Chapter 1: I End Here

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon Frontier or any of the characters.

Author's Note: Hey everyone, this is my first Digimon piece of work, so I hope you like it. This story is dedicated my 'twin' from another lifetime, Knightales, who made this story possible through her persistent encouragement and infinite wisdom. Please review, as I'd really like to hear what you guys think.

'Forbidden, that is what you are to me

And yet still, for only you will my heart beat'

I stood there, right behind him, trying my best to ignore the pain inside me that's slowly murdering my heart. Thank God the mirror's only big enough for him to see only his own reflection. If he asked me what the hell was wrong with me in that sarcastic tone I've grown to love, I'd probably die. He doesn't know – he can never know. That's the sickening fact from which I draw my safety and loneliness from. It's because of this unhealthy fixation that I feel so beneath him. He's the exact image of me, my other self I call him. And he'll never know.

"Is my tie done properly?" asked Koji casually. I briefly lifted my head to take in the sight of my younger brother dressed to the nines in his designer suit. I wanted to give him a confident tease about his sudden vanity, but all I could manage was a weak squeal to show him my agreement. The jet black bangs from my head fell softly into my eyes, shielding the rest of the world from the full extent of my inner turmoil. Today is the day Koji commits his life to someone else, and leaves me to wander in my heartless solitude. It seemed appropriate to me that someone should give me a funeral on my twin's wedding day. After all, I was losing the thing that mattered most to me in my life – is there any point in carrying on?

In the laws of physics, the point in time known as equilibrium is when all things return to a state of simplicity. In other words, they enter some sort of strange dance with each other, each species trying to move in a different direction to the other, but they never really succeed: there's this powerful connection that holds them together. For me, it could not be a more accurate description of the life I've been living for the past thirteen years. Except I wouldn't use the word 'equilibrium' – 'purgatory' is more like it. I've been caught in my own personal hell in the prime years of my life and there isn't a damn thing I can do to stop it. Why? Because I know I don't have the strength to do it. There isn't enough courage in the world that can make me forget how I feel for Koji, or tell him my twisted secret. So I opted to suffer in silence, watching this beautiful angel from a distance, and willingly drove a stake through myself.

Why I love my brother, I'll never know. Maybe I have some subconscious narcissistic need to love myself, and I somehow projected that onto him, but I highly doubt that. I've always been the type of person that easily fades into the background, and I prefer it that way so that no one could ever hurt me. Life hasn't exactly been kind in the cards it has dealt me, and I wasn't going to waste mine waiting for a better hand to come. Ah, if only it had worked out the way I planned: a fairytale rags-to-riches story portraying my difficult ascent from poverty to the crème de la crème of Tokyo's enchanting society. Instead, I fell in love with my extremely stubborn loner of a brother, and I've been disgusted at myself ever since.

The colorful tale of my past lies just after Koji and I were born. From what I could gather, my parents' marriage was hardly the definition of stable. My dad would work put in long hours in the office, and my mother would stay at home, ceaselessly looking after two restless twin boys. Eventually, their relationship began to crack. I guess it simply got to a point where they couldn't stand to see each others' faces anymore – Dad must have complained of Mom not being supportive of his career, and I can imagine Mom countering with her argument of Dad neglecting her and us to chase after his corporate dreams. In any case, they decided that it just wasn't working out anymore, and our family was killed in just two signatures on a piece of paper. The problem came with the sensitive issue of where Koji and I would live out the rest of our lives. Ideally, one of them would have to have primary custody of both of us, but thanks to a prenuptial agreement and her fierce sense of pride, Mom never got to see a cent of the money Dad made, and hence couldn't afford a drawn out legal battle. So alternative arrangements were made: Mom would take me, leaving Koji in Dad's care. To avoid the ache of having to remember that the two of us were half of a pair, we were both raised as only children, and our parents were careful to erase any sign of the twin left in their former spouse's possession. For the first thirteen years of our lives, Mom and Dad were careful to not breathe a word about their failed marriage, or that living in opposite districts of Tokyo were identical brothers leading completely different lives.

I remember my childhood as being a tough one, but with full of smiles. Soon after the divorce, Mom moved back in with her mother, and moved on with her life with a graceful persistence. She soon started working multiple jobs simultaneously. Like Dad, she began to have unforgiveable hours, barring the commercial glamour and significant salary. Cleaner, cashier, secretary – whatever menial job existed, my mother did it in the name of supporting her family. Our existence was often a hand-to-mouth one, with us barely managing to make ends meet. I remember spending many nights with my grandmother doing homework by candlelight, while Mom was out at work, trying to earn enough money to reconnect electricity to our humble abode. There were weeks where I hardly saw her – she would come home in the morning and trudge straight to bed for some overdue rest. When I'd return from school in the early afternoon, she'd be gone, and wouldn't return until the morning. It broke my heart to see her wear herself down. She worked so hard, and never once complained. At the first sign of me or my grandmother falling ill, she'd force us to go to the government hospital, but she'd never go for herself. She always wore this relentless smile on her face, so brave in the face of adversity staring straight at her. Never once did she let me help her bear the burden of trying to bring in money. "Koichi, just focus on your studies. That's all I want for you" she'd always say. If God really did exist, my mother was unequivocal proof.

Things changed soon after I turned twelve. My grandmother's age began taking its toll on her body, and one by one, her organs began to give up. She was constantly in and out of hospital that year, spending hours at a time receiving doses of various drugs to help her hold onto the last inch of life she had left. Eventually, her body grew too weak to return back home, and she became a permanent resident at the hospital. After school, I'd make a detour there to visit her, distracting her from her ailments with my mundane stories from school. If she ever got bored, she never let it show. A huge smile would crack across her lips the minute Mom or I would walk into the ward. Even though I was old enough to be left at home alone, it was sad to be the only one in the house. Mom pushed herself to work even harder to pay for the medical bills, and not having my grandmother around was a constant reminder of the fate that loomed ominously above her. It's a guess, but I think it was around here my life started to go haywire. I was so used to the three of us being so close that it was torture for me to be apart from my small family.

On the day she died, my grandmother sent her attending doctor and my mother out of the room. In between her raspy breaths, she took my hand and revealed to me the secret past my parents worked so hard to keep hidden. She told me about my parents' divorce and of Koji's existence. "You need to find him" she whispered shakily. "It is a mistake for both of you to live apart." Her words cut right through me. In the space of a few minutes, I'd found out that I had a brother wandering around somewhere and a father who was only too happy to keep him the dark about me. How was I expected to process all of this? "Promise me you'll find him Koichi" she said, her thick tears beginning to cascade from her wizened eyes. "Promise me you'll find Koji." Before I could answer, her hand went limp in my tender grasp. I didn't need to see the light leave her eyes, or hear the resounding beep of the heart monitor to know she left this world. She passed on, leaving me caught in a storm of unanswered questions that I had to answer myself.

After the funeral, Mom and I didn't really talk much. It was just too hard to reach out and comfort each other. We would find little reminders of my grandmother everywhere in the house, especially in the uncomfortable silences that filled the rare occasions when I actually got to spend some time with my mother. A good part of me was angry at her – how dare she keep my own brother, my TWIN brother, a secret from me? There were days when I just didn't know how to respond to what I'd learnt. I'd gone to sleep as an only child on one day and had woken up as the elder half of an extremely confused duo the next. Then there were days where I'd kick myself for being so hard on Mom – this was traumatic for her too. She had to say goodbye to one of her own sons without ever knowing whether she would see him again. It was too much to ask her to relive the hurt of her failed marriage and separation from her other child, and given the circumstances, I didn't want to push her over the edge. If I was going to find Koji, I'd have to do it on my own.

Three frustrating months passed by until I finally fulfilled my promise to my grandmother. One has a better chance of trying finding a needle in a haystack than of tracking someone in Tokyo. For me, the issue was where to start looking. All I had to go off of was a simple name: Koji Minamoto. Add that to the fact that I was barely twelve, and I might as well have been asking for the moon. But I had no choice. Whatever this was, it was bigger than me, or any other individual person. This was about more than satisfying my curiosity – this was about discovering where we both came from. I have to admit, I was dying to see what he'd be like. In my head, I pictured him as a materially different version of me, leading some other life I could only dream of, a sort of The Prince and the Pauper vision for lack of any other description.

Eventually, I decided to put a plan into action. Well, not so much a plan as a really overcharged desire to find my younger sibling. As soon as the final school bell rang that day, I raced out the gates and made my way to the nearest telephone booth. Risking a horde of paper cuts from the thin pages of the telephone directory located inside the booth, I flipped page after page until I found what I was looking for. Unfortunately, fate wasn't so kind to me: there were at least ten different Minamoto families living in Tokyo. Any one of them could be the one I was looking for. The time was right to employ a little logic to the madness. From what my grandmother had told me, my paternal family was obviously very well off, and judging by the addresses in the directory, there was only one Minamoto family that lived in a plush suburb. My breath increased into rapid clouds, synching perfectly with the rapid tattoo of my heartbeat. This was where he was, I could feel it. I was on my way to the city of Tama, and one step closer to discovering my other half.

"Damn it, why am I so nervous?" Koji's frustrated tone snapped me out of my melancholic reverie. I lifted my head slowly to meet his eyes, masking the wounds he heedlessly placed on me. "It's your wedding day little brother, of course you're nervous," I said quietly. He clasped his fingers together nervously. "But it's not supposed to be like this."

"Well, it's good to know that even the mighty Koji Minamoto feels anxious from time to time." He turned his head sharply at my mocking banter and pulled his lips into a sulking pout. How I wished I could adoringly trace my tongue against those blossoms. I must be pretty sick to think of my own brother in this kind of way. When I first discovered how I felt towards Koji, I used to scratch myself to prevent these kinds of incestuous thoughts. Over time, I just came to accept the fact that I'm sick pervert of a monster who isn't even worthy of being called a human being. I just can't help the way he makes me feel inside. He takes me to heaven, hell and everywhere in between, and I love it. As I watched him turn back to his reflection in the mirror, I wanted to scream out that this would be the biggest mistake in his life. I wanted to tell him that I could love him more than anyone else ever could, that I would move mountains just to have him by my side. But I can't. He's happy with his beloved, and I'll be damned if I let myself ruin that for him. So for now, I'll ignore the gaping cavern that's steadily growing inside of me. I'll swallow my pain and be happy for him, even though he's killing me with each passing second. I'll willingly die so that he can live.

Okay guys, so that's chapter one. Please tell me what you thought, as I'd really appreciate your feedback. Just so you know, there will be a chapter two depending on how the response to this is. Thank you for reading!