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The knocking is loud and pulsing and will not give up already.
Yamato rolls himself out of bed, throwing a robe over his shoulders and trying to tuck his uncoordinated arms into sleeves as he strides toward his front door. “I am up and I am coming, okay. If you would just stop-” He wrenches the door open. “oh.” For a second all Yamato can do is blink before he blurts out, “Yagami?” Shaking his head and readjusting to say, “Hikari?”
Hikari's eyes are wide and with just the faintest wet sheen that already has Yamato on edge, his woman crying mode tingling, now staring down at him as she points and says, “You're in your underwear.”
God, he is, isn't he.
Yamato has just got up. He'd played a gig last night, had more than he should have had to drink afterwards and is seriously regretting just how much Hikari can pound on a door as hard and as insistently as her brother. Hastily, he shoves the robe to cover up his bits, not that anything is showing but Hikari is staring at his legs now in a valiant effort to not stare just that little bit higher.
Once sorted, Yamato coughs and modesty covered back up, she looks at him. “Is Takeru in?”
Yamato slides the door the rest of the way open and Hikari steps inside, clutching her bag beside her.
“Takeru!” He will kill his brother for this later. Takeru Takaishi can sleep through the apocalypse but there is nothing like the revenge of an older, sleep deprived, maybe slightly hungover brother. He moves to Takeru's door and bangs on it three times with no answer.
“Take-ru!” He opens the door to a slightly dishevelled but otherwise empty bed. Pens and notebooks and what looks like a late night snack of some kind tided away into the corner. If he's eaten whatever is half decent left in the house, it's another reason to kill him.
“Oh,” Hikari says from behind him, a worrying tremor to the word as Yamato turns around to face her. She's still clutching her bag like a life line, shoulders now falling in on themselves, a definite hitch in her breathing.
“Should I...” Yamato comes up empty. Hikari is staring at him expectantly and Yamato has flashbacks to that little eight-year-old girl that Taichi had left him in charge of what seems like a lifetime and whole other world ago. God, back then he'd had no clue what to do either. “Hikari?”
“It's fine,” Hikari sniffs, hand curling up and around her nose. A definite sign if ever there was one that tears are forthcoming. Yamato is not panicking. His heart's just beating that little bit faster.
“Listen-”
Despite his reputation for being one with the ladies. (He can hear the distant sound of Taichi and Takeru laughing uncontrollably. Oh, and there's his dad to join in on the merriment.) Yamato Ishida is really a big fat fraud that just allows the rumours and whispers about him to persist and spread like wildfire. The only girl he's ever cared that much about is Sora, and look at how well that relationship turned out, or didn't. Not that they aren't still on really good speaking terms, the two of them can hardly not be friends after all that they've been through, but it was hardly the love affair of the century.
Mimi still looks at him out of the corner of her eye as if to say, god, if only the rest of the world knew what I knew, Ishida. Never mind Sora saying that it's just his paranoia. Girls talk. He knows it happens.
“Would you uh, like a glass of water?” Smooth, Ishida. Real smooth. Don't ever tell Takeru, but Yamato one hundred percent blames his lack of being able to function properly with the opposite sex on their mother. Hiroaki would undoubtedly agree and probably chime in that she does that sort of thing for a living. There's no love loss in their family.
Hikari looks up at him and there's a curious mixture of a smile that's trying to break through and heartbreak written all over her. “Sure,” she says and follows Yamato through into the kitchen. He grabs two glasses from the cabinet and then pours them both a drink. Hikari takes a seat at the kitchen table as Yamato moves over to the fridge and spots Takeru's neat and printed scrawl informing him that he's gone to Ichijouji's and will be back later.
Crap, no time soon then.
Hikari sips at her water, face less of the splotchy red variety and on the verge of a breakdown, and now back to its normal colour. “So Takeru's at Ken's.” Yamato tells her. “Would you like me to call Taichi for you?”
She nearly spits out her water. “No, he'll only make things a thousand times worse.” She clutches her hand to her head as if there's the beginning of a headache.
Yamato pulls a chair out to sit down beside her. “With those clod hopper, think later, act first, boots of his? Surely not.”
Hikari laughs and Yamato feels a curious warmth spread through his stomach.
“Sometimes I forget just how well you know my brother.”
“A privilege and a curse. More of the curse, really”
She laughs again and Yamato feels himself relaxing.
“So do you want to talk about it?”
She tucks a few flyaway strands of hair away behind her ear. The movement so similar to the way Sora used to self consciously move that it has Yamato's stomach turning flip flops. “Hitoshi and I broke up.”
“Ah.” Yamato swallows a sip of water in order to give his brain time to come up with something insightful or encouraging. He remembers the tall slip of Hitoshi at one of their latest gatherings, slicked back dark hair and shoulders that had looked far too angular and pointy. There had definitely been something about him. He'd made a move of sliding his hand down Hikari's side when he thought no one else was looking. Yamato remembers the way his heart had beat just that little bit faster, how he'd been in the process of rising to his feet, teeth gritted, hand already fisted at his side, before a stern look from his brother had stopped him.
Hikari could handle herself of course, had swiftly twisted so that Hitoshi had grabbed nothing but a clump full of empty air and then grass. It still hadn't stopped Takeru from cornering him later, asking him what the hell that had been about. He'd been wearing that snarky smirk of his that made Yamato want to shout at him. Yamato had muttered something about how he'd come over all big brother cliche, but when he'd actually given himself time to think about his almost actions, that wasn't quite ringing true either.
“I'm sorry.” Which wasn't how he was feeling in the slightest. Except for the fact that Hikari was clearly upset about it. “Did he-?”
“I broke up with him.”
“Oh,” Yamato stares at her, bewildered.
“I know it's silly. I just,” she shrugs, “thought it might have been going somewhere.”
Oh, Yamato understands that one. In his worst dreams he still sees the way that Sora had looked at him when she'd suggested that maybe the two of them should split up. And honestly, it wasn't as if he had disagreed with her, had understood completely how and why they were at this point in their relationship, but the words said out loud and into the open had still come as such a shock to him.
“You can do better than him.” Yamato says and he doesn't know where the hell that's come from, but he means it. Hikari is pretty, stunning, but it's her personality that everybody ends up falling for. She's kind and sweet and warm and strong. Worth up to a million Hitoshi's and twice over. Hikari looks taken aback at his words, eyebrows rising and mouth rounding into a perfect little o.
It takes her a minute but she smiles at him, warmth flooding back to her cheeks. “Thank you.”
Yamato nods, feeling the need to clear his throat before he can speak again.
“Have you eaten anything? This morning?”
Hikari glances at her phone. “Afternoon now,” Yamato winces, he's clearly slept in longer than he meant to, “but no. I couldn't eat.”
“And now?”
She grins at him, the slim line of her collarbone sticking out. “Starving.”
Yamato nods. “Give me a second to get changed and freshen up and then I'll cook us something.”
Hikari, because she's the polite Yagami who doesn't like to put people out of their way for nothing, begins to protest. “Take a leaf out of your brother's book, trust me, he'd just sit his ass down and tell me to get a move on.”
“I'm not sure anybody should be told to be more like Taichi.” Hikari lays her hands out flat on the table, the movement pushing out the curve of her chest. “But get a move on, Ishida!”
“Alright, alright, I'm moving.”
-
After dousing himself in water, swirling some toothpaste around his mouth and spritzing on just the lightest spray of cologne, Yamato heads back into the kitchen. Hikari's staring at her phone, the corners of her mouth downcast, her finger hovering back and forth as if she's unsure whether or not to answer.
“Hitoshi?” Yamato asks.
Hikari nods. “He says he misses me.”
Yamato pulls a face that he can't quite hide before Hikari catches him. “Oh,” he stutters, “that's um, sweet of him.”
Hikari rolls her eyes, jumping up from her seat, phone laying unanswered and forgotten. “No, it's sickening and you know it.” She elbows him lightly and laughs when Yamato half stumbles, catching himself before he falls.
“Hey, watch your strength there.”
She giggles, "I'll be knocking you out, Yamato Ishida. Watch out."
He heads over to the fridge. It's his dad's turn to cook tonight which probably means there's little food left in the apartment and something quick and easy or a takeaway tonight. There's a few eggs, various vegetables, some cheese and something in a tupperware box that probably shouldn't still be in there. Hiroaki Ishida wouldn't know mould if it was growing on him. Yamato makes a mental note to get rid of it before Takeru starts lecturing them again on health and hygiene. Once you've heard it two or three times it really gets boring. “Hmmm, okonomiyaki sound good to you?”
Hikari stands up on her tip toes to peer around his shoulder. “Comfort food, I like it.” The curve of her smile is right next to him, hitching her cheek up to graze the bottom of his jaw.
“It's one of Takeru's favourites.” He pulls out some eggs, the block of cheese and sets out some cabbage to shred on their chopping board. Thinking about his brother, Yamato pulls a face at her, “Except Takeru likes to drown everything he eats-”
“In hot sauce,” they both chime at the same time as Hikari rolls up her sleeves in order to help him.
“You know usually the guest sits and waits at the table. You don't have to help me.”
“How long have you known me now?” She bats a hand at him, soft fingertips tracing his arm before moving to scrub her hands clean at the sink. “Besides it'll be fun.”
Yamato shrugs a shoulder at her. He normally makes this meal after his dad's had a long day at the office or Takeru's had a night of drinking go a bit too far with Daisuke. Which is pretty much anytime the pair of them get together. His younger brother lying helplessly and making incoherent groaning noises from the table as Yamato sets about to soaking some of that alcohol up. Hell, he's even made this for Taichi after one of his many, it's over with Mimi arguments, no this time she really means it. Packing Yagami up with enough food until he says he's stuffed and then sending him off to apologise to his better half. As dramatic as they can be, their arguments, they never last longer than twenty four hours.
Hikari starts shredding up the cabbage, crossing Yamato as he sets about finding the flour, to poke her head once again inside of the fridge, pulling out a couple of carrots. Yamato shrugs, the more the merrier as far as he's concerned. He likes his okonomiyaki with practically anything.
Hikari hunts for a bowl and Yamato starts adding all of their ingredients to it. Grabbing a skillet as Hikari stirs everything together. He ladles two pancakes into the skillet and then inhales the warm, slightly greasy smell of frying vegetables.
A couple of minutes pass in comfortable silence as Hikari takes a seat at the table and Yamato grabs some sauce out of the fridge. Hikari's staring at him thoughtfully, her eyes tracing back to the photos that are pinned up on the front of the fridge. Mostly they're shots of Yamato at some concert, hair swept back as he sings into the microphone, or Takeru taking a shot in one of his many tournament basketball games. There's a couple of the two of them with one or the other of their parents, never the four in the same place. Takeru always grinning brightly as Yamato hunches in on himself a little, always when he's with his mother just feeling slightly out of place. She has a hand curled around his wrist in one though, a soft smile on her face, trying her best. He loves her for that, even if he's not one to admit it.
“Do you miss her?” Hikari asks, voice soft and Yamato didn't even realise she was right behind him until she spoke. For a second he thinks she's talking about his mother and wonders if his melancholy and awkwardness around her is really that transparent, but Hikari reaches out past him, fingers touching the time softened photograph of him and Sora taken back when they were about fifteen and full of the first flush of love. They'd both been shy about their feelings, never the type for public displays of affection, but anyone that knew them saw the tentative holding of hands, the lingering slightly longer than usual looks.
He takes the photograph out of her hands, smooths his thumb over the picture of the younger version of himself, the kid that had thought his world would begin and end with Takenouchi Sora. “Sometimes,” he says and feels the warmth of two arms encircling him from behind. He's startled enough to drop the photo, the picture landing face down below him on the ground. Hikari squeezes him tightly and it takes Yamato just another second to gather his bearings and return the hug back. He moves to cover her hands, stroking his thumb over her left hand gently. “I think you might be the one needing this more than me,” he says.
Hikari's head is warm at his back, she's never been particularly tall, petite, that's the right word. Perfectly sized to fit into the hollow of his shoulder. She squeezes him tightly once more before letting him go. “I think it's what we both needed.” He can smell her shampoo, the light, lemon scent of their kitchen's soap. “Right, Ishida, where's this food?”
Yamato shoos her back to the table, bending to pick up the fallen photo and pin it back in its place on the fridge, next to a picture of the whole group of them. Taichi with his arm casually slung around Mimi's waist, Koushiro reluctantly with Mimi's free hand wrapped around his wrist. Sora stood snug in between Yamato and Jou, the latter of which has his eyes closed, typical. Daisuke and Miyako with white toothed grins, Ken and Iori huddling close to them. Hikari and Takeru placed up front, Hikari with her arms hung loosely over his brother, her head cradled closely next to his. There's a feeling there simmering, bubbling into place. Just on the tip of his tongue if Yamato could just-
“Lots of sauce or completely smothered?” Hikari's already moved to gather two plates, loading her own with plenty of sauce and now hovering above Yamato's expectantly.
“Smothered entirely,” Yamato says.
Hell, he feels like trying something new today anyway.