Atem stared after her. He couldn't shake the feeling that their time together had gone incredibly well, yet awoken some very deep fears in both of them.

What were they doing?

"And you tried to call me out on that kind of thinking," a sudden voice scolded in his head.

Atem's lips parted. "Yugi?" With a start, he realized his aibou had been silent for quite some time, starting right around when Anzu…

Oh.

"Yeah, it's me," the voice affirmed, its tone far less friendly and boyish than usual.

Atem shoved his hands into his pockets. For the first time in his not-so-short history of all his interactions with the younger boy, he felt sheepish.

"What happened back there?" Yugi asked directly, curious yet clearly serious.

"I… Well…"

"Atem."

Atem looked up at the boy in his mental link at the sound of his real name. He deserved enough respect from the pharaoh to receive eye contact when speaking to him directly. "Yes, Yugi?" He felt that calling him "aibou" in a time like this might set the younger male off.

"Did you get me to do all this so you could reap the results?" Yugi asked, point-blank.

Atem sighed. He was caught, at least partially. "Ai…Yugi, I will not lie to you: my goals were not entirely about your gain."

Yugi's lips pursed in anger. He knew it. But even more than angry, he felt sad. He cast his gaze down at the ground, exhaling slowly, feeling defeated even though he had come so far.

"Yugi, please, do not take it that way. Let me explain."

Yugi waited, but he wasn't expecting the pharaoh to say anything that would possibly make him feel better.

Damn it, he knew how he felt about Anzu, and still he had decided to be selfish. How could he do that to him?

"I cannot lie and say that I had no intention of flirting with her," Atem started to explain, "but in the fullest truth, I wasn't thinking only of myself, either."

When the voice in his head didn't respond, the pharaoh continued, "What I gain, you gain. And in the same way, everything you did for her yesterday and earlier today benefited me." His brows knit in conviction. "We are connected, Yugi. You know she treats us as two sides of the same coin, even if she knows otherwise."

Yugi was entrenched in thought, considering each syllable of his words. Was he being sincere, or just doing this for his personal gain?

Sensing his suspicion, Atem sighed. "I don't expect you to believe me after what you may have witnessed me do or say during that dinner," he said, ignoring the blush starting to stain his face again. "But, I implore you to consider how Anzu treated you and me as the same throughout the day, no matter which of us was in physical command."

Yugi looked to the side. He was right about that, at least. Each time they had switched places, Anzu had barely batted an eye. She had looked at him differently for a short while, sure, but she always went back to acting like everything was normal and like he was the same person after just a minute or two. For a moment, he felt his anger and sadness lessen as he thought more about it. Maybe it could even be an advantage.

As if to try and hammer home his point, Atem said simply, "We are not on opposite sides, Yugi. You are, in more ways than one, my aibou."

Yugi felt himself color a little. The pharaoh was right: both of them seemed to be the winners in the situation with making Anzu feel properly special. And since it was a two-way street, maybe he shouldn't mind so much if the pharaoh was sweeping her off his feet a bit more elegantly than he himself could sometimes. Especially since each time he did, Yugi learned from it; he found out more about what made Anzu feel shy, and the thought of learning her ins and outs – to the point where he could make her blush like a schoolgirl because of something he himself did – set his heart and mind aflame.

"Please do not look at this as a rivalry, but instead a strength. When you feel a little overwhelmed, like at the restaurant, I can help you. But in the same way, you will be able to come to my aid if I ever feel unsettled."

But his last words were unnecessary; Yugi was already sold. "All right, Atem, I understand, and I think you're right," he said, able to smile again. "Thank you. From now on, we do everything together, as a team," he declared solidly.

Atem smiled in turn, nodding his passionate agreement.

"Besides, who else can say they have an Egyptian pharaoh on their side to help them when they're feeling weak?" Yugi mused with a smirk, rubbing the backside of his head. "I'm pretty lucky, actually. You probably know all kinds of stuff that I don't."

"I am not quite as omniscient as you think. I was very young myself in my own era." But Atem appreciated the compliment nonetheless.

"Did you interact with many girls in Egypt?"

The pharaoh chuckled at the question. "Well," he started slyly, narrowing his eyes and touching his finger to his chin. "There was this one…" He pretended to be digging from the deepest, buried depths of his mind for such a piece of unimportant, banal information.

Yugi's face was so cheery in his tangible curiosity that one could hardly tell he had been thoroughly upset just mere minutes before. "Really? What was she like?"

Atem only smirked and shook his head.

"Oh, c'mon, Pharaoh! You can tell me!"

Yugi and Atem walked together back to Yugi's house, the younger pressuring the older the entire time to espouse more details, but it was a losing battle.