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The silence that settled after Jounouchi Katsuya's departure was not merely an absence of sound; it was the world holding its breath. Thick, suffocating and deafening. Kaiba Seto remained motionless, his posture rigidly perfect, a statue at a table set for two. His world, so meticulously ordered and controlled, had not so much tilted as it had broken, and the evidence of its destruction was scattered across the crisp white linen in front of him.
His gaze was locked, unblinking, on the small, velvet box.
It was a simple case, dark and unassuming. Yet, it held a gravitational pull that made everything else in the world seem insignificant. The rest of the items—the folded bills, the key, the phone, the carnival passes, the little origami flower—were merely asteroids orbiting this impossible, collapsing star. His lungs refused to draw breath, his body frozen in a moment of catastrophic miscalculation.
His mind, usually so sharp and cunning, processing a thousand variables at once, couldn't process them. It could only barely process the box.
Slowly, as if moving through a viscous fluid, a hand lifted from his lap. The motion was foreign, jerky, not his own. Fingers, usually so sure and steady, trembled slightly as they hovered over the dark velvet. His stomach, a moment ago a knot of cold resolve, plummeted, twisting into a nauseous spiral of dread. The tips of his fingers made contact with the plush surface, and it was only then that his stuttering lungs managed to draw breath once colliding with it.
The hinge opened without a sound.
The meager air he did manage to take in left his lungs in a silent, useless rush. The restaurant, the lights, the distant clatter of fine silverware—it all faded into a dull hum, a static that roared through him.
It was devastating.
The restaurant’s ambient light caught the stone immediately. It wasn't the cold, clinical platinum or sharp silver everyone would have expected. It wasn't a heartless, colorless diamond, or clean cut sapphire. It was rose gold—warm and human. And at its center was a pear cut citrine, the exact hue of a captured sunset, glowing with a soft, internal fire. Smaller citrines were set like scattered sunbeams within a winding ivy vine of more rose gold, an intricate design that spoke of patience, of care, of deep, knowing love.
This ring wasn't meant for the CEO of KaibaCorp, an industry titan. It wasn't for the prodigy, the grand champion, or the curt, untouchable genius the world saw immersed in sterile silver and icy blues. Armored behind technology—clean, hard, and impersonal—a reflection of the carefully curated mask he showed every business associate and society columnist, his enemies—the world. An untouchable god among men, ruling from a hard steel and glass tower above them all.
No.
This ring was for a boy who had been broken in a manor of cold marble and colder lessons. It was for the ghost who had been forced to haunt a life. The man hiding inside of it all, still fighting tooth and nail the only way he knew how. The man who secretly craved color and warmth and the vibrant, messy humanity that had been systematically beaten out of him by Gozaburo’s cruel tutelage—but so lost on how to grasp it, even all these years later of liberating himself and Mokuba.
It was a piece of art meant for someone loved. Katsuya had glimpsed the shattered boy drowning alone, experienced firsthand the cruelty of a broken man twisted by rot and decay—the man who took, who destroyed, and built to be better, no matter who it meant laying under his feet to achieve his goals...
And he had wanted to give that twisted man, that broken fucking boy—him—a piece of the sun.
His eyes, wide and unseeing, drifted from the ring to the lurid colored carnival passes.
He’d never been to a carnival.
He’d said it offhandedly years ago, a simple, clinical statement of fact amidst contracts and fiscal reports littering his desk. His childhood had been traded for survival, for power, for control. For Mokuba’s safety and happiness. There had been no room for cotton candy and rickety rides surrounded by 'friends'. Jounouchi had not only remembered; he had planned to correct the omission.
The origami daisy. A stupid, paper affection. Jounouchi would make them while bored to death in Seto's office, his hands constantly needing to do something. Seto would call him an idiot, say they were a waste of time and paper. And then, when the blonde wasn't looking, or after he'd leave, he would carefully place the finished absurdity into his small menagerie. Lopsided roses, a creased dinosaur, clumsy stars—all kept in the safety of his top right desk drawer. He found them… sweet. An irrationally. A silly sentimental secret. Something that would have gotten him beaten a lifetime ago.
A daisy.
His favorite. A truth he'd never muttered to a single soul.
They were tenacious. They grew anywhere, and even in subpar conditions, they continued. Springing through cracks in the pavement, defiant, resilient, stubborn and impossible—refusing to be stamped out or eradicated. Just like him.
Somehow, Katsuya had figured it out. He had seen the man, mapped the hidden contours of him with an accuracy that was now terrifying, and had wanted him anyway. Had wanted to give him everything.
And Seto had broken up with him not ten seconds after they had sat down.
The cold realization seeped into his bones, a glacial tide. He had meticulously planned his own emotional exit, believing himself to be in control of the narrative, only to discover he had blindly walked off a cliff.
His stomach twisted, a nauseating wave of vertigo sweeping through him. He hadn't just ended a relationship—he had dismantled a universe built just for him.
The tide of realization didn't bring clarity; it brought a crushing, suffocating weight that felt like a vice shattering his ribcage. The cold calculus that had seemed so impeccable mere minutes ago now felt like the most profound error of his life.
His plan had been logical, a dispassionate analysis of a relationship that had reached its natural, mediocre conclusion. What could Jounouchi Katsuya possibly give him—Kaiba Seto? Their worlds were fundamentally incompatible. Jounouchi was a creature of impulse and emotion, stumbling through life with no plan. Seto was a sovereign of control, order, precision. He had plans and aspirations. He had told himself that continuing was illogical, a sentimental drain on time and resources that yielded diminishing returns. What did Jounouchi Katsuya bring to the table? What did he offer above the mundane and mediocre that made him worth keeping around?
Nothing that Seto had thought worth the continued time sink.
Jounouchi was still a third rate duelist with his fourth rate deck, dueling and working odd jobs, wasting away in a shitty little apartment in the lower east side of Domino City.
He had prepared for the inevitable emotional backlash—the shouting, the tears, a messy, public scene he so despised; but due to his tight schedule, left no other time. He had braced for a fight, his arguments lined up like soldiers, ready to put down Jounouchi's heartfelt pleas.
He had received none of it.
There had been no fight. No scene. Just a quiet, heartbreaking implosion. The sound of Katsuya’s voice, stammering that broken, hollowed out “O-okay.” echoed in the silence, more damning than any scream. It was the sound of a man whose entire foundation had been destroyed, leaving nothing, not even the instinct to struggle. The autopilot response—clearing his pockets, dumping the physical evidence of his eviscerated future onto the table—was a gesture of such profound and silent defeat that it made Seto’s own calculated coldness seem monstrously crude.
The stiff, final nod, the refusal to meet his eyes—it wasn't anger. It was a quiet, crushing acceptance. Jounouchi had simply… stopped. He had looked at the man he loved, heard the words, and the light behind his eyes had simply gone out. And then he had walked away, leaving the blueprint of his heart on the table for Seto to finally, too late, decipher.
This wasn't mediocrity. This was a depth of understanding and devotion he had, in his arrogance, dismissed as impossible. Jounouchi hadn’t been trying to give him power or connections. He had been trying to give him a childhood. Reclaimed joy. A sun. Warmth. A daisy. He had seen the ghost left to linger in the machines and sharp edges of a world built of defenses—and hadn't been deterred. He had decided to take on the monumental task of attempting to pull Seto free and simply be there to offer him parts of the world Seto had been denied, unsure of how to handle, how to understand.
Mediocrity.
That's what he had demoted Katsuya to, because he couldn't comprehend the whole of it. The true value of Jounouchi Katsuya was strewn across the table in front of him.
And it was the farthest thing from mediocrity Seto had ever encounter in twenty-six years of life.
He had dismissed the single most profound connection of his life as a 'sentimental drain' because it didn’t fit on a spreadsheet as a gain. He had mistaken Jounouchi’s lack of ambition for a lack of value, his simple joys for simple mindedness. Used cold, transactional logic Gozaburo had hammered into his skull—measured a person’s worth in assets, influence, and strategic advantage.
The man who worked odd jobs between tournaments and lived in a modest apartment had possessed a wealth Seto measured against an incorrect scale.
Empathy, courage, determination, loyalty, affection—love. All things that Seto with his billions and his empire could never purchase and never replicate.
Katsuya had seen the walls, every jagged fucking defense mechanism Seto had, the absolute fortress of impenetrable walls thicker than any steel, concrete, or cable—everything that comprised the whole of Kaiba Seto...
And Jounouchi had taken all of that at face value—and still waged a silent war of love for Seto's soul.
All the while, he'd been to above it to realize—to busy measuring Katsuya against metrics that didn't matter.
Katsuya knew he couldn't break it all down, couldn't topple it—so he bypassed it. Slipped through the cracks, navigated the labyrinth and endured every cutting fucking moment of it—just to sit with the ghost, and to slowly, patiently, hold out his hand and remind it what sunlight felt like.
His eyes fell again on the carnival passes. Gaudy, cheaply printed. To anyone else, a trivial amusement.
A low, soundless laugh, devoid of any humor, escaped him.
They weren't just carnival passes. They were a declaration of war against every deprivation of his childhood. Jounouchi hadn’t just remembered a stray comment; he had sought to arm Seto with a memory he should have had all along. It was an act of rebellion against Gozaburo’s legacy. A chance to reclaim a part of himself.
Every item on the table was a meticulously curated weapon against every defense Seto had ever erected, against every scar Gozaburo had left; and all of it meant to save a soul that had been wading through wreckage of a life since eight years old.
I see your past, the carnival passes said. I see your hidden self, the citrine ring whispered. I am not afraid of your walls, the entire gesture proclaimed. I will build a world for you within them if I can't pull you out, screamed the daisy.
Because Katsuya knew the undertaking he was attempting. Knew that even going to war, his objective would be hard fought—maybe even impossible to pull him from the depths—
But he wasn't going to abandon Seto in the ruins. If he couldn't pull him free, Katsuya planned to bring it all to him. Give him sunshine in the form of Citrines that would persist long after Seto's last breath, forge him memories based in care, build him a small paradise of warmth and color among his monochrome world—and he pledged to do it for the rest of his life, for Seto.
Mediocrity. Unambitious. Simple minded.
His gaze swept over the table again, and Seto felt like he could fucking scream.
It was a battle plan. A campaign strategy more brilliant and daring than any he had ever conceived. Jounouchi Katsuya, the ‘third rate duelist’, had not been stumbling through life. He had been on a solo campaign, a one man war against the fortress of Kaiba Seto. And his strategy had been flawless.
He hadn’t tried to storm the gates. He hadn’t attempted to lay siege to the walls. He had done something far more cunning. He had found the cracks in the foundation—and he had patiently, relentlessly, poured sunlight into them until he could sneak under the walls.
He found the drowning boy and offered him a lifeline. Saw the ghost and didn't care to exercise it, but gave it a home to haunt. Encountered the twisted man ravaged by decay and burden—and grabbed his hand with a crooked grin and offered him a daisy.
The carnival passes weren’t just a gesture; they were reconnaissance made manifest, an offer to secure lost territory. The origami daisy wasn’t a silly token; it was one that wouldn't wither and die in the dark, a flag planted on conquered ground, a symbol of a resilience he recognized and honored. The ring… the ring was the crown jewel. It was the ultimate declaration of victory, the proof that he had not only mapped the hidden kingdom within, but loved its ruler enough to craft a crown specifically for him, made of warmth and humanity that laid just out of reach.
The analysis, once begun, was merciless. His mind, the very instrument of his downfall, now turned its brutal computational power onto the evidence before him, dissecting every detail with a horrifying new clarity.
His eyes, sharp and aching, snagged on the folded bills. It wasn't just payment for the meal, a generous tip included. No, he saw the truth. This was the war chest. Katsuya didn’t have a trust fund or Seto’s salary. Every yen there represented hours of labor—tournament winnings, odd jobs, the careful, disciplined saving of a man who had planned and scrimped. This small fortune was the meticulously accumulated capital for a single, decisive battle in the campaign. It was the funding for reconnaissance, for logistics, for ensuring that every detail of this night was what the architect needed, that nothing could tarnish the offering. Jounouchi had invested everything he had into this battle plan.
Then, his gaze fell upon the hotel key. It was a simple, white plastic card, not the sleek, black titanium of a Kaiba Grand Hotel key to his master suite. His brow furrowed minutely as he read the embossed lettering.
The Jasmine Pavilion.
He knew of it. A hotel across the city, famous for its bohemian aesthetic, its rooms filled with handcrafted furniture and local art, its sprawling rooftop gardens that were a labyrinth of blooming flowers and winding paths. It was the absolute opposite of everything Kaiba. There were no hard lines of steel, no cold, imposing glass, no echoes of Gozaburo’s oppressive legacy. It was a place of warmth, of color, of organic life. It was a sanctuary deliberately chosen, a territory utterly divorced from Seto’s empire. Katsuya hadn’t just booked a room; he had selected a new front in his campaign, a sanctuary of warmth and life meant to be presented to Seto.
And the storage key. A small, brass, utterly mundane thing. It was the only piece of the puzzle he couldn’t immediately decrypt. But its presence among these other curated items marked it as significant. It wasn’t random. It was part of the plan. A contingency? A second phase? A repository for… what? More weapons in this gentle war that Katsuya was waging unseen? More artifacts of a shared future he was supposed to discover later that would now lie aborted to gather dust?
Seto looked over the breathtaking scope and intimacy. It was a multi pronged assault on every front of Seto’s isolation. Katsuya wasn't going to ask him to step into a mediocre life. He was going to be inviting him to step into a world Katsuya had built for him.
And Seto, in his monumental arrogance, hadn't accounted for such a language; a currency he didn’t understand, and was utterly bankrupt in. Without preamble, without even the basic courtesy of allowing the evening to begin, he had systematically dismantled Katsuya not ten seconds after they sat down.
He had denied him not just a future, but the chance to fight for it. He had robbed him of the opportunity to execute his brilliant strategy, to lay out his evidence of love piece by piece over the course of the evening, building his case.
The broken stammer of “O-okay.” wasn’t just acceptance of a breakup. It was the sound of a general being told his war was over. The autopilot dumping of the pocket’s contents wasn’t just a stunned reaction. It was the surrender of all his weapons, the public decommissioning of his entire campaign, because the war had been declared invalid.
The money was now just paper. The hotel key was a plastic card to a room that would never see them. The carnival passes were worthless souvenirs of a memory that would never be made. The ring was a beautiful, tragic artifact of what might have been.
And the origami daisy… it was no longer a flag. It was a funeral flower. A cheap, paper tribute placed on the grave of a future that had been killed in its cradle.
Mediocrity. Unambitious. Simple minded.
He had damned himself.
A low, ragged sound finally escaped him, not a scream, but a choked exhale of pure, undiluted agony. It was the sound of a man who now understood that salvation laid before him, but it would forever remain in pieces.
He lacked the fundamental element—the architect.
Katsuya.
The General.
The sole cartographer of one Kaiba Seto.
The beautiful man that had seen every fucked up part of him, if Seto showed him or not—and still wanted a lifetime.
_-_-_-_-
The interior of the cab was a blur of passing streetlights and the low, staticky hum of a distant radio talk show. The world outside the window had lost all definition, melting into streaks of smeared colors in the dusk. Inside, Jounouchi Katsuya sat perfectly still, his hands resting in his lap, fingers lax. There was no tension in his posture, no sign of the tectonic collapse that had just occurred. He was simply… empty.
“Jounouchi, this relationship is no longer a productive use of my time.”
The words played on a loop in his mind. Of course this was how it ended. He’d built a castle out of sand and was surprised when the tide came in. He could picture Seto now, still at that table. Those sharp, blue eyes scanning the pathetic little collection left on the table. He hadn't meant to dump it all out. His autopilot had been just as shattered as the rest of him, his body following the simple command to put the money on the table had backfired. He'd emptied everything but his wallet and keys...
And now Seto knows. He knew everything.
A small, broken sound that was almost a laugh escaped his lips, dry and hollow.
He’d open that box. Of course he’d open it.
And he’d laugh.
He’d probably think it was ugly as sin. A gaudy, cheap, overwrought piece of junk. Absolutely worthless. A mutt offering a king a chewed up bone. Would it even surprise him? If anything, Katsuya had just proven his point. What could he possibly offer Kaiba Seto?
A laugh.
That’s all he’d ever really given him, wasn’t it? And look at what it cost.
Everything.
The tickets were stupid. A place of greasy food that was probably a health hazard but a tradition, screaming kids, bright flashing lights and blaring music, rides that violated a dozen safety codes Seto could probably quote by heart.
He would have hated every fucking second of it.
The daisy was a waste of paper, a stupid little habit Seto only tolerated, acknowledging with a roll of his eyes before sweeping them from his desk into the trash.
The hotel room… Fuck—what had he been thinking?
It was all so… pathetic. A third rate duelist’s fourth rate attempt at a grand gesture. Just worthless junk, like everything else he’d left behind on that table. Like everything he had to offer.
Katsuya ran a hand down his face.
Stupid.
All of it, so goddamn stupid.
What the hell had he been thinking?
_-_-_-_-
The limousine was a bullet, slicing through the twilight haze of Domino’s lower east side. Inside, Seto was a creature of pure tension, his knuckles white where they gripped the leather armrest. Every second was a fucking eternity, each stoplight a personal affront. His security team, terrified of the raw, unstable energy crackling over the comms, had pinpointed the cab’s location in moments.
“Faster.” Seto hissed, the word a venomous crack of sound in the silent cabin. The driver obeyed, the powerful engine surging.
Seto found him just as he was walking from the curb, a slumped silhouette against the grimy brick of his apartment building. He looked smaller, deflated, the vibrant energy that defined Jounouchi Katsuya utterly extinguished. He was a ghost in his own skin.
Seto didn't wait for the car to fully stop. He threw the door open while it was still rolling, the screech of tires and the smell of burnt rubber filling the narrow street. His long legs ate up the pavement.
Jounouchi turned, key in hand. The sight of Kaiba, a vision of tailored, furious elegance in this shabby place, seemed to fog his already failing world. He just stared, his eyes wide and hollow, devoid of their usual fire.
“We’re not done.” Seto’s voice was low, a guttural command. It was raw, stripped of its usual icy control.
Jounouchi flinched as if struck. The sound seemed to physically pain him. He turned back to his door, a feeble attempt to escape. “What the fuck could you possibly want?” he mumbled, the words thick with exhaustion. “Just… just leave me alone, Kaiba.”
The dismissal, the sheer, broken finality in it, was the last thread to snap. Seto’s hand shot out, not with violence, but with an undeniable, desperate force, closing around Jounouchi’s wrist. The skin was warm, the pulse beneath his thumb a frantic, frightened flutter.
“I can’t.”
The two words were not a plea; they were a sharp, terrifying confession. Before Katsuya could process the tremor in that admission, Seto was moving. He used his body, his strength to maneuver him, like a duelist expertly controlling the field. He pulled Katsuya from the doorway, his other arm coming around to guide, to steer his resistant form toward the gaping door of the limousine.
“Get you're fucking hands off me!” Katsuya’s struggle was weak, fueled by shock and utter emotional depletion. “What are you doing?! Stop it!” He was all weary muscles now, no match for the torrent of desperate determination that was Kaiba Seto.
He was guided, almost gently despite the force, into the plush interior. Seto slid in after him, a predator entering its lair with its most vital prize and slammed the door. The sound was a definitive, thunderous thud that sealed them in silence.
“Drive. Now.” The order was sharp, absolute, before the partition was put back up.
The car pulled away from the curb, leaving Jounouchi’s world behind. He scrambled to the far end of the seat, putting as much distance between them as possible, and tried for the door. When it didn't open, he let out a frustrated growl, slamming his palm against the window. He stared out the window, watching his neighborhood, his life, blur into nothing.
A hollow, broken sound that was almost a laugh escaped him. He finally turned his head, his eyes glistening with unshed tears of anger and humiliation.
“What is this?” he whispered, his voice ragged. “Some kinda fucked up victory lap? Was the breakup not public, or loud enough for you? Gonna take me somewhere and humiliate me with my pathetic trash? Huh?”
Seto turned from where he’d been staring blindly ahead. The city lights streaked across his face, illuminating not cold arrogance, but an agony so deep it was terrifying.
“You think this is a victory?” he asked, his own voice cracking under the strain. It was a raw, exposed nerve. “I have never been more defeated in my goddamn life, Katsuya.”
The car sped on, the only sound the hum of the engine and the shaky, ragged breath of the man who had planned a universe, and the man who wanted to save it from a doomed cradle of his own making.
Jounouchi was a picture of misery, pressed against the door, his entire body angled away from Seto as he stared unseeingly at the passing city lights. He was a raw nerve, every centimeter of him screaming with a pain so profound, and it had nowhere to go.
Seto watched him, his own carefully constructed world lying in ruins around him. The evidence of his catastrophic miscalculation was a burning weight in his pockets. He could still feel the ghost of the velvet box against his fingertips, the searing image of the citrine sun branded onto the back of his eyelids.
“Where are you taking me?” Katsuya's voice was a hollow monotone, stripped of all its usual warmth and energy. It was the voice of a man defeated.
“To the carnival.” Seto answered. The words were simple, factual. The most logical next step in the revised plan.
Katsuya let out a wet, broken sound that was supposed to be a laugh, but it was the most awful sound Seto had ever heard. “Right. Funny. Stop the damn car, Kaiba. I'm not in the mood for your fucking jokes.”
“It is not a joke.” Seto’s voice was low, intense. He shifted on the seat, the leather creaking softly. Katsuya flinched at the movement, and it was a knife to Seto’s chest. “I read your battle plan, Katsuya. Every piece of it. And I'm a fool.”
“Battle plan?” The blonde repeated, words dripping with a bitter, self-loathing sarcasm. “It’s all just stupid junk. Trash. It's absolutely worthless. Just like—” He cut himself off, choking on the end of that sentence.
Seto was already in motion, moving like a predator before he realized it, caging Katsuya against the plush leather of the seat, his hands slamming down on either side of the blonde's head, framing his face, forcing him to meet his gaze. The sudden invasion of space made the other man gasp, his eyes flying wide open, shock and pain warring in their golden depths.
“It was not trash.” Seto growled, his voice a low, fierce vibration that filled the small space. His eyes burned with a terrifying intensity, a supernova of regret and realization. “I measured you against an incorrect scale. I used the metrics of a dead man to quantify a living sun. That is my error to correct, Katsuya. Not yours.”
And before Katsuya could process the shift in those words, Seto crashed their lips together.
It was desperate. Rough. A collision meant to restart a universe. An apology and a plea. It was Seto pouring every ounce of his shattered ego, his terrifying realization, his awe struck horror at what he may lose, directly into Katsuya. It was all the words he didn't know how to say, translated into pure, desperate action to convey it all.
Katsuya was rigid, frozen in shock. Then, a weak, broken sound escaped his throat—a half sob, half moan—his hands came up, clutching desperately at the front of Seto’s expensive coat, his fingers twisting into the fabric, and Seto wasn't sure if he was going to push him away, or pull him closer.
When Seto finally broke the kiss, both were breathless, gasping for air in the silent limo. Seto didn't pull away. He rested his forehead against Katsuya’s, his eyes squeezed shut, his breathing ragged.
“I want it all.” he whispered, the admission tore from him, voice raw and vulnerable. “The inevitable next morning of food poisoning. Vomiting cotton candy out of my nose. Playing those shitty, rigged games until I own every oversized, ugly as fuck plush animal in that damn place—” his voice hitched, “but only if you're there next to me.”
He fumbled in his pocket, his movements uncharacteristically clumsy, and pulled out the slightly crumpled carnival passes. He didn't hand them over, he pressed them firmly against Katsuya’s chest, right over his frantically beating heart.
“I want to ride all the rickety rides held together by loose, rusty screws and a prayer until they throw us out. I want to claim what you tried to give me. I want to reclaim myself,” he confessed, the words a sacred vow in the dim, moving space, “but I can't do it without my architect.”
He finally leaned back, just enough to look into Katsuya's eyes. The anger was gone from his face, replaced by a stunned, bewildered look. Tears were now tracking freely down his cheeks, but he made no move to wipe them away. He just stared.
Seto didn't move from where he straddled Katsuya's lap, his weight a solid pressure. Their breath mingled in the scant space between them, hot and ragged. Jounouchi’s hands were still fisted in Seto’s coat, his knuckles white, as his chest hitched with a sob he couldn't suppress.
“Seto...” the blonde whispered, a sound of utter confusion.
Seto didn't soften. The raw, volcanic intensity that had propelled him from the restaurant, into the street, and across this very seat didn't abate. It simply changed form. It was no longer desperate; it was focused, channeled. His gaze, locked on Katsuya, was fierce and unwavering.
“The night isn't over,” Seto stated, his voice low and resonant, leaving no room for argument. “The plan is still in motion. The only variable that changed is my awareness of it.”
He still held the carnival passes against Jounouchi’s chest. “This is phase one.” he tapped the tickets. “The hotel room is phase two. The ring is the final objective.” His voice dropped to a near whisper, charged with absolute conviction. “I will not fail your strategy a second time if you're still willing to build me a universe.”
A wet, hiccupping sob escaped Katsuya, and with it, a shaky, disbelieving smile touched his lips. It was small, and fragile, and the most beautiful thing Seto had ever seen.
“...You're gonna fucking vomit on the Tilt-A-Whirl.” Katsuya whispered, the words thick with emotion, a tearful, half hysterical acceptance of this new, returned impossible reality.
Seto’s hands, which had been braced on the seatback, finally moved. They came up to cradle Katsuya’s face, his thumbs incredibly gentle as they swept over his cheekbones, wiping away the tracks of his tears. The gesture was so tender it made Katsuya’s breath catch.
“Then I suppose I'm lucky,” Seto murmured, his thumbs still stroking gentle arcs on the blonde's skin, “my fiancé will be there to hold my tie.”
The word hung in the air between them. Fiancé. Not ‘boyfriend’. A title with a future, a promise.
He didn’t wait for a response. He leaned slowly this time, giving Katsuya every opportunity to pull away. He didn’t. He met him halfway, his eyes fluttering shut.
This kiss was nothing like the first. It was soft, a confirmation. A seal. It was a silent vow against his lips, a gentle exploration of this new territory Seto was mapping. The contours of a future he had almost foolishly thrown away; and Katsuya, trembling and pliant beneath him, was welcoming the broken boy, the ghost, and the twisted man home.
Outside, the city lights continued to streak past, blurring into insignificance. Inside the limousine, Seto’s world, mercifully, began to breathe again.