Disclaimer: I love Digimon, but it's not mine.

A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates! I was buried under school, work and an Ironman fic that I still haven't finished. Anyways, the song featured in this chapter is the liver version of Maroon 5's Wasted Years from their Friday the 13th concert. Feel free to listen while you read!

The familiar smell of musk and dry ice hit Natsuhi's face as she walked into Liquid Room with the rest of the band in tow. The floor was thumping beneath her feet, in time with the music that was blaring from the stage. Yup, they were late.

"Over there!" Toya pointed at a pair of frantically waving hands near the stage.

With a resigned sigh, Natsuhi and Naoki followed the overly excited guitarist, pushing through the crowd as they did.

"Thank god you guys made it, I thought you guys weren't coming!" Mika, the university band's keyboardist shouted over the music.

"We thought we weren't going to make it," Naoki, the other guitarist of the band muttered darkly. Sadly, his comment was lost over the loud music.

"What?" Mika yelled over the noise.

"Toya decided he had to turn back to get his guitar. He somehow thinks that he'll get to play onstage today," Naoki screamed back.

The rest of the band chuckled among themselves. Out of all of them, Toya was the only one who wanted to become a professional musician. Like Yamato, most of the members of the university band at Keio mainly played for fun, not that they weren't serious about it, but getting into a prestigious university like Keio usually meant that you had much more serious career goals in life.

"Um…was it bad that I brought my bass then?" A timid voice asked as the music died down. Everyone watched the band walk off to take their set break and turned back to the source of the question, Maya. Maya was a soft-spoken thing, largely due to the fact that she was a newcomer and the only freshman in the band. She was also a huge fan of the Teenage Wolves.

Mika ruffled Maya's head affectionately. "Of course not darling. First, you weren't late. Second, you brought your bass because you wanted the band to sign it, unlike someone…" The keyboardist shot Toya a meaningful glare, "who wants to steal the limelight."

"Hey now! I'm not stealing the limelight, I'm just saying, it's only polite if Yamato let us play a few songs, I mean he's in our band now. We just kindly loaned him out for this one show!" Toya shot back defensively. "Besides, it's the Liquid Room, like all the legends played here. Can you imagine how it'd feel to play here!?"

Natsuhi watched the typical banter between her bandmates with a wry grin and then thought back to the blond that started it all. Yamato.

It has been two weeks since the digital world fiasco and also two weeks since she last saw her best friend. The reason for the blonde's disappearance was of course, this very concert. It turns out that what was left of the Teenage Wolves were picked up by a record label and would be making an official debut under a new name. To commemorate the occasion, the band decided to get all the old members together and hold a farewell concert at Liquid Room. As the decision was pretty last minute, the old Teenage Wolves crammed in an impossible amount of rehearsals. Yamato only got away long enough to pass her, and the rest of the band VIP tickets to the concert.

"Natsuhi-nee!" A different, but familiar blond broke her out of her thoughts.

Natsuhi waved back and beckoned her surrogate little brother over. Takeru walked over obediently, Hikari in tow.

"Hi," Takeru greeted the occupants of the table warmly. Natsuhi allowed her fellow band mates to gawk at the extremely handsome younger blond before conducting introductions.

"This is Yamato's little brother, Takaishi Takeru, whom you have all heard so much about, and next to him is his girlfriend, Yagami Hikari. Takeru, these are riff-raffs your brother hangs out with when he's not studying or at the gym," she gestured.

Toya of course, threw a fit at being called riff-raffs, but eventually everyone settled down enough to exchange introductions. Takeru gestured at a table not too far away from theirs, where the other digidestined were seated. Natsuhi noted the glaring absence of Sora and Taichi, but to be fair Jou and Koushiro were also missing. In fact the only older digidestined there was Mimi. Speaking of which, the digidestined of sincerity dragged the rest of the group over to say hi when she realized who Takeru and Hikari were talking to.

After all the names were exchanged, Natsuhi couldn't resist asking. "Motomiya-san, your sister not here with you?" As Yamato's best friend, she of course knew about his legendary stalker fan, Motomiya Jun. Before Daisuke could answer her question, a piercingly loud scream punctured the hall, followed by a wave of other cheers. Apparently, the second set was about to start. Daisuke pointed at the mop of purple hair responsible for the first scream in the mosh pit with a sigh, The group exchanged one last laugh and quickly went back to their respective tables as the performers took their place.

Focusing her attention onto the occupants of the stage, Natsuhi immediately understood why Daisuke's sister screamed the way she did. On the stage was one Yamato Ishida, in all his shirtless glory. And then the opening for Robert Thicke's blurred line started playing and all hell broke loose.

Yamato looked down at the sea of fangirls, confident smirk plastered across his face. He had no idea what possessed him to take off his shirt for the second set. If anyone asked, he blames the beer and post-breakup insanity. If he was honest with himself though, Yamato would have admitted that he was always a bit of a flirt, at least onstage. As much as he loved making music, he also enjoyed watching his fans blush. After all, the whole idea of live performances was for everyone to have fun, and a little fan service definitely did the trick. All in all, it was just good fun…it wasn't as if he went around kissing his fans and the ego boost it provided certainly didn't hurt. But ever since he started dating Sora, Yamato had been holding himself back for her sake. Sora would always come first, and he certainly didn't want to make her worry, jealous or uncomfortable just because he liked throwing winks and blow kisses onstage every now and then. Now that he's single again however….

"Natsu, your wife's straying," Naoki commented as they watched Yamato bend over and kiss one of the fan's hands and then shoot a suggestive grin at another.

It was a running joke within the band; even though they all knew Yamato was dating someone else, as far as they were concerned, Yamato was Natsuhi's wife. It all started when Yamato came in late for practice one day because he was picking up groceries for Natsuhi. It didn't help that whenever they had practice at Natsuhi's place, more than half the time it was Yamato making dinner and cleaning up. Add the fact that Yamato and Natsuhi had the habit of bickering like an old married couple…the title just sort of stuck.

Natsuhi replied Naoki's comment with a wry grin and a shrug. She always knew Yamato had a flirtatious side to him and it looked like it's asserting itself with a vengeance now that he's finally single. Logically, Natsuhi knew she should be more bothered about this behaviour, she loved him after all. But after years of watching him be with Sora, a bit of harmless flirting with fangirls was nothing if not amusing.

Speaking of the devil, Yamato swerved and turned to look at her table and jauntily winked at them. Maya and Mika immediately blushed beet red while Natsuhi and the rest of the guys waved back warily. (Or in Toya's case, excitedly.)

"Yea man, you really need to control your wife, he's going out of control," Mika whispered with her hand over her heart and she tried to calm down her racing heartbeat.

Natsuhi chuckled in reply, yes, definitely very amusing.

The members chugged down the contents of their bottle greedily. They pretty much went from song to song during the last set without any rest in between because of how hyped up the crowd was. It seemed like a good idea in the moment, but now that the adrenaline crash was catching up with them, it didn't seem like such a good idea anymore.

"Well guys, it's the last set, lets end it on a high note!" Yusuke, the drummer rallied.

Murmurs of agreement broke-out amongst the band.

"Well, lets slow things down a bit for the first few songs though?" Ryo, Yamato's replacement in Teenage Wolves suggested.

Everyone nodded, the crowd needs some time to rest up before they start jumping again for the encore performances anyways. That in mind, Keita the lead guitarist turned to Yamato.

"So you still wanna do the thing you talked about?"

Yamato took another gulp of water and nodded, "If you guys don't mind that is."

Everyone else shrugged. "Of course not, I could use the break." Yusuke massaged his sore arms to emphasize his point.

The rest of teenage wolves groaned in agreement. They were having fun, but a breather would definitely be welcomed.

"Plus, I'm really interested to see what sort of people stole you from us-no offense to you of course, Keita quickly apologized to Ryo.

The bassist waved him off, "None taken, Yamato-senpai has always been my idol." The straight forward comment caught Yamato off-guard and the blonde blushed. Thankfully, before he could be embarrassed further, the backstage manager came to haul them back onstage.

The crowd cheered loudly as they resumed their positions on stage, but quickly quietened down when Ryo placed a finger on his lips.

"Alright guys, thanks for coming to our concert, you've been awesome. To kick-start our third set, we have a little surprise for you-" At the word 'surprise', the crowd started cheering again. Ryo let them have their fun before starting again. "Yamato-senpai, would you do the honors?"

Yamato pulled his mic off the mic-stand and threw a quick glance at the table where Natsuhi and the band sat. "Hey, so as some of you may know, I'm actually here on-loan today." The crowd looked at him, puzzled. "Not sure if you guys have heard, I haven't been with Teenage Wolves for a few years now" A chorus of disappointed 'awws' were heard. "I am however, still playing in a band. My university's band actually." The crowd tossed a smile at said band, who smiled back. "Although we don't play professionally, everyone there loves music as much as the next professional musician. So I thought I'd take this chance to share with everyone the awesome group of people I'm making music with now." Yamato paused and let his words sink in.

For a moment nobody moved, but then a single cheer in the audience set off a chain reaction and everyone started screaming and clapping enthusiastically. The band exchanged uncertain looks. What were they supposed to do?

Noticing their utter confusion, Yamato chuckled and brought the mic to his lips again. "Guys, this is the part where you guys come onstage so I can introduce all of you." Slowly, the band got up from their table and begin walking towards the stage, all except Toya, whom all but clambered onto the stage. "Oh and Toya, Maya, bring your instruments," Yamato added.

Recognition flashed in the band members' eyes.

Toya turned to Mika with a smug grin, "HA, I TOLD YOU! And you said we wouldn't get to play." The keyboardist shook her head slowly but didn't reply.

Yamato watched amusedly as his band made their way onstage, his eyes lingering on Natsuhi, who came on last. The silver-eyed girl was in her usual oversized shirt (another number he really wanted to steal, Yamato noted absentmindedly), but instead of jeans, she had on the shortest pair of leather shorts Yamato had ever seen on the girl. It was paired with a pair of black combat boots that made Yamato realize that his best friend had nice legs. Like, really nice legs. Catching his stare, Natsuhi threw him a questioning look. Yamato quickly smiled and waved her off. It wouldn't do for her to realize that he was checking her out.

Natsuhi bit her lip and wondered if she looked weird. She had spent hours before the mirror, debating with herself as to whether or not she should wear the pair of shorts. According to Hikari, she looked amazing in it, but bootie shorts had never been her thing… Ultimately, she decided to wear the clothing in question anyways, figuring that she should at least try to dress to impress…but judging from Yamato's odd stare, perhaps it wasn't such a great idea afterall. If only she knew…

Once the band was lined up on stage, Yamato began his introductions. "Starting from the far right right is Toya, our lead guitarist, Naoki, our rhythm guitarist. This beautiful lady here is Mika, our keyboardist. Next to her is Maya, the newest addition to our band. She's an amazing bassist…guess the band doesn't need me anymore," Yamato joked, sending the young girl into a blushing spluttering mess. The rest of the members chided him while Mika calmed the young bassist down. Chuckling, Yamato continued. "Just kidding Maya. Anyways, next to me here is Natsuhi, our drummer. Aside from being a great drummer, she's also-" The words 'great singer' were cut off as Natsuhi kicked him and shot him a 'don't think I don't know what you're doing' glare. Yamato shot her a petulant look and gritted out, "Ahem, and last but not least, there is me, the redundant bassist and vocalist!"

The crowd broke into applause, as did the members of teenage wolves. Yamato took this opportunity to huddle the band around as they quickly decided on the song to play. A decision was made quickly and everyone immediately scattered to take their places.

Natsuhi walked towards the back where the drums were set up, a little concerned. She wasn't prone to stage fright by any means. No, her concern was something more practical.

"Vic Firth, AH5A right?" Yusuke held out a pair of drumsticks to Natsuhi. Said girl nodded and took the drumsticks from him numbly. How did he know?

Apparently Natsuhi's confusion was written all over her face because Yusuke answered her unspoken question.

"Yama told me."

"Ah…" She acknowledged.

Yusuke tossed her a cryptic grin, "Break a leg!" And walked off.

It touched her greatly that Yamato had remembered what brand and model of drumsticks she used and had gone out of his way to prepare them for her. Natsuhi twirled the drumsticks between her fingers a few times, partially to calm herself, partially to get used to the feel of it. These weren't her drumsticks, but it was the same brand and same size. It would have to do. Quickly adjusting the height of the chair and placement of the snare, Natsuhi ran through a few warm-up beats to let everyone know that she was ready.

After a quick sound check, everyone exchanged nods. It was time.

"So, we're not really a full-on rock band, if anything I'd say that our sound is experimental, but we hope you like it anyways. This is Maroon 5's wasted years," Yamato stated and without any delay, Natsuhi kicked off the drum intro, with the rest of the band following suit.

The song was a far cry from the genre Teenage Wolves preferred, but it fit the vocals of Yamato perfectly. Watching the audience sway in-time with the jazz beats, Yamato reaffirmed that his decision to pursue music casually was a right one. Even if the Teenage Wolves agreed to jam this song, the likelihood of them being allowed to play it by the manager was slim to none. To be fair however, this wasn't a song that the band could have covered if Maya had not come in. The bassline of the song was far too complicated for Yamato to play and sing at the same time.

As far as drums were concerned, wasted years was a very easy song to play. It had a nice, mellow groove that makes it just fun enough to not be boring. This also meant that Natsuhi had a great vantage point to observe everyone. The sultry beats of the song had coaxed the crowd into a relaxed mood, most of them swaying slowly with the beat while an excited few waved their light-sticks in time to her drum beats. She noted amusedly from the corner of her eye that Yamato's old bandmates were in varying degrees of shock, listening to Yamato belt out something that wasn't rock. Her attention didn't linger on them for long though, it was far more interesting to observe her own bandmates.

Toya made a dramatic show of bobbing his head in time with the music while Naoki followed suit, albeit in a much more subdued manner. In contrast, Maya stood as still as a stick, face contorted in serious concentration as she tried to tune out the crowd and her nerves. It was obviously her first big show, but the girl's skills were the real deal, and despite her obvious anxiety, she was playing perfectly. Mika was being typical Mika, calm, steady and in her element. Then there was her favourite blonde. Yamato leaned languidly against the mic stand as he grooved to the music. His form glistened under the stage lights, driving more than a few female fans crazy.

The beat slowed down as the song approached the interlude, eventually stopping altogether, leaving the bass to carry the song alone. It didn't last long however, as within 4 bars the drum rejoined the music again before tapering off. All the members turned to look at each other, connected by the music as they playfully took turns joining in and fading out, not unlike the coming and going of waves on the beach. Ever so often they'd break into the first few chords of the climax before slinking back again, until the quirk of Yamato's lips signalled for them to enter the climax of the song for real. The beats turned heavy as all the instruments came together, finishing the song in a rock-inspired flourish.

The crowd that was quietened under the spell of the music broke into deafening cheers.

All the members onstage bowed in response, overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response.

Yamato cast a quick look around the stage again and grinned to himself. They were definitely one of the best decisions he's ever made.

The show was winding down as the concert approached the end, but the Teenage Wolves one more surprise in store for everyone.

"Once again, thank you guys for coming today. All of you have been awesome. This is the last time we will be standing before everyone was the Teenage Wolves, so we thought we should so something really special to thank all of you for supporting us all these years," Ryo announced to the crowd with a sad smile. The crowd was torn between cheering loudly and mourning the occasion, finally they settled on round of loud disappointed screams.

"As our farewell gift to everyone, we decided that for the last part of this concern, we'll be taking requests from the crowd. Anything you want us to play we will, as long as we know the song," Taki, the leader stated.

Immediately the crowd began shouting requests at the band. The resulting cacophony had the band giggling and Yamato put his hand up to quieten them. "One by one guys…alright, guy at the back in the brown shirt, yes, you. What would like us to sing?"

And so the Teenage Wolves blazed through several requests ranging from anime theme songs to billboard hits. All seemed to go well until a member of the audience made an unexpected song request.

"TOO CLOSE! BY ALEX CLARE!"

Almost instantly, Yamato froze. Of course to the untrained eye (aka anyone who didn't know Yamato personally), it just looked like the blonde was contemplating. But to those who knew better, they knew that something was wrong. The members of the Teenage Wolves exchanged looks and shared a nod.

"Sorry we don't know the song," Takashi apologized sheepishly. The answer wasn't a lie, not exactly…not all of them knew the song. "Ne-," just as the guitarist was about to ask for the next request however, Yamato put his hand up to interrupt him.

"Actually, I can do the song, acoustic. If you don't mind?" Yamato said with a disarming smile. Said fan nodded furiously. The other members cast concerned glances at their ex-frontman. What the hell was he up to?

Everyone has a break up song and this particular one was Yamato's. The lyrics described the end of his and Sora's relationship so perfectly that he couldn't help but keep the song on loop whenever he wasn't at practice the past two weeks. He knew he could just reject he request, but Yamato knew he needed to get the song, and all these bottled up emotions, off his chest. To say no to the request would be running away. And it wasn't in his character to run away. Although…he eyes swept through the crowd and blue eyes found silver.

Natsuhi was casting him the same concerned glance as the rest of the band members on stage. Except the concern in her eyes held more depth, because she knew, she understood what the song meant to him. She knew what he wanted to do. At that very moment, a brilliant idea popped into Yamato's head. He wouldn't run away, but it didn't mean that he couldn't make his life easier by enlisting some moral support…

Natsuhi saw the wheels turning in Yamato's head, and with instincts that only a best friend could have, she immediately connected the dots. 'No no no no no,' she mouthed repeatedly as she shook her head wildly. He was not dragging her into his little cathartic exercise. But Yamato's determined smirk told her that she had no choice. It wasn't as if she could deny a friend in need, especially not her best friend whom she was not so secretly in love with.

Yamato took one look at the resigned sigh Natsuhi was heaving and knew he had won. Licking his lips in anticipation, he brought the mic to his lips.

A/N: A CLIFFY! Okay, it's not really a cliffy, but this chapter would have been too long, so I decided to break it into two parts. This chapter was started with a writer's block that only started dissolving itself towards the end. So if it reads sorta strangely, I'm sorry. The next chapter will be less weird, I promise. Thanks for all your support, reviews are always welcomed!

All the love! 3