Anzu tilts her hip, rolls her belly and Atem has a crisis of sexual identity.
A drabble for Yugitober Day 1: Puzzle!
(Please ignore that it’s like, day 6. And special thanks to @draconicmaw for the naming help!)
Anzu tilts her hip, rolls her belly and Atem has a crisis of sexual identity. He’s gay. He’s always been very gay. The most beautiful of women were paraded in front of him when he lived and he hadn’t been interested in one. Anzu twists her lean dancer’s body, crop-top flaring, exposing the black sports bra as she spins to her knees and pops back up in the same breath. Atem chews on a nail and thinks that maybe he can see the appeal. Yugi, for his part, takes one look at the former pharaoh's obvious internal struggle and has the audacity to laugh, laugh at his shattered sense of self. Atem makes a noise somewhere between indignation and helplessness.
Yugi leans away from the observation window where they’ve been watching Anzu rehearse and bumps his shoulder gently against Atem’s. “Sorry, that’s probably my fault.” He taps his forehead. “Too much time spent up here. But if it helps, I know exactly how that felt.”
Atem scoffs but it doesn’t have any real bite to it. “You know what it’s like to have a female make you question your gayness?”
Yugi laughs again. “I know what it’s like for a boy to make me question my straightness.”
The look they exchange is soft and full of affection and Atem pulls him close to rub their noses together. An ancient kiss. He nearly follows it up with a modern one when another explosion of movement from the dancefloor catches both their attention. With the help of a spotter, Anzu completes a controlled back flip, long legs fully on display as they slice through the air and then slide gracefully into a slow split that lowers her pelvis all the way to the floor.
“Holy shit,” Atem mutters under his breath, voice strained in a way that betrays how affected he is.
Seto climbed out of the car and stretched, hearing his spine pop in a few places. Another long day at the office had come and gone, leaving him standing in front of Kaiba Manor on a chilly Tuesday night. Isono pulled the car away to park it in the garage, but otherwise, the grounds were still and silent. Not unusual for the time of night he usually ended up getting home. So he was surprised to find Mokuba, fully dressed, waiting for him when he reached the top of the stairs that led to the porch.
“Welcome home, Seto!” His little brother beamed at him and rushed into a hug.
Even though he returned the hug, Seto got right to the point. “What’s wrong, Mokuba?”
“Nothing’s wrong, per se,” Mokuba explained, stepping out of Seto’s arms. “You just have some surprise visitors. Let me just show you.”
He raised an eyebrow and followed Mokuba inside, clutching the briefcase he had yet to deposit in his home office. They passed through the foyer, down a side hallway, and into one of the cozy lounge rooms they usually saved for casual meetings with their few acquaintances. As soon as the door opened, he froze.
“What the hell is this?”
Sitting around the low coffee table in the center of the room were the members of what Seto had not-so-affectionately nicknamed the “nerd herd.” Jounouchi and Honda took one sofa and Anzu and Ryou took the other, with Mokuba taking the extra space next to the first two. There was also the addition of Yugi’s grandfather, Sugoroku, in one of the plush chairs near the fireplace. Seto bristled under the old man’s judgmental gaze.
“We wanted to talk to you, Kaiba,” Anzu said. “Please, sit down.”
Normally, he would return the request with a snippy remark and do as he pleased, but this must be important if they were all willing to come here in practically the middle of the night. Plus, he had promised Yugi and Atem he would try to be nicer to the dorks. He took a seat in the remaining chair.
“Alright, what’s this about?” he asked impatiently.
“This,” Anzu began, gesturing to the collection of guests, “is about you getting into a relationship with two of our best friends.”
“And you don’t trust me,” Seto surmised.
Jounouchi made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “Can ya blame us afteh all the shit ya put us through, rich boy?”
Seto’s battle with his pride was becoming more of a war. All of his instincts screamed at him to insult Jounouchi for the sheer pleasure of getting a rise out of him, but he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t because, for some inexplicable reason, his partners cared for the rowdy mutt and, with their friends and Yugi’s grandfather watching his every move, he had to make a good impression. Seto had the bottom hem of his turtleneck in a vice grip and could feel himself sweating at the amount of self-control it was taking not to revile Jounouchi’s existence right to his stupid face. Yugi had promised the two of them would grow on each other, but it certainly hadn’t happened yet.
“Not...really,” he finally said, almost choking on the words behind his grit teeth.
The others seemed just as surprised as he was that he managed to bite back the unsavory words that were obviously trying to force their way out. Mokuba gave him a thumbs up.
“Then I’m sure you won’t mind us asking you a few questions,” Sugoroku replied.
His frustration shifted a bit into apprehension. If there was anyone he actually wanted to impress among the group of home invaders, it was Sugoroku Muto. Yugi--and, to a lesser extent, Atem--both idolized the old man and hung on his every word. He was fine if their friends only tolerated him; they couldn’t stop the two kings from seeing who they wanted and they could remain separated for the most part. One word from Sugoroku, on the other hand, could lead them all into a world of heartbreak if he decided Seto wasn’t good enough for his grandson and his ancient other half. If Sugoroku didn’t accept him, everything had the potential to fall apart. That wasn’t an option. He had to do this, and he had to do it honestly. Not just for himself, but for his partners too. That didn’t make it easy though. He still couldn’t help a slight flinch at seeing Ryou pull out a notepad with their questions for him written on the page.
The first few were easy enough: how long they’d been dating (two months), who made the first move (Yugi), if he’d known Yugi and Atem were in a relationship prior to his involvement (who didn’t?). Eventually though, they started pulling him outside of his comfort zone.
“How long have you had feelings for them?” Ryou asked.
Seto paused and stared down at his hands folded in his lap. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him as he tried to formulate a timeline of his relationship and emotions.
He must have been silent for too long because Anzu cleared her throat. “Well?”
“I’m thinking,” he grumbled, shooting her a glare. “It took me a while to figure it out. I’m not exactly good with this kind of thing.”
This time, they all waited for him to be ready to speak. With a sigh, he began.
“I guess it started with Atem. The more we dueled, the more passionate I got. I did things I never thought about doing before just to make our duels even more intense. Sometimes that was a good thing, other times it wasn’t, but after a while, I realized it wasn’t about dueling anymore. It was about him. Dueling with him. Then it was just about being near him at all, feeling that energy he seemed to naturally give off. When things started to settle down, I started seeing things I wouldn’t notice in our duels. I wanted to be around for some of the things I never got to see up close, like when he laughed at a good joke. And I realized he’d always cared about me, in a way. Those talks about my hatred and thirst for power...they eventually got through to me, even if it took a while. It was his own way of showing he cared, making me face reality.
“It took longer with Yugi. I thought of him as the weaker half for most of that time, but there was one moment I could never get out of my head. When we were in Noa’s stupid game with the Big Five, my step-father had trapped me in a duel to try and take over my body and get his company back. He lost and tried to take it by force.” The younger members of the group all nodded as they recalled hearing about the incident. “Yugi lowered my dueling platform right before Gozaburo could get to me and helped me get out safely. I never understood it. That’s not the only time he stood up for me, but something about that one stood out. I didn’t really start to dwell on it until after he and the pharaoh were separated. I got to see more of him then, not just Atem, and he has this pure strength and sunny disposition that was so different from everything I was used to. I found myself wanting to be around them all the time, to know everything about them, and I just...fell.”
Everyone was quiet for a while, none of them used to Seto being this open about his feelings before. He was glad for the silence though. It was preferable to any jokes at his expense or lectures about friendship or the “heart of the cards” or whatever else they talked about atop their soapboxes.
Honda took over asking the questions after that. He and Jounouchi must have been the ones responsible for these because their interview quickly turned into a trivia lightning round.
“What are their favorite foods?”
“Hamburgers and ta’amiya.”
“What are their least favorite foods?”
“Shallots and batarekh.”
“What’s Yugi’s birthday?”
“June 4th.”
“Who were Atem’s best friends in ancient Egypt?”
“Mahad and Mana.”
“What’s Atem’s least favorite game at the arcade?”
He smirked. “The claw machine.” It had been incredibly amusing to watch the pharaoh being dragged away almost frothing at the mouth at the amount of time and energy he’d put into the rigged game only to come up empty-handed.
“What’s Yugi’s least favorite subject in school?”
“Math.”
“What are their favorite colors?”
“Violet and lapis lazuli blue.”
Honda seemed shocked by how specific Seto was, but it was an important distinction. Yugi always preferred darker purples, and Atem remembered lapis lazuli as being a popular stone for jewelry among royalty and nobility in ancient times. He adored anything that matched that shade of blue.
“Do you love them?”
Sugoroku’s voice cut through his smug satisfaction at having stalled Honda’s rapid-fire questions. He almost got whiplash with how fast he turned to the old man sitting just a few feet away only to blink owlishly at him.
“What?”
“Do you love them?” he repeated.
“I…” Seto continued to stare as memories of his time with his boyfriends danced across his mind. Yugi’s bright smile and bubbling laughter. Atem’s triumphant smirk and confident gait. Yugi giving him gifts for no reason other than because he was thinking of him. Atem messing around in the kitchen trying to learn how to cook. Yugi calling him at lunch and dinner to remind him to eat a full meal and keep himself healthy. Atem exploring the modern world and being enamored with little things like slushies and holiday lights. The little cheek kisses they have him bend down to receive. The way Yugi loves to sit in his lap when they watch a movie. Falling asleep against the two of them on the living room couch because they’re just so warm and it’s been such a long day and he…
“Yes.” He was smiling, a genuine, heartwarming smile that the group could never have imagined on the face of Seto Kaiba up until that moment. “Yes, I love them.”
Sugoroku returned the smile and stood up. “Then that’s all that matters.”
The old man walked over and offered him a hug. Seeing him standing there, arms outstretched and framed by the soft, approving faces of Yugi and Atem’s closest friends, Seto felt the weight of the world fall off his shoulders.
