A/N: Hi, another Lightverse sidestory here! This is for non-flash bingo number 275 - prompt: "Don't upset your father, not now." Yamato-centric. I'm getting close to where I show what's happening to the others in Lunar, but it might be a side story, as unlike the anime, I can't take that many breaks! Anyway, please let me know what you think!
As a bit of a side note: this is not me hating on Yamato. I'm not used to him yet, but this is a kid whose family went through a divorce fairly young and he had no idea why. It takes him time to mature over it, and some of his canon comments do hint at some resentment towards Takeru as well as the rest of the family. Also, this is an expansion/revisioning of that canon scene where Yamato recalls Takeru telling their mom about the monsters. It was an interesting thing to write about. Anyway, if he seems OOC somehow, I apologize.
Warning: divorce
Thought of Those Regrets
He doesn't mean to blame his brother. He doesn't.
It was just a dream though. It had to be.
Takeru has never been very good at lying about things.
Yamato, however, he is a master at it. He wishes he could have warned Takeru to not tell, to phrase it better. Takeru isn't dumb, and he knows that. His brother just doesn't notice sometimes.
Right now, if he closes his eyes, he can see that night. He can see the street blown to pieces by the bird and the dinosaur. He can make out tiny figures on the ground, kids his age, one a little older than the younger. They are crouched together and Yamato remembers rubbing his eyes and trying to figure out how they're still alive through that. Trying to see who they were, trying to see the fight because Takeru was holding the binoculars.
He sees and even years later, when he forgets, he's still able to remember in his dreams.
Back then, Takeru had the better memory of the fantastical, and he's able to recount it clearly to their mother.
Yamato isn't in the room but in the hallway, and perhaps his mother knows he's not there, not looking to stop him, but not helping him. Takeru probably hasn't noticed, he's so eager to talk, to tell stories. Mom likes telling stories.
The trouble is that all the stories she tells are actually true.
Takeru has no proof about his.
She sends him away and Takeru goes and he doesn't know why she made him leave and Yamato doesn't have the heart to tell him why.
When the shouting happens after their bedtime and Takeru cries in his lap, he tries not to think it's Takeru's fault. He tries not to blame him for telling the story because the story was real and amazing and how did their parents sleep through it? How? How did they not wake up and see?
But there's a seed in his heart that thinks it's Takeru's fault and he squashes it, grinds it until it can't grow.
It's pieces are still there.
It's there when he's packing his brother's things into a suitcase because he's crying in a ball under his covers and telling Yamato that he hates him when he doesn't.
(It doesn't hurt to do that, it doesn't, it's just a lie, he doesn't mean it, I don't want this either-)
It's there when he looks at the new home with his mother while Takeru is at the playground and his mother is hugging him and crying into his hair when his father's not looking and he's trying not to cry and scream at her that this shouldn't be happening at all anyway.
It's there when the court ends things and they're playing with the blocks and letting the world be decided for them. He's helping Takeru practice the transfer student speech that he's not realizing his brother will be giving a lot of times to a lot of people in his life and he's probably going to have even less friends than Yamato by the end.
It's there and he hates it and he hates it and it interferes with him hugging Takeru as much as he wants to, or protecting him properly without panicking because what if he's being hurt because I am mad at him about Mom and Dad?
It's not his brother's fault, it's not Yamato's fault, it's not even their parents'.
But it's so easy to think so and he's so scared he will actually say that.
Someday, all of these feelings will burst. He'll never admit that, never let that happen.
Sadly, the Digital World is all about bringing the heart to the surface.