à la prochaine fois

by brioche

Summary:

After Taichi fails his French midterm, he seeks help from Yamato but gets something more than he bargained for. (Something like a boyfriend.)

Chapter 1

“Yamato!” Taichi exclaims into his phone the moment Yamato picks up without even giving him a second to say hello – not that he would probably say hello, Yamato would just tell him off for calling during the middle of this Friday evening band practice. He expected to be greeted with Yamato’s voicemail anyways, not for Yamato to pick up on the third ring. Knife of Day barely has time to meet up anymore ever since they started attending university two years ago, so Yamato is always adamant about making each precious session count, but if there’s one thing Taichi has learned over the past 9 years it’s that even if Yamato gets mad at him right now for interrupting practice, he’ll be over it in about fifteen minutes at most. His walk home from the station at the Odaiba Seaside Park doesn't even take that long. “Yamato, I need your help! It's an emergency!”

There’s a short silence. Taichi would have thought Yamato’s bandmates would be making some kind of sound in the background – especially their talkative drummer – but he guesses he wouldn’t be that weirded out if they were listening to the conversation. He’s done stranger things to Yamato’s bandmates. “…What’s wrong?” Yamato asks, no hint of annoyance in his voice, only concern.

“I’m…” Taichi trails off, the faint sound of sizzling from the other end of the call making him want to stop somewhere to grab some okonomiyaki on the way home. Wait a sec. “Aren’t you at band practice right now? It’s Friday.”

“Cancelled it. Gabumon is sick–”

“What?!” Taichi interrupts, glaring absentmindedly into the distance as he walks down the street. “Aw man, if Gabumon is sick I bet he gave whatever it is to Agumon, too. When we got burgers the other night, Gabumon gave the rest of that one that he didn’t like with the wasabi ketchup to Agumon, and then–”

“Look, Taichi,” Yamato begins with a small huff of impatience as Gabumon coughs weakly in the background, “if you don't actually need anything, I’m hanging up. Green onions don’t chop themselves.”

“Oh, yeah!” Taichi leans back against a railing lining the edge of the sidewalk and reaches into his book bag to pull out the culprit which has ruined his life – not like he could show it to Yamato right now, but he can still picture the face Yamato would make if he could see it: expressionless except for maybe one eyebrow raised, and maybe holding back a laugh, too. Just seeing the exam covered in red marks with a horrifying 12 scribbled on top fills Taichi with the same dread as the first time he flipped the paper over and gawked at it. Sure, he’d bombed some tests before, but never this badly, and not on the midterm. “I’m failing my French class.”

Yamato says nothing – he’s probably making that face though – and a few seconds later he continues chopping what Taichi assumes is green onions, wearing what Taichi assumes is that that stupid pink apron of his. “And?”

“What do you mean and?!” Taichi knew this wouldn’t rank very high up on the list of Things Yamato Cares About – featuring hits such as ‘my band which has reformed more times than I can count on two hands and hasn’t performed a real gig in 6 months,’ ‘straddling the fine line between supporting my little brother’s growing blog and being too overbearing by leaving a comment on every article,’ and for some reason now ‘going into outer space and leaving my best friend behind to cry himself to sleep as he fails his French class’ – but he didn’t think it would rank quite this low either. It really sounds like Yamato doesn't care. “My advisor told me that as an international relations major I’m required to take a language class, and I’m failing! It’s only the first semester, and I still don’t understand anything! I scored a 12 out of 100 on the test!”

“I don’t know why you’re so shocked,” Yamato says dully amidst the sharp chop chop chop. Taichi doesn’t know what Yamato is cooking, but it smells good. Actually, that might be the expensive ramen place across the street, but he’s sure that whatever Yamato is cooking must smell good, too. Yamato is a pretty good cook since he’s always had to cook for himself and his dad, and Taichi can vouch for it too based on all the times he’s been over for dinner and learned how good something as basic as a donburi or curry could taste. “You can barely speak one language as is, but two? That’s pushing it. Don’t want you to end up in the intensive care unit at the hospital.”

“Now, look here, asshole,” Taichi interjects with a grin as he stuffs his exam back into his book bag. Yamato could try to hide it all he wanted with his chopping, but his voice definitely cracked into a laugh at the end of his last sentence. “I’ll have you know this is my third language.”

“Knowing how to say where is the bathroom and can you pass me the salt in English doesn’t make you fluent in it,” Yamato counters, and Taichi rolls his eyes. At least his shoulder is safe from being punched since Yamato isn’t here. “Why did you pick French anyways?”

“To pick up chicks, duh,” Taichi answers, sliding his free hand into his pocket as he continues walking home, and he smiles when Yamato snorts. “Well, remember back in middle school when all those Digimon showed up the real world and I went with Takeru to Paris to take care of those Mamemon? Honestly, it was a cool place. I wouldn’t mind going back sometime, and it’d be even better if I could actually speak French. I bet your grandpa wouldn’t even mind if I crashed at his place again, either. He’s a chill dude, why aren’t you more like him?”

“Sit down, you’re gonna make me drop it,” Yamato grumbles, and Taichi frowns in confusion before realizing Yamato is talking to Gabumon. He hears a soft clattering amidst a few stray sneezes in the background. He wouldn’t feel guilty about interrupting band practice – okay, maybe just a little – but maybe he should call back and let Yamato finish taking care of his sick partner. “Sorry, Taichi, just let me grab him a spoon and he’ll be good.”

“It’s fine.” Taichi’s grumbling stomach, no thanks to Yamato, has guided him into a nearby 7-11, and as he stands in front of the rows of premade food and decides what kind of onigiri to buy, he wishes he was having whatever Gabumon is eating instead. “What’d you make him?”

“Rice porridge,” Yamato answers, and Taichi sticks his tongue out and takes it back. Kind of. Good company can make any food taste good. “So why am I the one you’ve come crying to about your failing grade? Maybe Jou can give you study tips or Koushirou can program a better brain for you.”

“Ha, ha, ha.” Taichi glares at the tuna mayo onigiri he’s just picked off the shelf and would hurl it at Yamato’s face if he were here. Even though he’s hungry, that would be much more satisfying. “Well, Mr.-My-Grandpa-and-Grandma-Are-French, you’re fluent, so I figured you could help out your poor, struggling best friend.”

It’s not even that big of a request. It’s not like Taichi asked Yamato to climb with him butt naked to the peak of Mount Fuji at 3 in the morning in the middle of December and backflip off of it together while yodeling, but there’s still a stretch of silence before Yamato responds. “…You want me to tutor you? Taichi, I quit being a TA for the beginning French class and started working somewhere else for a reason. I’m horrible at teaching. Not exactly the motivational type.”

“It doesn't have to be like tutoring,” Taichi answers, exiting the 7-11 after he’s paid for his onigiri. He shoves half of it into his mouth while another fourth of it crumbles off, dusting the front of his shirt and leaving a trail on the ground as he walks down the street. “You think my broke ass has any money to pay you? Or that I’d want to pay you? Just… help me out a bit, I don’t know. Tell me if I’m getting the gender of something wrong or if I’m not conjugating it right or if my pronunciation is totally off. Come on, Yamato… s'il vous plait?”

There’s another long silence. Taichi even starts wondering if maybe something happened to Gabumon, Yamato is taking that long to respond, then finally: “…What?”

“What do you mean, what? It’s not rocket science, and even if it was, that’s your major, genius! I’m just asking if you can help me out with my homework sometimes, or listen to me say some stuff and tell me if I’m–”

“No, no, the last part,” Yamato clarifies, choking back laughter – directed at exactly what, Taichi is unsure. “Just the last part.”

“S'il vous plait?” Taichi repeats confusedly after he’s swallowed his mouthful of rice, and Yamato loses it.

“Holy shit, Taichi, I didn’t even realize what you were trying to say, it’s that bad. I’ve never heard my grandparents’ native tongue butchered so badly before. Do you sleep soundly at night after kissing your mom with that mouth?”

“Shut up! This is why I need your help!” Taichi cries out, shoving what remains of his onigiri into his mouth as if it’ll quell his sorrow, and as he yells at his phone he accidentally spits a few stray grains of rice onto its screen. “You are such a jerk. I come to you for help, and you just make fun of me. Man, I don’t even know why I called you. I wish you actually were at band practice so I’d be bothering you ‘cause I know you hate it whenever I–”

“Come to my place for lunch tomorrow,” Yamato cuts in more smoothly than he has any right to, and Taichi hates how he forgets so quickly that he was upset not even five seconds ago, “and bring your exam with you.”

Taichi almost asks do I have to because he really doesn’t want to show Yamato the horrible piece of work he bombed harder than an evil Digimon attacking the Fuji TV Station, but it’s for his own good, and even though Yamato didn’t outright say he’d help, it seems like he is. “Okay… do you take requests for lunch?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

 

---

 

Despite Taichi’s protesting, Agumon insists on coming along to Yamato’s apartment to hang out with Gabumon even though he’s probably still getting over his cold. Agumon didn’t care that he might get sick too, and Taichi eventually gave up on getting him to stay home. He knew better than anyone else that his Digimon would be stubborn to the end because, well, the digiapple doesn't fall far from the digitree. Yamato’s place was closer to Taichi’s apartment than the station so it didn’t take long to bike there, but Taichi still wished it was even closer because every push of his bicycle’s pedals makes him worry they’ll tip over because of Agumon excitedly rocking the front basket. Well, and because it would be nice to live closer to Yamato in general. They couldn’t get there soon enough.

“What’d you make for us?” Taichi asks with a grin as he enters Yamato’s apartment and kicks his shoes off at the front door.

“Yeah, I’m starving!” Agumon chimes in as he runs in past the both of them, straight over to the dining table where Gabumon is already seated and eating.

“Nothing fancy,” Yamato mumbles, closing the door before he joins them at the table.

It’s the same omurice that Taichi asked Yamato how to make before back in the Digital World. He’d made it for himself and Hikari many times after, but no matter how many times he tried, he could never get it to taste quite as good as Yamato’s. Leave it to Yamato to know just what he wanted to eat. “Looks great,” Taichi says before he scoops a spoonful into his mouth – tastes great, too. Sure beats onigiri from the 7-11. Yamato doesn’t say anything; he just smiles a bit as he pushes a bottle of wasabi ketchup over to Agumon. “You feeling better now, Gabumon?”

“Much better!” Gabumon exclaims, seemingly happy to be distracted from the sight of Agumon drenching his omurice in wasabi ketchup, making memories of their burger night resurface. “Yamato took great care of me, and now the cold is all gone. He’s so kind, like a doting parent! I don’t think he got any sleep last night, he was that worried about–”

“Taichi,” Yamato interrupts loudly, and when Taichi looks up at him from his food he sees Yamato’s hand held out towards him, not doing much to hide the flustered blush on his cheeks. Before Taichi can tease him about it, he continues, “Show me your exam.”

“Wow, way to ruin the mood,” Taichi grumbles through his mouthful of food, but Yamato waves his hand expectantly – better not make him wait. Spoon still sandwiched between his lips, Taichi rummages through his bag before he hands the crumpled paper that he’s pulled out of it over to Yamato. As Yamato’s eyes scan over it, Taichi stares down at his food, and every second of silence from Yamato judging his work only serves to make his ears burn more in embarrassment. Somehow, he didn’t care that his classmates saw it, but it being Yamato makes it a hundred times worse.

Agumon and Gabumon chat amongst themselves to the side – about how good the food is, about the latest development in their favorite Saturday morning cartoon, and about how they want to go outside to play in the park later because the summer weather is so nice – and hearing it makes Taichi wish he could still be as innocent as them without having to worry about things like university and graduation and jobs and being an adult. It’s still those same feelings he wrestled with in high school, and he feels like he’ll carry them throughout his whole life, but before he can wallow in it too much Yamato is returning his exam so aggressively that the paper is fluttering against his face.

“If it was anyone else, I’d say it’s hopeless,” Yamato says bluntly as Taichi shoves his exam back into his bag again after giving it a dejected glance, “but since it’s you, I know you’re going to pass this class. You’ve never let anything beat you before, so I can’t see you letting some exam get the best of you.” Yamato sure has a weird way of giving pep talks, like he warms you up with insults but instead of sucker punching you afterwards it’s just a feint into an unexpected compliment, but his words somehow make Taichi feel better. “That being said, it’s obvious from that exam that you need a lot of help. So what did you wanna go over first?”

“Uh,” Taichi says dumbly, “every… thing.”

Yamato smacks his palm to his forehead before running his fingers through his hair. “Okay, let’s start with something simple. Try to have a conversation with me in French.”

Taichi almost spits out his food. “How is that simple?! It’ll take me like five minutes to answer anything you say, and even when I do you’re just going to laugh or get mad at me for butchering the language!”

“Taichi, I promise I won’t laugh at you,” Yamato says in the utmost serious voice, but the eerily mischievous glint in his eyes are saying something completely different. “I just want to know the basis for what I have to work with.”

“Okay, fine.” Taichi pushes the stray pieces of food on his plate into a neat little pile, swallows his mouthful, clears his throat, rolls up his sleeves, takes a drink from the glass of water Yamato had put out for him before, glances at his watch, rolls his sleeves back down, and grunts when Yamato kicks his shin from beneath the table. There was no way he could postpone it any longer, so might as well… Oh, yeah, one more thing. “Hey, c-can I quick go and use the bathroom–”

“No,” Yamato replies firmly, eyes glaring daggers that seem to pin Taichi to his chair.

“What if I ask in French?”

“Bonjour, Taichi,” Yamato begins grimly, refusing to let him delay this any further. Taichi heard Yamato speak French before at a Christmas party the Chosen Children had thrown last year when he was calling his grandpa – or as Yamato called him, his papi – to wish him a Merry Christmas, but somehow hearing the smooth sound flowing from Yamato’s lips directed at him instead makes Taichi’s gut twist. Damn, why did he have to pronounce it so perfectly?

“B-B-Bonjour,” Taichi stammers out, completely unsure of what to say next.

Yamato stares at him expectantly, an elbow propped up onto the table to rest his chin in his hand, but when it’s clear that Taichi has no plans to continue, Yamato does it for him with a sigh. “Comment allez-vous?”

How are you, Taichi translates in his head and responds both immediately and truthfully in a panic, “Mal! Très mal!”

It looks like Yamato is about to burst out laughing but does an incredible job of holding it in. “Ah, ce n’est pas bien. Qu’est qui s’est passé?”

Taichi stares at Yamato blankly. What happened? Yamato knows what happened, and Taichi knows he doesn’t have the vocabulary capable to answer this question. If he knew how to say I’m failing my French class and my fluent best friend is helping but internally laughing at me while I’m making a fool of myself in French, he wouldn’t be here right now. “Um,” Taichi blurts out, “est-ce que je peux aller… aux toilettes…?”

“…Nice,” Yamato states, blinking once before he stands up and picks his plate up off the table. “You don’t even have to go.”

“You don’t know that,” Taichi protests, but it’s true. He doesn’t have to go to the bathroom, but it was a nice escape route. He’s never been so happy again to not be speaking French anymore in his life – well, not counting the speaking portion of his midterm exam. Just from the look on his professor’s face as they spoke, he knew that his grade was going up in flames. He even used the same phrase to get out of that conversation, too, but as he stood in the bathroom not actually having to go, he definitely felt like an idiot. At least it seemed like his way out was reliable.

“Come help me with the dishes,” Yamato calls over from the kitchen, snapping Taichi out of his thoughts, and after he gathers up the remaining plates on the table he heads over to the sink. He wishes he could swap places with Agumon and Gabumon over on the couch watching reruns of their favorite cartoon – something about a giant robot in outer space – but after he hands the dirty dishes to Yamato he’s stuck here drying them. Well, actually, he guesses it’s alright. It’s a simple kind of peace, standing next to Yamato doing something so domestic like the dishes instead of standing next to Yamato on the edge of some cliff in the Digital World wondering if they’re about to die, but when Yamato hands him the next wet plate he interrupts Taichi’s reverie. “Comment dit-on ‘I don’t understand’ en français?”

“Huh?” Taichi asks, almost dropping the plate Yamato has just handed to him.

“Comment dit-on ‘I don’t understand’ en français?” Yamato repeats softly, and even though the phrase sounds familiar Taichi doesn’t think he understands he whole thing. This is probably supposed to be ironic. “It means: how do you say ‘I don’t understand’ in French?”

“Dude, why are you asking me?”

“Taichi, I’m showing you how to ask how to say something when you don’t know. Didn’t they teach you this phrase in class?”

“…Probably.”

Yamato sighs, squirting more soap onto the sponge before he continues scrubbing his current plate. Judging by how hard he’s going at it, he must be using it to take out his frustrations. What an outlet, it almost makes Taichi laugh. “So, do you know? How to say ‘I don’t understand’ in French?”

“Well… if I knew it’s a safe bet to say that I would have said it by now, don’t you think?” Taichi is met with a groan and another plate that nearly smacks him in the chest as Yamato hands it over. “Okay, so maybe I should be paying more attention in class. Can you really blame me? It’s at 8 in the morning! The only thing it’s okay to be awake for at 8 in the morning is soccer practice.”

“Je ne comprends pas.” Yamato glances over at him with an eyebrow raised, clearly expecting something, but Taichi doesn’t know what’s going on. “That’s how you say it. Je ne comprends pas.”

“Ohh…” Taichi’s eyes widen in enlightenment as he sets the plate in the dish rack. “I should probably remember that.”

“Yeah, and the sky is blue,” Yamato adds. Taichi elbows his gut.

“So, let me see,” Taichi begins, wiping his face off first after Yamato flicked water on it in retaliation – soapy water, too, at that. How rude, what if he made a guy go blind? “Comment dit-on ‘doing the dishes’ en français?”

“Faire la vaisselle.”

“Je faire la vaisselle?”

“Je fais la vaisselle. Conjugate your verb,” Yamato corrects, handing him the last plate, and Taichi groans – not at the plate but at the thought of continuing French for 3 more semesters. Yamato says something so quickly that Taichi doesn’t even catch a single word before he starts to walk off, and Taichi turns his head to yell at him over his shoulder.

“Hey, Yamato. Yamato! Je ne comprends pas. Je ne comprends pas!”

“I said I’ll wait over there until you finish drying that last dish,” Yamato yells back with a flick of his wrist motioning for Taichi to get back to work, which he does. Yamato’s methods of helping are so roundabout, no wonder why he said he was horrible at teaching, but that conversation was actually pretty useful. Taichi does suppose he’ll try to may more attention in class, if only so he’ll know simple phrases which he really already should and will stop looking like such an airhead to Yamato.

After Taichi finishes drying off the dish, he heads over to join them on the couch in the living room space, Yamato’s back to him as he sits beside Gabumon pointing excitedly at the TV screen with Agumon. On the way, his eyes catch a glimpse of the photo still hanging up on the wall of Yamato and Sora at the amusement park in front of the ferris wheel back from when they were still dating in high school. Yamato was depressed for at least three months after they broke up even though he was the one to initiate it, but somehow Taichi still isn’t surprised that he hasn’t gotten rid of the photo. His best friend was more sentimental that he let on, and always had trouble letting things go. What did surprise Taichi was that he was for some reason glad that they broke up, and he kind of wishes Yamato would get rid of that photo just so he would stop being reminded of his guilt every time he came over and saw it still decorating the wall.

“You’re telling me people in different parts of the world speak completely different languages?” Agumon is in the middle of asking Yamato as Taichi sits down next to him on the couch. It’s so old that the cushion has completely deflated, but the feeling as he sinks down into it is somehow comforting, like home.

“Yeah, there are probably hundreds of different languages spoken throughout the world,” Yamato replies, and Taichi shudders at the thought of ever having to learn a hundred languages.

“That doesn’t seem very practical at all,” Gabumon chimes in, and Agumon nods his head in agreement. “That’s like if Agumon and I spoke different languages! And all the other Digimon, too. Like what if you and Taichi were born in different places and couldn’t understand each other?”

“Hey,” Taichi interjects a little too hastily, and as the others look at him expectantly waiting for him to finish his sentence, he grinds his teeth together and pushes that thought away because he doesn’t even want to continue imagining a world where he can’t do something as simple as calling Yamato and asking him what’s up and taking an answer for granted. “So what’s this cartoon about anyways? You guys like it so much, but I don’t even know what’s going on.”

“Taichi, the point of you coming over is supposed to be for me to help you study, not to watch cartoons,” Yamato chides before either Gabumon or Agumon can launch them into a long-winded tangent, but Taichi is happy just to have changed the subject. “Grab your textbook and let’s go over it.”

“Okay, Mr. Ishida,” Taichi jokes, shooting Yamato a grin to receive a punch on the shoulder. He’s surprised how much more engaging his textbook is when it’s being read by Yamato and not his balding, fifty-something year old professor with smoker’s breath, but even so, at the same time it’s inexplicably harder to concentrate because Yamato’s smooth voice reading off simple things like the colors of the rainbow or numbers from one to twenty has no right to sound like the living reason why people call French the language of love. Even something as banal as the weather is nice outside makes Taichi bite his lower lip and kind of want to punch Yamato’s stupid face because he just makes it sound so good. He should have taken French during his first year, when Yamato was still a TA for the class as one of the only 2 students in the entire University of Tokyo who was fluent in the language, but then again judging by that was happening right now he would probably be at the the same level of concentration during class, only for a different reason.

The studying – Taichi honestly has a hard time calling it that – goes on for another hour or so. He thinks he’s learned at least a little, but it’s not a difficult claim to make considering how abysmally he performed on that midterm exam. Yamato shoos him out regardless because he’s going to be heading out for make up band practice soon, so once Taichi tears Agumon from watching the TV they head home after sharing goodbyes. Well, the objective was to go home, but Taichi finds himself dragged to a ramen stand at 3 in the afternoon, and since he’s not hungry all he can do is just watch Agumon down his second bowl of ramen. He feels full just watching.

“Hey, Taichi!” Agumon calls out through his mouthful of ramen, and Taichi glances over from the pile of pickled ginger on the counter that he’s been picking at with his chopsticks. “You’ve really cheered up today after looking kinda down about that piece of paper yesterday. I’m glad!”

Agumon quickly goes back to swallowing clumps of noodles without even bothering to chew them once, and Taichi stops poking at the ginger, his hand falling lax as his eyes glaze over in thought, staring down at the counter’s swirling wood grain. It was like Agumon understood him better than he understood himself, because until now he didn’t even realize how much better he was feeling compared to last night when he plodded into his family’s apartment and immediately retreated to his room, falling face first onto his pillow to muffle his frustrated groans. How ridiculous was it that he could save the world multiple times and still get his ass kicked so badly by an exam? But at least things were looking up now.

“You really like hanging out with Yamato, huh?” Agumon muses in the middle of slurping down his ramen’s tonkatsu broth.

Taichi feels like he’s being called out, but his pursed lips turn into a smile before he nods. “Yeah.”

Chapter 2

Every night Taichi makes sure to text Yamato some kind of French question, not only for his own good at getting better at the language, but also to have an excuse to talk to him. If it bothers Yamato, he doesn’t let it show, even when Taichi asks him stupid things like hey, what are the lyrics to Bet On It in French? Okay, maybe that isn’t going to make him better at French, but it sure gets a funny reaction out of Yamato. Taichi asks reasonable things, too, like if his conjugations of venir look correct on his homework and to explain to him the passé composé. Yamato is pretty good about answering, and Taichi makes sure not to ask too much and wind up distracting Yamato from finishing his own homework, but sometimes they wind up texting until 2 in the morning and Yamato gets mad at him for keeping him up so late before forgetting about it two seconds later and wishing him a good night.

Tonight’s no different than the past two weeks, and after Taichi finishes typing up an outline for a research paper on international trade, he flops back onto his bed and pulls his phone out of his pocket. Agumon snores quietly from the top bunk, tuckered out from both chasing the soccer ball Taichi kicked around at the park earlier in the evening and then eating at least three people’s share at dinner, but the sound is relaxing in a weird way. It reminds Taichi that Agumon’s company isn’t leaving him sitting alone in his room, even if his Digimon is passed out cold. Yamato’s probably expecting his text right now since he usually sends one off after dinner, so after Taichi glances at his email he starts to type.

comment dit-on “can I stop by the cafe after your shift and hang out tomorrow” en français?

While he waits for Yamato to answer, Taichi drops his phone onto his chest and grabs his soccer ball from his bedside to squeeze it between his palms – it’ll probably need some more air pumped into it soon. At least Agumon didn’t pop it with his claws this time like the last two balls. He tried to tell Agumon that you’re not allowed to use your hands when playing soccer, but Agumon always ended up doing it anyways. Maybe he should just teach Agumon how to play volleyball instead. When his phone vibrates against his chest Taichi nearly drops his soccer ball onto his own face, but he manages to not-so-gracefully toss it onto his knees instead before picking his phone back up.

Shift ends at 9 and the cafe closes at 10 so wat’s the point in u coming for an hr

idk. we haven’t hung out in a while since you gave me a ride home last weds after practice, so I wanna do something tmrw

Can’t it wait til saturday

why, don’t you wanna see me? you’ve been away from my gorgeous french accent so long. you must be going through a painful withdrawal

Yamato doesn’t answer right away, and Taichi figures he’s typing out a long winded insult about said gorgeous French accent. He usually only ever texts Taichi one sentence at a time – as talkative through text as he is face to face – but on the occasion he gets really into something he’ll launch a paragraph at Taichi’s screen that forces him to scroll at least two times its length. That’s not what happens, though.

Yea I miss u

The flutter in his chest almost makes Taichi drop his phone on his face now – he can’t tell if that would hurt more or less than his soccer ball – and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to answer that. Yamato didn’t even call him stupid or an idiot at the end of it. He reads the text bubble a few more times, as if he read it wrong the first time or if that’ll make the four simple words any less confusing, but while he’s in the middle of staring at it Yamato sends a follow up message.

Sorry gotta study for a test so I’ll see u at 9 tmrw

Ah, yes, the old Yamato one-two-punch: say something embarrassing and then end the conversation entirely. He did tell Taichi he had a test coming up in his fluid dynamics class, but Taichi still rolls his eyes with a smile at the classic tactic.

good luck, neeerd :-)

Fuck off with ur stupid nose smileys

lol ok ok see you tomorrow ;-)

Yamato sends him a string of angry emojis – that’s how you know he’s only faking being mad – and Taichi leaves him alone, opting to work some more on his research paper since he figures he’ll get more than enough French practice tomorrow. He feels like his major is always making him write some kind of paper, but he guesses it’s better than to be constantly doing math like Yamato and Koushirou, or doing whatever Jou is – probably cutting up dead people and dissecting their organs. Being an international relations major was still tough though. Taichi wasn’t aware how much work went into his desire to just go around the world to help people and make it a better place, but it would definitely pay off in the end – surely even this horrible French class.

Taichi jumps at the feeling of something brushing against his leg as he’s in the middle of typing his paper at his desk, but when he looks down it’s only Agumon. “Hey, buddy,” Taichi says, pulling his earbuds out of his ear and closing his laptop as Agumon rubs at his eyelids. “What’s up? You have a nice nap?”

“Yeah,” Agumon mumbles groggily as he leans his head onto Taichi’s lap. “I dreamt that we were all back in the Digital World! I was climbing a tree trying to get us some digicoconuts but the tree trunk just wouldn’t end so I kept climbing and climbing…”

“I can’t tell if that’s a good dream or a bad dream,” Taichi jokes, patting Agumon’s head as he yawns. It’d be nice to be in the Digital World again after being away for so long, but climbing an endless tree didn’t sound any better than what he was doing now. At least there was a viable end to the tree he was climbing known as university, and with any luck he would be able to actually reach it.

“Well, what’re you up to, Taichi?” Agumon climbs up onto his lap, and when he reaches towards the laptop Taichi grabs onto his claw to stop him from scratching it. Screen protectors can only do so much.

“Just the usual… drowning in homework.”

Agumon crinkles his nose so hard Taichi wonders if he’s going to sneeze – better not do it in Taichi’s direction in case he snorts out some flames. “That… doesn’t sound fun at all!”

Taichi laughs. “No way that it’s fun. I still have to do it, though.”

“Wow,” Agumon begins, staring up at Taichi in awe, “you’re so responsible, Taichi! You’ve really grown up.” It’s hilarious how Agumon sounds like a proud parent when, if anything, that’s supposed to be Taichi’s role between them. “You should take a break and relax some this weekend, though. Let’s do something fun tomorrow!”

“Sure thing, we can hang out after I get home from class,” Taichi agrees with a grin, and Agumon grins back twice as wide. “I’ll be busy later tomorrow night, though. Gonna meet up with Yamato.”

“Oh!” Agumon exclaims, green eyes lit up in excitement. “I’m glad! You really like Yamato, don’t you?”

Taichi’s mind blanks as he stares back at Agumon. He thinks he can hear his brain short circuiting as his mouth hangs open in thought, but maybe that’s just his mom doing something in the kitchen outside his door. Agumon surely didn’t mean to ask in that way, but Taichi doesn’t think there’s an answer to this question that won’t just start to dig a hole for him to be buried in. “Hey, do you want me to make you a sandwich? Bet you’re hungry!” Taichi doesn’t even have to say anything else before Agumon has already hopped off of his lap and is bounding towards the door.

“I want salami and ham and roast beef and turkey and bologna on my sandwich!” Agumon clamors as Taichi gets up and follows him, relieved that he doesn’t have to have a conversation with Agumon about really liking Yamato. Which he does, of course. They’re best friends, after all, and how could he not like his best friend? It was part of the job description. “And Swiss cheese and cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese and every other kind of cheese–”

“Okay, okay, calm down!” Taichi laughs, patting Agumon’s head again. Come to think of it, he’s a little hungry, too. Might as well make a sandwich for himself as well before he continues banging out his research paper. “We’ll put everything on your sandwich, but don’t complain if it doesn’t fit in your mouth.”

 

---

 

Taichi arrives at the cafe ten minutes early – better than taking the next train and getting there ten minutes late – which works out perfectly, giving him just enough time to order something from Yamato and tease him while he was forced to make Taichi a drink. He didn’t know why Yamato always looked so mad while preparing his order for him, but Taichi always made sure to piss him off a little more by sticking his tongue out at him whenever he stole a glance back across the counter. Since it was already nine o’clock at night, Taichi was expecting the place to be pretty empty, but to his surprise he sees a familiar face chatting with Yamato at the pick-up section of the counter. Even though it’s been years since they broke up, he’s glad to see that they’re getting along like usual. “Hey, Sora,” Taichi calls out as he walks over to join them with a wave, and she smiles when she sees him, her order cupped between her hands as she blows at it. “I see I’m not the only one who wanted to boss Yamato around tonight.”

“Can you really get satisfaction out of me performing menial service for you if you’re paying me for it?” Yamato comments with a roll of his eyes as he grabs a towel from the counter and wanders off to wipe off the coffee machines only a few feet away. Taichi figures he’s giving the two of them some space and hopes he didn’t interrupt anything important.

“Hey, Taichi!” Sora greets him, and in the background Taichi can hear Yamato taking the order of the only other customer in line this late at night amidst the quiet hum of grinding coffee. “I haven’t seen you since your soccer game I came to watch last month. It’s still crazy to me how your goalie managed to block that last shot. No games since then?”

“Nah, nothing serious. Just routine stuff with the team, but we have a practice game coming up in a few weeks. I’ll let you know when it is, for sure, if you wanna come.”

“Of course I would.” Sora pauses to take a tentative sip of her coffee, but it must still be too hot judging by how quickly she pulls the cup back. Her eyes fall to its surface, staring wistfully into its faint ripples as she continues. “We really don’t get to meet up much anymore since class started, especially since we’re almost all attending different universities. It was so much easier when we all still went to the same high school, but now you and Yamato are the only ones going to the same school.”

“Not like that means we get to see each other all the time,” Taichi chimes in through the weary reminisce. “We attend different campuses, after all. The only class we’ve had together since starting was statistics, and he sure was lucky I was there to bail him out of that.”

“Excuse you, Taichi, but I was the one saving your dumb ass from failing that class,” Yamato calls over from the register, arms folded with a glare, and Taichi jabs a thumb in his direction, raising his eyebrows at Sora as he exaggeratedly mouths this guy. She laughs at them and it feels like old times again, if only for a few seconds because her cell phone starts singing some upbeat pop song at them. She pulls it out of her pocket and glances at it before waving at the two of them with a sheepish grin.

“Sorry, gotta run. Mom wants me to stop by the store to grab some food on the way home and I bet she’s gonna rattle the long list off to me right now.”

“No prob, I’ll let you know when my next game is,” Taichi calls out after her as she hurries towards the door, and Yamato silently waves. “See you, Sora!”

“So,” Yamato begins only moments after Sora has left, “am I invited to this game, too?”

“What?” Taichi blurts with a frown as he walks over to the counter. It looks like the only ones left in the cafe now are the two of them, another staff member busy cleaning off the tables, and a guy sitting in the corner with his face buried in his laptop screen and too many empty glasses surrounding him to count – reminds Taichi of Koushirou. Usually someone is seated on the quaint stage at the back of the cafe playing music – that’s why Yamato picked this particular cafe for his part-time job – but Taichi supposes it’s too late for that right now. “Why would you wanna come? You don’t even like soccer.”

Yamato sighs. “It’s the thought that counts, Taichi,” he mumbles, and before Taichi can even do as he requested and invite him, Yamato is already all business mode. “So, can I take your order already and just get it over with?”

“Oh, right.” Taichi lifts a finger to his chin, tapping it in feigned deliberation as he stares intently at the menu scrawled onto the chalkboard hanging on the wall behind Yamato. “Make me a decaf, non-fat caramel macchiato with extra whipped cream and chocolate sauce brewed to exactly one-hundred-and-twenty-six degrees–”

“Taichi, you don’t even know what the fuck that means,” Yamato mutters, already frustrated before he’s even begun to prepare the order. “Non-fat but extra whipped cream and chocolate sauce? That makes no sense.”

“Nope, but you have to make it for me anyways,” Taichi retorts with a shit-eating grin, and Yamato looks like he’s about to chase him out of the building.

“Size?” he asks dully.

“A large, please. I’m parched.”

“May I have a name?”

“How ‘bout the President of Japan,” Taichi suggests, dumping exactly thirty-three ten yen coins into Yamato’s hand.

“We’ll call your name when it’s ready,” Yamato concludes, flashing his finest smile through gritted teeth as he drops Taichi’s obnoxious payment into the register without bothering to count it, snatches up a cup, and scribbles something on its front.

“Thank you, kind sir.” Taichi leans up against the counter smugly as he watches Yamato grumble to himself in front of the machines. Yamato couldn’t make it any more apparent that he’s counting down the seconds until his shift is over, throwing together Taichi’s drink with the care of a two-year-old taking a crayon to a coloring book. He knows that Taichi is just messing with him and couldn’t tell the difference between a cappuccino and a latte and probably even hot chocolate, because instead of any of that syrupy sludge he has Pocari Sweat running through his veins. “So how’d your exam go? Can you pilot a spaceship yet?”

“I’m a second year undergraduate student, Taichi. I’m not even authorized to enter the building that houses the training cockpit module, let alone sit in a spaceship.” Yamato pushes some buttons on the coffee machine, which looks complicated enough already. Taichi doesn’t even want to imagine what the pilot’s seat of a spaceship must look like. “It went okay, though. I didn’t have any time at the end to double check my answers, but at least I finished, which is better than I can say for some other people.”

“Hey, shut up! I did finish my French exam!” Taichi cuts in with a frown. “I just didn’t get most of them right, that’s all.”

“Not you, Taichi. Other people in my class.” Yamato rolls his eyes as he snaps the lid onto Taichi’s coffee and slips it into the cardboard sleeve. “I’m not always insulting you.” Yet after Yamato claims that, he hands Taichi his drink with the words a moron written where his name is supposed to be and snorts at his unamused reaction. “Let’s head to the back. The nice chairs should be all ours for the rest of the night.”

Taichi heads to the lounge area in the back section of the cafe first as Yamato turns the register over to the other staff member for the rest of the night. He plops down onto one of the plush red armchairs to the side of the small stage and purses his lips at his cup, rubbing his thumb against his “name” as if he would be able to erase it, but he doesn’t even manage to smudge it in the slightest. He sips at its contents and makes a face. Yamato, that jerk, he was just faking it at the machines and literally poured Taichi a cup of warm milk, but that probably should have been expected since the order was a bunch of nonsense anyways. It was kind of nice of him to do, too, since Taichi didn’t even like coffee and its taste of bitter regret to begin with.

It’s darker back in this part of the cafe with only the strings of tiny, white lights hanging from the bookshelves to illuminate the space, but it’s still enough for Taichi to read the issue of the sports magazine he pulled off the shelf. By the time Yamato joins him, guitar case slung over his shoulder, Taichi is already halfway done with his drink. He glances up from the FIFA article he was skimming and watches Yamato situate himself on the neighboring armchair much more gracefully than Taichi had, resting his guitar case on his lap as he wordlessly pops its latches open. Taichi’s spent enough time around Yamato to know that based on the shape of this case it has to be his acoustic, not electric, guitar, and once Yamato carefully removes what he endearingly calls his second child – his harmonica is his first – he moves his case to the floor and rests his guitar against one of his knees.

“What is this, band practice?” Taichi laughs, slipping the magazine back onto the bookshelf in the most conveniently located place, not where he got it from, and chugs down the rest of his milk.

“No,” Yamato begins, pulling a pick out from his black cardigan’s pocket before giving his guitar a quick tuning. “Thought I’d make up for not being able to teach you anything last night.”

“So instead of suffering through your normal teaching style, now I have to suffer through you teaching me with song?” Taichi jokes, holding a hand against his stomach as he chokes out a puking sound. “What did I do to deserve this punishment?”

Yamato rolls his eyes as he starts to strum at his guitar, a mellow melody that softly fills the air around them with a warm comfort like a cup of hot chocolate in the dead of winter. Taichi is sure that Yamato has performed on the cafe’s stage before during one of their open mic nights for all of the customers, but right now they’re two of the only few people in here and it somehow feels so natural, sitting alone beside him like this. It’s been years since Yamato last played a song for Taichi in private – it was the same time he learned that Taichi was definitely not the person to ask for musical advice or opinions – but Taichi still usually went to his concerts whenever he was able. He couldn’t say he always enjoyed the concerts, though, since no matter how good the music was, it could never make up for putting up with all of the screaming fans nearly pushing him over and making him go deaf. Hell, the ringing in his ears that would always last a few days after the concerts was undoubtedly caused by the fans and not the music, considering how no matter how early he showed up, he would still wind up far away from the speakers, crammed into the back of the crowd. Yamato’s fans were nuts.

It’s not long before Yamato starts to sing, his gentle voice caressing Taichi’s ears with the dulcet French tones. He closes his eyes as he always does while engrossed in his music, and Taichi feels less awkward about staring now that he knows Yamato can’t see him do it. It has always been mindblowing to Taichi how complicated it looks to play the guitar. Yamato’s fingers contort around the neck of the guitar, changing their configuration every few seconds as they fly up and down its length, and somehow this creates music. Taichi is already bad enough at texting on his phone with his clumsy fingers without hitting the wrong key on accident. Maybe this is why he’s a soccer player, where hands don't matter but having a hard head does.

Taichi’s never heard the song Yamato is singing before in his life, but it feels familiar somehow – maybe because he’s known the guy who’s singing it for ten years now. Since it’s French, Taichi would bet his life savings that it’s some sappy romance song, but he only has enough yen in his bank account to buy maybe 2 combo bowls at the university cafeteria so that’s not really saying much. He hates to admit that it’s kind of working, though, whether it was Yamato’s intention or not. He’s probably just trying to see if Taichi will understand anything at all from the song’s lyrics, but Taichi feels his hands starting to clam up as he sits there with Yamato unabashedly serenading him from two feet away. His hair smells nice too – maybe it’s new shampoo. Taichi rubs his sweaty palms against the soft fabric of his armchair, but it doesn’t help at all. Neither does closing his own eyes – that just makes Yamato’s smooth voice resonate even louder in his head – so Taichi concentrates on the words instead, trying his best to see if anything makes sense.

A few phrases here and there are clear enough to make out – something about the day and the rain, another thing about singing and dancing, a line about two lovers at night – but Taichi would be lying if he said he understood any more than that. Yamato keeps singing something over and over during the refrain; it sounds familiar, but Taichi has no idea what it is. He leans an elbow onto his seat’s armrest and presses his lips together in thought. Were the words something he heard in class before from his professor? Or maybe it was on the TV while his mom was watching the news. Either way, Taichi jumps back with a yelp when Yamato brings him back to reality by snapping his fingers in front of Taichi’s face, and as he leans back in his chair and stares wide-eyed at Yamato’s frown he offers a nervous chuckle.

“Man, were you even paying attention?” Yamato sighs, casually strumming at his guitar as he crosses his legs and relaxes his posture.

“Yes!” Taichi exclaims, his voice much too loud – paying too much attention, in fact, if his erratic, racing heartbeat was any indication. “I barely understood anything, but it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life!” Yamato snorts, and Taichi guesses his tactic of grossly exaggerating to get Yamato off his case worked, except it wasn’t an exaggeration at all. “No, dude, I definitely understood a little bit. Like, parler and chanter and danser and–”

“What’s the point if the only thing you got were the verbs? You can’t hold a conversation with just verbs.”

“No, no, I heard something about soleil and l’amour, too! I couldn’t tell you how it all goes together, but if I put together all these context clues I don’t need a graduate degree in French to tell you it’s gotta be a love song.”

“Well…” Yamato’s voice trails off with the harmony of his chords as his hand falls lax against the front of his guitar, and the faint glow from the string of lights behind them is enough for Taichi to see the blush on his cheeks as he turns. “A song’s meaning is up for the listener to interpret however they want.”

“Load of good that does if the listener hardly knows the language.” Taichi sticks his tongue out at Yamato, and it’s a good thing they’re not still kids otherwise Yamato would probably try to rip it out of his mouth. “What was that line in the middle that you kept singing, though?”

Once he’s done scowling at Taichi’s tongue, Yamato picks at his guitar’s strings again. “Aux Champs-Élysées,” he sings softly, already so into the song that he doesn’t even seem to notice Taichi nodding his head fervently to the side. “Aux Champs-Élysées… Au soleil, sous la pluie, à midi ou à minuit, il y a tout ce que vous voulez, aux Champs-Élysées…”

“Yes, what’s that?” Taichi asks, pointing at Yamato as if that will somehow help. “I’ve definitely heard that before.”

“The Champs-Élysées is a French street that leads up to the Arc de Triomphe,” Yamato explains, picking his guitar’s case off the ground so he can put his instrument away. “You probably saw it if you met my grandpa when you and Takeru went to Paris. He lives close to it.”

“Oh, yeah!” Taichi remembers now. Yamato and Takeru’s grandpa drove them down that street on his motorcycle on their way to the Versailles Palace. It was super crowded, but that wasn’t surprising if it was famous enough to have songs written about it. “It looked like a fun place, but we had no time to do anything there that night… Hey, you should take me there sometime to show me what I missed,” Taichi muses out loud, and when he notices Yamato staring silently at him with a look in his eyes like he said something weird, Taichi averts his own gaze and scratches the back of his neck. “And everyone else can come, too! Yeah, we should have a reunion trip to France. You and Takeru can be our tour guides, but after I ace these French classes I’ll be stealing that job from you.”

“Yeah, right.” Yamato smirks, and the clicking sound when he latches his guitar case shut again catches Taichi’s attention.

“Wait, are you done playing already?”

“Thought I’d spare you from putting up with it any longer.”

“What? How am I supposed to understand the song if you only play it once?”

Yamato frowns at him. “You seriously want to hear it again?” He seems incredulous no matter how long Taichi nods. “I’m gonna have to start charging you. It’s a pay-per-minute service. Might have to get you set up with a plan.”

“Okay, sign me up for the best friend discount,” Taichi answers, and after staring at him for a few more seconds Yamato cracks into low laughter while taking his guitar back out.

“You’re an idiot,” he states with a smile as he starts to play, and Taichi grins back, used to the term of endearment.

Notes:

here's a link to the song yamato sings Σ(゜ロ゜)

Chapter 3

Even though the first days of July are accompanied by weather that is hotter than ever, it can’t keep Taichi from kicking around his soccer ball to relax on this lazy Saturday afternoon. He invited Sora over to Shiokaze Park to hang out and practice with him, and she agreed to meet him there for a few hours before she had to get dinner with her family. Sora was still pretty good at soccer despite having swapped to the tennis club in middle school. She really made Taichi work hard to steal the ball from her, and no offense to Agumon, but it was nice to have some casual fun outside of practice with someone who actually knew what they were doing. They kicked Taichi’s ball around until finally out of breath from both running and laughing, and after they grabbed some yakitori from a nearby stand they found the cool shade of a tree to rest beneath, Taichi leaning back against its trunk as Sora sat on the ground beside him.

“Is your soccer game still on for tomorrow?” Sora asks as she bites at the first chunk of chicken on her yakitori – Taichi is already on his third piece.

“Yeah, of course. You know I’d tell you if it was cancelled and not make you bike all the way to the stadium for nothing. Hikari can’t come, though. She’s going to a friend’s birthday party.” Taichi glances at the other stalls set up near where they grabbed their yakitori and is glad that the ice cream shop beside it is still there. Yamato would always bring him there to grab a popsicle when he was feeling down.

“Did you end up inviting Yamato, too?”

Taichi almost chokes on his chicken – did Sora just read his mind?! “N-No… why do you ask?”

Sora looks up at him with a frown, waiting until she’s swallowed her food to reply. “Why wouldn’t you invite him?”

That’s definitely not an answer to his question, but Taichi doesn’t press that particular matter any further. He knew that after all this time, things weren’t awkward anymore between Sora and Yamato like they were first few months after they broke up, but he’s not sure why this seems to bother Sora so much. “Well, it’s not like he’s into soccer anymore. He’s the broody, musical type now. I figure it’ll just bore him.”

“He always invites you to his concerts,” Sora begins, and Taichi chews at the tip of his skewer as he stares off into the distance. “You should really see if he wants to come. It’s been ages since you last asked if he wanted to watch you play, you know?” From their conversation back at the cafe last week, it did seem like Yamato was showing more interest in Taichi’s upcoming soccer game than usual, but Sora was definitely acting weird about this, like she was hiding something. “Taichi…” she murmurs, and the worrying gloom in her voice causes him to look back to her in alarm. “Did Yamato ever tell you why we broke up?”

Uh oh, Taichi was never good at these kinds of talks. Part of the reason why he got along so well with Sora when they were kids was because she always seemed like one of the guys. She played soccer just as well as any of them and always seemed so strong, like she never had to rely on anyone, but when it came down to it he would still be reminded at times like this that boys and girls had fundamentally different ways of thinking, and no matter how hard he tried, he would never understand girls. “Um, no…?” he answers uneasily, knowing he’s always treading near landmines when talking about feelings stuff with Sora. “But if you wanna, you know, talk about it, I can try to help…?”

Sora laughs a little, breaking the tension, and Taichi feels his stiff shoulders slowly relax. “It’s not like that, Taichi,” she explains, using her now empty skewer to draw something in the dirt – it looks like little hearts. “But I’m not the one who should be talking about this with you. You should hear it from Yamato, not me.” Hear what, Taichi wonders to himself. Why are girls always so goddamned hard to understand? Maybe this was why he never had a girlfriend before. “Anyways…” Sora stands back up, dusting off the back of her pants. “Do you wanna play some more soccer before I have to go? I still have like fifteen minutes.”

“Aw, yeah, you know it,” Taichi replies with a grin, glad that the feelings talk was short and already over. Yet as they kick Taichi’s soccer ball around, he can’t get Sora’s cryptic words out of his head. He even misses one of her passes once, gawking as he only realizes a few seconds later that the ball is continuing to fly past his foot towards a group of kids in the distance. Sora reacts faster than him, running over there to talk with the children; she leaves them laughing and smiling before returning with the ball – typical Sora, effortlessly adopting the big sister role to anyone she meets. It’s not long before she has to leave to meet her parents for dinner, though, and on his way back home Taichi stops by the 7-11 and picks up four premade bento boxes. His parents are away for the weekend visiting his grandparents, and he sure as hell isn’t cooking dinner tonight. The only thing he knows how to make is omurice anyways, and they’re out of ketchup, which he could have just picked up at the 7-11 in retrospect, but… whatever.

When he gets home, Taichi finds Hikari sitting at their dining table working on her homework with Tailmon curled up on her lap. She looks up as he enters their apartment, lifting a finger to her lips as she shushes him quietly, and he closes the door gently behind him so as to not wake up her sleeping Digimon. “Welcome home, Taichi,” she greets before going back to scribbling on her paper.

“Hey, where’s Agumon? I brought some dinner.” He walks over and sets the plastic bag with their bento boxes on the table, and Agumon comes out of Taichi’s bedroom like he has some sort of sixth sense dedicated to detecting the presence of food. “Shh,” Taichi hisses before Agumon can clamor way too excitedly about dinner, and as Agumon climbs up onto one of the dining chairs he passes out the food, saving the teriyaki salmon bento for Tailmon after she wakes up. “What class is that for?” he asks, sitting down across from his sister before he breaks apart his disposable, wooden chopsticks and yanks open his bento with his favorite chicken karaage. “Your genius big brother wouldn’t mind giving you a hand.”

“It’s okay, Taichi,” Hikari replies, tapping her pencil’s eraser against her chin as she types at her calculator. “Didn’t you get a D in calculus, anyways?” She giggles to herself and Taichi scowls, stuffing his mouth with rice as if that will make him forget. “Shouldn’t you be worrying about your own classes? Your semester ends in four weeks, and don’t you have a French class to–”

“Don’t remind me,” Taichi grumbles, stabbing a piece of karaage with his chopsticks.

“I thought you were doing better in that class now, though?” Hikari looks up from her homework to shoot him a terrifying smile. “Takeru says Yamato’s been real busy lately, and I can only assume it’s for one reason. There’s not much he would put before his precious little brother.”

“I guess I’ve been doing better on my homework,” Taichi says, choosing not to indulge her in her teasing since he puts up with enough of that already from Yamato. “As long as I get a B on the final exam, I should be able to pass it despite completely bombing the midterm.”

“That’s good,” Hikari muses in a vaguely sing-song voice as she returns to her homework, humming as she strokes the top of Tailmon’s head with her free hand.

“Taichi!” Agumon calls over from beside him, and Taichi’s eyes widen in shock that he’s already almost finished eating the entire bento. He probably should have picked up five, or maybe even six of them. “How would I say I like these meatballs in that French thing?”

“Uh,” Taichi begins, his mind drawing a blank because he definitely doesn’t know how to say meatball in French, and he doesn’t think his get-out-of-jail-free card would like to be called during band practice to teach him how to say meatball. “J’aime ces... meatballs.”

“Jam says meatballs!” Agumon exclaims before popping the last meatball into his mouth, and Taichi almost bursts out laughing at his terrible pronunciation. Maybe this is how Yamato felt while listening to him for the first time. He would hope that he’s gotten better by now. “Does that mean that jam means I like?”

“J’aime,” Taichi repeats, stifling his laughter long enough to swallow his own food, “and yes, it does.” For some reason, it was one of the first phrases they taught him in his class. J’aime for I like, je n’aime pas for I don’t like, j’adore for I love, and je n’adore pas for I don’t love. Except the weird thing was that when it came to people, for some reason j’aime is stronger than j’adore. It didn’t make sense to him, but his professor warned them about being careful distinguishing between the two, and Taichi remembered this if only because he knew it was the kind of thing he could see himself potentially messing up in the future.

“Jam Taichi!” Agumon continues, rolling off of his chair to head back to Taichi’s room, probably to take a nap. “Jam Taichi very much! Jam Taichi the most, even more than food!”

“Okay, quiet down. See you in a bit, little guy,” Taichi calls out after him, and after Agumon shuts the door to Taichi’s room Tailmon cracks an eye open.

“Waking me from my catnap to take one of his own, I see,” she mutters with a yawn, stretching her legs out across Hikari’s lap. “His French is terrible, too.”

“Come now, you’re just used to listening to Takeru,” Hikari chides, and Tailmon purrs as she resumes petting her head. “Eat your bento before the salmon gets cold.”

After he’s done eating, Taichi tells Hikari to come get him if she needs anything before he cleans off his side of the table and heads over to his room. Agumon is asleep on his bed, an arm dangling off its side and his legs sprawled out as he snores, and Taichi knows from experience that he could start blaring loud music and shake the bed and accidentally set off the fire alarm and Agumon would still continue lying there unperturbed. His desk chair looks awfully uninviting, so Taichi climbs up his bed’s rickety ladder and bangs the top of his head against the ceiling on his way to the top bunk. He swears loudly into Agumon’s orange pillow, rubbing the sore spot as he fishes his phone out of pocket, and nearly rolls into the wall as he turns to flop onto his back. Sometimes he still feels like such a kid.

Taichi planned on texting Yamato, but a call seems more appropriate for something like this. He has Yamato set to his favorites and snickers to himself as he taps on Yamato’s icon – a close up photo of Yamato’s angry face partially obscured by the fist that’s about to slam into Taichi’s forehead for taking a picture without any warning or consent. It’s past dinner so Yamato should be back home from band practice already, but when Yamato picks up on the fifth ring it sounds like there’s a commotion in the background. “What’s up, Taichi?”

“Bonjour, mon ami. You busy right now?”

Yamato snorts, and Taichi isn’t sure if it’s because of his French or something else. “Since when has that stopped you from bothering me anyways? I’m just stopping by Shibuya to grab some new strings for my bass before heading home. Snapped one during practice.”

“Wow, so scary,” Taichi jokes, and when he tries to get comfortable and cross one leg over the other he rams his knee into the ceiling and muffles a scream. This bunk was definitely more suited for Agumon now; he could barely move around without hurting himself.

“You okay there?” Yamato asks, and Taichi grunts in affirmation. He’s not sure how Yamato heard him making a fool of himself through all the background noise of cars and other shoppers roaming the packed streets of Shibuya – ears of a hawk, no wonder he was a musician. “So do you need something?”

“Oh yeah.” Taichi considers pulling his knee closer so he can rub at it, but if he does that he’ll probably just hit something again. “Got plans for tomorrow afternoon?"

“Depends why you’re asking.”

“You’re a jerk!” Taichi exclaims through his laughter, and if Yamato was here he would probably roll his eyes with a smile. “Well, my soccer game is tomorrow. I thought I’d ask if you wanted to come.”

“Oh,” Yamato says, the blank tone of his voice betraying nothing of what kind of oh this is. It could be an oh, you’re finally inviting me, or it could be an oh, that sounds boring as hell. Taichi bites the inside of his lip as Yamato’s silence leaves him strangely uncomfortable, but finally a few seconds later, he continues. “…What time?”

If he’s actually interested at all, he’s doing an impeccable job of not showing it. Judging by how Sora was acting earlier, Taichi really thought Yamato would be more excited about the invitation, and he absently brushes his fingertips at the stray threads fraying at the hem of his shirt as he braces himself for rejection. He didn’t know why he bothered with this anyways. “Starts at 3, but… I’d get there early so you can get a front row seat of my gorgeous face.”

“Yeah, and go blind.”

“Hey, fuck you!” Taichi yells, and when Yamato starts to laugh he can’t help but to grin. “So are you coming or not? Asshole.”

“Duh,” Yamato replies like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Taichi is somehow more alarmed than when he headbutted the ceiling. “Rude as hell not to give me more prior notice, but since it’s you I guess it’s fine.” Taichi is suddenly worried about the match even though up until a few seconds ago he was convinced their team was guaranteed to win against their much lower ranked opponent, but… wait, what did Yamato just say? What was that supposed to mean? “Do you want me to grab you anything?” Yamato asks, interrupting Taichi’s confused thoughts. “From Shibuya, while I’m here.”

“Hmm,” Taichi muses, resting the back of his hand against his closed eyelids, “I guess my headphones are busted. I can’t hear anything out of the left side anymore.” He figures that Yamato will insist on getting something for him even if he says no, so he might as well pick something that can be found for cheap and at whatever music store Yamato is already heading to.

“What kind? In ear? Over the ear? Wireless? Noise cancelling?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Taichi groans, rolling back onto his stomach. “Just get me something cheap and preferably blue.” He should’ve just asked Yamato to get him a pack of gum because this is getting way too complicated.

“Uh, it does matter, but whatever. I’m almost at the shop, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Catch you later, music nerd,” Taichi teases, and right after he hangs up he receives a line of angry emojis from Yamato.

This will be the first time Yamato will come to one of Taichi’s soccer matches since the very first game he had after they returned from the Digital World. He had invited all of the other Chosen Children, and everyone had actually shown up – even Jou and Mimi, but Jou did bring his textbook along with him, and Taichi could practically hear Mimi complaining about the heat all the way from the center of the field. It probably wasn’t a good match to invite them to because his team got their butts kicked, but at least he managed to make the only goal of the second half.

When he had asked Yamato later what he thought, it took way too long for Yamato to answer with a well… you guys almost won. Yeah, it didn’t seem like he was interested in soccer anymore ever since he formed his band, so Taichi thought he was doing him a favor by not inviting him – he knew Yamato would feel obligated to show up, and there was no point in making him suffer. Maybe he should have continued, though. Yamato always offered a free ticket to all of his concerts, and Taichi always showed up when he was able, because that’s what best friends do for each other – oh. Okay… maybe he could see why Yamato might be hurt about not being invited to a game in so long.

Taichi sighs, running a hand through his hair before he rubs his face against his pillow and just messes it back up anyways. “I really am an idiot.”

 

---

 

It’s a shock to see that Yamato actually listened to Taichi’s advice – if it could be called that instead of a joke – and arrived at the soccer stadium early. What shocks Taichi even more is that Yamato and Sora are literally the first ones there, showing up only just a few minutes after Taichi’s team. He gawks at them alone in the front row, and when Sora notices him staring at them her face lights up as she waves, one of the big ones that makes her whole body sway – Yamato, of course, just lifts a hand. If Taichi didn’t know any better, he would think they’re here on a date, but Sora has made it very clear to him before that they’re only friends how. Still, Taichi laughs at how it looks like Yamato definitely spent more time on his outfit than Sora did. If Yamato and Mimi were to ever get together, Taichi bets that it would only last until the first date because Mimi would get so upset that Yamato was somehow better dressed than her.

For some reason, Taichi feels nervous during their routine warm ups, so much so that one time when he was trying to kick the ball his foot accidentally missed it entirely. It’s not even because he can hear the stands filling up with people. They could be broadcasting this game on international television, and that still wouldn’t be more nerve wracking than knowing that Yamato’s eyes are on him from the front row. It’s more stressful than when he was first bestowed the #10 jersey and worried about living up to the expectations behind the attacking playmaker’s number. It’s worse than the game last year where they were one goal away from going to the semifinals of Japan’s university-wide tournament and it came down to his last shot. This suddenly feels like the most critical soccer match of his life.

Once the whistle blows signaling the start of the game, Taichi is thankfully distracted enough by the heat of the moment to forget that he’s being watched by an important pair of eyes. Their opponents are a secondary team that Keio University has just put together, and Taichi’s coach agreed to let them practice against their team to improve their skills. Taichi isn’t too worried about winning – his team would probably be able to regardless if he was out here playing or warming the bench, and it’s just a practice match anyways – but his competitive nature still reigns over any of his other emotions and drives him to play to his fullest. Well, that and wanting to show Yamato that he’s not the only one who can whip cool moves out for an audience.

Taichi scores the first goal of the game not long into the first half, and after he cleanly launches the ball into the corner of the goal he glances over at where his friends are on the opposite side of the stadium. Sora’s on her feet cheering like the other spectators, waving and giving him an enthusiastic thumbs-up, which he returns, but he can’t really see Yamato’s reaction. Knowing him, he’s not impressed. Taichi can’t remember the last time Yamato was visibly impressed by anything.

The rest of the game proceeds just as smoothly despite Taichi stealing glances at Yamato periodically for the next hour. His team stays ahead of Keio’s the entire time even though he doesn’t personally score any more goals for them, and when the practice match ends with a winning score of 4-2 Taichi finds himself swarmed by his teammates. People give each other noogies, dump bottles of water on his head which makes him scream like a little girl, and someone even slaps his ass, which he does not appreciate. After they meet their opponents in the middle of the field and bow to thank them for the match, they continue celebrating near their team’s bench until the crowd has dispersed, and once he’s back in the locker room Taichi hears his phone buzz from inside his duffle bag. He finishes changing his shirt before pulling it out to find a few messages.

Sorry I couldn’t make it to your match. I’ll bring you some cake from the party! from his sister, with a heart at the end. There’s a second text from his mom, telling him to pick up some milk on the way home. Lastly, there’s one from Sora: what a great game Taichi! congrats on winning. Yamato and I are waiting for you outside near the front when you’re ready. Taichi replies that he’ll be out soon, and after he finishes changing back into jeans he says goodbye to his teammates and finds Yamato and Sora chatting outside. “Hey guys,” he greets during a lull in their conversation.

“Taichi!” Sora exclaims, eyes lighting up as she runs forward to meet him; Yamato trails behind her, hands in his pockets. “You did great! That was an awesome goal you scored.”

“Yeah, I am pretty awesome,” Taichi agrees, and Yamato rolls his eyes. “So what’re you guys up to now? Wanna do something?”

“Oh, I was going to head home,” Sora says, looking at Yamato with a perplexing smile. “Mom needs help with some ikebana clients, and I promised I’d give her a hand tonight. I should go catch the next train back to Odaiba before I have to wait for the one that comes in thirty minutes.” She starts to leave, waving at the both of them. “Thanks for the ride here, Yamato, and congratulations again on winning, Taichi!”

“Thanks for coming!” Taichi calls out after her, waving back even though she’s already turned around, and Yamato chimes in with a you’re welcome. “See you around, Sora!”

“…So what did you wanna do?” Yamato asks once it’s just the two of them, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he glances down at his watch. “I’ve got my moped and six hours to kill.”

“Hmm,” Taichi hums, following Yamato to the parking lot where his moped is parked in the most convenient spot – maybe this is why he got to the soccer game so early. “We could just go to my place. I need help with my French homework. Oh, but we’ll need to stop by 7-11 on the way there ‘cause my mom wants me to grab some milk. My parents will be back from visiting my grandparents later tonight so I gotta get it before then.”

Yamato glances over his shoulder to shoot Taichi an incredulous stare. “We’re in the heart of Tokyo. I could take us anywhere, and you want to go home.”

“No, to the store first for the milk so I don’t get my head chewed off, and then home,” Taichi repeats, tightening the strap of his duffle bag to make sure it’s held securely against his body before they go flying down the Tokyo streets. If he loses his uniform he’ll never hear the end of it from his coach. “Look, I’m kinda tired after that game, okay? I just wanna chill. You can drop me off if you don’t wanna stay, and I’ll figure my homework out myself.”

“Fine,” Yamato concedes, tossing Taichi his spare helmet. “Once I’m done with it, your homework won’t know what hit it.”

“Merci beaucoup, mon meillieur ami.” Taichi grins, somehow stuffing all of his hair into the helmet before he snaps the buckle beneath his chin; Yamato climbs onto the moped first, and once he’s ready Taichi gets on behind him. “Remember, we have to go to 7-11 first!” Taichi reminds him above the sound of the engine starting.

“I heard you the first time!” Yamato calls back, starting his moped without any warning, and Taichi quickly grabs onto him before he’s thrown off.

“Could’ve told me we were starting, asshole!” Taichi screams, pulling his goggles over his eyes so they won’t continue to get pelted with wind like the rest of his face. He doesn’t know how Yamato does this every day. “What if I fell off?!”

“Stop shouting in my ear!” Yamato yells back, no remorse, and if it wouldn’t get them killed Taichi would tighten his grip around Yamato’s waist until he started to choke. He settles for headbutting the back of Yamato’s helmet with angry grunts. That’ll show him. “And stop that, too! Ugh, Taichi, you’re being such a fucking baby!”

When they finally make it to the store, still alive and well, Taichi realizes he doesn’t have any more room in his bag for the carton of milk he has just bought. Yamato tells him to stuff it up his shirt, which Taichi absolutely does not do, and as they drive off to his family’s apartment Yamato should be glad that Taichi doesn’t open the carton and start dumping the milk down his vulnerable back. Hikari is still at her friend’s birthday party when they arrive, but Agumon greets them at the door with a half eaten apple sandwiched between his toothy grin.

“Taichi!” he exclaims, and Taichi crouches down to accept his hug. “Yamato, too! Did you bring Gabumon with you?”

“Not today,” Yamato replies, patting the top of Agumon’s head before he glances around, not that anything has changed since the last time the visited. “How’re you?”

“Great now that you two are here!”

Agumon chomps down the rest of his apple, seeds and all, before Taichi hands him the milk. “Can you put this in the fridge, buddy?”

“Of course!” Agumon replies, mouth still full and sending small shreds of apple skin flying. As he runs off Yamato carefully takes off his boots and leaves them beside the duffle bag that Taichi has discarded by the front door, and Taichi yawns, stretching his arms out while following Agumon to the kitchen.

“Want something to drink? Or a snack?” he calls back as Yamato heads over to the couch.

“Yes, please!” Agumon cries out, his head still poked into the fridge, and Taichi hears Yamato laugh from the other end of the room.

“Not you, silly.” Taichi chuckles, reaching over Agumon’s head to take an apple for himself – gotta recharge after kicking ass in that soccer game. “Yamato?”

“I’m fine,” he answers, and Taichi shrugs to himself, grabbing a bottle of Pocari Sweat by its neck before he leaves Agumon there to rummage around in privacy.

His French homework is still where he left it Friday night on the coffee table – thank god Agumon didn’t eat it because the my Digimon ate my homework claim would never fly in university, or probably any other grade for that matter. Taichi sets his drink next to his pencil before he plops down next to Yamato, staring – or maybe brooding – at the blank television with his legs crossed. Taichi offers him the apple, and after Yamato shakes his head he pops it into his own mouth. “Why do the French call potatoes pomme de terre?” Taichi asks, spewing a few chunks of apple just like Agumon had. “Apple of the earth? How does that even make any sense?”

“Pomme used to mean fruit in old French,” Yamato explains, brushing something off his cheek with a knuckle – Taichi probably spit on him, oops. “Pomme de terre used to mean fruit of the earth. Tomatoes used to be called pomme d’amour. Sweet potatoes are called patate douce, though.”

Taichi gives a muffled okay then through the apple gripped between his teeth as he uses his free hands to unscrew the cap of his drink, and Yamato gives him a look. “So wait, you haven’t even said anything about my soccer game yet,” Taichi begins, setting his half eaten apple onto the table instead as he continues opening his drink. “It sounded like you really wanted to go, too. Tu t’es bien amusé à le match de football? And where’s my praise for scoring that sick goal?”

“You don’t need me to tell you that you played well,” Yamato snorts as Taichi guzzles down his drink and tosses the empty bottle on the ground, “and it’ll just go to your big head if I do.”

“Hey, my big head is fifty percent hair,” Taichi counters as Agumon joins them, eyeing Taichi’s apple on his way over to the couch. “Hearing a compliment from you once in a while won’t hurt.”

“Yeah, and the other fifty percent is full of hot air.” Before Taichi can punch Yamato’s shoulder in offense, he’s quickly distracted by the sight of Agumon eating the remainder of his apple in one gulp, but he doesn’t have a chance to react before Yamato continues. “I had fun though,” he says softly as Agumon climbs onto the couch on the other side of Taichi with a burp. “Been ages since you last invited me to one of your games. Gotta get your shit together, though. Only scoring the first goal? What happened to the Taichi I know who goes out in a blaze of glory?” Taichi elbows his gut with a grin which makes Yamato release the laugh he was holding in. “I’m glad you still have something that makes you really happy,” he sputters as Taichi pokes at his side, surprised that he hasn’t been punched in the gut yet, “and I’m glad that I got to watch another one of your games before I left.”

Taichi freezes, fingertips still lingering against Yamato’s shirt as he processes what Yamato just said in the silence that stretches between them. His gaze lifts to meet Yamato’s regretful eyes that immediately avert themselves to the screen door leading to the balcony, and Taichi’s hands retreat back as a frown crumples at his eyebrows. “What?” Taichi asks dumbly, and Agumon shifts at his side, craning his neck towards them in curiosity. “What do you mean, before you left?” Yamato doesn’t answer, and Taichi lets out a shaky laugh. “What, are you going on a vacation somewhere? I’ll have soccer matches all the way ‘til graduation, assuming I make it that far, so it’s not like I can’t invite you to another one–”

“It’s my last semester here, Taichi,” Yamato cuts in, absently pressing his fingers into the couch seat, and it suddenly feels like there’s a draft of cold wind grazing against the back of Taichi’s neck. “I applied for an aerospace program at another university and received my acceptance letter last month. It’ll last for the next six years until I get my master’s. I’m transferring at the end of this semester.”

“…Well, where’re you going?” Taichi asks, unsure if he actually wants to know the answer – Yamato must have a reason for being this awkward about it.

“Cambridge.”

“What?!” Taichi yells which finally makes Yamato look back at him. “That’s all the way in England!”

“Congratulations, you know your geography,” Yamato mumbles, and Taichi nearly punches him in the face because it is not the time for jokes. Taichi thought that Koushirou off studying at MIT and Mimi in New York were already far away in America, but England is halfway across the world. Just trying to conceptualize that kind of distance is starting to give Taichi a headache, but the soreness that started growing in his chest since the beginning of this conversation is much more distracting.

Taichi knows he should be happy that Yamato got accepted into such a great university – and he is happy, really; it’s amazing that Yamato will be off to pursue the perfect program for him and following his dreams – but Taichi still feels hurt. Maybe it’s because he feels like he’s being left behind and forgotten, that Yamato would always be a short ride away whenever Taichi needed to see him. He was able to say goodbye to Koushirou when he flew off to America without any problems, but he can’t imagine saying goodbye to Yamato. Just the thought of it makes the aching in his chest drill even deeper.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Taichi demands with a glare that dares Yamato to look away again. “You said you found out last month!”

“That’s because…” Yamato’s voice trails off, and Taichi hasn’t seen this kind of pain in Yamato’s eyes since they were eleven and he thought his brother was being torn from him. “I didn’t want to have to say goodbye.”

“Do you think I want to?!”

“Taichi,” Agumon calls out from the side, gently setting his claws on Taichi’s lap in an attempt to comfort him, but Taichi slaps them away and immediately gets to his feet.

“Were you seriously just going to disappear one day without saying a word and leave me here?” Taichi clenches his hands into fists at his side so tightly that it feels like his fingernails might pierce through the skin of his palms. He doesn’t even know why he’s so mad about this, but he feels like he’s eleven again now, too, and all he knows anymore is how to scream out his frustrations.

“What the fuck, Taichi!” Yamato screams back, the hurt on his face replaced with a resentful glare, and when he stands up as well Taichi is reminded that he hates how Yamato is taller than him. It sucks being literally looked down on during an argument. “Why are you yelling at me?” Yamato questions, his voice cracking a bit mid sentence – maybe the hurt isn’t completely gone, and guilt tugs anxiously at Taichi’s gut. “This is the biggest opportunity of my life. It’s not like they accept just anyone. I put everything I had into that application, and it actually worked out. You’re supposed to be happy for me!”

“I am!” Taichi affirms, and it feels like he’s choking on the words as they struggle to surface through his throat. He’s not sure what’s more painful anymore – his heart being wrung out and twisted by every word Yamato spits in his direction or the way Yamato’s sharp eyes glower directly at him with such an intense hatred engineered to mask the sadness that Taichi knows he is responsible for. When he feels Agumon tugging at his jeans, Taichi brushes him away and shakes his leg free, ignoring him when he calls out Taichi’s name. “It’s great that you’re going and you deserve it more than anyone else I know, but it’s not about that. Why would you try to hide this from me?! Hell, you weren’t even planning to tell me, judging from the look on your face when you let it slip! We’re supposed to know everything about each other. You’re supposed to be able to tell me anything. We’re supposed to be best friends!”

Yamato breaks into laughter, a bitter sound that echoes in Taichi’s ears and makes his stomach churn. It somehow scares Taichi, even more so than when he thought Yamato was seriously out to kill him during the duel he and Metalgarurumon forced Wargreymon into back in the Digital World, and the smile that Yamato flashes at him afterwards is more haunting than the harmonica tune he would croon out into the dead of night. Yamato reaches into his pocket, pulling out the small box of headphones he picked up at Shibuya yesterday. He throws them at Taichi, and they land on the ground after bouncing off his chest and falling between his bumbling fingers.

“Some best friend you are, asshole,” Yamato hisses lowly, cold as ice. It feels like he’s a complete stranger. “You don’t know anything about me.” He turns without another word, and Taichi doesn’t watch him leave. He doesn’t even move until the door has opened and slammed shut loud enough for the people living two stories above to hear, and once the walls stop shaking he finally lets out the breath he didn’t even realize he had been holding in.

Taichi finds Agumon hiding behind the couch’s arm, green eyes peering around its edge to see if it’s okay to come out yet, and when Taichi approaches him with an apologetic smile he retreats back and runs straight into Taichi’s room. Yeah, he guesses he deserves that. Way to make both Yamato and Agumon hate him in one go. At least he could try to patch things up with one of them right now, and after he picks up the headphones that Yamato bought for him – blue exactly as he had asked; they look kind of pricey, too – he sets them gently on the coffee table besides his French homework and heads off to his room.

“Agumon?” Taichi calls out, and he doesn’t have to look far for his partner because the orange tail protruding from beneath his blanket is a dead give away. “Hey, buddy,” he murmurs, sitting down on his bed besides the conspicuously dinosaur-shaped lump. “Sorry for pushing you away like that, Agumon… you were just trying to help me calm down.”

“Sure was,” Agumon replies, the blanket covering him muffling his voice. “You were being a jerk, Taichi! To both of us! You haven’t lost your cool that badly in a while. It wasn’t like you.”

“Yeah,” Taichi whispers, his heartbeat still racing, and the guilt drowning him makes it a little hard to breathe. He wouldn’t be surprised if Yamato never even speaks to him again before he leaves at the end of the semester. “…I don’t even know why I did.” Agumon doesn’t say anything, and when Taichi tries to pat his head through the blanket he pulls away, just as Taichi had earlier. Yeah, he deserves that. “I’m sorry, Agumon,” repeats, and when Agumon doesn’t answer again Taichi takes it that he wants to be left alone.

Taichi exits his room and heads back over to the couch even though he really doesn’t want to – being here just makes the memory of the fight he just had with Yamato replay over and over in his head. Looking at his still incomplete French homework and the unboxed pair of headphones on the coffee table makes him even more upset, so he lies down with a sigh and closes his eyes, resting the backs of his hands against his eyelids. “I sure fucked up today,” he mutters, and even though he’s both physically and emotionally exhausted now, he still can’t drift off to sleep because of Yamato’s broken smile lingering in his mind.

Chapter 4

“…chi? Taichi?”

Taichi grunts, rolling over at the intrusive sound disturbing his not-so-peaceful sleep, and when he nearly falls onto the ground he remembers that he’s been exiled from his own bed and had to take a nap on the couch. His eyes snap open as he grabs onto the back of the couch and somehow manages to stabilize himself, and the blurry sight of Hikari bending over the couch’s arm slowly comes into focus before him. She’s holding a leftover slice of cake in her hands from the birthday party she just got home from, and she must be pretty worried about something if she didn’t even have time to put it down. “Taichi, are you okay?” she asks with a frown, and Taichi wishes that someone would just give him a happy look for once tonight.

“I’m fine,” he replies, rolling in the other direction onto his side to muffle his face into the back of the couch.

“No, you’re not.” The couch shakes beneath Taichi as Hikari sits down beside him, putting her plate of cake on the table with a soft clatter. “Is it your French class again? I see that you’re still not done with your homework. It’s due in two days!”

“Don’t care ‘bout that anymore,” Taichi groans into the white leather.

“Taichi…” The sadness in Hikari’s voice finally goads him into looking at her, because he couldn’t stand to ruin a third person’s day today. She smiles at him sweetly, and it melts away some of his apprehension. “Tell me what’s wrong. Please?”

“…Got in a fight with Yamato,” Taichi grumbles with a pout, grabbing the pillow from beneath his head to hug it close to his chest. He isn’t sure whether he’s trying to find comfort in squeezing it or trying to wring out his frustrations by strangling it to death.

Hikari giggles, and the tension in the room slowly continues to fade. “Is that it? You two fight all the time, like a married couple.”

“Yeah, but this is a real fight,” Taichi clarifies, ignoring the last part of her sentence. “He stormed out of here and everything. Called me an asshole, except this time he meant it.”

“Well, what did you fight about now?” Hikari casually smoothens out the front of her skirt with a smile still tugging at her lips, like she knows something he doesn’t. Her concern about the situation seems to merely be a fraction of how much is weighing down on Taichi, and he doesn’t know why, because this is clearly a horrible situation.

“He’s transferring after this semester is over,” Taichi begins, feeling that aching in his chest return as he speaks, and Hikari nods as the words continue to spill free. “He’s moving all the way to England for at least six years, and he wasn’t even planning on telling me! Like what the hell! You’d think you know a guy after having saved each others’ lives more times than you can count on both hands and being able to synchronize with him perfectly so that your Digimon can fuse together and going to all his stupid concerts even though all you can hear are annoying girls screaming his name. And he doesn’t even want to tell you when he’s going to move halfway across the planet! What the hell is his problem?”

“You should know he’s a private person,” Tailmon chimes in as she leaps up onto Hikari’s lap, and her voice startles Taichi into sitting up. He had no idea she was here, but he guesses they came home together. “He likes to keep to himself. I don’t know why you’re so bothered.”

“This isn’t the kind of thing you should hide,” Taichi insists, and Tailmon curls up into a ball, resting her head on her paws as she closes her eyes. “It’s not right to just… disappear from someone’s life!”

“It isn’t right,” Hikari agrees, but before Taichi can feel too vindicated she continues, “and he should have told you sooner. But are you sure that’s why you’re so upset?”

Taichi frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I think you’re mad about something else, Taichi.” That knowing smile lingers on her face, and it just makes Taichi frown harder because he has no idea what she’s going on about. “You aren’t known for being the most tactful person when it comes to dealing with your anger. You’ve gotten better about it, but you can still be hot-headed.”

“Hey,” Taichi protests in offense as Tailmon’s tail flicks back and forth in amusement at his dismay. “Whatever. I still don’t get what you mean.”

Hikari taps her chin in thought for a moment. “If I told you I was moving to England, too, what would you say?”

“What?!” Taichi screams, crushing the pillow in his grip, and the force of his reaction makes the smile on Hikari’s face disappear, replaced with a panic.

“I’m not!” she clarifies, and Taichi lets out his breath in relief. “It was hypothetical! I’m not even done with high school, so I’m not going anywhere for a while. But you were still upset at the thought of me going.”

“Of course I was!” he exclaims. “You’re my little sister! I love you and we’re family, so how could I not be worried and flip out if you were gonna move that far away from me? You’re one of the most important people in my life!” Hikari doesn’t answer. She just giggles again, maybe satisfied with the verbal affection, and pats Tailmon’s head. “H-Hikari, you never answered the question! I still don’t know what you mean.”

“You answered it for yourself, Taichi,” she replies, humming to herself contently, and he definitely doesn’t understand how that was supposed to clarify anything. Hikari always was known for being cryptic, though. “Do you want that slice of cake? I brought it home from the party. It’s cookies and cream with chocolate frosting, and it’s really good.”

Taichi still wants to press her to explain what in the world she was going on about before changing the subject, but when he glances at the delicious looking cake on the table he’s quickly distracted by a different idea. “Actually, yeah. Thanks, Hikari.”

“Don’t forget to finish your French homework, Taichi!” Hikari calls out after him as he takes the cake off to his room. “And try to make up with Yamato soon!” Well, he doesn’t know about that, but he’s going to make up with someone else right now.

“Agumon?” Taichi calls out tentatively, closing the door behind him after he enters, and he sees Agumon still curled up on his bed, head poking out from beneath the blanket and resting peacefully on his pillow. He tiptoes over, kneeling down next to the bed, and it only takes a few seconds of holding the cake next to Agumon’s nose for his eyes to snap open. “Morning, sleepyhead,” Taichi greets him with a grin. “I know food won’t make up for what happened earlier, but I brought you some cake anyways that Hikari got from the birthday party she went to. It’s cookies and cream.”

“I love cake!” Agumon exclaims, his eyes lighting up, but his excitement deflates a few seconds later. Since he didn’t immediately up and chomp the cake right off the plate, Taichi gathers that he’s still not forgiven.

“I’m sorry, Agumon,” Taichi whispers, sitting down beside him before setting the plate on his lap. “You were just trying to help before, but I couldn’t control my feelings and ended up taking some of it out on you. I was just mad that Yamato was planning to keep secrets from me, and… sad that he’s leaving.” Agumon crawls out from beneath Taichi’s blanket to rest a claw cautiously against his knee, and Taichi lets him. “I just… I dunno. It’s selfish of me, but I wish he could stay. I could never ask him to do it, though. I know how hard he’s been working for his aerospace engineering degree, and this program is perfect for him. It just…” Agumon crawls beneath Taichi’s arm to lean up against him, wrapping his own arms around Taichi’s waist, and it makes Taichi smile. “It hurts to think of being that far away from him.”

“You can always call him,” Agumon suggests, and Taichi appreciates the immense effort he must be employing to restrain himself from going for the cake. “You call Koushirou and Mimi on the phone whenever you want to talk to them.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same. Sure, you can talk over the phone, but…” Taichi curls his arm around Agumon, pulling him closer into a tight hug. “You can’t do something like this over the phone, can you?”

Agumon mumbles to himself, searching for an answer, and Taichi waits patiently for his response. “Nope!” he replies, nuzzling the top of his head against Taichi’s side, but Taichi’s enjoyment of the affection is quickly interrupted by Agumon’s following words. “So you want to hug Yamato, too, Taichi?” Taichi stammers out an incoherent sound, and when Agumon stares up at him expectantly all he can manage is to stare back with wide eyes. “Taichi?”

“Uh,” Taichi splutters dumbly, “I, uh…” It was just supposed to be an example, but he makes the mistake of imagining it – hugging Yamato, who in this fantasy scenario is smiling and very warm and probably a little embarrassed but not at all like the last memory he has of the real Yamato yelling at him earlier today. This Yamato smells nice, too, but that’s probably just the cake manipulating Taichi’s thoughts. Taichi has no idea if the real Yamato would, but this Yamato hugs him back tightly and it just feels right, like when Yamato held his hand before Angemon and Angewomon shot them with their arrows and the gentle presence erased his every worry, or when Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon first fused into Omegamon and Taichi could feel his every breath and heartbeat perfectly in sync with Yamato’s just like their Digimons’ after combining. “I guess I do,” Taichi admits softly with a gulp, and Agumon tilts his head to the side.

“Then why haven’t you?”

“That would be weird!”

“Why is it weird?” Agumon asks, and Taichi can’t believe he’s having this conversation. “We hug all the time, Taichi!”

“Yeah, but two human guys don’t just hug each other, Agumon,” Taichi explains, and he already feels a little uncomfortable just talking about it. “Guy things are like, a fist bump to say hi or a head nod as you pass each other by the in hall. There are only a few situations where it would be okay for a dude to hug another dude, and those are if you’re almost blackout drunk, if you’re at a funeral, if you’re celebrating a sports victory for your favorite team, or if you’re g-”

Agumon stares up at him curiously, probably wondering why he didn’t finish his sentence, but Taichi feels like he’s just been struck by a bolt of lightning and would topple off his bed right now if Agumon weren’t still clinging to him. When he pieces together this conversation and the one he just had with Hikari, it suddenly makes sense – why he was so upset at Yamato earlier, why everything always feels so perfect when he’s around… why Taichi inexplicably wants to hug him. He realizes why sometimes he catches himself staring at Yamato’s face and prays that Yamato won’t notice so that he can keep staring even longer, and why he always teases Yamato with hopes to make him laugh so he’ll see that smile on his face. He realizes he can’t even call it teasing, because what he’s been doing all along is flirting. With his best friend.

“Oh my god, Agumon,” Taichi whispers breathlessly. “I think I’m gay.”

“What’s that mean?” Agumon asks. “Can I eat it?”

“No, Agumon… No, you can’t,” Taichi answers, handing the plate of cake over for him to eat instead. He hopes that it’ll distract Agumon from wanting an answer to the first question, but it must not work judging by how Agumon keeps staring up at him while shoving the cake into his mouth. Taichi sighs. “It means I… like him. A lot.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? You two are friends, after all.”

“Yeah, but…” Taichi glances away and bites his lower lip. “When I say that, I mean I think I might like him as more than just a friend.”

“What’s wrong with that? He should be happy to hear that! Why don’t you tell him, Taichi?”

“That’s ‘cause…” It doesn’t make any sense. Taichi saved not only the Digital World, but the real world, too, when he was only eleven years old. He has risked his life for more things, big or small, than he can count on both hands, yet when it comes down to something as simple as this, he would sooner lie in a pit of cobras for a day. He would rather walk across a tightrope strung between the two tallest buildings in Odaiba, or face off alone against a bear in the middle of the woods at night. He’s already going to lose the familiar afternoons spent relaxing in Yamato’s company, and he couldn’t think of losing their very friendship, too.

Taichi looks back to Agumon and remembers when he first found his Crest of Courage after freeing the Koromon Village. Back when he was still far too young and naïve, he had thought it was perfect for him, the fearless leader of the group who would always pull everyone through and win, no matter the situation. But the older he gets, the more he realizes what life is really like, and the more he feels like it was a mistake. He’s no fearless leader. He doesn’t even have the courage to tell his best friend he’s in love with him. Taichi smiles at Agumon with a sheepish shrug, and when his shoulders fall slack again he sighs out a shaky breath.

“It’s ‘cause I’m a coward.”

 

---

 

It surprises Taichi when he receives a call from Koushirou during lunch on Tuesday, and he sets down his chopsticks to pick up his phone while still in the middle of chewing his udon. “Koushirou? Isn’t it almost midnight over there right now? You know that Sora’s gonna keep worrying if you keep pulling all nighters all the time, so you better be going to bed soon.”

“Hello, Taichi,” Koushirou greets him, and from the sound of it he’s drinking a bottle of oolong tea while typing away on his computer – some things never change. “I’m glad I managed to get ahold of you before your French class. Did you complete your homework last night?”

Taichi frowns, wondering both why Koushirou knows about that and why he’s bothering to ask. “Uh… yes. Yes, I did.”

“Oh,” Koushirou says, mildly surprised for some reason, and Taichi wonders if he should be offended. “That’s good to hear. Yamato woke me up this morning by calling me and I thought it was a terrible emergency, but he just asked me to search for the most effective websites for teaching French to a beginner. He also asked how long it would take me to create a French chat bot for you to converse with, but I suspect that he was joking about that one. Nevertheless, a quick search did produce find a variety of different websites with podcasts, flash cards, and other learning tools for a beginning French student, and I can send them to you if you’d like.”

“That’s real nice of you, but I don’t think that’s necessary,” Taichi answers, and even though he has confirmed that yes, he should be offended, he’s torn between that and being amused that even though Yamato is mad at him, he still went through the trouble of telling Koushirou to help in his stead. He’s sure Yamato insisted that Koushirou not tell Taichi that he was the one behind the enlistment for help, but of course Koushirou told him anyways.

“Are you sure, Taichi? I also found some reputable programs which are recommended by professionals and have been certified to teach beginning level French. Their reviews look very promising, and it wouldn’t take me very long to parse through the content and program a simple chat application for your phone which you could use to help with your homework.”

“My homework is already done, Koushirou!”

“Yes, but you could utilize it in the future.”

“…Then he’s still mad at me,” Taichi murmurs, picking his chopsticks back up to distract himself with a mouthful of udon. “Considering he wants you to make a fucking chat bot instead of talking to me himself.”

“Yes, I believe it is safe to say he sounded very upset about something when we spoke last night,” Koushirou responds much to Taichi’s dismay, “but knowing you two, you’ll get over it soon. Statistically speaking, when taking your previous fights into consideration, I would say that you two will make up by the end of this week.”

Taichi wants to protest that Koushirou can’t tell them what to do, but he doesn’t because he hopes that Koushirou is right and that he will make up with Yamato that quickly. He had forgotten how much it sucked whenever he and Yamato were in the middle of a fight, and it’s especially worse now that he knows Yamato will be leaving soon. “Yeah, sure. Shouldn’t you go to bed now?”

“I would love to, but I have a research project for my neural network class to finish by Thursday before pitching the concept to potential investors. If it’s successful and they agree to provide the funding, I may even be able to drop out of school and go straight into launching a successful start up with my teammates. We’ve spend the last few months creating a sophisticated system in which a company can utilize our–”

“Wow, that’s… actually really cool that you might get that kind of big break,” Taichi cuts in before Koushirou can go into the details and make it sound less cool and more boring. Leave it to Koushirou to be accepted into MIT and then drop out to do something even better, and before his first semester is even complete. “Let me know how it goes after your presentation is done.”

“Of course.”

A few seconds later, their conversation ends, and right after that Taichi’s phone buzzes loudly in his hand because Koushirou has gone ahead and emailed the supplementary French materials to him anyways. He’ll check it out later tonight, but for now he has to finish eating and get to his last class of the day – coincidentally, his French class. It goes better than usual – meaning that Taichi turns in his homework on time, actually pays attention to everything that happened, and even raised his hand once to answer a question – and after class is over, he goes to chat with his professor for some extra brownie points before leaving.

On his way across the campus towards the train station, Taichi sees Yamato near the entrance to the engineering building, glaring at his phone as he types something aggressively with one hand and grips the handle of his clunky bass case with his other. He must be headed to band practice. Taichi’s gut reaction is to continue on like nothing happened because there’s no point in making a scene around all the other people walking by and also missing his train because of it, but being in a fight with Yamato sucks. He wants it to be over already, not only because he feels terrible about it but also so they can go back to doing normal things before the semester is over – normal best friend things, because Taichi is definitely not going to tell Yamato that he might be into him and risk messing up their friendship.

Taichi sucks in a breath, gathers his courage, and starts walking in Yamato’s direction as casually as possible. Just as he does, Yamato slides his phone back into his cardigan’s pocket, and Taichi panics as Yamato starts moving directly on a collision course with him through the crowd of people. He’s not even sure if Yamato sees him as he stomps forward – maybe sulks forward is more appropriate to say – but it’s too late now for Taichi to turn and run. It's time for him to own up to the fact that he fucked up last night and apologize.

“H-Hey!” Taichi calls out as Yamato nears him; he half expects Yamato to just ignore him and is surprised when Yamato makes eye contact with him at the sound of his voice. “Yamato!” He waves with a welcoming grin – maybe this would be easier than he expected – but as Yamato passes by his eyes turn cold and avert themselves from Taichi’s. Yamato’s shoulder bumps into his, and it’s a brusque, callous contact that lingers long after Yamato is gone and makes Taichi’s stomach drop into a pit. He considers turning around and chasing after Yamato, but knowing him that will just piss him off more instead. At least Taichi knows for sure now that Yamato still hates him.

After Taichi makes it through the crowded train ride and arrives at his family’s apartment, he throws his bag onto the couch and heads into his room to change into a tank top and his running shorts. “Taichi,” Agumon calls out from the top bunk, poking his head out to watch as Taichi rubs some sunscreen on his legs. “Whatcha doing?”

“Gonna head out for a run. It’s nice outside, wanna come?”

“Okay!” Agumon exclaims, sliding down the bunk bed’s ladder. “It’ll help me work up an appetite for dinner.”

“You have a real one track mind, you know that?” Taichi chides with a laugh, rubbing the excess sunscreen on his hands onto the top of Agumon’s head which makes him squirm. It’ll be nice to have some company. Normally Taichi would listen to music while jogging, but the right half of his old headphones finally broke, too, and he can’t bring himself to use the new set that Yamato bought for him yet – the pair is still sitting unopened on the coffee table in the living room.

After he grabs a water bottle and laces up his sneakers, they head outside to Odaiba’s running course that circles around the seaside park, and once Taichi starts to run he immediately notices Agumon falling behind. He glances back over his shoulder at his partner, arms and feet a blurry mess as he chases after Taichi, and he pauses, planting his hands on his hips with a smile that seals back his laughter. He guesses it makes sense that Agumon is out of shape – they haven’t been in a real battle since the middle of Taichi’s high school years, and all Agumon really does now is eat, sleep, and watch cartoons on the couch. He guesses it is a more favorable lifestyle compared to constantly running for their lives, but it would still probably be a good idea to drag Agumon along with him to the gym the next time he goes. “I’ll slow down, buddy,” Taichi says as Agumon reaches him, and he starts off again at a leisurely jog, now with his partner at his side.

Taichi wishes he had soccer practice today to get his mind off of Yamato like he did yesterday – he played at full force until he felt like he was about to pass out – but a jog will have to do instead. Whenever he’s stressed out exercise always seems to do the trick, but it somehow just gets worse right now because his mind is free to wander straight to exactly what he doesn’t want to think about. It’s kind of ironic how he’s trying to cope with coming to terms with his sexuality by taking a jog with Odaiba’s scenic rainbow colored ferris wheel spinning in plain view before him, and it’s even more ironic that it was the very same ferris wheel that their friends trapped them in together back during the last big fight he can remember them having. They always did fight about stupid things, from when they were still kids all the way until their current argument, but they would always come out of a fight even closer than they were before. That kind of made it worth it, but it never made the parts in-between any easier.

“Taichi,” Agumon begins, and Taichi glances down at him after making sure he’s not about to plow into a tree if he’s not looking forward. “Something on your mind?”

“…Yeah,” Taichi admits; he knows he can’t hide anything from Agumon. “Yamato is still mad at me. Won’t even talk to me. I was thinking of calling him later or something, but I should give him space. Maybe I’ll try tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow sounds good.” Agumon stops and Taichi does, too. He turns to face Agumon wondering if something is wrong, but Agumon just wraps his arms around Taichi’s legs in a tight hug. “It’ll be okay, Taichi. Sometimes Yamato looks at you the same way that I look at food, so there’s no way he’ll be able to stay away for long.” Agumon’s words and energetic hug nearly make Taichi fall over, and his cheeks start to burn at the thought – there’s no way that’s possible, though, because Taichi has seen how Agumon stares at hamburgers. “So cheer up, Taichi! He’ll come around soon.”

“Sure hope so,” Taichi agrees with a halfhearted smile, and after they finish jogging he plans to take Agumon to grab some burgers on the way home. He’s sure Agumon will be hungry and watching him eat them will be some… good research.

 

---

 

The next night, Taichi starts to work on his new French project. He has to write and perform a short skit with some classmates, but as he chats with them it doesn’t seem like the conversation is going anywhere. They can’t even decide on a single scene and setting, let alone start to write their skit, and after half an hour passes by with everyone arguing about why their idea is the best, Taichi can’t take it anymore. If no one wants to take charge, he will, and after that it begins to proceed more smoothly. They decide to do a simple restaurant scene with a family ordering food, and the more he talks to his group, the more Agumon complains that he’s hungry. Taichi somehow finds himself roped into writing the first draft of the skit, and it sounds like Agumon clears out half of the fridge by the time he finishes typing it up. It’s no masterpiece of course, but it’ll do for now. He references a few of the resources Koushirou sent him yesterday for words he doesn’t know – which there are, admittedly, a lot of – but it’s nowhere near as useful as having a native speaker around.

Taichi sighs, leaning back into the couch as he stares at his phone, and more specifically his text history with Yamato. Just by looking at this, someone wouldn’t be able to tell that they were in the middle of a fight – a one sided fight, at that, because Taichi was already over it the same night it started. Yamato was always the more sensitive and emotional of the two of them and always tended to keep to himself; even now, Taichi had trouble sometimes figuring out what he was thinking. He’s probably still upset, but if Taichi doesn’t keep trying to make up with him then they never will, so he takes in a deep breath and starts to type.

sorry for being a brat. i’m the wurst, Taichi writes, following it up with a hot dog emoji, and after he hits send he immediately regrets not sending a more serious apology instead. It’s probably not the time for jokes, but this is the only way he knows how to lighten the situation between them. He tosses his phone onto the other side of the couch with a groan, not wanting to look at it until it buzzes again, and returns to his laptop, staring at the words he’s written for his group’s skit but not actually reading them. His phone remains silent as the agonizing minutes tick by, and when his phone finally vibrates against the leather he immediately snatches it up in one swift motion.

Leave me alone

It kind of hurts Taichi to see the words, but he’s also unsure if Yamato is being serious right now or just putting on a front. Sometimes Yamato does this weird thing where he pushes you away when he actually wants the opposite, so Taichi gives it another shot.

words cannot espresso how much you mean to me, so it would mean a latte if you would accept my apology! Taichi sends along with a coffee and prayer hand emoji, but Yamato doesn’t answer this time. He doesn’t answer for the next few minutes, or for the next hour, and once it’s eleven o’clock Taichi gives up on staring at his phone and gets ready for bed so he can at least get seven hours of sleep tonight. While he’s in the middle of brushing his teeth, his phone buzzes against the countertop, and the sound nearly gives him a heart attack before he picks it up with his hand covered in dripping toothpaste.

It’s just an email alert from his global economics teacher cancelling class tomorrow. Taichi sighs and continues brushing his teeth so hard that his gums bleed a little before he heads to his bedroom. He flops onto his bed, sighing deeply into his pillow as a soft pitter-patter of feet signal to him that Agumon has finished eating his after-dinner snack and is ready to join him in sleep, and after the bed shakes beneath him he feels Agumon’s hard claw pat the top of his head. “Taichi? Are you okay?”

“No,” Taichi answers, muffled against the fabric, and when his phone buzzes again from the foot of his bed where he tossed it earlier, he doesn’t have the energy to look. “…What does it say, Agumon? Let me down gently... and don’t scratch my screen, either.”

The bed wobbles again as Agumon crawls over to pick up his phone. “Hmm… Yamato says, you’re an idiot! And there’s a few angry faces afterwards.”

Taichi peers at him, motioning for Agumon to hand over his phone. He almost screams when it seems like Agumon is about to throw it at him, but his partner stops in the middle of the action, opting instead to walk over and plop down onto Taichi’s back, dropping his phone into his hand. Taichi glances at the screen at Yamato’s angry emojis, and contrary to their likeliness, they make him smile. Yamato never sends these when he’s actually mad. No, you know when he’s mad because he won’t say anything more than three words to you at a time and you’ll feel each of those words carving into you like a knife.

thanks for pudding up with me, Taichi quickly types before sending it off. There’s probably a pudding emoji, but the poop emoji was much easier to find, so he sent that instead – it kind of looks like pudding, doesn’t it? Either way it would work, because he knows he’s been a real piece of shit lately.

Go to sleep stupid, Yamato sends right after, and Taichi grins.

good night :-)

Taichi takes what he can get, stuffing his phone under his pillow as he rolls over, causing Agumon to tumble down to the ground. “Get on your own bunk, Agumon. How am I supposed to sleep with you sitting on me?”

“Okay…” Agumon replies, climbing up the ladder as Taichi pulls his blanket over himself. “See you tomorrow, Taichi!”

“Yeah, just don’t burn half my hair off again when you wake me up this time.” The moment that Taichi spreads out across his bed and closes his eyes, his phone vibrates through the pillow to the back of his head, and he jolts up, pulling it out from beneath. Night, Yamato has texted him, nothing more and nothing less, and that’s enough for Taichi to fall asleep with a smile.

Chapter 5

After class is over on Thursday, Taichi meets up with Sora at an okonomiyaki place near her university in Shibuya. He’s a little late because he had to discuss his French project with his group before leaving the classroom, but she’s still there waiting for him at a table when he arrives. Even though he told her she didn’t have to wait for him to order, their grill is empty – so considerate, maybe too considerate because he was half hoping there would already be food here to eat when he arrived. “Hey, Taichi,” she greets as he collapses on the seat across from her, winded from running all the way here from the train station. “You run a marathon on the way here?”

“I just… didn’t wanna… keep you waiting,” Taichi wheezes between breaths. He picks up a glass of water from the table and chugs it, slamming it back down with a cough after he’s done. She gives him a half-hearted smile and probably wants to tell him to slow down, but it’s already too late. “So how you doing, Sora?” he asks, waving over one of the servers so they can get some ingredients brought over. “Haven’t seen you since last week. Any tennis games coming up soon?”

“Yeah, next week, but I’m not playing in any of them,” Sora replies, taking a drink of her own water through the straw sticking out of her glass.

“Why not?” he asks, and when the server arrives at the end of their table he motions for Sora to order first.

“May I just have some green onions for mine?” she requests, and before the server can ask Taichi what he wants for his batter he has already started to ramble on.

“Can I get some beef and pork belly? Oh and some eggs, cabbage, bean sprouts, and kimchi. Can you bring me an extra bottle of mayonnaise, too? This one is looking a little low.” After the server leaves, Taichi’s face contorts into one of horror. “Shit, I forgot to ask for green onions, too. Can I–”

“You can have some of mine,” Sora interjects knowingly, and Taichi thanks her with a grin. “But I asked if someone else could stand in for me for my next tennis match so that I could start studying for finals. Shouldn’t yours be coming up soon, too?”

“Don’t remind me,” Taichi grumbles, snapping apart his pair of chopsticks a bit more violently than he originally intended. “What is it, two weeks left now until the exam period starts? I can already see my life flashing before my eyes. I have two papers due on the same day, and my French final includes both a written test and a skit performance for the oral section. I’m so fucked.”

“I thought you’ve been doing better in that class?”

“I mean… I guess?” Taichi purses his lips, scraping at the surface of their grill with his spatula. “Not that it’s saying much considering how badly I was doing before."

“Yamato says your French is just fine,” Sora comments, and when Taichi’s eyes lift from the small pile of burnt crumbs he’s nudged together to meet hers, she looks like she regrets her words.

“He did? He normally just laughs at me when I speak it! What’d he say?”

“Um… you didn’t hear it from me, but he said you’ve gotten much better and that he doesn’t want to shove a baguette down your throat whenever you say hi to him with a ‘bone-jar’ anymore.”

“Bonjour!” Taichi exclaims to demonstrate just how good he’s become and nearly stands up when he says it for emphasis, but his scream earns him awkward stares from their neighboring table. He should probably not continue. “Well, why can’t he just tell me that to my face!” he hisses, resting his elbow on the table so he can prop his chin up in his hand and pout. “This whole time I thought I was still beating the language of his ancestors like a piñata. He is so difficult, I swear!”

Sora chews uneasily at the tip of her straw, and after she takes another sip of her water she pushes her glass away. “…Are you two still fighting?”

“I’m… not really sure,” Taichi admits as their server returns and puts the ingredients they ordered on the table; he gives her a short wave and forced smile and waits until she leaves to continue. “Our fights never really seem to have a conclusive end, they kinda just fizzle off whenever Yamato gets over himself and stop moping. I haven’t been mad about it since the day we fought. I even already apologized, too, but I’m not sure if we’re totally good yet. I think he’s still upset.” She nods in understanding, and Taichi figures she had to deal with this a lot back when she was dating Yamato. Even though he’s better about expressing himself and confiding in people compared to when they were kids, Yamato still tends to bottle up his emotions more than necessary, and Sora had a penchant for that as well. They were together for like three years, but Taichi could never tell if they were happy together or not. “Say, Sora…” Taichi begins, and she raises her eyebrows, waiting for him to go on. “Can we talk about something weird?”

“Weird in what way?” she asks, and during the long pause in which Taichi tries to find the words to describe what he means, she shakes her head with a sigh. “Just go ahead.”

Taichi grabs the okonomiyaki batter and dumps his ingredients into it, and while he’s mixing it together Sora has already started to grill her own. “You know, I used to have a crush on you,” he says, and her spatula falls still against the grill.

“Huh?” she blurts with a blush, and he laughs a little, shaking his head because this isn’t about to be some love confession.

“That was back in middle school, though,” he clarifies, pouring his own batter onto the grill, and the smell of delicious meat quickly wafts up from the smoke. “I was still too young and stupid back then to even really know what a crush was, but it was when you first got with Yamato. I was happy for you two, but it also hurt to see you together. At the start, at least, ‘cause I thought I liked you. But then we started high school, and that dumb crush I had on you faded away. I mean, I still think you’re really cool! But not in a I wanna date you kind of way.”

Taichi pauses because he thinks he’s rambling himself into a grave, but he doesn’t know how to bring up his real question in any kind of delicate way. He hopes he didn’t say anything to offend her and make her storm out talking about how insensitive he is – she’s kind of like Yamato in that way – but she doesn’t do that. “I used to like you, too, before that,” Sora murmurs with a small smile, her eyes concentrating hard on her okonomiyaki so she doesn’t have to look at him. “When we were kids, a few years before I started going out with Yamato, but I knew you’d be too much of a blockhead about it if I brought it up. I’m kind of glad nothing came out of it though because I don’t think it would have worked out between the two of us, either. You never did understand girls, and I still think you don’t, considering how you decided to bring up such a weird topic out of nowhere!”

“Hell yeah, I don’t!” Taichi agrees, laughing as he remembers how stupid he’s always been around Sora during sensitive predicaments, but it isn’t his fault girls are so confusing. “I even understand Yamato more than I’ve ever understood girls, and you know how he is…”

Sora giggles, and he’s glad that the mood has lightened because, as just discussed, this could have been headed into disaster territory knowing his lack of tact around girls. “So… why tell me this now?”

“It’s ‘cause I wanna know… well, I guess it’s kinda awkward to ask.” Taichi looks away, too, pursing his lips. There’s no point in going back now, though, since he’s already dug this hole, so he goes for it. “When did you first realize?”

“Realize what?”

“That you were in love with Yamato,” Taichi finishes, and when Sora freezes in the middle of flipping her okonomiyaki he realizes he should probably explain himself. “Sorry, I’m not trying to put you on the spot with another weird thing, I swear! It’s just that, I think…” He pauses, feeling his cheeks heat up, and thinks he should have chosen a more private location to have this conversation with her, but there really is no going back now. All he can do is lower his voice, and he glances back at her curious expression as he continues. “I think I might be. And I–I wanna know if it’s real this time and not just a passing thing.”

When she raises her eyebrows at him, Taichi almost wants to duck beneath the table but he would just slam his head into the bottom of the grill and hurt himself, so he sits there, coughing a little to fill the silence. “I think it was sometime after he and Jou helped rescue me from the dark cave in the Digital World,” Sora begins, finally taking the time to flip her okonomiyaki, and after that she sets her spatula down and picks up her water to stir at it wistfully with her straw. “It seemed like he could really relate to what I was going through. We both struggled with understanding the meanings of our crests, and we were both going through emotional situations with our families. I thought maybe a relationship would work out because we were so similar, but it didn’t. Just because you can relate to someone doesn’t make you compatible. It’s true that we went out for three years, but I can’t answer your question, Taichi, because I don’t think I was ever really in love with him.”

“Oh,” Taichi mutters, both in disappointment that the main predicament that’s been haunting him for a week will continue to go unresolved and because he’s sad to hear that their relationship wasn’t as sunshine and rainbows as he thought it was, maybe not even before they had a falling out. “Sorry…”

“No, it’s fine!” Sora exclaims with a sheepish grin. “We’re totally still cool after that. You already know that we’re still friends.” She drops her straw back into her glass after taking another sip of her water and pushes it back to the side. “So, what made you finally realize you’re into him?”

Taichi narrows his eyes slightly. “What do you mean, finally?” Sora laughs nervously, motioning for him to continue with a wave of her hand, and his frown slowly disappears as he jams his spatula beneath his gargantuan slab of batter on the grill and prepares himself mentally to flip it over – it’s really heavy. “Well, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just that happy feeling I get whenever we’re hanging out together. It feels right when I’m with him, and when I’m not I wish I was. We don’t even have to be doing anything. Like I can just be listening to him play his guitar or helping him with the dishes and I’ll be having the best time of my life.” Taichi finally manages to get his spatula shoved all the way beneath his okonomiyaki, and when he flips it and sticks the landing he sighs in relief. “…Remember back in the Digital World when he’d always get mad at me for saying we can’t just sit around doing nothing?” he asks with a laugh. “Well, I’d love to do that now, as long as he’s here, too.”

“It doesn’t sound like much has changed,” Sora comments, sprinkling half of her green onions onto the top of her batter as it finishes off on the grill.

“Yeah, I guess it hasn’t,” he says, dumping the remainder of her green onions on to his own okonomiyaki after she hands him the bowl, “but I don’t really want it to change. I want it to be the same between us except I want to, like… be able to hold his hand in public and make fun of him for blushing about it.”

“Haven’t you done that already?” Sora asks nonchalantly, and Taichi gawks. “The holding hands bit.”

“We were eleven years old! And it was to save the world! I might’ve bolted from Angewomon’s arrow if he wasn’t holding onto me.” Taichi doesn’t like the knowing smile that Sora is giving him. It reminds him of the one Hikari likes to give him and only makes him even more certain that he’ll never understand girls. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all of our battles together,” he begins, pouting as he looks away, “it’s that when he’s around, I feel like I can do anything.”

“Anything?” Sora echoes with that lingering smile. “Including tell him how you feel?” He stares at her uneasily and remains silent because if he answers he feels like he’ll be committing to it. “Taichi, I know it’s scary, but you really should tell him before he leaves in a few weeks… What’s scarier, the thought of ruining your friendship or going your whole life not knowing what could have been? Worst case scenario, you end up like we did and go through a rough patch but still remain friends in the end–” She pauses, frowning as she lifts a finger to rub at her nose. “Taichi, your food is burning.”

“Oh, shit!” he yells, snatching up his spatula to scrape desperately at his okonomiyaki. Taichi’s glad that Sora has listened to him and given him some useful advice, but he can’t make any promises. He still hasn’t even fully made up with Yamato yet after their fight, so how can he think about something even further off than that? He’s not intending for his most precious friendship to go up in flames like his food, because unlike the smell and taste of burnt batter, that would last forever.

 

---

 

When Taichi learns from Sora that Yamato is working a shift at the cafe on Saturday afternoon, he decides to stop by. It’s about time to end this fight definitively, and Yamato won’t be able to ignore Taichi while he’s at work. Once he arrives at the cafe, he peeks in through the door to make sure that Yamato is working the register, and after he pulls out a pen and pad of post-it notes out of his pocket, Taichi scribbles the words I’m sorry on the top sheet and sticks it on his forehead before going inside. There’s a handful of people in line, and as he stands behind them he notices people seated at the tables nearby giving him strange looks from the corner of his eye. He doesn’t care, though. It doesn’t matter how many people see it as long as the person it’s intended for does, and as he waits for his turn to order he whistles softly to himself. It’s not anything recognizable, just some noise to pass the time, but he stops before he reaches the register because Yamato hates it when he whistles random sounds. At least whistle an actual song, he would complain, and Taichi knows better than to piss off the real musician.

“Hello,” Yamato greets him when it’s his turn to order, but he’s not yet aware that it’s Taichi standing before him because he’s still dumping change from the previous customer into the cash register. “Welcome, may I please take your order?” Taichi wishes that Yamato could be this nice to him all the time, but he quickly takes it back because that wouldn’t be the Yamato he knows. Still, Yamato is rather charming like this, and when combined with his pretty face, Taichi can see why they gave him the position at the register.

“Hey,” Taichi says, and his voice uttering just that single syllable is already enough to make Yamato drop all of the five-yen coins he’s holding into the wrong compartment. His glare darts up to meet Taichi’s eyes, but they don’t lock stares for long because Yamato promptly notices the post-it note on Taichi’s forehead and chokes back something that sounds like laughter. “Funny seeing you here,” Taichi continues like nothing is out of the ordinary, propping an elbow up against the counter as he leans against it and tries to make a cool pose – it doesn’t really work, and he wonders how Yamato makes it look so easy all the time. “You come here often?”

“May I take your order?” Yamato repeats as he sorts through the change again, almost able to conceal his amusement behind his strained frown.

“Yeah, can I get a large caffè mocha with extra whipped cream?” he answers, and Yamato freezes. Taichi’s knowledge of coffee is as expansive as his knowledge of the inner machinations of a girl’s baffling mind, but he knows this specific order very well because it’s Yamato’s favorite.

Yamato stares at him, expression softening, and Taichi smiles, dropping the payment into his hand. “May I have a name?” Yamato asks, typing the order onto the screen beside the register as he dumps the three hundred yen into it.

“Can you make it out to ‘my best friend whom I’m sorry for being really insensitive towards and I hope he accepts my apology so this stupid fight will be over’?” As Yamato eyes him in thought, Taichi waggles his eyebrows, making the I’m sorry post-it note bob up and down, and a few seconds later Yamato finally releases his breath with a faint smile.

“We’ll call your name when it’s ready,” Yamato replies, scripted per usual, and scribbles something on the cup. He’ll probably get mad if Taichi stays too close and distracts him from the other customers, so Taichi wanders off to the side and waits for the drink to be finished. He pulls out his phone to checks his texts – one from Hikari asking him to pick up some ice cream for her on his way home, and one from Koushirou saying that his presentation yesterday went well – and after that Taichi half plays Candy Crush and half stares at Yamato while he takes a few more orders and mixes people’s drinks together. His own drink is ready faster than he anticipated, and Yamato catches him staring while bringing it over to the pickup counter. Taichi coughs, looking at the ground as he shoves his phone back into his pocket and walks over.

When Yamato holds the cup out for him, Taichi’s eyes widen at what he’s written in the space for his name. Apology accepted. Taichi grins at him, and Yamato scratches the back of his neck as he stares at the wall. “Well? Take it.”

“…But it’s for you,” Taichi clarifies. “As part of my apology.”

Yamato quirks an eyebrow. “I’m worth 300 yen?”

“You were worth thinking about every night until we finally made up,” Taichi muses aloud, not realizing he’s said something weird until it’s far too late and Yamato is already blushing with his co-worker staring at them from the coffee machine. “So, uh, can we– can we meet up somewhere to talk after you’re done working?” Taichi blurts quickly as Yamato sets his drink down on the counter.

“I’ll meet you at the park at five,” Yamato replies, snatching the post-it note off of Taichi’s forehead in one swift motion. “…And thanks for the drink.”

It’s still a few hours until Yamato’s proposed meeting time, so Taichi heads home first to grab his soccer ball before he goes to Shiokaze Park. Agumon tags along because Taichi, of course, can’t say no to his partner, and as Taichi kicks his ball around the grass it feels like Agumon does more chasing after it than he does kicking it back. He tries to show Agumon how to do some cool tricks, like how to pick the ball up with the tip of his shoe and juggle it between his feet, but Agumon just winds up on the ground after tripping on it. Maybe what Agumon needs is a smaller ball. This one is already almost half his height, and if Taichi had to kick around a ball that was three feet tall he would probably struggle just as much. Maybe he can ask Sora to make some kind of Agumon-sized soccer ball – she’s pretty good at sewing, after all.

When it’s almost five, Taichi receives a text from Yamato, and as he sits down on the grass to take a look Agumon climbs onto his back to peek over his shoulder at the screen.

Where r u? I’m at the rocks by the beach

i’ll come meet you there, Taichi answers, and after he picks Agumon up into his arms he bolts over to the beach, kicking his soccer ball along the way. He knows exactly when he’s getting close to Yamato because he can hear the faint sound of a harmonica growing louder, and the familiar song makes him smile.

“Should I leave you two alone?” Agumon asks, apparently more aware of the situation than Taichi expected.

“No, just don’t… say anything weird,” Taichi replies, and as they near Yamato sitting on a rock nearby the pier he slows down, approaching slowly to give Yamato time to finish playing. It’s the same song he played the first night they were in the Digital World. It was pretty distracting while Taichi was trying to keep watch over the cable car, and he thought it was kind of dorky back then, but he’s come to like it. It’s a sound that’s so quintessentially Yamato that he doesn’t think he would even mind if he had to wake up to it every morning as an alarm clock because it reminds him of the times they’ve shared. He waits there next to Yamato as he plays the last note, and after he’s done Agumon immediately starts clapping, causing Yamato to jolt in place.

“So pretty!” Agumon exclaims, and Yamato releases a sigh of relief when he sees the company that’s startled him.

“Don’t you know how to play any other song on that thing?” Taichi jokes as Agumon squirms out of his grasp and starts to run around the rock. “You just a one hit wonderboy?”

Yamato scoffs, lifting his harmonica back to his lips, and starts to play a different song that Taichi swears he’s heard somewhere before – multiple times, even. He sits down next to Yamato with a frown as he ponders its origin, and seconds later Agumon climbs onto the rock to join them, his eyes lighting up in excitement as he crawls onto Yamato’s lap. “That’s the theme song for Super Rocket Friends!” Agumon exclaims, and Taichi finally remembers now, it’s the song that plays whenever Agumon and Gabumon’s favorite space mecha cartoon starts on Saturday mornings. “Rocket Ranger Orange, blast off!” Agumon cries out as the last note rings from Yamato’s harmonica, and he rolls off of Yamato’s legs to leap from the rock’s edge.

“I can’t believe you learned that corny song.” Taichi elbows Yamato with a low chuckle as Agumon runs off across the beach’s sand and splashes his claws into the ebbing waves. “What a nerd.”

“I just played it by ear. Not that hard to do,” Yamato says, slipping his harmonica back into his pocket. “And Gabumon likes it.”

“Would you do anything if Gabumon asked you to?” Taichi teases, and he takes Yamato’s silence as a resounding yes. “Well, anyways…” He pauses, sliding his feet back against the rock to prop his knees up and rest his elbows on top of them, and stares off towards the skyscrapers lining the distant horizon. “I really am sorry about before. I was a real insensitive jerk, and you were right to get mad.”

“You were a real asshole,” Yamato says plainly, and Taichi winces, “but so was I. So I’m sorry, too.”

Taichi glances at him, and Yamato crosses his legs as he looks away shyly. He always does that, and it’s kind of endearing. “Don’t worry about it!” Taichi grins when his words make Yamato turn back to face him again, and he flashes his best friend a thumbs up. “We’re cool now. A-OK. Peachy keen. Très bien.” Yamato snorts, and Taichi assumes it’s both in agreement and because his skill with the French language is clearly incredible. “I never congratulated you, though. So congrats! I can’t believe the kid who cried like a baby when he got separated from his little brother is going to fly off on his own to, like, one of the best universities in England. Who would have thought that you’d grow up so confident and smart?”

“Oh, shut up,” Yamato groans, rolling his eyes. “The whole reason why I’m going to space is to get away from your stupid face.”

“What?” Taichi gasps dramatically, clutching at his heart with one of his hands. “Yamato! I’m hurt.”

“Not as hurt as your soccer ball is gonna be if you don’t stop Agumon from chomping down on it,” Yamato retorts, gesturing over to Agumon sitting on the beach with his jaws clamped around said ball, and Taichi immediately climbs to his feet in a panic.

“Agumon, don’t eat my soccer ball again!” he yells as Yamato laughs – what a jerk – and Agumon turns to him with a guilty glint in his eyes, dropping the soccer ball to his feet.

“But, Taichi, I’m hungry! I didn’t wanna bother you two, but it’s already dinner time…”

Yamato stands as well, sliding one hand into his pocket as he checks the time with the other. “Wanna grab something to eat, then?” he asks as Taichi scrambles off the rock and snatches his poor ball off of the sand, thankfully not yet punctured by Agumon’s sharp fangs. “That burger place you guys like should be open right now.”

“With the wasabi ketchup?” Agumon asks, throwing his hands in the air as he circles around them excitedly.

“As much wasabi ketchup as you want,” Yamato replies with a smile, and Agumon cheers. He’s such a charmer to everyone except Taichi, but maybe that’s why Taichi likes him. “C’mon, Taichi,” he calls out, walking off with Agumon already trailing after him, still clamoring about burgers, and Taichi slips his soccer ball under his arm before he jogs over to catch up to them. Yamato doesn’t seem to mind when Taichi walks beside him close enough for the backs of their hands to bump up against one another’s, but it’s interrupted before Taichi can finish contemplating threading his fingers through Yamato’s when Agumon squeezes between them, grabbing Taichi’s hand in one claw and Yamato’s in the other.

“Let’s bring some burgers home for Gabumon, too!” Agumon suggests, and Taichi flashes Yamato an apologetic smile for being inadvertently invited over to his place. He finds Agumon’s choice of words kind of funny, but he wouldn’t mind calling Yamato’s apartment home, either.

“I think he’d like that,” Yamato agrees, “but no wasabi ketchup for him.” Agumon says there won’t be any left for him anyways, which makes Yamato laugh, and as they walk through the park Taichi’s heart aches a little because it’s the moments like this that he’ll miss the most when Yamato is gone.

Chapter 6

When Taichi and Agumon return home from Yamato’s apartment that night, he says hi to his mom and dad watching TV together on the couch and goes to help Hikari finish doing the dishes before heading to his room. Agumon stays outside, watching the sitcom with his parents and laughing on cue whenever they do because he probably doesn’t know what’s happening on the show, and Taichi opens his laptop to find his inbox full of emails from Koushirou, sending him what might just equate to an entire French dictionary’s worth of study material to help him with his skit. He barely had a chance to look at the first batch of stuff Koushirou emailed him last week, and just looking at the rows of attachments flooding his inbox is starting to give him a headache. Good thing he doesn’t really need to look through them anymore, and he figures he’ll give Koushirou a call to both let him know and congratulate him on his presentation.

It takes Koushirou a while to pick up, and when he answers with a dazed hello Taichi remembers that time zones exist. Oops. “Taichi?” Koushirou slurs, and it’s kind of weird to not hear the click-clack of keys in the background as he speaks. “It’s six in the morning on a Sunday, could this not wait until later?”

“Um…” Taichi drawls the syllable out as long as possible as he tries to find an excuse for waking Koushirou up other than I forgot it’s not seven at night where you live. “No, it couldn’t! How could I wait to congratulate you on your pitch going well? It needed to be celebrated right away!”

“You waited to call six hours after I texted you,” Koushirou states dully, and there’s no way for Taichi to get out of that one. He laughs nervously, and Koushirou sighs. “Well, I’m awake now. Thank you for the congratulations, but we have another meeting with the investors this week to discuss again before anything is finalized. I won’t bore you with the details because I know it’ll put you to sleep. Is that all?”

“No, wait,” Taichi blurts quickly before Koushirou can hang up. “I also wanted to tell you that you don’t have to keep sending me so much French stuff. I don’t need it anymore because I made up with Yamato.”

“…You made out with Yamato?” Koushirou echoes groggily, and Taichi’s eyes grow as large as Digieggs.

“No!” he screams loudly enough for his mom to knock on his door and ask if everything is okay, and if Koushirou wasn’t awake already he sure is now. “No,” Taichi hisses after shooing his mom away. “Made up! I made up with him. We’re not fighting anymore, so stop sending me so many French emails!”

“Well, I wouldn’t have been surprised if you did,” Koushirou begins, his voice half muffled by his pillow, and Taichi feels a cold, nervous sweat forming on the back of his neck. “It’s been scientifically proven that eye contact alone is a powerful stimulator for feelings of love and attraction, and whenever the two of you are together you can’t take your eyes off each other. Merely two minutes of gazing into someone’s eyes was already enough in one particular case for two individuals to develop passionate feelings for one another–”

“Good night, Koushirou!” Taichi yells, pulling his phone from his ear to slam his finger onto the button to end the call, and he has to resist the urge to throw his phone onto his bed because knowing him it’ll smash into the wall instead and break. Instead, he distracts himself from the thoughts Koushirou has planted into his brain of him and Yamato making out by going over the final draft of his skit. He’s going to rehearse it with his group the next time they have class. Taichi isn’t expecting to have any problems with the performance aspect and memorizing his part will come easily enough with time, but there’s one thing he’s unclear about. Might as well ask Yamato about it.

can you help me with my french skit, o great and wise yamato? Taichi sends, and it’s not long before he receives a text back.

Wat’s up

it’s a family meeting up at a restaurant, and the rubric says to greet everyone with a typical french greeting. but like bonjour doesn’t seem right if it’s a family so what should I say? salut? ciao? i’m a son greeting his parents btw

It takes a bit for Yamato to respond – Taichi didn’t know it was that hard of a question – and his answer throws Taichi for a loop.

I’d greet papi with les bises

Taichi’s professor told them what that was once before: kisses on the cheek, but not really because you just pressed your cheek together with the other person’s and made kissy noises into the air before doing the same on the other side. Picturing Yamato making loud ‘mwah-mwah’ sounds with his grandfather to say hello almost makes Taichi burst out laughing.

dude, are you for real? 2 grown ass men would say hi by making kissy faces together?

U asked for my help and I gave it

ok ok. thank u mon ami. but for real 2 guys do les bises??

There’s another long pause before Yamato replies. Depends how close they are, he begins, and a second text follows immediately after: Like

Taichi looks at the single word, waiting for a third text, but either Yamato forgot to hit the send button or got distracted by Gabumon because he’s left there staring blankly for a while. The second Taichi sets his phone down it buzzes on his desk – of course – and he glances at the screen.

I’d do it with u

After he sucks in a breath, Taichi stands up, nearly knocking his chair over, and bursts out of his room. He walks straight up to Hikari’s door and taps his knuckles against it until it opens, and before she can ask why he’s here Taichi holds his phone’s screen up for her to see. “Hikari, is Yamato flirting with me?”

Hikari scrolls through their conversation with a flick of her finger before her eyes meet Taichi’s with a mischievous glint. “Do you want him to be?”

“Well,” Taichi chokes out when he realizes that this isn’t how this conversation is supposed to be going. “Hey, stop dodging the question! I asked mine first.”

“If a pretty girl told you she’d do it with you, wouldn’t you think she’s flirting?” Hikari wonders out loud, grabbing the doorknob as she slowly swings her door shut. “I don’t think it’s any different, Taichi.”

After she closes the door, Taichi can hear her giggling with Tailmon, and Taichi frowns to himself as he heads back to his own room. He really can’t tell if Yamato is interested in him, too, or if this is still best friend territory. Maybe best friends kiss cheeks in France and it’s a completely normal thing. Who knows? Only Yamato, which sucks. When Taichi returns to sit down at his desk he finds Agumon lying on his bed looking at one of his comic books – reading would be an overstatement – and he guesses he better send Yamato some kind of response before the silence makes his insecurity act up.

only if you’re gentle with me! ;-)

Shut up, Yamato replies, and Taichi puts his phone in his pocket with a smile before he joins Agumon on his bed. Might as well try to get some practice in just in case Yamato ever tries to spring something on him.

“Hey, Agumon,” he begins, and Agumon sits up at the sound of his name, “you wanna know how they say hi in France?”

Agumon nods his head, scooting closer to Taichi. “Okay,” he agrees, and Taichi bends down, pressing his cheek against Agumon’s.

“Mwah!” he exclaims dramatically, kissing the air, but before he can do the same on Agumon’s other cheek, Agumon has already wrapped his arms around Taichi’s neck and pulled him into a hug.

“Hi, Taichi!” Agumon cries out, and Taichi laughs, hugging him back. He didn’t get very far, but that’s okay. It’s not like he’ll be going to France anytime soon. “Jam! Jam!”

“J’aime,” Taichi corrects, and Agumon rolls off the bed, clamoring about how he wants a peanut butter and jelly sandwich now. “Just don’t hurt yourself with the knife!” he yells after Agumon as he waddles out of Taichi’s bedroom, and when his phone vibrates again he flops down onto his bed and checks Yamato’s text.

Salut is probably OK

Taichi kind of forgot the whole purpose of this entire conversation until now, but now that he’s been reminded, he’s glad for an alternative. salut it is. merci beaucoup! he replies, relieved that he won’t have to faire les bises with another guy in front of his entire class. It might get them extra credit for being authentic, but it definitely won’t be worth the embarrassment. He doesn’t even think he’d be comfortable doing that awkward fake kissing with his own real family, let alone with his ‘family’ for this skit. Maybe he’d be okay doing it with Yamato… but only because Yamato was the one who suggested it in the first place. And only in private. He’d probably be okay with doing some actual kissing with Yamato, too, but only with Yamato. And still only in private.

U busy, Yamato asks, interrupting Taichi from his thoughts. Call me n let me hear ur lines bc I guarantee ur fucking up some words, he continues, and before Taichi can be offended he adds: *All the words

hey, fuck you! i’ve gotten all a’s and b’s on hw since you started helping me, so i know i’m getting better. u can’t fool me with ur insults. you’re a good teacher.

Yamato sends him some angry emojis – what was it that Mimi always called him? Tsundere? – and Taichi calls him up so that his phone will stop getting spammed with the tiny glaring faces. He reads his lines to Yamato who only makes fun of his pronunciations a few times, and it turns out that he actually did mess up some grammar and conjugations while his team wrote their rough draft of the script. Good thing his secret weapon is helping him out right now, and after Yamato finishes picking through his lines Taichi is confident that their skit is going to be perfect. He spends so long talking to Yamato that he loses track of time and doesn’t realize how late it is until Agumon is snoring faintly from the top bunk – when did he even get here?

“Oh, shit, it’s almost midnight!” Taichi whispers into his phone, not that he’d be able to wake Agumon up even if he was yelling it.

“Sure is,” Yamato says with a yawn. “It’s Saturday. Just sleep in tomorrow.”

“I can’t,” Taichi laments, “I have soccer practice at seven in the morning! Man, I gotta go to bed now. I don’t know how I’m gonna get up at five.”

“Wait,” Yamato cuts in as Taichi crawls off his bed and heads over to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He stops by the kitchen first for a quick glass of water so that Yamato can go on and he won’t end up spitting toothpaste all over his phone while they talk. “I have… I have a concert the weekend after finals are over. Like a going away concert, since it’s the last one I’ll be able to have with the band before I move. It’d mean a lot to me if you could make it.”

After Taichi finishes his gulp of water he intends to let out a laugh but it comes out as more of a sputtering choke instead. “Wow, why suddenly so serious?” He coughs a bit to clear his throat as he rinses his glass and tosses it onto the dish rack. “Of course, I’ll go. Just tell me when and remember to hook me up with a free ticket.”

“You’re lucky we’re best friends,” Yamato groans, but Taichi can tell he’s happy. What he said is true, too – Taichi does feel lucky that they’re best friends. “It’s not the upcoming Saturday night, but the one after that. I’ll give you a ticket the next time I see you.”

“Sweet! Thanks, man. Now let me go to sleep so I’ll at least be half conscious out on the field tomorrow.” Yamato scoffs, and Taichi grins. “If I slip on the ball and hurt myself it’s because of you! Night."

“Good night,” Yamato murmurs, and the uncharacteristic, soft fondness in his voice makes Taichi blush. “I’m glad we made up.” The dial tone beeping into his ear a few seconds later pulls him from his daze, and he realizes that Yamato has hung up. On his way to the bathroom Taichi nearly trips on Tailmon heading out from Hikari’s room to grab her daily midnight glass of milk because his thoughts are so distracting, and she raises an eyebrow at him in passing. He apologizes sheepishly and runs to the bathroom before she can say anything sassy and keep him up even later. There’s no doubt about it. If he falls on his face tomorrow during practice, it’ll definitely be Yamato’s fault.

 

---

 

Throughout the following week, Taichi scrambles to accomplish everything that he has to finish before the final exam period begins. He practices his French skit with his group during class, stops by the library in his free time to research evidence for his economics papers, and takes his school induced stress out during soccer practice in the afternoons. Sora and Yamato seem just as busy as him considering that no one has time to meet up on any of the weekdays to even grab a bite to eat, and Taichi wonders if he’ll ever learn his lesson and start the frantic dead week panic craze before the last possible moment. At least he’s able to listen to music again while studying or going out for a jog with the new headphones Yamato bought for him that he’s finally taken out of their case, but they’re kind of distracting in their own way just because of the nature in which he received them.

At least his papers seem to be turning out okay, relatively speaking, and he’s finished memorizing all of the lines for his skit. He’s been trying not to bother Yamato with reviewing the vocabulary and grammar that will be on the written portion of his exam. Taichi is sure that his classes are nothing compared to Yamato’s math-filled engineering courses – the first time he saw Yamato trying to compute the magnitude and direction of the total hydrostatic pressure acting upon a boat situated in a lake, Taichi got a pounding headache just looking at all the formulas scribbled on the page. And that was only for a single question. At least Taichi just has to write ten pages on the methodology of the international trade theory and another eight pages on the post-globalization division of labor. The good thing about papers is that there’s technically no right or wrong answers set in stone like there are in math, and if needed, Taichi is completely capable of bullshitting his way into at least passing these two classes.

After his French class on Thursday, Taichi heads to soccer practice to find Yamato waiting for him near the field to give him a ticket to his upcoming concert. It’s in ten days, and when the thought that Yamato will be leaving not soon after that crosses Taichi’s mind, he pushes it away to focus on the present. “Spectators allowed for practice?” Yamato asks as Taichi carefully puts the ticket away in his bag.

“Huh? I mean… I guess?” Taichi replies, hating how oblivious Yamato is to the fact that he looks so good leaning back against that tree with no effort or thought put into it at all. “You’ll be bored out of your mind, though. It’s literally just practice. Nothing exciting about that.”

“Could just use some background noise while doing my problem set,” Yamato says with a shrug. “It’s nice outside, too. Sick of sitting at home in my room.”

“Okay, but when you fall asleep remember that you did this to yourself.”

Ultimately, Taichi thinks he’s the one more distracted from soccer practice because of Yamato’s presence sitting beneath the nearby tree doing his homework than Yamato is distracted from said homework by glancing up at the team running around the field. They don’t have any upcoming games until after summer break is over and the season starts for real, but Taichi still feels pretty dumb whenever he messes up because he feels Yamato watching him. It really is true that people act stupid when they think they’re in love, but Taichi can’t tell if he wants this feeling to go away or stay.

Yamato gives him a ride home once practice is over, and after they share some insults and goodbyes Taichi heads up to his family’s apartment. His mom is making dinner while Agumon and Tailmon watch some TV – it smells like curry, one of his favorites – and Hikari is working on her own English homework at the dining table, so Taichi goes to his room for some peace and quiet before the food is ready. After he throws his bag into the corner he pulls the out the ticket that Yamato gave him earlier and puts it into his desk drawer for safe-keeping. He knows there’s a chance he might lose it if he doesn’t.

As Taichi changes out of his uniform and into something comfortable, he realizes while rifling through his clothes that he has nothing nice to wear to Yamato’s concert. He never thought about it all the previous times he attended one of them – the last time Yamato had a concert was seven months ago – but somehow it seems like it matters much more now. It’s safe to say that Yamato pays attention to fashion more than any of the other male Chosen Children, and Taichi is sure that includes what other people wear, too. All he has are t-shirts, jeans, sweatpants, tank tops, running shorts… and he hasn’t been out shopping for clothes since high school when his sister dragged him to the mall. He can’t wear any of this to the concert. There’s only one person he can consult about this, and she should still be awake right now.

“Taichi!” Mimi exclaims immediately when she picks up the phone. “You haven’t called me in ages!”

“Hey, Mimi,” Taichi says, still digging through the pile of clothes in his closet. “How’s Hawaii? Still good?”

“Oh, it’s so wonderful! I’ve been on summer vacation for two months already, and I’m so glad that I can go out to enjoy the fantastic weather. I go out to the beach every day with Palmon and we just lie there soaking up the sun for hours. Oh, and the guys out there are so hot and I can just stare at them surfing or playing volleyball while I have my sunglasses on and they aren’t even able to tell that I–”

“So, can I ask you something?” Taichi interjects before Mimi can spend the entire phone call chatting his ear off, but she continues on like she never heard him. “Mimi? Mimi! I need to ask you something!”

She laughs, and Taichi sighs, throwing an old sweatshirt onto the floor. “Of course, Taichi! What is it?”

Taichi leans against his closet door, staring at the only nice shirt he has – an orange button up that’s missing the top button. “So, uh, if you were trying to impress Yamato… what would you wear?”

“Well, that’s random,” Mimi begins thoughtfully, and Taichi hears her snap her fingers a moment later. Guess she hasn’t caught on yet. “Oh, I’ve got it! I wouldn’t wear anything too revealing. That boy doesn’t seem like the type to be into that. He’s classier, more into proper color coordination and that casual punk rock look than into skin. If I had to guess, his favorite color has to be red. His cell phone is red, and his bass is red, too! Music means, like, everything to him, so he has to have bought an instrument that’s his favorite color, right? So I’d wear a nice red tunic, maybe three quarter sleeves and laced up in the back, and a silver chain necklace with a matching studded bracelet. Oh, and some hoop earrings. Depending on how long the tunic is I would wear a black skirt beneath it, and of course some black boots! The most I would go for is, like, two-inch heels, though, but I would need to know how long I’m expected to be walking first. That would also change whether I wear stilettos or wedge–”

“Okay, but,” Taichi interrupts, and Mimi clearly doesn’t hear him again. “Mimi? Mimi! That all sounds great, but how about something I can wear?!”

Mimi pauses, and there’s actually a silence between them that puts Taichi on edge because this is Mimi he’s talking to. This girl isn’t exactly known for her thoughtful peace. “Taichi!” she finally cries out, and he has to pull the receiver from his ear with a wince. “You’re asking what you should wear for Yamato?”

“Y-Yes…” he replies, and she gasps.

“Taichi! You’re gay!”

He makes some kind of choking noise as she shrieks in excitement. “I’m not running around the locker room after soccer practice staring at naked guys, Mimi!” Taichi blurts in defense. “It’s not like I’m into every guy I see! I’m just into one person right now, and he happens to be a guy, okay?! So, yes… I guess I am. But only for him! Okay?!”

“Ahhh, I’ve been waiting for you two to get together for years!” Mimi clamors, and Taichi frowns – what’s that supposed to mean? He just realized he was into Yamato not too long ago, so what in the world was she going on about, saying for years? “Do you have a date with him soon?”

“No,” Taichi clarifies, even though he sure would like to go on a date with Yamato, “he just has a concert coming up and I wanted to… wear something nice. To leave a good impression before he takes off for Europe.”

“Oh, right, he’s moving to England,” she muses, and Taichi wonders if he was seriously the last one to find out about this. “Well, boyfriend, buckle up tight, because I’m gonna give you the best fashion advice you’ve ever heard! He’ll faint right into your arms the moment he lays his pretty eyes on you. Better catch him!”

“That doesn’t sound very… N-No, why would I wanna make him pass out?” Taichi asks in confusion, but Mimi just continues.

“Well, first of all, you need to get some skinny jeans! Skinny jeans are like the anthem of gay guys!” she explains, and Taichi starts to seriously doubt she knows what she’s talking about anymore. “You can’t tell me that when Yamato wears those ripped skinny jeans up on the stage and starts dancing around you don’t start staring at his perky butt!” Taichi regrets ever starting this conversation, because now that Mimi’s brought it up he’s sure he’ll be stuck doing just that for the entire upcoming concert. Okay, she knows a little bit in regards to what she’s talking about. “Oh, his boots are always so fabulous, too. That boy has such fantastic fashion sense! I always suspected he was gay since we were in high school. Trust me, no straight boy knows how to dress that well.”

“Mimi, this really isn’t helping me at all,” Taichi drones, and she gasps again.

“Ah, sorry, sorry! Okay, so you need the skinny jeans and, like, a v-neck shirt. A v-neck does wonders with accentuating your figure and will also show off some nice collarbone! Most people are into that. Try to wear a white one because it’ll create a great contrast with your dark brown eyes. Once he gazes into them he won’t be able to look away! Oh, you absolutely have to accessorize, too. Preferably with something gold because that’ll also bring a magical sparkle to your eyes. If you really wanna go all out you should get your ears pierced, but a necklace or, like, a bracelet or two would work.”

“Mimi!” Taichi exclaims exasperatedly, covering his face with his free hand. “I’m not piercing my ears! That sounds super painful and just… No!”

“Fine, Taichi,” she huffs and probably flicks her head to flip her hair over her shoulder. “Then just get the necklace, it’ll be good enough. Oh, but you need to get a murse! That stands for–”

“Man purse,” he grumbles, closing his closet door because staring at his mess of a wardrobe is getting him nowhere, just like this conversation.

“Yes! You’d definitely need one to hold all of your essentials. I don’t know how so many guys make do without one! I would absolutely die without my trusty, beautiful purse. Papa bought me a new one when we went to Italy last year, and the material is just to die for-”

“Mimi, I don’t think this is working out,” Taichi cuts in, running his hand through his hair as he shakes his head. “This is too much for me. I’m not spending so much money on stuff I’ll use once, or in some cases, never even use, because there is no way I’m buying myself a man purse.”

She makes some sort of offended sound that kind of sounds like a dying pelican. “Well, Taichi, I was just trying to help! You don’t have to take any of my advice… Actually, now that I think about it…” Mimi starts giggling. “It’d be pretty ridiculous if you did take my advice! I mean, imagine you dressed up in one of Yamato’s rocker outfits. I can’t even picture it, for real! It might actually just offend him because he’ll think you’re, like, trying to steal his image!”

“Yeah, I’m… not doing that,” Taichi grumbles.

“Just be yourself! Yamato’s not gonna care what you look like, silly. He hasn’t cared for the past ten years, what makes you think he’d start caring now? Just wear whatever you want. I’m more concerned about how you’re gonna tell him you’re totally in love with him! I’m so excited for you two. Invite me and Palmon to the wedding! I was born to be a bridesmaid. Can I request that we all wear matching pink outfits? It’s my most flattering color, and I think it’ll look great on you, too.”

“Mimi! Stop!” Taichi yells. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. No one is getting married yet. I don’t even know how I’m going to tell him I’m into him. Or if I’m even planning to.”

“What?! How can you not tell him? Taichi, you can’t just keep this to yourself!”

“Yes, I can,” he proclaims, “and for now, I will. There’s too much going on right now. And I’m not taking a risk of losing a friendship that’s lasted half my life just because I wouldn’t object to something more. Things between us are finally back to normal, and that’s totally fine with–”

“Taichi,” Mimi interrupts this time, her voice gravely serious, and he wipes his sweaty palms against the front of his pants. “You’re lying. If you didn’t care, you never would have brought it up!” Taichi opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Leave it to Mimi to be able to tell he wasn’t being true to himself. “Well, let me just say, a certain little birdie let me in on a secret before, and you should find that special Taichi-brand courage inside of yourself that we all admire and go get him, tiger! Murse or no murse!”

“No murse,” Taichi repeats with a laugh, and he can somehow almost hear Mimi’s pout on the other end of the line. “Definitely no murse.”

“Promise me you’ll tell him!” she insists. “Or I’ll do it myself. I swear!”

“Mimi, are you blackmailing me?!”

“It’s for your own good! I’m doing it because I love you. Promise me, Taichi. Promise me!”

“Okay!” he concedes to get her to stop screaming at him. This isn’t how he planned for this conversation to go. “I’ll do it! Just calm down.”

Mimi cheers, and the shrill sound makes Taichi’s headache worse. “Oh, I’m so happy to hear that! You absolutely must tell me how it goes, okay? If you don’t, you can be sure I’m going to bother you until you do!”

“Great,” Taichi groans as Agumon bursts into his room to drag him out for dinner. He’s been saved. “Well, I gotta go, Mimi. It’s dinner time. It was nice talking to you.” Or rather, it was nice listening to Mimi talk?

“Anytime! I’ll text you lots of pictures of cute outfits later for inspiration.”

“Y-You really don’t have to–”

“Ta-ta for now, Taichi!” she chirps and hangs up before he can even say bye.

Taichi is the last one to the dinner table, taking his seat beside Hikari with a heavy sigh, and as he scoops his curry onto his plate he kind of gets it all over the table. It’s okay because he’s the one who’s supposed to clean up tonight anyways. “Are you okay, Taichi?” his mother asks, wiping up his spills with a napkin. “What’s the matter?”

“I tried to understand a girl,” he grumbles, and when everyone including even Tailmon starts to laugh at him Taichi considers retreating to his room with his food and his frown.

 

---

 

The Sunday night before finals week begins is complete chaos in Taichi’s bedroom. Both of his half-written papers are due nine at night on Wednesday, his skit performance is on Thursday, and the written portion of his French exam is on Friday. He’s actually not worried about the skit at all considering how many times he’s rehearsed his lines with both his group and Yamato, but the written part is another story. Taichi has improved a lot with his speaking and pronunciation and remembering what words mean, but he still has a hard time spelling French words without referring to his textbook, and that will be a total death sentence on Friday if he doesn’t memorize how to write everything on his vocabulary sheets.

Agumon sits in the only corner of Taichi’s room not covered in his notes, handouts, and previous homework, munching on an apple as he looks over one of Taichi’s comic books, and Taichi lies there on the floor with his limbs sprawled out and his open textbook covering his face, not caring about the homework crumpling beneath his back. “Agumon,” he moans, his voice muffled by the pages of his book. “Agumon, I’m dying.”

“Taichi?” he hears Agumon say before there’s a loud pattering of feet that closes in on his location. “Taichi! I’ll save you!” Agumon exclaims, and a few seconds later Taichi’s textbook is kicked off his face and slams into the wall. “…Are you okay now, Taichi?”

“No,” he replies, closing his eyes, and Agumon crawls on top of him to give him a hug. He just wants everything to be over already so he can go to Yamato’s concert and enjoy his summer break, but he has to survive a week of hell first. “Agumon, I can’t spell in French for shit and still get confused all the time about whether to use à or de. I can’t even remember off the top of my head right now whether textbook is a masculine or feminine noun so I’m not even able to ask you to go grab it for me in French. I did just fine on my homework lately since I can look at it for help and ask Yamato if there’s anything I seriously don’t know, but how am I going to pass this exam without them?"

“…You’ll pass it because you’re Taichi!” Agumon exclaims, and Taichi cracks open an eye to look at his partner flashing him a toothy grin. “And Taichi never gives up. The Taichi I know always pulls through no matter what, so you can do this if you believe in yourself!”

“What a corny motivational speech,” Taichi quips with a laugh as he rubs the top of Agumon’s head. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

“From you.” Agumon replies, nuzzling his nose against Taichi’s neck. “You can do it, Taichi!”

“Yeah…” Taichi hugs Agumon back, squeezing him tightly. “Thanks, Agumon. Can you get off me now so I can go work on my papers?”

Taichi spends the next few days on a Red-Bull-and-CalorieMate diet, and when he meets up with Sora to study together over some tea she makes a face at him when he orders nothing and pulls his Red Bulls out of his bag. Her exams are near the end of the week like his, but since Yamato’s are all in the first few days Taichi doesn’t hear much from him. He would have invited Yamato to study with them earlier, but Yamato is kind of scary when he’s concentrating. The last time they sat together in the library doing statistics homework together, Taichi was too intimidated to even ask to borrow a pencil because of the way Yamato was glaring – or maybe fuming – down at his textbook. It’s for the best for Taichi’s own sake as well, because if Yamato was here he bets he wouldn’t get anything done. He might start staring, but at least Koushirou wouldn’t be here to make any sort of scientific analysis about it.

At exactly one minute before nine o’clock p.m. on Wednesday, Taichi submits his two research papers. They have to be at least satisfactory after he got Koushirou to proofread them for him and was told they weren’t terrible. He sleeps for fifteen hours the next day, unable to even be woken up by his sister shaking him and telling him that food is ready, and only finally wakes up when Agumon bites at his arm at noon, merely an hour before his skit presentation. Taichi nearly passes right back out at the sight of the time, and after he throws on some clothes he scrambles onto his bike and pedals off as fast as he can because there’s no way he’ll make it if he has to wait for the train. He runs into the classroom in the middle of the second skit and is so overcome with relief his group didn’t sign up to go first that he’ll accept everyone’s angry glares with stride as he stumbles to his seat and struggles to catch his breath.

His skit performance goes so perfectly that Taichi wonders if he’s still asleep and just dreaming it all. He remembers each of his lines, the rest of his group are all on point with their own, and he doesn’t see a single person cringing at his pronunciation. He even manages to make his professor laugh at his hammy performance, and after class is over he gives everyone in his group a fist bump well done before they filter out of the room. Taichi heads straight for a nearby conbini since he hasn’t had anything to eat since waking up this afternoon, but halfway across campus he receives a call from Yamato and hops off his bike to answer. “Hey, what’s up?”

“How’d your skit go?” Yamato asks, and Taichi grins against the receiver.

“Aww, Yamato… were you worried about me?”

“Based on how cheerful you are, I’m assuming it went fine.” Taichi’s grin disappears after Yamato evades his question. Still, Yamato knows him so well. “Need help for your written exam tomorrow? I already finished all my stuff on Tuesday.”

“You lucky bastard. I’m still dying.”

“Is it really lucky to have three exams on a single day?” Touché. “I’m in one of the practice rooms at the music building. Stop by if you want.”

Taichi does his best to ignore his grumbling stomach that feels like it’s digesting him from the inside out as he heads over to where Yamato is – always the same room in the basement of the music building, the one secluded off in the far-right corner. When he peers through the door’s glass window he sees Yamato, back to Taichi as he picks at his bass strings, and it’s a wonder how good the insulation is in the building because Taichi can’t hear a single thing he’s playing. Well, he hopes that Yamato can hear him, and when he knocks on the door it opens surprisingly quickly. “Hello, Taichi,” Gabumon greets him, offering a small, welcoming bow as he pulls the door back enough for Taichi to walk in. “How are you doing?”

“Better than I was doing before,” Taichi replies with a smile, and it’s both because his week of hell is almost over and because he’s glad to see them again. “Hope Yamato isn’t murdering your ears too badly with this racket.”

“Excuse me?” Yamato yells, shooting Taichi a glare over his shoulder as he continues plucking the complicated bass line.

“Nice to see you, too,” Taichi greets him, and Yamato’s hand falls still as he scowls. “If you wanna keep practicing for your gig, it’s okay. I’ll just study over here and throw my eraser at you if I need you. Don’t worry, it’s strawberry scented.” He feels Yamato’s eyes watching as he sits down on the couch near the corner of the room, and the soothing rhythm of the bass line starts up again. Taichi pulls out his study material and flips through his vocabulary flashcards, but Yamato’s practicing ends again just as quickly as it resumed. When Taichi looks up he sees Gabumon dragging Yamato over to the couch despite his protesting, bass and all, and after Yamato sits down beside Taichi with a sigh, Gabumon holds out his hands expectantly.

“What’re you having the most trouble with?” Yamato asks, pulling the strap of his bass over his head so he can gently hand it over to Gabumon, who runs over to set it on its stand before joining them on Yamato’s other side.

“Can’t spell for shit,” Taichi replies, showing Yamato the flash card where he accidentally wrote aujourd’oui instead of aujourd’hui for the word ‘today.’

“Okay… spell hors d’oeuvres for me.”

“Aw, fuck,” Taichi mumbles, shuffling his flash cards in his hands as he frowns at the ground. “Uh, o-u-r… d-u-r-v-” Yamato cuts in with a snicker, and Taichi throws his flash cards into the air with a scream. “I can’t take this anymore!” he screams as they flutter and scatter down to his feet, and Gabumon quietly hops off the couch and begins to pick them up. “G-Gabumon, stop, you don’t have to. I can do it myself later.”

“Oh…” Gabumon mutters, looking from the handful of flash cards he’s picked up back down to the floor and finally up to Taichi. “Should I… throw them back down?”

“It’s fine,” Yamato replies, taking them out of Gabumon’s hand before he motions for Gabumon to sit beside him again by patting the couch’s cushion. “Well, they aren’t all spelled wrong,” he says, flipping through the cards in his hands with various days of the week written on them. “If it helps, there are some letters that commonly pair up with one another in the French language. Some of these combinations are a-i, as in vraiment, e-a-u, as in oiseau, and u-i-l, as in huile.”

“Combinations,” Gabumon echoes as Taichi ponders Yamato’s words, “like Metalgarurumon and Wargreymon, as in… Omegamon!”

Yamato laughs and pets Gabumon’s head affectionately. “Not really like that… but close enough,” he says, and Gabumon seems pleased with himself. “Accents are also useful when spelling because they change how words are pronounced. Like if you have an accent aigu on the letter e, it changes the pronunciation from a normal euh sound to an ay sound.”

“I guess this is all pretty useful,” Taichi muses as he flips through his textbook, scanning it for his vocabulary words. Yamato is right – there are lots of patterns throughout French spelling that he wasn’t aware of before, and this should make everything at least a little easier to memorize. “Thanks, Yamato. I think that helped.”

“Good,” Yamato declares with a smile. “You’re going to do fine, Taichi. Trust me, I’ve been helping you over a month by now, and you’ve improved.” Taichi’s stomach picks the worst possible time to interrupt – precisely while Yamato is in the middle of actually complimenting him, which happens about as often as Agumon tells Taichi he’s not hungry – and Taichi grips his gut with his hands as Yamato stares. “…Was that your–” Taichi’s stomach screams for mercy again, and Gabumon peers around Yamato to see what the commotion is. “Taichi, did you eat lunch?”

“I, uh… woke up at noon and went straight to my skit performance,” Taichi admits, and Yamato slaps his palm to his forehead. He combs his hand through his hair with a sigh as he gets to his feet, and Taichi’s nervous laugh is quickly interrupted.

“Let’s go,” Yamato grumbles, grabbing Taichi by his wrist to pull him off the couch, and as Taichi stumbles forward his textbook slides right off his lap and onto the floor with a thud.

“Wh-Where?” Taichi blurts as Gabumon starts to gather the flash cards off the ground again.

“To get you some food before you pass out. There’s a Lawson right across the street.”

“But my stuff! And your stuff, too!”

“Chill, Taichi, I have the room booked for the next three hours. C’mon, Gabumon, just leave those there.”

“O-Okay,” Gabumon concedes and follows them out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Yamato drags him through the hall, up the stairs, and straight out of the music building, and even though Taichi is perfectly capable of walking by himself, he doesn’t say a single word to protest because Yamato’s hand is nice and warm against his skin and he wants to remember how it feels even after Yamato is thousands of miles away. Yamato slows his pace once they’re outside so Gabumon can catch up, and his grip loosens around Taichi’s wrist. It seems like he’s going to let go, and far too soon at that, so when Yamato’s fingers fall slack Taichi grabs onto them with his own, twining them together gently as they walk side by side. Yamato’s head snaps to face him but Taichi doesn’t look back, instead opting to concentrate on the brick pathway they’re taking which leads off campus and is also suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. “Taichi–”

“So, once you’re an astronaut,” Taichi begins loudly before Yamato can ask what he thinks he’s doing, “do you have to drink your own pee?”

“Oh my god,” Yamato groans as Gabumon sucks in an uncomfortable breath.

“No, dude, it’s a serious question! I read online that astronauts recycle their pee into drinking water because it’s so expensive to get bottled water up into space.”

“Taichi, we are not having this discussion.”

“Okay, but you have to admit, you’re not looking forward to drinking your own–”

“Stop talking,” Yamato says firmly, and Taichi knows the conversation is over. A perfect deflection, just as planned. Taichi is kind of surprised that Yamato didn’t pull his hand free yet, especially after that exchange, but it’s quickly replaced by a greater shock when Yamato instead opts to squeeze his hand tightly, like he never wants to let go. The feeling of Yamato’s fingertips brushing against his knuckles makes Taichi blush, and it seems like his plan backfired – he was supposed to be the one making Yamato blush, not the other way around.

“I, uh, d-don’t have my wallet on me,” Taichi mutters as they cross the street towards the convenience store – Gabumon checks both ways for cars three times before following them across despite the walk sign being on. “Didn’t have time to grab it from my bag before you dragged me out here.”

“I’ll pay,” Yamato replies coolly without missing a beat. “Just means you gotta buy me lunch on Sunday before my flight that night.” Oh, right. Yamato is leaving that soon. Taichi’s been putting off so much as thinking about it for so long that it’s snuck up on him like a terrifying ghost, and now he can’t rid his mind of the lingering dread. He wishes that this upcoming Saturday could last forever, or at least as long as their first adventure in the Digital World when time in the real world stood still for weeks, but that’s just not possible.

Yamato squeezes Taichi’s hand again, pulling him from his thoughts, and when he turns his head Yamato is smiling at him. Taichi smiles back. “Sure thing. I’ll take you wherever you wanna go.”

“You say that like you’re the one who drives the moped here,” Yamato quips, raising an eyebrow, and Taichi scratches the back of his head sheepishly with a laugh. After they go into the convenience store, Taichi spends way too long staring at the different bento boxes trying to decide which one to get, but it doesn’t seem like Yamato minds, even when they’re standing in the exact same spot five minutes later, fingers still locked together. Taichi almost wants to stay here because the cool air wafting from the refrigerated display shelves is doing wonders at keeping him from overheating and fainting after holding hands with Yamato for so long, and once they head to the register they’ll need to let go.

After a few more minutes, Yamato finally speaks up. “Decide yet?” he asks as Gabumon browses through the rows upon rows of drinks behind them.

“Nope,” Taichi answers, leaning a little closer to Yamato to rest against his arm, and Yamato jumps in place before relaxing against the touch.

“…Take your time,” he says, looking away with a blush as his fingers fidget against Taichi’s, and it brings a grin to Taichi’s face. “I’m not going anywhere right now,” he murmurs, and as Taichi hums to himself while slowly reading through the ingredients on the chicken karaage bento box’s label, Yamato never lets go of his hand once.

Chapter 7

The moment Taichi steps out of his French classroom after finishing his exam, he punches his fist into the air with a triumphant cheer because his week of hell is finally over. Better yet, he thinks he actually did okay on the exam after receiving Yamato’s help with studying all last night. Agumon was excited, too, when Gabumon came over to visit with Yamato after his reservation of the practice room in the music building timed out, and as they studied together in Taichi’s room, Hikari stopped by every now and then to bring over snacks from his mom. Or so she claimed. Taichi doubted it because whenever she left them she had that sly smile on her face. Regardless, all of the tips Yamato gave him were useful when he struggled spelling words on the exam, and Taichi really thinks that he’ll be able to pass this class. He feels a little bad that Yamato stayed up with him until midnight to help him do it, but Yamato insisted he didn’t mind. He’s busy rehearsing with his band right now before their concert tomorrow, though, so after Taichi sends Yamato a text celebrating an exam well done, he calls up Sora instead.

“Hey, Sora!” he exclaims as he practically skips out of the building. “My last exam is over. I’m finally free!”

“Oh, that’s great, Taichi!” she replies, and he can hear Piyomon echo her congratulations in the background. “How did it go?”

“I think I did alright. As long as I got a B, I should be able to pass the class, but I don’t wanna think about it anymore. It’s over! So how did your exams go yesterday?”

“It never feels like there’s enough time to study, but I think in the end I did okay, too. It’s nice to be able to just sit at home right now and relax on my bed with Piyomon.”

“I feel like I haven’t had alone time with Sora in forever!” Piyomon chimes in, and Sora murmurs in agreement.

“So, uh,” Taichi begins as he pulls his soccer ball out of his bag and kicks it around the field in front of the main building, “when did you wanna head to the concert tomorrow? I wanna get a spot in the front row. Should we go at like noon?”

“Noon?” Sora repeats in shock. “Taichi, the concert is from eight ‘til nine! The doors don’t even open ‘til seven. There’s no point in going seven hours before then.”

“But there’ll be a line if we don’t get there early. If we get there after everyone else, we’ll be stuck in the back and won’t even be able to see Yamato on stage. I told him I’m going, so I’m gonna make sure he can see me!”

“Okay, Taichi,” she concedes with a laugh as he rolls his soccer ball back and forth beneath his shoe. “I know how much it means to you, so we can show up a little early. Make sure to pack water and some snacks for when you get hungry, though.”

Taichi feels pretty ridiculous when he calls Hikari next and asks her to come meet him at the mall. He can’t remember the last time he went shopping, let alone with his sister, but her advice will be helpful when he tries to find a nice shirt to buy. She shows up with an ice cream cone in one hand and Tailmon hugged close with her other arm, and Taichi makes a face because one girl making sassy comments at his fashion style is already going to be too much to handle, let alone two. His goal is just to buy one shirt, not an entire outfit, which is good considering that Hikari doesn’t seem to approve of anything he picks – they’d be here until tomorrow if he had to, god forbid, find some matching pants after. “It’s the middle of July, and you’re going to be in crammed into a space with hundreds of other people,” Hikari muses as Taichi puts a shirt with English words he doesn’t recognize back onto the rack. “It’s going to be so hot in there, Taichi! You should buy a tank top.”

“You think?” he asks, pursing his lips.

“Yeah,” she says, walking over to him with a grin, and he yelps when she pinches his bicep. “And you go to the gym for a reason, right?”

“…To be ready for soccer practice?” When Tailmon snickers at his words, Taichi figures he’s missing something. He pushes Hikari’s hand away and rubs his poor arm. “To burn all the extra calories I eat?”

“Too bad your brain isn’t a muscle you can work out, too,” Tailmon quips, and Taichi is offended, just not sure why. He walks back over to the 15% off rack with a huff and sifts through it, pulling out a bright, neon yellow tank top. “Put that back,” Tailmon says immediately with a frown.

“Why?” he protests. “It’s great! Yamato will definitely be able to pick me out of the crowd if I wear this.”

“But if you blind him with it, he’ll fall off the stage,” Hikari points out, and after she scans through the rack she finds a plain, white tank top that looks two sizes too small. “You should definitely get this one!”

“What? That won’t fit me!”

“Yes, it will. It’s just your size, Taichi.”

“No way, it looks like a girl’s size! It’s gonna be really tight. Do you want my pecs to suffocate?!”

Hikari looks down at Tailmon with a can you believe him expression on her face, and Tailmon shrugs. Taichi doesn’t even have time to continue protesting before Hikari is already bringing her find to the register, and when he wears it to meet up with Sora the next day he takes it as a good sign when she blushes upon seeing him. Thankfully, there are only a few people in line when they get there half an hour early. He went so far as to bring his good old pocket telescope just in case the line was already huge and they wound up trapped in the back of the crowd, but it doesn’t seem like he’ll need it. Still, he’s not happy that the group in front of them is some obnoxious girls that he dreads having to stand next to during the concert. He chats with Sora while waiting for the doors to open about how their past weeks have been, about their upcoming plans for their long-awaited summer vacation, and he even shows her how to say a few phrases in French.

The line behind them gets longer and longer as it nears seven o’clock, and when the doors finally open Taichi fights the urge to bolt straight inside and walks in nice and dignified with Sora. They still find a spot at the front, unfortunately next to the screaming girls they were waiting behind in line, and the gigantic Knife of Day banner hanging at the top of the stage makes Taichi crack up. He still thinks their band name is ridiculous, but not quite as ridiculous as how many times they had to reform. At least once they started university Yamato found a group who stuck with him for more than a few months. Taichi hopes they still stick together without him because it’d be a shame if they fell apart again after all this time.

When Taichi’s phone buzzes in his pocket, he finds a text from Hikari asking where he is. front row!! he replies and takes a picture of him and Sora to show just how close they are to the stage. She flashes a peace sign when he snaps the photo – why do girls always do that? So weird.

aw, Gabumon, Takeru, and I are stuck in the back :(

should’ve come earlier! this is why i left the house at 5. She sends him a crying emoji, and he replies with one that has its tongue sticking out. He tells her to push her way up to the front with Takeru, but she says no. Of course; his sister is too nice for that. The concert doesn’t start at seven like scheduled, but Taichi isn’t surprised. He doesn’t know why, but it seems like bands never start their performances on time. Maybe it’s some sort of unspoken but unanimously agreed upon band protocol to always start late, and if it’s supposed to build suspense, it works pretty damn well.

Fifteen minutes later a booming guitar chord shakes through the room, and the group of girls beside Taichi and Sora immediately starts screaming as the band comes out on stage. Yamato is already singing when he steps out in an outfit exactly as Mimi described a few days ago – laced-up boots, ripped jeans, v-neck shirt, jewelry and all – with his red bass strapped over his shoulder and microphone in his hand, and one of the girls next to them screams his name so loudly that Taichi fears going deaf from her screeching more than the row of speakers in front of the stage. Her screaming makes him kind of mad because she doesn’t even know Yamato, and he gets a little madder when he actually looks at the crazy girl on his way over to the mic stand, but it’s only for a moment. Right after that Yamato looks straight at him, eyes lighting up upon seeing him, and Taichi’s stupid jealousy fades away when he sees how he makes Yamato smile.

The band has written a lot of new songs since their last concert considering that Taichi doesn’t recognize most of them, or maybe he’s just having a hard time paying attention because he’s so distracted by staring at Yamato – more precisely Yamato’s butt because of that dumb conversation he had with Mimi before. This is the closest he’s ever been to the stage at one of Yamato’s concerts before, though, and it’s really hard not to notice how nice those tight jeans are as they cling to his legs like a second skin while he sways his hips back and forth to the beat. Taichi wants to trap Yamato beneath him again like whenever they fought back when they were kids, except now instead of punching him, Taichi would trace his thumbs down the inner seams of Yamato’s jeans, skating his fingertips along the ripped denim hiding patches of skin. Yamato would perhaps blush, probably squirm, and definitely punch his lights out, but Taichi just can’t help imagining it as Yamato sings and struts around the stage, nothing like the shy loner he was as a child.

Everything gets worse when the band starts to play a slow ballad and Yamato stares straight at Taichi the entire time through half-lidded eyes. He grips the mic in the stand with both hands, bending forward as he leans into it and croons out sweet words that make the girls next to Taichi start to fan themselves as they squeal, and Taichi feels his own breath catch in the back of his throat. It looks like Yamato is practically making out with the microphone as he sings – Taichi wouldn’t mind swapping places with it right now – and when Yamato curls his fingers around the mic stand’s shaft with a smirk and drags them down its length Taichi gulps. He swears that he’s being hit on right now in front of the entire crowd, and he’s glad he bought this tank top after all because he’s burning up so badly that he thinks he might have a fever.

After the song ends, Yamato pulls the microphone off the stand as the music fades into a soft series of guitar chords. “How’s everyone doing tonight?” he asks as he walks across the stage, and it would be inappropriate for Taichi answer truthfully out loud. “Having a good time?”

“I love you!” the loud girl next to Taichi screams, which really doesn’t answer the question and gets drowned out by the crowd anyways, and when Taichi turns to give Sora a look she shrugs with an awkward smile. The girl kind of reminds Taichi of Daisuke’s older sister. Those were some dark days.

“I can’t hear you!” Yamato yells, lifting a hand to his ear with a cocky grin, and Taichi can’t believe how different he is when he’s up on stage.

“I said I love you!” the girl shrieks as the crowd cheers, and Taichi groans.

“Awesome,” Yamato says while a drum line starts beating in the background, and it’s hard to resist telling the girl that he was collectively answering the audience, not her specifically, as she nearly faints and screams that she knew he loved her, too. “Well, this is my last concert with the band,” he continues, walking the mic back over to its stand to slot it inside, “so we’re going to play something special for our last song. Those of you who recognize it, thanks for sticking with us for so long through all these years, and those of you who don’t, thanks for joining us after and I hope you’ve had as much fun as I have.”

Taichi almost wants to laugh at Yamato getting sentimental in front of everyone on stage, but any amusement he felt is washed away by melancholy when he realizes the song that’s starting is the first song Yamato ever played at the Teenage Wolves’ first concert. It sounds a little different because Yamato is the only original member of the band left, but the steady rhythm of his bass and the way he hits every note perfectly are still the same. Everything can’t stay the same forever, though. Taichi hears a sniffle from the side in the middle of the song, and when he looks at Sora she’s rubbing at the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. “S-Sora, are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine,” she replies, holding a hand up to stop him from trying to comfort her. “Hearing this just makes me a little emotional. It reminds me of the first time we heard it, back when we were in middle school. So much has happened to us since then, and we’ve come so far. I guess I’m just feeling nostalgic.”

He smiles, wrapping an arm around her shoulder anyways to give her a hug. “Me, too.”

After the song is over the band waves at the screaming audience as they back away off the stage, and even though he feels dumb for doing it Taichi waves back at Yamato with both of his arms. He already knows how this works – they’ll be back in a few minutes for an encore anyways – and right on cue they come running back out, Yamato already plucking a familiar bass line as he races over to the mic. It’s Knife of Day’s signature song, To You, and as they play through the song Taichi can hear Sora singing along next to him – he, of course, doesn’t join in because he is horribly tone deaf. Once their last song is done, for real this time, Yamato bows and waves again, lingering on the stage for so long that the drummer has to run over and half-hug-half-drag him off, and as the crowd disperses he wonders if he should warn Yamato that the group of girls next to them was pushing their way towards the building’s back entrance to try to catch him on his way out. Before Taichi can send him a text, Yamato beats him to it.

U wanna hang out, he asks, and Taichi’s honestly a little shocked.

what? shouldn’t you hang out with your band instead?

I’ve been hanging out w them for the past 36 hrs r u tryin to make me go insane

Taichi looks over to Sora, also engrossed in her phone as they remain there in the front row, waiting patiently for the people behind them to leave first. “Hey, Sora, Yamato’s asking if we wanna hang out with him now.”

She looks at him, eyebrows raised, and laughs nervously. “M-Me? Oh, shoot, I’m gonna be busy tonight! But you should definitely hang out with him.”

“Really?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at her guilty smile. “Doing what? You’re acting weird, Sora.”

“I promised Piyomon we’d go shopping together! We’re going to go to the mall to, um, buy some clothes.”

“…When did you turn into such a girl?” Taichi questions and rolls his eyes. “You’ve been tainted by my sister.”

Sora laughs again, giving him a wave. “I’ll see you around, then, Taichi!” she says before trying to run off, but she doesn’t have far to flee because of the crowd still clumped around them.

“You’re not even gonna stay for a bit to talk to Yamato?” he asks, watching her try but fail to squeeze her way through people – she’s too nice to be pushy.

“Oh, I already told him he did great,” she replies, briefly showing him her phone screen with their ongoing conversation – wow they sure talked a lot since the concert ended – and the sight of it makes Taichi remember he didn’t answer Yamato yet.

“Okay then, see you later. Thanks for coming with me,” he sighs, waving back at Sora as she finally manages to worm her way towards the exit. ok, i’m still waiting for the crowd to leave. where do u wanna meet? he asks Yamato as the lights in the venue slowly turn on and brighten, making him have to squint after being in the darkness for so long.

1 min, Yamato replies, and Taichi frowns. A minute for what? To fix his hair? He definitely doesn’t have to, because his hair looked great all night. One minute in band speak probably means five, but Taichi barely has time to start playing a game on his phone before the sound of Yamato’s voice makes him jump. “Taichi,” Yamato hisses softly, and Taichi turns around to find him standing on the stage again, holding out a hand. “Come on, let’s go before someone notices me and makes me sign a stupid autograph or something.”

“Uh, you’d have to actually be good for that,” Taichi jokes, and Yamato shoots him a glare. “Wait, where are we going?”

“Side exit. Hurry up.” Taichi glances back to see if anyone is looking before he grabs onto Yamato’s hand – it’s as warm and familiar as he remembers – and when he’s pulled onto the stage he almost trips on all the wiring scattered across the floor. How did Yamato not fall on his face while strutting around like a peacock up here? “Let’s go, twinkletoes,” Yamato snorts, letting go of Taichi’s hand to slip his own in his pockets as he walks off the side of the stage. “I honestly don’t know how you’re some kind of soccer ace when you trip all over the place like that.”

Taichi is about to protest that he doesn’t always trip all over the place like this – only when Yamato is here and even more distracting when the proximity between them is this small – but he remembers something of greater importance. “Dude, I don’t think we wanna take that exit,” he explains as he follows after Yamato. The area backstage is a lot less impressive than Taichi expected, and when Yamato reaches the door he turns around to raise an eyebrow at Taichi, waiting for him to continue. “There’s a crazy group of girls trying to find the back exit that you’re gonna leave through. They’re seriously nuts.”

“Those girls who were standing next to you?” Yamato smirks, leaning back into the door’s push bar to open it, and he sure looks calm and collected considering their situation is possibly worse than all the times they were chased around back in the Digital World. “Yeah, not worried about that. You can’t tell me the guy who saved the world three times is afraid of some fangirls.”

“I just don’t wanna have to see them again,” Taichi grumbles. The cool air that filters through the open door feels nice, though, after he spent all night burning up. “It doesn’t matter how great you are at singing. My ears don’t need to hear any more screaming for at least a month.” No, it’s definitely not because, for some reason, they make him feel jealous even though he already knows Yamato couldn’t care less about them. Man, love does the dumbest things to people.

“So you liked it?” Yamato asks, gesturing with a nod of his head for Taichi to head through the door first as he holds it open, and follows soon after, himself.

“Well, duh. You were amazing like usual. You even made Sora cry when you played that song back from middle school. In a good way, of course. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. Went out with a real bang. Where’s your bass, anyways?”

“Didn’t wanna carry it around for the rest of the night, so I gave it to Takeru to bring home when he drops Gabumon off. But I’m glad you guys liked it. We all worked really hard, so that means a lot. What do you wanna do now, though? Got my moped and the night is ours.”

Taichi stops walking to stand there in thought, staring up at the clear sky, and Yamato glances over his shoulder curiously. “Take me to Paris!” he exclaims with a grin.

“Yeah, okay.” Yamato rolls his eyes. “Let me just switch my moped into fucking Gundam mode and we’ll blast off. It’s got some lasers too in case that scary group of girls jumps us. But there’s only one seat, so you’re gonna have to sit on my lap.”

“Then let’s go to Tokyo Tower,” Taichi suggests but, joke or not, he wouldn’t say no to that last part. “That’s the closest thing we’ve got to France around here, right?”

“Uh, I’m a lot closer to an authentic piece of France than that Eiffel Tower knock off, but alright. I haven’t been up there since my dad took me as a kid, anyways, so it could be nice.”

Yamato’s moped is at the same parking lot that everyone else who attended had to park at, and as they near it Taichi can hear a horrifying sound in the distance while Yamato fishes his keys out of his pocket. “Yamato, I can hear them,” he whispers, grabbing Yamato’s shoulder to shake it. “Those girls are coming, and my ears are already in preemptive pain.”

“Holy shit, Taichi, I don’t care. They didn’t even look like the worst groupies I’ve ever had to deal with, so chill out. You’re acting like a moron about this.”

After Yamato straps his helmet on and climbs on to start the engine, Taichi pulls his own helmet on before sitting down and latching his arms around Yamato’s waist with a pout. The ride to Tokyo Tower isn’t long, and as Taichi rests his cheek against Yamato’s back he stares absentmindedly at the car taillights whizzing by while he tries to remember this cozy warmth because it might be as close to a hug as he’ll be able to get. “So, are you bringing your moped to England, too?” Taichi asks, having to scream above the sounds of traffic and their own engine.

“Nope,” Yamato yells back, and when he pulls off a crazy, sharp turn Taichi clings to him even tighter. “Papi’s sending his motorcycle over because shipping that from France will be cheaper.”

“What the hell!” Taichi exclaims as they come to a stop at the traffic light. “You think you’re some kind of bad boy with your rock band and lone wolf attitude and now even a fucking motorcycle, but I know that deep down you’re just a softie who bakes fresh blueberry scones for Gabumon every Sunday morning in a pink apron.”

The light turns green right as Taichi finishes his sentence, and Yamato guns it so hard that Taichi nearly flies off. “Careful, Taichi,” he warns, and Taichi grits his teeth while beating his fist against Yamato’s stomach for trying to kill him.

Once they arrive at Tokyo Tower, Yamato manages to nab a reasonably close parking space because it doesn’t seem like there’s many people here right now. Taichi guesses that they’ll mostly run into tourists because no Japanese person he knows would spend a perfect Saturday night climbing Tokyo Tower at nine-thirty p.m. “Ah, Paris!” Taichi begins dramatically as they enter, and he holds the door open for Yamato, who gives him a look. “C’est très jolie. C’est la deuxième fois que je viens ici, et tu?”

“This is not Paris,” Yamato states bluntly while following him inside. Of course, he wouldn’t play along.

“Wow, okay,” Taichi says as they head over to grab some tickets from the front counter. “What do you wanna do, then? You hungry? I bet we could find some French fries at the food court on the second floor.”

“French fries aren’t French, Taichi. But if you’re hungry we can get something to eat, first.”

“Not really.” At least, Taichi doesn’t think that the queasy feeling in his gut is hunger. “Sora made me pack a ton of snacks for the line before your concert, so I’m still stuffed. Are you hungry?”

“Nah,” Yamato replies, staring at the sign on the wall with the different prices for the second floor’s observation deck and the other deck which is much higher up. “Let’s go all the way to the top.”

They take an elevator to the main floor first, and as they ride the second elevator to the special observation deck they’re stuck next to a group of tourists as Taichi guessed, chattering loudly in what sounds like English. It’d be silly if the guy who’s transferring to a school in England didn’t know what they were saying, so Taichi scoots a little closer to Yamato and whispers towards his ear. “Hey, you eavesdropping? What’re they talking about?”

“That’s none of our business,” Yamato hisses back.

“But that girl is totally staring at me. Tell me what she’s saying.”

“I, uh… don’t think you wanna know.”

“Aw, come on, Yamato. That just makes me need to know even more.”

“Okay. She says your hair looks a family of squirrels crawled onto your head and died.”

“Hey!” Taichi exclaims, shooting the girl a glare, and when Yamato starts laughing he quickly redirects his offense. “Dude, you’re lying. You’re lying, aren’t you! You are such a jerk.”

After Yamato reels his laughter back under control, he lifts a hand to gently grasp Taichi’s upper arm and leans in close enough to breathe against his cheek. “She says she’s jealous of your nice tan,” he murmurs, and Taichi tenses at the feeling of Yamato’s rough fingers brushing at his skin. “Too bad she doesn’t know you get it from tripping over a soccer ball all day.”

“If I threw a soccer ball at your face, you’d do worse than trip,” Taichi counters, squirming free so he can bump his shoulder into Yamato’s to give him a playful shove, and when Yamato pushes him back he grins.

There aren’t many people on the special observation deck, probably because it’s only thirty minutes until closing time by now, and the ticket also costs extra while the main deck already provides a wide view of Tokyo. Taichi has been up here before with his parents and Hikari when he was a kid, but it was in the middle of the day. It looks completely different at night, with the windows of the Tokyo skyscrapers and ant-sized cars lighting up the darkness, and Taichi runs over to nearest glass windowpane so he can get a better look. He can see all the way to Odaiba from here, and maybe even his family’s apartment if he squints hard enough. He can see the Rainbow Bridge that Yamato will drive him across later while bringing him home, and the ferris wheel spinning at the seaside park where their friends trapped them before. He sees the city where they grew up together, that they saved together – not only once but twice – and that Yamato will be saying goodbye to tomorrow. It makes Taichi’s heart start to ache.

“Your sweaty forehead is gonna leave a mark on the glass,” Yamato says as he joins Taichi at the window, and Taichi yells when Yamato grabs a handful of his hair and gently tugs his head back.

“Gotta leave some evidence that we came,” Taichi proclaims, and Yamato rubs a finger at the smudge Taichi left behind. “The view is really pretty, though. I never knew that Tokyo could look so nice, especially when I spend most of my time here on the ground swarmed by a crowd of people.”

“Yeah,” Yamato agrees fondly, turning his attention outside. That’s all he says out loud, but Taichi can tell he’s keeping everything else that he wants to say bottled up inside. That’s okay, though. Taichi isn’t going to force him to do anything. Yamato’s face says it all, anyways.

“Kinda hard to see, though, huh,” Taichi begins as he reaches into his back pocket. “Well, good thing I brought this with me tonight.”

“…Why do you have that?” Yamato asks suspiciously as Taichi holds out his pocket telescope with a satisfied grin.

“I was gonna use it to see you on the stage if Sora and I got stuck in the back tonight. But we made it to the front row, so I didn’t need it. I mean, I guess I still could have used it, but it would have looked really creepy.”

“It would have looked just as creepy from the back. But I can’t believe you still have that thing. It’s been like ten years.”

“You’re one to talk. You still have your harmonica. I bet you have it with you, too. Right now.” Yamato looks away guiltily, and Taichi smirks, lifting his pocket telescope to his eye so he can get a better view outside. “Well… I still can’t see any people on the ground. Either we’re just that high up, or you’ve chased everyone away with your sullen aura.”

“Why are you wasting your time looking for people?” Yamato asks, and he’s right. Taichi turns his attention upwards instead, and he’s surprised that he can make out so many stars in the night sky even though there’s so much light interfering from the skyscrapers below. “So… see anything cool?”

“This one star is really bright. I bet it’s Mars. No, wait, I bet it’s Jupiter. Yeah, I can definitely see some rings around it.”

“Saturn is the one with the rings, stupid.”

Taichi laughs, lowering the telescope from his eye so he can smile at Yamato’s unamused face. “See, this is why you’re the one who’s going to be an astronaut. The best astronaut, too. I don’t know any other astronaut who’ll be able to shred on a guitar while he’s moonwalking.”

“That’s because you don’t know any other astronauts,” Yamato replies, rolling his eyes, and Taichi offers a shrug of silent agreement. “…Remember that first night we spent in the Digital World?” he asks, turning back to look outside.

“When we got attacked by Seadramon and Gabumon digivolved to Garurumon to save us? And you kept us up all night with your harmonica? Yeah, I remember.”

“I told you I could keep watch by myself after that, but you and Agumon came out of the cable car anyways to keep me and Gabumon company. And you took out that stupid telescope and shoved it in my face and pointed up at the sky and told me the big shiny thing was the big dipper, and that if we followed it north we’d definitely be able to find our way home. It was the fucking moon, Taichi. And the North Star isn’t even part of the big dipper. It’s part of the little dipper.”

“Okay, so I didn’t know anything about space,” Taichi confesses, “and I still don’t know anything about it!”

“Understatement of the century,” Yamato quips with a snort.

“But you felt better after I told you that, right?” Taichi points out, twisting his telescope to narrow its field of view while providing a greater range.

“…Yeah,” Yamato admits in a whisper.

Taichi lifts his telescope to his eye again, gazing up into the distance at nothing in particular. “Remember that time way after that when we went back to the Digital World to defeat the Dark Masters after saving Odaiba? We’d just found our way back home and had to leave right away. That night the two of us stayed up way too long just staring up at the sky with my telescope, trying to see any hint of the real world reflected in it like we were able to see the Digital World from home, but we couldn’t find shit.”

“…You looking for it now?” Yamato asks as Taichi twists his telescope a little more. “The Digital World.”

“Yup.”

“See anything?”

“Nope.”

Yamato doesn’t say anything, but a few seconds later Taichi feels a hand grab his wrist to tug the telescope from his face. Before he can protest, Yamato leans in way too close to get a look for himself, not even having to use a strong grip to hold Taichi’s hand in place because Taichi doesn’t think he could move if he wanted to. Yamato’s soft hair tickles his cheek and makes him want to sneeze, but it smells really nice and makes Taichi want to run his fingers through it and maybe ask what kind of shampoo he uses. Taichi glances over at Yamato, still squeezing his left eye shut as he stares through the telescope with the other with a frown, and it feels like time in the real world has slowed like it must have during their first trip to the Digital World.

“I don’t see anything, either,” Yamato concludes with a sigh, but as Taichi looks at him he definitely sees something – someone who’s saved his life more times than he can count on one hand and whom he would entrust it with again in a heartbeat; someone whom he’d risk his own life for again without a second thought even if he wouldn’t make it back from hell this time. He sees the stubborn, moody, incredible guy who would sacrifice anything for the sake of those he cherishes, who is everything that Taichi is not and still wishes he could be, and he wonders why it took him so long to realize that he’s been in love with Yamato this whole time.

“We should go back sometime,” Yamato murmurs.

“To the Digital World?” Taichi asks, and Yamato nods, pulling his head back from the telescope but not his hand back from Taichi’s wrist. “Yeah, that’d be fun. It’ll be hard coordinating with everyone, though. Mimi is literally never free.”

“A reunion would be nice,” Yamato begins, turning to face Taichi, whose untamable hair is flattened when their foreheads come close enough to touch. Taichi’s stare shoots up to Yamato’s eyes still trained sidelong on the sky outside in deep reminiscence, but his attention soon falls to Yamato’s lips as he continues to speak. “But I meant just the two of us,” he clarifies, rubbing his thumb against the inside of Taichi’s wrist, and he shivers. “Well, Gabumon and Agumon, too. For when the Kuwagamon attacks us immediately once we arrive.”

“Just us?” Taichi echoes.

“Yeah. What, you afraid?”

“You wish. How could I be afraid of anything when I’m with you?”

Yamato’s eyes finally meet his, and Taichi nearly steps back. Okay, maybe he’s afraid of one thing when he’s with Yamato, but he’s gonna do it anyways. Taichi is gonna kiss the shit out of him, right now, because he’s pretty sure Yamato has been hitting on him the entire night and his lips are just a few inches away and looking really nice. Actually, all of Yamato looks really nice because he’s still wearing that same outfit he had on while dancing around on stage earlier. As Taichi stares into Yamato’s eyes he can see himself reflected in them, and he wonders what Yamato sees when looking at him. Does he also make Yamato’s heart race straight up into his throat whenever they touch? Is he as irreplaceable to Yamato as Yamato is to him? Taichi bites the inside of his lower lip before he inhales a short breath and finally goes for it, but just before he tilts his head forward with a million thoughts all racing through his head at once, Yamato quickly turns back to face the glass, releasing Taichi’s wrist to scratch awkwardly at his own shoulder.

“…Closes soon,” Yamato points out, glancing at his watch, and Taichi stands there, dumbfounded. “Five minutes.”

“Oh,” Taichi says, feeling his stomach plummet all the way to the ground even though they haven’t even gotten in an elevator yet. “Guess we should… I guess we should go, then.”

Neither of them says anything on the ride down to the main deck. Some of the tourists stand next to them in the first elevator, chatting in some language Taichi doesn’t recognize, but he assumes it’s about how beautiful the view was. Taichi would agree with that – the night skies and endless landscape dotted in lights were breathtaking – but he still can’t help but to feel disappointed. The smell of food from the shops closing up on the main deck remind him that he’s also getting kind of hungry, but even though he wants to spend some more time with Yamato, it would be way too desperate to ask if they can go grab a late-night snack together. He needs to keep some shred of dignity after what just happened. He should probably just catch a train home instead of asking Yamato for a ride, too.

Taichi thinks he’ll go nuts if their second elevator ride to the ground floor is as quiet as the first one, but he doesn’t know what to talk about. The group of English tourists they went up to the special observation deck with are on the other side saying things like fun and high and I need to use the bathroom, which almost makes Taichi laugh because it’s one of the few English phrases he knows. Maybe he can make a joke about that to Yamato to make things feel less weird right now, but before he can say anything, Yamato already interrupts his thoughts.

“Taichi,” Yamato whispers, and he barely has time to turn his head towards the sound before Yamato has already slid a hand beneath his chin to do it for him, tilting it up to guide their lips together. Taichi stands there frozen in shock that Yamato is actually kissing him – in public no less – and stares wide eyed into Yamato’s eyelids, holding his breath as Yamato’s lips softly brush against his own. He feels like he might start choking on nothing and sees his life flashing before his eyes and kind of wants to punch Yamato in the face right now because that would feel more normal than kissing him – also because he’s kind of upset that Yamato kissed him first and not the other way around. He thought Yamato didn’t even want to since he turned away earlier, but maybe he didn’t even notice Taichi was about to kiss him. Yamato was kind of dense sometimes. Besides, he’s so uncharacteristically gentle as he caresses Taichi’s lips with his own that Taichi can forget about it.

The second the elevator dings to signal that they’ve reached the ground floor Yamato steps away, and Taichi doesn’t have a chance to do or even say anything before he’s already bolted through the door. Taichi doesn’t know what just happened, but whatever it was didn’t end how he wanted it to. “Yamato?” Taichi calls out, but he’s already a blur in the distance that’s only getting farther away with each second. “Hey, Yamato! What the fuck!”

The tourists mutter amongst themselves while staring at him, too intimidated to leave the elevator first, and Taichi is glad because otherwise he would have plowed them right over as he ran out to chase after Yamato. It’s a good thing that he’s used to sudden strenuous bouts of physical activity after playing sports for his whole life, and as Taichi pursues Yamato through the ground floor and out of Tokyo Tower like he’s chasing an opponent dribbling a soccer ball towards his team’s goal, he gains on him with every step. “Yamato, get back here!” Taichi yells as Yamato weaves around the people wandering around outside and heads for the parking lot, but Yamato doesn’t let up.

“No!” he shouts back, and it almost sounds like he’s crying. Taichi starts to feel guilty, and he doesn’t even know what for.

“Why are you running away from me?” Yamato doesn’t answer, squeezing his way between a few cars on the way to his moped, and as Taichi follows he clumsily bumps into their mirrors and maybe scratches a few doors. “Yamato? Yamato!”

Yamato whirls around to face Taichi once he reaches his moped, and Taichi almost careens right into him because he wasn’t expecting Yamato to stop running. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out, hands curled into fists at his sides as he stares down at his feet, and Taichi frowns in confusion. “Since I was a kid, I’ve done so many things that I regret, and I’ve regretted not doing so many things,” Yamato explains, and Taichi walks towards him, causing him to back up until he bumps into the seat of his moped. The closer Taichi gets, the more uncomfortable he looks. “So I told myself that before I left, I’d make sure I didn’t leave behind any regrets. Our friendship means everything to me, but if I didn’t kiss you tonight before leaving I know I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. So just… forget it happened and let me give you a ride back to your–”

“Can we do it again?” Taichi interrupts, and Yamato’s eyes snap up to him as he stands there with his mouth agape.

“What?”

“Can we kiss again,” Taichi clarifies, and Yamato looks like he’s seen a ghost. “Dude, you gave me no time to kiss you back, not even a little, and I’m kind of upset about it. Because I really wanted to. So, I’m gonna have to demand a redo. Right now.”

“…Okay,” Yamato replies, barely audible, and Taichi reaches his hands up to tangle his fingers into Yamato’s hair and pull him down into another kiss. Taichi doesn’t really know what he’s doing – he steps on Yamato’s foot while trying to get closer and his nose bumps into Yamato’s twice while he tries to find just the right angle to get the most lip-on-lip action – but even when Yamato starts to laugh in the middle of it, Taichi can’t find it in himself to be offended. Yamato slides his arms around Taichi’s waist, fisting his hands into Taichi’s shirt to yank him closer, and he smiles against Taichi’s lips before moaning into them and making Taichi’s chest flutter. Kissing Yamato in real life far surpasses all of the late-night fantasies he’s had about the situation. Nothing else could feel more right. It’s the same perfect, warm sensation as whenever their Digimon fuse and they synchronize into one, but even better because he can actually feel Yamato’s touch in tandem with his own, responding to his every needy movement with the same eager hunger.

Taichi is finally getting into the rhythm of pressing his lips against Yamato’s at the same time that Yamato does the same to his, but he’s interrupted when Yamato slides his hands between them, grunting lowly as he pushes Taichi back and tries to catch his breath. “Taichi, stop,” he mutters, turning away as Taichi tries to kiss him again. “Stop!” he exclaims with a glare, and Taichi pouts, wondering what the problem is. “We can’t keep doing this here.”

“Why?” Taichi whines like he’s an eleven-year-old kid again, and Yamato grabs him by the front of his top, tugging him close to whisper in his ear.

“I can’t strip you in public.”

“Oooh,” Taichi hums with a knowing smile. “Where’re we going?”

“Dad’s working overtime. Won’t get home until tomorrow.” Yamato pushes Taichi away again before grabbing one of the helmets dangling from his moped’s handles to thrust it against his chest with a thump. “Get on. Now.”

“So impatient,” Taichi teases, climbing onto the seat behind Yamato after he buckles his helmet tight, and while Yamato starts up the engine Taichi takes the opportunity to act on a prior impulse. He scoots closer, sneaking his hands around Yamato’s waist to rest their palms against the tops of his thighs, and he slowly slides his fingers down Yamato’s legs, enjoying how Yamato stiffens in place with a sharp intake of breath when his fingertips brush across the tender patches of skin beneath the ripped denim.

“Fucking stop,” Yamato hisses, swatting Taichi’s hands away like he’s a naughty cat playing with a toy. “And don’t sit so close. I can feel your boner pressing up on my ass. Get that away from me.”

“I can’t help that!” Taichi exclaims, grabbing onto Yamato’s shoulders to stabilize himself as Yamato starts to drive because that seems like the most inoffensive place to hold onto. “And don’t act like you don’t like it. We both know that if I grabbed you between the legs right now you’d be just as–”

“I will make you walk home!” Yamato threatens, and Taichi shuts up with a grin.

Chapter 8

When they arrive at Yamato’s apartment complex, it’s no different than all of the previous times Taichi came over to visit. They walk up the stairs together and Taichi climbs them two at a time like usual, the dog that belongs to whomever lives in this floor’s first room to the right immediately starts barking right on schedule at the faint sound of their footsteps, and the light above the door to Yamato and his father’s room is still flickering despite the maintenance request he sent a month ago. It’s all the same, except for the part where right after Taichi enters the room Yamato shoves him back against the door and kisses him so hard that he wouldn’t be surprised if the force snapped the door off its hinges and into the hallway. Taichi questions if Yamato wasn’t lying earlier when he said he wasn’t hungry from the way that he bites at Taichi’s lower lip with his teeth to tug his mouth open and slip his tongue in with a needy moan, and Taichi realizes that he’s feeling pretty hungry, too. He slides his fingers into the loops of Yamato’s jeans, and when he yanks Yamato’s hips close Yamato grunts when they touch and pulls his head back in surprise.

“You sure your dad’s not coming home soon?” Taichi murmurs as Yamato goes along with the motion and presses right up against Taichi – for someone who was so upset about his boner earlier, Yamato seems pretty into it now.

“He’s been working until 5 A.M. all week,” Yamato replies, and if he’s bothered when Taichi’s hands slip into the pockets of his jeans to squeeze his ass, he doesn’t show it. “Got a big story developing or something at the station. Even if he does come home early, it’s not like he’s gonna be able to get through that door right now.”

“You’d keep him locked out for this?” Taichi asks with a sly smile, and Yamato responds by kissing him again to shut him up. He slides his hands up the sides of Taichi’s shirt – Taichi is a little upset that Yamato is stretching out his new top when he just bought it yesterday, but not enough to tell Yamato to stop. It’s not like it’s going to be the first time Yamato will see his skin since they’ve been on plenty of trips to onsens before with the other Chosen Children, but it’s the first time in this context – with Yamato up close, and touching him no less – and as Yamato’s fingertips trace up his ribs and peel the fabric from his skin it’s the most natural feeling in the world.

“Taichi,” Yamato sighs into his mouth, curling his fingers to leave his nails digging into Taichi’s skin like he never wants to let go, but before Taichi can respond in kind he’s interrupted.

“Yamato?” Gabumon chimes in from the side, and Taichi’s eyes widen as he jerks his hands back from groping Yamato’s ass and holds them up like he was just caught stealing the last scoop from Hikari’s tub of ice cream. Yamato deepens the kiss one last time before he calmly turns to face his partner, red eyes glistening curiously in the darkness, and he grabs a fistful of the front of Taichi’s tank top to tug it back down over his abs. “Oh, hello, Taichi,” Gabumon muses, alternating his stare between the two of them, and Taichi wishes he could melt straight through the door and take off running. Yamato’s actions from earlier in the night make more sense now. “Are you two performing a jogress?”

Taichi starts to laugh as the simple, innocent question makes his horror at being discovered while in the middle of making out with Yamato disappear, and Yamato steps away from Taichi to crouch down beside Gabumon and pet his head. “No way,” he affirms. “Not with this idiot. A jogress is supposed to be an improvement, not a downgrade.”

“Hey!” Taichi protests in offense, and Yamato shoots him a smirk before standing back up and heading to the kitchen. “Man,” he begins loudly so that Yamato can definitely hear him from the fridge, and Gabumon tilts his head to the side. “I don’t know how you deal with that guy, Gabumon.”

Gabumon brings his hands together and stares at the ground in thought for a few seconds before looking back up at Taichi. “The same way you do,” he replies simply, and Taichi can’t help but to smile.

Yamato returns with two bottles of water, and after he hands one to Gabumon he twists the lid off the other and takes a drink before offering it to Taichi. “Hey, Gabumon,” Yamato whispers as he bends over, and Taichi takes a glance at his butt while gulping down some of the water. They were forced to part ways much too soon. “Do you mind not coming to my room until later tonight?” Yamato asks, and Taichi almost chokes on his drink because that can only mean one thing.

“Okay,” Gabumon agrees without protest, and bless his wonderful soul because Agumon would have asked way too many questions about why. Yamato takes the water back from Taichi to finish it before grabbing Taichi’s hand, dragging him off to his room and tossing out the empty bottle on their way. Taichi closes the door behind him once they enter and stands there awkwardly in place as Yamato quickly checks himself in a mirror, running a hand through his hair before he starts to remove his necklace.

“…So what’s your deal?” Yamato questions, unbuckling the bracelets from his wrists to set his jewelry on his desk. “You’re standing there like a middle school boy in a girl’s bedroom for the first time. Chill out. You’ve been here before.”

Taichi wonders how he’s supposed to chill out right before having sex with his best friend, but as he walks over to sit on the edge of Yamato’s bed he tells himself that Yamato probably just invited him in here to have a heartfelt bro-to-bro chat about guy things like fast cars and explosions. Yamato is only taking his shirt off while walking towards him because it’s the middle of July and it’s really fucking hot – the weather, that is; definitely not Yamato’s body. It’s not working, though, because Taichi doesn’t believe a single word that his brain is making up to try to make his nerves – and his boner – calm down. Yamato approaches and lifts his knees onto the bed, legs spread as he straddles Taichi and rests his elbows on Taichi’s shoulders, and when Taichi plants his shaky hands on Yamato’s waist and feels him shiver, he’s glad that he’s not the only one feeling nervous.

“So, are we, like…” Taichi begins, slowly tracing his thumbs along the ridges of Yamato’s hips, and when they reach the top of his jeans and slip beneath the denim Yamato squirms on his lap. “Are we, like, best friends who make out now?”

Judging from the way Yamato stares at him, Taichi thinks that the phrase there is no such thing as a stupid question has to be a lie. “Boyfriends,” Yamato clarifies dully. “There’s a word for that, Taichi. It’s called boyfriends.”

“…Oh,” Taichi says, grinning as Yamato rolls his eyes and resumes his earlier goal of removing Taichi’s clothes from his body. “Yeah, that sounds perfect.”

 

---

 

When Taichi wakes up the next morning, he’s sad not to see Yamato beside him after he rolls over because he was definitely planning to sneak a photo of Yamato with bedhead to replace the picture in his contacts, but when he heads out of the room with a yawn to find Yamato at the kitchen counter with that pink apron tied over his shirt and boxers, Taichi guesses that’ll work, too. He shuffles over after snapping a quick pic with his phone and wraps his arms around Yamato’s waist, hooking his chin over Yamato’s shoulder to see what he’s making – blueberry scones, for Gabumon. How typical.

“Good morning, good looking,” Taichi greets him as Yamato taps at the rim of the sifter he’s holding to sprinkle powdered sugar on top of the scones. “I dunno about you, but I’m feeling really sore–”

Yamato interrupts Taichi by grabbing his cheeks with one hand, squeezing them between his thumb and index finger until Taichi is puckering up like some kind of duck, and shoots him a glare. “Dad is sleeping on the couch,” he hisses. “So be quiet.”

He releases Taichi’s face to go back to decorating his scones, and Taichi glances over at the back of the couch, not like he’ll be able to see. “Why’s he on the couch?” Taichi whispers, and when he looks at the dining area he sees Gabumon sitting at the table coloring a picture with crayons. “He has his own room. With a bed.”

“Probably passed out before he could make it there. He didn’t get home until two hours ago.”

“Oh, okay. Here I was confused thinking that you sexiled your own dad from being in the room next to–” Yamato shoves a scone into Taichi’s face, and Taichi grunts when it smacks his nose. “Dude, why can’t you just ask if I want food like a normal person?” Taichi complains, grabbing the scone before he rubs the powdered sugar off his face. Yamato grabs the platter of scones and worms away from him, but not before leaning in to both lick the sugar off of Taichi’s cheek and kiss the frown off of his lips. Stupid, charming Yamato. Taichi follows to join him and Gabumon at the dining table, taking a bite of his scone along the way. It’s delicious.

“You know, I never got to thank you,” Taichi begins softly as he takes a seat, and Yamato glances at him while setting a small ramekin of lemon marmalade down next to Gabumon’s plate. “I never would’ve passed that French class without your help, so thanks a lot. You really saved my ass.”

“…You’re welcome,” Yamato replies candidly, walking over to lean against the table beside Taichi as Gabumon engrosses himself with his scone. “I mean, you’ve saved me way more times, so it was nothing. Besides, it gave me an excuse to hit on you.”

“I knew it,” Taichi says with a grin, like he’s just solved the mystery of the Bermuda triangle. “You were so into me."

“Uh, yeah,” Yamato whispers, raising an eyebrow. “Have been for six years,” he concludes, and Taichi’s smug grin fades away because he might not have known as much as he thought. Yamato and Sora broke up five years ago, and after hearing Yamato’s words it suddenly clicks as to why. Taichi’s stuck between feeling guilty that he was the reason their relationship didn’t work out and a strange mixture of frustration and amazement that he could have gotten together with Yamato years ago instead of one day before he moves halfway across the planet. The silence between them must make Yamato uncomfortable judging by how he begins to scoot away, but Taichi quickly grabs his wrist before he can flee.

“Y-Yeah, well,” Taichi stammers, eyes darting around everywhere except Yamato’s face as he continues, “since we met at summer camp, I’ve thought you were the coolest guy in the whole world. And I still do. So beat that!”

“…You’re so dumb,” Yamato says with an affectionate sigh before brushing aside Taichi’s bangs with a knuckle to kiss his forehead, and when Gabumon asks for a glass of milk he heads over to the kitchen, leaving Taichi there smiling like an idiot.

 

---

 

 

---

 

Taichi is a little surprised that Yamato doesn’t pack much to the airport. All he has is one carry on luggage filled with some clothes and his acoustic guitar strapped to its back, its case covered with stickers of bands that Taichi has never heard of before in his life. Gabumon has his own backpack, full of snacks and coloring books and comics to read on the long flight, and he wanders around one of the nearby souvenir shops while waiting for Yamato to finish talking to his father. He can probably be trusted in there alone, unlike Agumon, who would knock everything over if he hadn’t already eaten it all.

“I’m real proud of you, son,” Yamato’s father says, clapping a hand against Yamato’s back. “You’re going on to do some great things. Way better than your old man.”

“Thanks, dad,” Yamato replies with a genuine smile as his father pats his shoulder. Taichi bets he’s relieved that his dad isn’t patting his head instead because it would mess up his hair.

“Remember to call me when you get there and after, too, whenever you need something. Or even if you don’t need something and just want to talk. I’ll always be here for you, Yamato.”

“Yeah, okay,” Yamato agrees, and Taichi can tell he’s holding back from adding on but you’ll be too busy to answer anyways. He knows Yamato loves and appreciates his dad, but he also knows how fed up Yamato can be with him sometimes because he’s such a workaholic – and a slob who never helps with the housework. His dad nods with a satisfied grin, glancing over at Taichi before he pats Yamato’s shoulder a few more times and awkwardly walks off to join Gabumon at the souvenir store. They sure make a strange pair window shopping together.

“Remember to call me when you get there,” Taichi jokes, and Yamato rolls his eyes. “And eat three meals a day and get at least eight hours of sleep a night. And don’t watch too much tv and go out for plenty of exercise.”

“Okay, mom,” Yamato concedes. “But you can't make me eat my broccoli.”

“Oh, that’s fine. Broccoli is nasty. Even Agumon won’t touch it.”

“Uh, actually, I think it tastes fine.” Taichi makes a face, and Yamato smirks, sliding his hands into his pockets as he shifts his weight onto one foot. “So, you gonna miss me?”

“Duh,” Taichi answers. “That’s a dumb question. Of course I will! I love you, man. A lot. I’m gonna feel a little lost without you.” Yamato stares at him, bewildered, like he doesn’t comprehend what Taichi has just said even though he’s the multilingual one here, but a few seconds later he sniffles, and Taichi’s eyes widen as he realizes Yamato is trying not to cry. He doesn’t even know what he did, because his words should have brought about the opposite of crying. He feels like every time Yamato has ever cried it’s been because of him, either being a complete asshole when they were kids or nearly dying more than just a few times, and he doesn’t want to be the cause, yet again. “H-Hey,” he stammers, and Yamato shakes his head while stepping back because he’s been found out. “Yamato… hey, what’s wrong? Whatever it was I did, I’m sorry.”

“I’m just,” Yamato begins, rubbing at his eye like he’s trying to get a speck of dirt out of it when he’s really wiping away a tear. Taichi grabs his other hand before Yamato can use it to shove him away. He flashes his frustrating but wonderful boyfriend his most dazzling, reassuring smile and brushes a thumb against his knuckles, and Yamato finally sighs, running his fingers through his hair before dropping them to his side. “I’m scared,” he admits, and Taichi waits patiently for him to finish. “Okay? I thought that if I never admitted it, it would go away. But when I get off that airplane, there isn’t going to be anyone waiting for me. It’s just going to be me and Gabumon. I don’t have your courage, Taichi. I don’t want to be alone again.”

“Aw, come on, Yamato.” Taichi wraps his arms around Yamato’s neck, hugging him as close as humanly possible, and when Yamato coughs a bit he takes it as a sign to loosen his grip. “You just said it yourself, Gabumon will be with you. And I’ll be there, too, whenever you need me. Call me and I’ll pick up no matter what. You can even video call me, and if it’s 3 A.M. or if I’m in the middle of class or if I’m still in the middle of putting clothes on I’ll answer anyways. Hell, if you need me to go over there, I will steal Hikari’s D-3 and find a gate into the Digital World and crawl out of one in England to get to you.”

“…We both know you’d get lost,” Yamato murmurs, lifting his hands to hug Taichi back.

“I’m not worried about that. You’d worry and come to find me, riding in on Garurumon’s back like some kinda Prince Charming knockoff.” Yamato groans, and Taichi laughs. “But seriously, it’s gonna be fine. Everyone will love you. Just don’t forget about all of us back in Japan.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Yamato replies, and after Taichi lets go of him and steps back he’s smiling again. “Thanks, Taichi.”

“No problem.”

Gabumon and Yamato’s father start making their way back from the souvenir shop, and from the looks of it Gabumon managed to charm his way into getting a new neck pillow that probably won’t even fit around his neck – maybe it’s for Yamato. “Better get going,” Yamato says, grabbing onto the handle of his luggage, but despite his words he still stands there in place, staring at Taichi, who stares back and tries to commit every part of Yamato to memory. “Well… à la prochaine fois,” Yamato concludes, sliding his other hand into his pocket, and Taichi frowns.

“What’s that mean?” he asks, and when Yamato raises an eyebrow he rolls his eyes – summer vacation started two days ago, but he guesses learning French with Yamato lasts forever. He did this to himself. “Ugh, comment dit-on–”

“It means, ‘til next time,” Yamato replies before he can finish.

“Oh.” Taichi smiles back at him, the perfect idiot that he was an idiot for falling in love with, whom he’s not saying goodbye to, now or ever, because they’re going to see each other again. They always do. “À la prochaine fois.”

 

---

 

“I’d tell you to play me that song again while we’re here,” Taichi begins as he walks along the Champs-Élysées with Yamato’s hand in his and the mid-December snow sprinkling onto their heads, “but leave it to you to not bring along your guitar the one time it actually makes sense to have it.”

“I told you, I’m not getting snow in it!” Yamato exclaims, and the people walking by them seem surprised to hear them speaking Japanese in France. They’ll have to get used to it because the two of them will be on vacation here visiting Yamato’s grandfather for the entire winter break, and Taichi is planning to make Yamato take him to all of the tourist spots he’s learned about in his French classes. Taichi had to get used to his own share of French customs starting from the moment he met Yamato at the airport after their respective flights, including when he had to perform the dreaded faire les bises with Yamato’s grandpa despite only having met Taichi once before. French people are almost too friendly, and it’s hard to believe that he and the reserved Yamato are related.

“Come on, it’s not even snowing that hard,” Taichi goads. “I thought you were supposed to be a romantic, but you’re just a wuss. A chicken! Bawk-bawk.”

“What does that have to do with getting my guitar wet? It was expensive, and I’m not buying a new one because my stupid boyfriend wanted to be serenaded in the middle of the snow.”

Taichi hums to himself in feigned thought and walks a little closer to Yamato, bumping shoulders with him. “Guess you’ll just have to sing to me when we get home, then.”

“Fine. I guess I will.” Yamato huffs, and Taichi almost feels guilty that after six months of going out he’s learned how to get exactly what he wants from Yamato just by suggesting something twice as ridiculous and seemingly making a compromise. “We’d better pick up a petit gateau for papi while we’re at the cafe. As thanks for looking after Gabumon and Agumon so they didn’t have to tag along on our date. You know that we’d never get any privacy with them around.”

“We’d better pick up way more than one, because when Agumon sees it he’ll wanna stuff himself with twice his weight in chocolate,” Taichi warns, and Yamato laughs as he shakes his head in exasperation. From all of their phone conversations since he’s moved away, it seems like Yamato has adjusted well to his new life overseas, but he clearly still missed Taichi a lot since he, the more self-conscious of the two, won’t let go of Taichi’s hand despite people’s curious stares. “So,” Taichi begins again as they continue towards what is supposed to be Yamato’s favorite cafe in the world, “I applied to some foreign exchange programs, and I got accepted to one in Canada. It lasts for one semester. I think I’m gonna go.”

“You don’t wanna come see me in England?” Yamato asks with a faint glare, and Taichi thinks he’s lucky Yamato hasn’t pushed him into a snow bank. Yet.

“Not after hearing you describe the shitty weather,” Taichi jokes, and when Yamato’s expression doesn’t lighten he offers a nervous laugh. “Okay, I did apply to programs in America, Australia, and the United Kingdom, but I was rejected ‘cause I can’t speak English for shit. They said I wouldn’t survive the intensive language course, but apparently after one year of classes my French is good enough for me to go to Quebec. Hopefully I can learn some English there, too. I gotta learn as many languages as possible if I’m gonna do something with this major in international relations.”

“Should learn DigiCode, too,” Yamato quips, and Taichi snorts.

“Yeah, I’ll do that and go be some kind of diplomat between our world and the Digital World. Evil Digimon and corrupt politicians will definitely listen to me, because I’m the one wearing the goggles. France will never be attacked again by any Mamemon on my watch!”

“My hero. I’m swooning,” Yamato drones, unaffected when Taichi punches his gut because of his thick winter jacket. “…But Quebec, huh. You should do it. It’s nice to spend some time away from Japan.”

“I can tell. This vacation just started, and I already feel so much more alive.” Taichi grins at him, and when Yamato looks over Taichi winks. “But maybe that’s just ‘cause I’m with you.”

Yamato makes a puking sound and rolls his eyes. “You make me feel more alive, too, because stopping you from doing stupid shit keeps me on my toes.”

“Hey, you missed keeping me from being an idiot,” Taichi teases with a knowing smirk. “You missed me.”

“Yeah,” Yamato admits without any hint of hesitation, squeezing Taichi’s hand in his, and the subtle affection somehow still makes Taichi’s gut flutter. “I did. You may be an idiot, but you’re my idiot.”

“Je t’aime aussi,” Taichi whispers, and when Yamato blushes at his French, which is surely gorgeous and perfectly pronounced, he can’t believe how the tables have turned.

Notes:

hi, thanks for reading and happy odaiba day!! ヾ(:3ﾉｼヾ)ﾉｼ pls 5give my shitty ass french and may the new adventure project not suck and bless us w more taiyama to cry about