Daring Dates Night
✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS
FANDOM: Digimon Adventure 01/02/Tri
RATING: General Audiences.
WORDCOUNT: 2 615 words
PAIRING(S): Taiyama
CHARACTER(S): Taichi Kamiya & Yamato Ishida, with background cameos from Sora, Mimi, Koushiro and Miyako.
GENRE: Not-quite-first-date.
TRIGGER WARNING(S): Technically a teacher and students on a date. They’re the same age, though, and nothing really happens in the fic.
SUMMARY: Technically, Yamato came here to support Sora. Technically, this isn’t even a real date. Practically, Yamato may or may not be about to die. In a good way.
NOTE: Inspired by a friend’s story. You know who you are ;)
DIGIOTPWEEK 2017: [Day 1: Coffeeshop AU] [Day 2: Fantasy AU]
[Read on AO3]
“Oh. I didn’t realize they’d be providing a script,” Yamato mutters, half to himself, when he notices the laminated list of prompters, “this is just weird.”
Somewhere in his peripheral vision, he thinks he sees Taichi’s expression turn confused, then amused, like he’s said something funny. Yamato decides to apply caution and pretend to look at the list so he doesn’t have to look up just now. they’ve only just sat down, after all, it’d be nice if he could wait at least five minutes into this charade before he embarrasses himself.
Besides, the questions truly are ridiculously ordinary, considering. What’s your favorite color, what’s the last movie you watched and what did you think of it, do you tend to prefer cats or dogs…honestly the basics of any first date conversation as far as Yamato is concerned.
Well. As far as he’s concerned now.
There was a time, not that long ago, when he’d have spontaneously combusted just thinking about asking those questions on a first date. He’d probably have caught fire, or at least come to a nice simmer, just thinking of opening his mouth on a date, actually, but then he went to study abroad and, well. He had no choice but to adapt.
“I think they’re just trying to help,” Taichi says quietly, cheeks coloring as he pulls his chair up to the table.
His hair is as bushy as Yamato’s ever seen him, pose much stiffer than it is in the classroom, and he doesn’t seem quite sure whether he wants to stare down at his hand, joined on the dark wood, or look at Yamato’s face. Honestly, Yamato is in favor of the former. It’d make the whole thing easier.
He only signed up for Sincerely yours’ Daring Dates Night event as a joke, really. Well, alright, he let Sora drag him into it because she’s got a massive crush on the owner and needed a sounding board in case either her anxiety got in the way, or she forgot not to mix alcohol with her meds again. They’ve been friends long enough, and she’s done him enough solids, for him to owe him that, after all.
He could have just gone to the bar and stayed away from the main event, of course, but he figured, since he’d be there anyway, it was as good an occasion as any to practice acting like a normal human being in unexpected situations. He just forgot he was in Tokyo, after dating two French men. Compared to the average Japanese man on the first date, French people are mostly walking embodiments of over-sharing.
He hasn’t decided whether having one of the most outspoken Japanese person of any gender he’s ever met in front of him right now is more of a blessing or a curse.
“I’m surprised you seem so at ease with the concept,” he says after a pause, loosely clasping his hands in front of him until he can relax his shoulders, “these aren’t exactly first-date levels of questioning here, are they?”
If they are, things here changed a lot faster than he’d thought they would.
Taichi shakes his head though, blush creeping up into his ears, and Yamato has to make a conscious effort not to smile. They always do that when he’s caught in what he thinks is a wrong answer, which is both adorable and a threat to Yamato’s well being as a whole. At least here the lights are dimmed, meaning his won blush shouldn’t be quite as noticeable as it probably is in class.
Fuck, he really hopes it doesn’t show too much.
“Possibly,” Taichi admits with a shrug and an almost-steady voice, “but I knew what I signed for, so I wouldn’t be terribly offended if the conversation went deeper than that.”
Yamato’s guts contract, like some invisible hand tried to squeeze them dry and gave up right away, and he feels heat prickling at his armpits and the back of his neck at the words. Fuck. This is too fast. He’s met people who were a lot more direct, of course, ranging from guys in gay bars who were just looking for a quick fuck, to that one thirty-something woman who propositioned him when he was, what, fourteen?
This, however, is a guy who is being both respectful and daring, all things considered. Yamato wouldn’t be indifferent to that even if he didn’t already have a soft spot for him.
Still. He needs to slow things down before he loses it completely, so he decides to flip the tables:
“You’re my student,” he says, clinging to his stern voice like his life depends on it, “if people from the Institute see us together, they’ll disapprove.”
It doesn’t matter that they’re only a few months apart in age: Yamato’s authority on Taichi’s life as a French student remains the same. True, this is only a joke date, a challenge for the more daring residents of the neighborhood more than an actual promise to help anyone’s love life, but still. People could get the wrong idea, and if Yamato is going to brave that, he needs to know that the two of them are more or less on the same page.
That and, as expected, just stating this sends Taichi back to staring at his hands, ears redder than ever as he clears his throat in embarrassment.
Yamato uses the following silence to order himself a cocktail and sip on his glass of water, all his attention set on not letting his hand shiver. He has no illusions as to how at ease he’ll be tonight, but that doesn’t mean he’s gonna show, thank you very much.
Eventually, Taichi breaks the silence:
“So, uh…what do you do for a living?”
“I’m an astronaut.”
Taichi gapes a little at the response, possibly also the tone, and Yamato feels his fingers tighten as he processes just what he’s done. Oh, this is off to such a great start-he’d really have been better off with a stranger. At least, when he glances at the bar, Sora seems to have much better luck with the perky woman who welcomed the crowd to her bar. The evening won’t be a complete disaster for everyone.
Taichi’s grown at least three shades redder by the time Yamato looks back, yes darting this way and that, all but squirming in his seat, and Yamato has to bury his face in his hands for a second before he gathers the nerves to say:
“I’m sorry. I have a problem with sarcasm. Plus, you already know what my job is.”
“I know, I know, it’s just-I don’t want to pretend like I’m at work,” Taichi replies with a well controlled stammer while Yamato tries to remember what his job is.
Oh, right. Journalist.
“Would you please agree to pretend we don’t know each other?”
“…okay.”
This is far from the weirdest thing Yamato’s heard on a first date, and at least it’s not a creepy request. Just an odd one. It’ll take a bit of effort not to look for the goof he knows hides under the current shyness, but he can probably manage. He just needs to pretend this is like any other date.
The good point about it, of course, is that he doesn’t feel quite as pressured to pretend he’s completely sure of himself anymore, and he doesn’t feel too much regret when he crosses his legs under the table and clasps his hands a little tighter in front of him.
Ah, yes. Much safer.
“So,” Taichi repeats, sounding a little more at ease now, “what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a teacher for the French institute in Shinjuku,” Yamato replies, hating the sudden moisture between his palms, the heat in his neck and the quickening of his heart that don’t have enough to do with how silly this setup is, “I give French and Japanese lessons. I’ve been living here for nine months.”
Yamato gives himself a mental slap in the forehead when he realizes he’s slipped back into his teaching voice, providing informations he only introduces himself with when he’s trying to get a student to talk. Come on. This isn’t a real date, but he could at least try to pretend as much properly, if only for the sake of not regretting anything.
“But in class you said-oh, sorry! I’m sorry-and here I’m the one who said-argh. Sorry.”
If asked, Yamato will say that the way Taichi lets his head fall on the table with a dull bump-startling the waitress trying to serve their drinks-was just too cute for him to repress his amused chuckle. He’s pretty sure he’d have smiled at that even at the lowest point of his depression.
Well, okay, maybe not then, but pretty close.
Point is, if Yamato looks silly, it’s entirely Taichi’s fault.
“I was born in Tokyo,” he says just to get the poor guy out of his misery, trying not to notice when his hands unclench, “when I got the job insisted I should come early and spend some time with them before I started working…eventually, I ran out of excuses.”
Taichi turns his head until it’s his cheek, rather than his forehead, that’s plastered on the varnished wood, and gives Yamato a disarmingly intense look that has him scrambling to refocus on the jazzy background music. It usually helps when he’s feeling a little too shy about something.
Not tonight.
“What?” He asks when he realizes he can either break the silence or start panicking, “what did I say?”
“You’re just so-direct. All the time. How are you not too embarrassed to do that?”
“I’ve lived in France for six years,” Yamato retorts, crossing his arms over his chest before he thinks better of it, “what’s your excuse?”
He’s turning red, he can feel it, the heat leaking from his neck to his throat too fast for comfort. He’s also really starting to question the wisdom of signing up for this event-he was never good at dating. In Japan, he’s too brash, too frank-too blond, too, although the drawbacks for that one can come wearing the face of blessings as far as others are concerned. In France, he’s too quiet, too reserved, too slow to get invested.
Not to mention, of course, the fact that his brain tries to sabotage him in both countries.
It makes a stunning effort in that direction when Taichi reddens again-stupid, stupid, stupid, his mind chants as he realizes he’s put his foot in his mouth again, probably ruined the evening or, at least, the easy atmosphere and he’ll be lucky if that doesn’t bleed into their classroom interactions-and then Taichi laughs.
It’s too loud for the quiet bar, would be too loud even in Paris, and a handful of patrons turn their heads in way that makes Yamato wonder if he should, perhaps, hightail it out of here.
Then again, if he were truly smart, he’d have done just that the second he realized Taichi got his number at the assignment lottery. At the very least, he’d pretend he only stayed because surprised paralyzed him too long to make a polite exit.
He’s never been a very good liar.
“My sister says I got swindled out of an appropriate bone at birth,” Taichi hisses when he’s mostly recovered his breath, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “She’s probably not wrong.”
A pause while he sighs and sniffs, and then:
“I’m not so certain you can completely blame France for you being…you.”
“Je vois pas du tout de quoi tu parles.”
“Oi! No using French against me, it’s not fair!”
Yamato grins at that, too wide and too bright and much, much too hot at the corners, and lets himself relax a little. It’s possible he didn’t entirely ruin the night after all. It shouldn’t be that much of a relief but, really, who’s going to check?
He does still blush when Taichi looks away, face flushing red again, before he croaks:
“I think it’s time for the next question? You can ask it if you want.”
“Okay. Why did you decide to take French?”
Yamato knows, from several class conversations, that Taichi doesn’t interact with international news often enough to need English on a regular basis yet, never mind French. There has to be another motivation there.
Taichi turns crimson-Yamato worries-and literally squirms for a moment before he takes a deep breath in and admits:
“I thought having other reasons to get out of the house beside work might help with my depression. I think it’s depression. I’m not sure.”
Yamato couldn’t help it: his eyes went down to his hands the second the word ‘depression’ entered the conversation, but when he looks back up, Taichi practically looks purple, so he says:
“Yeah. That’s how I started learning piano.”
He started that something like five years ago, but the principles remain the same, and they float into slightly embarrassed but deeply commiserating silence for a moment, before sharing a smile over their respective drinks. Yamato’s cheeks keep getting warmer tonight, and the invisible hand is back around his guts, but he’s be lying outrageously if he even tried to pretend he regrets being here.
He could use a smoke, though, just to settle his nerves, and he makes a mental note to either get a pack or steal one from Sora when they get out, just before Taichi blurts out:
“May I confess something else while we’re being inappropriately open with each other?”
Yamato blinks at that but, really, what’s he going to do? Say no?
He nods.
“I didn’t really get your number during the lottery, Koushiro did.”
Yamato follows Taichi’s nod to a short redhead a couple of tables over, in deep conversation with a bespectacled girl who looks absolutely riveted with what he’s got to say.
“He’s an old friend, so when I noticed he’d gotten you as a partner, I asked him to trade numbers and, well. He said yes.”
Scratch that bit about stealing a cigarette from Sora. Yamato is definitely getting his own pack. Preferably the minute he steps out of this place. Actually, he’s half tempted to just up and leave to buy one right this second, just to make sure he’s not going to do something stupid like start shivering.
That’d be rude, though, and exactly opposed to the kind of message he wants to send, so he grabs his cocktail again, fire coursing all over his body, and downs the remaining half of the glass in one go.
“I have to leave,” he says as soon as his glass hits the table again, voice far less stable than he’d like, “this is getting-I don’t date students.”
“Oh,” Taichi says, almost late in his surprise, “right, of course, I-”
“Ask me again after the exams.”.
Taichi’s face goes through several complicated expressions, including one that mostly just makes him look constipated, before he asks:
“What?”
Yamato is fairly sure the guy is trying to confirm he’s not dreaming awake.
It’s adorable, and flattering, and Yamato really, really needs to leave now.
“The exams,” he says, covering his nerves with purposeful sarcasm, “for the end of classes? They’re in two weeks, you should probably try and remember.”
“Right,” Taichi agrees, mouth widening into a blinding grin, “in two weeks. You got it.”
Yamato leaves money for his drink on the table before he beats a hasty retreat to the exit, fairly sure he sees Taichi flashing his friend a thumb up from the corner of his eyes.
.