Chapter Text
Mornings in the Yagami household started with breakfast and both siblings fighting over the shower. Nevertheless, a phone ringing at 6 a.m. changed the lives of everyone in the house forever. Inside the second room of the little apartment, the elder sibling Yagami Taichi slept peacefully. Shortly after the phone call, the brunet’s mother entered the room; she had tears in her eyes and some sad news to tell; she satin the bed by his son and woke him up. “Taichi, darling, please wake up,” she said, moving the shoulder of the sleeping brunet softly. Lazily he opened his eyes, and when he was about to talk back to his mother, he saw her sad face and the tears that rested in her cheeks; he sat down in the bed and hugged his mother tight to his chest. “Mom, what’s wrong?” Miyako couldn’t talk at all, and tears streamed down her face again. “Listen, Hiroaki called here because…” Taichi didn’t let her finish. “Mom tell me what happened to Yamato?” his mother’s whimpers made him uneasy. Every single one of his muscles tensed under the sound of her weeping. “Taichi, please just…” Then again, he interrupted his mother. “Mom is there something wrong with Yama?” he was on the verge of a panic attack; her mother finally looked at him in the eyes. “Taichi, Yamato committed suicide” time stopped as well as his heart. He felt his voice trapped, he wanted to shout, but the only sound that came out of his mouth was a high-pitched ‘what’ that sounded like a cry.
His mother started to explain him the situation. Still, he stopped hearing at some point; the only phrase that his brain listened to was ‘Yamato committed suicide’ his heart ached with the thought of his friend’s death; it was impossible, not his best friend, not the person he promised to always be by his side, not him. He jumped off the bed, ran to the front door, and put his old sneakers on. He heard his mother shouting in the distance, trying to stop him, but it was too late; he was running to the Ishida household. While he was running, he felt his lungs burning with the cold morning air, his legs faltered, and stumbled from time to time though managed to continue running, the itchiness in his eyes didn’t stop as well as his tears, and the pain that he felt deep in his heart could kill him at any moment. When he reached his friend’s home, he saw the paramedics lowering the gurney down the building stairs; he felt that his world crumbled down to the sight of the black body bag loaded on the stretcher. The police and a concerned Hiroaki followed the paramedic team; he wanted to get close, but he knew it was off-limits until the police officers were gone. He saw how the stretcher was loaded to the back of the ambulance, and his heart ached even more if it was possible. A few minutes passed, and both sirens wailed away in the depths of the city, he finally got close to Hiroaki, they saw each other with dry tears in their cheeks and without saying anything they hugged tightly under the lamppost of the street with cold air chilling down their spines.
Taichi helped Mr. Ishida up to his apartment again, the older one did not dare to enter his son's last home alone. Once inside, Hiroaki went to his room to get his clothes changed, he was going to the funeral home, and his smelly work clothes weren’t t an option to receive his son. The younger boy was left in the living room alone, and his sight quickly rushed to the bathroom door. It was cordoned off with yellow tape, there was where the accident had occurred. He looked away to his best friend’s entry, and instantaneously he ran into the room. Inside, everything seemed familiar, Yamato’s bass was sitting near his bed, his harmonica resting on the night table, there were dirty clothes everywhere, and their childhood photo was hanging in the wall close to his closet. Everything was normal except for his friend’s absence, standing there in the middle of the lonely room, he started to feel anxious; he began to feel Yamato’s death as a real thing, his eyes felt itchy again, and the void in his heart grew. He couldn’t take it anymore, he ran, he ran again, he thought he was running for his life though, he was trying to reach his home. His brain and eyes told him Yama was dead, but his broken heart told him it wasn’t real, that everything was just a nightmare.
He arrived home and standing at the front door, and he saw his parents and his sister; everyone was wide awake. His mother saw him first he was crying unmovable in the middle of the living room, three pairs of arms reached him and started hugging him, trying to give some comfort; however, Taichi felt shallow and didn’t hug back his family, Susumu was the first one to talk "Hey son, Hiroaki called again he told us that the service in the funeral home is at 8 in the evening please be ready” Taichi pulled back from his family and nodded to his father’s request while walking to his room. He lay down in his bed, even though it was early he felt so tired, he was thinking of Yamato when he started dozing off, and after some minutes finally, he fell asleep again.
It was 2 in the afternoon when his mother entered his room again; she woke him up softly and told him to go to the kitchen to get breakfast. He stood up from the bed, convincing himself that every single one of the events from the morning were cruel nightmares. Brushing those thoughts away and with a smile, he walked to the kitchen and took out the ingredients to make waffles, his mother, with a confused look on her face, asked his son, “Taichi, what are you doing babe? With a big smile, he answered, “You know, mom, it’s Friday. Yama comes every Friday to eat breakfast with us, I’m making waffles, and surely he is bringing a tub of vanilla ice cream. He is so pretentious. Still, I like the taste of that weird mix we made when we were kids. Anyway, I’m sure he is running late because last week we ate the one that was in our freezer, probably he is in the store buying more, he will be here anytime soon” Concerned, his mother stood up and hugged him. “Babe, you do remember what happened this morning? Do you?” His gaze went up, and his mother saw in the eyes of his sixteen-year-old son the innocence of a four-year-old “mom, what do you mean?” Taichi wasn’t dealing well with death. He was in shock. His mother sighed and said, “Chi, babe, look at me” His gaze traveled from the floor to his mother’s eyes again. “Yama isn’t with us anymore; he died last night.”Before he could reply, his memories of that tragic morning invaded his mind; those images he saw as nightmares were real. There was no going back. It was until then when he realized the stinging of his puffy eyes, the stabbing pain in his legs, and how they trembled, the burning in the back of his throat and the great emptiness of his heart. His legs faltered again, and the truth fell in his back like unstoppable rain. His best friend was gone, Yamato was dead, Tai would never speak to him again, he would never hear him laugh again, he would never see his smile again, he could never apologize to him, he could never say goodbye to the person he loved the most. Those eyes went teary again, and he felt like something heavy was crushing him to the ground, he fell to the floor, worried his mother rushed to help him stand up, but his strength went away like a whisper in the night. Mother tried to comfort him, even if it was in vain. He didn’t move at all for half an hour until he looked at the clock. It was 2:37 in the afternoon he needed to get ready for the funeral ceremony, with the little strength that remained in his muscles, he stood up and walked to the bathroom. He locked the small slip door and cried to the fact that his friend was gone, and probably it was his fault.