Title: Fifteen Minutes Later
Fandom: Digimon 02
Character/Pairing: Daisuke & Ken friendship
Rating: G~ish
Summary: After is all said and done, Ken would rather just be a normal kid again. Daisuke and Ken friendship
A/N: comment_fic: Anime (author's choice of fandom,) none, five minutes to be anything. TVTropes made me crave some of this (especially with the reminder that by the end Ken was calling Daisuke by his first name, no honorifics~)

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The popularity dissipated once everyone realized that the genius had been a fleeting thing, something that sprung up and quickly burned itself out once the dark seeds had been unseated from his consciousness. Those tiny spores had sprouted over his anguish and regret, roots of night that had sunk deep into him – with that midnight came brilliance, but it was at a horrible price.

Ken didn't miss it, at least not very much. It was easy to fade into obscurity. The first falls were hardest when the soccer team lost their star and he steadily fell down the ranks. To have his teammates scorn him, and to be yelled at by his coach, those were the days when he wanted to simply drop out of sight and not be Ichijouji Ken, prodigy and only be Ichijouji Ken, regular teenager.

But Daisuke didn't care if he was genius level, at least beyond homework help. Even if Ken failed to make the stunning soccer plays he once did or get the highest marks, it never made a difference. They played together often, and Daisuke still praised him, still liked him through it all.

Daisuke stretched out on the couch with his bare feet hanging over the sides. His toenails were now a rosy pink from when he'd fallen asleep and Jun had decided to exact some sort of feminine revenge.

"Man, you need to get out more,"

Ken smiled apologetically. "I need to study."

Once it all had come so easily to him, but now he had fallen back into the slightly above average he always was. Osamu had been the true genius in the family.

"All that studying is bad for your brain, at this point you'll implode!"

Daisuke made a sound like a bomb falling and crashing, and even mimed the destruction.

"See, that's what's going to happen if you stay inside and study all day."

"The world will end if I don't go out?" Ken said.

Daisuke grabbed his hand. "Exactly! Zombies and nuclear winter and everything!"

Ken couldn't keep himself from smiling. Daisuke always had that effect on him.

"Alright....one game. But afterwards we're going

"Woo hoo! Last one down is a rotten egg!"

Daisuke grabbed the ball and ran down the steps.

"I still think you're good, Ken," Leafmon said. It hopped up from behind a book. "Me too, me too!" DemiVeemon piped in.

"Thanks," Ken said. The workload loomed ahead of him. But there were still people who didn't care if he was brilliant, or an international soccer star. People who'd like him even if he could never even begin to fill Osamu's footsteps, even if he tried.

But these days Ken didn't want to become Osamu to vindicate himself, to replace his brother for his parents. He didn't want to live someone else's life, just his own.

"Come on, Ken! I can smell the stink of your rotten egg-ness all the way down here!" Daisuke yelled.

Ken laughed. "Coming!"