A/N: Crazy long chapter ahead. I would recommend going on YouTube to listen to the songs mentioned in the story, it will add to the mood. =D
Disclaimer: For all the love I have for Digimon, it is not mine.
Taichi's parents had gone on a honeymoon, so the house was theirs for the night. The remaining digidestined had already arrived and was waiting on the final three before starting the party. While the three all-but ran into the house, to warm greetings, Natsuhi wordlessly took off her shoes, and while she was at it, arranged everyone else's. Mentally prepared to be ignored for the rest of the night, Natsuhi was startled when another blonde greeted her with a warm smile.
"Ah, Natsuhi-nee! I didn't know you were coming", Takeru said brightly. Where Takeru was, Hikari is never far away, "Oh, Natsuhi-sempai! Long time no see, how are you?" As if on cue, Hikari emerged from the crowd to greet the taller girl.
"Your brother said you could use some cake, so here I am, delivering cake," Natsuhi held up the plastic bag where the chocolate cakes were kept.
"Maa!" Hikari clapped her hands together happily, she had heard stories of the addictive chocolate goodies that Natsuhi made from Takeru but never had the chance to try one.
"Onii-chan no baka," Takeru muttered, not liking the fact that his sweet tooth had been made public knowledge, but his shining eyes betrayed his joy and Natsuhi could not help but ruffle his hair, though the boy was a good head taller than her.
"You're so cute," she teased and walked into the house, the young couple following behind her closely.
It was funny, how Takeru would refer to her as 'big sister' and not Sora, though the other girl was who his brother was dating. She met the blonde's equally good looking younger brother when Yamato told him that his younger brother needed a third-person perspective on his relationship problem. It turned out, Hikari and Takeru had been dating in secret and was wondering on whether or no they should break the news to the rest of the digidestined, despite knowing about Daisuke's feelings for Taichi's younger sister. Natsuhi had offered her expert opinion to the young couple, and since then whenever either Takeru or Hikari had problems, they would consult her, hence began the strange sisterly relationship she had with the younger siblings of Yamato and Taichi.
Polite greetings washed over her as she walked into the living room where everyone was helping themselves to food. No one questioned why she was there, mainly because this wasn't the first time Yamato had brought her along. The first time was for the sake of her article, since then everyone had gotten used to her random appearance, and since she always brought peace offering and never got in their way the way Daisuke's sister would, they generally welcomed her presence. Natsuhi picked the most inconspicuous corner of the room, where Joe was sitting and helped herself to an Onigiri. Might as well get some people watching done since she was going to have nothing to do for the next few hours. As Yamato was part of what she called the 'core' of the digidestined, there was no way he had time to look after her, and it wasn't as if she was invalid anyways.
She was not particularly close to the rest of the digidestined. Yamato had made the effort to help her become friends with the rest of the group but with little success. Joe was put off by her indifferent aura, Koushiro had always been awkward with strangers to begin with and computer science wasn't exactly Natsuhi's forte. Mimi's found her scary and the younger girl's bubbly personality gave Natushi a headache. Ken stayed away from the older girl mainly because she had the same mysterious aura his elder brother had, Iori was just plain quiet to begin with, Miyako gave her a wide berth simply because Ken did and Daisuke… Daisuke's direct and brash personality made him a lot of fun for Natsuhi to mess with, but out of principal, she resisted the urge to mind-fuck the young boy and so kept considerable distance from him.
She ate in silence, answered questions when they were directed at her (rarely), participated in games when asked to and generally played the role of a polite guest until the party had died down as everyone became tired. The trains had stopped running a long time ago and everyone agreed to sleep-over at the Yagami house. But it was an awkward time, too early to go to bed but too late to play anymore games. It was then that Takeru made the stupid suggestion, "Onii-chan, why don't you and Natsuhi-nee play us something?" The rest chimed in agreement at the suggestion and Yamato agreed. Except there was one tiny problem.
"I don't have a guitar in my house," Taichi said from his seat next to Sora, who was leaning against Yamato sweetly. The room fell into silence. "Well I could sing acapella," Yamato offered. Natsuhi raised an eye-brow at his suggestion, not that the blonde's voice was bad, but the songs he favoured would sound weird without instrumental accompaniment.
"Oh!" Hikari got up from her seat next to Takeru and ran to a corner of the living room. Everyone watched with curiosity as she pulled the cloth off what seemed to be a cabinet. Below the cloth was an old piano. "Mom used to play the piano, but she doesn't play anymore," she explained.
Yamato did not know what to do, looking at Hikari's enthusiastic expression. For all his musical talents, he did not know how to play the piano. Natsuhi looked at Yamato's troubled expression and sighed before getting up.
"Natsuhi?" He asked. Ignoring his query, she walked towards the piano, opening it and ran her fingers down the keys. Good, it was in tune. "You play?" Yamato asked in surprise.
"You don't know she plays?" Was Taichi's piped up from the side.
Natsuhi pulled out the chair and made herself comfortable before replying either question, "Yes I play, but don't expect anything fancy. I only know enough to play chords, and no Yagami-san, he wouldn't know because until today, I haven't told anyone I can play the piano. Doesn't go well with the drummer image," she explained.
Yamato nodded dumbly, chords were enough; that is all he needed to sing. "Lets get started then," Yamato said, and untangled himself from Sora to move next to the piano, Natsuhi's sharp glance deterred him though.
"Just sit there, they can hear you better anyways," she said. He nodded at the order and sat back down.
"So what song do you want to do?" Natsuhi asked as she familiarized herself with the keys.
Yamato ran through the song list in his head, but before he could say anything, Mimi piped up excited.
"Oh my gosh, do you guys know Please Don't Go?" She asked eyes shining with anticipation.
"The one by Shinee!?" Miyako echoed.
"Yes! Oh gosh you know them too!" Mimi exclaimed, and just like that the room dissolved into fangirl squeals. The respective boyfriends of the two girls shot apologetic grins at everyone else, who laughed at the display. K-pop was a big thing, the band occasionally covered them as well.
Natsuhi hummed the song to herself and tried to figure out the chords on the piano, she knew the song, but whether or not Yamato did was a mystery. She wasn't a particularly huge K-pop fan, but the song's lyrics hit too close to home for her to ignore. It had become her go-to song whenever Yamato slept over.
Never the one to disappoint, Yamato hummed a few chords of the song, "It's this one yes?" He remembered hearing it on Natsuhi's iPod several times.
"Yes! Oh my gosh you know the song! I think I can die happy now," Mimi swooned. She had always loved Yamato's voice. Before Yamato could even say that he did not know the lyrics, she tossed him her phone which had the lyrics written in Katakana.
Natsuhi allowed herself a small grin at the situation, earning her a playful glare from Yamato. "So we going to do this one cold?" He asked her. They had never done the song before and he had never sang with her on the piano, ever. This was going to be interesting.
"At worse we mess up and try again, you don't mind right Mimi-san?" Natsuhi asked the pinkette. Mimi shook her head furiously, "Of course not! I'm dying from happiness at the fact that you guys can even play this song!" At her reply, Natushi shrugged at Yamato who sighed resignedly.
"2 bars introduction, my key?" He asked. Natsuhi played the chords experimentally to let him get a feel of the key. Yamato hummed along for a bit and once he was comfortable, he nodded.
Taking a deep breathe, Natsuhi let the music flow from her fingertips. The sound of the piano quietened the room almost immediately and soon Yamato's soothing vocals joined in. Natsuhi closed her eyes and let Yamato's voice take away, his voice had matured over the years and now had a slightly husky timbre to it and was particularly soulful whenever he belted notes. She sometimes wondered if rock was really the best genre for him when he sounds absolutely breaktaking doing ballads and soul. As Yamato's voice rose with the piano into the second chorus, he was startled when another voice joined his, harmonizing the chorus.
Everyone turned to look at the new voice, Natsuhi. Sensing the eyes on her, she turned out without stopping her playing or singing, and jerked her head towards Yamato in a 'yea?' gesture. Yamato was annoyed, oh great, now she sings too, why did she never tell him? But that did not mean he was going to stop singing, besides the new musical prospect excited him, he had never sang with her before, this was going to be fun. With teamwork honed over years of jamming together, he knew instinctively which lines to leave her and vice-versa, it wasn't hard anyways, as the song was originally a duet. Yamato took up the lead and let Natsuhi's rich voice fill in the rest.
The two sang out the last note of the song and Natsuhi let her fingers linger on the final note a little longer before letting up the pedal.
"Well that was fun," Natsuhi smirked.
"Oh my god…that was amazing," Mimi breathed out. Then after a moment she started strangling Koushiro in frustration, "I can't believe I didn't record that!" The room dissolved into laughter once again.
"What else do I not know about you?" Yamato asked accusingly as the laugher died down.
"Now what fun would it be if I told you?" Natsuhi replied with a smirk, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
The conversation had evidently taken a flirtatious turn, and Yamato could not help but blush, the rest of his band knew, but the digidestined didn't, he had always found Natsuhi hot when she wore that look.
The room looked at the two, sensing a different air in the air and waited with bated breath to see how it would play out. Sora shifted uncomfortable in her seat, and Taichi reached out to place a comforting hand on hers.
His gesture did not escape Natsuhi's eyes and she knew that she had to run damage control. Withdrawing back into her steely persona, she changed the topic, "Any other requests?" The atmosphere in the room returned to normal as everyone discussed their song requests. As that was going on, two actions took place simultaneously.
Taichi withdrew his hand and Yamato wrapped his arms around Sora and nuzzled her reassuringly. Natsuhi turned away from the display, as if to experiment with more chords, but in reality she was just did not want to see the couple's display of affections. Yes she was more aloof than most, but that did not mean she did not feel things. It just meant she was better at not showing her feelings.
Takeru and Hikari had always suspected, but never said anything. The two had always been more perceptive than most, and Hikari had almost followed Natushi's footsteps to become a psychologist before she decided that her passion laid more in teaching children. It was her who first suspected that the older girl had feelings that went beyond friendship for her boyfriend's brother. It was not very obvious, and you had to squint to see the clues at all, but they were there. The display just now had practically confirmed their suspicions, yes Natsuhi was in love with Yamato.
Now, it was not in either of their personality to meddle. Which is also why the love triangle between Taichi, Yamato and Sora was still ongoing. But both teenagers felt that they owed the older girl to help nudge the blind digidestined of friendship to see beyond his crest for once. Who knows, maybe this will also finally resolve the love triangle that has been 7 years in the making.
"Well, why don't you sing something Natsuhi-sempai?" Hikari asked over the noise of discussion. People in the room all made different agreeing noises at the suggestion.
"Yea, sing something and I'll call it even," Yamato threw out, evidently still put out that he didn't know about his other best friend's secret talents.
Instinctively, Natsuhi wanted to banter with Yamato again, he was practically asking for it. But one look at the red head in his arm, she decided against it, it wouldn't do any good to upset her. It would just set off the triangle again, and she hated seeing Yamato's pained expression when it happens. So instead, she opted for the indifferent shrug and waited for a song suggestion.
Hikari grinned, this was the perfect opportunity, the question now is what song?
"Do you know 2NE1's If I were you or Taeyang's Wedding dress?" Hikari asked innocently. Natsuhi was not so easily fooled though, the more innocent Hikari's eyes looked, the deeper her thoughts went, and she deduced almost immediately from the song choice that the younger girl had figured out her secret. This just was not her day. Takeru caught the flash of annoyance in Natsuhi's eyes and mouthed an apology, really what was Hikari thinking, that Natsuhi would not find out what she was trying to do?
Then again, Takeru felt the same way his girlfriend did. He liked Sora very much, it's hard not to. The redhead had a motherly aura about her, she was dependable, and after all they've been through together, there was no denying the bonds they shared. But Takeru had known, even at age 8, that Sora was made for Taichi. That and he loved Natsuhi like a sister, and in his very biased opinion, she matched her brother much better than Sora did.
"Oh! Wedding Dress! But no, her voice will sound great on If I were you too," Mimi said to herself.
What was going on in Natsuhi's mind however, was the conversation she had with Yamato the night before. Yamato may be blind to a lot of things in real life, but when it came to music, his sensibilities were second to none, and at the same time, music was the only place where she could never lie. She may have dodged a bullet last night, but singing those songs, there was no way she would get off scot free. Truly, all she could contemplate now is which song was easier to run damage control on. Wedding dress hits much closer to home, but it was written from a male perspective, it would be easier to joke it off at a later date. But If I Were You's lyrics was harder to relate back to the situation…
"What is this, a K-pop cover marathon?" Daisuke complained. The sharp looks from Miyako, Mimi and Hikari quickly shut him up.
Before he could complain further, Natsuhi announced her decision. "I'll do If I Were You then," and before anyone could say anything else, she started playing. Might as well get it over with.
The moment the first line left her lips, Yamato knew something was different about this song. Pulling out his phone, he quickly googled for the Japanese translation of the lyrics. The raw emotions in her voice as she sang the song was definitely not an accident.
Natsuhi's voice had always had a soothing, alto quality to it, and now it was raspy and thick with emotions that Yamato was racing to connect with the lyrics. Self-loathing, self-ridicule, pain, frustration, love… He could not shake the feeling that she was singing the song to him, and he was almost never wrong about these things, not when it came to music. 'you are easy to love..' her words from the night before replayed themselves in his head. So he wasn't mistaken…was he? Yamato let her voice drown out his thoughts, he can leave the thinking for later, for now, he will just feel, because he owed it to her to do this much.
The room was quiet except for the piano and Natsuhi's voice that was wrought with emotions. The song slowly approached the end, and as the piano died down to accompany the final lines of the song, Natsuhi allowed herself a soft scoff as she finished the last lines.
'I wish you could love me, I wish we could be together for just one day, so I can leave you without regret…'
Let go of him, right. Like that will happen. Natsuhi avoided love like plague for the sheer reason that she was hopeless in the face of love.
In a flash, the song ended, but the room remained quiet. As the magic from the music slowly dissipated, people finally got a hold of themselves. Mimi scrambled for the tissue, knocking empty cups over in the process, "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me…that was so…sad," She said as she dabbed the flowing tears away. Everyone else just nodded as they passed the box of tissue around. The performance was so raw and so real, and though everyone didn't know why, they couldn't help the tears that escaped their eyes. So much sadness, so much melancholy…
Natsuhi felt mildly apologetic, she had just single-handedly ruined the atmosphere of the gathering, but, Hikari asked for it, literally. She watched as the girl stared at her with mortified eyes, wet with tears. The girl had obviously put two and two together and realized that her feelings for Yamato ran even deeper than Hikari or her little boyfriend had guessed. Natsuhi then swept her eyes across the tearing occupants of the room, amused smile tugging at her lips. She had long since ran out of tears when it came to this issue, but she figured it was nice to have everyone else cry on her behalf. She made a note to avoid Yamato's eyes however, there was no way he could have missed the hidden truth in the song, and after baring her soul to a roomful of strangers, she wasn't sure she had it in her to deal with the blonde right now.
The night dragged on, and after everyone got themselves together again, a few more songs were requested, all of which sung by the blonde, some were Yamato's originals and others were typical pop hits. It wasn't long till everyone started feeling sleepy and finally at 3am, the gathering officially ended. The living room was cleaned up with help from everyone and the Yagami siblings helped assign rooms and lay out futons for their last minute guests. Before long, everyone had drifted to sleep, except for two particular people.
Taichi had offered Yamato and Sora his room, with a half-joking warning that if they tried anything funny he would kick their asses. Feeling bad, Sora argued that they could take the couch, or the two best friends could sleep together while she shared Hikari's bed-room, or simply sleep in the living room. The argument had deteriorated to the point whereby Yamato, fed up, suggested that the three of them sleep in Taichi's room, together. Sora and Taichi blushed, hard, at the suggestion, and the argument that followed next was who got the bed. Yamato suggested that Sora take the bed while the two of them guys slept on the floor, but that was shot down immediately. Taichi wanted Yamato and Sora to have the bed, but Sora would have none of it and in the end, all three of them ended up on the bed. Mainly at Natushi's insistence, "So the three of you are ALL going to sleep on the floor, and leave a perfectly good bed empty? Are you guys retarded? Go sleep on the bed, all of you." And so they did, because what difference would it make if they were all going to sleep together anyway, bed or no bed.
Except now, Yamato could not sleep his brain stubbornly replaying Natsuhi's soulful rendition of If I Were You and what it meant. Carefully extracting himself from Sora's embrace, not caring if he hit Taichi in the process (because that guy slept like a rock), he got off the bed, from his awkward position in between in best friend and girlfriend, and left the room to get some fresh air and clear his head. There was still beer left in the fridge, if memory served him right.
Walking into the living room, he carefully side-stepped the other sleeping digidestined, but before he made it to the kitchen, he noted that one futon was glaringly empty. Taking a look around, he realized that Natsuhi was missing, but her bag was still in the room, which meant she hasn't left yet. He knew he had been very selfish, inviting her to the party and not spending any time with her, but it felt reassuring to have her around, and if not for her, the sleeping arrangement issue would probably not have been resolved, or escalated even further. But then, where was she then?
Looking around, Yamato finally noticed a figure sitting on the small balcony. Abandoning his trip to the kitchen, Yamato made his way, instead, to the balcony. Crossing over the many bodies, he finally made it to the sliding door, and paused.
From behind the door was soft singing, a voice that he was now familiar with. Straining his ears, he caught snippets of the song and quickly figured out that it was the request that Natsuhi chose not to sing earlier. Wedding Dress.
The band had covered the song, and because of that, he had looked up the translation so he would be able to emote the song properly. He recalled the lyrics of the song and sighed. So he was right after all.
In the moonlight, he watched as she cradled the bottle of vodka they had brought over along with the cake.
'I've got no more tears to cry, talking to myself as if it's a bad habit…'
At that, he watched as she choked on the line and then laugh bitterly to herself. Yamato bit his lip at the sight, he had never seen her so vulnerable or broken. Where was he when she was breaking down like this? She had always been there for him in his moments of weakness…some friend he is. So even though he was the root of her problem, Yamato decided to brave the storm and opened the door to the balcony.
The singing stopped abruptly and the two exchanged looks. And that was all they needed to understand each other, all she needed to understand that he knew.
"So I'm easy to love huh?" He repeated again, tone casual. She laughed bitterly, and instead of replying, she brought the bottle to her lips and took a huge swig. Silence means consent and that's all the confirmation he needed. Letting out a soft laugh, Yamato took a seat next to her, leaving no space between her and himself. He took the bottle from her hands, ignoring the way she stiffened at the contact, and took a swig himself.
"I'm sorry," he said. 'I'm sorry I never realized, I'm sorry for hurting you, I'm sorry I don't feel the same way…' That was what she hard, and her only response was to laugh and snatch the bottle from him. He let her, and watched her next move. She was about to take another sip of the bitter liquid, but then paused halfway as she looked at the bottle then at him, and then she laughed, hard.
"Is something wrong?" He asked, bewildered, but she just kept laughing. Finally she calmed down enough to chug half the bottle and placed the unfinished vodka in front of both of them. Now she was drunk enough to come clean.
"Indirect kiss," She said and gestured at the bottle.
"Ah," he replied.
They sat there, side-by-side, shoulders touching.
"Since the cat's out of the bag, you might as well know. I always check your finished beer cans for the same reason," she admitted with a chuckle.
That he did not know. So that was why she was laughing. It was ironic…and it hurt him to see her so sad. How much he just wanted to hug her and comfort her…but that would just hurt her more, because she was not his and could never be his.
"You know, my shoulder is here for you, if you need it," he said casually.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the last of her walls broke, he felt horrible for doing this to her, but this was all he could give her.
"Oh fuck this, I've done enough stupid things tonight, what's one more," she said, voice hoarse as she quickly wiped her tears away.
Gingerly, she laid her head on his shoulder, as if afraid to lay weight on it, until he reached out and pressed her head down. The effect was instantaneous, tears streamed down her face uncontrollably. There was no sound, only tears and a bitter smile. Yamato thought he could feel his heart breaking in tandem with hers. It must be so painful…and Yamato didn't know any better than to guess that the pain that gripped his chest was probably just him sharing her pain and nothing else.
15 minutes, 20 minutes passed, and the tears subsided. She wiped them away with the hem of her shirt, and a strange bout of silence passed between them. But she was never the sort to let uncertainty live, so she had to defuse the situation.
"I know it's wishful thinking but, I hope nothing changes between us," she said softly and then laughed mockingly at her own statement. Oh but everything has changed already. With a sigh, she amended her statement, "I guess what I'm saying is, my house is still open to you, and you can just ignore all…this," she gestured to herself.
Yamato nodded absent-mindedly. He knew what she meant, ignore her feelings for him, she didn't want to ruin their friendship, and even if it hurts, she is there for him…Touched and feeling sad for her at the same time, he gently ran his fingers through her dark tresses.
"Don't do that," she protested, but with no real conviction. To reinforce that, she did not move away from his touch. "You're just making it hurt more you know," she stated bluntly.
"I know," he replied, and then to exacerbate the issue, he rested his head on top of hers. He felt her let out a shuddering breath as she savoured the bittersweet moment.
"You're such a bastard," she commented, but snuggled against him.
"Maybe if I'm enough of a bastard, you'll stop loving me?" He retorted playfully. But they both knew that was a lie.
Another bout of silence hung around them, except this one was a comfortable one.
He sat there, listening to her soft breathing, savouring the first, and probably the last time, he would be physically this close to her when she was awake. Then he heard her take a deep breath. Just as he wondered why, he felt her head shift and then he felt a pair of lips press against his neck. She then shifted back to the original position, he risked a glance at her and saw a wry grin tug at her tips.
"I've always wanted to do that," she confessed.
"You're strange," he said, and it was true. She's always wanted to kiss his neck? Who does that? "I take it that the alcohol's to blame?" He asked. She nodded. Yes, blame it on the alcohol for shredding her self-control. Then he made a split-second decision and grabbed the vodka bottle, and chugged the rest of it. "Then blame this on the alcohol too," he said.
Before she could make heads or tails of his statement, Yamato turned and tilted her chin up with his fingers. Then looking at her with eyes full of emotion that neither of them could figure out, he kissed her.
It was a chaste kiss, but it felt as wrong as it felt right. The part of him overridden by the alcohol wanted more, wanted to taste her lips, hold her in his lap…he had the alcohol to take the blame now, but he stopped himself. He had hurt her enough for one night, for a lifetime in fact.
She sat herself back upright and shifted away from him ever so slightly so that their shoulders were no longer touching. The moment was over, the night had ended and the case was closed. "You should go back to bed," she said.
"Yea," he agreed, and he got up. He felt himself sway a little as the alcohol hit him, and steadied himself with the door.
"Thank you," he heard her mutter as he slid the door open.
He turned to see her, smiling at him softly. He had done nothing but hurt her. "You're weird," he said for the second time that nigh. She just smiled wider at him. "Good night," he bid her and returned to Taichi's room. Leaving her alone with her thoughts, because her tears had run dry.
Yamato did not know why the scene that greeted him when he re-entered the room even shocked him at all. There was Sora, his girlfriend, cuddled up against Taichi, who had draped a protective arm around her. The scene hurt him, but a lot less that he thought he it would, and wondered if it was the alcohol, or the lingering tingle on his lips.
Well, he could not go back to the bed now, he looked at the futon on the floor and shrugged.
Here is a sleeping arrangement they never discussed. Settling himself on the futon on the floor, Yamato let himself drift to sleep, leaving the couple on the bed, oblivious to the world until sunrise.