Author's note: I want to thank Pied Piper for giving me this idea when I was stuck in a writing rut and needed something to get me going. This first part of this short story was written then and the second in my most recent writing block. For those of you waiting for Sunlight, the next chapter is almost done and believe it or not, this gem helped it get there. So thanks again Piper! ;) Next part will be released next week.

The Bomb

It all started with a bra.

By which Daisuke was 100% completely unfazed. Lavender lace and B cups could probably propel marbles at breakneck speeds as well as the red satin C's he often experimented with at home ever since he learned about centrifugal force. The elasticity of girl's undergarments could launch objects nearly as well as the slingshot his mother confiscated after one too many marbles found their target at the owner of said bra's rear.

So when Takeru turned pink and refused to sit after Chizuru Inoue went to fetch her sister, it took a few minutes for Daisuke to realize what the issue was.

"What'sa matter, Takaishi?" Daisuke flopped backward into the Inoue's couch and reached backwards with a toothy grin. "This?" His fingers latched onto lace and he held up the lavender bra that had been strung with its numerous companions on the back of the couch. The strap twirled around his finger and snapped out like a nunchaku.

Takeru flinched. "Don't touch it," he hissed, backing away as if it were a bomb, set to go off by mere acknowledgment. His eyes darted around the Inoue apartment and back to the bra covered couch like two blue bouncing balls.

Daisuke snapped the bra again and it flew directly into Takeru's flailing hands just as Miyako's brother walked into the room, sipping a cola. Takeru turned a livid shade of red grape and untangled his fingers from the lacy web, apologizing and excusing himself from the apartment so quickly that Mantarou didn't have a chance to react before the door slammed in his face.

While Daisuke snorted in the unsuccessful attempt to hide his laughter, Mantarou raised an inquisitive brow and readjusted his glasses. His gaze finally fell to where Daisuke sat surrounded by a sea undergarments. Shaking his head, he took a long sip of his drink and just as Daisuke wondered if he should start feeling uncomfortable, Mantarou shouted, "Who left their bras all over the couch?!"

"They're drying!" Chizuru called back from somewhere down the hall.

"What's wrong with your closet?"

"Lay flat to dry."

"What's wrong with your bed?"

"Shut it, Mantarou."

"We have company!"

"So? They're just bras."

"You women have no shame." Mantarou turned to Daisuke. "Your friend doesn't have any sisters, does he?"

"Nope." Daisuke snickered. He wasn't going to let Takeru live down his bra-phobia. Ever. "Lucky him."

"You're telling me. Coke?" After digging a soda out of the fridge and sloppily tossing it at Daisuke (he had to dive forward to catch it before it exploded on the floor), Mantarou plopped beside him on the couch, bra straps flying around his ears. "I asked my parents for a little brother to play with and I got three sisters instead. I think I'd rather be an only child."

"At least you're the oldest. Jun's always trying to boss me around," Daisuke grumbled, then added, "not that I let her," and puffed out his chest.

Mantarou lowered his glasses, peering over them in disbelief. "You think that stops them? Just be glad you have one sister and not three. Think about this for a second..."

He gave a long dramatic pause.

"It's that time of the month... three times a month."

Daisuke's nose crinkled. "Ugh."

"That means I'm dealing with PMS three out of four weeks. Or even worse: their periods synchronize."

Daisuke's mind conjured three imaginary Miyakos, screaming at him around half devoured chocolate bars, and he visibly shuttered. "Are they all as scary as Miyako?" he whispered, casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure she wasn't in hearing distance.

"No, she's definitely the worst. Probably because she's the baby. You should see the stuff she gets away with."

"Oh?" Daisuke perked up, bringing his legs up onto the couch and folding them as he leaned forward, eager to see what dirt her brother was willing to dish out. He was always on the lookout for good ammunition. "She clogs up the shower with her leg hair, doesn't she?"

Mantarou gave him an odd look.

Daisuke gave his shoulders a shrug. "Jun doesn't shave in the winter. I think she has more hair than I do right now."

After giving Daisuke's bare shins a weirdly curious glance, Mantarou shoved his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. "I wish Miyako didn't shave. Momoe and Chizuru are always hogging the bathroom, so she shaves her legs in the kitchen sink."

Daisuke took a second to imagine exactly how that was possible. She'd have to crawl onto the counter or maybe she stood – then she'd practically be doing the splits. Was Miyako that flexible? Her imaginary version reappeared in his mind, hiking up her new high school uniform and sticking out her tongue in concentration. She stretched over her leg to rinse shaving cream from her shin and cursed when water trickled backward down her thigh. The hem of her shirt lifted to dry the tiny droplets, showing the lightly tanned skin of her stomach.

"I mean we prepare food in there!" Mantarou shrieked and imaginary Miyako vanished from Daisuke's thoughts.

Giving his head a hard shake, Daisuke forced out a flat, "Gross." He suddenly felt a bit warm and tugged on his collar.

"And no one else seems bothered by this."

Daisuke cleared his throat. "I am," he coughed, finding that the cleanliness of the Inoue's food seemed to be far from his mind.

"Or that she sings N'Sync at the top of her lungs while she vacuums."

Now that he could use. Daisuke started to snicker when Mantarou added, "in nothing but a towel."

The snicker got caught in his throat as imaginary Miyako reappeared, kicking at the vacuum when the towel got sucked up and went Bye Bye Bye.

"Uh..." Daisuke covered his inability to respond by taking a long sip of his soda.

"And this whole bras on the back of the couch thing is nothing new," Mantarou continued, taking a break from his rant only to take a sip of his cola. "Miyako purposefully does laundry whenever she knows I'm having company. She thinks because she's in high school now, she's old enough for my friends. It's so embarrassing. Last week she hung an entire string of thongs in front of the TV."

Cola shot out of Daisuke's nose and mouth and he started hacking, cursing mentally at the underwear that danced across his vision. He imagined them laughing at him, their lace and strings coming together like tiny mouths, in order to distract himself from the first image that had popped into his head.

After Mantarou slapped his back, Daisuke wiped snot and soda on the neck of his shirt and pretended he was recovering from a serious bout of laughter.

"Seriously, no shame." Mantarou gave a loud sigh. "I don't need to see that, man. My friends should be completely off limits. And she's so obvious – watching her flirt is like listening to a cat in heat. She never shuts up."

"Tell me about it," Daisuke said, thinking back to Jun's relentless pursuit of Yamato. And Miyako had never been very subtle with her affections either. Ken had to almost literally shake her off his leg once – in the nicest way possible, of course.

Then the damn image of violet hair returned, rubbing against some older guy's shoulder like a purring kitten and Daisuke found himself blurting, "Did it work?"

Mantarou shrugged. "If it did, none of them would've told me." He narrowed one eye in Daisuke's direction. "She's my baby sister."

Daisuke took another long gulp of his soda even though his throat had yet to recover from his hacking fit and tried not to look at Mantarou's suspicious gaze. "Uh... maybe I should wait outside. Check on Takeru... make sure his nose ain't bleedin'."

"You guys are heading to Digiworld, right?" Mantarou asked, a devilish grin forming on his face.

"Uh.. yeah."

"Then we've got exactly 10 minutes before she finishes packing."

When Miyako emerged from her bedroom, oversized backpack strung over her shoulders and hair disheveled from her last minute scramble to get ready, Daisuke knew going along with Mantarou had been a very bad idea. The color of her face slipped into at least three different shades: shocked, embarrassed, and pissed the frick off.

Chizuru appeared behind her and burst into laughter.

Mantarou strutted up to his sisters, his entire torso stretching a rainbow of bras to max capacity. Daisuke had managed to get on exactly one: the lacy lavender B cups. They sat awkwardly across his bare chest like two misshapen lumps.

"How do we look?" Mantarou asked.

"What the hell are you doing with my bras?" Miyako shrieked, slapping her brother in the chest and storming up to Daisuke in order to give his goggles an angry tug.

The goggles snapped right onto his eyes, leaving stinging circles around them. "I thought they were hers!" Daisuke squeaked, finger flying at Chizuru who had yet to stop giggling.

Suddenly he understood Takeru's fear. That bra, before just a boob holding instrument that made an awesome makeshift slingshot, was now accompanied with a real live human female who was absolutely not his sister. Daisuke looked down at the cups on his torso and the livid Miyako was replaced with a livid imaginary one, who he could now picture in nothing more than those very lacey purple B's. Somehow it made her screaming ten times more frightening.

"Take it off, you pervert! You're stretching it out!" Miyako reached her thin arms around him to unstrap the bra from his back, pressing her cheek against his hot skin in order to navigate the hook.

Mantarou was rolling on the floor, laughing and squashing the assortment of Miyako's undergarments without a care in the world. With lavender lace in hand, Miyako turned on him like an angry lioness protecting her cubs (or bras). Daisuke grabbed his shirt and ran out of the Inoue apartment quicker than he had ever run from anything else in his life, evil digimon included.

Outside, Takeru had been joined by Iori and their conversation came to a sudden stop as Daisuke exploded out the door, his arms caught in an awkward struggle to pull his shirt back over his head. The goggles on his face were yanked down in the process, revealing red welts around each eye, making him look like some kind of beat up raccoon.

Iori's mouth stretched straight with just the hint of amusement. "Should I even ask?"

Before Takeru could tell him no, Daisuke turned on them, his hands running down eyelids as if he could wipe away the image that had settled like an unwanted house guest into his mind. And with all the fearful worry that he had set off a bomb, he hissed one word:

"Bras."