Painted Sky
*wibbles into the scene… blinks at everyone… and promptly passes out*
Yuki: *nudges PM before sighing* =(@.@)=
Translation: She's been kinda tired lately so I might as well give out the information this time. The first scene takes place on Friday (so we're skipping nearly a week) but the rest of the chapter takes place next Sunday! =(^.^)= Enjoy!
Many thanks to rayemars-san and the readers! ^____^ Ah… gomen, rayemars-san, for this chapter's lousy spelling… I still have no idea how the spell check decided to stop working for this chapter! Oo;; Anyhow, thanks! *glomp*
kimi no vanilla ~ Really? Because when I told Kei-kun, she's like 'It's Georgie'. And I'm sitting there going 'BUT THAT'S AN AMERICAN NAME! *wail wail wail* And then she probably smacked me to shut me up or something… but anyhow. *whistles innocently before glomping* Wah! Thanks for reading! XD I'm hoping to brainwash the world into liking this coupling *shifty eyes* but I doubt it's working so far. *sigh*
Tuulikki ~ It is inhumane. And it's inhumane on a weekday too, but do I dare tell my teachers that? Nooo. No wonder I have a B+ or so in Calculus… *sob* Gah. Studying is evil right now. *sobbu* My brain has completely ceased to function… especially when it comes to school and writing. It's a curse I tell you! XD
Rowan and Sakura ~ XD Yah, I heard about his name… but what Kei-kun told me. *glares at Kei-kun with the might of one whose tiny brain has completely dissolved* Gah. Don't mind me. *laughs* Anyhow… *hands over some ice for the swelling* XD But to be truthful, I can't take all credit for the 'walla walla walla' line. It was actually inspired by some Dilbert comic strips… I haven't read it in a while but it stuck in my mind so much that I just couldn't forget! *giggles*
Ninetails ~ Dragon Dice and Dungeons! Dragon Dice and Dungeons! Or something like that. *shrugs innocently* And yes, the Seto/Yami relationshi had to come in. I have to brainwash you somehow, right? *shakes head* I can't believe his name though… IT'S SO BLOODY SHORT!!!! *runs off screaming*
Vulpes Demond of fuzzy ears ~ XD Here. Update. *giggle*
Anime Girl Sasami ~ *eyes pop out* WOW! *mauls* Did I EVER tell you how much I love/adore/worship your reviews? I really do… it's because you pick up on basically EVERYTHING I try to do, and sometimes things that I didn't even know I was doing! It's amazing, really, and I love it so much. Ryuuji, you sex-god… *dies and giggles* God, I love reading your reviews so much. I really do. *mauls* There wasn't anything I needed to address in there, right? Oo;; Gomen if there was… but my brain is totally down right now. I lost all my brain cells squealing over the fact that I *finally* got to watch Todd Eldredge skate since the Winter Olympics. ^^;; But seriously. *maul* I love your reviews. Love. Worship. Will let go now. *giggles* And to answer your question… the whore who has everything wants an ax. Bloody idiot finished reading 'Crime and Punishment' and now is eyeing me oddly… *whimper*.
Lady Shriannan Santrea ~ XD Yuki doesn't need a fanclub. Really. If his head gets any more swollen, his stuffing will be popping out. *somewhat traumatized by that thought Oo;;* And thanks! ^_^ I think I'm getting the hang of physics finally….
MarmaladeGirl ~ XD Seto's a bit too power-obsessed to be able to flip to only strategic, I think. Plus he was distracted by the lovely creature in front of him. *grin* And to answer your question about "Spring Tulips"… well, I haven't been working on it lately but it's not dead. I'm not giving it up. I just need some time right now but all my free time is being consumed by this fic. ^^;; I'm hoping to get chapter 3 done over the break, but I'm just not sure I'll have time. *hangs head shamefully*
Bronze Eagle ~ I don't think Seto knew, but it's hard to tell with him. -_-;; Yah, it would be awkward… but I don't think Seto quite cares. *sweatdrop* Oops?
Alana Hikari-Chan ~ XD Angst? But this is supposed to be… happy. Somewhat. Kinda. Uh. *coughs* Moving on! *glomps*
Kkkkkkkk (I hope I got that right… Oo;;) ~ *laughs* Yah, it seems kind of strange that I made my reputation with Seto/Ryou and have now moved onto something else… but I like this coupling! It's different, but I still think it works! ;p Thanks for giving it a chance! *grin*
~ Kuchizuke (Kiss) ~
Every month, on the third Friday, Yuugi would call everyone up and ask them if they wanted to watch whatever movie was out. This was a way of getting together on a regular basis in case something was happening, and it usually worked out fine as long as there was something decent to watch (if there wasn't… well, that meant that there were going to be some very unamused people sniping at the poor movie and often times an ill-tempered thief threatening to send the entire place into darkness if some blood wasn't spilled soon).
Since it was on the same weekend of every month, there was no excuse not to go unless it was something extremely important. Honda had once skipped out because of a meeting with a client that had taken the majority of the weekend, for example, and Ryou was sick with the flu another time. Usually though, the situation worked out to everyone's convenience and the small, tight-knit group was able to watch a movie and have some good laughs with each other.
There were three exceptions to this 'everyone must go' rule. Two of these exceptions were the spirits of the Sennen Items, as it was commonly assumed that if they declined, it meant that they were in their one bedroom, one bathroom, one room for everything else apartment screwing like bunnies. Jyounouchi had once had the audacity (or perhaps he was simply drunk at the time) to ask the two about it, only to find himself being chased all over Domino City by a rather ill-tempered dark monster while Yami no Bakura stood to the side laughing his head off. It wasn't until Yami no Yuugi had threatened him with things that must not be mentioned that the white-haired thief finally called off his pet.
It more or less now went unsaid now that when Yami no Bakura was involved, questions were not to be asked.
The third exception to this rule was, of course, Kaiba Seto. Nobody could figure out why Yuugi even bothered to ask him, as the CEO always declined. In fact, the conversations between the game shop owner and billionaire always went along the lines of this:
Yuugi: Kaiba-kun! I was wondering if–.
Seto: No. *hangs up*
When Yami no Yuugi used to still live with Yuugi, and when Seto still took the time to pretend to listen to the former pharaoh, there would often be a second part of the conversation that went like this:
Yam no Yuugi: Kaiba! Why'd you hang up on aibou like that?!
Seto: Because I didn't want to talk to him. And I don't want to talk to you either.
Yami no Yuugi: You're coming.
Seto: No I'm not. *hangs up*
Again, there was never any variation.
The pharaoh usually didn't bother to call again after that, and for good reason. As for Seto… well, no matter how many times Yuugi had asked in the past and Yami no Yuugi had demanded for him to attend, he never bothered to think about it as soon as he pressed the off button on his phone.
~ * ~
"I don't see why you bother…."
Yuugi sighed as the spirit browsed through the new card deck packets that had come into the game shop the last week. Yuugi had grown but was still somewhat short compared to just about everyone, including his grandfather who had long since retired. He had 'inherited' the game shop after his mother and grandfather had moved to a smaller apartment, leaving him and Anzu to their own devices. Yuugi and Anzu had, more than once, asked them to move back, but they had always declined. And after Yami no Yuugi had left to go live with the thief… the game shop had suddenly become very empty.
Although right now, with the spirit ragging on him, Yuugi wished that he and Anzu could be living by themselves in a very, very, very empty place.
"He's one of our friends, mou hitori no boku [1]. We have to give him a chance to come if he wants to."
"But he never wants to," Yami no Yuugi replied before blinking. "Can I have this?"
"He might though! And yes, you can have it," Yuugi sighed as he continued cleaning the glass counters. "That'd be five hundred yen [2]."
"Say what?"
By the point of this indignant shriek, Yuugi was already ignoring him and starting to dial the phone. As soon as somebody picked up on the other end, he gave the spirit a glare, causing the much older man to huff and go back to his precious card packet, "Moshi moshi? [3] Can I please speak to Kaiba-kun?"
"He's going to say no. He says that every time," the former pharaoh sighed as he started to open the small packet. Sometimes, he honestly wished that his former host would understand that Kaiba Seto didn't want to have anything to do with the two of them, although his resilience after about seventeen-hundred rejections was somewhat admirable. He frowned as he looked at the five cards [4] that he had just unwrapped, and proceeded to ignore Yuugi's desperate attempts in favor of something more interesting. Yuugi couldn't help but smile at this; while Yuugi still liked to play Magic and Wizards, he was nowhere near as obsessive as the pharaoh was.
"What cards did you get?" Yuugi leaned back to look at the man who was currently staring at the newly received cards with an odd expression.
"Uh…" Yami no Yuugi frowned as he held up a level four card with a 1650 attack and 1700 defense. "Don't you think this looks like Yuki?"
Yuugi sweatdropped as he again wondered what could have possessed him to ever give the little stuffed seal to Yami no Yuugi. Of course he knew the answer – the two had been having troubles connecting, and the white fuzz ball had been a gift in an attempt for the two to come to know each other better. In a way, it was a symbol of their bond… although sometimes, the pharaoh seemed to be a little bit too obsessive with the seal. It had gotten to the point that the Black Magician was often complaining about his master's obsession with the poor thing… which only led to Yami no Yuugi's attempts to somehow get the two together, completely forgetting that Yuki just happened to be an inanimate object. Luckily, before he could start pounding his head against the wall at the insanity of all of this, he was distracted when Seto's secretary asked him to wait while she transferred the call. He was mildly surprised to be able to recognize the voice as the person he had spoken to last time; Seto had a rather nasty tendency of going through secretaries as most people went through toilet paper.
"I think it looks like Yuki. Do you think that whoever is making these new cards stole the design?"
"I thought that all the card designs came from Egypt."
"Only the ones that Pegasus J. Crawford designed [5]. And it's not like they had seals back in Egypt, right? Did they have seals back then? I thought seals were ocean animals. Maybe they lived in the Nile?"
"Mou hitori no boku…."
"Do you think Yuki should sue? Isn't this copyright infringement? I don't think Yuki gave them permission to put him on a card, no matter how much of an honor it is."
"You've been watching way too much TV…" Yuugi sighed. This would have been the point where he put one hand on his hips while he wagged a finger at the spirit in as patronizing manner as a not-even-in-his-mid-twenties young man could do with a three thousand year old pharaoh, if not for the fact that one of those said hands were busy keeping the phone plastered to his ear. The last thing he needed, after all, was for Seto to finally get back to him only for him to be off in la-la land (at the fault of Yami no Yuugi, most likely). He certainly didn't want to give the somewhat litigious billionaire any reason to sue him for an extreme and not to mention non-existent amount of money.
It didn't help, however, that there was absolutely no sound coming from the phone except a very faint amount of static. Kaiba Seto wasn't exactly the type of person to put that annoying elevator music interrupted every twenty seconds by a mechanized voice lying about how somebody would be with the victim shortly… he probably found it to be a waste of money, no matter how little an amount it really was.
"I think I should at least advise Yuki of his legal rights… I've been watching a lot of that American show [6] and I think I could really do it."
Yuugi rolled his eyes. It often surprised him how… strange the pharaoh could be. At times he seemed to have settled in reasonably well to the modern world, especially since it had been several years since he had emerged from the Sennen Puzzle. But at times like this, he really had to wonder.
Right when he was about to say something gentle and not altogether heart-breaking and dream-shattering, Seto's cold, crisp voice calmly came over the phone, "What."
It wasn't even a question.
"Kaiba-kun!" Yuugi greeted cheerfully. Yami frowned and shook his head as he returned to his newly gotten card, keeping to himself the question of just how Yuugi could remain so annoyingly optimistic when the obtuse, stubborn-minded Kaiba Seto was involved. But as if still able to hear his thoughts, Yuugi shot him a somewhat dirty look that Yami could not fail to see (this led to said pharaoh sticking his tongue out), choosing instead to concentrate on the present conversation with the rather short-tempered CEO. "I was wondering…."
"Fine."
"… if you…. What?!"
Seto didn't even have the dignity to reply. He just hung up, leaving poor Yuugi to give the phone a stupefied stare as the dial tone suddenly came blasting across loudly.
"Am I going to have to call him back again?" Yami no Yuugi asked in a bored tone. He didn't even look up from his new card that he had already dubbed 'Yuki', so he wasn't able to see the shocked look on Yuugi's face.
"I… iya…."
"You sure?"
The question was only a bit sarcastic. But just a bit. Really.
"He said yes."
Silence.
Yami no Yuugi stared at him, "Are you okay, aibou?"
He had to be hallucinating. This was, after all, Kaiba Seto. Kaiba Seto did not say yes to these types of things. Kaiba Seto did not leave his cozy mansion in order to go watch movies with Yuugi-tachi. Kaiba Seto did not have a life and did not even pretend to have one.
Kaiba Seto could not have said yes.
"He said yes," Yuugi repeated slowly in order to make sure that Yami no Yuugi had heard him. Which the spirit had, obviously, or he wouldn't be staring at his former host with an expression that openly seemed to speak of hospitals, large doses of drugs, straitjackets, and lobotomies.
"Who said yes?" Anzu asked. She was currently leaning against the doorframe as she wiped her hands with a towel, her large blue eyes looking at the two brother-like figures staring at each other with the same dumbfounded expressions. "What's wrong, guys?"
There was a long silence as the two looked at each other, obviously waiting for the other to speak. Unfortunately, their usual mental connection seemed to be a bit off because neither seemed to be able to communicate anything to the other. Finally though, Yuugi managed to turn back to his wife, stammering, "Ka… Kaiba-kun. He… he said yes."
"Kaiba-kun?" Anzu frowned slightly as she processed the newfound information. "You mean to the movie Sunday night, right?
"Yes," Yami no Yuugi added finally.
"Oh," was the simple reply before she shrugged slightly and straightened. "Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes. Are you both going to be coming?"
"You're not surprised?" her husband blinked in shock as he exchanged a look with mou hitori no Yuugi, who only grimaced and shrugged.
"Well, didn't you see the way the two of them looked at each other?" Anzu asked. When all she got were two extremely blank looks, she threw her hands up in the air as she turned and walked back to the kitchen. "Men…."
~ * ~
That past week had not been what one could call exceptionally good. Ryuuji had finally managed to settle back into an ordinary life… or as ordinary a life as one could have when a certain arrogant, pissy, annoying, stubborn pain-in-the-ass seemed to be stalking you to where ever you went. Honestly, Ryuuji could not figure it out. One moment he would be buying a newspaper and breakfast at the local café and the next thing he knew, he was sitting down to eat said breakfast with Seto! Not that the two actually had any conversation… instead, the great billionaire himself leeched his newspaper without ever saying a word. And there had been other run-ins too, none of which he wanted to remember. However, he was now starting to believe that Domino was quite large enough so that the two could easily avoid each other for the rest of their lives… but instead they were seeing each other once a day. The only reason why he hadn't seen him yesterday was because he had stayed home the entire day to get some paperwork done, but considering his recent run of his luck, the brunette was going to show up any….
"Kaiba-kun! Glad you could make it!"
… moment.
Ryuuji could only watch, completely aghast, as Seto practically seemed to prance towards them, scattering people as he stepped closer. His mind was screeching (with a very high pitch), demanding to know why the brunette was here when he never came to the movie get-togethers. Never. Yami no Yuugi had told them long ago that Seto would not come until hell froze over, and since the two were rivals, the Sennen Puzzle's spirit could more or less be considered an authority on the topic.
Except for the fact that… well… Seto was here right now.
Yuugi looked quite giddy about Seto's appearance, while Jyounouchi had the equivalent expression of Ryuuji. Ryou and Mai seemed to be completely unfazed, Anzu and Honda looked positively giddy (no, he had no idea why), and the two spirits just continued to argue with each other about whether or not it really was wrong to mind crush the drivers who deliberately tried to run over innocent pedestrians whilst going about four times over the speed limit (Yami no Yuugi was having a bit of trouble trying to defend himself, and Yami no Bakura was just pleased as punch at being able to expose him for the blood-thirsty demon that he truly was).
"Hmm," was the reply.
Ryuuji had the most inexplicable urge to scream. Somehow he kept himself from doing it, but it was a pretty close call… especially when the brunette looked over and smirked. This led to much wondering about whether or not it was illegal to rip out certain body parts when provoked.
As the others started to flit away in order to figure out what movie to watch, Ryuuji found himself face to face with Seto, an extremely annoyed frown on his face, "What are you doing here?"
Seto smirked, "Yuugi asked me."
"I know he asked you. He asks you every time. But you never come. What changed your mind this time?" Ryuuji snapped back, even as the annoying little voice in his head quietly asked if he really wanted to know the answer to that. Obviously, he didn't… but part of him did. Which made him want to kill that little part of him, but that was a completely different story.
"That's for me to know and you to find out," the brunette had the same, infuriating expression on his face that made people instinctively want to hit him (or maybe that was just the impression that the other man got). Ryuuji resisted the urge to kick him. This time though, he didn't even bother to say anything about Seto's use of his first name, instead choosing to glare in the hope that he would suddenly gain laser eye vision and turn the brunette into a puddle of unrecognizable goo.
"I never thought you would be the type to resort to cliché's," Ryuuji snarled, his arms folded and his green eyes just somewhat bitter. "Did you eat something funny?"
"It might have been that bread you shared with me on Wednesday."
"I did not share with you. You took it. Never thought a great billionaire like you would have to resort to stealing from poor game inventors like myself."
"Are you two love birds going to keep talking like that or are we going to go in?" Honda suddenly complained loudly, cutting off any reply Seto was about to make. Honda's remark, however, caused both men to start and stare at him with an expression that seemed to ask what drugs had he been taking… and if he hadn't been taking drugs and had no other valid excuse for the smart remark… well, then he was talking himself into an early grave.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Seto said simply as he walked past Honda and Ryuuji, pausing only to get the ticket from Yuugi before entering the theater.
"I'm not going to be that forgiving, rest assured," Ryuuji snarled as he glared at Honda before starting to jab him with a finger. "What the hell was that about?!"
"Well, the way you two always argue could compare with Jyounouchi and Mai…."
"So?! Since when does arguing become a declaration of love?! Since when did you have any idea about whether a relationship has started? Since when did…."
"What did you just say about Katsuya and me?!" Mai suddenly shrieked, and Honda found himself being confronted by two rather PMS-y people who both wanted to cut him up into little pieces and scatter it within a fifteen hundred meter radius so that nobody could ever be able to piece the body back together.
"Nothing…."
"I'm going to…."
Luckily for Honda, Yuugi took the opportunity to save him before any bodily harm could come to the poor brunette. This resulted in much kissing of feet and worshipping as Yuugi suddenly found himself being dragged down by the before-mentioned idiot clinging onto his legs.
~ * ~
The movie was a new one that had been highly anticipated by just about everyone on the planet, and the small group had not thought ahead about how many people there would be. Thus, by the time they went into the theater, it was terribly crowded, making it more or less impossible for them to squeeze ten people together. This of course resulted in the group having to split up. Yami no Bakura and Yami no Yuugi, who had no interest in the movie anyway, were dropped off in the back where it was hoped that the movie would be good enough to distract any of the nearby people from two spirits trying to add a new place to their list of locations where sex was possible, despite what most people thought. Then Jyounouchi managed to find enough seats for four people, which was quickly occupied by the two remaining couples, leaving the last four victims by themselves. Ryou managed to spot another twosome seat, and before anybody could blink Honda had dragged him there with a vague excuse that he needed to tell the poor, white-haired man something.
By this point, Ryuuji was audibly snarling. Honda made a quick mental note to buy a strong lock for his door and a muzzle for the raven-haired man as he walked away, leaving Seto and Ryuuji standing there. He also decided to ignore the fact that he was having holes drilled into him by a pair of very annoyed green eyes.
There was a silence as the two stood there for a moment, looking warily at each other. Or Ryuuji looked wary, at least, while Seto just continued to glance around for a seat.
"Well, I'll be going that way. So you can go that way, which, I might add, is in the opposite direction. So have a nice time, don't forget to write, and… what on earth do you think you're doing?!" Ryuuji's voice reached a very high-pitched squeak when Seto simply took his wrist and started to drag him forward.
"There's two seats up there."
"So?!"
Now, Ryuuji knew that he was being completely impossible and annoyingly whiny, but that was more or less the point of his current behavior. After all, who would want to sit through an entire movie with a crazy stalker? Never mind that Seto wasn't technically crazy (although one could get a variety of answers depending on the source) and that he was really just exaggerating when it came to calling the brunette a stalker.
Perhaps.
The theater doors were closed so there was no need to worry about anybody taking the seats. Still, Seto was getting rather impatient with Ryuuji's behavior, so he let go and crossed his arms to give the raven-haired man a long stare. "The movie is going to start soon. There are some perfectly good seats up there. But if you want, you're welcome to spend the next couple of minutes searching for a seat in the dark if you want to be so stubborn. It's up to you – I don't really care what you choose to do, although you're sure putting yourself through a lot of trouble to avoid me."
"Who said I was avoiding you?" Ryuuji gritted back, glaring at the brunette with narrowed green eyes. "The world doesn't revolve around you, and mine certainly can do perfectly well without you."
Seto rolled his eyes. The lights were already starting to dim, and so he decided that it was time to stop playing around. He hadn't wasted his money to miss the movie, no matter how little it cost compared to the fortune he had amassed.
So, before Ryuuji could say anything else, he turned around and walked away, leaving Ryuuji standing there glaring holes into the back of his head.
It was hard to tell what thoughts were going through his head at this point. Part of him was extremely pleased that Seto was finally leaving him alone… but as the lights kept getting darker and the brunette farther away, he started to feel something very odd that could not be explained.
Did he really want this?
He would have shaken his head if he wasn't worried about looking like a complete psychopath (not that he had avoided this. After all, he was standing in the middle of a movie theater with a rather blank look on his face after arguing with a very recognizable CEO, and now everyone was watching him with more interest than they would ever show the movie). No, that was definitely not a question that he wanted to think about. Never mind that he was starting to feel… feel something that could be mistaken for interest.
Interest was a safe word.
Interesting drawings, by the way.
He had thrown away those drawings.
He wondered why he had done such a thing.
He wanted to tell himself that the sketches hadn't really been anything, since all of them had been made on the back of old business papers while he was watching TV. Most of the time, he wasn't sure what he was drawing until he had gotten some form that could be turned into something plausible.
His mother had been the one who had taught him to draw… not that she actually set him down and drew with him, but he had always liked to watch her. And she was the one who had interested him in it, although he had never taken the time to go through art lessons.
Nobody had really commented on his drawings. Certainly not his father, who had always tried to throw away his random scribblings if they weren't related to his game. In the end, the reason why there had been such variety in the creatures of his game was because he had needed an excuse for those before-mentioned random scribblings.
It wasn't something big, just something he did when he was bored. Even the papers from the seminar had been covered in small sketches (most of them had involved one figure with a ponytail strangling a taller figure, but that was something he preferred to keep to himself), although not as many since he had been so busy contemplating more creative ways to cause the immediate expiration of a certain brunette.
To say that Seto's comments had made him feel remarkably awkward was somewhat of an understatement. He didn't know why he cared so much about what the brunette had to say… after all, he and Yuugi-tachi had made somewhat of a career in learning how to ignore Seto's existence.
"Aren't you going?" somebody suddenly hissed.
A blush crawled up his face, but nobody could see it because it was so dark. Somehow managing to keep himself from stamping his foot in anger, he walked towards the area where Seto had gone. At the end, the only reason why he managed to find Seto was because the brunette's head was higher up than most of the other's around him.
When he sank into the seat, he took a certain amount of pleasure from the fact that the CEO didn't say anything mocking or contemptuous.
In fact, Seto didn't say anything.
~ * ~
"Where are we going?"
"Never mind that," Honda replied hastily as he dragged Ryou out of the theater as quickly as he could, trying to avoid getting trampled by the masses of people exiting the theater despite the fact that Ryou was slowing him down in his confusion.
"But what about…."
"He'll be fine!"
"Demo…."
"Look! There are the others!"
Ryou couldn't help but whimper as Honda practically carried him to the others. He knew for a fact that he didn't want to be anywhere near this place when Ryuuji found out exactly what had happened.
And of course, the raven-haired man was going to find out eventually what had happened.
~ * ~
When Seto watched movies, he often left earlier than everyone else in order to avoid the stampede. Ryuuji, on the other hand, liked to stay behind and watch the ending credits. After all, most people were already gone by that point except for the few people who also stayed behind, and then there wasn't much need to worry about getting accidentally killed.
Honda, having gone to quite a few movies with Ryuuji, knew of this little eccentricity. This was the reason why he had forced Ryou out of the theater as quickly as he could, knowing that Ryuuji wouldn't notice, too wrapped up in watching the credits roll across the screen. To be truthful, he could never figure out why Ryuuji liked watching it… he personally found it rather boring. But there was something about it that held the game inventor in rapt attention, and he often refused to budge until it truly was over.
Seto, on the other hand, found himself staring at Ryuuji with a bored expression on his face. His 'companion', if one was brave enough to call it that, had ignored him for the duration of the movie… which had been relatively good. He had, of course, expected that type of behavior… but still.
And now, Ryuuji seemed to be absolutely fascinated by the names. There were so many, and each of them were different and unique. Seto raised one eyebrow as he continued to watch the older man.
Ryuuji was… Ryuuji was odd, to say the least. He had to be, of course, to stand out in Seto's mind beyond a nameless cheerleader friend. But there were just so many things that reminded him of himself… so many characteristics that he could see in himself if he was being truthful. A rare event, most certainly, but with Ryuuji he found he was looking into himself a little more.
Most of it… most of it he didn't like. There was a reason why all of those annoying traits had been hidden away, but now?
It wasn't really a good thing, was it?
He felt challenged when he was in Ryuuji's presence. There was enough competition to make a conversation interesting, and enough skill on both of their parts to make it difficult for either to win. With Yami no Yuugi… well, it just got boring after a while. The pharaoh was the game king, after all, and simply could not be defeated. The concept of never being able to win unless something particularly catastrophic should happen made the game so much less interesting.
With Ryuuji, he didn't have that feelings. The win-lose ratio was just enough so that he could stay interested. If he always won, like with the make inu… well, what was the point of that? There was no challenge, no competition to spark that fire within him which had for so long caused him to pursue Yami no Yuugi in that desperate, hopeful chance that perhaps this would be the day where the great game king would fall.
Pff. As if.
The pharaoh wasn't really human, wasn't a challenge that he could conceivably hope to defeat one day. He was, instead, a fitful dream that was too high for him to reach, no matter how hard he tried. It made him feel so weak, so awkward and pathetic. Ryuuji, at least, did not inspire those types of emotions.
Instead, he could almost believe that he was having fun bantering with the raven-haired, cocky-ass game inventor.
It was more than what he could say about his current relationship.
This was a paradox that he had long ago ceased to understand. Yuriko created a perfect relationship in which he could give little… but then he would receive just as little back. And Ryuuji… he had to give so much of himself, of that person who had so wanted to be hidden away for the rest of eternity, just to understand the person standing before him. But in doing so, he felt so alive.
But he didn't want to give parts of himself away, even to feel alive.
He didn't want….
"What are you doing?"
He found himself looking into those green eyes, narrowed and accusatory. If they were standing, Seto had a feeling that Ryuuji would have his hands on his hips. And if they were younger, he was even more sure that Ryuuji would be sticking his tongue out at him. In fact, even though they were currently at an age where they were supposed to be better than that, Seto couldn't help but be somewhat surprised that Ryuuji wasn't doing it still.
"Is there some problem?" his voice was remarkably cold, and he was mildly surprised that he was able to keep his voice so calm.
"You're staring at me."
He snorted, "I'm not that desperate, Ryuuji."
The shorter man's lips immediately tightened as he turned away, standing up in the process and starting to scan the theater for the people he had come with. It shouldn't have been that difficult of a task, as the theater was mostly empty and a vast majority of his friends did happen to stand out rather spectacularly from others… but there was a teeny tiny factor of how none of them were there in the first place, thus rendering all of his observation skills useless.
He shrieked.
"Where's everyone else?!"
Even as he asked these words, Ryuuji had a sinking suspicion that he knew the answer to that question… and he immediately made a resolution to himself that each of them would suffer a very slow and painful death as soon as he was able to hunt all of them down.
"It seems that they left," Seto replied, the voice of everlasting reason. Except… Kaiba Seto wasn't supposed to be the damn voice of reason because every time he was involved in something, it just made everything a lot worse.
"I can see that!" Ryuuji screamed back immediately. It was a good thing that there was nobody else in the movie theater or they would have been receiving a lot of stares. Seto looked like he was ready to make some type of comment about Ryuuji's complete and utter lack of control when it came to exercising his vocal cords, but something on Ryuuji's face must have made him stop because he didn't say anything.
Not to imply that Seto was gaining a conscience, of course.
"They're probably waiting for you outside."
There was a pause as Ryuuji blinked before looking back up at Seto in an expression of vague confusion. Seto managed to keep his expression neutral even though he began to feel a bit of confusion himself at Ryuuji's expression, but perhaps he might have acted differently if he had known what Ryuuji was thinking.
As the raven-haired game inventor looked at the CEO, one eyebrow slightly raised in his observation, he couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with Seto. Obviously, there had to be something wrong to explain this strange behavior, right? Seto wasn't exactly the type of person to say such words, which were oddly comforting in their own right. Or perhaps not really comforting, but offering an alternative that made valid sense.
"Maybe."
He knew better, of course. But he didn't see the point of saying it out loud and risk utter humiliation if he should randomly be proved wrong. But that didn't change the fact that he knew what had happened.
The others had ditched him, most likely for the same reasons that Honda and Malik had been trying to drop on him in the past couple of weeks. He didn't know why they were so obsessive with finding him a significant other… and why that person had to be Seto, who was already dating somebody else and was a total ass and prick to boot.
After all, what did it matter that Seto was the first person in a long time that had made him feel like somebody else… well, understood him.
Not that he really wanted Seto to understand him. He had always prided himself in remaining one level above everyone else… but he didn't get that feeling with Seto. Instead, he felt… normal. Like everything that had hidden his true self away was stripped off and that the brunette was the only person who could see past those layers which he had created to survive.
Yuugi-tachi… they had started to get past those barriers, Honda especially. But with Seto, it was so different. It wasn't a long process but an immediate one that caught him completely off-guard. It was… something… something that could very easily be mistaken for….
Seto snorted, gladly interrupting his disjointed thought process. "Let's get out of here before your idiot friends think I've kidnapped you."
~ * ~
When the two emerged from the dark theater, Ryuuji paused and stood there for a moment with a petrified expression on his face as he debated between screaming or crying. Unable to decide which of the two he wanted to do more, he settled for banging his head repeatedly against the wall in frustration while mentally cursing them all to a thousand extremely painful deaths.
He happened to be very creative when he wanted to be, so he was still figuring out the details on death number twenty-three when Seto ever so calmly took him by the wrist and led him away from the wall before he could anymore permanent damage to himself.
If he wasn't so busy making graphic plans of death, he would have taken the time to worry about why Seto actually cared enough to help him. But instead of asking the question that he should have asked, the only thing he could say was, "I'm going to kill them."
"You shouldn't announce your plans then."
Ryuuji glared. And he probably would have started to snarl and drool as all rabid people tend to do if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't want to be sent to the mental institute just yet. After all, he had some murders to commit before he could start frothing and thus get out of taking credit to the mass murders by reason of insanity.
"You're not being very helpful."
"Is there some reason for me to be? I'm not being paid to help you out."
Seto was smirking as he said this, and for a moment he could only stand there staring at that awful expression. He wanted nothing more than to lash out, to scream… but because he couldn't, he decided to turn and walk away.
He hadn't, however, counted on the fact that Seto was not quite yet prepared to let go of his wrist, resulting him nearly falling over when he found himself being held back. Immediately feeling annoyed, he turned back to glare at Seto with an emotion in his eyes that seemed to be borderline hatred.
But what was it borderline with?
"What the hell do you want this time?" As he spoke these words, he decided to keep his eyes on the wall in front of him rather than even bothering to address Seto to his face. He just felt so… tired. He didn't want to deal with Seto anymore, didn't want to deal with this annoying confusion which made him see the brunette in a way that he honestly did not want to see him.
Seto looked completely unfazed by the inquiry as he replied with a question of his own, as if deliberately wanting to piss off the shorter man, "Do you plan on walking home again?"
"Why do you care?"
"I think we both know where that landed you last time, hmm?"
Ryuuji flushed as he quickly realized that Seto knew everything that had happened the first time he had tried to walk home on his own… the morning he had woken up in a bed which was so painfully not his own. "And I think that I don't need a reminder of that, so could you please drop it?"
Seto shrugged, a horribly self-pleased expression that made Ryuuji want to scream. "Well, I'm just saying that you're not quite fit to walk home on your own. You seem to get into a lot more trouble than most normal people, you do realize."
"That is none of your business. So let go."
"And how is it going to look in the papers when you're found in an alley because you were killed in the process of a mugging and the press finds out that I was the last person you with, hmm? Since you're obviously incapable of walking to your apartment on your own, too poor to hire a taxi, and currently deprived of all other forms of transportation… well, I'm not going to be the one held accountable for your obvious stupidity."
Ryuuji turned to stare at the CEO before demanding, "Why do you have to do that?"
Silence as Seto looked at him with a completely neutral expression that made him want to scream and slam Seto's head against the wall.
"How many times do I have to tell you, Ryuuji? I'm not psychic, and it's kind of hard to figure out what you're trying to say when you seem to take pleasure out of being so vague."
As Ryuuji had not been able to escape from the situation, it was of no particular surprise to any of the people there except Seto when the raven-haired game inventor started to rant in a way that seemed to say he had been bottling it up within for quite a long time.
"Why do you have to be so… so… god, I don't even know how to explain it! It's as if you have to put everyone else down to make yourself feel better, like your self esteem is really so bad that it's the only way to make yourself feel better. I know you get some kick out of doing this, but honestly… it's like you can't last for two minutes without having to let out a half-ass remark! There has to be some reason for this beyond being fun, but I have no idea what the hell it could be!" Ryuuji was barely coherent by this point, and he might have been surprised that Seto looked like he understood if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't exactly care anymore as he continued his tirade. "Why can't you, just for once, let people be who they are without having to put them down for every move that they make? This isn't a game! There isn't anybody keeping points! For crying out…."
Ryuuji probably could have gone on for a lot longer if Seto hadn't stopped him mid-word with a kiss.
It was of no small wonder that Seto had managed to accomplish this without Ryuuji even noticing, but the older man had been quite a bit wrapped up in his rant that he hadn't noticed all the things around him. So he was, of course, completely caught off guard when Seto had simply lifted his face up slightly before shutting him up with the kiss.
It hadn't been a small kiss, nor a particularly long one. But it seemed to last a long time, for both of them, and neither knew quite what to think during the entire time.
So both of them did the simplest thing by not thinking at all.
Commentary (*wails loudly at Ninetails-chan* I am not the official commentary/note whore!):
[1] The other me. Mou means other, hitori means person, no is a possessive, and boku is a polite form of 'I' used by men. 'Ore', which is what Yami no Yuugi uses, is more rude.
[2] About $5.00.
[3] Hello?
[4] I don't buy cards, and the only two I have are Japanese and came with the manga. So I'm just guessing with this one. ^^;;
[5] Pegasus died in volume 15, so I'm assuming that somebody took over in the design of the cards.
[6] *giggles* I bet some of you can figure out what that show is pretty easy…. ^.^ *runs off to glomp Sam Waterston and Chris Noth*
I don't have much to say, but I wanted to show exactly how much this chapter changed through the writing process. Down below is the original outline which I used when I had planned the story.
Chapter 7 ~ Kuchizuke (Kiss) – N. Sunday
Yuugi-tachi – all out, including Kaiba à watch movie
Seto and Ryuuji next to each other
Walking out à Ryuuji shoved and Seto catches him (blush!)
à sprained ankle
Honda – notices ~ makes excuse about needing car so asks Seto to give Ryuuji a ride
Much freaking out à get to Ryuuji's apartment
Ryuuji – getting out with Seto's help
Suddenly – kiss!
Normally I wouldn't complain so much… but this chapter really seemed to have turned into something completely different. I don't think I've ever had a chapter change this much, so I thought it would be fun to mention it, and let everyone see how screwed up my outlines really are. :p
=(O.o)=
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