A/N: Hello! I'm feeling a little awkward at my Ken lately but here goes nothing. This is for Flaming Platinum for the Secret Bunnies Fic Exchange. Hope you like it! Please let me know what you think!

His fingers trembled over the phone, tracing it in the cradle. He tried not to shake, and waking the creature sleeping in his arms.

Ken picked it up slowly, prepared to dial, then set it down again before he could hear the dial tone. He didn't repeat the action, choosing instead to drum his fingers over the plastic. His teeth didn't sink into his lips as he toyed with the possibility of picking up the object again.

"I'm being silly," he muttered to himself.

"Ken-chan can be silly too."

If Ken hadn't long been accustomed to the way his partner had of waking up when he needed him to, he would have jumped into the ceiling and possibly cracked his head open. As it was, he still did jump a little, and it caused Wormmon to giggle a little. "Sorry, Ken-chan." He sounded only as contrite as a small child who stole a rice ball, and that wasn't enough to be truly guilty. "But you can be!"

The quaver in his voice wasn't defensive, but Ken placed a soothing pale hand over green exoskeleton and smiled anyway. "I know. You tend to say that a lot."

"Especially about Daisuke," Wormmon noted as an afterthought, and Ken chuckled a little.

"How do you always get to the heart of everything?" The words were spoken fondly.

Wormmon frowned a little. "Because I'm Ken-chan's partner?"

"Well, I was hoping it meant that you were smarter than I am," Ken admitted with a small flush to his cheeks. "And knew how to get me to stop panicking."

Wormmon let out a small huff, pod mouth clacking at the sound. "I have been trying to get Ken-chan to not panic about things from the very beginning," he said, scuttling from Ken's grasp into a comfortable vantage point on his left shoulder. "Ken-chan is just stubborn about certain things, even though he knows he can do them. You asked everyone to a Christmas party once, what is so bad about this?"

Ken fidgeted, and Wormmon clung by reflex, recognizing the awkward reaction that his human often had when he had feelings that he didn't really know how to word but knew how to show.

It was times like this that he wished that his partner were more like V-mon's partner. Daisuke didn't hurt himself thinking too much (though according to V-mon, his partner didn't think much at all) and tended to act on what simply felt right. Though if Ken was always like that, Wormmon wasn't sure what he would do. Probably collapse. He didn't have V-mon's energy levels.

"Ken-chan?" he began softly and Ken smiled a little.

"These were my precious memories, Wormmon," he said, looking at the framed photo sitting on the kitchen counter. "I don't know if I'm, if I can-" Ken trailed off and smiled to himself. "You're right, I am silly."

"Well, Daisuke is much sillier," Wormmon stated in a way that he felt was a little odd. Maybe V-mon was rubbing off on him. "But you should still call him, Ken-chan."

"I know." He looked at the phone and chewed his lip thoughtfully. "I really should."

…

Daisuke was not normally one to stare at his phone cradle in concern or like it was about to eat him, but he thought Ken asking him to come blow bubbles with him in the park by the train station might take the cake on weird requests.

But it was Ken and Ken didn't make odd requests like that without a reason.

"I was going to call the others too," Ken added slowly, and Daisuke could kind of see the way Ken was probably twining the phone cord around his index finger while Wormmon likely was rummaging through the fridge because he could. "But I figured I should ask you first, because, well, you would know their schedules better than me."

"Yeah, barely," Daisuke snorted. "Because Miyako shoves it up my D-Terminal so I don't kick her door down during exams."

"Um, Daisuke-kun?"

"Yeah?"

"We all have exams at about the same time..."

Daisuke flushed. "I know that," he snapped playfully. "I just forget because I don't study!"

"Daisuke probably shouldn't admit that aloud," V-mon noted.

"Shut up, V-mon!"

Ken laughed and paused nervously. "So, will, I, um, see you there at least?"

"I wanna blow bubbles!" V-mon shouted at the receiver and Daisuke snickered, replacing the goggles on his head.

"Does that answer your question?"

…

It was his brother's birthday today. He would have been seventeen. Maybe he would have been out of high school early and crammed in a university apartment. Maybe he would have been still in high school and able to tutor him when he needed it.

He didn't know about those 'maybes' but Ken liked to think Osamu would always like blowing bubbles.

When the others started to arrive, Ken had been studiously cutting the straws. His memory was never going to be as sharp as before, but the thought counted. It had to.

"Hi, Ichijouji-kun," Hikari greeted and Tailmon offered a quiet nod, eyes half-closed and dozing in the heat of the near-summer air. "Can I help?"

He lifted his head to smile at her. "Um... the soap and water?"

She dipped her head and went to work, only to be joined by Takeru moments later.

The weight in his chest started to ease and he managed to laugh when V-mon spilled soapy water into his mouth because he thought it was soda.

Iori looked so serious when he put the straw to his lips and blew and the disappointment in his face when it simply popped on his face was a little heartbreaking.

"Osamu-nii-san did that too," Ken couldn't help but say. "He said he wasn't gentle enough." Iori blinked at him like Armadimon at the sight of ohagi but seemed to think about this with the same strong seriousness.

"Are you gentle enough, Ichijouji-san?"

Ken felt blood rush up to his ears. "Well, he always said so but, well, I don't know how true it is."

"Show us, dagya!" Armadimon said, waving his clawed paws in encouragement.

"Show us," Patamon agreed, having turned around for no real reason. Soon every Digimon but Tailmon was chanting the words and that was probably only because Tailmon was sleeping. Wormmon in particular was the most excited.

"I want to see it, Ken-chan," his partner wheedled. "Please?"

The others were looking at him and Ken's flush deepened. "I, um, okay." He dipped the straw in the water and took a deep breath. The urge to quickly exhale rose and he paused for a moment. Then he let out a slow breath into the straw and relaxed. The large bubbles rose up and out into the air, dappled quickly with the colors of the sunny sky.

He laughed a little as V-mon jumped for a cup and began bickering with Hawkmon over who got the next turn with the straw.

"Ken-chan?" Wormmon asked and Ken patted his head.

"Do you think Osamu-nii-san would like this birthday, if he was here?"

Wormmon couldn't know, he knew that, but he wondered all the same.

"If he's your brother," Wormmon said gently. "He would be happy if you were, Ken-chan."

"Mm... thanks."

"Hey, Ichijouji!" Daisuke shouted with glee. "I'm gonna beat Miyako in a contest!"

"In your dreams!"

Ken shook his head at them all, laughing again.

Happy Birthday, Osamu-nii-san.

He hoped the bubbles would reach his brother, wherever he was.