AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a wEiRd chapter O.o Basically just filling
out the plot a bit. Getting to the juicy bits in the next chapter probably.
Much more angst next time, guaranteed!
By the way, anybody who wants to be put on my mailing list to get updates on when I update (redundant, isn't it? ^_^), just mail me at sweet_dream24@yahoo.co.uk or tell me in your review! You were going to review, right? Yeah, sure you were...
BIG, OMINOUS WARNING THINGIE: Lots of Taito goodness, liberal amounts of DaiKen, fluff, angst, judicious Sora/Jun-bashing, overabundant repressive teenagers...
BIG, OMINOUS DISCLAIMER THINGIE: Not mine. Blame Toei.
February 10th – 6:13 pm
"Jun! Get the hell out of my here!"
Daisuke stormed into his room, flinging the door open violently as he passed it. Inside, his incessant sister had made herself comfortable on his desk chair. Her one hand was lazily brushing through her disheveled hair; the other was casually paging through some of his papers. She barely glanced up at his entrance.
"Hey 'Suke, that's a big word for you to be using," she remarked offhand, without breaking her eye contact on whatever she was reading.
Without losing any of his forward momentum, Daisuke tore the pages from her hand and unceremoniously kicked the chair out from under her. He hardly considered that a suitable retaliation for her snooping, but he had far more significant issues on his mind. From the ground, Jun's eyes darkened as she wincingly rubbed her back.
"Gee, somebody got up on the wrong side of the pigsty this morning," she muttered. Daisuke, after shoving the sheaves of paper back into a drawer, turned to her with an angry scowl.
"Don't you have any respect for privacy, oh sister dearest?" he scoffed.
"Not yours. And besides," she continued in her suspiciously generous older-sibling voice, pasting an extremely fake smile on her face, "I was just tidying up for you."
Daisuke groaned audibly, recognizing her ploy. "What do you want this time, Jun?" She must have been at the edge of desperation to be seeking his help.
"Me? Can't a girl just be nice to her brother without having any hidden motives?"
"Can it, Jun! Make it quick, and then get the hell out of here. I have stuff to do."
"Well," she began in that saccharine sweet tone, lifting herself gingerly from the floor. "You know that little friend of yours, the one with the black hair?" The question reeked of something that Daisuke would rather not have thought about.
"Yeah, Ken. What about him?" he asked, barely concealed mistrust in his voice.
"I was just thinking that, since Yamato's playing hard to get and all that, and ever since that one day two weeks ago when…"
"Just get to the point!" Daisuke barked, and then instantly regretted it.
"Can I have his number?"
The colour drained out of his face. With eyes aghast, he leveled his sister with the most hateful stare he could conjure up. "What? No way! Do I look like a dating service or something? I don't just load my friends off onto my maniac sister, you know!" Jun's catty expression was back in an instant.
"Fine," she snapped, turning on a heel. "But don't expect me to forget your generosity any time soon, bug-face!" She pranced off, slamming the door behind her. It was only once the portal had been firmly closed that Daisuke let out a gasping breath. He had come up with the best excuse that he could have in what limited time was afforded him. Jun didn't know about him and Ken. She couldn't know…
Daisuke threw himself onto his bed, pressing his flushing face into the cool feather pillow. He didn't even want to contemplate how quickly Jun's gossip-hunger would spread the rumour of their relationship. Besides, he had far more vital considerations to make. Like discovering the reason for Ken's obvious discomfort during that day's outing and, more importantly, his reasons for trying to hide it.
Deciding to utilize the tried-and-tested Motomiya trait of talking before thinking, he lifted the telephone handset from his bedside table, made sure that the loudspeaker option was off and dialed, from memory, the Ichijouji residence.
The phone rang for a long time. Just as Daisuke's patience was starting to wear thin, though, he distinguished the sound of the phone being answered. "Hello?" came Ken's hesitant voice.
"Hey Ken, what's up?" Daisuke said, making an effort to keep his tone light. The response confounded him.
"What do you want, Dai?"
"Well, do I need a reason to call one of my friends?"
He almost felt Ken roll his eyes on the other end of the line. "So now I'm just 'one of your friends'?"
"Jun's in the next room," Daisuke bit back sourly. "And I bet you a thousand Yen she's listening by the door!"
There was a momentary, terse silence. "What do you want? I'm sure that you have far more interesting things to do than to talk with me, ne?"
It took a while for Daisuke to recuperate from the shock of those words. What had prompted such a cynicism in Ken? "Listen, Ken, what's going on here? 'Cause it's pretty obvious that you're angry at me for something. Just tell me what I did and I'll apologize, okay?"
"I have homework to do. See you sometime." And without further elaboration, the opposing receiver was replaced in its cradle.
Daisuke let the shrill ringtone echo in his ear.
=#=#=#=
6:12 pm
"Did somebody die?"
Yamato, leaning against the irregular paneling of Taichi's locked door, tried to gain some response from the occupant of the room. After his sudden and anguished entry, the brown-haired boy hadn't uttered a single word, for all that Yamato had prompted, and the blonde no longer had memory of his previous ecstasy. Now, easily an hour later, he, starting to get both uncomfortable and apprehensive, was pulling out his last remaining trump card.
"Taichi, did someone die?" he repeated, seemingly vainly.
Then he heard the creaking of somebody stirring within, and Taichi's voice coming rough and choked. "No."
It was an answer, at least, and at even that small progression Yamato was hopeful. Quickly, so as not to lose the rapport, he asked, "Do you have a terminal illness?"
This time the answer came more quickly, more sure of itself. "No."
"Well, are we breaking up?"
"No – "
Yamato sighed with frustration. He had been counting on more-than-one-word answers, but none seemed forthcoming; he couldn't think of any other possible reasons for Taichi's apparent misery. He decided to stand and try the more direct approach.
"Well then, get the hell up and open this door!" He channeled all of his aggravation into his voice. "If you're trying to worry me, you're doing a brilliant job! And, you know, I can't help you if I don't know what the problem is."
The words seemed to illicit a response from the room's locked in occupant. Success! Yamato thought as hesitant steps approached the door, fumbled for the key and finally twisted the door handle. The blonde immediately glanced inside, and had the words stunned out of him by what he saw.
Taichi was wearing the most disheveled clothing imaginable: the material looked wrung out in places. His hair did not hold even a smidgeon of what little normal order it usually possessed. From the darkened and upturned room very little could be distinguished, yet from the gloom stared two dull reddened eyes that were set in a face pale with sadness, streaked with dried tears; but on which the distinctive red mark of a slap could be seen slowly turning purple. Taichi looked above all fatigued as he teetered uncertainly. In all, he looked so forlorn and emotionally unbalanced and so unlike his usual state of relaxed joviality that Yamato's heart skipped its next beat.
On his first instinct, the blonde stretched out his arms and caught Taichi in an encompassing hug. He felt the dead weight settle against his frame, the shaky arms slip about his waist and the single shuddering sigh that the boy in his arms expelled. He stroked the mop of unruly hair, whispering comforting nothings. He wondered at how many times Taichi had held him in a similar position. The role reversal was distinctly discomforting.
After what seemed like an ample time, the blonde pulled back slightly and leveled Taichi with a glare. "Come on, let's sit down and you can tell me all about it." He directed them to Taichi's bed, onto which the brown-haired boy collapsed in a heap of dejection.
"It's all my fault."
Well, at least that's a full sentence this time, Yamato thought with chagrin, suddenly gaining a boost of respect for those who comforted others for a reason. I'm not this difficult when I'm depressed, am I?
"Just start at the beginning, Tai," he cued. "What's the issue?"
But his question received no response. Taichi pulled his knees to his chest and clasped his arms firmly around them. "I should never have moved out. I knew this was going to be a bad idea."
Yamato perceived that discretion was the better part of valour in this occasion. Slipping a gentle arm around his tensed shoulders, he allowed Taichi to speak.
"Never even saw it coming. You know, like stepping onto a quiet road and getting hit by a car. I should have seen it! What kind of a brother am I? Now Kari's suffering too. That's the worst of it. It isn't fair for her to get hurt when I'm the one to blame. And you know what?"
"Yeah?"
"Nobody would even believe me if I told them that there was something going wrong. Not that I knew, of course… We were always the model kind of family. Nobody would even have guessed that… that something like this could happen! Gah, I just hate myself for not seeing all this earlier: it's so obvious! I could have stopped it! I should have." Taichi fell silent, and a solitary tear slipped down his cheek.
Yamato, filled with heart-wrenching compassion, reached to wipe it off of the bruised face. "So what is it, Tai? What's the problem?" he asked gently.
"It's all my fault," he repeated for the umpteenth time. "All my fault that my parents are getting divorced."
=#=#=#=
The plot thickens… O.o
By the way, anybody who wants to be put on my mailing list to get updates on when I update (redundant, isn't it? ^_^), just mail me at sweet_dream24@yahoo.co.uk or tell me in your review! You were going to review, right? Yeah, sure you were...
BIG, OMINOUS WARNING THINGIE: Lots of Taito goodness, liberal amounts of DaiKen, fluff, angst, judicious Sora/Jun-bashing, overabundant repressive teenagers...
BIG, OMINOUS DISCLAIMER THINGIE: Not mine. Blame Toei.
February 10th – 6:13 pm
"Jun! Get the hell out of my here!"
Daisuke stormed into his room, flinging the door open violently as he passed it. Inside, his incessant sister had made herself comfortable on his desk chair. Her one hand was lazily brushing through her disheveled hair; the other was casually paging through some of his papers. She barely glanced up at his entrance.
"Hey 'Suke, that's a big word for you to be using," she remarked offhand, without breaking her eye contact on whatever she was reading.
Without losing any of his forward momentum, Daisuke tore the pages from her hand and unceremoniously kicked the chair out from under her. He hardly considered that a suitable retaliation for her snooping, but he had far more significant issues on his mind. From the ground, Jun's eyes darkened as she wincingly rubbed her back.
"Gee, somebody got up on the wrong side of the pigsty this morning," she muttered. Daisuke, after shoving the sheaves of paper back into a drawer, turned to her with an angry scowl.
"Don't you have any respect for privacy, oh sister dearest?" he scoffed.
"Not yours. And besides," she continued in her suspiciously generous older-sibling voice, pasting an extremely fake smile on her face, "I was just tidying up for you."
Daisuke groaned audibly, recognizing her ploy. "What do you want this time, Jun?" She must have been at the edge of desperation to be seeking his help.
"Me? Can't a girl just be nice to her brother without having any hidden motives?"
"Can it, Jun! Make it quick, and then get the hell out of here. I have stuff to do."
"Well," she began in that saccharine sweet tone, lifting herself gingerly from the floor. "You know that little friend of yours, the one with the black hair?" The question reeked of something that Daisuke would rather not have thought about.
"Yeah, Ken. What about him?" he asked, barely concealed mistrust in his voice.
"I was just thinking that, since Yamato's playing hard to get and all that, and ever since that one day two weeks ago when…"
"Just get to the point!" Daisuke barked, and then instantly regretted it.
"Can I have his number?"
The colour drained out of his face. With eyes aghast, he leveled his sister with the most hateful stare he could conjure up. "What? No way! Do I look like a dating service or something? I don't just load my friends off onto my maniac sister, you know!" Jun's catty expression was back in an instant.
"Fine," she snapped, turning on a heel. "But don't expect me to forget your generosity any time soon, bug-face!" She pranced off, slamming the door behind her. It was only once the portal had been firmly closed that Daisuke let out a gasping breath. He had come up with the best excuse that he could have in what limited time was afforded him. Jun didn't know about him and Ken. She couldn't know…
Daisuke threw himself onto his bed, pressing his flushing face into the cool feather pillow. He didn't even want to contemplate how quickly Jun's gossip-hunger would spread the rumour of their relationship. Besides, he had far more vital considerations to make. Like discovering the reason for Ken's obvious discomfort during that day's outing and, more importantly, his reasons for trying to hide it.
Deciding to utilize the tried-and-tested Motomiya trait of talking before thinking, he lifted the telephone handset from his bedside table, made sure that the loudspeaker option was off and dialed, from memory, the Ichijouji residence.
The phone rang for a long time. Just as Daisuke's patience was starting to wear thin, though, he distinguished the sound of the phone being answered. "Hello?" came Ken's hesitant voice.
"Hey Ken, what's up?" Daisuke said, making an effort to keep his tone light. The response confounded him.
"What do you want, Dai?"
"Well, do I need a reason to call one of my friends?"
He almost felt Ken roll his eyes on the other end of the line. "So now I'm just 'one of your friends'?"
"Jun's in the next room," Daisuke bit back sourly. "And I bet you a thousand Yen she's listening by the door!"
There was a momentary, terse silence. "What do you want? I'm sure that you have far more interesting things to do than to talk with me, ne?"
It took a while for Daisuke to recuperate from the shock of those words. What had prompted such a cynicism in Ken? "Listen, Ken, what's going on here? 'Cause it's pretty obvious that you're angry at me for something. Just tell me what I did and I'll apologize, okay?"
"I have homework to do. See you sometime." And without further elaboration, the opposing receiver was replaced in its cradle.
Daisuke let the shrill ringtone echo in his ear.
=#=#=#=
6:12 pm
"Did somebody die?"
Yamato, leaning against the irregular paneling of Taichi's locked door, tried to gain some response from the occupant of the room. After his sudden and anguished entry, the brown-haired boy hadn't uttered a single word, for all that Yamato had prompted, and the blonde no longer had memory of his previous ecstasy. Now, easily an hour later, he, starting to get both uncomfortable and apprehensive, was pulling out his last remaining trump card.
"Taichi, did someone die?" he repeated, seemingly vainly.
Then he heard the creaking of somebody stirring within, and Taichi's voice coming rough and choked. "No."
It was an answer, at least, and at even that small progression Yamato was hopeful. Quickly, so as not to lose the rapport, he asked, "Do you have a terminal illness?"
This time the answer came more quickly, more sure of itself. "No."
"Well, are we breaking up?"
"No – "
Yamato sighed with frustration. He had been counting on more-than-one-word answers, but none seemed forthcoming; he couldn't think of any other possible reasons for Taichi's apparent misery. He decided to stand and try the more direct approach.
"Well then, get the hell up and open this door!" He channeled all of his aggravation into his voice. "If you're trying to worry me, you're doing a brilliant job! And, you know, I can't help you if I don't know what the problem is."
The words seemed to illicit a response from the room's locked in occupant. Success! Yamato thought as hesitant steps approached the door, fumbled for the key and finally twisted the door handle. The blonde immediately glanced inside, and had the words stunned out of him by what he saw.
Taichi was wearing the most disheveled clothing imaginable: the material looked wrung out in places. His hair did not hold even a smidgeon of what little normal order it usually possessed. From the darkened and upturned room very little could be distinguished, yet from the gloom stared two dull reddened eyes that were set in a face pale with sadness, streaked with dried tears; but on which the distinctive red mark of a slap could be seen slowly turning purple. Taichi looked above all fatigued as he teetered uncertainly. In all, he looked so forlorn and emotionally unbalanced and so unlike his usual state of relaxed joviality that Yamato's heart skipped its next beat.
On his first instinct, the blonde stretched out his arms and caught Taichi in an encompassing hug. He felt the dead weight settle against his frame, the shaky arms slip about his waist and the single shuddering sigh that the boy in his arms expelled. He stroked the mop of unruly hair, whispering comforting nothings. He wondered at how many times Taichi had held him in a similar position. The role reversal was distinctly discomforting.
After what seemed like an ample time, the blonde pulled back slightly and leveled Taichi with a glare. "Come on, let's sit down and you can tell me all about it." He directed them to Taichi's bed, onto which the brown-haired boy collapsed in a heap of dejection.
"It's all my fault."
Well, at least that's a full sentence this time, Yamato thought with chagrin, suddenly gaining a boost of respect for those who comforted others for a reason. I'm not this difficult when I'm depressed, am I?
"Just start at the beginning, Tai," he cued. "What's the issue?"
But his question received no response. Taichi pulled his knees to his chest and clasped his arms firmly around them. "I should never have moved out. I knew this was going to be a bad idea."
Yamato perceived that discretion was the better part of valour in this occasion. Slipping a gentle arm around his tensed shoulders, he allowed Taichi to speak.
"Never even saw it coming. You know, like stepping onto a quiet road and getting hit by a car. I should have seen it! What kind of a brother am I? Now Kari's suffering too. That's the worst of it. It isn't fair for her to get hurt when I'm the one to blame. And you know what?"
"Yeah?"
"Nobody would even believe me if I told them that there was something going wrong. Not that I knew, of course… We were always the model kind of family. Nobody would even have guessed that… that something like this could happen! Gah, I just hate myself for not seeing all this earlier: it's so obvious! I could have stopped it! I should have." Taichi fell silent, and a solitary tear slipped down his cheek.
Yamato, filled with heart-wrenching compassion, reached to wipe it off of the bruised face. "So what is it, Tai? What's the problem?" he asked gently.
"It's all my fault," he repeated for the umpteenth time. "All my fault that my parents are getting divorced."
=#=#=#=
The plot thickens… O.o
