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Before Koushirou's mother took pity on her son's lack of social and physical prowess, he had been forced to join a gambit of sports clubs to try out. The only one that kept him on was soccer and although Koushirou had never been allowed to play in a single game, each of them had been mandatory to attend, as well as practice, even if it felt like he was no more than an obstacle for the first stringers.
It was years before Koushirou could see a checkered ball without an accompanying, deep seated hatred for its existence.
But even on the worst of days, Koushirou does not remember aching with as much physical pain as he does upon waking this morning. Even his vision feels wary, taking longer than he thinks it should to piece together his ceiling.
At first he thinks the black and red little dot in the center of his vision is but a stain against the off-white paint, but then it is joined by a now familiar buzzing sound and he takes notice of how it swims about the air before him.
"Tentomon," Koushirou whispers the name of the little kwami. It buzzes, delightedly.
"You're awake," Tentomon says. As Koushirou pulls himself up to a sitting position, stomach muscles clenching and protesting and burning all the way, it—he—comes to settle upon one of Koushirou's propped up knees.
A ladybug with a deep, mechanical, vibrating voice is an odd choice by the universe, Koushiro thinks, wryly.
But the universe has made more eccentric choices, lately.
Yesterday's events leak slowly into his memories, like replaying a dream but with more vivid colors and bruises dotting his skin as souvenirs. There's a thick one, just blooming under the sleeves of his pajama top, where he'd taken the blunt side of one of The Minotaurus' projectile horns. The villain—he can't believe he can feasibly use that word outside of talking about comics—had been the local astronomer in town. She was a kind, albeit meek woman. Koushirou had spent many clear nights at the tower atop the hill with her and his best friend, Sora, observing the stars and sipping hot chocolate.
She was passionate about her field, and so he could understand, he really could, how awful it must have felt when the city posted their plans to build a television studio over the rubble of her beloved astrology lab.
"You were stupendous!" The little bug kwami proclaims as if reading his mind. For all Koushirou knows, the mysterious creature very well can. Tentomon runs off on a heated tangent, recalling everything about the battle as if he were still watching it unfold, his little appendages kicking up and about from where he still sits on Koushirou's knee.
Koushirou touches the compromised skin on his arm with tender fingers. It had been overall worth it, the superhero experience. Not only had he eased the mind of someone he knew, saved them from hurting innocent people, but the blow he had taken hastily had been to protect— he swallows—to protect someone important.
"Are you in there?" Tentomon pries. "You look like you've been dreaming again."
"Something like that," Koushirou agrees.
The ladybug creature buzzes its wings merrily. "Looks like a nice dream," he comments and Koushiro smiles placatingly at him.
He stays up in bed for a while longer, entertaining Tentomon's curiosity with answers. By the time the alarm sings out on his phone, Koushirou is no less groggy than when he'd first woken up, his body feeling the strain of sitting up in every muscle.
Still, he knows if he lingers too much longer his mother will worry and seek him out. After all, Koushirou had promised her he would help out in the families shop for the Saturday morning rush. As far as she knows, her son had been kept upstairs by his supplementary homework and no excuse he could conjure half awake would explain the symptoms of his soreness, especially without a sniffle or fever to follow it.
An appearance, to show he's awake, should be enough to sate her for now, he thinks, and so with a warning to Tentomon about his intentions to move, Koushirou toes on the slippers by his bedside and struggles out from beneath the sheets.
Koushirou takes every step down the spiral staircase of his room to the rest of the living quarters his family resides in with a slow, stiff gait. His muscles seem to loosen a little bit on his descent and by the time he reaches the kitchen, he is practically walking like a proper person again. He pours himself a glass of water and turns on the kettle, planning to have a cup of tea before he showers and joins his mother for good.
The sun is giddy in the summer, already up and shining through the living room windows even at the crack of dawn. It follows Koushirou down the stairs to the first floor from the sky lights above. His legs still ache when he raises them to step down, but he hopes the water later will relax the muscles further. Plus, he'll be able to sit around for most of the morning, working the register while his mother bustles about with baking bread and stocking the shelves.
At the bottom of the staircase he reaches two doors. The one directly in front leads to the outside of the apartment home, while the other leads directly into the bakery's kitchenette where his mother is often found folding dough and humming along to the same morning radio songs, sometimes laughing and snorting when the program has a particularly funny prank call bit.
Some days his mother will open the doors to passing regulars, regaling them in gloating anecdotes about her son. Today is the latter, Koushirou judges, by the answering voice on the other side, a bubble of two very distinctive laughs following.
Still, it is only after he pushes open the back bakery door that he registers the youthful timbre, a distinctly male voice that sounds nothing like the neighborhood mother's or elderly patrons that frequent by in the dawn hours.
His mother smiles at him, a bright image in Koushirou's groggy mind. Patches of flour speckle her cheeks like white freckles and her apron, once brown and polka dotted, hides under a thick layer of white powder and clumps of dusty dough. She wipes her hands unconsciously on the dirty fabric, but her fingers disturb puffy white clouds into the air.
"Good morning, dear," she says softly. It makes Koushirou think of the way she wakes him, gentle yet pressing. He rubs at his eyes, ever drowsier. "I'm glad you're awake, Koushirou. We have a visitor."
It is not a neighborhood mother, much to his suspicions, when Koushirou leans through the door frame to further peer into the main bakery store.
Taichi Yagami smiles at him.
"Taichi says he's a friend of yours from class," his mother continues. Koushirou only has enough control of his body to nod, dumbly, and hold himself up on the molding. Her smile that follows belies the innocence in her tone. She knows, he thinks, gulping on the thought that maybe, Taichi does, too.
But he doesn't have to worry too long on that crisis because Taichi pushes the conversation on cheerily. "The croissants you gave me last time were so good." His praise is supremely enthused and Taichi proves his point by being unable to resist stuffing a large bite of the bread from his basket on the front counter. His snack leaves little crumbs on the table that Koushirou's mother sweeps politely off with the brush of her hand. Taichi thanks her bashfully and the little rise of color in his cheeks makes Koushirou's heart absolutely sing.
"They're really good," Taichi repeats, "so I asked Sora where the bakery was. I can't believe your mom made them! That's so cool! We're lucky if my dad makes something edible. "
Sora. That traitor.
"Thanks for letting me in early, ma'am," he says to Koushirou's mother. "I was craving them the whole time on my run." His smile reveals perfectly symmetrical dimples.
Relief flutters in Koushirou's heart to see how natural, easy Taichi's smile comes today. He had been smiling yesterday, too, one of the last times Koushirou had seen him, but it hadn't quite reached his eyes the same way and Koushirou knew it for what it was: A show.
"Don't worry," he'd said in a world that was a perfectly pitched in darkness save for the light cutting down through the ruins between them. Taichi had coughed, worryingly so, rubble flaking in his hair. Around the bend of his arm a younger boy had peered up at Koushirou, bright blue eyes wide and terrified.
They were all terrified.
"Don't worry," Taichi had shouted again. There was blood dripping from his hairline where the plaster of the building had cut him on it's way down. A tremor had run through the length of his arm where'd he lifted it to give Koushirou-- Ladybug -- a reassuring thumbs-up.
"I've got him," he'd said, resolutely, smiling up at Koushirou as if he'd been talking about taking on a larger part of a school project and not a partially collapsed ceiling, "so you can save all of us now."
Taichi was someone who was meant to be a hero. Had been one when it counted. It is not the first time since transforming that Koushirou wonders if the universe had been on a holiday when it chose him instead.
In the dimly lit bakery, Taichi's smile is one that challenges an August sun and it sets Koushirou's skin ablaze when it turns on him. He can understand the way deers fall stalk still when caught dead on by such a brilliant light. Taichi's eyes droop down and come back up to linger on his face. "Did you just wake up?"
"Yes," Koushirou replies. His voice sounds too high and he flushes. The realization crashes on him a moment later and Koushirou touches the top of his head, his imagination probably more generous than the actual state of his hair. "No!"
Taichi's smile drops. He glances at Koushirou's mother for a moment. She busies herself arranging the day old bread by the counter in no particular layout. Taichi turns back to him.
"They're nice pajamas, by the way," he says. It sounds so kind, so genuine coming from him. And if it were anyone but Taichi in his house complimenting him, looking so ungodly attractive in his running sweats, Koushirou might have accepted it graciously.
Upstairs the kettle belts out a high pitched scream. He has never felt such camaraderie before in his life, but Koushirou chases the whistle up the stairs, shouting an apology behind him.
He manages to click off the burner before hustling back in to his room, slumping against the door as if barricading it against an assailant. The thumping in his chest doesn't seem to notice any difference.
"Is everything okay?" Tentomon asks him, nervously fluttering above his head.
Koushirou exhales. "Tell me, Tentomon," he pleads, "if we transformed right now, could I erase everyone's memories of the last hour?"
Tentomon buzzes in the air. Koshirou imagines him with eyebrows and how tightly they'd be pressed together, wonders if bugs could even get wrinkles. "I apologize, Koushirou," he comes back with, "that is not how it operates."
"How unconstructive!" Koushirou groans, thumping his head against the door. "I can't even save myself."