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Human beings were very contradictory creatures. They never mean what they say. Their actions never line up with their words. They lie and cheat and steal but justify it in their heads as some good intentioned way of surviving but shit on the people who actually do those things to live another day. They are callous, standing aside when others are given an unfair sentencing, sometimes even going as far as to mock them just because of their different circumstances.
Everything they do makes little to no sense, always opposite in some way or form. A mother can say she loves her child but will never be there when they need her the most. A significant other can reassure their partner that they won't ever leave them, but talk about them behind their back, hoping for the day that they can divorce. Friends can fall out over any small little thing, believing others before they believe each other. People can spread rumors, leak information, whisper gossip, and your own family members will put the blame on you before they even attempt to look deeper into the issue until it's too late, until they've run you dry of your hope and leave you a husk of your former self.
Contradictory as they are, however, there was one thing that all humans craved—that they sought after, fought over, killed for. The warmth that comes with connection, with community, the type of safety only given when you feel an embrace around your shoulders regardless of whether or not you were together, related, or just close friends. Humans desired companionship. They craved closeness. Social creatures as they are, to reject such a notion means that you are different, an anomaly, but would being different be so bad? Would liking your own company make you shallow?
Whether or not you desired connection yourself, would keeping it away from you be hard for others to understand? Humans lie. They steal. They cheat and remain bystanders to the cruel actions of others. They tear down hope and love and mock differences they cannot understand. Maybe you've grown tired of trying to understand why people are the way they are. Maybe you like your company best when there isn't someone making you feel as if you must do something or be seen as an outcast. Maybe your connections are small, minimal, and you're perfectly fine with the tiny circle of community orbiting around you.
He wished he wasn't the type of person that gravitated towards others.
He wished, desperately so, that people weren't so confusing, that he could understand others at just a glance, that he hadn't been pulled out of his shell and seen the real world because now he wants connection. He wants to feel warmth and understand this weird fluttery feeling in his chest and get answers as to why his stomach flips and twists and turns itself into knots all because of someone he practically knew nothing about except for surface level details. He doesn't even know his birthday let alone something as personal as blood type or if he has any family or whether or not he has allergies or foods he hates and yet, his body betrays him, chest squeezing at the sight of blue hair tousled about in the wind, stomach twisting into knots when sunset colored eyes peer at him, face getting warm and his lungs constricting when that crooked smile is sent his way.
All for someone that Tomoro merely knew three solid facts about. His name. His age. His desperation to prove himself nearly leading him to total annihilation.
And, to make matters worse, he'd gone and potentially fucked up the one good thing they had going. The single situation where they could come to an understanding, ruined because Tomoro just had to ask what they were—what their fighting really meant in the grand scheme of things and now the reality was hitting him harder than he thought it would, his stomach dropping so hard that he couldn't even find it in himself to drink his favorite juice that Maki had concocted just for him, stirring the straw around and watching the ice cubes clink together.
"Seeing you so bummed out is reminding me an awful lot of someone I know," Maki muses as she wipes down the counter, "add in those bruises and bandages of yours and you'd be a shoe in for him, like looking into a mirror."
Slumping further in his seat, Tomoro lets his head smack against the wood with a muffled groan. "It's not fair," he grouses, cheek squished against his arm as he turns his head. Why wasn't he allowed to assign meaningless thoughts to what was going on? He was a part of this dynamic too. It wasn't just there for the other to let off steam or train himself or whatever the hell he got out of beating Tomoro bloody and bruised and being beaten in return. Why was it that Tomoro couldn't think about how they got there, what it meant now, but he could come and go as he pleased, not a care in the world as if everything hadn't started because of him?
It wasn't as if Tomoro had a plan when they met again. He'd been tired, dirty, downright miserable, and there the other was, like a holy light with a hand held out, crooked smile plastered on his face as he remarked how shitty Tomoro looked and Tomoro told him he felt just as. He had no plan. No ideas. Just an earnest exclamation. A desperate attempt. Now it landed him here, sulking over someone he shouldn't even be giving the light of day to. Oh, if his family could see him now, Tomoro is certain he'd be accosted, lectured, turned into a think piece, and so he is glad they are busy at the shelter, that they take his need for peace and quiet seriously enough for him to mope around at Garando until his heart stops feeling so bruised.
"Come on, Monodramon. Let's see if we can find ourselves a champion to hook your claws into."
Still laced with that properly rich dialect of those who wore tiny little glasses and kept gloves on their person for no reason, his voice rings through the air as the bar's door is pushed open, the bell at the top ringing in Tomoro's ears. "Kutsuwada, you got any—oh."
Breath hitching. Words lost in the air. Tomoro wonders, if he hunches his shoulders and brings his collar up, will it hide him from the prying eyes on the back of his head as Maki's huffing voice all but confirms what he already knew. "Be more polite about asking and maybe I'll tell you, Souda. Sit down and wait until I'm done. You're lucky today, not many cleaners work so close to Marine Day." She throws her moist cloth towel onto a different part of the counter and gets to polishing as footsteps make their way towards the both of them.
Tomoro should get up and leave. He should say that his family needs him, and he'll catch Raito on the flip side. He shouldn't continue to sit on the stool while Raito hops onto the one three seats away from him and Maki sets down a bottle of watermelon ramune and slides it over. Expertly, he catches it, twirls it around, and then slams the heel of his palm down to dislodge the marble at the top before taking a large gulp. Show off, Tomoro thinks, even as his face goes warm and his heart threatens to claw its way out of his chest when sunset eyes flicker to him, crinkling out of habit.
Two seconds later, and Raito has swiveled his stool about, swishing the ramune like it was a wine glass and not a fucking soda bottle. "Surprise seeing you here without the rest of them," he says, fingers curling tight around the neck of the ramune bottle. Tomoro wonders if Raito's imagining it as his face. "Where's everyone else?"
Tomoro knows, logically, that Raito doesn't exactly care about what Reina, Makoto, and Kyo are doing. No, he's more interested in knowing where they are so he can bounce the second they come around. He knows this, and yet, he peeks over his arm and answers anyway. "Busy," he says, watching Monodramon get lured away by Gekkomon who is much too eager to show him what a game console is. Maybe Tomoro shouldn't have wistfully mentioned it to Kyo and gotten Gekkomon interested. "Can't say I'm not surprised to see you here though." Especially after you ran off, he thinks bitterly, eyes narrowing as Raito shrugs at him.
"What can I say? I'm still a Cleaner, you know? And I need a way to get money somehow." He takes a sip of his soda, staring at Tomoro like he somehow knows all his little secrets, and Tomoro can't help but bristle at that quiet, stupid knowing stare he's given. What right did Raito have to look at him like that? As if he knew everything about him, taunting him with the knowledge that Tomoro knew almost nothing. "Besides, I think I should be putting that train of thought towards you instead. I mean, you looked like you were moping—"
"I was not," Tomoro sniffs, tearing his gaze away from him, "I was…I was just thinking," he mutters, biting on the inside of his cheek when Raito snorts.
"Thinking," he repeats, putting his soda bottle down, "not about the same thing as last time, I'm hoping."
Despite himself, Tomoro bristles, looking up with a glare that makes Raito snicker. "What?" He raises a brow. "I told you what I thought about your thinking back then, didn't I? I could tell it to you again, if you forgot—"
"I didn't forget," he huffs, "what's it to you if I think about it or not? You said it yourself. It's meaningless thought, isn't it? If we both like it, then that's that, isn't it?" Tomoro presses, the image of Raito's shaking pupils still at the forefront of his mind. Maybe he couldn't say it back then, too wrapped up as they were in their own heads, but they're alone again, Maki having disappeared off to the back and their digimon engrossed into the game console Tomoro had been gifted for a job well done.
Raito's face goes blank, his head cocking to the side. "Well, duh," he says, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "There's nothing more to it, Tenma. You're a smart cookie, aren't you? I don't need to explain it to you like a toddler for you to get it." He waves a hand as he hops off the stool. "What's going on between us is nothing more than a solution for our selfishness. If your little emotional self thought it could be anything else…." The rest of the sentence hangs in the air, unspoken but Tomoro can understand regardless, something dislodging itself from his chest and dropping into his stomach.
So that's all it is.
The garden he'd cultivated in his chest loses its petals, the flowers withering as Tomoro grabs his glass of juice and downs it in one go. "Don't tell me you're moping over that now," Raito's voice sounds far away, yet he can still hear it as clear as day. "I mean, seriously, you couldn't have possibly thought—"
"I didn't," he interrupts, swallowing down the words threatening to leave his mouth as he hops off the stool. "It's just like you said. We're just using each other for our own selfish reasons. I shouldn't be attributing any meaningless thinking to it because it doesn't matter and I'm sorry for assuming otherwise." He takes his glasses off to wipe them onto his shirt, peering down at his own distorted reflection. "Gekkomon," Tomoro calls out, turning towards the bar's exit as he starts to walk.
Raito's splutter echoes in the air. "Hah? Where do you think—"
"You're here for a bounty, right?" Pausing at the door with his hand on the handle, Gekkomon scurrying up to rest on his shoulder, Tomoro doesn't bother glancing back as he pushes it open. "If you still feel like blowing off some steam afterwards then you know where to find me, Souda but for now, I'm going home. You were right. It is a surprise to see me here by myself." He hears a breath hitch, the sound of a coughing splutter, but Tomoro pushes himself out of the bar before his stupid emotions can get the better of him, before he turns right back around and tells Raito how fucking stupid everything is and what he really thinks of their arrangement.
His feet are leading him god knows where, his chest heaving as he follows their path with no hesitation, feeling his eyes burn as his hands scrub at his face to no avail, the awful taste of salt mixing in with the sourness that floods his mouth. "Tomoro?" Gekkomon's voice is too quiet in his ear. "Are you—"
Everything turns blurry, sound becoming distorted as he spins around and kicks his foot out, hearing the echoing crash of a trash can spilling its contents onto the floor. "Ha….ha…" His hands are trembling, curled tight into clenched fists, and he jerks when a shadow flies overhead, head snapping up as the large pterosaur slices clean through the white clouds that block its path and a blue haired boy sits atop it, wind tousling his hair just like Tomoro would do while they wrestled about in the water, pinning each other down and staring into eyes the color of the setting sun.
Sourness floods his mouth as he doubles over, barely able to slap a hand over his face before he's coughing up the juice he'd gulped down.