A.N.: Okay, so I will warn you in advance: as an asexual person myself, this is not going to turn into lemon. If you're here for smut, then sorry in advance but it's been a challenge enough just writing what I did. Still, in the wake of Tri I feel starved enough of Taishiro that I figure the ship needs all it can get.
My thanks to Auragongal on tumblr for beta reading chapter one for me, and giving me the confidence to post this!
The night was warm, and loud. An open door allowed the deep, thumping bass from the party to spill out into the darkness. Most of the partygoers were indoors – the celebration for Mimi's eighteenth birthday had been an event long in the making, and she had convinced her parents to let her have full reign of their apartment for the night.
Koushiro had finally steered the sometime leader of the Chosen Children to the balcony outside when it became obvious that Taichi was having difficulty standing. The plan had been to let the fresh air and absence of any more alcohol help to sober him up enough that he stood a chance of remaining upright until the end of the party, at least. It had not involved falling victim to an interrogation. But then, experience had proved time and again that plans involving Taichi tended to go awry. He should have known.
"So. What you're telling me, Koushiro, is that you are nearabout eighteen years old, and you have never kissed anyone." For someone having difficulty keeping his balance, Taichi managed to remain remarkably articulate.
"That's correct," Koushiro replied tersely, leaning on the wall. Perhaps Taichi would get the hint.
Taichi frowned, clutching at the railing around the balcony's edge for support.
"And no one ever kissed you?"
Koushiro rolled his eyes. He should have expected that one. That was the trouble with parties – they were a sensory overload which wore him out. And being worn out tended to lead to him making basic mistakes such as letting his friend get started on that subject.
"No, Taichi," he said, with forced patience, pushing his irritation with himself aside. After all, drunk or not, it wasn't Taichi's fault that this had come up. "I think that was covered already."
"Well we have gotta fix that."
With surprising speed for someone a hair's breadth from passing out, Taichi lurched forwards. Koushiro flinched reflexively, and brought his arms up just in time to deflect the other boy's advance. Sighing, he pushed his friend away again.
"Taichi, you are drunk," he said, speaking slowly and clearly. "You are about as drunk as anyone can be while remaining upright, so I suggest you stop before you do something particularly stupid."
"What d'ya mean, 'Shiro?"
Koushiro ignored the mangling of his name. "I mean that you are far too inebriated to be fully responsible for your own actions, so as your friend I am telling you to sit down and give yourself a chance to sober up."
Taichi appeared confused a moment, then leant back onto the balcony railing and laughed.
"You know what, 'Shiro? You need to get drunk more. Or ever. Your problem is that you're too damn sober." He grinned, and his hand slipped, making him lurch to the side.
They were four storeys up. Koushiro dragged his friend away from the edge and hauled him to one of the chairs on the balcony. When Taichi was deposited safely there, he sat opposite him, eyebrows raised.
"Did it ever occur to you that I have no wish to get drunk?" he asked. Taichi's blank expression was his only answer.
"Wait there, Taichi. I'm going to fetch you some water. Do try not to fall to your death while I'm gone."
Taichi looked over at the railing, and grinned. "I'm not that drunk, you know."
Koushiro smiled crookedly. "You could have fooled me."
By the time he found some cold water and returned to the balcony, Taichi was asleep, head lolling backwards in the chair. Koushiro sighed. He ought to have seen that coming, too.
Taichi woke up to the Worst Hangover Of All Time. Throbbing head; lurching stomach; a strong desire to punch the sun for having risen – the lot. Never mind those other hangovers. Oh, he might have thought they were bad at the time, but this one – this hangover he was having right now – this was the worst one of all.
He groaned, and curled up in a ball of self-pity. Hikari was going to be a nightmare. She'd been cranky as anything about having been deemed too young to go to the party. No doubt she'd consider this a just revenge.
It took a gargantuan effort to force open his eyes and find out what time it was. After all, there was always a chance she'd have gone out already.
Wait. Why was there a wall where his bedroom ought to be? He rolled over, and came face to face with the answer.
This was Koushiro's room. And he was lying in Koushiro's bed.
Well, shit. Sure, he'd crashed out in this very bed after a night out on one or two occasions before, but he'd always remembered getting there. Waking up in the wrong apartment boded rather badly. Although it did lend some legitimacy to the hangover's severity. Maybe this was the aftermath of it. That one drunken night which every teenager supposedly had, which remained unrivalled. From which in-jokes and stories would be sourced, to be talked about for years.
Hard on the heels of this musing came the realisation that he didn't really remember all that much of it. That kinda sucked. Of course, it was hard to remember much of anything with a head which felt two sizes larger than the skull wrapped around it.
His body protested when he finally sat up. Everything hurt. He kept his eyes closed against the nagging sunlight as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then winced as his foot caught a plastic edge.
It was a bucket. For a moment he simply stared at it. Well, there were no doubts about who had been responsible for that. Who else but Koushiro would have left him a bucket in case he threw up? That precise blend of quiet consideration and a total lack of any experience with alcohol - coupled with an absence of the sort of paranoia which plagued Jou.
Actually, when compared with the night he'd ended up at Jou's mercy after drinking too much, even the Worst Hangover Of All Time wasn't so bad. At least he hadn't wound up getting his stomach pumped this time. He shuddered, riding out a wave of nausea. Not the best time to think about that.
For a few minutes, he simply sat on the edge of the bed taking a mental inventory. It was disorienting as all hell to wake up and not know how you had arrived somewhere. And there were the practical considerations, too. For one thing, there was a rancid taste in his mouth and his toothbrush was all the way back at home. For another, he was still in his clothes from the night before, thoroughly crumpled and covered in what smelled like beer stains. He certainly didn't remember that happening. Maybe he ought to go find Koushiro and ask how he'd ended up at the Izumis' apartment.
Several minutes of deliberating and one stubbed toe later, he stumbled into the living room to find Koushiro sat on the sofa, doing something computery on his laptop. Of course he was. He barely even looked up as Taichi slumped onto the sofa beside him.
"There are some painkillers in the kitchen if you require them."
Taichi blinked, and stared groggily at him. "What?"
Koushiro didn't even stop typing. "I would assume that you are feeling the effects of your alcohol consumption last night?"
"Oh. Right." Taichi closed his eyes and leant forward into the chair, rubbing his face. The faint yet persistent clackety-clack of Koushiro's fingers on the keys was not helping. "Uhh, what time is it?"
The redhead looked up at last. "A little after eleven," he said, with altogether too much energy. "You passed out at Mimi's, by the way. Jou managed to wake you, at which point you insisted on walking home."
"I see I did a real good job getting there," Taichi muttered.
He looked up at the sound of the laptop closing with a gentle click. Koushiro was watching him, eyebrow raised.
"Well, given that my apartment is considerably closer to Mimi's than yours, and the fact that you were unable to walk straight, I made the executive decision that it was the safer option. You don't remember any of this, I take it?"
He shook his head, then groaned. That had been a bad idea. "It's all kinda vague really," he said as the throbbing eased. "Man, I haven't drunk that much since-"
"Since Jou panicked that time, yes."
Taichi frowned. There was something odd about Koushiro's replies. It wasn't the tacit disapproval – Koushiro had never been a big drinker, and usually berated his friends rather than showing sympathy for their hangovers. It was as much a part of him as the laptop was. Even amid the Worst Hangover Of All Time, Taichi hadn't really expected anything else. Still. There was normally a cheerful undercurrent to it all. The hint that really, Koushiro was more amused than anything else. The closed laptop was a huge warning that something was wrong, too.
He went over his memories from the night before. Copious amounts of food to start the evening? Check. Loud music? Check. Himself and Yamato getting in a slightly over-enthusiastic mock fight and spilling their drinks? Oh, so that was the reason for the stains on his shirt. The events afterwards took a nose-dive into the hazy, dreamlike fuzziness of intoxication. He had a vague memory of talking to Koushiro outside about something though... Ah. He winced.
"So, what dumb thing did I say this time?"
Koushiro's only reply was a somewhat resigned sigh and a shake of the head. Taichi's heart sank. That had to be a bad sign.
The thing about Koushiro was that he managed to be both the most singularly unflappable person Taichi knew, while also being prone to overreactions which approached Mimi or Jou-style proportions. Over the years, it had become apparent that all the overreactions tended to focus around either computers or the Digital world. When it came to the sort of things people normally pulled hair out over – crushes, schoolwork, sports – Koushiro would just sit there, calm as you like. Any surprise he showed seemed to stem from the fact that other people worried about such things.
Knowing that, even the mild amount of irritation Koushiro was displaying became a lot more serious. And the best explanation, Taichi knew, was that he'd done something really stupid.
Which was why the following few hours, in which his friend did an about face and acted as though nothing had happened, confused the hell out of him. Oh, there were slips, yes. Moments where he caught Koushiro looking at him as though he'd grown an extra arm or something. And the dismissal of whatever it was that he'd said the night before was pretty out of character too. But for the most part, Koushiro was back to his normal, somewhat sarcastic self.
Taichi really wished he had a better idea of what the hell had happened the night before.