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[01 OOM] Making Omelettes
Jan. 31st, 2018 12:50 amEvery day is the same. They work off some of their debt, and then Jyou somehow manages to cause enough damage to set them back again, every time. Before long, eight days has turned to nine, then ten, then two weeks.
After the lunch shift on the fifteenth day, Yamato catches Digitamamon in the kitchen.
“Please! I’ll make sure to come back, just let me go and see my little brother,” Yamato pleads.
“Absolutely not,” Digitamamon says immediately, shaking his -- well, his entire body.
“Why not? I promise I’ll come right back and keep working!”
He doesn’t get a chance to say anything more, because Jyou yelps behind him, just before the sound of dozens of smashing plates reaches his ears. When he turns, nearly every plate in the restaurant, plates that Jyou hadn’t even been carrying, is in shards on the kitchen floor.
Yamato’s just staring at him in shock when Digitamamon speaks.
“That’s another week for the both of you.”
“Another week?! I don’t have that kind of time!”
Digitamamon snorts. “What do I care? You’ll both be working to reimburse me for every one of those plates.”
It’s too much. It’s just too much. Another seven days will mean he’ll have left Takeru alone for nearly a month. Another seven days is seven more days for Jyou to break everything he touches. Yamato has to bite his lip and clench his fists to stop himself crying.
“Why are you doing this, Jyou?”
Jyou startles slightly, then shakes his head. “It wasn’t me! I swear, something hit my legs and pushed me into -- …”
“Stop making excuses!” Yamato snaps, and throws the kitchen door open, heading out into the yard behind the restaurant.
“I’m not,” he hears Jyou say behind him. “It’s the truth, I swear.”
---
Yamato doesn’t work any more after that. For the next hour, he just lies on the grass with his eyes shut. There’s no point in trying to pay off the debt -- when he’s calmer, he and Gabumon can just leave. If Jyou likes this restaurant so much, he and Gomamon can stay on his own.
“Yamato!”
He opens his eyes to see a smiling face and a mop of blond hair over him, and for a moment he just feels confused and panicked, before relief comes flooding in.
“Takeru!” He says, sitting up. He sees Patamon hovering nearby, watching them -- Tokomon must have evolved while he was gone. “How’d you get here? Did you and Patamon come on your own?”
“We came with Taichi-san!”
The name hits Yamato with a jolt. It’s been three months, and Yamato’s not dared to consider Taichi might still be alive. But as he turns towards the kitchen door, he sees Taichi round it, looking no different than when they last saw each other.
He knows he should be happy about that. He is, he thinks, mostly, but there’s something else as well, some ugly combination of bitterness and surprise, and maybe just a tinge of jealousy that while Yamato was stuck at this restaurant, it was Taichi who found Takeru and brought him here.
“Yo,” Taichi says, like him being here is the most normal thing in the world.
“I thought you were dead,” Yamato says, and his voice comes out as a croak.
Taichi grins at him. “I’m not going to kick the bucket before you do.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Yamato replies, shutting his eyes. “Thanks. For looking after Takeru.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Yamato ducks his head, turning back towards Takeru. “Sorry. I wasn’t able to come back like I promised. I’m -- glad you’re safe.”
Jyou, Gomamon, and Gabumon leave the kitchen behind Taichi, who quickly checks his digivice before putting it back on his belt.
“Anyway, it doesn’t seem like any of the others are here,” Taichi says, “so let’s get going.”
Gabumon blinks. “You want us to run?”
“Sure! Let’s go find the others.”
Before Yamato even knows what’s happening, all of that relief is overwhelmed by bitterness and sheer, bright anger. He shuts his eyes, standing up.
“I don’t want to.” His voice is harsher than he intended, and the words start spilling out before he can stop them. “I’m fine with running away, but I’m not going anywhere with Jyou. He’ll just drag us down.”
Jyou physically recoils, as Taichi steps forward. “How can you say that? We’re friends!”
“Friends? You left us for months, Taichi, and now that you’re back you want to drag us around doing what you want, like you always do,” Yamato snaps. “Do what you want. Takeru and I will go on our own. We don’t need any of you.”
“Yamato, what’s wrong?” Takeru asks, grabbing his arm. “We’re all -- …”
“Shut up! Just do what I say!”
Digitamamon’s voice cuts through the noise as he rounds a corner of the restaurant, entering the yard on his short, stubby legs. “Everyone … You wouldn’t be trying to leave, would you?”
“It’ll give us a lot of trouble if you did that,” another voice says. Yamato turns to see PicoDevimon perched on a tree.
“PicoDevimon?” Takeru asks.
Realisation dawns on Jyou’s face, and he jabs out a finger, waving it at the bat-like Digimon. “You’re the one that pushed me! You’ve been causing all of the accidents!”
“And he tried to trick Takeru,” Patamon adds.
Patamon and Agumon sprint forward, aiming a bubble of air and a fireball at PicoDevimon. He careens off the tree branch, fleeing into the forest, with Taichi and the two Digimon in close pursuit.
“You’ve got quite some nerve, trying to shirk your debts and leave this place,” Digitamamon says, softly.
“Shirk our debts? We’ve worked here long enough to pay off those debts a dozen times over!” Yamato says.
“You’ve been very good workers,” Digitamamon agrees. “Let me give you back your change.”
Something black and purple billows out of the crack in Digitamamon’s egg shell, twisting the air around it as it bears down on Yamato, with two smokey claws reaching for him.
Gabumon swings in between them, his body exploding into yellow light as Yamato’s digivice buzzes on his belt.
“Gabumon, evolution! Garurumon.”
Garurumon lands with a thud, releasing a stream of blue flame that drives the shadowy shape back, pushing it back down into Digitamamon’s shell. As Garurumon releases another stream of flame, Digitamamon shuts his shell tight, the flames billowing over it harmlessly.
“Careful,” Yamato hears Veggiemon’s voice say, as a vine snakes down from the roof to grab Takeru by the foot, hoisting him up into the air. “If you don’t back off right now, who knows what’ll happen to this little one?”
“Takeru!” Yamato yells, moving towards Veggiemon, but the Digimon wiggles a vine at him warningly.
“I’m -- I’m on it!” Jyou yells, as Gomamon flings himself forward.
“Gomamon, evolution! Ikkakumon.”
Gomamon transitions to Ikkakumon in mid-air, and the walrus Digimon’s great bulk crashes down next to Veggiemon, as a horn moves to spear his side. As Veggiemon flails, yelling about how they’d better stop, Jyou leaps forward, landing on Veggiemon and physically wrenching his vine off Takeru’s ankle, sending the younger boy falling harmlessly onto the grass.
The two are a tangle of limbs for a moment, before Veggiemon emerges with his vines wrapped around Jyou, constricting him.
Yamato hurries over to Takeru, grabbing him and checking him for any injuries. There aren’t any, but he holds Takeru close anyway, gripping his shoulders. “Jyou, why did -- …”
“It’s my fault we’re here in the first place, right? I’ve caused you a lot of trouble,” Jyou says, as Veggiemon winds his vines tighter. “This time I wanted to -- …” The vines twist tighter before he can finish.
Garurumon and Ikkakumon round on Digitamamon, looming over him, but the egg Digimon seems barely concerned at all.
“You might not know it to look at me, but I am a Perfect-level Digimon,” Digitamamon sneers. “Just like Etemon, and Lord Vamdemon himself.”
The shadowy shape bursts out from the crack where his eyes are again, and this time it engulfs both Digimon, before constricting into a roiling ball of shadow. As it explodes, it spits out Garurumon and Ikkakumon, sending them sprawling across the grass.
“It’s no use,” Takeru says, curling against Yamato. “He’s too strong.”
“Run,” Jyou croaks. “Just leave me here.”
“No,” Yamato says, forcefully. “I know I said those things to you, but I -- I won’t just leave you here. I could never just leave you behind. No matter what happens, I’ll always protect you, and all of the others, too, because we’re -- …”
He grits his teeth as the word catches in his throat, and suddenly he’s furiously angry again, at Veggiemon and Digitamamon and PicoDevimon.
His Crest, sitting against his chest, turns suddenly cold, releasing a chill sharp enough that it feels like it’s burning him. A wave of frost and cold air ripples out from him, covering the grass and trees in a thin, silvery-blue sheen. He clutches at his chest, and the brilliant blue glow streams through his fingers and around his hand.
Garurumon’s prone form glows, first yellow, then blue, before a pillar of blue light erupts around him, stretching up into the sky and turning it grey. Snow starts to fall, gently at first, then stronger.
“Garurumon, super-evolution!” A bipedal, wolf-faced shape straightens up within the light, holding a fist up to his face as a knuckle duster materialises across it. “WereGarurumon.”
The light fades, and the figure within it, some kind of unholy cross between Garurumon, a back alley brawler, and punk rock aesthetics, steps forward.
Digitamamon snarls, then opens the crack in his shell wide, releasing the clawed shadow shape once again. WereGarurumon throws out his claws and digs in his heels, grappling against the shadow, keeping it away from Ikkakumon.
“Don’t take a single step backwards,” Yamato calls, and he feels WereGarurumon’s agreement.
With a shove, WereGarurumon sends the shadow flying back, rattling into Digitamamon’s shell. He raises his claws, as blue and red flames billow around them, and swings them in an arc, releasing two crescents of blue light.
The first freezes Digitamamon solid, before the second one arcs straight through him, splitting him evenly down the middle. With a crack, the ice shatters, and Digitamamon dissolves, his shape blurring as he vanishes.
“Veggiemon,” Yamato growls, swinging his head towards the chef, as WereGarurumon turns in unison with him. “Release Jyou.”
“Or you can fight me as well,” WereGarurumon finishes.
Veggiemon pauses, then delicately sets Jyou down. “I’ll … be on my way … good sirs …”
Yamato keeps staring at him until he’s vanished into the forest. WereGarurumon lets out a long breath, then glows, shrinking down to Garurumon, then Gabumon, then Tsunomon.
Ikkakumon shrinks down to Gomamon and slaps Jyou on the back, grinning. “That was unusually heroic of you, Jyou.”
“Unusually?”
Yamato ducks his head, staring at the ground. “Jyou. Thanks for -- thanks for saving Takeru.”
Jyou pauses for a moment, like he doesn’t know what to say. Then: “Don’t worry about it. You’re always saving me, after all. I figure I’m still in your debt.”
“R-Right,” Yamato says, folding his arms. “... And Jyou?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
After the lunch shift on the fifteenth day, Yamato catches Digitamamon in the kitchen.
“Please! I’ll make sure to come back, just let me go and see my little brother,” Yamato pleads.
“Absolutely not,” Digitamamon says immediately, shaking his -- well, his entire body.
“Why not? I promise I’ll come right back and keep working!”
He doesn’t get a chance to say anything more, because Jyou yelps behind him, just before the sound of dozens of smashing plates reaches his ears. When he turns, nearly every plate in the restaurant, plates that Jyou hadn’t even been carrying, is in shards on the kitchen floor.
Yamato’s just staring at him in shock when Digitamamon speaks.
“That’s another week for the both of you.”
“Another week?! I don’t have that kind of time!”
Digitamamon snorts. “What do I care? You’ll both be working to reimburse me for every one of those plates.”
It’s too much. It’s just too much. Another seven days will mean he’ll have left Takeru alone for nearly a month. Another seven days is seven more days for Jyou to break everything he touches. Yamato has to bite his lip and clench his fists to stop himself crying.
“Why are you doing this, Jyou?”
Jyou startles slightly, then shakes his head. “It wasn’t me! I swear, something hit my legs and pushed me into -- …”
“Stop making excuses!” Yamato snaps, and throws the kitchen door open, heading out into the yard behind the restaurant.
“I’m not,” he hears Jyou say behind him. “It’s the truth, I swear.”
Yamato doesn’t work any more after that. For the next hour, he just lies on the grass with his eyes shut. There’s no point in trying to pay off the debt -- when he’s calmer, he and Gabumon can just leave. If Jyou likes this restaurant so much, he and Gomamon can stay on his own.
“Yamato!”
He opens his eyes to see a smiling face and a mop of blond hair over him, and for a moment he just feels confused and panicked, before relief comes flooding in.
“Takeru!” He says, sitting up. He sees Patamon hovering nearby, watching them -- Tokomon must have evolved while he was gone. “How’d you get here? Did you and Patamon come on your own?”
“We came with Taichi-san!”
The name hits Yamato with a jolt. It’s been three months, and Yamato’s not dared to consider Taichi might still be alive. But as he turns towards the kitchen door, he sees Taichi round it, looking no different than when they last saw each other.
He knows he should be happy about that. He is, he thinks, mostly, but there’s something else as well, some ugly combination of bitterness and surprise, and maybe just a tinge of jealousy that while Yamato was stuck at this restaurant, it was Taichi who found Takeru and brought him here.
“Yo,” Taichi says, like him being here is the most normal thing in the world.
“I thought you were dead,” Yamato says, and his voice comes out as a croak.
Taichi grins at him. “I’m not going to kick the bucket before you do.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Yamato replies, shutting his eyes. “Thanks. For looking after Takeru.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Yamato ducks his head, turning back towards Takeru. “Sorry. I wasn’t able to come back like I promised. I’m -- glad you’re safe.”
Jyou, Gomamon, and Gabumon leave the kitchen behind Taichi, who quickly checks his digivice before putting it back on his belt.
“Anyway, it doesn’t seem like any of the others are here,” Taichi says, “so let’s get going.”
Gabumon blinks. “You want us to run?”
“Sure! Let’s go find the others.”
Before Yamato even knows what’s happening, all of that relief is overwhelmed by bitterness and sheer, bright anger. He shuts his eyes, standing up.
“I don’t want to.” His voice is harsher than he intended, and the words start spilling out before he can stop them. “I’m fine with running away, but I’m not going anywhere with Jyou. He’ll just drag us down.”
Jyou physically recoils, as Taichi steps forward. “How can you say that? We’re friends!”
“Friends? You left us for months, Taichi, and now that you’re back you want to drag us around doing what you want, like you always do,” Yamato snaps. “Do what you want. Takeru and I will go on our own. We don’t need any of you.”
“Yamato, what’s wrong?” Takeru asks, grabbing his arm. “We’re all -- …”
“Shut up! Just do what I say!”
Digitamamon’s voice cuts through the noise as he rounds a corner of the restaurant, entering the yard on his short, stubby legs. “Everyone … You wouldn’t be trying to leave, would you?”
“It’ll give us a lot of trouble if you did that,” another voice says. Yamato turns to see PicoDevimon perched on a tree.
“PicoDevimon?” Takeru asks.
Realisation dawns on Jyou’s face, and he jabs out a finger, waving it at the bat-like Digimon. “You’re the one that pushed me! You’ve been causing all of the accidents!”
“And he tried to trick Takeru,” Patamon adds.
Patamon and Agumon sprint forward, aiming a bubble of air and a fireball at PicoDevimon. He careens off the tree branch, fleeing into the forest, with Taichi and the two Digimon in close pursuit.
“You’ve got quite some nerve, trying to shirk your debts and leave this place,” Digitamamon says, softly.
“Shirk our debts? We’ve worked here long enough to pay off those debts a dozen times over!” Yamato says.
“You’ve been very good workers,” Digitamamon agrees. “Let me give you back your change.”
Something black and purple billows out of the crack in Digitamamon’s egg shell, twisting the air around it as it bears down on Yamato, with two smokey claws reaching for him.
Gabumon swings in between them, his body exploding into yellow light as Yamato’s digivice buzzes on his belt.
“Gabumon, evolution! Garurumon.”
Garurumon lands with a thud, releasing a stream of blue flame that drives the shadowy shape back, pushing it back down into Digitamamon’s shell. As Garurumon releases another stream of flame, Digitamamon shuts his shell tight, the flames billowing over it harmlessly.
“Careful,” Yamato hears Veggiemon’s voice say, as a vine snakes down from the roof to grab Takeru by the foot, hoisting him up into the air. “If you don’t back off right now, who knows what’ll happen to this little one?”
“Takeru!” Yamato yells, moving towards Veggiemon, but the Digimon wiggles a vine at him warningly.
“I’m -- I’m on it!” Jyou yells, as Gomamon flings himself forward.
“Gomamon, evolution! Ikkakumon.”
Gomamon transitions to Ikkakumon in mid-air, and the walrus Digimon’s great bulk crashes down next to Veggiemon, as a horn moves to spear his side. As Veggiemon flails, yelling about how they’d better stop, Jyou leaps forward, landing on Veggiemon and physically wrenching his vine off Takeru’s ankle, sending the younger boy falling harmlessly onto the grass.
The two are a tangle of limbs for a moment, before Veggiemon emerges with his vines wrapped around Jyou, constricting him.
Yamato hurries over to Takeru, grabbing him and checking him for any injuries. There aren’t any, but he holds Takeru close anyway, gripping his shoulders. “Jyou, why did -- …”
“It’s my fault we’re here in the first place, right? I’ve caused you a lot of trouble,” Jyou says, as Veggiemon winds his vines tighter. “This time I wanted to -- …” The vines twist tighter before he can finish.
Garurumon and Ikkakumon round on Digitamamon, looming over him, but the egg Digimon seems barely concerned at all.
“You might not know it to look at me, but I am a Perfect-level Digimon,” Digitamamon sneers. “Just like Etemon, and Lord Vamdemon himself.”
The shadowy shape bursts out from the crack where his eyes are again, and this time it engulfs both Digimon, before constricting into a roiling ball of shadow. As it explodes, it spits out Garurumon and Ikkakumon, sending them sprawling across the grass.
“It’s no use,” Takeru says, curling against Yamato. “He’s too strong.”
“Run,” Jyou croaks. “Just leave me here.”
“No,” Yamato says, forcefully. “I know I said those things to you, but I -- I won’t just leave you here. I could never just leave you behind. No matter what happens, I’ll always protect you, and all of the others, too, because we’re -- …”
He grits his teeth as the word catches in his throat, and suddenly he’s furiously angry again, at Veggiemon and Digitamamon and PicoDevimon.
His Crest, sitting against his chest, turns suddenly cold, releasing a chill sharp enough that it feels like it’s burning him. A wave of frost and cold air ripples out from him, covering the grass and trees in a thin, silvery-blue sheen. He clutches at his chest, and the brilliant blue glow streams through his fingers and around his hand.
Garurumon’s prone form glows, first yellow, then blue, before a pillar of blue light erupts around him, stretching up into the sky and turning it grey. Snow starts to fall, gently at first, then stronger.
“Garurumon, super-evolution!” A bipedal, wolf-faced shape straightens up within the light, holding a fist up to his face as a knuckle duster materialises across it. “WereGarurumon.”
The light fades, and the figure within it, some kind of unholy cross between Garurumon, a back alley brawler, and punk rock aesthetics, steps forward.
Digitamamon snarls, then opens the crack in his shell wide, releasing the clawed shadow shape once again. WereGarurumon throws out his claws and digs in his heels, grappling against the shadow, keeping it away from Ikkakumon.
“Don’t take a single step backwards,” Yamato calls, and he feels WereGarurumon’s agreement.
With a shove, WereGarurumon sends the shadow flying back, rattling into Digitamamon’s shell. He raises his claws, as blue and red flames billow around them, and swings them in an arc, releasing two crescents of blue light.
The first freezes Digitamamon solid, before the second one arcs straight through him, splitting him evenly down the middle. With a crack, the ice shatters, and Digitamamon dissolves, his shape blurring as he vanishes.
“Veggiemon,” Yamato growls, swinging his head towards the chef, as WereGarurumon turns in unison with him. “Release Jyou.”
“Or you can fight me as well,” WereGarurumon finishes.
Veggiemon pauses, then delicately sets Jyou down. “I’ll … be on my way … good sirs …”
Yamato keeps staring at him until he’s vanished into the forest. WereGarurumon lets out a long breath, then glows, shrinking down to Garurumon, then Gabumon, then Tsunomon.
Ikkakumon shrinks down to Gomamon and slaps Jyou on the back, grinning. “That was unusually heroic of you, Jyou.”
“Unusually?”
Yamato ducks his head, staring at the ground. “Jyou. Thanks for -- thanks for saving Takeru.”
Jyou pauses for a moment, like he doesn’t know what to say. Then: “Don’t worry about it. You’re always saving me, after all. I figure I’m still in your debt.”
“R-Right,” Yamato says, folding his arms. “... And Jyou?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
