Hey, it's Leon. It's been about a month or two since I last updated, and yeah I hope the wait was kind of worth it maybe? The chapter was written about 3 different times in 3 different scenarios, and it wasn't until I got to this one that I felt satisfied. I remember a while ago people said they wanted to see things from the older Chosen's perspective, so with this I give Yamato's.

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon.


He couldn't believe that he was actually headed to Jun's apartment of all places since the last time he had been there was under false pretenses after being tricked. Sure, it wasn't as awkward as it would been when he was younger, and it would be even less so than his previous visit on account of an absent Jun, but there was still an inkling of strangeness that Yamato felt as the elevator he was on was reaching the destined floor. Hikari had called him telling him that he needed to pick up a drunk Takeru, and he in turn called his mother saying that Takeru was going to be staying with him and his father for a random nighttime visit. It had surprised him learning that Takeru had been drinking, though the surprise waned a bit upon finding out that Daisuke had goaded him into it, but regardless he was here to pick up his brother and make sure that he would be safe for the rest of the night.

As the elevator doors opened, stopping on the eighth floor, Yamato strolled out and began to walk down the hallway towards the sound of loud music and reckless teenagers. He was reminded of how he spent his youth in the years that truthfully weren't that long ago, and it was something that made him smile as he walked. It seems that things hadn't changed much since he was a young dumb ass himself. It was a passing thought, but one that proved true when within his sight came Takeru and Hikari sitting outside of an apartment all the while his brother leaned on and rested on the girl. It made him think back on what he and Sora used to do before they decided that neither drinking nor cutesy gestures were for them.

"Hey, is everything okay?"

He made sure not to get too close to the pair, and spoke softly as to not startle either of them with his appearance. Instead, Yamato stood off a good distance away from them seeing as they seemed to be in a somewhat compromising position. He stood there not saying anything, but it wasn't lost on him when he saw a flash of subdued annoyance on Hikari's face as if she was somewhat resentful that she and Takeru couldn't just stay how they were. He said nothing about it, pretending not to notice anything, and just watched as Hikari gently pushed his brother off of her and stood up to greet him.

"Everything's fine, Yamato-san. Takeru just needs you to take him home."

He nodded and sighed when he looked over at his brother who was still sitting on the floor seeming to not have any shame at all about the current predicament. True, getting drunk for the first time was nothing to be embarrassed about, but despite the fact that Takeru was grown up enough to make his own decisions, Yamato still would have preferred it if Takeru didn't drink at all.

Walking over to him, Yamato held his hand out for him to grab, and pulled his baby brother up when he clasped on tight. The young man's face scrunched as he got a whiff of the vodka on his brother's breath. It made him wonder, what would their mother think?

"You okay, buddy?"

"I'm fine."

Takeru's response was quick and not as slurred as he had expected it would be, this fact alone making him think that Takeru's level of inebriation was slightly skewed to the side of exaggeration, but regardless of that Yamato wrapped his brother's arm over his shoulder and positioned him so that the two of them would be able to stand and walk more comfortably. Once he felt that he would be able to move freely without his brother falling on his ass, Yamato once again put his attention on Hikari "Thanks for watching out for him. I appreciate it, you know."

"It's not a big deal."

Both of them knew that it wasn't, this being especially evident on account of what they spent their childhoods constantly doing, but Yamato was still grateful. Hikari wasn't his favorite person around, truthfully he still wasn't sure if he could personally forgive the girl fully, but he knew that no matter what had happened or what she had done, that she had a good heart. That she cared about his brother if even only in the slightest sense.

"Have you had anything to drink?"

He eyed the girl suspiciously, in the back of his mind wondering when had his baby brother gotten so tall and heavy, and he held onto Takeru more tightly since he had the fear that he was going to drop him at any moment now. These things were rushing around in his mind, but it settled down after he decided that Hikari seemed okay and on the up and up. He doubted that she had gone to a seemingly crazy party without consuming any alcohol, but he was comforted in the fact that she hadn't gotten hammered or drunkenly made a fool of herself.

"Just a few sips of beer. I stopped drinking when Daisuke-kun stopped paying attention."

He nodded having assumed as much would happen, and just let out a tired sigh. He hadn't wanted to spend his night picking up and then having to take care of an intoxicated Takeru, but well, such is life. Yamato at least found solace in the fact that once this was all over that it would at least make for a funny story later on.

"Do you want me to take you home? Taichi would have a fit if he found out that I didn't offer you a ride"

"I'm okay. I'm just going to stick around and wait for Miyako. She'd be mad if I left without congratulating her or telling her goodbye."

He frowned for a moment pondering if he should insist on taking her home or not, but deciding that it wasn't his place to do so, Yamato let it drop. He knew that even though he had offered it to her that Taichi was going to be pissed that he hadn't forcibly given the girl a ride. It was a consequence that was considered for the briefest of moments, but he had already come to the conclusion that he wasn't going to force Hikari to do anything that she didn't want to. Instead he just glanced back at Jun's apartment door, and rested his eyes there as a question popped into his head.

"Is Ayano-chan still here?"

The question made Hikari nervous as soon as he said it, Yamato noticing the change in her posture and the slight difference of her facial expressions, and it made him unsure of what to expect. Just from the cues given to him by Hikari's body language he could tell that his brother's girlfriend was or had been at the party earlier, but he could also tell that something was wrong by the simple fact that Takeru was out here in the hallway with Ayano being nowhere in sight.

"No, she left with someone a while ago. Takeru and her got into a fight I think."

His suspicious eyes came upon her once again, and he debated with himself the two thoughts that he had immediately come up with. Either Hikari was telling the plain and simple truth, or she was just saying things to make Ayano look bad in front of him and his brother. The latter didn't really sound like Hikari, but Yamato didn't eliminate the possibility since he wasn't really sure what he could come to expect from the girl anymore.

"Someone?"

"A boy-"

"Who?"

Hikari wasn't able to finish her sentence since Takeru had immediately cut her off when he heard the word 'boy'. It was curious to Yamato, strange all the same, that his brother became alert once again at the simple mention that Ayano had headed off somewhere with another guy. He felt his little brother's back straighten a bit, and oddly it was something that reminded him that he was getting old. Getting drunk and the infidelity of women are a man's problems, not a boy's.

"I'm not sure who it was, but I think it was her brother."

Takeru seemed to accept the answer as he became relaxed once again and went slack, but just like before Yamato only had questions. Was Hikari just lying about this latest tad of information to make his brother feel better, was the person that Ayano left with really a relative of hers, or was Taichi's little sister just being a conniving bitch? As he held onto his baby brother, Yamato wasn't sure what the answer was.

"I think we should be going now."

With his free hand he patted his brother on the chest, and took Hikari's slight and forced smile as confirmation that she understood. He was prepared to leave and drag his mother's precious little baby along with him, but decided that he would wait just a little bit longer. Hikari had a look in her eye, and something told Yamato that she wanted to say something.

"I'm sorry about how everything's been."

He took in the quick and random words as a drunken Takeru rested on him, and simply nodded yet another time in the night seeing as there was nothing else for him to say on the matter.

"Don't worry about it."

Smiling, Hikari was glad to hear Yamato's simple response since she needed something else to feel better about. The night of Miyako's party had so far been a strange one for her. She had shown up only to not find Miyako and be greeted by a happily drunk Daisuke instead, she had unfortunately stumbled upon Ayano telling Takeru that she loved him in what appeared to be one of their more intimate moments, she had made an idiotic toast to the excitement of Daisuke and Takeru, and she had been with the latter in the bathroom earlier rubbing his back as he threw up in a toilet bowl. Oddly, she didn't find the night to be disappointing. It wasn't her idea of something romantic or anything like those fairy tales that young girls always dream about, those being things that in the back of her mind she acknowledged that she shouldn't be thinking about, but it was nice to feel like she was accepted by Yamato again, and to be able to just sit and be with Takeru. Regardless of the circumstances.

"Goodnight."

Yamato watched that smile on Hikari's face, her not knowing the different thoughts and conflicting opinions that were going on in his mind, and he just gave her a wave as she returned one and disappeared back into Jun's apartment. As she once again joined the teenage wasteland.

"Yamato?"

He heard his brother's voice, and with the tone of it knew that Takeru had been watching that smile as well.

"Yeah?"

"She's in love with me."

Not moving from where they were, they did nothing and just stared at the empty spot that Hikari had been standing at just a few moments before. Love. It was something that Yamato, hell it was that everyone knew that Takeru had offered Hikari on more than one occasion. It hadn't been taken, and now everyone seemed to be at different stages in their lives as if they were looking at things from different places in history, and yet there was a thought that still lingered in Yamato's mind. It was love, that damn love, and he knew that despite everything that had happened or was going to happen in the future, that his idiot brother was still willing to offer that love once again.

"And you?"

Even without Takeru confirming, Yamato already knew the answer. It was something that he wished his brother could be stronger about, something he knew that would always be Takeru's Achilles' heel, and yet he found himself asking the question anyways.

"I think I feel the same way."

Of course he did.

"Life's a bitch, Takeru. It loves to give you the thing you've always wanted at the worst possible time."

The two brothers were silent for a moment after that as they leaned on each other, and after a small pull from Yamato they turned around to begin walking towards the elevator down the hall, and despite how inappropriate and out of place it was, they did something that would have made a great story had Takeru not forgotten it on account of his drunkenness and had Yamato actually the heart to tell it; the two of them laughed.


I think it was a decent chapter. What do you guys?

I'm tired.