Frontiers Unexplored

32) Bound by Steel

Garummon was charging towards Velgemon before the Warrior of Light could even begin to consider what was happening. His fangs were bared, and there was little coherence to his thought process. He just wanted the battle to be over, and the only way to do that was to fend Velgemon off. His mind was spinning with anticipation over the battle against his opposite. The sudden arrival of his Beast Spirit had certainly caught him by surprise, and despite the adrenaline rushing through his body like a tidal wave over a sandy shore, he was exhausted. He was still feeling the pain of his first encounter against Duskmon that day, and he wanted to block out the world for just a while longer. He needed desperately to have a moment to himself to think all of this over, and yet, the universe had decided not to provide him with that. Just his fucking luck. 

Garummon had never been the type to downplay the breakdowns that could be caused by the arrival of a Beast Spirit, and he was glad that he hadn't been foolish enough to ignore what they were capable of. He could barely bring himself to focus, and he was only concentrating on the fight at hand by zeroing in on Velgemon's feathered form. If he finished the fight, he would be able to enjoy the luxury of relaxation. Until then, he was going to have to stay focused. Everyone else was exhausted too, and they needed him if they were going to win. 

Still, Garummon's focus was nowhere near being strong enough to keep him from giving in to his own memories. He could barely tell the difference between what was real and imagined, and he felt as if he was leaving the ground despite knowing that he was still rooted in the dust below. A familiar picture danced behind his eyes, and Garummon had to resist the urge to glare at the brutality of his own reminiscence. 

The woman in the photo on his desk had black hair and a ponytail just above the back of her neck. Her smile was kind, and her eyes were as blue as sapphires, as pure as the ocean and as loving as any mother ought to be. It was because of her hairstyle in that photo that Koji had chosen to wear his hair in a ponytail so often. It helped him to feel as if he was connected to her even if she was gone. 

His mother had died in a car accident when he was too young to remember her. Years ago, he had found the photograph by luck, realizing that his father had been hiding it from him. Kousei Minamoto was a stubborn man, and he was all too fast to move on from the loss of his wife. He seemed almost glad to welcome another woman into his life even as his son grieved for the mother that he never had the chance to know. Koji clung to the photo on his worst of days, staring at the woman's face and the way that his reflection matched up so perfectly with her features, but he always frowned with haunted eyes while she smiled back with a brightened gaze. He always shut his eyes when he realized the differences between them, and he imagined what it would feel like to have someone tenderly stroke through his hair the way that he believed a parent would have done for their struggling child. 

But then Satomi had entered the picture. Kousei and Koji had never gotten along as well as a father and son should have, but Satomi had only strained their relationship further. Koji wondered how his father was able to get over his deceased lover so easily, and Kousei told him that it was all in the past. Satomi was their present, and she was going to be watching over Koji as his stepmother from then on out. Koji could still remember the pure anger that had rushed through him that day. His father had some fucking nerve to imply that his mother, the person he missed most in the world, was someone he could simply move on from. Kousei was being greedy, and Koji wouldn't let him forget it. 

It seemed like each time the two spoke to each other, it ended in an argument. Their words were always filled with poison, Kousei's a result of worsening depression that only seemed to ease when Satomi appeared while Koji's were caused by the mere idea that he could move past the death of someone he hadn't been allowed to grieve for in the first place. Spiteful sentences were spat out like they were made of acid, eroding away at what little common ground the two had left. Kousei buried himself in work and Satomi to avoid having to confront how damaged his relationship with his son was, and Koji devoted his time to slashing a weapon through the air in kendo practice to release some of the anger that had mounted deep inside him.