Author's Note: My Sorato fansite on Tumblr turns one today! Here's a drabble in celebration. :)

Revised on 30 May 2014 to please Aklee. ;)

Crush

"Mimi's pretty."

"I guess."

"What about Jun?"

Yamato knew from Taichi's chuckle that his face must've conveyed a look of extreme displeasure. "I . . . appreciate how enthusiastic she is about the band?" he offered diplomatically.

"You should totally date her," Taichi urged him. "She's in high school, man."

Yamato looked wearily at his friend. "I don't like her in that way."

"She likes you, though. Like, a lot."

"Am I supposed to go out with a girl just because she likes me?" he asked sarcastically. "Is that how dating works?"

"Whatever," Taichi said dismissively. "You could have a girlfriend – a high school chick – but you choose not to. I don't know, man. Are you gay?"

Yamato snorted, shaking his head. "I'm gay because I don't like Jun Motomiya?"

"You said it."

"I'm totally resisting the urge to punch you right now."

Taichi grinned. "So you don't find any girls attractive?"

"I never said that."

"But you don't find Jun attractive."

Yamato sighed heavily. The brunet could be really annoying sometimes. "But I just agreed with you that Mimi was attractive. And so's your sister, by the way –" Taichi gave him a sharp look for that comment, to which he couldn't help but grin, "– and Sora."

"My sister is off limits," Taichi growled. "And Sora isn't a girl," he added after a beat, "so she doesn't count."

". . . I'm fairly certain she is, Taichi."

"You know what I mean," Taichi returned, before shrugging and turning his attention back to the game he was playing on TV. "I can't see Sora with a dude."

Yamato didn't know how to respond to that. He could see Sora with a boyfriend – and the thought of her with some guy . . . well, irritated him. But he masked his feelings and offered a deliberately careless, "I guess it's because you've known her for so long that the thought of her with a boyfriend would seem weird."

"I guess."

A moment's silence.

"Do you like Chizuru?" Taichi asked suddenly, apparently still interested in the topic of girls.

"What?" Yamato exclaimed, eyebrow raised. Was Taichi going to bring up every single girl they knew? "No."

Taichi's grin widened. "Maybe that's why you let Miyako do the audio mixing for your band. You want an 'in' to her sister!"

"What the hell, Yagami? I do not like Chizuru."

"Protesting a bit too much, don't you think?" Taichi winked at him.

"No," Yamato said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Chizuru's . . ." Not Sora. "She's . . . nice and all. But no." He levelled his friend with a light glare. "I don't like anyone," he told Taichi firmly, in hopes of dropping the subject.

"All right, all right," Taichi seemed to back down, though with a smirk plastered on his face. "Well, guess what? I like someone."

That piqued Yamato's interest. He lifted a curious eyebrow. "You do?"

"Yeah." But Taichi didn't bother to elaborate, instead focussing all his attention on the game he was playing, mashing his fingers against his PlayStation's controller.

Yamato sighed. "OK, I'm game. Who?"

"I think I'm going to take a note out of your book and be mysterious," Taichi replied with a smug grin, not even bothering to remove his gaze from the TV screen. "Not telling."

Yamato shrugged his shoulders, even though Taichi wouldn't see anyway. "Doesn't bother me, Yagami." His eyes stared silently at the screen, without really watching at all, as Taichi played his video game. A few more minutes passed.

OK, he was a little curious.

"Although," Yamato spoke up, trying to sound as disinterested as possible, "you'd think the great and courageous Taichi Yagami would already be with the girl he likes. You're a disappointment."

"Hey, these things take time," Taichi defended himself, not sounding the least bit offended, but instead rather self-satisfied. "Besides, I am going to tell her. Soon."

"Yeah? When?"

"The time of love, of course," Taichi replied, elongating the word 'love'. "This Christmas Eve."

Yamato raised an eyebrow. He was surprised that not only did Taichi like someone, but that his friend had already thought it all out and planned to confess. To be honest, he was also a bit impressed . . . and envious. "Well, good luck," he offered the brunet. It would also be amusing to see how Taichi would actually act with a girlfriend.

"Thanks," Taichi grinned at him. "I need it."

"Hey guys!"

Both boys looked over at Taichi's bedroom door as Sora graced them with her presence, slipping into the room and closing the door behind her.

"Sorry I'm late," she apologised, settling her backpack and tennis racket down on Taichi's bed. She was dressed in her white tennis club uniform. "Practice ran a litter later than usual."

Yamato nodded a silent greeting at her. He didn't know when Sora's legs had gotten so attractive – or if they'd always been attractive and he had just started to notice them this year – but he really, really liked her legs.

Damn hormones.

"Nice legs," Taichi told their auburn-haired friend with a goofy grin.

It didn't go without notice to Yamato that the brunet had so easily voiced what he himself had been thinking – and also what he would never have dared say to Sora himself, in case he somehow offended her. But for as long as Yamato had known them, Taichi had always managed to get away with saying things like that to Sora.

Sora rewarded Taichi's remark with a swat to his arm, before taking a seat on the floor next to him. "Too bad I can't return the compliment."

"Ouch," Taichi joked in an injured tone. "But that would hurt more if it was true, Sora – I can outrun you any day, any week."

"You're a boy," Sora argued, her tone exasperated, "you're physically more powerful. It still doesn't mean your legs aren't unattractive due to how . . . stubby they are."

"Did you just call me short?!" Taichi mock hollered. "I'm a lot taller than you now if you hadn't noticed."

Yamato watched the two banter as a small surge of jealousy washed over him at how easily his friends interacted. Taichi and Sora just seemed so comfortable with each other – though he knew that was due, in large part, to the fact that they'd been best friends since elementary school. It still made him a little jealous, though. "Did your tennis practice go well this afternoon?" he asked Sora, just to get her attention. He always felt a little self-conscious whenever she looked solely at him – but he also liked it a lot when she did.

"Yeah," Sora answered him, meeting his gaze by glancing around Taichi, who was sitting in-between them on the floor. "We're practising really hard and I think it shows. We're in really good form for the next competition."

"You look to be in good form," Yamato agreed without really thinking, before realising what he was actually saying – or how Sora could take that statement. "I mean –" He could feel himself start to blush a bit, but he did take comfort in the fact that Sora was smiling at him, "– you know, for the game. You're . . . really athletic."

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Yeah, she knows she's athletic," Taichi glanced at Yamato with an expression that seemed to contain both sarcasm and disbelief. "She's been playing sports her whole life, dude."

"Shut up," Yamato simply muttered, as Sora giggled.

"So what were you two talking about before I got here?" Sora asked, with a smile still etched on her face.

"Girls," Taichi supplied easily, before Yamato had a chance to answer.

"Ah." Sora nodded her head. "I take it you did most of the talking, Taichi? And Yamato pretended to listen?"

Yamato laughed lightly at her jest, appreciating the fact that she'd taken the conversation away from his embarrassing slip-up, while Taichi scowled at her comment.

"I did do most of the talking – because I'm the only one here actually interested in girls."

This time Yamato rolled his eyes at Taichi's joke while Sora chuckled.

"Taichi likes someone," Yamato informed Sora, taking the focus away from himself again and placing it on the brunet. "And he plans to confess on Christmas Eve."

"Really?" Sora asked, glancing at Taichi for his confirmation. He nodded. "Look at you, Taichi, all grown up and liking a girl."

"It had to happen sometime," Yamato quipped, and he and Sora shared a laugh.

"You're just jealous," Taichi retorted, snorting in Yamato's direction. "I still think it's weird that you have all these girls lining up to date you because of your band and pretty boy looks and whatever – and yet you do . . . nothing." He turned his head away from Yamato to look at Sora. "He doesn't like anyone."

"Oh?" Sora asked, turning enquiring eyes on Yamato.

"No," Yamato confirmed, breaking eye contact with her as he lied. He felt really uncomfortable at the fact that he was telling his crush that he didn't like anyone – when he constantly thought about her way too much throughout any given day. His feelings for Sora were the most intense he'd ever felt for any girl before. It actually kinda freaked him out. "I don't."

"I see," Sora nodded her head, but said nothing else. Yamato thought he saw a hint of something in her eyes that he couldn't quite put his finger on, though. Was it disappointment? Or was that just extreme wishful thinking on his part?

"What about you, Sora?" Taichi asked, effectively pulling Yamato out of his thoughts. "Do you like someone?"

Yamato tried to feign disinterest and looked ahead at the TV screen instead of at Sora. He couldn't believe his luck that Taichi would just ask her that question point-blank. Then again, it was Taichi.

Sora gave a dry chuckle. "If I did, Taichi, I'd never tell you. Half the school would know by the end of the day."

Taichi clutched a hand to his heart in mock agony. "I would never betray your trust!"

Sora patted his shoulder with a grin. "I know. But I haven't thought much about guys, really –"

"You like girls?" Taichi interrupted, eyes wide – he dropped his PlayStation controller and proceeded to die in his game within seconds.

"No, I don't like girls," Sora rolled her eyes. "What I was trying to say was that schoolwork takes up so much of my time I don't really have time to think about boys. There are more things to life than just the opposite sex, Taichi."

"And maybe," Yamato added, with a wry smile, "you should, you know, stop thinking that all your friends are gay? Just a suggestion."

Taichi recovered easily enough – and proceeded to ignore both their comments. "Well, Sora, who do you think is the most attractive guy in school?" he continued to persist.

Yamato, once again, tried to pretend that he wasn't really interested in Sora's answer and glanced away at the TV – except that there really wasn't much to look at this time, since Taichi had died in the game. So he looked back over at Sora, but made his face as expressionless as possible.

Sora sighed in response. "I don't know . . . maybe Kazuya?" she answered, though her tone suggested that she didn't care much about him at all. Yamato knew that Kazuya was some guy in the baseball club whom a lot of girls seemed to talk about. Sora's answer had been one of the stock answers that could've been said by any girl at their school.

"Are you offended?" Taichi elbowed Yamato, looking at him with an expression of mock sympathy. "She didn't say you, man. Sora can be officially crossed off the list of a bazillion girls at school who want to date you."

Yamato snorted, even though he was disappointed in her answer – but it wasn't as though he had ever expected Sora to say his name, anyway. "It would be weird if she said me, idiot," he brushed off Taichi's comment lightly, rolling his eyes, before directing a crooked smile towards Sora. "We're friends. Right, Sora?"

"Yeah," Sora smiled softly at Yamato. "Friends."

And that was all the confirmation Yamato needed to know that he really should get over Sora Takenouchi.

End

I'm rusty. This takes place a few months before Christmas Eve 2002. They are all 13/14 and in junior high school. And, of course, both Yamato and Taichi have crushes on Sora – while Sora has a crush on Yamato.