The CEO's health had been bad today, effectively ruining their plan to have lunch together. That, however, didn't deter Yugi from going to see Seto anyway, making his way up to the brunet's room in the Kaiba estate. Silently did he enter, closing the door softly behind him before the King of Games pulled his smaller form up onto Seto's bed. Still he said nothing, and simply lowered himself down to lay alongside the other duelist, eyes trained upon Seto's tired, frail features.
It’s the silence that Kaiba appreciates. The lack of need to ask if he’s okay - clearly he’s not, but Yugi knows his pride is his greatest strength. It’s been tested these past couple of months, almost run dry on more severe occasions, but he savors what he can, and sets free what becomes too much.
He’d apologized in the text message for his inability to meet the smaller for lunch, as had been planned when he’d been feeling far better than he was now. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to flake out, too exhausted, nauseated, and weak to even lift himself from the bed, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. The moments not spent sleeping were promised to brooding fits and attempts (though futile) to find the energy he needed to rise for the day. Eventually, he hadn’t a choice but to heed his doctor’s urgent words, and submit himself to a day of bedrest.
Yugi enters, at some point throughout the day, and Seto cringes at the thought of how much time has passed since he’d awoken in a fit of searing pain. Suki had done well to administer his medication quickly, as instructed by his caretaker, yet it had left him exhausted and lacking an appetite. Hopeless eyes stared, through his still lengthy eyelashes, at his… boyfriend? Partner. Lover. He wasn’t one for titles, but he supposed Yugi had earned some form of an intimate moniker.
“ Hey… “ he says quietly, inching himself a bit closer to where Yugi had positioned himself, “ I’m… “ Silence, and then, “ … nevermind. “ A breath passes from his lips, laden with defeat. An apology wasn’t necessary, he knew this, but some large part of him felt he was holding Yugi back from something more fulfilling. His decaying body, and all its setbacks, had left him dependent on too many people, Yugi included.
He should have admitted his feelings well before he’d been diagnosed. He should have been nicer, more tolerant, more openminded, and maybe then… their relationship wouldn’t have felt so hopeless now. As happy as the shorter duelist made him, the end goal was well beyond their reach. A grand proposal, marriage, kids… with his strength as absent as it was, they could barely be intimate, or even go on dates. What, then, was the point?
Why was Yugi still with him, if not out of sheer pity?
Seto doesn’t voice as much. Rather, he says nothing at all, and presses his face into Yugi’s shoulder with a muffled sigh. Yugi would just wave that verbal wand of his and speak everything negative out of existence, in that… magical way he seemed to have perfected, over the years. It was an endearing and respected trait, really, that Kaiba had come to admire in the time he’d known the champion. There were a lot of things that had eventually come to overshadow his skill as a duelist, in terms of key traits, which, in realizing this, spoke volumes in regards to the progress they had made. He’s… comfortable around Yugi now, clearly, when once he’d been too guarded and adamant in his quest to push the overly friendly male away.
“ … love you. “ It’s spoken so quietly, so gently, that one may miss it, even in the silence that gripped the room. He feels another heavy sleep spell creeping up on him, and perhaps doesn’t realize the weight of what he’s said in that moment. Likely won’t remember it whenever he wakes up, either. Well, whatever. Even if he had imagined himself uttering it in some distant dreamscape, reality sucked anyway. At least, in his hazy thoughts, he could hold on to the tinge of happiness the gods still allowed him.
— but, that had become Yugi, hadn’t it? That happiness. That hope. How fitting.
