Chapter Text
It was going to be bad this year, worse than usual.
Megumi sighed. She was anything but happy with the position she held this year as an honorary member.
It was late morning on December 24, 2010, and she was standing in the completely crowded Shibuya, where she had been shopping far too early, at least compared to previous years. She had managed to get herself a pretty new blouse, a dress she probably wouldn't have a chance to wear for a long time, and a pair of new shoes for a fairly low price.
But that was the end of her Christmas entertainment for this year, because she had been given the questionable honor of taking the late shift at Hypnos (involuntarily of course) which would start at 4 p.m. Not only would she be bored to death at the headquarters of the former network surveillance center on Christmas Even instead of going out for a drink with friends, but she would also be in the company of Segawa Kenichi, one of her younger colleagues who was too young, too cheeky, and far too insolent, and Itsuka Yoshiki, who was polar opposite.
But even without this misfortune, this was by far the most depressing Christmas of her life, and the days leading up to the New Year did not promise to be much more cheerful.
This was partly because she had no boyfriend to spend time with this year, and even her best friends had no time for her, which was ultimately because they were now all married and had at least one child...
Which, in turn, reminded her of another reason to be depressed: she was getting old.
Of course, this was a statement that Reika, who was five years her senior, regularly laughed at her for, but Reika was already married. What difference did it make to her?
Megumi, on the other hand, was now thirty-two, would be thirty-three in just a few months, was neither married nor divorced, nor was she currently in a relationship or had been in one within the last ten months.
Every year she became more aware of the first and second facts, but the third was relatively new. Well, depending on how you looked at it. At least she had always had a boyfriend at this time of year. Even if he had had a different name every year.
And somehow, yes, somehow she had the feeling that she was doing something wrong.
Sighing, she noticed that the traffic light she had been waiting at had long since turned green and quickly followed the flow of people across the intersection, glad to have been standing further back.
On the other side of the street, she continued to walk with the flow, which carried her toward Shibuya's main station.
She resisted the urge to visit the Sunshine Center too and instead made her way to the train station itself, once again dwelling on her not-so-happy thoughts.
“Oh, Megumi,” she muttered as she stumbled over her own feet, lost in thought.
“Don't get depressed now.” She stopped to rest her twisted foot for a moment, her gaze catching her pale reflection in one of the shop windows. She tugged at her short hair. “Old, grim, and depressed. No wonder no one wants you,” she scolded herself before continuing on her way.
It was almost half past eleven. That left her a little over four and a half hours to take the subway home, store her new clothes in her apartment, and get from there to the Metropolitan Government Building, where she would spend the next few hours until she was – hopefully – relieved during the night.
“Yay,” she grumbled sarcastically at the thought.
She wasn't normally sarcastic.
Old, grim, depressed, and sarcastic. Things were getting better and better.
A few hours later – it was almost six – and Megumi's mood hadn't improved in the slightest.
She was hungry because she had realized she had little food at home and would have had to go to the supermarket, which she didn't feel like doing. Furthermore, Kenichi had already gotten on her nerves, and the thought that her shift would continue like this for another seven hours – at least – didn't help either.
Especially since her demanding task consisted of keeping an eye on the screens and the phone.
They couldn't do anything anyway if something happened.
After all, the question was no longer whether a Digimon would materialize in the real world, but what it would do there. In Tokyo alone, there were currently just over a thousand Digimon, of which only about fifty or sixty had a tamer.
And if one of the other nine-hundred-and-forty or so Digimon decided it would be fun to blow up a house, there was nothing they could do but call one of the aforementioned Tamers, because what else could they do except evacuate the area?
Since the boundary between the worlds had more or less ceased to exist, they had had a few such cases, and they had been unable to do anything but rely on Ryou, Ruki, Takato, and the others.
It was truly, truly pointless.
So, with her chin resting on her hands and staring wearily at the screens, she had plenty of time to ponder her own misery.
“You look tired, Megumi-san,” she heard Kenichi's voice behind her. “Would you like me to get you some coffee?”
“No, thank you,” she grumbled.
“I was just asking,” said the young man, rolling his eyes and walking away from her.
Megumi sighed.
She really didn't quite understand what she was doing wrong.
Reika, who may have had a better figure than her, but always had been a bit too assertive and a bit nerdy, too, had been married for a long time. Sure, Megumi could do without a grouch like Yamaki, but in the end, it was a matter of principle!
Even Ruki, with her cynical character and her less than feminine figure, had Ryou, who would do just about anything for her.
It just wasn't fair!
She sighed. Maybe she should try blind dates or group dates. Even though she felt too old for that. There were many women her age and older who did such things.
Maybe...
She stretched.
Oh, maybe she should just focus on improving her mood first.
After a moment's thought, she got up and made her way to the ladies' room, where a few minutes later she stood in front of the mirror, tweaking her bleached hair.
Maybe she should just give up. She had once read that men felt pressured when they realized that a woman desperately wanted a serious relationship and was quite desperate about it. Besides, men like Kenichi were attracted to women who just wanted to have a little fun.
It was really depressing.
Sighing once more, she left the ladies' room and went to the coffee machine in the hallway on her floor. After several attempts, the machine finally accepted her 100-yen coin and spat some coffee into a paper cup.
Then she heard footsteps further down the hallway and instinctively turned in that direction.
A man was coming toward her from the direction of the elevator.
He was around fifty and had medium-length, tousled brown hair.
She wondered what he was doing here, on this day and at this hour, when he spoke to her: “Onodera-san?”
She almost dropped her coffee and raised an eyebrow questioningly, as she wasn't sure how the man knew her.
For a moment, he also seemed confused, but then he laughed. “Mizuno Gorou,” he reintroduced himself to her.
It still took her a moment to place the name. “Shibumi-san?” she asked.
He hesitated at least two seconds. “Yes.”
“Oh, I'm sorry I didn't recognize you,” she apologized. “I thought you were living in America now?”
“Yes, I'm only in Japan for two weeks to take care of a few things.” He seemed tense. “Is Mitsuo-san there? I actually wanted to discuss something with him.”
“Mitsuo is away with Reika and Namiko-chan until New Year's Eve,” she replied, somewhat confused.
“What about Tao?” he pressed.
Once again, she looked at him questioningly. “Who?”
“Li Zhenyu.”
“Oh,” she said meekly. "No, Zhenyu isn't here either. I don't know when he'll be back…” She paused briefly. “I'm sorry.”
He shook his head. “t's not your fault.” For a moment, he seemed distracted, looking out the window at Tokyo, which was already dark. “It's not that important."
For a few seconds, she also looked out the window absent-mindedly, but then regained her composure.
“I'd offer you a coffee, but I'm afraid I don't have any coins left,” she said carefully, mainly just to say something. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No need,” he replied kindly and fell silent again, before an expression flitted across his face as if he had just thought of something.
“Actually, there is something. Can I look something up on the Hypnos sypstem?”
She hesitated. It was actually Mitsuo's job to decide such things, at least if he wanted access to Hypnos' data. But on the other hand, as the highest-ranking member of this shift, she could make various calls, and Shibumi, or Mizuno-san, belonged to the Wild Bunch, who were involved in many Hypnos projects anyway. “I guess so,” she finally decided, albeit uncertainly. He could probably find out what he wanted anyway; after all, he was probably—no, almost certainly—one of the best computer scientists in the world.
“Who did you bring with you, Onodera-san?” Yoshiki asked as she entered the headquarters' surveillance room with Shibumi.
Kenichi, on the other hand, seemed to simply ignore the newcomer. “I thought you didn't want coffee, Megumi-san.”
She briefly considered replying with something sharp, but decided it was best to ignore Kenichi.
“My name is Mizuno Gorou,” the older man introduced himself.
“He was part of the Wild Bunch,” Megumi explained, to avoid any misunderstandings.
Yoshiki, who was probably not much younger than Shibumi, rubbed his chin. “I think I've heard of you,” he muttered. “You've written some interesting publications on artificial intelligence.”
The older man just nodded and sat down at one of the computers.
“What are you working on at the moment?” Yoshiki asked with some interest, coming over to them.
Shibumi shrugged and for a moment a rather grim expression spread across his face. “Officially, nothing,” he replied in a tone that clearly indicated he didn't want to talk about the subject any further.
“Are there... any problems?” Megumi asked. Something about the way he was behaving was off, though she knew better than to push. He was her senior after all, and they did not knew each other well. So when he did not answer, she just watched, as his grey eyes darted across the screen.
She looked at him, somewhat frustrated. No wonder she hadn't recognized him, she thought to herself.
She remembered Shibumi as an often somewhat unkempt man with long hair and a beard that was often a bit untidy. He had looked often like a bum on the street, but he had always had an almost childlike enthusiasm for the things he did. Infectious almost. She remembered a man, who forgot everything around him when he was working on something he cared about, yet never seemed really serious, even when the world was almost ending. Now he seemed to be the exact opposite.
His hair was much shorter. Instead of his usual untidy full beard, he wore a well-groomed stubble. And while this might not have appeared as a negative development, his face didn't look like he had laughed much lately. His eyes looked tired and serious.
She wondered if something had happened and almost asked, but stopped herself just in time. After all, it was none of her business. She hardly knew the man and hadn't seen him for over a year. As far as she could remember, he had last been in Japan in November of last year.
She noticed that Kenichi was now sitting in front of his computer and was finally silent, but he was looking at Shibumi with a slightly suspicious look.
“What were you looking for, Shibumi-san?” she finally asked in as casual a tone as possible, causing him to look up from the screen.
He was silent for a moment. “I came across something,” he finally replied. “And I was hoping that Mitsuo-san could find out more about it.” His gaze slid back to the screen, then back to her. He sighed heavily. “But... It's not that important. No.” It seemed as if these last words were directed much more at himself than at anyone else.