#koutake

“Still in the zone, huh?”

Takeru absolutely wasn’t surprised to find Koushirou glued to the computer screen in his office. He and Patamon had headed to Izumi Labs to pick him and Tentomon up for an up-coming get-together.

Initially, he had intended to come together with Hikari, but she had been picking up Taichi and Sora from an exhibition instead. Ever since they had discovered a way to bring the vanished Digimon – Agumon, Piyomon and Gabumon – back, these two had been surprisingly inseparable again. So in order to save some time, Takeru and Hikari had decided to split up.

‘Who would have thought that things would turn out this way, huh…’, Takeru mused internally as he watched Koushirou speed-typing to get his work done, making Tentomon shake his head besides him.

“Give me a moment”, Koushirou eventually replied, still not looking up. Takeru actually didn’t mind just spending a bit of downtime here. Koushirou’s office – and lab areas – had always been a safe space and it almost felt therapeutic to be around his knowledgeable friend. Especially now that Takeru was getting more serious about finishing the first draft of his novel, having small moments of relaxed quiet was a true blessing.

Koushirou however just furrowed his eyebrows, more stressed than relaxed. “I was in call with your brother just a few minutes ago, I’m still not entirely satisfied with the data collection method, so if we don’t want the mission to be in vain, I need to quickly…”

He eventually stopped talking and even though he had probably just intended to give Takeru a short summary of what he was working on, Takeru himself felt his heart dropping a little.

The mission. Yamato had been chosen to be the first Chosen Child with a Digimon partner to travel to space and investigate distortion traces Koushirou, Gennai and scientists around the world had discovered around a year ago. Which was exactly why the twelve Chosen Children had decided to come together tonight to reminisce over old times before Yamato and Gabumon would take off. It still appeared somewhat surreal that his brother would take on such a task, traveling alongside his Digimon partner to collect data and, potentially, fighting extraterrestrial threats. Not only did it sound like the plot of a sci-fi movie, but thinking about the chapter he would dedicate this story to in his novel made Takeru uneasy.

“Takeru-kun?”

“W-what?” Flinching slightly, he hadn’t even noticed how deeply – and for how long – he had been lost in thought as Koushirou’s glance met his own. He had stopped typing by now and was standing up, peeling himself out of his lab jacket.

“There is no reason to worry”, Koushirou said. “Yamato-san and MetalGarurumon are the most suitable pair to be sent, they have trained for this for months, all possible precautions have been set into place. Actually, Yamato-san was rather thrilled and sounded confident, but you may already know about that. Take it from me as well, we’ll do whatever it takes for this mission to be a success.”

“I’m…”, Takeru began, blinking a few times. Feeling caught, he just shook his head, forcing a smile. “Yeah, of course, you’re right. It will be fine.”

Once more, Koushirou raised an eyebrow and Takeru felt his gaze pierce into his lie.

“You don’t seem convinced.”

“You’re a tiny bit fidgety there, Takeru-han”, Tentomon added as well and Patamon – who had been sitting on his head the entire time –, gave him a small pat.

“… Damn… Am I that obvious?”, he smiled again – and noticed that he had been subconsciously fumbling with the hem of his own jacket.

“Is there something on your mind?”, Koushirou asked – and Takeru wondered when exactly his senpai-attitude had begun to become that prominent. Surely, Koushirou had always been some kind of mentor figure for their group, giving advice, directions, guidance, support… But Takeru had never thought about him specifically as a “senpai”. Despite the fact that Takeru himself had surpassed his older friend in height through the years – he had always considered them as equals, enjoying to work on the Chosen Children network together, pondering over Koushirou’s fashion sense or tagging along with Taichi, Hikari and the others… And usually, Koushirou wasn’t exactly a person he would have described as particularly skilled in talking about emotional matters.

But here, Takeru sensed a weird surge of affection. It had been just a question, if not a mindful one. But as matter-of-factly as Koushirou’s speech had been phrased, the hint of softness in his voice had caught him off guard. So Takeru’s guard melted.

“Well… To be honest… I wouldn’t mind staying here a little longer.”

“How come?”

Maybe he had underestimated Koushirou’s ability to dig deeper. No way to hide from that curious ways of his.

“… I haven’t talked to my brother much about the mission yet.”

“Ya haven’t?”, Tentomon asked in Koushirou’s stead this time – and Takeru found himself clenching one of his fists as if to having to calm himself down.

“No… I just… I had a very hard time bringing it up in detail and… To be even more honest, I feel like… Ever since Gabumon came back, I’ve struggled talking to him even more.”

“Takeru…”, Patamon whispered, patting his head once more and thus, Takeru loosened his fist again. Practicing emotional regulation with Iori really had started to pay off at some point. It still didn’t help the small glimpse of nausea in his stomach though and his legs felt a little wobbly as well, so he took a step and sat down on one of the lab couches.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am one hundred percent happy that it happened! But… He didn’t confide in me much before that, even when we called or met and he’s so focused on his studies at the moment that… I feel like I’m an invader, like I have no place to even ask him about it.”

“Why do you presume that is?”

Koushirou was still standing, keeping a respectful distance, just asking questions. But that attitude alone was enough for Takeru to feel like something inside him had been let loose and was desperately trying to get out now…

“I don’t know… It’s just… I feel like a coward. I… I envy Hikari-chan for being able to just… Get up and talk to Taichi-san, scold him, have these small quarrels, but then they always make up. Taichi-san’s been so much better lately too and they seem to have such a good time and… I think that if I said anything to her about it, I’d feel even more pathetic… And I’m not even sure why I’m telling you all this all of the sudden…”

Takeru felt his lips curling into a bitter grin. As if it hadn’t been bad enough that he couldn’t have confided in Hikari, his best friend, terrified of coming off as condescending and jealous, so that she may have thought differently of him afterwards…

“Have you talked to anyone else about it before?”

“… I couldn’t.”

He genuinely couldn’t stop the words from spilling out, now that a spell had been broken. Everytime he had considered letting anyone in, the barrier in his head had taken over. Taichi, Jyou or Daisuke hadn’t been options; Taichi had always been his idol, a beacon of warmth and brotherhood he felt connected to and yet, he couldn’t interfere here. Not with Taichi – and Jyou – being so much closer to Yamato at this point than he had ever been, not with Taichi’s and Hikari’s relationship having been better than ever. And with Daisuke, the subject of sibling relationships wasn’t an easy feat either… So he couldn’t have afforded letting himself get caught like that, revealing his dark thoughts and feelings. He felt blocked.

Despite all that, right here and now, with Koushirou’s pitch black eyes directed at him, his heart was basically flowing out of his chest. Being unable to explain that made things even worse, especially because he knew that Koushirou had talked to Yamato mere moments ago. Why did nobody but himself seem to have issues with it?

“It seems like I’m just constantly walking on eggshells and if I take any wrong step, it’ll backfire. I wanted it to get better. I wanted to close the gap between my brother and me, but at this point, I have no idea how to achieve that… There is so much stupid smalltalk between us… Always avoiding personal stuff like that. Sure, we talk about everything and everyone else at surface level, but not… Us. How should I do it? Walking up to him, telling him how proud I am, how happy I am for him, but that… At the same time, I just want to hug him, tell him how fucking worried I am and how much I’d love for him to hug me back?”

While talking, Takeru’s vision had become more and more blurry. Tainted by tears that had been waiting to get out for a long, long time, unable to focus, staring into nothingness…

Until he felt himself being pulled into a – half sitting, half standing – tight hug.

“Koushirou-san…?”, he gasped in sheer surprise and, despite the even more awkward height difference between them now, his own head was resting comfortably on Koushirou’s shoulder, while his arms tightened around him even more.

Out of everything he had anticipated tonight, this turn of events had not been on his bingo card. Izumi Koushirou was one of the least physical people he knew after all. Thus, the warmth of the hug was both unexpected – and soothing at once.

“Please, do tell him all that”, Koushirou said firmly and with urgency, causing goosebumps to spread on Takeru’s arms. “And please do it tonight.”

“What?! No, I can’t do that, I-“

“How much longer do you want to second guess your bond to Yamato-san? Do you really want to wait until it’s too late? If you keep harbouring all these feelings of guilt and regret… If you let them consume you, if you continue to avoid facing them… You may regret it one day. The Takeru-kun I know shouldn’t fear approaching others, because he has all it takes to reach through to them. Especially Yamato-san.”

Listening to all of this, Takeru’s eyes widened, more tears were running down his cheeks. He really had misjudged Koushirou before, underestimated him being close with people like Taichi, Mimi and Jyou – people who were either very physical or a lot more in touch with their emotions.

Nevertheless, there was something unique about this moment, just between the two of them. Something precious that made Takeru return the hug, wrapping his arms around Koushirou, letting the tenson flow out of his own body.

“Maybe think about what scares ya about it and why?” Tentomon waved his claws besides them encouragingly. “Is it realistic? You really believe Yamato-han would deny you a hug?”

“He really does love you, Takeru!”, Patamon chirmed as well, having climbed off of Takeru’s head before to give the two of them some space. “Hikari and Taichi will understand too!”

Takeru sniffed loudly, another wave of affection washing over him as he absentmindedly leaned – even nuzzled – a little more into the unusual embrace. Safe and soft…

“… Thank you… I really don’t know what came over me.”

With that, Koushirou finally brought some more space between them, half kneeling on the couch himself and getting into a more comfortable position. There was a mellow but gentle smile on his lips.

“No, I understand. Really, I do…”, Koushirou said. “It’s a scary prospect, but it’s worth breaking through your own prejudice to realize that your biggest fears didn’t have any leg to stand on.”

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience?” This time, the smile on Takeru’s own lips was honest. Koushirou wasn’t just ‘the rational one’ after all, maybe he was just able to see things he couldn’t. And, perhaps, just perhaps, there truly wasn’t any need to worry. Or question any of this. His gut told him that he needed – and wanted – to return the favour though. “Would you… Like to talk about it too?”