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 27: Oxytocin

"But you just said only Instants could be used outside of your turn."

"A creature can be used as an instant if it has Flash."

Seto placed down the cards he was holding on the desk, glaring across at Jonouchi "This game is a pointless rip-off of Duel Monsters." He scoffed.

"Rip-off? Magic was introduced three years before Duel Monsters." The blond pointed out, setting his own cards down.

"That was years ago, the changing mechanics continually overlap with Duel Monsters." Jonouchi rolled his eyes, it was of no surprise to him that Seto would be a card game purist. At least he'd given this a try. "What's the point of me learning this? You'll be the one registering as a Magic player."

"I just think it'd be important you're at least familiar with this game if it's going to make up half of the tournament."

Seto rolled his eyes again, it must have been the thousandth time in the past hour, making Jonouchi humorously imagine a cartoonish image of them rolling too far and popping out of the sockets. Having shown Seto the flier he had taken from the airport, the tall brunet hadn't been interested at all until he mentioned that Yugi was also going to enter, in which he did a complete 180.

Now he was definitely going to be entering the tournament that would be held in Domino in six months. However, like Jonouchi and Yugi, even he didn't recognize the company that would be hosting the tournament, only that the name of the company had been trademarked a few months back. He deduced it must have been a shell company.

Ultimately, despite what Yugi said, he was determined to be a Magic player for the tournament. He knew Seto would never enter as a Magic player, and while he knew that there was very little probability of them being paired up, he could still hope. Besides, after all of these years of being in the shadow of Yugi and Seto, he wanted to forge a slightly different identity and show he wasn't stuck in his ways like they tended to be.

"You haven't had a good duel in years, and you're passing up the opportunity for this?" Seto motioned to the cards. Jonouchi crossed his arms.

"I'm allowed to like more than one thing, you know. I mean, you don't just like Duel Monsters do you?"

"I like you."

Jonouchi's eyes bugged, after he processed this statement his face and ears flushed hot like summer pavement, and Seto smirked at him seeing this. Once the initial awkwardness of their relationship wore off, and they started syncing to each other more, Seto proved himself to be quite the flirt. At least, he tried to be; sometimes he got euphemisms wrong, but when he got it right it was more flustering than Jonouchi wanted to admit.

"Well, aren't you proud of yourself?" Jonouchi muttered, putting his own hand of cards down. "Are you going to take your turn or not."

"I choose to attack your life points directly." Seto said, putting one hand over a creature card; it was a red dragon creature called Balefire Dragon.

Jonouchi sighed heavily "You can't use that creature until your next turn, you just summoned it, it still has summoning sickness. Also, it's Life Total, not Life Points."

Seto's face pinched, clearly irked "You attacked me two turns ago with a monster you just summoned."

"That's because it has Haste, Haste lets a creature attack as soon as it's summoned. Balefire Dragon doesn't have that ability."

They continued going at MtG for a half hour, with Jonouchi having to explain a lot of the game mechanics. Luckily, Seto was a fast learner and got the hang of it after a few turns, even if he didn't like the game very much.

Once the game finally ended with Jonouchi winning, he was surprised to see Seto seemed so nonchalant about the loss. If there anything he remembered about his husband from when they were younger, it was that he was a giant sore loser. Either he really had matured, or he was silently planning some kind of elaborate scheme to get back at him.

It could be either/or, really.

"Why did you give me a red deck?" Seto asked as he reshuffled the deck; perhaps he had been expecting blue or white, considering those were his ace colours.

"Red decks focus a lot of direct damage. And red is the colour that utilizes dragons the most." Jonouchi shrugged; honestly, his red-deck was the go-to deck he used for amateur competitions or casual play. His ace monoblack deck he preferred to use for tournaments with matches that could last dozens of turns; black being a colour more suited for long games.

The aggressiveness of red seemed to fit Seto's playing style. Although, white might suit his play style as well, considering it's life-gain and combat mechanics, but that was still a reach. Blue was a color that focused mostly on counter spells and evasion didn't suit Seto's play style, at least in Jonouchi's opinion. That could just be Jonouchi's own disdain for the mechanics of blue, though.

"So, do you want to play another game?" Jonouchi asked hopefully, even though he already knew the answer.

"No thank you." Seto deadpanned as he put the cards back into their deck box "I don't see the appeal you do."

"No one ever used MtG to try to take over the world." Jonouchi muttered a reply, mostly to himself, but Seto appeared to hear him.

"That should tell you that Duel Monsters matters more." Seto pointed out, Jonouchi groaned slightly.

"What matters or doesn't matter is subjective, it's up to an individual if something matters. And, MtG won't replace Duel Monsters for me, but I can enjoy them both can't I?"

Seto made an indistinguishable noise in the back of his throat, and Jonouchi could only guess it was disagreeable. He was such a Duel Monsters snob sometimes.

"By the way," The brunets voice became quieter, making Jonouchi perk up slightly "how did your first session go? With ?"

Jonouchi paused, and thought for a moment, casting his gaze slightly at a table "It was… okay."

"Just okay?"

"I dunno how to describe it… She just wanted me to introduce myself at first..." He trailed off. There was just so much that seemed to happen, when in reality not a lot happened. It was true that had him start with introductions, and slowly she asked for more details about himself, like his family and education. His education was easy, but she noticed quickly his shakiness around the topic of family, but didn't say anything about it until she started asking him what brought him into counseling in the first place.

He waffled around the topics of having been a street punk, his abusive father, his neglectful mother, his marriage being a sham… And she prodded gently from there one topic at a time.

He definitely was going to skip the part of the session where he spent the better part of twenty minutes crying. It was apparently a good session, and she said that next week she would have things more prepared for his specific issues.

"You don't have to talk about it, I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable with this specific counselor." Seto's words broke Jonouchi out of his thoughts "I was passed around at least five different Psychiatrists before I settled on the one I currently have."

"It's good." Jonouchi shook his head slightly "I like her… she seems smart, like she really knows her stuff."

"She wouldn't be double-doctorate if she didn't." Seto shrugged.

"Well, just because you have a doctorate is psychology doesn't necessary mean you're a good psychologist, just that you know a lot about the subject." Jonouchi explained; he'd had many nurses, above and below his level, that had been star students while they were in schooling, just to be an apathetic mess when it came to actual hospital work. For some of them, it really boggled him how they'd even gotten their clinical hours in before being officially pinned as nurses.

Seto nodded "I get what you mean. I've met junior executives who thrived in business courses, but didn't have the brain or spine for the real thing."

"Brutal."

"Business often is."

Jonouchi grabbed his red deck box from Seto and put it on his own. "Well, if you don't want to play another game of Magic, anything else you want to do?"

"You're free to do whatever it is you do on your days off, I do have a few documents I can catch up on here."

"Hmm," Jonouchi hummed thoughtfully "ever heard of nap date?"

"No, but I can guess what it is. And no thanks, it's only three." As if to prove his disregard even further, he opened his laptop that had been earlier folded between the two of them.

"Oh come on, you barely sleep in general. What's one afternoon of racking out?"

"I have work to do." Seto stated simply, and immediately focused all of his attention to his laptop screen.

Jonouchi wasn't going to let his husband shoo him away this time. He got up from his seat and slid to the other side of the desk, standing behind Seto who continued to ignore him "Oh come on, you always work."

"It's what I'm good at."

"Can't you focus on being good at something else, like being a husband."

Seto looked over his shoulder, partially amused but equally irked "Are you saying I'm doing a poor job of being your husband?"

Jonouchi laughed softly and crouched down slightly to wrap his arms over him from behind "Of course not, babe. There's always room for improvement, though."

Seto hummed, and placed one hand over Jonouchi's own. A warm tingle ran up the blond mans arm at the contact, something so new but so comfortable at the same time "And you don't need to?" He inquired, looking over his shoulder at the other.

"We can always improve together." Jonouchi said and ducked his head to quickly peck Seto's cheek; the brunet didn't redden this time as he was used to Jonouchi's over affection now, he simply just rolled his eyes. "Come on, be a good husband and come take a nap with me."

"Technically, I've out performed you in the marital duties department."

"How so."

"I remembered our anniversary, and your birthday. You forgot both, and also my birthday. How does someone forget their own birthday?"

"I mean, that's true, buuuut," Jonouchi went through his brain slightly for an excuse "that isn't really a husbandly duty. Remembering dates is more of a wife thing."

"Didn't you tell your little friends the other day that you reject traditional gender roles in favor of equality?"

"Stop using my own logic against me and come lay down." With that, he used his arms over Seto to pull the desk chair back a few inches, which was easy since the computer chairs had wheels and Seto was less than seventy kilograms.

"If I do, will you leave me alone to my work later tonight?" Seto bargained, Jonouchi grinned.

"Fine fine, I have the graveyard shift tonight anyways." Jonouchi agreed, unwrapped his arms as Seto knocked his shoulders upwards to push him off, and stood up from his chair. There was an audible sound as he cracked his neck to free tension from his cervical spine.

Jonouchi's heart fluttered slightly, and a warm feeling of satisfaction spread from his chest to the tips of his digits. There always seemed to be a particular part in his chest that didn't feel the same warmth, but it was probably nothing.


In the interlocked shadow of the souls, two young manifestations of Seto and Katsuya were wandering hand-in-hand in their eternal athazagoraphobic prison. They had nothing to guide them but at least they had each other.

"Suya-chan, what are you doing?" Seto asked, his usual monotone edging on concern as he noticed his companions' apprehension. For a while, Katsuya had been acting paranoid and over attentive.

"I'm looking for something." Katsuya answered as he looked, straining his eyes to see if he could make anything at all out in the shadows.

"What are you looking for?" Seto asked, rubbing the back of the other boy's hand with his thumb, which seemed to momentarily calm him for a second.

"I- He's lost something." Katsuya tried to explain as he pointed upwards at the bright soul that always forsake him with it's discriminating light. "Something's missing…" He mumbled.

"Do you know what he's missing?" Seto inquired.

"He knows it's missing… but he doesn't know, he knows something is wrong, but he doesn't know better." Katsuya continued to vaguely explain "He can't find it on his own… Will you help me find it?"

Seto tilted his head; his own soul had gone through a period where it's heart had been shattered, and he was tasked with putting the pieces back together. Although Katsuya didn't know exactly what was missing, perhaps they could find something together.

"Of course, Suya-chan. First, do you have any idea how he lost something?"

Katsuya hummed in thought "He… died." He explained, his voice choking up from second-hand sorrow in 'remembrance' of the trauma that had been inflicted upon his soul "Only for a second. He needed to sacrifice one part of himself to keep the rest of our soul alive."

"That's a good start..." Seto said, and looked ahead to where the shadows became deeper and darker, and a purple mist formed. Before, neither of them felt the bravery to go near such a cursed part of their souls' shadows. Now, however, they wouldn't be braving it alone. "I think I know where we can begin our search."


Jonouchi had his arms resting behind his head, lying on Seto's bed waiting for the other to join him. The brunet wanted to change into something more comfortable to lie down in and was doing so in the walk-in closet.

"Is this the type of 'date' you prefer?" Said brunet asked as he walked out of his closet, now just wearing lounge pants, with a simple black long-sleeve tucked in.

"I'm not picky." Jonouchi chuckled softly, patting the spot next to him.

Seto climbed onto the bed and slid under the duvet, not replying.

"I knew you liked blue, but I didn't think your entire room would be that colour." Jonouchi commented, randomly, just as a conversation starter. Practically everything in this room was some shade of navy.

"Blue isn't my favorite colour. A close second, but no." Seto explained.

"What is it then?"

"Black."

Jonouchi blinked; then again, that did make sense. Seto, if anything, wore the colour black more than he wore any other colour. He just figured it was because black went with everything, which was important for someone with a tragic fashion sense like Seto. "Guess you didn't want a bedroom with a gothic aesthetic then."

"I didn't want Isono to think I was going through a 'phase.'" Seto replied vaguely, lying down properly. Jonouchi didn't reply, just turned to face him in the bed and draped an arm over his waist and under his back in a hug. The arm on the bottom was definitely going to be falling asleep later, but he was going to be cozy at least for the moment. Closing his eyes, he rested his head on top of the other's chest.

Seto said nothing, and likewise put an arm over his husband. His arm was probably also going to fall asleep later, but that was inevitable in any cuddling position.

"'Night." Jonouchi mumbled; he heard Seto mumble something that was likely along the lines of it being the middle of the day, but he racked out before he could process it.

To be continued...


Authors note: So, MtG was introduced in 1993, while the official Yugioh card game was introduced in 1996, so Magic, at least in the legal sense, did come first. I don't know how much time came between the card game introduction in the manga and the release of MtG, though.

The way I envision a relationship between these two is that they're incredibly volatile together before getting together, but once they are they're so normal as a domestic couple that it's jarring. Like, mind-numbingly normal, barely any fights or anything. Jonouchi is very low-maintenance in a relationship, Kaiba is awkward and might try to overdo things but if there's anything he's good at it's rising to the occasion so he can modify his behavior accordingly. Also, this writer just isn't much for borderline toxic fanfic relationships.

The young manifestation of Kaiba's adolescent trauma uses the cutesy nickname 'Suyachan' for Katsuya because in the English dub young Seto calls Mokuba 'Mokie' I don't know if it's canon to the Japanese anime because I can't get the subbed version, but I do think it's an interesting character trait.

Katsuya and Seto are both hard-working adults in their late mid twenties, so nap dates are probably more commonplace than if they were still teens.