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 21: The Intersection of Villamain and Shane
"I can't believe you."
"Can't - or won't?"
"Don't be a smartass."
"It's my whole body that's smart not just the-"
"URGH." Jonouchi cut his spouse off to hold his own face in his hands; him and Seto were in the CEO's home office in the mansion, both of them facing each other at opposite sides of the desk. "A banquet? For an anniversary? Isn't it supposed to be an intimate affair?" It was strange being back in the mansion… sure he'd lived there for the better part of the year, but he had grown used to the safe house and felt more at home there.
"This is the first anniversary, it's important we make a public spectacle of it. With our siblings and our pasts suspicious of us, it's important we make everyone know how solid this marriage is."
"I feel like you're enjoying this." Jonouchi grumbled; he normally loved social gatherings. However, he absolutely loathed formal events; gatherings were supposed to be fun, but when it was a formal event it always turned into a bunch of rich people trying to one-up each other, whether it be wealth, projects, accomplishments, or their trophy spouses. And, since Jonouchi didn't come from a rich family nor have a 'prestigious' job, he was technically the trophy husband. "Can't we just exchange cards on live TV or something?"
"It'll be fine, it won't be too long." Seto promised; Jonouchi responded by burying his face into his arm and groaning into them. He heard his spouse chuckle, before he felt a kiss being planted on top of his head; it's a good thing his face was hidden or the blush would have been seen. Seto was becoming more affectionate after confessing to having feelings for him for real, and it was… surprising nice, surprisingly unproblematic.
It was still a bit jarring, though. Jonouchi didn't know if Seto was naturally this physically affectionate, or if his behaviors were learned and/or tailored for him since he was more of a physical person, only time would tell.
"Do you remember when we got 'married'?" Jonouchi asked, looking up from his arms but keeping his head rested on them.
"In the United States, or Japan?"
"No, I meant the actual ceremony."
"Ah." Seto hummed in remembrance.
Jonouchi remembered it well because it was his first time in Hawaii; according to Seto, beaches in Honolulu were extremely popular marriage ceremony spots for Japanese couples. They only had a marriage officiator and the priest, trying to make it seem like their marriage was supposed to be in private; that was intentional. Seto's presence always drew a lot of attention, and even Jonouchi was recognized as America's Duel Monsters champion, so of course they were photographed and those photos were 'leaked' and circulating when they returned to Japan a few days later.
"I could never get the sand out of my pockets." Jonouchi remarked, chuckling; he remembered how angry and frustrated he had been a year ago because he never wanted to marry Seto Kaiba, but now? Now… now it was just funny.
"How did you get sand in your pockets anyways?" Seto asked, still scribbling through a stack of 'personal' hand-written invitations he was going to send out to business associates.
"How did you get sand in your vagina?" Jonouchi muttered quietly, to himself.
"What?"
"What?"
Seto blinked at him with a slight narrowing of his eyes, knowing but unable to prove Jonouchi had made some kind of remark against him, but continued to write the invitations "Who are you inviting?"
"Hm?" Jonouchi looked up, curious.
"This is an anniversary celebration, you should invite your friends and family."
Jonouchi blinked, then scratched the back of his head as he thought "Shizuka I'd invite, Ryuzaki, and my coworkers at the clinic. I don't know about my friends… I've barely seen any of my friends since I got here… Yugi and Anzu aren't even in Japan."
"I can offer them a flight here if they accept the invitation." Seto reminded him, not looking up from the papers.
Jonouchi was about to rebuke him, before remembering money was no object to him "I guess I'll send an invite to Otogi and Honda, though only Otogi is probably going to come..." He trailed off.
"So, Shizuka, the Nursing Staff of the Clinic, Ryuzaki and Haga, Yugi and Mazaki, Honda and Otogi, and Bakura." Seto wrote each name as he said the name, the pen in his hand gliding smoothly across the paper, Jonouchi mutely followed the pen's movement to distract himself. "Is something wrong?" Seto had asked, but Jonouchi was too zoned out to hear him.
He was dragged out of his thoughts by a quick tap against the forehead, making him squish his nose up in protest "Hey!" He muttered.
"I was hoping you were still in there."
"God it's so weird to hear you make remarks without trying to put me down." Jonouchi laughed softly "You're honestly pretty funny sometimes, Seto."
Seto hummed "You think so?"
"The monotone makes it better." Jonouchi sunk back down into his eyes, the weariness of the past few weeks finally weighing on him.
"Anyways, I'll send out the invites tomorrow, the guests should RSVP within the week." Seto said, stacking up the invites neatly in one corner, Jonouchi's eyelids grew heavy. "Do you still have the suit you wore when we got married?"
"Hmm?" Jonouchi hummed where he was, partially asleep.
"Do you still have the suit from when we got married? The gray one?"
"Mhmm.." Jonouchi hummed in response, straddling the line between the line of awake and asleep.
He heard more shuffling of papers, and then the sound of a heavy desk chair sliding against the hardwood floor, and was more asleep than awake when he felt willowy, but surprisingly strong, arms slide under his knees and behind his back, lifting him up from the chair. Jonouchi used the last of his consciousness to sling one arm over Seto.
Jonouchi woke with a start - like he always did when he fell asleep in an unfamiliar place. He was under an unbelievably comfortable dark blue duvet, which he lifted up as he scooted into the sitting position to look around more.
It was a very large, but also very plain bedroom. The nearby wall appeared to be a balcony, but for now was closed with light blue curtains drawn, and had nothing else. The wall adjacent to it had the door to what must have been a closet judging by the full-length mirror on it, and was lined with two identical six-tier dressers, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, and a w entertainment center with a large TV on it. The bed he was on was kind-sized and four-poster with curtains, a dark blue duvet with light blue pillows, a small nightstand at either side of the bed at the head, a door on his side, and at the foot of it there was a black couch. The walls were bare and beige, and the floor was hardwood.
There was a clicking nearby - Jonouchi turned to see a door right next to the bed opening. The door opened and Seto walked out with a faint cloud of water vapor behind him, still drying his hair with a towel. He was barefoot, but dressed in a dark blue pajama set.
"I'm surprised you don't wear those douchey silk kimonos to sleep." Jonouchi remarked, Seto said nothing as he finished drying his hair and draped the towel over his neck. "Disheveled a good look for you, you know." Jonouchi said, referring to his spouses fluffed up hair. It looked rather similar to Mokuba's, but shorter and less pointy.
"When did you wake up?" Seto asked, combing his hair back into proper shape with his hands.
"Just a minute ago - this is your bedroom, right?" Jonouchi asked, doing a once-over of the room again.
Seto nodded "You didn't already know that?"
"I've never seen your room. This place is huge, and my room is in a different hall." Jonouchi reminded him "Doesn't it ever scare you, having all of this space to yourself? Like, you hear noises at night but you know you're supposed to be the only one here?"
"No. This place is old, strange noises aren't unusual." Seto explained, grabbing the remote from the couch before flipping on the TV, making his way over to the other side of the bed.
"If it's old, does that mean there's ghosts?"
"Ghosts aren't real, Katsuya." Seto told him flatly, pulling up and getting under the duvet. Jonouchi stared at him long and hard, eye's incredulously wide "What?"
"Dude… After all of that stuff with the Millennium Items and The Pharaoh, and going back into the past- hell, you went into the Afterlife of Ancient Egypt, and you don't believe in ghosts?"
"No." Seto replied simply, not feeling the need to defend or argue his position.
Jonouchi scooted over a little closer to his spouse until their shoulder were brushing "You know, I saw ghosts once."
"Did you now?" It was more of an inquiry than a question, like a friend listening to their loser of a friend lie about getting a good lay.
"Yeah," Katsuya nodded, bringing up his knees to his chest "you see, I lived in San Antonio right? And there was this legend that back in the 1930's, a school bus full of children stalled on the way to an intersection, stopping on a train track. They didn't worry because they didn't see a train coming, so the driver got out to try to fix the engine, but a train with a burnt out light came out of nowhere and hit the bus, killing all of the kids inside."
"Gruesome." Seto commented, still flat in tone to show he was listening but not believing.
"The train tracks are located on the intersection of Villamain and Shane in San Antonio, and the legend goes, that if you put your car in neutral right on top of the train tracks, and take your foot off of the pedal, than the ghosts of the children will push you off of the tracks."
"And did you test this theory out?"
Jonouchi nodded.
"Just because you rolled over train tracks doesn't mean ghosts pushed you over, gravity can do that too."
"That's why you do a baby powder test."
"A what?"
Jonouchi's eyes got a little bit more wide, mystified as he explained "I covered the back of my car with baby powder, and after I rolled off of the tracks I checked it; there were little kid hand prints that weren't there before."
Seto blinked and frowned.
"I still got a picture on my phone- look." Jonouchi dug into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He scrolled through several hundred memes in his gallery before clicking on the photo he wanted, showed it to Seto; It was of Jonouchi, looking freaked out as he pointed to the back of his car with the hand that wasn't holding the phone to take the picture; there was a thick dusting of white power, and tiny hand prints throughout around waist-height.
Normally, one would pay attention to the prints, but Seto was focused seemed something else; Jonouchi had forgotten he wasn't the only one in the photo, there was another man as well. A very particular, and familiar man.
"Is that Stonewall?" Seto asked, his voice coming unexpectedly sharp; making Jonouchi wince a little.
"Yeah..." Jonouchi answered, "this wasn't long after we started dating." He explained; when he saw the expression on Seto's face curdle even more, he realized he had also forgotten another important dating rule; never talk about your ex to your current partner. "But uh- let's not talk about that. Ghosts, huh."
Seto didn't respond, instead he looked back to the TV, crossing his arms.
Jonouchi frowned; all he wanted to do was tell him a cool ghost experience, not upset him "Oh come onnn, Seto," he said, "you can't really be jealous, can you?"
"I'm not jealous."
"You know I like you, now." Jonouchi assured, though partially teasing, the kissed his cheek with a purposely loud wet smack. "Don't worry about him, it's over."
"It doesn't help he's here..." Seto muttered.
"He is station in Okinawa, almost two thousand kilometers away." He reminded him, Seto just rolled his eyes.
"Aw, I'm sorry." Jonouchi said more earnestly this time, hugging around the taller man's shoulders, nuzzling against his neck affectionately.
Seto suddenly stiffened up like a tree, and shoved him off.
"Wah- hey!"
"I'm going to take a shower." Seto told him gruffly, and practically threw himself off of the bed, grabbing his earlier discarded towel and stiffly heading back to the bathroom.
"But you just took a-" Jonouchi was interrupted by the sound of the bathroom door slamming, and a click indicating it was locked. He was confused for a second; what the hell was that all about? Seto didn't even seem angry when he shoved him, he seemed more panicky than anything.
He could hear the water turn on; and after a few moments of listening to the spray, he realized something - A lot of people didn't realize they had more senses than five; one sense people had that they weren't consciously aware of was the ability to hear the difference between hot and cold water when it was being poured/sprayed. When he listened to the spray of water when it started, it sounded cold, and when the moments had gone by, it was still cold, when reasonably the water should have turned warm quickly from the recent use.
A cold shower.
Oh.
Oh.
A blush spread across Jonouchi's cheeks. Sometimes he forgot his spouse had never been with anyone else, so Jonouchi's constant displays of physical affection were probably a little… much, for him. If he still hated Seto, he'd probably be smug that he'd sent him into a random wanking session, but it was just embarrassing now because they were together now. They hadn't talked about having sex yet, it seemed too sudden especially after hating each other for years, but both of them still had needs in the time being.
It's not like he hadn't thought about it. Seto was his spouse after all, and he was still one of the most attractive men in Japan, but ever since they had the revelation about Seto's sexuality he was trying to tread carefully. They were both adults, but Seto's lack of experience in the subject of relationships and sex made it to where Jonouchi was in the unique position of holding all of the power, and if there was one thing he would never do it would be to take advantage of anyone.
And besides… he really liked Seto now… maybe a little too much? Their relationship had shifted into something they wouldn't be able to take back, nothing they did anymore was for the sake of 'keeping up appearances', sure they still kept up the lie of them having been together for years before marrying, but they had caught feelings were real and there was no denying it.
Jonouchi always thought that he would hate if he or Seto had feelings for each other because he spent so much time and energy hating his situation, but he didn't hate it, he didn't even resent the thought of staying married perma-
The bathroom door opened again, and Seto walked out again in the same pajama set, once again breaking Jonouchi from his thoughts. The silence between them was awkward as he walked back to his earlier spot in bed.
Seto grabbed the remote again, going through channels before stopping on some random anime, which they watched in continued silence.
"...The disheveled look is still pretty cute on you."
He got an eye roll out of that one, at least.
When he snuck into the mansion in the early hours of the morning, it was as quiet as he expected - after all, only Kaiba Seto lived here; he claimed his husband lived with him.
He knew, however, that was a lie; Kaiba Katsuya mostly occupied one of the Kaiba families many safehouses, the one that was close to Domino High School in fact. Seto seemed to take to visiting him more, but he still lived in the mansion, still claiming his husband lived there with him.
He would see the evidence for himself; Seto should still be asleep, and he would be alone.
Quietly, he made his way through the halls, keeping his steps as light as possible with how old the woodwork was, still creaky even with regular maintenance and house upgrades.
Slowly, he opened the door to Seto's room and peered inside. And frowned, puzzled at what he saw.
Seto wasn't alone; not much could be seen because of the thick duvet, but Seto was sleeping soundly on his back, and Katsuya had his head resting on the others chest and arm slung over his abdomen.
Hm. Not what he had expected. He closed the door, contemplating this. Perhaps he didn't have all of the pieces of the puzzle yet, but he would piece this together. He seemed to be at the intersection of an elaborate lie, and a mutual fixation.
To be continued…
Authors note: This isn't so much filler as it is more set-up, and also more of these two interacting in a positive, couple-y way.
That ghost children story is a real-life legend, if you look it up you'll see a more detailed retelling, I just wanted to give the gist of it.
Also, a mysterious figure. Who is he?