Chapter Text
We're a thousand miles from comfort
We have travelled land and sea
But as long as you are with me
There's no place I'd rather be
-Rather Be, Clean Bandit
Joe had planned to spend his day in his room, studying for his upcoming practice exam. He had planned to only leave his desk and his books to go to the bathroom, and if he skipped a meal or forgot to refill his water, well that just meant less distractions. He was going to get a perfect score on this exam and rub it in Shinjiro’s face and not feel bad about ignoring his friends and he was going to be happy for once damnit.
But then his mother had burst into his room, manic light in her eyes and her hands up to her elbows covered in some kind of flour.
“Joe!” she squealed. She reached for him, pinching his cheeks and patting his hair and spreading her mess onto him. “Joe, Joe, come with me. Come into the kitchen. I have a surprise for you, Joe. Joe!”
Joe groaned and gently batted his mother away. He rubbed at his face, grimacing at the slightly grainy texture that was rapidly drying out. At least this didn’t feel like something that would stain. “You didn’t destroy the kitchen again, did you?”
His mother took a step back, then closer to him, then she ran into the hallway and tried to force all her fingernails into her mouth at the same time, grimacing at the taste that had built up under them. “I cle-I cleaned! But you have to come see, right now.”
Joe looked forlornly at his spread out study notes and sighed. Hopefully the mess in the kitchen wasn’t so bad that he would spend the rest of the day cleaning. He ran his fingers through his hair to start picking out the bits of crud as he followed his mother down the hall.
“Look, look!” she chirped, running ahead of him. “I made these for you and for your, your…” She cradled her arms in front of her, rocking them back and forth. “For your dog!”
“Mom, we don’t have a dog anymore. Remember what happened to Princess?”
To her credit, it did look like his mother had cleaned up after herself for once. The small kitchen didn’t have any massive splatters, the sink was empty, and there was a freshly washed pot on the stove to dry. There was none of the mystery powder that covered his mother on the countertops or the floor. In fact, the only thing that would hint to his mother’s activities, was a neatly wrapped bento box on the edge of the dining table.
“N-not Princess,” his mother whined. “For dog – bad dog!”
“Ok, ok, mom,” Joe placated. “What did you make for the dog?”
Instead of an actual answer, not that he was expecting one, his mother grabbed the bento and pushed it into his chest. “Share. You gotta share these, ok? I want you to share with your dog.”
The force of the bento almost knocked Joe over. His mother turned abruptly and started down the hallway, slumping against the wall and sliding slowly toward her room.
“Mom, did you get new pills again?” Joe called after her, frowning when she ignored him. “What’s the dosage on them? When did you start them?”
“Go,” she croaked, all energy gone from her voice. Whatever mania had been induced had apparently run itself out. “Go share… I’m going to sleep…”
Joe sighed as he walked to his own room. Was a depressive low better than a manic high? At least this way she wouldn’t be able to make another mess for him to clean up this time. He looked at the bento in his hands. It was heavy and warm, so hopefully it was actually edible.
He set the bento down and grabbed his D-Terminal. He scrolled through the handful of names before starting a new message to Shin.
“Mom’s acting weird. Manic cooking, depressed nap. New meds?”
The reply came far too quickly. Shin was probably skipping classes. “Yesterday. Acted the same. Anything good?”
Joe unwrapped the white and purple patterned furoshiki and peeked inside the box. Crammed in as tight as they could go were round, squishy dango. A sticky brown sauce oozed over the edge and Joe wiped it away with his thumb, cautiously tasting it.
Joe took a grainy picture and sent it. “The most dango I’ve ever seen in my life. Pretty good. Want any?”
“God no. Too sticky. Good luck eating all of them.”
“Jerk,” Joe mumbled, rolling his eyes. He wondered if he should try and message Shuu, but he was probably halfway between Kyoto and Shimane. No chance they’d be any good by the time he came home. If he came home again. “What dog did mom expect me to share these with?”
Bzzt
“bored and hngury. Vsiit me >:3”
Joe smiled fondly at the new message. Of course Gomamon would know how to spell “bored” correctly. He thought about the last time he’d been to the Digital World, staying behind with Cody to ensure he didn’t get sick while the other kids fought against Ken.
Gomamon was supposed to stay and guard the frozen area to the north of Server. But the other Children had forced Ken further inland, and he hadn’t seemed too concerned with losing a resourceless, frozen wasteland anyway. Gomamon still checked in with the Coelamon and Frigimon that patrolled the area, but he also tended to wander into warmer waters and bug the other Chosen Digimon. He must have run into Tentomon or Palmon and borrowed their D-Terminal to message him.
“Where are you?” Joe messaged back. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the ice region?”
“no. coelamn taking care
“>:3 @ >:0@ >:3 ..
“its me eatug cookies and leavngn crumbs”
Joe couldn’t bite back his smile. He missed his little demon of a Partner. And he did have a mountain of food he could never possibly eat on his own. He backed out of Gomamon’s messages and pulled up Shin’s name.
“I know you’re skipping. Can you come watch mom for a while? I’m going to share these with a friend.”
“OoOoOo meeting a gIrLfRiEnD?”
“I’ll kill you.”
“Oh right
bOyFrIeNd?”
“Get home, asshole.”
“Be there in five you big baby”
Joe was packing the last of his oversized bookbag when Shin walked in the door. He struggled to clip the flap closed as Shin gave a low whistle. “You finally running away?”
“No, just want to be prepared.” Joe lifted his bag with a grunt, the strap digging painfully into his shoulder, and grabbed the bento. “I might be home late, so make sure Mom gets her pills and doesn’t-”
“Doesn’t have a seizure, or swallow her tongue, or roll off her bed.” Shin frowned at Joe. “I can take care of her too, you know.”
“I know, I know. I guess I’m just…” Joe half shrugged, mostly because he could barely lift his other shoulder. “Used to helping people.”
Shin sighed. “Just go hang out with your friend and try to be selfish. For me?”
Joe lifted the dango with a smile. “I’ll eat these until I puke, how’s that.”
“Disgusting. Now go.”
“Are you sure this will be ok?” Cody asked as he opened the gate. Joe had gotten lucky that the boy was close by the elementary school. And if Joe had happened to mention how much he missed Gomamon and how he wished he could see him for a while, well, the kid did kind of owe him one for making him think his dad had finally kicked it. “Ken is still living there, and it’s hard to keep track of where he’ll be.”
“We’ll be fine,” Joe said. “We’ll stay close to a TV and the moment there’s any danger, we’ll call one of you. You remember Gomamon, right?” Cody gave a hesitant nod. He’d mostly been trying not to come down with pneumonia that day. “He can be a jackass sometimes, but he won’t let anything hurt me, much less a kid with an ego problem.”
“If you’re sure…”
Using the coordinates Gomamon gave them over the D-Terminal, Cody opened the gate. He made a strange noise at Joe when he lifted his Digivice. “How are you going to get back? Do you want me to wait here for you?”
“I’ve already taken up so much of your time,” Joe said. “TK’s visiting Matt right now, but he said he can come by in a few hours to reopen the gate.”
Cody opened his mouth again, but Joe quickly adjusted the bag on his shoulder and pointed his Digivice at the gate. He felt the pull at his chest, light filling his eyes, his body squeezing unpleasantly as he transferred into data. He felt kind of bad for avoiding whatever question Cody was going to ask next, but…
God, was he that much of a worrywart?
“Just be careful!” came Cody’s slightly staticky voice through the TV, as sensation and gravity reattached themselves to Joe’s body.
“I’ll be f-ugh!”
Joe was toppled over as a furry torpedo slammed into his chest, a nasally voice chirping over Cody’s warning, “Joe! Joe’s here!”
“Hello to you, too, Gomamon,” Joe groaned, flat on his back. He was lucky that the bento hadn’t dropped or that his bag hadn’t split open. In fact, he was pretty sure that the only reason he hadn’t fallen into an asthma attack was because of the thrumming Bond that warmed his whole body from head to toe when he was near the little seal. “Is my spleen comfortable?”
Gomamon hummed and wriggled, pressing down with all his weight on Joe’s stomach. Why was everyone in Joe’s life so mean to him? “Hmm, kinda lumpy. Not enough squish.”
Joe pinched Gomamon’s tail and laughed. “You’ve got enough squish for the both of us. Maybe I shouldn’t share my food with you.”
“Food?” Gomamon perked up, wagging his tail free. “Why didn’t you say so? Let me give you a hand, dearest friend.”
“You’ll never convince me that those are hands.” Joe sat up, sending Gomamon tumbling into his lap. He let the strap of his bag slide off his shoulder and looked over at the TV, nestled in the roots of a tree that flickered and shimmered rather strangely. Cody’s worried face was still watching him from the screen. Joe grinned, lifting Gomamon under the flippers and wiggling the indignant seal. “All good here, Cody. Don’t worry so much, believe me it’s not worth the stomachache.”
Cody didn’t look fully convinced, probably because Gomamon was whining about feeding Joe to the nearest Monochromon. But he closed the gate with a quick, “I’ll keep an eye on my D-Terminal if you need me!”
“Geeze, if that kid was seven feet tall, I’d never be able to tell you two apart,” Gomamon laughed, wriggling and kicking his back feet until Joe set him on the ground.
“Seven feet?!” Joe yelped as Gomamon nipped his ankle. “How tall do you think I am?”
“Taller than me as Gomamon, shorter than me as Ikakkumon. Now come on, you said you had food! I’m hungry!”
With Gomamon under one arm, his bag pulling down one shoulder, and holding the bento out as far as he could with the opposite arm to prevent a wriggling seal from grabbing it, Joe looked around the area for a good picnic spot. Gomamon had linked the coordinates for just outside a forested area somewhere along the Server coastline. They were at the top of a gentle slope with a mountain that peaked just above the tops of the trees behind them, and a jagged edge before them. The low rumble of the Net Ocean echoed against the rock, and Joe could smell the salt spray even as high up as they were. And, perhaps the best part, Joe couldn’t see a Control Spire anywhere near them.
“How did you find this place?” Joe asked. There was a thin copse of young trees not too far from the cliff’s edge that, with the help of wispy gray clouds that were slowly forming, had just enough shade from the late afternoon sun to be enticing. He would have preferred something closer to sea level, but he’d had enough tromping through the woods to last him a lifetime. And there was no telling if there was a television set on the beach or if they would have to come back here.
“Biyomon flies around here, sometimes, when the weather is nice,” Gomamon said. He wiggled and flapped his flippers until Joe set him down. The yellow grass was soft on his paws and stomach, so he didn’t mind crawling beside Joe as they approached the trees.
“Uh huh. She flew around and just happened to tell you about it?” Joe grinned down at his Partner. “You weren’t wandering away from the ice area to relax?”
“Me? Never! You know how much I hate to relax. I love working and studying and ignoring my friends all day.”
Joe groaned as Gomamon huffed. “You made your point, beast. I’ll try to visit more often.”
Gomamon cheered and Joe let his bag fall to the ground with a heavy whump! sound. He rotated his aching shoulder and sat down beneath the thickest of the thin trees. It bowed slightly with his weight as he pressed his back against it, but it held him upright enough and Gomamon clawing his way into his lap was enough of a distraction.
“What food did you bring? Did you buy it from Yolie’s store?” Gomamon’s nose twitched as he sniffed at the air. “It smells really good this time!”
“It’s dango,” Joe told him. He plopped the bento on top of Gomamon’s head, unfurling the furoshiki and letting it drape over the seal’s face. Gomamon whined and sputtered dramatically as Joe lifted the lid. The sticky sweet smell of the soy sauce glaze filled the air and Gomamon reached blindly for it. “Mom made them, so don’t be surprised if they don’t taste right.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, now gimme!”
Joe laughed as Gomamon crawled all over him, snatching up the bento with a triumphant hurrah! He’d managed to stuff three dango in his mouth by the time Joe could grab a hold of him, claws and muzzle already sticky. Joe tisked and Gomamon whined but, with the help of some disposable chopsticks, the snacks were evenly separated. Gomamon shoveled his into his mouth, making obnoxious chewing noises that Joe pinched the tips of his ears for, while Joe tentatively tried them.
They were surprisingly good. Soft and chewy, with a sauce that was more sweet than tangy. They tasted like something his grandmother used to make, and Joe sat back to savor his with a smile.