Disclaimer: For all the love I have for Digimon, it is not mine.
A/N: Sorry this took a while, I wanted to do the whole Matsuri thing in one chapter but, but work and assessmentsT.T
Yamato lightly punched Taichi in the arm at the other's lame joke, earning him a mock glare from Sora, who hid her giggle behind the sleeves of her Yukata. Yamato could not help but stare at his girlfriend, an action that is mimicked by Taichi. Not that Yamato could blame him, Sora really did look stunning in her Yukata.
He thought back to when he and Taichi went to pick Sora up from her house and seeing her emerge in the elegant emerald number. It took Taichi a grand total of 15 seconds of gawking before he could stammer out a compliment. As much as Sora used to fight against it, she took after her mom's cultured charm and it showed whenever she donned the traditional outfit.
Sora could not help but blush at the two boys showering their undivided attention to her and tried to redirect their focus, "I think I see Takeru and Hikari-chan!" She pointed to the benches in the distance.
Sure enough, a distinct mop of blonde hair stood out from the reddish hues of the evening sky. Mindful of Sora's small steps (Yukatas were not made to be walked in), Yamato gently guided the redhead towards the direction of his brother, Taichi to his side, chatting amiably.
"Aniki! Sora-san! Taichi-san! You guys are here!" Takeru waved awkwardly at the approaching trio with Hikari following suit.
"Nii-chan!" She waved enthusiastically.
The trio broke their formation as the brothers went to hug (or in Yamato's case, headlock) their respective siblings.
"We got a bench over there so we can sit and wait, Mimi-san said that they'll be a bit late," Hikari informed as took small but quick steps towards a bench in the distance.
As they got closer to the bench however, Yamato noticed someone he was not expecting to see, "Natsuhi?"
Said girl looked up from her phone and tossed him a smirk, "Hey."
Unlike the rest of the digidestined, whom under Mimi's coercion, were all wearing Yukatas, Natsuhi was dressed in a pair of jeans, sneakers and an oversized shirt, hair piled up in a messy bun. Yamato cast the shirt that was hanging off her shoulder a second longing glance. It was a well-known fact within the band that Natsuhi and Yamato shared their wardrobe (shirts at least), and when Natsuhi had shown up to band practice in this particular rock graffiti inspired shirt, Yamato had immediately pestered her for it. Usually Natsuhi would happily give him the shirts and buy a new one for herself, but she shooed him off this particular one. Not that he blamed her, it was a really nice shirt. She promised to buy him one if she ever went to Korea again and so here as Yamato, still waiting for the gift.
Sensing his lingering stare on her shirt, Natsuhi shot him a knowing smirk. Yamato glared back playfully before voicing the question that was on his mind, "What are you doing here?"
Before Natsuhi could reply, Takeru cut in, "Oh, Hikari insisted on inviting Natsuhi-nee since…" The younger of the two blondes trailed off uncertainly.
"Since she thought I could use a social life," Natsuhi continued bluntly.
Hikari stuck her tongue out sheepishly at the comment while Takeru just laughed awkwardly. That was not why they had invited Natsuhi to the matsuri, but it was not as if they could tell his brother that they invited her along so they could match-make Natsuhi and his brother now could they? Sadly their little scheme had not gone according to plan when Natsuhi chickened out of wearing her Yukata, which Hikari took hours to pick out for her.. Takeru cast a look at Sora who was all made-up then back at the comparatively dressed down Natsuhi with a sigh, how was she going to capture his brother's attention at this rate? The slight frown that marred Hikari's face told him that she shared his sentiments.
The young couple's worry did not last long however as the remaining digidestined made their way towards the meeting point noisily.
"Sorry we're late!" Koushiro apologized with a bow while the rest of the group exchanged enthusiastic greetings with the rest of the digidestined. Nastuhi hung back as usual, taking in the scene with indifferent eyes until she picked up an unfamiliar face.
"It's all Wallace's fault, he heard that we were all going to wear Yukatas so he pestered us to get one for him too…" Daisuke complained. At that, everyone's attention was turned to the unfamiliar blonde.
Realizing his mistake, Koushiro immediately stepped up to introduce his friend. "Right, I forgot you guys haven't met. This is Wallace, the friend from America that I told you about, he's a digidestined too." Then looking at Taichi, he continued, "He's the one who tipped me off about Diablomon all those years ago."
Recognition setting in, Taichi pointed at the newcomer and gave him a friendly slap on the back, "So you're the primary school kid who goes to college. I'm Taichi."
Wallace responded with a polite smile, inwardly wincing at the bodily contact.
"He's also the digidestined that we met on our trip to America that time all of you were spirited away," Hikari added. "It's been a while, how have you been Wallace?"
"Wonderful, thanks for asking, you still look beautiful as ever," the American digidestined complimented without missing a beat. Hikari blushed in reply while Takeru just shook his head slowly, apparently Wallace's cassanova ways did not improve with age.
"Nice to see you again too Wallace," Takeru extended his hand at the fellow blonde, which the latter took.
Wallace then turned to greet the remaining members of the group, naturally picking up on the females first. "Oh wow, you must be what the Japanese call the Yamato Nadeshiko," Wallace tossed Sora charming smile.
Sora blushed at the compliment and almost immediately, Taichi saw red. Pulling Sora behind him protectively, Taichi fumed, "She's already got a boyfriend, no hitting on her!" As if to emphasize his point, he pushed Sora towards Yamato, causing the couple to blush.
A brief look of confusion crossed Wallace's face before the same unsettling smile took its place on his face again. "I'm sorry, I was just complimenting the beautiful lady."
Just as Taichi was about explode a second time (with Daisuke egging him on in the background), Yamato placed a placating hand on his shoulder, "It's fine Taichi, he didn't mean any harm, he was just complimenting her." Taichi glared daggers at Wallace and looked like he had to say otherwise but Yamato quickly redirected the topic. "Your Japanese is really good."
"He had a Japanese girlfriend," Daisuke interjected mercilessly, eyeing Wallace with narrowed eyes but the American digidestined just kept on smiling.
"Well it's not my fault the ladies in this country are all so beautiful," Wallace replied with a thousand watt smile, irritating Daisuke even more.
Sensing that her good friend was about blow, Hikari quickly piped in, "Oh yea, Onii-san, you've been learning English no? Why don't you practice with Wallace?"
Daisuke, with his attention span of a puppy, immediately turned to the older digidestined, admiration shining in his eyes.
This time it was Taichi's turn to turn red with embarrassment; if he was going down, he was dragging his best friend with him. "Well so is Yamato."
"Oh, you're both learning English?' Wallace switched back to his native language effortlessly.
"Yea, I'm aiming to get into the Japan Aerospace Exploration agency and Taichi's wants to work in international relations, so we thought it's a good idea to pick up the language. He's actually quite fluent, just really shy," Yamato replied with equal ease and elbowed the brunette.
"I'm still working on my accent," Taichi admitted with almost perfect English.
Yamato shook his head slowly, his best friend's English was just fine, but for all of Taichi's courage he was ridiculously self-conscious about his accent after being called out in class by their anal teacher (who since then have left the language centre).
"Your English is better than mine and I lived in America," Mimi sighed out honestly, earning her an embarrassed laugh from Taichi.
"I think your accent's really cute Mimi," Wallace threw yet another smile her way. Koushiro, having known his friend for so many years merely smiled wryly at his antics instead of taking offense at Wallace flirting with his girlfriend. But not everyone was that calm.
"Mou! Stop hitting on the girls already!" Daisuke all but whined at his good friend.
Wallace laughed sheepishly, "But it's common courtesy to compliment the ladies."
Hanging back in the shadows, Natsuhi couldn't control the smirk that was playing on her lips. The cassanova was obviously continuing his flirtatious ways because he enjoyed perplexing Daisuke. Finally an interesting character for her to analyse. Maybe the evening won't be so boring after all.
A/N: If you guys watched the Digimon movies (please watch them if you haven't), Wallace (aka Willis in the English version) is the guy in Digimon Adventure 2 movie: Hurricane Touchdown. I took the liberty of making him the same kid from America who wrote to Koushiro in the Digimon movie: Our War Game. So the insider joke, if you didn't watch the movie, is that Koushiro was telling Taichi how this friend of his in America is a primary school student who was already taking classes in college, at which Taichi replied 'Well I'm an elementary school student who takes classes in elementary school'. And yes, Wallace was a womanizer since his childhood days in Hurricane Touchdown, it's not my invention.