idk what i'm even doing
Yami had been around long enough for Yugi to have gotten used to his abrasive demeanor, long enough for him to have picked up on the little quirks the other man exhibited.
Yugi wasn't analytical, not like his other half was, but that didn't mean he was as dull as Kaiba's personality either. He saw, he recognized, but he didn't pick apart every little thing about Yami until it was inside out. Yami, however, was different.
He was perceptive, a mind like the eyes of a hawk, a predator at heart. When he noticed something, he noticed it. And when it came to Yugi, he wouldn't just notice, he would devour. Silently, so silently that it had taken Yugi far more time than he would admit just to understand that he was even doing it. Yami took in anything, everything that Yugi said or did and he read into it, with such intensity that Yugi would have felt violated had it been anyone else. Yet it wasn't, so he didn't.
It was a comfort that for all his friends knew and understood him, Yami knew him even more. He could give Yami one look and the older would know whatever was on his mind, whatever was bothering him. He seemed to be completely attuned to his thoughts and feelings, as easily as if he were simply tuned in to a specific radio frequency.
The older man would talk with him about nothing and listen to him about everything, and he would just be with him, and not once when they were together (but then, when weren't they together?) would Yami give him any less than all of his attention.
Often, during the time they would waste sprawled on Yugi's bed or the time Yugi would spend slouched over his desk working on some report or another for Kaiba Corp, he would glance over and catch Yami watching him.
There was a fire in his gaze, always when he was dueling or when he got into an argument with Anzu or Bakura. But even then, when his eyes were cold, hard chips of unforgiving steel, even then they lacked the same heat they held when he and Yugi were alone.
There was something distinctly different about his gaze when it was just the two of them. A certain curiosity hidden within the violet flames, a certain light that both soothed and stoked the fire, caressed it to a lovely burn that roiled in the pit of Yugi's stomach.
When Yami noticed he'd been caught staring, his brow would lose its contemplative furrow and he would smile, a miniscule thing but a smile nonetheless, and one that Yugi always cherished for the rarity (the sincerity) of it.
Yugi would deny the warmth that fluttered at his stomach, would deny the tendril of electricity that leapt up into his chest, or he'd brush those things off as himself just being happy that his other half actually seemed happy, for once.
It got harder to deny for the longer Yami looked at him like that though, open and vulnerable and trusting and all of it reserved for him alone, and it was all but impossible to deny when Yami would then reach over and touch him and laugh, a friendly hand on his shoulder or to the small of his back, or brushed fingers against the back of his hand.
And Yugi could only smile helplessly back, face warm from the sweet sound that slipped from Yami's mouth.
It went unnoticed when their fingers would slip perfectly together and neither said anything when Yami would put his mouth to Yugi's forehead or to the top of his head, and that was okay because it felt utterly right.
Yugi had his reason, his Yami, and that was how it should be.
How it would be.
