Hey guys! Uhm, i realize that i am crossing some characters over from Kingdom hearts and Digimon but it is still a Digimon fanfic!!!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Digimon characters; nor do i own the Kingdom Hearts characters! XD

Ok, read and review..! let me know what you think!!!

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Chapter 2: Ragged RooRoo

I sat up immediately upon waking, panting. I saw my breath escape from my mouth in gray wisps making me realize how cold it was. I crossed my arms and rubbed my arms with my hands trying to stay warm while my teeth chattered incessantly.

The dawn was red with a few clouds outside my window to the east. The air was so frigid that the panes of glass on my window had frost lines all over it. I reluctantly pulled the covers off of me and swung out of bed onto the cold carpeted floor. I tip-toed out of my bedroom, down the hallway quietly, trying not to disturb my younger brother or my baby cousin.

I made it to the kitchen and turned on the tea kettle and started preparing French toast and a fruit salad for my little brother, Takeru, and while it was cooking, I heard my fourteen-month-old cousin, Roxas, start crying from his little bedroom.

Quickly, I left the kitchen to go get baby Roxas who was crying and calm him down. Thankfully, my little brother had not been awoken by the crying babe. Slowly, I rocked the small child in my slender, pale arms as I walked back into the aromatic kitchen. The French toast did not burn and I flipped the toast in the pan at the perfect moment.

As the second side of the toast began to cook, I put my now silent and smiling cousin in the high chair where he picked up his crayons to color in the picture he was working on the day before. I started cutting up the fresh oranges, bananas, and grapefruits for the small fruit salad.

The fruits were so fragrant causing all sleepiness in me to dissipate as I tossed them together with a little bit of sugar, and then I removed Takeru's French toast from the pan and put it on a plate. That was when I noticed sleepy-eyed Takeru walking into the kitchen rubbing his right eye from sleepiness. In his left hand he dragged his ragged stuffed-animal bunny that was missing one eye. It had once been my bunny, but when Takeru was born, I gave it to him to sleep with. That was five years ago when I was thirteen. And now I'm his…-

"Yami?" Takeru yawned looking at me with his foggy blue eyes, "Do I gots to go to school today? It's cold and RooRoo is tired."

RooRoo was the bunny. I set the plate down on the counter as Takeru (or TK) sat down at the small bar/island in the kitchen ready to eat his French toast.

I gave him a sigh and said, "TK, we've been through this. You have to go to school."

"Ahhh, but I don't wanna," TK whined eating through a mouthful of French toast and some fruit.

"No buts. Now finish your breakfast because we are leaving in twenty minutes drop you off at school ok?" I said tiredly giving TK the most sympathetic expression I could muster.

I had taken custody of my brother and cousin the day after my high school graduation. My parents had always had custody of my cousin whose parents were since deceased. I had gotten custody of both of them because state social service workers had discovered that my parents had been partaking in illegal drug use. Now, I won the custody of the two young children, and I got a little apartment in Bridgeport by providing private music lessons to multiple clients.

I would not send my young, impressionable and innocent brother to the Bridgeport public school in my own paranoia fearing that some melodramatic catastrophe would happen to him. So, I drove my little brother to a private school in Westport every day as well as dropping off my little baby cousin to stay with my long-time best friend Mimi.

Mimi was also eighteen, but she was born into a rich family and was already a model living in her own home in Westport to work in the New York City every weekend. She was very out-going and sometimes too bossy, but she more than willingly babysat Roxas every week day so long as she was named Roxas' official "Auntie".

After cleaning the kitchen and feeding Roxas his baby food, I took the baby into my bedroom where I changed his diaper and put on him some winter clothes. I then placed him on my bed as I changed into some tight black jeans, a long-sleeved white undershirt, and a black band t-shirt on top of that. I put on my coat, grabbed my keys, the diaper bag that had baby food, diapers, and formula, and picked up Roxas.

I walked towards the fridge and pulled out the lunch I made Takeru the night before and gave it to the now dressed kindergartener. I then proceeded to help him with his coat and gave him his back pack.

Then, we left the apartment and walked down the stairs to the lobby of the building. Takeru grabbed my free hand and I hoisted Roxas higher up on my hip.

"Excuse me, Yamato?" the land lord, Allen, said from behind his desk in the lobby.

Yamato stopped walking and turned and said, "Yes, Allen?"

"I have to raise your rent, and I need it every two weeks now instead of every month."

I stood there with my mouth hanging open. I was shocked in disbelief. He had raised my rent three months prior in August, but now he wanted more of my money?!?

"But, Allen, you know I can't-"

"Ishida, listen, you just need to do it alright? I got in trouble with the fuzz, I need the money bad and besides, the cost of living increases every day," Allen said cutting me off.

At that I walked out not wanting to think about it, and I reached my blue 2000 Volkswagen Golf, unlocking it, and setting Roxas in his car seat and TK got in the other side and buckled himself in. Thankfully, TK had become big enough to sit in the car without a car-seat because I only had one which was for Roxas.

I set the diaper bag in the front passenger seat and turned on the car. The engine roared to life unhappily in the cold weather, and I drove out of the parking lot. I joined the pre-early morning traffic on the 95 and drove to Westport.

Through-out the car ride, I kept on glancing back at my brother and my cousin. They were so happy, and didn't have a worry in the world, except maybe school for TK. I then looked back to the road ahead and a few tears rolled down my face. I inhaled some air and my breath was unexpectedly ragged.

TK must have noticed because I saw him in the rear-view mirror look at me and say, "Are you crying, Yami? Don't be sad…"

I quickly wiped away my tears and calmed my breathing down. TK had witnessed me cry so many times over the summer, so he knew that I was in pain even though he was only five. Then I said with the sweetest and most credible voice I could manage, "Don't worry about me, I'm not crying."

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Reviews please!!! Thank you for reading this fanfic!!! =D

~Dauphine-Blossom Wildewood