20th February 2003
^_~
Thank the fact that it snowed where I am a few weeks ago for this chapter! Seeing all that snow gave me the inspiration to write some more to this fic...and inspiration is the thing that I've been seriously lacking in for the longest time... ^^;; That, and time.
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Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, but in particular, thank you babydragon for the 100th review! Wow, I never thought that I'd ever get so many when I started writing this. ^_^ Thanks so much, it really means a lot...
Babydragon, I would love to offer to write you something...but the aforementioned lack in time and inspiration really means that I can't. ^^;; I am sorry... But I would like to dedicate this chapter to you, if you will accept! ^_^
So everyone this is the fifth part: Some angst, but also some funny parts. Or at least I found them funny... *giggles* *hugs Taichi* Hope you enjoy!
~Dedication: For babydragon~
~
Late Night Radio Pt.5
Reflection
~Jheya Ono~
Taichi stared in silence at the closed door in front of him, clutching the clothes that Yamato had pushed into his arms. He should really start changing...only he was worried.
Not worried about what he might look like in the outfit that he just been handed; far from it. He trusted his friend's taste in clothes absolutely, so he knew that whatever he was holding would look fine on him. All he had noticed about the outfit so far was that various shades of blue dominated, and the reason that he hadn't yet taken a closer look was that he was worried about Yamato.
A frown creased the brunette's forehead as he chewed at his lower lip thoughtfully. The blonde hadn't said anything...but then again, he hadn't needed to. Taichi had found to his surprise that he could still read his friend's body language perfectly, which was just as well because with Yamato's complex personality, just listening to his words rarely let you know the full picture about what he was thinking or feeling.
With a sigh, the brunette reluctantly moved away from the closed door, walked to one of the sofas and dropped the clothes onto it. He really wanted to talk to Yamato some more, because there was something in those blue eyes that made him think that the blonde hadn't been letting on how he really felt. He shrugged off the dressing gown and began to get changed, moving slowly as thoughts continued to whirl around in his mind.
After they had finished eating, Yamato had gone to the bedroom to get clothes for them to wear, and Taichi had sat on the sofa to wait... Only it seemed to have been taking the blonde an extraordinary length of time to do so. Eventually the brunette had knocked at the closed door, worried, but not wanting to barge in, in case his friend had been changing or something...
When Yamato had opened the door, he had been surprised to see that the blonde hadn't even started to get changed, but the smile on his face dispelled his worried thoughts...only not for long. As he had accepted the bundle of clothes he had lightly commented on the fact that his friend was still dressed exactly as he had been before, despite the length of time that had passed... He hadn't liked the answer he had gotten.
Taichi had expected more light-hearted teasing, the type of conversation that they had had before. Instead the blonde had avoided his eyes, and had said something about just thinking...before shutting him out before he could question properly. He hadn't been offended, but deeply troubled. What was so serious that Yamato couldn't talk to him about it?
But...no. He was reading too much into this, wasn't he? Even though his friend didn't seem to have changed a bit during the five years they had been apart, he would have changed a little at least... It was unavoidable. His personality might be the same, but surely with his rise to super-stardom, he must at least have lost his sense of inadequacy. The brunette had always found it strange that Yamato had never seemed to think himself worthy of any praise he had received when they were in high school together. The blonde was intelligent, charismatic, amazing talented, and of course incredibly good-looking...and yet he still hadn't felt that he was good enough. Taichi had had to stop himself from physically shaking his friend by the shoulders, and from telling him to snap out of it many, many times... Of course he was good enough! He was more than good enough, he was an amazing person...but Yamato had been the only person who had been unable to see that...
However, only the blonde's closest friends had ever known that he had felt that way. Everyone else that knew and admired him thought that he knew and was confident of his own abilities, not through arrogance, but because he genuinely was talented. No one had ever accused him of arrogance, for even though he had received endless compliments he had never grown bigheaded. And even though countless girls had vied for his attention, often delaying or distracting him, he had never once been rude to them, and had always managed to find a smile from somewhere.
Simply amazing.
It was the only way to describe him.
So why had Yamato always been filled with so much self-doubt?
Taichi shook his head slowly, coming back from his memories and returning to the present. He hadn't known the answer to that question then, and he sure as hell didn't know it now.
Whenever they had been talking earlier that day, the brunette had been unconsciously reading the blonde's subtle body language, and he had seen no sign that he was still plagued with a sense of inadequacy. He surely must have lost that by now. With the whole world practically falling at his feet, the singer could no longer doubt his own self worth, surely... Taichi hoped that that was the case, because he had hated it when Yamato hadn't believed in himself, and had hated feeling so helpless knowing that nothing that he could say or do would make the blonde feel any better...
But that was all in the past now...right?
So he was reading too much into things when Yamato had said that he was thinking. He had probably just been deciding what to wear, and what film to see or something... Nothing terribly important, nothing for him to worry about...
But if that was all there was to it, then why hadn't the blonde been able to meet his eyes?
Taichi groaned, and forcibly banished such thoughts from his mind. He was working himself up into a state of panic over what was probably nothing at all. And he was asking himself questions that only Yamato could answer, and the brunette knew better than to ask. It was easier to get blood out of a stone than to get Yamato to talk when the blonde didn't want to.
So he was probably worrying about nothing, and even if there were anything to actually worry about, there was nothing that he could do about it. All very counter-productive.
Taichi surveyed how much he had managed to get done, and what he saw concurred with his previous conclusion. In however much time had passed since he had begun dressing, all he had managed to put on were socks, boxers, and a pair of slim-fitting, but not tight, deep blue jeans. He grabbed the T-shirt from where it lay on the sofa, and began pulling it over his head, determined to get on with the task at hand, and not be distracted from it again.
The sleeveless top was snug, and soft against his skin, and he picked up the last item of clothing, a cobalt-blue sweater. He pulled that on as well, before raising his hand to his head to check that his hair hadn't been too disrupted by the activity. And then... Then he just sat on the sofa and waited for Yamato to emerge, surprised at how quickly he had managed to finish changing once his mind had stopped wandering.
The brunette shifted to get more comfortable, and sank a little more into the deep cushioning. He gave a soft sigh, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets and let his mind go blank. Funny that although his thoughts had been running so quickly before, now he didn't seem to be able to think of anything at all...
Taichi wasn't really aware of time passing, so he couldn't have said how long he had been sitting there before he heard a soft knock at a door. He blinked in surprise, and struggled into a more upright position, not having realised that he had slipped so far that he had been more lying on the sofa than sitting on it. He looked around, not certain from which direction the knock had come.
A second soft knock.
"Taichi?" Yamato's voice queried, and the brunette's eyes focused on the still closed bedroom door.
"Yeah?"
"You changed yet?"
"Yeah."
The door opened a moment later, and the blonde popped his head round the side of it, a wide smile brightening his face. Taichi felt his spirits lifting upon seeing those clear blue eyes set in that beautiful smiling face...
As Yamato opened the door fully, the brunette rose to his feet to meet him halfway. The blonde was wearing dark grey tailored slacks, and a fleecy high-collared jacket of a lighter shade of grey. Add to that black shoes and his usual captivating smile, and he looked utterly gorgeous...
"You look good." Taichi smiled.
"Hey, thanks." Yamato smiled back, and then winked. "You don't look so bad yourself!"
"You mean that?" he asked, for some reason really wanting the answer to be yes.
"Course." the blonde grinned, and the brunette's heart skipped a beat. "You all ready to go?"
"Uh, nearly. Just need to get my shoes..."
He slipped past Yamato into the bedroom, and sat down on the bed to pull the white trainers onto his feet.
"Sorry." the blonde said, looking a little embarrassed. "I should have given them to you when I gave you the clothes, only I just completely forgot..."
"Hey, it's no problem!"
"I've still got the nagging feeling that I've forgotten something else though..." He snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah!" He walked over to one of the wardrobes, and flicked through the hangers inside. "Here, we might need these..."
Yamato lobbed a coat and scarf in Taichi's direction. The brunette smiled his thanks and they both wrapped themselves up in the warm garments.
"All set?"
"Just one other thing..." the blonde said, and picked up a baseball cap that Taichi hadn't noticed was lying on the dressing table. Looking into the mirror, Yamato put it on, adjusting it so that most of his trademark golden locks were hidden beneath it.
"What's that for?" the brunette laughed,
"I'm not so easy to recognise with my hair covered."
"Getting big-headed, are we?" he teased.
"No, just realistic." he winked, refusing to rise to the bait. "I prefer not to get mobbed if I can possibly help it, and particularly not at the moment."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want my time with you to be disrupted." he answered simply, and Taichi wanted to reply, only the lump that had formed in his throat prevented him from doing so.
"Let's got then!" the blonde continued with every evidence of happiness, and without waiting for an answer he scooped up the room keys and literally bounded out of the room. The brunette couldn't help but laugh at that, and followed him out.
They took the elevator down to the ground floor in comfortable silence, and Taichi used it as an opportunity to discretely study Yamato's face out of the corner of his eye. The blonde seemed to be unaware that he was being watched, and his face was relaxed, his blue eyes clear, and a faint trace of a smile gently curved his lips. Nothing there to suggest that he was feeling troubled about anything, which meant that the brunette had been worrying needlessly. He let out a soft sigh of relief, and allowed himself to relax.
The lift doors opened with a ping, and the two friends walked side by side across the lobby to the reception desk.
"Minoru!" Yamato exclaimed incredulously as one of the receptionists, a pretty brunette, looked up at their approach and smiled. Taichi frowned, and hung back a little as the blonde leaned on the desk to talk to her, laughing and smiling, and acting in a familiar way that he hadn't expected. What was the deal between his friend and this receptionist, this Minoru?
"Yes Yamato, it's me." she smiled. They were on first name terms? Taichi's frown deepened. "You wanted someone else?"
"No, of course not!" the blonde exclaimed. "Just...what do they do, chain you to the reception desk or something?"
She laughed at that, a pleasant sound, but still it got on Taichi's nerves. Who was this woman?!
"Of course they don't!"
"You sure about that?" the singer arched an eyebrow. "Because you're practically always here whenever I come in."
"Must just be fate or something." she said with a wink.
"Or design?"
"Hmm... I'd rather go with fate."
"So be it, fate it is!" Yamato laughed, but then his expression turned serious, his voice full of concern. "But seriously... You have had a decent length break, right? Because you checked me in this morning, and its now...what?" He checked his watch. "Past nine in the evening?"
"When you checked in I was nearly at the end of that particular shift, and I'm only just at the beginning of this shift. So yes, I have had a nice long break, and some sleep."
"I'm glad." he said, sounding relieved.
Taichi had to stop himself from glaring at Minoru upon hearing both the concern and the relief in Yamato's voice when talking to her. Which was...irrational. Even he could see that, but he still felt hostile towards this pretty receptionist, even so.
It was almost as if he were...jealous. But that made no sense, what reason did he had to be jealous? Yamato was an amazing, extraordinary, and extremely likeable person, so it was no wonder that this Minoru person was acting the was she was. And with the singer being the person he was, being friendly or at least polite to all, it was nothing out of the ordinary for him to be acting the way that he was. There. All nice and perfectly well reasoned out. There was absolutely no reason for him to be feeling jealous about Yamato and Minoru being so friendly, and no reason for acting hostilely towards her because of it.
Absolutely no reason at all...
Yet still he wanted to glare at her, and drag Yamato far, far away from her.
"Oh, hey! You two haven't been properly introduced yet..." the blonde said suddenly, beckoning Taichi closer, and reluctantly the brunette complied. "Minoru, this is my friend Taichi. Taichi, this is Minoru."
"Hi Taichi, it's nice to meet you!" she smiled warmly.
"Hi." was all he managed to say in return, still feeling inexplicably hostile towards her, that hostility clipping even that single word short. Her smile faded a little, and she shot a questioning look in Yamato's direction, but the singer merely gave her a puzzled one back. The blonde obviously hadn't noticed Taichi's attitude towards her, for which he was grateful. He really didn't want to have to explain why he was acting that way, seeing as there really was no reason for him being so unreasonable!
"Matt? Shouldn't we et going now?" he said quickly, before anyone else had the chance to say anything.
"Uh, yeah... Sure..." he replied, still looking confused. The blonde began to move away from the desk, but Minoru stopped him.
"Yamato? Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Uh?" The already confused look on his face turned to one of utter bewilderment, and she chuckled, and Taichi seethed.
"Your room keys?" Minoru prompted, holding out a hand for them. Comprehension dawned on Yamato's face, and he handed then to her with a sheepish grin.
"Oh, sorry about that..."
"You know that you're gonna forget your own head one of these days, don't you?" she teased.
"Yeah, I know." he grinned. "But when I do, you'll probably be there, scolding me about being so absent-minded, and reminding me to take it along."
"Probably!"
"See you later, Minoru!" the blonde called, heading towards the main doors where a doorman moved into place, ready to open them for him.
"Yeah, see you Yamato! And...Taichi."
The singer waved to her, and she smiled, but Taichi made no sign that he had even heard the receptionist. He just turned away from the desk, and followed his friend without a word, or even a glance back at her.
He shivered as a blast of cold air hit him as the doors were opened, and he was glad of the warm clothing that he was wearing. But he soon forgot the cold when he saw what lay outside.
He couldn't help the soft gasp that passed his lips, nor the daft grin that spread across his features. Nor could he help the childish giggle of delight that was building up in his throat.
And all because of the wide expanse of glittering white snow that lay before him.
To be continued...
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Could I trouble you for a quick review? I'd really appreciate it... ^_^
Jheya xxx