
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/117610.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Digimon_Adventure, Digimon_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Ishida_Yamato/Yagami_Taichi
  Character:
      Ishida_Yamato_|_Matt_Ishida, Yagami_Taichi_|_Tai_Kamiya
  Additional Tags:
      Underage_Sex, Teenagers, Underage_Drinking, Drunk_Sex, Language
  Stats:
      Published: 2010-09-16 Chapters: 2/2 Words: 6714
****** Change My World ******
by Mickleditch
Summary
     Taichi wants Yamato, but Yamato's straight - isn't he? When the only
     one who really turns you on is your best friend, you start to run out
     of options fast.
Notes
     Underage sex (characters aged around fifteen).
***** Chapter 1 *****
"Hey, Matt! Where've you been?" A very happy Taichi plopped down onto the rug
beside Yamato and slung an arm around his shoulders. A very happy, very drunk
Taichi. "I got something important to tell you, and I just can't keep it in any
longer!"
"Tai, is this the same important thing that you tell everyone after you make
contact with sake?"
"Nuh-uh. This is personal, Matt. This is from me to you. Because... because
you're my best buddy, and nobody else really understands like you do... you
know what I mean?"
Yamato raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Okay. Spill it."
Taichi's happy grin morphed into a stupidly sentimental one. "I love you, man.
I really, really love you. Like in 'forever'. Guys who are friends their whole
lives, that's us. Guys who go through some real shit together and never stop
being friends because... damn, because they're friends! That's us, right,
Matt?"
Some girls sitting practically on top of Yamato snickered. Odaiba's park, one
of its few greenspaces in a jungle of steel and concrete, almost choked itself
with cherry blossoms in spring, and in the evenings during the Hanami, it was
packed with however many people could fight for a picnic spot beneath the
trees. Sticky buds turned that small part of the city into a cloudland of pink
and white. Kids stayed up late. The brave and the drunk sang karaoke.
"Tai," Yamato said wearily, "if you want to get mushy tonight, why don't you go
and find Sachiko? I'm really not in the mood."
"Uh... we kind of broke up yesterday..."
"Shit, again? Who'd you catch her with this time?" Taichi and his girlfriend
broke up on such a regular basis that Yamato had stopped trying to keep track
of it, usually due to the lack of the word 'no' and the phrase 'I have a
boyfriend' in Sachiko's vocabulary.
"Hey!" Taichi retorted. "That wasn't the reason! Well, not the only reason," he
added, looking abashed.
"Tai, you fight for at least four fucking days every week. Why do you keep
getting back together?"
"Because of what we do on the three days we're not fighting." Taichi waggled
his eyebrows like a hentai. He leaned closer, his breath stirring the fine hair
around Yamato's ear. "So, how goes it with you and Mei?"
Yamato tensed ever so slightly. "We decided to cool it for a while. See if
we're better off as friends."
"Uh-huh. No change, then?"
"No," Yamato answered shortly.
"It's just nerves, man."
"No, it's not."
"Yeah, it is. I was scared shitless my first time."
"No, it's not."
The other boy sat back. "You wanna talk? I mean - go somewhere?"
"Tai, I'd rather just -"
A smooth, tanned hand cupped his bare elbow, lifting him surprisingly steadily
to his feet. "Matt - come."
Yamato bit his lip, allowing his friend to steer him through the forming and
reforming gatherings, deeper into the trees where it was quiet. The glow of
crepe-covered lanterns there gradually replaced the fading light, casting soft
pools of reds and greens. Taichi shoved the bottle he had been carrying into
the blonde's hand.
"Here. Have some if you want to."
Yamato usually stuck to beer, and this sake was stronger than he'd expected and
blazed its way fiercely over his tongue and down through his innards, leaving
his eyes watering. Taichi leaned against a tree, regarding him.
"Ready to talk now?"
"How can you drink this crap? That's not sake, it's rocket fuel undercover for
the night, disguised as sake!"
"How can you change the subject so frickin' fast?"
Yamato put the bottle down on a patch of bare earth, folding his arms. "Because
I don't think it's any of your business."
"Wrong!" Taichi jabbed a finger at him. "You're my best friend. If you've got a
problem, that makes it my business!"
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
Music filtered across the park. A girl began to sing, sweet and low, and Yamato
found himself unconsciously accompanying it, picking out notes and chords. He
had a sudden, wild desire to be on stage, pouring out his hopes and fears to a
sea of anonymous faces. He knew that his music was as much an outlet as an
ambition. It was easier to speak through it. Safer.
"It's not Mei," he said, "it's me. I just... can't."
"What do you mean 'can't'..? Oh..." Taichi gave a wry, lopsided grin. "The big
'can't'?" He obviously took the following silence as an affirmative. "Matt -
sometimes everything seems peachy keen, but it just won't happen, y'know? It's
no big deal."
Yamato's voice sounded harsh in his ears when he spoke. "Oh, it's a big deal,
Tai. What if you knew deep down it was never going to happen? What if you only
went out with your girlfriend in the first place because she was nice and said
she liked you, and because kids three years younger that you were hooking up
with each other already, and because it was the best way to get it through Jun
Motomiya's head that you weren't interested?"
"Matt, listen..."
"No, you listen for once. It feels wrong, it always has done. I'm a freak. Why
can't you just accept that?"
Taichi stared at him for a moment. "You know, when we were kids, I thought you
were the coolest thing."
"And now?"
"Hasn't changed."
"You don't really know me."
Taichi slapped his hands over his ears. "No - you're not gonna do this to me!
You're not gonna lay the deep dramatic crap on me tonight. My head can't take
it! Matt -" Taichi moved, and somehow now those hands were cupping Yamato's
face, thumbs caressing his sharp high cheekbones, trying to impress something
vital into him. " - does this really feel so wrong?"
His warm alcoholic breath hung between them. Very, very lightly, he brushed the
blond's lips with his own, then with the tip of his tongue. And it didn't feel
wrong. Not in the slightest.
It felt so, so good.
"Tai," Yamato whispered. His voice sounded husky, and he cleared his throat.
"You're drunk."
For answer, Taichi kissed him again, more fiercely, his tongue parting Yamato's
lips and slipping into his mouth. The other boy pulled back, breathing heavily.
"I'm not gay, Tai."
"Neither am I."
"I'm not bi either."
"That leaves you one choice, Matt. And I'm pretty damned sure you aren't Mr.
Straight, 'cause you just let me french you without much of a fight."
Taichi had discovered girls shortly after their first return from the
DigiWorld. When he also discovered sex, it came very naturally to him and he
became extremely enthusiastic about it overnight, the polar opposite of Yamato,
who divorced himself from his feelings, preferring instead to immerse himself
in his music. But they grew closer rather than apart. Time passed, and Yamato
began tentatively dating Mei Akama, the quiet, pretty girl who was his lab
partner. Taichi's semi-serious girlfriend dumped him for spending too much time
with Yamato, claiming that he came to her to make out and went to Yamato for
everything else.
Taichi occasionally attempted to advance their relationship when he was out of
his skull, using the booze as an excuse to come on to Yamato, much to
everyone's hilarity. It had been funny, until Yamato had realized that he
enjoyed Taichi flirting with him, that he got a strange feeling somewhere deep
inside when he got close, that he liked it when the other boy twirled strands
of his silky fair hair around his fingers. So he'd stopped laughing and started
thinking. And he didn't like what he was coming up with.
"I - I don't know, Tai. I really don't know."
"Ssh." Taichi put a finger to Yamato's lips. "It's okay. It's okay... it
doesn't have to mean anything... anything at all. Just..." His hands slid
lower, stroking the other boy's flanks through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.
"Tai..."
"Feel good?"
"Yeah."
"Can I kiss you again?"
Yamato shivered almost imperceptibly, a suicide balancing on the edge of a
precipice. He wanted to kiss Taichi, he understood that for the first time,
understood what those hot, fluttery feelings were urging him towards. "Not
sure."
"I only wanna kiss you like this." The lightest touch of lips, pressed against
his wide, pale forehead. "And this..." Little butterfly kisses, following the
line of his jaw. "And this..." Taichi ducked his head, slowly and languorously
sucking on the tender skin of Yamato's adam's apple. "I just wanna kiss you,
Matt," he murmured, and skinny arms wrapped around half-developed bodies as
their mouths meshed together.
Soft. That was the first description that came to mind about Taichi's lips.
Soft - and very sweet. It shocked Yamato faintly. For some reason, he'd never
imagined that another guy would taste good like that. Somehow he was pulling
Taichi close, arms around his waist, under the cool blue cotton of his open
shirt, and Taichi was pushing him at the same time, and they were moving across
the grass in a clumsy dance, further into the shadows. His back scraped against
the bark of a tree, halting him midstep, and he bit back a moan as Taichi
collided hard with him, pressing their bodies against each other full length.
Their breathing was soft and ragged. Taichi's hand slipped between them,
brushing the front of Yamato's jeans lightly, as if to make sure of what he
felt, then cupping and squeezing.
"Matt... is this for me..?"
Yamato shuddered, fighting not to just come in his pants under that slow,
rhythmic caressing. "Don't fuck with me, Tai," he hissed. "You know it's for
you!"
Taichi's hand slid upwards, leaving him jerking slightly, searching
unconsciously for the lost stimulation. The other boy slowly picked up his
tempo as their bodies met again in an awkward, shaky grinding of hips, and the
raw eroticism of it, even through layers of cotton and denim, had Yamato
moaning with pleasure and frustration. His fingers darted over Taichi's bare
chest like spiders, testing, exploring, brushing the slight rises of his ribs,
coaxing his small, dusky nipples into hard peaks. Taichi bowed his head, his
shoulders rising and falling with his soft gasps.
"S'nice, Matt..."
Yamato lifted one hand and buried it in Taichi's impossibly thick, riotous
hair, and his friend latched onto his neck, sucking hard enough to bruise,
nipping at the skin with his teeth. His pulse jumped wildly under Taichi's
mouth, and he leaned harder against the tree to support his unsteady legs.
"Is this what you do with your girlfriends, Tai?" He meant to sound cynical,
but his voice came out frightened and needy. Taichi paused for the briefest of
moments.
"When you won't have me," he muttered. Then the conversation was lost in the
pulse of the music and the eerie colored shadows as the two of them worked
frantically at belts and zippers. Both boys gasped as their naked erections
touched for the first time. Taichi tangled his fingers in the blond's hair,
plundering his mouth with his hyperactive tongue again as they began to thrust
against each other, slowly at first, building into a hard, desperate rhythm
that made stars explode behind Yamato's eyes. When he touched Mei, it was as if
there was an impenetrable barrier between them, but he swore that Taichi was
burrowing through his skin and dry-humping his brains. That intense, that
close.
I don't want this. I need this. Don't stop.
"Matt..!" Taichi's movements grew faster, more earnest. "Matt... fuck... I'm
gonna..."
It was Yamato's hand that plunged down this time, fumbling around Taichi's
erection, flicking his thumb across the slick head, once, twice, until the
other boy gave a rough cry, grabbed his wrist, and came, bathing their bellies
in sticky warmth. Yamato shivered against him, bucking gently, still on the
brink. As he watched through heavy-lidded eyes, Taichi sank to his knees in the
grass, and, licking his way through the remnants of his own orgasm, took about
half of Yamato's length into his mouth.
"Oh, shit!" Yamato's gasp was almost a sob. His hands moved unevenly back and
forth over Taichi's skull, torn between pushing him away and drawing him closer
as the pad of his friend's tongue ran over him. He tilted his head back,
feeling a falling cherry petal brush his cheek, gritting his teeth with the
effort to keep still and not just thrust wantonly into the velvety warmth
surrounding and caressing him. What the former leader of the DigiDestined
lacked in technique, he more than made up for in enthusiasm. It didn't take
Yamato long. Taichi choked a little, then recovered himself and began
swallowing, accepting every drop with relish.
Well, Yamato's brain said muzzily, that was a hell of a lot better than your
hand.
An arm looped about his waist as Taichi's tongue filled his mouth again, and he
tasted his own flavor. Being kissed so beautifully by his best friend both
moved and disturbed him even more than being sucked off. He wondered vaguely if
this was how MetalGarurumon and WarGreymon had felt when they digivolved
together - one breath, one pulse, one life. His hands moved slowly over
Taichi's buttocks of their own accord, squeezing and massaging. Taichi moaned
into their kiss, nibbling on Yamato's lower lip.
"Matt... you wanna go somewhere..?"
"Go somewhere?" Yamato repeated distractedly. Taichi was pressed against him,
face to face, their slippery, sensitized flesh trapped between their bellies,
and he couldn't understand why the other boy would think he'd want to be
anywhere but here. He kissed Taichi again, trying to impress his meaning on
him, and felt his friend grin.
"Somewhere more comfortable..?" Taichi was insistently working a hand into the
back of Yamato's jeans, into his underwear. His fingers splayed out over his
ass, sliding easily on sweat-damp skin. "There's places I'd rather do it than
against a tree, Matt," he murmured, and crooking his middle finger, pushed it
abruptly inside him.
Yamato gasped, in shock rather than pain, and at that moment, realization
slammed home so hard that it almost knocked the air back out of his lungs. He
stared into Taichi's eyes, and what he saw there sent the already shaky world
tilting and swimming off its axis.
He wants to screw me. He really wants to screw me, and I want to let him.
What does that make me?
Taichi's scent was suddenly heavy, invasive, violating. Yamato began to squirm,
fighting him off in earnest this time. "Don't!"
The other boy jerked away as if he had been scalded, staring back at him in
confusion. "What's wrong?"
Yamato took a few steps, still trembling, struggling to fasten his pants. It
was as if a dam had suddenly cracked, and now everything behind it was spilling
over in an uncontrollable flood for everyone to see. "Taichi, I'm sorry. I -
I'm not that way."
"You're not what?"
"Look, we made a mistake, okay?"
Taichi wiped his mouth briefly. "One of the best orgasms of my life was a
mistake?"
Yamato's palms were sweating, and he rubbed them down the legs of his jeans.
"So we had some fun. That's all it was, Tai. I just don't like you like that.
And all you really want is to jump something warm-blooded, so why don't you buy
Sachiko a box of candy and make up with her, and maybe she'll actually go home
with her boyfriend tonight."
"Low blow," growled Taichi.
"Why don't you jack off? Why don't you do anything you fucking like?" He could
hear the pitch of his own voice rising abnormally as he spoke. "Just fuck off
and leave me alone!"
Belatedly, Taichi moved to re-zip. "Yamato, do you have any idea how completely
full of shit you are at times?"
"At least I don't have my brains in my dick!" the blond spat.
"You don't? I betcha I can put 'em right back there, fast as anything, now I'm
sure how you feel."
"Don't tell me how I feel! I'm sick of you trying to tell me how I feel!"
Yamato felt his hands clenching, automatically balling into fists as they had
done so regularly only a few years ago. He'd tried to hide himself, hide from
himself and the dull, nagging feelings of difference, back then in the
DigiWorld too; become the cold one, the untouchable one that nobody, except
Takeru, knew well enough to know how to hurt. And it worked, mostly. But Taichi
would never let him hide. He tore down the walls that Yamato built up any way
he could, by teasing it, yelling it, punching it out of him if he had to,
whatever it took to get a response. When he tried to pull away from people,
Taichi was the one who pressed closer instead, making them best friends just by
insisting they were. There wasn't a nerve in Yamato's body that he couldn't get
on, or a switch he didn't know how to trip. And somehow, he had latched onto
something buried deep inside him and drawn it out, with all the bullheadness
and genki charm and total unsubtlety that made him the Taichi Yamato had grown
to despair of frequently, adore mostly, and become inextricably bound up with.
"Matt -"
"Go to hell," he said, and started walking, not caring in which direction. When
he brushed the back of his hand over his eyes a few moments later, it came away
damp.
*** *** ***
The formula of a substance is made up from the symbols of the atoms it
contains.
The formula gives more information than this, however. It shows the numbers of
atoms which are present in the smallest particle of the substance.
Smack!
Something grazed the side of Yamato's head, and he jerked up from his textbook
to see a screwed-up piece of paper on the floor nearby that has obviously just
been thrown across the room. He glanced suspiciously over his shoulder to see
Taichi gesticulating violently at him.
We - have - to - talk! the other boy mouthed.
Yamato flushed a deep, angry red, matching the marks screaming their presence
from the pale skin of his throat. He twisted around again and stared so hard at
the page that he fully expected it to burst into flames.
Non-metals usually consist of molecules in which two or more atoms are linked
together.
Taichi leaned across his desk. "Matt!" he hissed loudly.
"Mr. Kamiya..." said Mr. Sugimura, warningly. He'd been in better moods. The
room collectively cringed, bracing itself for the storm.
Taichi leaned further forward, oblivious. "Yamato!"
"Mr. Kamiya!! Do you have something that you'd like to share with us?"
The dark-haired boy froze. "No."
"Then, until you do, would you be so kind as to present me with some work by
the end of the period?"
Taichi picked up one of the test-tubes in front of him and half-heartedly
swirled the contents around, but Yamato could still feel his wide dark gaze
burning into the back of his head. It was like he had some kind of inbuilt
Taichi detector that went crazy whenever the other boy was in the same room; a
physical awareness he couldn't shake off. It clung to him like sweat, like sex.
Involuntarily, he shivered. He was losing his grip on the old, cool Yamato
Ishida by the minute, and he didn't know what was replacing him. The wall clock
rattled a little as it flicked over the hour. Thirty more minutes, and he could
get out of this torture chamber.
Chlorine gas consists of molecules, each containing two atoms. Write the symbol
and the formula for chlorine.
"Mr. Kamiya, is there something wrong with your seat?" he heard Mr. Sugimura
ask, sharply.
Taichi's voice. "No."
"Then why are you so reluctant to stay in it?"
Yamato turned his head just enough so that he could see, in the corner of his
field of view, a very disgruntled Taichi retreating from him and sliding back
onto his chair. A huge proportion of the class were now quite clearly only
pretending to work on their projects as they watched this little drama being
played out. Someone sitting nearby sniggered.
"Got a problem, Hiroshi?" he asked coldly.
"No problem at all, lover boy."
Yamato felt himself flush hotter. "Then shut the fuck up!" he snarled.
"Whoa!" Hiroshi continued to smirk. "Take it easy, man. I didn't know you and
Kamiya were serious!"
"We're not anything!" A fierce headache began to swell, like someone placing a
palm on each of his temples and slowly squeezing. He raised his hand.
"Yes, Mr. Ishida?"
"Can I get a drink of water?"
The teacher flicked his eyes over him, a quick assessment that determined
either 'Fake', or 'Get this kid out of here before he heaves on the floor'.
"Are you sick?"
Yamato was aware of the entire room watching him. "I think I just need some
air."
Mr. Sugimura sighed. He gave Matt a longer, harder look. Then he said,
"Alright, Mr. Ishida, go. You have ten minutes. And please don't think that I
won't notice if you take longer, because I will."
The boys' washrooms were empty. A solitary patch of late afternoon spring
sunshine faded in and out on the cracked plaster above the washbasins, and
someone had left a window open in an attempt to let out either the permanent
smell of disinfectant or their own cigarette smoke, so that it was at least
cooler in there now than the classroom. Yamato turned on the faucet and stood
for a moment, listening to the hollow sound of the water in the quiet room.
When it had run to freezing, he splashed some viciously on his face. He found
himself looking into the mirror as he lowered his hands, into a pair of wary
china-blue eyes that seemed at odds with the color in his cheeks. From what?
Embarrassment, probably fifty percent. Anger, thirty, though he wasn't sure any
longer exactly who he was angry with, Taichi or himself. And twenty that he
couldn't account for.
Excitement?
"Fuck," he said, out loud. He started saying it over and over. "Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck." He pressed his hands against the mirror, leaning close, searching
desperately for himself in the tall, pale young man there with the finely
chiselled bones and soft milky lips. His fingers curled into claws, beginning
to scrabble as if trying to shred his reflection's skin and rip out the
writhing, heated something beneath it, his nails sliding over the glass. Shit,
but they'd hate him for this. Worse than he'd ever been hated as a little kid
with no friends, or while he was being such a gloriously frigid bastard in the
DigiWorld. Worse than he'd ever hated himself. The pretty blue eyes hardened.
A myriad of shards should have flown when he put his fist through the mirror, a
miniature explosion to echo the one mushrooming inside his head, but there was
only the flat, dead sound of the glass cracking against the wall it was screwed
to, and then, after an era, something which he supposed must be pain crawling
through his fingers and wending its way upwards.
For the first time in twenty four hours, Yamato didn't feel much of anything at
all.
A sound at the door jerked him back into some kind of reality. Taichi stood
there with eyes as big as a manga character's. Eventually, the other boy let
out his breath in a low whistle.
Yamato stared down at his knuckles where thin, criss-crossed splits were
starting to fill with red, running into the lines of his skin and forming
delicate spider webs. "I think I just broke my hand," he said dully.
He suddenly felt his friend beside him, turning on the faucet again good and
hard, taking his hand without asking and holding it beneath the flow, and he
watched the water spatter irregularly with blood as it swirled away. For a
moment, a part of him relaxed into the familiar half-embrace, before the same
part remembered itself and drew away again, leaving barely a ripple on the
surface. Taichi, who was gingerly manipulating his fingers, felt him tense, and
paused.
"For fuck's sake, Matt, what d'you think I'm going to try and do? Get it on in
the sink?"
"I don't know. You seem to really like public places. Why not the bathroom?"
Taichi was sweating a little, just a faint salty tang in the air. He looked
nauseous from sharing someone else's pain. "Give me a break. I was drunk - you
said it yourself."
"You weren't that drunk."
"And you weren't drunk at all. So I guess that lets the sake off the hook,
doesn't it?"
The grinding was almost audible as the walls started to close in again. Yamato
fought to get on top of the full-blown panic attack that was threatening to
swell. "Which is supposed to mean what, exactly?"
The pressure on his fingers had turned into a gentle rubbing. "Matt... I wanted
you last night. Me, not the booze." The rubbing became slower, a torture on his
outrageously sensitized skin. "I thought you felt the same."
"Maybe you should learn that some people are picky about who they screw."
Yamato winced inwardly even as he heard himself speaking, but he was long past
the point of control, and it was spewing out in a frightened, bitter torrent.
"And that not all of us are half-faggot."
Taichi's hand fell away from Yamato's, and he took a step backwards. For a few
seconds, his expression was unreadable. Then he grabbed a fistful of the
blond's pristine white school shirt and slammed him up against the sickly
magnolia colored wall so that their faces were about an inch apart. "Do you
want to know the other reason me and Sachiko broke up?" he hissed.
Their lips almost brushed as he spoke. Yamato shivered. "Get your hands off me,
Tai," he whispered.
"Do you?" Yamato deliberately turned his head away, and Taichi roughly cupped
his jaw, jerking it back. "Because she said that she was sick of watching her
boyfriend and his best friend flirt with each other!"
"I said, get your hands off me!" With one shove, the two boys had switched
places, Yamato's taller form pinning Taichi's against the cold bricks. He
finally raised his fist, his whole body now trembling with the desire to feel
the satisfying resistance of flesh rather than glass at the end of his arm. His
fingers still throbbed. He was already going to have the bruise to end all
bruises. Fuck that.
Taichi said just one word, very quietly. "Matt..."
The dark-haired boy's eyes were as soft as his voice. He smelled sweet and warm
against the bathroom stink. Like summer. Like the DigiWorld.
I swear nothing will ever come between us again. Yamato had said that once, a
long time ago.
He didn't want to hurt Taichi. He wanted to be close to him, so close...
His lip quivered. Taichi's hands slid around his waist, rubbing gentle circles
into the small of his back. "S'okay, Matt. S'okay..."
"Reluctant as I am to spoil such a touching moment..."
They sprang apart at the sound of their chemistry teacher's voice in the room.
After a minute spent gazing at the cracked mirror, the streaks of blood in the
basin, and the two flushed boys, he continued, "...and to aggravate my already
considerable headache, I'd like to invite you gentlemen back to the classroom
for after-school detention, at the end of which you will each give me an
explaination of your behavior this period."
Both boys glanced at each other hesitantly.
"Get out!!"
Eyes lowered like two naughty juniors, they re-entered the science room. To
Yamato's surprise, there was a haze of acrid smoke hanging around, and a large
pile of sand covering most of Taichi's table where the fire bucket now sitting
on his chair had been upended. Most of the class wore ear to ear smiles. There
was nothing more fun than a sudden crisis to round off a Friday afternoon.
"Four minutes after you left the room," Mr. Sugimura said, his teeth ever so
slightly clenched, "Mr. Kamiya and Mr. Watanabe managed, by a method I've yet
to discover, to set fire to their experiment, their books, and very nearly
themselves. To my not so great surprise, after I had dealt with the situation,
I discovered that I'd managed to lose yet another student in the upheaval."
Taichi's lab partner, Toshiki, another blond, but of the big-eyed, bottled
sunshine kind, raised his hand innocently. "I think it was a reaction of
the..."
Taichi elbowed him. After a long look colder than one of Frigimon's ice
punches, the teacher turned to Yamato. He sighed a little. "Let me see your
hand."
There was a collective half-sympathetic, half-shocked hiss from the nearest
tables as Yamato held it out. Go ahead, he thought. There was a kind of pride
in it, even that small defiance.
"All right. Go down to the nurse and get some sticking plaster or bandages,
then come straight back here. One hour's detention for damaging the fabric of
the school. Mr. Kamiya, one hour for disrupting the class and leaving the room
without permission. Mr. Watanabe, one hour for assisting him."
"Aw, fuck," muttered Taichi, rather too loudly.
"Mr. Kamiya, two hours!" Matt heard Mr. Sugimura yell as he closed the door
behind him.
***** Chapter 2 *****
A flat blue plane of sky stretching away above the window. The faint knock and
hum of the plumbing through the building, coming and going between the stop-
start rhythm of the traffic outside. Yamato turned his pillow over and pressed
into the coolness the other side, twisting the sheets between his bare toes,
the slow kneading the only indicator of his unease. Sleep.
No Mei. No Taichi. Not for a thousand miles.
He hadn't undressed, and his shirt was rucked up and uncomfortable under his
ribcage. That was fine. He didn't want to be vulnerable just now, have things
brushing gently against his naked skin, raising goosebumps, coaxing his hand
down to stroke himself to a slow, hard erection. When he masturbated, it was
quick, practised and detached, consisting of Yamato concentrating on his hand
moving up and down his shaft, his mind kept deliberately blank of fantasies and
everything else that would have made it twice the fun. He felt the need, he
relieved it. End of story. Except sometimes in the white moment a heartbeat
before his orgasm hit, when a sudden fierce image would flash before him of
what someone else would look like doing exactly the same thing. Someone with
dark hair and dark eyes. Someone who he had been ready to fuck last night in
the middle of a public park -
He flattened himself closer against the bed, as if trying to melt through the
mattress. He wasn't going to go there. Wasn't going to have anything to do with
sex or love, any of that shit, ever again if he had a say in it.
There had been a yellow post-it note stuck to the refridgerator when he got
home, the same way they used to tape up the paintings that Takeru brought over
sometimes when he was little, because it was the first place to catch your eye
when you walked through the door. He'd gotten into the habit of checking the
fridge for messages. 'Working late.' So what else was new? 'Money under the
ashtray. Get yourself some food. Take care. Dad.' and the numbers of some of
the pizza delivery places scribbled underneath as an afterthought. The place
was quiet, the background sounds purely mechanical and oddly soothing. Yamato
closed his eyes.
The doorbell buzzed.
Go away.
Whoever was waiting obviously didn't believe in taking no for an answer,
because, after a few seconds, it buzzed again, several times, unevenly. Yamato
pulled the covers over his head and lay like that for a minute before he
realized that it might actually be something important he ought to deal with.
How had he gotten to be so apathetic in just a couple of years? It was just one
more thing that disgusted him about himself and that he still didn't have any
strength to control.
Still barefoot, he padded through the apartment. "Yeah?" he said to the door
without opening it, raising his voice but not bothering to make it sound
enthusiastic.
"Matt, can I come in? Please? I just want to talk."
His toes curled again, starting to work on the carpet, burrowing. "I don't
think I've got anything else to say to you."
"Fine," came Taichi's voice. It had lost some of its patience. "If you're not
going to let me in, then I guess I'll just have to shout from here," and to
Yamato's horror, he started to yell, his voice echoing down the stairway,
"MATT, ABOUT THE BLOW JOB I GAVE YOU LAST NIGHT -"
"Shit!" Apathy forgotten, Yamato lunged at the door, fumbling with the catch,
whining faintly in near hysterical frustration as it refused to co-operate with
his sweaty fingers. Finally he managed to wrench it open, drag his friend
inside so violently that the other boy almost tripped over the edge of the mat,
and slam it behind him.
"Wow, maybe I should have tried more dirty talk on you in the bathroom!" Taichi
shook his head abruptly as he noticed Yamato's expression, as if trying to
clear it. "No, I didn't want to say that. Asshole. Ignore me. Sorry," he added.
He had one hand held behind his back. "What's that?" Yamato asked, flatly.
The hand emerged, holding a bunch of cherry blossoms, some beginning to droop
and with their twigs attached to them, but silky and pink. "Peace offering?"
The jump was so abrupt that Yamato was briefly speechless. When he recovered
himself after a minute or two, he slowly became aware that Taichi had moved
away with the flowers, and was now wandering around the kitchen, poking in
cupboards and chattering at the same time, about didn't Yamato have something
to fill with water to put these in, and how he had detention again tomorrow for
giving Mr. Sugimura the finger behind his back, only it turned out his back
wasn't turned all that far, and could he believe Toshiki just agreed to help
him study if he got him a date with Sora, and Damn, Yamato, your house is too
tidy, until he broke off in mid-spiel, and stood looking at Yamato
defencelessly. "I came on too strong, didn't I? I went in head first again and
I fucked up. But I thought you wanted it! I pushed just a bit more, and you
acted like you wanted it as much as me."
Yamato had been ready for another screaming match, more than ready, but
Taichi's words seemed to suck it all out of him, leaving him a vacuum, his
muscles like water without the anger to bolster them. The previous night had
been the strongest pass Taichi had made at him, but it hadn't been the first.
And he'd responded, just like he'd responded before. He could have laughed,
smacked Taichi round the head and shoved him off when the other boy snuggled up
to him and teased him, but he'd blushed like a girl and batted the flirty mood
right back.
Who was the biggest tease, Taichi or himself?
"I don't know what I want," he whispered.
"No, you don't." Another charged silence fell between them. Then Taichi said,
"Would it help you make up your mind if I said I was madly in love with you?"
"Tai -"
"Well, maybe not madly. I mean, I can eat and sleep. Slightly madly. Wildly,
maybe. Yeah," he added, "I don't act like it most of the time. But I am. Ever
since you punched me that time when we were thirteen."
Yamato managed the tiniest of smiles. "You date someone who cheats on you, and
you fall in love with someone who nearly fractures your jaw. Man, you are a
masochist."
Taichi gave a little snort. "Yeah, well, I'm finished with dating for sex. And
I'd rather fall in love with my best friend who I at least know gives a fuck
about me. That's if you still do." His voice dropped an octave. "I thought I'd
screwed things up. I thought I'd gone too far and lost you."
Dropping the flowers in a heap on the counter, he stepped close to Yamato and
wrapped him in a fierce hug. Caught off guard, Yamato automatically hugged
back. Their noses bumped as he turned his head, then somehow his mouth was on
Taichi's and they were kissing, actively sucking and tasting each other, a
beaded thread of moisture stretching between them when they parted. Taichi
brushed his lips against his temple, breathing in his hair.
"Why are you scared?" he asked softly.
Yamato swallowed against the lump filling his throat, the hot sting of new
tears. "Because as long as I don't have sex with you, I can keep telling myself
I'm not gay."
Taichi didn't wince, just slowly combed his fingers through Yamato's hair,
lifting the strands and letting them fall again. "What about this? Is it too
much?"
"No... it's okay."
A kiss on his cheek, hands travelling down his spine. "This?"
Yamato tensed as he felt Taichi gently cup and squeeze his buttocks. He wanted
to say that that was okay as well, but it came out instead as a deep sensual
shiver, and he leaned his weight into the other boy, fighting to make his legs
work properly again. Taichi brought their mouths together again and kissed him
as though he were trying to fuse the two of them, as well as their digimon,
into one.
Some immeasurable amount of time later, they cuddled, scrunched in the corner
of Yamato's bed, fingers slipping over still-damp skin. Taichi pressed a kiss
to the blond's shoulder which turned into a gentle bite, one arm slung around
his waist, the other lower, a loose fist moving slowly up and down, threatening
to tease him back to erection. Yamato squirmed a little, drowsily, trying to
swat the hand away.
"Stop it... I'm tired."
"Hey, I was the one doing all the work, remember?" Regardless, Taichi gave him
one more light caress, then drew him close again instead. "Did it hurt?" he
asked, after nuzzling into his throat for a while.
"No." And that was true; to Yamato's faint surprise, it had hardly hurt at all
in that way, physically. It had felt perfectly right, an act as natural as
breathing, and that was what hurt. But there was a kind of twisted comfort in
it at the same time, quitting the fight against the waves and just letting them
close over his head. And now - although he was half-afraid to think it, in case
it was suddenly snatched away - he was floating. He really seemed to be
floating.
"Tai?"
"Mm?"
"You want to sleep over?"
A pair of dark eyes sparkled on a level with his. "Are you sure?"
Yamato covered Taichi's mouth with his hand before he could go on. "I said
sleep over. That doesn't translate as 'Fuck all night'. I'm not that sure yet."
Cautiously, he removed the hand. "Call your mom."
Taichi gave the ends of his fingers a quick nibbling kiss before they got too
far away and released him, scooting fluidly out from the bed and reaching to
grab and pull on the boxers puddled on the floor. He moved with a surprising,
unpractised grace, all long slender limbs and sleek skin. Yamato was struck by
how much they had both changed in the last few years, and his belly clenched in
the beginnings of a new ripple of arousal as he watched Taichi leave the room.
He pulled the sheets back around himself, feeling heat in his face.
Taichi half-appeared back around the door. "Matt?"
"What?"
"I really do love you - you know that, don't you?"
"Yeah. I know." The door began to close again. Something stirred inside him;
moved, was there, was gone, leaving him feeling incomplete. "Tai?" he said,
abruptly.
"Yeah?"
"I... love you too."
And, suddenly, shockingly, he was aware that he did.
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