This whole story started out as an idea to have slightly aged up characters touring the US as stars of a dueling extravaganza. I also liked the idea of them getting a chance to misbehave, and it grew from there. There are some comical moments, with dark (cynically British) humour, there will also be some darker themes, such as Jonouchi getting caught by a honey trap and drugged and robbed in the first chapter.
This chapter has some smutty humour, with Yugi watching pornography and Kaiba teasing him about it, which I suppose could be viewed as flirting but is really just Kaiba being cynical and mean. Yugi also reflects on his time spent with Atem, and tries to reconnect with Anzu, because he still loves her.
Chapter 2.
Embarrassment.
Not much escaped Seto Kaiba, or Pegasus for that matter, especially not in his own hotel, and Yugi's one night fling with Mai had not gone unnoticed.
Unbeknown to the two naughty duelists, the CCTV cameras had picked them up in the lobby entering the lift together, and again, hands all over each other while exiting the lift.
For Pegasus, it had become routine to check the CCTV; the cameras were not really there to spy on unsuspecting duelists getting up to mischief, but to monitor for potential criminals after a recent spate of thefts from guests rooms.
Seto, on the other hand, liked to know everything that went on out of habit and paranoia.
Of course, Pegasus found it rather amusing. "Well, well, naughty Yugi Boy, bedding the lovely Miss Mai Sweet Valentine!"
Seto snorted. "I wonder how the Mutt will react when he finds out about their dirty little secret."
"Now, now, Kaiba-Boy. It's not our place to interfere in their love lives, or to stir up trouble," Pegasus said in an admonishing tone, which irritated Seto. In his opinion, Pegasus should not be condoning such irresponsible behaviour, or making jokes about it.
"Hmph! Whatever. I shouldn't have to remind you that they're supposed to be professional duelists." What with fending off press interest in Katsuya Jonouchi's recent stunt, keeping them under control was becoming a full time job. "I fully expect the mutt to behave like an idiot, but not Muto, or Kujaku."
Pegasus waved him off. "Oh, Seto my dear boy. They're human beings, not saints. Maybe you should learn to be more like them, and perhaps let yourself have a little fun every now and again. It would do you good."
Seto folded his arms and huffed. "What I get up to in my spare time is no one else's business, especially not yours." He had a reputation as a businessman to protect, and going to clubs, drinking and putting it about recklessly, would leave him open to possible exploitation. "I think they should be told to reign it in. We don't want this tour to degenerate into a scandalous farce."
Pegasus could not disagree with that. "Perhaps I shall have little talk with them."
::::::::::::
With the luxury of two days off before they travelled on from Las Vegas, Yugi decided to head to the gym and then the spa for the afternoon.
Unfortunately, he was accosted en-route by Pegasus. "Ah! Yugi-Boy. Do you have a moment?"
"I er.. was just on my way to the gym. What's it about?" Pegasus ignored his question.
"Wonderful! It won't take a minute. I just wanted a quick chat with you." He gestured Yugi to follow him to his office. Call it duelists instinct, but Yugi had a bad feeling in his gut.
"Are you enjoying the tour?" asked Pegasus.
"Yeah… I am, actually." They had reached the office.
Pegasus smirked at him as he opened the door. "A little too much, I would say."
Yugi narrowed his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Pegasus gestured for him to sit. "I have already given Katsuya a talking to about his behaviour: turning up looking like trash, stinking of cheap women and alcohol, is not what I expect of one of my star duelists. The media have been an absolute pain in the backside, and I've been forced to waste the last two days dealing with it."
Yugi frowned. "If you're saying I should have stopped him, he's big enough to make his own bad decisions." Pegasus flipped him off.
"Oh, it's not your fault, Yugi-Boy. The problem I have with you is your inability to keep your willy in your pants."
"What?!" Mortified, and embarrassed beyond belief at Pegasus's use of the word, willy, Yugi could feel his face heating up. "I.. I... Ryuji's the one you should be talking to about that, not me!" Ryuji Otogi wasn't appearing as a duelist on this tour, but did work for Pegasus and was involved with some of the staging.
"I'm not interested in Ryuji's conquests. I'm talking about yours; in particular, the lovely Miss Mai."
Yugi's mouth fell open. "H… How do you know about Mai?!"
"You are staying in my hotel, Yugi-Boy. And a little birdie told me…" He cleared his throat, stopped talking in his affected voice and became more serious. "We have been suffering a spate of robberies lately. I suspected a member of staff, so I had some extra CCTV cameras installed in the corridors and on the lifts." Yugi's mouth formed an 'O'.
"You won't tell Jonouchi, will you?"
"Of course not! It's not up to me. But I do think you should think about who you're doing next time you take someone to your room. I don't want you and your best friend fighting because of a woman, no matter how beautiful she is. It would seriously jeopardise the tour."
Yugi nodded. "Don't worry. It won't happen again. It's just.. well, Jou and Mai split up and she and I shared a bottle of champagne and… it just happened, you know? I'm not proud of myself."
"I'm sure you're not. You usually display the utmost integrity. Unfortunately, since you split up with your lovely little dancing queen you've let your integrity slip a little. Fans see you as the perfect role model: a sweet, innocent young man, with a good moral compass. You are not supposed to be seen drinking alcohol and having casual sex."
Yugi was blushing again. "No one is perfect, Pegasus. I'm not sitting in my room the whole time, reading books!" He certainly did not want to be seen by fans as an innocent saint any more than he wanted to be seen as a hell raiser and womaniser.
"I'm not asking you to stay in your room alone. Just, be a little more discreet about who you take to your room. Hotel maids are definitely not on the menu."
"That was once," said Yugi petulantly.
"Once! Twice! It doesn't matter. Please don't have sex with my staff while they're on duty."
Yugi sighed. He agreed to behave, but could not help feeling a bit annoyed that Pegasus was treating him like a naughty school boy caught sneaking girls into his dorm room. He was a young man with a healthy libido, capable of making his own choices. But he would do his best to comply.
:::::::::::
Later that evening, Yugi was alone in his room, feeling horny.
However, following Pegasus's lecture, he decided he should probably lay low until the fuss dies down, and make do with a porn video and his hand.
The hotel had a very good subscription channel, and Yugi found one with a woman dancing and stripping and touching herself. If he squinted, he could almost imagine the woman in the video was Anzu, dancing especially for him. To get himself in the mood, he turned the lights down low, stripped off and lay naked on the bed.
As the woman danced and provocatively stripped, a second woman joined her, and Yugi started to get himself off.
A naked man's torso, with an erect penis came into view and the first woman knelt down to give it some attention, while the second woman gave her some attention from behind.
Pumping himself, Yugi imagined that the man was him, and was just getting really worked up, when there was a knock at the door.
He tried to ignore it, but the knock became more persistent. "I know you're in there Yugi!" Seto Kaiba said impatiently.
Hand still curled around his cock, Yugi sighed. "What do you want, Kaiba? I'm busy!" he said irritably. On the TV screen, the women were moaning and the man was grunting.
"Are you watching porn?" asked Seto with an amused smirk.
So what if he was? It was none of Kaiba's business. He wanted to say as much, but it came out as an embarrassed sounding, "No!"
"You do realise that the door is not soundproof." He was also aware of every charge the duelists racked up, and already knew about Yugi putting a subscription to a porn channel on his tab.
Mortified, Yugi scrabbled for the remote and hit pause. Embarrassed beyond belief, he managed to say, "I'm not doing anything wrong."
Seto's smirk was growing wider. "If you wanted a hand job, you only had to ask, I would be happy to oblige," he teased. He was so tempted to suggest Yugi ask Mai, but that would be low, even for him.
"What?!" Yugi squeaked, extremely shocked at what his rival was suggesting. "Kaiba!"
Seto rolled his eyes. "Relax. I've no desire to touch your tiny penis. But I could arrange for a reliable, clean prostitute for you." Imagining his rival squirming with embarrassment was priceless.
"Oh…" Yugi grimaced. He was tempted to respond to the insult towards his manhood, by telling him that it wasn't tiny, but that would be taking the bait, so he ignored it. "Another time, maybe." He cleared his throat. "Why are you knocking on my door? It's supposed to be my evening off."
"You're the King of Games, there's no such thing as time off. Hurry up and finish your wank, and then I want you down in the function room in fifteen minutes, for an interview with the media."
Yugi groaned. "Seriously?! It's eight in the evening!"
"Yes, seriously. I expect you to be on time. And, Yugi." He paused for a second and smirked. "Make sure you clean yourself up afterwards." If Yugi could have reached one of his shoes, he would have thrown it at the door.
Flopping back down on the bed, Yugi looked down at his withering erection and sighed.
Meanwhile, satisfied with himself for humiliating Yugi, Seto was just about to leave when he felt an embarrassing twitching inside his pants. With the media waiting downstairs, now was not good timing to get a boner. Besides, he considered masturbating to porn to be an act of the desperate, and Seto was not desperate.
Mind you, he was definitely tempted to check out the porn channel Yugi had found later on tonight, to see if it was any good.
::::::::::::
Turning off the TV, Yugi lay in his darkened room for a few moments and stewed, before padding to the bathroom to freshen up and get dressed.
He made it to the conference room on time, and spotted Pegasus and Kaiba by the table that had been set up for him to sit behind while he answered the silly questions that would inevitably be thrown at him by the media. He made his way over to sit down, and tried to avoid eye contact, but Kaiba looked over at the wrong moment and gave what Yugi perceived to be a rather evil, knowing smirk.
Yugi felt his face heating up with embarrassment, until it was almost as red as the design on the tee-shirt he was wearing. Despite telling himself not to feel ashamed, his face was still burning when he sat down behind the nameplate with his name on. If Kaiba thought that dealing with natural urges was a dirty joke, then he was the one with a problem, not him.
"You decided to show up, then?" said Seto smugly.
Yugi shot him an irritable glare. "You didn't give me much choice."
Pegasus cleared his throat. "The sooner we begin, the sooner you can get back to enjoying your evening, Yugi Boy!" The innuendo made Yugi want to curl up and die. No doubt Pegasus had seen the room tab, too.
"Is it just me, or are Jonouchi and Mai attending?" Yugi asked, trying not to sound too pissed-off. Pegasus glanced at his watch impatiently.
"If they don't show up in five minutes, we'll start without them." Neither Seto or Pegasus wanted to waste the evening waiting for Jonouchi and Mai to show up any more than Yugi wanted to be here.
Pegasus let out an exasperated sigh of relief when, two minutes later, the pair strolled into the room as though they had the whole night to kill. "Nice of you both to put in an appearance!" he said sarcastically.
Jonouchi waved him off as if he did not have a care in the world. "Meh, no problem, Max."
Beside him, Mai giggled.
Seto glared at the pair. "Have you two been drinking?"
"Maybe!" said Jonouchi.
"This knucklehead proposed. We've been celebrating our engagement," said Mai. Beside her, Jonouchi was grinning.
"Oh, young love! And here I was thinking you two weren't talking after your little tiff. How wrong I was!" Pegasus crowed.
With a huge knot of guilt forming in his stomach, Yugi did his best to congratulate his two friends as naturally as he could. It was only a few nights ago since he slept with Mai, and now she and Jonouchi were engaged. Was Mai not feeling any remorse at all?
And they still had a press conference to get through.
Somehow, Yugi managed to survive it, and answered all the questions aimed at him with the usual relaxed, polite grace he always displayed at these kind of things. But he was relieved when it was over and was glad to escape back to his room.
He wasn't quick enough. "Ain't you gonna come to the bar and have a drink with us, Yug?" his best friend asked.
"Er.. I'd love to, Jou, but I'm knackered. Those journalists have given me a headache so I'm gonna turn in." Upon seeing his friend's disappointment, he added, "I'm really pleased for you both. But don't screw up this time!" As he spoke, it was difficult not to look at Mai. It made him feel two faced.
Grinning, Jonouchi play punched him in the shoulder. "You bet we won't, will we Mai?"
"Not unless you do," she replied. Her gaze caught Yugi's as she spoke, and she winked at him playfully.
What the heck was she playing at? If she was trying to make him feel really awkward, it was working.
:::::::::
Back in his room, Yugi kicked off his shoes and flopped onto his bed with a groan. What a fucking embarrassing, dreadful evening. It had put in in a really bad mood.
After laying there brooding for a few minutes, he got undressed and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
Teeth brushed, he pulled on his pyjamas and climbed into bed, propping himself up against the headboard, he tried to read a gaming magazine in an attempt to improve his mood. But he found it hard to concentrate. Sighing, he put the magazine down. It was only just gone ten, but he may as well go to sleep.
He turned off the reading lamp above the bed, settled down on his back and closed his eyes. As was often the case when he was on his own at this time of night, he started thinking about Atem. He still missed the way his old friend would emerge from the confines of the Puzzle and sit and watch over him as he slept. The first couple of times he had apparated like that, Yugi had found it difficult to sleep with a semi transparent figure, who looked almost identical to himself, sitting in the chair at his desk, gazing thoughtfully up at the stars through the skylight. But he soon got used to his friend being there, and even started to find it comforting. Atem would never admit it, but Yugi knew that he found it a comfort too. The cold, dark maze of the Puzzle was a lonely place, devoid of comfort, and Yugi knew that Atem longed to be released from the chains that were binding him to it, so that he might be given the freedom to find his peace.
In the end that freedom had come at a cost. But letting him go had been the right thing to do, no matter how difficult it had been. It was hard to believe that it was now a little over three years ago since the Ceremonial Duel. Sometimes it felt longer than that. At other times it felt like it was only yesterday that Atem was still here.
Yugi let out a long sigh. He would always miss him. But these days it was with fondness, rather than the sadness and regret he had been filled with for the first few months after he left. Yugi now appreciated just how lucky he was to have known Atem at all, and being able to see him one last time after Diva had been defeated, and be able to thank him….for everything, had helped give the closure Yugi needed.
Atem was in a good place, and so was Yugi.
In not such a good place, was Yugi's relationship with Anzu.
What had started out so good, had become strained. They both knew that long distance relationships were often doomed to fail, but believed that their love was strong enough to endure.
But when, after a year and a half of being away, Anzu suggested they should put romance on hold and go back to being just friends, Yugi was devastated. They hardly ever saw each other, that was the reasoning, and it was for the best, apparently.
Putting on a brave face, Yugi reluctantly agreed they should put love on hold, but only because he thought that once Anzu graduated she would come home and they would get back together again. However, she rang him a week later and suggested that they should be allowed to date other people, adding that she had a new boyfriend.
Yugi was devastated. So hurt, that his reaction had not been what she expected, or hoped. He had even surprised himself when he said, 'What, am I suppose to be pleased for you?! Well, I'm not. I hope he turns out to be a complete asshole."
Anzu had been mortified and upset. Yugi had been unrepentant. He was no longer the timid boy, who always apologised for the hurtful things other people said or did to him, and he refused to say he was sorry for what he felt was cruel way to dump someone.
They had spoken only once since then, but it had been tense.
However, Yugi knew he could not let the bad feelings fester forever. The tour would reach New York in just over two weeks, and if he wanted Anzu to meet up with him while he was there he had to make it right between them, even if that did mean apologising.
There was no time like the present.
Flicking the light back on, he squinted and let his eyes adjust, before picking up his phone. He tapped on Anzu's icon and heard it ringing. It rang for a while, and just as he thought it would probably go to voicemail, she answered with a muffled, grumpy, "You woke me up."
He hastily glanced at the alarm clock on the night stand. It was only ten thirty. "Oh!.. Sorry. I didn't think you'd be asleep yet."
"It's half past midnight," she replied irritably.
"Oh! Time zones. I forgot." He grimaced. "I'll, mm hang up and call tomorrow." He was losing his nerve anyway.
"No!" she said abruptly. "I'm awake now. What do you want?"
Yugi bit his lip. She sounded like she was still angry with him. "We'll be in New York in a couple of weeks."
"I know," she said tersely.
"I was hoping to see you while I'm there," he said nervously.
"You will," she said. "Mai suggested we all meet up. She also sent me a guest ticket for the show."
Shit! Why had he not thought of sending her a ticket?
"I don't like fighting with you," he said earnestly.
"We're not fighting," she said churlishly.
Her response kick started his stubborn determination and his tone changed, adopting a little more authority. "Maybe not, but there's definitely a problem between us that we need to resolve, before it's too late!"
"We could both try saying 'sorry'?" she suggested. "But until you take back what you said, I'm not apologising."
Exasperated, Yugi ran his hand over his face. "Right! I shouldn't have said what I did. I'm sorry, okay?" His tone was clipped. Anzu huffed.
"You could sound a bit more like you mean it," she grumbled.
"Look! I'm trying, okay? But I'm struggling… I was upset, and jealous –I still am."
Anzu backed down a little and sighed. "Well, you were right. He did turn out to be an asshole."
"Really?!" Yugi was unable to keep the happiness from his voice. "What happened?" he asked, trying to inject a little sympathy into his voice and failing.
Anzu shrugged. "I'd rather not discuss it," and changed the subject. "How are you, anyway? Are you enjoying the tour?"
Did he confess to some of the things they had been getting up to, so that she would know how it felt to be hurt by someone you love? Best not. "I am for the most part, but it does get a bit full on at times. Always under scrutiny. Not much time to myself."
She giggled lightly. "I'm looking forward to that sort of attention if I ever become the star of a show!"
"I'm sure you will. I know you will," he said with certainty.
She snorted. "We'll see. But I hope so." She let out a stifled yawn.
Yugi scratched his neck awkwardly. "I should er… let you get back to sleep. I'm sorry about the boyfriend." He wasn't, but felt it polite to say that he was.
Anzu chuckled. "No you're not. You're grinning from ear to ear."
He cringed. "How did you know?"
She tutted. "How long have we known each other?"
He smiled fondly. "That's why we make such a good couple." He wanted to talk more, but could tell she was tired and wanting to go back to sleep.
"Yeah…We do, or rather, we did." She hesitated. "We can talk some more when you're here." She did not want to talk about their relationship on the phone. It was too complicated for that.
"Sure. Before I go, I want you to know… I'm still in love you. Anzu," he said sincerely.
"Love you too, Yugi. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," he said, smiling as he ended the call. It was a start. An olive branch of sorts.
::::::::::::
Now wide awake, Anzu sat in bed pondering her surprise late night call from Yugi. They had been estranged of late, and his call had caught her off-guard. She wished she had not been so abrupt with him, but being woken up in the middle of the night always made her grumpy.
But he did not deserve her vitriol, not when she was the one who had ended their relationship and then told him she was dating another man. A man she had been unable to develop any romantic feelings towards because he was not Yugi. Sex with Ben just did not feel right, which was why she ended the relationship.
I had fun writing this chapter. Hope you enjoyed reading it.
Whatever will our duelists will get up to next?!