Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Digimon Adventure
Title: Meeting You
Romance: Taichi x Yamato/Yamato x Taichi
Word Count: chapter: 2,500||story: 5,000
Genre: Friendship, Romance||Rated: PG
Challenge: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, G5, two-shot; Advent Calendar 2015, day #9, roll dice for chapter amount (2-shot); TaiYama/YamaTai Week on Tumblr
Summary: Taichi's never met a blond before, but he's heard lots of stories. Yamato just wants a peaceful trip with the brother he hasn't seen in too long. Neither one of them is going to get exactly what they expect, but they just might one day end up with what they need.

Things changing didn't really get under Yamato's skin all that much. He'd seen it happen before. He'd seen it happen so many times that he did his level best just to roll with it all. He couldn't stop any of them happening so he didn't even bother to try.

So, having this weird little football with a spike on its head telling him that they were partners and this was the Digital World didn't even bother him for more than the initial few seconds. They'd gone to another universe through a tidal wave. Whatever. He needed to find Takeru and then they could start working on finding a way home.

Finding Takeru wasn't that difficult, since he ended up being only one little clearing away from where Yamato himself woke up, and he had one of those little creatures – Digimon – watching over him too.

Finding a way home was difficult and it wasn't made any easier by Yagami Taichi's existence.

Ever since they'd met first in the cabin at the camp, Taichi got underneath Yamato's skin more than anything had in a long, long time. The way that he stared at Yamato – especially his hair – wasn't all that unusual, as much as it irked him anyway. Being one of the very few blonds in school meant he got looks like that more than he didn't.

But something in Taichi's expression made him shift and want to look somewhere else even more than he usually did. Taichi's large brown eyes were ones that he thought he could get lost in. He kept himself from even trying, though. He had Takeru to take care of. He didn't have time to make friends. He didn't even want to even if he'd had the time.

That didn't stop Taichi from living almost entirely within Yamato's sphere of awareness, as much as Yamato would've wanted otherwise. They slept in the same cabin, only one bed apart, and Yamato mastered the art of pretending to be asleep when he really lay there listening to Taichi grumbling and tossing and turning and longed to find some sort of large mallet to use to whack the guy into sleep.

He'd heard Taichi complaining to Takenouchi Sora that 'some people' couldn't even be bothered to come watch soccer games. He focused all of his attention on his meals and didn't let on that he watched at least a few of them and knew very well how good Taichi was. He just had to make sure Takeru didn't try to get involved in them. His brother wasn't in any shape to play around with kids three years older than he was.

But soccer games and faking sleep weren't on the schedule at the moment. Finding a way from the Digital World to home kept up all of their time, even when everything began to look more and more as if there wouldn't be a way home any time soon.

That did leave something Yamato wasn't always certain that he wanted: time to get to know the people he was trapped here with.

Most of them weren't all that bad. He thought he could get along with Sora, at least, and Jou wasn't always wrong with being nervous and cautious. He wasn't sure what to think about Koushirou or Mimi. He didn't want Takeru there at all, but if his brother had to be, at least he was there to take care of him.

But then there was Taichi. Taichi, whose existence shimmered in a way that Yamato hadn't ever been able to block out no matter how hard he tried. Taichi, who didn't ever even think about thinking about anything but went with whatever decision jumped into the forefront of his mind, practically grinning the whole time.

I don't know if I want to smack him or just sit back with popcorn. They had to stick together to get through this, a fact that grew more and more obvious the longer they were there. They weren't much of a team, but they were the only ones they had here, they and their Digimon.

He knew Taichi liked to hear him play his harmonica. That little tidbit had been hard to miss, given how the other watched him play that first night in the Digital World. Yamato didn't play very often where other people could hear him in the first place.

The only exception he ever made was for Takeru, like on the bus down to the campsite. Takeru asked him to do it then, more than a bit uncomfortable with so many strangers around, and Yamato couldn't have resisted.

Here it gave him something to do and a way to vent out everything he didn't want anyone else knowing. Taichi never said a word about what he thought about what he heard. He just listened.

So one or two nights, when he knew Taichi was awake and no one else but Takeru might be, Yamato slipped just enough away from camp so it looked as if he were trying to be alone without actually being so, and gave Taichi small private concerts. He found he liked having someone listen who just listened and enjoyed it.

It wasn't so easy to do after Devimon stuck his nose into things, sending them scattered all over the place. That was the first smack in the face for them all to realize that this wasn't just a quick trip to some weird world where they'd be home with fabulous stories to tell.

This could cost them their lives. It did cost Angemon's life, and Yamato hated anything that would bring his brother the slightest bit of pain. Takeru wasn't ready for that. He hadn't ever been.

But Yamato couldn't stop it from happening and that struck a blow deep within him. He couldn't protest Takeru from everything, no matter how hard he tried.

The fact Taichi seemed to understand and accept this better than he did sent thick spurts of acid-green jealousy coursing through his veins. He didn't want this to happen. He was the older brother here. From the conversations around the campfire, most of them were either only children or younger siblings. Only Taichi had a little sister.

Only Taichi, of all their team, could make Yamato so angry that he stopped thinking at all and just wanted to pound the guy's face in until there wasn't anything left of it and in the next moment do something that made Yamato never want to let him out of his sight again.

How can one person do that to me? He'd never felt like that about anyone before. He had no idea of what to do about it now that Taichi had. Never going near him again wasn't an option. Not only would they probably all die if they separated like that, but the thought of never seeing Taichi again as long as he lived sent something worse than jealousy all through him.

Yamato didn't know what to call it but he kind of wished he knew more about it, just to know if it was something he really wanted to feel.

The deepest parts of his brain, the part that had only slowly begun to stir in the last few months, told him he wanted to feel this and other things but Yamato refused to even listen to them. What did they know? This was Yagami Taichi, not some girl!

Those parts of his brain merely gave an amused chuckle and continued to stir from their sleep anytime Yamato could spare the time to notice anything new and interesting, or familiar and enticing, about Taichi.

And then there was the time when he thought he might not see Taichi ever again, and it had nothing to do with arguments between them or the slow stir of emotions he hadn't yet put a name to.

How dare Taichi do this. How could he have even thought about it? Granted, from the last couple of months spent almost entirely in his company, Yamato knew that Taichi and thinking things through at best nodded acknowledgment to one another from across a crowded street, but where had he gone? Was he ever going to come back here?

Were they going to find a way to do what he did? Had he gone home? Or had he just been thrown somewhere else in this confusing world?

Yamato tried hard not to let anyone else see what coursed through his mind. They all worried about Taichi and Agumon but Yamato refused to let anyone know how much his thoughts lingered on Taichi. Those ridiculous brown eyes, filled with unmatched determination. That hair, that rat's nest of hair, tangled and dirty more than it wasn't, almost to the point Yamato wanted to drag him to the nearest river whenever they came by one and scrub it until he was satisfied. The feel of Taichi's callused hands, that handful of times when they'd touched one another.

He didn't need to think about all of that, but he did anyway, until he could stand it no longer, and he decided it was time to go search for where their so-called leader might be. Taichi, he decided as he trudged his way along, needed a firm lesson in how not to fly off into strange portals and not learn how to at least give a forwarding address.

Yamato had lost people in his life before, and come close to losing others – Takeru – others. He wasn't going to let Taichi join that list.

That would've been a lot easier if he'd had any idea of how to make sure Taichi didn't. Unfortunately, life failed to come with an instruction manual and the Digital World hadn't corrected that.

But some things remained the same no matter the world and that meant only one thing: when Taichi did show up again, it was at the worst possible time and as much as Yamato wanted to shake him from head to toe and tell him never to do that kind of thing again, he couldn't actually do it.

He thought about punching him out but that wasn't on the agenda, either. But Yamato put it on his mental list to do when he got the chance. Yagami Taichi was the kind of guy who needed to get punched out or some sense punched into him – Yamato wasn't all that particular on which it was, so long as he was the one who did it, because other people just were not allowed to hurt taichi. That was a pleasure and a duty that Yamato reserved for himself.

It was also something he didn't let Taichi know, because Taichi would just get all weird about it and as far as Yamato concerned, their lives had topped ten thousand on the scale of weirdness and he didn't want anything else to tip things one way or the other.

As if I knew what one way or the other was. And which way I'd want it if it did, Yamato groused to himself. Thinking about Taichi and all the millions of ways everything could and did go wrong in their lives occupied many a moment when he had nothing else to do. He wasn't sure either if he liked those times. For one, he got in a lot of time thinking about Taichi, when he wasn't fretting about himself and Takeru and the fate of the worlds they had to protect and the enemies they had to fight.

Which tended to lead him right back around to Taichi and how he was such an idiot.

Yamato figured out years ago that life wasn't fair. This just made it all the more certain.

Though despite how much he found himself annoyed because his thoughts drifted back to Taichi, like it or not, he disliked – liked – looked forward to – hated – didn't know what to think about the times when they stood awake together, one on guard, the other not wanting to sleep – or whatever excuse whoever it was came up with this time. Sometimes they didn't bother and just sat awake together, watching the constellations that were growing more and more familiar spin over them.

"I think I want to call that one Miko," Taichi said, waving at one of them. Yamato tilted his head and stared upward, squinting.

"Why that?" It didn't look like anything that he would've called Miko.

"Because that's our cat and it looks like a cat to me from here."

Yamato rolled his eyes, tilted his head the other way, and shrugged. "If you say so." He didn't think it was worth arguing about. He'd rather just sit here and enjoy the silence and the warm feel of Gabumon half-dozing next to him, Takeru on the other side.

He made a mental note that his list did not include Taichi, of course. Why would it have? Just because they spent at least an hour or so every night like this didn't mean anything. He didn't anticipate it. Didn't find it one of the more relaxing times of the day. Didn't enjoy it far more than he had before Taichi vanished and he'd spent months with a cold empty place inside and outside of himself.

"You know, I'm going to smack you one day," he said, half-drowsing – or at least he told himself that. "For going off like that after Etemon."

"That wasn't my idea!" Taichi protested. "Besides, if you smack me, I'd just smack you back."

Yamato smothered a yawn. "Sure you would." He still kind of owed Taichi for that fight they'd had way back when, in the snow. That hadn't been fair at all. Yamato knew perfectly well he could beat Taichi any time he wanted to, so long as he wasn't distraced by Takeru not being around.

Taichi made a noise Yamato couldn't understand and decided not to worry about. It sounded sort of like 'any time you want' but Yamato didn't think now was a good time. He liked the quiet too much.

Yamato didn't notice when his eyes began to slide shut, the sneaking fingers of sleep slowly folding around him.

He did, however, notice the moment when Taichi's hand touched his own and stayed like that. Neither of them said anything. Yamato had no idea of what he should say in the first place.

So he moved his fingers enough so that he held Taichi's hand back and tingled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. One single question managed to work its way out of his mouth.

"Have you ever had a haircut in your entire life? Because if not, I know some people. They'd be glad to help you tame the beast."

"Why am I friends with you again?"

"We're friends?" Yamato teased him. "No one told me that."

But their hands didn't move, and Yamato ignored Taichi's grumbling in favor of that warm touch, and he let the future take care of itself.

The End

Note: Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the chapter. Please let me know what you thought of it if at all possible.