Digimon does not belong to me.
Children of light
"Winter child."
His parents used to call him that whenever he went out to play in the snow.
He liked cold weather and snow. His birthday fell on January 29th. Winter was indeed his favorite season.
That nickname was especially funny considering that "Izumi" meant "Spring."
But it stopped being amusing after he overheard that conversation.
"We have to tell him, Masami."
"He's too young. It'll be a huge shock for him if we told him the truth now."
"Sometimes I feel like he already knows… that he's not really ours… that we adopted him."
Coldness he once enjoyed began to bother him immensely.
When the next Winter arrived, when he was eight years old, Koushiro was going down a street and spotted Taichi building a small snowman. A little girl was closely observing the older boy.
"Hello, Taichi-san!" Koushiro greeted.
"Koushiro, hey!" Taichi showed him an immense smile. "This is my baby sister, Hikari." He turned to the girl. "This is Izumi Koushiro, from the soccer club."
The girl quickly glanced at Koushiro and smiled cheerfully, while saying "nice to meet you." Hikari's smile and politeness made him sad but Koushiro had no clue of the reason for that, which wasn't a surprise. It was usually difficult for him to understand his own emotions.
"Want to join us, Koushiro?" Taichi invited.
"Thank you for inviting me, Taichi-san, but I need to head home." He declined.
"Don't you like snow?" Hikari asked.
Koushiro was taken aback by the blunt question and couldn't reply it immediately. If he liked snow… he used to, before. But now it had become such a bothersome thing. Now, he couldn't stand to look at it. However, it wouldn't be nice to say that to people who were playing at the snow, or so he thought.
"You can be a Winter child and a child of the Spring at the same time, Koushiro-san." The girl added.
The redhead boy frowned after hearing that. Hikari spoke to him with familiarity that she shouldn't have, as if she knew exactly what dwelled in his heart. But that couldn't be possible. Nobody knew about the sorrows he carried. Koushiro made sure to never allow them to come to the surface.
"Child of the Spring… oh, right! Because of his name!" Taichi said, giggling.
"Izumi…" Koushiro muttered without joy.
"Hold on, your personal name is written like 'child of light,' isn't it?" Taichi asked, bemused.
"Yes." The other boy replied.
"Hikari's name means 'light.' Then, you're both 'enlightened!' The two of you will certainly be great friends!" The older child was clearly proud of his conclusion.
That logic wasn't very different from the one Taichi used to determinate that Koushiro and Sora were kindred spirits because they were both redheads. The younger boy half smiled, trying to mask his own awkwardness.
"I really need to go now, sorry." Koushiro said. "It was nice to meet you, Hikari-san. I hope we can get along well."
The girl looked into his eyes and Koushiro had the feeling that she was searching for something beyond them. Her smile became smaller and her voice came out lower when she spoke again:
"We are fated to."