Here we are with the handsome one of the older group; Yamato. I hope you enjoy this, somewhat short, chapter. By the title, you can see that he's at a band practice. Originally, I'd considered having this chapter come after the Taichi and Sora one, but felt Jou was more fun to go with. Anyway, only one more kid to go and then we can get into the story.

Now, as always, I do not own anything dealing with the Digimon anime, games, manga, toys, etc.; Bandai and Toei have that honor.

Chapter 08: "おれもう行くは; じゃあな.."
"Ore mou iku wa; jaa na…"
"I'm leaving; see you later." Yamato's Rushed Band Practice!

The now, still handsome, Odaiba High School 16-year-old first year, Ishida Yamato, along with his other three band members, *Akira, Yutaka, and Takashi, were rehearsing at the Fuji TV Station on a sound stage. They'd been practicing for a good while since school had let out early that day. The group had a pretty big gig that upcoming Saturday, and Yamato asked his father's permission to use the sound studio there since the *good places for bands to practice, were mostly inland.

Thanks to Mr. Ishida, who was a manager and TV director at the station, he managed to get the group their own music special, which would be broadcast from Tokyo Dome. He figured that since Yamato's group had been doing so well, why not let them get some more exposure through television. The new show that Fuji TV had just put out was one to promote young, new artists and groups.

"Okay guys," the blonde started as he put his guitar aside, "let's wrap it up. We got in a lot of practice today."

"What do you mean, 'a lot of practice'!" argued the loud, boisterous Yutaka. "I know school let out early for us today, but we just practically got started!"

"We have that upcoming performance this Saturday night," the girl-crazed Akira added, "we should be practicing nonstop!"

"I didn't realize it was so late."

"It's not late," muttered Yutaka under his breath.

Akira shook his head, and gave the blonde a knowing smile. "Let me guess…you have to go meet that girl of yours again."

"Well, um, y-yeah," he shyly answered with a small blush.

"You know, on days where you have afternoon dates, we really shouldn't have practice."

"Especially here," Yutaka roared. "It takes a good while to get here from school, especially when we have club meetings!"

"But we aren't in any after school clubs," Akira pointed out, which went unnoticed by Yutaka.

"Okay, okay! I'm sorry. I forgot that I had a date this afternoon since Saturday's concert has been on my mind all week."

"How in the world could you forget about practice, Ishida!" Yutaka continued to squabble. "We are performing for that special your old man got for us! This could mean instant stardom! They'll have talent scouts there!"

"I said I was sorry, but I really have to meet up with her. We have to discuss some things."

Takashi, the quiet one amongst the four, who had been packing up equipment ever since Yamato announced it, spoke up shyly. "Are you going to stop dating in secret?"

Yamato nodded. "We know we shouldn't, but she's still not ready to let everyone know about it. I still don't get why. She doesn't even want Taichi to know, and she's been good friends with him for years," he explained while packing up. 'I hope we'll be able to get everything out in the open this time around. I really want to know her true reason for keeping our relationship a secret. I'm tired of running around.'

"We know, we know," Akira grumbled as he began to pack up. "You told us already."

"Other than my younger brother, I feel that I can tell you guys almost anything, and Taichi…but sucks that I can't mention this to him. He has to be getting a bit suspicious by now. Not sure how many more lies I can tell to get out of hanging with him and the others."

"That's what friends are for," Takashi stated brightly, "but I have been thinking about your situation. Maybe she's shy to let everyone know about it. She's never had a boyfriend before you, right?"

"No," he answered bluntly, "but it's been an entire month! How much more time could she possibly need before letting people know about us?"

The room went quiet, no one able to honestly come up with an actual answer to the young bass player's query.

"You know, I wonder how that Motomiya girl is doing," Yutaka randomly muttered.

Yamato sighed out in relief. "She got tired of me, that's what."

"Without her, our merchandise hasn't been selling as much," Yutaka pointed out. "It's okay, and I know she still comes to our concerts, but we made more of a profit with her around buying our T-shirts, and posters, and stuff like that. I doubt her room is still overly full with our stuff."

"You shouldn't have let her go, man."

Yamato glared at Akira indignantly. "What do you mean I let her go! I never had her to begin with!"

"You ignored her too much."

"I didn't ignore her! She just grew out of her crush on me according to her brother."

"She got tired of waiting around for you to give in," Yutaka corrected.

"But I never liked her in that way!" Yamato shouted at the two irrational boys. "What turned me off from Jun was the fact that she liked me because I was 'the great Yamato-kun of the Teen-Age Wolves'! She only liked me because of my looks and because I was in a band!"

"How do you know that's the only reason she liked you?" Akira thought for a moment, and sweat dropped at his own statement, recalling the times that Jun hanged around. "Never mind."

"I'm sure she would have been okay if she would've tried, I don't know, talking to me instead of trying to cling onto my arm every chance she got! Besides, I prefer how she is now compared to how she was in the past. She's a decent person, and okay to talk with. We can actually have a conversation now without her acting all lovesick over me."

"Since we're ending early today, why don't we just have a longer practice tomorrow?"

"Good idea, Takashi," Yutaka nodded. "We could use some more practice. I don't want one note off."

"Yeah, we probably should. I'll just cancel any other date I had planned for the week."

"So in other words," Akira laughed, "no days, since today is Friday."

"Oh yeah, that's right, and it's too late to cancel on her now."

"Yo, Ishida, think your old man could set it up so we can practice here again, since it has a sound stage and all of that other sound equipment?"

"I'll see what I can do, but I'm sure he could. It's cheaper to practice here than those other places."

"You know what would be really nice?"

The other three boys looked over at Takashi and asked, "What?"

"If your friend, Tachikawa-san, was here since she has such a nice singing voice."

"She's cute too," Akira whistled.

"You got that right!" Yutaka agreed, giving Akira a high-five.

"When she was here about a year ago, you and Tachikawa-san sounded very nice when performing that duet."

"Yeah, that was pretty fun. Too bad she isn't here now, and if she was, she would've called or sent an e-mail or something to let me know or at least Koushirou. She always send him messages and he usually let's us know what's up. With her here, it might increase our chances."

"But you know," Akira started, "if she was here, and sang with us, and we get discovered, they'd probably take her over us, and put her with a studio band. A cute girl who can sing perfectly is what the public loves, and she knows some English. The people seem to love hearing English in songs, like that new girl; Rie Fu. That Life is Like a Boat single she put out last month did pretty good, I heard, in sales.

"Go and get Mimi-chan!"

Yamato and the others laughed. "I would love to, but I don't think she could get here on such short-notice by tomorrow night. Anyway, I have to get to get to the park."

"Which one," asked Yutaka.

"Daiba Park…it's the closest one to here and there are other things to do around there. I wanted to be there by at least 17:45 (5:45) and here it is almost 17:30 (5:30)."

"Yes yes, go join the love of your life, and confess your love for her on the Ferris Wheel there when it reaches the top, so that you two can be together forever," Akira teased.

"We aren't that serious," he informed them defensively. 'I hope it lasts a long time, though. I really do like her and I've never felt anything like this towards any other girl.'

"Do you need me to help clean up, or are one of you going to do it?"

"Takashi, you guys can go on home. It's my fault we're ending early today. Tomorrow at about 9:00, we'll rehearse until the early afternoon, so we don't burn ourselves out, and then we head over to Tokyo Dome at about 16:00 (4:00). I'll let you know if my father can get us another room here by tonight."

"Seems like you have it all planned out, Ishida," complimented a now calmed down Yutaka.

"We're going to come straight here to the station first for the rehearsal, right?"

"Right."

The three boys loaded up their equipment, and waved to Yamato. When leaving the building, they headed to the nearest bus line home or wherever they planned to go. Yamato spent nearly 10 minutes more to make sure everything in the studio was clear. The last thing he did was put his guitar back into its case. 'Should I take this with me, or should I take my chances and leave it here?' He looked at the time. It was now a bit past 5:30. 'I'll leave it, and just let pop know about it. I'm already late, and don't have time to go home.'

Yamato locked up, and raced out of the studio, anxious to get to the park which was a good distance away. Time he stepped foot outside, he noticed the sky was grey, and it was very windy out. In the far distance, he saw a storm cloud with lightening coming from it, but it seemed to be in only one place. Yamato squinted to get a better look. 'That doesn't look right.'

One of the lightning bolts seemed to come from the storm cloud far off, and struck the rod atop the Fuji TV station. Yamato couldn't help but stare in amazement. What happened next seemed to be scientifically impossible. When the bolt hit the rod, it seemed to ricochet from the rod, and struck the blonde. Yamato screamed not from the slight pain, but from the surprise and shock he was now in.

Some people walking by, noticed the boy being struck in place, and began to panic. "Call an ambulance," some people shouted. "Help that boy!" others yelled. "Yamato-kun!" a girl shrieked in terror.

After the painful shock, the blonde could barely hear those chattering around him, and felt himself being pulled upwards towards a strange looking vortex over his school. He didn't understand what was happening, other than his being in slight pain from the electricity. As he was being pulled upwards, he thought he saw Sora, and called out to her, and tried his best to reach out to her, but it was of no use. She neither saw nor heard him. He also thought he saw Taichi, and called to him as well, but it was pretty much the same. The next thing he knew, he was pulled into the odd vortex, entrapped in darkness...

Author's Note

Note 1: These do exist in Japan. Think of karaoke places but made for people to play instruments. I couldn't find anything right off in Odaiba, but know of them in other places, like say Shibuya (where Takeru used to live and where Frontier took place), Shinjuku (where Tamers took place), Ikebukuro, etc. These places are all inland areas of Tokyo. For an hourly fee, you can practice playing your instruments. It would probably be pretty expensive for high-school students.
x x x

Note 2: Akira, Yutaka, and Takashi are the actual names of Yamato's band-members (former members as of Tri). Unfortunately, I can't recall which one was which (that's why I didn't bother with descriptions), and I haven't seen the Christmas episode in ages. The main thing I do recall, was that each member had their names sewn on their outfits.

Fic Chapter Changes

I added in Yamato being more frustrated over keeping his relationship a secret. Originally, he knew why Sora wanted to keep it secret, which was why he was more willing to go along with it, but as you can see here, he's actually reaching his limit.

I changed the park Yamato was going to from Kasai Rinkai Park to Daiba park. Daiba park would be way closer than Kasai Rinkai Park, which is near Tokyo Disney…pretty far. Odaiba Seaside Park isn't too far from the Fuji TV station.