Chapter 8
There was no sign of—of Kouichi when Kouji left his house the next day, nor did Kouji see any sign of the boy as he walked into the stadium.
Maybe I scared him away? Kouji wondered, logging in to Project Frontier. Or more likely I'm just overthinking it. He has a life, too.
[ Synchronizing complete. Welcome, Kouji Minamoto ]
Kouji usually would have started up his normal warm-up routine to clear his mind and prepare to play the game, but there were just too many unanswered questions about Kouichi filling his mind.
Why stalk me? He could have dropped a letter in our mailbox, or even just walked up to me...
Maybe he was afraid of how I'd take it? I mean, look what happened that time that I saw him. He reacted by running away. And if someone just came up to me out of nowhere claiming to be my twin brother, I wouldn't take it too well.
How did he find out about me? Did Mom tell him? I don't know, I don't know anything about him!
Kouji sighed.
Tomoki's the only other person I know who met him, and the 'Touto' in his username means 'little brother.' Maybe I can talk to him about it.
Flicking through the menu to his friend list, Kouji saw that '123Touto' was online, as was the rest of his team. He frowned. He'd wanted to get Tomoki alone, but it couldn't be helped. He pressed the 'invite' button, requesting to play with Tomoki's Digimon. It only took a few seconds before the invitation was accepted, and the intermediate aim training course materialized into existence, as did four other users.
They must be doing a team practice, he thought irritably. Tomoki was running through the target training course, with moving targets breezing around him. A stocky boy in a FunBeemon seemed to be going through it with him. At the other end of the arena, Takuya and the Tinkermon player were sparring.
"Kouji?" Of course it was that idiot Takuya who noticed him first.
"Kouji! You're here!" Tomoki looked absolutely delighted to see him. "Could you try doing that thing we did the other day where I shot at you and you dodged my shots? This training course is too easy compared to that."
The FunBeemon player shut off the training course with a couple of words as the younger boy ran up to him. Kouji felt the scowl slip back on his face again.
"I'm not here about that."
Tomoki's face fell in disappointment.
"...But I need to know if you saw that boy again," Kouji finished.
"Um, no, I don't think so."
"What boy?" Takuya asked, as he and the Tinkermon came over.
Kouji was about to snap that it wasn't his business, before realizing that Takuya might also have seen Kouichi. After all, he was at the stadium around that time.
"A boy who looks like me, but his hair is shorter."
"And they really look alike," Tomoki added. "I thought he was Kouji when I met him."
"Oh. No, I haven't seen him."
Kouji glared at Takuya for one second before continuing.
"I know who he is now, and I need to talk to him."
"You know who he is?" Tomoki's eyes lit up. "Who is he? I want to know, too!"
Kouji hadn't wanted to announce the information to the whole team like that, but there wasn't much choice.
"He's my brother," he said in as succinct a tone as possible.
That got reactions, not just from Tomoki but from Takuya as well. The other two, not knowing anything about the situation, merely blinked a little.
"Your bro...wait, you said you were an only child!" Tomoki's tone was accusing, as if Kouji had deliberately held back the information from him.
"I thought I was. From what I was told, my parents divorced when we were very young and he went with our mom."
"Wait, you're saying you have a brother?" Takuya invoked his natural gift for repeating things.
"I just told you, idiot!"
"Is he older or younger?" Now Takuya's eyes were bright with enthusiasm.
"I—twin. He's about five minutes older than me."
"Twins?" The FunBeemon user asked. "Identical or fraternal?"
Kouji sighed. "I don't know, I only saw him once and we didn't speak. Tomoki, you met him, and your username indicates you have an older sibling. What do I do?"
"Well, I only saw him for about five minutes..."
"I have a brother, too!" Takuya interrupted. "He's Tomoki's age and a real pain. Just play some video games together. That will make you best buddies that want to kill each other."
"My brother likes board games better than video games," Tomoki said. "But he gets mad when I beat him."
"Does your brother play Project Frontier?" The Tinkermon asked. "If he does, that would give us an even number for team practice battles and you'd have something in common."
"I don't know," Kouji admitted.
"Oh. Well if he does, find out his username. And I should introduce myself while I'm at it. I'm Izumi. I'd offer some advice, but I don't have any siblings."
"My name's Junpei," the boy inside the FunBeemon said. "I'm also an only child."
"Maybe you could teach your brother all those cool martial arts?" Tomoki suggested. "I mean, if my brother could teach me to do that, it would be awesome."
"I don't know if he likes that sort of thing," Kouji protested. "Besides, I'm not the best teacher."
"Well, Shinya likes sweet stuff." Takuya leaned in closer, causing Kouji to take a step back. "You could make your brother a cake for his birthday."
"I can't cook. And his birthday..." Kouji paused as something occurred to him. "Our birthday is in February."
"I can't cook either, but that doesn't stop me from trying."
"I think," Izumi said, "That you and your brother are going to have to reach out to each other. Like there will be a lot of compromises, and a lot of finding out what you two like and don't like."
"Izumi's right," Takuya agreed. "Look, we don't know your brother any more than you do, but you have to start somewhere, even if things are awkward. And if he plays Project Frontier, maybe he'd be up to meeting the rest of us."
"What's your brother's name, Kouji?" Tomoki asked in the silence that followed.
"K-Kouichi."
"Kouichi," Tomoki repeated. "Maybe he's still around the stadium, I mean he was following you around."
"I don't know. I haven't seen him since that one time, I may have scared him away."
"I'll log off and check for you! I'm playing at Takuya's stadium now, but I can go and ask him to meet you. Which cubicle are you in?"
...
Kouichi sat on "his" bench outside of the Project Frontier building, pretending to read but in reality looking up every time the door opened up. He knew that Kouji was in the building, following his usual routine of going there for at least an hour every day.
It must be fun, he thought wistfully. I wish Mom had the kind of money to afford me playing.
He chided himself for thinking such thoughts. It wasn't his mother's fault that she couldn't afford expensive things like that game any more than it was Kouji's fault he had ended up with the parent who made more money. Still, there were times when he secretly wondered why that couldn't be him in the new clothes, with the pet dog, the costly video game subscription, and living in an actual house with a room of his own.
It wasn't that he didn't want to meet Kouji as much as he wanted to do it on his own, alone, just the two of them. But every time he tried, something got in the way: Kouji's father and stepmother, Kouji's dog. Even that one time they had actually met, Kouichi's own fear of being found out had taken control and he'd ran. He wasn't sure how Kouji would react to him, especially since their encounter. By Tomoki's account Kouji wasn't easily approachable, and Kouichi had seen that in those intimidating eyes the moment before anger had turned to shock.
I can't talk to him, he thought. I have to, but I just can't.
"Hi!"
Kouichi looked up to see Tomoki standing in front of him with a can from the vending machines in each hand.
"Thanks for helping me the other day. Here!"
Kouichi looked at the can Tomoki was offering him.
"You don't have to. I mean, I'm fine."
Tomoki just grinned and pressed the can into his palm.
"Take it. I want you to have it, Kouichi."
Kouichi was about to politely refuse again when the last word registered with him.
He—wait—he knows who I am?
"I thought you were Kouji when you helped me that time," Tomoki said as Kouichi's eyes widened in shock. He sat down next to the older boy and opened his can. "It wasn't until I saw him just after that I realized you weren't. I asked Kouji about it and he didn't know who you were, either."
Kouichi remembered the shock on his brother's face when they had encountered each other.
"So, Kouji did some digging around and found out about you," Tomoki finished. "And he wants to meet you."
Kouichi looked down at the book in his lap, his thoughts a chaotic jumble.
Kouji wants to meet me! What do I do? I should want to meet him, it's what I've been trying to do, but...
He should've been eager to meet his brother. It was what his grandmother wanted, it would make his mother happy, and he wouldn't have to worry about being alone anymore. But there was something holding him back that he couldn't put into words. A lack of courage, maybe. The feeling that he didn't need a brother. The resentful jealousy he felt every time he saw Kouji having everything he wanted. Or possibly the fear that he would somehow alienate or not measure up to the expectations of said brother.
"Do you play Project Frontier, Kouichi?" Tomoki asked. "Izumi wants to know. She's one of the people on our team in the tournament."
"No, I—" Kouichi caught himself before he could say he didn't have the money. "I never had a chance."
Tomoki took a sip of his drink. "I wasn't interested at first. I was scared of getting hurt. I mean, all those fireballs and punching and stuff looked scary. I was so mad when I found out my brother got me an account and signed me up for the tournament. Then Takuya asked me to just try it and I found out that it was fun. And you encouraged me to stay with it and get better."
He looked up at the older boy seriously.
"I think you're dealing with Kouji in the same way I was with Project Frontier. You want to try meeting Kouji, but he's too scary, and you're afraid he'll hurt you somehow. But I got to know him a bit since I saw you, and he's not as unfriendly as I heard he was."
"It's not that he's unfriendly," Kouichi lied, trying not to think about those cold blue eyes staring at him in that encounter. "It's that this whole 'brother' thing is new for me. I only found out a couple of weeks ago."
"Well, it's new for Kouji, too. He's been trying to figure things out and he wants to know the things you like."
"He does?" It shouldn't have been a surprise to Kouichi that his brother was curious about him. Still, the thought made him feel a bit giddy, as if he'd won some kind of prize.
"Uh-huh. So, what do you like? I want to know, too."
"Books." Kouichi's fingers wrapped around the book in his lap. "Drawing. I can play Go, but I'm not the best at it."
"My brother plays Go, too, but he prefers other games," Tomoki said. "Right now he likes this road-building game from Germany. Settlers of...something, I can't remember, but it was something like that."
"I've never heard of it."
"I hadn't either, but he seems to like it." Tomoki paused to take another sip. "What kind of books do you read?"
"I like fantasy the most. Have you ever read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?"
"No."
"You might like it. It's an English book about four kids who are transported to a fantasy land with talking beavers and wolves."
"Really? That almost sounds like Project Frontier. Kouji's Digimon's kind of looks like a wolf."
Kouichi felt himself leaning closer to Tomoki at the mention of the two things he wanted to see the most.
"A wolf?"
"Yeah, his Digimon's called Strabimon, and looks like a wolf-man. It fits him, too, he's kind of a lone wolf. It's kind of weird, the game chooses your Digimon. I got a Penmon myself, and the others say they're pretty good at ranged and..." Tomoki was evidently struggling to recall the word. "Area of effect attacks."
"Really?" I wonder what kind of Digimon I'd get? Kouichi thought before catching himself. No, we don't have the money. I shouldn't even be thinking about it.
Then again, there was always the possibility that Kouji would let him play using his account. Weren't brothers supposed to share?
"Do you want to play Project Frontier, Kouichi?" Tomoki asked. "I mean, it sounds like you're interested in it, and maybe you could play with Kouji and me?"
Kouichi didn't respond, the desire to tell the truth warring with his reluctance to talk about how tight money was. In the end, he did what he always did when confronted with an unpleasant truth: avoiding an answer.
"I...I think I'm ready to meet Kouji now."
...
How is he still going? Kouji wondered irritably.
He had initially planned on simply logging out while he waited for Tomoki to find Kouichi. Takuya on the other hand had decided that the best way to prepare Kouji to meet his brother was to tell him all about his own experiences as a brother in a seemingly endless torrent of conflicting, contradicting advice.
"...And Mom keeps taking Shinya's side because I'm the older brother. But if you guys get into an argument, you probably won't have that problem because you're twins and all that. In fact, you guys might be more like friends than brothers, since you haven't had as much time to get under each other's skin. I know I'd be happier for a while if Shinya were living someplace else, but then I'd start missing him..."
Kouji gritted his teeth and reminded himself that his association with the talkative Flamon user was only temporary. Instead he focused on watching Junpei and Izumi sparring. Neither of them were good at melee fighting, and it showed. Izumi kept leaving her left side wide open, Junpei's reaction time was very slow. But they were at least more entertaining than Takuya.
[ Outside Entry Requested ]
"I have to go," Kouji said, cutting off Takuya's babbling with a certain amount of relief. He logged out before the other boy could say anything else, then pulled the helmet and gloves off and stood up.
This is it, he told himself. Try not to frighten him.
Kouji walked to the cubicle's door and opened it. The first thing he saw was his own face, blue eyes wide. Their faces were identical, but Kouichi projected an air of nervousness rather than irritation or aloofness, his baseball cap being wrung by fidgety hands.
Kouichi...
"Hi, Kouji. I found him!"
And of course Tomoki.
"Thank you." Kouji tried to keep his impatience to a minimum and his normally brusque personality softened as much as he could. "You can go back to the game now, Tomoki."
"Okay! I'll be here tomorrow if you want to talk some more, Kouichi!"
As the younger boy ran off, Kouji gestured for his brother to come into the cubicle and closed the door behind him. He took a deep, steadying breath.
"You live with your mom, right?"
Kouichi looked up with a slightly baffled expression, as if that wasn't something he'd been expecting.
"Yeah."
"She's still alive..." Kouji felt his blood rushing to his feet at the nonchalant confirmation of that life-altering fact. He staggered over to the VR chair and slumped down into it.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, I just needed to hear it from you. Dad told me that Mom had died."
Kouichi's eyes softened and his hands stopped twisting his hat.
"Oh. I knew they were divorced, but I didn't know I had a brother until..." He stopped abruptly, as if catching himself revealing too much. "...Last month.".
"What's Mom like?" Kouji asked as his brother quietly slid into the one of the visitors' chairs.
"She's...selfless. Everything she does, she does for me. She'll do anything it takes so that I can be happy."
Kouji noticed an odd tone in Kouichi's voice, like there was something missing.
"You aren't happy, are you?"
Kouichi stiffened, and for one instant his eyes almost seemed to blaze with a deep frustration before going back to nervousness.
"What about your family?" He asked ingenuously. "I'd like to know more about them."
Now it was Kouji's turn to tense up.
Is he trying to distract me from asking about his mom? He thought. For one moment he considered pursuing the subject.
We just met and you want to antagonize him? He asked himself, but he already knew the answer.
"They're good people," he said out loud. "Dad's usually working at a law firm, Satomi works from home as a programmer."
"Satomi?"
"My stepmom."
"Oh. When did they get married?"
"Nearly three years ago. Their anniversary's next month, the same day the tournament starts."
Kouichi shrugged and eyed the VR chair Kouji was sitting on. "I've never played Project Frontier before."
"You'd need your own account to do it."
"I can't use yours?"
"I can't remember how it works, but the game detects mental activity for the VR stuff. Even if I gave you my Digivice, it would know you're not me and would shut down..."
Disappointment flashed across Kouichi's face.
"...But I've been saving up. Tomorrow I'll bring my money and get you a Digivice and a subscription."
Kouichi's face quickly turned the same bright crimson color as Takuya's shirt.
"You don't have to..."
"I know." Kouji got up again and crossed the room to sit in the chair beside his brother. "So, tell me more about yourself, Kouichi."
...
"...And he said he was ready to meet Kouji, and they're talking now," Tomoki finished, looking up at the faces of his teammates. "I mean, I know it'll take them time to get to know each other, but I can't help thinking we need to do something to help them."
"Maybe we should just leave them," Junpei said.
"Junpei!" Izumi exclaimed. "We can't do that, it's rude!"
"They literally just met. I know that you only want the best for them, but it might make things worse."
Izumi glared at him before turning back to Tomoki. "Does Kouichi play Project Frontier?"
"Well...he says that he hasn't been able to. I'm wondering if it was because of the money. I mean, his clothing's kinda worn out and he was reading a library book, but he looked like he really wanted to.
He doesn't have the money...Izumi had a vision of a boy who was eternally on the outside, looking in. Someone who wanted to fit in, but couldn't due to circumstances beyond his control.
Someone like me.
If there were only a way to give Kouichi money without revealing what she looked like. True, there were ways to disguise herself, but sunglasses, a sun hat, and one of those masks that Japanese people used for colds wouldn't get her very far. Besides, it wasn't like she knew Kouichi or anything. If anything, she should just take Junpei's advice and leave the twins alone.
And yet...
Well, it's not like he knows Papà or anything, right? I mean, if Tomoki's right and this Kouichi doesn't have a lot of money, then he'll be as far away from my parents as he can get, and he'll give Tomoki someone to play with who's at the same level...
And it's not like he's living anywhere near me. For all I know, he doesn't live in Shibuya!
"Hey, maybe we can pool our money together and get him a subscription," Tomoki was saying as Izumi tuned into the conversation again.
"Don't worry about it, Tomoki. I can take care of all that," she said
The three boys looked at her as if she'd lost her mind.
"Are you kidding?!" Junpei demanded. "A Digivice alone is like four thousand yen, and a one-month subscription is twenty-five hundred. What, are your parents filthy rich or have you been saving up your money for a complete stranger?"
Izumi's digital face darkened. "Junpei, that's none of your business! I just think it might be a good idea to have another newbie around, even if he can't officially be on our team. He can learn how to play with Tomoki, and having someone else around for him to practice frees the rest of us up so we can do two-on-two mock battles."
Takuya snorted. "The way we're going, we could all gang up against Kouji and he would probably win."
Izumi summoned a blast of wind to her fingertips.
"Then we had better get practicing!"
...
Junpei left his local stadium feeling slightly better about their chances in the tournament. Their little meeting the previous day had given them plenty to work with, and was starting to show results: Tomoki was working to overcome his lack of experience, and had tried a melee sparring session with Junpei. The younger boy still had trouble with flinching at being hit, but given how timid he was, volunteering for a melee practice was a huge first step. Junpei for his own part was trying to improve his reaction time and noticed himself moving faster after practicing with Izumi and Tomoki. Izumi was showing similar results.
The team's biggest problems at that point were Kouji and Takuya. The former had left to meet his brother and not come back. That was excusable, since the brothers had just met. Takuya on the other hand had not only not picked any of his flaws to work on, but had spent much of the practice session trying to "take charge" by sticking his face into every aspect of their training and waving off Junpei's attempt to get him back on track by saying he'd get to it "next time."
He needs to get his act together, Junpei thought irritably. He needs to work on himself, not just play coach.
Junpei opened the door to his family house.
"I'm home."
"Junpei! You're back!" Hatori Shibayama called from the living room.
"Where's Mom?"
"Upstairs, on the phone with one of her mah-jong buddies."
"Oh." Junpei turned to head upstairs.
"Hold on, Junpei, there's something I wanted to talk to you about." Hatori muted the TV and walked out of the living room. "You were out playing that VR game for a long time today."
"I know, Dad. I've already finished my homework for the weekend."
"That's not what I was worried about. I hear there's some kind of tournament going on, right?"
"Yeah. Like I said, it won't affect anything. I'm keeping on top of my homework and Professor Furukawa says that I'm absorbing math like a sponge. I'm fine. Besides, it's only for the tournament, and we'll probably end up losing in the first round."
Junpei's father fixed him with a frosty gaze.
"I'm holding you to your word, young man. I'll be talking to Professor Furukawa and your teachers, and if I get any hint that your grades are going down, you won't be allowed to play."
"I know," Junpei sighed. He turned and climbed up the stairs to his room and sank down onto his bed.
I shouldn't have signed up for the tournament, he thought. I should have just stuck to my math like my parents want me to.
Junpei's parents were well-intentioned, of course. They had been over the moon to discover their son was a math genius, had spent a lot of money to make sure he got such a wonderful tutor as Professor Furukawa and to make sure he'd got into the Japanese Junior Math Olympiads. They did listen to him, and made sure he knew he was loved.
But it felt like everyone he was close to had lost their mind the day his regular teachers had declared him too smart for them when it came to math. His "friends" had either tried to use him as a way to do their homework or had abandoned him altogether as he suddenly had no time for them. Or both. His attempts to point out math mistakes in class had alienated the other kids and gained him a reputation as a know-it-all. His parents no longer saw him as just their son; rather he was a way to earn prestige at math olympiads, someone they could brag about to their friends about, and someone whose life they could meticulously plot out, from the earliest tests to his future career as a mathematician or professor.
Junpei was one of the "nice" kids, not used to saying no, always doing to what his parents said to make them happy. Even though it was a massive pain to have to do one page after another of complicated homework problems, even though he'd been exercising less, eating more, and gaining weight over the last year or so. And even though it cut down on his practice time in Project Frontier.
Why did I even sign up for that tournament?
For the same reason he'd started Project Frontier in the first place. As a rebellion against his parents. It was something he chose for himself rather than having his parents push him into it It was something he enjoyed, rather than something he was good at. And even though Takuya and Tomoki had found out about his math skills, they hadn't treated him any differently so far.
Junpei sighed and closed his eyes.
Math was easy.
Being a twelve-year-old genius was not.
...
Author's note: 4,000 yen is the equivalent of thirty U.S. dollars, and 2,500 yen is the equivalent of twenty, in today's money.