Archive of Our Own

The World Union General Hospital always smelled like something trying very hard not to be afraid.

It smelled like disinfectant and filtered air and too-clean floors, like the people who designed the place believed fear was a contaminant that could be scrubbed out if they polished the walls enough. Everything was white or blue or silver. Everything gleamed. Every door opened with a quiet sound, polite and mechanical, like the building itself had been trained not to disturb the sleeping.

Tomoro hated it.

He hated the quiet most of all.

Quiet in other places could be normal. A room before someone laughed. The water under Glowing Dawn’s base when the wind was low. Makoto thinking so hard he forgot to say anything out loud. Cougarmon sleeping with the kind of dedication that made Tomoro wonder if all Digimon had secret personal goals and Cougarmon’s was just “become furniture.”

Hospital quiet was different.

Hospital quiet held its breath.

Tomoro walked down the familiar corridor with his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders pulled up near his ears, even though he knew exactly where he was going. He had walked this path enough times that his feet knew the turn before he took it. Past the nurses’ station. Past the room where a kid had cried for three straight days until their Sapotama had been recovered. Past the window that looked down into a courtyard nobody used because the plants were too neat to feel alive.

Gekkomon padded beside him.

For once, he was not loudly complaining.

That was how Tomoro knew something was wrong.

Usually, Gekkomon treated hospitals like a personal enemy. He complained that the lights hurt his eyes. He complained that the floors were too slippery. He complained that the food smelled boring and medical and that if humans were going to build giant houses for sleeping people, they should at least have better snacks. He complained that nurses were too quick with their hands whenever he tried to taste something suspiciously edible.

Today, he was quiet.

Not well-behaved quiet. Not thoughtful quiet.

Noisy quiet.

His head turned at every sound. His eyes were wide. His mouth kept opening and closing like he had ten comments trying to escape and had somehow decided, through effort that looked almost painful, to swallow all of them.

Tomoro glanced down at him.

“What?”

Gekkomon snapped his mouth shut.

“Nothing.”

“You never have nothing.”

“I can have nothing.”

“You tried to eat my pay last week.”

“That was something.”

Tomoro stared at him.

Gekkomon looked away first, which was almost more disturbing than the silence.

Tomoro slowed.

They were almost at Asuka’s room.

That was probably it. Gekkomon could be greedy, reckless, annoying, and absolutely terrible at understanding things like “this is not the moment,” but he had been there enough times now. He knew what this room meant. He knew what Asuka looked like inside it, sitting upright with open eyes that saw nothing, breathing because his body remembered how even when everything that made Asuka Asuka had been stolen and locked away somewhere in a Sapotama.

A Sapotama Gokuwmon had taken.

Tomoro’s fingers curled inside his pockets.

Gokuwmon.

The monkey Digimon.

He had asked Kyo about it after everything with TACTICS, after Hotaruko and Granit had walked away to look for Raito, after Naito’s perfect little order had cracked into pieces, after Kyo had hugged everyone like they were something he could hold together by force if he just squeezed hard enough. Tomoro had asked because he was tired of pretending he did not notice the way everyone else got pieces of truth while he got closed doors.

Kyo had looked at him.

Then he had said they would handle it.

It was not Tomoro’s concern.

Not his concern.

Asuka was his brother.

The stolen e-Pulse was his brother’s.

The empty hospital room and the sleeping body and the scarf folded at the bedside were his concern.

Tomoro still heard the words sometimes, catching under his ribs like fishhooks.

Not your concern.

He had almost yelled. He had almost said something stupid and sharp and maybe unforgivable, because that was what he did when people shoved him away from the only thing he had left. But Kyo had looked so tired. Not just physically tired, though he had been that too, with the pallor he got after pouring too much of himself into Murasamemon and then pretending dinner would fix it. He had looked old in a way Tomoro did not like on him.

So Tomoro had swallowed it.

He was getting better at that, apparently.

Not good. Just better.

He reached Asuka’s door and lifted his hand toward the panel.

Then he heard a voice from inside.

Tomoro froze.

Gekkomon bumped into his leg and opened his mouth, probably to complain, but Tomoro clapped a hand over it.

Gekkomon’s eyes bulged.

Tomoro leaned closer.

The door had not fully latched.

There was a narrow gap, just enough to let sound slip out.

At first, Tomoro thought it must be a nurse. Maybe someone had come to check Asuka’s vitals. Maybe someone from the Ministry was poking around again, pretending hospital authority and government authority were two different things when everyone knew one always bent for the other.

Then the voice spoke again.

“I know,” Kyo said softly. “I’m late.”

Tomoro’s heart jerked so hard it almost hurt.

Kyo?

He shifted closer without meaning to.

Gekkomon, still trapped under Tomoro’s hand, went completely still.

Inside the room, something moved. Fabric. A chair leg scraping gently against the floor.

“I said I’d come yesterday,” Kyo continued, voice low in a way Tomoro had never heard before. “But we had trouble. Bigger than usual. You’d probably say that’s what I get for collecting strays with bad survival instincts.”

A pause.

Then Kyo laughed.

It was small. Broken around the edges.

Tomoro’s fingers tightened over Gekkomon’s mouth.

He had heard Kyo laugh before. Kyo laughed when Reina complained loudly enough to pretend she was not worried. He laughed when Makoto said something blunt and devastating without realising it. He laughed when Gekkomon stole food and then choked on it because he had refused to chew. He laughed with Glowing Dawn the way someone lit a lantern in a dark room: deliberately, because everyone needed it.

This laugh was not like that.

This laugh belonged to someone alone.

“You were right about him,” Kyo said.

Tomoro knew he should not listen.

He knew it so clearly that the thought was almost loud.

He should step back. He should knock. He should pretend he had not heard anything, because Kyo did not sound like a leader right now. He did not sound like the former Five Star, or the person who cooked too much food because feeding people was easier than telling them he loved them, or the man who said family like it was both a promise and a wound.

He sounded like someone praying.

“He’s stubborn,” Kyo said. “Angrier than he lets himself understand. Kinder than he wants anyone to see. He still looks at me like he’s trying to decide if I’m lying every time I answer a question.”

Tomoro’s throat tightened.

Gekkomon did not move.

“But he’s trying,” Kyo whispered. “He’s trying so hard, Asuka.”

Asuka.

Kyo said his brother’s name like it hurt.

Tomoro leaned closer.

Through the gap, he could see part of the room. The edge of the bed. The white blanket. Asuka’s hand lying still on top of it.

And Kyo sitting beside him.

He was not standing the way he did when he brought Tomoro here, back straight and voice steady, explaining Cold Heart like if he chose the right words, Tomoro would not break under them. He was sitting close. Too close for a casual visitor. His shoulders were bent inward. One of his hands covered Asuka’s.

Kyo’s thumb moved gently over Asuka’s knuckles.

Tomoro forgot how to breathe.

“He asked about Gokuwmon,” Kyo said. “Of course he did. I told him it wasn’t his concern.”

There was a silence.

Then Kyo bowed his head.

“I know. I know. You’d be angry at me.”

Tomoro’s hand slipped away from Gekkomon’s mouth.

Gekkomon did not take the chance to talk.

“It was cruel,” Kyo admitted. “I heard it when I said it. But if I tell him too much, he’ll run straight at Genjo with Gekkomon at his heels and no plan except being furious enough to survive. And he might. That’s what scares me. He keeps surviving things he shouldn’t.”

Tomoro’s stomach twisted.

Kyo’s hand tightened around Asuka’s.

“I promised you,” Kyo said. “I promised I’d look after him no matter what happened. Even when he hates me. Even when he doesn’t understand. Even when I deserve it.”

Tomoro stared.

A promise.

To Asuka.

That part was not new. Kyo had said it before. Asuka had asked him to look after Tomoro.

But this did not sound like a favour between friends.

This sounded like a vow.

“I’m trying,” Kyo whispered. “I’m trying to do it the way you would have wanted. Not the way I know. Not the way Five Stars taught me. Not by cutting down every threat before it breathes. Not by deciding for him because I’m afraid.”

His voice caught.

Tomoro had never heard Kyo’s voice catch.

“But I am afraid.”

Asuka did not answer.

The machines hummed quietly.

Kyo lifted Asuka’s hand and pressed it to his forehead.

Tomoro’s whole body went rigid.

Gekkomon’s jaw dropped open.

“I miss you,” Kyo said. “I miss you so much I don’t know what to do with it.”

Tomoro’s eyes burned.

He did not blink.

“I keep making too much rice,” Kyo said, and the words were almost a laugh but not enough of one. “Reina says that’s normal because I always make too much rice, but you’d know. You’d look at the pot and then at me and pretend not to smile. You were always terrible at pretending not to smile.”

Kyo lowered Asuka’s hand but did not let go.

“They’re alive,” he said. “The little ones. The shelter’s still there. I moved them after Kaito’s stunt. The Baby Digimon were angry about it, mostly because the new room doesn’t have the sunny patch near the third window. You would’ve said I should’ve considered their emotional needs during evacuation.”

A tiny smile touched Kyo’s mouth.

Then it vanished.

“One of them bit me. I didn’t even mind. That’s what you did to me, you know. You made me the kind of man who gets bitten by a baby Digimon and thinks, ‘Good, it has energy.’”

Tomoro felt something sharp and unfamiliar move through him.

Asuka had known.

Asuka had known about the Digimon. About the shelter. About Kyo.

He had not told Tomoro.

The thought hurt before Tomoro could stop it.

It hurt in the childish place inside him that still wanted Asuka to be only his brother, his protector, his person. The one who told him things. The one who did not leave him outside doors.

But Asuka had been older. Asuka had been tired. Asuka had dropped out of school to take care of Tomoro after their parents were taken. Asuka had lived a whole life in the hours Tomoro spent resenting the world for looking at him like he was a malfunction.

Of course there were things he had not known.

Of course Asuka had kept secrets.

That did not make it hurt less.

Kyo leaned closer.

“I was going to say yes,” he said.

Tomoro barely heard him.

Kyo’s voice had gone even softer.

“You were so proud of yourself for cornering me. ‘Just one afternoon, Kyo. He’ll love them. Tomoro pretends he hates everything, but he doesn’t. He just needs something that doesn’t look at him like he’s broken.’”

Tomoro stopped breathing.

No.

“You said he’d be careful with the babies,” Kyo murmured. “I said absolutely not. You said I was being dramatic. I said your little brother had tried to bite a teacher once.”

Tomoro’s face went hot.

That had been one time.

Also the teacher had deserved it.

“You said that was proof he understood boundaries.” Kyo gave a quiet, wet laugh. “I still don’t know how you won that argument.”

His thumb swept over Asuka’s hand again.

“You always won when it mattered.”

Tomoro’s knees felt strange.

The baby Digimon.

The little sanctuary.

Asuka had wanted to take him there?

Asuka had wanted him to help?

All this time Tomoro had thought Kyo took him in because Asuka had left behind a request and Kyo was too burdened by guilt to ignore it. He had thought Glowing Dawn was something he had stumbled into after Asuka was gone, a mess of necessity and anger and Gekkomon’s horrible teeth.

But Asuka had known about it before.

Asuka had looked at that hidden place full of Digimon no one else wanted alive and thought of Tomoro.

Tomoro pressed one hand flat against the wall.

Inside the room, Kyo bowed closer to Asuka.

“You wanted to introduce us properly,” he whispered. “Not in passing. Not with me pretending to be just some Cleaner you knew. Properly. You said you were tired of keeping the best parts of your life separated.”

The best parts.

Tomoro’s vision blurred.

“And I was scared,” Kyo said. “Imagine that. Me. Scared of meeting one angry kid because he mattered to you.”

Kyo lifted his free hand and brushed Asuka’s hair back from his forehead with a tenderness so careful it looked practised.

“I should’ve said yes sooner.”

The room went quiet.

Then Kyo leaned in and pressed his lips to Asuka’s cheek.

Tomoro’s entire brain stopped.

Gekkomon made a tiny strangled noise.

Kyo did not hear it.

Or maybe he did and thought it was one of the machines.

“I love you,” Kyo said against Asuka’s skin. “Come back and yell at me.”

Tomoro’s weight shifted.

His shoulder hit the door.

The door, which had not latched properly, swung open.

Tomoro had exactly enough time to realise what was happening and not enough time to stop it.

He fell into the room.

Not gracefully.

Not even a little.

He hit the floor on his hands and knees with a horrible squeak of shoe against tile, and Gekkomon tumbled over his back with a startled “Geh!” before landing on his head in front of him.

For one suspended second, nobody moved.

Kyo stared at them.

Tomoro stared at the floor.

Gekkomon, upside down, stared at Kyo.

The hospital machines hummed.

Then Gekkomon whispered, with the reverence of someone witnessing a natural disaster, “You kissed him.”

Tomoro wanted the floor to open and swallow him.

Kyo’s face did something Tomoro had never seen before.

It went blank.

Not calm. Not composed. Blank, like someone had unplugged him from the inside.

Then colour rose up his neck so fast it almost would have been funny if Tomoro had not been actively dying.

“Tomoro,” Kyo said.

His voice cracked.

Tomoro pushed himself up too quickly, slipped, caught the side of the chair, knocked it crooked, and nearly fell again.

“I wasn’t listening,” he said.

Gekkomon rolled upright.

“Yes you were.”

Tomoro kicked him.

Gekkomon dodged.

“I mean,” Tomoro said, louder, “I didn’t mean to listen.”

Gekkomon raised one claw.

“You leaned closer.”

Tomoro kicked him again.

Kyo stood.

He still had Asuka’s hand in his.

That detail made Tomoro’s chest hurt all over again.

Kyo seemed to notice at the same moment Tomoro did. His fingers loosened, not dropping Asuka’s hand so much as carefully returning it to the blanket, like even startled out of his skin he could not be careless with him.

“I can explain,” Kyo said.

Tomoro stared at him.

The words were so normal. So uselessly normal.

Kyo looked at the open door, then at Tomoro, then at Gekkomon, then at Asuka.

Gekkomon whispered, “Can you?”

Tomoro grabbed the frill at the back of Gekkomon’s head and squeezed.

Gekkomon shut up.

Kyo inhaled.

For a moment, he looked like the leader again. Like he was gathering pieces of himself, laying them into order, choosing which truth could survive being spoken.

Tomoro hated that he could see it now.

He hated that he knew Kyo was deciding what not to say.

“You and Asuka,” Tomoro said.

Kyo’s mouth closed.

Tomoro did not know what his own voice sounded like. Too flat, maybe. Too young.

“You and my brother,” he said again.

Kyo did not deny it.

That was the first answer.

His shoulders lowered slightly, like the effort of not lying was its own kind of surrender.

“Yes, but close the door first.” Kyo said.

Gekkomon’s eyes went wider, this really did feel like a close door conversation.

Tomoro felt strangely far away from his own body.

“How long?”

Kyo looked at Asuka.

Then at Tomoro.

“A while.”

Tomoro laughed once. It came out ugly.

“A while.”

“Tomoro—”

“Was that before or after you told me he asked you to look after me?”

Kyo flinched.

Good, Tomoro thought, and immediately felt awful.

“That wasn’t a lie,” Kyo said.

“But it wasn’t the truth.”

“It was part of it.”

Tomoro’s hands curled.

He could feel his e-Pulse under his skin. Not bursting. Not yet. Just moving, agitated, responding to him the way it always did when emotion got too large for his body and tried to become something else.

Gekkomon turned his head toward him.

For once, he did not ask for it.

Kyo noticed too. His eyes sharpened with concern.

That made Tomoro angrier.

“Don’t,” Tomoro said.

Kyo went still.

“Don’t look at me like I’m about to explode.”

“You might.”

“I know!”

The machines did not change.

Asuka did not stir.

Tomoro hated that too. He hated that the room could hold this much and Asuka still did not move. Kyo’s confession. Tomoro’s anger. Gekkomon’s rare silence. All of it pressed into the air, and Asuka stayed exactly the same.

Empty-eyed.

Unreachable.

Tomoro swallowed hard.

“You were together.”

“Yes.”

“And nobody told me.”

Kyo’s expression twisted.

“Asuka wanted to.”

Tomoro looked up.

The words hit harder than he expected.

Kyo seemed to regret saying them, or maybe he only regretted how much they hurt.

“He wanted to,” Kyo repeated carefully. “Not like this. Not after. He wanted to tell you himself.”

Tomoro’s throat closed.

“When?”

Kyo looked at the chair he had been sitting in, then slowly sat back down, not because he seemed calmer but because standing was apparently too much.

“The day he was attacked.”

Tomoro’s anger vanished so fast it left him hollow.

“What?”

Kyo rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. Without Asuka’s hand in them, they looked wrong.

“He called me that morning,” Kyo said. “He was nervous. He tried to pretend he wasn’t, which meant he talked too much.”

Tomoro stared.

Gekkomon moved closer to his ankle, strangely steady.

“He said he’d finally decided,” Kyo continued. “He didn’t want to keep separating things. He wanted you to know me. Properly. He wanted you to see the shelter.”

“The shelter,” Tomoro repeated.

Kyo nodded.

“The little sanctuary?” Gekkomon asked.

Tomoro looked at him.

Gekkomon looked back, then shrugged too quickly.

“What? I know words.”

Kyo’s mouth moved like it wanted to smile and did not manage it.

“Yes,” he said. “The little sanctuary.”

Tomoro slowly stood.

His legs still felt unreliable.

Kyo gestured once toward the other chair, the visitor chair that usually stayed empty unless Tomoro’s guilt took a shape and sat there beside him.

Tomoro hesitated.

Then he sat.

Gekkomon hopped onto the edge of the bed and immediately froze, looking at Asuka as if remembering at the last second that this was not furniture. He climbed down without being told and settled on the floor between Tomoro and Kyo instead.

Something in Kyo’s face softened at that.

Tomoro hated that too, but less.

“Asuka knew about the Digimon?” Tomoro asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“He found out because of me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” Kyo agreed. “It isn’t.”

Tomoro waited.

Kyo rubbed a hand over his face.

The movement made him look exhausted. Not leader-exhausted, where he smiled afterward and promised meat like the world could be repaired by dinner. Real exhausted. The kind that had probably been sitting in him long before Tomoro ever met him.

“When I was with the Five Stars,” Kyo said, “I did what Cleaners were expected to do.”

Tomoro’s stomach tightened.

Gekkomon’s claws clicked once against the floor.

Kyo looked at him.

“Not Glowing Dawn’s way,” he said. “Not capture. Not protect. Not hide them somewhere safe and lie on every report until the lies become a second language.”

His voice stayed calm.

That made it worse.

“I deleted Digimon,” Kyo said.

Tomoro knew that.

He had known that.

It was one thing to know something as a fact. It was another to sit in his brother’s hospital room while Kyo said it with Asuka’s still body between them.

“How many?” Tomoro asked.

Kyo did not answer.

That was answer enough.

Gekkomon’s mouth had gone flat.

“I was good at it,” Kyo said. “That was the problem. The Ministry likes people who are good at not hesitating.”

Tomoro thought of Kaito. Flames everywhere. Kyo bowing his head and asking him not to hurt his family.

He thought of Naito and his perfect soldier.

He thought of Granit trying to turn himself into a shield because someone had taught him his life was most useful when spent.

He wondered how many people in the World Union had been children when they first learned to call cruelty duty.

“Asuka met me after a mission,” Kyo said. “Not officially. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He’d followed a trail because he was Asuka and he noticed things people assumed he wouldn’t.”

Tomoro’s mouth twitched despite himself.

That did sound like Asuka.

“He found a Digimon I hadn’t deleted.”

Kyo looked down at his hands.

“It was small. Baby level. It had been hiding under broken equipment after the adult Digimon was gone. I heard it crying. I was supposed to report it.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Kyo’s eyes lifted to Asuka.

“I don’t know if I had a good reason then.”

Tomoro waited.

“I was tired,” Kyo said finally. “That sounds pathetic.”

“It sounds human,” Gekkomon said.

Both of them looked at him.

Gekkomon bristled.

“What? I can say smart things.”

Kyo’s expression softened again.

This time, Tomoro did not hate it.

“I hid it,” Kyo said. “Badly. Asuka found me trying to feed it convenience-store pudding because I didn’t know what else to do.”

Tomoro stared.

“You fed a baby Digimon pudding?”

“I said I didn’t know what else to do.”

Gekkomon perked up.

“Did it like pudding?”

“Yes.”

Gekkomon nodded solemnly.

“Smart baby.”

Tomoro almost laughed.

Almost.

Kyo’s gaze drifted back to Asuka.

“Asuka should have reported me,” he said. “He didn’t. He helped me move it.”

“Just like that?”

“No. First he called me an idiot.”

Tomoro did laugh then.

It escaped before he could stop it.

Small and cracked and painful, but a laugh.

Kyo looked at him like it was something precious.

Tomoro looked away.

“Asuka did that,” he muttered.

“He did,” Kyo said. “Often.”

The room settled around them.

Not comfortable, exactly.

Less sharp.

“What happened after?” Tomoro asked.

“We found more.”

“More Digimon?”

Kyo nodded. “Some hiding. Some injured. Some newly born and terrified. Some dangerous because they were starving, not because they wanted to hurt anyone. I told myself I was studying them. Asuka told me I was lying.”

“Sounds like him too.”

“He was very annoying.”

Tomoro’s chest ached.

“He was,” he said.

Kyo’s eyes warmed with grief.

“We made the sanctuary because of him,” Kyo said. “At first it was just one room. Then two. Then I found Nirinso. It wasn’t safe, not really, but it was hidden enough. Asuka said hidden enough was better than dead.”

Tomoro’s hands tightened on his knees.

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

Kyo did not rush to answer.

Tomoro appreciated that, even though part of him wanted to hate every pause.

“He wanted to protect you,” Kyo said. “And I asked him not to.”

Tomoro’s eyes snapped up.

Kyo did not look away.

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because knowing put him in danger.”

Tomoro’s e-Pulse stirred again.

Kyo saw it and kept going anyway.

“Because if the Ministry found out he knew, they could use him. Because if the Five Stars knew he had helped me hide Digimon, they would not just arrest him. Because if anyone connected Asuka Tenma to my betrayal before I was ready to leave, he would become leverage.”

Tomoro heard the word like a door closing.

Leverage.

He thought of Genjo’s smile. He thought of the way powerful people moved others around like pieces on a board and called it order.

“So you stayed away from me.”

“I tried to.”

“But Asuka wanted to introduce us.”

“Yes.”

Tomoro’s voice dropped.

“Why that day?”

Kyo looked at Asuka’s face.

“Because I had already left the Five Stars by then,” he said. “Because Glowing Dawn existed. Because I thought I had built enough distance between my old life and the people I wanted to protect.”

His mouth twisted.

“I was wrong.”

Tomoro’s anger had nowhere to go.

It circled inside him, searching for a target, but every target was already wounded.

Kyo. Asuka. Himself.

The monkey Digimon.

Genjo.

The World Union.

The entire stupid world.

“And the baby Digimon,” Tomoro said. “Asuka thought I’d…”

He could not finish.

Kyo did it for him.

“He thought you’d love them.”

Tomoro’s throat hurt.

“He said that?”

“Many times.”

Tomoro looked at Asuka.

His brother’s face was calm in the artificial light. Too calm. Asuka had never been that still when awake. Even when he was tired, even when he had pretended not to be worried, there had always been motion in him somewhere. Fingers tapping. Mouth curving. Eyes cutting sideways because he had caught Tomoro doing something and was deciding whether to scold him or laugh.

“He said you were good with small, angry things,” Kyo said.

Gekkomon turned slowly toward Tomoro.

Tomoro pointed at him.

“Don’t.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were.”

“I was,” Gekkomon admitted.

Kyo’s shoulders eased a fraction.

It made Tomoro realise how tense he had been.

No, not tense.

Braced.

As if he had expected Tomoro to throw something at him.

Tomoro did not like the guilt that thought produced.

He liked even less that it was probably justified.

“What else?” Tomoro asked.

Kyo blinked.

“What?”

“You said you can explain. So explain.” Tomoro forced the words out before fear could shut him up. “Not everything. I know you won’t. You never do. But something.”

Kyo’s face changed.

There it was again. The calculation. The careful sorting of truth.

Tomoro leaned forward.

“Don’t decide for me.”

Kyo closed his eyes briefly.

When he opened them, he looked more tired.

But less like he was hiding.

“All right,” he said.

Gekkomon made a tiny sound.

Tomoro looked down.

Gekkomon was watching Kyo with a wary focus Tomoro usually only saw before a fight.

“You asked about Gokuwmon,” Kyo said.

Tomoro’s whole body tightened.

Kyo’s gaze flicked to the door.

“It’s safe,” Gekkomon said.

Kyo looked at him.

Gekkomon shrugged.

“I’d smell someone. Probably.”

“Probably?” Tomoro said.

“I’m being honest! Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

Kyo almost smiled.

Then he didn’t.

“The Gokuwmon who took Asuka’s Sapotama,” Kyo said, “is connected to Genjo.”

“I know that.”

“You know what we’ve confirmed.”

Tomoro went cold.

“There’s more?”

“There are inconsistencies.”

Gekkomon’s frills lifted.

“In what?”

“The way it moves,” Kyo said. “The way it responds. The way it recognises people it should not know, and fails to recognise things it should.”

Tomoro remembered Gokuwmon’s shadowed shape. The portal. The impossible speed. The way Glowing Dawn’s scanners had failed. The way Kyo had not known him even though Gokuwmon had known Kyo.

“What does that mean?” Tomoro asked.

“I don’t know.”

Tomoro scowled.

“Kyo.”

“I don’t know,” Kyo repeated, firmer. “And I won’t pretend certainty where I don’t have it. That gets people killed.”

Gekkomon made a grudging noise, like he hated that this was reasonable.

Kyo leaned back.

“There may be more than one.”

The words landed strangely.

Tomoro frowned.

“More than one Gokuwmon?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s not possible.”

Gekkomon gave him a look.

Tomoro amended, “Okay, fine, lots of impossible things are possible now, but—two of the same Digimon?”

“Digimon can share species,” Kyo said. “That’s not the strange part.”

Right.

Tomoro knew that. Hyemon. Mushmon. The world had enough Digimon in it now that species were not unique. But Gokuwmon had felt unique because all of Tomoro’s fear had given him a single shape.

The monkey Digimon.

The one who took Asuka.

The one who had to be found.

“What’s the strange part, then?” Tomoro asked.

Kyo’s eyes darkened.

“One of them feels like a prisoner.”

The room went very still.

Gekkomon stopped breathing loudly.

Tomoro stared at Kyo.

“A prisoner?”

“I said feels like.”

“Explain.”

Kyo rubbed his thumb against his own palm, like his hand remembered Asuka’s and did not know what to do empty.

“When Gokuwmon appeared that night, the night Asuka was attacked, I didn’t know him. That much was true.”

Tomoro nodded slowly.

“But he knew you.”

“He seemed to.” Kyo’s jaw tightened. “Later, after Genjo began moving more openly, I tried to find anything I could. Old reports. Deleted Cleaner records. Digimon sightings buried under Ministry classifications. There were references to a monkey Digimon under Genjo’s command.”

“Gokuwmon.”

“Yes.”

“But?”

“But the reports don’t line up.” Kyo’s eyes slid toward Asuka again. “Sometimes it follows Genjo’s orders perfectly. Sometimes it disobeys in ways that are too small to be rebellion and too deliberate to be mistakes. Sometimes it protects what it should deliver.”

Tomoro’s chest tightened.

Asuka’s Sapotama.

“You think it still has his e-Pulse.”

“I know it had it,” Kyo said. “I do not know if it still does.”

Tomoro stood so fast the chair legs screeched.

Kyo stopped talking.

Gekkomon leapt up too.

Tomoro’s hands shook.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

Kyo’s expression closed with pain.

“Tomoro—”

“No. Don’t. Don’t do that. If it digested it—”

“I don’t think it did.”

The words cut through him.

Tomoro froze.

Kyo looked up at him.

“I don’t think it did,” he said again. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Hope can be dangerous when it has nowhere to go.”

Tomoro felt like the floor had tilted.

Hope.

He hated hope sometimes.

Hate was easier. Anger was easier. Hope made him feel like a child standing outside a locked door, begging someone inside to answer.

“Why?” he asked.

His voice barely worked.

“Why do you think that?”

Kyo looked at Asuka.

“Because if Genjo had Asuka’s e-Pulse freely, he would have used it by now.”

Tomoro’s skin prickled.

“Used it for what?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do know something.”

“I know Genjo doesn’t collect things without purpose,” Kyo said. “People. Digimon. Information. E-Pulse. He doesn’t waste pieces. If he wanted Asuka merely gone, there were simpler ways. If he wanted leverage over me, he would have shown me proof. If he wanted to lure you, he would have let you chase a cleaner trail.”

Tomoro slowly sat back down.

Gekkomon stayed standing.

“So why take it?” Tomoro asked.

Kyo’s face looked hollow.

“I think Asuka’s e-Pulse mattered to someone. Maybe to Genjo. Maybe to Gokuwmon. Maybe to both for different reasons.”

Tomoro looked at his brother.

Asuka’s hand lay still on the blanket.

“What aren’t you saying?”

Kyo closed his mouth.

Tomoro almost shouted.

Then Kyo said, “Asuka had his own Sapotama irregularities.”

Tomoro’s anger turned into confusion.

“What?”

“Not like yours,” Kyo said quickly. “Not disruptive. Not enough for the Ministry to flag publicly. But enough that he noticed.”

Tomoro stared.

“Asuka had weird e-Pulse too?”

“Not weird,” Kyo said.

Tomoro gave him a look.

Kyo sighed.

“Fine. Yes. Strange. Unusual. But quieter than yours. Yours pushes against systems until they break. His…”

Kyo looked at Asuka’s face.

“His harmonised.”

The word made the room feel different.

Tomoro thought of Asuka humming while cooking. Asuka tapping rhythms against tabletops. Asuka singing under his breath when he thought Tomoro was asleep. Music threaded through memories Tomoro had never thought to label because it had just been part of Asuka, as normal as the way he smiled or the way he always gave Tomoro the larger piece of fish and pretended not to.

“He had a music background,” Tomoro said, and the words felt stupid because Kyo knew that. Of course Kyo knew that.

Kyo nodded anyway.

“He said sound was just emotion organised enough to share.”

Tomoro’s throat went tight again.

“That’s so annoying.”

“It was,” Kyo said fondly.

Gekkomon looked between them.

“What does music have to do with a monkey Digimon?”

Kyo’s eyes lowered.

“There was a Digimon at the sanctuary,” he said. “Small. Child level. Red and gold fur. Hair like it had styled itself with too much confidence. It liked music.”

Tomoro stared.

Kyo’s voice was careful.

“Asuka called it Kakamon.”

Gekkomon’s head tilted.

“Kakamon?”

“It would sing for the baby Digimon,” Kyo said. “Badly, at first.”

“Digimon sing?” Gekkomon asked.

“You scream with rhythm sometimes,” Tomoro said faintly.

“That’s battle music.”

Kyo continued, “Asuka said Kakamon had potential. Kakamon said Asuka had terrible taste because he kept asking it to practise scales.”

Tomoro could see it.

He did not want to, but he could.

Asuka crouched in some hidden room full of small Digimon, smiling like the world had not spent years grinding him down. A little monkey Digimon with red and gold fur, offended and delighted by attention. Kyo standing nearby with his arms crossed, pretending not to care while caring so much it changed the shape of his life.

“What happened to it?” Tomoro asked.

Kyo did not answer.

That was answer enough.

Tomoro’s mouth went dry.

“No.”

“I don’t know.”

“No,” Tomoro said again.

Kyo’s face tightened.

“The day Asuka was attacked,” he said, “Kakamon disappeared.”

Tomoro felt cold.

“Disappeared.”

“Yes.”

“And Gokuwmon appeared.”

“Yes.”

Gekkomon’s claws scraped the tile.

Tomoro stared at Kyo.

“You think Kakamon became Gokuwmon?”

“I think it’s possible.”

“But you said there might be two.”

“There may be.” Kyo leaned forward. “This is why I did not want to tell you in fragments.”

“I’m listening.”

“No, you’re building a conclusion before I’ve finished.”

Tomoro snapped his mouth shut.

Gekkomon looked almost impressed.

Kyo exhaled.

“The Gokuwmon who took Asuka’s e-Pulse did not behave like Genjo’s obedient servant,” he said. “It was ordered. Forced, maybe. But it hesitated. It could have killed you too. It didn’t. It could have handed the Sapotama over immediately. I don’t think it did.”

Tomoro’s heart pounded.

“The Gokuwmon later seen with Genjo behaves differently. Cleaner. Colder. Sometimes too perfect.”

“Too perfect?”

Kyo’s mouth thinned.

“Like an imitation.”

Gekkomon’s frills rose again.

Tomoro remembered something Asuka had told him once, years ago, when Tomoro had been younger and angry about a school assignment on old stories. Asuka had sat beside him with cheap snacks and told him mythology was just people trying to understand patterns before they had data.

A monkey king who caused trouble in heaven.

A monk on a journey.

A fake so perfect only a god could tell the difference.

Tomoro’s eyes widened.

“Six ears,” he said.

Kyo went still.

Gekkomon looked confused.

“What?”

Tomoro barely heard him.

“The Six-Eared Macaque,” he said. “Asuka told me that story once. It impersonated Sun Wukong so well nobody could tell which one was real.”

Kyo’s eyes sharpened.

“Asuka told you that?”

“A long time ago.”

Kyo looked like someone had handed him another piece of a map and made the road worse.

Gekkomon’s tail lashed.

“So there’s a fake monkey pretending to be another monkey?”

Tomoro looked at Kyo.

Kyo did not confirm it.

He did not deny it either.

“I’ve considered it,” Kyo said.

Tomoro laughed under his breath.

It sounded nothing like amusement.

“Of course you have.”

“Tomoro—”

“So one Gokuwmon might be Asuka’s Digimon, who was forced to take his e-Pulse but kept it, and the other might be Genjo’s real partner pretending to be him?”

Kyo’s expression went very still.

“I said might.”

“But that’s what you think.”

“That is what I fear.”

The difference mattered.

Tomoro hated that it mattered.

He looked at Asuka.

His brother had a Digimon.

Maybe.

His brother had loved Kyo.

Definitely.

His brother had planned to introduce Tomoro to both of them on the day everything went wrong.

The room swayed a little.

Gekkomon moved closer until his shoulder pressed against Tomoro’s leg.

Tomoro looked down.

Gekkomon did not look up.

“I don’t like this,” Gekkomon muttered.

Tomoro barked a laugh, sharp and sudden.

“Yeah. Me neither.”

Kyo’s gaze softened with something that looked too much like apology.

Tomoro could not take more apology.

Not right now.

“So what happened?” he asked.

Kyo frowned.

“What?”

“You and Asuka.”

Kyo looked startled.

Tomoro’s face heated.

“I mean—before. How did that even happen?”

Gekkomon’s head snapped up.

“Oh, good, yes. Explain the kissing.”

Tomoro covered his face.

“Why are you like this?”

“I was quiet for ages!”

“You were quiet because you were snooping!”

“So were you!”

Kyo made a sound.

Tomoro looked through his fingers.

Kyo was smiling.

Not much. Barely at all.

But for the first time since Tomoro had fallen into the room, he looked a little less like the world was ending.

“Asuka happened,” Kyo said.

Tomoro lowered his hands.

“That’s not an explanation.”

“It’s the most accurate one.”

Gekkomon nodded.

“Sounds fake but possible.”

Kyo looked at Asuka.

“He kept coming back,” he said.

“To the sanctuary?”

“Yes. At first, I told him not to. He ignored me. Then I changed the access codes.”

Tomoro snorted.

“Asuka hacked them?”

“No. He brought food.”

Kyo looked faintly embarrassed.

Tomoro stared.

“You gave him access because he brought food?”

“I was working long hours.”

Gekkomon nodded gravely.

“Food is powerful.”

“He brought food,” Kyo said, “and medical supplies, and blankets, and once a portable speaker because he said the room was depressing.”

“That sounds like him,” Tomoro said.

“He said Digimon recovering from trauma deserved better atmosphere.”

“That also sounds like him.”

“He was right,” Kyo said.

Tomoro’s chest hurt again, but this time the pain had warmth tangled through it.

Kyo looked down at his hands.

“He was angry with me for a long time.”

“Why?”

“Because I kept calling the sanctuary atonement.”

Tomoro frowned.

“Isn’t it?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And?”

“And Asuka said atonement that only exists to make the guilty person suffer is still selfish.”

Tomoro blinked.

Kyo smiled faintly.

“I told him he was being harsh.”

“He was.”

“He said good.”

Gekkomon grinned.

“I like him.”

Tomoro swallowed.

“You would.”

The words slipped out too soft.

Gekkomon’s grin faded.

Kyo’s eyes moved to him.

Tomoro looked away.

He had never really thought about Gekkomon meeting Asuka properly. Not in a way that felt possible. The idea had existed in the same place as all his other painful hopes: pushed down, hidden under action. Find the Sapotama. Recover the e-Pulse. Wake Asuka up. Then think about after.

But now after had shape.

Asuka meeting Gekkomon.

Asuka laughing at him.

Asuka seeing Tomoro as he was now, not just the angry younger brother he had left behind in one terrible moment.

Would Asuka be proud?

Would he be upset?

Would he look at Gekkomon and see danger first, or would he see what Tomoro still sometimes tried not to see, that Gekkomon was annoying and greedy and selfish and his?

“My brother wanted me to help with baby Digimon,” Tomoro said.

Kyo’s face softened.

“Yes.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Yes.”

“I would’ve been bad at it.”

“No.”

Tomoro glared.

Kyo held his gaze.

“No,” he said again. “You would’ve pretended to be bad at it until one of them cried. Then you would’ve panicked and done exactly the right thing while yelling at everyone not to watch.”

Gekkomon made a delighted noise.

“That is you.”

“Shut up.”

Kyo’s smile deepened, then trembled.

“Asuka said something similar.”

Tomoro looked at his brother.

The scarf he had bought him was folded by the bedside. Not the ripped one. The final one, soft and warm and chosen with hands that had shaken from too many feelings he had not known how to name.

“Was he happy?” Tomoro asked.

Kyo’s smile vanished.

The question had come from somewhere small and frightened.

Tomoro hated that he had asked it.

Kyo did not treat it like something childish.

“With me?”

Tomoro nodded.

Kyo looked at Asuka for a long moment.

Then he said, “I hope so.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only honest one I have.”

Tomoro frowned.

Kyo’s mouth tightened.

“Asuka carried too much,” he said. “You know that.”

Tomoro’s eyes dropped.

“He smiled,” Kyo continued. “He joked. He made plans. He worried about you every day and pretended he didn’t because he knew you hated being worried over.”

Tomoro bit the inside of his cheek.

“He was happy sometimes,” Kyo said. “At the sanctuary. When Kakamon sang. When the baby Digimon slept in a pile because they trusted the room enough to stop hiding. When you texted him something rude and he pretended to be offended but saved the message.”

Tomoro’s head snapped up.

“He saved my messages?”

Kyo’s eyebrow lifted.

“All of them, I think.”

Tomoro flushed.

“Why?”

“Because he loved you.”

The words hit too cleanly.

Tomoro looked away first.

Kyo’s voice gentled.

“And yes,” he said. “I think he was happy with me. Not always. I made things difficult. I was afraid of becoming someone he regretted loving.”

Tomoro said nothing.

Gekkomon was looking at Kyo with an expression Tomoro could not read.

“Asuka didn’t regret people like that,” Tomoro said finally.

Kyo’s eyes widened slightly.

Tomoro stared at the blanket.

“He only regretted not doing more.”

Kyo breathed in.

It sounded painful.

“Yes,” he said. “That sounds like him.”

For a while, none of them spoke.

The hospital continued around them.

Footsteps passed the door. A nurse murmured to someone down the hall. Somewhere far away, a monitor chimed and stopped.

Tomoro looked at Kyo’s hand.

It had drifted back toward Asuka’s without Kyo noticing.

He stopped before touching him, like Tomoro’s presence had made him unsure he was allowed.

That made something bitter rise in Tomoro’s throat.

“You can hold his hand,” he muttered.

Kyo froze.

Tomoro’s face burned.

“I mean. You were doing it before.”

Gekkomon whispered, “And kissing.”

Tomoro stepped on his tail.

Gekkomon squeaked.

Kyo looked between them.

Then, slowly, he reached out and took Asuka’s hand again.

His expression shifted when he did.

Not happier.

Steadier.

Tomoro looked at that joined place and felt grief move inside him, changing shape.

Kyo was not stealing Asuka from him.

That was what the ugly little voice inside him had first thought, maybe. That there had been a secret Asuka, a version who smiled at Kyo and hid Digimon and planned futures Tomoro had not been included in until the last possible moment.

But Asuka had wanted to include him.

Asuka had loved Kyo and Tomoro at the same time, in different ways, with the same exhausted, stubborn heart.

Tomoro did not know what to do with that.

So he got angry at something easier.

“I’m still mad you didn’t tell me.”

Kyo nodded.

“You should be.”

“And I’m still mad you said it wasn’t my concern.”

“I know.”

“That was a really stupid thing to say.”

“Yes.”

“And cruel.”

Kyo’s eyes lowered.

“Yes.”

Tomoro waited for an excuse.

Kyo did not give one.

That made it harder to stay sharp.

“You can’t keep doing that,” Tomoro said. “You can’t keep deciding I’m better off not knowing things.”

Kyo looked at him.

“I can’t tell you everything.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I,” Tomoro snapped. “I’m not asking you to hand me all your secret Five Stars trauma or whatever.”

Gekkomon nodded.

“Not today.”

Tomoro ignored him.

“But if something is about Asuka, you tell me. If something is about the Gokuwmon that took him, you tell me. If there might be two of them, you tell me.”

Kyo’s expression tightened.

“If telling you puts you in danger—”

“I’m already in danger!”

Tomoro’s voice cracked.

The e-Pulse under his skin surged.

Gekkomon’s head whipped toward him.

Tomoro stood, unable to sit through the feeling.

“I’ve been in danger since the first episode of my life! My e-Pulse breaks things. Digimon come after me. The World Union took my parents. Asuka got Cold Heart because something was chasing me, and now Genjo has—has whatever he has, and everyone keeps telling me to wait or stay back or not worry like that has ever helped anyone!”

Kyo’s face had gone pale.

Tomoro’s hands shook at his sides.

“I can’t do anything if I don’t know what’s happening,” he said. “I can’t help him if everyone keeps treating me like I’ll break.”

Kyo said nothing.

Tomoro’s breathing sounded too loud.

Gekkomon pressed against his leg again, harder this time.

Not asking.

Anchoring.

Kyo looked at Gekkomon, then at Tomoro.

“You’re right,” he said.

Tomoro’s anger stumbled.

“I am?”

“Yes.”

Gekkomon squinted.

“That was too easy.”

Kyo looked down.

“I don’t know how to protect people without controlling the field,” he said. “That’s not an excuse. It’s a failure.”

Tomoro did not know what to say to that.

Kyo’s thumb brushed over Asuka’s knuckles.

“Asuka told me that once,” he said. “He said protection that leaves no room for trust becomes another cage.”

Tomoro let out a shaky breath.

“Asuka said a lot of annoying wise things, huh?”

“Constantly.”

“Terrible.”

“Yes.”

Kyo’s mouth curved faintly.

“He would’ve liked hearing you say that.”

Tomoro looked at his brother.

“Asuka,” he said, and his own voice sounded strange in the room.

Kyo went still.

Tomoro stepped closer to the bed.

Gekkomon followed, climbing onto the visitor chair this time and gripping the back of it.

Tomoro looked at Asuka’s empty eyes.

“I found out your boyfriend is Kyo,” he said.

Kyo choked.

Gekkomon wheezed.

Tomoro kept going, because if he stopped now he might cry.

“That’s weird. Not bad weird. Just weird. You could’ve warned me. Actually, no, you couldn’t, because then I would’ve had time to imagine things, and now I have to know Kyo kisses your cheek when he thinks nobody is watching.”

Kyo covered his face with one hand.

Gekkomon made a muffled cackle.

Tomoro’s mouth trembled.

“I’m mad at you,” he said.

The room quieted.

Kyo lowered his hand.

Tomoro stared at Asuka.

“I know that’s not fair. You didn’t choose this. You didn’t leave on purpose. But I’m still mad.”

His voice thinned.

“You knew about Digimon. You knew about Kyo. You knew there was somewhere I might’ve belonged before I even met Gekkomon, and you didn’t tell me.”

Gekkomon’s laughter had vanished.

Tomoro swallowed hard.

“But you were going to.”

The words broke something open.

“You were going to,” he repeated. “That day.”

Kyo’s hand tightened around Asuka’s.

Tomoro reached out.

He hesitated.

Then he placed his hand over Asuka’s other one.

Asuka’s skin was warm.

That always made it worse.

Cold Heart looked like a name for frost, for bodies drained and emptied, but Asuka was still warm. Still breathing. Still almost there. Tomoro’s hand had never learned how to understand that.

“You wanted me to meet Kyo,” Tomoro said. “You wanted me to see the baby Digimon. You thought I’d love them.”

His voice cracked.

“You knew me that well and still didn’t know I’d be mad about it.”

Kyo made a small sound.

Tomoro blinked hard.

“So you have to come back,” he said. “Because I’m not letting Kyo explain all of this by himself. He’s bad at it.”

Kyo laughed once, startled and wet.

“He is,” Gekkomon said.

“And Gekkomon wants to know if baby Digimon like pudding.”

“I do.”

“And apparently you had a Digimon? Maybe? Kakamon? Which is a whole other thing, because if you got a singing monkey and I got this guy—”

“Hey!”

“—then I think we need to discuss family standards.”

Gekkomon looked offended.

Kyo’s shoulders were shaking.

Tomoro did not look at him because if he did, he would definitely cry.

“And if your Digimon is out there,” Tomoro said, quieter, “if he has your e-Pulse and he’s protecting it, I’ll find him. If Genjo has him, I’ll get him back. If there’s a fake, we’ll figure it out.”

His hand tightened over Asuka’s.

“I don’t know how. But I will.”

Gekkomon climbed from the chair onto the edge of the bed, careful this time. He stared at Asuka’s face for a long moment.

Then he said, “Your brother is annoying.”

Tomoro glared.

Gekkomon continued, “But Tomoro is also annoying, so that makes sense.”

“Gekkomon.”

“And if you wake up, I won’t eat your hospital food unless you don’t want it.”

Tomoro stared at him.

“That’s your promise?”

Gekkomon looked defensive.

“It’s a big promise!”

Kyo was smiling now.

Actually smiling, even with tears caught in his lashes.

Tomoro’s chest ached at the sight.

Gekkomon puffed himself up.

“Also, I’ll protect Tomoro. Not because anyone asked. Because he’s mine to bother.”

Tomoro’s face heated.

“I’m not yours.”

“You gave birth to me.”

“I hate when you say that.”

“That doesn’t make it untrue.”

Kyo laughed again.

It sounded more like the Kyo Tomoro knew.

Still tired. Still sad.

But alive.

Tomoro looked at him.

Kyo’s laughter faded into something softer.

“Asuka would like him,” he said.

“Gekkomon?”

“Yes.”

Tomoro looked at Gekkomon, who was now sniffing the water cup beside Asuka’s bed.

“I don’t know why.”

“Because he loves you loudly,” Kyo said.

Tomoro went still.

Gekkomon also went still, though that might have been because he had been caught with his tongue halfway toward the cup.

Kyo’s expression did not change.

He said it like it was obvious.

Tomoro looked away.

“Shut up.”

Kyo’s smile warmed.

“There it is.”

Tomoro scowled.

“Don’t act like you know me.”

“I know some things.”

“You know Asuka.”

“Yes,” Kyo said. “And Asuka knew you.”

That quieted him.

Tomoro sat back down slowly.

The three of them stayed like that for a while: Kyo holding one of Asuka’s hands, Tomoro holding the other, Gekkomon pretending not to guard the room from the foot of the bed.

It should have been awkward.

It was, a little.

But it was also the first time Tomoro had ever sat with Asuka and felt like the room contained more than waiting.

There was grief, yes. There was anger. There were secrets stacked high enough to block out the sun.

But there was also Kyo’s thumb moving over Asuka’s hand in a rhythm so familiar it must have been old. There was Gekkomon’s tail flicking whenever someone passed the door. There was Tomoro’s own hand over Asuka’s, holding on not because he was afraid Asuka would vanish, but because he wanted to be there when he came back.

After a while, Tomoro asked, “What was Kakamon like?”

Kyo looked surprised.

Then he looked thoughtful.

“Loud,” he said.

Gekkomon perked up.

“Good.”

“Vain.”

“Also good.”

“Very convinced its singing could solve emotional problems.”

Gekkomon frowned.

“Can it?”

“Asuka said yes,” Kyo said.

Tomoro snorted.

“Asuka would.”

Kyo’s gaze softened.

“Kakamon followed him everywhere when he visited. It liked his e-Pulse.”

Tomoro’s stomach tightened.

“Because of the harmony thing?”

“Maybe. Asuka could calm frightened Digimon more easily than anyone I’d seen. Not control them. Never that. He hated that word.”

Tomoro remembered Raito and Monodramon. TACTICS and their orders. Naito and perfection. The Ministry and its classifications.

Control.

He hated it too.

“He said Digimon weren’t instruments,” Kyo continued. “They were musicians. If you wanted to make something beautiful together, you had to listen back.”

Tomoro’s mouth twisted.

“That is the most Asuka thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yes.”

“Also kind of embarrassing.”

“Very.”

Kyo smiled down at Asuka.

“He said it to me after Kakamon threw a cup at my head.”

Tomoro blinked.

Gekkomon looked delighted.

“Why?”

“I told Kakamon to stop singing.”

Gekkomon gasped.

Tomoro looked at him.

“You don’t even sing.”

“It’s about respect.”

Kyo nodded solemnly.

“That was Kakamon’s position.”

Tomoro could not help it.

He laughed.

It hurt. Everything hurt. But the laugh came anyway, and once it started, Gekkomon joined in with his awful croaking version, and Kyo’s smile widened until the room, for a few seconds, felt less like a place where people came to wait and more like somewhere Asuka might actually want to wake up.

Then the door opened.

All three of them jolted.

A nurse stepped in carrying a tablet.

She froze.

Tomoro froze.

Kyo, who was still holding Asuka’s hand, froze in the exact manner of a man with exceptional combat instincts and absolutely no plan for being caught in a personal situation by hospital staff.

Gekkomon did not freeze.

Gekkomon opened his mouth.

Tomoro grabbed him around the middle and clamped him to his chest.

The nurse looked at Gekkomon.

Gekkomon looked back, cheeks puffed with unsaid words.

The nurse looked at Tomoro.

Then at Kyo.

Then at Asuka.

Her expression did something careful.

“Visiting together today?” she asked.

Tomoro waited for Kyo to answer.

Kyo waited for Tomoro.

Gekkomon vibrated with the need to cause trouble.

Tomoro swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said.

The nurse’s face softened.

“I’ll just do a quick check.”

She did not ask why Kyo was there.

She did not ask why he held Asuka’s hand.

Maybe she already knew. Maybe Kyo had been visiting when Tomoro was not there for longer than Tomoro could imagine. Maybe hospitals collected secrets the way old houses collected dust.

The thought did not hurt as much as it would have an hour ago.

The nurse checked Asuka’s vitals. The machines. The chart. She spoke softly to Asuka while she worked, the way some of the better nurses did, like comatose did not mean absent.

Tomoro watched.

Kyo did not let go until he had to, and when he did, he placed Asuka’s hand down carefully.

The nurse’s eyes flicked to the motion.

She said nothing.

When she left, the room felt different again.

Reality had entered with her.

Time. Rules. The outside world.

Genjo.

Gokuwmon.

Everything waiting beyond the hospital walls.

Kyo stood.

Tomoro looked up sharply.

“You’re leaving?”

Kyo paused.

“I should get back.”

“Why?”

“Because Reina will decide I’ve collapsed somewhere and start threatening people.”

Tomoro considered this.

“She would.”

“And Makoto will pretend he isn’t worried while quietly making it worse.”

“He would.”

“And Cougarmon needs feeding.”

Gekkomon tilted his head.

“Does he? He sleeps.”

“He wakes up to eat,” Kyo said.

Gekkomon nodded, approving.

Kyo looked at Tomoro.

“But I don’t have to leave yet.”

Tomoro looked away.

“You can.”

“That isn’t what I said.”

“I know.”

Kyo waited.

Tomoro hated how good he was at waiting.

Finally, Tomoro muttered, “I’m not done asking questions.”

Kyo’s expression softened.

“Then ask one more before we go.”

Tomoro frowned.

“One?”

“For now.”

“That’s annoying.”

“Yes.”

Gekkomon tapped his chin.

“Ask about the kissing.”

Tomoro nearly threw him.

Kyo coughed into his hand.

Tomoro’s face burned.

“I’m not asking about that.”

“You should,” Gekkomon said. “It’s important. Human bonding rituals are confusing.”

Kyo looked like he wanted to evaporate.

Tomoro pointed at the floor.

“Sit.”

Gekkomon sat, smug.

Tomoro looked back at Kyo.

His question rose before he could overthink it.

“Did he know you loved him?”

Kyo’s embarrassment vanished.

The room changed around the question.

Kyo looked at Asuka.

For a moment, Tomoro thought he had asked something too cruel.

Then Kyo said, “Yes.”

Tomoro’s chest loosened.

Kyo’s voice was quiet but certain.

“I didn’t say it easily,” he said. “Not at first. Asuka said that was fine. He said some people speak in words and some people speak in actions, but if I tried to use that as an excuse to never say anything, he’d kick me.”

Tomoro smiled despite himself.

“He would.”

“He did, once.”

“Good.”

Kyo’s mouth curved.

“But yes. He knew.”

Tomoro nodded.

He looked at Asuka.

“Good,” he said.

Kyo’s eyes shone.

Then Tomoro added, because vulnerability made his skin itch, “Because if he wakes up and finds out you were doing tragic bedside confessions without ever telling him, I’m not helping you.”

Kyo laughed.

“Understood.”

Gekkomon raised a claw.

“I will help Asuka kick you.”

“Also understood.”

Kyo glanced toward the door again, but this time there was reluctance in it.

Tomoro knew they had to leave eventually. He knew Kyo was right. The world did not stop because Tomoro had discovered something that rearranged the furniture inside his chest. Glowing Dawn still had work. Gokuwmon was still out there. Genjo was still moving pieces. Asuka was still sleeping.

But Tomoro was not ready for the hallway.

Not yet.

Kyo seemed to understand without being told.

He sat back down.

“One more story,” he said.

Tomoro looked at him.

“What?”

“You said you’re not done asking questions.” Kyo looked at Asuka, and his face softened into something almost private. “But maybe this one is easier if I start.”

Tomoro hesitated.

Then he nodded.

Kyo took Asuka’s hand again.

“The first time Asuka brought up introducing you to me,” he said, “I said no before he finished the sentence.”

Tomoro snorted.

“Rude.”

“He said that too.”

“Good.”

“He told me you’d hate Cleaners.”

“I did.”

Kyo’s eyebrow lifted.

Tomoro shifted.

“I mostly did.”

“You threw something at Reina the first week.”

“She dodged.”

“That doesn’t improve it.”

“She was annoying.”

“She is.”

Tomoro blinked.

Kyo looked amused.

“Don’t tell her I said that.”

“I’m telling her immediately.”

“Then I’ll deny it.”

Gekkomon grinned.

“Family.”

The word slipped into the room and settled there.

Kyo looked at him.

Gekkomon blinked, as if he had not meant to say it.

Tomoro looked at Asuka.

Family.

Kyo’s favourite word. His most dangerous word.

Asuka’s too, maybe, in a quieter way.

Kyo continued, voice gentler.

“Asuka said you wouldn’t hate Cleaners straight away but you hated people who treated you like a problem to solve.”

Tomoro’s mouth went dry.

“He said if you met me on a bad day, you’d hate me forever.”

“He was right.”

“Yes,” Kyo said. “So he wanted to choose the day carefully.”

Tomoro’s chest tightened.

“He was planning it?”

“For weeks.”

Weeks.

Asuka had spent weeks planning how to bring Tomoro into this hidden part of his life.

Tomoro tried to imagine it. Asuka worrying over details. Kyo pretending not to worry and absolutely worrying. Kakamon singing too loudly. Baby Digimon underfoot. Maybe food. Asuka would have brought food. Something cheap but made carefully. Something Tomoro would complain about and eat anyway.

“He wanted it to be after your birthday,” Kyo said.

Tomoro’s eyes stung.

“The scarf.”

Kyo nodded.

“He wanted to give you something normal first.”

Normal.

The word broke against Tomoro’s ribs.

Asuka had always tried to give him normal.

Even when there was no such thing.

“He said you deserved one day that wasn’t about Sapotamas, or the Ministry, or your e-Pulse,” Kyo said. “Just a birthday. Then, after, he’d tell you.”

Tomoro closed his eyes.

The day Asuka was attacked, Tomoro had thought only of what had been taken.

He had not known there had been a future waiting on the other side of it too.

A planned conversation.

A secret sanctuary.

Kyo.

Kakamon.

Baby Digimon sleeping in a patch of sunlight.

Asuka had not only been stolen from Tomoro.

Tomoro had been stolen from that version of himself.

The one who might have met Digimon before Gekkomon attacked him for e-Pulse. The one who might have entered Glowing Dawn through Asuka’s smile instead of grief. The one who might have learned Kyo as his brother’s important person before he learned him as the man carrying too many secrets.

Tomoro opened his eyes.

“I hate Genjo,” he said.

Kyo’s gaze sharpened.

“I know.”

“No,” Tomoro said. “You don’t.”

Gekkomon’s tail lashed.

Tomoro looked at Asuka.

“I hated him before because he had Asuka’s e-Pulse. Because he was in the way. Because he smiled like none of us were real.”

His hand tightened.

“But if he did this on purpose—if he took that day, if he knew—”

The room flickered.

Not the lights.

The air.

Tomoro’s e-Pulse rose in a pulse so strong the tablet beside the bed glitched black for half a second.

Gekkomon’s eyes widened.

Kyo stood immediately.

“Tomoro.”

Tomoro barely heard him.

His anger was not hot this time.

It was cold and clear and huge.

The machines gave a warning chirp.

Kyo moved between Tomoro and the monitors, not blocking him from Asuka but grounding the space.

“Tomoro,” he said again. “Look at me.”

Tomoro did not want to.

Gekkomon climbed onto his shoulder with a speed that startled him.

“Hey,” Gekkomon said into his ear. “Don’t break Asuka’s room.”

That reached him.

Tomoro’s breath caught.

The e-Pulse flicker stuttered.

Gekkomon pressed his forehead against Tomoro’s temple.

“You can break Genjo later,” he said. “Not the room.”

Tomoro let out a breath that shook all the way through him.

The tablet blinked back to normal.

The machines steadied.

Kyo watched him carefully.

Not like he was a bomb.

Like he was someone standing too close to an edge.

That was better.

Not perfect.

Better.

Tomoro swallowed.

“Sorry.”

Kyo shook his head.

“No. I should have been more careful.”

“No,” Tomoro said, tired suddenly. “I don’t want careful. I want true.”

Kyo’s face softened.

“All right.”

The word felt like another promise.

Tomoro looked down at Asuka’s hand.

“Was Kakamon there?” he asked.

Kyo went still.

“The day Asuka was attacked.”

Kyo’s silence answered before he did.

“I think so,” Kyo said.

Tomoro’s pulse thudded.

“You think?”

“I found signs later. Scratches in the concrete near the alley. Not from Hyemon. Not from Gokuwmon’s staff either. Smaller claws. Burn marks from forced evolution, maybe.”

Gekkomon’s voice went quiet.

“Forced?”

Kyo looked at him.

“When Digimon are starved, injured, or overloaded with e-Pulse, evolution can become unstable.”

Tomoro thought of Gekkomon dark with purple aura. Of Gekkomon going berserk under the weight of Tomoro’s black emotion.

His stomach turned.

“You think Kakamon was forced to evolve into Gokuwmon?”

“I think something happened to him that night,” Kyo said. “And after that, the Digimon with Genjo wore Gokuwmon’s face.”

Wore.

Tomoro hated that word.

Gekkomon bared his teeth.

“So one monkey got hurt and another monkey stole his face?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Yes,” Kyo said.

Tomoro looked at Asuka.

“And Asuka’s e-Pulse?”

Kyo’s voice lowered.

“If the real one has it, he may be hiding it.”

“Because it’s the last piece of Asuka he has,” Tomoro said.

Kyo’s eyes flicked to his.

Tomoro did not look away.

“That’s what you think,” Tomoro said.

Kyo’s face gave the smallest answer.

“Yes.”

Tomoro nodded slowly.

It hurt.

But it was a hurt with direction.

Not just grief circling itself.

Somewhere out there, maybe, was a Digimon who had loved Asuka too. A Digimon forced into a shape too big and too violent, ordered to steal what he would rather protect, hiding the stolen e-Pulse not as a weapon but as a treasure.

And somewhere else, maybe, was a fake so perfect everyone kept chasing the wrong shadow.

Tomoro looked at Gekkomon.

Gekkomon looked back.

“We’re finding him,” Tomoro said.

Gekkomon grinned, all teeth.

“Obviously.”

Kyo’s expression tightened.

“Not alone.”

Tomoro rolled his eyes.

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.” Tomoro looked back at him. “You’re coming too.”

Kyo blinked.

Tomoro’s face heated, but he pushed through it.

“He’s Asuka’s too, right? Kakamon. Or Gokuwmon. Whatever he is now.”

Kyo nodded slowly.

“Then you’re coming.”

Kyo’s eyes softened.

“Yes,” he said. “I am.”

Gekkomon jabbed a claw toward him.

“And no saying ‘not your concern.’”

Kyo bowed his head with grave seriousness.

“I will retire the phrase.”

“Good.”

“Also,” Tomoro added, “you’re taking me to the sanctuary.”

Kyo hesitated.

Tomoro glared.

Kyo sighed.

“When it’s safe.”

Tomoro opened his mouth.

Kyo held up a hand.

“I know. But this time, that means practical safety. Not emotional avoidance.”

Tomoro considered that.

Gekkomon squinted at him.

Kyo looked genuinely prepared to be argued with.

Tomoro sat back.

“Fine.”

Kyo’s eyebrows rose.

“Fine?”

“Don’t look so shocked. I can be reasonable.”

Gekkomon made a choking sound.

Tomoro shoved him off his shoulder.

He landed on the bed, bounced once, and froze when all three of them looked at Asuka.

The machines did not change.

Asuka did not wake.

Gekkomon carefully crawled down again.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

Tomoro stared at him.

Gekkomon looked embarrassed.

Kyo’s expression turned painfully fond.

“Asuka would definitely like him,” he said again.

Tomoro looked at his brother.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “He would.”

The thought settled this time.

Not as a knife.

As a small, warm thing.

Asuka would like Gekkomon.

Asuka loved Kyo.

Asuka had known about Digimon and still loved Tomoro enough to want him there, not as a burden, not as a problem, but as someone who could help.

Tomoro took a breath.

For the first time in a long time, the hospital air did not feel like it was choking him.

Kyo checked the time and grimaced.

“Reina is definitely threatening someone by now.”

“Probably Makoto,” Tomoro said.

“Makoto won’t notice until she’s halfway through.”

“Cougarmon might.”

“Cougarmon will pretend to sleep.”

Gekkomon nodded.

“Smart.”

Kyo stood, but this time Tomoro stood too.

Neither of them moved toward the door yet.

Kyo looked at Asuka.

The softness returned to his face, unguarded now that Tomoro had already seen it.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said.

Tomoro blinked.

Kyo glanced at him.

“If that’s all right.”

Tomoro looked away.

“You were coming anyway.”

“Yes.”

“So why ask?”

“Because you know now.”

Tomoro hated how careful that was.

He also understood it.

He looked at Asuka’s hand, then at Kyo.

“Come when you want,” he said. “He’s your…”

He stopped.

Boyfriend sounded too small and too teenage for the grief in Kyo’s face.

Partner sounded too much like Digimon and battle.

Family sounded like Kyo’s word, but maybe that made it right.

Tomoro swallowed.

“He’s your family too.”

Kyo went very still.

For a moment, Tomoro thought he had said the wrong thing.

Then Kyo’s expression broke.

Not completely. Kyo was still Kyo. He held himself together with both hands even when nobody asked him to. But something in his eyes gave way, and for once he did not hide it quickly enough.

“Thank you,” Kyo said.

Tomoro shrugged, uncomfortable.

“Don’t make it weird.”

Gekkomon cackled.

“It’s already weird. You fell through a door.”

Tomoro grabbed him.

Kyo laughed.

As they walked to the door, Tomoro looked back.

Asuka sat in the bed, eyes open, hand resting where Kyo had left it, cheek still unchanged from the kiss Tomoro was going to pretend he had not seen for at least three days before inevitably using it in an argument.

The scarf lay folded beside him.

Tomoro paused.

Then he went back, picked it up, and wrapped it gently around Asuka’s neck.

Kyo watched without speaking.

Tomoro adjusted the ends until they sat right.

“There,” he muttered. “You looked cold.”

Gekkomon tilted his head.

“Cold Heart.”

Tomoro glared.

Gekkomon winced.

“Bad timing?”

“Terrible.”

“Sorry.”

Kyo’s mouth twitched.

Tomoro stepped back.

Asuka looked the same.

But also not.

Maybe that was only Tomoro.

Maybe knowing more changed the room even when it could not change Asuka yet.

At the doorway, Kyo stopped.

“Tomoro.”

Tomoro looked at him.

Kyo seemed to search for words.

Then he gave up on perfect ones.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For the secrets. For what I said. For not knowing how to do this better.”

Tomoro looked at him for a long moment.

Then he said, “You can make rice later.”

Kyo blinked.

“What?”

“You said you keep making too much.” Tomoro shoved his hands in his pockets. “So make too much.”

Kyo stared.

Then his smile came slowly, like sunrise over something ruined but still standing.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll make too much.”

Gekkomon bounced at Tomoro’s side.

“With meat?”

“With meat.”

“Expensive meat?”

Kyo’s smile widened.

“Don’t push your luck.”

Gekkomon looked at Tomoro.

Tomoro looked back.

Then both of them said, “Expensive meat.”

Kyo sighed with the exhaustion of a man who had chosen this family and somehow still found himself surprised by the consequences.

“We’ll see.”

They left the room together.

The hallway was still too clean. The lights were still too bright. The hospital still smelled like fear pretending not to exist.

But Tomoro walked beside Kyo now, not behind him.

Gekkomon trotted ahead, then behind, then ahead again, too full of new information to stay in one place.

After three turns of silence, he finally exploded.

“So when Asuka wakes up, is Kyo your brother now?”

Tomoro tripped over nothing.

Kyo made a strangled sound.

Gekkomon continued, delighted by the damage, “Because if Kyo is Asuka’s mate—”

“Do not say mate in a hospital.”

“—then is Glowing Dawn your family twice?”

Tomoro’s face burned hot enough to power every Sapotama in the building.

Kyo looked like he was considering walking into traffic.

“Gekkomon,” Tomoro said.

“Yes?”

“Run.”

Gekkomon shrieked with laughter and bolted down the corridor.

Tomoro chased him.

A nurse yelled.

Kyo called after them in a voice that tried very hard to be stern and failed completely.

For a few seconds, the hospital quiet broke.

Not with fear.

With noise.

With life.

And behind them, in a room full of machines and waiting, Asuka Tenma slept with a scarf around his neck, the warmth of two hands lingering on his own, and promises gathering around him like a song not yet finished.