A few notes about this one: The fourth scene is that flashback we've seen on the original Digimon Adventure and the last one is moments before they go to the Digital World. I didn't purposely use the other children's name for the simple reason they had just met.
Day 5 (Carry On My Wayward Son): Aniki
Yamato covered his eyes with his tiny little hand the moment he walked into a place and the blinding lights immediately hit him. He held his father's hand tighter so he wouldn't lose him. He also heard some voices and some people wearing weird green or dark blue clothes, but he had no idea who they were or what place was that.
"Mommy." He looked over his shoulder once he was adjusted to the bright lights, hoping she would be behind them. But he hadn't seen her since yesterday. His eyes got teary and silent tears began to fall from them, afraid he would never see her again.
It was only when a sob audible enough to reach Hiroaki's ears that he looked down at his three year old son. "What's wrong, Yamato?"
"Mommy." Yamato repeated, drying his tears with the long sleeve of his green shirt. "I want mommy."
"You'll see her soon." Hiroaki picked him up and looked into his small blue eyes. "And also, there's a small surprise for you."
"A dog?" The child's face lit up with happiness. He had been asking for a dog for over a year now.
"No, it's much better than a dog. But you'll get to see him soon."
Yamato was silent the rest of the way, as he still didn't know what was going on and the noise was bothering him though it had died down a lot.
He soon found himself in a room with bright white walls that hurt his eye. There was a strange bed, in which his mother was lying under some ugly green blankets. Yamato didn't think she was sick because she hadn't stopped smiling since he had been there, but he suddenly felt sad because she didn't talk to him once since he arrived with his father. Instead, she only kept looking down at something near her he couldn't see very well.
"Mommy." He called her softly after he walked closer to her bed. A wide smile appeared on his lips, replacing his sad eyes, when she finally looked down at him and ruffled his hair gently.
"Hello, Yamato. Your father and I want you to meet someone."
Yamato frowned, trying to understand what she was talking about when Hiroaki's hands wrapped around him and pulled him up in the bed. He looked towards his mother and saw something strange. He crawled over to get closer.
"A doll."
"It's not a doll." Natsuko laughed. "This is your younger brother."
"Brother?" He looked at her and then to Hiroaki with a very confused expression.
"Yes, Yamato. Now you're going to have someone to play with and be a company for you. He's gonna be your best friend for life."
Yamato looked over the baby again. He bent closer a little more to get a better look. He seemed to be sleeping because his eyes were closed, but he opened them the moment the child got closer to him. Yamato could see he had blue eyes and blond hair just like him. The baby smiled widely at him as if he knew him for a long time and Yamato found himself smiling back at him. He stretched his hand to touch the baby and he wrapped his tiny hand around his finger. The child's smile turned into a small giggle and then he looked at Natsuko again, who was smiling proudly but also a little teary with their first moment together. Yamato didn't quite know what it meant to be an older brother, but he knew he would protect that little being no matter what.
"We still have to choose a name for him." Natsuko said as she looked at the baby briefly and then to her older son. "What should we name him, Yamato?"
"Takeru." Yamato immediately replied looking at his brother's curious blue eyes again.
.
The first two months were very difficult for Yamato. At some moments he absolutely loved his little brother and spent hours beside his crib watching him sleep and ran to Natsuko every time he woke up, before Takeru even started crying with hunger or when he needed to have his diapers changed. That was the only moment Yamato refused to stay around. But, at the same time, he thought Takeru was very noisy and loud when he cried, and that annoyed him a lot. Besides, he felt like his parents didn't care about him anymore because everything was always about Takeru.
"Dad, do you want to play with me?" Yamato asked Hiroaki while he played with some building blocks.
"Not now, son. Your mother and I will take Takeru to the pediatrician now."
"What is it? Ped… pedi…"
"Pediatrician." Hiroaki ruffled Yamato's blond hair gently. "He's going to get his first vaccines today."
"Oh." Yamato looked down, but he wasn't able to hide his disappointment with the situation.
"What's wrong, Yamato?"
"Nothing." He replied without looking at his father.
"Yamato." Hiroaki said a little more firmly and the child knew he would have to talk about it.
"I…"
"You think we forgot about you because of Takeru, don't you?"
Yamato simply kept focusing on his blocks, but that made it clear enough to Hiroaki. The man sat down on the floor across his son and took the blocks away from his reach.
"Son, look at me."
Yamato slowly looked up at his father with teary eyes. Hiroaki then realized how hurt his older son was with the situation.
"Natsuko, can you come here for a second?"
"I'm dressing Takeru up. What do you need?"
"It's important."
"Okay, give me two minutes then."
It took Natsuko a little more than just two minutes to walk into their living room. She was confused to see Hiroaki sitting on the floor across Yamato.
"What happened?"
"Please sit down."
"Okay."
Once she was settled down, the man reached out for Yamato and placed him on his lap. Yamato was facing his brother, who was sitting in the same position as him on Natsuko's legs.
"Yamato thinks we don't love him anymore because we're always looking after Takeru."
"Oh." Natsuko said surprised. "Is that true, son?"
Yamato simply nodded his head and looked down.
"We will never stop loving you, Yamato." She said softly. "You will always be our little prince no matter what."
"That's right. But now there's someone else we need to look after too, but it doesn't mean we forgot about you or anything. We love you very much."
"I love you too." Yamato stood up and Hiroaki helped him reach to his other leg, where he hugged both his parents with his tiny arms and each one of them gave him a kiss on his cheeks.
.
Yamato and Takeru peeked from their bedroom after all the screaming and shouting seemed to die down. Their parents' fight made them immediately stop playing and carefully open their bedroom door to see it.
"Why are they always like this now?" Takeru cried and stepped away from the door.
"I don't know." Yamato replied in a low tone, so he wouldn't be heard by them. "But this has been happening quite often lately."
"Yamato, Takeru, come here." Hiroaki's voice echoed in the hall and in their bedroom and both boys felt afraid for a moment.
"Do you think it's something we did?"
"I doubt it." Yamato replied. "But let's go see it. Maybe it's something good."
"Okay."
As both boys carefully and slowly walked into the living room, they noticed there were a few bags around the place and their parents were sitting on different couches with very serious expressions.
"We need to talk." Hiroaki took his hands away from his face and looked at his sons.
"What is it?" The older child felt something inside him getting tense and he already hated where that was going.
"Your mother and I have some news for both of you."
"We tried everything we could to not let things get this far, but we failed."
"What are you trying to say?" Yamato asked and the bad sensation he was feeling only got stronger.
"Your father and I are getting divorced."
"What does that mean?" Takeru asked, confused.
"It means our parents are going to live in separate houses from now on."
"What?!" He cried and ran towards Natsuko, hugging her legs and looking up at her with his eyes full of tears. "You can't do that, mom. Please."
"I'm sorry, Takeru." She closed her eyes and looked away, so he wouldn't see her own tears. "We didn't want things to get to this point, trust me."
"I want to live with dad." Yamato suddenly announced and drew the attention from the other three people in the room. "Can I?"
"Sure." Hiroaki replied looking at him. "Are you sure about this, though? You won't get to see your brother very often."
The child swallowed hard and shut his eyes with as much strength as he could to fight his tears that came with the realization. "Yes, I'm sure."
"No, aniki!" Takeru now had his small arms wrapped around his brother's waist and was crying non-stop. "I don't want to live in a different house than you. We were supposed to be together forever, remember? We promised."
"Takeru, please." Yamato refused to look at his little brother. That would make him go back on his decision of letting his mother give full attention to Takeru. He was going to need it more than him.
"Alright." Hiroaki tapped his thighs before standing up and getting his luggage. "We'll schedule a date for me to pick the rest of my stuff after I find a place to stay with Yamato."
"Sure."
"Let's go, son."
"Nooo!" Takeru yelled and looked at Natsuko. "Mom, please do something! Don't let them leave."
"I'm sorry, son. It's for the best."
Yamato looked over his shoulder with tears in his eyes. Though he knew he had made the best decision, it still hurt to leave Takeru behind.
.
Takeru was spending a few days with Yamato and Hiroaki, who was at work. The two boys were going to alone all day that day.
"Takeru, what do you want to eat for lunch?"
"Aniki, I'm not hungry now. Let's play instead."
"You need to eat."
"Fine. Fried eggs with rice are good for me."
"Alright. You can go play with your blocks while I cook. I'll call you when I'm done. And then we can play together, I promise."
"Okay." The four year old boy ran to the yard in the apartment happily.
Yamato was finishing setting the table so they could eat when he heard a thud noise followed immediately by a cry. He bent to his right to take a look at the yard and saw Takeru fallen down over his blocks. So he walked outside and held his brother in his arms.
"What happened?" Yamato smiled as wide as he could to help Takeru feel better and stop crying.
"I don't know, I just fell down."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm better now. I'm a tough boy. You can put me down."
"Okay, tough boy." Yamato laughed. "Lunch is ready."
A couple of hours later, Takeru was still taking his after lunch nap. So Yamato sat on the floor in the yard and took his harmonica out of his pocket. It was a gift from Hiroaki and it has been his favorite companion since then. At first he didn't know exactly how to play it, but eventually he learned how to. And soon it became his escape object, which he turned to when Takeru and Natsuko's absences were too much for him to handle. And it happened about twice or three times a week. Sometimes even more. It was also how he coped with being alone in the house during the week after school, until Hiroaki returned from work.
"What's this?" Takeru said sleepy when he walked out of the house rubbing his eyes.
"Did I wake you?"
"No, I couldn't sleep anymore."
"Oh I see. This is a harmonica." Yamato stretched his hand and let Takeru look at it after he sat down beside him.
"It looks so cool. Where did you get it?"
"Dad bought it to me actually about last year. It took me a while to figure out how to play though."
"Can I try it?"
"Sure."
Takeru took the instrument and placed in on his mouth. He tried blowing it, but nothing happened. "I think it's broken."
"It's not broken, Takeru." Yamato laughed. "You just need to blow it the right way. It's not that easy though."
The younger blonde tried again and he was a little better that time, but still far from being as good as he wanted. "This thing is hard. Can you play it?"
"Yeah, sure." He grabbed the harmonica from his brother's hand and brought it to his lips.
The melody that came out of it was so soothing and relaxing that, in the next second, Takeru was leaning against Yamato's shoulder with his eyes closed. He had fallen asleep again listening to it.
.
The weather was really hot that August 1st and a bunch of kids were running around the green field, laughing or screaming or playing soccer or another sport. They were having a small time off before the next activity and Yamato was watching Takeru sitting on the grass when a snow flake came down from the sky.
"What's this?" The younger one leaned towards the white dot before it melted on the soil.
"It's a snow flake, but in summer? That's really strange."
"It is, but I think it's just an odd situation. Like two snow flakes and that's it."
"I don't think so, look."
Takeru looked up at the sky and noticed the weather had completely changed and the sun was hidden behind many clouds and the temperature dropped dramatically in a matter of five minutes.
"Okay, this is strange."
"Come on, let's go inside a cabin." Yamato quickly picked Takeru in his arms and ran towards a warmer place when it started to snow heavily.
There were five more children in the cabin with them, from other schools in Odaiba. Yamato had seen them around the summer camp at some point, but they never talked before.
"What's going on here?" A girl with red hair asked as she looked through the window.
"I have no idea." A boy who was by her side replied. "But it ruined our soccer match."
"Snowing on summer? This is insane." Another boy who seemed older than the rest of them said while fixing his glasses.
"I really wanted to go to the swimming pool." Another girl with a big cowboy hat spoke in disappointment. "Now the water will probably be frozen."
And there was also another boy who kept using his laptop the whole time and didn't say anything.
"What's going to happen now?" The girl with red hair asked again. "Are we having to go back home now?"
"I hope not, that would suck. We just got here."
"The snow seems to be stopping. I think we can go outside again."
"That could be dangerous. It's safer to stay here and wait until one of the teachers come rescue us."
"You're annoying." The boy with the dark blue shirt said while rolling his eyes. "I'm going outside."
"Me too, but it's so cold." The girl with the funny blue cap rubbed her arms to keep them warm.
"Snow, snow, yay!" Takeru ran outside in a very cheerful mood and Yamato quickly followed him.
"Takeru, wait up!"
One of one, all the children were outside in the snow except the boy in the computer, who was at the porch still using it.
"We should find the rest of the people and stay with them."
"Don't be so boring, everything is fine."
"It's still strange that it snowed in the summer."
"It is." Yamato said while he still kept an eye on his brother.
"Look, there's an aurora in the sky!"
"It's so pretty!" The girl with the cowboy hat said excited. "So romantic."
Suddenly a strange event occurred in the sky that sent something that resembled meteors towards them and they all protected themselves like they could until it was over.
