"Does it ever bother you uncle Takeru?"
"Hmph?" Takeru's line of thought broke and he had to get back to present to watching his now 6-year-old nephew drawing a dragon on a sheet of paper. "I'm sorry, does what bother me?" Takeru clarified with the most child-friendly tone he could manage.
"That Patamon can't breathe fire." The 6-year-old retorted. The tone of his voice indicated that the young child deemed the question to be plainly obvious, even if the look on his face seemed slightly worried on whether he had been too frank with the touchy subject.
Takeru froze for a split-second, not expecting the question, nor the seriousness with which it was posed. His mind worked overtime to try and find the reason for the question. As a quick solution, Takeru settled to the parent-child-101, trying to get more insight on what he was actually dealing with. "Why are you asking that?"
Takeru's curious question was met with a strong silence as the red-haired boy seemed to ponder on the best way to approach the subject with his clearly slightly dim uncle.
"Dad always tells stories of Gabumon and Garurumon, and uncle Taichi always tells how Agumon has beaten off so many bad guys with his fire breath. I just… Patamon can't breathe fire, right?"
The short explanation started to give Takeru a very good idea of what kind of bedtime stories his own brother and Taichi had been telling the young child. As the small hands were coloring the dragon with a mix of orange and blue, Takeru's imagination had visioned a good deal of larger than life stories with mighty dragons and heroic spiky-haired young boys. In reality, he wasn't surprised the slightest by the older Chosens' actions, but he was surprised that Sora had let the stories to be told – that is, if she was even aware of the fact.
Still, Takeru couldn't leave the question unanswered under the waiting gaze of his nephew.
"No. It has never bothered me."
However, the quick and honest answer seemed to not have met the standards set for it, as his reply was met with a very disbelieving look that only a 6-year-old could master.
"It never bothered me. And it doesn't bother me now, okay?"
It was clear that the small child didn't seem to believe him and the meticulous coloring of the dragon's tail seemed to stress the condemning silence.
"You don't believe me?" Takeru asked, not sure whether to be exasperated or amused by the situation.
"My friend at pre-school fell over a bike and got really big scrape on the knee. It looked so cool but mom took away my bike when I tried to go really fast. At pre-school, I said I wasn't jealous."
The 'But I was' was left unsaid, but the older man got the picture, once again surprised how smart Yamato and Sora's children were. More than that, he couldn't shake off the feeling that his nephew was feeling sorry for him because his Digimon partner did not have as cool sounding abilities in the eyes of a 6-year-old. He could guess the huff from Angemon when he would hear about being "less cool", thinking back to his own ideas of Patamon evolving into a pig, and the indignation that had followed.
Maybe he should now keep some informative and educating lecture on white lies, scrapes and listening to one's parents, but he did trust Yamato and Sora's parenting enough to let the situation go. (Plus, he wanted to be "the Cool Uncle" at least on something.)
"Mmhmm. Yeah, but even though Patamon can't breathe fire, he can fly and shoot air really fast. And besides, it's not a competition on who has the coolest Digimon. You don't value your friends based on their stuff, right?"
The silence that met his explanation was a good indication that the 6-year-old did value his friends at least partially based on the toys they had.
"You shouldn't value your friends based on things like that." Takeru huffed a laugh good-naturedly, trying to teach a serious advice.
"I don't." Came the defensive reply, and for a moment they fell into steady silence which was broken only by the scratching of crayons. "Flying is cool." The red-haired child tried to console after a while.
With that, Takeru had to agree wholeheartedly, "Flying is cool."
It didn't take even three weeks before Takeru was, once again, "hired" as a substitute babysitter, and forced to acknowledge how the image of grandeur crumbles fast. Because WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon could also fly, as well as shoot missiles, apparently. A fact that had clearly been assured by more bed-time stories by his older brother and Taichi. Well, HolyAngemon looked like an angel with a sword and a shield. He could try that next.