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1.
the first time ken and daisuke share a bed they’ve just stumbled back into the latter’s bedroom after a late night rendezvous with the others in the digital world, giggling and shushing each other. ken’s exhausted but exhilarated, the high of jogress still thrumming through him as he changes into his pajamas as quietly as he can, the sound of daisuke's heartbeat fresh in his mind. they’d forgotten to pull out the futon before leaving and it’s too late to drag it out now without risking waking up everyone in the house, so daisuke just invites ken into his bed instead.
“are you sure,” ken asks in a hushed whisper as he hovers by the edge of the mattress.
“‘course i’m sure,” daisuke beckons, lifting the blankets. “get on in here.”
with leafmon bundled up in his arms, ken slides in beside his jogress partner and settles his head on the spare pillow, keeping his arms and legs tucked in tight to not encroach on daisuke's personal space. daisuke, however, is not as considerate, and immediately gives a big yawn and stretches his arms out, swinging one out toward ken and barely missing his face. he curls it back over his own head afterwards, his elbow on ken’s pillow. the intrusion is exciting, somehow, a sign of their comfort with each other, of how close they’ve become.
ken blinks softly in the barely-lit room as he watches daisuke shut his eyes and fall asleep in a matter of minutes. he wonders if their hearts are synchronized, even now. it’d be easy to find out if only he were brave enough to reach out and touch. he isn’t. instead he copies the rise and fall of daisuke's chest in his own, matching him breath for steady breath until he follows him into sleep.
—
2.
the second time they share a bed, they’re camping out in a tent in the summertime, and it’s just too damn hot. daisuke is sweating bullets wrapped up in a sleeping bag beside his best friend and he can’t help but complain, loudly.
“keeeen,” he whines. “why did we ever decide to do this?”
“you said it was a teambuilding exercise,” ken reminds him. “remember?”
he remembers. jun was back home for the summer and he was crawling out of his skin being stuck there all day with her, so he made up this excuse to get away with his friends for the weekend. they’d brought three tents and paired up with their jogress partners, which is how he ended up here in this little sweatbox with ken and their digimon.
“don’t you know by now all my ideas are stupid?” daisuke grumbles. “it’s too hot for this.”
“it is,” ken agrees, and daisuke hears his sleeping bag start to unzip. “here, let’s try this instead.”
daisuke follows his example and unzips his sleeping bag too, sliding himself gratefully out of the suffocating coccoon. ken takes both unzipped sleeping bags and spreads them out on the tent’s floor to cushion it, then lies down atop them with wormmon curled at this side. daisuke sprawls out next to him with v-mon, breathing a long sigh of relief as the cooler air washes over his fevered skin.
“this is way better, dude,” he says, “thanks.”
“it was nothing,” ken says smoothly. daisuke turns his head to look at him and suddenly realizes just how close they are in the small tent — close enough that their shoulders are nearly brushing. some stray locks of ken’s dark hair are just tickling daisuke's nose, and he nudges himself a little closer, inhaling deeply. ken looks at him with alarm.
“smells like the campfire,” daisuke mumbles, eyelids already getting heavy now that he’s no longer too hot to relax.
“oh,” ken murmurs, reaching up to twist a piece of his hair around his fingers and pull it toward his lips. “i guess so.”
“it’s nice,” daisuke says. for a moment he’s tempted to inch himself in even closer, push their shoulders together and sleep with his face in ken’s silky hair, buried in his smoke-laced scent. but pressing himself up against another warm body would defeat the purpose of ditching the sleeping bags in the first place, so he manages to curb his sleepy, needy impulse and remain where he is, ignoring the electricity tingling between them as they fall asleep.
—
3.
the third time they share a bed, they almost don’t. they’re having a slumber party at hikari’s house and though daisuke and takeru were relegated to the two couches in the living room, ken got a special invitation into hikari’s room to sleep on a mattress on the floor while miyako shared her bunk. he was at first quite embarrassed as daisuke bitched and moaned about it, offering to trade with his flustered friend, but the girls insisted only ken would be respectful enough to share their room. once they split from the other boys to get ready for bed, they do their best to make ken feel comfortable, engaging him in conversation and gossiping with him about the other boys, including iori, who hadn’t even been able to make it. he humors them and acts as politely as always, but knows he would definitely rather be out there with the other guys, as awkward as he often is around takeru
as soon as they climb up into the bunk with their digimon and turn out the lights, ken’s anxious feelings come to a head. the sounds of the girls sighing softly as they snuggle in together opens an aching hole in his chest and he can’t figure out why. once he’s determined they’ve fallen asleep, he silently scoops up minomon and stands up to peer over the edge of the bunk. he finds them sleeping soundly beside each other, hikari’s face nestled in her jogress partner’s lavender hair splayed out across the pillows, and remembers daisuke's nose burrowing into his in the tent. his heart clenches. he takes a deep breath and pads quietly out to the living room.
takeru is deeply asleep, facing in toward the back of his couch and away from daisuke on the other one. as if by some sixth sense daisuke rouses as ken wanders in, squinting his eyes open.
“didja get kicked out?” he asks, with such confusion it’s clear he believes the mere idea is ludicrous.
“no. i just... couldn’t sleep, with them... there,” ken mumbles.
“well, you could sleep out here with me instead,” daisuke offers. ken just blinks at him doubtfully.
“is there room?”
“yeah, totally. it’s probably not as comfy as a futon, but... at least we’d be together.”
together. yes, that’s exactly what he wants them to be.
“okay.”
“just put your head on that side,” daisuke instructs as he shifts the blanket to allow ken to join him on the couch, who lies down with his head on the opposite end and lets minomon climb up and snuggle with chibimon at the top. immediately he is overwhelmed by how much they are touching — and how inescapable it is. his entire right leg is pressed up against the left side of daisuke's body and he can scarcely breathe. daisuke's feet only come to his hip but ken’s legs are longer, reaching all the way to the other boy’s ribs. he freezes up to try and avoid touching them, even as they swell with breath against his foot.
“hey, it’s okay,” daisuke whispers from the other side of the couch. that sixth sense again. “i shouldn’t have let them drag you in there.”
right observation, wrong reason.
“didn’t you want to go instead?” ken asks, playing along with daisuke's misconception.
“nah,” daisuke scoffs. “i’d rather be with you any day.”
that placates him. ken allows his muscles to relax, sinking comfortably into the couch with his best friend despite the fire raging along their every point of contact. “me too,” he murmurs, but daisuke has already fallen back asleep.
—
4.
the fourth time they share a bed, it isn’t a bed at all, at least not at first. ken’s so exhausted after a long day of playing soccer together that daisuke decides to accompany him on the train back to tamachi to make sure he doesn’t miss his stop. and it’s a good thing he does, because not even five minutes into the trip, ken slumps his head onto daisuke's shoulder and passes right out. daisuke sits as still as he can, even as ken nuzzles his face into his neck and his pulse hammers millimeters from his nose. the hair on the back of his neck raises as ken’s warm breath spills over his collarbone. trying to ignore these sensations, he glances at his sleeping friend out of the corner of his eye, and a sense of calm washes over him despite his nerves. ken just looks so peaceful, asleep, from his creaseless brows to the gentle curve of his lips. minomon is hooked into his elbow and his soccer ball sits precariously on his lap. as the train jostles, daisuke reaches out to stop it from slipping off and inevitably waking him, but ends up finding his hand instead. his fingers are loose and limp and it’s easy for daisuke to sneak his own between them, lacing them together on top of the ball. he has the urge to wrap his arm around his shoulders and pull him even closer, but he can’t bring himself to do it, fearing he’ll get lost in his warmth and fall asleep as well. he can’t allow that. he’s too determined to make sure he gets home safe.
when the train stops, daisuke squeezes ken’s hand to wake him. he comes to with a start, blushing brightly when he finds himself slumped into daisuke's shoulder. daisuke doesn’t say anything about it, just nudging into him gently.
“come on, let’s get you home.”
ken’s mom is overjoyed to see them. as daisuke explains that they got carried away playing and lost track of time, and then got so muddy they had to run back to daisuke's house to take showers before getting on the train, she waves off his apologies and insists he stay the night now that he came all this way. daisuke smiles sheepishly at ken, who nods and takes his hand.
there isn’t any talk of futons or couches. he simply follows his drowsy friend up to the top bunk and slips in beside him, watching as ken falls easily back into the sleep he’d postponed on the train. for a long time daisuke just listens to his even breaths, observes the twitches in his fingertips and eyelids. his nerves are back, this time not because of their touch, but for longing of it. they’re only inches apart and for some inexplicable reason, daisuke is itching to close the distance. ken smells inviting and familiar, and not just because he’d used daisuke's soap in his recent shower, but because he is, that. familiar. home. daisuke wants to bury his face in his neck the way he’d burrowed into his on the train. he wants his warmth and scent surrounding him, engulfing him the way his heart does during jogress.
this time, the only thing stopping him from doing it is his own cowardice. to not tempt himself he turns his back to him and lies there silently, listening, loving. until he falls asleep as well.
—
5.
the fifth time they share a bed, it’s the same one. after riding the train home with daisuke, ken wakes up warmer than he’s ever felt in his own bed outside of a fever. he rolls onto his side and sees daisuke beside him, immediately explaining the temperature change. daisuke always runs hot. but usually when they share a bed, daisuke ends up sprawled out in every direction, more often than not encroaching on ken’s space or even outright touching him. but this time, he’s all curled up by the edge of the bed, pointedly avoiding all contact with ken. half awake and incoherent, ken wonders what changed. he can barely even remember bringing him up to his bed. what he does remember is waking up on the train with daisuke's warm skin against his cheek. dread seeps into his bones. had he embarrassed him? is that why he’s sleeping so far away? he hopes not. all he knows for sure is that whatever he was doing the night before, he wants to do again. he’d never felt so safe.
he watches daisuke's sleeping form closely. chibimon and minomon are still fast asleep at the corner of the bed, and so is he. there shouldn’t be any harm in moving a little closer. he moves himself one inch, and then another. then finally tips his head forward to let his forehead meet the back of daisuke's skull, the bridge of his nose brushing the nape of his neck. there. that wasn’t so hard, was it?
but going any further, that will be.
for a while he just tries to work up the courage, taking careful breaths of daisuke's scent to empower himself, an even mix of the two of them thanks to shared soap and pillows. his hand trembles when he finally lifts it, reaching for the curve of daisuke's hip. but it hesitates before coming down, hovering just above the strip of skin revealed by daisuke's rucked-up shirt. he can do this. he can do this.
no he can’t.
retracting his hand, he curls it to his chest and sighs into the back of daisuke's neck.
he wishes he could understand what he wants, why he wants it. why he thinks he can’t have it.
they’re so close, and yet, no matter what he does, they’re never close enough.
—
+1.
the sixth time they share a bed they’re back in daisuke's room, lying in separate ones and trying to devise an excuse to join each other. daisuke stares up at the ceiling, his lonely heart beating under his palm. ken is just as silent, having scarcely said anything the whole afternoon. it’s been a week since he saw ken last on the night he accompanied him home. it’s been a week since he woke up with ken’s face buried in his neck for the second time in one night and determined, in that moment, that he wanted nothing more than to pull their bodies flush and drink him in. now the question is just how to pose it.
the room is silent for many minutes longer. daisuke can tell that ken hasn’t fallen asleep, his breathing tense and measured, not soft and easy like it had been when he’d last felt it brush his collarbone. they’re both awake. waiting.
finally, he just blurts it out.
“can i come down there?”
he’d never been one for nuance.
“yes,” ken responds breathlessly, too soon, as if he’d been waiting forever for just this question to be asked. maybe he had.
a weight much greater than just his own palm lifts from daisuke's chest as he pushes himself up and off his bed to join ken on the futon, leaving the two digimon up top. ken scoots over to give him space enough to lie across from him, facing him in the half-light. underneath the blankets, their knees brush and ken shudders.
“ken,” daisuke says, recalling how he’d tensed up when their legs touched at hikari’s sleepover. “it’s okay.”
ken stares at him with eyes blue and vulnerable. he reaches out a trembling hand toward daisuke's chest and daisuke's heart pounds fervently, reaching back out for him. ken falters. daisuke can’t wait any longer. he forgoes the hesitant hand and instead pulls ken into a hug so forceful their bodies collide, with their chests flush and daisuke's head tucked under ken’s chin. ken gives a strangled gasp and daisuke feels it in his ribcage and throat but only holds him tighter for it, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth and hoping with every fiber of his being that this is what ken wants, too.
miraculously, it is. stabilized by daisuke's embrace, his arms are finally able to settle, wrapping around his friend’s shoulders and head. his fingers grip at his shoulderblades, at the base of his skull. his face buries itself in his hair.
for a long time they lie there in a silence broken only by shared, shaking breaths, finally together.
it only takes a few minutes for their hearts, beating against each other, to fall into a synchronized rhythm. with their bodies, thoughts, and desires all entwined, they’re as close to jogressed as they can be without physically merging into one. it feels like the natural progression of their bond. it feels right.
“why didn’t we do this sooner,” daisuke breathes against ken’s warm throat. he feels his adam’s apple shift nervously inside it.
“i was afraid,” ken whispers.
“me too,” daisuke admits.
incredibly, laughter bubbles up inside ken, rumbling through his chest and daisuke's.
“i didn’t know you could be.”
“of messing this up? of losing you?” daisuke's voice cracks. “of course i was.”
“you could never,” ken murmurs, and, even more incredibly, his lips press a gentle kiss to the top of daisuke's head. “never.”
every inch of him burning, daisuke pushes impossibly further into ken, imprinting the shape of his clavicle on his cheek, slotting their ribs together, trying, vainly, to get inside him. if he had it his way, they’d never part.
the way ken’s arms tighten around him, no longer tentative, no longer scared as they drift to sleep surrounding and surrounded by each other, tells him they'll never have to.