Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Not This Time ❯ Moving In ( Chapter 8 )

Chapter Eight – Moving In Seto’s POV   “Mokuba…”   “Hm?” My adorably little brother looks at me, glancing briefly away from his video game, then right back to it.   “Could you shut that off, please?”   He looks back at me. I never ask him to stop what he’s doing; I always wait for him to get done. He must realize that it’s important, because he does shut it off without hesitation and climbs up to the couch beside me, looking expectantly at me. I don’t quite look at him, though.   “Mokuba, I have something to tell you, then I have a question to ask you…” I pause, and he just waits. Just like Yami… he knows just what I need him to do. This isn’t easy for me to say… I only admitted – I only found out – that I had any sort of feelings for Yami yesterday. Now I have to tell Mokuba that I want him to move in here…   “Mokuba… there’s someone…” I take a deep breath. I’m just three words in and I already need to start over…   “You’ve been seeing someone?” he asks, perceptively, in my humble opinion. I nod, letting out that deep breath and still not looking at him.   “And…” I start to continue, but then I trail off. What’s wrong with me? I can stand in front of several thousand people, plus newspaper reporters and news cameras, and make them collectively ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ and gasp… but I can’t tell my little brother that I have a boyfriend? Or, is he my boyfriend…? That’s such a strange word… I’ve never even thought of using it before… But nothing else works. Lover isn’t applicable (and the thought makes my stomach do all sorts of unpleasant things). He’s certainly not my friend… we seem to have completely skipped that part of the relationship. I can’t very well just say that ‘This is Yami, my man-who-says-he-loves-me-and-will-never-hurt-me-and-I-think-I-love-him-back , can I? So… I guess he is my boyfriend…   “And what?” Mokuba prompts. “And… you want to get married?”   I shake my head in amusement. “No, not quite, Mokuba…”   “And… you want me to meet her?” He’s turned this into a game… It’s actually almost funny. Probably the most serious thing I have ever tried to tell him since “Daddy isn’t coming home, Mokuba”… and he’s turned it into a game.   “No – well, yes, sort of… You already know… It isn’t a ‘her’.” That was complicated, for answering a single question. At least I got that part out of the way, though…   Mokuba blinks at me for a few moments, I see from the corner of my eye. What will he say now? Will he recoil in horror…? No, I doubt it. What will his reaction be…?   “So… you have a boyfriend…?”   I nod, relieved that he hasn’t said “ew!” or run screaming from the house yet.   “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”   I shake me head ‘no’, and he smiles. Apparently, he likes this game. It’s called “Guess what your Brother is Trying to Tell You”.   “Did you want to tell me that you wanted me to meet him?” He grins like a little kid.   I sigh, determined to do this right. “No, Mokuba. That’s not what I wanted to tell you. You see, I…”   He frowns trying to think of something else. “Do you have a disease…?” he asks finally. I laugh again at that. Well, that’s pretty close, actually… I’m sick, anyway, because he’s invaded my mind like a virus…   “No, Mokuba, just let me tell you, okay? I do not have a disease – we haven’t even… Never mind.” Too late; I see by his grin that he knows what I was going to say. Whatever. It’s true, anyway. When did he turn into a teenager? He’s not supposed to know about that kind of stuff yet…! “Anyway…” I’m all business now. I will tell my brother what I’ve been trying to say, or die in the attempt. Better yet, let’s not think about that option. I’m not going to be dying anytime soon. “What I wanted to say is that I wanted him to move in here. With us.”   Mokuba actually looks a little shocked. “You want him to move in here when I don’t even know him…? I don’t know…”   I shake my head slightly. Here comes an even harder part… “You already know him, Mokuba.”   He furrows his eyebrows, trying to find someone. Apparently, he comes up blank. “Who?”   Is this a blush I feel upon my face? Why yes, yes it is… How appalling. “Yami,” I mutter.   He stares at me a moment, then bursts out laughing. I don’t know what reaction I was expecting, but that is definitely not it. It pains me somewhat, and I need something better than that to base my decision on… Not that it’s much of a decision. If Mokuba says no… I guess that means no. If he says yes, I’m in bliss. Simple as that.   “Mokuba…” Even my voice sounds pained.   He shakes his head and slowly stops laughing. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to laugh like that… It’s just… You and Yami…” He laughs again, to my dismay. “You guys sure have done a really good job of pretending to hate each other.”   Should I tell him that we weren’t actually pretending anything? That until yesterday, things were pretty much how they seemed between us? Somehow, I think not. He won’t be really that supporting of our relationship if he knew that. Even Mokuba knows how things are supposed to progress, and that’s not “I hate you – I loathe you – I have to beat you – I love you – Please live with me.” No, usually there are things in the middle there…   “So what do you think?” I ask finally.   “About what? Him moving in? Sure. I don’t really care. He’s a good guy.” He smiles brightly, and I backs in the warm glow of his confidence. He likes my choice in men… not that I feel I had much of a choice. I either had to accept his professed love for me… or go insane. I still don’t know if I chose right… All of a sudden I’m beset by irrational fears, as though they were just waiting for me to feel good again before they came back. What if he was lying? What if he doesn’t love me? What if he does want to hurt me…? What if this is all some sort of ingenious plot, and he’s just going to use this against me…   “Seto? What’s wrong?” Mokuba’s big grey eyes are worried about me, searching my face to make sure I’m all right. He shouldn’t worry about me… A spike of guilt stabs me for a moment when I see that look, and all of the doubts are gone.   “I’m fine, Mokuba,” I say. “Really. I was just a little worried about something… I know it’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”   He searches my face for a moment, but for once I’m not hiding anything, and he smiles brightly again. “Okay. Do you know where Yami’s going to be staying yet?” I just shrug. I haven’t really though about it… I’ve been too caught up, in either thinking about him, or agonizing over trying to tell Mokuba… “What,” my little imp taunts. “He’s not staying in your room?” He scoots off the couch and giggles as I make a half-hearted grab for him. That is an interesting idea, though…   I pace around for a little while, thinking absently. I’ll give him a choice, I decide. I don’t know what I’m doing, after all… I don’t want to force him to stay with me when it’s too soon, or stay away from me when he wants to… So it’s his –   The doorbell rings, and I’m there faster than I ever believed I could move. I know instinctively that it’s him… If it’s not, whoever it is had better have a good reason for being here, or they will leave without their head…   I open the door, trying to look composed, but I can’t help but smile when I see him there… I immediately kiss him, as though I’m starved for attention, and he returns it the same way, eager and energetic. Damn this need for oxygen… I’m forced to breathe and break our kiss, though I notice that he’s panting too…   “They didn’t mind you leaving?”   “He didn’t mind my coming?”   I shake my head and hold the door open for him to come in. He has only two bags; I guess he and Yugi probably shared a lot of their possessions, and he left them with his hikari. “You have two options,” I tell him, just to get it out of the way. “You can stay in the empty room next to mine, or…”   He raises an eyebrow. “Or in yours?” He tries to make it sound  like a joke, but I know that he’s serious, on some level. I just nod mutely.   “I choose the second one, then, of course,” he says. I smile again and kiss him, then take one of his bags and lead him by the hand to my… our… room. All of my doubts are hibernating, for now… Right now, I feel that I can trust him…