~And now, you must go on your
quest, never stopping until you drink of the glasses of the galaxy, never
stopping until your destiny is fulfilled.
And at that the boy picked up his sword and went deeper into the shadows on a journey he would never forget…
::lost::
::this fic contains::
::Sorato::
::slight fantasy::
::an AU in which Sora's present and any other Sorato from then on do not exist with the exception of Yamato saving her life::
::this is an entry for Kawaii Li'l Lia's contest::
::if you are deathly allergic to any of these ingredients, please hit the back button on your browser to get rid of any potentially hazardous side effects…if you are not mortally wounded by these products, please proceed with your reading::
Ishida Yamato stared at his homework in vain. His blue eyes scanned the half-written paper in disgust. How could he ever come up with a good enough story to impress Sora?
The boy, aged fifteen three weeks ago, wasn't apprehensive about speaking to his friend ever since she had become more than just pretty in his eyes. The illegal attraction had turned deeper by the day and he had found himself not only admiring her looks, which were always there, nor her personality, which he had loved all the same, but; everything about her. The faults he adored, the mistakes she made he embraced and her feelings he respected beyond belief. Soon the admiration turned to a flutter in his heart, and then into a deeper feeling of peace.
Was it love? He wasn't too sure. She had been acquainted with him for over five years now and he had enjoyed almost every minute spent with her and his other friends. They had all had wonderful times together, and it was only natural, others who knew thought, for him to fall for a friend.
After all, making friends is what the Ishida boy did best.
But, Sora, while being a musical person, was not interested in fame or popularity, being as he was both the most popular and probably the most famous boy in all of Japan, he thought that his chance was slim. There was only one thing that she liked more than playing sports, a good tale.
Magical tales of dragons and wizards, monsters and kings, damsels in distress and the princes who save them, full of mystery and intrigue. She was always thought of the grounded, down to earth person, no one would have guessed that she was interested in such genre.
But that is what he loved about her, predictable yet unpredictable. And that was what others also found likeable in her.
Yamato had been pondering his current situation with her as he walked home from school. Sora enjoyed his company he was sure, but did she enjoy it as much as he enjoyed hers? He had already shown affection for her, undying friendship and even proceeded to save her life during his Christmas Eve concert. Yet, he knew Sora would never feel the same way.
Then, the contest came. It was one that Sora and a few others would be judging, a fantasy contest. You were instructed to write a story, a fantasy story specifically, and submit it by the next week. The winner would receive a plaque and a spot in a book an author was writing. It was just the thing that Yamato had been looking for. With the contest, he could impress Sora enough so that she would think higher of him and perhaps even find out she liked him. He knew it was juvenile of him to think so of course; but if it worked…
Yamato had signed up on the spot and preceded to write down a flurry of ideas, all of which, he decided, were stupid. Then the hopelessness returned and he and his ego were disappointed in him. Ah, yes, his best friend often joked around with him about his immense ego. If being a rock star didn't inflate it, he didn't know what had. Perhaps it had been the attention he had been getting, or perhaps it was merely the fact that he was thought to be tough and not to be reckoned with. Whatever it was, the Ishida Ego joke had been circulating around the male populous of the school and mutating itself into several new jokes, and several new dumb blonde jokes, which he took to heart.
But, when he was depressed, his friends would know, and to prevent a second occurrence of disappearance, they would always find a way to cheer him up. Lately, the only person he could feel cheery around was Sora, and her grin was his only weakness. His smile, the award-winning smile as they had dubbed it, would shine through and when she'd laugh a little, he couldn't help but feel better. He loved it when he was the one bringing her smile about; it made him feel that warm sensation again. One of security, a feeling his family wouldn't offer; or at least his immediate family that is. His father had been working late again and getting drunk again. When he was littler, this would be a sign for him to leave for a while and come back in the morning or to hide away, locked in a room. But now that he was older and stronger, he could stand up to his father. Still, the bruises sometimes showed up and Yamato would use his second great talent of lying to get out of the stares of his classmates.
His good friends always knew.
It had been a storm of thoughts in his head when she had come, jerking him out of his deep thoughts. The old lady soliciting for money that he had accidentally bumped into. Her kind eyes touched him in such a way that he dug sheepishly into his wallet and gave her the only money he had, a 20-dollar bill, American tender. American money went a long way in Japan and he told the kind woman to spend it on only what she needed, and nothing else. She begged him to let her thank him in the only way she knew how, and she beckoned him to come to her home.
Giving the grandmother his best smile, the same smile that had won over so many hearts, he followed her to an alley full of rubbish and filth. A pain in his heart came around when he noticed a pile of blankets in a corner, which he knew was her home. She insisted on giving him a drink of water from a bottle, but he politely refused, partly because he knew she needed it before and partly because he was afraid of what was growing in it. Nodding, she began to tell him a story. Minutes flew as her tongue weaved a web of interest around Yamato until he was helplessly caught inside of her tale. It was wonderful, detailed and believable, probably the best thing he had ever heard. Then he realized something.
It was a magical tale with dragons and wizards, monsters and kings, damsels in distress and the princes who saved them, full of mystery and intrigue.
A Sora story.
Yamato paid attention to every detail she had to offer, every twist and turn of the plot, every name and happening of the characters, everything he tried to store in his memory bank. When she had finished, he bid her farewell and a thousand thank-yous along with it and rushed home to his room and began to jot down everything he remembered. He planned to visit her the next day for the next part originally, but now it was all ruined.
Halfway through the memory walk, he began to add in his own elements to the story, enlivening it to his standards, adding more adventures and more peril for the main character. Eventually, the story was not hers, but his and all was different. Going back to read through his rough draft, he realized that it was ruined.
Yagami Taichi had read it for Yamato and insisted that it was the best story he had read or heard so far. When he was questioned on the inspiration for such a well-written story, Yamato lied that it was simply by staring at a picture he had seen in a book; to which Taichi had replied, "Must've been some picture!"
Yes, a picture of dragons and wizards, monsters and kings, damsels in distress…
And now since he had officially signed for the contest, this was his writing homework for the night. When trigonometry, literature, biology and history had all been put aside, he was left to the story, and Sora.
Sora didn't like popular people. She had always thought that popularity ran the whole world and that it didn't matter anymore if the guy was a good person or not, but he thought he could have anything he wanted as long as people seemingly like him. Her opinions, which she shamelessly voiced, had stung Yamato, who was the most popular boy in the school. He had debated for days whether it was he who she had implied was a bad person. The worry and stress however, was dismissed when Taichi, or simply Tai to many, told him that it was Xarl Xui she was speaking about, her ex-boyfriend who had cheated on her with two others. Yamato would never have betrayed Sora; and at the rate he was going, he never would. She'd never go out with him.
But Yamato longed to be with her again, if not as lovers, then as friends. Even if she did eventually marry her best friend, Taichi, he would still have an unsuppressed affection for the red head. Her laugh like flowing water, her eyes like fiery mists, her caring nature. Why couldn't it have been him who was her childhood friend? Why Taichi? It wasn't fair.
'Life's not fair,' he told himself and he set aside his story and looked down at his guitar. In the opaque polished body he could see his reflection. Semi-long blonde hair, deep blue eyes, sad expression; he had an almost feminine quality to him. It had been his features that had gotten him so far in the music business. Sure, he knew some liked him for his music, but most of his fans were girls and they only liked his looks, not the person inside. Every girl at his school stared at him, he tried to be nice, but it was almost too much with everyone following him around. The guys at his school were either his friends, or his enemies. He didn't know why they were jealous of him; he would've traded his life for theirs in a snap. Being a rock star was stressing and demanding; you even had to be a good athlete. Part of his workout each day was running…away from fans.
One fan in particular hounded him like an animal. Motomiya Jun. She was constantly everywhere he went, forcing him to hang out with him, even blackmailing him on a date. The date he had survived when Taichi showed up and crashed it. The event was embarrassing; with the Yagami shoving fries up his nose and snorting the American ABC song while hula-hooping, but it had worked. Later, he found out that all of his friends had been watching what they deemed, 'Operation SAVE' which stood for Save mAtt Very Easily. The look of Jun's face he would never forget.
But Jun hadn't been bugging him lately and the fan attacks were getting fewer and fewer. Yamato began to suspect that Taichi and Koushirou had something to do with it, but he couldn't be sure. Usually, Izumi Koushirou, known as Izzy to many, was the brains of their operations and Taichi and himself would carry them out. Sora was usually their spy on the inside, and when their good friend Tachikawa Mimi visited from America, she was the 'babe' who lured in the unsuspecting victims. Their reliable pal, Kido Jyou, kept their plans a secret and the two littlest members Yagami Hikari, Taichi's little sister, and Takaishi Takeru, the younger brother of Yamato, would weasel in and out of the scam with their friends Motomiya Daisuke, Inoue Miyako and Hida Iori. Their newest friend Ichijouji Ken often was the observer of many a prank and he kept a watchful eye on how secretive they were being.
He picked up the red and white bass and began plucking out tunes like a storyteller wove a web of mystery and intrigue. Fantastic tales of faraway lands…
The soft sweet tune became a troubled one, loud and angry. His fingers moved like lightening over the strings. In frustration he let loose a horribly dissonant chord and nearly threw the bass down. Sighing he collapsed back onto his bed clutching his story and stared up at the ceiling of his room.
"How come, God?" he asked, "Why can't she just be mine?" His azure eyes filled with tears as he whispered, "For once, I know what I want." He turned onto his stomach and cried.
~*~
When the youth had finally fallen asleep, a cool wind blew through his room. It swirled gently around his body, and then moved to the picture of his family standing up on the dresser. The wind was searching for something, something it would find only seconds later.
A blue glittering substance soon
appeared in the wind, making it visible to the naked eye of a cat. Rusty, the
neighbor's tabby, watched as the wind whirled around the bed and found five
pages with what looked like to the cat, the human's horrible penmanship. With
the wind's magic, the words on the page glowed a metallic blue, and mist began
to rise from each letter.
All that was left on the Ishida's green-sheeted bed was a crumpled up page of a half-written story, one of dragons and wizards, monsters and kings, damsels in distress and the princes who save them, full of mystery and intrigue…
::fin::
::dragonfire::