Braveshipping (Aoyama Shogo/Jonouchi Katsuya)

. . .

"Um...Jonouchi-kun..." Shogo whispered, as the crowd roared with delight at the duel unfolding below. "How do I become brave?"

Jonouchi managed to tear his eyes away from Yugi and Kaiba dueling on the table below to look down at the boy. His eyes, too, were fixed on the duel. His hands were crunched into his lap, shaking slightly. His face looked pale and drawn, and his shoulders hunched around his ears. He was waiting, Jonouchi knew. Waiting to see if his Red-Eyes appeared in the duel, his special card that had been taken from him.

Jonouchi looked back down at the duel. He couldn't see Yugi's face from here; Yugi had his back to him. But he could see the tense stance, his arms folded across his chest, head held high. Even from behind, he looked like a king standing there, commanding all of the attention in the room. He wasn't the least bit afraid of the three Blue Eyes holograms that were appearing now, roaring and snapping as though they were real and alive and not just holographic projections.

He looked at Shogo again. The small, scared boy who didn't know what was going on, or how to deal with it.

He put his arm around his shoulder.

"You don't," he said, just as quietly, so that it was almost swallowed up by the crowd's roar. Shogo heard, though, Jonouchi could tell because he felt Shogo's shoulders tense. "You just plant your feet, tell that whisper in your head to shut the fuck up, and stare down what's coming. Make it believe that you're brave. That's all you can do."

"Really?" Shogo said.

Jonouchi squeezed his shoulder.

"I don't think bravery is real," he said. "It's just a bunch of people pretending until they fool themselves."

He glanced down at Shogo, and finally, the boy peeled his eyes away from the duel to look up at Jonouchi. Jonouchi flashed him a grin, and got a tiny, tentative smile in response.

"So you make yourself look big, and you scrunch up your face, and you make everyone else believe you're brave until you believe it too."

Shogo looked back down at the duel—at Yugi, standing firm and tall and strong against his opponent. And he nodded.

"I think I understand," he whispered.

. . .

A/N: it's been so long since I saw that movie tbh. Next is Boxshipping (Mokuba x Anzu).