fingertips. Ash settled on her skin. She fished for a new stick of incense and lit it. The matchbox was almost empty. Smoke rose, slow circles caressing his young face.

Kari felt old.

Her voice came out low, quiet. "I think I've turned into a horrible person." Her dusty finger slipped over her other hand. She held them there, clenched over her belly. "Sometimes... sometimes I wish you didn't save me."

She shook her head at his smile. "Because you're gone and... and I don't know how to save myself."

….

...

It smiled.

Matt stared at it for a long time: a red stretchy grin beaming up at him. He heard a loud sigh and it slid behind the faded black of his sunglasses, turning the smile an odd shade of purple.

Mimi's face came into focus across the picnic table, disappointment pulling her lips into a frown.

"Thanks," Matt said. His chopsticks came to a point, peeling the smile from a ball of rice and bringing it close for examination.

"It's a Twizzler," said Mimi. "That's supposed to be dessert."

"Oh." The red licorice rejoined a ball of sticky rice, twisting into a grimace. It made the blueberry eyes look more like bruises.

"You don't have to eat it."

"I want to..."

"You should. I'm a good cook. My pastry shop was mentioned in the The New York Times. I'm famous."

"Mentioned?"

"Best places to eat. I was in the top 25."

"Top 25."

"Stop repeating me." Mimi pouted. "You make it sound like a bad thing."

Matt dug his chopsticks under a slice of saucy beef and brought it to his mouth.

"Oh, God. If you love me at all, you'll pop that right here."

The meat flung upwards with the sudden jolt of Matt's hand and landed in a patch of grass. A body dove under the table.

"Ten second rule!"

Matt squeezed his eyes shut when the table jerked up and a voice grumbled in pain.

Mimi sounded wary. "Are you okay?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"It's just a piece of food."

The voice under the table seethed. "How dare you."

Matt hands slipped over his face. The sunglasses slid into his hair as fingernails dug into his eyelids. "Please stop."

"It's okay. I don't mind if you don't like it."

"Not..." Matt peered through his fingers and he found Mimi's wary gaze watching him. The small fenced enclosure outside the hospital seemed even brighter now, the sun glaring over her shoulder. A cold breeze blew at a cherry tree, its buds having yet to blossom. "You." He pulled the dark shades back over his eyes. "You should stop." His hand gestured to the meal. "This. It's too much. I don't even know you anymore."

For a moment, Mimi was silent. A piece of hair against her face slid behind her ear, fingers playing with the strands. Tai appeared from beneath the table, chewing. He took a seat beside her, looking between the two, waiting for the drama to unfold.

"Let's be honest now, Matt." Mimi's cheek yanked out a smile. "We never really knew each other in the first place."

"Ouch." Tai hissed through his teeth. "She's right. But ouch."

Matt frowned again. "Yeah, I guess we didn't."

"So, let's start over, huh?" She shook out her hair and her pretty eyelashes bounced against her cheeks. "I'm Mimi Tachikawa."

"We're going that far back?"

She continued, "When I was little my favorite color was pink, but now it's green. I sing super loud in the car. I was born in Tokyo and I moved to New York City when I was twelve. I own a bakery in Manhattan that was listed as one of the best places to eat in the New York Times. I make excellent food." She actually held out her hand, waiting for him to take it. "And you are?"

Tai snorted.

Matt stared at her outstretched fingers. "Why are you here?"

"To get to know you." She didn't budge.

"Well, don't leave 'er hanging."

Matt took it, her smooth palm sliding into his without reservation. Her smile genuine. He wondered if she knew he'd had Tai's blood on his hands.

Tai didn't seem to mind. He watched the exchange, amused. He might as well have been eating popcorn.

Matt closed his eyes. Guilt slammed into him like a train. "Mimi, this is..."

"Um, sorry, but you didn't tell me your name." Her thin fingers wrapped around his and she was still smiling.

"Matt," he said.

"Unusual name. Are you Japanese?"

"Mostly." He pulled his hand away. "It's just short for Yamato. Ishida."

"Ah." She clicked her tongue. "Yamato is very Japanese. Matt seems pretty American, but I guess it's short for Matthew. We have a lot of Matt's in New York. So, Matt, how'd you like to have lunch with me sometime? I'll cook. Oh, look..." She shoved the bento box he'd been eating under his nose. "How about that? I brought some. Now eat it."

Matt's frown lifted, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "Are you always this demanding with people you just met?"

Tai's voice overlapped hers.

"Yes."

….

...

Smoke encircled his head like a shroud, blanketing his view of the city below. TK wasn't sure how long he had been there, on his father's balcony, smoking his father's cigarettes. It must have been awhile. TK could hear Hiroaki speaking in a low voice to someone on the telephone, trying to hide the edge of anxiety that seeped in whenever he came home.

He must have looked terrible. He felt terrible.

"I don't know, Nancy, I'm worried he's... No, it's not like that. He's just—you can't just make those kind of assumptions. Why would she lie about—they're still kids for Christ's sake. Look, I just think we should talk to them. Yuuko wouldn't be—" Hiroaki's voice paused and TK lit another cigarette. "This isn't about Matt."

TK sucked in smoke until he couldn't anymore. His head lowered into his hands and his elbows dug into his knees, like they couldn't stand the weight. Smoke pillared out of his lips in short bursts.

"You still have two sons."

There was a slam and a long moment passed before the screen to the balcony door opened behind him. TK started coughing, choking so hard it felt like his throat was closing.

The sound of clinking glass broke through his wheezing and he managed to look up, his face covered in snot and saltwater, to see his father pouring two shots of whiskey. TK wiped his face with his sleeve and managed to grab the glass, sprinkling it with cigarette ash. He rasped out a thank you.

"You think she'll fight you for custody?"

TK shook his head. He didn't really want to talk about Kari anymore. He definitely didn't want to talk about the baby.

"Have you told your brother?"

"She doesn't want me to."

Hiraoki gave a long sigh and kicked back his shot of whiskey. TK did the same. It swam like sick into his empty stomach. He stared at his father and noticed, not for the first time, just how much he'd aged. His hair had gone completely gray and lines ran like canyons in his face.

"Mom's mad, isn't she?"

"Your mother..." Hiraoki shook his head. "She's just tired."

"Of us." TK swirled the last drops of liquor around his glass. Hiroaki poured him another.

A hand gripped the back of TK's neck before he could take it. His father's calloused fingers slid behind his head, forcing him sideways until his head collided with Hiroaki's chest in a sloppy embrace. Whiskey splashed onto their laps.

"I'm sorry," TK croaked.

Hiraoki's voice rumbled against his cheek. "This isn't your fault."

TK gave a short laugh and pulled away, wiping his eyes again. "I meant about, you know, making you a grandpa."

"Ah, well. That is. At least 50% your fault." Hiraoki frowned and took another sip of his drink. "I just wish it had been with someone else."

"I know." TK took another sip too.

"I wanted better for you."

"She is. Better."

"I wanted you to move on, Takeru."

His sharp blue eyes met his father's dark ones. "How?"

"Date other girls. Move out of Odaiba. Get a real job. Your mother keeps talking about that position at the paper."

"I don't want to be a reporter. And I'm not leaving Odaiba. Matt's there."

"Matt isn't your responsibility."

"When's the last time you went to see him?" When his father remained silent, TK put down his drink. "Did I tell you Mimi came back?"

"Tachikawa?" Hiroaki raised a brow. "Permanently?"

TK shrugged. "She's staying at my place. She's gone to the hospital every day since she got here."

"What did Matt's doctor say?"

"He thinks she can help."

"Huh." Hiroaki put his glass down to light a cigarette. "That wasn't the girl he..."

"No." TK shook his head and looked to the sky. A star sparkled in the dark. "That was Sora."

…

March 15, 2013

...

"Is anyone here with us now?"

Mimi searched the room when Matt's eyes wandered. He stared past the space beside Dr. Hamada's plush arm chair and to a great wooden bookcase, filled with various volumes of literature on mental health and psychology. His gaze fell to the heavy antiques decorating the shelves: statues of Shinto spirits, Roman pottery, a tablet of ancient runes that reminded Mimi of digicode, but his eyes were taking in something else, twitching in the light of a ghost she couldn't see. She wished she could – just to have a moment with their friends again, even if they weren't real. Her legs slid sideways across the leather chase and her feet touched the ground, toes growing cold as the chill of the tiles sunk through her stockings.

Matt turned away from the bookcase and closed his eyes. "Tai."

Mimi sucked in a breath.

"He doesn't go away," he grumbled, wiping a hand into his blonde hair. Mimi couldn't help but notice the hint of a scar peek from beneath his sleeve. She looked every time his arms moved.

"How often do you see the others?" his doctor asked.

"I don't know." Matt's heel beat against the tiled floor, a ragged slipper on his foot thumping away from his sole. He looked out of place in the tidy room – his face worn and covered in blonde stubble, a dark dress shirt wrinkled across his chest, the buttons all off by one.

"Who do you see most often? After Tai?"

The tapping of his heel stopped and Mimi caught a flash of blue move in her direction. Pink crept onto Matt's pale cheeks. "Sora," he mumbled.

Something in his voice, the way he looked at her, as if he were giving away a secret caused Mimi's voice burst out of her before she thought to control it. "Oh!" Oh. Oh, that explained a lot.

"You seem surprised, Mimi."

It was her turn to blush. "I'm not, actually. Not really. I probably would've guessed that a long time ago."

"Stop it," Matt snapped.

Mimi flinched before she realized he wasn't talking to her. It still jarred her, even after nearly a week of exposure.

"Did Tai have something to say?" asked Dr. Hamada.

Matt somehow looked more embarrassed than before. Even the tips of his ears had turned red. "He always has something to say."

Dr. Hamada nodded and jotted something into his notebook. He did this anytime Matt acknowledged a hallucination. Mimi wondered if he was keeping a tally. Her count so far was Tai: 16, Sora: 0. Maybe she got a participation award?

"Do you ever see Joe?" she asked suddenly.

Matt paled and his eyes went to the floor. "Sometimes."

"Izzy?"

"It's been awhile."

Disappointment welled in her chest. "Why?"

"We believe it has something to do with the subconscious," explained Dr. Hamada. He ran a hand over his beard thoughtfully and gave a short laugh when Matt blushed again. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Yamato. It's quite normal. Some hallucinations"—he said the word like he was dumbing it down. For some reason, it rubbed Mimi the wrong way—"are more dominate than others."

"Is that because of them or him?" she asked.

Dr. Hamada smiled. "Both."

Matt was still red. His eyes closed for a long time and the room went silent. Mimi wondered if he was hearing something she couldn't.

"You talk about them like they're real," he said, eyes flashing to the doctor. Anyone who didn't know him would have thought he was angry. But Mimi had seen that look before: the grimace of desperation, the mask over his vulnerability. She'd seen it in Puppetmon's forest, more than once.

"Aren't they?" Dr. Hamada asked, still smiling.

Mimi snapped. "What are you talking about?" She felt her back go rigid as she waited for an answer he didn't give her. "You just called them hallucinations." She suddenly felt stupid, for asking about them, as if Matt was a pathway to the other side, a tool for her selfish questions, like some sort of psychic at a séance. Her gaze fell to her hands.

"They're dead," she told herself. "Joe and Izzy are dead." Her eyes began to water. "Tai is dead. Sora is dead."

They sat in silence after that, her fingernails wrenched in the fabric of her skirt. She could feel Matt staring at her. She felt guilty even though her thoughts started screaming, he should. He should. He should.

"Yamato," Dr. Hamada said, "how are you feeling right now?"

Mimi didn't dare look up, but she could still feel his cool gaze.

"Sad," Matt said gruffly.

And that was it. One word that brought on an onslaught of tears, they came out of Mimi in embarrassing heaves, messy gushy cries that dampened her lap. For Matt, for her, for them. There was another long period of silence: just her crying and Matt staring and the doctor listening. Mimi started to wonder why she was there at all.

"Why do you feel sad?" Dr. Hamada asked.

"Because..." Matt paused for a long time. "I wish they were."

"They were what?"

"Real." He swallowed, a heavy choking sound. "Alive." He shifted in his chair, shoulder jerking sideways when he turned away. "No, I'm not saying that."

Mimi pushed away her tears, finally lifting her face. He was staring somewhere else now, his intense gaze fading into flushed cheeks.

"Are you still speaking with Tai?" asked Dr. Hamada.

"No."

"Is he here?"

"Not anymore."

"Why do you think he's left?"

"I don't..." Matt shook his head. "I'm not telling her that."

Mimi took a deep breath when Matt crossed his arms like a stubborn child. The ball of his foot beat impatiently on the floor.

"You see Mimi," Dr. Hamada said. "I've told Yamato that acknowledging his hallucinations is an important step in his recovery. It helps us to understand their origin. Maybe if you ask him?"

Mimi took in the doctor. His eyes were a light blue, like a light-washed sky, still wrinkled in the corners from a smile. Her voice came out airy and hoarse. "What?"

"Who he's speaking to."

Matt shook his head again, talking to neither of them. "Are you kidding me? Why?"

"Yamato," Dr. Hamada called gently.

"Joe." Matt turned back to them before Mimi gained the courage to ask. Matt found her eyes again, his pained and confused. "It's Joe."

Her heart stopped.

He raked fingers through his hair, wiped them down his face. "He's not real. He..."

"I need a minute," Mimi gasped.

Before she knew it she was outside, clenching her stomach as she sobbed on a bench outside the hospital doors. A hand pressed on her shoulder, a stranger who blurred in her vision, stopping to make sure she was alright. She forced out words, something nonsensical and after a moment, they left. She wondered if they thought she belonged inside, some escaped hysterical patient who couldn't make it more than a few feet on her own.

Maybe she did. Maybe she was crazy for coming, for thinking she was mature enough to deal with this now, for hoping that reconnecting with the past could heal it.

By the time she got herself together, the sun was beginning to go down and her skin was chapped from the chill of the wind. She stared at the sky, the light fading behind buildings in waves of orange and pink.

Someone sat down beside her.

"I haven't been outside for ten years." Matt's hands wrung together in his lap, scars twisting beneath his shirtsleeves.

Mimi looked up at him and saw an attendant flanking his side, standing guard over them. She stayed silent, unsure what to say.

"Dr. Hamada thought it would be good for me. To come out here to talk to you." His fingers broke apart and landed on either side of his lap, drumming the wooden slats of the bench. "I haven't seen Joe for a long time—we looked at my file after you left—it's been almost two years."

Mimi rubbed her sticky cheeks with the heel of her palm and tried not to picture him, but the memories flooded back. She could almost see him standing there, his dark hair brushing the tips of his ears, a bag yanking over his hunched shoulders, dark-rimmed glasses slipping down a long sloping nose.

"I didn't cry when I found out he was dead," she said. "I didn't cry for any of them."

Matt stopped drumming on the bench. His knuckles went white holding the edge.

"I cried when they found you," she continued. "I kept crying until they found Kari. I cried all the time. Every day until they gave up looking and then I couldn't cry anymore." She leaned back, flashing angry red-rimmed eyes at the attendant hovering behind them. Her voice lowered with her gaze. "But now that I'm here, I can't stop. Seeing you and TK and Kari... I just, I don't think I'll ever stop crying. I don't know if I can do this, Matt. I want to, but I—"

"Do you want to know what he said?"

Mimi looked up again and saw streetlamps reflecting in his eyes. She wondered if they were always this blue and why they suddenly seemed so warm. She nodded.

"He told me to tell you..." Pink crept under pale skin. "Um...that toilet paper won't fix this."

Mimi blinked. "What?"

"I don't get it either," Matt said, rubbing a fist into his head. "I mean, he always had a stash, thank God, but why would he—"

Laughter burst through Mimi's lips so suddenly that even the attendant standing guard startled. And then she couldn't stop – she laughed until her gut ached, until the tears started up again, until she leaned against Matt's shoulder just so she wouldn't collapse.

She pictured Joe again, tears sliding from under his glasses, his scrawny arm flinging toilet paper across the air, leaving a comical trail in it's wake. She would have laughed then too, if it weren't for the timing, if Leomon wasn't slowly dissolving before their eyes. She wondered why on earth Joe would ever admit to making such a stupid comment in the face of something as terrible as death, to Matt of all people. Then she wondered why Matt's mind chose that moment, in the face of her tears, to relive it.