A/N: This drabble collection is written for Aiko Isari because we have the same interest in characters (and torturing them :D).

The chapter titles are prompts from the Alphabet Prompts Challenge on Livejournal, table #6A – gemstones, and the line in italics under each is one of many symbols of the gemstone used as the prompt. Each drabble will also be, because I felt like challenging myself a little more, exactly 250 words in length (by MSWord 2013 count).

Enjoy.

:: Imperfection ::

1 – The Amethyst
which guards against self-deception

Few knew Hikari of being able to lie, and it was an easy deception to follow through. If she said she was feeling fine, others would listen. If she said she was happy, they would accept it. If she said there wasn't anything in particular she wanted to do, they would make suggestions she could more or less appreciate. And she could oh so easily take those words and the truth she'd manage to evade and tuck them into a wee little corner of her heart and be content.

But Taichi knew – Taichi whom she had managed to hurt so many times with those lies. Taichi who cried over his inability to protect her, when she was the foolish one trying to save her big brother a little pain. But he knew her too well now; she couldn't fool him again and again after all. She'd washed his eyes. And Tailmon – Tailmon who shared her bed and her light and her nightmares.

And Takeru and Miyako and Ken knew too – from the Dark Ocean that had brought out all the things she'd buried deep inside. And she thought that, sometimes, even Daisuke knew – and maybe, maybe the others knew as well. Because they didn't call her the perfect little angel anymore; those others, as they said, had corrupted her.

But she was happy and they were just deceiving themselves with her too tight skin cast off, and there were people who wouldn't let her put that self-deceiving skin on again.