His arm was itching terribly, but he tried to hide it around his friends. He had long sleeves covering the itch.

The pain went away the first few days, and the last two it had been itching badly. However, it was something he didn't want the others to notice. It's not like he hadn't hidden something like this before.

The group was going on a picnic to the digital world, and he was excited to see his friends again, as they had all been busy with finals the past few weeks.

His partner, Wormmon, was also excited, as he had been cooped up in Ken's room for 3 weeks straight and he was getting bored with the stories and videos online.

"Hi guys," Ken said walking up to his friends.

"Hey Ken!" Davis exclaimed.

He helped put out the food that Yolei brought, and they all gathered in a circle and started eating. Of course the Digimon ate more.
"This is my favorite!" Veemon said about a riceball.

"I'm particularly fond of this chocolate," replied Armadillomon.

The group laughed and caught up, talking about their finals and their plans for the summer.

Ken tried his best to get the spot to stop itching. He tensed up and tried to hide the scratching.

Eventually, his friend Kari noticed. When they were cleaning up the picnic, she pulled him to the side.

"What's wrong with your arm?" She asked kindly.

"What are you talking about?" Ken said nonchalantly.

"You keep scratching it and tensing up. Come on, you can talk to me," she offered.

Ken sighed, knowing he could not hide anything from Kari. She was one of his closer digidestined friends, who he knew he should confide in.

"Stay after the group leaves, and we can talk," he gave in. The group finished packing and started to head out.

"Come on Kari," TK called toward his best friend.

"It's ok TK, I'm going to go visit Agumon!" She fibbed.

"Are you coming Ken?" Davis asked.

"I promised Wormmon we'd go to primary village," he said.

Wormmon went along with it, "Yes, I love to visit the babies."

"Alright guys, we'll see you later!" Yolei said as she went through the computer.

"Bye!" Cody yelled.

Once the group was gone, Ken turned away from Kari, a little too scared to admit what was going on. Wormmon and Gatomon went off and talked so Kari and Ken could talk in private. Kari walked over to Ken and lifted his sleeve.

"The crest of Kindness?" Kari asked.

Ken nodded in response, "Why did you do this Ken?"

After a minute to figure out what he was going to say, Ken started, "I wanted to feel like I had the kindness in me."

"You have a lot of kindness in you, you didn't have to carve the symbol into your arm," Kari mentioned.

"You don't understand," Ken paused before he continued, "The dark spore, is in me. It's under my skin, it's in my body no matter what I do. This, I guess, was my way to combat that. Have the kindness in my skin to remind me that it's there inside and will overpower the spore."

Kari thought a minute, "Well it looks like it's healing fine, especially if you don't itch it. If that is your coping mechanism, then that's fine, but maybe next time if you want something in your skin, you can get it tattooed instead of carved," Kari joked.

"Thanks Kari," Ken started to cheer up knowing that his friend didn't think less of him or his ideas.

They chatted a bit more and then headed off their separate ways. Ken was glad he had a friend he could confide in who wasn't his partner Wormmon.