Chapter Text
Maki sits up, in bed, and mourns. (This is a part of her routine, the same as sitting with a cup of tea is, the same as using her planner to be sure that she has her tasks for the day set in order.)
It is two years since she and her friends had returned from the Digital World. It is two years since Bakumon had died. It had been 1990, when she and the others had fallen into the Digital World, had become its heroes as they fought to defeat evil and restore the world -- and it is 1992, now, and the grief does not feel any less than it had been. It's something sharp in her chest, a jagged thing, that slides between her ribs and pulls down, down, down, some days leaving Maki aching so much that she cannot help but cry.
(The incident didn't have any real media coverage or news. Just a sudden earthquake, and Maki and Daigo and Hanayori and Ryuuga and Yumeko had all fallen into the Digital World.
They'd been missing, to the human world, for eight hours, seemingly trapped beneath the earth when the ground had broken open inexplicably. In the Digital World, it had been months. Everyone assumed that the five of them had gone through some trauma, had bonded in that short amount of time, and none had bothered to correct anyone. It wasn't worth it.
Maki still misses Bakumon like a limb sheared off from her. Unbalanced, unsteady, like she would topple over if you pushed just the right way. She misses Bakumon.)
It had been -- rather terrifying, first meeting Bakumon, but with two year's time and rose colored glasses Maki imagines it as being much better than it surely had been. (But then, again, she had not been aware of how terrible things were to come, then. She had only seen Bakumon and thought -- oh, here is a friend.)
Maki screams, when the ground breaks open. She screams as she falls, as the air rushes past her and as the sky blurs.
Maki screams, and screams, and screams more, until her lungs strain under it, until she lands with a sudden jolt onto the ground. She takes a moment to draw in breath. Try to focus past the throbbing in her chest, and in her ankle where she landed on it oddly. (She's freaking out. But anyone would freak out, after the ground breaking open beneath them, after falling with no warning, after seeing her parents fall away as she fell deeper into the earth --
And now she's here, wherever that is.)
"Are you alright?"
And with the new voice, Maki jolts again, whips her head around and inhales to scream -- only for it to die in her throat at the sight. Some kind of. . . creature. Brown fur, with a . .. cloud? attached. She blinks, for several long moments.
"Are you alright?" Asks the voice again, which Maki sees is attached to this creature. It's rather soft. Gentle? Maki thinks gentle is a good word. She doesn't really know what's going on right now (she hasn't known what's going on ever since the ground broke open), but by now she's too stunned to bother screaming anymore. Screaming takes energy she doesn't have. She wants to shake herself -- the. . person, looks worried, so she should answer.
It takes a few times to get her throat to cooperate, but Maki manages. "I'm alright now." She says, and it's mostly not a lie. "I was just scared before." She should be scared of this creature, probably, but somehow Maki can't feel anything but a sort of detatched calm and safety, now that the little creature has floated up to hover a little bit above Maki's legs, on the ground. "I'm Maki -- Himekawa Maki. It's nice to meet you."
"That's a bit of a funny name!" The creature says, but without any malice. "I'm Bakumon!" Bakumon uses boku, Maki notices, so -- that's good to know. Probably a he, if he's using boku.
"Hello, Bakumon." Maki greets, politely. Something glints at her hip when she says that, and Maki and Bakumon both look down -- fallen into Maki's lap, from somewhere, is a little hexagonal sort of shaped device, with a flat screen that shines just a few seconds more before going dim.
"What do you think that's for?" Bakumon asks, hovering lower to sort of rest on Maki's leg (the one without the injured ankle).
"I don't know." Maki answers, picking it up and slipping it into her skirt pocket anyways. She looks at Bakumon. "Is there anywhere I can sit and rest that's a little safer?" They are, after all, in the middle of some strange, forest-like area. "Hopefully not somewhere very far? My ankle is hurt."
Bakumon hums, and closes his eyes. "I think. . . I think i know somewhere! It's not too far, I promise."
"I trust you." Maki tells him, as she carefully stands up, and follows as Bakumon leads her away from where she'd fallen. (it would set a trend, of Maki following Bakumon, trusting him to lead her into the unknown. As far as first meetings go -- it is a good one.)