Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon.

This is my attempt at a one-shot story. Chromate inspired me to try my hand at a legitimate one-shot, so this is the product. I don't know what the protocol on these things is, but here is my attempt.

Hope it doesn't burn anyone's eyes out lol. In this story Hikari is three and Taichi and Yamato are six years old.


The room was cold and the sheets were scratchy. On the walls was a light green color that made him feel nauseous when he stared at it for too long. He didn't want to be there. The only place Ishida Yamato wanted to be at that very moment was back in his own home. Takeru was there and he would be wondering where his big brother was. Why did he have to stay in this horrible place when his best friend in the world was somewhere else?

"You have weird hair." A fuzzy patch of brown grabbed his attention, while a set of inquisitive caramel eyes ogled Yamato like a shark watching prey. "It is all pointy and stuff."

Yamato, already in a foul mood due to his current predicament, narrowed his eyes, "Yours is weirder."

"Are you sick?" The boy grinned showing his missing front tooth. "I'm not suppose' to bother sick people. But my mama didn't say nothing 'bout healthy people."

"I'm not sick."

It wasn't a lie in Yamato's opinion. He didn't feel sick at all. Sick people coughed and sneezed nasty slime. Yamato hadn't coughed since he caught a cold last winter, four whole months ago now. All he knew was his mother and the scary people in white jackets told him he was sick. How could he be sick when he didn't feel sick? As far as the stubborn child was concerned, the only thing he needed to do was go home.

"Good." The brunet crawled onto the bed and sat across from Yamato. He was dressed in a long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbow and a pair of khaki shorts. On his skinny legs and arms were multiple scratches and bandages. Yamato noticed a few of the strips had his favorite cartoon show on them. A grin spread over the brunet's face and he proceeded to explain each of his various injuries, with all the gory details escalated to outlandish proportions.

"Why would you climb onto a roof?" Yamato asked as the boy flashed him a particularly large bandage on his left knee.

"I wanted to see what was up there. Didn't you ever wonder what it looks like on the roo… What's your name kid?"

"Yamato." He shifted nervously in his seat and toyed with the edge of his bed covers. Why would anyone want to climb up that high? The idea of falling off the roof scared him, but this child didn't seem frightened of anything. Yamato couldn't help but wonder if he would be scared of the men in white coats too.

"I'm Taichi." The boy forgot Yamato's earlier question completely and eyed the cards sitting beside his new friend's leg. "Wanna see a trick?"

"What kind of trick?"

"It's really, really good!" Taichi bounced up and down a little and grabbed the cards before Yamato could protest. He smiled when he saw the face of his favorite animated hero looking up at him, and then proceeded to try shuffling the limited edition deck. When most of the cards were face down, he held out the deck to Yamato, "Pick a card."

Yamato selected one and followed Taichi's instructions to look at it then place it back into the deck. A few random words of magic exited Taichi's mouth and he waved his hand over the deck. With one last magic word whistled through his missing tooth space, he halved the deck and tried to shuffle it like the older kids at school did. In a matter of milliseconds the cards flew across the room and landed ungracefully on the floor. An awkward laugh escaped Tiachi's mouth as he spotted the frown on Yamato's face.

"Tah-dah?"

"That's the only thing my mom brought me!" Yamato stared at the cards for a few seconds, then turned his frustration back to Taichi, "Now you threw them everywhere! What if some of them get lost?"

"Um…" Taichi bit his lip and looked around the room to find something that would fix this mess. He didn't like the shade of red covering his friend's face, mainly since it reminded him of Sora before she would try to punch him in the shoulder. "What about the balloon?"

The large helium inflated creature was shaped like a dog and had a cheesy slogan scrawled across the bone in its mouth. It was tied to the bed rail and appeared to be the only decoration in the entire room. Taichi remembered when his little sister had to stay in the hospital for two whole nights. All of their relatives had sent her so many toys, balloons, and candy that they had filled her entire room! This room was much more empty than his sister's had been. He couldn't understand why Yamato's family didn't send him lots of presents too.

"I can show you another trick with it."

"No!" Yamato reached out a second too late, and watched in horror as Taichi pulled the release string and let the balloon fly up to the ceiling. His blue eyes watched the only present his extended family sent him bounce around the ceiling. When the vents let in a new blast of ice-cold air, the helium dog quickly floated into the nasty colored wall. It bumbled against the top corner of the room then popped before his wide eyes.

"Um… I…" Taichi tried to think of something to say as Yamato turned back to look at him. The large blue eyes were growing more tear filled by the minute and Taichi bit his lip. He hadn't meant to make his friend feel so bad. It was all a big accident, like when he melted Hikari's doll in the microwave. Either way, he felt pretty bad as Yamato started to silently cry and sniffle.

Taichi looked away from the boy's pathetic face and tried to spot something, anything, that could be entertaining. There were a lot of things in the room that he had never seen before. A beeping machine in the corner looked particularly interesting, but he was pretty sure his mom would be really mad if he touched it. Next to the beeping machine was a box of plastic gloves that reminded Taichi of an old trick he had seen his doctor do once before. It had made Hikari laugh really hard, so it would make Yamato laugh too.

"I got one more trick." He scrambled off the bed and rushed over to the glove box.

"I…" Yamato sniffled and rubbed his wet eyes; "I don't wanna see anymore tricks. I want my balloon back."

"This," Taichi scrambled onto the bed with the box in hand, "Will be better 'cause no one gots one of these."

Yamato breathed slowly and tried to stop the tears as Taichi put a glove to his lips. The brunet took a deep breath, and then blew as hard as he could into the plastic. Almost immediately, the glove began to grow and pop out each finger space. Yamato had to admit it was the strangest balloon he had ever seen. Taichi stopped blowing the glove up and attempted to tie the end in a knot so the air wouldn't escape. His chubby little fingers failed and the glove shout out of his hands and smacked him in the face.

An actual laugh escaped Yamato's mouth and he gave Taichi a shy smile. The brunet picked up on the positive energy and attempted to put the glove on his head like a hat. Yamato laughed harder and took one of the gloves for himself. He was able to blow it up just like Taichi's first attempt, but he had a little more skill at tying knots. When the knot was secured he tossed it at Taichi and laughed even louder as the brunet pretended the glove weighed a ton.

"Let's make lots and lots more!" Yamato cheered and Taichi laughed just as loudly with him. He hadn't been too sure about the gap-toothed boy at first, but now Yamato was pretty certain he had met the coolest new friend ever.

"What is going on in here?" The pediatric oncology nurse, alerted by the large amount of noise, marched into the room with disapproving eyes. She took in the sight of two small boys covered in plastic gloves and made a chastising sound under her breath. "Are you Yagami Taichi?"

The brunet nodded solemnly, but did not say a word to the scary woman.

"Your parents have been looking for you for over an hour. I can't fathom how you made it all the way to this floor without being noticed." She reached out to help Taichi off the bed and escort him out of the room. "Yamato-chan needs to rest. You should not have disturbed him."

"Can't he stay?" Yamato pleaded as the nurse led Tai towards the door. "I like having someone to play with."

"You can play with one of the nurses when they have a break." She dispelled the boy's attempt to change her mind and pulled Taichi along after her.

"Bye Yamato! I hope we get to play again real, real, real soon!"

Taichi's shout and wide-set smile, prompted Yamato to wave happily at his friend and honestly announce, "Me too, Taichi! I wanna see another trick!"


Boy, this one seems very off quality wise. I'll leave its fate up to you readers lol.