A/N: hello dears. Just dropping in to place some warnings for this chapter. It contains mentions of an abusive relationship and homophobic themes as well as hints of victim-blaming. If any of these are triggering for you, please skip reading this one. Thank you.
Bows of Promise
Chapter Twelve
Seto's fingers were worriedly moving back and forth over the edge of the small glass that held half of his espresso. His other hand was still clenched tightly in a display of anxiety that Yami was witnessing for the first time since he met the brunet all those months ago.
That and the utter sadness in his blue eyes were an obvious indication of his distress as he mumbled, "I thought it would be something like that."
Yami shrugged, "You are intelligent enough to put two and two together. I know you already knew the answer to your question even before you asked it." He looked straight into the blue eyes, studying them carefully as he took another sip of his coffee. he held the gaze, lowering the cup and then asked, "If so, then were you just looking for a confirmation to the conclusion you made?"
Seto's fist unclenched and the fingers touching the glass withdrew. He crossed his fingers on the table and admitted, "Yes." Yami grinned; a little twist of the left corner of his mouth that he knew was filled with bitterness that the brunet saw very clearly and as a result, continued quickly, "I don't want just that, however."
Yami sighed. "I am aware of that," he said. He broke the brunet's gaze, unable to keep up any longer and repeated, almost to himself, "I am aware of that."
"I don't know what to say… I want to know everything, but I am not sure if you are willing to tell me," Seto said. Yami smiled painfully up at him once again and remained silent. He could see the million questions rushing one after the other in Seto's mind with how he uncrossed his fingers and clenched both his fists now, opening his mouth, then closing it once, sighing and then, finally, he decided to ask one of them. To Yami's surprise, he stuttered ever-so-slightly, "Did… Did you love him?"
Yami blinked at the unexpected question. He expected something else. He expected to be interrogated about other details; when did this happen, where. Perhaps getting asked why it happened, how he hid it, who else knew. Instead, he sat there looking blindly at the concerned expression in Seto's eyes, the way his brows furrowed in pain. Pain for him. The shock of the realization made him sit back in his armchair, still speechless.
"I'm sorry…" Seto quickly tried to say. "I shouldn't have asked that…"
Yami hastily shook his head. "No… no, no, no," he said, stopping the tirade about to come out of Seto's mouth. The brunet went silent, letting him explain, "I just didn't expect that to be your first question about the matter. But err… yes." He made sure his eyes were fixed once again on the corner of his saucer. "Yes, Seto…I loved him."
Silence once more hung over them except for the music coming from the speakers of the coffee shop. Yami sipped on his latte for a few moments and Seto finished his espresso by the time one of them could speak once again.
"Where did you meet?" Seto asked.
Yami smiled, "He was my senior. He held my hands during my first appendectomy, almost…just almost the same way you held them during my first pericardiocentesis. He was one year my senior. I met him during the matching day, where we decided our specialties." He paused, tipping the cup back to finish the last bit of coffee left in it. He slowly placed it back on its saucer, thoughtfully continuing while remembering the events he was telling the brunet as if they were happening right before his eyes. "Senior residents of some specialties attended match days so that once someone picked that specialty they would be taken immediately to start work. Surgery was one of those and he happened to be the one to grab me by the scruff of my neck and drag me to work, as the expression went."
He took the chance that the waiter had been passing by to take a pause. He asked for another cup of coffee, resting his eyes on Seto questioningly when the kid asked him if he wanted another espresso. The brunet shook his head dumbly. Yami smiled and looked back up at the kid who wondered if the brownies were not to his liking. He took a glance at the mostly-untouched chocolaty treat and understood immediately and he shook his head, reassuring him that it was delicious.
The smile was still on his lips after the young man walked away, promising to bring his coffee quickly. He could feel it getting drained from warmth, then intensity when Seto looked at him with pale, drawn features.
"Was I right, then, when I assumed that you were rejecting my advances because you didn't want to date a colleague?" he asked.
"I already told you, I had warnings that you were a playboy," Yami shrugged and said with a little laugh, grateful for a reason to lighten up the atmosphere just a little bit. Seto's face didn't break out into a smile like he expected him to so he sobered up and sighed softly, "That was part of it, to be honest. There's just too much of him in you, I won't lie to you."
Seto's face fell dramatically at those words and Yami immediately felt regretful he ever said them, but he knew he had to.
"We were sitting here just a few months ago and you asked me why I flipped out when you called me beautiful," he began once more. Seto nodded mutely, realization dawning on him. "It was a nickname. Even though we spoke in Arabic back in Egypt…sometimes in English also… but when he knew of my Japanese heritage, he asked me what the word translated to in Japanese and he called me that ever since."
"I'm sorry… I didn't know."
Seto looked genuinely so apologetic, Yami couldn't stand it.
"Hey…" he said, reaching out to place his hand on Seto's, squeezing it gently. He waited until the blue eyes settled onto his and he said, "Don't think you have to apologize for anything. Please, I just want you to know that this is not easy for me. And you apologizing for something that happened very long before we met, and something that is completely out of your hands that you couldn't have the slightest idea about, isn't making it any easier. Please… don't apologize."
"Alright, alright," Seto told him. he took a deep breath, staring at their hands for a second, before turning his hand in Yami's grasp so their fingers tangled together. Yami felt his racing heart calming ever so slightly at the gentle pressure and the small, encouraging smile that softly turned the corners of Seto's lips upwards. "Tell me how you two got together."
"It was a bit of cliché, to be honest. Something out of an old, overused romance movie," Yami told him. He took a few moments to gather his thoughts, then continued, "I already had an idea that the first year and a half of my residency program was going to be hell. It was the same for everyone. A system that no one wants to break. The higher ups kicked back and relaxed and placed their responsibilities on those below them. And being a junior meant that you get to shoulder the weight of everyone above you. Everyone told me that it was especially bad for surgeons so I already formed an idea that I wasn't signing up for a joy-ride. I am not sure exactly if it really was as difficult as it was, or if he was heaping tasks on me more than usual… but apparently, the fact that I stoically accepted everything he dished out at me in silence caught his attention."
The café's interior lights were turned on at that moment and Yami took a second to glance around him and at the sky outside which was now a dull gray that was swiftly fading into blackness as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon. Time did fly when he was with Seto, no matter how uncomfortable the topics they spoke of were.
"We got together when there was this…one time, I hadn't been home for over six days. Our department had broken its record with the surgery list that day. Ten surgeries continuous one after the other; the anesthesia team finished two shifts and the third was about to arrive when I lost my first patient," he was staring outside, finding the colors of the ocean under the residual rays of the sun and the dark rolls of clouds, very fascinating. "It was the eleventh patient on my table and I wasn't quick enough… wasn't focused enough," he paused. He shrugged. "I don't exactly know why that patient died, until now. I just know that he died in the PACU minutes after I took off my gloves. It must have been a bleeder that I did not repair, or a vein that I tore by mistake."
Seto was still holding his hand but Yami did not want to look up to meet the blue eyes fixed upon him. The soft lighting of the café and the warmth inside it gave it such a nostalgic feel, Yami felt his chest tightening and his throat closing up. It wasn't an entirely unwelcome sensation. It was almost a bittersweet sensation, the sense of security that the place brought him, coupled with the presence of someone listening with interest to what happened to him to shape him into what he was now, all the good and the bad, the proper and the broken. It was like a return home after a very long, very tiring trip. He ached, but he knew it would get better eventually.
"It was the first mistake in a time span of over nine months ever since the start of my residency," he quietly continued. "The assistant lecturer at that time, who was his senior back then, did not take that into consideration at all. Or the fact that I hadn't slept for far too long. He took his time to yell at me for my mistake, which I had no idea what it was, and proceeded to start describing exactly how many more shifts I will have to work, how many more clinic hours I will do, things of that sort. I was just standing there taking the yelling because…I was really tired, just lost my first patient and…let's face it, that always hurts a lot, no matter how much you try to convince yourself that it was bound to happen one time or another. It was then that he stepped in to my defense."
At that moment, their waiter arrived with Yami's coffee. Unconsciously, Yami drew his hand back, detangling their fingers when he felt the kid arrive. He smiled at him, pulling his drink close while Seto looked long and hard at him, then told the young man to get him a single shot of espresso once again, smiling apologetically and saying that he changed his mind about not ordering anything else.
Yami emptied his brown sugar into the cup, stirring it absentmindedly. "It was usually a big no-no to take the side of the weaker link in such matters. And he did more than just that. He stood there, exchanging yells with a senior, in an obvious challenge of authority…" he laughed, the notion still surreal as he played out the memory in his mind. "We both ended up sharing the punishment, extra hours and extra shifts and all those ridiculous things. I didn't really care about anything at that time. I had gone into the lockers and took a shower and changed into fresh scrubs when I found him waiting for me outside, all smiles and sweet words and…well, he was apparently flirting."
He tapped the spoon three times on the rim of the cup after he finished stirring in his sugar and put it down, then lifted the cup to take a sip.
He was surprised when Seto reached out across the table and held his hand once more. He felt his ears reddening at the way he had pulled his hand back at the sign of company. He resolutely ignored that for now and spent extra effort not to glance around him, afraid someone might be watching them. Watching him receive this tiny little comfort. He knew that perhaps he really might deserve it and could use all the comfort he could get. But a huge part of him couldn't help recoiling at the weakness he was showing. The huge part of his soul he was stripping naked.
"Egypt is not at all accepting of homosexual relations of any kind. It took us over two more months to confirm that we meant the same thing…wanted the same thing. We started…dating, for lack of a better word, about another month after that…" he forced himself to continue. He could feel Seto's thumb rubbing the back of his hand gently and he tried not to cringe at the rough texture of it compared to the brunet's. He smiled shakily and looked up, making himself meet the blue eyes as he ended his speech with, "It wasn't dates, per se… but it was more like… little outings in the hospital's cafeteria, a jacket lent to me during cold days, perhaps a bottle of juice at an unexpected time when his blood sugar ran too low, me running to fetch lab results to get him to finish his case presentation faster. Things like that."
Seto frowned, "So that's it? You never went beyond that?"
Yami shook his head, "Of course not… by that time, I had been promoted to mid-senior resident. I had two entire days off each week." He grinned, almost to himself, adding what he knew Seto wouldn't like to hear, "We slept together the first time I was away from the hospital for more than a day."
He was right. A flash of something dark crossed the blue eyes and he chuckled softly, allowing the waiter who chose that moment to arrive with Seto's coffee to place the glass in front of the brunet, before speaking once again.
"You didn't think I was a virgin, did you?" he asked, sipping his own coffee languidly.
"Considering how uptight you are, I wouldn't consider it a surprise," Seto shrugged and Yami giggled slightly.
"Hardly… I am not prudish or ignorant in such matters. To be honest, I will have him to thank for that," he admitted. "Our relationship… I don't exactly know what it was. Maybe that was why everything went to hell eventually. For me, it was my first serious relationship. It was such a relief to find someone who wanted more than a quickie in bed like most of the people who swing that way in Egypt do. I wanted long-term… just like any other relationship that was considered…normal, by the standards usually set for such matters. It was with him that I had my first fumbling kiss, first awkward sex where penetration failed…the first time when it didn't fail and the first time it actually felt good," he smiled a little to himself, a fond look seeping into his eyes against his will.
"If the memory of him makes you look so affectionate, where did it all go wrong?" Seto asked, an angry little seethe in his voice which he tried masking but Yami was way too perceptive to miss.
He shook his head. "Don't get me wrong, Seto… I hold no affection for him anymore except for the memories of the beginnings which are always too sweet. Do not tell me you do not look back on your first time in bed with someone, the first kiss and the nervousness associated with it," he smiled up at him.
Seto shrugged in reply, averting his eyes to stare out of the window to hide the jealousy in them. Yami, out of politeness, did not tease him about it. In other situations he might have done that, but he knew that now this was way too serious to be joking about such matters.
He kept silent, sipping on his coffee and deciding that his stomach settled a bit for another bite of the brownie. The moment he placed it in his mouth, however, he regretted his decision, its taste turning to ash on his tongue and his stomach, previously grumbling in protest at the lack of food, now feeling awfully full, causing a nauseated sensation to rise at the back of his throat. He placed the fork back down and decided to just drink some more of his latte, hoping that the feeling would subside eventually.
"How long did you two stay together?" Seto asked him suddenly, obviously once again ready to hear out what he had to say.
"Everything was fine between us for exactly six months after we got together," Yami said, knowing exactly what Seto was asking him and seeing no point in wanting further explanation to it. "As you once told me, I don't exactly know when things began going downhill… when I say six months, I mean approximately, because as you said, I too couldn't tell what went wrong and when, or if it had all been an act."
He paused, knowing that he needed to if he really was going to go all the way and tell Seto everything. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and looking at the window. The sky had darkened almost completely by now and the windows no longer showed the outside of the café only, but started reflecting the interior of it. He stared at his reflection, feeling almost detached from what was happening and recalling the memories one by one, also as if they belonged to someone else that wasn't him.
"It was, using your expression, a toxic relationship. It started very subtly… and unfortunately, it started at work," he swallowed, closing his eyes for a few moments. He reopened them, turning his eyes to his hand which was still held lightly in Seto's on the tabletop. "Scoffs were made at decisions that I took inside and outside the OR. He would barge into conversations with my juniors, questioning and belittling information I discussed with them, asking me to cite my sources and making ridiculous claims that if I didn't know which exact page I was referring from, then my information was inaccurate."
"That's ridiculous, no one can do that," Seto protested.
Yami nodded, "I know that." He paused a second, correcting, "I know that now. Back then, I thought I must be doing something wrong. I was trying my hardest not to anger him, because it seemed that suddenly, everything I did, everything I said caused a temper tantrum or caused him to lash out at me verbally in front of everyone and anyone. It was gradually getting worse and at first I never noticed anything wrong, then I woke up one day and realized what he was doing."
Unconsciously, his hands clenched into fists. Seto's hand which had been holding his retreated just a little then reached out slightly as if to hold his hand again, before Seto thought it was best to let him go for the moment. Yami was grateful for that. He sat back in his seat. He could feel himself shrinking on himself, his back hunching lightly and his feet rising to the tips of his toes while he sat so that his knees rose slightly towards his chest. It was mere self control that prevented him from curling up into fetal position. Self control and pride.
He swallowed and forced himself to continue, "It really was a bit of a cliché now that I think about it. It started when I realized, as I just said, what he was doing and told him off when he did it again. He backhanded me while I was telling him that he should stop what he was doing. Split the inside of my lip and I needed two stitches to stop the bleeding, as well as the corny excuse of 'I fell' to avoid unwanted questions."
The words were rolling off his tongue with ease. It really helped that he was feeling this detached. He held on to the sensation of indifference, knowing that the only way to go through this to the very end was to have a complete sense of objectivity and objectivity only regarding this subject.
"He apologized, I am sure you can imagine. Bought me a new pair of luxury scrubs with my name embroidered on it. Pampered me for days after that. He promised he would never do it again and everything was alright for about two or three weeks when he did it again. This time it was because I explored an abdomen without his okay but with the assistant lecturer's. And this time, it wasn't impulsive as a backhand due to loss of control on his temper. This time it his hand looped my hair around his fingers and a fist to the side of my head while he held it in place and then driving it straight into the mirror of the locker-rooms." Unconsciously, his hand rose to his hairline, to the very, very faint white line that he knew was there which bled on that day all those years ago. He grinned bitterly, realizing what he was doing and forcing his hand to fall back to his lap, adding, "Thankfully the locker rooms were empty. He left me there and one of the nurses found me piled up by the mirror and I could use the excuse that I got dizzy and fell face first into the mirror, breaking it and bruising the side of my face."
"And no one suspected anything?" Seto blurted out, an incredulous, horrified look on his features.
Yami shook his head, "You must keep in mind that no one knew we were together, Seto. Abuse is something that goes unreported. Women who are abused by their spouses are shunned when they speak of that abuse, the community there is like that. Imagine a case of abuse in a homosexual relationship? No one could wrap their heads around the possibility that we were together and if they did they wouldn't be searching for signs of abuse, rather for ways to murder one or both of us. That is the level of homophobia, intolerance and victim-blaming there."
"But Yugi knows, doesn't he?" Seto prompted.
Yami nodded, clutching at his cup once again and taking a sip, swallowing almost convulsively. "Yes…but at the exact time, he still hadn't moved out of my parents' house. He didn't find out except almost six more months later."
Seto swore under his breath. "Shit, Yami…you stayed that long?"
"No, Seto…I stayed even longer…" Yami sighed, rubbing a hand over his face for a moment, then explained, "I did not realize then that I should have left many months ago. In my head, it was all my fault. And besides… he always apologized and every time I told myself it would be the last time, just like he promised. Things were good after each…incident. He was nice, almost like his old self when we first started dating." He shook his head, berating himself inwardly at his own stupidity. "I was very stupid. I was holding on to hope that a part of me knew wasn't there. Yugi knew of what happened when he once beat me up so bad, I had two cracked ribs and the area behind my ear was bleeding from a cut from being thrown back and I fell, hitting the metal footboard of our bed. I had a black eye and my teeth split open the inside of my lip once again and my wrist was sprained. I was a wreck. I had dragged myself over to my grandfather's place and told Yugi everything."
By the time he had said all that, his felt his throat closing up. He was very grateful that he managed to get it all out before his voice cracked, or he started coughing or anything equally mortifying. He swallowed convulsively, willing his heart rate to slow down and his face to remain neutral. He forced himself to stay in the state of detachment he was mostly isolating himself into. It was almost over now. He had gotten almost everything out. If he stayed indifferent then he would manage to finish this without embarrassing himself. It was why he was trying to avoid looking at Seto at all costs. He knew that if he met those blue eyes he would weaken.
Eyes fixed once more on the edge of his cup's saucer, he continued, "Yugi is wise… Yugi is a lot wiser than I ever was his age. And even now, he has a lot more wisdom on him than me. Despite being in eighth grade, he knew what was happening was wrong. He told me I was being abused. He tried to tell me to leave. I was stupid," he repeated. He shook his head, "I realize now that I did a lot more damage back then when I refused his help than just to myself. As you must have heard last night, he still blames himself for my stupidity and lack of judgment at that time."
"Yami…you are still being too hard on yourself," Seto quietly interrupted him.
Yami had no choice but to look up at him to meet his eyes. To his irritation, this time and unlike the last time they sat in exactly the same place, he found an expression on Seto's features that he hated to see anyone staring at him with.
Pity.
It was pity, intermingled with disbelief and the question that was asking itself non-verbally, 'how did he not see how stupid he had been?'
It was too much for him to take, to be honest. And he had two choices; either look away and cower from the look or …
"I don't want your goddamn pity, Kaiba," he lashed out, feeling his eyes flaring up with anger.
He decided to go with the second option, the blow his pride took once he realized that Seto pitied him, felt sorry for him, not allowing him to show any further weakness. The only other reaction on the table was to get angry. And he was so angry, all of a sudden. He felt stupid. He sat there…sharing his most sacred of secrets, shared how stupid he had been, how he had been used and how he had laid there and taken it without resistance. He knew that pity was an appropriate response to his story. He knew that that was what he was going to get. And yet he sat there and blabbed like an idiot.
"You think I pity you?" Seto quietly spoke, breaking through the red haze of fury.
"What the hell is that look you're giving me if it's not pity, then?" he bit back, not bothering to hold back on the acidic tone he knew he adopted whenever he was backed into a corner.
Seto sighed and shook his head, "I told you you're being too hard on yourself. The assumption you made that I pity you just confirms it, Yami. You have been a victim of abuse. And years later, even though you are telling me that now you know better, here you are, taking it in the wrong way."
"I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me," Yami spat, for now refusing to concede and let the words sink in.
Seto was adamant, however, "Again, you think I feel sorry for you, you think I pity you. I don't. You are filtering whatever you are seeing on my face into something negative." He paused, letting his words sink in, encouraged when Yami refused to answer him because deep down he knew Seto was right. "You keep calling yourself unwise and stupid out loud and I am very sure you're having a field day, massacring your ego by calling yourself that, right now while we sit here, those names in your head."
Yami felt his ears reddening and he looked away, still refusing to acknowledge the words or the fact that Seto could read him like an open book.
"You were wrong when you said you thought it was your fault back then, Yami…" Seto was softly saying. Yami closed his eyes, shaking his head softly and avoiding at all costs looking at his companion once again, especially as he added, "Somehow you still think it is your fault."
He sighed, raising the cup to his lips and drinking. He had nothing to say to that and he wasn't going to be petty or childish and try to argue his way out of it. He had nothing to say, so he kept silent. He was going to allow himself just a small, just a tiny bit of attitude, pettiness and childishness. He decided that if Seto wanted to continue the conversation, then he would have to take the next step and ask him to. Until then, he was going to sulk while being silent.
Seto was apparently letting him have a few moments to calm himself down before asking anything else. He too stayed silent, sipping soundlessly on his espresso. Yami itched to ask him how his heart rate was doing, seeing as this was the third shot in under two hours.
He was still contemplating if it would ruin his pettiness if he asked the brunet that, when Seto decided to end his struggle, let him win –as juvenile as the expression sounded—and spoke once more after setting down his empty glass.
"What was his name…?"
Yami glanced at him briefly, seeing the spark of interest after the question was asked.
"His name was Bakura," he answered. The interest on Seto's face did not disappear and he sighed, deciding to let go of his juvenile behavior, adding the details he knew Seto wanted. "He was on the tall side… as you could guess, tall guys are just my type," he smiled lightly, a small quirk of the corner of his mouth. Seto answered him with a little grin and he continued, "He had brown eyes and…strangely enough, white hair, which was shoulder length, always messy. He always put a clip in it so he could fit it under the surgery cap."
"It seems we both have a thing for people with weird hair," Seto remarked.
He laughed, "His hair was white, Seto. Not pink!"
"Semantics."
Yami's smile was easier at the brunet's effort to make the atmosphere lighter. It worked and the dark mood that had settled over him was lifted, leaving behind only the general unease at the subject being discussed.
"From the way you reacted when I said my breakup with Zigfried had been bloody, I assume yours with Bakura had been bloody as well, only literally," Seto said, once again breaking the silence.
Yami smiled, "Well…yes and no." Seto raised an eyebrow questioningly so he explained, "He had beaten me to a pulp a week before it all ended. I made a call with a patient. He wanted to open her up after minor trauma because she was pulseless. He said she might be bleeding internally and I said she might have Takayasu's arteritis and that the lack of pulse was because she was suffering from a flare up of the disease, causing her arteries to narrow and her pulse to disappear."
Seto whistled, "Yami, Takayasu's arteritis is extremely rare."
He nodded, "I know. And it was almost nonexistent in Egypt. It is more common in Southeast Asia and we were farthest away from the area. But I took careful history from her relatives. He didn't bother doing that and immediately assumed it was trauma that caused her symptoms. He was already promoted to an assistant lecturer at that time and I was the senior resident on call. I contested his decision and he yelled at me in front of my juniors, making sure to be as humiliating as he could, but I defended my opinion, until the consultant on call that day passed by and asked what the ruckus was about."
"Did he take your side?" Seto asked.
Yami shook his head, "Not really… but he did ask me what my rationale was, and when I told him the girl's past history with hypertensive spells and similar attacks, he ordered another CT to be done, this time with a dye. And I turned out to be correct and narrow areas were seen in her aorta and renal arteries."
"He wasn't too happy to be proven wrong, I assume?"
"Not at all," Yami shook his head and giggled a little. "What made things worse at that time was that… in front of all the junior residents, the consultant scolded him and asked him to, as he worded it at that time, 'stop being a butcher and actually bother to take a history'. Needless to say, bloody doesn't even come close to describing the state I ended up after that shift."
Seto was cringing. Apparently it wasn't easy to listen to this for him.
"I packed my things and left the apartment we had been sharing at that time. He didn't say anything because that was how usually things went. He'd get violent, I'd pack and leave for a few days, he'd call me up to say sorry and that he wanted to meet, I'd give in and move back… like that."
He stopped for a moment, almost about to make a comment on how much of an idiot he was, then deciding to just let it go and stop insulting himself over this. It took conscious effort to do that and his silence stretched for a while, then Seto urged him on, saying, "So what was different this time?"
"Yugi patched me up and I did my best to hide the bruises and the cuts and the way I looked like a walking mummy. But there was so much I can do about a black eye or a split lip. I had to take a few days off from work." He took a deep breath, let it out, then drained the rest of his coffee. He set down the cup, then sat back, shaking his head slightly and resuming, "I was starting to feel claustrophobic at home, so I decided to go out to a coffee shop where I was a regular. I made friends with its owners and the baristas working there. I had gone out to get a cup of coffee and thought that my usual excuse of 'I fell' would work because really, no one was going to suspect this was a case of abuse or look further than that. I was wrong to assume those people were so shallow."
"They guessed what happened?" Seto asked, his mouth opening slightly in surprise.
Yami nodded. "I denied it at first. They wouldn't have any of it. I was afraid they were going to beat the shit out of me for suspecting I was gay, but one of them told me very clearly that that wasn't going to happen. They closed down the shop and they made coffee, as one by one they talked me into walking away and how they were going to help me do it."
He grinned, chuckling lightly to himself.
"I always had been a sheltered child… but they knew the nooks and crannies of the Egyptian society. They planned everything perfectly, told me to be ready for his call. They showed me how to record what he had to say to me. They showed me how to use an application on my phone for that. They said to answer the call after I've set everything up and record what he says to me no matter how trivial or normal it may sound."
Seto looked confused. "Why?"
Yami's grin widened. Apparently Seto was as 'sheltered' as he was.
"One of them was an amateur disc jockey highly interested in underground music that was very trendy back in those days. He took the recordings and selected parts of it, putting it together one after another so that there was no doubt to whoever was listening that Bakura and I were together. He also added a slight background noise to my own voice during those recordings, making it impossible to recognize or trace."
Realization was beginning to dawn on Seto's features and Yami nodded.
"Yes… then I told him to meet me at the coffee shop during day time, the rush hour of the place. We sat down, very civilized. Very calm. And he asked me what made me bring him out here. I played him the recording on my phone. All of it. he sat there listening to it to the very end. I then told him that I was leaving him because he was just too violent and I needed to get away and that if he refused or didn't want to take a hint, I was going to send the recording anonymously to the hospital's official email and to the Dean of the faculty, naming him as the star of those recordings and ending his career forever."
Seto's mouth hung open for a few seconds before he smiled and sat back, raising his eyebrows, "Devious plan…" he admitted.
Yami nodded, "It was tight. Very well thought out. Even if he denied it, a scandal would follow him wherever he went and he would never shake it off. He knew that he had been backed into a corner; he always was very smart." He paused, grinning just a bit before resuming, "And what really made the whole trap even tighter was that he couldn't control his anger enough at that moment and straight out attacked me in broad daylight, in front of the café's customers and baristas."
A cringe flickered over Seto's features. "Didn't take it well, I suppose?"
Yami shook his head, "Not at all. I think if he could, he would have seriously did a lot of damage that would have ended his career anyway. And mine, for that matter. The kids at the coffee shop hauled him off me before I was permanently disfigured, however. Held him down and tried convincing me to call the police, but I told them to let him go after making sure to tell him that I never wanted to see him again."
"But what did you do at work?" Seto asked, raising an eyebrow.
"At that time, I only had my thesis discussion left to get my master's… I resigned right after I passed," Yami explained. A little smile forced its way once again onto his lips, "It was the end of the world, for my parents. They had no idea what happened, of course, and the only thing that reached them was that I was leaving a university hospital post, which was the epitome of prestige for them. Something to show off. I calmly told them it was none of their business and started working my way through other degrees, until I received two more from a reputable university in France, one from Luxembourg and two diplomas from the UK. I got my doctorates from abroad as well. The longest I spent on any one of my degrees was the time I spent during that first master degree in Egypt, because I had to abide by unnecessary bureaucracies and delays."
"Not to mention not having to look over your shoulder for a fist coming your way for being brilliant," Seto added.
Yami nodded and pointed a finger at him, "That too…"
And with that he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly while closing his eyes and relaxing in his seat. There it was, all of it out and his soul bare and open before the brunet. It was the most anyone other than his brother and his abusive ex-boyfriend ever knew about him. It felt exhilarating to share this about himself and although there was a small, unsure part of him screaming at him that he was going to regret it, he calmed the rest of himself down by recalling how Seto was trustworthy regarding all the other matters he shared with him. he felt cleansed, liberated at no longer hiding anything. He grinned inwardly when he could hear the start of the comforting pattering of rain on the windows beside them, feeling that it was somewhat befitting of the situation, the rainfall cleansing the surroundings just as the outpour of information he just shared cleansed him of their heavy burden.
tbc…