Author's note: This fic is a new take on Digimon Adventure 02 with new relationships and additional plotlines added in. My inspiration was zeo1fan's fic "Off To A New Adventure", an excellent Taishirou story which everyone should check out. Seriously. And yes, there will be gay people in this. Oh, the horror. (I do not own Digimon.)

Digimon: The New Breed

By DigitalFlagDancer

Chapter One:

"Things Change"

Dang, he thought, reaching down and rubbing the bruise on his leg. The more he scratched the more it itched and after a few minutes he just stopped and gave up. Stupid basketball try-outs. It was a new school year and T.K. Takaishi was set to begin the seventh grade the next day. He'd been having trouble sleeping that night and constantly had to wake up and roll around before he could fall back asleep. Dazed and irritated, he glanced over at the alarm clock on his desk. The bold white digital numbers read 3:20 A.M. Just a couple hours left, he thought with a groan.

It wasn't that he was dreading going back to school. He just wished that he could get some actual sleep beforehand. Oh well, he though. No point in even trying at this point. I'll just get up early. His legs didn't want to budge, however. Neither did the rest of his body. So he stayed there, lying motionless in the dark and letting his mind wander as he stared up at the ceiling. At least I get to see Zenjirou...oh wait, he cut himself off. Had he really forgotten? Blame it on the lack of sleep, he thought, and turned over on his side.

He was going to a new school in the morning, the one he was originally supposed to go to back when he lived with his mom, dad, and brother. Now it was just him and his mother. It had been that way for several years now, and T.K. had moved to the other side of town following his parents' divorce. They were back in central Odaiba for his mother's new writing job however; she now worked in an office as an editor and report writer. Excited as he was for his mother's success, T.K. was more excited about moving back to the town where the rest of the DigiDestined lived. It had been three years since their adventures in the Digital World had ended, and though they now got to go on occasional trips back and visit their partners it just wasn't the same. T.K. missed his partner Patamon greatly, and it was just made worse by the fact that he couldn't bond much with his old teammates anymore. E-mails via their D-Terminals comprised the majority of their conversations nowadays, and not even his brother Matt stopped by to visit him as much as he had before. And not just because he was busy.

Oh well, T.K. thought. That's all about to change. He smiled: it was genuine. He couldn't help but grin at the thought of living near his teammates again. He would be going to school with them in a couple of hours, hopefully in the same class. In the same class, he thought. The idea had crossed his mind countless times in the last week since the move, and he hoped dearly that he would get to see Kari again. She had always been his best friend from the old group, and she was the only one in the same grade as him. All the other kids were up at the high school or moved away now, and Kari was his last hope of a making a daily connection back to his old life.

Please, please, please, he thought as he stared back up at the ceiling. He had rolled back into regular sleeping position, but the thought of his old friend made him ever more restless until he couldn't stand to stay in bed anymore. He got up and flipped on the light. I wish I knew already, he thought. Kari hadn't gotten a D-Terminal yet, or rather she wasn't supposed to get one until the last weekend before school started, and every time he called the Kamiya house to try and get her e-mail code no one had been there to pick up the phone. I hope everything's alright, he thought, and rubbed his eyes with the sides of his knuckles. He looked around his room tiredly, yawning and then rubbing his eyes again. I wish there was someone else up for me to talk to, he thought.

And then it struck him. "A-ha!" Of course! he thought. Izzy! Izzy was always up at three in the morning working on some computer program or web tech project! He only slept like two hours a night! I hope he doesn't mind me interrupting whatever it is he's doing, T.K. thought, typing up a short "Hello ^^" and setting his D-Terminal back down on the bed. Why the " ^^"? he thought, Isn't it kind of girly? Eh. I'm happy. I get to see him tomorrow. Today. His smirk broadened again. He did, didn't he! Tai and Izzy were supposed to stop by after school today to say hello! T.K. missed the couple, they'd always meant a lot to him as well. Especially Tai, who had acted like a big brother for him in situations when Matt hadn't been able to and even now when they were both older and Matt shirked such actions by choice.

Oh well, T.K. thought again. Surely he can't ignore me forever. Can he? T.K.'s mind dwelled towards more depressing subjects, his brother's rejection of his honest admittance and refusal to support him through any more hardships. He'd met up with Matt just a few days ago right when he moved into the new apartment and the two had gone out to lunch together and spent a few hours hanging out. Matt came over to the apartment at the end while Ms. Takaishi was still working and the two brothers had started to talk about what was going on with their lives. Matt was busy headlining a new band, The Teenage Wolves, and had finally started to taste some success. The band was set to be the opening act for Wada Kouji in a few weeks, and with any luck the gig would be the final push they needed to acquire a record deal and enter the mainstream.

T.K., meanwhile, was simply happy to be back home. He was psyched to be going to the same school as Kari and live near the rest of the DigiDestined, and in comparison didn't really care much about anything else. For the most part, anyways. There was one thing which had been troubling him lately, but he'd been able to escape it by basking in the joy that he felt over the coming reunion with his friends. Sitting in a kitchen chair across from Matt, however, the thought returned to his mind. He couldn't shake it, and the worries he'd been fighting off for so long refused to be silenced any longer. And so when Matt asked him if there was anything else new or exciting going on, T.K. knew he had to answer honestly:

"I'm gay." Those two words, spoken aloud for the first time after months of self-awareness and acknowledgement, were the cause of a deep wound in the brothers' relationship, causing a splintering effect to crack through their closeness from the very seconds following their utterance and through the rest of the week that had passed since. "What?" Matt had seemed shocked at first, then angry as disgusted as T.K. reaffirmed what he had said, plainly stating what he had known for almost a year now. "How could you?" Matt screamed, loosing control of his voice and throwing a glass at the wall. "How could you do this to us? Your family? Your friends?"

Those were the last few questions Matt had asked T.K. They were the very last words T.K. had ever heard come out of his brother's mouth before the older blonde stomped out of the apartment angrily, shaking violently as he repeatedly muttered something under his breath. The two hadn't spoken since. Nor apparently had Matt told anyone else what had been said, as T.K. had received no questions about it from his mother or friends via e-mail. Everyone acted as normally as they always had, and T.K. received no reason to suspect that anyone knew what he was besides Matt. It was ironic, after all, the way his brother had reacted. Matt himself had been in love with Tai three years ago, back when the group had first met and saved the Digital World. Matt had never said anything about it to anyone, but T.K. had always known. He always knew. His brother's eyes gave it away.

Alas, such feelings generated no sympathy. Apparently his brother was in just as much denial now as when he had first fell for the gogglehead. T.K. sighed. It was time to drift back to a more pleasing subject. Izzy! he thought again, looking over at his D-Terminal. The blonde boy picked it up, opening the top to reveal a familiar "You Have New Mail" screen. He smiled, and pressed "Ok." A new screen popped up. "Hello. How are you doing? Shouldn't you be in bed? :P" The sender tag read "Izzy Izumi." T.K. laughed. The reply was much chipper than he was expecting, especially the emoticon. Granted, that seemed par for the course with Izzy's recent e-mails. The computer geek had gotten much more sociable since getting together with Tai. The difference was prodigious, if a bit unnerving.

"I'm okay. Excited for today. Shouldn't you be in bed? :P" T.K. e-mailed back. There was a few minutes pause in-between answers. "Nope. Too close to finishing this program." was Izzy's reply. T.K. smirked. Of course. He shut the top on the D-Terminal and set it back on his desk. He looked at the clock again. 4:50 A.M. Had it really taken him an hour and a half just to think about his brother and send two e-mails to Izzy? Apparently so, T.K. thought, shrugging as he felt deep feelings of sleepiness finally take hold of him. He turned off the light and layed back down. I've got about an hour left before I need to get ready, he thought. God, I'm gonna be exhausted today. And with that thought, T.K. Takaishi drifted off to sleep.