Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Author: Higuchimon
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal
Series Title: Inevitable Encounters||Story Title: Communication Benefits
Characters: Chris/V, Yuuma, Kaito||Pairing: Yuuma x Kaito/Kaito x Yuuma||Friends: Chris & Yuuma, Kaito & Chris
Word Count: 3,000||Chapters: 1/1
Genre: Friendship, Romance||Rated: G
Challenge: Diversity Writing Challenge, section D33, friendship genre; Dice Gods Challenge, random friendship (Chris & Yuuma); Character Diversity, #24, regroup; Advent 2015, #23, start/add to a series
Notes: This is takes place in the same universe as Shock To The Soul and Curious, which is a soulmate countdown universe, where Kaito and Yuuma are soulmates.
Summary: Yuuma knows who his soulmate is. Only being connected to Tenjo Kaito isn't the easiest thing in the world. Maybe he should talk to someone about it. Someone who knows Kaito very well. Only one person fits that description.

Tap, tap, tap.

The sound echoed ever so faintly after each knock. Yuuma fidgeted, tossing a quick glance to where Astral floated beside him.

Or usually did. Yuuma tried not to let himself get downhearted. He'd see his partner again one day; that day just wasn't today.

Today he wanted to talk to someone about an entirely different kind of partner. He rubbed at his right wrist and raised his hand to knock again, only for the door to swing open.

"Yuuma." V stood there, tall and elegant and remote as the stars themselves. "I wasn't expecting you."

Yuuma let out one of his brightest smiles. "I know, I should've called, but I was already on the way over when I thought about doing it and then I realized I don't really have your number. Any of yours." He rubbed the back of his head and smiled again. "Um, sorry?"

The side of V's mouth quirked for a single moment. "It's quite all right. Did you want to talk to Michael..." He paused, a tiny frown forming between his eyes before he kept going. "III?"

Yuuma blinked; he knew that they had names that weren't III, IV, or V, but he just couldn't get his head wrapped around them as of yet. But he shook his head.

"I kind of wanted to talk to you, actually." He raised up his right arm, turning it to show the mark there. "It's about Kaito."

V tilted his head a small fraction before he nodded and stepped to the side, gesturing Yuuma by him. "Of course. Come in."

Yuuma hadn't ever been to the Arclight mansion before – to any of their mansions. He'd heard about them; III mentioned where they lived in Heartland now and then on those few times when they talked to each other since the war ended. He seemed so much happier these days than he'd been when they first met one another.

He couldn't tell if the same held true for V or not, but he hoped it did. He hoped that for everyone that he'd met. They'd all fought hard enough to earn some kind of a happy ending.

That thought led to where it always did, one hand rubbing against his arm where the two marks entwined about one another, stitched together by golden links.

V guided him to a room that Yuuma kind of recognized as a living room type of place, but far different from what he'd ever seen before. One wall was almost nothing but window, letting in a flood of golden afternoon sunlight. On the other three walls hung a half-dozen or so highly polished wooden shelves, decorated with awards of various kinds, along with family photographs, some from when the three brothers were younger, a few from more recent times.

Two comfortable deep blue couches provided places to sit, each of them wide enough for three each, along with another couple of chairs scattered throughout the room. One chair sat close to one of the couches, with a polished glass-covered table between them. On the table there rested a coaster and a cup of tea, and V sat down where he could pick it up again.

"Would you like some?" V asked, raising the cup and looking at Yuuma.

Yuuma blinked, head tilted. "Uh, sure." He'd never been much of a tea drinker but if he'd come here wanting to talk, having some tea was the least that he could do.

It didn't take V long to return from what Yuuma presumed was the kitchen with a steaming cup that he set in front of Yuuma. At least Yuuma didn't think it had; he'd been too busy staring at everything in the room to really watch the time.

"Now, you wanted to talk about the fact you're soulmated to Kaito," V said, sipping at his own tea. "And you've both clearly touched one another."

Yuuma couldn't keep his hand off of the mark. "Yeah. It was a while ago. We were looking for Haruto -" Yuuma's cheeks scorched without warning, as he recalled just why they'd been looking for Haruto: because of V kidnapping him.

The smallest touch of a smile bent V's lips upward. "I see." A slight movement of his hand indicated for Yuuma to keep on going.

"I didn't even think about it," Yuuma said, ducking his head. His blush grew even deeper. "I just wanted to stop him from going on without me."

He dropped his eyes down to the mark, though he knew well what it looked like: the sigil of the Emperor's Key, crossed over with a swirling galaxy. For all that Kaito insisted that Mizael was the true Galaxy-Eyes master, no one would argue that this was as fitting a symbol for him as it could be.

"And then it was there," V said. "What neither of you wanted at the time."

Yuuma nodded. He hadn't even been able to properly call himself Kaito's friend then. Now he knew they were friends, and he aimed to achieve Kaito's level of dueling someday, no matter what it took or how long it took.

"Have you talked to him about this since his return?" V wanted to know, sipping his tea again. "I know he's spoken to Mizael about a few points they wished to clear up between them."

Yuuma fidgeted, coughing out a laugh he didn't know if he really felt or not. "Not yet." He wanted to. He'd wanted to talk to Kaito about this forever and yet Kaito always walked away from him, those cold gray eyes slicing through him, always expecting something from him, expecting him to be strong, no matter what happened.

"Then you should."

It couldn't be as easy as V made it sound, though. But he kept going before Yuuma could say that. "Before, you always had something else in the way, didn't you? Dr. Faker and Mr. Heartland. Us." That smile that wasn't a smile there. "The Barians." He made another motion with his free hand. "But those are out of the way now. There's nothing getting in between you and Kaito having a very long talk. One that you very clearly need to have."

Yuuma fiddled his fingers together. He wished he could look up and see Astral, who would be every bit as confused as he was about all of this, and probably more so, but he'd still try his best to help Yuuma figure his way through this.

I had to explain to him what soulmates were and why I was so terrified because mine was Kaito.

He would never, ever forget the moment it dawned on him that his counter had stopped, not just because of the strange things that Orbital 7 and Kaito did to time, but because he and Kaito had finally met one another. Even now he didn't know completely if his fear had been because of how much better of a duelist Kaito was or because he was that good at dueling and only a miracle had saved both him and Astral from being …

Right, so, now, he had to figure this out. He fidgeted again and looked up toward V.

"I guess you're right, but there's still something that I kind need to know."

Yuuma knew about love. He knew it existed; he knew that people had it and did things with it. He'd seen his parents having a wonderful time together. He'd seen pairings of all kinds and some of the strangest match-ups possible – he still couldn't entirely wrap his head around Vector and Mizael and he hoped he could talk to Vector about it one day.

But there was something that he didn't know and he needed to.

At V's tilted eyebrow, the question came bursting out of him without any kind of thought behind it. He just needed to know.

"How do you have a relationship? I mean, what do you do? What are we going to do? Me and Kaito? How… how can I be his soulmate? His boyfriend?" He fidgeted even harder. He didn't blush much but at the moment, he could feel a scorching wave rise from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

The moment he'd asked the question, he looked away from V. He didn't think the other would laugh at him, but he didn't want to see it if it turned out that he was wrong.

A few silent moments passed before V spoke.

"That's a question that everyone asks and not everyone has an answer to. But the answer they have is always different, because everyone's relationship is different."

Yuuma blinked, eyes stuttering back to V now. "Huh?"

V wasn't quite laughing, but there was something amused in the gleam of his eyes.

"You and Kaito will have to decide what kind of relationship that you have, and what you do with it." A hint of thoughtfulness touched his features as he spoke. "Though legally, you're going to need a chaperone until you're both of official age."

Yuuma blinked a few more times. "What?" He vaguely recalled hearing something like this when someone in his school found their soulmate, but he'd been too busy trying to scare up some duels and hadn't really gotten the details on it.

"I've checked on the laws in Heartland City for this, but it tends to be universal for the most part," V said, setting down his teacup and picking up a tablet Yuuma hadn't noticed before. He flipped it around so Yuuma could see it as he kept on talking. "As you're not yet eighteen, but Kaito is, then until you are eighteen, you'll need the services of a chaperone whenever you want to spend time with one another."

Yuuma shook his head, skimming what the tablet displayed. Most of it was in some kind of legalese that he didn't understand, but what V said made a little more sense. He just didn't want it to make sense.

"Does Kaito know about this?" He hadn't seen the other alone since everything had wrapped up. Was this why? Because of no chaperone? Had Kaito already decided that and just not told him?

"Yes, he does." V reached for his tea again. "He's been aware of it since the moment you two met one another." He sipped quietly. "I suspect that's something else that the two of you should talk about when you have the time."

More fidgeting. Yuuma tried to get all of this sorted out and wasn't having anywhere near as much luck as he hoped he would. "I guess Orbital wouldn't count?"

"In truth, I suspect that for Dr. Faker's personal preference, he would. He trusts you both. But legally? No, he doesn't, mostly because he's Kaito's partner. Kaito could program him to ignore anything that Kaito wanted him to ignore."

Yuuma had never worried himself too much about laws. He didn't go out of his way to break them, but he didn't go out of his way to keep them, either. He'd just plunged ahead, trusting to kattobingu to keep himself out of harm's way.

Granted, that hadn't worked nearly as much as he wanted it to, but that's what he had done, and he'd lived this long, at least.

"Is Kaito going to get in trouble because of this?" Yuuma asked at last, waving his marked right arm. If he'd had any idea…

Astral had tried to tell him something then, he thought. He'd just been too busy wanting to help Kaito to listen.

Astral would laugh at him now. Yuuma didn't doubt it at all.

"No, not as long as nothing else happens until you've reached your majority," V promised. A small tight knot inside of Yuuma eased at that. He swallowed and tried to think of anything else that he could ask that would make this make any kind of sense.

"My mom and dad are home," he said at last. "They came back just the other day. They want to meet him. I didn't tell them who he is yet. Just that he's a friend of mine. They don't know...anything else."

Anything else like how he and Kaito had first met and he'd been terrified or that Kaito was years older than he was or how Kaito had once hunted people for Numbers and thought he deserved to go to Hell for it still.

How could you tell people about things like that? He had no idea of where to begin. Most of it just spun around in his head like a top if he even started to think about it. Sure, he forgave Kaito for all of it, and he knew his parents would too, once they heard the whole story. But telling them the whole story? That was where his imagination deserted him.

"That's something you two should talk about as well," V suggested. "That's one key to a successful relationship no matter what: talk to one another. About everything that concerns the both of you. Sometimes even what only concerns one of you."

Yuuma nodded, though the idea of Kaito talking about this kind of thing still baffled him.

He didn't know what kind of advice he'd expected when he'd ended up turning his steps toward the Arclights. All he'd thought was that V was Kaito's best friend, short of possibly Mizael, and if anyone could help him, it probably would be V.

"Kaito hasn't wanted to talk," he murmured, staring down at his cup of tea, trying to find out what about all of this bothered him the most. "You really think that's going to work?"

"Yes. He's been as concerned about this as you. Perhaps more." V shrugged. "But to tell you the truth, Yuuma, I can't really say anything else about this. It's not for me to tell."

Something about the way V spoke caught at Yuuma's attention. He frowned, staring hard at the older man. "You've been talking to Kaito about this."

"I am his best friend," V pointed out, the corners of his mouth turning upward. "What else would you expect?"

Yuuma didn't know what he wanted to do right then, except maybe laugh at himself. "I don't know." He finished off the last of his tea and scrambled to his feet, finding one of the most cheerful smiles on his lips he could've imagined. "But I think I should go find him anyway." He hesitated. "Uh, where is he, anyway?"

"I think if you go by Heartland Tower tomorrow, you'll find him," V said. "Until then, I suggest getting a little rest and trying not to stress yourself out over everything."

Yuuma couldn't think of anything else that he would want to do, that he actually could do, right now. He nodded. "Thanks, V. Thanks a lot."

"Call me Chris," V said. "Our reasons for being III, IV, and V don't apply anymore, so we are Michael, Thomas, and Chris again."

"All right, V-Chris." Yuuma blushed a bit at that. "Sorry. It'll take some getting used to."

"That's quite all right." V – no, Chris, Yuuma corrected himself at once – replied with one of those elegant gestures of his. "I wish both you and Kaito the best of luck."

"Thanks again!" Energy charged all through Yuuma. It didn't matter how difficult it might be, for either him or Kaito. They could and they would kattobingu or in Kaito's case, Kaito-bingu their way through everything that dared to stand in their way.

His usual battle-cry echoed throughout the Arclight mansion as he waved one more time and headed out the door.

Yuuma hadn't been out of sight for a full minute before Chris walked into the kitchen and came back with two fresh cups of tea. He set one of them where Yuuma sat, and kept the other for himself. Scarcely a handful of heartbeats passed before Kaito picked up the cup and stared at it.

"He really wants to talk to me about this," he murmured, more to the teacup than to Chris.

"I told you that he would. You're the one who kept away from him," Chris pointed out. "And yes, I will be your chaperone. Provided Yuuma agrees, of course."

Kaito nodded, sliding into his seat where he'd been before Yuuma turned up. He turned the teacup around and around in his hands. Chris wasn't surprised in the slightest to see him so surprised. The idea of Yuuma willing to spend time with him, of willing to at least try to make some kind of relationship work after all that had happened, hadn't yet fully sunk into him.

Chris suspected that it would take time even after they began to work on this. After all Kaito had done, he didn't expect to get anything good out of his life. Chris looked forward to seeing his student being proven wrong.

"You could thank me for telling him not to come over until tomorrow," Chris said. "Otherwise, I think you would have had to hurry back to beat him there today. He wants this, Kaito. He wants to have a chance with you." Being soulmates did not mean that the people involved would prance off into the sunset together without a single bit of effort. Chris knew of some people who refused to accept their bond, of ones who chose other paths for other reasons, sometimes involving a romantic partner, sometimes not. Nothing was ever guaranteed in life except for death.

But he thought this might be one of those matches where they did work out together in the long run. Both of them wanted to put in that effort. It only remained to see how that effort would turn out.

Kaito gave him a look that would have been amused if he were anyone else but Kaito. "Thank you."

Chris took a long sip of his tea. "You're quite welcome, my friend." He smiled. "Please don't forget to invite me to the wedding."

The End

Note: Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the story. Please let me know what you thought of it if at all possible.