Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Digimon Adventure 02
Title: What The Digital World Is For: Chapter 5: Return
Romance: Ken x Daisuke/Daisuke x Ken
Word Count: chapter: 6,137||story: 30,759
Genre: Romance, Drama||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Written for the 2014 Advent Calendar Challenge, day #6; Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, section J, #2, a multichapter with no more than five chapters
Summary: [5/5 chapters, Ken x Daisuke/Daisuke x Ken, 2014 Advent Calendar Challenge; Diversity Writing Challenge] The Digital World is made up of data from Earth. Humans have a lot of data about...

It had happened. No matter how much Ken tried to convince himself that it hadn't, to forget that it had ever happened at all, he was never entirely successful. And he did try. He focused all of his energies first and foremost on completing his conquest of the Digital World and the creation of his very special, very own Digimon.

That didn't get him any farther in forgetting what Daisuke's lips tasted like or what the cinnamon haired boy felt like so close to him than it did in anything else.

But he refused to talk about it. He could do that much. And as the days turned into weeks and weeks into months and months into years, he found a nice quiet corner of the very back of his mind to set the memories on and there he put them, letting dust cover them.

It might've happened, he told himself, but clearly Daisuke didn't want to remember it, because he never talked about it. He never acted in any way as if Ken had ever done anything like kiss him.

Sometimes he wondered if Daisuke had forgotten it even more thoroughly than he had. Moments passed where he wanted to bring it up, to ask if Daisuke could ever possibly forgive him. He tended to assume Daisuke had, as he'd forgiven him everything else.

The first time he stayed at the Motomiya apartment overnight, he woke in the middle of the night, and laid there for what seemed ages to his senses, staring at Daisuke as he slept.

In particular, his gaze lingered on Daisuke's lips. He could still feel them underneath his, and even more so now, when they were so close together. It was almost as intoxicating as being able to feel Daisuke's heartbeat in tandem with his own.

He bit his lip and turned away. He needed to behave himself. He needed to be a good friend. He'd stolen kisses once from Daisuke. If events hadn't fallen out as they had, he might've stolen much more.

Ken no longer deluded himself in any way that he could either forget what happened or that it had happened at all. Or what had happened. That sweet fragrance had affected him far more than it ever had Daisuke, and for reasons he still only could begin to fathom, he'd been drawn to his then-enemy, as surely as he'd ever been drawn to anyone in his entire life.

He stared at the far side of the room, so very aware of every breath Daisuke took. He knew Chibimon and Leafmon were there, but while he loved Leafmon deeply, all of his senses focused far more on Daisuke.

I am never, ever going to do that again. He'd come so far already from being the Kaiser. He wouldn't backslide. He wouldn't do anything but move forward.

No matter how much it hurt. No matter how much a part of him ached to simply roll over, pin Daisuke underneath him, and go where he hadn't that day.

No. He. Would. Not.

But oh, how he wanted to.

Perhaps matters could've stayed that way, with neither Ken nor Daisuke bringing up what had happened on that long-ago day. Ken wanted them to. For so far as he knew, Daisuke wanted the same thing. None of the other Chosen so much as breathed a word either, and Ken realized day by day how profoundly grateful he was for that.

But not everything always goes as one plans it. Even years after the defeat of BelialVamdemon and Oikawa's sacrifice, there were visits that needed to be made to the Digital World. Not so much for repairs anymore, but to keep an eye on those Digimon who liked to cause trouble. There weren't so many of them as there once had been, but so far as Daisuke was concerned, it was better to nip the ones that were in the bud. Or at least to let them know that someone was watching them.

"So what's the issue this time?" Ken asked, eyes flicking from the laptop screen in front of them to the storm raging outside. This wasn't optimal weather to go to the Digital World, but he had little else to do with his time at the moment. He'd finished all of his college assignments and his workplace didn't need his help at the moment. So he was left at loose ends.

Daisuke, it seemed, had a use he could put those loose ends to.

"It's a Minotaurmon. At least that's what Jun's Elecmon told me." Daisuke made a face; even after all this time, he was clearly still not yet able to wrap his head around his sister having a partner and being one of the Chosen. Ken couldn't blame him. But Jun and Elecmon were a good pair, regardless, and if Elecmon said there was trouble, then there was trouble.

He glanced at Wormmon, resting on his table. "Then I supposed we'd better get there and make sure nothing's going on."

Daisuke nodded, pulling out his D-3. V-mon prodded at Wormmon, who lifted his head from his quasi-nap. "I'm ready!" He also yawned halfway through the sentence.

Ken could not help a smile at the sight of his partner. Wormmon, too, seemed pledged to the same silence as everyone else. And Ken was just as grateful for that as he was for all the others. Best to leave this in the past and let that place be forgotten.

Thunder crashed outside, bolts of lightning arcing across the sky in a blue-white haze. Daisuke glanced there, a hint of worry in his eyes.

"Let's go before this gets really bad."

None of them had ever tried to go through the gate when a storm like this raged. There'd never been a pressing enough need. Ken wasn't sure if this one was now. But so far as he knew, their passage shouldn't be bothered by it.

It wasn't. All four of them ended up on the other side as they usually did. It was just where the other side was that jolted an alarm through Ken.

"Is this - " He broke off before he could finish the question. Alluding to the fact that they both knew this place would go against that unspoken, unacknowledged vow of silence.

But he recognized it, and from the sudden widening of Daisuke's eyes, so did he. In all of these passing years, and even with a reformatting of the Digital World, the place hadn't changed. If anything, it had grown more beautiful and more luxurious. The scent of sweet flowers filled the air, and Ken's hand flew up to cover his nostrils at once. The last thing he needed was to lose his head again. And in a far worse way this time.

"I didn't think I'd ever come here again," Daisuke murmured, staring around as if he hadn't ever seen it before.

Ken ignored that, whirling around to look at the transport television behind them. They needed to go back, and the sooner the better.

But the screen behind them now reflected only darkness. He paled even more, reaching to fiddle with the controls, his heart sinking more and more with every passing second. This could not be happening.

"Ken?" Wormmon wriggled up, setting a paw on his hand. "Ken, what is it?"

"This won't turn on." He swallowed. Only one thing he knew of would do that. "I think the power is out back home." That wasn't so bad normally. It had happened before, with power outages of other kinds. They normally either found another television or just waited for the one they'd traveled through to turn back on. But that wasn't an outcome that Ken wanted. Not today when they'd landed here.

Daisuke moved closer, staring down at it. "Where's the nearest one at?" He didn't sound any more eager to be here than Ken was, and Ken framed a mental prayer of thanksgiving for that.

"I'm not sure." He frowned harder, trying to remember. It had been so long ago and he'd fought so hard to forget everything to do with this place, not just how Daisuke had felt pressed against him.

Only being here again stirred up all of those far too pleasant memories, and not the ones that he really wanted. "We should get out of here."

Daisuke nodded, looking all around. "I... don't remember this place all that well. Which way is out?"

Ken settled back on his heels, pushing strands of sweat-soaked hair out of his face. "I don't remember either." Time for a small confession. Not a true acknowledgment, but just a tiny admittance. "I haven't wanted to remember being here in a long time."

He could see Wormmon staring at him, concern in those large, soft blue eyes, and he could only imagine the look Daisuke was giving him. He didn't want to see it in person, so he kept staring at the ground. The ground, covered in soft grasses, and flowers that gave off that unbelievable scent.

"I think it's different from how it used to be," V-mon supplied after a few tense moments. "It didn't look quite this way before."

Ken glanced around again and could only agree with a small, tight nod. While he recognized the general outlay of the valley and the mountains surrounding it, all the important details that would've helped to find their way out either weren't there or were entirely different somehow. There were no guarantees that whatever route they chose would lead them out, or that there were any transport televisions anywhere near.

In other words, their best shot at getting out of there was to stay right where they were until the one here came back on.

Whenever that was.

Daisuke fidgeted. "You know, when Koushirou-san told us that we should only come here with a very good friend, this really wasn't what I had in mind." He rubbed the back of his head, his cheeks tinged a faint red. Ken glanced up only long enough to notice that, then tucked his head right back down.

"Oh?" He kept his voice calm. He was going to get through this. They would both get through this, no matter what it took. Perhaps a distance of five or ten feet from Daisuke would suffice? They were too close right now. He could almost feel the other's body heat.

Or that was his own body heat, rising. He wasn't certain and now didn't seem like the right time to check.

Daisuke nodded, as if not noticing anything unusual at all. "Back when we first found this place." Ken wanted to not notice his body language. He could've sooner not noticed air. Daisuke was... was... not bothered by this place? Didn't even have a hair out of place?

Again? Ken wanted to scream the word out and kept it sealed behind his teeth. Why did the universe see fit to torture him so? Was it fun to see him stress and strain like this?

"I try not to think about that." Ken wanted to be proud of how level his voice was. Not so much as a shred of a shake. He was being so good.

Daisuke didn't say anything for what seemed to be the longest time. Ken normally liked to listen to him chatter, letting that voice flow over him like the waters of a stream. Today he preferred the opposite. Silence was good. Silence meant that nothing was happening, and he didn't want anything to happen.

"So do I, most of the time," Daisuke finally said, and Ken could've killed him for breaking the silence. And he kept on doing it. "It's weird, you know. I never thought my first kiss would be with you. I mean, the way you were." He laughed a little, rubbing the back of his head, and Ken cursed the shadows he could see so clearly for telling him this. "Well, I guess you know what I mean."

Ken forced his eyes away. Good. He was going to be so good they'd probably grant him a halo or something while he was still alive. "Yes. I didn't expect that either." Polite conversation. This was going to work.

He swallowed a little. He wanted to say something about it, now that he considered the matter a little more. Something that he knew he should've said years ago, but with how everyone refused to talk about it, including himself, he hadn't. Maybe there really was some higher power at work here, putting him into a place where he could finally say it.

"Daisuke. About that. About what I did." He couldn't yet bring himself to lift his eyes and look at Daisuke when he said this. He hoped that Daisuke wouldn't want him to. "I'm sorry. Of everything I did, that was at least one of the worst." He ranked it somewhere around third, himself. First was being such an idiot in the first place. Second was what he did to Agumon.

But this held a strong third, and if it had gone much farther, it likely would've taken second place.

Daisuke didn't say anything. Ken decided that until further notice, he would take that as a good sign. At least here and now, in this place and with however much acknowledgment as they were going to give it, he hadn't lost his temper. Ken respected that.

Then, without warning, Daisuke's hand rested on his shoulder, so very warm and pulsing with life. Ken had to fight back every urge to moan from it. Was it the flowers again? That scent, so strong and rich in his nostrils, wanted to overwhelm everything in his head. He clenched his fists in the dirt beneath him and reminded himself that breathing in wasn't a good idea, not here. The less of the fragrance he had in his system, the better.

"Ken, I forgave you for that a long time ago. It wasn't really your fault. You know how these things mess with people. We told you that then, anyway. It's kinda like you... had too much to drink but you didn't know it."

Ken nodded. Good. It was good enough. But before he could stop himself, another question fell out of his mouth. "So, why were you the designated driver that day?" It wasn't the best metaphor but it got the job done.

Again Daisuke didn't say anything right away. When he did, what he said wasn't what Ken had quite expected. "Koushirou-san said that I'm immune to these things. It's pretty rare. So I could stand here all day and they wouldn't do anything to me."

Ken blinked once. Twice. Then again. "You're immune?" That had never occurred to him. All of his genius all those years ago and the simple fact of an immunity had never crossed his mind. He'd been so furious, trying to find a way to get Daisuke to react, and had only made matters worse for himself, and it would've never worked.

"That's right." Daisuke moved over to a rock in front of Ken and settled down on it, apparently wanting to look Ken in the eyes.

"We're going to explore some," V-mon said, nudging Wormmon along. "We should be all right, shouldn't we?"

Daisuke nodded and Ken agreed. At their evolution level, the aroma of the flowers would at most put them to sleep. And if it did anything else, better that they had privacy, assuming they were both amenable to it.

Neither he nor Daisuke said anything at all until their partners were out of the way. Ken still turned over this newest revelation in his mind, that Daisuke was immune to the effects of these plants. He hadn't yet made up his mind on what to think about that. What could he think? That he'd been so foolish as to presume such a thing could not exist? To not even consider it, even and especially when Daisuke had shown no signs of being affected?

For all of his genius back then, Ken realized slowly and thoroughly, he had still been an utter idiot.

Daisuke brushed his fingers against Ken's knee and Ken jerked back, not having expected it, still mostly caught up in his own thoughts. Daisuke stared at him.

"Ken? Are you all right?" Brown eyes widened suddenly. "Oh, man. You're not immune, are you?"

Oh. That had not even occurred to Ken, and he felt it should have. That was what had caused everything to go so horribly wrong that time as well. He slowly shook his head. "We need to get out of here." He did not need to explain why. He didn't think he'd lose his head entirely; the scent only encouraged, it did not force, so far as he recalled that long ago research. But it encouraged so sweetly that no one ever tried to resist it, which meant he honestly did not know if there was a difference.

Daisuke didn't move, however. He just looked at Ken, biting his lower lip, a thoughtful sort of expression in his eyes that Ken could not read at all.

"This is going to sound really weird, but do we have to?"

Ken decided at once that he should run his own tests on Daisuke somehow to figure out if he really was immune. Because why else would he even ask such a question? It made no sense at all.

"Of course we do. We don't want anything to happen." Was he blushing? Ken was almost certain he could feel his cheeks flaming. "We need to get home." That Minotaurmon could be dealt with another day. They would have to pin him down more thoroughly than he was now, though, so something like this didn't happen again.

Daisuke still didn't move. If anything, he just stared at Ken more. Normally he was completely open, not leaving a single doubt as to what was going through his mind. But now Ken couldn't read him at all, and that made him more than a little worried.

"I guess." He didn't sound all that convinced about it himself. "But Ken, I was wondering..." Daisuke wasn't fidgeting, but he did look suddenly so bothered by something. "I was wondering if you'd want to kiss me again. Different, though. I mean, if you wanted to. Because I think I'd like to. This time. Not like last time."

It took Ken a few moments to process all of that. No one had ever accused Daisuke of being eloquent when it came to his heart, after all. But the important part came clear. "You want to kiss me? You want me to kiss you?"

"Pretty sure that's what I said," Daisuke replied, and Ken tilted his head up enough to spy a very amused grin on his friend's face. For a moment he thought Daisuke would launch into a speech about how it didn't have to mean anything, maybe he just wanted to know the difference between kissing under the influence and kissing with mutual agreement, and Ken had to admit that the thought kind of intrigued him as well, perhaps more than it should.

Perhaps a lot more than it should, because his eyes grazed the line of Daisuke's lips, and he remembered with absolute vividness how they'd felt underneath his own, and he wondered more than ever what they would feel like now, when they both had years of growth behind them and they weren't dictator and enemy anymore.

They were friends now. Friends could kiss friends and it would be all right, couldn't they? It didn't have to mean anything beyond...testing the waters?

Ken drew in a breath. He knew that he should say no. Every fiber of his being screamed to say yes, while his intellect told him to back off, this was such a bad idea, it would change things, and he didn't want them to change, did he? He didn't want to lose Daisuke as a friend if everything somehow collapsed on him. And it would, wouldn't it? It didn't happen every time, but it had happened before.

I lost everything because of that stupid Spore. And none of that was anything I wanted in the first place. Resolve burned unexpectedly bright, eliminating the doubts. At least most of them. He couldn't help but wonder and doubt a little about what might happen next. It was only natural. Only human.

But he would never know what could happen next if he didn't do it, could he? If they didn't do it.

"If you're sure." The words fell almost shyly from him and perhaps he still couldn't have done it, and it might have fallen away to nothing.

Might have, but Daisuke was having none of that, and he leaned forward, resting one hand on Ken's shoulder, and set their lips together.

He kissed Ken.

Ken closed his eyes and kissed back.

He could not even begin to list the differences, halfway because there were so many of them and halfway because his mind closed down and he could barely remember his own name, let alone Daisuke's, and even less what had changed in those intervening years.

He tilted his head back, breathing through his nose, his heart pounding as if he'd just run the most intense race of his life. Daisuke's lips followed his own, not letting a breath of space exist between them for more than a few seconds. Again their lips pressed together and now Ken felt Daisuke's tongue touching the seam of his lips, questing curiously.

Without thinking about, because thinking didn't seem to do anything but get him into all kinds of trouble, he opened his mouth and let Daisuke inside.

Daisuke had kissed a couple of people since that time with Ken all those years earlier. He'd traded a few with Hikari, but while that had been very good, the bar had been set high by his first one. He'd tried kissing a couple of guys, just to see if that was the difference, or maybe kissing because they wanted to and not thanks to some plants.

It wasn't. None of the kisses were bad in any way, and after a while, he figured out that they were all good in their own way as well. But the time with Ken stuck in the back of his head, no matter how much he tried not to think about it. He wasn't nearly as successful as he would've liked to be, either.

Still, he'd managed to push it down enough to not just forgive Ken, but to hang out with him without bringing to mind that time and everything that had happened. So far as he could tell Ken either didn't remember it - it was hard to tell what he remembered and what he didn't about being the Kaiser sometimes - or he still didn't want to talk about it. Daisuke wasn't going to push him about it.

So finding himself here, in a place where he'd never thought he'd be again, much less with Ken, sent his mind down a road he'd never given that much thought to. Being immune to the fragrance made him more than aware that what he wanted was something he really wanted. Maybe it would get rid of those niggling questions on the edges of his mind.

Maybe it would help Ken, too. It wasn't a bad idea. At least he didn't think it was.

Though frankly the look on Ken's face when he'd brought it up made Daisuke wish he had a camera with him, and could take the picture without Ken getting mad at him.

Aside from that, he figured out one thing very fast: he liked kissing Ken. There was an aroma in his nostrils that could only be Ken, and he liked it. It wasn't like the flowers. This was somehow softer and more... more Ken. Daisuke wasn't the writer in the bunch; he didn't worry about how to describe things. It was just Ken. What else could he say about it?

He prodded at Ken's lips, recalling having done this when he'd kissed Taichi. Taichi was a really good kisser and he'd taught Daisuke a lot. So now Daisuke did what he could to put those lessons to use.

He kind of thought Taichi expected this sooner or later. He'd given Daisuke a few looks once in a while, usually whenever he and Ken had done something together. Which really meant that once they got out of here, he would probably end up telling Taichi about this.

Oh, that was going to be fun.

Then again, if he were going to do this, then he should probably have something to tell Taichi aside from 'we kissed and it was really, really awesome'. Even though it was.

Ken tasted good; Daisuke not only figured that out very quickly, but decided he needed to make absolutely certain of it, and so kept on licking at his teeth and tongue and lips. Ken's own tongue pushed back at him, not quite nervously, and with slowly growing confidence as they grew more used to doing this. Daisuke opened his mouth farther, wanting to feel Ken's tongue in there, and shivering all over as he did.

This was so much different and better than the first time had been. Daisuke gave himself over entirely to enjoying all of it, the feel of Ken's lips on his, the way he could hear Ken's stuttering, sharp breathing, his own efforts at drawing in air which somehow didn't seem to completely fill his lungs, but he didn't care one bit, not with how close he was to Ken. That made up for everything.

One hand rested against Ken's chest for a few seconds before he started to move his fingers underneath it, caught up in heat as he'd never been before, and wanting to do more than kiss. Though part of him knew he'd be satisfied doing that alone for the rest of eternity if that was what Ken would agree to.

Ken's hand closed around his wrist and Daisuke looked up into somewhat wide violet eyes.

"Ken?" Their heads now were just far enough apart so that they could speak, though he was certain Ken could feel his breath on his lips. He knew when Ken answered he could feel Ken's.

"Daisuke...you're... what..." Apparently all of Ken's brain cells weren't in full operating mode. That was fine with Daisuke. His weren't entirely functioning either.

He swallowed some, however, as more of them clicked back into the proper on position. "Ken?" Well, they weren't all working right just yet. He would work through this.

"I think...moving fast?" It still wasn't a full sentence, but it got the message across at least. Daisuke hated to pull away from Ken. He was so warm and Daisuke liked that warmth. It made him feel even warmer inside, in a way he never could remember being properly with anyone else. It had happened with them, just not like this.

"Oh." Daisuke tried not to let any disappointment show. Ken was probably right. Shouldn't they do something else? Dinner and a movie? Wasn't that what people normally did?

On the other hand, they weren't going to get out of here until the power could be fixed and if Daisuke remembered the weather report, that might not be for another few hours, thanks to that storm. Which meant they would be stuck here in a place that would stir up every desire Ken had ever had and gently incline him to act on those desires.

And Daisuke wouldn't be affected by it at all. There were words for that kind of thing and they weren't ones that Daisuke wanted Ken thinking at all. So either they found a way to leave the area, which at least had the advantage of being relatively protected, or they found a way to deal with this.

Still, Ken didn't seem to be suffering from anything he couldn't control at the moment. A few drops of sweat decorated his forehead, but that was it, and Ken raised one hand to rub them off as he caught his breath.

"We should get out of here. I think it's affecting our judgment."

Daisuke frowned. "Are you sure?" He felt much as he had when he'd been here the first time, which meant he wasn't feeling any different from he usually did.

"I know it's affecting mine," Ken muttered, his eyes sliding away from Daisuke. He started to get up, but Daisuke wouldn't let him go, leaning in closer.

"Ken, I didn't ask to kiss you because of this place. I can't, remember?" He caught Ken's fingers in his, not trying to keep him, but wanting to feel their fingers touching. "I asked because I wanted to kiss you."

Ken's eyes darted toward him for a moment, then away again. "Daisuke..." He didn't seem to know what else to say. Daisuke found words for him.

"If that's what you want, we can get out of here. We can find the Digimon and they can show us the way out if we evolve them." Before Ken could say yes or no to this, Daisuke kept on going. "And then when you know that your head is screwed on right, we can kiss some more."

He could almost see the lights going off in Ken's head again. Or maybe turning on. He couldn't be entirely sure, but the whole idea had clearly never occurred to Ken at all, that they could try this somewhere else and see what it was like then.

"You'd do that?" Ken's voice remained little more than a small whisper filled with wonder and disbelief.

Daisuke pressed Ken's hands in between his own, enjoying the feel of their slim strength. "Ken, there's not a whole lot I wouldn't do for you." He couldn't think of too much anyway. There probably were things, but they were likely things Ken wouldn't ask of him in the first place.

But what Daisuke knew he really wanted was to prove to Ken that he didn't just want to do everything with him because of the aroma here, and that he was willing to wait until Ken wasn't affected by it either. He didn't know everything they would do or might do, but he wanted them to do it because it was something they both wanted to do, not because of some funny flowers that existed because humans did way too much of this kind of thing in the first place, enough so that it created an entire area for it in the Digital World.

Though Daisuke truly tried not to think about that, even though he failed a lot at it. Hormones dictated otherwise and Daisuke listened to those a lot more than he really wanted to let on that he did.

Ken slowly pulled himself to his feet and this time Daisuke let him, also getting up. Truth to be told, if they were going to make out at all, he didn't want it to be on a couple of hard rocks. Especially not when there were so many soft meadows not all that far away. Not to mention that Ken's own apartment wasn't that far away, if they could ever get to it, and he knew for a fact Ken's couch was one of the most comfortable he'd ever sat on in his entire life.

Ken had never wanted to see Wormmon this badly in his life. He had no idea of how long it would take the fragrance and what it caused to cease affecting his reactions, but he wanted it to be fast, and maybe a quick flight where the air was chillier would help. Anything so long as it cooled the heat in his blood.

Maybe it would also help him get a grip on everything that had just happened. Daisuke kissed him. He could get his head around that. What he was having a few troubles coming to grips with was that both of them clearly enjoyed it as much as he had.

For that matter, the fact Daisuke wanted to go farther than that was more than a little surprising. The thought of how Daisuke's fingers felt against his skin, questing and curious, callused and strong, sent a very different kind of chill through him. The kind that made him remember that he wasn't entirely in his right mind in this place and if he wanted to stay Daisuke's friend - which he did, so very much - then it would be so much better if they found somewhere else to be.

Exactly where he didn't know yet but anywhere that didn't involve a place where his thinking was impaired would be great. Then he would know that whatever happened, happened because they both really did want it.

Daisuke did want him. Ken couldn't deny it. And stirring slowly in parts of himself he'd tried to pretend didn't exist for years was the knowledge that he wanted Daisuke. That he wanted him all this time and kept himself from admitting it because of what happened here.

Perhaps, he thought as he and Daisuke tromped in search of their partners, it was time to let that go as well. Daisuke didn't blame him. Daisuke didn't hate him. Daisuke was more than willing to see what they could end up doing together.

He wasn't at all surprised to find V-mon and Wormmon curled up together, tucked in the shade of the very same bush that he'd tried to use that time to shame Daisuke. Sometimes the world worked in ways so mysterious no one could understand it. Sometimes it was as if the world took a thorough pleasure in smacking someone - usually him - upside the face with a clear message. And right here and now, that message was 'you love Daisuke'.

Arguing about it with himself hadn't gotten him anywhere. So maybe admitting it and getting on with it would.

Finding a place to rest outside of the valley wasn't as hard as either of them had feared. Nor was getting out of there, not once Stingmon could take a look around and see which way led out.

A small fire crackled next to the two of them, holding back the light night's chill. Daisuke leaned with his arm around Ken, running his fingers through strands of rich blue hair. Their hearts still beat in tandem, Ken had long ago realized, and he enjoyed hearing Daisuke's going thump thump in time with his own.

"When do you want to..." Ken wasn't certain how to finish the sentence. At least he didn't have to. Daisuke knew what he was thinking about. Ken didn't doubt at all that Daisuke's thoughts flowed in the same direction.

"Now probably isn't a good time." Ken knew without having to look that Daisuke was looking over at where their partners now rested, as comfortable against one another as the two of them were themselves. He wasn't going to argue with that. As much as he cared about Wormmon, having a full out make out session with Daisuke while either Wormmon or V-mon were in the area didn't do much for him. It would almost be like having a brother watch him.

He really didn't need to think about what Osamu would've thought about all of this.

More than that, he didn't need to think about what Jun would have to say about this. Now there was a thought fit to splash metaphorical cold water on everything. It wasn't one he intended to share with Daisuke.

"Right." Ken breathed a long breath. "So, um, when we get home?" They could send the Digimon to stay with one of the others, maybe, and then...

Daisuke moved closer and Ken lost the trail of his thoughts at how close he was. "You know, now that I think about it, I saw a little clearing in those woods over there." He jerked his head over to a copse not that far away. "I think there's one of those ... what did Taichi-san call them... you know, the trees where no one can see you when you're it?"

Ken nodded, remembering having come across those during his explorations of the Digital World. It would be a good place to have some private time. Their partners would be fine here. Hand in hand, the two of them headed there with quiet steps.

A short while later, a low moan of deep pleasure floated by on the wind. Wormmon cracked one eye open, then nudged V-mon. The blue Digimon yawned and curled closer to him. "What?"

"I win our bet."

The End