Evenings

Chapter 14: Meeting Part 2

A/N: Anyone waiting for me to update "Cross My Heart" or "I Would Lie For You", no worries. I'm touching up the chapters and they will go up soon, likely in a week from posting this.

Thanks for reading, as always :)

Hiroaki peered in on his seventeen year old son with worry. How long was he going to lock himself in his room? The father began to suspect that the "meeting" hadn't been the best course of action as he watched his son sleep. He had done it mostly after Takeru had spent an hour convincing him and Hiroaki had to admit he had been avoiding it for a long time. This thought reoccured to him now.

"I've been avoiding you your whole life. I don't mean to. I guess it's just how my father was. I don't know any better. I want to try harder. I've always made myself open for you, but just saying it isn't the same as doing it, now is it?"

Hiroaki left his son to sleep in peace.

Except, Yamato wasn't sleeping. He never had a good track record for that. He wasn't sure how long he had been staring at the wall, watching the shadows of the rain as they beat down against the window behind him. He wasn't sure about anything as salt dried against his cheeks. He assumed he had been crying.

I'm depressed, he realized. Dear God, what's happening to me?

The blonde sat up, his unwashed hair molded with a dent against the side of his head. He ruffled it loose with his hands and took a breath. He pulled the comforter back over his waist, as if ashamed for his behavior. Part of him was, but not enough of him to actually do anything on his own.

So what was different now?

His father's words? No.

Takeru was a brainwashed slug of the Lord. Yamato had nothing personal against one's faith- Hell, Jyou had been a witch of all things –but Yamato could say without regrets that he hated God. For letting all of this happen to him. He probably hated God more than his mother. Or, well...

Yamato had hated himself for a long time, too.

"Yamato... I... I want you to do something great with your life."

His mother's words had repeated in his head all night. In a way, it was a blessing not having to hear her voice making other sounds he had buried under alcohol and bedmates.

"Fuck," the blonde breathed, taking out a cigarette. "I don't have to listen to her."

Yet, she's the only one to get through to you. Not your father, Takeru, or even Jyou, but her.

"For fuck's sake," Yamato breathed, throwing his head in his hands.

"Remember that solar system you built? You even included the moons. Not just our moon, but all those moons no one gives a damn about."

"Space..." Yamato mused, laying back in his bed. If he looked behind him through the slits in the drawn blinds, he could see the overcast morning trying to peek through. He briefly recalled his ride on Imperialdramon with Daisuke, Gennai, and Ken. He had actually been in space and saw a NASA shuttle so close he could reach out and touch it.

His self-titled 'intervention' had been a week ago now and he had barely moved. Before that, he had thrown himself into a life of sex, drinking, and avoiding his life entirely. He had hoped to block out memories, but he found the entire mess was making things worse.

Everyone had told him that, but Yamato didn't want to listen. He wanted to ride it as far as he could go and now he was at the precipice. He had always been a child that pushed the boundries of everyone around him, something, he learned, that wasn't uncommon for kids with what Yamato considered 'his condition'.

The main reason he had never told anyone was because of that look.

Like the one the school staff had given him. He had been brought in for some kind of threat.. Yamato didn't remember it clearly now, but he remembered that look the principal had given him and it made him feel naked and ashamed, like his mother had made him feel.

Just the night before he woke from a sort of... out of body experience in the shower- he avoided baths whenever he could –and he wasn't sure what to do so he stayed there until the hot water ran out and his father finally stepped in.

Hiroaki had barely cracked the door. For the first time in a long time, Yamato felt awake. He realized how awkward things must be for his father to not even bring himself to check on his own son in fear of stepping on toes, to put it lightly. "I'm... fine, Dad. I guess I was thinking."

Over the last few days, Hiroaki had absorbed himself in work more than ever. He didn't blame his father for not being able to change. Yamato knew it would have been easy to fall back into the life he had grown accustomed to, but his mother's words.

"Yamato... I... I want you to do something great with your life."

Damn those words.

Yamato made a visit to the library.

The blonde groaned at what would probably end up being a pulled shoulder as he grabbed a book from the top shelf without help or a ladder, then added it to the stack piling up in his arms. He thought of Jyou when he had all those address books and imagined them as a pile of anatomy books as he carted his own stack back to the table and flopped them down noisily, letting them scatter across the table.

A young woman was sitting at the end and glared at him. Yamato didn't take the time to argue with his own self-esteem about the many reasons why she had glared at him and instead gathered the stray books and sat down.

"How does he do this every waking minute...?" Yamato whispered to himself, still thinking of Jyou. They were officially not speaking, he supposed. Yamato made a mental note to take care of his entirety of burned bridges later and cracked open the first book he had grabbed: Black Holes. "Haa, haa," Yamato mused sarcastically, giving a glare up at the God he didn't believe in. "My whole life has been just that. Thanks. Thanks!"

The girl at the table scoffed and gathered her things and left. The blonde stuck his tongue out as she left, but then overheard a conversation.

"Oh, hey Rini, where are you going?"

"Some creep sat next to me, talking to himself. I think I'll leave for today."

"B-But aren't we protesting later?"

"I'll get back to you," 'Rini' replied.

The other voice sounded strangely familiar. Yamato remembered it like a fuzzy dream. Then suddenly it dawned on him. "Nana?" he questioned, turning to look at where Rini was now storming off.

"Oh, you're that drunk from Jyou's house," Nana said with a smirk. "Now you're insane, too?"

"Always been, you just haven't noticed," Yamato replied as Nana sat next to him. She had a bag full of poster board and some kind of print outs.

"...Jyou said you two had a fight," Nana replied, staring down at her hands. She was fiddling with the mood ring on her left hand in the place of a wedding ring. The loop didn't look cheap, by any means, as what Yamato recognized as pure silver glimmered under the florescent light.

"Yeah, I fight with everyone."

"Haven't fought with me," Nana chuckled.

"I don't beat up women."

"What about this Takenouchi person?" Nana questioned and Yamato groaned with irritation. She had meant it jokingly and felt bad now that she was irritating him. "I heard it from one of my friends, is all. I don't think you're a bad person. You may have wandered down the wrong road, Yamato, but you can always backtrack." Nana hoped this would cheer him up. Instead he opened the book and began skimming with one finger as he read. Nana eyed the stack: Black Holes, Astronomy, Astrophysics, History of Flight, Space, and... Improving Oneself? "You like to read?"

"Not really," Yamato muttered.

"That's a lot of books for someone who hates reading."

"Don't you have somewhere to be? Like with Jyou perhaps? You know he's a fag, right?"

Nana pursed her lips. "That's awful derogatory for two friends, much less from someone that would sleep with anything that moves, regardless of sex, species, or ag-"

"Don't go there with me," Yamato hissed, slamming the book shut. "Don't just show up because we met once and claim to know me through some shitty rumours. Just so you know, I wasn't always like this."

Nana smiled, "Of course. Jyou's told me a lot about you."

"Whatever."

Yamato clenched his jaw. Why did she have to keep bringing him up? Fuck, why would Jyou be talking about him this much anyway? It was obvious that, since Jyou had watched Yamato in that dark pit that Jyou had seen the truth about him. Yamato was damaged, pathetic, and Jyou obviously didn't want to put up with him. Yamato encouraged this thought through this actions, especially when he used Sho as target practice for his fists. Nana was just being nice. For some reason.

"Jyou... wouldn't talk about me."

Nana blinked and brought her lips together, "B-but he does. He told me the bad stuff, too, but I don't think your past defines you."

"...sorry?" Yamato whispered, almost out of breath that such a reality could be true.

"I've met a lot of people and helped a lot more," Nana said, daring to reach her hand closer to Yamato. She had feelings only for Shinjiro, of course, but that same need to help people she shared with Jyou made her fingers slip over Yamato's. "Can we... just talk?"

"Look," the blonde snapped, pulling away. "I..."

"Talk to me, come on," Nana urged. "Ask Jyou- I don't take no for an answer."

Yamato felt sick and placed his arms around his stomach, leaning over the table. "I can't. I mean, it doesn't bother me."

"Jyou told me you're a caring person. When you guys were in the Digital World, you were always the one worrying about everyone else, but you never worry about you."

Yamato laughed and tried not to let his tears show, "Ha... why are you going into nursing when you're such a damn good shrink?"

Nana smiled and giggled a little. This time, he let her keep her hand on his as she rubbed the knuckles gently. "Well... you must have realized something. This isn't exactly the place to pick up chicks."

"Oh, yeah? Awful lot of sexy bookworms in here."

"Oh, are they your type?" Nana asked with a smirk, flashing her eyelashes.

Yamato found himself blushing suddenly as he thought of Jyou. "Nah... No, like you said, I'll fuck anything that moves."

Nana couldn't help but sense some deeper meaning to the statement and wrinkled her nose, "So, what are we studying to improve our self worth, huh?"

"I just thought, maybe I could go to the air force, NASA, or JAXA, or something..."

Nana grabbed one of the books, her smile never-fading. "Alrighty. You've set a goal. You know... I have a lot of good study techniques."

"Well, when you're basically remembering latin for a living, I can see why," Yamato said, smiling for the first time since Nana sat down, joking for the first time in months. The blonde met her eyes and realized this girl was the two degrees of seperation between him repairing his relationship with his long lost ex. "Nana..."

"Yes, Yamato?"

The blonde couldn't face her answer and quickly grabbed the books to take home. Nana watched him in silence and as the future-spaceman started for the desk he whispered, "Tell Jyou I'm sorry."