Before the Flame Burns Out

Bruises

Ever since Kouji has remembered his past life memories, Kouichi has been telling him about his adventures that happened afterwards. Even during his time as the Digimon Emperor. Kouji understood though, even apologizing for his own mistakes. After all the digivice that came out of the computer belonged to Ken, not Sam. However, Kouichi dismissed that, he was trying to protect him after all. After telling Kouji all of his past adventures, Kouji told him a startling fact he never knew about, due to not owning a tv or being antisocial during his time in school.

"It sounds a lot like the Digimon TV show. There's even a card game. I watched it once, it's why I wasn't that freaked out about the Digital World."

"You know... somehow a lot of people knowing about those days doesn't sound reassuring." Ken sighed. Then a thought occurred to him. "It was probably Takeru, er TK's books. He wrote about everyone's adventures, with some tweaks to the ending to make it seem fake by adding in things like Tai becoming an ambassador with Agumon. He actually ended up becoming a police officer. We used to work together a lot, since I was a private investigator. Well that is until we both eventually retired."

"I'm glad you made so many friends you could rely on." Kouji smiled. He wasn't the big brother anymore, but right now, he felt like he was.

"Well now we both have new friends." Kouichi smiled.

"Speaking of our friends, have you noticed that Takuya's been a bit weird since coming back?"

"I wouldn't know, I've been in the hospital until two weeks ago, Kouji."

"Right, forgot about that. Well since we all go to different schools, everyone meets up at the park near Tommy's house, right? We meet up once every week." Kouji tells him with a serious face. He was worried, Kouichi realized. "Each week he seems to be less and less like the Takuya we know from when we were in the digital world."

"Well that's understandable. A different world, new people. He probably acts different at home, different at school. That probably means he acts different when he's with us too." Kouichi rationalized. He was familiar with acting different with different people. He was like that under the influence of the dark spore. "Maybe being back home has started to take a toll on how he takes to approaching people."

"That's what I thought at first." Kouji sighed. "But, then I started noticing the bruises."

Bruises? That rang alarms in Kouichi's head. Takuya was reckless, but that recklessness hardly ever gave him bruises. In fact the only times there he had ever seen the boy injured was after the fights against Crusadermon and Dynastmon. Other than that, he barely got any scratches against fighting other threats. "What do mean Takuya has bruises?"

"Well when I first noticed, he brushed it off as his own clumsiness. Then I noticed that there's a new one each time I see him. The others had been noticing it too. We're all worried about him, especially since every time we bring up the bruises he does that thing when he's guilty and not telling us the truth. He adverts his eyes while scratching the back of his neck." Kouichi was impressed that Kouji had noticed the other boy's nervous ticks too, but that wasn't the problem.

"Well... you know I'm going to be going back to school right?" Kouji nodded. "I just so happen to be going to the same school as Takuya. He just never knew because we've never had the same classes or I was being my antisocial self." Kouichi explained. "I haven't said anything because I wanted it to be a surprise."

"So you're going to keep an eye on him?" Kouji asked.

"Yeah. And if I don't notice anything wrong at school, that's when he have to worry about the worst possibility then it having to do with something at school."

Kouji realized the implications and hoped it wasn't the worse case scenario. "Oh yeah you're finally allowed to leave the house, everyone is meeting up at the park on Saturday, so I'll come by so we can both go together."

"Alright, see you Saturday then." That left Kouichi two days to get ready to see everyone again. They visited him when he was in the hospital, but they haven't been able to visit him in his own home due to homework. Takuya was the only one that lived close enough to visit when he wanted, but it was Kouji who visited him weekly.

Saturday was going to be long day.