This was originally going to be part of a series titled "Five People Juudai Kissed" but it was taking way too long so i decided to just upload this part separately. have fun
Damn Juudai and his brightness and eagerness and enthusiasm, damn his infuriatingly endearing personality that seems to race along a path beside everyone else's, damn the way he treats each duel like a combination of amusement park ride and flirting session and seems to be completely oblivious to the effect he's having on Manjoume.
That last one especially. Juudai's natural friendly exuberance always seems to boil over into something a little too friendly, a little too much closeness, but is that his intent? Is it just how he makes friends, or is it really - damn it all, Manjoume doesn't know what's up and what's down anymore. Trying to understand what's happening in Juudai's head is like wandering a maze, and he's worn out by endless mixed signals and false alarms, but he keeps at it. Because loath as he is to admit it, he has it bad.
"Manjoume, you look upset," says Juudai, peering at him over his fifth bento in ten minutes. "You need to stop brooding so much, or your face will stay that way."
Manjoume doesn't dignify that with a response.
"Did you get grass stains on your dramatic coat?"
"It's black," points out Manjoume. "Why would any grass stains show up?" Nonetheless, he has to check a little. Sitting on the ground outdoors is not his forte, especially not behind a school building that's fairly out of the way; but Juudai dragged him here for lunch and he hadn't been able to resist.
"If you're sad because I beat you again, then -"
"Idiot! Why the hell would I be sad about that?"
Juudai grins at him with a mouth full of food. "Because you take dueling so seriously, Manjoume. Lighten up! Enjoy life!"
"It's Manjoume-san," he corrects automatically, then snorts. "Easy for you to say. You're one of the most talented duelists in the school, of course you can do whatever you want."
He hadn't really meant to say that, but he doesn't quite regret it either. It is, after all, true.
"Really?" Juudai lowers his food and leans in closer. "You mean that?"
Manjoume swallows. "Yeah," he says. "You're naturally good at this. It's nothing but your own laziness that's keeping you in Osiris Red. You could be in Blue easily if you really wanted." He doesn't know where all this honesty is coming from, but maybe it has something to do with the way Juudai's round earnest eyes are trained on his face.
Juudai blinks. "Why, Manjoume," he says, light and teasing, "I didn't know you thought so highly of me," and he's leaning in closer with that statement, and is that tone of his just friendly ribbing or -
"Yeah, well," says Manjoume in a rush. "A damn waste of talent it is, too, you sleeping in class and never studying and not caring if you win or lose."
"But I like it that way," says Juudai. "It seems to me you'd better have fun either way, instead of getting so hung up on winning that you forget to enjoy it. Why would you want to do that?"
Manjoume doesn't know how to respond, because on the one hand he could never see the world that way, but on the other hand Juudai's ability to do so is one of the infuriatingly beautiful things about him. Also, Juudai's face is close enough that he can faintly feel warm breath on his lips, which is very much impairing his ability to think.
"Manjoume," says Juudai, a bit more quietly than usual. He tilts his head to the side, and damn it if that doesn't put him at the right angle to avoid their noses colliding if one of them were to - "Why do you do that?"
"Because," says Manjoume, "because I have to, I have to win -" The distance between them seems to be narrowing, Juudai's mouth is so close to his, his breathing hitches in his chest. "You don't, and that's so stupid, and - and brilliant and -"
"That doesn't make sense," says Juudai, sounding more puzzled than anything else, even as their noses brush.
"No, it -" says Manjoume, and then one of them must have leaned in the extra distance, or maybe both of them, because their lips brush against each other.
Juudai jerks back slightly at the contact, and for one sickening moment Manjoume thinks he's blown it, he was wrong all along, end of story go home everyone. But it was perhaps a movement more of surprise than revulsion, because in the next instant Juudai sucks in a quick breath and kisses Manjoume hard enough to make his lips hurt.
It's sloppy and messy and Juudai tastes more like fried shrimp than anything else and Manjoume doesn't care, doesn't care. Juudai is as enthusiastic and unsophisticated in kissing as he is in dueling, applying lips and teeth and tongue with disorganized vigor, turning Manjoume's thoughts into a rather incoherent muddle of finally, god, finally. He can feel Juudai's weight on his torso, and with one hand grasping in Juudai's hair he has to fight not to fall backwards into the grass, even though he'd like that really, he'd love to be on his back with Juudai above him on top of him and the two of them finally, properly kissing -
There's a yelp from above him and he jerks away, or tries to. He ends up falling and banging his elbow on a rock hidden in the grass, and the front of him feels suddenly cold as Juudai's weight leaves him.
"Kenzan!" At Juudai's cheerful greeting, Manjoume looks up, and yes, that's Kenzan, with his gaze flicking between Juudai and Manjoume and an extremely pained look on his face. Juudai seems completely unfazed.
"Oh - yeah - Juudai." Kenzan seems to decide that the best course of action is to stare fixedly into the middle distance. "Professor Chronos wants to see you. Didn't say what it was about-saurus."
"Oh no," says Juudai. He scrambles to his feet, dusts himself off, then he turns back to Manjoume. "That was fun!" he says cheerily, as if they'd just had a particularly good duel. "You weren't too bad!"
Manjoume, on his back and elbows in the grass with his chest heaving, can only gape.
"Well, I guess I'd better get going," says Juudai, and then runs off. In the opposite direction off Chronos' office.
Kenzan watches him go, then turns to Manjoume, who knows what he must look like, on the ground with Juudai pressed against him a moment before, breathing hard and looking flushed and dazed. He experiences a rush of hot bitter anger towards Kenzan, with his stupid hat and his stupid dinosaur leg and his stupid stupid timing.
"Do I want to know," says Kenzan slowly, "what that was about-don?"
Manjoume wipes the remnant of Juudai's sloppy overenthusiasm off of his mouth and says, "I have no idea."
"Really?" asks Kenzan, still looking pained. "Because it looked like you had a pretty good idea-saurus." He looks like he'd much rather not be discussing this; perhaps he feels obligated to out of some protectiveness for his so-called big bro.
"No," says Manjoume, sitting up and making some effort to fix his clothes, "I have really no idea what that was." He realizes, with a bitter sinking feeling, that it's true. It started suddenly and it ended suddenly, and apart from things such as "put my teeth in painful places" he has no idea what could have been going through Juudai's mind in the last few minutes.
"He left his lunchbox," he notes, and picks it up, and before Kenzan's watchful gaze, manages to say, "I have class soon - better be going -"
This one is a lie. He has nothing to do for the next hour except stew in his dorm room, replaying those few blissful fleeting moments in his mind. Half of him is trying to commit it as much to memory as possible - for future reference - and half is trying to figure out what the hell was up with that.
The second endeavor fails entirely. Damn Juudai, damn his shining captivating attractiveness, and damn his ability to turn even an enthusiastic makeout into the strangest of mixed signals. How ironic, he thinks, that something so blatant as a kiss should almost make him want to give up.
I know I say it a lot, but I would really appreciate reviews! And the more detailed the better! (No pressure of course; if you can really only leave a short review then don't feel forced to come up with more stuff) if you liked this fic then tell your friends too maybe
have a nice day and please review!