Author's Notes: I love these things, I get to babble and just say anything I want. Hey look! It's fluffy Takedai, with some yamachi on the side, just because I love it so much. I dunno if a place like this actually exists in Japan, though I wouldn't doubt that it does. Feedback is so an author's drug of choice, unless of course you're Lewis Carroll, but that's another matter entirely.
Disclaimer: This show belongs to Gainax… oops I mean Toei, though it does seem like they're passing their stash around to each other. If I owned it, I'd have them animate the special episode where Taichi and Yamato bitch fight each other for a whole hour. But I don't, so that's just too bad.
***
So, Yamato and I are sitting in the band room, doing pretty much nothing. El maestro's been out the last couple a days and you really can't expect a substitute to teach band. Does it surprise you that we're in band together? Well I'd to think that I've inherited some of the Ishida musical talent, and basketball's in the off-season, so I thought I might as well take it.
Anyways, Yamato motions to me with a flick of his hand, and we start walking towards the door. As we're about to leave, the sub asks us where we're going, and we tell her that we always go pick the mail up. That gets her quiet.
Once we're safely clear of the music building, Yamato asks me a question.
"Takeru, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Well, bro, if you're thinking of taking a huge detour to the soccer field, and slowly walking by, then I'd have to say yes."
"Good, good, let's do that."
So we hoof it over to the soccer field, which is at the opposite end of the school from the main office, and slowly walk by, while trying to look inconspicuous. Now, you may wonder why we're doing this.
See, that's actually a funny story.
Five years ago, we, and another whole bunch of weird kids got sucked into what's known now as the digital world. Considering our 15 minutes of fame, quite a few people don't know who we are now that we've fallen out of the limelight. So, we're all there, and my brother, Yamato here, can't seem to stop butting heads with our one time leader, Taichi. Between you and me, Freud would have had a field day; of course since none of us knew who Freud was at the time, we all thought they just didn't like each other.
That theory didn't pan out much, as towards the end of our little adventure, they were getting along just lovey-dovey. Of course, this had the unfortunate (or fortunate) effect of giving my brother some time to examine what was actually going on between them. Let us use the words, unwholesome affections, simply because they're so funny. Five years later, it's quite clear that Taichi has not given their relationship the same scrutiny.
Now you see why Yamato is all for the slow walking. As for me...
Two years ago, I, Hikari, and four other children were once again sucked into the digital world, we were the Japanese digidestined. This time we could control our passage in and out of the world, so home was just a convenient television away. The older children helped out occasionally, but this time, it was us who were doing much of the saving. Our leader was a burgundy haired boy named Daisuke who bore a strong resemblance to Taichi.
Yamato took one look at him, glanced at me, and then started laughing his ass off (I whacked him on the head for that one). He was cute, I'll admit that, but that's all I thought of him at the time. Not really boyfriend material.
But back to the story -- as we went in our merry way and saved the world, we fought, constantly; at least in the beginning. Towards the end of that ordeal we mellowed out, and settled into a comfortable friendship. Then one day I'm this close to sleeping in my first period class, and so I rested my head on the desk, giving me a view of Daisuke, who sat next to me.
It was morning, and the sunlight hit him just right, and bam! I could finally identify what had been happen to me. Unwholesome affection on a whole new level… well not really unwholesome, but it's so fun to say.
Two years later, we're all here, at the same high school. Me being a freshman, I would usually be subjected to quite a few indignities; however Yamato, being a senior put a stop to that, which is really nice for me.
"Yamato, don't you find it odd that we're coordinating our pursuits of our respective goggle boys?" I certainly do.
Yamato's eyes focus on me, and he responds, "Not at all. If we were straight, we'd be chasing girls together. It just so happens that since we're both flamingly queer we chase guys." He gives a camp gesture with his wrist, rolls his eyes, and continues, "The fact that we're chasing two boys who are almost clones of each other… well ok, that's a little odd." A slight pause. "You're not attracted to Taichi are you?"
I make a show of thinking about it for a minute, "No… there's something I don't like about all that hair..."
"You're so full of it Takeru." He smiles. "I know you think Taichi's a sexy bitch."
"I don't know how I'll ever deceive you Yamato. Yes I was saving my heart for Taichi, but I'll have to settle for Daisuke!"
We got close enough to the soccer field to see that the team was running a scrimmage. I could pick out where Taichi and Daisuke were, and from the looks of it they were on the same team.
"Please, Teek, try to control yourself, you're going to flood the field in drool."
"Ha ha, very funny Matty." Two can play at the nickname game.
The coach blows a whistle and everyone stops and heads towards the bench. Yamato and I make our escape before anyone notices we're skulking around.
"You know, those two that just walked by us were checking you out."
"What?!" I turned to see who he was talking about.
"Don't look Takeru! You need to keep a sense of aloofness about you."
"Huh?"
"Takeru, I've been voted best looking guy in the school three years in a row and if you want to continue the proud family tradition, you have to cultivate a certain presence."
Yamato's always been a little... vain, but I suppose that's a part of him that makes all the girls (and even some guys) attracted to him. That's not surprising. What's surprising is that no one suspects that my brother is gay. With the way he acts sometimes… it's a bit telling. But I guess people don't see what they don't want to see.
That's not exactly true. There are always people who can tell; some sort of radar... it does come in handy sometimes. We get to the office and there isn't any mail for our band teacher. There never really is ever any mail; we just go to kill some time during class.
Oddly enough, Kari's sitting in the quad reading a book.
"Hey bro, I'll see you back in class ok?" He follows my gaze and nods at me.
"Are you finally going to tell her?"
"I'll tell her when I'm good and ready!" I snap at him.
"Fine… have it your way."
I walk over to her and see that she's reading Vonnegut.
"Fancy seeing you here. You know, I could never stand Vonnegut."
She looks up as I sit down. "Hey... our foreign language teacher decided we could use some fresh air. And why exactly couldn't you stand him?"
"Eh... something about the way he writes, never did appeal to me."
"Hmm..." Hikari goes back to her book.
I've debated various ways of coming out to her. She's still a close friend and we kinda almost dated way back when, so I feel the need to tell her. I always thought the best way would be in a funny way. Humor is a good thing.
I sigh and look down at my shoes, and she's still absorbed in her book. We can't have that. I elbow her and then sigh again.
"Yes Takeru?" The tone is a long-suffering one, one suited for use with a stubborn four year old.
"Fine, if you don't want to listen, that's ok. I'll just sit here being unhappy." I give an exaggerated sigh.
Hikari closes her book and turns her full attention on me. "So, something making you feel off today?"
"Weeellll…" I'm going to make her wheedle it out of me. It's always fun that way. "Why don't you guess."
"Ok... does it have to do with school?"
"Sort-of."
"Grades?" A shake of the head. "Teacher?" Shake. "Someone in one of your classes?" Nod. "Someone you don't get along with is in your language class?"
"Right subject, wrong reason." She's getting warmer.
"Hmm… someone you… like then, in your language class?"
"Yup."
"Is it… Megumi?"
"No."
"Miyako?"
"No." Miyako has all the tact of a file cabinet...
"Do I even know her?"
"Yes."
"Hmm… who else could it be? I don't know anymore of the girls in your class."
Now is the time to mystify her. I get up and as I'm walking away I casually toss out, "Who ever said anything about it being a girl?" I'm walking, I'm walking, I'm walking, yet I hear no stunned gasp.
I look back and see Hikari calmly regarding me with a kindly look. It takes me a moment to think about that before I blurt out, "You knew!"
"I didn't know... I had a strong suspicion." Blood is rushing to my face in embarrassment, and yet she just sits there calmly.
"What?" My voice is hitting pitches I didn't know I could make at this point. "Then why didn't you say anything?!"
"Rule number one in the handy dandy guide to being come out to is, never ever, preempt the person, even if you already know. Let them come out with it." She laughs at her own pun.
"What!? Where'd you get this from?" I'm still embarrassed, but suspicious why she would know this.
"I've been come out to a lot. Apparently people like to tell me things. I've just got that kind of personality."
We're quiet for a second. "It makes sense you would kinda guess about me. We've spent a lot of time together. God knows we certainly talk enough." Rationalization is one of man's best tools.
"Mmm… yes and no."
"What do you mean yes and no?!" My voice seems to be stuck on 'squawk.'
She latches on to my right arm, and tells me to keep my voice down. "That's exactly what I mean. Yes I know you much better than most people do, but…"
"But what?"
"Everyone thinks you're gay! Well, not everyone, that was an exaggeration, but quite a few people do."
"!!!" Oh My God!
"People that I don't even know come up ask, 'Are you that girl that's always talking to Takeru?' and I say yeah, and they ask 'Is he gay?' and of course I've been saying no, but it doesn't look like they really believe me."
"Why do they all think I'm gay!?"
"...It's a lot of little things... the way you talk sometimes. Also, if you haven't noticed a whole lot of the girls in our class are coming on to you like no tomorrow and you never make a move. And once they figure out that we're not going out... it gets them thinking…"
"I could just be a gentleman! What's happened to modern day romance?'
"But you're on the basketball team, you're a jock."
"That is such a stereotype."
"We're in high school; a whole lot of people believe in the damn stereotypes!" An unfortunate truth of high school life.
"Wait a minute, Yamato does the same thing, why doesn't everybody think he's gay?"
"Yamato's different, he's a musician slash pseudo-loaner, so he gets more leeway." Wonderful, just freakin wonderful.
"You're really tied in with public opinion aren't you?"
"It's part of being the perky girl." Hikari can be so cheeky sometimes.
"And here I thought people couldn't tell about me..."
"You throw off a definite vibe."
"Thanks Hikari, that's making me feel a lot better." The sarcasm could cut like a hot knife through warm butter.
"Silly boy! Relax Takeru, people may suspect, but that doesn't mean they know."
"Yeah, yeah." They haven't treated me any differently, so I guess that's a good sign.
"So now that you've told me, you have someone besides Yamato to babble about who you're head-over-heels for."
"Hrmph. Perhaps the fact that I wanted you to know had a part in the decision making... but you're right."
"And your crush is… of course Daisuke."
"How did you know?" I'm past being surprised by what Hikari knows at this point.
"Oh yeah! Score 5 points for the psychic girl! I've always had a sixth sense about this kind of thing."
"Really?" No way am I that obvious.
"Tisk, tisk Takeru. You really shouldn't leave sensitive word files open on your computer when you get up to go to the bathroom. Ch! Just go ruin all my fun!"
"Well if you knew it was sensitive, what did you read it anyways?"
"Hey, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, 'sides I need to keep up on current events in the social world."
"You're way too in-tune with the student body, this can't be healthy." She sticks her tongue out at me. "Great come back Kari."
"I'd like to see you try to be the perky girl." A terrifying image of me in Kari's fuku pops in to my head. I shudder.
"Ok well, scratch crossdressing off the list of things I have to try."
"I don't know... I think it could work, you've certainly got the crossing-your-legs part down pat."
Before I could some up with a suitably sarcastic reply the bell rings, marking the end of yet another class.
"Ah lunch! Let's go." I jump up and walk off towards the outdoor table where we usually congregate for lunch.
"But isn't your stuff back in the music room?"
"Eh, Yamato'll pick it up for me."
"You have an awful lot of trust in him. I wouldn't trust Taichi with a rubber ball."
"I know someone who would trust Taichi with his balls..."
"What was that Takeru?"
I said that out loud? "Uh... nothing important."
She frowns, and for a split second it seems as if I'm gonna get grilled over my little comment, but, amazingly, she drops the matter and we keep walking.
Per usual Ken's already there eating by the time we reach the table. He, perhaps out of all of us, has changed the most in the intervening years between our adventure and today. And I'm not even talking about going from the Kaiser to being one of us. Ken 'the famed genius' Ichijouji, has become, Ken 'the lazy-ass genius' Ichijouji, slacker extraordinaire. Somehow he manages to maintain a perfect 4.0 GPA; it baffles the rest of us how he does it, as he does practically no work. Go figure.
"Eh, Takeru, here's your stuff."
"Thanks." By the time I root around my backpack for my lunch and manage to find it, everyone's already at the table, talking and eating.
Then, Hikari, in what seems to be a burst of inspiration, asks everyone if we all want to see the new movie opening tonight, and of course we all agree. But the best laid plans seem to always go awry, and this wasn't exactly all that planned out.
***
One by one the calls started to come, Sora couldn't make it, she had to help her mom out with something; Iori needed to work on a particularly difficult kendo routine; Miyako had to help with the store since one of her sisters had gotten sick; Koushiro had forgotten that he had agreed to troubleshoot some computer for a friend of his father's, for a nominal fee of course; Taichi and Yamato had both come up with the excuse that they were 'washing their hair' which meant that were going to go barhopping (Yamato told me privately that he's gonna walk Taichi into a gay bar and sees if he gets the hint.); and on and on until only the three of us were going to go. Me, Daisuke, and Hikari.
I know it isn't a date... after all it was supposed to be a group thing. But, I'm sitting here on Hikari's bed reading some shoujo manga off the top of her pile of books, and maybe it's not a bad idea that I'm thinking of this as a 'date,' though of course that's probably due to the influence of the manga... yeah that's it. I'm certainly not this obsessive by myself, I need the influence of a truly love struck teenage girl to summon the inner stalker within me.
"Takeru, what are you doing?" I do the same thing I always do when she catches me reading her manga, I throw it across the room and say "nothing!"
"Christ, every time you're over here you read one of these things, and every time you throw it across the room. There's only a certain amount of abuse these will take."
"Hey, what do you want me to do while I wait here, look up porn on your computer?"
"Well at least you wouldn't throw the monitor across the room all the time!"
Kari's mom pokes her head in through the door, "Daisuke's here dear."
"Thanks mom... You are driving us to the promenade right?"
"Yes Kari."
We both walk out into the living room, and Daisuke's standing there in the entrance hall, looking at a family picture on the wall. He looks up form it once he realizes that we're there.
"Hey you two."
"Hey."
"Hey Daisuke, a slight change of plans, it's just going to be the three of us."
"Oh really?" He perks up a bit.
"Yeah, everyone else had something come up."
"Ok, I've got dinner on the stove, so let's all make this quick." Kari's mom hustles us into her car and it's a quick trip, to the local Cineplex/outdoor mall, that's filled with mindless banter and gossip about the school. She drops us off with the reminder that she'll be back at midnight. We cut it close enough to show time that we miss some of the previews, but we still make it on time for the movie.
All throughout the movie Kari and I fight for control of the armrest, while Daisuke can't resist throwing popcorn at helpless patrons sitting in front of us. I'm surprised someone didn't get us kicked out.
By the time the movie is out, it's around 11 but it's a Friday night, so there are still hoards of people wandering around.
"I really want some ice cream right now!" Kari's sweet tooth strikes again.
"I think there's a Haagen-Dazs up there." Daisuke points to the second level food court. Kari drags us up the escalator and tells us to go find a table, while she goes and strikes fear into the hearts of the employees of the ice cream shop.
But, even at this late of an hour we can't find a table, so we end up standing by the edge of the platform, watching the huge monitor that's mounted above the complex.
There's just something about the atmosphere, late at night, while the air is still warm, and having complete anonymity in the crowd, it makes we just want to kiss him. He's watching the screen, which is playing the music video for some popular American rock band, and I just put my hand on his shoulder and turn him towards me.
"Takeru…?"
Not answering his question, I pull him towards me and move in slowly, giving him some, but not a lot, of time to push me away, before our lips make contact, and the edges of the world go fuzzy. My eyes are still open and I can see that his are closed, and he's responding to me. Trying to shut out the world and focus only on him, I close my eyes, but then he gently releases me. My eyes pop open.
"That... that was something all right, but you do know I'm going out with Taichi right?"
***
"Ahhh!! Christ that was one weird dream."
"What, what!? Are we under attack by some evil Digimon or something?" Wait a minute, that's not my voice... I feel around in the lump under the blankets next to me and I realize that it's Daisuke. The events of the night come rushing back to me. We did kiss, but afterwards Kari just came up and told us to get a room.
I poke Daisuke in the side, "You're not going out with Taichi are you?"
He peers up from under the blankets, and in my dark room all I can see is his the vague outline of his hair, looking adorable with bed head. "No... What the hell kind of question is that to ask, especially here?"
"Ah, just a weird dream, that's all."
"What kind of weird dream gives you this…" He nudges me with his knee.
"Hey, hey, don't start what you can't finish."
"Fine, I guess I'll just go back to sleep then." Daisuke turns over on his side, and makes a big show of going back to sleep.
"Daisuke!"