Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this fanfic unless I created it myself. Anything that I did create was inspired by something owned by someone else. This is done for fun and entertainment, not for profit.
Fandom: Digimon Frontier
Title: Issues With Younger Brothers
Characters: Himi Yutaka, Kanbara Takuya
Word Count: 2,347
Genre: Friendship||Rated: G
Challenge: Digimon Friendship Challenge: Frontier Arc: round 1
Summary: Annoyed by his spoiled little brother, Yutaka hits the local arcade to blow off steam. He's not the only one who is there for that either.

Yutaka refused to stomp his feet and pout. He wouldn't be like his annoying baby brother. But doing so would've been satisfying. Instead, he simmered in the rampant annoyingness of it all. Why? Why couldn't his parents see how they were hurting Tomoki by spoiling him? They hadn't ever treated him like that.

If I didn't know better, I'd think I was jealous of the little squirt. Which he wasn't, really. But to see Tomoki get everything that he wanted just by asking for it, or sometimes even if their parents just thought he might want it, while he had had to get a part time job just to save up the money for his own cell phone…that rankled. A lot.

At least he had today off, and he wasn't going to spend it lurking around the apartment watching his mother cook Tomoki's favorite dinner yet again.

He dug his hands into his pants pockets a little farther and kept on walking. He didn't know what he wanted to do, so long as it wasn't watching his parents spoil Tomoki even more. Maybe I should hit the arcade. He hadn't been there in a while, and he'd heard there were some new games in.

A quick check of his funds showed he had enough to finance at least three hours of playing, which would give him time enough to get home for dinner if he pushed it a little. That'll do.

Yutaka wasn't surprised to see the arcade thronged with kids of all ages, including several people about his own age. He squeezed in through a gap in the doorway and looked around in search of whatever game might happen to catch his attention first. Not that he expected to see anything that he actually liked on the first floor.

Fourth floor it was, and there was what he'd been looking for, one of his favorite fighting games, without anyone near it. Playing against someone was fun, but just pounding on an animated representation of someone else had therapeutic value as well. Especially given how annoyed he was in general.

Yutaka flopped himself into the seat and fed the game a few coins. Tomoki would whine if he couldn't win it the first time, and get taken out for ice cream and pizza. His upper lip curled at the very thought, even as he banged on one of his virtual opponents. He was such a brat! And Yutaka wasn't looking for that to change at any time in the near future. Or the far future, for that matter.

"Aw, man, there's nothing good around here!" It wasn't a voice he knew, but it was a sentiment he had felt more than once himself. He looked around to see a kid just a few feet away, staring around at all of the occupied games with annoyance written all over his features. "Came all this way for nothing." He kicked at the floor a little and started to turn away. "Stupid Shinya. Why couldn't I have been an only child?"

That clicked with Yutaka. He rose a bit from his seat and cleared his throat. "Hey, this one has a two-player mode. Want to go up against me?"

The kid turned around, his eyes widening a bit at the question, then the surprise vanished, replaced by a cheerful grin. "Sure. Thanks!" He hurried over and settled down into the opposite seat. "I didn't really want to go home this soon anyway."

"Yeah, I know the feeling." Yutaka made himself a little more comfortable in his chair and watched as his new opponent made his selection. "Some days you just want to be out of there."

The other blew out a breath and sighed. "You have no idea." The battle began, and Yutaka struck first, wanting a few good hits in. He had no idea of how good this kid could be and if he were in for a loss, he at least wanted to do something constructive before then.

"You'd be surprised. I've got a bratty little brother too." Yutaka made a face at the thought. "He's eight years old and probably the most spoiled kid on the planet. Mom and Dad fawn all over him no matter what he does and he thinks the whole world revolves around him."

"Mine's just a pain." The kid's character beat down on Yutaka's, using some of the special moves, a couple of which Yutaka himself hadn't even mastered yet. All he did was smile, though. This guy wasn't so bad. "His birthday's next month and he's been ragging on mom and dad to get him all kinds of presents, and about what kind of a cake he wants."

Yutaka shook his head; Tomoki could be that annoying every day of the week. "Kind of makes you wish your parents stopped at one, doesn't it?"

"No kidding." The kid sighed, and Yutaka took advantage of the moment to get in several good hits. He didn't get another chance, though, since right after that, his opponent slammed into him with several strikes of his own, ending the battle. "Hah! Gotcha!"

"Not bad." Yutaka took out a small stack of coins and gave his opponent a long look. "Want to go again?"

"You got it!" There wasn't a breath of hesitation and once again, they chose their warriors. Several minutes of hard-fought battles passed before the other spoke once more. "Shinya's probably going to whine because I came up here without him. But he was being too much of a pest anyway."

"What was he doing?" Yutaka wondered, his hands moving over the controls with practiced ease. He was going to win this one! One strike, another, then a combo! Yes!

"Oh, just little kid stuff. He said it was my turn to clean our room, but I cleaned it just the other day. And he was bothering mom about what she was going to make for dinner. She'd making tempura, and he wanted hamburger." The kid's face scrunched up. "She hasn't made tempura in a couple of months, and I want it. But he just has to bother her about it."

Another game began. Yutaka thought he had this guy's measure by now. He was a very aggressive player, and Yutaka preferred a balance of attack and defense.

"My brother wouldn't even have to bother Mom about it. He'd just tell her that's what he wanted, and she'd start making it right away. He runs the family more than they do sometimes!" Yutaka hissed a bit at the memory of his own last birthday, when Tomoki had insisted that they go see the movie he wanted to see and whined because Yutaka's choice of restaurant didn't have what he liked.

"Wow, he sounds like a royal brat."

"Mom and Dad just keep on giving in to him." Yutaka sighed a little. "I guess I'm not too surprised, though. They didn't think they'd have any more kids after me, so…well, they treat him so special because they did have him."

There was much more to that than what he said. From the look on the other kid's face, he doubted that he wanted to know, though. He couldn't blame him. What kid wanted to know about something like that? After all, it involved adults doing things that this guy probably wasn't even remotely interested in yet!

But it was true all the same. His parents had told him the story more than once, usually when he'd complained to them about Tomoki. He himself didn't know all the details, since they'd really only told him that his mother had been very sick a year or two after he'd been born, and it was a sickness that had made it almost impossible for her to have another child. But Tomoki had been born anyway.

If I ever told him that he could've killed her… No. He wouldn't. Tomoki wouldn't believe it anyway, and would probably just take it as another reason to get everything he'd ever wanted, since he hadn't. Or start to call himself a 'miracle child'. He probably wouldn't be more obnoxious, though. And that's only because it's not possible for him to be more obnoxious.

Yutaka took another few swipes, finishing off the battle with them, then glanced at the collection of vending machines in one corner of the room. "Want to get a drink? I'm buying." He was on his feet a moment later; he wanted something even if his opponent didn't. Then something occurred to him. "Oh, I'm Himi Yutaka."

"Kanbara Takuya. And I'd love a drink, thanks." The kid, Takuya, leaned back in his chair and rubbed the back of his head. "Nice to meet you."

Yutaka nodded as he slipped some more coins into the vending machine. Small talk wasn't his strong point, especially with kids at least four or five years younger than he was, no matter how good they were at fighting games. At least they had a mutual interest in younger brothers who needed some kind of smack upside the head, even if they couldn't give it to them for some reason.

"I really worry about my brother," he said as he came back over with the drinks and gave Takuya his. "He's going to get himself into trouble one of these days." The best he could hope for was that it wouldn't be something Tomoki couldn't get himself out of on his own.

"I bet he'll be all right. He's got you, right? I mean, Shinya's a pain, but if he needed some help, I'd be there."

Yutaka cracked open his can and took a long drink before he answered. "That's kind of what I'm worried about. That he'll get into trouble and no one'll be able to help him at all. He doesn't have any real spine at all because of how Mom and Dad coddle him and he just cries for help whenever something bad does happen." He'd seen it before. He'd seen kids picking on Tomoki and instead of standing up to them, his brother just wailed. "Other people can't take care of him forever."

Takuya wrinkled up his nose. "I guess so. Still, you do what you gotta do, right?"

"Right." As far as Yutaka was concerned, that meant letting Tomoki figure things out the hard way. Their parents already spoon-fed him enough of everything else. Yutaka wasn't going to contribute to that.

Silence fell between them for a few moments, until Yutaka glanced at the clock on the wall. He blinked and checked it again; how could it have gotten this late already? "I have to go. Dinner's going to be soon." And of course, he couldn't miss his parents cooing over Tomoki's every single word.

Takuya turned his head around and got a good look at the clock himself. "Yeah, I should go too. Shinya's probably going to come looking for me soon anyway."

Both of them headed down the stairs, Yutaka in the lead. At least he'd managed to avoid seeing Tomoki for most of the day, but everything would start back up again as soon as he got back home. The brat would be spoiled, his parents would ignore what they were doing, and he'd have homework to do that he'd put off too long. I wonder if he's going to expect me to help him with his one of these days.

Once they reached the ground floor, Yutaka headed for the door, weaving his way around the various games tucked into every available nook and cranny. Most of them were of the grab machine type, and almost all of them had some one at them, trying their best to snag a prize. Yutaka didn't bother to give more than a cursory glance. He'd outgrown those games a long time ago.

"Oh, wow! Shinya would love that!" Takuya zipped by him and stared at the prizes available at one of the machines that didn't have someone hovering over it. Yutaka looked a bit more closely; he couldn't even be sure what Takuya was staring at with such intensity. Most of those plush prizes looked about the same to him, brightly colored and with vacant, soulless stares.

At least he hoped they were soulless. But that was a path he'd rather not go down.

"Get him one then?" Yutaka suggested. Takuya didn't appear to be quite in the same hurry that he was, and even if he'd had time, he wouldn't have.

Takuya dug in one picket and pulled out a few hundred yen coins. "I think I can at least try for one of them. You want to try?" He gestured toward one of the other non-attended machines, but Yutaka shook his head.

"It wouldn't be good for Tomoki." All the little brat would do would be to want more, or to whine because it wasn't the one that he did want. He'd seen his brother do that once before when their grandmother had tried to give him a toy. "I've got to go anyway. Good luck!" He waved and headed out the door, hands once again in his pockets. Takuya seemed like a good kid, if not the kind of person he usually hung out with. For one thing, he was a lot younger than Yutaka was. Probably about ten or eleven or so. But, he'd been fun to game with for a little while.

I wonder if he and Tomoki would get along. Probably not, since Takuya didn't seem like the type who would get along with a whiny crybaby all that much. At least, not from what Yutaka could tell from the short time they'd spent together.

Well, it wasn't likely they'd ever meet anyway. If they did, Tomoki would probably have found someone who wasn't going to hand him everything he wanted, and who wasn't his own big brother.

Yutaka grinned at the thought. Now that I think about it, maybe they should run into each other someday. And I think I'd like to be a fly on the wall when they did.

The End