A/N: Written for the Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Showing BlackAgumon Who's Boss task: write about a person confronted about their character. Also written for the Digimon Bingo: the Non-Flash Version, #036 - character: Fujieda Yoshino.
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Fleeing
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Why are you running away, Yoshino?
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She slams the door to her room and locks it. Her mother gently knocks. Not loud; it won't be unladylike to make such noise after all.
No that Yoshino cares. Her slamming the door is an immediate and quickly-fading testament of that.
And refusing to open the door is testament of her stubbornness.
She won't cave to her mother's sweet but distant voice.
'Yoshino, please –'
No-one gets what they wanted by saying please.
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Then what do you really want to be, Yoshino?
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She sings quietly, when there is nobody to hear her, and nobody to criticise.
When they are all there, she'll glare and keep her mouth stubbornly shut.
Especially after that disastrous piano recital.
She does want to play. And sing. And create music her parents and sisters will be proud of but she can't. She isn't careful enough. Gentle enough. Maybe she isn't even musical enough.
But she does want to sing in her own way, away from the stage, away from the lights.
In the darkness of the night in her own room.
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Why won't you talk, Yoshino?
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They have screaming matches all too frequently. She and her teachers. She and her sisters. She and her mother. They clash about too many things.
No-one understands her. No matter how hard she tries to explain. Tempers are too high. Proverbial flames licking her skin, making her sweat and stamp her feet and keep moving, always moving, even if she isn't getting anywhere.
Their shouting matches never get anywhere either.
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Don't you want to succeed, Yoshino?
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They don't believe in her. They only criticise. When she failed at what they wanted for the last time they criticise the only things left: her appearance, her choices and the few things she can't escape. Duties of a daughter, of the youngest daughter. Duties of a child – school and such. Her too red hair that always gets splinters too fast. Her grades. Her subject and friend choices.
Considering she's made friends with an aspiring musician, she'd thought they'd be a little happier on that front. But no.
They don't believe in her. And they aren't satisfied.
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Don't you have a dream, Yoshino?
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Once, she had wanted to twirl on the stage with all of them. To belong there. To shine like the moon in the sky amongst the stars.
Instead, she is just a black spot in black canvas, forgotten in the sparkles of the stars. She can't been even be a tiny little star.
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Don't you want to shine, Yoshino?
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She gets dirty far too much. It isn't worth trying to be clean. That is just a pretence. The perfect little lady she isn't, that she'll never be. And she doesn't want to be.
It's fine being dirty. Being the girl that comes home from the playground with scrapes and bruises and dirt under her fingernails. Because it's too unladylike for the rest of her family. Or too unmanly for her dad, she supposes.
She can be unique that way. And feel like she's accomplishing something.
Even if all she really accomplishes is feeling messy and grimy in front of her sparkling sisters.
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Isn't there something you want to be, Yoshino?
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She decides she'll be a police officer. It's a good choice of job because her sisters hate the sight of blood and she doesn't mind it. And she gets to do something with her life. People will remember her as the sort of person who does something with her life, instead of the face that just look pretty on a stage like her sisters.
And, if her parents had had the sort of child they'd wanted, like her.
So she'll be a police officer, because that's the best sort of job she can throw in their face…aside from being a surgeon, but she hasn't got the marks to be a surgeon. Or perhaps a coroner – but she doesn't think she has the stomach to be a coroner.
It's a non-issue with surgery, considering the mark barrier.
Her sisters can probably get into medicine if they try.
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Why don't you try, Yoshino?
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She does try, initially. That is before she failed for the umpteenth time. Before she gives up on the expectations her parents hold for her because it hurts too much to fail and keep on failing, especially in front of her oh so perfect sisters that hardly ever fail.
So she stops trying in front of them.
And, in the darkness of her room, there's no-one to prove anything to but herself.
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Why, Yoshino?
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She leaves home at sixteen. Moves in with a friend until she's working and she's got enough to rent a little studio room. Then she lives at home. As a trainee in the police force, then a special agent once she's drafted.
The Data Squad. Or DATS. That's what they call it and, here, she's the star of the show. She's the one who goes out on fields because everybody else is too busy putting their brains to good use. Sometimes Thomas comes along as well, but usually he leaves it to her. She's competent. And she loves the feeling of being competent.
She's free, she's her own person and there's only a small part of her that regrets.
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Are you still singing, Yoshino?
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Now her bedroom is her whole house, in a sense, and there's Lalamon there to boot. But Lalamon is nice. Her partner. Her friend.
And absolutely nothing like her sisters, which is always a plus.
So Lalamon hears her singing. Hears the lullabies in the shower, the hums when hanging clothes out to dry. The vocals she still practises, even though there's not much of a reason to.
Except the once in a blue moon when she calls her mother and she asks if she's still practising.
Though she's so far away now it doesn't really matter if her answer is yes or no.
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Don't you care about us anymore, Yoshino?
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She should go see them more often. She knows that. But she doesn't want to. Even if she does miss them. Even though it's sad to see them only on screens, sparkling so bright she's sure no-one else sees the people they are underneath.
Then again, she's got a uniform too. Unique in pink so those she see remembers her name or her uniform. And she's got a close knit team. So it's not the same. She's got a nice job now. Company car too. And a small studio that does just fine for her and Lalamon.
Though she does get saddled with the odd jobs sometimes. Like babysitting Marcus Daimon and Raptor-1.
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Won't you come visit, Yoshino?
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She will, she decides. This holiday, or that one. And then finally she has to call at the very least because the thought that she might never see them again suddenly hits home.
Well, two words will be destroyed if they fail, so it's a good time, she thinks. Though she's put it off for long enough as well.
But there's no time to visit right then. So she'll have to wait.
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Are you…doing okay, Yoshino?
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She knows her parents, her sisters, her teachers – they'd have expected her to run way from this hurdle. But she doesn't. She can't. Not only has she formed bonds that mean far too much to her, she's become stronger and she knows this is one hurdle she can't afford to back away from.
So she doesn't, and the next hurdle that awaits her should be a walk in the park.
Provided she starts walking.
She does, eventually. She knocks on the door to her parents' home. Her old home. Her sisters aren't there, she knows. They're married. One even has a child. They didn't call her. But she can't blame them. She hasn't called them either.
Her parents are easier, because she has to call them. They're her parents. And they call her from time to time as well.
And it's easier to accept the almost frail embrace from her mother after all those years. And answer her questions. Say she's happy. Say she's gotten stronger. Say she's not running from anything.
Though her parents don't ask. Because they can see that for themselves.
And they can accept she's not the painted doll her sisters are, because she's made something of herself and she's stopped running.
And she can sit down and, finally, talk.
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Are you happy now, Yoshino?
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It's a load off her chest after she's visited her parents, but there's a bit more left. Her sisters. Who still can't understand why she likes the life she has but can listen, just like she can explain.
She hadn't been able to explain before because she'd been too defensive. Because she had, in effect, been running away.
But she's not running away now, so she can close all those poorly bookmarked pages.