Work Text:
“Have you told them?”
“About us? Ah, not really… I’ve kinda told Tea, but I’m not sure how to talk to the guys about it…”
“‘Kind of’?”
“I mean, I didn’t go into detail, but she knows something’s… changed. She wasn’t surprised, after the way you—”
“The Seal?”
“She told me a bit about it. Figured things couldn’t be the same after something like that. Something had to change, y’know?”
“Gosh, I needed to get out of the house,” Tea says, stretching her arms above her head as she and Yugi walk through the mall. “My mom’s been going a little nuts with the spring cleaning. She’s got my dad and me crawling through the attic and everything.”
“Yeah, Grandpa and I went through that a couple of weeks ago,” Yugi commiserates. “You don’t think about how much dust can get on stuff that’s always right there in the open, but I don’t think Grandpa stopped sneezing for days.”
Tea chuckles. “Seeing you come to school with that splotch on your face was pretty funny.”
“I don’t know how I didn’t see it!” Yugi huffs indignantly. “Or how it survived the night! I swear I look in the mirror before I leave the house.”
“Oh, clearly. Even though you practically live in your uniform, your accessorizing is always on point. And of course,” Tea gestures with her hand, “your hair.”
Yugi feels himself start to blush faintly. A tiny thought floats in the back of his mind that if she had said this to him barely a year ago, he might’ve burst into flame. A compliment! On his appearance! But now… now as his heart jumps to romantic contexts, it’s not Tea it lingers on. His cheeks heat more as thoughts of Yami take root in that soft spot, blooming in his heart. As much as their intimacy has been entangled with a new kind of guilt and reassurances of trust… it’s still intimacy. Yugi’s still getting to kiss his partner. He gets to feel his smile on his lips as well as in his heart, on Yami’s good days. And maybe… maybe sometime soon, Yami will finally feel up to—
Nope. Not here. Think about something else.
Tea smirks at him, though he’s not sure if it’s because she can tell he’s blushing.
“How do you get it so…?”
Yugi laughs. “It’s not as complicated as you think. I fuss with it a bit, but it mostly stands up crazy on its own.”
She doesn’t look like she believes him.
She gives him a long, inscrutable look before her eyes catch on something behind him and she stops, holding up her hand. “Oh, look! A new music store finally moved into the old space. Let’s check it out.”
“Thanks for inviting me,” Yugi says quietly, pawing through a rack of clothes — various shades of black, an oddity in this bright store Tea’s pulled them into.
“Of course! Like I said, I needed some fresh air. And y’know,” Tea puts her hand by her mouth and whispers conspiratorially, “I love the other guys, but sometimes I wanna hang out with someone who doesn’t shout halfway across the mall about Duel Monsters or how he failed the last test.”
Yugi snorts. “Sure, sure.”
“Plus,” Tea continues brightly, “they don’t get fashion like you do! I need some proper brainstorming for how I’m gonna make my first impression in America. Have you seen the layers they’ve got going on now? I swear girls over there must have twice the wardrobe for all that. And their pants are sitting awfully low…”
Yugi can’t help but smile contentedly as she continues mildly ranting about the state of fashion in the States, even if it triggers a pang of anticipatory grief at the reminder of her upcoming departure. In less than a year, everything is going to change. He’ll have to say goodbye to his childhood friend and hope the promises to keep in touch aren’t empty ones, and take the leap into his own future. Vocational college… for game design… Not as intimidating as a traditional degree, but in some ways even moreso, given how much he really cares about the subject.
Less than a year. Just ten months to fit the rest of his youth into. Ten months left of familiar.
At least he knows that timeline. Who knows how long—?
He shakes his head to clear the thought. No. Don’t think about that. Not now. Just… breathe. Be here, in this moment.
Ahead of him, Tea turns around and holds up a blouse, eyebrows raised to ask Yugi’s opinion. He frowns at it and shakes his head. The color washes her out and he can already tell the fit won’t flatter her. She grins and puts it back on the rack.
A few new shirts, skirts and accessories acquired, they make their way over to the smoothie bar and sit down at a table in the corner of the food court.
“It’s nice to have some normalcy after all this craziness,” Tea says, lowering her voice a tad. “When’s the last time we hung out like this?”
“I think it must’ve been last fall, right before Battle City.”
“Seriously? It’s been that long? Jeez. We shouldn’t need a dueling tournament or the end of— of the world to get together outside school.” She visibly fights a wince.
She regrets mentioning it, Yugi can tell. Pangs of sympathetic melancholy and mild frustration zip through him. He doesn’t want this to be a sore point any more than she does — and honestly, it’s not really that much of a sore point. Or it wouldn’t be… if it were up to Yugi. But it very much is still a source of tension for his other half.
He’s already forgiven him ten times over, and he’s told him so twenty times over. But it’s not something Yami is able — or willing — to accept too soon.
Still… Yugi clenches his jaw. He hates that this has become something his friends are afraid to bring up. They should be able to talk about what they’ve gone through, especially someone like Tea.
So he takes a deep breath and pulls a casual smile onto his lips. “Yeah, that was pretty crazy. Glad everyone’s okay!”
Tea hesitates, eyeing him from the side, weighing his reaction. “Yeah… but, um… How are you doing? It was tough on all of us, but it had to have been… something bigger for you.” She purses her lips before adding, “Both of you.”
He gets a twinge of nausea and the smile freezes. “Well, uh— Yeah. Yeah, it was… definitely a lot. Mostly for him. He’s still…” He trails off. He doesn’t want to bring her down, he wanted an enjoyable time out, time off.
Dammit.
The silence drags on and he starts to sweat. He can’t find the right words to smooth this over.
“Is he…?” Tea shifts awkwardly in her seat. “Y’know… around?”
Yugi listens internally, lightly prods at the edges of his mind to test if Yami is listening. (He almost doesn’t have to; he’s been hiding in the Puzzle more than ever in these last few months. Yugi has to call him out or go visit him himself to get much interaction.) As expected, there’s nothing. He wilts a little inside.
He looks down as he shakes his head and cobbles together a believable answer: “He knows I’m hanging out with you,” he says, with the barest emphasis on the word “you.”
There’s a long pause, enough that Yugi glances up at Tea to see a conflicted look on her face. Like she can tell there’s something he isn’t saying, but she can’t figure out what — or she’s trying to decide whether to push about it. Yugi swallows and glances away, feeling his defenses weaken under her concern.
Ultimately she decides to accept the little white lie, continuing with a small nod. “So… he’s still working through it, I take it?”
Yugi nearly scoffs. “Yeah. Yeah… He’s still… guilty. Er, I mean…” He lets out a sharp sigh. “He still feels guilty. Really guilty sometimes. It’s… a lot. I wish—” He snaps his mouth shut against the phrase. “No, that’s not fair. Sorry, I— Nevermind. He’s getting there. I just have to help him… Remind him…” He frowns hard down at his hands.
Tea gives him a moment to try to gather his words before she gently prods. “It must be hard seeing him so down. Especially sharing your hearts like you do. You can feel what he feels, right? Isn’t that what you told us before?”
Yugi nods slowly. “When we’re together in our soul rooms, or if he’s in here with me, I can… I can feel him.” His brows knit for a moment before he forcibly brightens his expression and looks at the space between her eyes. “It’s fine, it just means I can help him better when he’s stressed about stuff. Pretty cool, right?”
Tea hums, unconvinced. “Sure… but it…” Her face softens, painted with sympathy — maybe pity? — Yugi is all too familiar with.
“Yugi, I don’t think anyone could blame you if you were having a hard time, too.”
The muscles in his face are tense with trying to hold his own expression. “It’s not… hard. I… I love having him with me. I love that I can help him better than anyone else.”
Tea considers him for another long few seconds before folding her hands, her face flattening into a determined expression. Kind, but insistent.
“Do you remember when my grandma died?”
Yugi blinks and twitches in surprise. “Yeah…?”
“My mom… She took it really hard. She cried all the time. It was weeks before she’d leave the house for more than a visit to the family shrine. We love her, and we wanted to support her, but after a while… it got heavy.” Tea takes a slow breath in and her gaze grows less intense, more unfocused as she follows the memories back. “As much as we were processing the loss in our own ways, and everyone is allowed to feel what they feel, no matter how strongly… that doesn’t change the fact that it’s also really hard to be around someone who’s so… sad. Feeling like you want to get away from that doesn’t make you a bad person. It just makes you human. And it doesn’t mean you can’t be there for them, or that you don’t love them. It’s just… messy.” She blinks and looks more adamantly at Yugi again. “I’m not saying it’s the same, and if you’re genuinely okay, then I’m glad. But also… if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by his guilt and maybe you need some space from it, even from him… that’s okay, too.”
Yugi’s chest feels both too tight and too exposed, like she’s seen all the way through him. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, a choked sigh escaping him, before he sags and looks down. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “I don’t… I’d never leave him, no matter how upset he feels — I mean, that’s, y’know… the point.” He scrapes his fingernails lightly over the table, trying to root around inside himself for the right words. It’s not really coming out quite right, but it’s the best he can manage. “We’re partners and we’re there for each other. He needs me… more than ever…” He takes in a shaky breath, then shakes his head and clenches his fists, looking up with a tired smile. “It’s not that bad, but… you’re right. Sometimes it’s a little… intense. Sometimes I…” He laughs softly, gaze down at his hands again. “Sometimes I just wanna shake him.”
Tea echoes his quiet laugh. “Yeah, I get that.”
Yugi chews his tongue, debating himself for a minute before looking up and saying, “You know it took him a month to call me ‘partner’ again?”
Tea blinks in shock, straightening in her seat. “Oh? Wow… That’s… Is that what he usually calls you?”
There’s an almost imperceptible loosening in Yugi’s chest as he lets the truth come out, as he shares this weight.
He tips his head back and forth. “Well, kinda. He does call me ‘Yugi’ plenty often, too, but…” He twists his mouth and stares hard at his smoothie. “He didn’t say anything about it, but… I noticed. I think… I think he didn’t feel like he was allowed to call me ‘partner.’ Because of what happened.”
Tea sucks her teeth. “That sounds about right. He really seemed to think he’d destroyed everyone’s trust.” When Yugi stares at her, a vulnerable question plain on his face, she gives him a gentle, somber look. “He was miserable without you. I’ve never seen someone so…” She winces and Yugi can’t help but do the same.
It’s not anything he doesn’t already know, but still… hearing it from her makes it more real. Knowing someone else saw.
“Has he talked about it, what happened while you were gone?”
Yugi frowns. “Yes? No? He’s apologized for it about a thousand times and he told me there was some… some duel against something that pretended to be me.”
“Yeah— Wait, that wasn’t you?” Tea blurts.
Yugi shakes his head. “No. I have no idea what it was, but I was just in this… nothing the whole time until… well.” His heart twists as he remembers blinking awake to see the temple, the Seal, Kaiba… and his partner, staring at him with the same look of horrified desperation he’d had when Yugi shoved him out of the way to let the Seal take him.
Well, “awake” is a strong word. It was still hazy and he couldn’t move, but he was aware and seeing and hearing for the first time in he didn’t know how long. He picked up enough to realize what was happening, that Kaiba and the Pharaoh needed to take out these Duel Monsters he and the others were stuck in so they could take out Dartz. But Yami had looked… There aren’t enough words for how he had looked at Yugi, and especially when Kaiba finally did what was necessary and destroyed the Mirror Knights. The word “excruciating” comes to mind. But then Yugi felt the familiar hungry pull of the Seal drawing him back under again, and he called out one last time in a desperate attempt to help his partner get through this: ‘Don’t worry, we’re fine.’
He didn’t get the chance to see Yami’s reaction, if he had even heard him, before he was mostly void again. Something kept him tethered, though, and he heard Dartz’s story, his history — the way he taunted Yami with claims about the Pharaoh’s past. He felt the surge of power as the Divine Serpent was risen, then the frantic, angry panic when Dartz lost and fused himself with the Great Leviathan.
Then the voices of the knights scooped him out, and in a dizzying rush, he suddenly found himself blinking at the walls of his soul room, wavering on his feet, reeling from it all.
Yami had come flying through the door not long after, stumbling and falling to his knees… The gravity of his guilt and distress had nearly knocked the breath out of Yugi’s lungs, so he had to shut their bond in order to save the world. They had miraculous time for a messy reunion later… Messy, tearful, hysteric, regretful—
He shakes himself just slightly. It worked, he got through it, they all did. He can’t be lingering on it like this if Yami is going to have any hope of forgiving himself and moving on.
“Huh… That makes sense, I guess,” Tea muses. “There was no reason for you to be down there. Weevil mentioned something about where the souls were being kept and… well, that really didn’t seem like the place.” She takes a long, thoughtful sip. “I wonder what it was. And who those people were. The Pharaoh seemed to think they were spirits, too. Except you…? Ugh, I don’t know.” She laughs. “I’ll take whatever miracle we can get.”
There are a thousand different questions running through Yugi’s head. He works his jaw a few times before settling on one: “Why did Weevil know about where the souls were?”
A scowl twists Tea’s face. “Oh, he apparently joined up with Dartz, he and Rex, and he came after the Pharaoh and me when we were on the train. He made some awful joke pretending to rip up the card that represented your soul and…” She looks… haunted for a second before just looking sad and murmuring, “The Pharaoh didn’t take that well either.”
Yugi makes a mental note to keep an eye on Yami’s reaction the next time they bump into Weevil.
“Ah… right. Joey told me about his duel with Rex,” he says quietly. “And the… spirits?”
Tea sits back in her seat and her expression turns purely baffled. “Yeah. Jeez, I don’t even know how to explain this one. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t been there, but trust me, it was real.” She puts her hand flat on the table as if to emphasize her point and Yugi cracks a smile, nodding encouragingly. “If I’m lying, I’m dying, but I swear to you the train actually fell off a cliff.”
“What?”
“But!” Tea continues right along, holding up a finger. “It’s like I blinked and suddenly the Pharaoh and I were waking up in some tent with this kid and her grandpa telling us they found us passed out by the river, no train in sight.”
Yugi shakes his head in disbelief and all he can say is another, weaker “What?”
Tea throws her hands up. “I know! It’s nuts! That’s probably the craziest part, but it still doesn’t get much more normal after that. I asked them about Weevil and they said they found him separately and brought him to some town nearby, but for whatever reason they decided to keep the Pharaoh and me.” She purses her lips in thought. “The grandpa did seem to know something was up with the Pharaoh, like maybe he knew about the Millennium Items, or just… could tell he was, y’know… different.”
“And those were the people the Pharaoh thought were spirits?”
“Well, they had to be! First they said they knew a place where spirits stick around, seemed to think we’d be able to find you there, so they brought us there and, well…” She huffs. “He dueled someone. Or something. And then some monster showed up with the Seal, and when the Pharaoh beat it, the girl and her grandpa were gone, but we saw some carving that kinda looked like them and the Pharaoh said he saw them in some vision of the past and…” She flops back in her seat with a defeated sigh. “It was a lot.”
“Sure sounds like it,” Yugi murmurs, in awe of his friends once again.
Tea drums her fingers on the table, then looks up curiously. “That… really wasn’t you?”
A knot of tension forms in his gut again as he thinks about the way the news had seemed to shake Yami to his core. And now Tea’s reaction is growing more anxious. Where before she’d been simply baffled, now there’s a somberness rolling in. He resists the urge to sigh. Surely she won’t have a similar breakdown.
“No,” he says hesitantly. “What was…? I… What happened?” he whispers. “When Yami found out, he… he freaked out. Did it… do something?”
There’s the tiniest wince as Tea tilts her head noncommittally. “I mean, I couldn’t hear what the two of you were saying, but… well…” She seems to collect her thoughts, or brace herself, with a sip of her smoothie. Yugi does the same reflexively, chewing on the straw just to do something with the anxious energy fizzing below the surface. “On one hand, obviously seeing you again was going to be an emotional rollercoaster. Given how he… um, severely regretted his actions after your soul was taken. He was a mess. He…” She looks pained. “He stressed himself out about it so bad he, like… collapsed and checked out for half a day. We couldn’t get him to talk to us, or hardly react at all. It’s a miracle we got him on the train, where he finally started to wake up. And even then…”
Once again, this all seems kind of in line with the way Yami had been feeling over the last few months, especially directly after the whole ordeal.
“And on the other hand…” She’s definitely bracing now, shoulders hiked and not making direct eye contact. “It… You… used the Seal.”
Yugi stiffens. Something cold tightens in his gut. He doesn’t know what he expected, but that certainly was not on the list.
“Really?” he breathes. Tea nods sadly.
No wonder he’d reacted so badly.
“But… but he said it comforted him.”
Tea blinks in surprise. “Oh? I mean… from what I could see, you didn’t look… thrilled to see him again. I think you argued.” She shakes her head like she’s trying to clear it. “Maybe you talked after the duel. There was a minute where he was down there with you before the monster showed up.”
“It… Oh, god.” Yugi’s stomach drops. “Does that mean… he won? Did the Seal…?” Did it take Yugi away again? Did Yami have to play the cards to lock his partner away for a second time, in such an emotionally vulnerable state?
Tea nods, solemn as the grave.
Some of the last four months start to make even more sense, colored with a useless sort of regret from Yugi himself.
His hands find the Puzzle, running his thumb along the scored lines, pressing it into his sternum. He stares at the table, a thousand emotions running through him while his head starts to fill with faint static. He wishes he could have stopped it. Maybe if he’d been stronger to start with, if he’d just intervened before Yami could ever play the Seal. He stopped Yami in Duelist Kingdom, didn’t he? But he’d been afraid of him then. He’d yanked him back so hard it hurt. And he never wants Yami to feel like that again, like Yugi doesn’t trust him. He did. He does. He continued to trust him, even as the panic strangled him and he chose to use the Seal rather than risk losing. Even as Yami pushed him away. Even as he threw his Duel Monsters to the grave and sealed their fate. Yugi trusted his partner to make it right and save them all, and that’s why he took his place.
How could he regret that now? Doubting that choice feels like doubting their very partnership. No, he doesn’t regret it… but he does mourn the excess pain it put Yami through.
And to think, in the moment there in the valley, Yami had believed it to be Yugi betraying him? Punishing him? He knows it’s absurd, but he’s sorry for it anyway, the actions of this cruel trick. He wishes he could take it back.
“‘You’? Ugh, listen to me— It wasn’t you, Yugi,” Tea says, reaching out to put her hands down in front of him, palms up. Offering. Yugi’s eyes snap up to look at her. “You can’t blame yourself for this. It was hard, and I know you’re… living with the consequences, with his pain, but it’s not your fault. You can’t fix it, and you can’t take the blame, but I know you want to help him, so… you’re doing that by being there for him. By understanding and forgiving him. All you can do is make the best choices you can right now. And from where I’m sitting, you’ve been the best partner anyone could ask for.”
Yugi’s throat feels tight with all the words he can’t say. He blinks away tears that had snuck up on him and shakes his head uselessly, but still he reaches forward until Tea takes his hand in hers and squeezes. It… helps. Some.
“He said it comforted him, right? Even if it was some ghost pretending to be you, you were still there for him. And I’m sure you’ve done plenty more of that since.”
Yugi nods weakly. Tea brings her other hand over to cover his, both of hers sandwiching it, and she squeezes again.
“Does he blame you?”
Adrenaline jolts through him, rejecting the premise that she could misunderstand his partner so badly. “No!” he blurts before he can even try to put together a more coherent response. “No, he…” He blames himself. Like with everything else.
Tea nods, this knowing look in her eye, like she’s searching for an answer she knows he has in him — like when she helps him with his math homework. “And does he trust you?”
Yugi swallows and tries to compose himself. He musters a sheepish half smile and squeezes her hands once before sliding them back to his lap. He nods at the table. “Yes, of course.”
“Then everything will be fine. If anyone can get through to him, it’s you — and vice versa. So believe him,” Tea says firmly, pointing at him with a smirk. “And he’ll come around to believing you, too.”
A weak laugh surprises Yugi, which Tea mirrors.
“Thanks, Tea,” he murmurs, warmth returning slowly. “You really do always know what to say.”
“Oh, I’ve been around the block.” Tea leans back and melts into an easy, slightly smug grin. “Nothing could keep you two apart for too long. Not even all of that. What’s that English saying? ‘Absence makes the heart grow closer’?”
Yugi snorts. “Oh, trust me. We’ve been closer than ever,” he mutters, fighting an embarrassed smile.
“Oh?” Tea perks up, tilting her head curiously at his demeanor.
And it’s here Yugi freezes. He can feel the tips of his ears burning and he’s sure as the seconds drag on, his face will follow.
He’s backed himself into a corner, here, grasping at straws for how to explain it without… without… And surely there is a way, there’s certainly a very normal thread of conversation to follow, but now his thoughts are too scrambled to find it because all he can think about is Yami’s mouth on his and the way he had looked so breathlessly delighted and relieved that first time he kissed him.
But also the way he had panicked and has been beating himself up since. The shakiness in his hands, in his kisses, the different twist of guilt he can feel through the bond…
Internally, he sighs. On the outside, he does his damnedest to act nonchalant. “Well, I mean… O-obviously. Like you said. Why wouldn’t we be?”
Great job. Very inconspicuous. Not like I’m clearly hiding something at all.
Tea’s eyes narrow and she smiles at him, measuring him up. Definitely measuring the rapid blush darkening his face. Fuck.
“That’s… good. After everything, of course it would… bring you closer. You care about each other. You’re… partners,” she says. Deliberately. Carefully. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
And all Yugi can do is blush harder and stammer, “Y-yeah! Nothing— I mean— Just like always, y’know?”
There’s no way she’d jump to the correct conclusion, right? That would be so unexpected! He’s never expressed any interest in guys before, and that would be a ridiculous leap for her to make, wouldn’t it? He’s just… he’s just being awkward because… because the whole conversation is emotional. Yeah. That’s it.
But then some kind of understanding seems to click in Tea’s head, her eyes widen just a bit, and she sits up straighter in her seat, fumbling for her smoothie. She waves it around, saying, “Yeah. Same as always,” before sticking her straw in her mouth and breaking eye contact. Even her cheeks look slightly pink.
Before Yugi can further shove his foot into his mouth, she shifts the conversation, brightly mentioning how Yugi’s 17th birthday is coming up and they totally need to do something special, and there’s this restaurant she’s heard about that would be a great spot to bring everyone together.
She knows. She must. And yet… she didn’t say anything. She looks awkward, but only in a bashful way, not like she’s uncomfortable. Or disgusted. She’s shifting the topic because Yugi is clearly not ready to have that conversation.
Warmth and anxious butterflies flood Yugi’s stomach as he struggles to move on (quickly shooting down the restaurant idea when he learns how fancy it would be, and therefore expensive). He hasn’t been thinking too hard about the whole thing from the outside — his sexuality, their relationship, the possibility of having to come out to his friends — mostly out of wilful ignorance. They can only kiss when hiding away in their soul rooms, so it’s not like anything changed on the outside. And of course he’s afraid… afraid of their reactions. Of the ticking clock in the background. Of… everything changing.
But now, looking at Tea with a dusting of pink on her face as she tries to silently show her support without pushing him…? And regardless of what happens with the Pharaoh’s destiny, he’ll still have her as a friend when it’s all over. So… he thinks maybe it’ll be okay, whenever he’s ready to open that door.