Agumon's Guilt

"Crackle..."

As a burning branch snapped, a small piece of glowing charcoal popped out of the fire and landed on the ground. The faint smell of burning drew Qingliu out of his memories.

He lifted his foot and stamped out the charcoal, making sure a moment of carelessness wouldn't lead to serious consequences.

Then Qingliu looked at the carp, which were almost done roasting. His mouth was already watering uncontrollably, and even his stomach had begun to growl.

After a week of eating nothing but fruit, he finally had some meat.

Qingliu picked up a roasted fish, walked a little way forward, and shouted toward the river, "Agumon, it's about time!"

"You... eat... first..."

Agumon's head bobbed above and below the water as he relentlessly chased a fish swimming among the Magikarp, apparently determined not to come ashore until he caught it.

Qingliu stood there and quietly waited for a while. After Agumon dove underwater, surfaced right in front of the fish, and caught it in his mouth, Qingliu blew on his roasted fish and took a small bite.

The savory aroma of meat gradually filled his mouth. The crisp outside and tender flesh whetted his appetite even further, and he polished off a third of the fish in just a few bites.

The only drawback was that it had rather a lot of bones. He couldn't take big, carefree mouthfuls; he had to carefully pick out the bones with every bite.

Still, compared with his previous "wild fruit feasts," this was already pretty good.

Come to think of it, he remembered Agumon always swallowing fish whole. Agumon didn't seem to have to worry about picking out bones, and Qingliu couldn't help envying his digestive system.

With that thought, Qingliu returned to the fire and reached for the other roasted carp, intending to keep them from drying out and losing their flavor. But as he reached out, he noticed something wrong.

Agumon had caught four fish in total. Qingliu had one in his hand, so there should have been three roasting.

But now there were only two...

Had someone taken one?

No. If anyone had appeared nearby, he couldn't possibly have missed them.

"So it was most likely a Pokémon..."

Qingliu's expression instantly grew serious.

For it to steal a roasted fish in the few minutes between his getting up to call Agumon and coming back, it had probably been watching him for some time, then seized the opportunity to act.

Had the smoke from the burning branches or the smell of roasted fish drawn it over? Or had it set its sights on him or Agumon?

Qingliu didn't know, but with so little time having passed, it shouldn't have gotten far.

He needed to find it as soon as possible and establish what it was and why it had come before he could relax. Otherwise, there was no telling what else it might do after stealing the fish.

If it dared to steal fish today, it might dare to kill tomorrow.

He had to nip every potential threat in the bud.

Qingliu quickly opened the panel and began searching for information on all nearby Pokémon through the blue screen only he could see.

To his surprise, however, the panel showed no response even after he scanned his surroundings. It hadn't detected a single Pokémon.

"Did it get away that fast...?"

After a brief silence, Qingliu beckoned to Agumon, picked up the two remaining roasted fish, and headed toward the edge of the forest. He circled the area, trying to see whether getting closer would allow him to discover anything.

But the panel displayed nothing except a pulsing ellipsis.

His relaxed mood instantly turned heavy.

Agumon came over just then, a fish clenched in his mouth, and asked in a muffled voice, "Qingliu, what's wrong? What are you doing over here?"

"A Pokémon just stole one of the roasted fish."

"What?!"

At the mention of food, Agumon immediately grew agitated.

He had gone to enormous lengths to catch those fish so he could repay Qingliu and fill his stomach. If there were any leftovers, he had wanted to try some himself, too-and now someone had stolen one?

He swallowed the fish in his mouth whole and tossed the one in his hand onto the ground, then said hurriedly, "Quick, tell me where it is! I'll get the roasted fish back."

"It must have gotten away. I couldn't find a single trace of where it went."

"Huh?"

Agumon looked toward the forest, unwilling to let it go.

He was deeply unhappy about someone stealing their food, but from what he had learned about Qingliu over the past half day, if Qingliu said that, then there really were no clues.

Besides, having survived alone in the Digital World for so long, he naturally knew that forests became far more dangerous at night. There was no reason to take that risk, especially without any leads.

"It's all right. Only one was stolen, and there's still enough left to eat."

Qingliu soothed Agumon a little and handed him a roasted fish.

"You haven't had roasted fish before, have you? Try it and see what you think."

Agumon accepted the fish, but instead of digging in as he usually did, he stared at it blankly.

A serious problem had just occurred to him.

If he had headed back as soon as Qingliu called him to eat instead of lingering in the water, perhaps the roasted fish wouldn't have been stolen.

And... most importantly, it was lucky that the thief had only stolen a fish rather than ambushing or attacking Qingliu.

Otherwise, Agumon couldn't bear to imagine what might have happened to the friend he had finally made.

He certainly cared about food, but he cared even more about his friends-even a friend he had known for less than a day, yet already meant so much to him.

If a fish was gone, he could catch another. If a friend was gone, they were truly gone.

The thought filled Agumon with guilt, and even the roasted fish by his mouth no longer seemed appetizing.

Qingliu had been quietly watching Agumon stand motionless with the fish in his hand, his expression clearly off.

Outside of battle, Agumon was usually rather oblivious-or perhaps simply scatterbrained. Qingliu hadn't expected him to be surprisingly sensitive about something like this.

It reminded him of how, in Digimon, Taichi Yagami's Agumon had undergone his first "Wrong Evolution" into SkullGreymon. His power had been so overwhelming and violent that he lost control and hurt his companions, leaving him with a lingering emotional burden.

That wasn't a good sign.

The two incidents might have been vastly different in severity, but there were plenty of cases where mounting psychological problems eventually reached a breaking point.

Especially in the modern world before his transmigration, this had become an increasingly serious phenomenon. He had to take it seriously.

Qingliu slowly crouched in front of Agumon and reached out to pat his shoulder.

"Don't blame yourself. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm the one who let my guard down because I wanted to rely on your strength. That's my own problem, so I should be apologizing to you. I shouldn't have..."

Before Qingliu could finish, Agumon interrupted him.

"No. You're my most important friend. Whatever the reason, I should apologize for putting you in danger."

Qingliu looked in surprise at Agumon, who was staring straight into his eyes with utter stubbornness.

After a brief silence, Qingliu lowered his head and gently rested it against Agumon's forehead.

"It's precisely because we're friends that I don't want to take advantage of your strength."

Agumon immediately tried to interrupt again, but Qingliu's hand was already in position beneath his chin, cutting him off before he could start.

"So we were both at fault here. There's no need to dwell on who's right or wrong. I'll count to three, and if you don't say anything, I'll take that as agreement."

As Qingliu began counting down, he quietly braced his shoulder against Agumon's chin and pressed firmly on his upper jaw with his right hand, completely depriving him of the chance to speak.

"Three."

"Two."

"Mmph... mmph..."

Feeling Agumon strain harder and harder to open his mouth, Qingliu simply gave up trying to keep it shut and let go.

At that moment, an image suddenly flashed through Qingliu's mind. It claimed that the best way to stop a cat from yowling aggressively at you was to stick a finger down its throat while it was making noise.

Then, the instant Agumon opened his mouth to speak, Qingliu thrust his hand into it with lightning speed.

"Mm! Mmmph!"