Too Common
Summary: I love you. How hard is it to say? You love him. Your crest is love. You were raised in a house full of love. What's wrong with you, Sora?
At some point during that year, Yamato knew he had been smitten with her in some way. He couldn't figure it out completely. She reminded him of his mother. His mother. The woman who had forgotten his existence after something as "simple" as a divorce. He hated that pain and perhaps that was where they could understand one another and did understand one another. Yamato knew her parents weren't divorced "officially", but they may as well have been. The few times he had visited he had never seen any evidence of Sora's father and mistaken him for dead. Then Sora graciously pointed out his erray of books, locked behind a glass case.
"I snuck into them once. It's not like they talk about anything bad. You think my mother would be into all that traditional gods and stuff..." Sora said. They were sitting in the park near Yamato's apartment complex and as the sun set the blonde grew more anxious.
Sora was good about one thing: she could sense change in moods very well and took his hand.
Yamato looked at her as these thoughts filled his mind. More than anything he was starting to equally question what might be love for her and breaking off everything.
He wasn't sure which one of them was to blame for their relationship not going anywhere. Yamato wasn't ready. He knew that the day he pulled a gun on his own mother at the mere age of six and a half. Sora was more difficult to figure out. Yamato was good at reading other's emotions, too. The more he thought about it, they had too much in common. Back to Sora and how she felt about him, however. Had she only asked him out because of Jun? Or any other girl? He hadn't showed an interest in anyone outside the polite autograph. He wasn't going around giving private concerts, that was for damn sure. He wondered if she thought about him in such a way.
"Are you alright?" she questioned.
That concern. The love that I never got as a child. That's... what this is, he decided. But she's my friend. I... I can't break her heart. Then I'm no better than my father. Even if I completely understand his motivations for divorce, no one can deny my mother's broken heart. Fuck, that's probably more my fault... I don't know. I don't know.
"Yamato?" she insisted.
"Fine," he breathed.
Sora hated it when he did that. She could see that there was something there he was battling with, just as she had seen when he left their group five years ago. He pulled away from her and she couldn't understand it. Sora had done everything she could to show him her feelings and he had graciously returned them; proclaimed them; but then these little moments were what mattered. In the eyes of an audience, he was a different person. Who was she to deny him that, though? Everyone had their opposing faces. Suddenly, she felt as lost as he looked.
"I don't believe you," she stated firmly. She rarely spoke so honestly, but he worried her. Constantly. She loved him, after all. Didn't she? She had come this far, so she had to. She had long admitted the 'trophy girlfriend' effect was a pleasurable side effect of their entire affair, but she knew in her heart that wasn't the real reason.
"It's growing cold out, isn't it?" he said. Inside he was thinking, I can't let the way she treated me define who I am. I promised Gabumon I wouldn't. I promised everyone I would be happy. I am happy.
Sora gave a frustrated sigh, throwing her hands in her lap. "Do you love me?"
"I said that didn't I?"
"...you did," she replied.
"...do you... love me, Sora?" Yamato questioned.
Sora was a little dumbfounded. How many times had she...? Okay, well she had never said it. Had he realized that, too? "I do."
"Say it, then," Yamato demanded, looking her in the eyes for the first time that evening.
"I can't now that you ordered me to," she whispered, curling her fingers under her palms. "We're tired. Why don't we call it a day?"
Yamato took out a cigarette. She watched him light it and wondered why someone who had been so adamant about it, critisized his own father for it, was now doing it. "Yeah," he replied with a breath of poison. He switched the hand the cigarette was in to avoid blowing smoke her direction, then used the free fingers to entrlace with hers.
So caring and so mean with the same gesture, she thought, standing, letting go of him. "Good evening, Yamato. Sleep well."
Had she intended that to sound so cruelly? Probably not. He hadn't made his sleep problems apparent to anyone, so how could she say it with malice? "I love you, Sora," he replied.
Sora made a noise akin to a squeak as she walked away. On her way home, she couldn't get the thought of him sitting alone in the park shaken from her mind, because she had glanced back several times and he hadn't even shifted the one leg so precisely tossed over the other even once. Hell, she expected he was barely breathing.
I love you. How hard is it to say? You love him. Your crest is love. You were raised in a house full of love. What's wrong with you, Sora? she asked herself.