A/N: Hello everyone it's been a while! Thank you for the reviews, favourites and follows, they're always appreciated. This is kind of a short chapter, because this whole scene was getting so long and I couldn't figure out where exactly I should split it into separate chapters, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.
And boy the feedback about KouKeru was not good, hah. I can't assure anything to you at this point except that I definitely wont be making Takari happen either. It's not like I don't get the ship, I just have trouble writing pairings that are too obviously implied in canon, simply because (as you can probably tell from any of my stories) I jut love deviating from the canon. Hope that floats your boat.
Four
-x-
Of course they'd decided to head to the venue together and of course Taichi was late. Sora had been standing at their meeting point near his apartment building for some time now and her best friend's routine tardiness had started to get on her nerves. She sighed exasperatedly as she called him yet again and he didn't answer, yet again. She shook her head and decided to head to his apartment and drag him out by his ear because nothing less would satisfy her. Sora had specifically told Taichi last night over text that she wanted to get to the venue early, before Yamato's rabid fangirls reserved all the great spots and the brunet had agreed whole-heartedly. But she should've known better than to put her trust into him changing his habits. She stomped her way into the elevator and angrily pressed the button to Taichi's floor, mentally preparing the speech she was going to subject her best friend to as soon as she saw him. Figuring that his mother or Hiakri-chan could also get the door, Sora replaced her scowl with the tiniest smile she could manage so as to not ruin her reputation in his house and rang the bell a little less angrily than the elevator button.
The door opened a minute later and Sora came to face with Meiko.
Any traces of the smile that the auburn haired girl had managed disappeared, her eyes widening in complete surprise as Meiko bowed slightly and smiled at her. The practical side of Sora begged her to return the bow and smile and say something, but her brain could still not process the fact that Meiko had opened the door to Taichi's house. Why her, what is she doing here, is this why Taichi wasn't answering her calls, and other such questions revolved in her head, stopping her from exchanging basic greetings which was the proper thing to do.
"Good afternoon Sora,"Meiko said, "...san, I was just on my way out." She added the honorific after flushing a deep red from just calling out her name.
"Good afternoon, Meiko." Sora muttered, managing to find her voice despite of still feeling dazed. Meiko tilted her head and raised her eyebrows at her, which earned the raven haired girl a quizzical look from Sora. It took a minute for Sora to realize that she was standing at the doorway thus blocking the exit, she murmured an apology and stepped aside, allowing Meiko to make her way out. She was followed by Taichi's mother who beamed at both the girls as she halted at the entrance.
"Thanks for the souvenir Meiko, do let your mother know that I really appreciate it," Mrs Yagami said, turning to look at Sora she added, "I had no idea Taichi had plans with you Sora-chan, I think he's napping..."
Sora's brain was telling her to respond aptly, but her body was frozen. She knew she should've returned Meiko's little wave to her from the elevator and she knew by now, she should've entered the house and be on her way to dragging Taichi out, but she was unable to do either.
"Oh you should come in Sora-chan, Meiko just dropped off some amazing home-grown tangerine. The Mochizukis manage a whole yard of it back in their home town," Mrs Yagami continued as she walked back inside, "I'll make you some juice while you wait."
It took a million signals from her brain to get her feet to move and enter the apartment, but Sora finally managed to move, she shut the door behind her and took off her shoes, following Mrs. Yagami inside. Relax, her brain told her, she was only here to run an errand on her mother's behalf, it's Mrs. Yagami and Mrs. Mochizuki who are friendly with each other, not Taichi and Meiko. She was definitely overreacting. The more she repeated this in her head the easier it was for her to regain control. Yet the image of Meiko's string drifting towards Taichi kept flashing in her head and it took Sora all of her willpower to drive it out. She tried to concentrate on what was happening around her and the reason she was here in the first place.
"Is Taichi still sleeping?" Sora asked quietly, as she took a seat in the kitchen.
Mrs. Yagami was closely inspecting the basket of tangerines but she was aware nonetheless, of how much trouble her son was in from Sora's deadpan demeanour. She had motioned to Hikari the minute she'd seen Sora at the front door to wake up her brother as quickly as possible. It wasn't often that Sora showed up at their door behaving like she had done today, quiet and out of place. She was the most well behaved and polite of all of Taichi's friends so Mrs. Yagami figured that her son must've definitely crossed all the lines this time.
"Well, you know he woke up early for his morning run, but he was gone for a longer while than usual today so he must've drifted off from the exhaustion," She defended her son to the best of her capabilities, but she could tell from Sora's nod that her excuses weren't gonna help Taichi.
Mrs. Yagami's explanation was viable, but Sora wasn't exactly in a mood to be forgiving. He had still kept her waiting for a long time and also had failed to mention his mother was good friends with Meiko's mother. Well the latter bit wasn't something that Taichi would deem relevant but to Sora, this was upsetting to say the least.
Meiko had entered the picture as suddenly as her string had made it's way towards Taichi, and for reasons that Sora was just beginning to comprehend, she was not looking forward to the most possible outcome of this situation. Even though she knew in the back of her mind that she should be happy, that she had always wanted for her best friend to happily fall in love, but now she understood her feelings a little bit better. The thought of Taichi falling in love with someone, was just that, a thought. Something for Sora to fantasize about on rainy days, never putting a face to the girl who would magically make his string of fate appear, and hoping that she would be the one to bring the two together.
It was ridiculous really, Sora thought, her feeling threatened by losing control over something that she had planned out so well in her mind. She realized now, that what she was truly afraid of was being unaware.
Taichi had already met Meiko the morning she moved into his apartment complex. The appearance of Meiko's string in the classroom wasn't unusual if Sora considered that they'd already had a conversation in the morning. But Sora hadn't been there so she didn't know. She didn't know that the person opening the door when she rang the bell to Taichi's home would be Meiko. That is what scared her, not knowing the exact moment when something had happened between the two, not knowing if she would have any role to play in this at all, not having even an ounce of control over the situation.
-x-
Taichi had rolled down the stairs apologizing, offering to ride his bike all the way to the venue as fast as he could but Sora insisted on sticking to their original plan of taking the train, telling him that she'd already told Yamato that they were late because of him. Sora remained silent throughout the train ride and Taichi assuming that it was because of his tardiness did not want to poke the volcano and decided to keep his distance. He was more worried about the wrath Yamato would unleash on him once they reached the venue.
As Sora had predicted, with more than an hour still remaining before the show began, the venue was already packed with excited schoolgirls of all ages. Taichi gulped loudly as the pair surveyed the route to the backstage area, he knew Sora was about to burst into one of her I-told-you-this-would happen lecture any second now.
"Honestly, Taichi you know this is how it is every time and you still-"
"Oh my god Sora, I already apologised like a billion times so could you please just let it go!" Taichi interrupted her a little bit more fiercely than he had intended to. He caught a glimpse of golden behind the stage, and decided to begin making his way to Yamato. He knew Sora was right behind him without even looking because he could feel her death glare burning into his back. They ran into a few familiar faces from school but didn't really stop to chat. The brunet was already bracing himself for the ugly scowl his best friend would throw his way when they reached him.
"Oh look, who finally decided to join us," Yamato muttered, scowling just as Taichi had predicted, "Next time, don't even bother waiting for him Sora."
"Hey we're here way before your starting time and you haven't even begun to set up or play a practice set," Taichi retorted, pointing to the still packed equipment around Yamato. The blond's scowl faltered slightly,
"All the best seats are taken though," Sora said pointedly, reducing her glare into a disapproving frown.
"Geez, I'd appreciate if the two of you would cut me some slack today, my match in the morning didn't go so wel-" Taichi stopped himself from finishing the sentence and mentally kicked himself. He'd managed to keep the match a secret from the two for a whole week only to let it slip at the worst moment.
"Wait what? You had a match today?" Yamato asked, the scowl now replaced by a look of confusion.
"Why didn't you tell us before?" Sora asked, looking just as surprised and even a little bit guilty.
Taichi sighed exasperatedly as both his best friends continued asking a bunch of other questions along the same lines, he knew now that he had let the secret slip they wouldn't let him off without a satisfactory explanation, "Okay, okay calm down," he started, interrupting them both, "Look I knew Yama would try to shift the date if he knew I had a match today and I didn't want him to go through all of that trouble for a friendly practice match," he said, emphasising on the friendly and practice bit, "It wasn't even a full match, we only played till half time. I was back home in time but still a little bit exhausted so decided to take a short nap which didn't turn out to be as short as I expected it to be. That's all."
"If you would've just told us all of this from the beginning, we wouldn't have been so hard on you," Yamato replied, his face softening as he spoke to which Taichi just shrugged in reply. Sora looked like she was trying to find the right words to say, wearing an expression of extreme guilt she decided to say nothing.
Taichi knew his best friend was right, if he would've just explained everything to them from the beginning they never would've assumed that he was not taking the show seriously. But knowing them as well as he did, it would've been difficult to convince them that the match wasn't as important, especially Sora. She would've insisted on attending both the match and the concert, and would've ended up wasting her whole day and so much energy travelling across town to show her support for both him and Yamato. Keeping the match a secret had seemed like the best option to him at the moment and he had hoped that he would manage to keep his big mouth shut.
"Anyway, I reserved a table for you guys up front," Yamato stated, changing the conversation knowing full well that Taichi wasn't gonna elaborate any further, "Just look for Takeru and oh, you just have to pay for the first drink, refills are free."
"Awesome! So how often are you planning to perform here? Cause you know I'm all about those free refills," Taichi grinned, ready to change the subject as quickly as possible.
Yamato rolled his eyes in response, his lips curved slightly upwards as he picked up his guitar, finally showing signs of a smile since they had arrived. Taichi sneaked a glance at Sora, she still looked like a mix of upset and guilty and he figured it would take a lot more than him being cheeky to lift her spirits.
"I'm gonna go join the others now," Yamato motioned towards his bandmates, "Shouldn't be long before we start, considering it's a full house already," he added, surveying the crowd carefully.
"Break a leg, Yama, literally." Taichi laughed loudly as the blond punched him lightly in the shoulder.
"Yeah, good luck Yamato, you'll do great I'm sure," Sora spoke up finally, smiling slightly at Yamato before heading towards the seating area without bothering to check if Taichi was following her or not.
"What's her problem?" Taichi muttered, frowning after his friend's retreating figure.
"I think she's just feeling a little guilty," Yamato sighed, turning to signal to his bandmate that he'll be there in a minute, "for giving you a hard time for no reason."
"Yeah, the silent treatment I got on the train ride here was no joke," the brunet replied, "it almost made me wonder whether she was just mad at me for making us late, because it sure felt like a lot more."
"Something more? You're thinking too much about this, it's a simple misunderstanding which I'm sure you can easily sort out by the time we finish setting up the equipment and play a practice set." Yamato flashed a rare grin and patted his best friend's back lightly before hurrying off towards his bandmates.
As Taichi reluctantly, followed into Sora's footsteps, he felt that the calmness that had just suddenly enveloped him was nothing less then a signal for the upcoming storm.
-x-
A/N: Hopefully I'll be able to get the next chapter up sometime soon. It's mostly typed but I'm just having trouble putting this one sequence into words and work is keeping me busy too. Until then, reviews and thoughts are always welcome!
