Chapter 127: Yukio Oikawa
[Do you want to understand the meaning of life? Do you want to truly... live?]
Yukio Oikawa slumped into his worn desk chair, the exhaustion of another grueling, monotonous workday clinging to his bones like damp lead. The harsh glare of the computer monitor illuminated his pale, tired face. A single, unread email sat in his inbox, its subject line pulsing with an eerie, rhythmic cursor.
Under normal circumstances, he would have scoffed, dismissing the absurd text as a cheap phishing scam or a malicious pop-up. His finger hovered over the delete key. Yet, a strange, heavy compulsion settled over him. The silence of his empty apartment pressed against his eardrums. His hand moved of its own accord, the plastic mouse scraping against the pad as he guided the cursor toward the flashing [Yes] button.
Maybe it was the suffocating isolation. His only real anchor to the world, Hiroki Hida, was halfway across the globe on a business trip, leaving Oikawa adrift in a sea of meaningless routines. Or perhaps it was something darker, a whisper in the back of his mind urging him forward. A sharp click echoed in the quiet room. He blinked, suddenly aware that his index finger had already depressed the left mouse button.
The screen flickered, plunging into absolute blackness before a grainy video feed sputtered to life. The image resolved into a dimly lit, cavernous room. Shadows clung to the edges of the frame. In the center sat a figure, his features obscured by the oppressive gloom, yet his piercing gaze seemed to cut straight through the monitor and into Oikawa's soul.
"Yukio Oikawa," a voice purred from the cheap desktop speakers, smooth and dripping with an unsettling amusement. "I knew you would make this decision."
"Who are you?" Oikawa's brow furrowed, his posture stiffening. He leaned closer to the monitor, squinting against the pixelated darkness. He searched his memory, but drew a complete blank. He was a man of solitary habits and eccentric, obsessive research. He did not have casual acquaintances. He did not go to parties. There was only Hiroki. Hiroki was his entire social circle, his fellow dreamer, his only true friend.
"I asked you a question," Oikawa demanded, his voice trembling slightly despite his attempt at bravado. "Who are you, and how do you know my name?"
A low, chilling chuckle crackled through the speakers. The figure shifted, the shadows dancing across a pale, sharp jawline. "There is no need to be so tense. I mean you no harm." The tone was sickeningly gentle, like a predator coaxing prey out of its burrow. "I merely wish to deliver some news."
Oikawa's confusion deepened into a knot of cold dread in his stomach. He did not speak, his eyes locked on the screen.
The man in the shadows leaned forward, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. "Your dearest friend is a man named Hiroki Hida, is he not? I deeply regret to inform you that he has met with a terrible accident."
"What?" The word tore from Oikawa's throat. His pupils dilated. The chair clattered backward as he shot to his feet, his hands slamming onto the desk, fingers digging into the plastic casing of the monitor. "What are you talking about? Hiroki? An accident? That is impossible! You are lying to me!"
Panic clawed at his chest, making his breaths short and ragged. "I have not received a single call! Hiroki only went to London for a standard business trip! He is perfectly safe—"
The shrill, piercing ring of the landline shattered the air.
Oikawa's frantic denials died on his tongue. The silence that followed the first ring was deafening.
He slowly turned his head. The beige telephone sat on the edge of his cluttered desk, vibrating violently against a stack of research papers. A suffocating, icy dread flooded his veins, freezing him in place. The phone rang again. And again. The mechanical shrieks bounced off the peeling wallpaper of his cramped apartment, demanding to be answered.
He swallowed hard, forcing air into his constricted lungs. His legs felt like lead, but he dragged his right foot forward. Then his left. The distance to the edge of the desk felt like miles. His hand shook violently as he reached out, his pale fingers hovering over the receiver for a torturous second before he finally snatched it up and pressed it to his ear.
"Hello..." he whispered, his voice barely a rasp.
The conversation was brief. A sterile, apologetic voice from an embassy official. Words like tragic incident, crossfire, and repatriation of remains drifted through the earpiece, but they felt entirely disconnected from reality. Oikawa did not even register the click of the line going dead. The dial tone hummed steadily against his ear, but his sense of time had shattered the moment the official confirmed the name.
Hiroki Hida. His only true friend in this miserable, gray world.
Gunned down in London. A stray bullet caught while shielding a VIP during a sudden attack. Dead.
The receiver slipped from his numb fingers, clattering against the desk before dangling by its coiled cord. Hiroki was gone. The only source of warmth in Oikawa's bleak, isolated existence had been snuffed out. They had made a promise. A sacred vow forged in their youth, swearing that they would find a way to the mysterious Digital World together. They were supposed to stand on that digital soil side by side.
And now, Hiroki had simply vanished, leaving him behind in the dark without a single word of farewell.
"Hiroki... is dead?" Oikawa muttered, his eyes wide and vacant.
His knees buckled. He caught himself against the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning white. A primal, agonizing grief ripped through his chest, tearing a ragged sob from his throat.
"How can I accept this?" he choked out, hot tears spilling over his cheeks, splashing onto the scattered documents below. "I refuse! I absolutely refuse to accept this! Hiroki! Hiroki!"
Blinded by tears and a desperate, clawing denial, Oikawa stumbled away from the desk. He crashed into his bookshelf, sending volumes tumbling to the floor, before lunging toward his heavy metal briefcase. He tore it open, his frantic hands pulling out a thick, leather-bound notebook and his personal laptop. Inside these drives and pages lay decades of obsessive research. Frequencies, dimensional theories, digital anomalies. It was the culmination of everything he and Hiroki had built together. It was the physical manifestation of their shared dream, the only proof that their bond had ever existed.
He fumbled with the laptop's latch, his vision swimming, desperate to look at the data, to find some flaw, some escape from this nightmare.
"Yukio Oikawa."
The voice did not come from the cheap desktop speakers this time. It echoed directly behind him, chilling the very marrow in his bones.
"You have confirmed the news of Hiroki's unfortunate demise, have you not?" the voice purred, dripping with dark satisfaction. "That makes things so much simpler."
Oikawa froze, his breath catching in his throat.
"I ask you, Yukio Oikawa... do you wish for your dearest friend to live again?"
Oikawa whipped around, his bloodshot eyes wide and manic, starkly contrasting his sickly, pale skin. He glared at the computer monitor, his grief twisting into a violent, unhinged rage.
"I do not know who the hell you are," Oikawa snarled, his voice cracking with raw emotion. "But I absolutely forbid anyone from using Hiroki as a sick joke!"
Blinded by fury, he lunged forward. He drew his fist back, fully intending to smash the glass monitor into a thousand jagged pieces. He threw the punch with every ounce of his shattered heart.
But his knuckles never met the glass.
Oikawa gasped, his eyes bulging in absolute disbelief. The figure on the screen stepped forward, growing larger, breaking the boundary of the digital frame. A physical hand, clad in a pristine white glove, reached straight out of the monitor, materialized in the real world, and effortlessly caught Oikawa's flying fist.
The momentum of his strike died instantly against an immovable force. Oikawa stared, paralyzed, as the rest of the figure glided smoothly out of the glowing screen and into his cramped apartment.
For the first time, Oikawa could see his tormentor clearly. The being towered over him. Was this a human? Oikawa was known for his sickly pallor, but the creature standing before him possessed skin utterly devoid of life, like polished marble bathed in moonlight. A sharp, crimson mask obscured the upper half of his face, framing piercing, predatory eyes. He wore an elegant, high-collared suit draped in a sweeping, midnight-blue cape with a blood-red lining. The oppressive, suffocating aura radiating from the entity screamed of ancient malice.
Only one word surfaced in Oikawa's terrified mind.
A vampire.
"W-who exactly are you?" Oikawa stammered, his anger evaporating into sheer, primal terror.
A low, resonant chuckle vibrated from the creature's throat. The entity smiled, revealing a glimpse of sharp, elongated fangs, before casually releasing Oikawa's trembling fist.
"Do not be so nervous, Mr. Oikawa," the creature said, adjusting the cuffs of his pristine gloves. "As I stated previously, I mean you no harm."
He offered a slight, mocking bow, his cape billowing silently around his ankles. "Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Myotismon."
The name hung in the air, heavy with dark power.
"You should be quite familiar with my kind," Myotismon continued, his crimson eyes gleaming with sinister amusement. "After all, I am the very existence that you and your dear Hiroki have dedicated your entire lives to proving."
Oikawa's breath hitched. His mind raced, connecting the impossible reality standing in his living room with decades of theoretical data.
"...A Digimon," Oikawa whispered, the word slipping past his lips like a prayer.
He stared at the imposing figure, his grief momentarily eclipsed by a blinding, overwhelming revelation. A frantic, desperate light ignited in his previously dull, tear-filled eyes.
"Does that mean... the Digital World truly exists?" Oikawa's voice rose in pitch, bordering on hysterical. He spun around, grabbing the leather-bound notebook from his desk, clutching it to his chest. "Hiroki! It is true! Our hypothesis was right all along! It is real!"
He laughed, a broken, jagged sound that echoed off the walls. "It exists! Hahaha! Hiroki! Do you see this? Hiroki!"
But the name was a cruel reminder. The manic energy drained from his limbs as rapidly as it had surged. The notebook slipped from his grasp, hitting the floor with a heavy thud. Oikawa's knees gave out, and he collapsed onto the worn carpet, his shoulders shaking as the crushing weight of reality settled back over him.
"But... why?" he sobbed, burying his face in his hands. "Why could it not have been earlier? Why could you not have appeared just a few days sooner..."
Myotismon gazed down at the broken, weeping man. His crimson eyes narrowed slightly behind his mask, calculating the precise angle of manipulation. The silence stretched, filled only by Oikawa's pathetic, ragged breathing.
Slowly, the vampire-like Digimon closed the distance between them. He leaned down, his towering shadow swallowing Oikawa entirely, and extended a pale, gloved hand.
"Oikawa," Myotismon murmured, his voice a hypnotic, velvet purr. "If you do not mind, how about we have a little chat?"
Oikawa slowly lifted his head, tears tracking through the dust on his cheeks.
"I imagine you are quite eager to learn everything there is to know about the Digital World, are you not?" Myotismon offered a chilling, perfectly practiced smile. "And, perhaps of greater interest..."
A strange, malevolent glint flashed in the Digimon's eyes, a promise of dark miracles.
"...we can discuss the distinct possibility of extending your dearest friend's life."
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