Dirty Blonde

Yellow. Everyone knew what it was. A colour. A basic colour. Always grouped with red and blue. It was rather dull, in his opinion. Dull and bland. Yamato had always hated the colour yellow.

He didn't like the beach much, so perhaps hating yellow sand came with that. He'd always thought of sand as more of a grainy brown anyway. The bright yellow sun hurt his eyes and burnt his pale skin. Tai had mercilessly teased him and poked his tomato red burn the last time he'd been exposed to too much sun, so it was another reason to hate the ball of fire. He didn't like those things at all, but there was one thing Yamato absolutely hated. He hated how people said his hair was yellow.

It wasn't. It wasn't the 'sparkling golden halo' that he read in magazines or the amber or honey that was described on his fansites either. Citrine and canary were too bright as well but straw and oatmeal didn't quite cut it. His hair was more of a.... Yamato looked at it blankly in the mirror. It was pretty and soft, but that didn't describe the colour. Neither did neat or styled. Mmm... Maybe, maybe... Dirty blonde? Yeah. Dirty blonde.

That was the perfect colour. Blonde was colourful and generally (in the movies) used for pretty and innocent people. By making the colour dirty, it reversed those views. It was something more Yamato could relate to.

Many people seemed to think he was handsome, and Jun's wall of photos and posters seemed to cement the view that he had charm over many of the fairer sex. Yamato didn't think so though. He was... Maybe it was obnoxious to say, but he was a bit exotic. Perhaps weird and different were better ways of saying it? Dirty blonde hair, ocean blue eyes and fair skin. Not your typical Japanese teen. Perhaps it was due to his European heritage..? In any case, Yamato's opinion was that girl's were merely interested in his difference, rather than how he actually looked.

Innocence. He didn't hate it like he hated yellow, rather, it was more of a bitter sweet hatred. Takeru had it still, but he'd lost his a while ago. After his parents divorce, he generally took care of his father. Much of his time was taken up with school and household chores like cleaning and doing groceries, so he was never around children his own age that much. Not until the Digital World anyway. He didn't really mind not having a proper childhood. You can't miss what you never knew, right?

But, it made sense. Y'know, having dirty blonde hair. If he'd had blonde hair - bright, shining, angelically blonde -, his life would have been different. Well, probably not. His parents probably still would have ripped his family apart, but maybe with a brighter, cleaner hair colour, his outlook on life may have been the same.

Dirty blonde was who he was though. A close cousin of blonde, but second rate. Not as perfect, not as squeaky clean and people never seemed to get the name right. It was different and not as highly sought after (especially realized it wasn't real blonde). Yamato pondered that Mimi would say something about it being the last items on the sales rack and cracked a smile.

He was like that. Last in his mother's affection and second to his dad's work (to be fair, he'd mother had never been around to bond with him, and his father worked to support them). Not good enough to be a leader, and for a while, Tai had beaten him when it came to who was more able to be Takeru's role model.

It wasn't all that bad though. It was interesting, to be honest. Blonde was popular, noisy and loud. Dirty blonde let him people watch and observe. It was nice to let go. Things wouldn't be okay all the time, so why should he have to be? Smiling again as he fixed his (proudly) dirty blonde hair for the last time before running out the door to meet up with his friends.

Sometimes, not being perfect took first place over it's cousin perfection. It may not have been as awesome or amazing or whatever, but most of the time, despite it's issues, it was true to itself and had way more fun.