A/N: Yay, another chapter. I've really been in the writing mood for this fic lately. Okay, so let me see...no songs mentioned in this chapter. Um. In this chapter, Ken reveals his crush, and we learn of how Yamato and Taichi came to be a couple. Oh, boy.

I just want to mention that I bought these new pants, and they're HUGE. I mean reaaaaally baaaaaggy. It's so funny, because my legs are thin, so they fit me humongous. I love them! Just wanted to say that...

Ken's Secret

"I can't wait for tomorrow night!" Takeru bounced on his bed. Ken stared at him, amused, and waited for him to fall off the way he always did when he bounced on the bed. He realized the blonde was expecting an answer.

"Yeah. Me either."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic."

"I'm tired."

"You're always tired. Tired of everything, right? I don't see how you can dish out such positive advice and tell people that everything is going to be okay while suffering from your own depression."

"I'm not depressed, I'm just tired."

"Doesn't being tired make you depressed? Being hyper sort of automatically gets you in a good mood, doesn't it?"

"I don't know."

Takeru stopped bouncing and looked at Ken. The violet-haired boy had his head down on a pillow and his eyes shut. He did look tired.

"Hey, Ken, what's been eating at you lately?"

Ken opened his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"No, don't give me that. I know something's been bothering you. The way you deal with problems is sleeping it off. Nowadays you're always asleep or at least half-asleep, wherever you go." Takeru looked concerned. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, okay? Drop it." Ken turned away from him and nuzzled the pillow. It was so warm and comforting. He needed that comfort. He needed that promise of taking him off to a dream world where he couldn't be hurt.

"No, Ken, I'm not going to drop it."

Ken opened his eyes and rolled them, sighing. "Takeru, forget about it, okay? You aren't going to get it out of me."

Takeru frowned as he stared at his friend's back. He looked up at the ceiling, and then down at the bed, and then he moved to lay next to Ken.

"Ken?"

"What?" he asked irritably.

"I just wanted to thank you for helping me out with Daisuke. It really means a lot to me," Takeru said softly.

Ken stared hard at the wall. "I have to do what I can to make you happy."

The way he had said that reminded Takeru of brainwashed zombies chanting something like, "We must serve Lord Myotismon."

"What are you talking about?"

Ken turned towards him and stared hard into his eyes. Takeru did his best not to break the eye contact and tried to search Ken's eyes for hidden feelings.

"Do you know why I never told you who I have a crush on?"

Takeru was caught off guard by the question. He figured that this crush must have been what was troubling Ken.

"No, I don't know. Why?"

Ken looked away, as if contemplating whether or not to tell Takeru the truth. He sighed deeply and looked at the spot just above Takeru's shoulder.

"Because he's in love with someone else."

Takeru felt a pang of sadness for his friend. "Oh, I'm sorry. Well, maybe he'll forget about whoever he's in love with?"

"I doubt it." Ken looked straight into his eyes. "You know him very well."

Takeru searched his mind for someone that was in love with someone else that he knew well. He gasped.

"It isn't Taichi or Yamato, is it?"

"No."

"Oh, good, because if it was then you'd have absolutely no chance there." Takeru laughed a little and then stopped and tried to get serious again.

"You know him better than anyone else in the world."

Takeru's eyes flashed confusion. "But the only people I'm that close to are Yamato and maybe you and Daisuke." Takeru's eyes went wide. "Oh my God. Please don't tell me you like Daisuke."

"No, no, it isn't him."

Takeru automatically felt relief, and then confusion again. "But who would I know that well that loves some-"

He stopped, suddenly hit with realization. He stared hard into Ken's eyes, his eyebrows furrowing. Ken bit his lip and willed himself not to look away or his eyes to tear up.

"You mean..." Takeru trailed off.

Ken leaned forward and gently brushed his lips over Takeru's. Takeru's eyes widened even more, and his body froze. Ken pulled away again and Takeru saw that there were tears in his eyes now.

"I'm sorry," Ken whispered.

Takeru somehow found his voice. "Don't be. It's not your fault you have a crush on me. Hell, look at me, I have a crush on Daisuke, and it is sort of the same...liking your best male friend, I mean."

Ken looked away and took a deep, shuddering breath. "So you see, I am in a difficult situation...being your matchmaker and all, I mean. That's why I sleep so much. I can have you at least in my dreams..."

Takeru felt his cheeks grow slightly warm. "Is that why you made me wear that dress?"

Ken blushed and looked away. "N-no! I really wanted...I just thought...yes."

"Oh."

There was an awkward silence for awhile.

"But then why would you want to get Daisuke and I together?"

Ken smiled and looked at Takeru. "See, Takeru, I have this thing that I live by. Friends first, before everyone else. My friends are the most important people in my life. You're my best friend before my crush, Takeru, and if my best friend is in love with my other best friend and wants him more than anything in the world, then I'm definitely going to help him out. I'll have tons of crushes in my lifetime, and I'll get over all of them. I'm going to get over you someday, you know. Until then, I guess I'll sleep."

Takeru reached out and pulled Ken to him. He hugged him tightly. Ken blushed even more.

"Ta-Takeru! You're hurting me."

"Thank you so much for being such a good friend!" Takeru burst out, practically squealing. "I'd never be able to deal with my thing for Daisuke if it weren't for you. Oh, Ken, thank you so, so much for everything!"

"Are you sure you aren't a girl in disguise?" Ken asked him seriously, yanking Takeru's arms off of himself before he died of suffocation.

"Yes. At least I think so. If I were, though, it would sure explain a lot of things."

Ken held up his hands. "I don't want to know."

They laid in comfortable silence for a while longer. Ken felt a surge of relief that Takeru was so understanding, and Takeru felt a surge of relief that Ken was such a devoted friend.

"Your lips are soft," Takeru whispered to himself.

Ken turned to smile at him. "So are yours."

"Maybe we really are girls."

They burst out laughing. Takeru sat up on his bed and began bouncing up and down again. "I still can't wait for tomorrow night at Teen's Night at the club! It's going to be so much fun!" Takeru bounced a few more times, squealing incoherent things, and then he bounced too far to the right and Ken heard a louder squeal and a thump.

Ken sat up and looked at Takeru, who was on the floor in a heap.

~ ~ ~ ~

"What?"

"How did you and Taichi get together?"

"That's what you called me for? Takeru, I'm practicing with my band. We have a gig in two nights. I need to practice."

"All I want to know is one little thing."

Yamato sighed and leaned against the wall, noting that his fellow band members were eyeing him and grumbling about a no-phone-call rule that Yamato always violated when Taichi called him "just to talk."

Yamato was interested in why Takeru would want to know this all of a sudden, but it did irritate him that he couldn't wait to ask him the next day at school.

"Can't you wait for tomorrow?"

"No, I need to know now, or I won't be able to sleep."

"Okay, let me think." Yamato really didn't need to think. He clearly remembered how Taichi and he "got together", but he didn't like to think about it.

"Well, it took a really long time."

"Why?"

"Because I kept turning him down."

There was a brief silence. "What? Why would you turn Taichi down?"

"Because I was in denial about being gay."

"Tell me everything."

Yamato sighed and looked at his bandmates. "This is going to take awhile."

They all groaned and decided to practice without him for awhile.

Yamato shifted on his seat. "Well, let me think. Taichi first told me that he liked me when we were in seventh grade. I was very shocked, because I had never even thought of someone like Taichi...well...being that way. I told him that I only liked him as a friend, and we decided that we could still be friends and Taichi would try to get over it.

"Well, it turns out that there was no way Taichi was going to get over me. He liked me and kept it to himself until we were in the ninth grade and he finally told me he'd had enough, he wasn't going to get over me, and he liked me more than ever. I told him I wasn't like that and I couldn't be with him the way he wanted us to, but I got mad about it because I had begun to start liking him as well and I didn't want to admit it to myself.

"I started getting more irritated with Taichi every day over the smallest things, and we were always fighting. There was a point where we didn't speak to each other for two whole weeks, and when we finally talked again, it was when I called Taichi a fag and he pounced on me and we beat the crap out of each other.

"We both went to the nurse and then we both got detention for fighting, and while we were in detention, Taichi wrote me a note saying that he was sorry and asking if we could be friends again. I was tired of fighting with him, so I wrote back saying it was okay and it was really my fault anyways, and sure, we were still friends. We started hanging out again, but then I started getting the feelings harder than ever. One night we were out at a party and I wanted to kiss him so badly that I started avoiding him whenever possible. He noticed I was avoiding him, and he tried to confront me about it.

"I finally told him that I was avoiding him so that I didn't do something I might regret. He asked me what I meant and I told him I liked him. We kissed and he asked me to be his boyfriend. I said yes, but if he hurt me, I'd hurt him back even worse. He just laughed and said not to worry about that."

Yamato paused, wondering if he should go on. He took a deep breath and started again.

"About a week later, we slept together. And I don't mean we had a sleepover and we slept in the same bed doing nothing. The next day I felt regret, and I was worried that I had made a big mistake and that now that I had slept with him, he was going to want to do it again. I got so paranoid about what a big step I had taken that I broke up with him. I thought that maybe I could just forget it ever happened and never look back again, sort of like erasing that night. Taichi got so depressed that he tried to kill himself that night. He didn't succeed. His mom found him before it was too late and got him to a hospital.

"As soon as I found out I rushed to the hospital and I held him and I cried my heart out and apologized. I told him exactly why I had dumped him and he was surprised that it was over such a little thing. He thought that I really just didn't like him anymore. When I was holding him in my arms that night, realizing I could have lost him, and realizing how badly it would have affected me if I had lost him, I realized that I had fallen in love with him."

Yamato wiped his eye, surprised that he had actually shed a tear just talking about it. He paused, hearing nothing on the other end of the phone.

"Takeru, are you still there?"

"Yeah, I am, I'm just amazed. I mean...wow. I didn't know all that had happened. You guys went through so much...I'm sorry I made you remember it."

"It's all right."

"Why didn't I find out that Taichi had attempted suicide?"

"We didn't tell any of you younger kids because you were all still so young. I mean, come on, you were in the sixth grade. Kari knows it happened, of course, but she never spoke about it after that. Come to think of it, none of us did."

"Do all of the older kids know?"

"Yeah."

"So it was smooth sailing after that, then?"

Yamato laughed slightly. "I wish."

Takeru paused. "You mean more bad stuff happened?"

Yamato smiled. "Takeru, this is real life. This isn't fairy tales where everything turns out all right. There are bumps in every relationship, you know."

"What else happened? If you don't mind me asking."

"Not at all. Well, we had our little fights. You know how we can get. We never really had any very bad fights. Not until last summer."

"What happened last summer?"

Yamato leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath. "You sure you want to know?"

"Oh, you can't leave me hanging like this. Of course I want to know."

Yamato smiled a little and then frowned again. "Well, last summer, the summer in between my junior and senior year, I went to a party and I got very drunk, and I sort of cheated on Taichi. I slept with someone."

Takeru's eyes widened. "You slept with someone?"

"We were in the middle of a fight and we weren't speaking to each other, but we weren't broken up, so it was cheating. I was so pissed off at Taichi over it that I drank way too much at the party, and I didn't know what had happened the next morning until I rolled over and bumped into someone in the bed. I felt so incredibly guilty that I went straight to Taichi's house and I told him and started crying from the guilt and shame. Literally." Yamato ran a hand through his hair. "Boy, was he mad, but then he listened to my side of the story and he figured that I didn't know what I was doing since I was drunk out of my mind. He got mad at me for drinking so much, though. Gave me a lecture on alcohol poisoning and everything."

Takeru suppressed a laugh at how overprotective Taichi could be of Yamato. "Is that all the bad things?"

"The really bad things? Pretty much."

"Wow. I really had no idea all this had happened."

"Yeah, well..." Yamato shrugged, and then remembered that he was talking to Takeru over the phone. "Anyways, what's with the sudden interest?"

"O-oh nothing, I was just wondering, you know, curious."

Yamato raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Whatever, Takeru. Anyways, if that's all you wanted to know, I've got to get back to practice. The guys look like they want to run over and rip the phone cord out of the wall."

Takeru laughed. "Okay, I'll let you go. See you tomorrow."

"See ya."

They hung up.

Takeru lay back down on his bed and hugged his pillow tightly, hoping that he wouldn't have that much trouble with Daisuke.

~ ~ ~ ~

A/N: This chapter was getting too long so I decided to wait until the next chapter for the Teen's Night at the club thingie. Please be patient with me! I know this chapter seemed pretty pointless and nothing to do with the fic, but don't worry about it, you'll see later on. (Trying to get you to stay with me here.) Heh...anyways, uh...review? And I decided on keeping it half-angsty and half-fluffy. Well, I'll try to, anyways. And Kathleen, Koushirou is going to get with someone in this fic. Don't worry about that. ^-~ Thanks everyone that reviews this story. I'm so happy that so many of you really like it. ^-^' I'll try to get the next chapter up soon.