Osamu Ichijouji was a genius. He understood complex math problems that most adults wouldn’t be able to. He could take apart a computer and put it back together with minimal difficulty. He could calculate the time it would take to go to Odaiba by foot within hundredths of a second. There were very few things he did not understand.
His little brother was one of those things.
Take, for instance, what had just happened. Both boys had been in their room, waiting for their parents to come home from work. Osamu had been tapping away on the computer, doing homework. Ken had been lounging on his bed, the top bunk, when there had been a strange noise and he had fallen for no apparent reason whatsoever. When it became apparent that he was certainly not fine and not getting up any time soon, Osamu had rushed to his brother’s side, and had been shocked and bewildered at the sight of the gash on his brother’s head, which was covered in dried blood despite the fact that it should be too new to have already dried. Then, if that were not odd enough, when Ken awoke he had hugged his brother as tightly as if he hadn’t seen him in years and then begun to cry.
Osamu was, to say the least, quite confused.
“Ken? What’s wrong? Stop crying, Ken-chan, it’s okay.” Hesitantly, Osamu reached up and stroked Ken’s hair a little. Ken’s sobs subsided into short sniffles and he pulled away, eyes still shining with unshed tears. He was smiling, as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
“Osamu-chan...” Ken said in a quavering voice. There was something unfamiliar and haunted in his voice, and for some reason it made Osamu want to cry himself. He shook off the feeling and glanced at Ken’s injured head, reminded of his duty.
“We’d better get you something to put on that head, Ken-chan,” Osamu said in his most authoritative big-brother voice. “Come on, can you stand?”
Ken managed to push himself to his feet, but he swayed dangerously and Osamu took him by the arm, leading him to the couch in the living room.
“You’d better sit down while I get something to clean that cut,” Osamu decided. “How’d you manage to fall off the bed anyway?”
“I’m--I’m not sure,” Ken said hesitantly. “Is....is that what I did? Fall off the bed?”
“Don’t you remember?” That was a bad sign, Osamu knew. That’s the last thing I need, to have my little brother get a concussion when I’m the only one home with him. Especially when I was in the room with him! I can see the headlines now : ‘Boy Genius Lets Little Brother Get Head Injury.’ Film at eleven. Just what I need. I told him to leave the room while I was trying to concentrate, but no, he has to stay and say he’ll be quiet, and climb up on the top bunk and probably do something stupid, like lean too far over to read what I was writing. Why does he have to be such a bother sometimes?
“I remember,” Ken replied a little too quickly as Osamu lowered him onto the couch. Osamu gave him a forced smile.
“You rest while I get something for your head,” he said, and walked towards the bathroom, leaving Ken waiting patiently on the couch.
He just doesn’t understand, Osamu thought darkly as he dug through the drawers for something to sterilize Ken’s injury with. He doesn’t get what sort of pressure I’m under. I’m the one always in the spotlight, not him. He just gets to sit in the background and do what he wants, whatever he wants, without the press always leaning over him, breathing down his neck. I’ve always got to be perfect. If I get less than a perfect grade on my homework or on a test, I have to contend with everyone’s disappointment. Even if I get almost perfect it’s not enough. The next day, it’s plastered all over the papers and on the news.
Osamu pulled out a half-empty tube of neosporin and grabbed a handful of tissues as he exited the room.
And if something happens to Ken, who gets blamed? No one blames Mom and Dad for not being home. No, it’s Osamu. Perfect Osamu, child prodigy, who has to do everything right and make sure that his annoying little brother doesn’t kill himself while he’s busy. Ken should be happy being ignored. No one cares if anything happens to me when he’s around. It’s not his fault, he’s just a kid. Who cares that I’m just a kid too. I have to do everything, I don’t have time for his ridiculous attention-grubbing stunts! He probably fell off the bed in hopes that he’d be hurt and Mom and Dad would have to pay attention to him. Yeah, I know he doesn’t deserve being ignored, but he never thinks about how I get in trouble for his stupid stunts. Why can’t he just leave me alone? Doesn’t he understand all the strain I’m under? I don’t have time for his childish game of ‘look at me, look at me!’
Ken seemed to be deep in thought when Osamu re-entered the living room, but when he walked in, his little brother’s face lit up in a smile. In the face of such open adoration, Osamu found it hard to keep up the bad mood he had worked up. Then he glanced down the hall towards the half-opened door of the room they shared and was reminded of all the homework and projects he had yet to do, and of all the time he was wasting while he tended to Ken.
“Here.” Osamu sullenly tossed the bottle and tissues at Ken, whose expression turned suddenly hurt in the face of his curtness. Let him be upset. He can clean his own cut, it’s not like he even has to do his homework unless he feels like it. Osamu turned abruptly and was heading back to the bedroom when Ken’s timid voice rang out behind him.
“Osamu-chan?”
“What is it?” Osamu let some of his impatience slip into his voice and regretted it when Ken flinched as if hit.
“I-I was wondering if you knew....if you knew what happened to that weird little device? The one that came out of the computer?”
Why’s he asking about that? Osamu wondered curiously, then shrugged.
“Don’t you remember, Ken? I took it apart to see how it worked and couldn’t get it back together.” Osamu’s voice turned bitter at the remembered failure. He didn’t even notice that his brother’s face had gone a shade paler. “We threw it away. I’m surprised you forgot; I mean, you must’ve cried for a month after that. You wouldn’t even speak to me.”
“O-oh.” Ken lowered his head, letting his hair cover his face. “I just wondered, that’s all.”
“Whatever.” Osamu shrugged and went back into the bedroom, letting his thoughts drift to more sensible things like equations and formulas, until he almost completely forgot his anger and his little brother sitting alone on the couch with a fistful of tissues and a bottle of neosporin.
Ken clutched the tissues tightly, his knuckles white. He hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t thought that his digivice....that Wormmon....
Ken could feel the tears welling up again and he willed them away. He would not cry. He would not cry. Would not. He was too strong to cry.
At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.
It’s a small price to pay, he thought desperately. I have Osamu back. Didn’t I want him back? I got my wish, just like Djinnmon promised. My brother’s not dead anymore. I didn’t kill him this time.
But...Wormmon....
No! Ken shook his head, trying to banish the thoughts. I--I’m still a Chosen Child. If the Digital World gets in trouble, they’ll call me again, won’t they? Just send me a new digivice. A D-3, not black because in this timeline I was blocked from entering the Dark Ocean. There won’t be a Digimon Kaiser and I’ll be chosen and I’ll see Wormmon and--and everything will be normal, except I’ll have Osamu. Then I can be happy. That’s what I want, isn’t it?
I will be called again. I have to be.
But what if I’m not?
His hands strayed up and touched the lump under his shirt where the green jewel hung. If it remained unbroken in ten days, he could go home. Everything would be normal again, he’d have Wormmon....but not Osamu.
I have no right! Ken snatched his hand back as if burned. That’s wrong, Ichijouji, it’s wrong! It’s because of me that Osamu died! It was all my fault! I killed Osamu with a wish, so now I’ve brought him back with a wish. I have no right to kill him again just so I can have Wormmon back! Just because I don’t have Wormmon doesn’t mean that I’m alone. His absence is a small price to pay to fix things. It’s my punishment for being selfish and wishing Osamu dead. I’ve fixed things now, and I have no right to undo it. No right at all!
Yet, even as he silently began to clean the cut of his forehead, Ken found that he couldn’t swallow the lump in his throat and couldn’t dispel the sudden ache in his chest.
He sat in silence for what seemed like forever. From the end of the hall he could hear Osamu’s fingers tapping on the keyboard, creating a strange type of soothing music. Ken felt drowsy and leaned back on the couch, letting his eyes drift shut.
That was when the door opened.
“Osamu! Ken! I’m home!”
“Mama?” Ken looked up sleepily from the couch. His mother stood in the doorway, removing her shoes and setting her purse on a chair.
“Hello, Ken, sweetie.” She smiled at him. “Where’s Osamu? In your bedroom?”
“Yeah.” Ken nodded. Mrs. Ichijouji brushed past him and peeked into the bedroom.
“There you are, Osamu dear! How was school?”
“Fine.” Osamu’s voice drifted in from the bedroom. “They posted the scores for that last test, the chemistry one. I was the highest.”
“I knew you would be,” Mrs. Ichijouji replied. “Are you working on that computer program you told me about?”
“No, I’ve had a better idea,” Osamu told her. “I was thinking of...”
The voice blurred together as Ken felt an old emotion stirring up within him. His mother and brother were discussing school and projects and computers, while he sat on the couch and received little more than a ‘hello.’ She hadn’t even seemed to notice the cut on his forehead.
What about me? Ken recalled the question in his mind, the same one he had been asking himself since he was little. Don’t you want to know how I am? Do I even exist to you?
Don’t be ridiculous. Ken shook his head violently. You know that she loves you. If she loves you after all you’ve done in your timeline, she must love you in this one. I’m acting like a kid who doesn’t know any better. There’s no reason for me to be jealous. Mama’s the same here as she is in my timeline, so of course she loves me just as much as she loves Osamu.
Except in this timeline, whispered a mutinous voice in the back of his mind, you were never a genius. You were never good enough in this timeline. Still in Osamu’s shadow.
“That’s not true,” Ken whispered. “It’s not.” It can’t be true. I’m being stupid. Paranoid. This is what went wrong the first time, remember? I got jealous and I made a wish, and I ruined everything. I can’t make that same mistake again.
Ken sat up a little and wrapped his arms around his knees and silently told himself that he wasn’t being ignored. Not at all.
His father came home around dinner time. Ken slipped into his seat next to Osamu and stared mournfully at his plate. He really wasn’t all that hungry, but he decided that he should probably eat something anyway. He quietly went through a small bowl of rice while the rest of his family talked.
“That reporter called for you again, Osamu dear,” Mrs. Ichijouji was saying. “She wants to do another interview with you about the computer contest and the awards presentation we’re going to tomorrow.”
“I told her I was a little busy today,” Osamu replied. “I’ll call her later tonight and tell her I can do it after school on Wednesday. I know it’s after the awards, but I don’t really have any more free time. I’m working on a new program for that other contest, and I remember you wanted me to write that scholarship essay. And of course I have soccer practice.”
“Just don’t work too hard,” Mr. Ichijouji said mildly. “You don’t want to get sick before the awards, do you?”
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” Osamu glanced quickly at Ken, who was eating in silence, eyes low. Osamu had cooled down considerably and was currently regretting his earlier anger. He considered trying to say something to his parents which would make them notice Ken, but decided not to. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t get one of them in trouble.
“Of course you do, dear.” Mrs. Ichijouji smiled fondly at him.
“So how was soccer practice?” Mr. Ichijouji questioned.
“Same as usual. The coach thinks we may make nationals this year.”
Ken put down his rice bowl and stared at its empty contents for a few moments before standing.
“I’m finished,” he said softly.
“Hmm? Oh, Ken honey, aren’t you hungry?” Mrs. Ichijouji questioned.
“Not really,” Ken admitted. “I’ll be in my room.”
“All right. Oh dear, what happened to your head?” Mrs. Ichijouji’s worried eyes darted to the cut on his forehead.
“You just now noticed?” Ken asked quietly, his back turned.
“Did you say something, Ken?” Mrs. Ichijouji asked from behind him.
“Never mind, Mama,” Ken replied, an echo of the young boy he had been. “It’s not important.”
With that, Ken retreated to the darkness of the room he and Osamu shared. He climbed up on the top bunk and laid his head on the pillow. Almost unconsciously his eyes moved to the spot where Wormmon usually slept, as the voice of a little boy whispered in his head,
It’s not important.