Little late for Valentine's Day but what the hey, Puzzleshipping is good for the soul.
XXX
"So… what's the purpose of this holiday again?" Atem reluctantly asked his current shopping companion while he eyed the heavily decorated shops of the mall with a wince.
"I suspect that it mostly has to do with commercialism and a way to entice people to the stores, if it were meant solely for lovers then they would have chosen a warmer month." Dark Bakura complained half-heartedly, his sour act ruined when he turned to one of the sale tables parked outside one of the shops and surveyed the selection of chocolate covered strawberries with an air of serious contemplation.
Atem fidgeted for a moment, his pride battling with his conscious before he timidly opened his mouth again. "So this is a holiday for… lovers?" The former king coughed. "But um… Tea gives us all chocolates and partner said that it was a holiday to celebrate loved ones. Is it not like… that Christmas holiday?"
Yami Bakura turned to the other with raised brows. "You haven't the foggiest clue as to what this is all about or how to go about this do you?" The taller concluded.
The former king visibly bristled at being caught out making the former thief sigh.
"In Japan normally the girls give the boys they fancy or are just friends with some chocolates and they leave it at that, however when you are in a committed relationship like we are with our other halves we need to do something a little bit more romantic to show how much we care and that we are serious about our commitments." Yami Bakura said slowly, purposefully being gentle seeing as how he could see the other itching to start a fight at the slightest provocation and to be honest he had too much on his to-do list to be hashing it out with the stubborn pharaoh.
Yami twitched at the other's uncharacteristic kindness but relaxed away from the initial instinct to start a fight.
"So… what is appropriate to do for your lover?" Atem asked guardedly.
The former thief king sighed again, there was a challenge in the other's voice that did not bode well to the two of them keeping this air of civility, and really Yami Bakura could not completely blame the other boy, after all he'd have issues with himself too if he had to go through everything that the Thief King had put the pharaoh through, even though the former spirit of the puzzle had, somehow, found it in himself to feel… pity, and some level of forgiveness towards the former spirit of the ring when it was all said and done and after the two of them had sat stunned and stark naked in their new bodies on the hard stone floor of that tomb.
Looking around him Yami Bakura looked for a simple distraction to keep the old grudges from bubbling up between them.
"Akefia?" Yami asked his brows furrowed in confusion towards the other's silence.
"I'm going to rue the day you accidentally barged in on me and Ryou that one time." Yami Bakura's eye ticked, almost sagging in relief when he spotted a familiar figure through a shop window.
"I heard what I thought were screams of someone in distress." Yami defended, a blush painting heavily across his nose.
"I can assure you that at no point did I ever feel like I was in distress, in fact I rather liked what Ryou was doing." Yami Bakura rolled his eyes, beckoning the pharaoh to follow as he started to walk towards a store. "Of course thanks to you and your suspicious skill in lock-picking doors he's grown an aversion to that kind of fun stuff in the front hall-"
"Does me saying your real name bother you that much?" Yami asked, sounding slightly guilty but also obviously desperate to change the subject.
"…It's complicated." Yami Bakura scratched his scarred cheek and doing his damnedest not to snap at the other, because no matter how politely civil the two of them would grow to become the former thief never wanted to have to explain that Akefia, sweet little innocent Akefia, had died long ago with his village and what had been left over was just a shell bent on revenge and freeing the trapped souls of his former family.
"It is?" The former pharaoh asked, not letting it drop.
"Power of names and all." Yami Bakura settled on the half-lie. "If you've noticed I never speak your real name either, even with all the danger gone and buried, after being careful about such things for so long it's damn near impossible to stop."
"Oh." Yami blinked, seemingly satisfied by the answer given to him.
"Oh hey 'Kefa what are you and Yami up to?" Tea piped up, the girl moving swiftly towards the two tan boys and a big friendly smile on her face.
Yami turned a suspicious eye to the older boy when Yami Bakura gave the girl a big smile and waved back.
"I gave her permission to use that nickname because she's my friend too if you will recall." Akefia murmured quickly and discreetly to the smaller, squinting boy.
He quickly turned his attention back to Tea and the topic on hand. "Well the pharaoh here wanted some advice for what to do this Valentines Day and I figured that having some extra confirmation from you that some flowers, sweets, and a small romantic gift would suffice perfectly."
"Ah…" Tea nodded showing that she understood that if the taller boy had just said that outright from the start the smaller would have most likely gotten defensive as both Yami and Yami Bakura were both prone to do with each other if they weren't careful. Both still incredibly suspicious and paranoid of each other on a level so deep that no one was certain that it would ever cease to exist between them. "Yes something simple like that is more than enough for the first Valentines Day of a relationship." She confirmed.
"Gift?" The former pharaoh fretted sensing that might be the most important part.
"It doesn't have to be much." Tea assured. "It can be anything from a piece of jewelry, to something homemade like a poem, to something a little bit more…" She suddenly trails off, glancing at Yami then around the store that they were in with a blush on her face, discreetly hiding the article of clothing that she had picked up earlier behind her back. "Intimate."
"Speaking of which have you seen any aprons in this store? I've been thinking about doing something a little bit more different for Ryou for the holiday, you know, to keep things from getting dull." Yami Bakura informs breezily, ignoring the former pharaoh completely even as Yami suddenly realizes where he was and jerks his head around the lingerie boutique with wide eyes, looking very much like a spooked cockatoo.
"Actually I have, there, over by the area I was in a moment ago…" She glances at Yami again with an uncertain look but one calming wave from Yami Bakura, telling her not to worry about the former pharaoh (who was pointedly trying to not look at anybody while attempting to regain his cool composure), gives her enough permission to continue. "I was looking for something that I could wear for Ishizu but I'm stuck on the colors since everything I have right now of that sort of nature are all in black or red and I want to see if I can find another color for variety."
Achieving a state of cool thrown off once again Yami attempted to shuffle over to an empty corner to sulk darkly until he could get over this embarrassing situation. Silently cursing the fact that the thief and Tea were standing at the entrance to the store and therefore he could not escape that way without causing undo attention to himself.
"Do they have anything in turquoise?" Yami Bakura asked. "You have enough silver jewelry that she's given you to compliment the look if you go for that color."
"I'll take a look. Um… about him…" The girl points to a rather irritated Yami who had just realized that all the corners in the store were occupied by tables with nearly naked mannequins and lacy things, that he'd really rather not look at, on them.
"You are going to have to pick something out for him." Yami Bakura announces causing Yami to cast the older boy a harried, incredulous look.
"I did see some male servant uniforms in the back." Tea mused. "I mean back in high school Yugi seemed to stare at waiting staff at fast food places a lot… but then again he could have just been staring at the food, it was difficult to tell honestly. But a fancy romantic outfit is still a fancy romantic outfit." The girl shrugged beckoning the suddenly meek former king like he was a spooked cat. He certainly resembled a spooked feline at the moment, staring at the girl and older boy as if they were about to take away his innocence.
XXX
"…And then they proceeded to stuff you into any and every outfit that just so happened to catch their eye?" Yugi asked as he stared at the bags being held in the shell-shocked former spirit's arms.
"Men's clothing were obscenely cheaper than the woman's and everything was on sale… and as it turned out myself and Tea are of similar men's clothing sizes so she ended up using me to see how certain items looked so that she could buy it for herself…" Yami spoke in a slightly haunted tone as he set down his burden onto the bedroom floor. "And Yami Bakura kept trying to get me to give him an opinion on… what would look good on him, just to be cruel… I really hate him you know."
The smaller boy nodded sympathetically. "And the reason for all of these clothes being bought for just Valentine's Day?" Yugi asked again peering into a bag.
"Tea found that I was too uncooperative so she told me to sort out the things that you liked the best and suggested that I give her whatever was left since she can fit into a good majority of my clothing sizes." Yami grumbled petulantly.
"That would explain the dress…" Yugi hummed picking up said article of clothing with his fingertips. "You do realize that she is going to try to see if she can trade clothes with you on a regular basis, you know like two girl best friends usually do except you're a guy and she doesn't own any clothes that you'd want to wear."
"Since when has she become a fan of trousers?" Yami asked the ceiling. "She was just fine running around the memory world half naked and in a short skirt, nobody bothered her about it, everybody wore skirt-like clothing in Ancient Egypt!"
"Probably around the same time we got together and she realized that we wouldn't think less of her if she just started dressing like she wanted to. She's really sensitive about that you know." Yugi pointed out as he looked at a pair of clip-on cat ears in bewilderment.
"I will agree with her that the boy's school uniform is far more comfortable and better in appearance…" Yami admitted with a cough. "Especially since the skirt of that girl's uniform is so short, how did they get away with that by the way?"
"Domino High is run by a group of old creeps." Yugi stated knowledgeably, casting the other a raised brow as he held up a pair of spandex black opera gloves.
"She hadn't a clue what you would like." Yami sighed in explanation.
"You know just some flowers and some chocolate would have been fine." Yugi assured, moving forward to envelope the other in a tight embrace. "I'm too happy to have you here to be all that concerned with having anything really fancy for this holiday… right now I just want to enjoy the fact that you're… alive." The shorter boy sniffled slightly, trying not to get too emotional even though just the thought of what had almost happened was enough to get him going every single damn time.
"And I'm happy to be here, disturbingly helpful thieves and girls who treat me like I'm a surrogate female best friend and all." Yami promised hugging the smaller back.
"Well good because I have every intention of keeping you this time around." Yugi sniffed burying his nose into the taller's neck. "For all the future holidays and anniversaries, and life as a whole. A really, really long, happy life."
"Now we just need to figure out whether or not we need any of these garments in our life together." Yami commented glancing at the bags wearily. "Even though I do agree with Tea that I could probably pull off the dress just fine, the cat ears are positively baffling to me, I thought that dressing up in costumes was for that candy acquiring holiday."
Yugi had to laughed at that, even though he was overcome with the sudden realization that he'd have to sit the pharaoh down and explain a lot about the modern world's… more eccentric aspects.
"I still have White Day to think about, tell you what; how's about we both go through all of this and then have some ice cream afterword and you can tell me if there was anything that you thought would look good on me when that holiday rolls around." Yugi proposed.
Yami raised both brows. "Really?" He asked in surprise.
"It only makes sense that I return the favor, though I do find it a bit disconcerting that certain others are just automatically assuming that we've been that close since we've gotten together…" Yugi trailed off.
"Weren't you complaining last week that both Tristan and Joey were still assuming that you are a virtuous, innocent little boy?" The former spirit asked.
"Tea's like my sister, my mama is my freaking mama, and the Akefia is still the Thief King, the fact that those three don't see me in that innocent light is very weird and the fact that my two closest male friends do see me like that is downright frustrating. It's supposed to be the other way around!" The smaller boy grumbled.
"The thief lets you call him by his given name?" Yami asked. "Wait, what about your mother?"
Yugi sighed. "In order; yes, Akefia gave me permission to use his given name like a day or two after you two got your own bodies, and my mom told me earlier today that she has arranged both grandpa and herself to be out of the house from the morning of Valentines Day to the late evening of the next day so that the two of us can spend some time alone."
The spirit stared at his other half in disbelief.
"She approves of you." Yugi explained. "And mama's under the impression that we used to share bodies in more than one sense back when the puzzle was around so she said that she's just grateful that at least I know where you've been, that you a clean of any diseases, and that she at least doesn't have to worry about coming home one day to find a tiny spiky-haired kid calling her grandma."
"Mama says that she's too young to be a grandma." Yugi added when the former spirit just continued to stare.
"I'm not too certain on how I'm supposed to respond to that…" Atem admitted weakly.
"Just don't think too deeply on it, that's what I've learned to do." Yugi advised with a practiced assurance. "Hey, would you mind if next year we switched? I do Valentines Day and you White Day? We can switch it up every year." And quiet some snickering from Tristan that one or the other was the girl in the relationship.
"Yeah, sure, no problem." Yami nodded distractedly, obviously still thinking too much on Yugi's mother and the others.
Yugi reached up and kissed the tip of the former king's nose. "You know that I love you, so let's just enjoy the day as if the world around us isn't completely insane."
The taller couldn't help but chuckle. "Sounds like a plan partner." He murmured before leaning down to give the smaller boy a more proper kiss.