Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Matter of Perspective ❯ Takashi ( Chapter 12 )

DISCLAIMER: See previous parts.

A/N: Slamming back to Sora for this installment. Poor dear, she gets to help Yamato with her very first day of school as a girl. As if Mondays aren't already bad enough, right? For Odaiba Senior High's uniform, think Fushigi Yuugi. I modeled the girls' uniform after Miaka. It's blue, but pretty much the same. (The reason for the blue has to do with a bit of confusion -- I thought Jyou's 02 outfit was the senior high uniform instead of his own intensive junior high.) If you're still having trouble, check out the illustration I commissioned Cloud Ishida to draw.

"What about this one?" Sora asked in a kindly but halting voice. She also managed to smile in a cheerful but strained manner.

It didn't matter how much determination she'd had when she first woke up that morning -- Yamato's complete and total lack of response was definitely starting to wear her down. Oh, she might get an occasional nod of acknowledgement if her boyfriend felt generous, maybe even real eye contact once in a great while; but Yamato hadn't actually said anything to her since the shopping trip with Mimi. She had come up with a number of different explanations for this: he was still sick, he was mad at her, he was mad at somebody else, he was nervous about what would happen at school, he was uncomfortable in his new uniform, he was afraid he would lose the Teen-Age Wolves...and about a million other possibilities besides.

Except that Sora had tried them all with no luck. Regardless of how pointedly she commented on her theories, Yamato shrugged in exactly the same noncommittal fashion. As if he wasn't really paying attention.

She didn't know what to do, not anymore. Last night was a different story -- when his father had stepped out of the room for a minute and returned to say he wouldn't be coming, when Sora had first realized there was something wrong. What she wouldn't have given for just a shred of the confidence she'd had then: her indestructible certainty that she could handle whatever the blonde dished out. She knew how to be patient with him, and how to be cross without raising his hackles. Dealing with Ishida Yamato was really quite easy, unless he decided to shut you out completely. Which he seemed to be doing now.

"Do you like it?" Sora hazarded. "This one's my favorite."

And of course he said nothing. The Keeper of Love felt her cheerful smile drop another notch to benign, and figured that it probably made her look like someone trying to convince a mugger not to take their money and kill them. A Please-Don't-Shoot-Me-I-Have-Children smile. She tried in vain to hitch it back up again, but eventually gave up and just dug through her purse for another hairclip. Most of them were already in a small pile on Yamato's dresser -- along with several discarded shades of nail polish, six different hair ties, one headband, and three hats. They were definitely running low on options.

"This one?" Her kindly but halting voice had somehow mutated into an exasperated but strangled voice. She wasn't even looking at the hairclip in her hand anymore, just at the clock on Yamato's bedside table. The clock that said they were already late for school.

Nothing. The other girl didn't even twitch.

Something inside of Sora exploded. She dug her fingers into her boyfriend's longish blonde hair and yanked his ear towards her mouth.

"Yamato-kun. Look at me."

After a few seconds' hesitation, he did as he was told.

"Good," Sora said, relaxing her grip very slightly. "Thank you. Now, I'm going to put this hairclip into your hair, and you're going to like it because we've already spent an hour trying to get out the door and we don't have any more time to waste. Is that understood?"

He nodded, and she leaned forward to brush a few strands of hair out of his face and affix the hairclip to one side of his head. It wasn't dramatic, but at least none of their classmates would mistake him for one of his own rabid fangirls now. (To Sora's distaste, there were an awful lot of girls in Odaiba High School who dyed and styled their hair appropriately.) Besides, maybe family members in the West behaved that way, but incest was just generally frowned upon in Japan. If the real Takaishi Ayumi ever visited her cousin in Odaiba, she would undoubtedly wonder why all of his friends seemed to think she was so weird.

Some of the time in the Crimson Dragon had been spent eating and some of it complaining, but mostly they had made plans. Explaining a Digital World malfunction to their parents was one thing, and even that had proved difficult; explaining to the school and every single student in it would have been a nightmare. As usual, this occurred to Koushirou long before it dawned on the rest of them, and when he arrived at the Crimson Dragon with two of the younger generation in tow, they all sat down together to discuss possibilities.

Actually, Ayumi was Taichi's suggestion -- he had met her once very briefly during the search for international Chosen Children, and he thought they could call it a family visit issue without arousing too much suspicion. Plus, using a real person meant that even if the school did go poking around, they would find a matching record. Sure, the school photos might be a problem, but Taichi seemed to think Ayumi looked similar enough for a glancing inspection. All Sora had to do was keep her boyfriend from drawing attention to himself.

This wasn't something she had anticipated having trouble with, but then neither was simple conversation.

She looked the blonde over from head to foot one last time, and at long last declared him presentable. If it hadn't been Yamato -- her boyfriend -- she might have almost called the resulting girl pretty. Odaiba Senior High had a decent uniform, one that nicely complimented her figure: jacket, streamlined vest, and a rather short pleated skirt all in dark blue cotton. But she closed her eyes and shook the image away. She had tried to accept the change like everyone else. Tried to think of Yamato as a girl because he so obviously was one. Couldn't, not for more than a few minutes. The shoulder-length hair definitely helped, though. Funny how she hadn't noticed it growing out. She would make him cut it as soon as things were back to normal.

Not that Koushirou had sounded particularly confident about that the last time they spoke. He'd flat-out refused to give her even a guess as to how long it would take to find a solution, and coming from a boy who loved to hypothesize, that could only mean a very long time. Maybe even a month. She shuddered violently at the thought. An entire month of literally dragging Yamato out of bed?

Of course, in the future Mr. Ishida might actually help instead of rushing off to work. He seemed more shocked than angry or disgusted, and shock was something that faded with time. Besides, she knew that his opinion mattered to Yamato -- a lot more than his derisive public attitude suggested -- and having his father still care about him would undoubtedly help with this...this whatever-it-was.

But that was in the future. For now, Yamato at least looked ready, and she couldn't expect any more than that from him right now. Sora tried to smile one last time; it felt placid. "Ready to go?"

Yamato didn't so much as blink. Maybe only her anger deserved an actual response. However, before Sora could start to rekindle that anger, something brushed gently past her. Gabumon. He went over and took his human partner's hand. It was the first time Sora had seen either of their digimon for a while -- he and Piyomon both chose to stay in the dining room, wherever there was a television, when they could. She had the feeling that, in spite of her relationship with Yamato himself, their digimon weren't very close to each other. She would have liked them to be better friends, but you couldn't just change the basic nature of a digimon. These two both fell into the 'shy' category. Without the Jogress, Gabumon probably wouldn't have even had a close relationship with Agumon. And she had never tried that. Maybe if Diablomon ever returned...

"Yamato." Gabumon's quiet and unassuming voice completely derailed her train of thought. "Sora asked you a question. Aren't you going to answer it?"

And then, to Sora's amazement, he spoke. Not just a single word, but several complete sentences.

"I'm sorry, Sora. I guess I wasn't listening. What did you say?"

Relief surged over her, but there was a stab of envy at the heart of it. Maybe another of the Chosen Children could never expect the easy bond Yamato shared with his digimon -- but as his girlfriend?

"I said are you ready to go now," she muttered, trying to keep her voice level and only sucking the question mark out of what was now a statement.

He looked down at himself with no visible change in expression. Blinked twice. "Well, I'm dressed."

Good enough. She forced his bookbag into his hands, waved goodbye to their digimon as she came to them, and proceeded to drag Yamato out the door. They would have to take the train if they wanted to make the second bell, and the idea was a little nerve-wracking. Early on, the trains were packed with students from other schools who had a longer commute, but at this hour it was mostly older businessmen going deeper into Tokyo. Sora knew she didn't really have anything to worry about, and each car usually had a police officer at the front of it just to keep an eye on things. Still: trains were one of the things her mother never let her take by herself because you could never tell what sort of people would get onto them with you.

For the first time in a long while, Sora wished they didn't have to leave their digimon behind when they went to school. She squeezed into a corner and tried not to breathe loudly. It wasn't fair, she thought unbidden. She should have felt safe right now, and protected. But she didn't, because if anything happened to her on this train, it would happen to him too. Which, while vaguely satisfying, was not all that reassuring.

They managed to leave the train without incident, and Sora relaxed. About a hair. The school still loomed in front of them like some evil giant, and unless Yamato suddenly felt a great deal more talkative, she was going to spend the next eight hours telling the same story over and over again. At least they weren't back in America with Mimi, who apparently had to change classrooms for each subject instead of just teachers; the occasional cursory explanation was much better than seven full-scale introductions.

No matter how many times Sora reminded herself of this fact, it was with tremendous relief that she checked her timetable to find a single solitary class remaining. Evidently, the least painful torture still did not cease to be torture. Then she checked her timetable again and read the word gym. She didn't usually mind a little exercise at the end of her school day -- much better than the freshmen that took it first thing like a group of zombies -- but gym meant gym uniforms. Gym uniforms meant locker rooms. Yamato had woken up a little, at least to the point where he could undress without her help, but that didn't make her feel any better. She didn't care what the blonde looked like: he had no business in the girls' locker room.

Sora ground to an uncertain halt, and let the rest of their class go on without them. She needed to think for a minute. No, Yamato didn't belong in her locker room, but how on Earth was she supposed to explain that to the teachers? Foreigners were weird, but they weren't that weird. Besides, did she really want to send him into the boys' locker room instead? The image that provoked was painful, and surprisingly sexist. As if being a girl automatically meant you couldn't take care of yourself. Of course, Yamato was pretty out of it...maybe enough that he would get hurt anyway. All the senior boys had gym now, not just the ones in their class -- and that was an awful lot of wolves at the bottom of the cliff. Taichi would try to help, but what if that wasn't enough? Would she really want to take that risk?

"Sora...?" Yamato's question trailed away as she turned to frown at him. She didn't like it, but there didn't seem to be any other options.

"Gym. Follow me, and keep your head down."

If he actually understood the problem, Yamato hid it very well. She rolled her eyes and tugged him along behind her. He would figure it out soon enough -- probably the instant she opened the locker room door. Maybe she could just herd him into one of the bathroom stalls and tell the other girls that people in France weren't used to this sort of thing. None of them would contradict her. After all, it wasn't as if any of them had ever been to France. Yeah, that just might work.

Then they were at the door. Abruptly, Yamato drew back and started to mumble something like an objection. He had figured it out. Sora pulled on his hand firmly, not really wanting to say that he couldn't go into the boys' locker room because he might get raped. That seemed like the sort of thing he wouldn't enjoy hearing. But she didn't have to open her mouth, because he quieted almost immediately and followed her lead without any more protests. She should have been used to that deference by this point, but it still disturbed her. This didn't have anything to do with simply turning into a girl. There was something deeper, and she would have to figure out what.

Just not right now, as she could hardly breathe.

Oh, the school had nice enough facilities -- the girls' locker room at least was large and very clean, everything freshly painted and highly polished. It was not an oppressive room, or at least not normally. There really did seem to be a first time for everything.

Why had she stayed behind to gather her thoughts? If they had just kept walking, the other girls wouldn't already be half-naked now. Some of them paused when she opened the door; a few smiled briefly before going back to what they were doing, and others came over to say hello. These were friends from different classes who hadn't seen her all day long and would of course appreciate an introduction to the stranger in their midst.

"Maybe later?" she offered hopefully. "Ayumi's kind of shy, and I think she would rather get dressed in one of the stalls. She hasn't been in Japan very long, you see..."

One of the girls -- Chizuru -- blinked. "Well, she looks comfortable enough to me."

Confused, Sora turned around and jumped right out of her skin. For some unfathomable reason, 'Ayumi' was unbuttoning his vest. He met her eyes once briefly and shrugged a little. When in Rome, he seemed to say. It was working, too: her boyfriend blended easily with everyone else, managing to look disinterested in all the naked female flesh. She could have stripped quickly herself and told her friends that their easy-going atmosphere had obviously helped the foreigner's adjustment. They would have been flattered.

Yes, that was what she should have done. Except that Sora desperately didn't want to take off her clothes in front of Yamato. Not when it would be for the first time. Maybe waiting until their wedding night was unrealistic, but here? With him still in that body, surrounded by other people? Surely they could do a little better than that.

For the sheer irony of it, Sora went into one of the bathroom stalls and changed into her gym shorts there. At least after this, she could go home. No matter what happened, that would be it.

Well, unless you counted band practice. In roughly half an hour, Yamato meant to tell the other members of his group what had really happened to him. But that didn't have much to do with her.

End Part Eleven