AN: To contrast with Rio and Satoshi's story, snippets of Daisuke's childhood.

Happiness

Emiko lifted Daisuke into the air and he squealed happily. Pudgy baby fingers grabbed for her hair and Emiko whisked him out of reach. "Ah, ah, that hurts. No pulling hair."

"Gah!" Daisuke wiggled and Emiko laughed.

"Look at you, trying to be an escape artist already."

"It's in the blood," Daiki said, coming up behind her silent as ever. He wiggled a finger and Daisuke latched onto it, dragging it to his mouth to slobber over. "Someone's energetic today."

"I know! When I set him down he keeps crawling wherever he can reach."

"He is growing fast." Daiki smiled. "Getting into trouble just like you used to."

"Papa!" Emiko rolled her eyes.

"You did." Daiki's eyes sparkled with mischief. "You used to try and break into the cabinets to steal sugar lumps and always found new toys before I could gift them to you." He shook his head. "Daisuke's practically calm in comparison."

"I hope not, he should be trouble if he's going to be a thief." As if to prove her point, Daisuke wiggled and tried to get back to the ground. "Ah, ah, ah! You're not getting out of my arms that easily. Nope, you're trapped! Sentenced to tickling!" Daisuke squealed as Emiko scritched her fingers against his belly. When she stopped, Daisuke giggled and calmed in her arms. She looked up to see her father smiling at them both. "What?"

"I'm glad to see you happy, Emiko." Daiki rested a hand on her shoulder. "You smile from the heart these days. It makes me glad."

Emiko's smile went lopsided and a little sad. "I am happy. I wasn't unhappy before though."

"I know," Daiki said. He gripped her shoulder supportively before leaning in to kiss her forehead, then Daisuke's. "I think I still have some of the baby toys from when you were little, the ones that helped with dexterity. I put them in one of the basement rooms."

Emiko leaned against him for a moment. "Thank you, Papa."

"Of course."

Bedtime Stories

"The Phantom Thief Dark, held the statue above his head," Emiko said to Daisuke. She held a plush rabbit above her head. Daisuke giggled and waved his hands at her from where he lay in his crib. "The police on the ground waved fists and shouted 'We'll get you, Dark!' But Dark was already flying away with the statue in hand." Emiko made the rabbit soar over Daisuke's head. He grabbed for the trailing ears. "And then—"

"Emiko!" Kosuke interrupted from the doorway. He looked upset, so Emiko stopped trailing the rabbit over Daisuke's head and turned to him.

"Yes, Kosuke?"

"I thought we agreed that we weren't going to tell Daisuke about Dark!" He bustled into the room to stand with her next to Daisuke's crib. Daisuke blinked up at him and made content cooing sounds.

Emiko sighed. "They're bedtime stories, Kosuke. My father used to tell them to me all the time when I was growing up. They're not going to do any harm."

"There are a million stories to tell that have nothing to do with Dark," Kosuke fretted.

"He's not even old enough to understand what we're saying," Emiko said, but she knew that this wouldn't matter to Kosuke. She'd only agreed to hide the truth after weeks of arguing and she still thought that there was nothing wrong with Daisuke thinking that they were fairytale sort of stories. Kosuke hadn't agreed.

"I want him to have a normal childhood," Kosuke said, putting one hand into the crib so Daisuke could grab onto it and drag it into his mouth. "I want him to be his own person, not think that he was born just so Dark could manifest in him."

Oh, Kosuke…" Emiko put an arm around Kosuke's waist and leaned against him. "I love Daisuke for his own sake."

"I know. It's just…stories of Dark…I don't…" Words failed him. Given time, Kosuke was the most eloquent speaker out of the family, but in the moment, when emotions filled him he often had trouble putting words to how he thought or felt. They'd had this discussion before though. Emiko knew what he meant.

"We'll make sure he always knows that he's our son first, even after Dark appears."

Kosuke nodded, the hand that Daisuke wasn't sucking on sliding down to grip her hand around his waist. "I know you mean well, but maybe some other story, ok?"

"I…don't really know any other stories," Emiko admitted with a sheepish smile. "Papa told stories about Dark and mother or grandfather and grandmother when I was a child."

"Maybe…" Kosuke hesitated and Emiko squeezed his hand. "Maybe I could do bedtime stories. Just for a little while."

"Of course, Kosuke," Emiko said, feeling both happy and a bit sad. Kosuke had plans to study art history and research to better fit in the family. They both knew that eventually those studies would outgrow what was available at Azumano and the surrounding cities. He'd end up missing chunks of Daisuke's life, and he felt they would be worth it in the end, but Emiko knew he loved Daisuke just as much as she did and he wanted to make as memories with the time they had together as he could before he reached that point.

"Thank you," he said.

Emiko kissed him on his cheek and took a step back. "I guess I'll let you get on with story time," she said, rightly guessing that he'd be more comfortable telling stories without her at his shoulder—at least at the start. She'd ease her way in so that she could collect stories to tell Dai-chan in the future.

"Thank you, Emiko," Kosuke murmured.

As she inched out the door, she heard Kosuke's quiet voice start in with, "Once upon a time there lived a man with three sons…"

Climb

Emiko carried Daisuke down into the basement. He clung to her with pudgy fingers, looking around with wide eyes. He hadn't been down here yet. There was none of the instinctive fear for shadows or cobweb-filled corners that many toddlers had. Instead he looked curious. Good. A budding thief shouldn't fear the dark.

The basement room Emiko took him to was one she had worked on since before he was born. It had a padded jungle gym, high platforms and narrow ledges, and narrow crevices to explore; in short the perfect training ground for a baby on its way to becoming a phantom thief.

She set Daisuke down in the middle of the room and watched him stand on unsteady legs. He'd only just started walking.

Most parents dreaded this stage of childhood development when their baby suddenly is trying to access everything it can reach, or find a way to reach it if it can't.

Emiko had been waiting for this day.

Daisuke wobbled along the padded ground, padded in case he slipped, padded to keep him from injuring himself when he was so small. He smacked one of the lower bars of the jungle gym and looked surprised when it made a muffled thump instead of some other sort of noise.

Emiko took out Daisuke's favorite toy from her pocket—a tiny teddy bear that was losing an eye from enthusiastic chewing—and set it on one of the raised platforms. Daisuke's eyes followed it through the air. She crouched down by his side and ruffled the soft red spikes of hair that were beginning to grow long enough to flop into his eyes.

It was time to learn what every toddler wanted to but was discouraged from doing.

Emiko gave Daisuke a gentle push toward a low foot hold and said, "Climb."

Locks

"Kaa-saaaan!" Daisuke whimpered at the closed door. It had been closed for ten minutes now, and he was all alone in there with boxes and old, broken objects. Usually by now Emiko would have bent her rules a little, but on the other side of the door, she stood firm.

"Dai-chan, I'm right here," she said, keeping her voice calm and even. "All you have to do is unlock the door and I'll be right here to give you a big hug, okay?"

Daisuke stood on tiptoe but even then the door handle was out of reach. It was locked though, so that was a bigger issue than being too short to touch the handle. He sniffled and wiped away frustrated tears. "I don't wanna," he said.

"Dai-chan, you have to do this." Emiko's voice went soft and soothing. "You know how to open locks. I'm right here okay?"

It wasn't okay, but Daisuke had the feeling that if he indulged in a tantrum over it Emiko might not stay right outside the door talking him through this, but would tell him that it wasn't fitting for a thief to get upset over a locked door and leave him to have a time out. He didn't have the lock picks he practiced with. There was just the scary room of junk and the big, heavy door.

"I know you can do it, Dai-chan," Emiko said.

Daisuke balled his fists and looked around the room. There was a box he could stand on. It was heavy, too heavy to pull, but if he pushed and pushed and pushed with all his might it slid across the basement floor. He leaned against it, panting. When he crawled on it, he could reach the door handle and see the lock. Then he remembered he didn't have lock picks and almost started crying again. "Kaa-san…"

"A thief uses his surroundings to his advantage," Emiko said from the other side of the door, repeating lessons that she'd gone over before.

Daisuke sniffed. The rest of the things in the room were broken or stored things, but lock picks were wire and the broken things could have wires. The room felt very small all of a sudden and Daisuke scrambled for the boxes, looking for anything he could use. Sticking out of a broken electronics box was the thin wire of a radio controlled car, and a box a few feet from that had papers held together with paperclips. Daisuke's fingers closed over the finds greedily, pulling them into shapes he could use. In a flash, he was back on the box and using his improvised picks as fast as he was able. It took over a minute for the tumblers to turn over and by then his hands were starting to shake because if he had his picks he would have been done forty seconds sooner. He tried the handle. It opened easily on well-oiled hinges. As promised, Emiko was right outside.

She smiled. "Good job, Dai-chan," she said holding her arms open.

Daisuke's face crumpled as he burst into tears and ran blindly into her arms.

"Shh, shh." Her warm hands stroked his hair flat. "I knew you could do it," she said. "You're growing up so fast."

Steal

"I can't believe Yuu-kun stole Noriko-chan's lunch money!" Takeshi growled, slamming his own lunch down onto the desk. On the other end of the room, Noriko was surrounded by her friends all talking loudly about how awful it was and how Yuu-kun was stupid and mean. Yuu-kun had been sent to the principal's office.

Daisuke took out his chopsticks and frowned down at his panda-shaped rice balls and colorfully arranged vegetables. "Noriko-chan had a packed lunch today," he said. "Yuu-kun doesn't have a lunch."

"Dai~suke!" Takeshi grumbled like he did when he thought Daisuke was being stupid. "Stealing is wrong! It's Noriko-chan's money."

Daisuke poked at a bright red slice of tomato, nudging it around the corner of his lunch box. He thought about home and Emiko talked about being a thief like it was something great and wonderful. Takeshi, the few times theft had ever come up, had gone into rants about how it was horrible and awful and you'd go to jail and probably deserved worse. Takeshi's dad was a police officer though, so Daisuke supposed he was biased. But seeing how the class had taken Noriko's side over Yuu's showed that maybe Daisuke was the one with a different outlook on thieves than most people had. He took a bite of salad, chewing as Takeshi shoveled rice in his mouth and grunted about jail and bad paths like he was repeating someone else's words. "But what about stealing something if someone else stole it first?" Daisuke asked, thinking of the little girl with the teddy bear a few weeks ago.

"Then they're both stealing and should both go to jail," Takeshi said like it was a stupid question.

"But what if the person stealing from the first thief is stealing to give the thing back?"

"Well…well…" Takeshi stopped shoveling food and frowned. "Well they're both still thieves, but maybe the second one doesn't need jail cuz he's giving the thing back. But only if he's giving it back to the person it belongs to. If he keeps it he's just a bad guy and should get arrested."

"…Okay." The mansion Daisuke had taken the teddy bear from had had a collection of children's toys that had been lost over its fence. He'd felt angry then, seeing so many things lost that someone had loved. It made him wonder if he stole other things if it would make people sad like the little girl had been sad.

But he had to wonder if it was wrong for Yuu to steal from Noriko too, because Noriko hadn't needed the lunch money but Yuu had.

Takeshi thought it was wrong. Daisuke wondered what his mother would think. By the end of lunch, he was sure that sometimes it was okay to steal. He just wasn't sure if he knew what those times were.

Games

There were games that Daisuke played with his mother and grandfather that he wasn't allowed to play with anyone else. There was 'Guess Who' where they mimicked voices and tried to convince each other they were someone else—Daisuke wasn't very good at it, but he was getting better. Emiko fooled him more often than Daiki because she chose people who could actually be visitors and held conversations with herself. There was 'Escape' where he was in a room and had to find a way out—only sometimes it wasn't a game but a test and he didn't like when it was a test because it wasn't fun anymore.

There was 'Climb' where he got to climb up things any way he could think of to reach a goal. Every time he got faster at it, there was some sort of treat baked up by his mom that made it worth it.

'Copycat' was trying to look and move like someone else. Daisuke liked that because Emiko would point out people when they went to the park or the store and mimic how they walked and held their shoulders and smiled and it was like she almost was that person even if she looked nothing like them.

It took a while to realize no one else played these games. Takeshi got angry the one time Daisuke spent an afternoon playing 'Copycat' of him. Most people only had one voice, and climbing things wasn't allowed in school.

The closest to a game Daisuke played at home that his friends played was 'the floor is lava,' but even that was kind of easy compared to the obstacle course he ran through every day. Chairs and tables didn't suddenly become holes in the floor or walls with hidden trigger doors. The floor didn't set off a loud alarm if you accidentally touched it, and you never got shocked if you forgot to cut a wire wrong.

They were all fun games when he was little, but they weren't as fun now. The rules got harder and the tests were more often even though there were still warm cookies if he shaved off a second of his climbing or he figured out a new trick to get through the obstacle of the day.

"Do I have to?" Daisuke asked, eight and a half and not in the mood to play 'Guess Who' because he'd rather play a board game or draw a picture like he did when he visited a friend's house.

Emiko knelt at his level and said, "It's important to play this game. We can play something else today, but we still need to play this one sometimes too."

But she didn't say why it was important. Daisuke knew that it had to do with stealing because he knew his mother and the rest of the world saw things differently about that sort of thing. But he didn't know why it mattered if he knew it. Daisuke didn't plan to steal anything.

"It's important," Emiko repeated. "Do you understand that?"

Daisuke didn't. But he said yes anyway because he knew that was what she wanted him to say.