Happiness
By Archway
"I bloody hate you, ya know that?"
Yamato's body flew through the air, landed with a thump-thump-thump as he crashed down the stairs. He opened his eyes, and for a few seconds everything seemed Red.
"What is this shit, anyway? You say the blood flowing from my veins tastes like chocolate? You take more and more after your mother every day, ya know that?" Eric swayed slightly as he made his way down the stairs, his son's acoustic guitar in one hand and dozens of sheets of paper in the other, all with the same messy, half-cursive handwriting. "All flowery and pretty and artsy. Next thing you're gonna say is that you're gay, ya know that?"
A foot landed hard in Yamato's stomach, and a shout escaped his lips. Eric threw the guitar and papers to the ground and lifted Yamato up by the collar of his shirt, his Once Crisp school shirt that was now Red instead of White and Wrinkled instead of Smooth. Yamato's head bobbed around, and he felt his abused stomach jerk as the stench of vodka reached his nose.
"Don't you dare cry out, boy," Eric hissed, clarity in the meaning of his words but not in their pronunciation. "If the neighbors heard, they'd get worried, and we don't want that, do we, Yamato?" The teenager blinked slowly, trying to figure out why he wouldn't want the Neighbors to hear, why he wouldn't want someone to enter their house with a Superhero Cape and carry him away to a Happy home, with a mother who knew when your birthday was and a father who never threw you down the stairs. Eric heaved Yamato onto his guitar, and the boy's weight crushed the fragile instrument (he weighed something? He thought he was weightless, floating in the space between Pain and Love) and caused a chunk of the wood it was made of to slash through his Once Crisp school shirt and his Once Clean skin.
"I won't have them take you away. You're everything to me, ya know that?" Eric hissed again, before collapsing onto the ground. Yamato just laid on his shattered guitar and dreamed of a Happy home.
*~*~*~*
An hour later, and Yamato had recuperated enough strength to stand and clean up the house, hide all the stains and broken things that changed his home from a Happy (smile, grin, and bear it) one to a Broken one. He gathered all his sheets of music together and put them back in a shoebox hidden under some old clothes from when he was seven in the closet. He threw the remnants of the guitar he had spent three months saving up enough money to buy in a garbage bag and placed it next to the trash can in the kitchen. He took a shower, threw away his Once Perfect shirt, bandaged his wounds, and put on a black turtleneck that would hide the Red stained cloth from prying eyes. He somehow managed to half-drag, half-carry his drunken father to the couch, and placed a plastic cup of water and two Extra-Strength Tylenol pills on the coffee table near him for when he woke up.
Yamato, done with the process of making his house Happy, went into his room and pulled out the other shoebox hidden beneath the clothes from when he was seven. He gingerly sat on the bed and opened it. Inside was his Escape money, over three hundred dollars saved up from the money he made off of doing gigs with his band, and a packet of paper with all of his Plans for the Future, carefully sketched out like a masterpiece. He worked from 4 am to midnight every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night at a local all-night diner as a chef, and once school was out he would double shifts to earn more money. He also did gigs whenever they were offered to him, and if the rest of the band couldn't show, then oh well, he would do an acoustic one-man show that the crowd loved anyway. With all the money he was making, plus the fact that the band was almost ready to release their first album, he would be able to get an apartment within four or five months. Taichi would move in with him, too, Taichi who always made his life a Happy one, and together they would be able to keep the apartment and be Happy. Once the band hit it big, or Yamato got a promotion at the diner, or Taichi finally landed that job as a gym teacher's assistant at the Odaiba High School, then they would be able to Escape. Taichi had told him that all he had to do was hold out a few more months, and save up his money, and then they would Run Away together like the Happy couple they were. Yamato shifted slightly and winced as pain shot through his abdomen.
All he had to do was hold out.
Yamato looked down again at his Plans and Money, and took out sixty dollars.
He also had to buy a new guitar.
Author's Notes and Notations: Okay, that was one random story. I was vacuuming, when suddenly I was hit with an idea to write a Daiken angst story. I sat down to write, and halfway through the first paragraph I switched to this idea. This story was written in a grand total of 10-15 minutes, so sorry if it's miserably crappy. Also, Eric is Yamato's dad - I like that name, so no complaining.
Liked it? Hated it? Want me to burn in Hell for my Taito hints? Let me know in a long, juicy review ('Good story' work too, though)!
Wuv and Goo Goo Dolls,
Archway, a.k.a. Soul-Chan
P.S.:I don't own Digimon, BTW.