Work Text:
Title: Outlier
Characters: Daisuke, Miyako, Chibimon, Poromon
Chapters: 1-1||Words: 3,191
Genre: Friendship||Rated: G
Notes: I wrote this for the No Romance Gift Exchange, for bagerfluff. It took me a while to decide what characters to write about and then to decide what to write about them. It’s set the night after episode 4 of 02, and delves into something that’s always annoyed me about that episode.
Summary: After what Hikari said about not liking those who dislike their siblings, Daisuke’s got a lot on his mind. Maybe someone else can help him work through this a little bit.
Daisuke grumbled words under his breath that he suspected his parents wouldn’t be very thrilled to hear him say. He didn’t care that much right now. Everything just seemed wrong and he wanted to vent about it. Going to the Digital World wasn’t an option right now, not with school closed. That annoyed him; he would have liked to blow up a few of those towers. The way he felt right now, he thought he could just look at one and it would explode from just how angry he was.
He did end up kicking a few rocks. It wasn’t much but it was something he could do. He kept on walking, not really caring where he was as long as he wasn’t at home right now. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be anywhere.
Chibimon snuggled up against his back, not saying anything. Daisuke was pretty sure his tiny partner was half asleep. He envied the little adorable bundle of energy at rest. He knew he’d head back home eventually, and it probably wouldn’t be much longer. He needed something to eat sooner or later anyway. He’d fed Chibimon all of his snacks and wouldn’t be able to restock for a while.
He also kind of appreciated the fact Chibimon wasn’t talking right now. He wasn’t sure if he could even express what he felt, let alone that Chibimon would understand it if he could. Digimon seemed to understand almost everything about their partners, or so he gathered from the brief time he’d known Chibimon. But this involved something he didn’t think that Digimon knew a lot about.
Maybe I should tell him later. If nothing else, it might make him feel better if he vented. It probably couldn’t hurt.
He sighed and rubbed his head, then took a long look around, trying to figure out what to do next. He was near a park, and he was pretty sure that he wasn’t that far from home. He also wasn’t that far from school or where some of his friends lived. He was pretty sure Miyako’s family didn’t live that far off. That also meant he wasn’t too far from Iori or Takeru.
He didn’t know if he wanted to talk to anyone about all the thoughts tumbling around in his head but he knew he didn’t want to talk about it to Takeru. He wasn’t sure if Iori would know anything about this – and he’d kind of been there when it happened anyway. And he never said anything.
So had Takeru, for that matter. And Hikari. He winced at the memory of her sharp words, and how his own had clogged in his throat. He’d wanted so much to say something then, but it just hadn’t happened and then everything else had, and until he got home and it really all sank in…
Slowly he made his way over to the little park and sank down on a stone bench. A little pond glimmered in the moonlight not that far away and he ended up staring at it, for lack of anything else to do right now.
Miyako hadn’t been there. No one had said anything to her about it, as far as he knew. He’d apologized to Chibimon but everyone else had been busy getting caught up on what Izumi-senpai had learned from examining Miyako’s Digivice. All of that was interesting and it would probably help them beat the Kaiser – which he didn’t doubt they would do really, really soon – but still thoughts lurked in the back of his mind.
Probably a good idea if he got rid of them before they had to go into battle again. Takeru and Hikari-chan and Iori weren’t options. The thought of talking to the Kaiser about this made him want to laugh until he couldn’t even breathe anymore. So that really only left Miyako.
He tugged his D-Terminal out of his pocket and stared at it, trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to. Then he shrugged and sent a quick message.
Hey, I’m down at one of the parks. Think I’m close to your place? Something I want to talk about. You free?
He wouldn’t have been surprised if she didn’t have the time. She might have homework. She might be eating dinner. She might be doing anything at all.
Whatever she was doing, a message popped back just a few minutes later. Sure. I’ll be down there soon.
Daisuke grinned, before he settled his backpack down so Chibimon would be more comfortable and waited for her to show up. It only occurred to him after that she might not be able to find him, since he hadn’t been that specific on where he was. He started to look for a sign to indicate which park, but hadn’t had any success before he heard Miyako’s familiar voice hailing him. She waved cheerfully as she ran up from one of the side roads, holding Poromon in her arms.
“Hey! Everything okay?” She rushed up, panting a little before letting her partner flutter his way down next to Chibimon. He was clearly as tired as Daisuke’s own partner and the two were soon snoozing together.
“Yeah? No? I guess?” Daisuke shrugged. “I’m not all that sure. It’s confusing.”
Miyako blinked a couple of times. “Okay, what’s going on? Did something happen in the Digital World today?”
“You could say that,” Daisuke admitted. He tilted his head back to stare up at the sky. He still wasn’t sure about how to say what he was thinking. He never could figure it out when he tried to think it through. He always spoke his best when he didn’t bother thinking about it at all.
Miyako’s fists clenched at once. “Do I need to go beat up the Kaiser? Did he try to kidnap you again?”
Daisuke’s head jerked around, eyes wide. “What? No!” He wasn’t sure if he was surprised at her thinking that. It had happened before, so it wasn’t impossible. But the Kaiser hadn’t shown any signs of wanting a repeat of that. He wasn’t going to complain. Once had been more than enough.
She tilted her head, now confused. “Okay. What’s going on, then? No one else said anything happened.”
There it was. No one else said anything. They probably didn’t even see it as a problem. He didn’t know if it was one himself. But it bugged him, like a burr under his skin.
“I’m pretty sure Takeru and his brother met my sister,” Daisuke finally said, “and she said her usual bad things about me.” He scrunched up his nose. Jun always did that kind of thing and he returned it whenever he had the chance. She’d spent most of her time before he left babbling about how cute the brothers were and how they’d signed her shirt and so much else that he hadn’t paid that much attention to. “Then when we were in the Digital World – I said that we don’t like each other, because we don’t, and Hikari-chan – she said -” He struggled to get the words out now. “She said she didn’t like people who said bad things about their siblings.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the implication that she’d never like him or the fact they really didn’t know anything about him and Jun that bothered him the most. He also didn’t think it mattered a whole lot right now.
Miyako sat there, one hand going down to brush against Poromon’s head fuzz. Daisuke wondered if she’d say the same thing. He knew that she had a brother and two sisters but he didn’t know much about them, other than the fact Jun and her sister Momoe were friends. He and Miyako had always sort of known each other in a vague way, but never spent much time around each other until this whole Digital World thing turned up. He could only barely guess what she might think of anything.
“I know how you feel,” she said at last, and Daisuke’s jaw dropped. She didn’t look at him but glanced back the way she’d came. “I don’t always like my family either. I – we’re all so crammed together. I’m surprised no one’s noticed Poromon yet. I mean, noticed he’s alive. Momoe said something about how cute ‘my new plushie’ is.” He could just barely see her nose wrinkling. “I had to shove some crackers into his mouth so he didn’t start complaining.”
Daisuke laughed at that. “I had to feed Chibimon extra chocolate to keep him quiet when Jun barged into my room the other night. I’m still not sure she hasn’t noticed. She just might not have cared.” Jun cared more about whichever celebrity she was currently fawning over than whatever he might be doing.
Miyako nodded. “I don’t think that’s something they really know about. I – don’t know them well enough to say. Except Iori, but he doesn’t have brothers or sisters. It’s not the same, really.”
That was true. Daisuke fiddled with his D-Terminal, staring down at it. He didn’t want to think about it, but he did feel a little different from the others sometimes. Takeru and Hikari-chan knew each other. Miyako and Iori knew each other. But he didn’t really know anyone. He knew Hikari-chan and he knew Miyako, but it wasn’t the same at all.
“She didn’t mean it like she’d never like me, did she?” Daisuke blurted out. “She doesn’t even know Jun. She didn’t even meet her. She probably wouldn’t like Jun if she did. I don’t know how your sister likes her!”
Miyako got up and took a few steps around. Sometimes she seemed as unable to stay still as Daisuke himself felt. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know about that and I don’t know why your sister and mine are friends. I don’t remember them not being friends.”
Neither did he, to be honest with himself. Some of his earliest memories included Jun mentioning that she and Momoe were going off somewhere together or his mom mentioning that Jun and Momoe were going to be spending time together. They were just friends. It was sort of like the sky being blue. It was what it was.
“Have you told her anything about Jun?” Miyako asked, turning now to look at him. “I keep wanting to tell her about my family but there hasn’t been time.” She made a face. “Every time we spend any sort of time around them, it’s because of the Digital World. And the Kaiser.”
He made a face of his own. “Yeah. I want to punch his lights out sometimes. Most of the time, really.” Maybe that was why the Kaiser hadn’t been getting close to him after that first time. He’d made a pretty good effort to punch the wanna-be dictator out after that whole kidnapping incident. Kaiser probably didn’t want to find out what would happen if Daisuke actually pulled it off.
But Miyako had asked something, hadn’t she? Yeah. He should probably answer that. “I haven’t said anything about Jun to anyone. I kind of don’t want them to even know she exists.” Maybe – maybe people would like him if they didn’t know about Jun? He’d never really thought about it before, but it wouldn’t be the first time people backed off from him because of her. She never did anything on purpose, not when it came to him. But it happened. More than once she’d swept by trying to find her current favorite celebrity or just a cute guy she had a crush on, who Daisuke knew or existed near, and they’d ended up not hanging out with him anymore because of that.
Most people he knew hung out with him because he played soccer or they were in the same class. That was how he’d first started to get to know Hikari-chan – there was that whole thing with the monsters a few years ago, and then he’d met her brother because of soccer, and he’d hoped Jun wouldn’t do anything that would end up ruining it all.
Then had come the Digital World and somewhere in the deepest depths of his heart, he’d wondered if perhaps even Jun couldn’t ruin these friendships. The Digital World formed a bond that she wouldn’t even know about and couldn’t do anything about even if she did know. Maybe this time – it would be different.
Until all of this had happened and now that tiny whisper in the back of his head. How different could it be when even people who didn’t know Jun would say things like that? Could those bonds really be strong enough?
“You know,” Miyako mused, now leaning against a tree and staring up at the sky. “If you do tell them about her, maybe they’ll understand. Or I can see if Momoe can say something to Jun.”
He shook his head without a moment of hesitation. “No! No! If Jun finds out – anything – she’s never going to stop giving me grief about it. We already don’t like each other. I don’t want to make it worse!” He couldn’t have said why he didn’t like his sister, except for that annoying habit she had of accidentally or on purpose ruining so much for him. Was she trying to get revenge on him for being born in the first place? No one had ever asked him if he wanted to be born! Let alone born as her brother!
“What do you want to do then?” Miyako drummed her fingers against the tree supporting her. “Gotta be something.”
If there was, Daisuke didn’t know about it. But the fact he’d talked about it at all, that Miyako had understood, all of that made him feel a lot more at ease than he had.
“Maybe I’ll tell them about her later,” he hedged a bit. “Maybe once Takereu’s brother knows more about what she’s like, he’ll understand why I don’t like her. And he’s going to know – Jun’s been following that band of his for a while now. If he’s her newest crush, he’s going to find out a lot about her.” He didn’t stop the grin that spread over his face. “Probably a lot more than he would ever want to, since we live so close. Especially since she knows I know Takeru. She’d probably going to bug me about it too.”
He wasn’t very thrilled to think about that, but he knew how his sister worked, and sort of how she thought. She’d make an utter pain of herself and he made up his mind to make sure he didn’t tell her anything at all, no matter what. He wasn’t sure what he might have to tell her but he wouldn’t tell her no matter what it was.
Miyako nodded. “I’ll probably tell Hikari-chan about my family sooner or later. Maybe I can ask her how she keeps Tailmon a secret. She’s a lot bigger than Poromon.” Her gaze fell down to where her partner dozed. “I made a little bed for him, you know. I don’t have a lot of space for him, but I think he likes it.”
“Yeah, I did the same thing for Chibimon. At least I’ve got a room to myself.” He couldn’t remember if Miyako had that much. He was pretty sure that her parents didn’t have a five bedroom apartment. He didn’t know a lot about rents and stuff, but he’d heard his own parents talking about it a time or two and he could make some guesses.
His guess was sort of backed up the moment Miyako scrunched her nose and hunched her shoulders. “Lucky. I’ve got to share with both my sisters. He has to stay really quiet when they’re in there. At least I can pull the divider around when I’m trying to sleep.”
He got to close the door and he had enough furniture to have somewhere to push Chibimon if he really had to. He didn’t like doing that; there was always the chance Chibimon would find snacks he’d forgotten he’d hidden and get to chewing them up. At least Jun and his parents didn’t come in there very often. He couldn’t imagine not having even the little privacy that he did.
“Anything else?” Miyako wondered now, coming over to him. “Or are you okay now?”
Was he? He thought about it. He was probably as okay as he’d ever be. He didn’t think they’d solved anything but he wasn’t sure either if it could be solved. Just talking it out to someone who understood better than he’d really thought she would had helped. “I guess. Thanks.”
Before she could return it, his stomach rumbled sharply, and he flushed. “Uh, I should probably get home. I kind of missed dinner for this walk.”
At once Miyako started digging around in her pockets. “I think I’ve got something. I was keeping it in case Poromon wanted something but I can get some more when I get home. Here you go!” She shoved a wrapped package at him. “You like Anpan, don’t you?”
“Sure!” Even if he hadn’t, he wasn’t going to turn down free food. He thought for a second about putting it in his own pocket and taking it home but then changed his mind. It only took a second to peel off the wrapper and take a good bite, letting the taste of red bean and pastry fill his mouth. He did not miss Miyako’s grin and appreciatively grinned back through the mouthful of food.
“Daisuke?” Chibimon’s voice broke into his enjoyment of the food. “What’s that? Can I have some?”
Without hesitation he broke off a piece and handed it down to his partner. He should’ve guessed Chibimon would want some if he caught a whiff of it. Poromon also stirred, peeking up at Miyako, who started to scramble around in her pockets once again.
“Thanks, Miyako,” Daisuke wasn’t sure if he’d said that or not before, but he didn’t mind saying it again. “See you tomorrow?” Another school day stretched out before them, and after that more time in the Digital World.
Maybe he was making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe Hikari-chan would like him and Jun wouldn’t ruin all of this, whether or not she meant to, and maybe one day he’d have a friend the way the others did. He had no idea of who it might be, but that didn’t matter right now.
“See you tomorrow!” Miyako assured him, waving as she scooped Poromon up in her arms, his beak now chewing through something she’d put in there.
Daisuke settled Chibimon on his shoulder. It was late enough at night that he doubted anyone else would think the blue ball was anything other than a plushie and he’d have to come up with a quick excuse on where he’d got it from. But for now, he cheerfully headed on his way home, mind a great deal more settled than it had been before.
I should talk to Miyako more often, he decided, petting Chibimon, and made his way home.
The End
Notes: Anpan is a real convenience store snack in Japan: red bean paste in a bun. Comes with a cartoon superhero, Anpanmon. Also, the title comes from the fact Daisuke is sort of an outlier among the 02 Chosen at this point. He’s waiting for Ken (and would not believe it if he were told that right now).