A/N: So I'm sure there was somewhere I was going with this story but in the end, I think it's just going to be a short thing that has a couple different interpretations and a lot of Akari's brain over thinking things. Warning: infidelity is referenced, if only vaguely, but nothing graphic or disturbing is discussed beyond the mention that it exists.

Answering Remi's challenge of: What if Taiki were one of Akari's brothers?"

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Taiki was the bastard child.

She had learned that during a shouting match while she was going to get her toddler of a sibling fruit snacks. At the time, this had meant about as much to her as where milk came from or what shirt she was going to wear under her overalls. He was six and she was five and they were family and really, that was the only important thing in her young mind.

She had said as much to Taiki when she had heard about it. Then they were six and five and he could skip smooth rocks and she could throw a fishing hook with a worm into the lake and wait for a bite that wouldn't come and he was very quiet when she said all of those things. It would bother her, but Taiki was as much an excitable introvert as she was a shy extrovert, according to her mother.

Her mother, because Taiki had a separate mother. According to Taiki, that was kind of what it meant, in his case. Though she had to wonder how he would know that when he was only six and she never saw him pick up a dictionary or ask their father anything.

But it was Taiki, and Taiki seemed to just know or understand things that she could not possibly wonder about because she belonged in this world.

And sometimes she thought he belonged somewhere else.

Maybe that was what her mother had meant by bastard.

It was at the age of eight that Akari realized that her mother didn't like her older brother.

Taiki was not close, but he was sweet and helpful and fun-loving. He never felt like her older brother, or like anyone's brother, though he acted like it so often. He was a friend, but too distant to be the big brother she saw on the television or in the park. He would stiffen slightly when her brothers hugged him, fake a smile when their father mussed their hair.

It was all under their mother's watchful eyes. Watchful, narrowed, and even a little mean.

At least Akari thought it was mean, and she had said so.

Her mother was usually so warm, she had said, so why was she cold at the sight of Taiki? She knew the answer, or at least she knew the one her mother would give her, and when the statement that she was too young for it to matter to her did come up, she was furious and, in her opinion, rightly so. Her mother didn't understand! Taiki was her brother and he was always stiff when he got to play with the others, and that was not right and it was important she know that so she stop glaring and focus on what was important.

She said so until Taiki told her to stop.

He didn't talk to her for two weeks.

She was hurt, and didn't understand why he would do that, and said it to his shut door, which might as well have been a wall for how much it opened.

Then her older brother left, called home by his actual mother, and for days she never saw him unless while crossing the street or when with her friends, though few they were.

When Taiki was with her, there were always a lot of people and maybe they weren't always friends with them all by the end of it, but there was always fun. Seeing him by himself, she wondered how that could possibly happen.

She didn't understand anything. She was too young and so was he.

He was never at her house anymore.

Though he often stopped by, though they had begun to speak again and laugh together, she was always at arm's length like the rest, and for some reason, that really did bother her and she couldn't comprehend why.

She supposed she thought she should be different, being the only girl and all.

But Taiki treated her the same as anybody else, even his friends. His visits at birthdays, at special events were punctual and politely extended

She didn't know what he was thinking anymore... or if she ever had known.

For a while, it bothered her, nagged and bugged like an endless bout of chicken pox. Then that feeling died away because he just kept smiling it off and pulling her into various weird activities because he... well, he could she supposed.

Akari wanted to be his sister again, but she didn't know how. She wanted to hear him tell secrets about a world where you transported from circles of mushrooms to meet fairies, or entrance people with a large-scale game of passing a hacky sack that ended up becoming a convoluted game of tag.

During those moments, if she threw everyone else out of her mind, it was like being in their backyard all over again. Just them and the games and the fun.

Eventually, she started to forget they were siblings at all.

He would always tell her not to jump the swing but she would. It was inevitably going to happen. She defied rules that way.

That was why she suppressed the urge to not protect him, to not get in his way, and interfered in every way possible. Because that was all she could do. Because he wouldn't stay near her for too long these days, mostly without realizing it, because he was that kind of person, and hurt people called to him louder than she did.

She had to keep hanging onto his sleeve, because when her brother ran ahead, he just got further and further away. And she was afraid she would never see him again.

Akari had almost lost him once, when he went full-force towards a car and almost got smeared saving a baby who had fallen from its stroller. (Defunct model, many lawsuits were dealt with in the aftermath.)

He hadn't even looked guilty, barely sheepish.

Their father would tell him he was supposed to be a better example for his siblings. His mother would only shake her head and laugh.

Her mother would scoff. Though she scoffed and looked uncomfortable every time Akari mentioned Taiki.

Akari quickly learned to stop.

It wasn't fair that she worried about him while he worried about nothing. Or it felt like he did. Not even his own life was something he worried about. How could someone be so carefree?

In the darker days, she couldn't help but wonder what mattered at all, if family didn't.

Then he would smile and the darkness would vanish all too mysteriously.

She just wished she knew how he could do it, when it didn't seem like he cared at all.

She hadn't called him "brother" in years.

The world was one that she hated.

This was not her home. This was not safety. This was not her mother's back.

But Taiki was looking at her now, trusting at her now than he ever had. And it hurt.

She couldn't say how it hurt. It wasn't the great throb that came once a month and made her cry in the summertime. It wasn't dull, easy to ignore either. It was a pulsing pain, like her body was hot from its bubbling blood that popped when she least wanted it to and sent shivers up her spine.

It wasn't like the way she felt when Nene looked at her, a hot cauldron of anger that said she was too close and too careless (not carefree, careless) for anyone to feel safe and comfortable.

But Nene's hands were warm and she took Akari under a wing that was like phoenix fire and so when she cried in Taiki's arms when no one should have been looking, Akari again had to pretend it didn't hurt.

She wanted to be the sister, she wanted to be comforted, she wanted to be there. So why wouldn't Taiki give her that?

It was cruel.

Sometimes she wished Lilithmon would return, just so she could use her darkness and make Taiki see his wrongness and acknowledge that they were family before Zenjirou and Nene and Kiriha and Yuu and all the others he pulled close to him.

The Digital World had forced him to trust her. Why couldn't it have stayed that way?

She heard her mother speaking and ignored it. Her mother was always at the door talking to somebody. She was the busybody. Akari was the outcast. It was so strange.

Her mother sounded angry. Was it their father, having forgot something for the store? Was it one of her brothers, ready to track mud?

She listened again. It was one of her brothers. It was the bastard one.

Why are you telling him to leave? If he wants to be here, you should let him in, Mother.

Her fists clenched, her teeth bit into her lips until her scream swelled with her soul.

Taiki was outside. He probably wanted her help or something. It could even be fun. They always managed to have fun.

So why couldn't she go out?

Akari wanted the door to slam, the voices to go away. She felt childish, sulky. She felt a fit of rage bursting under her skin and a slightly delirious joy in her head.

"Akari?"

She was being stared at, and thus, jumped to face grey eyes. They were quizzical, curious.

And she wanted to hit him. She suddenly wanted to beat him up until his mouth bled and he lost that stupid grin because he was her older brother and he was an absolute pig.

"You were gonna be late," he said, like he hadn't just ticked her off as much as he had."I had to finish giving the speech without embarrassing you."

The speech? What speech?

"You know, the 'touch my sister inappropriately and I hurt you' one?" He grinned, and the expression was not sheepish but too earnest to really hate. "I know… I'm not exactly top sibling quality… but I thought it was my job at least once."

She was speechless.

Then Akari, being who she was, got angry. "You idiot!"

Or she thought she was angry. She thought she was be going to be violently tearing him a new one.

But how was it, in that one move, Taiki could prove that he was her precious older brother after all?