Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.
Fandom: Digimon Frontier
Title: You Dropped This
Characters: Kouji & Kouichi
Word Count: 2,220||Status: One-shot
Genre: Family||Rated: G
Challenge: What-If Challenge; Secret Bunnies Fic Exchange 2014
Feedback: All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Summary: [one-shot, What-If Challenge & Secret Bunnies Fic Exchange 2014, Kouji & Kouichi] Fighting Raremon, Kouji lost his bandanna. Wherever did it go and will he get it back?
It's got to be around here somewhere. Kouji poked at the scattered rocks with the makeshift staff he'd fought the Pagumon with earlier. No matter how many he turned over, his bandanna wasn't underneath any of them.
The way it vanished confused him more than anything had in a while. He'd been so caught up in the fight, and in the fact he'd evolved into a Digimon, that he wasn't even sure when it had vanished off his head. Vanished or fallen or been taken, he didn't know. But it had been there when he'd leaped down to start fighting, and when he'd turned back into a human, it was gone.
At least he thought it was gone then. He hadn't really noticed until he was outside, trying to wrap his mind around the fact he'd changed into something entirely different. The wind teased at his hair more than he was used to, and it had dawned on him only then that his bandanna wasn't there.
So back he'd trekked into the underground cave where the Spirit of Light had been hidden, looking for his property. And yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find it.
Wonder if those fuzzy heads took it. He wouldn't put it past him; they'd all been angry at him, not just the one that evolved into that…what had it been called? That oily sludgy thing? Raremon, that was it. Maybe one of them had snatched it off him while he'd fought and he just hadn't noticed? That made the most sense. His teacher had told him time and time again that he frequently paid too much attention to the fighting and not what was going on around him.
Maybe he could track down those other kids and ask them if they'd seen it anywhere. He tensed a fraction at that; he wasn't very fond of other people, and though he'd done two of them a favor by saving them, he already owed that Takuya kid a debt. He didn't want to hang around them more and maybe accumulate others.
He'd find it himself. It wasn't as if he actually needed any kind of help to do that, anyway. Those little Digimon were just a bunch of fuzzy heads. If he couldn't find it on his own, then it probably was gone past finding anyway.
It didn't take him too long to get back up to the surface and after he was back up, he started looking around for the Pagumon. He wanted to get this done as soon as possible and get moving on to…wherever it was he decided to go next. He still didn't know why he'd been called here in the first place, and he hadn't yet made up his mind on if he wanted to stick around. Granted, the turning into a Digimon part was interesting, but…well…
Well, he needed to find his bandanna, or at least figure out if those Digimon were the ones who took it. And if they weren't, and if he couldn't find it, he'd just chalk it up to this world being weird and go on about his day. He could always replace it when he got back home.
Black armored fingers ran over the dark material. He didn't know where it came from, only that the moment he saw it, he knew that he wanted it. There was the faintest hint of a scent to it, something that tugged at a part of him he didn't entirely understand. It didn't pull at him in a disturbing way, but it held comfort that he wasn't sure he wanted.
He shouldn't keep it. But he couldn't bring himself to throw it away, either. It was his now, whoever and whatever it had belonged to before.
Strange that he should claim something when he didn't even know what to call it. A rag or cloth of some kind? He didn't know what it could be used for, and it wasn't very practical for battle, either. It would give an enemy something to grab onto.
Not that his enemies would be able to grab onto him, not with his strength and speed. But he wouldn't give them anything anyway.
He wouldn't let any of the other Chosen Warriors see this either. He didn't fear any of them, but he wanted to keep this little piece, whatever it might be, all to himself. He would have to find somewhere he could keep it until he knew more of what it was and perhaps who it had once belonged to.
Maybe he would meet the former owner. Duskmon could not decide if he wanted to or not. Perhaps they'd want their property back. They wouldn't get it. Finders keepers, after all.
Kouji ran his fingers through his hair, wishing that he'd remembered to shove a comb into his pockets before leaving that last day at home. If he'd ever imagined he would lose his bandanna, then he knew he would have. It wasn't much of a problem, but without the bandanna to keep the wind out of his hair, he had to deal with something that usually wasn't an issue: tangles.
"You'd think that if they can grow meat on trees, they would grow combs, too," Kouji muttered, half to himself. Takuya sat on the other side of the fire, nibbling on his meat apple, and clearly not paying that much attention to what was going on.
Or at least Kouji thought he wasn't, until the other looked over at him. "Didn't you have something in your hair before? I thought you did when I saw you on the train."
Kouji managed not to roll his eyes. Somehow. "I did. I lost it." Keeping his hair neat wasn't a huge priority, but the thought of running around the Digital World with knots and snags and tangles didn't appeal to him either. At least it didn't transfer over when he evolved, so he didn't have to worry about someone grabbing hold of it and yanking. If nothing else, it gave him something to do with his hands before he went to sleep.
Takuya frowned, gulping down more of his apple. "Yeah…I think I sort of noticed it falling off when you were fighting Raremon."
A faint thrill of hope worked its way through Kouji, though he fought hard to keep it from showing on his face. "You didn't happen to pick it up, did you?"
"Nope. I was busy." Takuya didn't look at him, and Kouji decided he didn't want to ask. He had a few ideas anyway on what Takuya might've been thinking at the time and he didn't want to get them confirmed.
He worked at another knot, growling under his breath. He'd never been able to find any clues about where the bandanna had vanished off to. The Pagumon hadn't had anything to do with it, or so they said, and after the drubbing he'd given the first batch, he suspected they told the truth. It had simply vanished into thin air.
All of my questions will be answered, huh? He hissed as his fingers caught in the knot and started trying to work it out. How about 'where can I find a decent comb in this world'?
Minamoto Kouji. The Warrior of Light. Duskmon stared down once more at the bandanna in his hands. He'd kept it safe all this time, storing it in a small cubbyhole in their lair. He'd almost forgotten about it, all truth to be told, especially since there was so much else that needed to be done. He'd explored much of the land of Darkness, knowing the time would come when he would face the human Chosen, and wanting it to be there, where his own power was at its strongest. He'd had to put up with the rest of Cherubimon's warriors the whole time as well, and that hadn't been easy. Or wanted. If he'd so much as given a hint that he owned something that had once been a human's, then Ranamon and Mercuremon would've been all over it.
But the moment he saw Kouji, he knew this was his. The sight of the boy not wearing it struck a chord deep within him, one that rang wrong. It was as if he'd seen the other before with it, and he didn't know how that could be.
He still didn't know how this had come into his possession. His memories of those early days of being the Warrior of Darkness were fuzzy and incoherent. He didn't think of them very often, preferring to focus on the present instead. When he thought hard about it, all he could imagine was picking this up from somewhere dark. He decided that was all he needed to remember about it.
What would Kouji do to get this back, he wondered? Or should he even try to ask? It was only a scrap of cloth, surely easily replaced if necessary. And yet he hadn't. He'd simply gone on without it.
It couldn't mean that much to him, then. Duskmon began to put it back into the cubbyhole, then hesitated. He wouldn't return it to Kouji, he decided, since there would be no need. The boy wouldn't survive much longer. But he would keep it on him, perhaps as a trophy of his victory to come.
He tucked it away out of sight; he didn't have many places to keep things on his body, and even few things that he needed to keep, but luckily the way some of his armor was shaped meant that something this small, and almost as dark as he himself was, would go unnoticed where he hid it.
Perhaps he would show it to Kouji after all. But he wouldn't give it back.
Kouichi fidgeted. He knew he needed to give it back. He wanted to give it back. But that would mean doing something that he'd avoided doing to Kouji for weeks. Months, even. Ever since he'd seen him coming out of his house with his dog. He didn't even know how long ago that was now. His sense of time wasn't what it had been before coming to the Digital World. But to return this, he would need to talk to his brother.
He glanced around quickly to make certain that no one else was close enough to see him. He didn't want awkward questions being asked before he'd figured out how to answer them. Once he was reasonably sure that no one else was going to see him, he pulled the bandanna out of his back pocket and stared at it.
It really is his. Getting his memories back of how he'd come to the Digital World hadn't made how he'd acquired this any clearer. Some of that was still fuzzier than he wished. But the fact was, he had it, and it didn't belong to him.
It was the first thing that he'd ever touched that Kouji touched as well, that only Kouji had touched, that belonged to Kouji. It was like having a little part of his brother with him, and he'd never even thought about it before, not even when he realized this was Kouji's property.
The thought of what he'd planned to do still made him a little sick to his stomach. He could not have been happier that he'd been stopped.
"Kouichi?" The Warrior of Darkness almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of Kouji's voice, and he quickly started to stuff the bandanna back into his pocket. He stopped after a moment, though, and gripped it tighter in his hands.
It's not mine. I can't keep it. "O-over here, Kouji."
His twin came closer, and Kouichi tensed with every moment. So far it didn't look as if Kouji had noticed what he held so tightly.
"We're ready to go." Kouji told him. Kouichi nodded; he'd almost forgotten they hadn't meant to stay here very long. Just long enough to grab something to eat and rest for a little while.
"All right." The words stuck in his throat a little, but he managed to say them anyway. He glanced down at his hands, then back up to Kouji. "Before we go…I…"
Kouji looked at him, head tilted a fraction to the side, then his gaze dropped to Kouichi's clenched together hands. His eyes widened. "Is that…"
Kouichi didn't let himself think about it. He worried if he did, he might not be able to do it. Instead, he shoved the bandanna over to his brother. "It's yours, isn't it?"
"Yeah…I lost it the first day I was in this world." Slowly Kouji reached to take it from him. "How did you find it?"
Kouichi bit his lip, his cheeks scorching just a fraction. "I don't know. I just had it. I didn't even know it was yours for the longest time. Not until I saw you again."
Kouji looked from the bandanna to him, then carefully reached up to wrap it around his head. "Thanks for keeping it for me, then."
Kouichi nodded, quite glad to have returned the bandanna to its proper owner. In the end, he would much rather have a brother he could talk to than a piece of cloth that had once belonged to that brother.
The End