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 18: Now Kiss
"For an intimidating dude, kids sure do love you." Jonouchi told his spouse as they finished their walk through the inpatient ward of the clinic.
"Why do you act so surprised? The majority of the activities my company does is aimed towards children." Kaiba answered, hands in his pockets; he was back in his classic 'Battle City' trench coat get up, complete with the arm bands and all.
As much of a fashion disaster as he was, at least the kids didn't mind that. In fact, they were over the moon to meet the man behind the company that treated their health issues. Kaiba had been mobbed and even jumped on by some of the children, but he didn't get angry or annoyed, in fact he was completely natural about the whole thing, as if it was nothing to get worked up over. He wasn't all smiles, but he was overall gentle towards the child patients.
Kaiba had a sweet side after all.
His LVN Ito was at the check in desk along the way towards Jonouchi's office; as soon as she saw the pair together, she wordlessly excused herself elsewhere. Jonouchi sighed heavily; ever since Ito caught him and Kaiba in a compromising position all that time ago, she was convinced that all of Kaiba's visits and walkthroughs were just covers for more conjugal reasons.
It helped with the allusion of their marriage, but it was embarrassing; Jonouchi took his job very seriously, he would never use work hours for boning. He already learned his lesson after using college hours for that.
"You know, since you're here, we should really do a blood draw for you." Jonouchi said as they entered his office, he took off his black scrub top and put it on the coat rack, leaving him in his long-sleeved blue undershirt.
Kaiba tsked and crossed his arms over his chest "You're not still going on about me having low blood iron, are you?"
"Of course I am." Jonouchi affirmed, stacking up the patient charts that had been left on his desk. "I mean, all of the symptoms line up. That and I made a bet with the radiologist; she's betting it's low blood pressure and I'm betting it's iron deficiency."
"...You're making bets about my health with doctors?"
"It's more common than you think."
"What if it was both?"
"That's a tie. Then we just just return to our point system of ridiculous diagnoses. So far, the podiatrist is the winner." Kaiba wasn't even going to ask, when it came to the subject of feet he was too disgusted to want to hear anything about it.
"I'm not letting you test me, I told you I'm fine." Kaiba told his husband as he sat down at one of the chairs situated in front of the desk.
"Oh really?" Jonouchi challenged, not looking up from the patient charts "In five minutes, I dare you to stand up really fast and then take five steps."
"I'm not doing dares or bets." Kaiba stated simply.
"Chicken." Jonouchi taunted.
Kaiba didn't take the bait.
"Come onnn." Jonouchi put the paperwork down to look across the desk at his spouse "Are you afraid of needles? Is that it?"
"Of course not."
"Everyones afraid of something - and a lot of people are scared of needles." People with a lot of tattoos, ironically, were usually the most afraid of needles.
"If you haven't noticed Katsuya, I'm not most people."
Jonouchi sweatdropped "What if I drew your blood?"
"Is that supposed to be some kind of consolation prize?"
"I'm one of the best nurses we have here for injections and vascular access - the phlebotomist treats patients veins like a game of darts."
"Are you trying to convince me to allow you to take my blood, or fire the phlebotomist?"
"Urgh." Jonouchi rolled his eyes and gave up; maybe another day.
He turned on his PC so he could input his patient charts digitally, and sat there clacking away at the keyboard; in the back of his mind, he was amused that his and Kaiba's roles were reversed from the norm, with him working and Kaiba sitting and waiting.
"There is a sponsored duel monsters event tonight." Kaiba began to explain after a few minutes of silence, looking up from his phone that he had been messing with in the meantime "We are going." It wasn't a request.
"Are we participating?" Jonouchi asked as he peered past his monitor.
"No, we are hosting."
"We? You don't really need me to host with you."
Kaiba sighed a very exasperated sigh "We are married. This a public event with a lot of publicity. We host together."
"Ohhh." Jonouchi replied "...I don't have to wear a suit do I?"
"Semi formal would be preferable."
"No."
"What do you mean no?"
"No as in fuck no. I hate formal, semi formal, business casual, whatever. I dress for comfort, not style."
"You wear scrubs all day."
"And you know what scrubs are really fucking comfortable okay. They don't do shit for cold or rainy weather but god dammit they are comfortable and have more pockets than anyone would ever need."
"Do you want to wear scrubs for the event?" Kaiba sounded rhetorical, not realizing the trap he'd walked into.
"...Yes."
"I was kidding."
"I'm not."
"Those are your working clothes. You're supposed to be hosting."
"The public needs to accept that I'm a working man even when married to you, and my work is being a nurse."
"A least put a white coat or something over it."
Jonouchi automatically balked "I'm not a doctor, lab tech, pharmacist or med student! Nurses don't wear white coats."
"Well, is there anything you can wear over the scrub top then?" They were just negotiating at this point.
"-So he tried to punch me with a blade in my mouth right, and in my left pocket there was a soda and-"
"I can't believe you're really wearing hospital wear to an official event." Kaiba cut him off just to dunk on his outfit. Seto Kaiba of all people, the guy with the most dramatically tragic sense of fashion on the face of Domino.
"It's how I am day-to-day, do you want the public to see me as I am, or not? Because them just seeing me as a decent face hanging off of your arm isn't going to help." Jonouchi replied - he was still wearing the same scrub set he'd been wearing at work that day, but he opted to wear his hospital half-zip fleece jacket; it was dark blue, with the light blue hospital logo and name of the clinic on the left side of the chest, and 'Kaiba Katsuya, CRNA' embroidered in the same light blue on the right side.
It was pretty much the only in-regulation thing he ever wore.
"Whatever." Kaiba clicked his tongue.
"So is this supposed to be an official tournament or what? Any titles being held?"
"It's a fundraiser, no official titles."
"Ah, what for? New product or card you're trying to show off?"
"No, it's the final event in a triathlon raising awareness for student suicides."
"-Oh. Wow. That's actually pretty deep."
"Why do you think I'm a monster?" He sounded irked.
"I don't think you're a monster!" Jonouchi exclaimed, putting his hands up defensively "So far, you've been showing me that you're actually pretty great guy, Kaiba, it's just, it's just a lot to take in you know?"
Silence.
Well great. Now Jonouchi felt like a dick.
"Seto."
Jonouchi looked at his spouse confused.
"You're my husband, Katsuya. You'd better get used to using my given name. I've noticed you keep catching yourself trying to say Kaiba in public."
Jonouchi blinked "Uh… Sure, Seto."
Kaiba leaned back in his seat, eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest.
Jonouchi must have still felt like a dick because his heart was pounding in his chest. Or maybe it was because of how weird K- Seto had been acting lately; he was really getting into this whole fake marriage thing.
"-And without further instruction, let the tournament begin!" Jonouchi said into the microphone, signalling the crowd of spectators to start cheering. He was pleasantly surprised by the turnout of participants he saw as they finished the cycling and running events that had been going on during most of the day without his knowledge; the catch was that each participant had to wear some model of duel disk while performing the events, as the final event was dueling.
There were hundreds of participants, and this dueling tournament would likely take all night; but Jonouchi didn't mind too much besides the fact that he himself couldn't duel.
There were several new faces, up-and-coming duelists, and even a few familiar faces.
He recognized the back of a very particular duelist right away "Ryuzaki!" Jonouchi called as he jumped off of the stage and ran over to his friend - K-Seto was being distracted by one of the duel officials and didn't notice his husband take off.
"Oh hey Jonouchi." The brunet greeted as he turned - Jonouchi was surprised to see Haga with him, who he hadn't seen once since he returned to Japan.
Haga now wore more reasonable glasses, normal square framed ones instead of the bug themed ones he wore when he was younger. He was taller than Ryuzaki now, being only an inch or two below Jonouchi now, and having a very gangly build for his height. He still had a bowl-like haircut, but it was now more trimmed to be less dramatic to the shape of his head. The two lovers were both wearing tracksuits - Haga's being green-and-black, and Ryuzaki's being lighter green with cream trim. Both of them were sweating, meaning they'd only recently gotten done with the running event. Their duel disks were pristine though, the telltale mark of veteran duelisks.
"Good to finally see you again, Kaiba-san." Haga greeted, extending his hand. Jonouchi took it without flinching this time at the use of the Kaiba surname.
"Babe he still goes by Jonouchi." Ryuzaki chided. Haga clicked his tongue as he removed his hand and stuck it into his track pants pockets
"Oh?" The entomologist inquired, raising a brow.
"It's uh, just what I'm used to." Jonouchi quickly excused "You can still call me Kaiba if you want, but you might have a hard time differentiating between me and my husband."
A flash crossed in Haga's eyes and it almost made Jonouchi reel in how much it reminded him of the old days when they were enemies - bitterness? Why? They were supposed to be cool now-
Oh.
That's right.
Haga and Ryuzaki couldn't get married.
His heart panged with sympathy and wedding band on his finger suddenly felt heavy. Those two really loved each other, but they weren't rich like Kaiba so they couldn't buy their way past Japan's bigotry.
"Anyways Jonouchi, are you participating?" Ryuzaki asked excitedly, not noticing his boyfriends resentment and friends guilt.
"Erm, no, I'm just hosting with Seto." He explained "I wasn't expecting you two do be here."
"It's a big event..." Haga trailed off, hands still in his pockets.
"This subject means a lot to me," Ryuzaki explained, his suddenly seemed sad, and clasped one of Haga's hands in his own, and his purple eyes turned to the ground "I've lost a few students to suicide."
"W-What? But aren't they just elementary students?" Jonouchi gasped - he knew Japan was notorious for student suicides relating to exams, but that usually pertain the most to high school students, not small children.
"With electronic information being so widely accessible, the pressure on kids to be smarter and more knowledgeable is getting even worse." Ryuzaki explained with a sad sigh "Too many parents are obsessed with the idea of their kid being smarter than a Google search, and that's just too much."
The sad revelation was not lost on Jonouchi. He'd mostly been spared the pressured because his father neglected him and didn't care about his education, if anything it was his friends that influenced him to care about academics more when he was young, but every year after exams it would all be the same - at least one student from each grade would take their lives.
He was brought out of his thoughts by Haga's voice consoling Ryuzaki "It's not your fault." He told him, using his thumb and index finger to lift his chin up.
"I just feel like… I could have done something."
"You're not the one who put all of that pressure on them."
"I know..."
"Well, you two should go grab your ticket number so you can be entered into duels, hope you two don't up competing against each other." Jonouchi excused himself before he could cut into their tender moments more, and walked off awkwardly, looking around.
"Hey, Jonouchi!" He heard a familiar voice; he turned to see Otogi jogging up to him. He was also in a tracksuit, but his was red with black trim
"Oh hey man!" Jonouchi greeted with a smile as Otogi caught up to him "You here to duel too?"
"Of course!" He said, putting his hands on his hips and jutting his hip to one side, "Actually, have you seen Honda?"
"...What?"
"He's should be waiting here with Chokichi." He explained, keeping his head on a swivel to look for his partner and son.
"I didn't even know he was here..." Jonouchi admitted; it wasn't surprising since Honda was definitely avoiding him.
"He shouldn't be too hard to notice- Oh! There we are, come on Jonouchi." Otogi suddenly pivoted and grabbed the CRNA by the arm, dragging him.
"Hey, wait Otogi- I don't think-."
"Hey babe! Glad to find you! And look who I managed to wrangle from Kaiba's greasy paws for a moment?" He heart Otogi say before letting go of Jonouchi's arm. Jonouchi looked up and saw exactly what he had expected but still dreaded.
Hiroto Honda was… exactly as Jonouchi had left him, no joke. Same height, same muscular build, same faux hawk, the only difference between Honda now, and Honda from graduation, was the faint lines under his eyes and creasing his forehead.
Oh, and the stroller at his feet, where their toddler son Chokichi was sitting, playing with a stuffed cow.
"...Kaiba." Honda greeted, looking down at Jonouchi with a detached look on his face, even as his boyfriend kissed his cheek with a smack. Jonouchi wasn't going to let his childhood friend intimidate him though, and narrowed his eyes in return as he stuck his hands into his fleece jacket.
"You two probably have some catching up to do." Otogi rambled cheerfully, seemingly unaware of the tension between the two, and began unbuckling his and Honda's son from the stroller, who began to babble at the attention "Me and Chokichi are just going to grab a ticket number, aren't we little man? We'll be right back." He held his son on his hip as he walked away to the kiosk machines where duelists were drawing their numbers.
Dark brown and golden brown eyes stared each other down, but neither men backed down from the other.
"...It's good to finally see you again," Jonouchi began, taking a step forward to his childhood friend, who didn't move even as he put a hand on his arm "Hiroto."
"Why are you here?" Honda asked coldly.
"I'm hosting-" The blond didn't get the chance to finish
"No. Why are you back in Domino?" Honda demanded, raising his voice "You leave without warning after graduation, don't say a word to nobody, and all of a sudden you're back in Japan married to Seto Kaiba?" He wrenched his arm away from Jonouchi and took a step back, returning them to the distance they had between them earlier. "Last time I checked you hated Kaiba."
His tone was accusatory, and Jonouchi knew he would have a lie no matter how much he wished he didn't have to "You knew I liked guys too, Honda." He pointed out.
"That's not the point." He refuted "You fuck off to America without warning; and pretend Domino, and your friends, were just a memory. All of a sudden you come back, and for what? For some rich prick you used to hate?"
"My spouse isn't a prick!" Jonouchi almost shouted, and had to bite his lip to prevent himself from making a scene "Honda, you-"
Honda put his hand up to make him pause "If you're about to say I know you, you may want to re-evaluate that, Katsuya. Because I used to think I did, but that was up until you decided that professional dueling was off the table, and being an American nurse was on."
Jonouchi clenched his first "So this is how it's going to be, is it?" He challenged; Honda raised his chin up, glaring down at him.
"I was there for you since elementary school, Jonouchi." He began, his voice bitter "I was there for you even when you were being a rebellious fuckwad. How many times did I scrape your ass off the pavement like bubblegum after your dad or Hirutani decided to chew you up and spit you out?" Jonouchi's fist started shaking; the last thing he wanted to remembered was his checkered past "I wasn't like you Jou, but I was still there for you. I thought we could be there for each other even as adults, but I was wrong." He huffed and grabbed the handle of the stroller, pushing it in the direction that Otogi and Chokichi had gone.
"Don't you dare act like the lack of communication was all on me, Honda." Jonouchi called after him, making the brunet stop in his tracks "You never told me you got together with Otogi, hell you never even told me you liked guys."
Honda looked angrily over his shoulder "Not all of us can buy acceptance, you know." He spat; Jonouchi was at a loss for words as his former friend left him standing there.
Was… was that what this was about?
It wasn't just that Jonouchi had left with little to no notice all of those years ago?
It was because Honda had a relationship and family with another man, but couldn't get married?
Yes… Yes, as much as it hurt Jonouchi, it made sense. Honda and Haga were the same; they had both been in loving relationships for years, but Jonouchi got married to someone he used to hate when they couldn't because his spouse happened to be wealthy.
His heart sank, and he felt like he was disconnected from his body.
He lost he best friend because of a sham marriage.
He must have stood there, standing completely still for at least a minute with a blank, when a hand landing on his shoulder from behind brought him back to the present. "There you are," he heard Seto say, sounding irked "don't go running off like- oof!" The brunet was forced to stumble back about half a step when his husband whirled around and slammed his face against his chest to hide into it.
Shocked, Seto hovered his arms over Jonouchi, unsure at first, but then slowly closed them around him in an embrace, looking around to make sure they weren't making a scene. Luckily, the general crowd was too focused on tickets and upcoming matches.
"What's wrong?" The CEO asked, and Jonouchi was impressed - he really did make himself sound concerned. He would have to commend him on his acting eventually.
"We're cunts." Was all Jonouchi could mumble, muffled against the fabric of Seto's shirt. He was close to crying.
Still confused, Seto rubbed his back for a second and looked around for some kind of escape route so they wouldn't be drawing unnecessary attention. "Come on," he said, keeping an arm over his husbands back as he lead him away "we need to find somewhere more private." Jonouchi didn't fight him, just let him.
"So they're bitter. Because unlike us, they're not married?" Seto inquired, handing his husband yet another tissue. They were in the back of the limo, which thankfully was sound proof and had fully tinted windows, giving them much needed privacy
Jonouchi nodded, having mostly calmed down. He accepted the tissue and tried up his face; it was obvious from the redness that he'd been crying but at least the tears had stopped running "It's not fair, K-Seto, they really love each other; but they can't be married because society as a whole doesn't accept them."
"By extension, they don't accept us either." Seto reminded him. Jonouchi let out a bitter snort.
"You only wanted to marry me so other business men would leave you alone.." Jonouchi reminded him, sounding cross, and Seto had the social graces to shut up. "We're only legally married because you paid for it; nothing they do will ever be good enough."
Seto let him sniffle and blow into the tissue before he spoke up again "What if I got certificates for them too?" It wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility, the local government wasn't exactly hard to bribe.
"You don't get it," Jonouchi sighed "it's not just them; there's millions of gay people in Japan, but none of them are allowed the ease of marriage like their straight friends. Don't you see? Their struggles aren't limited to just them." He tried to explain.
"There's nothing I can do about that."
"I know." Jonouchi replied, "Don't you get it? It doesn't matter how openly gay you are; you can sing an Elton John song, dancing in a dildo factory, wearing nothing but a candy g-string, and waving around a rainbow flag; no one can touch you. Ryuzaki works with children, if he doesn't keep his relationship low-profile, he could potentially lose his job and livelihood. It just, it's not fair Seto."
"That's not my fault."
"I'm not saying it is damn it. It's just… it's not right." He finished, resting against Seto's side. The CEO allowed it, even putting an arm around him.
"Look..." Seto said, brushing Jonouchi's bangs out of his face, which would have surprised him if he weren't too exhausted from the emotional overload "You stay here. I'll come back when it's time for closing ceremonies, do you think you have the capacity to cohost by then?"
Jonouchi just mutely nodded.
A few hours had passed, and Jonouchi stressfully racked out; it was the kind of sleep that only seemed to exhaust him even more, but at least gave him a break from his thoughts.
Seto came to grab him as promised, it was close to dawn by then. Jonouchi straightened up his appearance best he could and walked out with him to the main stage.
As his spouse was giving closing speeches and thanked all those who participated in the fundraiser, delving deep into the deep subject matter of student suicide, Jonouchi wasn't able to focus on the subject at hand, and instead watched the crowd. There were participants, their friends and family who came to support them and the cause, and several news crews who had been covering the event since it started.
All of those smiling faces. They seemed so placid down there, but what kind of people were they really? How many of them saw a gay couple and didn't want them to exist in any capacity? How many supported the idea of gay marriage being banned? How many of them knew Seto Kaiba was married to another man, but ignored that entirely? Treated a famous gay marriage like it was nothing more than the title of a tabloid instead of a real marriage?
How many of them saw them together and assumed it was some phase?
"Do you have anything to say to crowd, Katsuya?" Seto asked, as he looked over his shoulder at his silent spouse.
How many of them blatantly refused to accept gays?
"No, honey." Jonouchi said, walking up to his spouse and lifting his chin up with his thumb and index finger like he saw Haga do earlier. He saw confusion swimming in Seto's eyes; Jonouchi smiled up at him, and for the first time in a while the smile reached his eyes "I have nothing to say."
He gently pulled Seto's chin down and put his free arm over Seto's neck, wrenching him down softly, Jonouchi continued to stare into those admittedly gorgeous blue eyes as he kissed him for the first time.
'Refuse to accept this, bigots.' Jonouchi thought, wrapping his other arm over his husband's neck.
To be continued...
Authors note: I don't like to talk about my life over fanfiction, but I'll say at least that my job is a medical type. And in my experience, the people who hate needles the most are people with a lot of tattoos. I'm speaking generally, I don't mean every single person who's inked. I myself am afraid of needles despite being medical, and usually just do my own shots.
Yes, after two years and almost 20 chapters, they finally kissed! I'm not going to lie, I almost had Jonouchi kiss Kaiba back when Mokuba saw them in the bathroom, but I'm sooo glad I saved that milestone for this. Jonouchi's pissed and he wants to make a statement to society; gay couples exist and they don't deserve to be forced to hide.
The importance of the last sentence is that, this is probably the first time Jonouchi has unironically called Seto his husband.
You know, with all of these stressful situations and dramatic confrontations in a relatively short period of time, Jonouchi may need to start taking blood pressure medicine or something, or maybe counseling. I mean, he must have gone years without crying and then he gets married and suddenly he's crying like every other week.
Ironically, Kaiba is the least problematic person in Jonouchi's life right now.