Yu-Gi-Oh is the property of Konami and Kazuki Takahashi, and this work is only a very appreciative celebration, from which we hope to derive no profit of any kind.

Yuugi was looking forward to nightfall on Sunday, after what had happened the night before. There were no plans for what would happen tonight, but there didn't need to be. He and Donald both knew. Dinner ended, and when Mother rose to go into the drawing room, they stood as well, and went upstairs together, leaving Father and Colonel Crawford in the dining room.

"That's more family history for the Colonel." Yuugi barely waited until they were on the stairs, before his arms went around his brother's waist. He looked up at him, feeling the happiness bubble inside, so strong that he had to laugh. "Father does love having an audience."

As always, Donald pulled him close, his hands tangling in Yuugi's hair. "Father had better get in as many stories as possible," he said. "The New Year's not far away, and I know the Colonel is due back to his regiment."

"But you're not leaving, right?" Donald had promised it plenty of times since Saturday, but Yuugi felt like he couldn't hear it often enough. "You're home for good now?"

Donald's arms tightened. "I'll never leave you," he murmured. His voice roughened. "Yuugi…"

"What is it?"

"Not here," he said. "Let's talk upstairs."

Instead of going to his own room, tonight Donald took him to the very top of the house, to the nursery where Yuugi had slept his entire life. The nursery rhyme prints had given way long ago, to pictures of knights slaying dragons and Maxfield Parrish prints, of fantastic sunsets in lands that never existed in this world, but his old rocking horse still sat in the same corner it always had, and the bed was still covered with the same quilt with the picture of Wynken, Blinken and Nod, with their nets full of stars. Donald drew him down onto that bed now, cuddling him close, almost cradling him in his arms.

"Yuugi…" He stroked his hair, his hands gentle. "You know I love you, don't you?"

Did he know it? How could his brother even ask? "Of course I know it." Yuugi felt nothing but confidence, as he looked up. But Donald's eyes were filmed with tears, and his expression was pained. "I know you love me," he said again, his voice softer this time. "And I love you too. I love you so much!"

"And there's nothing that could change that, is there? What if you found out …- I don't know. - …What something came out that made me look bad, if you found out I wasn't completely honorable or honest?"

"But no one's completely…" Yuugi thought about it. What did his brother mean? "I'm not a fool," he said at last. What we have together isn't honorable, not in the eyes of the world. And we're not honest, neither of us, not as long as we keep it a secret."

"I don't care," he added. He pillowed his head against Donald's chest and willed him to stroke his hair with the same gentle touch he always used. It always made his stomach crawl, when he thought about how he and Donald were lying to their parents. He didn't mind about the rest of the world. Let them judge how they pleased. Their opinions didn't matter. But Mother and Father loved him; he hated having to keep the most important part of his life secret from them.

For a long time there was silence in the room. Donald held him close, but he didn't stroke his hair, he didn't kiss him or make any effort to cuddle as they usually did. "I know," he said at last. "And I'm grateful, more grateful than I can say. But what if …What if that wasn't what I meant? What if there was more than that?"

Wordlessly, Yuugi looked up at him. Their eyes met, his violet gaze meeting the darker, deep-reddish one of his brother's, that exotic color that always fascinated him, so unlike the color of anyone else's eyes in the family. After a long moment, Donald turned away. "God help me," he said. "I can't say it. - I owe it to you, Yuugi, but I can't. I promised. I'm sorry."

"Shhh." For once, Yuugi thought, he was the one in control, the one taking the leadership. He kissed his brother - His love, the man he'd chosen to spend the rest of his life with. "No matter what happens, and no matter what you do, my love. I'll always love you," he said, "and I'll always forgive you."

At the front of the classroom, Mr. Minchin was droning on about rhetoric. He had a speech by Demosthenes on the blackboard, and he kept underlining some bits, and circling others, making whatever point he was trying to make. He loved the speech apparently, because it was all he looked at, not turning to glance back at the classroom at all, and not even noticing as his cuffs kept brushing across the board and turning whiter and whiter with chalk dust as he wrote left-handed. He completely missed it, when Yuugi passed the folded note across the aisle to Téa (he probably wouldn't have noticed if he'd jumped up and turned handsprings in the aisle as well): "Téa, I need to talk to you."

"What is it?" the girl mouthed back.

"I have to…" Yuugi gestured, took back the bit of notepaper, and wrote "Where can we meet and talk at lunch time?" before passing it back.

"Signor Signorelli's music room. No one goes there." Téaheld the note up for Yuugi to see. "I'll tell Tristan and Joey to stay away," she mouthed, then looked at the boys, who were already goggling at them, trying to find out what was going on. "None of your business," she added, with a murderous glare.

The music room was really more of a cloak closet, a small, stuffy enclosed space, squeezed in behind the inadequate stage that served Drumfries School for pageants and presentations, and the storage room where the janitor kept his supplies. A private school would have provided something more spacious. – But then a private school would have provided regular music lessons for all the students, whereas the best Drumfries School could offer was singing class once a month, alternating with French and drawing lessons, and instrumental lessons only for the students who showed the most promise. The little room was crowded, music stands verging right up to the table at the front, and that piled so high with dusty sheet music that just the breeze from the door sent pages blowing everywhere, but it was quiet, as Téa had said. And it was private, whatever she'd done to Tristan and Joey to make it so.

Téa opened her satchel and took out the oiled paper packet that held her lunch sandwich. "Whatever's bothering you, Yuugi," she said, "it shows all over. Your face is all rumpled-up, and I've never seen you so distracted. Not even the day your brother" – Her lips tightened as she mentioned Donald. – "arrived home. What's wrong?"

Yuugi sat on a corner of the table-ful of sheet music, sitting above Téa, who was in Signor Signorelli's big chair. This wasn't going to work, he thought. It had been a mistake even to try it. Téa didn't like Donald already. How could he explain …what he had to explain to her? – It would only make her hate him more. He'd come in here to talk about his own problem, but talking to Téa about Donald was only going to cause more problems. He stared down at his sandwich instead. He'd taken it out when his friend took out hers, but instead of eating it, apparently he'd just been twisting it nervously in his hands. Cook would have been horrified, if she'd seen the crumbs of her good bread and meat that littered the floor all around him. – So would Signor Signorelli have been.

"Why don't you like Donald?" he asked at last. "He's never been anything but nice to you."

"I don't dislike him!" Téa bounced up right away. "He's your brother, Yuugi..." She stopped, then swallowed. She looked away for a moment, then finally started talking again. "Don't you think it's a little queer," she said, "that you didn't hear anything from him for five years, and then all of a sudden he turned up without even sending a letter saying he was coming?"

"No I don't!" The angry tone of his own response surprised Yuugi, but it felt right. It felt like a relief to be angry and frustrated for a change. "Lots of people work in the colonies," he said. "And they're gone for a long time like Donald was. And sometimes their letters get lost like his did. You act like he's responsible for every ship that goes down, and every courier that gets lost in the jungle."

"It's not that." Téa spoke gently. "And it's not that I don't like Donald," she said, "so don't accuse me, Yuugi. I know, he's important to you. And you've been so happy since he got here. It's just…" She faltered as if looking for the words she wanted to say. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "I've been doing all the talking since we came in here, and you wanted to tell me something."

"Well, it's about Donald." Yuugi's voice was sulky. "You won't want to hear it. Or you'll start blaming him again right away." It wasn't like him to treat Téa this way, but for some reason he couldn't hold onto his usual sunny manner today. It was like he'd had to be nice too much lately, and to swallow too many things that bothered him. And all of a sudden it was all bursting out. He swallowed. The fact was, that sunny or sulky, this was just hard to say. Finally, though, he got it out. …Sort of. "Have you ever been in love with someone, Téa?"

" I mean in love-in love," he added right away. "Not like Tristan, with a new girlfriend every week, not like" -

"Not like you and me, when we went to the dance in the village together, just so we'd have someone to dance with." Téa's voice was dry. "I know what 'in love' means, Yuugi. And no, I've never…" Her voice broke off suddenly. Then she turned a look of shock at him. "Oh no …Yuugi!"

"No," she said. "You can't mean… Tell me you don't…"

He swallowed, nerving himself to speak the truth. He owed it to Donald. "I ...I kind of do," he said softly.

"But it's a sin." Yuugi heard the shock in his friend's voice. "It's in the Bible. – Yuugi, it's against the law. What if someone finds out?"

"You don't understand." Now that he'd told her, Yuugi rushed to explain his words. He didn't want Téa thinking ...what she was probably thinking. "He loves me too. We're happy, Téa."

"But you can go to jail, Yuugi. And for what, for loving your br…" Her voice died away, and she just stared at him, her blue eyes getting wider and wider. "You have to be brothers," she said at last, her voice low, as if she was talking to herself more than to Yuugi. "You look just like him …and you don't look like just anyone, Yuugi. So that means you're in love with your …He's making love to… Oh my god," she cried, "I never did trust Donald!"

"I have to tell your parents about this." She turned a steely look at Yuugi. "They'll send him packing. – I'm sorry, Yuugi. I know you think you love him, but you can't. He's your brother."

But she'd always said she didn't think he was…

"Oh Yuugi, this is the worst thing that could have happened. You have to tell your parents about it." – She looked at him. – "Or I'll tell them for you. You can't stay with him if he's doing that to you."

"I'm not telling." Yuugi looked right back at her. "And you're not telling either," he said. "What's the worst that's happening here? I'm in love with my b- brother…" He felt tears flooding his eyes, and his voice grew thick. "It's against God, and it's against nature, and it's …against the law. I still love him, Téa. And you're still my friend, aren't you?"

Téa looked at him. At first it was the stubborn face he'd seen her use since Infant School, when she didn't want to do something, but then it softened. Then he saw tears in her eyes too. "I'm still your friend." Her voice was very soft. "I'll always be your friend, Yuugi."

"Then you can't tell," Yuugi told her. "You can't. – Promise me, Téa." He took her hands in both his. "This is my secret," he said. "You tell, and I …I don't know what I'll do…" Would he really give up her friendship for Donald? Could he? – Was it possible to stop liking someone just like that?

Téa tried for her stubborn face again, but the tears were already rolling down her cheeks. "I don't like this," she said. "I'm hurting you if I don't tell, Yuugi."

"You'd better not tell." Had he ever thought things could come to this? Had he ever pictured a time when he'd be using bully-tactics on his best friend? Yuugi glared at her. Unlike the bullies who had picked on him from time to time over the years, he didn't have muscles, or even a mean attitude, to enforce his threats. All he had was his friendship, for what that was worth. "I don't know what I'll do if you do, Téa. I'll tell about your… About the time when you…"

"You don't have anything and you know it." Téa gave him one angry glare, then she looked away. She pulled her hands out of Yuugi's, then busied herself putting her sandwich back in its wrappings, and the wrapped package back into her satchel. "I won't tell," she mumbled, her voice very low.

She stood, walking toward the door on tottery feet. Then, hand on the knob, she turned back. "My Uncle Angus is the constable," she said. "If you do get arrested, he'll …I'll ask him to let you escape." Tears flooded her eyes again, and she added in a choked voice, "oh Yuugi, you're going to be a f-fugitive from justice, and it's all Donald's fault!"