Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Not This Time ❯ Moving Out ( Chapter 7 )

Chapter Seven – Moving Out Yami’s POV   “I ‘m afraid I won’t be able to help you with the store any longer…” I say quietly at breakfast. Only yesterday… only yesterday I talked to Seto. So much has changed… I thought long and hard about how to tell Yugi and Solomon that I want to move in with him… and I still haven’t come up with a good way, even though I seem to have already started to do so.   “Oh?” the old man asks, looking down at me as I sit at the table. “Why not?” Yugi’s big amethyst eyes look at me innocently as he munches on cereal, wondering as much as his grandfather.   “I… I don’t quite know how to say this, but I’d like to move out…”   Yugi’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates. “You want to leave, yami? Go out and live on your own?”   Aibou… my poor, sweet, innocent, adorable little Yugi… the friend I owe for breaking the cycle. How will he take this, not having me around? I didn’t think about it yesterday, just agreed without a second thought… but can I abandon my little hikari like this?   “Not quite, aibou…” I don’t look at them, munching my toast. I don’t want to look at them right now.   “’Not quite’?” Solomon asks, stopping his task at the sink in favor of looking at me. “So you’ve found… what? Someone you want to live with?”   Then Yugi squeals, and I look up at him, in surprise. That noise came from my little aibou? “Yami has a girlfriend!” he exclaims, looking at me with those unbearably cute eyes. “Who is it?” He leans closer for this juicy bit of gossip.   “More importantly,” his grandfather says, turning back to the sink, “how did he keep her hidden?”   “Not quite,” I say again, then peer into my aibou’s eyes. “You don’t mind?”   He shakes his head vigorously. “Not at all, Yami. I just want you to be happy… Just so long as you’re sure she’s not just some mooching fangirl who just wants you for your fame…” He frowned, and I have to smile at that.   “Somehow, I doubt that, little one…”   He brightens again. “So who is she?”   “It’s… You guys don’t mind if I leave?” I look worriedly between them. I had thought they would be a lot more… distraught… at the news.   Solomon shakes his head. “Of course not. If you want to go live with a girl you love, we won’t stand in your way.”   Yugi stands, tired of his question not being answered, leaning over the table and looking square in my face. “Who is she?”   I have really no choice but to answer. “Seto…” I say with a sigh, almost of defeat, looking away.   Yugi literally falls back into the chair, almost missing and hitting the floor. Even Solomon stops suddenly and looks at me.   “Kaiba?”   “You want to go move in with Seto Kaiba, yami?”   I just nod. This is the reaction I was afraid of… They’re disgusted.  This was why I didn’t tell them who it was. Belatedly, I wonder if Seto wanted to keep it a secret from anyone… “Just forget about it,” I tell them, standing up to leave the room, trying to give them time to get used to that. “If you aren’t still comfortable with my moving out, I’ll stay. I’ll just explain it to him…” I want so much to go to him, though. I don’t know if I can stay here… even if they want me to.   Yugi grabs onto my arm as I pass him, making me look down at him in mild surprise. He seems to be doing very unexpected things today… “Yami, where’re you going? I don’t care if you’re with Kaiba. I mean, I’m sure he’s a good guy in there somewhere, if you can just get to him… But, anyway, why wouldn’t we want you to go?”   I look at both of them again. I… suppose I misjudged them.   “I can’t say I like the boy,” Solomon adds, still tending to his dishes, “but I won’t stand in your way, if you care for him.”   “…Thank you,” I say to them both. “This means a lot to me…”   My blessed aibou gives me his huge smile and gives me a hug, which I return after a few seconds. “I mean it, Yami. I’m happy for you. Maybe you’ll be good for him…” He smiles up at me, but I can see tears in his eyes. He’s so very sweet and sensitive…   “Will you be okay without me here…?” I ask, suddenly concerned. I put my hand on his face, searching his eyes. If he needs me… then…  I don’t know.  I guess I’ll have to choose between Seto and Yugi… I don’t know if I can. I pray that I don’t have to.   But then he wipes his eyes with his sleeve. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he says brightly. “You don’t need to stay for me. I’ll miss you, but I’ll be okay.”   I smile and hug him for a moment, thinking that he’s much braver and more grown up than he looks. And I don’t have to choose between them… Thank you, Ra, or whoever is controlling my destiny… I love them both, though in very separate ways. Yugi is like my little brother, or a son, someone to protect and care for and make sure that that world treats him fairly… I love Seto so much differently. I want to protect him, care for him, make sure the world treats him fairly as well… but it’s so much deeper. There’s so much more to it…   “Now,” Solomon says, as Yugi exits the room, still slightly crying, but cheerfully. “The real question is, how did you manage to keep him a secret?”   I smile at him and don’t really answer. Do I really need to tell him that Seto and I were nothing more than bitter rival with strange dreams until yesterday? No, I don’t think so. They would never approve, because they could never understand. They wouldn’t be able to understand how we’ve loved each other for millennia… how we’ve always been destined to lose each other, every time, until this one came along…   How much I really, really need to see Seto right now…