Chapter Twenty-Four:

In the end, they didn't get finished that night. After sex, they ended up falling asleep for a few hours and woke up after nine. Deciding that they didn't want to be trying to pack into the wee hours of the morning, and with Joey hungry, they took a quick shower, half-unpacking the bathroom box again, then changed into fresh clothes and left the apartment. They stopped at a fast food restaurant to get some dinner, then headed back to the manor.

Once there, Yugi told Yami the news, that they would be leaving soon, assuming they were accepted to the apartment. Yami didn't try to talk him out of it, as Yugi had expected he wouldn't. Yami understood.

/Still, looks like we'll have to wait until this weekend. We're back on schedule for the movie and Joey works at the warehouse almost every day./

/You're welcome to stay however long,/ Yami responded.

Yugi smiled. He hadn't seen Seto Kaiba since accidentally barging in on his and Yami's private time, and he decided to take Yami's repeated word for it. They'd be out of his house soon enough anyway. If they didn't get this apartment, there would be plenty of others, if in less favorable areas.

In bed, Joey agreed they should try for that weekend. "So, tomorrow, I'll ask Akira for a half day on Saturday. T and Serenity both said they'd help us move, and between the four of us, I'm sure we can get it all done. Er, if we get the place."

"I think we will. We have excellent credit and they know it's well within our budget, and besides, remember the apartment manager was a Duel Monsters fan?"

Joey laughed. "He about fell out of his chair when he saw you."

Yugi smiled. So fame really wasn't for him, but sometimes it had its perks. He felt confident they'd get the apartment.

And they did. Tuesday evening, while Yugi was home at the Kame Game Shop, having a goodbye dinner with his dad, who would be returning to his usual business trips that next day, the apartment manager's wife called to advise they'd been approved and could move on a prorated special that Saturday, which would be October Twenty-Seventh. Yugi told her that would be perfect and thanked her profusely.

"It's just down the road," Mrs. Moto said when Yugi told her the news. "That's good. Not so far out as Kaiba's place."

Yugi thought she was a little miffed at Yami for taking over and deciding for everyone that Yugi and Joey would stay with him. Although he'd made sure she could stay herself to see Yugi recovered, there really hadn't been any reason that Yugi and Joey couldn't have come to the Kame Game Shop. His family were well aware he and Joey were a couple, and they could have stayed together in Yugi's old room.

The truth was, once Yugi had been told his father was staying in Domino for a while, he had opted to stay at the manor, giving his parents time alone. His mother sometimes visited his father while he was on a trip, and his dad would come home in between them, but they rarely saw each other and never for so many days in a row.

The time together seemed to have gone well. Yugi had caught them whispering to each other, laughing and snuggling, in the kitchen when he came out of the storeroom after taking the day's inventory. His mom had been feeding his dad one of her baked goods. The sight had made him very happy.

After dinner, Yugi didn't stay the night. His dad would be leaving at around four in the morning to get his international flight, and so Yugi wanted them to have one last night alone.

"Yugi."

Yugi turned at the sound of his dad's voice, having been just about ready to step out of the Game Shop door. "Yeah, Dad?"

Mr. Moto looked down at him. His eyes didn't quite meet Yugi's, but seemed more about centered on Yugi's bolt bang. "Your arm. How is it?"

Yugi smiled and rolled that shoulder. "Almost normal."

"Good. You're still in that movie?"

"Yeah. We're back on set tomorrow."

"Tell me when it's finished. I'll watch it."

Yugi nodded. "I will."

"Is Joey treating you right?"

Surprised by question, Yugi nodded. He'd never been able to pinpoint his dad's feelings about Yugi's sexuality. It wasn't really something you discussed with your parents, even outside of how little he spoke to his father. As far as he knew, his dad didn't care to acknowledge it.

"Good," Mr. Moto said again. His eyes briefly went over Yugi's head, then came back down and focused, looking Yugi directly in the eye. "Take care of yourself, and your mother, Yugi. You… make me proud."

He reached out and stiffly enfolded Yugi in a hug. Yugi felt tears prickling his eyes as he hugged him back. "I love you."

Mr. Moto let go and stepped back. He patted Yugi's right shoulder, now looking more at the wall. "I love you, too." His eyes briefly ran across Yugi's gaze, then he turned and headed back into the apartment.

Wednesday morning, Yugi, Joey, and Tristan carpooled back out to the set. They split up to change into their costumes. Now that the costume designer's assistant's error had been corrected, there were sets of clothes in their sizes that could be torn and dirtied up without costing any of them their real wardrobe. The choices were not something Yugi typically wore. He felt strange in a powder blue sweater and without his neckbelt. Since the scene in the diner had ended, that had been the last day he'd worn it on set, and he wondered if the audience would notice its sudden absence. But the costume designer had insisted on them all being dressed "normal" as she had put it, perhaps not realizing she was rather insulting Yugi.

"We want you to be just another Japanese teenager off the street," she'd said that second week of filming. "Nondescript. Someone the audience can project themselves onto."

Yugi almost pointed out his hair was anything but nondescript and that he was twenty-three, but stopped himself. He was afraid she might try to talk Erica into putting a wig on him.

Outside in the cramped hallway of the doublewide trailer that served as the dressing rooms, he found Joey freaking out.

"Oh, god, oh, god, Yug', I forgot to say anything to Erica! I'm… Me and Nadia…" His face turned cherry red.

Yugi felt his mouth drop open. He'd forgotten, too. They'd finished filming exploring the Inn and retiring to bed, which meant it was time for their sex scenes.

"What are we going to do?" Joey gasped. "This whole day is… those. We can't just ask her to lose a whole day… the day of! But… But…"

"Got nerves, huh?"

It was Kevin. He'd come aboard the trailer without them noticing. He jerked his chin to indicate they follow him to the end of the trailer and they did.

"Kevin, I know it'd really put you in a bind, but-"

"We can't cut them out," Kevin said flatly. "You don't have any idea how far that would put us behind. Not just today. We'd have to rewrite them, change the lighting that's set up, everything. We'd have to bring the writers back on even, and most of them are scattered every which way, thinking they're done with us for the year. Lots have moved on to other projects. It would be conflicts of schedule and interest."

"But… can't you just cut them out? No rewrites, just-"

"That would take an expected ten or fifteen minutes out. Maybe more, maybe less, but still. That doesn't sound like a lot, and we aren't expected to have a set runtime, kids, but we have to leave room for post-production editing. What if something else just doesn't mesh after we've seen it filmed? What if down the line someone gets sick or quits or a prop gets broken? Any little thing can cause lots of ripples and this is a pretty big thing. And you might not think about it this way, but audiences come to horror movies for three things, the three Bs of horror: blood, boobs, and bad language."

"You have movies without… boobs," Yugi said, feeling his face flame. As he remembered, the scripts didn't actually even get that far, but the idea itself embarrassed him.

"Uh-huh. And you know what kind those are? The ones that are the goriest. It's a delicate balance, Yugi. If you take out one, you got to ramp up another. And we've got some pretty gory scenes coming up to begin with. Take out the sex, it's worse blood and worse language, and there's the rewrites."

Yugi wasn't sure he understood that logic. They didn't have a quota to meet, even unofficially. Erica's films were all rated-R by American standards, but some were far tamer than others, and still got that rating. He kind of thought Kevin was trying to con them.

"Look, we can't force you. I'm not even going to do something as mean as give you an ultimatum. But you're adults here, and you signed up for this, remember? And it's not that hard. Me and Erica, we've both done this before."

Yugi didn't remember Kevin being in any movies, but that didn't really matter.

"It's not hot at all. You're running lines and kissing over and over again like any other scene, only you're naked. Not that you're naked!" he added, because clearly their feelings had shown on their faces. "No shots from the below the waist in these scenes. Hell, the girls aren't even front-to. These are nothing, kids, they're not even softcore."

"But-" Joey said weakly, clearly trying one last time.

"Here's how it works. In both of these, the girls are making the first moves. They come in to your rooms, they smile and deliver their lines. Want some company? I'm chilly in my room. Stupid, cheesy stuff. You kiss a few times, lying in bed, you take off your shirts. You're both guys, you've gone shirtless in public at some point, right? The girls are never front-to, so when they take off their own shirts, what the audience can't see, but you will, is they're wearing these special stick-on chest cover things. They're skin-tone, sure, but they look less sexual than a Barbie doll. You kiss a little more, some more stupid lines and fake sex noises-stop looking like that-you roll around a little, and it's over. Shots out the window or over to the dresser. Bam, done."

He moved past Yugi and started to head out of the trailer, clearly believing it was settled.

"Oh, and one more thing," he said, pausing to look over his shoulder. "You want out, you can be the ones to tell those girls you can't fake hook-up with them. Girls get self-conscious over the littlest things, so, you know, you hurt their feelings if you can't man up."

That was doubly sexist. As Joey muttered several unkind things that Yugi heartily agreed with, Kevin left the trailer.

"Shit," Joey muttered. He scratched his fingers through his hair and sighed. "Okay. Okay. If we can face down the Shadow Realm and monsters come to life, we can kiss a pretty girl, can't we?"

Well, when Joey put it that way.

Probably not.

But what else could Yugi say? Even if Rin did take it well, Kevin was right, as loathe as he was to admit it. It would snowball and he'd tried so hard not to let that happen. And what was a little fake kissing? Kevin was also right; he was an adult and he'd rolled around in the hay with Joey many times. He hadn't been a virgin since graduation night. If he could do it for real, surely he could fake it.

Maybe.

And, though most people would probably be surprised to learn, Yugi actually did have a sense of pride. He found himself still not wanting to be the one who had to chicken out. Even more so, he didn't want to risk hurting Rin's feelings.

"Right," he said to Joey.

They gave each other sickly smiles.

tbc...