Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chatroom: The Power of Friendship & this Monster I Found

Kaito: we’re in the new house.

Ryo: about time

Aoi: That’s great to hear!

Miu: helping unpack is so boring! how should I know where the blender goes?

Shuuji: Why are they asking you to unpack a blender ?

Miu: Kaito’s busy moving the TV

Saki: i guess everyones here now

Takuma: any idea when you start school?

Minoru: don’t ask that!

Minoru: school should be off limits here!

Saki: ur just mad Takuma won’t help with ur essay

Minoru: shush!

Shuuji: Minoru I’d help if you asked.

Minoru: noooo saki you summoned one of the nerds

Aoi: Shuuji, don’t help him. He’ll learn faster that way.

Shuuji: I guess.

Minoru: noo i’m sorry i’m sorry!!!

Kaito: we’re going to school monday

Ryo: ah jeez, no break?

Miu: mom and dad think we’ll get into trouble if we get a day off

Miu: it really sucks

Miyuki: What’s happening? Renamon said you guys were talking a lot?

Minoru: OwO

Minoru: she speak

Takuma: feeling better today?

Miyuki: Haru was too worried.

Miyuki: He just forgot I get hay fever sometimes. I’m not sick again.

Saki: yeah prof seems like the type to do that

Saki: glad ur ok

Aoi: I guess I don’t have to make soup then.

Akiharu: No, please stop by. Renamon might actually kill me if I make something wrong again.

Ryo: i’ll stop by too

Ryo: got some allergy meds i can bring by

Shuuji: Am I still okay to drop off those papers Professor?

Akiharu: I don’t see why not.

Minoru: so many people going to the professor’s house

Minoru: now I wanna go too

Takuma: why not? if everyone can get over there we can celebrate all being together again

Saki: i can bring cake! there’s a bakery right next to that plant store i go to

Shuuji: Wait, the Professor hasn’t said yes.

Akiharu: It’s alright.

Minoru: aw yis!

Kaito: someone’s gonna have to pick us up

Kaito: our parents won’t let us out on our own

Shuuji: I can go if you need me to.

Saki: nah Shuuji, my house is close

Saki: be there in 10

Aoi: If you say it’s a sleepover you can hide Syakomon and Dracmon in a bag.

Saki: a sleepover! great idea Aoi!

Aoi: I didn’t mean it like that.

Takuma: but it is a good idea

Minoru: falcomon doesn’t fit in my bag with all my snacks

Ryo: just get rid of the snacks man

Aoi: I feel bad for Falcomon.

Takuma is one of the first to make it to the Minase’s house. He can feel Agumon poking his head out of his backpack to look over his shoulder at the house. He’d been bursting with excitement ever since Takuma told him they’d be visiting the others together.

When he gets inside he can hear Shuuji talking to the Professor, but other than that the only sign of anyone else was Kunemon wandering the hallway.

“Ryo’s not here?” He asked, but Kunemon made a complicated gesture. Takuma could guess sometimes what he was trying to say, but this was a new one.

“Ryo went to help Aoi and Labramon with groceries. They should be here soon.” The Professor said from the doorway. “Ryo just didn’t want to keep Kunemon confined any longer than he had to.”

“Speaking of that…” Takuma slipped off his backpack and opened it enough for Agumon to fully escape.

“Kunemon!” He shouted as he got free, running over. As they round the corner a thought comes to Takuma.

It was kinda sad. Takuma and the others could see each other every day at school, but they had to be careful about their Kemonogami being seen by the wrong people. They didn’t have the chance to get together as much as any of them would like.

Someday .

“Anything I can do to help set up?”

The Professor shrugged. “Miyuki was excited when you all said you were coming. Once Shuuji showed up all three of us set up space for your sleepover. There isn’t much left to do until it’s time to cook.”

“Do you even have enough space for all of us here?”

“Not exactly.” The Professor said. “There’s enough space in Miyuki’s room for all of the girls, I haven’t been able to take her out to get anything to fill up the space other than the essentials after all. The rest of you get to choose from a few places.”

“Thank you for letting us do this. I know it was pretty sudden.”

“Not at all. You children saved my life enough, not to mention bringing Miyuki back. Our home being open is the least we can do for you.”

The door opened behind them. “I come bearing cake and newcomers!” Saki said as she tried to hold up the cake and take her shoes off at the same time.

“Get out of the doorway.” Kaito’s annoyed voice called out.

“Man don’t be a sourpuss,” that was definitely Dracmon.

“I just don’t want the Professor getting in trouble for having a bunch of random kids loitering around.”

“Takuma, Takuma,” Miu said as she made it over the threshold and set Syakomon on the floor. “Saki got us a purple cake!”

“What kind?”

“The store said it was a marble cake,” Saki said over her shoulder. “I’ve never had it, but I thought it would be better than getting a straight chocolate or vanilla.”

“Which is great because Kaito and I like different types.”

“You only like vanilla more because Mom’s chocolate cake is sad and dry.” Kaito said, looking down at her with disappointment. “If you would just eat a store bought cake you’d see why I think chocolate is better.”

“Whatever.”

The Professor clears his throat politely, “Shuuji is already in the living room, if you want to join him. Make yourselves at home.”

Like the Professor said, they found Shuuji in the living room. He sat on the edge of the couch, showing Miyuki something on his phone. When he noticed them he gave a little wave.

“You guys got here okay?” He asked. “No trouble with the Shinonomes?”

“Their parents were jerks and asked weird questions, nothing I couldn’t handle.” Saki said before either of them could answer.

“I can’t believe mom asked if you were in a gang .” Kaito said.

“Nah, that part was funny.” Dracmon said.

Floramon crossed her arms and huffed. “Sure, you think so. I wish I could’ve given them a piece of my mind.”

“It can get hard not to.” Syakomon agreed.

“Well you can’t.” Miu said. “Only Kaito gets away with that. Everyone else gets to hear them go on about being polite.”

“That’s only because they gave up on me.” Kaito said.

“I’m glad you guys got to come anyway.” Miyuki said. “Haru said getting the futons ready would be a waste if you didn’t.”

“Miyuki! I brought our Switch like I promised!” Miu dug through her bag, before pulling out the device in question. “Get ready to see what real games are like!”

Seeing everyone’s confused looks, Kaito leaned over and whispered, “the Professor’s computer has minesweeper and nothing else, apparently.”

Nods of understanding passed through the whole group.

“What’s this about real games?” Minoru asked from the doorway, before he spotted Miu. “Oh, sweet. I brought mine too, wanna friend me?”

The three of them wandered off to a corner, Kaito following after them muttering something about Miu taking games seriously and not letting her kill them.

“I was hoping for a quiet visit, but I guess I was expecting too much.” Shuuji said.

“What were you showing her anyway?” Takuma asked.

“Nothing major. Lopmon really likes rolling himself up in towels and blankets and I took some pictures.”

Saki was next to him in an instant, “you have to show me.”

“Oh, um, okay.” He held up his phone.

“Aw, he’s like a little sushi roll. You’ve gotta show Aoi when she gets back.”

Speaking of, Takuma could hear the door again.

The kitchen quickly settled into a comfortable rhythm. Ryo peeled vegetables, Saki cut them up, and Aoi prepared the broth. It seemed like, with Miyuki not being sick and having so many people to feed, the plan shifted from soup to hot pot.

“Anything I can do to help?” Takuma asked.

Aoi tapped her cheek in thought, before taking what looked like chicken out of the shopping bag. She handed the package to him and glanced between it and Saki. Takuma got the message.

“How big do you want the pieces?”

She gestured for thin slices, and he got to work. Eventually Minoru joined them, complaining loudly about Miu beating him in some game.

“If you’re gonna stand here talking, you can grab a knife and help.” Saki said, using her own knife to point at the still not quite empty shopping bag.

“You guys aren’t taking this tragedy seriously.”

“Sure Minoru.” The sarcasm was clear in Ryo’s voice. “Let’s talk seriously about how an eleven year old kicked your ass and you’re being a sore loser.”

“You can at least pretend to care.”

Minoru sulked as he went to the shopping bag, bringing out what looked like beef.

“More than one type of meat?” Takuma asked.

Aoi shrugged, bringing out her phone. “It’s a special occasion.” She wrote with a smile.

“Wow Aoi, you’re really spoiling us.” Saki said.

“I’m the one who convinced her to get the good stuff.” Ryo grumbled.

“If anything we should thank the Professor for paying for it.”

“I mean, he’s getting a meal out of this and Renamon won’t get mad at him, I’d say we’re doing him a favour.” Minoru said.

Aoi frowned, but didn’t type anything further.

“I’ll make sure to let him know we appreciate it.” Takuma’s said, taking his cutting board of finished meat over to the pot.

Once everything was ready, Aoi set the pot to cook and let them know there wasn’t anything left to do. The others wandered off to the living room, but Takuma stayed behind. Aoi still looked troubled.

“Is thanking the Professor still bothering you?” He asked.

She shook her head, hesitating before typing something out.

“Minoru reminded me that Renamon is here.”

Ah. Takuma moved closer and lowered his voice.

“I haven’t seen him, but he’s probably going to be at dinner.”

“He’s usually hidden away when I visit. I haven’t really seen him since we got back.”

That was probably a good thing. Renamon worked with them to save the world, and while some people in the group seemed okay with him, Takuma couldn’t quite forgive what he’d done.

And he wasn’t even the one most effected. Aoi and Kaito were the ones who deserved to be the most angry, probably with Miu and Saki backing them up. Ryo was probably on that list somewhere too, now that he thought about it. Aoi mostly just seemed uncomfortable though.

“We won’t leave you alone with him, if that helps.”

She nodded and put her phone away, but her posture was tense and closed off. Labramon, seeming to sense how she was feeling, came bounding into the room and rubbed up against her leg.

“I don’t really know what’s going on Takuma,” she said, “but thanks for trying to help.”

Aoi quickly nodded in agreement.

“Let’s go be with the others Aoi. You shouldn’t hide away at a party.” With that Labramon started to lead her away, towards the living room. Takuma double checked the food before following.

Chapter Text

Somehow, Miu managed to rope Kaito into helping her fix the Professor’s ‘terrible’ TV set up and hook up her switch. Takuma wasn’t sure if he should be worried as Miu started going through her entire game library, pointing out the ones that were multiplayer.

“This would be so much easier if you all had your own switches.” She grumbled. “Animal Crossing is easy enough to figure out.”

“Isn’t Animal Crossing kinda boring?” Minoru asked.

“Just for that, I’m kicking you out of the first round.”

“Aw man.”

Part of Takuma was tempted to take his place to keep everyone happy, but honestly Minoru brought it on himself. Only eight people could play at most. The Professor immediately volunteered to never play, so after Minoru they’d have to start rotating who sat out anyway.

They settled on a racing game. As Miu explained the rules Takuma examined the joy-con he’d been given. Miu and Kaito split their purple and orange set. The others were various colours, most of them provided by Minoru. Takuma had the privilege of splitting his main set and ending up with blue.

“Why do you have so many of these things anyway?” Saki asked, turning a green one over in her hand.

“I’ll have you know I have lots of friends. Plus I had to buy a spare set when one of mine broke.”

“I would have figured you lost them.” Ryo said, a grin spreading on his face.

Minoru opened his mouth, probably to shoot something rude back, but Miu interrupted them, annoyed. “You better have payed attention to the controls.” She said. “I’m starting it now and I won’t help any of you if you mess up.”

It was a disaster. Even understanding the controls didn’t prepare anyone for the chaos of the Shinonomes competing with each other as much as they competed with everyone else. Ryo was taken out at least twice as collateral. Takuma thought he did pretty well getting fifth place, all things considered. Miyuki spent most of the course driving into a wall, and yet Shuuji still somehow ended up in last place.

Even more surprising was that Aoi coasted through completely unharmed.

“How on earth did Aoi end up in third place!?” Kaito shouted, even as his own character posed next to the 1st place sign.

“You don’t attack the mom friend!” Ryo said. “That’s just not cool!”

“Rules like that don’t exist in games! Every man for themselves! Everyone is fair game!”

“So much for Miu being the one who’s going to kill someone over games.” Saki muttered, leaning over conspiratorially.

Aoi shrugged, before she showed her phone to Takuma. “Aoi says she’ll sit out this round, she needs to check on the food anyway.” She passed the controller to Minoru and made her way to the kitchen.

With Minoru in the game, the next round started off even more chaotic as he tried to sabotage Miyuki, leading Miu to convince everyone to gang up on him. It wasn’t hard.

“This is payback for the ghost thing!” Ryo shouted as he stunned him again.

“Come on! That was forever ago!”

Minoru is a great guy. Really he is, but Takuma knows that tact isn’t really a priority for him. At this point everyone has a reason to want to bully him into last place. They were halfway through the second lap when Minoru’s screeching attracted attention.

“You’re all incredibly noisy.” Renamon said, startling anyone who wasn’t completely absorbed in the game.

He was somewhere behind them, probably at the bottom of the stairs leading to the bedrooms. Takuma could see Aoi’s shoulders hike up as she tensely hunched over the stove, but Saki piped up before he could do anything about it.

“Oh, Renamon. Good you have hands right now, take over for me.” She shoved the joy-con at him before scrambling out of the way and going to the kitchen.

He stared at the device in his hands, completely baffled as Saki’s character came to a complete halt on screen. He blinked slowly, frozen in place until Shuuji waved him over to the couch.

“Come on,” he said, “if you fall too far behind Kaito will get mad. I’ll teach you how it works.”

Renamon didn’t start playing until he understood exactly how everything worked.

Somehow, Shuuji still ended up in last place.

They had time to play a few more rounds before Aoi called them for dinner.

“Renamon, help me set up the kotatsu.” The professor said, already holding one of the edges.

“A kotatsu?” Takuma asked.

“Most of the Kemonogami aren’t tall enough for the table.” He explained. “This way they can set up cushions and it works out much better.”

There isn’t enough space around the table for all of them, even with the Kemonogami having their own. Most of them manage to squeeze in, either at the table or with the Kemonogami at the kotatsu, but Takuma just takes the opportunity to eat sitting on the counter. Minoru sits next to him, still grumbling about losing so spectacularly twice in a row.

“I can’t believe you guys ganged up on me.”

“ I can’t believe you didn’t see this coming.” Ryo said from his spot at the table. “You can be such an ass sometimes trying to be funny, it’s just payback.”

Miu spoke up from her place at the kotatsu. “And you went after Miyuki. We all chose her as our ‘must protect’ friend.”

“Please don’t bring that up again.” Said ‘must protect friend’ huffed. “You’re all wrong. Obviously Haru is the ‘must protect’ friend.”

“I’m an adult.”

“No, I agree with Miyuki,” Takuma said. “You attract way too much danger to not be the ‘must protect’ friend.”

“Either way, bullying a noob is not cool Minoru. You deserved it.” Saki said, before turning away to look at something Aoi wrote on her phone. “Aoi thinks we should play something cooperative if we play after dinner.”

“All my co-op games are four player though.” Miu said, mentally going over her games. “Minoru?”

“Same.”

“That’s fine.” Shuuji said. “Playing games for too long gives me headaches anyway, so this is probably better.”

“I have to call our parents at some point, prove we’re not getting into trouble.” Kaito said. “They’ll probably want to talk to you Saki, so they know we weren’t lying about the sleepover.”

“Sure. Just don’t get mad if I tell them they’re jerks.”

“Go ahead.”

Things quiet down for a bit before Renamon quietly speaks up.

“The food was… very good. Thank you.” He spoke haltingly, not really looking at anyone. From how he’d been avoiding them, and how awkward he was, Takuma guessed he’d probably realized he wasn’t exactly the most welcome in their group.

But Aoi still smiled at him warmly.

“You’re welcome.” Her message was relayed to him.

Something in him seemed to relax. This was not forgiveness, but Takuma could guess they’d be seeing more of Renamon when they visited again.

Takuma volunteered to do the dishes when the meal was over. Between people wandering off to avoid cleanup and Aoi being dragged away by Saki, Shuuji was the only one left with him.

“I’ll wash, you dry?” Takuma asked. “If you pull up a chair you’ll stay off your feet.”

“I’ll do that, thank you.”

They work in silence, the sound of their friends as background noise. They’re about halfway through when Shuuji speaks up.

“Sorry, I know I’m not a lot of fun to be around.”

“What?”

He laughed, but it sounded hollow. “I feel like I don’t fit in with you all. You’re all so high energy, I don’t know what to do with that.”

Almost as if to emphasize his point, an uproar started in the living room.

“Why did you throw the lettuce into the void!?” Miu screamed.

“I’m sorry! I panicked!” Saki said.

“Who cares!?” Minoru said. “This is a hell level! We weren’t getting three stars anyway!”

“No!” Kaito yelled. “We’re getting three stars. I’m not letting us go to the next level until we get three stars!”

Takuma winced, tuning them out. “I think it’s fine that you’re quiet. I’d probably go crazy if all of you were like Minoru.” He hands over another plate. “None of us are perfect, that’s why we work so well together.”

“I appreciate that Takuma, but I wasn’t fishing for reassurance.” Shuuji said. “I guess I’m asking for advice, more than anything.”

“On what?”

“I don’t think I can be high energy like the rest of you, but I do want to change.” He paused, trying to come up with the right words. “Things got awkward after I got hurt, and instead of dealing with it I buried myself in the Professor’s research so I didn’t have to talk about my feelings. I only really talked to you and Ryo. I guess what I’m saying is that I want to be better friends with everyone.”

A soft smile came to Takuma’s face. “You don’t have to think about it too hard. If you don’t want to talk about your feelings, then don’t. Talk about things you like, or things you know the others like. Like the picture of Lopmon. It doesn’t have to be hard if you don’t make it that way.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s how I started. I found out things about our friends and thought about how I could connect our interests.” He shrugged. “I’ll admit, I’m in kinda a weird place with everyone too. We’re friends, but I think people look at you differently when you save their life.”

“None of us meant to-“

“It’s okay Shuuji. I’m not ‘fishing for reassurance’ either. I’m telling you things will turn out okay, because you’re here to make it turn out okay, just like I did.”

“That’s true, I suppose.”

“The dishes are almost done.” Takuma said. “I’m fine to finish up on my own, if you wanted to start now.”

“No, that’s alright. This is part of being a good friend too, right?”

They finished in silence, but a much more comfortable one.

Chapter Text

Sleep comes fleetingly that night. The moment Takuma thinks he’s managed to settle down for the rest of the night, he inevitably wakes up not long after.

He finds he is not the only one.

When he gets up the first time, wanting to see if moving around a bit will tire him out, he runs into Minoru.

“Just getting a glass of water,” he said, as if Takuma hadn’t found him sitting blankly at the table, no glass in sight.

Takuma shrugs it off anyway. If Minoru isn’t ready to talk about whatever is keeping him up, Takuma won’t push. Especially not when anyone could walk in on them without them noticing. If there was one good thing about how run down the old school building was, it was that you could hear when someone was coming.

“Did you guys have fun with… Whatever it is you ended up playing after?”

“Oh, when things were going great? Definitely.” Minoru said. “I really should’ve seen it coming that Kaito was the stubborn completionist type though. He made us play the pit level six times! Six!”

“Don’t those levels only take like three minutes?”

“That just makes it more stressful! I don’t even want to know what playing games with him was like before Miu convinced him to chill out.”

Takuma holds up his hands in surrender. “I guess I’ll just be glad I didn’t play and leave it at that. I’m glad you and Miu even thought to bring anything to do, with how out of nowhere this whole trip was.”

“You mean you wouldn’t have messed this place up looking for stuff to have sword fights with?” Minoru’s face was the picture of exasperation as he shook his head. “For shame. Y’know Aoi finished off the paper towel and didn’t even try to smack any of us with the tube.”

“Scandalous.”

The next time he gets up he finds Ryo on the couch, curled up so he can massage his ankles. He told Takuma not to worry, that he took something to soothe the aching and he would go back to bed the moment it started working.

“Too much walking today?” Takuma asked.

“Nah, sometimes it just gets like this no matter what I do.”

“Did you talk to anyone about this?”

“Like my doctor? No one even knows I was hurt.” Ryo stops his massaging and leans back far enough to look at the ceiling. “I’m just going to deal with it. Not much else I can do.”

“I can try looking up some exercises if you want. There’s probably something out there for dealing with stuff like this.”

“I appreciate it, but I should probably do that myself. Can’t always go to you when something goes wrong, right?”

Takuma rushed to reassure him. “No, I don’t mind. I think I’d worry more if you guys didn’t come to me when something’s wrong.”

“You’re gonna burn yourself out. You and Aoi handle all the bullshit we manage to get ourselves into, and you really shouldn’t. Not when you have your own stuff to deal with.” He huffs out a sigh. “We’re all big kids. Well, most of us are. We can learn to handle some of our own problems.”

A sense of unease settles into Takuma’s bones. He knows, logically, that Ryo is right. Even more than that, he knows that Ryo is only trying to look out for his friends.

But this is not something Takuma wants to hear.

He gently steers the conversation in another direction while they wait out Ryo’s medicine. If Ryo noticed the deflection, he doesn’t comment on it.

By the third time Takuma is resigned to not get any sleep. Saki is sitting at the bottom of the stairs resting her head against the wall when he comes across her. She looks about as tried as he feels, staring at nothing in particular. With nothing better to do, Takuma sits next to her.

“Nightmares?” He asked directly, because out of everyone in their group Saki was the most likely to admit to it.

She nodded, “I think having so many people who get them in one place wasn’t a good idea. I needed some space.”

“That bad?”

“Having a nightmare is bad enough.” She ran her hands down her face. “But waking up to Miu tossing and turning and Aoi pretending to sleep doesn’t really help. Miyuki seems fine, at least.”

“Maybe it’s worse because we aren’t used to sleeping here. Then it would make sense that Miyuki is fine.” Takuma said. “I haven’t checked on the professor, but maybe it’s the same for him?”

Saki just shrugged. “I’m sure it’d probably be the same for me if I was at home. I just get nightmares like this sometimes.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not much to say. I dream about a lot of the things that happened to us, but I dream about waking up in the music room the most.”

“Oh.”

“Sometimes my brain tries to figure out what I missed before I woke up. I think that’s harder. I know enough about what happened with the library and everything after for my brain to make up details, but it’s not like I was really there so it’s hard to tell if it’s more messed up in my head.”

“I was there and I think it gets more messed up in my head.”

“Takuma.” Her voice is annoyed. “You saw it happen, so you can wake up and tell the dream wasn’t how you remember. I was in a coma . I can’t compare it to real life.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

She sighed. “I’m not mad. I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but its not the same. I don’t need you to tell me you ‘get it’. I just want someone to listen. Whether you get what I’m going through doesn’t really matter.”

He could kind of understand where she was coming from.

Morning was both too soon and too far away, in the way it always is for insomniacs. Too soon to get any sleep, but too far away to do anything but lay in bed bored for hours. Takuma was thankful even after everything he’s been through, it wasn’t something that actually happened to him often.

Still, being jarred out of dozing by an overexcited Agumon after barely sleeping wasn’t the best way to start a morning.

The others were scattered throughout the house, most of them eating leftover cake for breakfast. Minoru was absolutely getting crumbs all over the couch as he tried to combine his own cake with some of the snacks he brought from home.

The kitchen was practically deserted when Takuma got there, only Miu, who had somehow managed to climb on top of the counter and was rifling through the cabinets, was there.

“Not having cake?” Takuma asked, making her jump and hit her head on the shelf above her. “Oh, sorry.”

She grumbled rubbing her head. “It’s fine, I heard you come in, I just thought it was Kaito coming to pull me off the counter again. Like I’d get hurt falling from this height.”

“Sorry anyway. What’re you looking for? I thought we had enough cake for everyone to have for breakfast.”

“I mean, I’m still having cake.” She said as she closed the cabinet and went on to the next one. “But I want salty too, and you can’t just salt a cake! That ruins both of the flavors!”

“Minoru’s shoving chips into his cake.”

She shuddered, disgust clear on her face and flatly told him: “Minoru doesn’t fear death.”

“Fair enough.”

“What do they even eat here?” Miu said as she found another empty cabinet. “I should give the professor the ‘you bought too many groceries you didn’t need’ curse…”

“I think it’ll be more of a blessing at this point.” The two jump at Miyuki’s voice. “Someone needs to get him to eat something other than plain toast every morning. I’m pretty sure he only eats three meals a day because Gabumon threatened to tear apart his computer if he didn’t.” As she said this, she reached into one of the lower cupboards and pulled out some peanut butter for her own toast.

“Oh, wait! I think I saw some honey earlier.”

“Honey?”

“Miyuki, trust me.” Miu said. “A little bit of honey on your toast and it’ll be a thousand times better. It’s practically magic.”

Miyuki only shrugged, making her way to the table. Getting a piece of cake for himself, Takuma followed.

“You’ve been pretty popular during this visit. I don’t think we got to talk at all.” He said, and Miyuki hummed in agreement.

“I think Miu decided it’s her job to teach me everything about the modern world.”

“Makes sense, you are technically the same age, right?”

“Technically I’m sixty-one.” She said, playful smirk coming to her face. “But I guess we can say I’m still eleven.”

“So you’re just having that? No cake?”

“Hm? Oh.” Miyuki shrugged. “Dr. Hasegawa thinks I might be a little lactose intolerant, so I have to have special milk and stuff. Normal stuff like the cake is okay once in a while, but if I have it too close together I get these really bad stomach pains. I don’t want risk ruining my time with you all, especially since I’m not sick for once.”

“You should let Saki know for next time. I know lots of places are starting to use lactose free stuff, she can look at the bakery to see if they have anything.”

She blinked a few times, before face palming. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Before he could answer, Miu shouted in triumph holding up a jar of honey before scrambling off the counter and making her way to the table.

“Here, try it.” She said, pushing the jar forward. She watched eagerly as Miyuki spread the honey on her toast and hesitantly took a bite, smiling as Miyuki’s eyes lit up. “It’s amazing, right?”

“I didn’t know you could use honey like this. Haru just got it for his tea.”

“It’s too bad you don’t have any brown sugar. That’s a real treat.”

“Ah, maybe don’t get Miyuki started on all the junk food all at once.” Takuma said. Miyuki was struggling enough with her health without adding in literal sugar.

Still, Miyuki was a kid, and she was almost done her whole vitamin routine thing. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt too much. His faltering had nothing to do with how disappointed both of them looked. Not at all.

“Well,” he conceded, “it’s probably fine if you don’t go crazy with it.”

“It’s okay, I’ll just cast the broken food spell.” Miu whispered conspiratorially.

“The what now?” Miyuki asked.

“My mom says all the time that broken food has no calories. I don’t really get it, but she’s really into health stuff.”

“I don’t think that’s how food works.”

It’s not. Takuma wonders if he should tell them that, but decides not to. After what they’ve been though, all of them have lost a lot of their kid-like qualities. It can’t hurt to let Miu and Miyuki hold on to some of them for a bit longer.

It wasn’t long after breakfast that Kaito got a call. The irritation on his face as he looked at the screen was more than enough explanation. As calm as he managed to make his voice sound as he spoke, his grip on his phone was so tight his knuckles were white.

“Miu, go pack up your stuff.” He said as he hung up. “Mom and dad want us home in an hour.”

“We were gonna be going home soon anyway.” Miu grumbled, going to unplug her switch from the tv.

As soon as Miu was out of sight, Kaito let out a sigh of frustration.

“Did they say something?” Takuma asked.

“Not really, they can just be really condescending.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not much to say,” he shrugged. “They’re like if you mixed helicopter parents with parents who hate their kids, so they have to know exactly what we’re doing all the time, but if something happens to us it’s obviously our fault. Even when they’re the ones to blame it’s our fault.”

“I don’t really know about how your family works, but I have heard bits and pieces from you and Miu. Enough to be really worried about you two.”

“It’s fine, I know how to deal with them. Can we talk about literally anything else?”

Takuma quickly thought up a new topic. “Do you know what class you’ll be in yet?”

“B, I think.”

”Looks like you’re with Minoru then. I’m in class C.”

Kaito clicked his tongue. “I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t drive me crazy then.”

“Your teacher is really nice. Doesn’t even yell at Minoru when he’s late or doesn’t turn in homework. Mine can be kind of strict.”

“Isn’t that bad though?” Kaito said, narrowing his eyes. “It’s because people let Minoru get away with stuff that he doesn’t take things seriously.”

Takuma laughed nervously. “If it helps at all with the ‘driving you crazy’ thing, we spend all our breaks all together. I don’t think any of us are in any clubs yet either.”

“I get Ryo and Aoi, since they just transferred, and kind of Saki with her being sick until a while ago, but why aren’t you and Minoru in any clubs?”

“I thought about joining the school newspaper or something, but nothing really seemed right. Most of my friends were proud members of the going home club, so I used to think being in a club was kind of lame. Since we got back I was thinking of taking a look at some, but I wanted to wait for you guys to get here. I don’t want to be the only one who’s in a club if you guys aren’t interested.”

“Y’know, you really should be more selfish sometimes.”

“What?”

“If you want to join a club, join a club. Don’t let someone else decide that stuff for you.” Kaito smirked. “Take it from someone who can’t join any clubs they think they’d want to. Being in a club you like is cool no matter what anyone says, and being told you shouldn’t sucks.”

Takuma silently thought over his words. He tended to go with the flow on most things, even going to camp was something he chose because his parents thought it sounded nice. Deep down it was mostly because that was easier than thinking about what he wanted to do. He had plenty of things to distract himself from being bored, but that wasn’t really the same thing as having fun, was it? Maybe it was time to take the opportunity to change. Decide something himself for once.

Kaito’s voice brought him back out of his thoughts. “If it’s really that big of a deal, I’ll go with you after school tomorrow. We can probably get the others to come along too.”

“Thanks.” Takuma said. “I’d really like that.”

“This was really great.” Saki said, adjusting her hold on her bag. “We should do this again some time.”

“Let’s aim for every weekend!” Minoru cheered.

“Let’s not do that.” Ryo said.

“Why not?”

“I got stuff to do!”

Aoi wrote on her phone, holding it up when she was done. “ Once a month might be a good tentative plan. ”

“We probably won’t be able to manage a sleepover every time.” Kaito said.

Saki spoke up. “We could mix it up. Maybe go on trips sometimes.”

“That sounds fun!” Minoru said.

“We can get together for tutoring when test season starts.” Shuuji suggested.

“That sounds less fun.”

“I vote we go somewhere fun next month!” Miu said.

“I know a few fun out of the way places in town.” Takuma said. “Since some of us are new around here we can come up with our own tour plans.”

“If everyone sends their plans to me I can come up with a good route for us to hit everything.” Shuuji said.

“That’s a lot of walking, will you and Ryo be alright?”

“Good point. I can bring my crutch, but…”

“It’s fine. I’ll manage.” Even though he was trying to sound tough, it was clear Ryo wasn’t happy about the idea.

“ I’ll look up some nice places around town to take breaks. If we put a few in the tour it might help. ” Aoi typed out.

“That would really help, thank you Aoi.” Shuuji pulled out his own phone. “I’ll make a planning chat. I’ll add everyone just in case, but no one has to work on the plans if they don’t want to.”

“Miu and I can chip in with letting you know if we won’t be interested in stuff.” Kaito said.

“Oh!” Miu piped in. “Make sure there’s an arcade somewhere on there. I want to see if they have neat prizes like in the videos.”

“Why are you watching videos about arcades?” Takuma asked.

“Do you even get how boring it is in the country with no friends?” She shot back. “Sometimes seeing someone get chuunibyou cat figures was the highlight of my day.”

“Wait, what?”

“She can send you her stuff later. We need to get home.” Kaito took Miu’s hand, pulling her out the door as she waved back at everyone else.

“I guess that’s our cue to get going too.” Saki said.

With that they all went their separate ways. As he walked home, Takuma started thinking about his part of the tour list.

“Maybe I should see if anywhere is good for you Kemonogami for another trip idea.” He said, turning his head slightly to see Agumon.

“I’d like that! We should bring food!”

“A picnic might be nice. We can probably find a nice spot in a park.”

“I’ll like it if it’s outside.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah! It’s always more fun when we’re all together!”

“I think so too. I hope things will get easier for you guys when more information gets out.”

The video was always bookmarked on Takuma’s phone. Every time he checked it was growing in popularity. Between that and the Professor’s blog, people were starting to talk more. Maybe it wouldn’t be long until their real story could be told.