Prompt #42 - Relationships
The doorbell rang, and Yuugi darted toward it. He was at the top of the stairs before he stopped and doubled back, mumbling something about needing to keep an eye on tonight's dinner.
"Just one minute, please!" he shouted, but Yami knew his voice wouldn't carry down an entire flight and through the door.
It wasn't until a few seconds later when the doorbell rang again, that Yami closed his latest piece of reading material and stood. "That's her, isn't it? I'll get it."
Yuugi's mystery girlfriend had arrived. Apparently, he wanted her to sit down and eat dinner with them. The two of them weren't being hostile to each other anymore, but they weren't on speaking terms yet. To be honest, this didn't seem like a good idea,and if he had been asked, Yami would have made it clear that such an occasion should have been delayed until later. No, it was obvious that the two of them wouldn't be angry at each other forever, but that didn't mean that adding pressure would help.
But Yami could be compassionate. It was entirely possible that, maybe, Yuugi had made these plans before things blew up between them. In that case, it couldn't be helped. Angry as he might have been, it was not Yami's intention to make things worse on purpose - and that was part of the problem. Such a thing had never been his intention.
"No, no, no. I'll get it. Just give me a minute." Yuugi wasn't stupid; there was no doubt that he was also aware of how delicate the situation was. This wasn't the first time they'd fought over intimate matters.
With Yuugi hovering on the stove and glancing at the back staircase every few seconds, Yami knew that whatever he was doing kept him from departing from the kitchen. So Yami ignored him.
To be honest, Yami wasn't sure why Yuugi was so set on no one else answering the door in the first place. But he wasn't trying to upset the uneasy balance they had reached, so he kept his questions to himself and simply went to get the door. He might well end the fucking suspense. It would be better for him to say hello to her without Yuugi's awkward smile in the way. Trudging lazily down the stairs, the doorbell played again before he reached to open it.
"Hi, Yuugi!" crooned a decidedly female voice. He didn't even really get a good look at her, at first; Yami realized before anything else, that she stepped forward to hug him in just enough time to take a step back.
Nope. Not with Yuugi being the way he is now." He didn't want any more accusations, no matter how impossible they may have been.
The first thing he noticed, after making sure that there was proper space between them, was that the girl was blond - as blond as Mai, actually. Her hair was tightly curled, spiralling down to her shoulders, and her eyes were big and blue. So she was probably foreign. Those eyes were wide, staring at him across the threshold in what looked like wonder.
Her brows knitted for just a moment before she said, "Oh." Hands suddenly at her sides. She began to blush, a tinge of pink coming to the surface of her cheeks. "You're not Yuugi." She paused, looking away, disappointed. "I'm so sorry Yami...! I really didn't-"
"Rebecca!" Yami heard from behind, and stepped aside. He knew what was coming next. "You're here!" Yuugi moved to hug her, but she put her arms up in protest.
For just a moment, confusion crossed Yuugi's features, and Yami's too - it made him feel uncomfortable, to know that they were sharing the same emotion. He suddenly had the urge to back away, slowly. They weren't on good terms yet and he quickly realized that he wasn't ready for this - to feel connected or any kind of camaraderie. There was every right to still be angry and upset, and furthermore, he knew Yuugi. The man's optimism was contagious. He didn't want to be put in a forgiving mood without his consent, and he was absolutely sure that, when it came to positive emotions, Yuugi wasn't going to hide or lock away anything.
It almost felt like manipulation, and that made Yami uncomfortable.
"I really didn't want to be one of those people!" Rebecca's hands went up and onto her mouth, so her next words were a little muffled. "I just haven't really been face-to-face... and..."
With her there, however, it was a little late to turn tail. So instead of running, Yami covered his nervousness with a laugh and tried to push his way through.
"It's fine."
He was normally skeptical of those who couldn't tell the difference between the two of them (for example, Mokuba had spotted the difference immediately even after such a long time), but her apology was very sincere. She reminded him of Yuugi, in that respect, and so far as that went, he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"To be fair," Yami added, to be polite, "I didn't recognize you either. You've grown up."
"I'd like to think so," she replied.
The excitement of the moment dying down, Yuugi ushered everyone upstairs. "Alright, come on..." There was a pout on his lip, clear disappointment in not being able to receive the hug that had been meant for him.
Yami spent the next several minutes. Sugoroku finally arrived after taking forever to change (He wore red overalls this time. Fancy.), and took his time greeting Rebecca. After Yuugi revealed that she was the Rebecca, Arthur's granddaughter, he shot off asking her all sorts of questions.
It worked out well enough for Yami; left him free to retreat to his room while they were otherwise occupied. He needed the space and the breather. Yami settled down on his bed and tried to process the information that he currently had, to reconcile it with what he'd known up to this point.
The fact rather that Yuugi's new girlfriend was Rebecca changed things. He hadn't expected her to be someone that he had already met, technically. Yami hadn't been one to duel Rebecca at the arcade - Yuugi had, all by himself. He had never spoken to her directly and therefore didn't know her. But he had been there, in a sense, and he had seen her. That made it impossible to impose some false personality on her. Yami couldn't pretend to hate her based on lack of knowledge, and that put him in a tight spot.
It wasn't that he didn't want Yuugi to be happy. But their argument had brought up a lot of things between the both of them that Yami hadn't known were there in the first place. And now, Rebecca was rather in the middle of it. He almost preferred to not have seen her. Now that he had, Yuugi was going to start bringing her over regularly, and she would effectively be the elephant in the room until the two of them could get their shit together. There was a little too much pressure to conform, and Yami didn't think he could withstand it.
He needed a break, and to get out of there.
There was a knock on his door. Of course there would be. Being upstairs for too long wouldn't give off a good impression was his guess. ami didn't really try to hide his frustration with the situation. "What?"
"Can I come in?" Yuugi, naturally. There to collect him.
Yami thought about it and sighed. Could he get himself together? "No," he said, to both questions. In spite of his best efforts, the only emotion he could channel was bitterness and that wouldn't help anyone. He was certain that the two of them would end up fighting if he allowed Yuugi inside. The chance was high enough with just the way things were.
That wasn't the answer that Yuugi wanted to hear. There was a considerable amount of silence before Yami heard, "Can we set things aside tonight? I just want to have a decent dinner. It would be weird if you weren't there."
Knowing that he'd contemplated leaving was likely not coincidence, and of all things he felt violated. It was not fair for Yuugi to be able to pick his brain about things, but kept the reverse from happening. Yami wanted to see things through, but Yuugi's pleads only pushed him to renege on them. That phrasing was worse: set things aside, for a woman he wasn't really acquainted with?
If they were going to set things aside, it should have been because they both wanted to get over this mess, not solely for Yuugi's benefit. Just the idea of doing it for any other reason was insulting.
"Yami?" Yuugi called again. "If you said something, I couldn't hear you."
He was already grabbing his wallet from the desk nearby. Fuck this.
At this point, things might end up being worse if he stayed. When he reached the door, he all but wrenched it open. "I'm heading out," he said, "so you won't have to worry about me."
Yuugi stood there, looking crestfallen, but only for a moment; eyebrows knitted and he said, "I wanted everyone to have dinner together."
Yami stood his ground at the door, unfazed. It took effort to remind himself that physically shoving Yuugi from his path wasn't in his best interest. "I know what you wanted."
Yuugi was clearly exasperated, ears turning pink. He grit his teeth, and forced out, "Weren't you the one bitching about not having the chance to meet her?"
That wasn't fair at all. He did want to meet her, before all this happened. They were two different circumstances, so that answer was unacceptable. Yami refused to tolerate it.
"Too little, too late," He spat back. "You move out of our room after screaming at me because you have unresolved issues about our relationship that you brought up from nowhere; you make me feel unwelcome in my own home, and you want me to buck up and get my shit together just because you want a happy family to bring your girlfriend home to? No. You're tired of feeling like my puppet, right? Don't want to be used? Good. I'm not letting you use me, either."
Yuugi's anger was wavering, like it always did after the initial outburst. Yami knew that would be near tears soon. His voice sank to a whisper, and he took a shaky breath before speaking. "Yami, I thought things were getting-"
"Better?" Yami cut him off, chuckling wryly. "Right, because the both of us going out of the house and never seeing each other or never speaking is just as good as actually trying to solve our problems. You want things to go well tonight, for her. What about us? What about tomorrow? Are we going to sit down and talk about this?"
He didn't give Yuugi the chance to answer. "No, I didn't think so."
Yuugi's sigh was more heavy this time. "...we can talk. Tomorrow. I promise we'll talk. I promise."
That was even more insulting, and Yami shook his head in response. "You don't get it. I'm not here just to make you look like a wholesome family man for your girl. I want things to work out because I care about you, not because of someone else. If Rebecca wasn't' there tonight, we wouldn't even be speaking. I know this shit is my fault, but you're just being an ass about it at this point. And I don't have to take it. I'm out of here."
Yuugi's arm extended to block Yami's path. "Yami, please." Those amethyst eyes were looking more and more moist by the second, and for all his protesting, Yami could feel Yuugi's pleas in their damned link.
It wrenched his heart and twisted it in a way that produced a sort of pain that no man should feel. Yuugi's feelings were bleeding over, and Yami bit his lip to keep himself focused and composed. He could feel his own eyes watering. There was a part of him that wanted to believe that it wasn't doing it on purpose.
Yuugi wouldn't do that; had never been the sort to do that kind of thing and he wouldn't start now, especially not for some girl he'd only been dating for a few months at most. Even when Yuugi was angry, he was kind. When Yami was being difficult, Yuugi had always gone out of his way to be helpful and patient.
It just hurt, Yami reasoned, and it was hard not to jump to conclusions when he was. He'd been feeling the absence of their connection for weeks. To suddenly have that bundle of emotions wash over him all at once was overwhelming. Maybe Yuugi had learned his lesson - decided that hiding things wouldn't help anymore since Yami had figured things out. Yuugi had left him with a gift, after all. Not quite a full apology, but proof that neither of them wanted to continue on like this.
Yami clenched his fists and decided that he could meet Yuugi in the middle, since that was the case. Perhaps he'd gotten upset too hastily.
"...fine. But don't thank me. I'm not through with you yet." He pushed Yuugi's arm aside and without another word, he moved down the hall towards the kitchen.
"Just one minute, please!" he shouted, but Yami knew his voice wouldn't carry down an entire flight and through the door.
It wasn't until a few seconds later when the doorbell rang again, that Yami closed his latest piece of reading material and stood. "That's her, isn't it? I'll get it."
Yuugi's mystery girlfriend had arrived. Apparently, he wanted her to sit down and eat dinner with them. The two of them weren't being hostile to each other anymore, but they weren't on speaking terms yet. To be honest, this didn't seem like a good idea,and if he had been asked, Yami would have made it clear that such an occasion should have been delayed until later. No, it was obvious that the two of them wouldn't be angry at each other forever, but that didn't mean that adding pressure would help.
But Yami could be compassionate. It was entirely possible that, maybe, Yuugi had made these plans before things blew up between them. In that case, it couldn't be helped. Angry as he might have been, it was not Yami's intention to make things worse on purpose - and that was part of the problem. Such a thing had never been his intention.
"No, no, no. I'll get it. Just give me a minute." Yuugi wasn't stupid; there was no doubt that he was also aware of how delicate the situation was. This wasn't the first time they'd fought over intimate matters.
With Yuugi hovering on the stove and glancing at the back staircase every few seconds, Yami knew that whatever he was doing kept him from departing from the kitchen. So Yami ignored him.
To be honest, Yami wasn't sure why Yuugi was so set on no one else answering the door in the first place. But he wasn't trying to upset the uneasy balance they had reached, so he kept his questions to himself and simply went to get the door. He might well end the fucking suspense. It would be better for him to say hello to her without Yuugi's awkward smile in the way. Trudging lazily down the stairs, the doorbell played again before he reached to open it.
"Hi, Yuugi!" crooned a decidedly female voice. He didn't even really get a good look at her, at first; Yami realized before anything else, that she stepped forward to hug him in just enough time to take a step back.
Nope. Not with Yuugi being the way he is now." He didn't want any more accusations, no matter how impossible they may have been.
The first thing he noticed, after making sure that there was proper space between them, was that the girl was blond - as blond as Mai, actually. Her hair was tightly curled, spiralling down to her shoulders, and her eyes were big and blue. So she was probably foreign. Those eyes were wide, staring at him across the threshold in what looked like wonder.
Her brows knitted for just a moment before she said, "Oh." Hands suddenly at her sides. She began to blush, a tinge of pink coming to the surface of her cheeks. "You're not Yuugi." She paused, looking away, disappointed. "I'm so sorry Yami...! I really didn't-"
"Rebecca!" Yami heard from behind, and stepped aside. He knew what was coming next. "You're here!" Yuugi moved to hug her, but she put her arms up in protest.
For just a moment, confusion crossed Yuugi's features, and Yami's too - it made him feel uncomfortable, to know that they were sharing the same emotion. He suddenly had the urge to back away, slowly. They weren't on good terms yet and he quickly realized that he wasn't ready for this - to feel connected or any kind of camaraderie. There was every right to still be angry and upset, and furthermore, he knew Yuugi. The man's optimism was contagious. He didn't want to be put in a forgiving mood without his consent, and he was absolutely sure that, when it came to positive emotions, Yuugi wasn't going to hide or lock away anything.
It almost felt like manipulation, and that made Yami uncomfortable.
"I really didn't want to be one of those people!" Rebecca's hands went up and onto her mouth, so her next words were a little muffled. "I just haven't really been face-to-face... and..."
With her there, however, it was a little late to turn tail. So instead of running, Yami covered his nervousness with a laugh and tried to push his way through.
"It's fine."
He was normally skeptical of those who couldn't tell the difference between the two of them (for example, Mokuba had spotted the difference immediately even after such a long time), but her apology was very sincere. She reminded him of Yuugi, in that respect, and so far as that went, he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"To be fair," Yami added, to be polite, "I didn't recognize you either. You've grown up."
"I'd like to think so," she replied.
The excitement of the moment dying down, Yuugi ushered everyone upstairs. "Alright, come on..." There was a pout on his lip, clear disappointment in not being able to receive the hug that had been meant for him.
Yami spent the next several minutes. Sugoroku finally arrived after taking forever to change (He wore red overalls this time. Fancy.), and took his time greeting Rebecca. After Yuugi revealed that she was the Rebecca, Arthur's granddaughter, he shot off asking her all sorts of questions.
It worked out well enough for Yami; left him free to retreat to his room while they were otherwise occupied. He needed the space and the breather. Yami settled down on his bed and tried to process the information that he currently had, to reconcile it with what he'd known up to this point.
The fact rather that Yuugi's new girlfriend was Rebecca changed things. He hadn't expected her to be someone that he had already met, technically. Yami hadn't been one to duel Rebecca at the arcade - Yuugi had, all by himself. He had never spoken to her directly and therefore didn't know her. But he had been there, in a sense, and he had seen her. That made it impossible to impose some false personality on her. Yami couldn't pretend to hate her based on lack of knowledge, and that put him in a tight spot.
It wasn't that he didn't want Yuugi to be happy. But their argument had brought up a lot of things between the both of them that Yami hadn't known were there in the first place. And now, Rebecca was rather in the middle of it. He almost preferred to not have seen her. Now that he had, Yuugi was going to start bringing her over regularly, and she would effectively be the elephant in the room until the two of them could get their shit together. There was a little too much pressure to conform, and Yami didn't think he could withstand it.
He needed a break, and to get out of there.
There was a knock on his door. Of course there would be. Being upstairs for too long wouldn't give off a good impression was his guess. ami didn't really try to hide his frustration with the situation. "What?"
"Can I come in?" Yuugi, naturally. There to collect him.
Yami thought about it and sighed. Could he get himself together? "No," he said, to both questions. In spite of his best efforts, the only emotion he could channel was bitterness and that wouldn't help anyone. He was certain that the two of them would end up fighting if he allowed Yuugi inside. The chance was high enough with just the way things were.
That wasn't the answer that Yuugi wanted to hear. There was a considerable amount of silence before Yami heard, "Can we set things aside tonight? I just want to have a decent dinner. It would be weird if you weren't there."
Knowing that he'd contemplated leaving was likely not coincidence, and of all things he felt violated. It was not fair for Yuugi to be able to pick his brain about things, but kept the reverse from happening. Yami wanted to see things through, but Yuugi's pleads only pushed him to renege on them. That phrasing was worse: set things aside, for a woman he wasn't really acquainted with?
If they were going to set things aside, it should have been because they both wanted to get over this mess, not solely for Yuugi's benefit. Just the idea of doing it for any other reason was insulting.
"Yami?" Yuugi called again. "If you said something, I couldn't hear you."
He was already grabbing his wallet from the desk nearby. Fuck this.
At this point, things might end up being worse if he stayed. When he reached the door, he all but wrenched it open. "I'm heading out," he said, "so you won't have to worry about me."
Yuugi stood there, looking crestfallen, but only for a moment; eyebrows knitted and he said, "I wanted everyone to have dinner together."
Yami stood his ground at the door, unfazed. It took effort to remind himself that physically shoving Yuugi from his path wasn't in his best interest. "I know what you wanted."
Yuugi was clearly exasperated, ears turning pink. He grit his teeth, and forced out, "Weren't you the one bitching about not having the chance to meet her?"
That wasn't fair at all. He did want to meet her, before all this happened. They were two different circumstances, so that answer was unacceptable. Yami refused to tolerate it.
"Too little, too late," He spat back. "You move out of our room after screaming at me because you have unresolved issues about our relationship that you brought up from nowhere; you make me feel unwelcome in my own home, and you want me to buck up and get my shit together just because you want a happy family to bring your girlfriend home to? No. You're tired of feeling like my puppet, right? Don't want to be used? Good. I'm not letting you use me, either."
Yuugi's anger was wavering, like it always did after the initial outburst. Yami knew that would be near tears soon. His voice sank to a whisper, and he took a shaky breath before speaking. "Yami, I thought things were getting-"
"Better?" Yami cut him off, chuckling wryly. "Right, because the both of us going out of the house and never seeing each other or never speaking is just as good as actually trying to solve our problems. You want things to go well tonight, for her. What about us? What about tomorrow? Are we going to sit down and talk about this?"
He didn't give Yuugi the chance to answer. "No, I didn't think so."
Yuugi's sigh was more heavy this time. "...we can talk. Tomorrow. I promise we'll talk. I promise."
That was even more insulting, and Yami shook his head in response. "You don't get it. I'm not here just to make you look like a wholesome family man for your girl. I want things to work out because I care about you, not because of someone else. If Rebecca wasn't' there tonight, we wouldn't even be speaking. I know this shit is my fault, but you're just being an ass about it at this point. And I don't have to take it. I'm out of here."
Yuugi's arm extended to block Yami's path. "Yami, please." Those amethyst eyes were looking more and more moist by the second, and for all his protesting, Yami could feel Yuugi's pleas in their damned link.
It wrenched his heart and twisted it in a way that produced a sort of pain that no man should feel. Yuugi's feelings were bleeding over, and Yami bit his lip to keep himself focused and composed. He could feel his own eyes watering. There was a part of him that wanted to believe that it wasn't doing it on purpose.
Yuugi wouldn't do that; had never been the sort to do that kind of thing and he wouldn't start now, especially not for some girl he'd only been dating for a few months at most. Even when Yuugi was angry, he was kind. When Yami was being difficult, Yuugi had always gone out of his way to be helpful and patient.
It just hurt, Yami reasoned, and it was hard not to jump to conclusions when he was. He'd been feeling the absence of their connection for weeks. To suddenly have that bundle of emotions wash over him all at once was overwhelming. Maybe Yuugi had learned his lesson - decided that hiding things wouldn't help anymore since Yami had figured things out. Yuugi had left him with a gift, after all. Not quite a full apology, but proof that neither of them wanted to continue on like this.
Yami clenched his fists and decided that he could meet Yuugi in the middle, since that was the case. Perhaps he'd gotten upset too hastily.
"...fine. But don't thank me. I'm not through with you yet." He pushed Yuugi's arm aside and without another word, he moved down the hall towards the kitchen.