A/N: To the birthday girl Andy (will always prefer this), a friend whose writing is as lovely as her, and a true gem in the Digimon community. I am very glad to have met you, so here's a little, modest yamichi, for there will never be enough (there is not enough!) yamichi.


heartache for the young


Many could care less as to why they have always rammed horns against one another, on almost everything. Sometimes out of fun; sometimes fun turns a little too much, too personal as they trespass on each other's territories, especially when Taichi mentions about the divorce.

They were opposites. He is blue and he is red, ice and fire, blond and brown, heart and mind – a duality, using each other as personal gauges of strength and weakness.

Sometimes the fights are not-so clean, but they end up clean, at least – after a brotherly handshake or embrace, for in youth things were simpler and easier to say sorry and forgive. A weird, intense relationship, more than friendship – a rivalry.

Almost a lovefest. But their rivalry was mostly out of friendly competition – who can lift a whole sack of rice longer, who cooks better eggs, who looks better in a baseball cap , who eats more bowls of miso in five minutes – nothing more serious than just prepubescent boys boosting their egos, just enough to last them for the dramarama of teen-dom.

For in teen-dom their healthy tandem starts to change. By the time of their adolescence – when they've both thought of girls as something more than just 'opposites' of the masculine race, the stakes were higher, the tactics – more complex. They competed for the attention of cute skirt-wearers, measuring their newly-found virility with the total of phone numbers and dates they managed to have; and as they got a little bit older, they counted by the number of times they checked in a love hotel, be it with a pretty schoolmate or a foxy yuppie from mixers. It was a rite-of-passage, they both think. And though Yamato had the edge, no longer did they end up in brawls, for this new challenge was smarter and subdued – and yet more fun than the other games they've played.

A silly game turned to a daydream for both, when she started to dress less like a Harajuku girl, and more of a Manhattanite. The transformation was as gradual as they've noticed. It was eerie, for they knew her since they were children, from her quirky tastes in food to her obsession for anything pink. It didn't matter, she didn't matter, until now.

All of the sudden she was worth the kick and punch in the face – for the quest of winning her 'yes' – and soon feelings are suddenly involved; time with her meant growing apart from each other. Resentment turned to animosity, and as if all the good was gone, they start to forget that they are friends in the first place.

But it doesn't matter now, for she was worth it. Suddenly she was worth it, for she was unlike the rest – refusing to be part of their silly boy games and become a prize – an object of their competition, for she knows more about love and romance better than they do. They know this too, so they try – Taichi tries, with his grand, tangible gestures of affection in the form of roses and lilies, but they're all cliché, they're all the same, she thinks. Then there's Yamato who thinks he knows better, for he writes and sings to her like a poet – but they're all just words, just empty words. It is silly how she finds these gestures almost pleasant, if only their intentions were just as nice: but she could not help but feel flattered and entertained – they're just boys – and Mimi remembers she's just a girl, after all.

"Ahh, youth."