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Yugi flipped yet another page of his manga volume, feeling rather bored but not knowing how to entertain himself.
They were all supposed to be meeting up at the arcade today, but luck just didn’t seem to be on his friends’s side. Anzu had to cover up a shift on her part-time job at last minute notice, Honda had been forced by his sister to run some errand, and Bakura apparently had suffered an allergic reaction because he ate too much chocolate in a short span of time.
Therefore, Jounouchi appeared to be the only one who could stick to the plan, other than Yugi himself. Of course, they could still go by themselves, just the two of them, but it definitely would be better to save their money up for another occasion when everyone could play together.
So they’d decided to change the plan, and Jounouchi was just going to spend the day at Yugi’s, probably playing video games and eating junk food until his stomach couldn’t digest another single corn chip.
That was, if Jounouchi showed up at all.
Yugi gave the clock another uneasy glance, noticing that his friend was running twenty minutes late already. He’d checked his phone, in case the other boy had suffered an unfortunate event like the rest of the gang and had told him that they couldn’t hang out in the end, but there was no such message.
He flopped down on the bed again, unable to hold back a sad sigh. They’d all been looking forward to play, saving up money to buy lots of credits and trying to line up their schedules to find a day where all of them were available. Yugi knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed.
The Millennium Puzzle let out a gentle light, and Yami’s spirit was suddenly sitting on the bed, next to Yugi.
“I understand how you feel, Aibou, but there’ll definitely be another day where you all can manage to meet up.” he tilted his head to stare at the clock, which in turn made Yugi look at it as well. “On that note, I wonder if something happened to Jounouchi-kun.”
“I hope he’s okay. I’ll die of boredom if I can’t hang out with anyone today.” Yugi stated, very serious.
Yami arched an eyebrow. “You could always play Solitaire.”
Yugi’s face lit up as if his other self had just told him that he’d won the lottery. “Oh, you’re right! I could kill time with that, and it’s been long since I last played it! I should give it a try. Let’s see, where was my deck of actual cards…”
After nearly knocking down the contents of all his shelves, he managed to find it. He sat down on his desk, stretching his arms and getting ready for what he hoped would be an entertaining game.
Well, as entertaining as playing Solitaire could be, really.
He finished shuffling the deck and laying the seven piles of cards down, but, somehow, he felt uneasy about making any move.
Yami observed him with a rather unamused look, still sitting down on the bed. “Is something wrong?”
“There’s technically four types of Klondike Solitaire matches. Games that you can win, games that you can theoretically win unless you mess up a move, games that you can’t win because none of your moves are helpful, and straight up unplayable games.”
Yami nodded with uncertainty, seemingly not getting the point. “Although the probability of getting an unplayable hand is roughly just 1 in 400…”
“Yeah, you’re right. But…” he turned around to give Yami a worried gaze. “Everyone’s had bad luck today. What if…”
“You don’t think…” Yami trailed off.
Yugi gulped and Yami’s stance suddenly became a bit tense. Yugi started flipping the cards to see if there was any move he could make, getting more apprehensive as he checked the different piles.
“I literally can’t move any card.” Yugi said as soon as he finished looking over all the cards. “This has been the quickest defeat in my whole life.”
“It wasn’t even a defeat.” Yami argued. “Like you said, this would count as an unplayable game, because there wasn’t any possible move that you could’ve made.”
“I guess, but still. I can’t believe it.”
“Just shuffle the cards and try again.” Yami suggested.
Yugi looked about to follow his suggestion, but his hand stopped mid-air.
“What if we get an unplayable game again?”
“Aibou, the chances of that happening twice in a row would be… Very low.” Yami finished, not about to engage himself in pointless maths.
“But it’s not impossible.” Yugi insisted.
Five minutes later, the deck was safely stored in a box, and Yugi was once again laying on the bed, lamenting his boredom.
Just as he grabbed his phone to check his messages again, he heard a loud voice coming from downstairs. Yugi didn’t even have time to go down and greet him, because Jounouchi smashed his door open mere seconds later.
He looked pointedly mad, his hair was all messed up, and Yugi was afraid that, if he held onto the phone in his right hand with any more strength, he’d crack the screen in half.
“J-Jounouchi-kun, hi! How are you?” Yugi stammered, quickly standing up.
Jounouchi blinked exactly one time, and Yugi could swear that several veins had popped on his face. He opened his mouth, about to say something, but all that came out was a yawn. He dropped his head in defeat, opting to slowly make his way to Yugi’s desk.
He plopped himself down in the chair, turning it around so he was facing Yugi. He still held the phone on his hands, but at least now it didn’t look like he’d be breaking it any time soon.
“Yugi. My man. My dearest friend. I need to ask you something.”
“What is it, Jounouchi-kun?” Yugi inquired, scratching his chin nervously.
Jounouchi took a deep breath, bracing himself. Yugi noticed that Yami was also paying close attention to the boy’s words. Yugi really hoped that nothing had happened to Jounouchi, he was acting pretty weirdly and it wasn’t like him to be so late...
“Yugi, I know this is probably a stupid question to ask, because you’re good at pretty much any game I know, but… Are you good at rhythm games?”
What.
Yugi had been expecting to hold some sort of serious conversation, so he couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at Jounouchi’s sudden question. “Well… What kind of rhythm games do you mean?”
He hadn’t tried them out much, but he probably wouldn’t be that good at dancing, if that was what Jounouchi was asking him. Though, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t tried rhythm games at all… Action-based or strategic videogames as well as board games were his favorites, so...
Jounouchi seemed to be debating something with himself, but he shook his head. “To hell with my pride. I mean this one.” and he showed Yugi his phone’s screen.
The logo and interface certainly felt familiar, Yugi noted. Oh, right! He’d seen one of his classmates play it during free study period, and he hadn’t felt inclined to ask about it any further, but the pink cutesy menus had stuck in the back of his mind.
As well as the main character’s… Cat ear shaped hair. Was such a hairstyle even possible? Well, he probably wasn’t the best person to question that.
“I know that one, but I haven’t tried it. Why do you ask?”
Jounouchi’s shoulders slumped down. “My last hope is gone. You see, Shizuka really likes this game, but there’s this one song she hasn’t been able to beat in expert, so I wanted to do it for her. But it’s so damn hard!”
“How do you play it?” Yugi inquired, looking at the phone curiously.
“Here, let me show you.” Jounouchi put the phone down on the desk, motioning for Yugi to stand next to him. “You basically tap the screen to the rhythm of the song.”
He set the difficulty level to Expert and picked what seemed to be a 22 difficulty song. A band with 5 girls showed up when he tapped the play button.
“There’s four difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard and Expert. The higher the number of the song, the hardest it is to play. The hardest difficulty number is 29, and for a expert song, 22 is quite easy.”
Yugi nodded, picking up all the information without missing a beat. “And those girls?” he pointed at the screen.
Jounouchi’s cheeks got covered by a faint red glow. “Well… To play, you make a band with 5 different cards of the characters. Each card has different stats and skills.”
“That’s kinda like Duel Monsters.” Yugi couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, and how’s the actual gameplay?”
Yami also seemed interested, for he had stood up from the bed and was leaning over Jounouchi’s shoulder to take a look at the game.
“Just watch and you’ll get it.” Jounouchi said, tapping the big pink button to start the song.
Little did Yugi and Yami know that they were about to get pulled into the so-rumoured idol hell.
“Jounouchi-kun, for the last time, no. You can’t throw your phone out the window just because you failed to full combo this song.”
“But I was so close! So damn close, Yugi! And I keep failing on the last row of notes. The stupid flick notes. Because they’re—”
“We know, Jounouchi.” Anzu cut him. “You’ve ranted about the flick notes seven times this hour. Would’ve been eight, if I hadn’t stopped you right there.” she sighed hopelessly. “You’re all too obsessed with this game.”
Bakura gave the girl a pitiful smile. “They’re just having some fun, Anzu-chan.”
“They’re huddled in the corner of the classroom, tapping their phones as if they want to break them, constantly screaming when they don’t manage to beat a song. They also almost threw their phones out the window more than once, and you’re telling me they’re having just some fun?”
Bakura gave the group a glance before scratching his neck sheepishly. “You may have a point there.”
“Jounouchi got into it for Shizuka, Yugi got into it because of Jounouchi, and Honda… Well, also for Shizuka.” Anzu muttered, scratching her chin. “Is the game really that addictive?”
“Yes.” came the reply in unison from the three boys.
Anzu sighed again while Bakura laughed softly. The boy suddenly seemed to get an idea because of that, though. “We should all go to the arcade. Maybe someone there plays the game, and you could ask him for advice.”
Honda’s head perked up. “That’s actually not a bad idea…”
“Well, yeah, there’s a network for players of the game.” Jounouchi started to explain. “One person from the top 10 ranked ones lives in Domino City, so we tried to contact them, but they basically just told us to fuck off and get better by ourselves. Which is exactly what we’re doing.”
For emphasis, he turned up the volume of his phone a bit.
“They’re a lost cause. All of them.” Anzu sighed for the third time in the span of a couple of minutes.
“At least they’re making use of their time well, though.” Bakura said, turning to stare at the classroom’s clock.
“We wouldn’t be on detention if some dumbass,” Anzu turned around to pointedly look at Jounouchi, “hadn’t tried to play the game in the middle of a lesson.”
“Honda was doing it too, so I thought it’d be fine!” the blond protested.
“Honda-kun had the sound turned off, and he was pretending to take notes at least, though.” Bakura pointed out.
“They caught me because of you, dude.” Honda lamented his fate.
“But hey, I didn’t ask Bakura or Anzu to cover up for me, they just went and tried to do it by themselves, which made the teacher angry. So it’s not my fault they’re on detention.”
“Jounouchi, you could at least be a bit grateful! We tried to save your ass!” Anzu insisted.
“And I do appreciate it. I’m just saying you don’t have any right to complain about what I did.” Jounouchi retorted, looking at the girl with a shit-eating grin. “Don’t act as if you haven’t ever played Candy Crush during a lesson.”
Anzu’s face turned a bright red, but before she had any chance to talk back, Bakura intervened in the conversation. “Wait, then why is Yugi-kun on detention?”
“Right, he wasn’t using his phone in class and he didn’t try to cover up for Jounouchi…” Honda muttered.
They all slowly turned around to look at Yugi, who was intensely tapping his phone screen, seemingly not noticing the sudden silence or the four pairs of eyes watching him closely.
“Uh… Earth to Yugi?” Jounouchi tried. When the boy still didn’t reply, nor even blink, Jounouchi carefully poked his cheek. He scooted a bit closer, eyes widening when he finally heard the song that his friend was currently playing.
“He’s trying to survive the hardest song in the game.” Jounouchi explained, pressing a finger against his lips to indicate that they all should stay quiet, and hissing at Anzu when she tried to speak up.
The classroom remained deadly quiet for the next two minutes, except for the sound of a faint music and Yugi’s fingers constantly flicking and sliding across the screen. Anzu seemed torn between trying to talk again or not, but a glare from Jounouchi made her pick the latter.
The tapping finally stopped, but Yugi didn’t say anything, and Bakura was the first one inclined to ask, “Uh… Yugi-kun? Are you—”
“I DID IT!” the King of Games triumphantly yelled, startling everyone. Out of sheer happiness and satisfaction, he felt the need to hug someone, and the closest person to him happened to be Jounouchi, sitting on a chair right next to him.
Needless to say, in the next ten seconds Jounouchi was no longer sitting anywhere, because Yugi had tackled him with such intensity that he’d actually fallen off from his chair to the floor, Yugi following right after and falling on top of him.
Jounouchi immediately blushed, but Yugi didn’t seem to either mind or even notice the awkward position at all, because he still looked like a stupidly cute excited puppy.
“Look, Jounouchi-kun! I did it!” he proudly exclaimed, raising his head and grinning as he showed the blond his phone.
Jounouchi was about to say something, but all the words died down on his throat as his brain processed what he just saw.
“Holy shit.” he breathed out, staring at Yugi from beneath him with pure admiration. His lips slowly curved up into a proud smile. “You… You beat Shizuka’s song. The one that was giving her trouble.”
“Of course. You asked me for help, and it was a fun challenge for me, as well.”
“She’ll be so happy when I tell her that one of us managed to clear it. Thank you, Yugi.” Jounouchi muttered, voice low and solemn, but not unkind.
“It’s… It’s not a big deal…” Yugi’s tone had become very shy, seemingly having lost all the confidence that he carried himself with mere seconds ago. “I’m glad I could help...”
They stared at each other for a few moments, and Jounouchi couldn’t hold back a small chuckle as Yugi’s face slowly flushed red, finally taking account of their rather compromising position. He mumbled some incoherent babble as he carefully lifted himself up.
Jounouchi found himself missing the warmth.
Which was quite odd, because today the weather had engaged itself in a quest to try to be as bothersomely hot as it was physically possible, so he should be grateful that Yugi had pulled away, right?
Yeah. Definitely odd.
“Jounouchi-kun?” Yugi’s somewhat concerned voice made him snap out of his stupor. The small boy was offering him a hand to help him stand up, and when Jounouchi distractedly took it, he could swear that his hand had just suffered an electric discharge, because the mere contact had set it on fire.
Really, really odd.
“So, like…” Anzu piped up one day, while they were having their lunch break. “How long are you gonna keep being weird?”
Jounouchi arched an eyebrow. “Weird like what? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, Jounouchi, come on. Don’t play the dumb card with me.”
“I’m not playing any cards. Actually, I left my deck home today.”
“That was a terrible joke.”
“I know.” Jounouchi sighed. “Look, I just…”
He threw a conflicted look in Yugi’s direction. He was sitting at a bench, playing a Duel against Bakura, while Honda and a few other curious bystanders watched their match develop.
“Normally, you’d be right next to Yugi, being unnecessarily loud and cheering for him.” Anzu pointed out. “But instead you’re here, eating a sad sandwich all by yourself, looking as if you just had to fight an army of seventy Kaibas.”
That seemed to knock some life back into him, because he shivered at the mere thought. “A single Kaiba is already too much, thank you.”
Anzu let out a small laugh. They fell into silence for a moment, and then she wrapped a friendly arm around his shoulder. “If there’s something bothering you, I don’t want you to bottle it up. I’m worried, you know? You’ve been… You looked distant these couple of days.”
The sincere worry in his friend’s words moved Jounouchi’s heart, but he still didn’t know how to explain the problem to her. Or if it was a problem at all, or if he was just being dumb like usual.
“Did something happen with your father?” she cautiously asked, keeping her voice very faint so no one would overhear them talking.
Jounouchi grimaced. “Nothing like that, ‘ts just… Yugi.”
Anzu blinked in confusion. She waited for Jounouchi to keep talking, but he said nothing more, so she took the initiative again. “With Yugi? Did you two fight?” her eyes widened. “Is that why you’ve been specially distant to him these days?”
The blond shook his head fervently. “No, no! We didn’t fight. It’s just…” he tried again, but he really didn’t know how to properly explain it.
Or if he even wanted Anzu of all people to know. Because it kinda looked to him like she had a thing for Yugi, so maybe having this talk with her, specifically, wouldn’t be the best idea… Then again, maybe his imagination was wrong.
And no matter how he looked at it, Yugi was… Well, a boy. Jounouchi doubted that anyone in their knit-tight group would mind something like that, but he knew many people’s stance on the matter. So even if it was irrational, he couldn’t push the nagging fear in his stomach away.
Anzu rubbed his back comfortingly, encouraging him to continue. Jounouchi took a deep breath, bracing himself and simply deciding to follow his gut feeling. He hoped the right words would come all by themselves.
“I think I might like Yugi.” he simply said. “The… like- like.”
“That’s all?”
Jounouchi turned to look at her. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint why, maybe it was her tender smile, or the way her eyes seemed to be shining in amusement, but he had the feeling that she knew something he was unaware of.
“Yeah.” Jounouchi sighed, surprisingly relieved. He hadn’t noticed how much this’d been bothering him, and saying that simple sentence had lifted some weight off his shoulders.
“And how did you come to that conclusion?”
“Wait, Anzu, before that… I… I kinda thought you liked Yugi, too, so…” he trailed off. “If you don’t want to have this conversation, it’s fine, is what I mean.”
“I did, a bit, yeah.” she nodded. “But not anymore. It was just a small silly crush thing, you don’t need to worry.”
“Alright. Well, it sorta happened a few weeks ago, when we had detention.”
Anzu giggled, recalling the memory. “I see.”
“Yeah. I dunno, like, having him so close kind of stirred something up inside me. At first I thought that I’m just not used to such close contact, so it made me feel all weird. But the more I thought about it, the more that didn’t seem to be the case.” Jounouchi explained.
“How so?” she inquired with pursed lips.
“Well. To put an example, even now, with both of us being this close, I don’t feel weird at all. Or that one time Honda tried to teach me to slow dance, it wasn’t awkward, and it didn’t make me feel nervous,” noticing Anzu’s curious expression, he immediately added, “Don’t ask about it. Please.”
The girl decided to leave it be. Closing her eyes, she carefully mused over what Jounouchi had told her. “I get where you’re coming from, then.”
“And ever since, I can’t help but notice all the small things about Yugi. The exact curl and length of each of his bangs, his big round and adorable eyes, the small pouts he makes when he gets a bad hand while dueling, the...”
Jounouchi spent the next five minutes listing such minutious details that Anzu’s mind was clear of all her doubts.
“Jounouchi, I’m not a love expert, but you do sound like you like him. A whole lot, at that.” she stated as soon as he was done.
“I’m so dead.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” she laughed, patting his shoulder.
“But there’s just no way I suddenly like him in a couple of days. It just doesn’t make sense.” Jounouchi muttered.
“Maybe that’s not the case.” Anzu helpfully supplied. “Sometimes, people need a push to realise the feelings they didn’t know they had.”
“Anzu, please, this isn’t a corny movie or a badly written romcom book.”
“Life resembles fiction more than you’d think.” Anzu smiled cryptically. “But I mean it, Jounouchi. Maybe you’ve liked him for a long time, but simply didn’t actively understand it until now. Something happened, you’re seeing him in a different light and the realisation finally struck your brain.”
“I don’t know.” Jounouchi shook his head helplessly.
“It’ll be fine. I gave you my piece of mind, but at the end of the day, you’re the only one who can assess your own feelings.” Anzu squeezed his shoulder. “That being said, if you need advice or want to talk it out further, you can come to me, okay?”
“I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks a lot, Anzu. I still don’t see things clearly, but telling you definitely helped a bit.”
“No problem.” she grinned. “Though, honestly, if you think about it, Yugi has always managed to bring out your sappy side. I didn’t know you had it in you for the friendship speeches.”
Jounouchi’s cheeks became pink out of embarrassment. “Look, I still don’t know what happened that day. I literally just winged that out of nowhere.”
“But it’s what you really felt. I think you should speak with your heart as often as you can, Jounouchi. Thinking isn’t really your thing.”
“I’m gonna let that pass because I know you’re just trying to make a point.”
Anzu let out a loud chuckle, and Jounouchi couldn’t help but do the same. They were lame, so lame, but he wouldn’t have anything else.
“Okay, with that cleared up, I actually wanted to ask you something.” the girl said, when her laughter died down.
“Oh, what is it?”
“What’s your favorite band?”
Jounouchi blinked twice, taken aback by the unexpected question. Still, he decided to answer it, if only to humour Anzu. “Uh… I mostly like rock bands, but I liked Kinoko Teikoku a lot, their music is—”
“I mean bands in Bandori. The rhythm game.” Anzu clarified.
The blond smirked. “So you finally fell into the trap as well.”
“You all seemed to like it so much, and it did look quite cute and fun to play, so I checked it out!” she defended herself.
“Like I said, I like rock bands, so Afterglow’s obviously my favorite out of the five. And yours?”
“Then you also gotta like Poppin’ Party, they have a couple of rock songs as well!”
They then proceeded to spend the rest of their lunch break discussing favorite characters, bands and songs, completely engrossing themselves in the conversation and not realising how much attention they were drawing to themselves.
In fact, their discussion became so heated up that even Yugi and Bakura stopped in the middle of their duel to stare at them.
“What are those two doing?” Honda asked himself, scratching his head.
“I don’t know.” Bakura said, shaking his head. “They’re clearly arguing about something, though.”
Yugi remained silent, pretending to be focused on his cards, but he kept giving Jounouchi short glances. He’d noticed his rather weird behaviour in the past days, avoiding them as much as he could and being really silent all the time, so seeing him act like himself again was refreshing.
But Yugi couldn’t help the small pang of hurt in his chest. They were best friends, and Jounouchi was always the one to insist about how much he didn’t want him to keep his feelings all bottled up to himself.
He’d hoped he’d come and talk to him about whatever was bothering him, but he hadn’t, not even when Yugi had subtly asked multiple times throughout the week.
And yet, Anzu had clearly managed to help him deal with it in just a couple of minutes. It made him feel bad, but he didn’t exactly know why.
After some more days, and with many help and advice from Anzu, Jounouchi slowly but surely managed to accept his own feelings. He’d always admired Yugi and the boy was one of the most precious things in his life. His treasure.
Anzu had told him to ask her for advice if he needed it, but as if sensing that he wouldn’t actually keep his word, she hanged out with him and made him talk anyway.
He really appreciated everything the girl was doing for him. They’d always been good friends, but they’d grown really close thanks to all of their conversations.
Jounouchi had finally managed to get Anzu to spill her feelings as well, and she confessed that she’d developed a crush on Mai, back on Duelist Kingdom. Jounouchi hadn’t expected her to swing that way, but he supported her wholeheartedly, just like she’d done for him.
And when they weren’t talking about their love lives (or rather, the lack thereof), they simply chatted about mundane things or played some games, sometimes inviting the others.
Now that he’d finally decided that yes, he liked Yugi, he was able to act more confidently. Things weren’t exactly the same, obviously, but they were quite similar, enough for all of them to fall back into their comfort zone and pretend nothing had happened in the past couple of weeks at all.
Which is why he didn’t mind huddling in the couch with Yugi while they were playing video games at his house. After all they’d meant to do that when their arcade hang out got cancelled, but they’d ended up spending the entire evening teaching Yugi how to play the rhythm game, so they didn’t actually play any games together, and Jounouchi wanted to make up for that.
But he noticed Yugi wasn’t really playing his best. He usually easily beat Jounouchi at this one game, and yet he was struggling to come out victorious one fight after the other. Jounouchi asked if he was feeling all right, but Yugi brushed him off.
Until he decided that neither of them were having fun with this, and he pressed the pause button, effectively stopping his character from knocking Yugi’s one out yet again.
Yugi tilted his head to stare at him with a confused frown. “What’s the matter, Jounouchi-kun?”
“I should be the one asking that.” he retorted, setting his videogame controller down. “You’re obviously not focused on the game. You don’t really look like you’re having fun.”
“I am.” Yugi protested, but his words held little to no conviction. “Really, it’s okay. I’m spending time with you and I’m having fun.”
“You’re not being very convincing right now.”
“Even if there was something wrong, maybe I wouldn’t want to talk about it.”
“Yugi, I don’t want you to keep things to yourself.” Jounouchi insisted. “So—”
“Well, I could say the same thing!” Yugi cut him in the middle of his sentence, taking Jounouchi aback, because he’d never heard Yugi speak over someone. “There was something obviously bothering you, but you didn’t tell me, either!”
“That was different, I really couldn’t tell you.”
“But you could talk it out with Anzu, and not with your best friend?”
That got Jounouchi’s eyes to widen in shock. How had he learned that he’d explained his problem to Anzu? Did she mention it to him? No, she wouldn’t do that, especially not after she knew how much this meant to Jounouchi. But then how?
“You’d been acting distant, always sitting by yourself, and we all wanted to give you time, but you never told us what was wrong! Anzu had to walk up to you during lunch break so you’d talk!”
Oh. So he saw them.
“And now you want me to talk it out with you, when you haven’t been able to do the same?” Yugi didn’t even sound all that angry, just… sad, and disappointed, which only hurt Jounouchi more.
He’d always insisted that Yugi didn’t bottle things up, and he’d get mad if the boy ignored his advice. So it was only natural that Yugi would get mad as well, but he really wasn’t, or at the very least, he didn’t sound like it.
He really was too good for him.
“...I’m sorry, Yugi. I swear that if it’d been anything else, I would have told you, but I couldn’t.”
Because discussing your feelings with your crush is not a good idea, Jounouchi can tell that much.
“So it was me.” Yugi whispered softly. “You couldn’t tell me because it’s me . I’m the problem.”
“Yes— I mean, no!” Jounouchi shook his head and grabbed Yugi by his shoulders, forcing his friend to look at him so he’d see the honesty in his expression. “You’re not the problem. You haven’t done anything wrong, okay? I promise.”
“Jounouchi-kun…”
Yugi had wanted to ignore it, but it was impossible to pretend that he hadn’t grown afraid of Jounouchi secretly hating him, or not wanting to be his friend anymore. No matter how much his Yami had tried to reassure him, the growing fear and anxiety hadn’t allowed him to rest or focus on anything else, not even now.
So hearing from Jounouchi that he wasn’t a problem, that they were still best friends, had affected him more than he thought. Before he realised it, his vision had become blurry, and the tears that he’d been holding back all the past days finally streamed down his cheeks.
Jounouchi immediately wrapped his arms around him protectively, and Yugi let out a choked sob before hiding his face on the crook of Jounouchi’s neck. The blond simply held his friend close as tightly as he could, trying to act as if seeing Yugi cry because of him hadn’t broken his heart in half.
Yugi crying by itself was already a horrible and painful thing to witness, but knowing that he’d been the cause just made it twenty times worse. At least Yugi must’ve felt safe in his hold, because his crying had quickly slowed down. Jounouchi could feel his teardrops falling on his shirt and wetting his shoulder, which only helped to increase his guilt.
“Shh, Yugi, it’s okay. You’re my best friend, I’m sorry I didn’t notice this was bothering you so much. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”
“No, I don’t— I don’t want to make you feel forced to say it…” Yugi sniffled a bit.
Jounouchi gently ruffled his hair. “It’s okay, I’ve made up my mind, and I’d have to tell you eventually, anyway.”
Yugi simply nodded weakly against his shirt. “If you’re sure.” he croaked out.
Jounouchi racked his brain, desperately trying to think up of a nice way to tell him. He’d have to confess at some point, he just hadn’t expected himself to be doing it so soon, so he was clueless.
Until he remembered Anzu’s words, try to speak with your heart. Jounouchi nodded to himself, deciding to follow her advice for a lack of an actual confession speech.
He faintly noticed the sweat dripping down his neck and the warmth in his cheeks. Fuck, was he really gonna do it?
He had to, for Yugi’s sake. And for his own, probably, at a long term scale.
“Yugi, you… You’re one of the most precious people to me.” he began, not knowing where his gut feeling was headed towards. “Even though I was so obsessed with fighting, and always bothering you, you still stood up for me and called me your friend, even when I didn’t deserve it.”
“Jounouchi-kun—”
“Let me finish. Lately I’ve… been thinking about it. About how much our friendship means to me, to us both. And I found myself reaching a obvious conclusion. I… I don’t want to be your friend.”
“What?” the small boy breathed out, all his fears arising again.
“I love you as more than that, Yugi.” Jounouchi finished, closing his eyes and letting out a heavy sigh.
That was hard. Even just following his heart or whatever, it had still been very hard. But he felt more confident and certain with every word that he spoke, and in the end, the last sentence effortlessly slipped from his lips, like saying it was as natural as breathing.
Now he just had to wait for Yugi’s reaction. His heart throbbed with anticipation, hoping beyond hope that Yugi would be perfectly okay with it and still be his best friend. He was willing to push these feelings down for their friendship’s sake, but Yugi deserved to know the truth, anyway.
...Now it’d be nice if Yugi reacted at all, because he hadn’t moved an inch since Jounouchi had stopped talking. On one hand he wanted to open his eyes and see what was going on, but on the other, simply keeping them shut sounded way easier.
Finally, the boy on his arms stirred awake.
“...Well, this may be a bit awkward.”
Jounouchi paused for a second. That— It sounded like Yugi’s voice, sort of, but…
He finally decided to take a look, mouth forming a small ‘o’ shape as he saw the two additional streaks of hair on his friend.
So he was now holding...The other Yugi, not Yugi. It suddenly did feel a bit awkward.
“Uh…”
“I think your words had such a strong impact on Aibou that he just… Left me to deal with it.” Yami explained, and Jounouchi couldn’t tell if he sounded irritated, amused or both.
“Oh.” Jounouchi merely said. Then, as if he suddenly noticed that he was still hugging Yami, he was about to pull away, but to his utter disbelief Yami actually snuggled up just a bit closer, clearly not in a rush to get away from Jounouchi anytime soon.
“Me and Aibou are not so different. Our feelings tend to be very similar on most things, and we can feel what each other feels, so I know he knows how I feel right now.”
“And how do you feel? Um, both of you...?” Jounouchi timidly asked.
“Happy.” Yami replied, raising his head from Jounouchi’s chest. He was admittedly a bit taller, Jounouchi noticed, so he had no problem resting it on Jounouchi’s shoulder instead. Yami’s bangs tickled his neck tenderly, and all the awkwardness he was feeling moments ago was gone.
Yami tilted his head, lips brushing softly against Jounouchi’s jawline, sending a shiver down the blond’s spine.
“Aibou has liked you even before you two became friends, Jounouchi-kun.”
“What? Really?” Jounouchi sputtered, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Yami didn’t respond. Instead, he said, “I know he’ll say it back, eventually. Give him time.”
“Yugi loves me too?” the boy could simply not believe that someone as kind and perfect as Yugi would love a simple wannabe idiot like him. It sounded like one of the most illogical things that he’d heard on all his life, and he’d heard many, many stupidities.
Again, Yami didn’t give him an answer.
“But wait, you’re— You’re saying Yugi likes me, but you’re…” he trailed off, uncertain.
“I said that me and Aibou aren’t so different, didn’t I?” A small pause. “But I understand you love him, not me.”
“No, wait, I didn’t mean, uh…” Jounouchi tripped over his own words, so he forced himself to restart the sentence. “I… I like it when Yugi’s being… Well, Yugi.” he dumbly commented. “But… The confidence he carries himself with while dueling… I like that, too, and that’s on you. So. Yeah.”
Yami stared at him blankly before letting out a small chuckle. Jounouchi nearly forgot how to breathe when he heard it, because he realised it was the first time he’d heard Yami laugh, and he hadn’t expected it to be such a soft and blissful sound.
“I suppose it will all be alright, then.” Yami said, returning to rest his head on Jounouchi’s shoulder. “I have a petition, though.”
“Mhm?"
“When we untangle ourselves from this predicament, I’d like you to watch me play the rhythm game. Aibou may have practiced more, but I believe that with your help, we’ll be able to overpass him.”
Now it was Jounouchi’s turn to laugh. “You’re on.”