Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh.
Title: Endearment and Enmity
Rating: T-M depending on chapter, M overall
Summary: When you're literally married to the person you despise.
Warnings: Homosexual relationships, vulgar words and adult situations.
Author's Note: I don't know why I wrote this.
Chapter 17: Ludus
The following two weeks were fraught with worry and guilt and Jonouchi didn't have anyone he could dump these worries into; Ryuzaki was too busy preparing for some big term exam event for his students, and Honda was still ignoring him and even if he wasn't Jonouchi wasn't going to dump all of the drama of his ex being in town on him.
He wanted to confront Stoney and tell him the truth, but how could he without letting his secret out? And he knew Stoney would never confront Kaiba about this because soldiers were strictly forbidden from starting incidents when they were in a guest country, but that didn't make him wholly safe, because the point was that he had a loose thread from his past hanging that Kaiba didn't know about.
He really should have come clean to Kaiba about it, and if this had happened like a month ago he probably would have. Ever since the night where he admitted to hinting at the truth of their facade to Shizuka, Kaiba had been acting… Weird.
Jonouchi continued his night visits to Kaiba Corp, but rather than them splitting up when Kaiba turned in for the night, the CEO instead had taken to either coming home with him and spending the night, or hanging out for a bit before leaving, he would at the very least drop him off.
It was… Unnerving, at first, to see this type of behavior from Kaiba of all people, frankly Jonouchi was just glad to finally have some company.
Didn't help his worry or guilt though, because the nicer Kaiba was to him, the worse he felt about not talking about Stoney.
"You stiffened up," Kaiba commented as they sat on the couch together in the safehouse, they were currently binging on an English Netflix series called 'The Good Place', subtitled in Japanese because Jonouchi liked having subtitles on and Kaiba had a little bit of a harder time with any rapid-fire spoken language outside of Japanese even with his high level of fluency "do you want me to move?"
Jonouchi tried to keep the anxiety off of his face when he flicked his eyes to his spouse; they weren't sitting five feet apart anymore like they had started, in fact their shoulders were brushing and they were sharing a heated blanket. "Uh..."
"I can move if you want." Did he sound disappointed?
Jonouchi stopped him from removing the blanket from himself and moving away "No, you're fine; and keep that thing on, you have an iron deficiency."
"I do not have an iron deficiency."
"Why do you wear mostly black all year? With full trench coats? And a turtleneck." Jonouchi inquired "Why are you extremely pale and have racoon eyes? Why are you a complete predatory carnivore around red meat?"
Kaiba didn't answer; just simply rolled his eyes. Jonouchi practically knew the guy was iron deficient but he stubbornly refused to get a blood test done to prove it. "Why are you so high strung, then?"
"Are you of all people calling me-"
"You need to learn how to stop deflecting."
Welp. He got him there.
"Fine, I'll give." Jonouchi sighed and paused the show, bringing up his knees to his chest as if to guard himself more "Please don't be mad."
Kaiba quirked his brow "I'm listening..." He did something Jonouchi didn't expect and put a hand on his knee under the blanket. A series of nervous sparks radiated through Jonouchi's body at the deliberate contact; he thrived off of physical affection, and Kaiba seemed to realize that.
"Iranintomyex."
"...Pardon?"
"HesasoldierandhethinksIcheatedonyouwithhim."
"Slow down. Start from the beginning." Kaiba instructed, squeezing his knee slightly.
Jonouchi sighed deeply, really wishing he had grabbed a glass of water before sitting down "I was dating an American soldier up to eight months before me and you got married." He admitted; a curious look crossed his spouses face, it wasn't angry or disappointed and that enough for Jonouchi "We dated for about six months."
"...Was it serious?" The blond flinched; Kaiba sounded agitated now, but the look in his eyes wasn't exactly angry, he could have sworn it was jealousy but he couldn't fathom such a thing for Kaiba.
"It was… kinda serious, yeah..."
"You know… I've been waiting so long to be allowed to say this to another man. I love you, Joey."
"-!"
Jonouchi shook the memory away "Anyways, we just kinda drifted apart all of a sudden; I failed my semester of microbiology, lost my full ride and wanted to focus on that instead, and he was due to change duty stations soon anyways."
"Then why is he here?" Kaiba's voice raised; and Jonouchi couldn't help a flinch as he was reminded of his abusive upbringing.
"He's stationed in the American military base in Okinawa - he must have seen us in the headlines or something and put two-and-two together." The blond deduced.
"I see..." Kaiba's tone was noticeably softer now.
"Look… I'm really sorry I didn't tell you sooner. About the relationship, or about Stoney confronting me; I really didn't want to upset you about the possibility of anyone leaking out the truth, especially after I hinted it to Shizuka. If I makes you feel better, he doesn't know Japanese to save his-"
"What is his name?" The volume of his voice was soft, but there was a noticeable, but unknown edge to it.
"An-Jackson Stonewall." Jonouchi quickly corrected himself "Look, I'll talk to him and maybe-."
"No. Stay away from him."
"...What?" Jonouchi looked at Kaiba confused.
The CEO quickly flicked his eyes downward, as if thinking "If we leave this alone, it will disappear."
"...Really?"
"I've been dealing with all kinds of rumors and 'scandals' on the tabloids ever since I took over Kaiba Corp at twelve. For the longest time, there was chatter that I pushed my stepfather out of a window."
"...I thought he threw himself out of a window?"
"...We met him in the virtual world, you know he disappeared to uploaded his mind into Noah's world."
"Oh yeah." Maybe he spent too much time around anesthetic fumes…
"I digress. The best thing you can ever do about rumors is ignore them. Do not acknowledge, and do not see this man ever again, and there's nothing they can hold against us." Kaiba explained, and Jonouchi thought about it seriously for a minute; it did make sense, it's not like rich and famous people were new to tabloid gossip. In fact, now that he thought about it, he remembered back in the hayday of his dueling career, there were a lot of 'rumors' that Yugi was cheating and was actually two different people.
Of course they couldn't prove that one either, and that one was technically true…
"Huh… I didn't think about it like that." Jonouchi reflected, sliding his legs back down from his chest to the floor. "You know, this is actually pretty chill for you, Kaiba." He remembered how back in the day Kaiba overreacted to even the tiniest hint of a slight against him; he still had Kaiba's screaming fit from when he had to tell him that Yami Yugi lost to Raphael deeply engraved in his memory. Good to see he had calmed down after all of these years.
Kaiba simply nodded and they went back to watching the show, the atmosphere noticeably more relaxed now that Jonouchi had finally gotten all of that off of his chest. Now that he didn't -really- have anything to worry about, he wouldn't need to stress out so much.
Relieved, he just enjoyed the show and the chance to relax. Kaiba was silent, but that was typical of him; Jonouchi made commentary here and there about the show, but would only nod rather than vocalize anything. Around midnight, he started getting drowsy and was too lazy to get up and go to his room so he just 'rested his eyes' for a second which ended as it always did; with him racking out right away.
He found himself shifting over to the closest warm, solid object which he was too tired to acknowledge or care was Kaiba, resting his head on his surprising not-as-bony-as-expected shoulder and resting in place there. He made a complaining noise in the back of this throat when his makeshift 'pillow' moved around, it changed to a more pleased sound when he felt an arm wrap around the back of his neck and shoulder and drag him closer.
The only close to intelligent thought he had was how nice it felt to be held again, so he returned the favor and wrapped both arms around what was holding him.
It was a really good thing Katsuya was asleep, otherwise he would have definitely seen the bewildered, and flustered expression appear on his husband's face at the return of affection; but that was just the type of person he was, wasn't he, give him an inch and he'll take a mile, at least when it came to anything remotely resembling physical gestures of affection.
The blond was completely asleep, but still managed to have a vice-like grip around his abdomen. Kaiba wouldn't be able to move anything besides his free arm without disturbing him, but that was all he needed.
With his one free arm, he struggled to stay as still as possible as he reached into his pocket to grab his phone, and quickly called his top contact.
"Yes, ?" An all-to-familiar and baritone voice greeted from the other end after less than two rings.
"Isono," Kaiba greeted in return, keeping his voice low so he wouldn't wake his husband up and alert him of his current scheme "I want you to do some research on an individual stationed in Okinawa."
"Name and occupation, sir?"
"Jackson Stonewall. He's an American soldier. I want you to find out everything about him that you can."
"Very well sir."
*click*
To be continued...
Authors note: I have a long-running theory that Kaiba is iron deficient and that's why he('s such a bitch) wears trench coats and a turtle neck even when there's full sunlight and everyone else is wearing a t-shirt and light jacket at most. Also, again his favorite food suggests he's a total carnivore, red meat being a big source of iron.
As you can see here, Jonouchi is much more comfortable around Kaiba. And Kaiba, well, Kaiba is… He has the tendency to go overboard with things. He's attracted to Jonouchi, which wouldn't be such a problem if this weren't literally the only relationship he's ever been in, so he's not exactly obsessed, but he is definitely possessive and prone to jealousy at this stage.