Title: All Seems Beautiful
Category: Digimon Adventure
Rating: T (may go up)
Genre: Adventure/Drama/Romance
Summary: After a bizarre incident, Taichi discovers he's being ripped from his natural world. Meanwhile, pieces of the past come together to whisper dark secrets, and the Chosen Children are forced to put their faith in each other and themselves to the test.
Previous chapters: [1]

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All Seems Beautiful

Chapter Two
So Much for the Good Old Days

“As faith for the future faded fast, he grows strong with their displeasure. It sets him free.”
- Within Temptation: Deceiver of Fools


“Ishida-kun,” a stagehand called. Yamato caught his eye without the slightest tilt of his head, a trick he’d perfected during those years when it was cool to look like you weren’t paying attention in school. It annoyed teachers, who’d considered him a rebel, and it just as easily unnerved the stagehand as he hesitantly stretched out his palm, in which lay Yamato’s cell phone.

“It’s gone off four times in the past thirty minutes,” he said, fixing his attention on the phone rather than Yamato’s face. Yamato snatched it out of his hand and flipped it open. “I like your ringtone,” he added almost meekly. “The Grinch that Stole Christmas was a childhood favorite of mine.”

Heat flooded Yamato’s cheeks, but he hid it expertly – the heavy layers of MAC powder on his cheeks helped. “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was Taichi’s ringtone. He’d programmed it quite without informing Yamato the day before the Teenage Wolves headed off on their first tour. He’d gone as far as to threaten that if Yamato didn’t immediately pick up every time Jim Carey started yowling at him, he’d be cursed with perpetual split ends. Yamato hadn’t bothered to change the song, miserable excuse for music though it was. An embarrassing ringtone was easier to cope with than Taichi’s notorious obstinacy.

He granted the stagehand a curt nod, and the man scampered away. Yamato shuffled through his missed calls: two from Taichi, who had also dropped him a voice-mail, and one from Koushirou. Koushirou had also left a text message in his inbox:

Yamato-san:

Incident with the Digital Gates today. Don’t know how serious yet. I’ll keep you posted. We’ll call a meeting this coming week for any of us who can make it.

Please talk to Taichi-san.

Izumi Koushirou

Frowning, Yamato turned off his phone and flipped it shut. What kind of ‘incident?’ Smart as he was, Koushirou was infamous for omitting details out of sheer absent-mindedness. Was Gabumon all right?

Yamato’s chest clenched as it hit him that wasn’t at all sure that he’d brought his Digivice to the studio. He must have; he’d never forget something so important to him. Frantically he peeled through his memory. Had he left it in the dressing room? The van?

“Let’s take it from the top,” the director was saying, sending his minions scuttling into place. Takashi ambled over and parked himself next to Yutaka, looking just as hot and frustrated as Yamato felt. The make-up artist fiddled with Takashi’s hair until his eyes were visible through his long bangs. Then he moved away and the cameras rolled in.*

Yutaka leaned past Akira and tapped Yamato’s shoulder. “Yo, you okay? You’re white as a sheet. Careful or they’ll attack you with concealer again.”

Struggling to swallow now that his throat had closed up, Yamato bobbed his head a few times, which seemed enough to mollify Yutaka. His vision seemed skewed by the blinding lights. And his lunch wouldn’t stop cartwheeling in his stomach.

“Shoes!” the director cried. The four Wolves slipped their feet into the soft, sponge-like Tik-Toks, each in a different nausea-inducing color. Staring down at the gaudy green shoes didn’t help matters. Yamato wondered idly if he’d even manage to make it through his single line, “Hey, these feel go-o-od!”

Someone darted forward and grabbed the cell phone from Yamato. His hands felt strangely empty without it.

“Take!”

Link: [So Much for the Good Old Days]