Takeru has never had a pet. Mostly it doesn't bother him - after all, it seems odd to want a pet when he has all the companionship he thinks he'll ever need in Patamon and more. Frankly, Patamon is better than a pet; he's Takeru's partner. After all, you can't have a conversation with a pet, or, say, save the world together.
But it's something he thinks about now and then, especially when Hikari talks about her cat, and its various antics. Sometimes he catches himself wondering: if his parents had stayed together, might a pet one day have been an option? He idly daydreams about having a cat, or a dog - almost always a dog, because cats seem too…cattish. What's the point in having a pet unless the pet wants to be your friend, after all? Yes, it would have to be a dog, and in his idle fantasies of living as one family, he and Yamato would take it on walks together.
Still, he has got Patamon, and his parents did get divorced, and in the end, Takeru emerges from his teens without ever saying anything about that sometime dream of his. It's not as though he could have done anything differently, after all.
Suddenly he's moving in an adult world, and there's no more school, and a lot more work, and he has an apartment of his own to come back to, just him and Patamon. And it's a little bit quiet, and he doesn't really feel grown up enough to be doing this, but it turns out that's normal too. Everyone else is muddling along just the same.
And then Yamato pops round one evening, and they stay up late chatting about old times, and Takeru laughs as he finds himself talking about that old, idle thought. How he made it all the way through childhood and out the other side, and has never had a pet despite always sort of wanting one.
"Well, why not get one now?" Yamato says.
And so, now it's a few days later, and he and Yamato are at a pet shelter together because despite his protestations that it was a childhood dream, not an adult one, and that it was really more symbolic of a kind of family unit he wished he'd had, Takeru didn't have any actual reasons not to get a dog and certainly there's no excuse for them not to just go and look.
"If you did get a dog, you should probably get a small one, seeing as you live in an apartment," Yamato says, even as he wanders over to a pen housing a large, wolfish-looking thing. "I mean, you wouldn't want it to be much bigger than Patamon, right?"
Takeru nods, although he's not really sure he's that fond of the small dogs he can see in the pens. In fact, now that he's here, it's harder to imagine having any kind of pet at all, much less a dog. And how would a dog react to Patamon?
Then they turn a corner and are met with the excited yapping of puppies, honey-gold and bounding around like joyful balls of wool.
He's smitten. Of course he's smitten. They're puppies, for crying out loud; being irresistibly cute is what they do. But they're not 'small dog' puppies, so he's about to tear himself away and move on when he realises that Yamato hasn't moved.
"Hey," he says, turning around and tapping his brother on the shoulder. "You were the one who suggested I look at the smaller dogs, remember?"
"What? Oh, right, yeah."
They wander the rest of the shelter, but none of the dogs really catch Takeru's eye, and he's more or less come round to the idea that this was just something he needed to get out of his system when, idly following Yamato, he finds himself back by the puppies again.
Takeru clears his throat. "You're not being very helpful," he says after a moment.
"Hm?"
"You were the one who suggested I get a small dog, and now you've dragged me over here to look at these again."
"Well, they're…"
"I'm pretty sure they're golden retriever pups, Yamato. They will not stay small dogs. One of those would dwarf Patamon."
"I never said you should get one, Takeru."
"No, but you're thinking it, aren't you. Honestly, I'm not even sure I really want a dog after walking around. It's a big responsibility, and maybe this was all just a bit of nostalgia creeping back-"
"What about those two though," Yamato says, gesturing at a pair towards the back, off from the main heap of tumbling fur.
One is slightly darker than the others, more amber-gold than warm honey, and the other is slightly smaller and scruffier, with longer, fluffier fur. They are both lying fast asleep next to each other. The volunteer walks past as Yamato points them out, and nods.
"Those two are male. Brothers. Retriever pups are always friendly, but that pair in particular seem to stick together." She smiles at them, and then moves on when they stay silent.
"No," Takeru says to his brother, who is watching him with a raised eyebrow. "No."
Yamato doesn't say anything. In fairness, he doesn't have to.
A few rather expensive hours later, they are back at Takeru's apartment watching as Patamon attempts to boss around two puppies which are already almost the same size as him. Gabumon is sat by Yamato's side, staying quiet but looking rather amused. Takeru's amused too. He's not entirely sure how well he's going to manage having a golden retriever in an apartment, but at least he won't be the only one with that problem.
"I should get home soon," Yamato says, sighing.
"How exactly are you going to explain this?" Takeru asks. "And can you even have dogs in your apartment?"
Yamato stares at him. "Of course I…that won't be a problem, will it?"
"You didn't check?" Takeru says, laughing. "And people think you're so calm and collected. I wasn't even planning to get a dog today, but I made sure that they're not banned in this block before we went to the shelter. I'm sure it'll be fine though. Who doesn't like dogs?"
Yamato nods. "I'd probably better phone and check though, just to make sure."
He gets to his feet and walks over to the window, stopping to ruffle the fur of the smaller, long-haired puppy as he walks by. Kibou and Yujou. They're probably never going to live down the fact that they named their new pets after each others' crests.
Yamato starts talking, initially cheerful, but increasingly more solemn. Somehow, Takeru knows what's coming even before his brother hangs up.
"Um. I might have a problem…"
Takeru is good at adapting to change, and that's just as well, because these days his apartment is anything but quiet. It's not really the picture he ever had in his head when he imagined having a pet, but in a way that's a good thing. Because the more he thinks about it, the more he realises that, if he'd had a pet as a child, as one family, there would have come a day when either himself or Yamato left home, and left the dog, and went their separate ways as adults.
Instead, his family went their separate ways while they were children, and he never got that childhood pet, or those years growing up together with his brother.
And now, here he is with two rapidly growing, very energetic dogs who are not only utterly inseparable, but also the main reason that Yamato stops by almost every day. It's hard work having a puppy, it turns out, and even harder work having two—but it also turns out that, just as he imagined, he and his brother end up taking them for walks together in the park.
When he was just a boy, idly daydreaming about having a pet, he didn't imagine watching Patamon hanging onto Yujou's collar and trying in vain to get the dog to heel; or Gabumon standing arms folded as Kibou drops another stick at his feet to be thrown; or waking up each morning almost smothered by dogs and digimon. But really, he thinks, on those mornings when the doorbell rings and he pushes past two hyperactive golden retrievers to let his brother in once more, it all worked out for the best.
A.N.: This was written for Odaiba week, using the theme for the day of "The Power of Friendship". But it was also inspired by a tweet from the ever talented Varichina, who happens to share her birthday with Odaiba day. So Happy Birthday Varichina, Happy Odaiba Day everyone, and just generally happy things all round, because it turns out I can write something that isn't angst, and isn't super long, and really, who knew?