A/N: Series written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, L20. Individual fic also written for the Side-Stories/Spin-Offs Boot Camp, #012 – mindless.
To explain the series, Wish Journeys is a Digimon crossover (particularly seasons 1, 4 and 5) with Brave Story. It has four main stories: 1. Three Brothers, 2. Two Best Friends, 3. Growing Stronger & 4. Final Day. All four have oneshots as prequels and sequels – which is the numbering. Eg. this is 1.0.6 – the first 1 is that it's part of the first main story, the 0 in the middle is that it's a prequel and the 6 at the end is that it's the sixth of the prequels. These prequels explain the backstory of the Chosen who appear as characters in Brave Story. So you can read this before or after Three Brothers, but one will have spoilers for the other, depending on which order you've read them in. :D Or which order I write in if you happen to be following me. The order of the prequels/sequels within themselves don't really matter.
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Wish Journeys 1.0.6
A Three Brothers Tale: Kouichi's Prequel
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He'd always known, but he hadn't realised what he'd been missing all those years until his grandmother told him on her death bed.
And, finally, he understood a lot of things.
Why his mother never seemed happy. Why he and his grandmother had started to drift apart after she'd moved into the nursing home. Why she'd always start to tell him something and then stop, and the rest of their conversation became this awkward, heavy, thing. Why there were so few photos of him when he was really young: a baby, a toddler…
But now that he knew, now that he could see all those odd things knit together into something that made sense, he hadn't a clue what to do.
He couldn't very well walk up to this brother he didn't even remember and say: 'Hi, Kouji. Remember me? That's okay, I don't remember you either but apparently we're twins.'
He didn't even know the surname, considering he had his mother's maiden name.
.
It actually wasn't hard to find his father's name. It was on his birth certificate after all and his mother kept them in a box under her bed.
He felt a stab of guilt as he opened it, but fought it down. He'd never been forbidden to open that box after all, and know that he had a bit of information he needed to find the rest.
It didn't occur to him to stop that train right there.
He didn't need to ask why his mother had never told him. It must have hurt so badly, knowing you were only seeing half your children grow up… And it probably would have hurt more making do with morsels, knowing you'd never be able to find anything more.
He thought he'd already gone too far. It was a frightening idea and he shoved the box away.
He wondered, for one fleeting moment, whether his father felt the same. If that was why he'd never contacted them again. Why his mother said he had his own family, somewhere else.
It had sounded like such abandonment before.
And it was terribly hard to let go of that.
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It was a cute cat, even if it was so skinny: half-starved.
He couldn't take care of it.
But he couldn't leave it either.
It was a nice distraction, in the end. And it was a horrible, horrible thought because the cat deserved much more than that. But that was the sort of world they lived in. One's pain distracted from another's. Focused on nursing that cat back to health, Kouichi could ignore the gaping hole in his own heart.
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His grandmother's funeral was quiet. Few people remembered her, by the end. Kouichi and his mother were there, and it was left to them as the only relatives to pick out the bones. Kouichi's hands shook so badly he almost dropped them, but he managed. His mother's hands were steady but her eyes were wet.
His eyes, for whatever reason, were painfully dry, but his heart clenched – both because of the pile of ashes and bones that was his grandmother and the look on his mother's face.
He wanted to bury his face into her shirt and hug her and snuggle up to her under the patchwork quilt as the lighting and thunder continued on outside. But there was no storm. And no patchwork quilt. And they had the chopsticks. The bones. The ash.
The cold air stung. Especially his eyes.
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The cat ran away and, insensibly, Kouichi was angry at it.
It was transient. Of course the cat wasn't his. It would leave when it was well.
But it had chosen an awful time.
No, he told himself. It was always going to be an awful time.
Because time couldn't go back to when it wasn't.
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The silence was painful. Somehow, it was even more painful than his grandmother's final days – those aching gasps for air even through the respirator.
But time wouldn't turn back.
And there wasn't much of a point in turning it back. Some things would always be there. Like the divorce. Like the shadow in his mother's eyes. He'd never seen her without that shadow, though it grew lighter and darker in turn. Those photos from her high school days…where had that woman gone?
.
Maybe it had turned into a wish. Or a desperation. Or maybe he was still caught in that awkward, painful place where he couldn't decide whether he wanted to go on or stop.
Couldn't he have been line Macbeth and passed the line of no return?
Because there wasn't anything that was going to make that time roll back, to when he didn't know. To when all those niggling thing were just that: niggling. Without reason. Even if, on some subconscious level, he'd always known the truth.
And that was why he hadn't been able to deny the truth.
And there was nothing to distract him from it either.
His grandmother could have. That frail form in the hospital bed. But she was dead now. Gone, buried.
His mother could have. But she was working. Still; always working. There was never an end to her work.
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He found the address. And a telephone number. He tried to ring that number.
Every time, he hung up before completing the dial.
He couldn't. He just couldn't.
It was just too easy to turn away.
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He had the address. And it wouldn't be so easy to run face to face, once he was there.
Getting there was the hard bit.
He sort of trapped himself into it in the end. Told some classmates he planned to go to Shibuya, but he wanted company. And, of course, once the company was set he couldn't very well back out. So he got to Shibuya. Followed classmates around while his mind was somewhere else entirely.
And then he broke away from them to go about his own business.
Finding that house.
That was easy enough, but the doorbell froze him just like the telephone had.
The door opened before he could fight that or flee.
The boy that stepped out looked just like him.
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He'd frozen on the spot. That boy – it had to be Kouji – walked past him. He didn't even notice.
He was going somewhere. Kouichi let him go almost out of sight, then chased after.
He was still indecisive, but he couldn't lose this opportunity.
They escaped the quiet neighbourhood and entered the streets.
And then, suddenly, there was something between them. Something large – larger than a human. Rabbit-like – but somehow deformed. Purple and green and black.
He stumbled. Backed away. Fell.
The thing's lips moved.
'…who wants to change the world…'
The hand reached out.
He didn't want to do that. Not really. Or maybe…
He heard his own voice. '…a world without pain…'
His mother's eyes.
His grandmother's laboured breaths.
This gaping hole he wanted out of his chest.
He reached out.
The lips moved again. 'Come to the Gate.'
What Gate?!
Then hand vanished. There were bright lights suddenly, from his left.
And then red and black.
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There was a choking smell. It felt like his head was going to be split open within a fog. His throat felt scratchy and dry, and there was something being forced into his body.
He forced his eyes open. It seemed to take all the energy he had and he only managed to open them a crack. There were bright lights. Lights that burned. And that smell: suffocating, choking…
And now he could hear a sound as well. Beepings, mixing together tunelessly. A failure of an orchestra. All melting together. Like those indistinguishable smells. Like that crack of light.
'Come to the Gate.'
It was that voice again, but so blurred, so distant, so clouted in pain.
Don't talk. Please. He needed to find unconsciousness again.
But something was changing. Things remained blurred, but that little fog he'd been drifting in began to recede.
'You must come now. Or else you'll miss your chance.'
He couldn't see the speaker. He could barely hear. Barely think. Chance… Chance…
'To rid this world of pain.'
Pain…
It spiked suddenly and the beeps turned into shrills.
'Now! Hurry!'
His body seized.
'Move! Come! This way!'
He forced his body to obey. All he'd grasped was that the pain would go away if he listened.
And there were hands on him. Helping him. The beeping stopped. Those things forcing themselves under his skin stopped. His feet were moving, supported along.
And then the support was gone and he was stumbling, falling.
'Keep on going! Just make it through that Gate and the pain will stop.'
He couldn't see a Gate. He could only see light: that painful yellow. And he couldn't move.
No, that wasn't right. He had to move.
He reached out, as far as he could. Farther than he dared; he was reaching blind, but that didn't matter as long. Because on the other side of that door, there was no pain.
And, right then, that was all he could think about.
He touched something, and something spread through his body. Dulling. Numbing.
'Come…'
It sounded gentler now. Less desperate.
He felt around. Found a support. Crawled to his knees. Then his feet.
'Walk through the gate…'
He walked, seeing nothing but its yellow glow.
Anyone else looking right then would have seen a boy in a hospital gown moving as though he were a ghost.