Warnings: mentions of eye trauma

VI.

About a month in, Tsukiko must have taken his miserable silence and exhaustion as not punishment enough because one day she just dropped him in front of Kei of all people. Whose Plotmon had a legitimate love of destroying anyone who had wronged her partner in some way. Whose parents broke every tradition they could to show love.

Also Kei was… well, Kei. His cousin, who had shown him how to climb a tree and how to prank your own partner.

Taesuke had wanted to be him for years. If only for the sake of one person. If only so one person looked at him like he felt he wanted to be seen.

And the Kei in front of him… was not the same one he had looked at through an extra handful of centimeters of height. Kei sat at his desk with a bandage over one eye and a bottle of water next to his pencil. His free hand shook a little and he let out a sigh.

"Tsu," Taesuke hissed as his sister came back munching on what looked like the cookies she'd sworn off because of her favorite actress last week. "What are we doing here?"

"She wants me to show you how to fall properly." Kei yawned. "And her because she always forgets."

"I don't forget!"

"That's why you broke your leg the other day." Kei smiled a little and put his pencil down.

Taesuke's eyes were the size of dinner plates at this point. "You did what." He whirled on his sister. "You did what and didn't tell anyone?!"

"What did you think we did in the Digital World, model for clothes?" His sister puffed up. "Mom and Dad knew, it was all healed ages ago, why did you have to know? Why did you tell him Kei?"

"Well you let him sign up without telling him that was a hazard from jumping wrong so…" Kei trailed off, smiling again, but with only one eye, it looked a lot less friendly than it usually did. "Did you tell him what practice in the Digital World would be like?"

"Why are we interrogating me all of a sudden?" muttered his sister.

Kei winked at Taesuke. "Well, I figured you were either here for me to teach you how to fall or we were going to have the two of us apologize awkwardly over something we can't really control and thus embarrass the only boys in your life with that camera you've got in your pocket."

Taesuke let out a guffaw as Tsukiko's face burned a brilliant crimson. "Soon as your face gets fixed I'm popping your eye like a zit, Kei!"

"You say that sort of thing much more, Taesuke can report you for misbehavior."

Taesuke stared between the two of them. Then he grinned. "Worse, i can tell mom."

His vision was immediately ruined by Kei's pillow. He thought it was worth it.

"Is it really that bad out there?"

Tsukiko was still there, having pilfered one of Kei's video games and seemed wholly focused in blowing things up on screen. Her eyes, and thus Kei's one, flicked towards him. "Not as much as it used to be," she said after a couple of minutes. "It's not great but the digital world's not civilized. It's just how it is sometimes."

"You make it sound like it doesn't make sense, or have laws."

"The law is don't be stupid enough to go past territory markers without a plan."

"Is this always what it's like with you two?" Kei rubbed his head. "I'm glad Sonja and I make sense."

"It's only because you don't live with her." Tsukiko swore at the TV before continuing. "You'll get it eventually."

"Great."

Taesuke snickered. Hackmon let out a snore. He absently scratched one of the few areas of fur his partner had free from armor. He watched them both for a while, then he said, because he really couldn't let well enough alone. "Is that what happened to Kaito?"

Both older teens looked at him with something like surprise and Tsukiko with resignation. He was stubborn so what?

Kei then shook his head. "That's complicated and not mine to tell."

"Gaomon told me," Tae said. "And I don't remember most of it. I just know something happened."

Tsu opened her mouth to speak. Then she stopped and looked away.

"Gaomon is important to the work we do," Puku supplied from his spot in Tsukiko's digivice. "But he is in this for his own ends. If you don't remember, it's because he doesn't want you to. And us telling you won't change your memory."

Taesuke laughed. "What, did he curse me or something?"

The others didn't laugh.

Slowly, the realization crept up on him that they weren't joking. "What, like a virus? Or…"

"No idea." Kei's voice was thoughtful. "But whatever it is, he doesn't want you to die. Yet."

"My brother's not going to die, Kei, don't be morbid." Tsukiko chucked his game chip at his head, only for it to be swiped harmlessly out of the air.

"Risk of the job, Tsu." Kei sighed. "Tae, you-"

"Is that what's up with Kaito?" Taesuke interrupted. "Is he cursed too? Is that why he's so cold all the time?"

Tsukiko groaned. "Tae, no that's not it."

"Then what is?! Why don't you just spill it and-"

"She doesn't know." Kei stretched out of his chair, almost catlike. "It's a higher up level secret. She didn't see the event. I did, and I have full disclosure on what went on. Unfortunately, you don't have the clearance and me telling you won't matter because you won't remember it once you leave the room. That's my best guess."

"Why?!" Why did everyone know things but him?

"Because you knowing means more people will know and that many knowing is a danger to Kaito, in his opinion." Kei began unraveling the bandages over his face. Tae looked away. "And for everything that is absolutely without a doubt a problem with Gaomon, he cares for Kaito above all else. For good or bad. So you won't know until you get the curse broken, which means you need to get into a very rough branch of Union. They're the only dedicated curse breakers around."

"You really do want to kill my brother, I knew it." Tsukiko muttered irritably into the controller she'd wedged into her own hands. "Only you would suggest my slacker idiot aims for the branch you quit."

"I only quit because they kept threatening to dissect me." Kei covered his face with one hand, scrounging in his drawer with the other.

"My brother doesn't need that-"

"Right here, sis." Taesuke made a face at her. "What am I supposed to do anyway?"

"Leave Earth for high school." Tsukiko huffed. "Go to super advanced exams and training for the next two years. Study until your eyes turn red. Get Hackmon to Mega."

Taesuke blinked. Then he grinned. "That sounds like fun!"

"Tae!"

"It does! And it's better than sitting on my heels all day!" He puffed out his cheeks. "Come on sis, I got into Union! I'll be fine!"

"You said that about middle school and I still don't believe it."

Kei turned his head, digging to tie a new set of bandages on. "It's your choice Tae."

"And I've made it. I'm gonna do whatever I gotta." Taesuke continued to pet Hackmon. "I've caused a lot of trouble I think and… well there's no way to go but up, right? Where do I start?"

Tsukiko made a noise between a sigh and a snort. "All right fine, I'll train you. Start running, brat."

Kei laughed at them.