Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! nor its characters. I also do not make any profit from this work of fiction.


Chapter Summary: After Yuugi escapes from Atemu's apartment, he thinks about the past. Also, Jounouchi is nosy and a little worried.


Warnings: Mentions of sex.


Chapter 2: Mondays Suck (Part 1)


Yuugi darted inside and closed the door, locking it quickly afterward. He collapsed against the wood and buried his face into his hands, his breaths harsh. Slowly, he slid down to the floor, head spinning. Having finally reached the safety of his apartment, he could freely freak out as much as he wanted.

He could not forget what happened. He could not push it to the back of his mind. It was bad enough that he had sex with a kid still in high school, but he had also hurt that same kid deeply. Yuugi let out a frustrated breath, disgusted with himself. How was he any better than the man that had hurt him?

He had been in Atemu's position years ago. He too, had slept with someone older than himself; his teacher. He was a chef Yuugi had idolized and one that had taught him much in both cooking and in life. Yuugi had been young, infatuated, and foolish. He had thought the man cared about him. He had thought the man loved him. But he had only used Yuugi to keep his bed warm and tossed him aside at the next opportunity.

Yuugi refused to be like that man. He would not take advantage of Atemu. He could not do that to him. He liked Atemu. Despite his young age, Yuugi had liked him. And because he liked him, he could not lead the boy on and hurt him like he himself had been hurt. It was better to end it before either of them got in too deep.

There was also the fact that Atemu was still in high school. Had the boy already been graduated, Yuugi might have stayed. He was going to stay. But then Juudai had let the cat out of the bag and it had felt like being hit by a train. Yuugi had allowed himself to be swayed by Atemu. He had forgotten, briefly, the damage that had been dealt to him. Atemu was young like he had once been. Clueless and only looking for someone to love that would love him in return.

Towards the end, Yuugi had seen himself in Atemu, seen his own mistakes staring back at him. He had seen his own stupidity, and his choice to leave had burned into him. Unable to stand looking at his past, he had run.

"I really like you, Yuugi."

Those words were like knives in his chest. He had once said something similar to that man. In that moment, he had wished for his feelings to be returned and had only found an empty smile and a half-assed apology. That Yuugi had done the same to Atemu … he wished he could change it and give the teen what Yuugi himself had been denied.

He's still in high school, Yuugi reminded himself, He's off limits.

Yuugi jumped a mile when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out to see yet another text from his best friend. He narrowed his eyes at the screen. If it had not been for said friend, Yuugi would not have gone home with Atemu. He would not be filled with guilt and shame. He would not be wishing he liked Atemu less.

Suddenly furious, Yuugi turned off his phone and stood up from the floor. He had his life to get back to. He could no longer dwell on his depressing thoughts. So even though his heart still beat Atemu's name into his chest with painful clarity, Yuugi wiped at his unwittingly teary eyes and ignored it.

x x x

"I don't understand why you're so mad," Jounouchi grumbled for the fifth time.

It was four o'clock on Monday morning and both Yuugi and Jounouchi were in the back of their bakery. Yuugi was pulling cinnamon rolls from the oven, his entire being heavy with sleep. He was most definitely not a morning person. Beside him, his partner, Jounouchi, was angrily kneading dough; he was no more a morning person than Yuugi.

"Was he a bad lay or something?" the blonde asked him curiously before releasing a loud yawn.

Yuugi sighed and placed the tray on the marble counter. He closed the oven door before turning to Jounouchi with a grimace. He didn't want to talk about Atemu. Thinking about the boy only caused him intense inner turmoil. The more he thought, the more he continued to doubt his actions. It was taking everything Yuugi had to ignore the niggling incertitude at the back of his mind. He should have never allowed himself to go with Atemu that night.

Just look where it's gotten me, Yuugi thought bitterly.

"How many more times are you going to ask about him until you drop it?" Yuugi asked with a tinge of annoyance in his tone. He just wanted to forget. He didn't want to feel the uneasy clench in his stomach or the squeezing in his chest any longer. Speaking and thinking of Atemu only seemed to cause both.

"Until you tell me what happened. You didn't answer any of my calls or texts yesterday. I wanna know what happened. Did he hurt you? I'll kick his ass if he laid a hand on you –"

"No! He … fine, I'll tell you," Yuugi sighed heavily, "He was barely legal and still in high school and I'm never doing another one night stand again for the rest of my life, got it?" Yuugi turned back to the tray and picked it up. He slid the lining paper with the rolls onto the cooling rack and set the empty tray aside. "Now can we please drop it?"

But Jounouchi seemed not to hear him.

"Barely legal is still legal, Yuugi. Not that much of a big deal, but high school? Wow. I thought he was maybe a college freshman. He was a senior, hopefully?"

"Yes, he's a senior," Yuugi groaned. Why couldn't Jounouchi just drop it already?

"Did you meet his parents?" Jounouchi snorted, finding humor in Yuugi's discomfort.

"Shut up, Jounouchi! It really isn't funny. And for your information, no, I didn't meet his parents. I think he actually lives by himself."

"Maybe the 'rents were out of town," Jounouchi guffawed.

"I'm going to smush this hot cinnamon roll down your pants," Yuugi threatened, pointing with his oven mitt at the steaming cinnamon rolls.

Jounouchi only laughed harder.

"Seriously, Jounouchi, stop laughing! It was horrible! I was so embarrassed and ashamed of myself –"

"Okay, okay, I get it, but tell me this, was he good in bed?"

Yuugi ripped off his oven mitt and threw it at his friend with a furious blush overtaking his cheeks.

"I'm not telling you that!"

"No, I'm being serious," Jounouchi said, his laughter dying, "How was he?"

Yuugi gave him the stink eye and retrieved his oven mitt. He leaned against the counter next to Jounouchi and fiddled with it, recalling that Saturday night. Atemu had been brimming with confidence the entire way to the apartment. Once there, the teenager had pushed him against the door with voracity and proceeded to take Yuugi's breath away with his lips.

Atemu had kissed Yuugi with passion and hunger, touching him in all the places that lit fire in Yuugi's veins … that is, until they got to his bed. Then, Atemu had grown nervous, his kissing more questioning than burning. He had removed Yuugi's clothes without a problem, but after that, his movements had been unsure and he had not made a single attempt to touch Yuugi below his waist.

Yuugi had taken charge then and pressed the teenaged boy's hands to his ass and told him to stretch him. Atemu had been so surprised by Yuugi's forwardness that he had frozen for a moment before nodding and doing as Yuugi had said.

Yuugi had found it rather sweet when Atemu kept asking if he was uncomfortable or in any pain.

"If you change your mind, tell me," Atemu had said, "and I'll stop."

Yuugi's heart had fluttered with Atemu's concern and he'd kissed the teen senseless before telling Atemu to fuck him. The way Atemu had blushed across his cheeks and up to his ears had been completely worth his bold words.

"Well, if you must know," Yuugi's blush spread to his own ears as he remembered, "he was … a little clumsy and awkward. He fumbled the condom like three times and he kept stopping to keep himself from you-know." Yuugi shrugged and looked at the ground, his voice softened, "...but he was really attentive and sweet. Even after. It made up for his inexperience."

Jounouchi nodded and rolled up the dough into a ball. He set it into a bowl and covered it.

"Well, he is still a teenager," Jounouchi reasoned and Yuugi nodded. Jounouchi did not need to tell him that. Yuugi was well aware of Atemu's age. He clenched his teeth and his heart squeezed in his chest.

"But you know, age doesn't really matter," Jounouchi said carefully, glancing at Yuugi to make sure he was listening. By the tense way Yuugi held his shoulders, Jounouchi was sure that he was. "You could have given him a chance, at least. Or was he a jerk in the morning?"

Yuugi looked up immediately and shook his head.

"No," Yuugi said quickly, "of course not. He was … he actually woke me up with kisses." Yuugi blushed and looked away. The emotions inside him were conflicting with each other. Yuugi's doubt was hounding him with a vengeance.

Jounouchi nodded as he put together ingredients to make another batch of dough.

"Then was his place a mess or something? Did he have take out everywhere? Porn? Bad manners? What's the turn-off?" he asked Yuugi.

Yuugi bit his lip and looked at the floor, crossing his arms self-consciously. His shoulders hunched and he shook his head again.

"No. His place was clean and I didn't see any porn. He even had a good kitchen and he was always nice," Yuugi said, "but he's … he's too innocent." Yuugi sighed and walked over to a second oven, peering inside to see the progress of the hot cross buns.

Jounouchi sighed.

"The guy who came onto you in a bar and took you back to his place to have sex with you is too innocent? Yuugi, who are you trying to kid? Me, or yourself?"

"Jounouchi, I don't want to talk about this anymore," Yuugi said, a tense edge to his tone, "Atemu is in high school. He's eighteen. He's far too young to get involved in an adult relationship, because that's what I am, an adult. He may like me, but he doesn't understand what it means to have a mature relationship. He will just end up getting hurt. It doesn't matter how cute and charming and sweet he is. It's not going to work." Yuugi slipped on the oven mitt with an air of finality, but Jounouchi was not one to be deterred.

"Then maybe you should stop sounding like you wish you hadn't walked out," Jounouchi retorted, "you know you can't keep being scared. You gotta give someone a chance eventually, so why not him? He seems decent enough."

Yuugi shook his head obstinately and said, "He's just a kid that doesn't know what he wants. It's for his own good as well as mine."

Jounouchi frowned and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He knew the real issue underneath it all. If he could get Yuugi past it, then Yuugi would be able to get past the age thing that, to Jounouchi, was no big deal. But then he wasn't the one that got involved with a teenager. He pulled the newly-made dough from the bowl and placed it onto the kneading surface.

Finally, he said, "You should let him decide what's good for himself. He might be a teenager, but he's obviously not an idiot or he wouldn't have been able to get you to go with him." And upon seeing Yuugi huff, Jounouchi took it a step further. "You're not Zigfreid, Yuugi."

Yuugi pulled the oven door open and froze. Behind him Jounouchi was waiting. Yuugi took a breath and ducked his head, pulling out the hot tray. He didn't bother with a reply.

Jounouchi took that as an end to the conversation.

x x x

It was nearing five o'clock in the afternoon and Yuugi was really looking forward to closing up for the night. His bakery slash cafe had been rather full for a Monday and Yuugi had dealt with the weirdest customers. A white-haired and a blonde pair of males had walked in asking for a "Sorry You Got Screwed" pastry. When Yuugi had asked them to be more specific, the pair had argued with each other quite loudly, until the blonde slapped a hand on the other's mouth and demanded Yuugi write those words on a cake.

Yuugi had done so and gladly waved them goodbye after they paid him.

He was starting to daydream at the cash register, letting the idle conversations from the customers in the shop wash over him, relaxing him, when the bell over the door rang and a new customer walked in. Yuugi looked up, alert, and thought the teenager had the most beautiful royal blue eyes that Yuugi had ever seen. The boy came straight to the counter and Yuugi smiled at him.

"Hello, welcome to Kame Bakery and cafe. What would you like today?" Yuugi greeted.

"I'm here to pick up a cake under the name of Yuusei Fudou," said the young man.

"I'll get it," Jounouchi called from somewhere behind Yuugi and the teen with dark hair looked to him and nodded.

"Thank you," he said before looking at the pastries on display.

"Anything else?" Yuugi asked and the young man nodded.

"Yeah," he said, "what would you suggest for someone who just got dumped and is really depressed about it?"

Yuugi pressed a finger to his chin and looked up to the ceiling, considering the question before answering.

"Does this person have any particular dislikes?" he asked after a moment.

The boy shook his head before abruptly nodding.

"Yes, he recently can't stand to look at banana-nut muffins or cupcake shapes in general."

Yuugi's heart stuttered in his chest and he felt his stomach clench. He opened his mouth to speak, but found a lump had suddenly formed in his throat. Gulping it down, Yuugi cleared his throat.

It's a coincidence, he thought, stop being silly.

"Ah," he said nervously. No way, he thought, he's not talking about Atemu. Yuugi kept his polite smile in place and motioned to the pastries, moving over mechanically to pull open the door and pointed to the small, chocolate-coated cake with three equally-coated strawberries on top. His heart was racing in his chest.

"Well, chocolate is always a good choice, this one is devils' food cake. The one behind it is vanilla," he said and then pointed to the raspberry-cheesecake slices, "And cheesecake is also a good choice, but if you want something more traditional," Yuugi closed the refrigerated compartment and moved to the unrefrigerated one with all of the cookies, "chocolate-chip cookies are an excellent comfort food."

The young man looked at the choices closely before running a hand thorough his dark hair with a sigh.

"Alright," he said with a nod.

Yuugi looked at him uncertainly.

"Which one would you like, sir?"

"All of them," the teen said without missing a beat.

"All three of them?" Yuugi gaped a little, "Are you sure?"

The teenager nodded at Yuugi.

"Yes. The devil's food cake with the strawberries, the cheesecake, and … five, no, eight chocolate-chip cookies." When he noticed Yuugi's dumbfounded expression, the teen smiled sadly. "Trust me, he needs it."

Yuugi numbly retrieved the items the teen requested and when he was gathering the cookies, the teen hummed.

"You know what, just give me all the chocolate-chip cookies you got and make it three slices of cheesecake."

"Wow," Jounouchi said from the register where he waited with the Yuusei Fudou cake, "must have been one hell of a bad breakup."

The teen ran a tired hand through his hair and shrugged.

"Well, it wasn't really a breakup," he said, "They weren't going out in the first place. My friend sort of just had one of those love at first sight things, but the feelings apparently weren't mutual." The teen walked over to where Jounouchi waited and pointed to the box. "May I see it?"

Jounouchi opened the white box for the teen's inspection.

"So he's really broken up about it," the teen continued, "ah, good. Juudai will love this. Juudai is my boyfriend, not the guy I'm talking about. This is my apology to him for not being around lately."

"That's really sweet," Jounouchi commented, "sorry about your friend, though. Hope he feels better."

"You and me both, buddy."

As soon as he heard Juudai's name, Yuugi stopped packing up the cookies. He stared at their chocolate deliciousness and felt more miserable and stunned than he ever had before. Love at first sight? he thought, And … I said it was just sex. God, I'm a terrible person.

"Hey, Yuugi, you alright over there?" Jounouchi asked when he noticed Yuugi had stopped placing cookies into the box.

"Yuugi?" the teen looked around the shop as though he was just seeing it for the first time before turning wide eyes to Yuugi. "...the baker." The gears in the teen's head clicked into place and he straightened. "You're Yuugi the banana-nut muffin baker."

Jounouchi looked at the teen with confusion.

"What? Banana-nut? Yuugi does a lot more than that."

"Jounouchi, can you finish packing up these cookies?" Yuugi asked him before handing over the box and tongs. He approached the counter and looked up at the teen nervously.

"Hi, you must be Atemu's friend –"

"Yuusei, and, yeah, that's me. You're the guy from the bar then?"

"Holy shit," Jounouchi had managed to connect the dots and, he too, had stopped what he was doing. He only continued when Yuugi graced him with a sharp look.

"Yeah, I'm the guy from the bar," Yuugi said quietly. The shop still had customers after all. He didn't want to make a scene.

"Huh," Yuusei said as he sized Yuugi up, "What was so horrible about my friend that you bailed like that?"

"Look," Yuugi said, "I'm sorry he was hurt, but it was a one night stand and –"

"Atemu doesn't do one night stands," Yuusei interrupted, "and he said that he made it clear before you guys even left the bar that he wanted to date you. So what was so bad about him?" Yuusei crossed his arms over his chest and waited for Yuugi's answer.

"He's still in high school," Yuugi said defensively, though the excuse was beginning to sound weak to his ears, "he's young and inexperienced –"

"He's only in high school for three more months and then he's graduating. And he won't be inexperienced forever. He'll learn."

"Well, he's still young. He doesn't know what he wants yet –"

"Atemu knows exactly what he wants. He's planning for culinary school and his goal is to open a restaurant. If you're worried about maturity, he's more mature than any eighteen-year-old I know. The guy lives alone and supports himself, for fuck's sake. Pardon my French."

Yuugi frowned.

"His parents don't help him out?"

Yuusei shook his head and said, "No. So what other excuse do you have?" Yuusei pulled his wallet from his pocket as Jounouchi placed the boxes on the counter.

"I'll help you at the next register, miss," Jounouchi said to the girl tapping her foot impatiently behind Yuusei. She brightened when Jounouchi spoke to her and happily skipped over to the second register on the other side of the pastry display.

"He's still too young," Yuugi persisted once the girl and Jounouchi had left.

"Didn't seem to bother you when you slept with him. You know, it all just sounds like you're scared, but alright. I won't hassle you any longer. How much for everything?"

Yuugi stiffly rang up Yuusei's purchases and Jounouchi came out from behind the counter to the teen's side.

"Need some help with that?"

"Sure, thanks. My bike is right outside."

Yuugi watched the two go with gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. He stubbornly ignored it and pushed the encounter with Yuusei to the back of his mind. When his friend came back in, Jounouchi was smart enough to sense that he did not want to talk about what happened and, thankfully, did not broach the subject. Yuugi did not want to think of Atemu at all. He especially did not want to think about the sad expression he had last seen on the younger man's face.


A/N: Do not ask for updates. Thank you.