It's not the song, it is the singin'
Hozier
"Taichi cut his hair."
"Okay." Skewers the last olive out of her glass, and next to him Mimi trills a whine. Not over the remains of her Manhattan, or his taking it; they'd been finishing each other's drinks for years. Rather, the kinds of things Mimi found to be emergencies rarely warranted more than a one- or two-word reply, and she'd always been sore about his refusal to play along.
The olive is sweetly tart, soaked a little too long in cheap bourbon. Yamato's mouth puckers, but she reads the wince differently. "You don't want to see?"
"Mimi," sighs Jou, speaking very, very slowly, slouched all the way against the wall with his glasses askew and face sweaty from grossly miscalculating how much alcohol his body is able to tolerate at their big age, "the point of tonight is that he's not supposed to see, or hear, or know anything that Taichi gets up to."
"Well, I think he'd want to see this." She's clutching her phone close to her chest, hunched over. An unconvincing pretense, because she's the worst at keeping secrets, or at least the ones that don't matter. "I really, really think we all w—,"
"Just give it here." Sora lays her palm on the table. Mimi slaps the phone screen-up into her girlfriend's hand, knocking Yamato's elbow off the counter in her reach around him. Barely registers his scowl if not openly ignores it, eyes glued to Sora's stony expression, and Jou sighs into the wall again, defeated.
Yamato would move out of the way, but there's nowhere for him to go, sat in the tiny booth at the back of the bar shoulder to shoulder like a modular furniture set. It used to bother him, their literally putting him in the middle, the protective if awkward arrangement an overcompensation inspired entirely by one stupid worry confessed over a shared joint outside the reception hall at Iori's engagement party, when he'd drunkenly wondered if he'd forever be the extra wheel in all his friend groups. ("You're going to find love and the four of us are going to outlast it!" Sora'd vowed, weirdly competitive and piss drunk herself at the time, while Mimi'd simply gasped, astonished and scandalized, "You have other friends besides us?" and Jou, too sloshed to remember how to be himself, had just started crying at the mere idea of Yamato being even fleetingly sad about anything.) People still sort of looked at them oddly, mismatched in every sense of the word, but he knows he'll never have better friends than these.
Sora makes a strange noise in her throat. Coughs a bit louder than should be natural when Yamato glances at her, and while he's having a not uninvitingly hard time focusing on anything for very long this far into the festivities, he senses enough of a mood shift for his heart to drop into his stomach. Mimi or Jou spiraling he can handle in his sleep; when Sora loses composure, it's best to just focus on preparing for the end times.
Mimi opens her mouth, but he interrupts, voice remarkably even, "What did he do?"
"Nothing." Sora holds onto the phone, leaning ever so slightly away from him. Well, fuck. That's her I'm-lying lean. "I mean, it's mostly just a little trim."
Mimi's turn to make a weird sound, a kind of nervous, snorting giggle. Normally has a very pretty laugh, like windchimes in summer. Tonight's is more like a dying pack animal. Even Jou winces, and there isn't anything about Mimi that Jou doesn't think is pretty.
Sora tries another route, looking directly at him, as though eye contact might distract from the fact that she's leaned so far that her head's almost sideways. "And it's not like he's never changed hairstyles before."
"Or that he's never looked ugly before. What?" because Sora's shooting daggers at her with her eyes, and Mimi has never met a clue she could pick up. "He's always doing stupid stuff!"
"Don't say that in front of—," and cuts herself off, flickering guilt.
"Who? Him?" Mimi's tipsy wave comes dangerously close to smacking Yamato's chin. He reminds himself he will never have better friends than these. "He knows!"
("I'm right here," but of course they ignore this; the irony that their gathering being about him is, predictably, lost to all but himself.)
"The whole point of tonight is not to know w—,"
"Give it a rest, Jou!"
"Rest when you're dead, Jou!" This, from the front of the bar, door smashing open. Daisuke's eyes are bloodshot and more crazed than usual, which means Yamato already can't deal with what's about to walk in behind him.
Pleasantly, the newcomer is Hikari.
Unpleasantly, she is not with her brother.
"It's not that bad," says Hikari after beelining for their booth, which categorically is a terrible way to open a conversation, especially with Yamato, and particularly about Taichi. He tries standing, knees knocking into the table, and Mimi grabs onto his arm, Sora kicks her leg up between their sides of the booth as a barrier, Jou pushes his own cup of water into his hand. "I know, I know we're not meant to be here—not meant to see you, but I couldn't—I just needed to tell you that it'll be okay, and it'll probably wash out," Hikari's babbling now, and Sora's dagger eyes, albeit less emphatic given their collective doting of the younger Yagami, are locked on the brunette with such force of power that even Daisuke changes his tone when he finally saunters up to the group.
"Yeah, for sure, total wash." Daisuke rubs his nose, hiding his grinning mouth behind one palm. Likely well loaded by then on the sort of vices that shouldn't be mixed with drinks, but also lacked the self-control to manage this. Stares after Jou's abandoned whiskey with interest. "Definitely by tomorrow, I'd say."
"Kou'll make sure of it," promises Hikari, and Yamato has the distinct impression that this is her taking up ambassador duties for the evening, dispatched to smooth out the inevitable. The fact that she can't make her anxious smile meet her panicked eyes does not make for a convincing sell. "So whatever you see or whatever happens, just—just don't worry!"
"Well, if Hikari says it's good, then it's good!" pivots Mimi, so eternally optimistic that she never quite realizes when her genuinely supportive statements come off as biting sarcasm. Her face has gone green, and she's speaking in a way that allows all her teeth to be visible at once, an expression better suited to a psychological horror flick. Lets go of Yamato's arm to look again at the picture on her phone she'd taken back from Sora, then draws a wheezy breath, physically unable to not be dramatic. "This will definitely be fine by tomorrow…."
Jou's still trying to push his water glass into Yamato's hand, the importance of hydration being the only medically-inclined fact that he's able to retain after they've been drinking this much, and Sora's very close to laying her entire body across the whole booth to keep him from getting out, but Yamato's not even looking at them anymore.
"Takeru!" Tries to yell as soberly as he can, head fuzzy for several new reasons now, and the only thing that has him backing off the mental ledge is his younger brother's blissful, bright-eyed smile from behind the bar, belatedly alerted to the emerging chaos around him.
"Another round?" offers Takeru, pointedly ignoring Daisuke's verbal acceptance of an offer clearly not extended to him. Sidles up to the line of keg taps closer to their booth, a white hand towel laid over one shoulder. The backwards baseball cap he's wearing is of their father's favorite team, the same color palette that decorates the bar he manages part-time with Hiroaki after both sons had finally convinced their old man to retire from television news, and needed something else to occupy (read: "distract") him with between increasingly elaborate attempts to reinsert himself in their grown lives. Yamato, who hadn't much of an interest in business, did his part to be supportive by making the place his friends' go-to spot; Takeru, who hadn't much of an interest in profit, cheerfully countered just about all these efforts by accepting so many IOU tabs from both close comrades and passing strangers that Mimi finally lost it one day and took charge over the whole operation, and now their runt of a neighborhood watering hole is doing so well Daisuke keeps talking about running a pop-up ramen joint out of the side door on select weeknights. Naturally, and immediately, Yamato had sworn Takeru over their late mother's life that this could never, ever happen; he likes the guy well enough, but he knows there are only so many ways he can avoid snapping into cold-blooded murder one day, and one of these ways is to intentionally limit the number of hours he allows Daisuke to speak in his vicinity. A difficult venture, given that Takeru and Daisuke had been coupled up for years now.
"Give me my phone," says Yamato, speaking thunderously slow now, at risk of everyone finding out just how unhinged of a stereotype he's about to become.
"No can do," replies Takeru, unabashed and unphased in the face of Yamato's imminent unraveling. Lines up a row of frothy pints on the bar counter, pauses to give Hikari a calming kiss on the cheek when she leans in for a hello. "You know that."
"Takeru—,"
"Look, I did not set this rule—you did," and slides the beer Daisuke'd been reaching for in the opposite direction. They watch Daisuke trot down after it, only for Takeru to move it back again, but at that point the con had been won, with Daisuke sufficiently distracted by the jukebox at the barroom's other corner and wandering off towards it instead, leaving the group to file the entire nonverbal scene as the latest example of Takeru's masterful ability to protect Daisuke from himself without uttering one word. Actually, Takeru has been talking to Yamato all the while. "A grooms' device-free stag is a choice, sure, but I must know better than to tell you what to do, right?"
Jou takes back the water to chug it all himself, and Mimi's looking back and forth between the brothers in greedy anticipation of the cat fight she's always longed to see between two beautiful men, and Sora finally sits up as she gives up, allowing Yamato out of the booth. He doesn't move though, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Takeru's smile hasn't broken once. A veritable master of conflict resolution. That, or the devil himself.
"But if it's that bad, then I—,"
"It's Taichi," laughs Takeru, easy. "How bad could it—let me rephrase—," except it's too late, with Yamato scrambling for the exit, Takeru hopping over the bar to stop him, Hikari rushing after the pair with a litany of preemptive explanations, Daisuke angrily kicking the jukebox for eating his last coin, and the older trio observing it all from the booth they haven't left, and don't plan to leave, even when the door opens to announce the worst possible news any of them have ever heard:
"Babe, I'm blond now!"
Jou shoots up to his feet, miraculously sober, "Oh, fuck," while Sora whispers, frozen in her seat, "He really did it," and Mimi surprises herself most of all when she realizes, "It's actually not that bad?"
The two turn to stare at her in wordless shock, but she's insistent, almost admiring. Tilts her head a bit, squinting between the man in question and Daisuke's snapshot of him sent to her phone that had launched the present episode. "No, really, it's not? Maybe he's just really bad looking in pictures in general?"
"Well, that'll make tomorrow difficult, won't it?" heaves Sora, forever unprepared for Mimi's capacity to say whatever is on her mind, filter be damned.
Mimi waves the idea away, impatient, scrolling through her photo albums. "That part's easy! Miyako is excellent at photo editing. I'm sure I have an old one we can use. I mean, there's got to be at least one time he's looked okay…."
They've left her by then, of course, Jou reaching a completely still Yamato's side as Taichi finishes a very tipsy circle to show off the new look, and Sora holding the door open for an out-of-breath, disheveled Koushiro who'd finally staggered into the bar, rounding out the night of bad decisions with a weakly delivered, "I took my eyes off him for two minutes, I swear, just two minutes."
Daisuke abandons the jukebox to return to the group, squeezing in next to Hikari as Takeru helps Koushiro into the barroom and Jou puts his hand on Yamato's arm. It's not clear if this is out of camaraderie or his own attempt to find support to stay upright, face to face with both the century's greatest crime against fashion and its perpetrator.
The cut's fairly fresh, and Sora'd been truthful about it mostly being a trim, with the formerly loose curls tidied in a way that still preserved a fitting bit of character. This isn't the issue though.
"But—but," sputters Jou, fist tightening its grip on Yamato's sleeve, "...blond?"
Taichi points a finger at Yamato's face, grin rivaling the sun. "'cause y'are!"
"We thought it'd be funny if you matched," laughs Daisuke by way of a ludicrous explanation, shutting up mid-giggle when Sora's dagger eyes return with a vengeance.
"'Matched'?" repeats Mimi doubtfully, phone still in one hand. The only person willing to accept the situation at face value. "I'm sorry, but it doesn't look very close, hon'."
Taichi bows at the waist, dunking his head low to her line of vision and staggering forward with all the skilled agility of a newborn bull calf, "They didn't, y'know, his shade at M'yako's store, but then found—but then I found the, um, walnut mist—,"
"Oh! Well, there's your problem!" Mimi cups his chin, pulling his face around to look closer at the frosted curls, nodding with understanding. "Yamato's more of a sunflower ash, but I think we could still make it work with a couple of— ow !" and gasps, more stunned by Sora slapping her hand out of Taichi's hair than any actual impact the action had, given that Sora'd always been more bark than bite with the people she loves—a personality trait that will surely meet its corrective end depending on Taichi's answer to the question she directs at him now, still heaving, voice pitched demonically low:
"What on earth were you thinking?"
"You!" Taichi's still grinning at Yamato, who hasn't moved, or blinked, or perhaps even breathed.
A beat of disbelieving silence, and then Takeru tries, "Yamato," in a tone more customary for someone recently admitted to an end-of-life facility, "Yamato, can you breathe for me, please?"
He does. The world's swimming away from him, but he does. Fixed on wild brown eyes looking right back at him.
"Taichi," speaking at lower than a whisper, but he's always had an ear for his voice, "we're supposed to be getting married tomorrow."
Taichi punches the air with both arms, ecstatic. "'xactly! T'morrow! Future!"
Jou begins to see through the fog, latching onto his friend's one-worded non-answers. "Maybe he's having a stroke?" he wonders aloud to Koushiro, who shakes his head hard, paler than the redhead's ever been his entire life. Mimi shushes the pair, like they weren't all very clearly eavesdropping.
Taichi surges past them, closing the distance. Stretches out a finger to poke Yamato's chest when he reaches him, as though it weren't abundantly clear who he means. " This future," he almost croons, sloppily driving his head face first into Yamato's neck. "That's what—what I'm tryna see, yeah? What it'd—what it'd'll look like!"
Almost doesn't hear it, a wave of dismay numbing all sense when he's this up close to new color. Oh, fuck. It's real. He really did it. He really went and did this hours before they're meant to stand up in front of both their families, and friends, and—
"See—what—?" Yamato tries to push him off, overwhelmed.
"All the little, all th'little blond, y'know—," and bends again to pat at the air around his knees, tipping them both over, or nearly. Takeru manages to hoist Yamato by the elbow, pushing him back into Taichi's arms, chewing at a knowing grin of his own. Even Mimi's caught up, a squealing laugh smothered by Sora's palm over her mouth, Daisuke yanking Hikari with him to the bar counter, a red-faced Koushiro and still flustered Jou following closely behind.
"I had'ta see it," Taichi's saying now, softer. For him now, only. Voice clearer in the chaos, or saner for it, when they're left with each other. Fingers gripping the collar of his shirt to hold him closer. "C'mon. Don't y'see it?"
In the dim din of the bar crowd, he turns his face into the curve of Taichi's neck, pressing a smile against his throat. "Yeah."
"Yeah." Taichi rolls his head to the side. Cups Yamato's cheek, thumb stroking the blond wisps over his ear. "So lemme give you a family. Please. Don't make me wait 'til t'morrow. Now, okay?" Face in his hands, always so warm to the touch. "That's all I wanna give you."
Be still, my foolish heart,
Don't ruin this on me
Hozier
"How'd you do?"
"Better." Yamato pauses at the end of the hallway, shutting his eyes. It catches up to him at the oddest times, the skipped breaths and beats. Mutters an annoyed, "Come on," to himself, impatient, holding his palm over his face, the cool metal band of the ring on his left hand settled over the bridge of his nose. A fixed pressure point. When he lowers his hand, Anna's frowning at him through thin spectacles. "I'm good."
"I'm still scheduling it." Scribbling onto her pad already.
"Not 'til next week, I can't." Shifts the strap of his slipcase to his better shoulder, aging in a way that reminds him too much of his father, towards the end.
"Do you or do you not want to get back?" And, when he takes too long to answer, "Wait, do you?" with more surprise.
Pulls his hand off the wall, guiding them through the next corridor and an additional security checkpoint. It'd gotten bad enough on the outside that they'd put these in even inside their remote JAXA research base, a detail he purposely left out of his weekly allotted personal calls. Why worry him? "Anna, let's just stay focused on today, please."
Her scoff is fittingly sarcastic. "What else am I here for?"
"You tell me."
"I do tell you, but do you listen?" she huffs, striding into his office after him rather than to her assigned space in the room adjacent. "Do you know how overqualified I am for my job? I have three master degrees, six lead author papers, a decade of—,"
"Anna," and he sighs, seated when he looks up at her. Makes sure to meet her gaze this time. "We're going to get back, all right? We're going to finish the mission, and all of this is going to end, and all of us are going to get back home. Okay?"
Holds his gaze, still frowning, and then sinks her shoulders. "Then make sure you finish it with me, and get yourself a second opinion on these dizzy spells. This week, Commander, not next."
Yamato rubs his face, nodding. "You're always right."
"And you've always got something."
That's when he sees it. Peering through the gaps in his fingers, elbow brushing the manilla envelope set on top of a stack of incoming mail. It's plain apart from the courier's notations, receipt clipped to the corner. Pulls that off first, then undoes the seal. The ink he'd put down himself is months old, set next to a fresh signature, a sticky note tacked to just below it. Knows the scrawl. Don't say I never gave you anything you wanted.
Anna's lingering at the doorway, curious if exasperated by the recurrent theme, her posture more relaxed now. "More fanmail?"
Only a few leaves of paper, altogether, because he'd insisted on a simple divorce, mutual agreement. Owed that much, after all this shit.
"No." Yamato slides the dissolution certificate back into its file. He doesn't know why he's smiling. "Just the end of the world."