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Exposure	By : libek Category: Digimon > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 8493 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon: Digital Monsters, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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DISCLAIMER: Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02 do not belong to me. They are the property of Toei Animation. To the author's knowledge, no profit has been generated in the writing or transmission of this fanfic. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Here's one of my two lemon fics that I had to remove from FF.Net. It's really rather old, so I'm a little embarrassed about the writing style and everything. But eventually I'll be uploading newer stories -- I've got another taito PWP in mind and a more lengthy yamaken/kenato. As for this story...the whole thing is slightly inaccurate use use I wrote it before seeing the infamous Episode 50 -- so it moves from taiora to taito instead of moving from sorato to taito. (Really, didn't that just come out of left field?) At any rate, with that in mind, Exposure is still meant to be set a few years after 02; Yamato and Taichi are in their late teens. The lemony bit doesn't come until the third chapter, I'm afraid. Everything else should be self-explanatory...

Exposure

Prologue: Face

by Libek

It was a grey afternoon, bleeding into powdery blue skies as the storm picked up and headed
further west. He hadn't bothered with an umbrella because spring was filled with this kind of
rain: the clouds think about brewing and the air smells sweet but then they disperse in a hurry,
as though suddenly remembering an important meeting somewhere else. As a result, the blond was
slick to the touch and dripping, garnering odd glances from passersby who noticed the hood on
his navy blue jacket and the raincoat under his arm -- passersby who wondered why he'd let himself get soaked through and through. Yamato smiled a little; they didn't know anything.

  He turned on a hairpin, abandoning the city streets for a drugstore's interior. All
he wanted from it was a pack of bubble gum, cigarettes for his father, if they'd let him, and a
particular issue of shounen manga. He was making a collection for Taichi's upcoming birthday and
this was the release date. With any luck at all...

  They didn't have it, and there were twenty other people already in line, which made
it hard to discern the shoppers in the aisle from the decided and impatient. Yamato shrugged
indifferently; band practice was out and he didn't have any other plans today, so he wasn't in a
hurry -- he'd be fine just so long as everything sorted itself out by 6 PM, when his father would be expecting dinner. Besides, the line actually worked in his favor: The clerk was so exhausted and so NOT looking forward to serving the ten people after him that she didn't even
glance at his face when he asked for the cigarettes, only fumbling blindly behind her along the
shelf. If she had been paying more attention, if he hadn't slid his eyes away involuntarily as
he spoke the lie, Yamato never would have seen it.

  His breath caught in his throat; his heart took the rest of the day off; his hand
fell limp to his side; but just as quickly, everything started back up again and he made a grab
for the magazine, shoving it under the thick, bullet-proof glass, and made an attempt to work
his voice. "This, too, please."

  She snorted in disgust, mumbled something about petty indecisive customers who never
realized how they were draining the blood out of her day by day, and slammed the register shut
on his money with a crisp, "Have a nice day, Sir."

  If she didn't shape up her attitude, the clerk would be fired soon, but Yamato
didn't care as he walked, only semi-conscious, to the sliding automatic doors. He was staring at
his own image, glossed over and reflected on the cover of the magazine.

  Mavi had come to practice one day after being absent a week, and when questioned, he
explained in the most Mavi-like tones that he'd had a run-in with their fanbase. Yamato had
blinked in utter incomprehension. Aside from Motomiya Jun, who he didn't really count, he
hadn't thought they *had* a fanbase, but Mavi insisted that a group of girls had recognized him in the produce aisle and chased him out of the grocery store.

  Takashi laughed and said, "I didn't realize we were that unpopular," to which Mavi growled and snapped, "They were chasing me for an autograph, idiot!"

  When asked skeptically by Sekyou exactly what this had to do with skipping out on practice, the brunet had fiercely asserted that, in the confusion, he'd accidentally shoplifted a head of cabbage. The rent-a-cops watched their security footage, spotted the theft, and called his parents once he'd been identified, so his mother had grounded him for a week. He ended with the warning that they were starting to get popular now, and added that he certainly wasn't planning to appear in public au natural after the incident. Takashi poked him in the ribs and, in the most serious voice he could muster, offered the use of a large concealing trench coat and a pair of black sunglasses.

  Of course, Yamato had laughed right along with them; he had never seriously thought their little band would make the big-time. He was still going to university, wasn't he? And planning on becoming a veterinarian. Not the most glamorous job, no, but he'd developed a love of animals since the Digital World, especially dogs, and the pay was steady. It would put food on the table, and he could still work with music in his spare time.


His father certainly approved. The man had always considered music to be just another of his son's little flings with the unconventional, like the judo classes and ballet lessons. And, surprisingly enough, he was actually pleased to find that Yamato wouldn't be following in his footsteps. He despised his job at the television station and made no secret of it.


Memory's cold fingertips ran down the back of his neck and he wondered -- had he ever really entertained that childish dream of working at his precious daddy's side? The blond was mildly disturbed to realize that he didn't remember. Whatever, he knew better now. Following someone into a personal hell was not an expression of love unless you planned on getting them out of it. The only thing he could do for his father was to avoid making the same mistakes; find a career that he liked, one that he could devote his time to happily. And, as much as he would have loved for music to be that career, Yamato was too level-headed to put all of his money in that camp. Not like little Takeru, who was majoring in liberal arts and depressing their mother. But how can you ask the Keeper of Hope not to follow his dreams?


Yamato blinked, more than once, at the magazine's cover, thinking he must have imagined it. No, still a picture of him. Still glossed, wearing studio makeup, smiling in an embarrassingly flirtatious way at the camera. He hadn't realized he was making that kind of expression. Why hadn't they stopped him? Why the hell was it doing on the cover, anyway? They hadn't mentioned anything like that...


Had they?


With a wave of mortification, Yamato realized that he hadn't been actually present at the closing of the deal. Halfway through the deliberations, his stomach had started to complain. Having spent an entire day being photographed only to spend another two hours talking about it was a little too much. The woman going over their contract looked up at him with steely eyes and very slowly, very pointedly removed her glasses. "Would you like something to eat?"


He blushed, mumbled a reply that was, most likely, incoherent, and then went off to steal something from the vending machine. Having long, slender limbs was occasionally advantageous -- just not when he was trying to win an impromptu soccer match with Taichi.


"Hey, watch where you're going!" To match the voice, a roughened hand caught his upper arm and jerked him violently back onto the curb.


Yamato was startled, to say the least. He began to demand an explanation from the owner of the voice, then trailed off and took in his surroundings. He was at the crosswalk of a very busy-looking two-lane street. When had he left the commercial district? How far was he from the train station? Had he really just tried to walk right into the middle of traffic? The blond flushed, both at his inattention and his brief anger towards whomever had just saved his life, and turned to thank the person responsible...but stopped dead.


"Feeling suicidal, were we?" Taichi quipped gently. "What's so interesting?"


"I -- well -- you see --" he floundered uselessly, and then just handed over the magazine. Face still colored red, now a darker shade, and taking great interest in the broken asphalt.


"Shoujo-Bi? Since when do you read girly mags?"


"Look at the cover, Taichi."


"I have," the brunet started indignantly, and then his eyes almost popped out of his head. "Hey! That's you!"


"Not my best angle," Yamato returned, making an attempt at flippancy. His voice was shaking. He looked down at the sidewalk again.


Taichi frowned, probably wondering why he was being so flustered. Well, he could go ahead and wonder. It was all his fault, anyway.

  Not true. You should've told him when you had the chance. You've made your water bed -- now lie in it and stop complaining.

  He managed a smile and an excuse, both passable but not up to his usual standards. "I'm just a little surprised by it is all. I knew they were taking pictures -- I didn't know I'd find myself on the cover."

  Cooperating with the charade, Taichi's own expression warmed up a bit. "You're wearing makeup."

  "All models do."

  "You're not all models, Yama-chan."

  "Please...don't call me that."

  A blink. "Sorry."

  "Don't worry about it. So, how's your day been?"

  "Day?" Taichi laughed. "Why not ask about the whole week? Yamato," he stressed the syllables, "we haven't seen you all month."

  "Well, I wanted a short story," the blond replied, ignoring the more indirect question and shoving his hands into his pockets. The "we" was the problem. "How's Sora?"

  Taichi looked a bit confused. "Um, she's fine." He paused, ran his eyes over the other boy, and then extended a hand. "You were headed home?"

  "I am," Yamato agreed, emphasizing the present tense.

  "Well, why don't we take a detour and catch up a bit?"

  "Detour?"

  "There's a nice park a little ways from here... Come on, it'll give us a chance to talk. I've missed you, Yamato." Finally, he finished the handshake himself, seeing that Yamato was not going to oblige him. It could've been the blond's imagination, but he thought the squeezed felt a little harder than necessary.


Rather abruptly, it seemed like a nice day for a stroll in the park.

*   *   *

"So, how've you held up?"


"Under what, exactly?"


"The world, man."


Yamato glanced at him, and then smiled bemusedly. He didn't know how to answer that question, so instead he turned away and darted under the low-hanging branches of a sodden willow tree. The grass was just wet enough to sparkle, but from the way the tree moaned and creaked, you would've thought it bore the weight of an ongoing monsoon. The blond hugged his knees in the sudden darkness, and wondered idly for a moment if he'd misjudged Taichi -- whether or not the other boy would follow him. He never had been very good at leading.


Nevertheless, a shock of brown hair and the head that bore it poked their way under the heavy leaves. The accompanying mouth twisted into a broad, cheeky grin. "I'm sure this is bad for my back."


"Well, stop standing there all hunched over and come in."


Taichi laughed and, all at once, forced himself through the branches as though there had never been another option. He hesitated, taking in several dog-eared paperbacks, a small, rusted trash receptacle stowed in the trunk's lowest division, and the sandwich that Yamato had already dug out of a knothole. "You come here often, I take it?"


The blond smiled and shrugged. "I suppose it must look like it."


"Aren't you worried people will steal your stuff?"


"Hnnmphn."


"What?"


Yamato swallowed his mouthful and tried again. "They have stolen stuff. But the trash can isn't mine. I'm not the only one maintaining this little...shelter."


"And you're actually eating that thing?"


"May I take that to mean that you don't want a bite?"


"Gross."


"It's not gross! I made this yesterday! It's still good. Now, are you going to join me, or leave me in peace?"


Taichi grinned and shook his head, the mood of his actions seeming to indicate that he thought his friend was beyond help. Yamato grunted at the implication and gestured to the grass on his left.


"It's not that wet."


"Unlike you," the brunet replied, sitting down. "What happened?" he added, reaching out and touching the matted strands of yellow hair curiously.


Yamato slowed his chewing and closed his eyes, leaning back into the bark. "Got caught in the rain."


In seeming response, Taichi increased his attentions, combing with his finger tips and massaging the scalp lightly. Not fair, Yamato thought vaguely, of him to do this. It felt so nice, and his eyelids started to flutter involuntarily. Before he knew what he was doing, Taichi had pulled away in evident discomfort, looking at anything else.


With a jolt, he realized he'd sat up and lain back down rather forcefully against his friend's body. Face catching helpless fire, he scooted a ways to the right and coughed. "Sorry."


"S'okay. You never did answer my question."


"No doubt. Which one?"


"I asked how you'd been holding up. Sora and I have been worried."


A small, bitter part of Yamato wanted to retort that they could keep their worry, and pity, and whatever the hell else they might ever feel about him. He didn't want anything to do with Sora. Not now, not ever. "I've been okay."


Taichi sighed. "'Okay' is not an answer, Yamato. It's a delaying tactic. Look, we know you've been avoiding us and we want to know why!"


"You haven't exactly been going out of your way to find me."


"That's...beside the point."


"No." The blond's eyes were painfully clear. "That's exactly the point. What's changed, Taichi? Why do you suddenly care that I may as well have dropped off the face of the Earth?"


His friend didn't reply, or even attempt to. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then frowned. A long, awkward pause followed; Taichi shifting noisily every few seconds. "Mind if I read the article?"


"Huh?"


"The magazine article. They wouldn't have put your face on the cover without an article to back it up now, would they?"


"I...I guess not." It hadn't occurred to him before now. Yamato leafed through the magazine and hedged at the pin-up. Dear god, I'm never doing another photo shoot again.


"Then you're going nowhere fast in the entertainment business," was Taichi's retort, and he blinked, not having registered opening his own mouth, much less voicing his thoughts.


"It's just...embarrassing."


"Oh?" Dark eyes sparkling with interest, Taichi gently pried the ream of glossy paper out of his hands. He uttered a low whistle. "And here I thought Shoujo-Bi was aimed at the preteen segment."


"Yagami Taichi, you give that back..."


"Or else...what?"


To his great humiliation, Yamato was unable to come up with a sufficient threat. He only blushed a little darker and stared at the open pages, digging his fingers deeper into the material of his jacket with every second that Taichi spent simply gazing at the image. He made no further physical effort to prevent it until his companion began to carefully tear the pin-up out of the magazine's crease.


"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"


Taichi looked startled for an instant, ashamed -- but then it was gone, replaced by the standard cockeyed daredevil smirk. "I thought Sora'd get a kick out of it."


"You wouldn't dare --"


"She probably has a copy already, of course..."


The words rattled around in his brain, pinballs clinking into little slots and garnering points. She would, wouldn't she? He stared blankly for more than a minute, his heart pumping furiously, his lungs collapsing and trying desperately to suck some air out of his closed windpipe, but he just couldn't make himself breathe.


"Shit. Yamato?" By now, the Keeper of Courage had realized there was something wrong. He pounded his fist into the other boy's back, greatly relieved when the surprise forced him to take in a gasp of real oxygen, but he didn't completely relax until the color -- well, what little color Yamato normally possessed -- had returned to his cheeks. "What the fuck are you trying to do? Scare me out of five years of my life?"


"Sorry... Just, it hadn't hit me yet. What if Takeru sees it? Oh, god..."


"Yamato, Takeru's not a little kid anymore, and he knows what kind of work you're in. He'll be fine."


"How can he expect this? I didn't expect this!"


Taichi looked at him flatly. "I assume you were awake when they took this picture? What do you mean, you didn't expect this?"


"I...I don't know. The...photographer made it seem normal. I just ...I didn't realize... Taichi, we shot pictures for almost twelve hours straight. I honestly didn't know I'd ended up like that. I guess I thought..." He trailed off when he noticed that Taichi had resumed his meticulous tearing. "I thought we agreed she'd see it herself."


"Sure. She reads Shoujo-Bi, but I...I mean...uh..." The brunet flushed and stopped what he was doing, glancing over with more than a hint of panic in his expression.


Again, it seemed there was nothing he could say to that. Yamato narrowed his eyes, and leaned over to look at the article. "You said you wanted to read it?"


"Read...? Oh, yeah."


And, despite the oddly distracted reply, they did read the article. Then the next, and pretty soon, they'd devoured the entire magazine. They were looking over the letters column, reading some of the cheesy fanmail that the magazine had printed after its last expos�, when Yamato made what he thought was an innocent remark:

  "I suppose they'll have stuff like this about me in the next issue."

  At first, Taichi seemed as though he would laugh and agree, maybe offer a mocking remark on the subject -- but something in his eyes changed when he glanced up and all that mirth drained right out of him. His voice was soft, serious. "Like this?"

  "Yeah," the blond agreed, wondering what his friend's problem was.

  "This obsessive, 'oh my god, I want to marry him when I grow up' crap?"

  "I guess...."

  Taichi snorted derisively. "I'd kill them before they got within ten kilometers of you."

  "What?"

  "Well, what makes them think they have the right? I mean, none of these stupid little girls has ever even met you -- aside from Jun." He growled the name out and moved on before Yamato could so much as raise an eyebrow. "Laying claims on you, the little bitches. Voyeuristic pieces of..."

  "Taichi, don't you think you're being a little...harsh?" But inside, he was celebrating.

  "Harsh?!" the brunet demanded sharply, only coming back to himself at Yamato's wince. He blinked once, twice; and shrugged with casualness so forced it looked painful. "Maybe. Maybe you're right. It just...it makes me sick, Yama-chan, sick to my stomach."

  "Taichi, I asked you not to call me that." Yamato closed his eyes briefly. It...hurt to hear. There was no other way of describing the sensation, as weak as that particular word may have been.

  "Huh?"

  "'Yama-chan'. Please don't call me that."

  "Why not?" He smirked. "Too cutesy for your image, I suppose?"

  "No, it's not that," the blond assured before he'd had a chance to think it over. That would have been the perfect excuse. Just grin, say, "You got that right," and punch him in the arm gently -- but this would be another opportunity ignored. Moron.

  "Oh? Then why?"

  "Just...don't, okay?"

  Taichi looked as though he might have gotten his feelings hurt. "I like the nickname."

  "I do, too, it's just --" Shit, shit, shit. Dig the grave a little deeper, Yamato.

  "Just what?"

  Just another reminder of what I can't have.

  But he couldn't say that, now could he?

  "Sora might get jealous," he finished lamely.

  And then Taichi smiled faintly, reached out, and brushed his bangs out of his face. Had his voice given away that much? "That's not a problem anymore."


"Wha...what do you mean?"

  "Well...I lied earlier. Sure, Sora's fine, but...we broke up."

  Yamato blinked. I really should have my hearing checked, he thought. "You what?"

  "Yeah. We broke up. A few weeks ago."

  "Do...do you mind my asking why?"


"You, mostly."


Okay, now I know I imagined that. "Come again?"


Taichi smiled rakishly. "I shouldn't have just blurted it out like that, I suppose." Then he went back to tearing out the pin-up, and, while Yamato watched, blushing again, he folded it up neatly and stowed it away in his pocket.


"Taichi...this is going to sound weird, but I really think I misunderstood what you just said..."


"You're blushing, so I doubt it." He smiled wider, reached out, and ruffled Yamato's hair. Kissed him on the cheek. "You've always been so...easily flustered."


"Taichi..."


"Yes?"


"You're not real."


"...Excuse me?"


Yamato was trembling now. "You're not real. This has happened a million times before. In about five seconds, I'm going to wake up and then I'm going to cry. Then I'll curse you for an hour or so, get dressed, and go to school. I'll see you and Sora sitting together in English, trading notes like always, and then --"


He was cut off by a clean, unexpected backhand. "That hurt, didn't it?"


"Yeah..." The blond rubbed his face and looked up at Taichi accusingly. "Why are you being such a prick?"


"Prick?" Taichi laughed. "I thought you were supposed to slap someone around when he thought he was dreaming."


"Pinch, Taichi. You're supposed to pinch him."


"Hn. Don't mind if I do."

  Without further warning -- as though, where Taichi was concerned, any further warning was needed -- Yamato felt a questing hand grab a little bit of his ass: pinching it as requested between finger and thumb. "Hey!"

  "Oh, now what? You're just full of complaints!"

  "Shut-up, Taichi."

  The smirk again. "Only if I can shut you up, as well."

  Yamato colored once more and averted his gaze. "How long have you had me figured out, Yagami?"

  "Oh, that question."

  "Yes, that question. How long?"

  "Actually, Sora noticed it first."

  The blond shrank away in horror. It was hard to imagine a person he would have preferred less to know about his more-than-a-crush. "She did?"

  "She did. And no, she didn't notice you looking at me. She noticed me looking at you."

  "What?" Now he felt really stupid. He hadn't realized Taichi had done any looking.

  "You were probably focusing too hard on not flirting with me to notice me flirting with you, naa?"

  "Fl - flirting?"

  Taichi snorted derisively. "You say that like it's a dirty word,
Yama-chan." He paused, waiting for an objection that never came, and smiled contentedly.

  Yamato thought he would surely melt.

  "At any rate, she saw it, and it set off one hell of a fight. All of which eventually came down to her being mad at me for not looking at her like that and me trying to find an excuse for looking at you like that, and before you know it -- I'm out of her room, anything I happened to have left there in my arms, with a direct order to go find you."

  "...I thought you said you broke up with her a few weeks ago?"

  A sheepish smile now. "I did."

  "It's taken you this long to come talk to me?"

  "...Actually, it's taken me this long to convince myself that you liked me, too."

  Yamato shifted a little, uncertainly. The hairs on the back of his neck were rising up and his skin tingled. He stared at the little beads of water as they played tag over strands of endless green, and then let his gaze wander up into the branches of the willow tree itself.

  The little trash can fell out of the tree without warning and konked him soundly on the head, as if to say, "Get on with it, fool!"

  "Ow!"

  "Yama-chan! Are you okay?"

  "Yeah... Vindictive little thing, though."

  "The trash can?"

  "What else would I be talking about?"

  Taichi just gazed levelly at him. "You should see a psychiatrist about that. Thinking the whole world is out to get you. It's probably some kind of complex."

  "Ha. The world needs less shrinks and more love."

  "Love, huh?"

  He blushed again, reaching his mandatory quota for the day, and then nodded, not sure exactly what he was prompting from his...friend, but knowing he was prompting something. Another kiss, somewhat more on the mouth this time. Yamato, not being a romantic, hadn't expected anything from much from his first kiss, and he certainly hadn't expected the overwhelming feeling of...rightness that followed. He wondered then, whether all kisses felt this way, or whether it was just that one special person...

  But, with any luck at all, he'd never have to find out.

To be continued...
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Exposure