#Pen pals takari anyone?

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Takari Week 2021, Day 6: Separation

There were seven Chosen living in Odaiba, and one living outside it. Hikari didn't think that was very fair.

Written as part of @takariweek

There were seven Chosen in Odaiba. All of them went to the same school and while they were a few grades older than her, she still saw the others every day. And if she needed to talk about the Digital World, it wasn’t that strange for her to approach them. It wasn’t odd for a girl to talk to her brother’s friends.

Hikari knew where Sora lived, had known since even before going to the Digital World, and would always be allowed in without question. Over the past few months, she’d learned where Mimi and Koushiro lived as well, although she’d never spent time with Koushiro one-on-one. And of course, she and Taichi shared a bedroom. If she had a particularly bad dream, she knew she could always crawl up and he could instantly comfort her.

There was one Chosen living outside of Odaiba. There were no chosen who went to his school, his brother lived miles away, a phone was their only contact.

A line of communication growing thinner, Yamato had said one day. Takeru’s mom required the phone to work. At first she’d allowed the brothers as much time as they wanted to keep in contact, but lately they were restricted to Sundays.

It seemed so sad, so lonely to her, but what could she do? If his mom wasn’t letting his only brother talk to him, why should she steal his limited phone privileges? And while her parents used to let her on the train so long as Taichi accompanied her, they wouldn’t let the pair go so far away these days.

This couldn’t just be here problem, everyone else was equally far away. But all their answers were different.

Jou had told her to wait, that soon her parents would calm down, and allow her and her brother more freedom to travel.

Mimi had cooed and told her not to worry, that their bond would surely trump everything. Which made her feel all nice, but wasn’t very helpful.

Koushiro had suggested that ports to the digital world had begun to open again, and perhaps they could meet up there. But how was she supposed to know when a gate was open near Takeru if she didn’t talk to him?

Taichi had suggested that Yamato and Takeru would likely spend time together again, as brothers, and that if she asked, they’d let her tag along, but she didn’t feel like intruding on their private time.

Sora had the best advice: Write him a letter, tell him about what was going on in her life, and ask questions in return. It would be like a long, slow conversation. She didn’t know where he lived, but Sora had a solution for that too: Just ask his brother.

Yamato’s eyes lit up at her suggestion. “He’s always asking about you.” The older boy said, writing down the address. He didn’t know the mailing code but delivered it the following day.

“I’m not going to tell him” Yamato had said, “I want it to be a surprise.”

So did she. Hikari tried to follow Sora’s advice, but she was far more interested in asking questions than talking about herself. She already knew what everyone else’s life was like, she wanted to know about him as well.

There was only one Chosen who lived outside of Odaiba, separate from the rest. And she would do anything she could to make that distance a little smaller.