No Remedy for Love
A/N: This idea hit me suddenly and I had been really wanting to write a friendship story between Yamato, Mimi, and Jyou. Also, Mimi was my original OTP, so Mimato is always good, right? (Don't worry Jyou, we still love you.)
Warnings/Pairings: This is slightly AU. I guess if they all grew up without the Digital World, since it isn't important to this story. Ages are the same, but it's college era. Pairings include Jyoumato, Mimato. I may include Taishirou and Daiken, if the need strikes me.
1
Yamato struggled between keeping the warm fleece blanket around him or holding his guitar just right to play it well. He shivered, the apartment growing colder with each second. It had dropped five degrees in the last few hours and he refused to turn on the heater. Not only did the young man have an unnatural fear that the heater would somehow turn his home into an inferno, but it was just a few bucks more his Dad could save on the electric bill.
Despite the callouses that had formed over his hands these last few years, sometimes certain chords still gave him trouble. He took a second to adjust one of the nickel-laden strings and then gave it a rest. He thought a moment of how Jyou had managed to get two chords down once and was practicing between them... then his nickel allergy kicked in. God, did Yamato feel embarassed (and worried for his boyfriend), but Jyou assured him it was no big deal. (What was it, he didn't 'down a bucket of change'?)
Finally, Yamato gave the practice a rest when he couldn't feel his fingers from the cold. He sat back into the couch and had hoped his mind would drift to his boyfriend, but it only drifted to 'work' and the certain someone he had been noticing lately. Being a college band was difficult enough, but on top of that their band was one of the more active ones, leaving Yamato almost no free time between practice and gigs. Sure, this was completely his fault. Yamato would be damned if he got a lousy day job when he could make a living at this. (Make a living being his pitch of the rent and groceries, anyway.)
All this meant more time away from Jyou. Then again, when the musician did find time to get away from it all, Jyou was unavailible between his academics and internship. Yamato had always been needy in the sense he wanted to be coddled and appreciated (shrinks blamed his lack of a mother figure, he just blamed it on a lack of love in general). Jyou filled this need perfectly; always the caregiver. In turn, Yamato knew Jyou had his primal needs and the desire for a ear that would listen. Admittedly, this could annoy the blonde, especially after a night of partying. He just didn't want to hear Jyou's complaints.
Lately, though... niether of their needs were being met and they both knew it. Maybe that was why Yamato took notice to a particular young woman in the other most-overworked college band in the Odaiba area: Sorrow Sea. They were a group of three females, all aspiring pop idols. Like the female version of most visual kei bands, by the way they dressed. Their lead singer was well-known for her fashion sense and dramatic make up. Yamato had talked with her on a few occasions and found it fairly enjoyable, even if he was just learning mostly interesting things about her past.
The blonde pulled the blankets tighter, thinking of how he somehow ended up being the go-to guy for people to complain to. This wasn't an uncalled for phenomenea, seeing as Yamato always viewed himself as quite the empath. For example, whenever his band mates were stressed, he could feel it like a cloud hovering over him.
So, why was his mind drifting to some girl when he had a perfectly, loving relationship with Jyou that had been going on for three years now? He wasn't sure. Sometimes he just felt pure physical attraction (to men or women) but this was different. That same heart flutter had only hit him for a split second, but the fact that he had felt it scared him. He would never leave Jyou, but already he was imagining his life with this girl.
She shared a side of him that he wondered if Jyou truly understood. Yamato recalled their first conversation when they had been sitting around backstage. The pink-haired girl was attatching the zillionth star into her hair when she turned back, "You don't live with your family then?"
"Ah, no... Just my father," Yamato explained. They had somehow gotten on the topic of their homelives. "You?"
"My parents... I can't even begin to explain them," the girl chuckled.
"You... like to sing?" Yamato wondered.
"Mm," she responded, "... and you?"
"I prefer to play, but it's not like I'm gonna ask Takashi or something... my entire band are talentless hacks when it comes to vocals."
At this she chuckled and it was wonderful. Yamato felt happiness when she laughed. He tried not to smile, but it escaped him. "Yamato, can I tell you something?"
This alarmed him a little and he sat up, "Yeah?"
She hesitated as if she would say something detrimental and Yamato hung on her somber expression reflected in the mirror. Her lashes hid the oak color of her eyes. "Can you see my tits through this dress?"
He burned red but looked anyway, "N-N-No, you're fine."
Okay, so that wasn't the most intellectual conversation, but at least it wasn't the thing that made him contemplate love again. No, that had come a few weeks later after she had slowly disclosed a number of things regarding her past. She had an abusive boyfriend at one point, saying she only liked dangerous guys. Yamato liked to think he was dangerous, even if he really wasn't at heart. So, he put on a tough front as always, hiding that empath side of him.
"I drank a lot, too, so I'm sure I tossed a few punches his way," she chortled. "I can't drink anymore, though. Well, I try not to. I did some pot once. Oh, and there was this time where I went to jail overnight for DWI. That was dumb. I mean, I don't even like to drive, so why would I drink and drive? Ugh. Please."
This was an odd revelation. Yamato was fascinated by her stories and had always been the things he wrote about, despite experiencing little first-hand. She was the real deal. Something inside him so badly wanted to hold her and take the pain away. These feelings confused him then... and they confused him even more now as he lay curled up on the couch, staring across the room in the dark as the rain poured outside.
He could feel his heart pounding. He imagined Mimi and him getting wasted after a really good performance, bouncing from one party to the next for the rest of their lives. Maybe a life that included them struggling to raise two point five kids in a shitty apartment...
"What the Hell was I thinking...?" Yamato questioned.
"I'm not sure, but you've been zoned out for a good minute since I walked in the door," Jyou called, shaking the spare key Yamato had given him. "We are meeting for tea at the shop down the street, right?"