Kiss

DISCLAIMER: Sorry about the delay. Small matter of university and reality in general taking over my sanity to the point that I could barely breathe, let alone write. Some of you might find the reasoning in this chapter kinda… skewed, but you have to remember – even the whole and sane characters in Yugioh think a bit left of a pyschiatrist's ideal line of reason. It makes sense to them. And me. Which is worrying. Oh well.


"There's definitely something."

Honda held his wallet out of Jounouchi's reach as he looked around at Anzu, perplexed. "What's definitely something?"

Anzu blinked, not having realised she had even spoken, and then blushed and smiled, waving it off. They, Yami and Bakura were gathered around the back of the bento kiosk in the train station, though Bakura was casually analysing the station security and Yami was leaning against the kiosk in apparently deep thought, so neither of them really counted. Only Jounouchi and Honda had noticed Anzu's comment as she watched Yuugi and Ryou disappear into the crowd in search of an updated timetable.

"No, seriously Anzu, what's up?" asked Honda, shoving his palm against Jounouchi's face and pushing him away. "You've been acting weird for a coupl'a days now. Is something wrong, or what?"

"Not wrong, per se," she said reluctantly, looking back into the crowd. "And it's not just lately; it's just I've been thinking about it a lot since Yuugi and Yami 'got together'."

"Yeah?" he prompted.

"Well… I just… Have you noticed something different about Yuugi?" she asked worriedly. "Since Egypt, he's been acting differently, and I can't put my finger on what."

"Different?" repeated Jounouchi. "Like bad different or good different?"

"Good different," she said, frowning. "But I started noticing it in the Memory RPG, and, y'know, so I'm kinda worried."

Yami's eyes snapped open and Bakura turned so fast his shoes scraped against the concrete, but neither said anything as they waited for the conversation to continue.

"What, you think like maybe something got into him in the game?" asked Jounouchi, glancing at Bakura suspiciously. "You think something's controlling him?"

"If it is, it's done a damn good job pretending to be Yuugi if none of us have noticed in three months," pointed out Honda.

"Maybe not controlling him, but there's definitely something different," insisted Anzu. "He's… cooler."

Bakura snorted. "What?"

She glared for a second, then focussed her attention on Yami in search of back up. "Isn't he acting a little differently? He makes jokes, he's brave, his ideas are great, he's more confident… in general, he's just that much cooler than he used to be," she said firmly. "Don't you think so, Yami?"

"No," he said, frowning at her. "If anything, I think he's gotten quieter since Egypt. He doesn't tell me nearly as much as he used to."

"He's not as dependent," agreed Anzu, as if that was just another point to her argument.

"Nneagh… I dunno, Anzu," said Jounouchi, making a face. "He's different than he was like, a year ago, but that's more 'cause of us, I think."

"The qualities you mentioned are ones he's always had," said Yami, tapping his head meaningfully.

"Y'know," Honda said suddenly, smirking. "If I didn't know better, Anzu, I'd say it's not Yuugi that's changed."

"Hm?"

"It's you," he said, grinning. "You sound just like one of those girls outta bad American TV. New season comes and they've gotta invent a new complication to hitch up the ratings, so they make a lasting character suddenly change her opinion of the main character."

Anzu blinked, and Bakura rolled his eyes, looking back to the security cameras now that they had decided it had nothing to do with the darkness. Yami, however, raised his head and fixed Anzu with a steady gaze.

"I don't get it."

Jounouchi grinned as he caught on. "Actually, yeah. You know what it is? It's because Yami and Yuugi aren't together anymore. Without Yami taking over every time there's something going on, you're getting to see Yuugi in all his bad joke-cracking glory," he said, then snickered as he raised his voice to announce, "You're getting a crush on Yuugi!"

Anzu blanched, falling a few steps back closer to Yami. "What! No, I'm not!" she cried. "I am not getting a crush on Yuugi."

"Hey, true, I guess you've actually had one on him for months now!"

Honda shoved Jounouchi away again, giving Anzu one of his patronisingly understanding looks. "Anzu, it's not like that. But Jounouchi's probably right, I mean… Yuugi's changed a lot in the past coupl'a years, right? And when you compare Yuugi now with Yuugi from the start of high school, it's a pretty huge difference. So while we've only known Yuugi while he's been changing, you knew him before he solved the puzzle and always thought he'd be the same. Maybe you thought that all the good things about Yuugi that've changed were actually all Yami."

"I know Yuugi better than any of you," she said defensively, taking no note of Yami's exceptioning cough.

"Sure, Anzu," said Jounouchi, smirking. "But whatever it is you're not feeling about Yuugi? Y'might want to take a chance with it while you've still got one."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"Vivian," stated Honda, raising an eyebrow. "Rebecca. Those girls that followed us around in America. Keri from class F."

Anzu blushed, taking another step back until she was leaning against the kiosk beside Yami.

"Girls like making the first move on a guy that's the poster boy for 'sensitive new age guy'," added Jounouchi, making a face.

"But he doesn't –" stammered Anzu.

"Two years of faithful friendship against five of only the most basic attention," Yami said lowly, almost glaring at her from the corner of his eye. "The three 'dates' with me. The waterpark. A maturity grown beyond affection being purely dependent on a skirt shorter than it is wide."

She flinched away from him, hurt, but Yami's eyes merely narrowed even further as he rolled onto his shoulder to look at her properly. "Jounouch-kun, Honda-kun," he said, the rarely used suffixes further emphasising the message in his eyes. "You shouldn't tease Anzu about this. She knows as well as any of us that any chance she had with aibou is in the past tense. Everyone knows things have changed, and they won't be going back to the way they were."

There was a pause as Jounouchi and Honda exchanged glances and Anzu gaped at him. The silence was quickly broken as Bakura looked over his shoulder to comment.

"Of course, the problem with that is that things are going back to the way they were. Aren't they, oh pharaoh?" he said casually. "Obviously, once the midget's father leaves, your little romance will go back into the imagination again, and things'll be as they ever were. Other prospects included."

Anzu frowned at a slight flicker in Yami's expression. There were implications in Bakura's statement—ones Jounouchi and Honda loved to tease Yuugi with—but she had never really taken them seriously. As Anzu regularly reminded herself, Yuugi and Yami were just very close friends. The idea of them being anything more was just a joke.

After all, Omocha had come up with that story because she read too many romance novels, not because there was anything there. Yami's habit of just appearing or changing the subject when things were getting personal between her and Yuugi was just bad timing. The reason she and Yuugi hadn't actually gone out or anything was because they weren't sure of how they felt yet – Yami had absolutely nothing to do with it. Yami made comments and warnings about Anzu taking it slow with Yuugi was because he was protective, not possessive.

She struggled with her thoughts for a few seconds, ignoring the conversation and Jounouchi's continued teasing. She wasn't quite sure why, but Yami's little statement had suddenly occurred to her as the most irritating thing she had heard all year.

She turned onto her side to meet Yami's gaze, smiling as politely as she could manage. "Now you think about it, though, Bakura-kun's right. Things haven't changed that much… It's kind of surprising Yosoushi-san believes the story, really."

Yami blinked, turning to face her again. Something flickered in his eyes, but his expression was perfectly controlled. "Oh?"

"Well, I mean, think about it. Yuugi's not the king of romance, but even he would hold his lover's hand back," she pointed out. "When people are genuinely interested in someone like that, they don't wait for the other person to touch them, do they?"

Yami didn't say anything at first, folding his arms and nodding thoughtfully. "You think Yososhii would pick up on that, do you?"

"I don't know. All I know is that when I see two people on the street and all they do is stand close to each other—and only one of them looks like he wants to—I don't think they're a couple," she said innocently. "And according to the story, you and Yuugi are pretty hot and heavy. You two can't even hold hands properly, let alone have so much as one little kiss."

"She's… actually got a point –" began Honda, but Yami quickly threw his hand up to Honda's face, a silent order to stop talking.

"We don't bother to kiss, Anzu, because it would be redundant," he said calmly. "Blind men see we care about each other more than anyone. It's no great leap of the imagination to think it's something more."

A new voice suddenly spoke behind Jounouchi, but both Yami and Anzu ignored it, too intent on their polite argument.

"What blind men can see is that you and Yuugi are just saying you're together so a paranoid traditionalist has a reason not to throw you out. All they hear is two close friends, at best," continued Anzu. "Anyone can see you and Yuugi are good friends. But if you're supposed to be lovers, then that anyone is going to wonder about the difference between discretion and… reluctance."

"I think you'll find you're the first person to think that, Anzu," said Yami. "And you know better, so it's only warranted that you, of all people, would doubt our relationship."

"I might have been the first person to say anything, but when Yosoushi-san sits through hours of movies of barely-dressed women with his hormonally charged teenage son, then comes home to see that son barely interact with his apparent lover, then I really doubt I'm the first to think it."

"We don't need to be physical, Anzu, because the emotion is obvious."

"The only thing that's obvious is that you can't be more physical, because aibous don't kiss."

The muscles in Yami's throat, usually barely visible behind his collar, clearly showed he had an answer to that, but he stopped himself before even opening his mouth, and just smiled calmly. "That's one opinion. But if we ask someone else, such as Jounouchi for… example…" He trailed off as he turned around, suddenly noticing Yuugi and Ryou standing between Jounouchi and Honda. They were both staring at him, Yuugi's brow furrowed slightly and Ryou barely suppressing his giggles.

There was another long pause as the group all looked between Anzu, Yami and Yuugi, before Yuugi slowly smiled, clapping his hands together in a quick and obvious change of subject. "So, we've got half an hour before Ryou-kun's friends get here. Anyone up for hamburgers?"


The bus was full of noise – Ryou's older friends were much more boisterous than any of them had expected. Several of them were wearing cloaks or carrying fake wands ala Harry Potter, and they all spouted quotes and made jokes that even Yuugi found geeky, but for some reason they got along great with Jounouchi and Anzu. The group had commandeered the back of the bus, laughing and swapping stories, with Honda and Bakura in the middle looking perplexed, and Yami and Yuugi in the very back row, watching the group with slight amusement.

They had quieted now, listening to Ryou recount an altered version of the Memory RPG in minute detail, and Bakura was muttering his regrets about letting himself get so attached to a pathetic rabbit. Yuugi was listening with half an ear, his attention more on Yami, who was drawing absent patterns in the thick folds of his vinyl pants.

Yami didn't often wear vinyl – he liked flashy jewelry, but usually leather was as wild as he got in clothing. It still suited him, though, on the rare occasions he did wear it. Anyone else would have made it look tacky or tasteless, but Yami made it look good.

Without really thinking about it, Yuugi reached out and absently scratched his nails down Yami's knee, propped against the back of the seat in front. Yami's fingers, still tracing lines in the folds, stilled for a moment, but Yuugi ignored them, pressing the edge of his nail into the material to make a dent, then pulling it smooth.

"Enjoying yourself?" murmured Yami, and Yuugi smiled.

"I like this stuff. Shiny," he explained, pressing a single finger into Yami's lower thigh to show how the light reflected.

"That is my leg you're playing with, though."

Yuugi didn't answer at first, his hand sliding over Yami's leg to lie flat, and slowly rolled his head back against the seat to look up at him. "Do you mind?"

"No," he said softly, his own hand shifting to cover Yuugi's and keep it there. "Anything you do is fine with me, aibou."

"Kinda thought so," he whispered, letting his head fall to Yami's shoulder. They sat in silence for a few seconds, watching lights pass through the dark window. After a moment, Yuugi nudged his elbow into Yami's side. "Why were you and Anzu fighting, before?"

"We weren't fighting, we were discussing."

"Fine, what were you discussing so casually?" he asked dryly, and Yami smirked.

"You heard us."

"Mm… But now it's not a matter of winning the discussion, what do you think?" he asked, looking up at him again. "She's got a point. I mean, that last movie I saw with Dad – wow. No other word to describe it. Those girls were just… and then I come home and we were just us."

"Yeah… but what can we do?" He grimaced, shrugging Yuugi upright and leaning against the window instead. "We don't need to pretend. You don't want to."

"I want this to work," he corrected, raising his eyes to the window as well. He could just see Yami's reflection in the glass. "I don't want Dad to think you're forcing me into anything."

Yami lowered his eyes, then took a deep breath and straightened up enough to meet his reflection's gaze. "I don't want you to do anything for someone else's sake."

"I'm just never really sure it's… y'know… maybe you don't want me to," he said quietly, but a heavy sigh was his only answer, and he smiled. "I know, I know… It's just… I'm never really sure what's okay and what's not. There's no set rules with us, so I don't know when I'd be out of line, so I just… don't."

Yami frowned at that, his brow furrowing as he struggled to understand. He turned around to look at him properly, but Yuugi just faced forward to avoid his gaze.

"I think that's why this isn't working, really. We don't look like friends, because we're not," he said quietly. "I think we're more than that. But we're not lovers either, so we could never look like them unless we actually tried to. Even then I don't know how far it would work."

He hesitated, wanting to go back to the point about not knowing what was right and wrong, but eventually let it go for now and shifted to look at his knees instead. "It's pointless to discuss it. We have a reasonable lie going on here and there's no proof we need to physically pretend. Besides, for all we know Anzu could be right and I'm not supposed to kiss my aibou. You could find it disgusting, and that would show on your face."

"I might not, too," he pointed out, still quiet. "And it's not like this is a new idea, here. Ryou-kun and Bakura-kun do a lot more than kiss when they're angry enough."

"Ryou and Bakura are mentally unstable," Yami replied, rolling his eyes. "They come from a sociopathic tomb robber that was unhinged from the moment he saw his village burn. They screw each other because it's their only method of communication."

Yuugi blushed bright red at that, and Yami smiled, exasperated. "Let's just drop it, alright? We shouldn't do it, so we won't."

"You think it would be too weird," surmised Yuugi.

"I didn't say that. I think you could be disgusted, and that would destroy any hope we have."

"How do you know I would be?"

Yami laughed, throwing his hand up. "Are you saying you want to kiss? Is that it?"

"I'm just asking," he said insistently. "Purely theoretical. Does the idea creep you out? Is that why you think I would be disgusted? Because it disgusts you?"

He hissed in a breath, glancing out the window for a second before turning back to face Yuugi head on. "Does it bother you?"

"I asked you first," he said childishly, grinning.

"If you want my answer, you have to answer first," he said firmly, and Yuugi tilted his head, curiously amused.

"You always do that," he said thoughtfully. "It's always about what I want, what I feel. Ever since Egypt, it's like you don't matter compared to what other people want. Is that a pharaoh thing, or…?"

"You are not one to talk about being a matyr. And I have at least three people who would argue against me being selfless in easy reaching distance," he said bluntly, but Yuugi just frowned, serious for once.

"I want to know what you think, this time. Forget about me, and everyone else," he said firmly. "If it were completely up to you, with none of our friends, my feelings, my parents, Grandpa – no one's thoughts but your own, what would you think?"

They stared at each other for a long moment, and Yami frowned, searching Yuugi's eyes for an answer. "Why does it matter?"

"Because what you think matters to me," he said simply. "And lately, you haven't been telling me any of your thoughts. So I'm asking you this. If our friends didn't care; if you didn't have to look Grandpa in the eye; if I just went along with whatever you wanted; what would you say or do to convince my dad we should stay together forever?"

Yami's lips twitched back in a half grimace, and he pulled back toward the window. But he kept his gaze locked with Yuugi, gauging his chances of managing a lie when they were this close. Eventually he shook his head, lowering his eyes and picking up Yuugi's hand from where it had fallen to the seat between them. He lifted it up to his chest and leaned in close, their forelocks pushing and curling together all too easily.

"You want to know what I would do? If there were no consequences? No tomorrow?" he clarified. "You want to know what I'd do to convince everyone we should be together?"

"Mm," he said, lifting his head slightly. "I really want to know."

He didn't answer, just slowly leaned in, wondering what was happening as Yuugi's eyes slid downward. Yami hesitated, his nose just brushing Yuugi's face, then slowly tilted his head, amazed as Yuugi did the same.

"It burns us!"

They flinched, instinctively jerking, only to have their foreheads smash together. They groaned and pulled back, both of them nursing suddenly throbbing heads as they realised one of Ryou's cloaked friends was screeching in a disturbing impression of a Lord of the Rings character. Yami grimaced and looked at Yuugi sideways, who sighed.

"Come to think of it, this might not have been the best place to choose for a deep and meaningful," he said regretfully, rubbing his temple. "Next time we don't want to be heard, let's go find a deserted island somewhere, ne?"

"It's one idea," he agreed wearily, leaning back in his seat and nursing his head. "But, for the record?"

"Mm?"

"It's not disgust that's keeping me from talking about this," he said, and Yuugi frowned.

"You couldn't have just told me that when I brought it up? Why do you have to be melodramatic about everything?"

"I'm not going to dignify that with an answer, aibou."


"Okay, then. So if disgust isn't the problem, what is?"

Yami blinked, his surprise at being confronted only a step after he had left the games room mingling with disbelief and horror that Yuugi still wanted to discuss this. He frowned, his eyes sweeping Yuugi appraisingly before deciding to linger on the glass of coke Yuugi was holding. "You can't possibly be talking about what I think you are."

Yuugi grinned as he leaned back against the wall, trying and failing to copy one of Yami's more arrogant poses. "Ah, but you're obviously thinking about what I'm thinking about, so it can't be that unbelievable."

"I'm not thinking about it," he lied, frowning as Ryou stepped up behind him, a dozen empty glasses in his arms.

"Thinking about what?" he asked, looking between them curiously.

"We're talking about what Anzu was saying at the station," explained Yuugi. "Why we shouldn't listen to her and stuff."

"Why shouldn't you listen to her?" asked Ryou, turning to Yami instead. "She's got a good point; maybe you should 'pretend' a little more. Believe me, it's not as weird as you'd think it is."

"Aibou and I are very different to you and your thief," Yami snapped, taking a forceful step forward to move past Yuugi.

"I'm just saying, Yami-kun," said Ryou, as Yuugi quickly straightened up to follow. "If you're thinking about opportunity versus risk, it would make sense."

"There are worse risks involved in 'pretending' than there are in not," he said irritably. "And aibou, you can stay where you are because we're not discussing this."

Ryou frowned, exchanging glances with Yuugi, who sighed and waved him off. He hesitated, then nodded and headed into the kitchen, while Yuugi hurried down the hall after Yami.

"I still want to know what you think," he said, jogging so he could rush in front of Yami and force him to stop. "And if disgust isn't the problem, what is?"

"Aibou, this whole thing is ridiculous," he said irritably, folding his arms. "You don't want to, we don't have to, and there's no reason to discuss it!"

"You're shutting me out again!" he cried, waving his coke. "It's insane! What have you possibly got to protect me from in this situation?"

"Every action has a reaction, aibou. Consequences. And the fact is, I'm not prepared to deal with the consequences of this," he said, and stepped around him to reach for the bathroom door. "And neither are you. A kiss isn't just a handshake, aibou. Regardless of our intentions, there will be reactions."

"So it's about what our friends think?" he asked, grabbing the handle to keep him from opening it.

"I don't care what they think, but yes, in a way, that is what it's about," he said, scowling. "Your mother treats you differently just because I exist; how do you think she'll act when I suddenly start violating your mouth on a regular basis?"

Yuugi snorted, and Yami scowled, folding his arms.

"It's a serious issue, aibou."

"Unless you've got a different idea of kissing than me, I don't think it'll be 'violating'," he said, giving him a look. "And you're forgetting why we're so weird in the first place. We shared a body, the other me. That's why Mum has trouble sometimes – because one plus one only equals one in our case. And besides, with the story she made up, I don't see how she could complain if we started making out."

"Trust me, she would," he muttered, then raised his voice back to an audible level. "It's not just other people, aibou. I'm worried about you, and what this would do to us."

Yuugi frowned, his eyes narrowing as he stepped up close to Yami's chest. "That's it, is it? You think I'd take it the wrong way? That I'd get carried away and think we were in love or something?"

"That's not what I said," he said warily.

"But that's what it is, isn't it? You think that one little kiss would change my life forever!" he cried, but Yami didn't bother rising to the bait, just took another patient breath.

"I never said that and I don't think it. And it wouldn't be just 'one little kiss'," he said, then quickly added, "Nor do I think the amount would change your mind either."

"So what is it?" he demanded. "You're not disgusted at the idea, you don't think I'd fall all over myself for you – I don't get what your problem is! What could this possibly do to us?"

"It's a matter of possibility and consequence, aibou, that's all."

Yuugi shook his head, still not understanding, so Yami sighed and leaned back against the door, resigned to the conversation. "I like what we have, aibou," he said wearily. "I don't want to risk it, because I really don't want to lose it."

Yuugi hesitated, turning his head to the side in quiet confusion. "I really think you're making too big a deal out of this, Yami," he said quietly. "C'mon, I'll show you."

"What?"

He ignored the question, moving his leg between Yami's and pushing himself up onto his toes. With Yami leaning back and Yuugi standing straight, this put their lips in perfect line. Yami frowned, leaning his head back toward the door in confusion, and Yuugi smiled, leaning in to make up the distance until their noses touched.

"It's not that scary," he whispered, and Yami swallowed, moving his head forward again as Yuugi tilted his own. Yami's eyes slid shut without his consent, and he could just feel the tingle of Yuugi's lips on his own, when a loud slap suddenly broke through the quiet of the hall.

They jerked away from each other, Yuugi blushing and Yami struggling not to slide down the door as they looked around to see Ryou and Bakura standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Bakura's mouth completely covered by Ryou's palm.

"Uhh…" began Ryou, blinking rapidly.

"Ryou-kun? Bakura-kun?" Yuugi stared, stepping away from Yami. "What are you two doing?"

"Uhh – we were – my thief was just helping me – um," Ryou swallowed hard, looking anywhere but at Yami. He caught sight of Yuugi's glass, held out of the way by Yuugi's side, and grinned. "Drinks! My thief and I were just getting drinks for everyone."

Bakura glared at Ryou sideways, and Yuugi blinked. "I meant more right now."

"Well – um – we were –" stammered Ryou, but a quick movement at Yuugi's side cut him off. They looked around in time to see Yami shut the bathroom door behind him, leaving the rest of them to stare at the wood instead.


Yami grimaced, then slowly eased himself back against the metal patio chair. He had escaped to the balcony shortly after emerging from the bathroom, too preoccupied to risk talking to Yuugi or looking anyone else in the eye. But now he had mulled over it for almost an hour, and all he could come up with was that he just couldn't do it.

The part of him that had challenged Anzu that afternoon was telling him to shut up and take advantage of the situation. Next time he saw Makito, he should just shove Yuugi up against the nearest wall and take it as far as he could.

But that was the same part of him that had tortured people, and laughed over his own pyromania. He had spent a great deal of the last year denying that part of him in every single impulse. It was the part of him that was most affected by the puzzle – the part that caused his nightmares and scared people away from looking into his eyes for too long.

He sighed, leaning back until his head could rest on the wall behind him. He couldn't touch Yuugi that way, and he knew it. He knew perfectly well that as soon as he started, he would have trouble stopping. He would scare Yuugi, and they would never be able to go back.

The door scraped as it opened, and he rolled his head around to watch as Yuugi leaned out, resting on the doorframe to look at him.

"The other me…?" he murmured, frowning as Yami rolled his head back toward the sky. "You okay?"

"It's nothing," he said quietly, trying for nonchalance as he propped his elbows on the chair.

Yuugi bit his lip, glancing back into the flat for a second before stepping out and closing the door behind him. "You've been out here a while."

"I'm just thinking, aibou. Nothing to worry about."

He didn't answer, walking over to stand next to Yami's chair. He hesitated again, his hand rising and falling several times before clenching into a fist. "The other – Yami, I really don't think you should worry about this so much," he said nervously, and Yami raised his eyebrows, looking around to watch Yuugi reach out as if to touch his face. His hand faltered at the last moment, so Yami sighed and raised his own hand to curl Yuugi's fingers against his jaw.

"A very hypocritical thing for you to say," he said pointedly, rubbing his thumb over the back of Yuugi's hand.

"Maybe. But I'm not the one acting weird and hiding away from his companions," he replied, and Yami smirked, raising an eyebrow.

"But you are the one who's usually afraid to even touch me, but was fully prepared to kiss me," he shot back. Yuugi frowned, trying to pull his hand back, but Yami's hold was too tight, and he was quickly pulled down into Yami's lap instead.

"It's different," he said seriously, leaning away reluctantly as Yami curled his arms around his waist. "Besides, we're not talking about me, we're talking about you."

"Actually, I think we're talking about the same thing," he said, trying to catch his eye again. "We both think the other's acting strangely. So tell me, aibou. What makes kissing different from touching?"

"You're doing it again," he said, trying to be irritated. "I don't want to know what I think –"

"I've told you my reasons, you tell me yours," he said firmly, and Yuugi sighed.

"It's not the same. If we were going to kiss, it'd be because we had to – for pretend's sake. It wouldn't be because we were in love or something girly like that. It wouldn't mean anything," he said, and Yami frowned but nodded. As strange as it was, it made a kind of sense – as much as anything Yuugi did. "But the other stuff we do… like this, and holding hands and stuff… that does mean something. It's us just being us, and… and I don't know if that's right."

Yami narrowed his eyes, lost, and Yuugi sighed again, gesturing to their position. "I like this, Yami. I enjoy it, y'know? But the thing is, friends don't do this sort of thing. Friends don't hold hands and hug each other just because," he said tiredly, even as he leaned into Yami's shoulder, his head resting against Yami's hair. "We're not friends. I don't know what we are."

"You're my other self, aibou," said Yami, confused. "You're my –"

"Yeah, but there's no rules for that," he said helplessly. "There's no 'this is what you do' and 'this is what you don't do'. We're something different from everything else, and I don't know what we're supposed to do."

Yami hesitated, pushing him back to look at him. "Didn't I tell you a few hours ago that everything you do is fine with me?"

"Mm. But it's gotta stop somewhere," he said, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. "When does it turn uncomfortable? When do things get weird?"

"You think about things like this, and yet you don't understand why I think a kiss might hurt our relationship," he said blankly, and Yuugi groaned.

"Forget it, I know it doesn't make any sense," he said, pushing away to stand up, but Yami grabbed his waist and held him still.

"No, aibou, wait, we should talk about this. It goes into my problem as much as yours," he said, furrowing his brow. "How we show affection—" He smirked at Yuugi expression. "—is serious. To you, a touch with meaning is something to worry about. As long as there's intention, it's important. But to me, actions mean more than emotions. To me, a kiss will never be a handshake. No matter what our intentions are—even if we both know it's just pretend and it doesn't mean anything—it's still a kiss and things will change."

"But why?" he asked. "What's so complicated about a non-meaningful kiss between us?"

"A kiss is always complicated. It always has repercussions," he said, shaking his head. "And I don't want to risk hurting you, or what we have."

Yuugi paused for a moment, tilting his head in confusion. "But Yami…"

"What?"

"For most of the first two years of high school, we shared mind and soul space," Yuugi said slowly, blinking as if Yami had just told him two and two made five. "We shared a body. Blood, bones and germs alike. But now you think sharing saliva would make it different?"

"You think personal space is an issue," he retorted, but Yuugi was still staring at him.

"I think about how we feel! What we're talking about now is what we do."

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither understanding how the other came to their current concern. Yami grunted, reaching up to rub his temple, and Yuugi scratched his cheek, wondering how best to make his point. In the end, Yami just shrugged.

"I believe, aibou, that this is one of those issues that arise from being two halves of the same soul," he said finally. "We're never going to make sense to each other by trying to explain."

"But we can't just let this go," Yuugi said indignantly. "It's gonna come up again."

"Well, unless you can think of a way to show me what you mean, I don't see what we can do about it," he said simply, raising his hand in surrender, but Yuugi suddenly blinked, straightening up.

"The other me, I think that's the answer," he said, and Yami stared as he grinned.

"What?"

"Like I was gonna do before – I'll show you what I mean!" he said brightly, and then shot downward, grabbing Yami's shoulder to keep him steady as their lips met in a sudden, hard and meaningless kiss.

Yami could do nothing but freeze for a full second, gripping his chair with one hand and Yuugi's hip with the other, his eyes wide and unseeing as he received something he had only seen in movies – a truly fake kiss. It was strange, to say the least. Yuugi's lips were moving over his own, and there was pressure, but something was missing in the way Yuugi was touching him. He quickly decided he didn't like it much.

When Yuugi pulled back, they just stared at each other, considering. From the look on Yuugi's face, he felt something had gone wrong too, but that could have been his reaction to Yami's blank expression.

Briefly, Yami considered asking where Yuugi had learnt to do that, but his body seemed detached from his mind, because he heard himself say, "I'm not sure if that was right."

"No… didn't feel like it, did it?" murmured Yuugi, frowning.

"It wasn't like in the hallway, either," his mouth said, and Yuugi hesitated for a second, thinking.

"But I don't know what's different. Except back then we – what are you doing?"

Without even noticing his own movement, Yami had raised his arm from Yuugi's waist to support Yuugi's back instead, his other hand shifting to his hip. The back of his mind was telling him to stop – take control of his body again before he did something very stupid, but the rest of him didn't seem to be taking note. He was almost lifting himself up as he pulled Yuugi down, but Yuugi didn't object so much as lean into it, his hand on Yami's nape to keep himself balanced.

It felt much more like the moment in the hallway as they paused, their mouths just touching. Yuugi pulled back enough to wet his lips, and Yami's eyes slid shut as Yuugi's tongue brushed against him.

"It's not that scary," whispered Yuugi, though Yami wasn't sure who he was talking to this time.

"Of course, it's not real," he breathed, not caring which one of them it reassured more. The back of his mind was screaming now, telling him to pull back, push Yuugi away, shift to get his cheek instead – anything but what he was doing. But he closed it off, leaning forward to meet Yuugi in an unmeaningful, completely fake, and absolutely perfect kiss.