Written 24.o3.o7
T H A N K S . F O R . R E A D I N G: Income Taxes Hate Cheese, Sarina Blade, BrownEyesAngel, My Name Is R.C, P0g0Stick, chinkeye, Mrs.Ishida-to-you, BoarderKC, scorpion05, Waltz Turner, JyouraKoumi, blue9989, Rheebus, Curtis Zidane Ziraa, Inconnu, nickygirl, pain herself, Night Beauty, SkuAg, Karush, crest of music & (lucky last) Wishinstahhz.
Don't have to read this a/n
I've noticed a pattern with my current in-progress stories. LimitZ II has mainly the same people reading it who have read LimitZ (the prequel). Paparazzi is a easy write, but gains readers from everywhere. Whereas this story…it's basically the same people who read it from the beginning…and continue to (hopefully) do so. Haha. Nuh…out of all stories, I think I'm liking the progression (not as in update style) of how this fanfic is going. Maybe it's because I love crying out my opinions of music in this story…who knows.
- X -
My Funny Valentine
Chapter Six
The women were already seated, sitting across both Taichi and himself. No one had really made a sound yet, besides stiff greetings while Mimi was left oblivious of the sudden awkward tense silence.
The blond haired man stared at her as she played with her auburn strands. It was some sort of mannerism he had picked from her lately. He distractedly let his finger circle the tip of his glass. He kept an inward groan when he saw that his own sterling silver ring glint against the sparkling red wine as a constant reminder.
Taichi gave a forceful unconfined cough. He could feel his best friend eyeing both his strange interaction with Sora and was waiting impatiently for their explanation.
Giving up and sick of being the only one left out of the blue, Mimi impatiently blurted out still holding some sort of poise, "Okay… what the hell is going on?"
Right after Mimi had broken the silence, Taichi exploded another, "No way," slamming his right hand against the table causing it to shake unsteadily.
While Sora ignored Taichi's eruption, immersing herself from playing with her auburn strands to seemingly wanting to yank them out. Meanwhile Yamato, in unison, had buried his head into his hands. Yamato hadn't expected to expose Taichi and Mimi to his 'wife' this way. From Sora's yanking reaction, it was evident that she wanted him to explain since it was he that had put them in the troublesome situation in the first place.
So much for the wedding vow 'I promise to listen to you and support you at all times.' So what if they skipped the wedding, she could at least assist him out with delivering the blessed news to Mimi. Plus, he had already bedridden Tai with the news from the look at his best friend's dumbfounded look. The dating couple were obviously close friends with Sora as well. He yet had to understand how coincidental the world could really be and, at that moment, he could not help but loathe it.
"Oh," Mimi took in Sora's quietness and smiled. "Is it because you realized that his wearing a disguise and that we are friends with Matt?"
Sora blinked, confused then seemed to suddenly click everything together. "Uhh…so this is the Matt – Taichi's best friend – that you've been talking about all along. Why couldn't you just say that he was Yamato Ishi-?"
Mimi clasped her hand over her friend's mouth. "Don't tell the whole world! Why do you reckon he's wearing a beanie?"
"Well…you just did 'tell the world' that he was wearing a disguise."'
"Hey guys, are you ready to take your order?" a brunette young man came up to the table of four, a pen placed behind his ear as he held a small sketchpad. "Double-date today, I see."
"Shut-up, Daisuke," Taichi sneered. After the four selected their orders, Mimi pipped up.
"Nice restaurant you've got here, Dai. Well done."
"Thanks," he smiled.
"Just saw your sister working today," Yamato said.
Daisuke turned his direction to him, "She's always working. How's TK? I haven't seen him in ages!"
"He's fine. Just suffering a major writer's block."
"We do more labour than he does…and he gets quadruple the amount as me," Daisuke groaned.
"Don't worry…once more franchises of your business is open around Japan…or even the world…you'll be filthy rich."
Daisuke rolled his eyes, "Thanks for the advice, Tai."
After giving a departing salute, Daisuke vanished away to give orders to the cooks and to take an order from the next customer.
The brunette headed man, sitting down, had proceeded into banging his head on the table. "Matt," he stressed Yamato's alias name, "Just tell Mimi already."
"Sora's helping too," he contorted back, feeling like a five-year-old. No, he wasn't going to let her go by that easily. If he was going to fall…she'd better fall alongside with him.
"How do you know each other? I haven't even introduced the two of you?" Mimi gasped, surprised. "You know each other?"
Taichi was still banging his head, but even more forcefully.
"Stop it, Taichi. You're making it worse than it already is. Fine, I'll tell her," Sora grumbled, a scowl sliding onto her face. "Mimi…toilets…now."
He watched Sora stand up from her chair and drag away the protesting women away from them. Yamato shook his head and simpered to himself until Taichi gave another of his unconfined coughs. He shut his eyes…waiting for his friend to barf the word out anytime…
"Explain."
"I met her at a jazz place. She was there, I asked, she accepted."
"Sora doesn't accept things like this that easily," Taichi didn't let him get off that comfortably.
"Well she did," Yamato paused, feeling his friends' gaze penetrate through his lie. He huffed. So he had to tell the truth. "Okay…fine. I've been seeing her a lot-"
"You're seeing each other? Matt my man, and I thought I was your bestie!"
"Not literally seeing…just seeing her at the jazz bar. It's just a good bar to seek privacy and hide out…considering it's now known well enough in Odaiba, it's an easy hide-out for me," he clarified.
"Oh…so now I see," Taichi replied, leaning back onto his chair. "I didn't know you knew other girls besides Jun, my sister, your mother, Mimi, your cousin – Cat, and your short-time exes. You've always been terrified or relationships…"
"I'm not terrified…" he objected. "It's just…"
"Jun would have been good. Why didn't you choose her?"
"She's got a boyfriend, Tai. Plus…I don't want her to over think it. Did you see how scary looking her boyfriend is, Tai? He'd castrate me without a second thought if he knew what we were doing," Yamato muttered away. "Enough me speaking…tell me how you know Sora."
"Sora?" he laughed. "Don't you remember? She's the girl I used to have a crush on back in high-school."
"How come you never mentioned her name then?"
"Nuh…I didn't because she went to an all-girls' school and you wouldn't know her name. She's the girl that I told you after I came back from soccer camp."
"So that's her? I didn't know you kept in contact still…"
"Haha…without her…I wouldn't have met Mimi. We remained good friends. Don't worry, Matt – she's all yours. It was just puppy love for me."
"I told you…this is just a project to fool my grandma. That's it."
"Whatever. Just…well…don't hurt her. She's like another sister of mine – don't hurt her feelings, man."
"If something was happening, sure I wouldn't. But as I told you before, no one's falling in love with each other."
"It's not going to be easy, you know. Your grandmother isn't stupid. Both of you need to know facts and quirks about each other. Family history, school history…the whole works. A fake relationship can't just pop out of nowhere…it needs skill! And you must always to remember your lies!"
"Yes, teacher Kamiya," he scoffed.
"I'm serious, Matt."
Just as the musician was about to nod his head, a loud shout echoed out of the walls from the other side of the noodle restaurant.
"MATT'S YOUR HUSBAND-?!"
"Keep it down, Mimi," another voice hissed.
"I surmise she took it more well than I did," Taichi chuckled.
- X -
It had taken them about two hours in the restaurant, until Daisuke gained the courage to kick his friends out for staying there too long and hogging a table when all they had been doing was chattering away. Once they had left Daisuke's noodle palace, they had begun wandering aimlessly throughout the streets of Odaiba.
Taichi and Mimi were walking hand-in-hand in front of the supposedly married couple. Though Taichi Kamiya had always been Yamato's best-friend, ever since he had started dating Mimi, he had less time to hang out with him. It's not that he thought Mimi was a bad girlfriend (in fact, he found her to be the best girl that Tai had ever dated)…it's just that majority of the time she was always there. It was uncomfortable being the third wheel when the two partners were all 'lovey-dovey.' At least, this time, he wasn't only the third wheel.
He stole a glance at the woman striding next to him. At that moment she was wearing a fashionable sundress that sparkled light autumn shades that matched the colour of her long tresses. She caught him staring and offered a taut unsure smile. She shattered the silence, "I'm sorry that I lied to you."
"Pardon?"
"You know…about lying that I was going to be busy today," she pressed on, lips pursing. "It's just…Mimi's back. We went out…shopping. A catch-up, you know? I really had no choice-"
"Don't worry, I'm not cut. I was having a catch-up with Tai as well."
"You see," she persisted, wanting to give her whole reason to why she was busy that day, "It's because Mimi's my best-friend."
"Same here…No. Well…with Tai…that's what I mean. Really, Sora, I don't mind. Don't worry about it."
"You sure?"
"Absolutely certain."
"Good," she let out a sigh of relief. "I didn't know if you'd get angry at me or something."
"It takes a lot for me to get angry…it's usually when someone does something to my family or friends. But when I'm angry…I let it all out."
"Sounds scary."
"I get scared of myself," he shrugged. "Just advisable, in the future, to tread away with me when I get mad."
"Okay," Sora said. Out of nowhere, she began to chortle, gazing at him in mirth. "So…it's you. You are the Matt. All along…they've been talking about you…but I never knew that it was you. Yamato Ishida. Who would've guessed?"
"While I thought Tai and Mimi were talking about some other girl called Sarah."
They stared at each other and began to start laughing. "You know, I've been wanting to meet you for a long time. It's just I've always been at gigs to meet you in person. And now that we've met…it's under completely different circumstance. All this time…Taichi was trying to set me up with you too…"
"Same here."
"Ahh...the irony of coincidence," Yamato said satirically. His eyes roamed back to the couple walking in front of them. "With them two busy, it looks like it's going to end being you and me now."
"Must be fate," she winked, laughing. The wind breezed past and he observed her clipping her hair back with a large black clip. He did feel himself around her, but that wouldn't be enough. Taichi was right. The two of them needed to keep their act together to persuade his grandmother that they were married. They needed more than just the holding hands and hanging around each other. They needed to know more.
He needed to know more about his 'so-called' woman he had devoted his life for. The thought of marriage made him queasy. Sora certainly needed to know more about his family besides his music career.
"Sora, we need to…well…know more about each other."
She raised a questioning eyebrow.
"What I mean to say…is that we need to put more effort into this pseudo couple thing we're pulling off. It's already the end of one week. In one more week, my rigorous grandmother will be coming. She'd at least expect you to know some parts of my past…and possibly concerning my family history too."
"So what do you propose?"
He brooded for a bit, eyes darting around for any ideas whatsoever. Unmindful, he noticed Mimi kissing Taichi on the cheek as Taichi took a photo of them from his phone. That's when it all made sense; he knew what he was going to do.
"I say that giving you history lesson all-about-me will bore you senseless. Plus, it's not I can quite exactly capture every memory. But photos can…"
"So…?"
"So…I'll drop by a photo album that has photos from different periods of my life…and I give you permission to ask what the photo is about."
"Sounds like a good idea," she commented. "So…how about me? Do I have to prepare you a photo album as well?"
"Well…it's really up to you. I wouldn't mind looking at yours…I was just waiting for what you really want to do. Our contract was to act like a married couple, not invade your privacy."
"I don't mind. I'm willing to expose my past. It wouldn't be fair if only you tell me everything. There's no point of our relationship to be one-sided," she joked. "Your grandma will probably find it strange that I know everything about you, while you don't know anything about me. Don't you think?"
"You're right," Yamato admitted. "You know what? Considering I have time to do it tonight, I'll put it all together. Then I will give it to Jyou asap and put it at your doorstep. I'll give you Jyou's cell number so that, whenever you have the time to finish, he'll pick it up from your house and deliver it to me."
"Even though you're well-known, Matthew. You've got to be considerate. Your driver goes to medical school…and you know how difficult taking a course there is?"
"I'll pay him extra."
She glared at him.
"Fine…maybe mail it," he gave in. He looked away from her and realized that Mimi and Tai had already abandoned them without even saying a good-bye. "They've gone."
"And so they have," Sora frowned. "They're planning something, aren't they?"
"It's Tai and Mimi…they've always got something up their sleeves. I think I might as well go home now. I need to reorganize my CDs as well as fix that photo album for you."
"Sure. See you, Matthew."
He swiveled on his heel, about to walk the opposite direction until he heard her call his name once again.
"Are you free this Saturday night?"
He closed his eyes. He had band practice for that whole day. Those tiresome rehearsals ended up lasting till late at night. He gritted his teeth, "Depends."
"Alejandro's going to be performing…we need lead singer."
"What makes you think I can sing jazz?"
"What makes you think that the heavy rock completely drowns your voice? This time we'll be able to assess whether your voice is good," she smirked. "Or not."
He laughed. "Are you challenging me?"
She coughed.
"What song?"
"I'll ask him…then I'll message it to you over our phones."
"What's with this all of a sudden? Alejandro can play well without me."
"A few people from the big music industry are going to check out his talent on that night and I'm trying to land him a record deal."
"How about him…does he want to?"
"I'm not sure. But really…who doesn't want a record deal? This guy has got amazing talent…and it's a waste that he's going to hide out in the dark. He needs to get out of this small place and make it big. He's well enough capable."
"I know…I've seen what he can do. Maybe that's the reason I always come to your bar," Yamato pondered. "He's really good."
"So what do you say?"
"If you send me your photo album, it's a deal," he compromised.
"See you on Saturday night. Don't get a sore throat."
He laughed again, "Glad to know you care for my welfare."
- X -
I know…crappy ass chapter and not worth it being the 7-month wait. I'm just hating the second part of this chap. The interaction between Yamato and Sora was…bleh..dull. I think I might rewrite this chapter. I promise, though, that the next chapter will be well worth it. It's just starting to sizzle…and this chapter had to be added. Just think of it as a filler before it gets into the nitty gritty stuff. Expect better things in the next chapter! Thanks for reading!
Flipstahhz ps. The next chapter will be much longer