Work Text:
Ocean Love
Author’s Note: Enjoy the story and R&R.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or of the Digimon series.
Pairing: Hirokazu x Kenta.
Summary:
Shiota Hirokazu doesn’t seem receptive to the idea of a brave Kitagawa Kenta. Will the default scared Kenta do?
He should’ve been afraid, but he just wasn’t.
The alien bubbles could dissolve a person into less than nothing, and he’d already witnessed them erode buildings, yet he treated them with as much concern as a smudge on his glasses.
Can microfibre cloth remove a missile-proof deletion juice stain from prescription eyewear?
He doubted it. However, he had his own arsenal of bubbles, and they seemed to be doing the trick. The heart-shaped bubbles MarinAngemon blew vaporized the D-Reaper’s free-floating floaters of death, sending the ADR-01 packing.
“MarinAngemon, another one.”
“Phoo!”
MarinAngemon was an Ultimate, and the D-Reaper of all foes fled his attack! A computer program assimilating a feeling as “flawed” as fear and running scared, when the D-Reaper’s very proximity ignited fear, fragmentized trees, and weakened the bonds fusing the Tamers and their Digimon?
Perhaps that’s why Kenta didn’t flinch when the pink goo started rising out of the pavement. The danger to him was in retreat.
SaintGalgomon, Sakuyamon, and Justimon were Ultimates, and they struggled.
Kenta and MarinAngemon didn’t struggle. Red and slimy and lethal as the environment was, a park was an ironic place for the D-Reaper to peel back the flesh it created out of loaded Digimon data, revealing the blue infiltration agent hiding behind Juri’s face. Kenta strolled into the D-Reaper Zone, and never looked back.
He defied his mom’s attempt to separate him from this Digimon business and transfer schools in the middle of a major crisis.
Takato was sitting on the ground when he and MarinAngemon arrived.
It wasn’t that Kenta didn’t grasp the sense of urgency. The D-Reaper had entered the Real World, and the Tamers needed to extract Juri and Culumon!
On his way there, Kenta was more worried he wouldn’t find Takato. He was more afraid the first time Takato showed them Guilmon before this insanity began, and more agitated listening to Hirokazu overdo it bragging about the acknowledgement he received from Ryo for lending a hand against the Horn Striker.
Ryo was Hirokazu’s hero. The super cool guy through whom Hirokazu obtained the designation of super cool himself.
“Yo, I’m a Tamer too, you know?” Kenta told Ruki and Hirokazu confidently. “MarinAngemon and I saved Takato and Guilmon! That makes us super cool too!”
For whatever reason, this didn’t wow Hirokazu. Hirokazu didn’t take Kenta seriously.
He wasn’t accusing Kenta of lying they saved Takato and Guilmon…He just couldn’t subscribe to Kenta’s version of events where he depicted himself as brave and totally unafraid. The Kenta he knew clung to him like clockwork.
Takato had gone off, so he couldn’t confirm Kenta’s account either.
Kenta internalized Hirokazu’s dismissiveness as a strike against Hirokazu ever kissing him of his own free will, as opposed to by accident.
Kenta just wasn’t “super cool” in Hirokazu’s eyes.
Could Hirokazu be attracted to the Kenta he was already familiar with?
Kenta wondered.
It wouldn’t be an appropriate moment to ask.
“Phoo! Phoo!” MarinAngemon cooed.
“Yes, MarinAngemon. Phoo! Phoo!” Kenta lamented his dilemma.
…
Fast-forward past the withdrawal of the D-Reaper, Kenta didn’t have MarinAngemon to depend on anymore. The sound of his lenses splintering as he accidentally took a false step onto them made him freeze in his tracks.
CRACK!
“Oh no…” He kneeled to pick up his glasses, but was pulled backwards – rudely – by another’s hands.
“Kenta! Don’t handle broken glass!” Hirokazu yelled.
Kenta had no choice: Until he fessed up to his mom and collected a replacement pair, Hirokazu volunteered to be his eyes.
“Leave it to me!”
He didn’t fully trust Hirokazu not to foul up the assignment.
Hirokazu maneuvered Kenta around Shinjuku by his shoulders, taking him to the wrong locations sometimes to take advantage of Kenta’s utter helplessness for the fun of a gag.
Kenta wanted to go to the bakery? Hirokazu escorted Kenta to JUN COBO studio instead!
Extracurriculars? Kenta wound up at the camera store!
Kenta let him have it on more than one of these roundabouts once Hirokazu admitted to misleading him. He was flustered and frustrated he had no control over the situation or where Hirokazu took him.
In spite of some humorous detours though, Hirokazu guided Kenta to where he needed to be. The playground, school, home. Hirokazu always taxied him to the points on his schedule, on time and in one piece. Thus, even if Hirokazu plopped him outside JUN COBO or the camera store first, Kenta wasn’t ever lost long.
He’d be more gracious if he could grasp how diligent Hirokazu was being 100% of the time. Yet any gratitude he might’ve expressed was stymied by the chatter he could still very much hear.
He was blind for the week. Not deaf.
Girls were getting the wrong idea. That Hirokazu was seeing to him because he thought it might help his chances of lodging a romantic appeal.
It took Takato asking, for Kenta to see (no pun intended): He had no idea himself what Hirokazu’s underlying intentions were.
“Umm, I realize this is none of my business, Kenta. But are you and Hirokazu getting together?” Takato popped the question.
It felt unusual. Hirokazu was still behind him when Takato asked him this. Kenta could tell from his body heat.
Was Hirokazu as taken aback by the absurdity of the question as he was?
He wanted to be able to read Hirokazu’s face. In fact, he reached out with his fingers, jolting Hirokazu to grab his wrists.
Kenta was flunking being independent so epically, he nearly compressed Takato’s cheeks in his palms instead of Hirokazu’s.
“Uh, hi? Kenta? I’m back here!”
Back there. Duh. What was he fumbling in front of him for?
Kenta felt Hirokazu’s hands slide off his wrists and head to his face. They babied his cheeks peevishly…There was a remorse he was touching Kenta, on top of the jealousy Kenta’s hands almost touched Takato.
“Hirokazu…”
“Sorry, Kenta.” His friend leaned into his neck apologetically.
“You’re sorry? I’m sorry! I always wished! But I didn’t realize, Hirokazu…”
Takato’s voice hit a snag. He was witnessing the birth of a miracle.
Kahuna Waves.
A Smile Attack!
Ocean Love!