A Stray Cat

He finds it in a box on his way home from work, mewing at him from a cardboard box. Kouji picked it up, box and all, and carried it home before he could even tell himself no. Small, with dark fur, he clawed at the edges of the box when no one was home and somehow managed to make his merry way where he shouldn't.

He was a quiet cat sometimes, who sometimes slipped around legs and you didn't notice him until he was mewling at his food bowl, begging for attention. He was sometimes a petty cat, knocking the game controller into Takuya's glass and soaking his shirt. He was sometimes affectionate, rolling in his stepmother's lap and batting at Izumi's fingers.

He liked Tomoko-san best, better than Kouji himself, who willingly took him with on walks after school and put his old bandanna around his neck instead of a silly collar.

Kouji often wondered if Kouichi would have liked this cat. Probably. He had always had a soft spot for fluffy little animals, he had said. Not that he'd been able to have one, there was no way to feed him on his mother's budget. The cat always purred at the sight of his older brother's pictures.

The pictures were all he had left.

Sometimes, when he slept at his mother's house and they sat on the futon and watched old cartoons he hadn't liked until then, the cat (who he never remembered naming, even though when he called him Kouichi once, he had come to the door) had made himself comfortable between them, purring louder than the television.

And somehow, like he knew the Digital World hadn't been a dream, Kouji knew just who was in between them.

The name Koko stuck after that.

A/N: Remi! I got your gift fics done! Here is your drabble. This is also for the what-if challenge and prompt A52. Write a drabble between 201-300 words. Enjoy!