This chapter is at least a little less meaningless than the others.

Disclaimer: I don't own Matt's mom. Why would I? Oh, and I don't own digimon.

Chapter three

Silence

"Hi Honey!" Mrs Ishida greeted her youngest son as he entered the kitchen. She turned around, got down to his level and threw her arms out. The normally happy child smiled weakly and slowly walked into her arms like a robot, letting his mother embrace him tightly.

"How was your day? Did you learn anything?" Mrs Ishida continued, letting go of the boy to take a look at him. TK nodded silently. "Good. Are you hungry? Go sit by the table and I'll make you some toast, okay?"

Her son turned around and headed towards the kitchen-table. Mrs Ishida stood up again and turned towards the counter, letting a quiet sigh escape her lips. This was the third day since TK had stopped talking. It seemed like no matter what Mrs Ishida and her husband did, the boy didn't want to say a single word.

She looked over her shoulder just in time to see Matt entering the kitchen. "Hi Honey," she greeted, just a little less enthusiastically than she had done towards the younger boy. At least this one talked. Not much, but still –he talked.

"Hi mom." The teenaged boy turned his attention towards his brother. "Hey TK! What's up?"

Normally, said boy would smile brightly towards his idol and happily tell him every single detail of his day. And normally this would pretty soon bore the older boy to death, and he would tune him out.

But this day (Wednesday the 27th of October at 16.13, to be exact) Takeru Ishida didn't even bother to look up, he just continued studying the kitchen-table and silently scratch on the edge with the nail on his thumb, as he waited for his mother to serve him his toast. And this very day, Yamato Ishida would've given anything to hear that boy rabble aboutevery little stupid and pointless thing that TK had seen or heard or thought or said during the day.

Anything.

Mrs Ishida watched her two sons silently, feeling like she was about to break any moment. She couldn't do that, though. Things would get better. Everything was going to be fine. They just had to wait and keep telling themselves that Takeru would start talking again. He had to…Still, seeing her oldest son's expression as he looked down at his little brother, eyes begging for an response, an answer, a word, anything, almost drove the woman insane with sorrow. There'd always been that special bond between the two blond boys, a bond that brothers –if they were lucky- naturally had between one and other. But ever since TK's words had stopped coming from his mouth, he had treated his brother with such coldness it almost scared her. And what's worse; it had broken Matt completely to be treated so hatefully by someone he cared about more than anything.

But of course, he didn't show it. Mrs Ishida couldn't recall her oldest son crying since he was at least under seven. And it was very rare for the young teenager to show any kind of emotion. Plus the boy never talked about things like that. This was a problem that had led to many tragic things in the past. Like that time when Mr and Mrs Ishida had received a call from one of Matt's former teachers, and found out that Matt had been bullied since third grade. And they had never even noticed.

By now though, Matt had actually found a way to get things out. He wrote. To no one in particular. Maybe hundreds of sheets filled with words were hidden in Matt's bedroom. Poems, letters, song lyrics, stories, or just a bunch of words (often bad ones) written down on a sheet of paper. Mrs Ishida knew, because she had seen them under Matt's bed whenever she was cleaning his room. She never read them though; she had too much respect for that kid. Mrs Ishida was just happy that her son had finally found a way open up. Yes, open up to a stupid piece of paper, but still that's a start.

"Um… I'm gonna head over to Tai's, we're gonna do some homework. That okay?"

"Yeah sure, Matty. Just be home for dinner, alright?"

"Alright. Oh, and mom? Don't call me Matty! That's… ugh, just don't."

His mother chuckled, amused by her son's sensitivity around that pet name. "Yeah, yeah. Sure you don't want anything before you leave?"

"I'm alright, bye!"

"Bye Matt. And say hello to Tai from me."

"Yeah sure." The teen left the room, and then closed the front door behind him a few seconds later. His mother served her quiet son his toast and ruffed his hair. "There you go, TK." she said, not even bothering to wait for a thank you, (why would she?) and returned to the counter to start washing up.

The boy sat silently at the table, eating his toast. He was still scratching the edge of the table, staring at his food. His cold look went unnoticed by his mother, just like no one had noticed him wincing every time he had heard the brunette's name being said, just seconds before.

Hmmm...

And here's where it's (supposed to) get interesting...

I should probably mention that I'm aware of that Matt and TK aren't living together in season 01 and that their parents are divorced... but I changed that in this story cuss it would've made things too complicaded. So here they're actually a family and everyone's happy! Well, except for TK, he's got issues...

please review