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a stray four leaf clover

Summary:

Motomiya Daisuke doesn't meet Ichijouji Ken for the first time as the Kaiser, but it's on opposite sides all the same.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: A Winning Smile

Chapter Text

Motomiya Daisuke came to with a monster's jaws held mere centimeters in front of his face. V-mon was keeping it there, of course, his body trembling with the weight of it. He still grinned, all pain and fear forgotten in the face of something to protect.

Daisuke pulled his brain to work as if from the center of the earth and scrambled away. "V-mon! What happened?"

"You're in the Kaiser's playpen." The voice that spoke wasn't V-mon's, and it wasn't very loud either. Someone sat on a tree above. Their face was cloaked in shadow as they sat and watched, head resting on their hands. "He doesn't like you much, apparently."

"Yeah, cause we all want a jerk liking us," Daisuke spat before he could think about it.

The speaker smiled, then laughed outright. "I guess that's true."

"Daisuke!" whined V-mon, managing to clock the monster in the face. "Little help please!"

Daisuke immediately reached for his D-3. Despite only having it for a matter of days, the little device was a comfort. So when his hands caught empty air, he reflexively glared up at the person in the tree. "Where's my D-3?"

"Oh, you call them that?" The person tilted their head. "That's interesting!" And they were genuinely interested too until the monster roared so loudly that their hair floated up. The person made a face like a scowl in the dark. "Ah, well, he's getting in the way. I'll just have to tell you later." The person vanished, with Daisuke's D-3 hitting the grass. Daisuke wasted no time in grabbing it, calling a Digimental Up and letting Fladramon take the opportunity to beat the ring off of that monster, whatever it was. And then the others had arrived, all aglow with armors and power. In that fuss, he quickly forgot about the stranger who had held his D-3, who had smiled earnestly through the danger and looked right at him.

But when he got close to home, like a soccer ball slamming into his chest, he did remember.

"Daisuke?" Chibimon's red eyes looked down at him from the safety nest of his goggles.

Daisuke made to grin, to brush it off, but then he paused. Hikari-chan had said very seriously that your partners were an extension of yourself. "Did you know who that guy was? Were they there the whole time?"

"I..." Chibimon swallowed, trying to remember. "Yeah, he was. He didn't do anything. He didn't even look at me when the Tyrannomon showed up. Didn't really look at you either. Or, well, he did, but not for very long." He could feel Chibimon tug on his hair to help him stand up. Which was very inconvenient. He was going to have to convince Chibimon that other people's heads weren't for standing on. Later, when this wasn't a very confusing situation.

And he wasn't the Kaiser either. He had seen the Kaiser for an instant. Blond hair and a strange, black visor that admittedly looked completely stupid, with lanky limbs and a casual, playful smile. Nothing like that other guy, who while he hadn't quite seen their face had looked right at him as if seeing him. Not Motomiya Daisuke, the Chosen-for-Just-a-few-days Child or the soccer player with a grudge against windows, but Motomiya Daisuke the kid, whoever that was. His smile was something like a cautious puppy dog and that was weird.

Because if he was in Kaiser territory, which Daisuke found out he had been, he was either really good at dodging or he worked for the Kaiser, which was more likely. That was… well, he didn't know what it was.

"We'll just have to stop him too," Daisuke mused, both to himself and Chibimon.

After all, why would someone who smiled like that be fine with rings and Digimon, creatures just as smart as he was, being torn around for amusement and boredom, like a bully.

Daisuke wasn't fond of literally kicking people in the butt, but well, he would do it if he had to.


Ichijouji Ken met Motomiya Daisuke and only barely knew his name.

He wasn't interested in him, not specifically. He was, in the end, another person the Kaiser would have to take down. It was convincing the Kaiser that he had to do it that was the problem.

"You really need to stop playing with your food," he told him plainly.

The Kaiser grunted in acknowledgment. Ken smiled softly, amusement playing at the corners of his mouth. "They're not all geniuses, it shouldn't be hard."

"You said that about conquering the inner workings of File, " Ken reminded him. "And we still haven't done that."

"You didn't tell me there was a Jijimon that lived there," the Kaiser countered, glaring at him.

Ken sighed. "Because I didn't know there was a Jijimon on File, Will."

Something flew in the direction of his head and Ken dodged it gracefully. There was an admonishment somewhere in that action, but the Kaiser had thrown things at him in his irritation enough times for him to honestly not care what it was.

"Rude," Ken mused. "You know I'm right."

"Soft is what you are," the boy sneered. "You had one right in your sights and you let him just take a Ring. What was that, Ken?"

Ken smirked now, a positively wicked expression on his face. "What indeed?" he agreed.

"That's not an answer."

"I hope you didn't expect one." Ken got to his feet, having been lounging on the soft, fuzzy sofas he had insisted the Kaiser make when he helped him with this base. He was not sitting on hard chairs for disciplinary sake. Sports were quite enough for that. "Good night, Kaiser. Sleep well."

He got another grunt and tried not to roll his eyes. He was just trying to help, honestly.

The soft sound of scuttling pods reached his ears in record time and Ken knelt, letting Wormmon crawl up his arm. "All done for today?"

"Mm!" Wormmon leaned against his cheek. That familiar twinge made itself known in his gut and he ignored it, quite happily, choosing instead to rub his head. "All done, Ken-chan?"

"Yep. Let's get going. I think Mama made your favorite!"

Seeing that expression so much like a smile sent the painful twinges far far away.

Until tomorrow of course.