a/n: hi guys! This is just a quick author's note to say that while I love getting reviews and I really appreciate when people take the time to write them, it's kind of disappointing to read a new review and find out it has absolutely no relevance to the story.

There's nothing in the ToS that says we can't upload more than one chapter a day, so don't spam us with reviews saying that we need to change our upload schedule - I'll update whenever I feel I have enough fic written to update with. If you continue to review and tell us not to update, I'll flag your review as spam for not being relevant to the fanfic itself.

Whew, I hope I didn't sound too mean there! In lighter news, I hope you enjoy the fic, and please feel free to leave us a review letting us know what you think! As long as, you know, it's actually relevant to the story. ;-)

Have a nice night everyone!

chapter 3: gabilliam is also real and so is william becketts evil twin

While Manjoume was being driven to the airport in the jeep Yugi's team had supplied, he gazed out the window at the Chinese forest they had been in the dead middle of. It pissed Manjoume off - he should have asked what the hell Judai was doing in these woods, anyway. He'd ask Yubel, but the dragon-monster-person-thing was nowhere to be seen, also he didn't want to talk to them anyway.

His eyes narrowed. He couldn't help but worry for Judai's wellbeing. He hadn't realized that Judai was roughing it this hard. Then again, Judai had never really told him anything about his adventures out here in the wilderness, either. Judai was one vague son of a bitch. It pissed Manjoume off.

He looked over to Yugi, who was looking out the same window as him, expression unreadable. Yugi probably knew why Judai was out here, right? Not that he could ask, because, um, awkward. Yugi caught him staring, and smiled brightly at him. Manjoume jumped at the eye contact.

"What's up? Feeling jittery, being back in a car?"

Manjoume hadn't thought about that. When was the last time Judai had been inside a car? It must have been a while. "Um, I guess so. Not many cars out in the middle of the woods."

Yugi laughed good-naturedly. "Yeah, it can be a little off-putting. I know that I've gone on expeditions for weeks at a time and getting into a car again makes me sick like, immediately."

Manjoume hummed in response, and Yugi looked back out of the window of the jeep. They sat in an awkward silence (well, Manjoume felt it was awkward, but that's because he wasn't technically supposed to BE HERE) for the rest of the ride out back to civilization. The only real interaction they had was Yugi laughing at him when he let out a cry upon seeing power lines and real roads again.

Even though he had showered at Yugi and his team's makeshift camp, Manjoume still looked pretty rugged. The stress of being body swapped with your significant other did not help matters, either. Everyone was giving him strange glances, which made him feel embarrassed. Yubel hovered uncomfortably close behind him, their dragon wings flapping every so often, making an annoying whooshing noise right by his ear.

The airport was pretty packed, and likely because it was coming up to a popular holiday time aka spring break. Everyone was escapin to spicy tropical locations such as the Bahamas, or perhaps Good ol egypt, best place on earth. JK that aint tropical. Maybe Fuji? Listen, I am not a geography expert. Either way, Manjoume was being hounded by the sounds of an unfamiliar language at all sides and angles, and it was making his head spin.

He begrudgingly looked over to Yubel as he became increasingly more lost in the airport. He half wished he had asked Yugi to come inside with him just to avoid talking to Yubel as much as he could, but the king of games had insisted he had to join his team in buying supplies. Damn you Yugi Mutou.

"Judai said you can understand Chinese," Manjoume mumbled. "Where do I check in?"

Yubel seemed torn between ignoring him entirely and doing what Judai wanted, but it seemed like their loyalty to Judai won out in the end, and they turned away with a huff. Manjoume followed them through the busy airport, digging Judai's passport out of his bag as he walked.

Finally, after what felt like forever, they made it through security. One of the workers had pulled Judai's hunting knife out of his bag and given him a long, suspicious stare, and Yubel had only laughed coldly when Manjoume looked to them for some kind of assistance. The knife was confiscated, and his bottles of water were emptied, which was a bummer because Judai had no money on him and Manjoume was thirsty.

Pharaoh had had to be left with Yugi, who'd promised to bring the cat home when he returned to Japan. Manjoume wished he could have Daitokuji with him, because he was getting on his nerves. As they waited for their flight to board, the teacher rambled on and on about China's history, and Manjoume was too tired to listen. He closed his eyes, and the next thing he knew he was being woken by Yubel's voice.

He blinked awake, rubbed some sleep from his eyes, and looked to the duel monster spirit, who just said, "Your flight is boarding."

He might have said thanks if anybody else had woken him, but he knew it was more that they wanted to see Judai than anything else.

On board, Manjoume found out that Judai had ordered an inflight meal with him, which was a small gesture that had him feeling touched before he remembered that the food had been bought on his credit card.

The in-flight movie was in Chinese with no subtitles, but Manjoume watched anyway. It helped pass the time - roughly three hours in air - before the plane landed.

At the airport, he found himself more nervous than he thought he'd be.

Before this, he'd had no idea when he'd see Judai again. The last time Judai had mentioned it in his postcards, he'd written "I'll be home in a few months, maybe", and then drawn a picture of a panda he'd seen. But now he was going to see Judai (well, Judai in his body, but Judai nonetheless), and he was lowkey freaking out.

In the bathroom at baggage claim he splashed water on his face and tried to look like he didn't want to die. Not that Judai would care, when he looked at this face every day, but Manjoume cared. Some of us take pride in our appearance.

When he got through customs he found Judai waiting to greet him with a grin that looked idiotic on his features, and then all but ran over to greet him in a back-breaking hug. Manjoume felt his face heat up, but by the time he'd dragged himself out of baggage claim and through customs, most people had left, so he let it slide. Resting his head on Judai's shoulder, he almost relaxed - until he caught sight of Yubel, miming puking while out of Judai's sight. How a spirit that was thousands of years old could be so childish was beyond Manjoume, but hey, he was Officially An Adult too and acted just as pettily, making sure they were looking before he pulled Judai closer.

"I love you," he said, in earshot of Yubel, and then, his voice lower, "I'm going to kill you. You have no idea how many fucking bug bites I have."

Judai laughed as he pulled out of the embrace.

"I'll count them later," he said, with a LEWD wink, and Yubel let out a cry of disgust that Judai was oblivious to. Manjoume felt a little smug, even though Judai's attempts at flirting made him cringe, too.

"How did you get here?" He asked, wondering it for the first time. "Bus?"

"You own a car, Manjoume."

"Right," Manjoume said, before realization hit him and his face paled. "Judai, you can't drive."

"I know! It's amazing I made it here in one piece!"

Manjoume couldn't understand how Judai had survived sleeping rough in some of the most extreme places on earth. The idiot seemed to have the world's best luck, but even so, Manjoume insisted on driving home. He wasn't willing on putting Judai's freakishly high luck to the test if it meant putting his LIFE ON THE LINE.

Judai didn't really argue. In fact, he seemed happy to just watch Manjoume drive, which was a little weird cuz, like, that's him he's staring at. Even having been in this situation before, it was… weird.

"It's good to see you again," Judai said, the first one to break the silence. "Even if it's, y'know, kinda me I'm seeing again."

Manjoume replied with a mutual grunt.

"But still, I wonder what caused this." Judai's tone sounded contemplative. "I mean, last time it was because we pissed Saiou off, but I haven't even spoken to him lately… did you do something to annoy him?"

"Of course not," Manjoume said, a little stiffly. Judai knew him well enough to know he was hiding something, but he didn't press him on it, thankfully… and a little worryingly. Why wasn't Judai bugging him to know what the dealio was? That wasn't like him.

They were quiet again, and Manjoume wondered if he could have done anything to piss off Saiou. Had his venting via snail mail annoyed the cat man? Well, if it had, screw him - he hadn't had to reply. He could have ignored them. Manjoume was suddenly annoyed because in the span of a few minutes, he'd convinced himself that that was the case, and what was even more annoying was that he couldn't tell Judai because then Judai would know he'd missed him.

They were stopped at a stoplight when Judai reached over to grab Manjoume's hand, squeezing it.

"Hey," he said, "It's fine. We'll figure it all out."

Manjoume shrugged and slipped his hand out of Judai's grasp, releasing the handbreak as the light turned to green.

"Sure," he said, "Whatever."

They were hardly in the door of Manjoume's apartment when Judai grabbed him by the shoulders, twirled him around like a world class ballerina and pressed him against the wall, kissing him on the mouth. Yubel pretended to wretch. It was not the most romantic kiss, and Manjoume pushed him away almost immediately.

Judai looked dejected. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Manjoume repeated, "What's wrong? I'm trapped in your stupid body with your stupid beard and we have no idea what caused it, besides maybe that Saiou suddenly acquired some twisted vendetta against us, and I slept on rocks last night, Judai, and the first thing you think of when we get home is sticking your tongue down my throat."

"Well," Judai said, "I missed you."

He looked kind of pathetic, leaning against the back of the couch with a sheepish look on his face and the pale skin of his jaw red from where Manjoume's beard had itched it. It only annoyed Manjoume more.

"I'm going to shave," he muttered. And to have a proper, long shower, he thought, locking the door as he stepped into the bathroom. Yubel wouldn't bother him as long as the real Judai was around, so he could take his time.

He hacked as much as the beard away as he could with scissors, then lathered up his face and used a razor to remove the rest of the stubble. And then he was just kind of like, "wow". Seeing Judai after graduation had always been kind of a "once every few months" affair, so it was easy to forget just how handsome he was, once he'd grown into his dumbass features. Manjoume frowned, washing off the suds from the shaving soap and running a hand down his cheek, across his jaw.

If he'd reunited with Judai and they'd been in the right bodies, he wouldn't have pushed him away when he'd tried to kiss him. He'd have pulled him closer and opened his mouth and maybe, if they'd been in the mood, things could have gone further.

This wasn't fair, to either of them, but neither was the way he'd shouted at Judai. Maybe he'd apologize later- by ordering dinner or something, not by saying the words "I'm sorry", because Manjoume Thunder didn't apologize to anybody, not even the person he cared about most.

Freshly clean shaven, he got into the shower to enjoy a NICE HOT ONE with SOAP THAT WASN'T BOUGHT FROM A DOLLAR STORE! or a 100 yen store, whatever.

He worked shampoo into his hair first, wincing as he worked out the matted tangles some of it had worked into (honestly, had Judai never heard of a COMB? were they too expensive for flighty adventurers?), then soaped up the rest of his body. Suds up, fellas.

Looking down at Judai's chest and abs and other areas not mentionable in this rated T for Teen fic, he felt a stirring in the pit of his stomach, an uncomfortable yearning for something he knew it wasn't right for him to take. Not right now, not without Judai's permission, but it had been so long and his hand might have started to wander-

Before Judai banged on the door, and Manjoume started, suddenly filled with shame.

"I need to pee," Judai shouted through the door, as though he hadn't ruined what little mood Manjoume had been in already, "Come on, I drank so much coffee while I was waiting for you."

Manjoume shut the shower off and made his way out, keeping his head bowed as he passed Judai. Judai caught his wrist as he passed, and Manjoume stopped but didn't look at him.

"Is something bothering you?" He asked. "Besides, y'know, this whole thing."

"No," Manjoume said, pulling his wrist away sharply. "Everything is fine."