Souvenir

Disclaimer: Just own the words, not the folks.

The Price

I haven’t slept well for more than a week. Not since the day Mokuba left.

The two weeks he stayed here flew by so fast...

I curl up tighter under my covers, hoping that sheer exhaustion will let me sleep tonight. But as soon as I close my eyes, all I can see is Mokuba’s tear-stained face when we said good-bye at the airport.

I climb out of bed and get dressed before quietly slipping down the stairs and out the front door.

Lately, I’ve taken to walking the neighborhood when I can’t sleep, the dark silence more soothing to me than lying in my oddly empty bed.

I think I miss Mokuba even more now. Maybe I should have gone with him back to Egypt, at least to visit with him for a while. But I didn’t want to disrupt his schooling and...

And I didn’t want to leave Yami.

I thought my feelings for Yami would lessen while Mokuba was here, but they seem to have increased. Maybe because Yami went out of his way to make sure that Mokuba and I were well taken care of and happy. He even took off the rest of Mokuba’s first week here to spend time with us!

I smile in remembrance of riding around with him to some of the finest restaurants in the area and several amusement parks. The three of us had a really good time together! Raphael even came to cook for us one night, though his shock at seeing Mokuba conveyed that Yami still hadn’t told him anything about me.

I think I loved him even more then.

I stop walking as that concept runs through my head...

Loved him? Do I love Yami?

I’m not sure.

Dismissing that train of thought, I continue walking the neighborhood, my circuit taking me to the front of the complex. At the sight of the still demolished wall of the neighbor’s yard, my mind takes me back to the conversation I had with Mokuba about Gozaboro’s death. Though fairly brief, it led to our much longer conversation about what that bastard had done to us; something we’d never actually talked about before.

We talked and cried together a lot that day.

Rounding the final corner of my trek, I’m surprised to see Yami standing in his doorway.

“At least leave a note when you’re going out,” he admonishes sleepily. “Besides, it’s almost three o’clock in the morning. What are you doing out here? I was worried when I heard the front door close and then couldn’t find you.”

“I’m sorry, Yami,” I apologize as I enter the house behind him, suppressing my smile at his rampant bed-head. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk.”

“You miss him even more now, right?” he yawns, heading into the kitchen.

“Yes,” I reply somberly, watching as he puts on the teapot and pulls out two mugs and our favorite green tea.

“If you’re really that lonely, you could stay in my room, you know,” he offers. “That way you could get at least one night of sleep. Or what’s left of the night.”

Sleep with Yami? In his bed? Possibly touching him?

At that thought, the quiet stirrings of my body from simply being near him come fully alive. I respectfully decline both the offer and the tea and quickly escape to my room. All thoughts of sleep are banished from my mind as my hand relieves the tension brought on by the images Yami’s casual suggestion caused.

Unfortunately, when Yami catches me up watching TV around the same time the next night, he won’t take “no” for an answer.

“I’m not a little kid, Yami,” I protest as he pulls me along to his room. “I can sleep without a stuffed animal.”

“Apparently not,” he retorts, “since you’re still awake from yesterday.”

“Yami – ”

“Sleep, Seto,” he orders, pushing me down onto the mattress of his large bed.

For a moment, I wonder if this is merely a ploy for Yami to finally extract some form of payment from me, and then admonish myself for such a thought. If he’d wanted that from me, he could have demanded it long before now.

But still...

Now completely awake, I suppress the urge to run and my body’s trembling as Yami helps me under the covers. He gets into the bed behind me, turning off the lamp with a yawned, “Good night” and I find myself suddenly rigid with fear.

‘He’s just trying to help me,’ I tell myself. ‘He doesn’t want...he won’t...’

I close my eyes and try to calm my racing heart.

What if he did want something more from me? Isn’t that what I’ve been hoping for? That he’d want to touch me? That he’d want to take me?

“Not like this,” I whisper, my heartbeat speeding up even more.

Despite the comfort of Yami’s mattress, I find that I can no longer lie there next to him. Slowly I climb from his bed and head toward the bedroom door. A light snore stops me at the threshold, calming me more than any words he could have ever said.

Quietly I tiptoe to look at his face, assuring myself that he’s actually asleep. A snuffling and an intermittent snore accompany the slow rise and fall of his chest in the dim light of the moon peeking through his curtains. I watch him for a while, enjoying the play of moonlight across his features.

Assured by Yami’s deep sleep of his honest intensions, I crawl back into the other side of the bed, drifting off almost immediately.

I awake late the next morning to an empty bed and Yami’s usual note about going to work taped to his bedroom mirror.

As I take my shower, I make plans to go out and find a job. It’s not right for Yami to continue to take care of me; especially if he’s not going to ask for any other form of payment. I should pay at least part of my own way. Maybe there’s something at Yami’s hotel...

No, that’s probably a bad idea. Having Raphael snarling at me on a regular basis is enough; I don’t want to add any of his other co-workers.

I spend the rest of the morning searching the paper and making calls about job openings before hitching a ride into the city and going door-to-door. It’s very late by the time I get back to Yami’s house. I’m sure if he’d been home I’d have gotten an earful. As it is, I listen to his three messages asking me to call him back, get something to eat and go to bed.

“I got a job,” I inform Yami over dinner the next day.

“You did? When? Where?” he gawks.

I tell him about the small shop near his hotel that needed a stock clerk and part-time cashier starting next week. I’d apparently been the only applicant not to haggle about the money, Y950/hour, so they’d hired me on the spot.

“That’s great, Seto!” he beams. “Just let me know what your hours are and I’ll drive you in. And on the days that I stay at the hotel, you can too!”

Part of me worried that he’d resent my getting a job; that he’d want to keep me indebted to him forever, but he’s more excited than I am.

Maybe he’s been on my side all along.

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The sticky mess in my pajamas greets me yet again as I open my eyes; quite the awkward side effect from having a job. Since Yami started driving me to and from work almost a month ago, his close proximity keeps affecting me. And staying here in the hotel suite with him every week only makes it worse!

He’s always so close...

At his house, a hallway separates our rooms. In this suite, there is only the wall. I turn my head and gaze through the darkness at said wall. How long until I can’t use its flimsy presence as an excuse to keep me from going into that room?

I lay in bed a little longer, listening for Yami’s familiar steps in the outer rooms. Hearing none, I carefully get out of the bed and head straight into the adjoining bathroom for a shower and to hide my soiled garments in the bottom of the hamper.

Yami’s out-of-tune warbling greets me as I step from my room after drying off and throwing on a t-shirt and jeans. His terrible singing has actually become less annoying and more endearing these last few weeks, I almost don’t want to tell him to stop.

“Trying to raise the dead again, Yami,” I tease, surprising myself even more than Yami as I hadn’t meant to say anything at all.

After a moment of shock, he laughs loudly, offering to have a cup of tea with me before he heads out for his morning shift. That’s when I realize that I’m up much earlier than I need to be since Yami’s shift starts at 6:15 am.

“Sure,” I reply evenly, ignoring the stirring that the sound of his voice brings.

I want to tell him; I should tell him...but...

I wave to the retreating form of my friend, deciding that maybe I should leave things as they are; Yami’s friendship is better than nothing at all.

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I awake gasping for air and shaking.

Since that night in Yami’s bed I’ve been sleeping really well; until tonight. Dragging myself from the bed, I stumble to the bathroom, meaning to wipe my face and get a drink of water. Instead, I find myself cradling the porcelain god, losing the excellent meal that Yami treated me to earlier tonight.

I haven’t thought about that night in a really long time; the night that I found Gozaboro with Mokuba. Every time I remember what that bastard did to him…I plant my face over the toilet again and heave out whatever is left in my stomach.

Once I can finally stand up, I shed my sweaty, smelly pajamas and take a really hot shower, scrubbing myself clean of that bastard’s touches. I know that it’s been over four years, but whenever I have that dream…I fight to keep from dry heaving in the shower while I continue to scrub the remembered filth away.

As I put on clean pajamas after drying off and brushing my teeth, I know that I’ll never be able to go back to sleep without having that same dream again.

Unless...

I slip into Yami’s room to find him sprawled halfway across his bed asleep.

‘He won’t mind,’ I assure myself, sliding carefully under the covers on the other side. My body instantly relaxes in the soft comfort and I soon find myself falling asleep.