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Mokuba is going over to a friend’s tonight. Yugi says, “Wanna have a drink?” with bright-eyed enthusiasm. They don’t drink that much, mostly because of Mokuba (and to save money). Sometimes they’ll have some cheap beers on a game night, when Bakura comes over with some enormously complicated board game out of Europe, but it’s never a party.
Kaito hesitates. “No,” he says, though he’s clearly reluctant. “What if Mokuba calls me?”
Yugi puts the bottle of sochu down on the counter with a hard clink . “He’s not going to call you.”
“He might. If it’s an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency is going to happen while they watch monster movies?”
“Any kind. If someone gets hurt. O-or,” Yugi’s looking at him, “if it’s...not safe…”
“Kaito-kun.” He says it firmly, but not unkindly. “They’re not going out. You met the other kid’s parents. How often do you get the chance to just relax ?”
It's an annoyingly fair question. The answer is, truly, never - or not since he was nine or ten. He’s less on edge on those board game nights, with the cheap beer, when Mokuba’s just up in his room doing homework, and there’s no immediate threat - but that’s not what Yugi means. His shoulders never really untense; his eyes never really stop scanning the horizon; each possibility that could go wrong is never dismissed without first being accounted for.
And Yugi smiles, pouring sochu into a glass and topping it with lemon soda to make a cheap chuhai. He brings the glass to him, puts it into Kaito’s hand, and clinks it together with his own. “Cheers.”
---
He’s actually been kissed before. His fan in high school was a girl, whose name he no longer remembers, if he ever knew it at all. She went to every soccer game to watch him, and all the practices, cheering for Kaito-senpai. It was annoying. One time she brought him a box of cookies. He brought them back to Mokuba in the orphanage dormitory. She asked how they were and he said his brother enjoyed them; that seemed to upset her, but it never even occurred to him to eat them himself.
She waited until he came out of the locker room after practice on a Saturday (he was usually last out), pushed him up against the wall, and put her mouth over his. She surprised him, because obviously she was shorter - but his reaction was disgust, not adoration. He told her to get lost, and her friends all yelled at him at lunch on Monday. It took Yugi intervening to make them leave him alone.
---
“-no, if you wanna really play, it’s Fox v Fox, Final Destination!” They’re laughing on the couch, GameCube controllers in hand. Yugi will shove his shoulder and Kaito will shove him back, and oh fuck, they’re spilling sticky soda, but when’s the last time he laughed like this -
“I don’t wanna do that, it’s boring!” He’s whining, and it’s cute. “I wanna be Jigglypuff!”
“Fuck Jigglypuff!”
“You fuck Jigglypuff!”
“I very obviously do not!”
That makes giggles bubble out of Yugi’s throat, snorts spilling through his nose, he has to cover his mouth to keep from spitting. “Kaito-kun doesn’t like pink, bouncy things.”
But he’s not mad, he’s snorting just as much, struggling to keep from smiling. “Nope.”
Yugi puts down his drink to palm his chest. “Doesn’t like soft things.”
“Uh huh!”
“Only likes hard things-”
“Oh, hard, huh?”
Yugi laughs harder, crawling over his lap. “How hard?” They’re almost hysterical with laughter.
“You tell me, Muto.”
“Oh, I bet you’d like that, no one’s ever complained-”
“Is that so?”
“You wanna see?”
“You’re not gonna show me anything, you’re a chicken-”
“Am not!”
“Bawk, bawk, baw-” Yugi’s mouth is over his. The noises stop.
It’s not like that nameless girl, it’s soft and warm and is sticky with lemon soda. Yugi sighs against him, and his arms slip over his neck. And Kaito’s brain is lighting up with fireworks and warning signs, but Yugi doesn’t seem to see the lights, and Kaito’s hands hold him at his back. They part - and he kisses him again, a little more insistently, their lips melting together so he can taste the alcohol, too. He can...he can feel a smile against his mouth, how strange, that one can smile and kiss at once - that kissing him makes Yugi smile. There’s a tiny flick of a tongue against his mouth, and he would have expected to be scared stiff, but it feels like the most natural thing in the world, and if he could notice, he’d know that his shoulders aren’t stiff here, and he feels...he feels- safe- and-
The front door opens. “Seto, Yugi, I’m home!” When Mokuba comes into the living room, Yugi’s back in his own armchair, cross-legged with his drink between his knees.
“Hey, Mokuba,” he says it nonchalantly, almost like it didn’t affect him. Kaito could nearly admire it. “How was it?”
“It was fun.” He flops next to his brother. “You guys playing Melee? Who’s who?”
“Fox v Fox,” Yugi answers before Kaito can say anything. “Final Destination. You wanna watch?”
--
He actually just figured he didn’t like anyone for the longest time. Even into adulthood, when he first started with his office, one of the secretaries flirted at him like mad. “Kaito-san,” one guy cuffed him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you ask her out? It’s a homerun!”
“Don’t want to.” When he was pressed and harried and harassed, he had said it was because he didn’t want to take her home; back then he had a tiny studio apartment, which was good enough, since he lived like a monk - but not exactly a place to score.
But really, he’d figured things out by college. He didn’t like people generally, but specifically physically, he didn’t like girls. The dreams were kind of a hint: he never popped stiffies in the locker room, but the sexual dreams he did have, a lot of them involved his soccer team and soapy showers and hands…
But it was difficult to know your sexuality in the orphanage, there was so little way to express it. If he woke up with a boner, if it was early enough, he could sneak into the bathrooms before anyone else was up and knock it out - but it wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t enjoyable. And since that’s all he’d learned in his impressionable years, that’s how it continued, even into that studio. He only took himself in hand when he had to, and it was never for pleasure, it was to get the matter over with.
And there was never time to date, and now, with the house - well, Mokuba is here, and Yugi- They made an agreement, no bringing dates home, because, again, Mokuba. Yugi is so easy going, always so understanding, he makes everything about the younger Kaito without truly being asked, just as Seto does.
And it’s...neat, kissing him, which happens now and again. Kaito is digging through the pantry for something, Mokuba’s not in the kitchen, but Yugi is, so he ducks in and kisses him. Bakura’s just gone home from a game night, Mokuba’s already asleep, they’re flopped on the couch, Yugi brings their mouths together and his tongue tastes like beer and it’s amazing. Kaito is pulling clothes out of the washing machine, Yugi quickly kisses him on the ear. It all feels so right and so good, and he’s not even afraid of it. This uncertainty - are they roommates, are they something else? Should they be? - and he’s not even afraid of it.
Amazing, to not be afraid of someone.
--
He won’t remember how the argument started, except that Mokuba was spending the night at a friend’s and they drank way too much. Probably it was just a shitty day at the shitty office with his shitty boss, and he takes it out on the one person who doesn’t deserve it. Arguments with them aren’t common, but this one gets completely out of pocket. He won’t remember how it started, but he’ll remember how it ended: the bitter back and forth, something about Kaito needing to put himself first in one single thing, and that it’s the only way to really take care of his brother, and-
“Oh, please, I know what this is,” he sneers, he can’t take anymore of this. “Yugi’s come to save me again.”
His eyes widen, and Kaito regrets it, even if it’s a little true. Yugi goes out of his way to befriend the loneliest boy in the class. Yugi tells the girls at school to leave him alone. Yugi hears Seto Kaito needs a roommate, or he can’t get this house, and he can’t get his brother from the orphanage, and he leaves his apartment to split it with him, paying more and getting less.
Anyway, there aren’t any kisses that night.
--
Well, it’s more than a little true. While he’s at work the next day, Kaito remembers one experience in particular. Sitting in the chair across from the guidance counselor’s desk. “-Kaito-kun, you don’t understand, these schools are your ticket to a better life. Do you think everyone gets offers like these, from these universities? They don’t. The life you could make for you and your brother, in ten years-”
“I don’t have ten years.” He hated how the tears stung his eyes, how he could only hiss to keep them from spilling over. “Mokuba needs me now, today. I’m not going to any school if it means leaving him behind.”
The disappointment in the counselor’s face was...difficult to swallow. He wrenched the office door open, and nearly knocked Yugi over in the hall, waiting for his own appointment. Yugi never pressed him, never asked, looking up at him with those big, purple eyes.
But the next day, in class, there was a piece of mango candy in his desk. They weren’t supposed to be sneaking things into other desks…
But there was Yugi, saving him again.
--
“Kaito-kun.” Yugi gives him time and space when he gets home from work, but he approaches him after dinner - a dinner that Yugi made, like he always does, because that’s what he does - “I owe you an apology. You’re right, you don’t need anyone to tell you how to live your life, to save y-”
“Yes, I do.” Yugi is so stunned, he seems to forget the rest of his speech. Kaito gets up from the chair he’s sitting in, and walks across the room to where Yugi is. “I need you to save me, Yugi.” And he takes his face between his hands, and this time he does the kissing.
And it’s...it’s a lot, in that kiss. He pulls him close with his elbows pinioned between them, and into that kiss he pours his loneliness, his yearning - for affection and companionship and a feeling of being safe at last. He begs in that kiss, for Yugi to stay, for Yugi to-
“Please save me.” He whispers it when they part, but he hasn’t let go of Yugi yet, eyes closed. The space between them is charged, but the only sound is the ticking of the clock on the wall.
And Yugi, he reaches up and his arms go around his shoulders, like the life preserver he’s always been.