Pairings: Daito, mention of Jyora
Warnings: Shounen ai, humor, angst, sap
Notes: This does, in fact, take place after my 15-chapter fic "Untouched and Alive" which was finished quite a while ago (over a year...yeah, I know...a little late much?). It is recommended that you read that before you read this, as you might be a bit lost toward the end. And a review would be appreciated, to let me know what you think. ^_^
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I hate Mondays.
Yamato sighed loudly and glared at the paper in front of him. The school year was nearly over, and by this time one would think he'd be prepared for the physics quiz that awaited him and everyone else each Monday morning. But of course, he wasn't, and he had to think about the word 'vector' before he remembered what it was and he spent most of the time allowed for the quiz struggling to remember what magnitude was. He'd heard the word multiple times in the course of the year, ever since he first stepped foot into the physics classroom, and it should probably be familiar to him by now but it isn't. He thought it had something to do with the displacement, but hell if he knew what that meant exactly. And truth be told, it is quite hard to find the magnitude of something when one isn't entirely sure what magnitude is.
So Yamato handed in his quiz, which was filled with pretty little vector diagrams and random numbers being squared and added until the answer looked at least somewhat reasonable, and there was little doubt that he failed miserably. Especially when the teacher, who liked to sit as his desk at the end of the hour and flip through the quizzes he received, gave Yamato's paper a bewildered look and then proceeded to place a nice red X in the middle.
And after the bell rang and he was walking out of the classroom, a girl - who he only knew because he had seen her at nearly every one of his gigs for the past two months - felt the need to run up to him and say in a loud whisper, "Wasn't that quiz so easy? I think that is the easiest class that I've ever had. Don't you?"
Yamato could only nod his head, even though he thought that physics was the work of the devil, and he went to his second hour class feeling inferior to everyone in his school.
Unfortunately for him, the feeling only increased when second hour began and the teacher entered the room, calling in his commanding that Yamato learned to hate months ago, "Pass all homework to the front!"
Yamato froze as everyone around him began to search through their folders and pull out their assignments. Homework? He tried to remember the homework, tried to remember if he did it. Homework, homework, homework. Oh shit. He remembered the homework: the essay he was supposed to write during the weekend. The one that he wrote his name on during his Friday-night study session with Daisuke. The one that he threw on the floor when he said, "Oh, fuck it," and pulled Daisuke on top of him.
His eyes glazed over at the memory.
"Mr. Ishida, do you not have your assignment?"
Yamato stared up at his teacher with an expression much like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming train. "No, sir, I do not."
"Ah," the older man said thoughtfully, obviously loving the opportunity to embarrass the hell out of one of his students. "And what, may I ask, were you doing this weekend that prevented you from doing the homework for my class?"
I don't think you want to know. Yamato fought a blush and prayed that he looked much calmer than he felt. "I-I don't know, sir."
"You don't know, you say?" The sadistic man smirked and then launched into a ten-minute lecture on the increasing delinquency of Japanese teenagers these days, all during which Yamato continued to slump lower and lower in his chair and search for the sharpest object to bash his head upon repeatedly.
By lunch he'd had quite enough of Monday. In fact, he cursed its existence. He'd fallen asleep twice, once during possibly the most important history lecture of the semester (at least, he thinks that is what the teacher was trying to convey) and once in the computer lab where his head resting comfortably on the keyboard caused his computer to beep loudly and alert the teacher to his nap.
So Yamato sat down at his lunch table, head bent and blond locks dangling in his face. "I hate Mondays," he said quietly to his friends who all either nodded mournfully or grumbled a response.
Well, all except for Sora and Jyou, of course, who were their usual cheerful selves, laughing and leaning into each other as only longtime couples could.
"Why do you hate Mondays?" Sora asked. "I quite enjoy them, myself."
Yamato cleared his throat and prepared to ultimately bitch about his day. "Well first I totally flunked the physics quiz-"
"Really?" Koushiro interrupted, staring at him thoughtfully. "I found it to be quite easy actually."
Yamato glared at him and shut his mouth. If he could not bitch without interruptions, he refused to bitch at all. He mumbled something unintelligible in response, suddenly wishing - and not at all for the first time - that he saw Daisuke sometime in his day. Daisuke let him bitch. Let him bitch and then threw his arms around the older boy and whispered comforting words.
Damn school.
"Hey, Yama, you're going to the soccer game after school, right?"
Yamato sighed and resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his ex-crush. "Tai, have I missed a single soccer game this year or even so much as given you the idea that I would ever miss one?"
The big-haired teen narrowed his eyes. "Well, I don't know. There's a first time for everything. Besides, you aren't exactly being all that observant today."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Tai pointed to something behind him and answered evenly, "You sort of didn't get your lunch and, well…" He trailed off as Yamato glanced behind him, just as the cafeteria workers shut the doors to the kitchen, signaling that whoever had yet to get his/her lunch was out of luck.
"Oh no." Yamato leaned his head against the table, wishing that the ground would open up and swallow him whole. "This has been the worst day ever. I hate Mondays."
"Now, now, Yamato, I'm sure that-"
"Not today, Jyou. Not today."
He laid his head back on the table, letting it thud lightly against the cool surface a few times, while Taichi shook his head and made a motion for everyone to just leave the discontented musician alone for a little bit.
By the last hour of the day, Yamato was starving, despite the bag of Cheetos that Tai had graciously bought him from the school vending machine and the half-bag of Skittles Sora had donated. His stomach ached, his head throbbed, and he felt as though he could collapse at any given second. And it was just his luck that his last hour happened to be gym, the one class that used absolutely all of his energy. He cursed the school for forcing him to take such a class.
The locker room stunk like rotten eggs and cheap cologne, and Yamato had to resist the urge to gag as his senses struggled to become accustomed to it. With a loud sigh, he shuffled over to his locker and opened it. All around him, other teenage boys were stripping off their clothes without a second thought, and Yamato felt more than awkward as he dug out his own gym clothes - a maroon sweatshirt and black sweatpants - and slunk back to the bathroom stalls to change in private.
He had gotten his shirt off and was fumbling to find the sleeves of his sweatshirt when he heard his name from somewhere in the direction of the lockers. He nearly answered but thought better of it, just in case he had heard wrong - he did not, after all, want to sound like a dipstick. Even if it would make him fit in a bit better in gym class. So he froze and listened.
"Who?" someone asked, and it was very obvious he was trying his hardest to whisper and failing miserably. As most attempts to speak quietly in a loud, smelly locker room usually are.
"You know," another voice whispered loudly. "Yamato Ishida."
Yamato froze as more mumbling floated from the locker room, but he could not hear for the sudden ringing in his ears. He tried to calm himself so that he could listen, although it was several seconds before he succeeded.
"Yeah, didn't you hear? It was all anyone could talk about for a while."
"I heard that he, like, slit his wrists or something and got put in the hospital for a couple weeks. That's why he always wears that stupid sweatshirt in this class, because he's afraid someone will see."
Yamato inhaled sharply and glanced down at the many pink scars that covered his arm. He clutched at his 'stupid sweatshirt' and prepared to pull it over his head, suddenly not wanting to look at himself anymore.
"Yeah. My girlfriend volunteers at the hospital, and she said that like right after he got out for his suicide attempt his dad tried to kill him or something."
"Jesus."
"I know, man. Isn't that screwed up?"
"That's probably why he did it. His dad was probably beating him or something like that, so he tried to kill himself."
"Poor kid."
"Yeah."
Yamato slid down the wall of the bathroom stall, shutting his eyes tightly and rubbing his hands harshly over the skin of his scarred arms. The noise in around him faded as the locker room began to empty out, and he wanted to move, tried to leave the stall, but he could not. He could not make his muscles work.
"…dad tried to kill him," he muttered to himself. "…tried to kill him…"
"Poor kid."
Suddenly Yamato was on his feet and slipping his shirt back over his head. He threw the stall door open and replaced his gym clothes in his locker, slamming it as he left the boy's locker room, intent on finding the school vending machine and stealing all of the food that he could. Because he could not go to gym - not now, maybe not ever again - and he positively needed to eat. So that he had strength to go to the soccer game, so he could see Daisuke.
So he stole a bag of Cheez-Its, Gardettos, and M&Ms, and he ate them in the boy's bathroom across the school that everyone seemed to forget even existed. He hugged his knees to his chest as memories nearly forgotten pushed themselves into the front of his mind once again, for the first time in almost a year. And Yamato thought about his father - or at least, the man he had once called his father - and he remembered the cuts and bruises and scathing words and the way the glass of the television felt as it sliced into his arm. He thought about them until long after the bell sounded, signaling the end of the school day. And when he finally stood back up, prepared to finally leave, he could have sworn that he felt the blood rolling down his arm like it did that day…
Yamato does remember much about the soccer game; his mind was elsewhere throughout the entire thing. He was vaguely aware of Taichi alternately cheering and cursing, Takeru leaning against his shoulder, Miyako hugging him when she saw him, and both Daisuke and Ken sending him odd looks from their positions on the field.
Although Yamato does remember what happened after the game, which Dai and Ken's team ended up winning.
"Are you okay?" Tai asked, touching his arm lightly in concern. "You look miserable. What happened?"
Yamato shook his head, suddenly coming back to himself. "Nothing. Just been a bad day, you know." He quickly surveyed the crowd for his boyfriend but could not find the younger boy. He sighed.
A pair of arms suddenly embraced Yamato from behind and the familiar scent of sweat and cinnamon nearly overwhelmed his senses. He leaned back instinctively just as a pair of lips brushed against the nape of his neck.
"Hey, Blue Eyes."
"Hey, Dai."
Daisuke dropped onto Yamato's lap and kissed him soundly while Miyako and Hikari giggled, Takeru cooed, and Taichi muttered something about sappy romance novels. "So how was your day?" he asked when they pulled away, concern plain in his expression and voice.
"Oh, you know, the usual. I flunked the physics quiz, forgot to do most of my homework, fell asleep more often than not, nearly starved, and some guys in the locker room were discussing how someone heard that I slit my wrists and then that my father tried to kill me."
Daisuke's grip tightened protectively, but he remained staring into Yamato's deep blue eyes. "Who said that? I'll kill 'em." The blond smiled tightly and leaned forward so that his head rested against Daisuke's heart, and he let the steady beat soothe him as everyone around the two of them seemed to melt into the background. "Are you all right?"
He thought about the teachers who lectured him, the boys in the locker room, vectors and magnitude, and how much he said he hated Mondays. And he considered complaining about it to Daisuke, curling up against him and crying over it all. But somehow, with Daisuke's arms around him and his heartbeat so close, Monday suddenly didn't seem so horrible anymore. "Yeah," Yamato replied, smiling more widely this time. "I'm quite wonderful, actually."
"Really?" Daisuke said, obviously not believing a word of it.
"Well." Yamato pulled back before pressing his nose lightly against his boyfriend's. "I am now that you're with me." His lips grazed Daisuke's, and he dimly heard a chorus of 'Awws' coming from somewhere to his left. "Love you."
"Love you too, Blue Eyes."
And Yamato smiled and thought that he loved Mondays. Because Daisuke was always there to make everything better.