Bakura stepped softly through the narrow aisles of the game store, despite the inordinately tall stack of board games he balanced against his hip. He handed Yugi the boxes in an easy rhythm, needing no instruction. He'd helped at Kame Games before.
"We had breakfast in the morning. It was nice," Yugi said, tidying a stack of dice games on a high shelf. "He got ready for work. It was, I don't know, so normal."
Bakura hummed, shifting the head-high stack of games to his other hip with a casual grace.
"Normal good, not normal bad."
"Normal good."
"So what's the problem?" Bakura said.
Yugi paused, half-perched on a step stool.
"There's no problem, it's just…" Yugi cocked his head, looking for the words.
"You had a nice time," Bakura supplied gently.
"Yeah."
"And it was different from when, like for example you have a nice time with Jounouchi."
Yugi knitted his brows. "Yeah it was."
"Well okay. That's good," Bakura said, stretching to place the stack of games on a high shelf.
"Ha, I always forget how tall you are," Yugi said, hopping off the step stool.
Bakura shrugged. "Let's get the next box."
They walked to the back room where Sugoroku kept inventory. Bakura cranked the blade on a box cutter, swiftly and efficiently opening the next package of games.
"It kind of sounds like you're looking for permission," he said, absently testing the blade with his thumb.
"Permission?" Yugi said, checking the packing list against the contents.
"Yeah, permission."
Bakura slipped the box cutter into his back pocket and gathered up his long white hair into a ponytail.
"To feel the way you feel."
"But how do I feel," Yugi said to himself, gazing unseeing at the box of games.
"It sounds like you have a lot of…affection for him," Bakura said carefully. "Maybe you even find him attractive. You get a funny look on your face when you talk about him you know."
Yugi shook his head in confusion.
"Why feel that way though. It makes no sense."
Bakura took a deep breath. He was feeling quite a few things himself, imagining Malik 30,000 feet in the air, probably halfway past Siberia by now.
"Kaiba is someone you've known for a long time. And you've been through a lot together. He was there through all the craziest things you've ever experienced. He was the cause of a lot of the craziest things you ever experienced. I mean that alone is a pretty intense basis for feeling strongly about someone."
Bakura savored the satisfying zip of the box cutter as he deftly cut the flaps off the large box.
"He respects you as a duelist, and that's saying something. And he wants to see you succeed, otherwise he wouldn't give you so much freedom and so many perks. I mean you can basically do whatever you want with your game development projects. It must be a pretty sweet deal, because Otogi is constantly telling me how jealous he is."
Yugi nodded, chewed the inside of his cheek, listening.
"You care about Kaiba, obviously. You talk about him all the time. He's got his flaws—I mean I find him pretty exhausting to be around. But he does a lot of good in this world. His heart is in the right place. There's a lot to love if you can get past his demeanor." Bakura said, tapping his lip with his index finger.
"Plus," he said, hoisting the box onto his shoulder, "he's hot."
Yugi reddened. "Really."
Bakura started out toward the aisles that needed stocking.
"Yeah. Not Hollywood hot, but definitely magazine hot. I mean did you see that ad for Zegna in GQ?"
Yugi shrugged—he only read gaming magazines.
"It was all these young tech moguls in these suits. He was the covergirl," Bakura said with a fox's smile. "Tight and white, true to form. Very nice."
Yugi followed Bakura out, arms crossed, hand on his chin.
"How did you know you were attracted to Malik?"
Bakura dropped the box onto a step stool and tightened his ponytail. He left his hands up, tangled in his long white hair.
"Well…" he mused, back turned toward Yugi. "To be honest, it was him. The ring."
Yugi's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"
Bakura's arms dropped lifelessly to his sides.
"I don't know how it was for you, but for me, when he got distracted, you know, like if he was really focusing on something, his feelings would…bleed through. Normally he kept me in a very dark and quiet place. If he was really mad, he'd just knock me out. I had no idea what was going on. But every once in a while…"
Yugi threaded and unthreaded his fingers, listening while Bakura slowly worked through the thought.
"I would catch...glimpses of what he was feeling."
Bakura turned his head, and Yugi could read a wry smile in his profile.
"That guy was a total freak." Bakura chuckled darkly and Yugi's body tightened like a trapped animal in response to the sound. "A true freak."
"Like …sexually?" Yugi said, voice cracking.
"All kinds of ways," Bakura said thoughtfully, sounding like himself again. "But yeah, sexually too. Like there was a moment when they first met that Malik tried to control me…us…with the rod, and when he fought it off I could feel his feelings bleed through. Even his thoughts. And he was thinking just, like, the most outrageous stuff about Malik."
Yugi waited for Bakura to elaborate. Bakura just shuddered, whether in pleasure or disgust Yugi couldn't tell.
"Anyway yeah, it was hard to put that stuff out of my mind. When I came to, Malik was carrying me, I'd been stabbed, and well. He was actually very gentle. Tender even. We're about the same size, but he was carrying me like it was nothing. It had been a long time since anyone touched me at all."
Bakura turned toward Yugi, the look on his face saying he was as surprised by this conversation as Yugi was.
"And he just smelled so good. I don't know. I felt it then. It took me a while to know what feelings were really mine. But I'm pretty confident now that I've had some time to unpack it all."
Yugi blinked, a little startled by the thought. There were so few things that he and his other self disagreed on that it had never been an issue. The question of whose thoughts were whose, who felt what weren't necessary when they were so often in total lock-step.
"Hmm."
"I mean, I bet it's not so different. How did you know you were attracted to Anzu?"
Yugi folded his hands behind his head and smiled.
"Man, we were in fourth grade. It was around my birthday I think. We were at a park, just swinging on the swings. These kids in my class were at the park too, and one of them called me shrimp. 'Hey shrimp!' he said."
Yugi chuckled, self-deprecating, out of reflex.
"So Anzu jumps off the swing and gets right in the kid's face and says, 'Don't call him that.' And he was scared. You know how she gets."
"I do," Bakura said.
"Something about her standing up for me, and she was wearing this blue tank top. It had little ice cream cones printed all over it…"
Yugi blushed, rubbing the back of his neck.
Bakura laughed. "That's really cute. Way cuter than my story."
They resumed stocking the shelves, quick and efficient work between them. Yugi got the low shelves, Bakura the high ones.
"I just don't know, Bakura, I've never felt that way about a guy before."
Bakura shook his head, ponytail punctuating his frustration. I bet you have felt that way about a guy before, Bakura thought, recalling Yugi's utter heartbreak in the months after the ceremonial duel. He kept the thought to himself.
"Guy, girl, who cares," he said.
"Everybody cares," Yugi said flatly.
"Look at it this way," Bakura said, his voice colored with a note of persuasiveness that made him sound unnervingly like the spirit of the ring. "You like a strong woman—Anzu. She's confident and outspoken, she's feisty. She's kind to those who are close to her but she's also kind of a hardass sometimes. She has strong values and she doesn't compromise on her values, ever. She can be pretty annoying that way. She's taller than you. She's very loyal and she's driven. She's got blue eyes. And she's skinny, but she's a dancer so she's super ripped."
Yugi's face was a little knot of confusion.
"Who does that sound like?" Bakura said, quirking a pale eyebrow.
"Oh my god," Yugi said, slapping his forehead.
"You have a type," Bakura said, flashing his neat white teeth in a rare genuine grin.
"A type!"
Yugi groaned. He imagined Anzu and Kaiba side-by-side: confident poses, sparkling blue eyes. They were so different, and yet he could see the prototypical commonalities. To his own surprise, it was his mental reconstruction of Kaiba that drew his inner eye, his inner hunger. Kaiba, whose eyes shone brighter, who radiated power and a dark desire, sucking Yugi in like a black hole.
"But Kaiba," Yugi said, searching for some flaw. "He doesn't have…" Yugi made exaggerated squeezing motions in front of his chest.
"Yeah well," Bakura said, licking the corner of his lips. "Anzu doesnt have this," he said, grabbing the groin of his jeans and bucking his hips at Yugi.
Yugi's jaw dropped. Bakura blushed, realizing what he'd just done. Yugi burst out laughing and Bakura started to chuckle despite himself, and it caught and caught until they were both laughing for laughing's sake.
"I don't believe you," Yugi said, wiping tears from his eyes.
"Believe me," Bakura said, fixing some crooked price tags, pale face rouged with laughter. He took a deep breath and dropped his voice to a more conspiratorial volume. "Trust me, stuff with guys is pretty much like stuff with girls. It'd be just like doing stuff with Anzu, only, you know, a few little differences," Bakura said, eyes bright with mischief.
"Ah, well," Yugi said, staring at his shoes, his face a deep pink.
Bakura blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry. I assumed—"
"We made out a couple of times. Before she left. But that's all." Yugi said, giving Bakura an opaque, composed smile.
Bakura put down the display pieces he was dusting and turned to face Yugi. He slipped his slim hands into the pockets of his jeans.
"What do you think about when you touch yourself?" he said, quietly but clearly.
Yugi dropped the box in his hands and the package split open, spilling multicolored dice all over the floor. He hastily kneeled to pick them up.
"It's a perfectly normal question," Bakura said. "You must be thinking about something."
"I don't think." Yugi turned as he stood, giving his shoulder to Bakura, face hidden by his hair. "I…if I'm not watching something I just do it, you know?"
Yugi kicked the carpet. Then he said, very quietly:
"What do you think about?"
Bakura twirled the tip of his ponytail between two slim fingers and smiled. "Malik, mostly, now anyway. It's sort of new for me, doing it alone."
"What does that mean?" Yugi said, bending down to pick up the rest of the dice.
Bakura bit his lip. He kneeled down next to Yugi on the floor and started plucking the dice from the ground one at a time, dropping them into his open palm, click clack.
"He used to, how do I say it. Join me. He'd just sort of take over. But he'd keep me there. Like it was happening to me, and I was doing it, but it wasn't me doing it." He sighed. "It was weird. I think he really got off on that."
Yugi fixed Bakura with wide, compassionate eyes. Not pitying—Yugi was too kind to pity anyone—but deeply feeling, a little sad.
"If I'm being honest, I didn't entirely mind." Bakura said, standing, jingling the pile of dice in his hands, "I mean, part of me hated it, definitely. But still," his voice grew small and dark.
"Nothing's ever felt that good."
Yugi's eyes glazed and he focused intently on the laces of his shoes.
"I get that," he said. "There was a time. He didn't force or anything. I just felt him there. And I let him, you know? Like opening the door half way. I knew it was him moving. But I could feel it. I could see it."
Bakura sighed a little trembling sigh.
"Was it nice?"
Yugi didn't know how to answer. He couldn't tell what Bakura was thinking. Bakura's dark eyes were fathomless and betrayed nothing but an unknowable depth, like a lake at night, dangerous and passively inviting at the same time.
"It was nice."
Yugi stood, handing Bakura the dice he'd collected.
"I've never told anyone about that. We didn't even talk about it. That's just how it was from then on."
"Ah," Bakura said, eyes distant.
"But I guess if I was going to answer your question before, I think—maybe I think about that when I—" Yugi said, clasping his hands in front of him, the posture of a school child.
"Ah, hmmm," Bakura said, dumping the pile of dice onto a shelf. He placed a hand on Yugi's shoulder. Their eyes met, and Bakura made a very serious face.
"So," Bakura bowed his head reverently, "praise on his name, the pharaoh blessed your temple. And now…" he dropped his voice to a melodramatic croon, "you're one of us."
Bakura stared into Yugi's wide eyes, face grave and drawn. Then he raised his eyebrows and gave a little fox smile and they both burst broke into giggles. It grew and grew until they were having fits.
It was a mad, encompassing kind of laughter that broke open their constricted ribcages, shook loose all the heavy things they had stored there and taken out today. They leaned against the shelves and laughed till there were tears in their eyes and then more, until they had laughed it all out.
"You put the puzzle on," Bakura said between melodic little giggles, "and now you have an earring, and you go all starry eyed when Kaiba's in the room."
"Oh god," Yugi said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "Am I—do I...?"
Bakura looked him up and down and shrugged.
"You're on the team," he said, pantomiming a theatrical baseball swing, clucking his tongue as he hit the imaginary ball. "Provisionary membership."
"Don't tell Jounouchi," Yugi said as the front door opened with a peal of bells, and both of them straightened up, looking guilty but without remorse, two cats with the canary between them.
"Don't tell me what?" Jounouchi said, folding his dripping umbrella. Bakura cleared his throat.
"Oh, Jounouchi, is it raining?" he said, walking to the front to greet Jounouchi with a fist bump.
Jounouchi brushed a few droplets from his jacket and hung it near the door. "A little, yeah."
"Is it 2:00 already?" Yugi said, pulling out his phone.
"Yeah," Bakura said. "You better get going."
Yugi gave Bakura a grateful nod, Jounouchi a punch on the shoulder. "Thank you for your help you guys. Dinner on me tonight."
Jounouchi grinned. "Don't threaten me with a good time."
Yugi patted his pockets, checking for his phone and wallet. He removed his deck holster from around his waist and slung it around his body cross-wise, then pulled on his jacket, zipping it carefully over his deck case. He pulled the jacket hood over his hair and waved at them.
"Bye guys. Text you later!"
Yugi disappeared, the bells on the door jingling as it floated shut behind him. They watched Yugi's form disappear through the rain-speckled glass.
"He's spending a lot of time over there isn't he." Jounouchi said.
"Guess so," Bakura said, brushing his bangs from his face.
Jounouchi turned to Bakura and squinted.
"What?" Bakura said, fidgeting under Jounouchi's gaze.
"That hair man. You look like a girl," he said.
Bakura's face went carefully neutral and he pulled out the hair tie and slipped it over his wrist. He pulled the box cutter from his back pocket and nestled his thumb against the slide.
"I'll be in the back if you need me."
"I would have sent a car, you know," Mokuba said, handing Yugi a towel.
"It's okay, I needed the walk," Yugi said, patting his face and shoulders. The walk had numbed him some but his mind was still churning.
"Nii-sama's in the lab already," Mokuba said, waving Yugi toward the wide glass doors.
Kaiba didn't look up as Yugi entered. He was typing rapidly at a console, three large holofields hovering in front of him. He was still in his suit, the jacket thrown over the back of the chair. The sleeves of his starched collared shirt were rolled up to the elbow, revealing his lean muscular arms.
"I've already begun analyzing your neural activity from last night. It's as I expected: abnormal activity at around 3AM, after an interrupted REM cycle. We'll need to run through some PowerLink exercises to see if your baseline has changed."
"Mhm," Yugi said, standing obediently behind Kaiba's chair. His eye was drawn by Kaiba's animated hands—the broad palms, the long fingers spidering over the keys. Yugi looked down at his own hands: a good deal smaller than Kaiba's but proportionally large for his 5'5" frame. His own hands were thicker through the fingers, stronger looking even. Nothing like Kaiba's expressive, angular hands. He considered at length the difference in the shape of their nails: his a rounded square, Kaiba's more like a blunt almond, long for the length of the fingers. He did this to force out the thought that threatened to dominate, which was what would it feel like to twine those long fingers with his own.
"All right. We'll make do with basic vitals monitoring and the headset. The blood pressure cuff is next to your gear," Kaiba said, swiveling around in his chair to face Yugi.
Yugi's eyes snapped up and he felt as though he'd been caught doing something naughty.
"Okay."
He walked over to the wall where his headset hung.
"This time we'll test resistance to sync. Try and hide the contents of your hand and I'll do the same," Kaiba said, putting on his own headset.
Yugi pulled his deck holster over his head and set it on the table. He flipped open the case and pulled out his deck. He adjusted the blood pressure cuff around his arm for comfort and sat down.
Kaiba activated the sync from his tablet and took a seat in front of his neatly stacked deck. They drew five cards.
The sync hit much softer now that they were used to it. There was a flush of warmth and a little giddyness bordering on motion sickness, then a deep spreading calm. Yugi carefully cleared his mind. Each time he felt a foreign push within, he imagined raising his open palm to it, sending it away.
"What am I holding," Kaiba said, challenge in his clear blue eyes.
Yugi looked into his eyes, struggling past his own awkwardness to stay seeking through Kaiba's mind. He met a wall of ice that chilled his body and he shuddered. He pushed in his mind's eye and the ice gave way, but there was stone beneath it.
Kaiba grinned.
"Is that the best you can do?"
Yugi frowned, eyes hardening. He relaxed back into himself, pulling instead of pushing this time. He tried to draw the information in, inviting it through his calm and focused violet eyes. He licked his lips, dry in the cool air of the lab. Kaiba winced, his guard faltered, and Yugi caught a momentary flash of insight.
"Pandemic dragon, destruction ring, crush card virus, chaos form and krystal avatar."
Kaiba nodded, folding his cards together and placing them face down on the table.
"Your turn," Yugi said, glancing down at his hand.
Yugi felt as though a swarm of hands were patting him down from all sides. He wriggled in his chair. It wasn't enough to block them with emptiness. He could hear Kaiba's arrogant laughter echo inside his head when his focus dipped.
Brute force of focus wouldn't work. He decided to try a smokescreen instead.
He channeled some of his more heightened memories. Jounouchi, mad with Malik's misplaced rage, raining fire on him; the broken look on his other self's face as the seal of Orichalchos closed around him; Anzu in the starlit night on Pegasus' island, telling him he was okay exactly how he is; Kaiba, after they defeated Diva, telling him he was a true duelist.
Kaiba took a gulp of air, pressing back into the chair. The last vision created a domino effect of thought where from that one association grew all the others, and Kaiba was flooded with images of himself through the warming lens of Yugi's experience.
He saw himself from low, heroic angles gesture grandly, every swing of his long arms bringing little bursts of excitement. He heard his own voice call plays, much richer than it sounded in his own ears, eliciting a spine-tingling shudder. He saw himself from very close, felt a stinging warmth that spread from his ears to his belly as the memory of him applied a monitor to Yugi's swanlike neck.
He saw his own throat quake, adam's apple sliding up and down between the corded muscles as he swallowed heavily. He saw a drop of sweat roll over the sharp curve of his jaw with a keening hunger. The room was entirely too hot. He saw his own hands, splayed wide on the table before them, but he saw them from Yugi's eyes. He did not see Yugi's cards.
Kaiba balled his fists and huffed.
"Nicely done."
Yugi relaxed back, eyes softening. Kaiba was flooded with a giddy pride, a dancing sense of victory, though it was not his own. Yugi set his cards face-down on the table.
"That should do for a baseline," Kaiba said, picking up his tablet and reviewing the readings.
Yugi folded his hands and waited. He quickly grew restless. He slid the cuff off his arm and rubbed his bicep where it sat.
Kaiba swiped through menus, typed rapidly on the screen, eyes reflecting the green glow of the holofield. He was thoroughly absorbed in the data.
Yugi remembered what Bakura said about the spirit of the ring being more open when it was distracted. A question burned in Yugi's throat, made him squirm in his seat even more. Something in the pit of his stomach flipped, and he closed his eyes against the feeling.
He relaxed his neck and shoulders and opened his mind. He drew inward, drawing Kaiba's memory with him, feeling for some impression of himself.
What he saw gripped him like a vice.
Flash after flash of narrowed mauve eyes, a confident smirk, the curve of a bicep flexing through the long arc of a card draw. He heard the familiar voice husky with satisfaction declaring victory victory victor. Atem, Atem, Atem like an ecstatic mantra, every image pouring frustration and awe and fury and fiery hunger into Yugi's knotted mind.
How differently they saw him, he and Kaiba. He felt a pang of jealousy at Kaiba for being able to interact so directly with his most cherished companion. To see his other self in this way, through Kaiba's hungry eyes, it was too much. And of himself? Nothing.
His face fell.
Kaiba stopped typing and their eyes met. There was a quiet fury in the bright blue eyes, the lips drawn into a tight line.
Yugi was struck with the image of himself—which self, he didn't know—on blue silk sheets, hair swept back, Kaiba's long fingers wrapped around his neck, pressing him down into the plush bedding. He saw his eyes pinched shut in unmistakable ecstasy, lips moist and abraided coral pink. The hand at his throat tightened, his breath hitched. Yugi abruptly stood, knocking his chair over. The echoing clatter broke their focus and the image faded.
Kaiba stood and walked up to Yugi, looming darkly, brows drawn. Yugi instinctively backed up until the backs of his thighs hit the edge of a workstation. Kaiba pressed in close, and Yugi leaned on his hands, spine bent back, the front of his neck exposed in a delicate curve as he stared directly up into Kaiba's stormy eyes.
"Are you satisfied?" Kaiba said, grabbing Yugi's jaw. His hands were shaking. Yugi looked away. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
Yugi's heart beat wildly in his chest. His jaw ached from the iron press of Kaiba's hand. Fear and remorse mingled in a dark cloud in his mind and Yugi felt himself shrinking.
"Look at me," Kaiba commanded, voice sharp. Yugi met Kaiba's eyes, willing back his tears. He was flooded with anxiety and shame, a dark and powerful anger, and a deep, ancient, aching vulnerability. A tear quivered in the corner of Yugi's eye and then spilled, dripping down his cheek.
"Kaiba…" he said shakily.
Kaiba let go of his jaw and lifted his hand. Yugi thought he might strike him, but he brushed the tear away instead.
"You'll look into my mind without asking, but you won't call me by my first name, Yugi?" Kaiba said, spitting the name out. He turned away.
"Now you know," Kaiba croaked, voice acidic and uncharacteristically shaky. "How I feel. Be careful what you wish for."
They both stood in the pregnant silence, swirling with the echo of one anothers' chaotic emotions.
"Don't say that like you know what I want," Yugi said, loud enough to echo against the high ceilings of the lab. Kaiba turned sharply to face him.
"Oh? Then tell me what it is you wish for," he said, voice a low rumble.
"Seto…" Yugi closed the distance between them, their toes almost touching. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I wanted to know. I was afraid, I. I am afraid."
Kaiba looked down his nose at Yugi, face pinched as though in pain. He radiated hurt and confusion.
"I'm afraid because…" Yugi said, voice cracking. He held Kaiba's pained eyes with his own determined ones. "I think I…think I love you. More than a friend. It's confusing and it's scares me. More than anything ever has."
It hung in the air between them. Kaiba's eyes were wide and unfocused, constricted pinpoint pupils making the blue irises shine with a quivering light.
"Please don't hate me. I had to tell you. I feel weird keeping it to myself. I know you don't feel the same, I just—"
Kaiba laughed, a cutting, arrogant sound.
"How perfectly lame of you to assume. Do you think you can see into the depth of my mind with a mere glance?"
Yugi held his ground when Kaiba reached for him. Kaiba sunk his fingers into the hair at the base of Yugi's neck and pulled his head back, just enough that his chin was tilted up. Yugi swallowed with difficulty, but he held Kaiba's fiery gaze, ready for the kind of brutal talkdown that Kaiba was famous for in the dueling circuit.
"Since you seem so confused, I'll show you," Kaiba said, yanking Yugi forward by the waist, crushing their bodies together. Yugi's eyes went wide as Kaiba's slid shut.
Kaiba leaned down and kissed him with a brutal, unexpected tenderness.
Yugi froze, mind blank.
Kaiba started to pull back, and the movement brought Yugi to his senses. He leaned into the kiss, drinking in the taste and the heat of Kaiba's lips. He reached around, gripping Kaiba's thighs at the juncture of his hips, pressing their bodies even closer.
The screen of Kaiba's tablet blinked its red alarm and the system, pushed well past critical feedback levels, went into emergency shutdown. They parted, gasping for air, as the sync closed.
"Kaiba," Yugi panted, gripping the wrist of the hand still tangled in his hair.
"Seto," Kaiba corrected, sliding his fingers down Yugi's neck to rest his thumb in the hollow of Yugi's collarbone. "Next time you want to know what I'm thinking, you ask."
Yugi flushed, eyes dark with need.
"Next time, I'll ask."
He leaned his forehead against Kaiba's solar plexus and breathed in deeply, savoring the scent of Kaiba's skin, musk and cedar and rainwater and the faintest hint of smoke. Kaiba gathered Yugi in his arms, curling around him possessively but gently.
"Administrative override, subprogram SEC-40. Timestamp minus fifteen minutes."
"Protocol initiated. Command expiry required." said a synthesized voice from the ceiling.
"1600 hours," Kaiba said.
"What did you just do?" Yugi said, voice muffled against his body.
"I disabled the security cameras in this lab."
Yugi's eyes twinkled and his stomach flipped.
"We have a half hour until they turn back on again," Kaiba said, hand trailing down Yugi's side.
Yugi stepped back, far enough that he could look Kaiba in the eye without craning his neck. He removed his headset and set it on the console behind him. Then he slid up onto the console, lifting his body up with the heels of his hands.
He sat there, knees splayed, eyes projecting challenge.
Kaiba answered by removing his own headset. He slowly unbuttoned his collared shirt, eyes on Yugi. He laid the headset on a nearby chair.
Yugi licked his lips. His throat was painfully dry. Kaiba stepped close, standing between Yugi's legs, and Yugi could feel the heat radiating off his exposed chest. Kaiba lifted the hem of Yugi's shirt, easing it over his head and uplifted arms. Kaiba pressed his large palm into Yugi's chest, covering the pendant. Yugi looked up at Kaiba through his lashes, and reached up to cup his face. He pulled Kaiba down gently, pressing their lips together with a reverent softness. He felt a sob hook itself behind his heart.
Kaiba read Yugi's ambivalence and kneeled down, laying his head on Yugi's jean-clad thigh.
"This should come as no surprise," he said, metallic edge to his voice. "You're an intelligent person."
"It wouldn't surprise me at all if you wanted him," Yugi said, gently running his fingers through Kaiba's hair. "But me?"
Kaiba lifted his head, gripping Yugi's wrist with a dangerous strength.
"Yugi."
Yugi winced and Kaiba cupped the small, shapely hand in his own.
"Your refusal to see yourself for what you are is infuriating," he said, lifting the hand to his lips.
He rose up, leaning in to kiss Yugi hungrily on the underside of his jaw. Yugi wrapped his legs around Kaiba's waist and clawed at his back, grinding against him with an adolescent fervor. Kaiba placed one hand on the small of Yugi's back and slid the other under his thigh, lifting him easily. He took a staggering step, causing their bodies to clash at the waist, and pressed Yugi up against a nearby wall. Yugi moved under him easily like a dancer, hotly reciprocal, compliant, and needy all the same. Yugi's hands were running greedy over Kaiba's chest when there was a crackle of static from behind them.
"Nii-sama. I got a warning that the security system was disabled in your sector. Is everything all right? Over."
Yugi moaned in disappointment when Kaiba gently lowered him down, separating them.
"Nii-sama, come in. Over."
Kaiba lifted his jacket and spoke wearily into the lapel.
"Disregard. I'll correct the issue shortly. Over and out."
Yugi shuddered, leaning shakily against the wall.
"Now," Kaiba said. "Where was I..."
They made it to the elevator just as the computerized voice said, "System security engaged."
They took the elevator ride in tense silence. Yugi's head was swimming, hazy with afterglow. He felt dizzy. He glanced over at Kaiba, whose eyes were glassy but eerily focused—on him.
They blazed past Kaiba's startled secretary when the elevator finally released them, and Kaiba shut the door behind them with a reverberating click. He lifted a finger to his lips as if to say 'quiet.'
Yugi stood in the center of Kaiba's stark white office, trying to apprehend the situation. Kaiba was leaning against the office door, breathing heavily. He was visibly hard, even through his clothes at a distance.
"Only I have access to the cameras in here," he said quietly.
Kaiba sat down on the white leather couch on the side of the office farthest from the floor-to-ceiling windows and patted the cushion next to him. Yugi sat down, close but not touching.
"I'm new to this," he said, eyes fixed on the rapidly drying stain on Kaiba's pants. "It's happening very fast."
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Now or ever." Kaiba took his hand and kissed each knuckle.
"This is new to the both of us," he said, looking away.
"Is that so?" Yugi said with a coy, crooked smile, feeling a growing tightness in his already too-tight jeans. He caught Kaiba's eyes, raw with emotion, stripped of their usual control.
"I am sorry. For prying."
Kaiba fixed him with a knowing smirk. "You get in peoples heads as a matter of course. I'm amazed you didn't try it sooner."
Yugi sighed, squeezing Kaiba's hand.
"I'm just amazed, period. You could have anyone—"
"And yet," Kaiba said, pulling Yugi over by the wrist. "I want only the best."
Yugi read Kaiba's body language and straddled him, sinking down to grind their hips together. Kaiba hissed.
"It's really only you that can see the footage?" Yugi said, nodding up at a security camera in the shape of a blue dragon eye in the ceiling.
Kaiba swallowed and nodded.
Yugi leaned in and they shared a languid, unhurried kiss. Kaiba's large hands lightly gripped Yugi's waist, fingers almost touching at the curve of his spine. Yugi cupped Kaiba's face, feeling the muscles of his jaw work as each slow, wet kiss bled into the next. Kaiba moaned into Yugi's mouth, a deep animalistic sound, and Yugi shivered. He leaned back, the shift in weight pressing their hips together.
"How long have you felt like this," Yugi said. "About me."
Kaiba's eyes flashed. "Since I saw you on your knees in that tomb."
Yugi smiled, remembering the ceremonial duel. Bittersweet emotion welled up in him and spilled out through his eyes.
"Ah," he said, a little sadly.
Kaiba frowned.
"Don't misunderstand me. Until that moment, I had trouble accepting the fact that there were two of you. It started at Pegasus' castle. When you saved me."
Kaiba gripped Yugi's waist, fingers pressing sharp into his flesh.
"That day in the tomb, I saw the difference between you and him. That it was you, more than him, who always tried to fold me into your little group. Who looked after Mokuba when I couldn't. You were the one who was there reaching out the whole time."
Kaiba slid his hands down to rest above Yugi's bent knees.
"In the beginning I thought that I was chasing him, that you were just his shadow. A vessel. Then you beat him in the tomb. It was shocking. I didn't accept it at first. But then you beat me at the coliseum, and I finally began to understand."
A tense energy passed between them. Yugi felt the familiar, encompassing press of Kaiba's single-minded focus, only now he was the object of obsession. It was a heady feeling.
"I know now that it's you who casts the shadow. And if I'm going to reach you, if I'm going to prove myself worthy to rival you, I'll have to defeat him first."
Yugi frowned. He placed a hand on Kaiba's chest, holding the distance between them.
"And that's what you want. To challenge him so you can challenge me. To be the king of games."
Kaiba's face twisted in disgust.
"Do you think so little of me?" he growled, and Yugi could feel the thrumming vibrations against his hand.
Kaiba flipped them violently, shoving Yugi down against the couch so hard that it knocked the wind out of him. Kaiba loomed over him, hands on either side of his spinning head. Yugi's eyes hardened and he felt his muscles tense, ready to snap into action.
"Don't underestimate me. That you could think I'm that simple…it's unacceptable." Kaiba said, scowling.
A little pearl of insight dropped into Yugi's mind, rippling the waters of his thoughts. It was the euphoria of eureka, the moment of insight before a game-winning move. He melted into the couch, his limbs suddenly, pleasantly weightless, free of the press of anxiety. He smiled.
"I understand, you know? We're the same."
Kaiba stared, eyes seeking.
"You want to be seen. You want to be acknowledged and understood. Only most people aren't smart enough to understand you. Or to even see you for who you really are."
Yugi searched Kaiba's face.
"You're afraid that even if you find anyone who can see you…that they'll see something ugly underneath all these accomplishments, all the charitable deeds, all the skill, all the money and power."
Kaiba recoiled.
"Being incognito, people always seeing another version of you, their own version of you made out of their expectations. It's lonely isn't it."
Yugi placed a hand softly on Kaiba's arm.
"I will never be as smart as you," he said, violet eyes on Kaiba's, full of reverent affection. Yugi ran through the list of things in his head that Kaiba was that he would never be. The list was long.
"But I see you."
Kaiba's wide eyes went dark with a complex emotion. He felt naked and small. He felt small but held, like a scared child in a comforting but restrictive embrace.
"And I like what I see."
Kaiba stared down at Yugi. Yugi, calm and unguarded, eyes clear and kind, lucid. Those eyes and an old gnawing hunger deep in his core broke his resistance. He could practically feel his careful control shattering like glass within him, the shards glinting with the truth that was held there.
He leaned down, dripping his words into Yugi's ear.
"I see you, too. I see you all the time."
He half-straddled Yugi, pressing his knee against Yugi's thigh.
"I see you at work, I see you at tournaments. When we're apart sometimes I watch you on CCTV, because I can."
Yugi opened his mouth to speak but Kaiba closed it with a forceful kiss. They parted with a gasp.
"I see you when I'm sleeping. When you're not plaguing my dreams," he said, his erection pressing into Yugi's thigh, "you're dragging me into other worlds to fight your demons. It's thoroughly exhausting."
Kaiba was wound tight, but Yugi read no anger in his face, and his posture was less guarded. Yugi smiled—it was his win.
"I guess I'm pretty high maintenance," Yugi said. "But so are you, so we're even."
Yugi pushed Kaiba back with some difficulty, moving with him until they were both upright. He nudged Kaiba toward the couch, switching their places, and Kaiba let him. He slid down to kneel between Kaiba's legs.
"Yugi—"
"Shh. You had your turn. It's my turn now."
"Missed a spot."
Kaiba pulled his pocket square from the front of his jacket and handed it to Yugi.
"Seto-sama, Mokuba-sama is here with the audit results," came his secretary's voice from the intercom.
Kaiba growled loudly—Yugi hoped the sound didn't penetrate the thick door—and stood, tucking himself in and fastening his pants with a sharp impatience. He hastily tucked his shirt and pressed the intercom so hard it jumped and slid along the desk.
"One moment."
He looked over to Yugi on the couch and his eyes went from fierce to hungry.
"The bathroom," he said, nodding to the door on the other end of the office.
Yugi nodded, looking around for anything that might give him away. He balled up the handkerchief and shoved it in his pocket, then dipped into the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind him.
He slid to the ground, leaning his back against the cool door. He sat there until his heart rate slowed.
A little smile tugged at his lips. He looked down at his still-sticky hands. The smile grew and grew until it made his face ache. Yugi got up and went to the sink. He turned on the faucet and watched the water swirl down the drain for a moment, lost in the memory of what had just happened. He washed his hands, splashed some water on his face.
He was patting his hands dry when Kaiba opened the door, fresh white suit on a hanger in his hands.
"I have to go. Tonight?" he said.
Yugi smiled and shook his head. "I have plans."
Kaiba's eyes shined with challenge.
"Tomorrow night?"
Yugi nodded.
"I'll send Isono to pick you up."
"Mhm," Yugi said, hoping he didn't sound overly eager.
He walked through the door, held open for him by a now collected-looking Kaiba. Kaiba caught his wrist as he passed, jerking him to a stop.
"Yugi."
Yugi's hair stood on end.
"Bring a change of clothes."
Yugi walked the whole way home in the light spring rain.
Hands in his pockets, he rounded his shoulders, arched his head so that the drops ran down his long bangs, down the arms of his raincoat, dripping off the point of his elbow.
His deck case was strapped tight against his chest, over the pendant. He pulled his hood up when he felt a drop trickle down his neck to pool in the crook of his collarbone.
It wasn't too long of a walk—maybe 30 minutes at a good clip—but he walked slowly, thoughtfully, so that it took closer to 45.
By the time he got to the game shop he was pretty well soaked.
"Yugi! You look like a drowned rat," Jounouchi said, coming out from behind the register. "Kaiba's riding you too hard, he could have at least given you a lift."
Yugi shook out his raincoat and hung it by the door, trying very hard not to react to Jounouchi's phrasing.
"I wanted to walk," he said, wiping his feet on the mat. "All good here?"
Jounouchi gave him a thumbs up and a grin.
"Bakura left?"
Jounouchi shrugged.
"He's creeping around in the back."
Yugi patted his wet jeans.
"I'm gonna take a shower real quick. We can close a little early and get some food?"
"You're the boss."
Yugi took the stairs two at a time, focusing on the burn in his legs. It didn't quite cut through the lingering tingle in his lips.
He dropped his deck case on his bed. The clasp slid open and his cards tipped out, spilling onto the sheets. He went to gather them up when the corner a blue-toned card peeked out between the regular cards of his deck. A ritual monster—and he wasn't running ritual monsters in this version of his deck. He took the card out carefully.
Draconic Sibyl, the White Mage of Silence.
It occurred to him in a head twinging flash of insight to check his deck for the accompanying magic card. His fingers trembled as he sifted through his deck for the first time since the preceding night. There, toward the top of his deck, was a ritual magic card depicting a crowned high priest amid three dragon spirits.
"Silent Longing," he said out loud, as though to finalize the realness. He put the cards side by side on his desk.
He should tell Kaiba.
Yugi reached into his pocket for his phone, but found the handkerchief instead. He sighed a long sigh. He felt good. He felt confused. His heart sang like a little hummingbird. His head hurt.
Overwhelmed. He felt utterly overwhelmed.
He went to do what he usually did when he felt overwhelmed, which was to wash his hands. He took the handkerchief with him and washed it instead, carefully in numbing cool water. The soft blue silk was monogrammed delicately in looping white script. It felt nice on his fingers. He hung it on the towel rack to dry.
He turned on the shower and started to undress. When he realized Kaiba's scent, cut wood and white musk, had rubbed off on his tee shirt, he crushed it to his face and took an indulgent inhale.
A smile spread across his face, easing the tension in his head and shoulders. He got into the shower feeling light.
Mokuba slipped into his Sambas, tugging to make sure his socks didn't show. He took stock of himself. Army green joggers, an oversize graphic hoodie, a snapback under which he tucked his hair for good measure. He looked normal—himself but not quite himself. He felt fantastic. He danced around the entryway, waiting for his brother to come.
Kaiba came quietly, practicing casual. He was wearing cuffed denim jeans, a loose gray t-shirt. He slipped into a well worn bomber jacket and sat down on a bench to put on a scuffed pair of army boots, hiding the incongruous argyle dress socks.
"Ready, Mokuba?"
Mokuba grinned. Kaiba slipped on a burnt orange beanie and led them out the door.
It wasn't raining any longer but the air had cooled. Their feet quietly crunched the wet gravel. They walked around the grounds, through a garden to the groundskeeper's quarters. Isono was smoking under a large budding willow.
"Ready, Seto-sama?" he said, crushing the butt under his perfectly shined oxford.
"I'll drive," Kaiba said, ducking into the driver's seat of a little white Volkswagon Golf.
Isono cranked the passenger seat forward and Mokuba climbed into the back. Kaiba turned the motor over, let the brake out and off they went.
"Are you sure that you're comfortable with just me?" Isono said.
"It's a simple outing," Kaiba said, fighting the little smile that kept threatening to show.
"Three meter distance?" Isono asked.
"Ten!" Mokuba insisted from the back.
Kaiba met Mokuba's eyes in the rearview.
"Ten is fine," he said.
Kaiba drove them downtown, pleased it had been a rainy evening. It meant fewer people out.
The arcade they liked most was off a main street, tucked behind a time-bleached diner.
Kaiba cursed the narrow alley as he tried for a third time to squeeze the Golf in the only vacant spot.
"I'll park the car, Seto-sama. You go on ahead," Isono said as close to tenderly as he was allowed, given his position.
Kaiba got out. Mokuba climbed straight over the center console and hopped out of the car, landing on the wet concrete with a little splash.
"Aaaalllll right," he said, cracking his fingers. "Racing first or shooter?"
"Racing," Kaiba said, throwing his long arm over Mokuba's shoulders, shoulders that were getting higher all the time.
"What's the wager?"
"You have this growing attachment to wagers. You need to spend less time around that trash."
Mokuba squirmed out from under Kaiba's arm and walked backward in front of him, setting their pace.
"Don't call my girlfriend's brother trash anymore," Mokuba said, drawing out the word 'girlfriend' with a sly quirk of his lips.
"Oh, so you made it official?" Kaiba said, arching a brow. "Good."
Mokuba's jaw dropped.
"Good?"
Kaiba crossed his arms.
"You're too intelligent to play games. With these things it's better to know exactly what you want, and focus on that thing. You'll waste less time with worthless pursuits."
Mokuba shook his head and laughed, almost losing his hat.
"I believe you. But you've never even dated! How do you know?" he said, cobalt eyes wide but without challenge.
"You know, not everything has to be learned the hard way." Kaiba said, mashing Mokuba's hat against his chin-length hair.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm still gonna learn things the way I learn things though," he said, bumping his brother with his hip. They jostled the whole way into the arcade, the costume of normalcy giving them purchase to be what they had so precious little time to be.
Mokuba went to buy a can of tokens and Kaiba swept the mostly empty arcade with his eyes. He folded himself, satisfied, into the seat of the racing game. Mokuba put two tokens in the coin slot and they selected their racers.
"So I assume it went well last night?" Kaiba said, only half focused on the game. He watched Mokuba's body language carefully out of the corner of his eye.
"Yeah we had a great time. I took her to that crepe place and then we walked along the pier for a while," Mokuba said. He stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he rocked back and forth, swerving his digital Camero, the picture of boyish focus. Kaiba couldn't help but smile.
"Are you being safe?" he said sternly, this time keeping his eyes solidly on the game screen.
Mokuba crashed his car and respawned from the starting line.
"Oh my god. No, we're not. But we will when it happens," he said, a blush darkening his tan cheeks.
"Did you make sure she got home safely?"
Mokuba bit his lip, mind drawn between the game and the conversation and the memory, still warm.
"Of course, I walked her the whole way back to Jounouchi's. Oh, that reminds me," Mokuba said, chancing a glance away from the screen to look his brother in the face. "Can I bring her back to her mom's when her vacation is done?"
Kaiba laughed, touched by his brother's bravado.
"Of course. I'll file a flight plan."
"Thank you, Nii-sama," Mokuba said, clearly pleased. His car skidded past the finish line a hair before Kaiba's and he pumped his fist in the air.
"Mokuba," Kaiba said, sliding two more tokens in the slot. "I'd like to talk to you about something.
"Yeah, what is it?" Mokuba said, choosing a red Ferrari this time. Kaiba stuck with his white Bugatti.
"I'm going to have a guest over tomorrow night."
Mokuba's eyes widened a fraction, but he kept his face carefully neutral.
"A guest huh?"
Kaiba took a moment to pass Mokuba on a curve and score a speed bonus.
"An overnight guest. At home."
They raced through two laps, trading places several times, before Mokuba replied.
"That sounds fun," he said lightly, drifting through a dirt patch shortcut to swerve back onto the road a car length behind his brother.
"It's Yugi, isn't it?"
Kaiba activated the speed bonus and rushed past the finish line with a wide lead. He turned in the narrow seat to look Mokuba in the eye.
"Yes, it's Yugi."
"Well cool. Have fun," Mokuba said, patting him on the shoulder. "Don't bring any work home, that's lame."
"I'm having him over…for a date," Kaiba said, frowning at his own admission.
They looked at each other for a long, pregnant moment. Mokuba broke into a roguish grin
"Well yeah, I figured," he said, folding his arms behind his head. "It's not that hard to see."
Kaiba bristled, but Mokuba's gentle joy took the fight out of him.
"If you have any questions…" Kaiba said, betraying his own awkwardness with the hoarseness in his voice, "feel free to ask."
Mokuba felt on some level that this was a test. He wasn't sure if it was meant as a test for him—Kaiba looked like he himself was being tested. He sat, poised but faintly tense, braced for a negative reaction.
"What would I even ask," Mokuba said, shrugging.
Kaiba pursed his lips.
"You don't want to talk about the fact that I'm—"
"Gay? Like I'm supposed to be surprised?" Mokuba laughed.
"I love you, Nii-sama."
Kaiba came very close to betraying just how overcome with emotion he was, but he tensed his abs just in time. His voice dropped low.
"I love you too."
Mokuba dropped two more tokens in the slot.
"Best two out of three."
They raced in tacit peace, the only sound between them the music and sampled tire whines of the game. Kaiba beat Mokuba soundly. Mokuba smiled a wide, infectious smile.
"Yugi's really cool. If he makes you happy, then I'm glad."
Kaiba looked intensely at his little brother. Mokuba was completely relaxed, sincere. He meant it.
"But he better be good to you or else."
To Mokuba, it was as ordinary as anything. Kaiba's chest tightened. Mokuba was growing up to be a good man.
"If you can beat me at the zombie shooter, I'll take us to that ice cream shop you like."
"Before we even have dinner?" Mokuba said, grinning. "And what do you mean if?"
"Winner picks the dinner place, ice cream after if it's you who wins" Kaiba said, crossing his arms. "That's the wager."
"Deal," Mokuba said, hopping up, jingling the can of tokens.
Kaiba followed after him, feeling a good deal lighter. He slipped his phone out and discretely opened an app, ducking his head down for a security scan of his retina. He selected the second name in a list of favorites and a map appeared with a little red pin. Predictable as always, he thought. It was near the ice cream parlor. He returned the phone to his pocket.
"Get ready to lose," Mokuba said, sliding two tokens down the slot with a slick metallic sound.
Kaiba took the plastic gun and settled back into a practiced Weaver stance. The game counted down to start and he decided to align the sight to the necrotic ear of the looming zombie instead of the head. His shot grazed the attacker and he took a damaging swipe.
His score dipped, and he smiled.
Bakura had a few cat-like qualities. Private, aloof and affectionate in turns, tolerant—to a point. But most of all, he was food motivated. Yugi found this out about him early, and it had always come in handy when a mood came over. Whatever had been bothering Bakura before was soundly buried under okonomiyaki now. The three of them sat contented around their empty plates, ready to catch up on gossip.
"It's not so crazy if you think about it," Yugi said. "They're close in age. They have similar vibes."
"How did they get together anyway?" Bakura said, attention drawn by the phone in his lap.
"It was a fundraiser for macular degeneration. She volunteered and he was a sponsor," Jounouchi said. "Mokuba sat with her the whole night. Wrote her organization a $30,000 check."
Bakura whistled at the number.
"On top of the donation they already made."
"Oh my god," Yugi said, rolling his eyes.
"Well it worked," Bakura said, all sly eyes and tiny flash of teeth. "He got her number."
"He probably could have just asked," Yugi said. "He's definitely his brother's son."
They all chuckled at that.
"And what about you?" Yugi said, leaning toward Jounouchi. Their elbows touched as Yugi leaned in to say, "I saw you talking to Mai the other night."
Jounouchi's expressive amber-brown eyes went from warm to dark to very warm.
"We're talking," he said, crossing his arms. His smile betrayed him. "She doesn't want to duel before the ranking melee next week, trying to keep her strategy to herself."
"Color me curious," Yugi said.
"Buuuuuut," Jounouchi said, hooking his arm around Yugi's neck. He leaned in to whisper "I think I convinced her to meet me for dinner."
"There we go," Yugi said, pounding the table lightly with his fist. "I knew it was just a matter of time."
"Don't let it break your focus at the ranking matches though," Bakura said. "I'll be there too, so I'll know if you're off your game because you're in love."
Joounouchi stood and propped his leg up on the chair, arm still hooked around Yugi's neck. Yugi rose with him, slapping Jounouchi's arm but laughing through his pain-pinched squint.
"Love will push me higher, causing me to fight harder than ever before," he pronounced, fist in the air.
It was amid the benevolent chaos of laughing and jostling and ribbing one another that Bakura saw in the corner of his eye a figure in the window. Not too close—standing in the middle of the sidewalk, out of the range of the restaurant's lights. A tall figure, familiar-unfamiliar, paused in an evening walk to watch them for a moment.
He caught the blue eyes with his own and they shared a tense moment of recognition. Bakura winked, the blue eyes widened. Then a flash of white teeth in an inaudible laugh. He knew the sound of it besides: an open bark of laughter, the rich undertones magnetic, just this side of grating for how arrogant it sounded, no matter the cause. Bakura turned back to the roughhousing, a vicarious satisfaction buoying his smile. Far be it for him to deny the draw of the obsessive, the deeply brooding, the almost predatory shape of the courting dance. In that he could see the appeal.
When Bakura glanced back to the window, Kaiba was gone.
He considered Yugi trapped under Jounouchi's muscular arm, flushed with embarrassment and something else, that hair of his made even wilder by a retaliatory noogie. Smiling freely, no sadness behind the eyes like there always was, like there had been in spades after they left Egypt. He was at ease now. A little more open. A little more free.
A deep emotion welled up in Bakura. Finally. If Yugi could be freer, be stronger, be himself, then step by step Bakura could too.
He sipped his tea and tried to reign in his feelings before they welled up and out his eyes.
"Hey, do you guys wanna come over?"
Yugi's voice brought Bakura back to the room.
"Hmm, yeah. I could test my deck against you before the ranking matches?" Bakura said, suddenly demure.
"Let's do it. I gotta make sure I'm on point. Wouldn't want to make Kaiba look bad," Jounouchi said, tapping his nose. "Ya know, now that I'm official."
Yugi's eyes brightened.
"You decided to accept the offer?" Bakura said.
Jounouchi looked thoughtfully up over their heads, eyes on something distant, imagined.
"I hate to admit it, but a part of me was really happy. To be acknowledged by that guy. I feel…" Jounouchi frowned under the strain of articulating his feelings. "Like, somehow I should do this. Be a part of whatever this is. Even if it means being under him. You know?"
Yugi's smile was wide.
"If even someone like Kaiba can come around and admit I've gotten stronger, what kind of person would I be if I couldn't do the same?"
Bakura smiled and crossed his legs.
"He has changed, hasn't he. We all have."
Yugi had a knowing little smile on his lips.
"I don't think any of us have changed at all. No." He shook his head. "The more we grow, the more we become our true selves."
They looked at him, quieted by his gentle speech.
"Kaiba was always interested in our success. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have helped us so many times. He wouldn't let anything happen to the other me. To any of us."
Yugi touched the pendant.
"He was always a good person. It's just those good traits were distorted at first, buried under years of pain. Jounouchi," he said, turning to place a hand on Jounouchi's knee. "You're one of the strongest people I've ever met. You're not different at all from how you were when we first met. You're just….more you."
Jounouchi's eyes creased in a warm smile.
"Guess so, huh."
Yugi stood, slipping on his jacket.
"Let's go!"
Bakura smiled and followed suit.
"Thanks for dinner."
"Yeah, Yugi, thank you," Jounouchi said.
"Thanks for covering me."
They each fell in line beside Yugi and matched his gait as they started off toward the shop.
"You gonna make a habit of it?" Jounouchi said, quirking a brow.
"Huh. Well…" Yugi blushed and breathed in deep through his nose. "Probably. We're working on something pretty special."
"Whatever it is, I'm sure it's gonna be big," Bakura said, bumping Yugi's shoulder with his elbow. "We're rooting for you."
Jounouchi got the distinct feeling he was missing something. He filed the thought away and let the refreshing air wash over his face. Had he changed? He was stronger for sure, he felt better about himself most days. He started fewer fights. He was both the same person who stole Yugi's puzzle piece out of a misplaced disgust and also the person that returned it. What did that make him in the end?
Jounouchi mostly listened through a light discussion on strategy since the last Duel Monsters expansion, uncharacteristically quiet. Bakura had a new deck—he'd show them once they got home.
Which they did, after Jounouchi's detour to the convenience store that sold him beer with no ID. They got snacks, some magazines. With his new status as a sponsored pro duelist, Jounouchi had more time than ever before. He could spare a late night or two with friends.
"Gimme a sec, I gotta take a leak," he said, kicking off his sneakers.
"Yup! I'll set up in the living room. Bakura, you and me first?"
"Sounds good to me," Bakura said.
Jounouchi closed the bathroom door and unzipped his jeans. He'd nearly finished by the time he noticed the little silk handkerchief drying next to plain towels on the rack. He frowned, considering the monogram.
SK.
Something in his stomach turned. He felt suddenly alien, a stranger in a place that was as much his home as the apartment he lived in. It was a cold, clammy feeling. Unpleasant, unsettling. He washed up, careful not to touch the handkerchief when he dried his hands.
By the time he got to the living room, Bakura was placing Necrovalley in the field zone.
"And now, I summon Gravekeeper's Heretic," he said. "How will you dismantle my Gravekeeper deck, Yugi? My strategy is air tight."
Yugi smiled, eyes narrowed. "Don't count your win too soon."
Jounouchi cracked a beer. His creeping sense of inferiority in regards to Kaiba rubbed like a days-old blister. It was bad enough that his sister was so taken with the younger Kaiba. But Yugi, linked somehow with Kaiba the tormentor, Kaiba who starred in his weakest nightmares, Kaiba of the ancient soul, a king carved on a great stone stele thousands of years before Jounouchi was even an afterthought in his parents' minds? It was too much.
He watched Yugi more than he watched the match. Yugi who shared everything with him, and had for years—until now. Yugi, who was handidly and almost imperceptibly pacing the match he played like it was nothing, and Bakura was no weakling. Yugi who beat the ring, beat Kaiba, beat Atem. Yugi who had laid his life out time after time for their sake, for his sake, asking nothing in return. Yugi who loved him, Yugi his closest friend, Yugi with secrets. Yugi who had once seemed pitifully helpless to him was now a thing Jounouchi could barely fathom.
He watched Yugi overtake Bakura easily, playing him with no malice but with a ruthless skill. Backlit by the TV, hair haloed in that blue light, he seemed to emit an aura. The impression he gave with that calm smile, those confident eyes, it was otherworldly. Too much like his other self, cut under with something else Jounouchi couldn't identify. Jounouchi felt space opening up between them wider than he could ever cross. He drained his beer.
"What a game. I didn't stand a chance," Bakura said, laughing.
"No, you played well. I'd put money on you sweeping your ranking matches, unless you came up against Jounouchi or Mai or that transplant, the Korean pro. Then it's maybe 50-50."
"You're too kind."
Yugi gathered up his deck. He turned his eyes to Jounouchi.
"You and me?"
Jounouchi squinted, trying to summon the will.
"I'm not feeling it tonight. Maybe tomorrow."
Yugi's eyes crinkled.
"I've got plans tomorrow."
Jounouchi was about to ask what Yugi could be doing on a Wednesday, his old day off, the day they normally spent hanging out, when Bakura's phone rang. Bakura shot up, nearly fumbling the phone. He practically skipped out of the room.
"I'll be right back guys—hello? Yeah, it's me. You landed all right?"
Jounouchi was fidgeting with the tab on his empty beer can when Yugi nudged him under the coffee table.
"Is everything okay?"
Jounouchi fixed Yugi with a stony gaze.
"You and Kaiba. What's going on?"
"What do you—"
"I can smell it. Something's up."
Yugi froze. His eyes went wide, his face flushed pink to the ears.
"What, you can't tell me? You keeping secrets all of a sudden?"
"Jounouchi, it's not—I don't know, I'm not even sure—"
"It's okay. I get it."
Jounouchi stood. Yugi stayed frozen.
"I gotta go. Shizuka leaves soon, I should see if she needs anything."
"Jounouchi, please," Yugi said, and the broken note in his voice hit Jounouchi like a fistblow. He started to get angry.
"Call me when you're not busy or something. I'll see ya later."
Yugi watched him leave. He felt staked to his chair by a powerful sadness.
By the time Bakura placed a hand on his shoulder, the tear that rolled down Yugi's cheek had dried.
"He'll come around."
"I have to talk to him."
Yugi felt the hand on his shoulder give a gentle squeeze.
"Let him cool off first. He's had a hell of a week."
Haven't we all, Yugi thought.
Atem lifted his hands in supplication to the rising sun. He chanted the grand rising of the disk between the twin obelisks of the east. He prostrated himself, he poured libations. He walked back from the distant shrine holding his sandals, willing the warming sand to drain his distress.
"You cannot pray away the trial."
Mahad was at the gateway waiting. The magician took his sandals, placed a steadying hand on his back.
"It's happening too fast," Atem said, mauve eyes pinched with worry. "I won't have him suffer for this."
The magician guided them through the gardens.
"It's the high priest's dimensional magic. It's accelerating the process."
"He would strongly object to you calling it magic," Atem said, a wry smile on his lips.
They sat on a low stone bench under a trellis of lushly flowering vines.
"You lack faith," Mahad said gently.
Atem's eyes snapped up, fury lit in the irises.
"Don't you dare accuse me of lacking faith in him."
Mahad shifted the sandals in his lap.
"That wasn't my intent. I know you have faith in him," Mahad said, placing a hand on Atem's knee. "I'm asking you to trust the process now."
Atem's balled fists relaxed in his lap.
"They'll cross together when the time comes. You'll have company through the trial."
Atem cradled the puzzle to his chest. Soon. Sooner than he thought.
"How long?"
Mahad lifted his right hand, and a little swirl of fine dust began to spin. It coalesced out into a tiny model of a solar system. The little model ran through several rapid cycles before disintegrating in his hand.
"Four of our moons. Maybe less, maybe more."
Atem's almond eyes rose to the clear blue sky.
"And the dream passage?"
Mahad smiled.
"Tonight. If you want."
Atem stood, bare feet soundless on the soft garden ground.
"Let's prepare then."