A/N: Sure, taito's have been done to death. So I thought why not write ANOTHER one? Actually, most taito's usually have Taichi running away in horror after Yamato tells him he loves him, or they get naked and jump into the sack ten seconds later. But there's another angle not many writers have written to.
Warning! This is a yaoi fic - that means it's a guy going after a guy. Shocking, isn't it? Just don't say I didn't warn you. And please don't write a review to tell me I'm sick, depraved, twisted, or doomed for writing this sort of stuff. Trust me, you won't have been the first, and it does get old after a while.
Another warning: this isn't a PWP fic. It actually does have P. In fact, it's almost all P!
Disclaimer: Digimon and its characters are copyright by Toei Animation. I don't own them. (Althought I wish I had Yamato!)
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A young man sat nervously at a window table of the small restaurant, waiting. From time to time he glanced out the window at the passers-by, and always looked to the door when it opened to see who was coming through. Between small portions of the rice in front of him he drummed his fingers lightly on the table.
The front door creaked open again, and as he had done every other time, the teen in the back examined the newcomer. Then he relaxed visibly and waved a hand in the air. It took a few seconds, for the place was rather dark, but eventually the new person saw the waving hand and walked over.
"Taichi!" said the seated boy as his friend approached the table. "I thought you'd never arrive. You're half an hour past the time you said you'd get here."
"Hey, Yamato!" Taichi sat down at the table, opposite the other boy. "Sorry about that. Missed the bus, then had to wait an extra ten minutes at the subway for the train. I tried calling you but couldn't get a connection."
"Did you call my cell?" asked Yamato.
"Yes." Taichi pulled out his phone, called up Yamato's entry on it, and told his friend the number he had stored.
"That's right." Yamato unclipped his own cell phone from his belt and looked at it. "Damn! Forgot to turn it on when I left!"
Taichi laughed. Then he asked, "So why are you in Odaiba? I thought you were playing Nagasaki this weekend."
"Planned to. But there was a fire Wednesday at the club where we were booked, and we couldn't find another place to play. So we ended up with a weekend to ourselves."
"Which for you probably means sitting around wondering what to do. That's why you called me?"
"Yeah. I figured, why not? I've been so busy with the band that I haven't had a chance to see you for a while. I haven't even seen very much of Takeru for three months." His voice sounded whistful as he said his younger brother's name.
Taichi grinned. "I've seen him a fair bit. He's always over to visit Hikari. I think he likes her."
Yamato raised both eyebrows. "You think he likes her? You're not normally given to understatement!"
"Maybe I'm mellowing a bit in my old age." Taichi grinned again, and both boys laughed, then he said, "Actually, you were lucky to get a hold of me on a Friday night. I've normally got something planned with Sora."
"I thought you would have. Actually, I was surprised you were free. Nothing's happened between you and Sora, has it?"
"Not at all. She and her Mom went to Osaka for the weekend and a bit of shopping. I'm kind of glad I wasn't invited along!"
A waitress arrived to take their order. The two boys quickly looked through the menu, having neglected it to now, but were unwilling to let the waitress leave. Yamato ordered fish; Taichi went for a pork stir-fry.
They continued talking while waiting for the food to arrive, but to Taichi it seemed his friend was distracted. Yamato was not really following the conversation. Taichi talked enthusiastically about his soccer team, but his friend showed little interest. Even when Taichi talked about Takeru's rising star on the school basketball team, Yamato responded only briefly.
The food came and quickly disappeared. Taichi pressed his friend for news of the band, and only now did Yamato seem to loosen up a bit. He talked of long hours on the bus going from city to city, of setups and teardowns, of a string of minor emergencies at the venues. He also talked of the music they were playing. Some of it their own, and some had been written by others, both well-known and not so well-known. But when he had pretty much exhausted this topic, he lapsed back into his usual quiet self.
The two sat in relative silence for a few minutes until Yamato finished his tea. "Would you be able to come back to my place for a while?" he asked Taichi. "I've got some video from the gig we played in Yokkaichi a couple of weeks ago, and thought you might want to see it."
Taichi paused, wondering if Yamato was really wanting to show him the video, or just wanted the company. But he was genuinely interested in the video, for from all reports his friend's band was good, and he wanted to see how they looked in concert. Besides, he liked Yamato, and didn't want to disappoint him.
"Thanks for offering. I think I can do that."
"All right. Let's go."
Taichi drained the last of his coffee, then got up and accompanied Yamato to the till, where each paid for his own meal.
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Yamato's place was close by the restaurant, so the two boys walked there. The apartment was empty when they arrived.
"Where's your Dad?" asked Taichi. "I thought he'd be home."
Yamato answered in a matter-of-fact fashion. "He's pulling another all-nighter at the TV station. They made him producer of the morning newscast, and that includes the Saturday one."
Once inside, Taichi claimed the large easy-chair in the living room while his friend hunted though his things for the videotape. Finding it, he pushed it into the VCR and let it run.
The tape was not very good. Yamato explained it was a bootleg video shot by a fan at one of their concerts. It was jerky, out of focus a lot, and the sound was patchy. The fan was obviously more interested in Yamato than any other member of the band, because well over half the tape was spent on him. She had then apparently made a copy and mailed it to him along with a gushy letter. Yamato had thrown the letter out after reading only half of it, but had kept the tape. He was still trying to decide whether he should preserve it or just record over it.
"Not bad," said Taichi when the tape had ended. "Your band sounds pretty good. You people should work a bit on your stage presence. A couple of you looked like you'd rather be somewhere else."
"How did I look?" asked Yamato.
"Pretty good. You look like you know how to handle that guitar."
"Thanks - I think."
Then Yamato went quiet again. He sat quietly on the couch for a couple of minutes before asking, "Do you want something to drink?"
"I guess so. What do you have?"
"Whatever you want, I think. Soft drinks, water, tea, stronger stuff."
"Any wine? Sake?"
Yamato looked at Taichi. "You want some sake?"
"You said whatever I wanted. If you have some and you're willing to give it to me, I'd drink it."
"Yeah, I think I will, too. But just a little. Sake puts me to sleep pretty quick." He disappeared into the kitchen, and a minute later came out with a bottle of rice wine and two small glasses. He poured a glass and offered it to Taichi along with the bottle, who accepted them and in turn poured a serving for Yamato. Each took a couple of sips from their glass without ceremony.
Still Yamato seemed ill at ease. Now he sat in traditional style on the floor, legs crossed, looking either at his feet or staring off somehere else. Almost anywhere but at his friend. Unable to figure out what was bothering him so, Taichi finally decided simply to ask. Still holding the small glass of sake in his hands, he looked directly at the boy on the floor.
"What's eating you, Yamato? You've been on edge all evening, and you look like you'd rather be anywhere else than here. Do you want to talk about it, or should I just put you into bed after you've had too much sake and passed out?"
That got a reaction. Yamato looked directly at Taichi, blue eyes almost afire, more intense than they had been all evening. But they quickly settled down. Yamato kept his gaze on Taichi and said, "I don't drink like that."
"But you do want to talk about something, right?"
"Yeah." Yamato put his head down again and spoke to his feet. "Well, uh, Agumon misses you."
Now it was Taichi's turn to be surprised. "Agumon?" he asked in bewilderment. The memories came flooding back. Agumon. How long had it been? The Digital World. Saving both it and his own world from destruction, more than once. Strange, it seemed so long ago; almost a whole different lifetime.
"Yes, Agumon," Yamato replied. "Remember him? Small, yellow, with big green eyes?"
"Of course I remember him," Taichi replied. "Uh, when did you see him? And where?"
"Last week, in the Digital World." Now he looked up at his friend. His eyes were becoming intense again. "When did you see him last?"
"Oh, boy." Taichi searched his memory. "Two years, perhaps. Maybe three."
"Two and a half, I think," said Yamato. "You were fifteen then, and we're almost eighteen now."
"Yeah, you're right. Wow. I haven't even thought about Agumon for months now. How is he?"
"The same as always. Digimon don't age like we do. So they're all the same - Agumon, Patamon, Gabomon, Gomamon." His voice trailed off, remembering the digimon.
"That's good to hear. But why were you in the Digital World? I thought that - well - seeing as I hadn't - uh -" He stumbled over his words, then stopped so he could properly compose the sentence in his mind. "I thought that since I wasn't going into the Digital World anymore, you weren't either."
Yamato was still looking at Taichi, his eyes still smoldering. It was a look Taichi was well used to. "You assumed wrong," he said. There was an edge to his voice, as if he was accusing Taichi of abandoning his digimon friend.
Quickly Taichi moved to avoid an argument. "I'll see if I can get to the Digital World some time soon and look for him. Do you go there often?"
"Yes." Now Yamato stared down at the floor again. "I stopped for about a year, after Takeru and his friends defeated Malomyotismon. Then I went back to seek out Gabumon, so I could talk to him. It seemed like he was the only one who understood me. We did a lot of talking."
"But now you're talking to me. Did you ask me over just to tell me Agumon misses me? An email would have done that."
Now Yamato lifted his gaze from the floor and stared at the back wall. This confused Taichi: Yamato was still talking to him, but was not really looking at him. "Actually, it was Gabumon who said I should talk to you. And Agumon agreed with him. If it wasn't for those two, well, I probably wouldn't have -" He paused briefy, thinking hard about the correct words to use. "- bothered calling you."
"But why me?" Taichi tried to make it sound like he was confused. But he actually suspected why it was that both his digimon and Yamato's and given their advice.
Still staring at the back wall, Yamato spoke again, but the words came out very slowly. "Well, uh, I was talking to Gabumon, and he ..." He faltered, then stopped speaking altogether.
"I guess it's tough telling a friend you're gay," Taichi suggested.
"Yeah, you're right, it is," Yamato replied. Then astonishment washed all over his face. Taichi had slipped in his comment so neatly Yamato only now realized he had actually given away his big secret. He looked directly at his friend in amazement. "You know?"
Taichi grinned. "More like a lucky guess. And, well, there've been rumors."
The color seemed to drain from Yamato's face. "What kind of rumors?"
"Nothing nasty, really. It's just whispered around the school that you prefer guys to girls. And the fact you've never had a girlfriend doesn't help."
"Oh. And I'm too out of it to even think things like that are being said."
"Don't worry about it too much," said Taichi. "Rumors are just rumors. I don't have to tell anyone they're actually true. And it's not like you're the only gay boy in Japan - and it's not really a big surprise. About the only surprise is that for some reason you bothered to tell me."
For once Yamato did not look down again. "Well, Gabumon said I should tell someone. He's a pretty decent psychologist, but he doesn't really understand this sort of thing himself. He said if I talked to someone else, a person, not a digimon, it might help me work this thing through."
"You seem to be doing all right." He leaned forward in the chair, and with a sly grin on his face asked quietly, "Have you found a boyfriend yet?"
Yamato suddenly looked away again. "Uh, yes and no."
"What do you mean, yes and no? Either you have a boyfriend or you don't."
"Well, there's this guy I really like ..."
"And ... ?"
"He already has a girlfriend."
Taichi burst out laughing. "Oh man, sucks to be you, doesn't it? I mean, you take seventeen years figuring out you're gay, then the only one you can talk to about it is your digimon, and you fall for a straight guy!"
He laughed some more, then all of a sudden stopped. It all came together - Yamato talking to Agumon, the unexpected dinner invitation, Yamato's unease at being around him. He looked at his friend in a way he had never really done before.
"This girfriend ... would her name be Sora?"
Yamato didn't have to say anything. He just nodded once, almost imperceptably, then brought up his hands and buried his face into them.
He had blown it. He had been hoping to get a sympathetic ear from an old friend without giving too much away, but only ended up admitting his desire. How could Taichi ever talk to him again? Would he even want to?
He heard Taichi get up out of the chair, expecting to hear him walk to the door and out of his life forever. But he didn't hear those footsteps; he heard his friend's voice, near and close to him.
"Yama ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh at you like that."
Yamato looked up, directly into Taichi's big brown eyes. He was squatting on the floor in front of him. Yamato saw right away Taichi had spoken honestly.
"No, Don't be sorry," He sounded sad, almost bitter. "Other people have done worse than laugh."
"Oh, Yama, that's terrible! I know I shouldn't have said that. But you know me, always too ready to say something silly."
"But you're right, you know, it does suck to be me. After the concerts I could take my pick of any one of half a dozen groupies hanging out at the back door. But I don't want any of them! I'd prefer the cute guy in the second row who came because his girfriend dragged him out. So I go back to the hotel alone, frustrated, angry at myself--and envious of the fun I know the drummer's having just next door to me!"
Now Yamato got his biggest surprise of the evening. Taichi reached out and touched him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Yama-chan, I know how you feel."
"You do? But how? You're not ..."
"No, I'm not. I'm straight. Well, 98% straight."
Yamato raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
"The two percent left over is for you."
"What?"
"You know, Agumon was right when he suggested you talk to me about this. I wonder if he knew."
"Knew what?" Yamato's mind was reeling. He hadn't expected Taichi to open up to him like this, and now was having trouble following his friend's line of thought.
"That I ..." He paused, now the one having trouble putting words to his thoughts. "Well, I'm in love with Sora now. But before Sora, there was you."
"Really?" Yamato's voice registered surprise.
"Really. Remember that sleepover you had on your fourteenth birthday?"
Yamato nodded, and smiled in spite of himself. Starting at ten, he'd had his friends over for the night on his birthdays. But fourteen was the last he had been able to arrange. At fifteen he had the band and there was no time for sleepovers any more.
"Remember where I slept?" asked Taichi.
"Do I? You were in my bedroom with me. I had expected Takeru would be in mine -"
Taichi finished the sentence. "- but at the last moment he suddenly decided to sleep in your Dad's instead. The girls had left by then, and that left Koushiro and Jyou in the living room, and me with you."
Yamato smiled again, remembering that strange night when the boy he loved actually shared a room alone with him. Something he had never thought of before suddenly leaped to mind. "You set that up, didn't you?"
Taichi grinned. "Yeah! I bribed Takeru with the promise of taking him to a movie if he would switch bedrooms."
"You imp! If I had only known ..."
"You would have done something different?"
"You bet I would! I woke up in the middle of the night, just thinking about you laying on the floor beside my bed. I wondered if I should `accidentally' roll off so I could be right beside you."
Taichi laughed again, softer than he had done before. "If you had known ... if I had known! I woke up in the middle of the night, too. Thinking almost the same thing."
Yamato's face broke into a wide smile, and he even laughed. "Oh, man, now it sucks to be us! Three years we've been dancing around each other, scared to let the other know how we feel!"
"Looks like we have three years to catch up on," said Taichi. "You want to start now?"
Yamato's blue eyes grew wider. "You mean that you, uh, want to do something with me? After all this time?"
"Something's a word you can use, yes. Replace it with whatever you want."
Yamato grinned. "You sure about that? Uhm, I've had some pretty wild thoughts about some of the things I'd like to do with you."
"Rude, crude, and probably nude," Taichi quipped. "And what do you think I was thinking about for weeks after that night?"
"You weren't!" Yamato exclaimed. "I mean, well, up to now I thought you always had the hots for Sora."
"I figured out later that I loved Sora. Uh, after I figured out it wasn't right to be in love with a boy."
A wry smile crossed Yamato's face. He knew about that all too well. "And now it's right?" he asked.
"With you it is." He leaned even closer and whispered, "So are you going to do anything, or just sit there and let this opportunity slip by, too?"
Yamato made up his mind. I can't believe I'm finally getting a chance to do this! he thought. He closed the gap between him and Taichi and kissed him. Taichi put his arms around him and kissed him back, with passion.
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Yamato woke up first. He was laying in bed, a warm body next to his. Softly he slid a hand down his own back and across his rear to confirm what he already knew: he wasn't wearing anything. He felt the body next to his. It was naked as well. The boy stirred, opened his eyes, and smiled.
"Hi there, lover-boy," said Taichi.
"Whoa!" Taichi's romantic greeting caught Yamato off guard. "Hi to you, too. How are you feeling?"
"Great! How about you?"
"Uh ... a little wierd. I mean, I've never done anything like this before."
Taichi chucked. "There's a first time for everything, even for me. How long have we been asleep?"
"Not sure." Yamato looked over his shoulder to check the clock radio. "Just over an hour. It's nearly one AM."
"Wow. Good thing I'm not expected home at a decent hour tonight."
"Yeah." Yamato blushed. "Uh, speaking of decent, we aren't exactly ..."
"For sure! And not all that clean, either. This is kind of a messy business."
"Yuck! You're right! I guess we should go and get ourselves cleaned up. Uh, you want to come to the shower with me?"
A broad smile broke across Taichi's face. "Only if I get to wash you."
Yamato grinned back. "I think I can handle that."