Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Coalescence ❯ The Morning After ( Chapter 10 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

10) The Morning After

Summary: Seto and Mokuba at the breakfast table; Yugi wakes up; Seto calls and talks to Grandpa; Seto tries an experiment while Yugi is at the mall.



Mokuba Kaiba bounced into the dining room for breakfast Sunday morning, immediately noting the usual scene: a veritable banquet laid out already for the Kaiba siblings and his brother sitting with his nose in the financial section of the Sunday paper with only a cup of coffee in front of him.

"Good morning, nii-sama!" Mokuba crowed cheerily, grabbing a bagel half as he plopped into a chair beside his brother. Then he noted something not usual about the scene.

Seto Kaiba was not, in fact, looking at the paper at all, but was staring off into space, looking a bit dreamily at nothing. He held a cup of coffee in his hand, but on the table, making no move to actually drink from it. "Seto?" Mokuba inquired, tilting his head at his brother.

Seto straightened abruptly as his brother's presence registered finally. "Mokuba," he sighed. "Good morning." He glanced over and smiled at his little brother.

Mokuba blinked. "Do I look funny or something this morning, nii-sama?" he asked, bewildered.

"Huh?" Seto blinked back.

The mop-haired boy grinned suddenly. "You're smiling!" He laughed, then explained, "I mean, I know you do smile... like when the company stock goes up... or when you're inventing another really cool gadget... or especially when your Blue Eyes White Dragon downs yet another duelist... but this is a different smile. Kinda nice."

Seto raised his eyebrows, wondering at his sibling's perception. "Um, thank you, I think..."

"OH!" Mokuba exclaimed suddenly. "I forgot to ask you! How was your date??" He leaned over and waggled his eyebrows at his brother suggestively.

Blushing, Seto almost had to laugh at his little brother's comical antics. "The date was fine, Mokuba, thanks for asking," he murmured, taking a sudden interest in a platter of fruits and breads within arm's reach.

"Did you KISS him, huh?" Mokuba asked, giggling with a bounce in his chair.

"That is NONE of your business," Seto returned, pretending severity as he studied the selection on the platter.

"Aw, come on, Seto!" Mokuba whined, but then cheered up immediately. "So, you guys going out again, eh?"

"Probably," Seto sighed, selecting a grapefruit. He set it on his place and began preparing it with a knife, cutting it in half, then sectioning it for eating. "We had a nice time," he added.

Mokuba cast him a smirk, but noted Seto was studiously ignoring him. [I'll bet they kissed, all right!] he thought, sighing. [Oh, Seto, just let someone else into your life, won't you? You need somebody. I'm big now and don't need you to watch over me every second... so you've got time to have someone of your own. I just want you to be happy...]

"Seto..." he murmured, watching his brother eat a section of grapefruit.

"Mmmm?"

"I didn't mean to pry, nii-sama," he continued in a subdued voice. "I just..."

Now Seto looked over at him again. Mokuba was stunned to see the tenderness in his big brother's eyes. He knew Seto loved him, but he never looked at him like that. Like he wasn't afraid to show his love anymore.

"What's that, Mokuba?"

"I just want you and Yugi to be happy!" he exclaimed, then, immediately embarrassed by what he'd just said, he started shoveling food onto his plate and into his mouth as fast as he could.

Seto gaped at him, then smiled. He couldn't even mind that Mokuba was making a pig of himself all of a sudden. "Thanks, Mokuba," he murmured.





Yami, resting in a dreamless state in his soul room, was startled into alertness by his hikari's abrupt waking up. He was about to call out to him to make sure Yugi was all right, but subsided, wondering how the boy felt... and wondering just how strong those defenses were last night.

"Yow," Yugi exclaimed, holding his errant alarm clock, "Look at the time! The guys are gonna cream me if I'm late!" He leaped out of bed and, grabbing a fistful of clothes, immediately headed for the bathroom.

Yami retreated, allowing his other half privacy. [He's got plans for the day, it seems,] he realized, a bit saddened. Not only would he not have any chance to talk to his new lover today, but now not even Yugi either. [I should be used to this by now,] he mused, sitting on the floor of his outermost chamber, hugging his knees. [Waiting...]

Then came the strange sense of disorientation washing over him that meant that Yugi had set the Puzzle aside, probably to take a shower. Yami winced at the unpleasant sensation. He'd transformed the Puzzle back into its more powerful form last night, so he was unusually sensitive to it. Especially since it wasn't that long ago that Yugi had nearly lost the Puzzle to a warehouse fire, trapped there by a mysterious duelist that had turned out to be Bandit Keith under some sort of strange possession.

[We still have enemies afoot, it seems,] he mused, then reached beside him where a deck of cards sat on the floor, a mirror deck to Yugi's real one. Since Duelist Kingdom, Yugi had acquired some new cards that he had not yet tried out. [We must be strong against those darker forces,] Yami added to himself, sorting out the cards before him on the floor.

Newest were the three Magnet Warriors, Alpha, Beta and Gamma. Not so strong in themselves, but they could be Fused into a mightier warrior. Dark Magician Girl had been a brilliant find; she gained more power after the Dark Magician was in the graveyard. Another formidable card was Buster Blader, very effective against dragons. [Our deck is fairly well known among our fellow Duelist Kingdom players,] Yami mused as he went over the selection before him. [We must rebuild the deck for future encounters, prepare some surprises for them...]

Engrossed in his study of the cards, Yami did not hear at first when Yugi did call to him at last. "Hmmm?" he murmured at about the third attempt.

/Yami, I'm going to the mall with the guys and then we're going to see a movie,/ Yugi hurriedly explained as he finished dressing and headed downstairs. /See you later!/

Yami was about to reply, but he could sense a shift in Yugi's consciousness as the boy reached the kitchen. He was talking to his grandfather. Although Yami could observe Yugi's activities from the back of his mind and through the "windows" of his eyes, he chose to withdraw, remaining in his soul room. There he could replay the events of the previous evening... to savor his time with Seto Kaiba.

He hoped Yugi would remember later to ask him about his date.





"No, he's not here," Sugoroku Mutou replied to the person on the phone about an hour later. The voice sounded familiar. "Is this... isn't this Seto Kaiba?"

Seto, locked away in his private sanctuary much as Yami was secluded in his soul room, blanched at the inquiry. "Yes, sir, Mutou-san, it is."

"So... you're friends with my Yugi now?" The voice was rather neutral, neither accusing or suspicious.

Seto recalled Yugi's words on the subject. "Yes," he replied firmly.

"Why?" Grandpa Mutou asked, curious. "Besides dueling, of course, what could the two of you possibly have in common?"

[Yami,] Seto thought promptly, but did not respond with that. Instead he took a deep breath. "He's... helping me. With a project. And..." He paused. How to explain it? [Yugi calms my spirit while Yami inflames my heart. Yes, that's it. But I cannot say something like that to Yugi's grandfather...] "And he... accepts me." He winced, hoping that didn't sound too stupid.

"I see," Grandpa Mutou replied enigmatically. "Well, Yugi is like that - friends to the world."

[Meaning he'd be friends even to trash like me,] Seto thought the old man must be thinking. "Do you know when he'll return?" he asked, not wanting to get into anything with Yugi's grandfather.

"Hard to say," Grandpa Mutou murmured. "Well, he's out with his friends..." He paused to let the other boy think about that word - friends - meaning that Seto Kaiba obviously was not in that category, at least for today's activities. "I don't expect him back until the evening, frankly."

Seto winced, reading all too well the man's inference. "I see. Thank you for your time, Mutou-san."

"Sure. Good-bye," Yugi's grandfather responded, then hung up the phone. [What could Seto Kaiba really want with my grandson?] he wondered, then shrugged.

Seto hung up the phone, feeling unusually disoriented. [We just had our first date last night, and already I'm mooning like a sick puppy because I can't talk to him today,] he mused morosely, picking up a pewter statue of Blue Eyes White Dragon from his desk and handling it idly as he thought. [Yami... I just want to hear your voice... I want to see your beautiful eyes... I want to...]

He groaned and leaned back in his chair, tipping it back a little. "God, Yami, I want you so much," he sighed aloud, then glanced down at the figurine in his hands. "Damn it, Blue Eyes," he added, "why can't you be real so I can just send you out to fetch Yugi for me? Heh, that would be quite a scene... I can picture Yugi's pal the Pooch facing my Blue Eyes.... again. Make that puppy poop right in his pants..."

Jounouchi... was going to be a problem, Seto knew. Yami had said that he would deal with Yugi's friends, for it would surely come out sometime that Yami and Seto Kaiba were seeing each other. Seto didn't hate Jounouchi, not exactly. He just found the dueling wanna-be to be supremely irritating. The boy's luck had landed him in the Duelist Kingdom finals, after all. He wasn't in Kaiba's league... he wasn't in Yugi's league, either, for that matter, though he'd heard that they'd had a good, close battle together in the finals. [No one comes anywhere near to Yugi and myself,] he thought. [Yugi...]

Yugi's grandfather was right; Yugi Mutou would be a friend to the world if he had the chance. [He's done so much for me and especially for Mokuba,] he realized, abashed. Then he remembered when he had been hacking into Pegasus's computer system while Yugi/Yami dueled the incarnation of Kaiba's dark side. He glanced down again at the little Blue Eyes White Dragon in his hands... and got an idea.

[What if...] He remembered when the Blue Eyes on the field during the game responded to his mental call to disobey the dark incarnation. [Yami heard me call Yugi's name, I know it,] he thought, his mind spinning with sudden possibilities. [How did that happen? Could it be there's already some sort of link between us? What if I tried that again... could I make Yami hear me now?]

He sat up abruptly. [I don't believe in real magic or destiny... but here there's evidence of something... more. I know I made Yugi hear me... the Blue Eyes White Dragon heard me! It's his Millennium Puzzle. Maybe it's not all nonsense after all. So hard for me to accept... I've been so focused on developing my technological prowess for so long that I may have ignored a power I knew nothing about. I do feel drawn to him... and science cannot explain that!]

Closing his eyes, Seto concentrated on remembering exactly how it happened that day. He'd successfully infected the Blue Eyes White Dragon on the playing field with a virus, but it wasn't decreasing in power fast enough to save the duel. Seto remembered all too well the feeling of desperation he'd felt, that his name and cards had been stolen by that THING of Pegasus's creation, his own Blue Eyes used against the boy who'd just been trying to help Mokuba. Desperation... and something else...

[I *yearned* for him to hear me, and somehow, some power of his Puzzle must have been activated,] Seto considered. [Could it be? Could there have already been a connection between us? Is that why he unnerves me so... and why I feel so drawn to him? Yami... ancient spirit... just what and who ARE you? I know now that you feel what I do... you feel the draw, too.]

He took a deep breath. [I feel it now, too... Yami... Yami... YAMI!]

Miles away Yami in his soul room sat up abruptly, his heart pounding. Yugi, too, had frozen in the middle of telling Honda something.

"Yugi?" Honda asked, frowning at the strange look on his buddy's face. "You in there? What happened next, man?"

Yugi shook his head slowly. [Yami... I felt *something* from Yami...] He glanced up finally at his friends who were all looked at him peculiarly. "Guys... um, sorry, I just remembered I need to make a quick phone call to Jii-chan to tell him something I forgot this morning..." He got up from the table where they'd been eating at the food court in the mall. "Excuse me..."

"Eh, never mind, he gets like that," Jounouchi was telling Honda and Bakura with a shrug as Yugi made a beeline for a pay telephone.

[I don't know what's going on,] Yugi worried as he got on the phone and pretended to make a call. Instead of actually calling, he spoke internally with his other self. /Yami?/

Yami, of course, knew what had happened. //Aibou...//

/What... what's going on? I thought I heard you calling.../

Yami hugged his knees hard, fighting to keep his own emotions tightly shuttered. //You did. Please, Yugi, would you mind letting me call Seto Kaiba for a minute?//

/Huh? Kaiba-kun?/ Then, finally, Yugi remembered the date. /Oh, geez, I never even asked you how it went last night! Don't tell me now; I've got to get back to the guys in a minute. Okay. You can call... but please don't be long./

//Thank you,// Yami murmured, then sighed as the transformation was effected. Quickly he dialed his lover's number.

Seto, still avidly concentrating, was startled into sharp awareness as the phone rang abruptly. Hastily he answered it. "Kaiba..." he breathed, hopeful.

"Seto..." the smooth, silken masculine voice replied, sending a thrill through his entire body. "I sensed you calling out to me! What is wrong, Seto?"

"Damn, Yami, I didn't think I'd actually..." Seto took a deep breath to steady his voice. "It was an experiment. I'm sorry to disturb you. And Yugi, I guess. I forgot that he would hear me, too."

"It's okay, Seto," Yami murmured, daring to allow himself to take a moment to savor the silken voice of his new lover. "I'd say the experiment worked, though of course Yugi hears what I hear. I remember when that happened before, don't you? Interesting that we may already have some sort of psychic link together... or that the Puzzle has allowed the contact."

"I thought so, too," Seto replied. "I... missed you, Yami. I know I have to be content with seeing you and talking to you when it's convenient for you both, but that doesn't mean I'll like it. I've been thinking about last night so much..."

"So have I." Yami closed his eyes, imagining the tall, gorgeous Seto Kaiba, wishing he could see him for real. "I... don't know when I can see you again."

Seto bit his lip. "I understand. Yami..."

Just then Jounouchi appeared, calling Yugi's name. "Hey, Yug, we've only got ten minutes before the movie! Your burger's getting cold! Everything okay, man?"

"I have to go," Yami murmured to Seto regretfully. "Good-bye..."

"Good-bye, Yami..."

Yugi hung up the phone and turned around, feeling strangely sad.

"Yug?"

"It's okay, Jounouchi-kun," Yugi murmured, shrugging off the feeling. He'd talk to Yami later.

Alone again, Yami shored up his defenses to make sure his light half did not sense his internal aching. [We've taken a step upon a new path, I'm sure of it,] he mused, returning to his innermost defensive chamber. [But it will not be an easy one...]

Seto shrugged off his own strange mood, leaving his sanctuary to seek out his little brother. [I've got to stop brooding,] he mused, ignoring the ache in his own heart. He found Mokuba in a typical spot - parked in front of a television.

"Nii-sama," Mokuba muttered in greeting, barely looking up. "What's up? You're not working?"

Seto stooped down to his little brother's level. "Mokuba, it's Sunday."

"So? That's never stopped you from working before." Lazily Mokuba grabbed a handful of popcorn from a nearby bowl and stuffed it into his mouth.

Seto swallowed carefully. [Ouch.] He looked at the television screen. "What are you watching?"

"Betterman," Mokuba replied, gesturing at the screen. "It's a really cool anime, all dark and nasty with this cool dude who transforms into these powerful beast forms." Then the boy looked up at his sibling finally. [Seto's taking an interest in something *I'm* doing? Huh...] "Um, you'd probably find it boring."

Sighing, Seto sat on the floor and pulled over the bowl of popcorn. "Actually, I'm in the mood for dark and nasty, Mokuba. Fill me in on what's going on?"

Mokuba grinned. "Sure thing, nii-sama!"



tbc