Part 8 – Media: Interview

Seto and Yugi arrived at the TV station right on time – an hour before the interview was scheduled to start. Yugi of course knew Seto was nervous, but he put on an excellent game face. The only thing that could possibly give away his nervousness was how his eyes darted everywhere, looking at everything, constantly re-checking over everything to see if it was all still there. Yugi put a hand on Seto's arm, "You'll be fine," he said, and Seto smiled.

"Excellent! You're here!" said one of the cameramen approaching Seto and Yugi. Yugi immediately retracted his hand from Seto's arm and shoved his hands in his pockets, knowing how much Seto hated being seen in public with Yugi, especially in any sort of physical touching sort of way. In the past, Seto feared he might be outed by someone seeing the two of them simply walking down a street discussing trivial matters such as a card game. Yugi saw the nonsense, but it was Seto's over controlling personality that got the best of him.

However today was different. Seto reached out and gently grabbed Yugi's arm and pulled it out of his pocket, then slid his hand to meet Yugi's, and they started to walk into the studio. Yugi could not help but blush, this was a first he was certainly not used to.

"Oh, and Yugi's your boyfriend I take it? I remember you mentioned you would be bringing him, how sweet!," the camera man said. "How long have you two been dating?"

"A while now. A little over a year." Seto answered.

"Wow, and you've kept in the closet for that long? This truly is incredible!"

"Yes, it really is," Yugi said, "it's been quite a ride."

"I could only imagine," the camera man remarked, "but I guess today changes alot, huh? Well, here we are in the studio. Here's how this is going to work – you Yugi are going to stay over there," he pointed to the camera filming the news cast occurring, "with me. You Seto at some point will be called over to the chair over there," he pointed to a section of the set that contained two chairs, and a simple coffee table in the middle, "about 15 minutes before the interview starts. Sound good?"

"Sounds good to me, let's get this over with," Seto remarked.

Yugi and Seto waited around until Seto was called over to the interview station. Yugi remained with the camera man as told.

A woman sat across from Seto, and started to chat with him, introducing herself and such. Then, the camera's pointed towards the two of them sitting there, and the interview started.

"Good morning, my name is Lea Raphie, and I'm here with the CEO of Kaiba Corp – Seto Kaiba, to discuss some rather recent gossip that spread about him recently, of being gay. " the woman said. She then turned to Seto, "I'm glad we could have you here this morning Mr. Kaiba, welcome and good morning."

"Morning," Seto nodded.

"So lets start with the most obvious question at hand here Mr. Kaiba – are you gay?"

Seto smiled. "I can assure you that I am indeed a homosexual."

"Wow, I'm amazed you're coming off so boldly and clean about it! Well then, lets discuss then how the rumor spread – we all saw the papers not too long ago, with that huge, blaring title and that photograph of someone who resembled a woman kissing another man. Tell me about that."

Seto gave his cocky chuckle, shifted in his chair and launched into an explanation, "Let's just say I had a bit too much to drink that night. I was heading to a club that night, and I had dressed up in drag that night to try and hide my identity to the best of my ability, my boyfriend did the make up for me. I was terrified of being outed, hence the drag. Well, from what I'm told, I used my natural voice on accident a couple of times, a few people noticed, connected it to me, as being the tallest drag there was slightly odd, and made the connection, and took a few pictures then it just went straight to the paparazzi."

"Wow, incredible. So then, what made you decide to come out instead of hiding further, by the sounds of it you took extreme measures to hide it?"

"I guess you could say I was cornered. It was either come out and try to come clean or, continue hiding with these constant rumours. I can't let rumours build, especially if people make up things about me. It ruins business you know. "

Lea laughed, "So let's talk about the picture taken then!" she motioned to the people in the studio controlling the screens. A screen next to Seto and Lea flashed, bringing up the image. She gestured towards it, "So, this is the image associated with that news article. This really seems like quite an impressive drag here! Can you tell me a little bit about who you're supposed to be, and the idea behind it?"

Seto smiled slightly, leaning forward slightly and looking at the image, and back at Lea, "I called myself Blaire Dragoon that night. As you know, I have a passion for the Blue Eyes White Dragon, so of course I couldn't deviate from that. I kept to the same colour theme, blue and white, with the white dress and blue wig. The makeup however was completely up to my boyfriend, I asked him to try and make me as unrecognizable as possible."

"I can see quite a bit of work was put into the makeup especially! From what I can tell, if you just randomly walked in here like that I would never know it's you. They did quite an excellent job!"

Seto laughed, "He surely did."

"So then tell me," Lea said leaning in slightly closer, "who's that you're kissing in the photo? I hope it's not another scandal waiting to be unravelled!"

Seto's eyes widened in shock slightly, "Oh no!" he said, "that's definitely my boyfriend. Even when under the influence I would never cheat on my significant other." He smiled.

"Oh thank goodness!" Lea said, "So, Yugi is your boyfriend then? I mean everybody knows it's Yugi, nobody can deny it's not him there!"

Seto smiled wider, "Yes, Yugi Moto is my boyfriend and has been one of the best people in my life. It was actually him that inspired me to come clean about this whole mess." In the studio, Yugi put his hand up to his face and smiled in awe at Seto.

"That is incredibly sweet!" Lea remarked, smiling and placing a hand on her chest. "So tell me then," she said, "I guess you like to ride on top?"

Seto smiled and raised an eyebrow, "No Lea, I actually prefer the bottom. You see, I like to separate work and play, and during play it's nice to be something I'm not always. It gives you a sense of reality." All the while Yugi had just stared at Seto in complete amazement that he would declare such a thing about their sex life, he couldn't help but blush and turn away slightly, smiling all the while. "However," Seto continued, "we really shouldn't be talking about such things on here, I mean, children may be watching."

"Oh you're right!" Lea said, "we can keep that for off screen. Well, I also wanted to ask you, how long had you been in the closet for?"

"Ever since I started dating Yugi, bringing it to just a little over a year."

"it must've been tough."

"It was. I was extremely paranoid about people outing me, or discovering me. I was worried about slightly trivial things such as walking down the street with him. But I think...I think I'm ready to change that." Seto smiled again, thinking about Yugi but keeping focus on Lea, as to not draw attention to off screen. Yugi truly was an inspirational person to him.

"So..how did you two get together? I know you two knew each other for a long time before hand but...how did you 'seal the deal' so to speak?"

"Yugi came out as gay quite a long time ago, before we graduated high school. After we graduated he and I kept in touch, he was pretty much one of my only 'friends,' I had never had many in my life. Apparently, he developed a crush on me, I mean, how could he not, I am extremely attractive. Anyways, after a certain point he started to invite me to outings more frequently with his friends. I declined most of the time, but on occasion I would come out. It was mostly because he would invite me over to hang out with his gay friends, and at the time, I didn't think I was gay. Even though I had never had a girlfriend or thought much about women in that way. Either way, it was actually Mokuba who did the communication. He would go over to Yugi's game shop every now and then, and overhear him talking to Marik and Bakura about how cute and adorable I was. Mokuba would come back to me and relay this information."

"Were you at all appalled by this?"

"To be honest, no I wasn't appalled, I was shocked. I was shocked that anybody would take a liking to me initially, and second, that it was a man. I was fine with gay people, I just didn't think I was gay. However, I did start to fantasize about Yugi, and that's when I became extremely confused. I started to hang out with him more often, trying to notice his flirtatious gestures, and they surely were there!"

"Oooh, what did Yugi do to flirt with you?"

Seto chuckled, "He would do many simple things, like hold the door open for me, trying to be chivalrous. Or sometimes he would offer to buy my lunch, when he knew I could afford it. He would take interest in my life and more."

"Ok, so how did you decide you were gay?"

"It was Mokuba who helped me alot actually. He was the one who told me to go for it, try it out. If it didn't work out, it wouldn't work out. But why not try? He then made the excellent point about how I never had a girlfriend, never talked about women or even taking interest in them, and my sense of fashion..." Seto said this as he gestured to his outfit. "I thought about it and realized Mokuba was right. So I embraced the unknown, and there are a few other experimental things I tried before diving in with Yugi, and those experimental things started to convince me more that I was gay, but not completely. Then one night, I went to a party Yugi was having at his house, Yugi got slightly drunk, and pretty much forced himself on me, " Seto laughed at the memory, "I allowed him, he didn't rape me or anything. He was just very...bold. And it was that night I had my first kiss, and I knew immediately from that that I was gay. And we've been going out ever since, and I haven't been happier."

"That is an incredible story Seto, just amazing! Well, I know you brought Yugi with you to the studio today, why don't we bring him up?"

Seto smiled and gestured towards Yugi, standing in the studio room blushing deeply and smiling. He made his way over to Seto and sat next to him on the chair – the chair was fairly large, able to fit two people. Seto placed an arm around Yugi's waist, and Yugi relaxed immensely.

"Yugi!" Lea said, "this truly is incredible. I remember you came out quite some time ago, it did make the news since you are a champion duellist. Tell me, how do you feel about Seto coming out?"

Yugi grinned, "I feel so relieved, and proud of him. It really is a huge step to come out for some people, I know so many stories. For some it's quite easy, just a breeze in the wind, while for others, it's almost impossible and they keep themselves closeted. It feels as if a weight has now been lifted, and now, Seto doesn't have to keep worrying anymore. Well, he might!" Yugi laughed, "but things won't be the same at least. I'm extremely proud of him."

Lea smiled widely at them, "That is incredibly sweet! You two are such a cute couple. I can see that you are both very happy together. Well, I'm afraid we're out of time, but best of luck to you both, and your bright futures ahead. This is Lea Raphie, here with Kaiba Corp CEO Seto Kaiba and his boyfriend Yugi Moto, and have a wonderful day!"

With that Seto turned his head to Yugi, took in a deep breath and came upon Yugi with a swift, sweet kiss. He dared to do this on camera, Seto wanted everybody to know how gay he was now that he was out. He felt as if he was on top of the world. This kiss was brief, deep, passionate and full of life. When Seto pulled away he could see Yugi's eyes flowing with tears, smiling. Seto smiled back at his lover.

In the background they could hear Lea give a short "awe!" of adoration, tears almost forming at her own eyes.