Carry On

A/N: Sorry! I forgot to post this chapter here when I posted it... goodness, three weeks ago on fanfiction.net. Please forgive me. ^_^'

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Chapter Seventeen – Departure from the Norm

Yuugi bit his lip and furrowed his brows in sympathy. It was obvious that Atemu’s family had just walked out of his life, leaving him behind in a foreign country to fend for himself without their support. He didn’t have to understand their words to know that much. He had felt an odd mixture of jealousy and envy when Atemu’s brother had hugged him, the embrace showing the intimacy the two men shared as siblings of the same household, of a lifetime of living side by side. It only proved to Yuugi how far he still had to travel in order to be connected to Atemu. Sure, the man loved him and allowed physical intimacy, but any notion Yuugi had had that he was emotionally close to him was thoroughly obliterated by that one hug between brothers.

He was kicking himself for coming out in the yard to begin with, but he just couldn’t restrain himself any further when he saw the fight leave Atemu as his body had rolled in on itself and he’d refused to react when his father had struck him. At that moment Yuugi had known with his whole heart that if he didn’t intervene, that the fear he’d had of Atemu leaving him was going to become a stark reality. And now, looking at Atemu’s back as the man had yet to turn and acknowledge him, Yuugi knew this was still a distinct possibility. In hindsight, he’d been stupid. He hadn’t improved his situation at all. He’d probably made it worse.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. He crossed his stomach with his arm and held onto his elbow, nervously running his hand around the joint. He wasn’t expecting a response. He was just so full of conflicting emotions that he needed to begin releasing some of them so he wouldn’t explode. “I didn’t mean to make it worse.”

Atemu eventually rolled his head along his shoulders, jerking his shoulder around and sighing through his nose. “I know Yuugi,” he said distractedly. He knew he needed to focus on the conversation at hand but he was having an extremely difficult time pulling himself out of the fight with his family, even for a moment. This time the break had been his idea, and he couldn’t decide if he was satisfied with the decision. He’d thought that if he were the one to instigate the family break-up that the pain would be less than when his father had denounced him, but as the minutes passed he was discovering that he’d been horribly wrong.

“Do… you want me to leave?” Yuugi asked, increasingly insecure with Atemu’s lack of attention.

Atemu shrugged unconvincingly. “No, you don’t need to.” He clucked his tongue and finally turned to face Yuugi, placing a hand on his hip and shifting his weight onto one leg. “Well, now you know.”

“Know?”

“Yeah. Now you know my big secret.”

Yuugi shook his head in confusion, releasing his arms and bending them at his sides in question. “What, that your family doesn’t like you or something?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Atemu snapped, twisting his neck to the side to glare at the alley. “It goes far beyond them not liking me.” He said the word with such distaste that his face scrunched up around it. “Being disowned hardly signifies dislike.”

Yuugi was getting angry at the way Atemu was talking to him and he let it show in the tone of his voice. “That’s not what it looked like to me. It looked to me like you were the one to throw them out, not the other way around.”

The enraged eyes that met him nearly made Yuugi choke on his tongue.

“Then you are stupid,” Atemu seethed. He lowered his hand from his hip and held it stiffly against his side, mirroring the position of its twin. “You honestly believe I wanted to cut myself off from my family? That knowing I’ll never see them again, talk to them again, know if they’re even alive or dead is something to be proud of?!”

Yuugi’s lips pulled back in a snarl and he matched Atemu’s rigid body language, a storm raging in his blue eyes. “I’m doing my damnedest to be supportive and keep my temper in check because I know you’re hurting but I’m not going to much longer if you keep lashing out at me like this. I know I’ve screwed up but I don’t deserve to be treated as though I’m your enemy!”

“Who else am I going to yell at?!” Atemu demanded. “I don’t have anyone else!”

And with that proclamation both men instantly lost their anger in the realization of how true those words were. Atemu’s rigidness melted off of him like wax, and he would have fallen on his face at the shock of his own words had Yuugi not rushed forward and caught him, holding him as if letting go would mean the end of the world. He didn’t return the embrace, hanging limp, immersed in the sadness, fear and regret that broke free from their prison and flooded him like a clogged gutter. Yuugi didn’t care though – he was holding on tight enough for both of them, staggering a little due to the taller man’s weight but determined not to let him fall.

Yuugi pushed his face into Atemu’s neck and kept it there. “God Atemu,” he murmured, his own tears leaking passed clenched lids. “Don’t say that, please don’t say that, please…” He shook his head against the mournful cry he felt tear through Atemu’s body before passing through his lips, standing back and shaking Atemu for all he was worth. “Don’t say that! You aren’t alone!”

The shaking finally got through to Atemu and he raised his hands to cover Yuugi’s on his shoulders, reeling from the headache the motion and his emotions had given him. He nodded shakily, keeping his eyes locked with Yuugi’s while he swallowed and attempted to pull himself together. Licking his dry lips, he said, “But I’m not happy.”

Yuugi’s heart broke. “I know, I know you aren’t, no one would be, but we’ll make it better.” He cupped Atemu’s cheeks, interrupting the flow of tears that were silently streaming from the other man’s eyes. “We’ll fix this, alright? We’ll carry on.” He felt his hands go numb when Atemu sadly shook his head.

“No, Yuugi,” he said, his voice confident but soft, underlined by hurt. “That’s not what I meant.” He took hold of the hands on his face and rubbed his thumbs along Yuugi’s knuckles before removing them from his cheeks and interlacing their fingers and holding them to his chest. He looked at Yuugi imploringly, begging him to understand what he was saying.

“I haven’t been happy for a long time. And it’s not because of you,” he interjected at the hurt that flashed through Yuugi’s eyes. “It’s because of me. I thought I had changed, but I haven’t, not nearly as much as I need to.” He brought their clasped hands to his lips so he could press them against Yuugi’s fingers in desperate kisses, his eyes closing against the strain. “I hate myself Heba, I do I do I do. And that isn’t going to change unless I do something drastic to make it happen.”

Yuugi swallowed thickly around his dry and swollen tongue, trying to keep the sobs that were choking his chest from bouncing up his throat. “You are leaving me.” He did sob when Atemu pressed harder kisses to his hands as his answer. “No… please, you don’t have to do this! I don’t care about your family! Or anything else that’s happened! We can get through this! We can-…” He broke off, knowing the futility of his efforts when Atemu didn’t react to his outburst in any way other than kissing his hand again.

“Heba, Heba, Heba,” Atemu whispered, keeping his lips against Yuugi’s skin so he could draw strength from the love of his life. “I need to. I need to prove this to myself, do this on my own. It’s the only way I’ll ever believe…”

Yuugi waited for something else to be said, knowing it was in vain but praying for it nonetheless. But Atemu didn’t say any more, only kept his head bowed and his mouth pressed against Yuugi’s hands, strength and emotion finally spent. Yuugi gently pulled his hands free and walked backward, turning around to face the house and throw his arms in the air before wrapping them around his stomach. That damned wall had erected around Atemu again, blocking him out and making it clear that the Egyptian’s mind was not going to change. Yuugi spent a few minutes trying to come up with something to say that would keep Atemu with him, eventually lowering his head in defeat when no brilliant strategy presented itself.

“I’ll wait for you,” Yuugi said. And he meant it, with every fiber of his being.

“Don’t, Yuugi,” Atemu said with no hint of harshness. “I don’t want you to waste your life waiting for me. I don’t know how long this is going to take.”

Yuugi turned on his heel, gazing at Atemu over his shoulder, before turning to face him fully. “You told me the other day that I could ask you a question. Does that still apply?”

“Yes.”

“Do you love me?”

Atemu lowered his gaze and his head to the side, watching the ground before blinking slowly and meeting Yuugi’s eyes again. “I do.”

“Then I’ll wait for you,” Yuugi said matter-of-factly. “Because I sure as hell love you.”

Atemu raised a single finger in front of his face and looked sternly at Yuugi. “One year.”

Yuugi nodded in agreement. “No longer than a year.” But in his heart, he knew he’d wait a lifetime for Atemu to come back to him, because without ever meaning too he had gone and fallen in love in a way he had never acknowledged existed.

And it was beautiful.

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Early morning dawned with the sluggishness of a lazy dog being forcefully roused from its bed. The colors of the sunrise had yet been able to break through the gray clouds of the coastal mist and left a haze of calmness that seeped into the bones of every citizen. It was brisk and chilly outside, which was refreshing to those trying to wake for the day, but not so much for those who wanted nothing more than to roll over and go back to sleep. And particularly in one apartment, where the window had been brazenly allowed to remain open during the evening, the cold was not a welcomed visitor.

It had been seven months since Yuugi had moved into his own apartment, made possible in part by his new job as an assistant to a professor of mathematics at Domino University and his family’s desire to see him move on with his life. Not that Yuugi staying in one place for nine months wasn’t a dramatic change in itself, but seeing the young man idling around the house the two months following Atemu’s departure without any real drive or ambition worried Gina and Sugoroku to the point that ‘kicking’ him out on his own had seemed like the best viable form of support. Yuugi hadn’t put up too much of a protest and, once he walked into the third floor apartment, had been eager to get out from beneath his family’s roof. He had been much more cheerful ever since.

Yuugi woke quite suddenly from his prone position on the living room floor, one of the couch cushions under his head as a pillow, when he felt the distinct jab in his stomach from a foot tripping over him, pulling him over onto his side. He cursed, or attempted to, the word slurring out of his mouth as an effect of the night’s activities, and resorted to throwing the cushion at the back of his blond friend in retaliation. “Watch your feet dumbass.”

“’Scuse me, but nature’s calling and I ain’t gonna make her wait,” Jou mumbled as he stumbled his way down the hall to the bathroom. He acknowledged the cushion thrown at his back with an impatient finger and disappeared behind the door.

The exchange woke Anzu, who had won her coveted position on the couch by out-drinking her boys as they’d watched an old Godzilla movie, taking shots each time the monster’s name was spoken/shouted/capitalized in bad American sub-titles. She blinked open bleary eyes and stared at her surroundings without a hint of recognition. “Wha-uh?”

“Jou,” Yuugi explained as he hid his face in his arms, which were now his make-shift pillow.

Anzu blinked. “Oh.” Nothing more needed to be said, really. She pushed herself into a sitting position, the blanket she’d thrown over herself falling to her lap as she reached for the ceiling and stretched her back. “I’m going to make some coffee. I think need we all that… it… caffeine.” She scrunched her face, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort to make herself clearer and headed to the small kitchen. The sounds of her rummaging for the coffee and the filters were enough to wake Honda, who was draped over the recliner Yuugi had managed to steal from his grandfather.

“Did I fall asleep?” he asked the wall.

Yuugi grunted a curt “No.” He lifted his head from his arms. “You passed out right after me. I saw you.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Neither stopped to consider the plausibility of this statement.

Yuugi was on his way to falling back asleep when Jou came back into the room, sneezing gloriously and startling both Honda and Yuugi into full wakefulness. Anzu entered a few moments later with a tray of four mismatched coffee mugs and passed them around to her boys before taking a seat on the couch and wrapping the blanket around her legs.

“Does anyone remember why we’re here?” she asked the room.

Jou pointed in what he assumed to be Honda’s direction (he was wrong) before answering. “Welcoming him back to the group.”

“Oh right,” Anzu said, steeling herself for the mouthful of bitter coffee she was about to intake. She shuddered with revulsion. “And we drank because…?”

“My fault,” Yuugi said, raising his hand in the air but keeping his head lowered so he could stare blankly into his mug. “I had the booze. And the Godzilla movie.” He thought for a difficult moment. “And I wanted to, I think.”

The reconciliation between Yuugi and Honda wasn’t anywhere near complete, and it had taken these past nine months for the tension between them to settle enough that they were not only able, but willing, to talk to each other in an effort to mend the rift between them. Anzu and Jou had almost ruined the opportunity by pushing Yuugi to welcome Honda with their eagerness to get their group back together. Yuugi still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of having Honda in his circle again because, as far as he could tell, the man’s opinion of Atemu had not changed over time. In fact, if anything, Atemu’s departure had only served to strengthen Honda’s belief that the Egyptian had been little more than an opportunistic freeloader. Honda had restrained himself for the sake of the mending friendship, but he had not been able to resist questioning Yuugi if his opinion of Atemu hadn’t at least altered?

Yuugi had refused to answer the question because he didn’t feel Honda had earned a pass into his inner beliefs with the behavior he’d exhibited. It had been a stupid question anyway and Yuugi wasn’t about to give anyone the satisfaction of admitting for the hundredth time that yes, it had hurt when Atemu had moved out on his own without telling him where he was going, but no, he didn’t hate the man for it and had no intention of hating him for it because deep down in his heart he had understood why the man he loved had left. He wasn’t going to waste his time trying to explain his reasoning to his friends because, frankly, it was none of their business. It was still a sore spot between them all, their belief that they were entitled to have knowledge and an opinion of his and Atemu’s relationship, but Jou and Anzu at least made the effort to hold their tongues and offer quiet support. It was yet to be seen if Honda was willing to make the same effort.

“Does anyone remember where I put my keys?” Jou asked. He tilted his head back and finished his coffee in one motion, standing and offering to take other cups in need of refills.

“No,” Honda, Anzu, and Yuugi chorused, with Anzu adding, “Why?”

“Can’t remember,” Jou said with a shrug. “I hate not knowing where my keys are.”

“Definitely no more alcohol in my house,” Yuugi groaned into the hand he’d smashed to his face. “I’ve got a headache I wouldn’t believe.”

“Why did we drink?” Honda asked, taking his refilled cup from Jou. “That isn’t something this group does very often.”

“Better question,” Jou said, plopping down on the floor next to Yuugi and poking him in the shoulder. “Why did you want to drink? Students giving you hell?”

Yuugi blinked his eyes slowly after giving a sidelong glance to his friend. He really didn’t want to admit his need for getting stone-cold drunk the night before. Jou picked up on the flash of sadness in the younger man’s eyes and instantly understood, dropping the subject but putting an arm around Yuugi’s shoulders for a moment in silent support.

“What is it?” Anzu asked, her voice lowered in concern when she saw the gentle way Jou was holding Yuugi.

“It’s nothing,” Jou brushed off easily, removing his arm from Yuugi’s rounded shoulders. “Who’s up for going out for some breakfast? I know I’m in no condition to cook and I’m starved.” His stomach growled to emphasize his point and add to the distraction.

While Jou and Anzu discussed possible locations for breakfast that were in walking distance, because everyone agreed that no one should get behind the wheel of a car, Honda studied Yuugi and his lack of involvement in the conversation. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that his friend was brooding, or sulking, or doing something sad and depressing as he sat there with his eyes downcast, and he didn’t have to think twice before he’d decided what Yuugi’s mind was consumed over.

“Still, Yuugi?” Honda asked, and his voice revealed the irritation he still held over the matter. “He’s still influencing you even though it’s been nine months?”

Jou and Anzu halted their conversation and glared at Honda with disbelief that the man had been unable to hold his tongue for a day regarding Atemu. Honda matched them look for look before relenting by shaking his head and holding his hands up in surrender, though it was obvious to everyone that he didn’t regret what he’d said.

“You’re so dense,” Anzu said harshly.

“Whatever,” Honda muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and pushing himself back into the recliner. “But I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t bother me.”

“You don’t have to the way you broadcast it,” Jou said. His words were that much more potent because he refused to give Honda the respect of looking him in the eye when he spoke them. He wasn’t looking for a fight, and really had no intention of challenging his friend, but he was so tired of Honda always trying to make the whole situation about him when it didn’t involve him in the first place.

“Just stop it.” Yuugi’s quiet voice echoed in the small room and caught the attention of his friends. He raised his head and looked at Anzu and Jou, saying, “I don’t need you two to defend me,” before he turned and looked at Honda with a stronger gaze, “and I most certainly do not need your permission to miss him.”

“But I don’t understand why you do,” Honda countered. “I mean, sure, he lived in your house for awhile, but so what? It wasn’t that long. You usually aren’t hung up on people like this.”

Yuugi closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding it before releasing it slowly in an effort to keep his temper. “How many times must I tell you that I’m not going to explain this to you Honda? Just let it go.”

“I can’t.” Honda leaned forward in the recliner, letting his elbows rest on his knees. “I don’t like feeling threatened or having my turf invaded.”

“What?” Yuugi asked, surprised. He pointedly ignored the comment about the turf, deciding to react to it later when he had more information.

“Look at us, man,” Honda said, much of the antagonism having left his voice in favor of fatigue. He ran both his hands through his hair and flung himself back into the chair, his hands draped over the arms. “We aren’t like this! We’re friends, yet here we are fighting and it’s all because of him.”

Jou flinched after listening to his friend. He didn’t need to look at Yuugi to know that the man did not like what he’d heard and frankly, neither had he. He stole a glance at Anzu and noticed her chewing her lip, a silent communication of ‘oh crap’ passing between them.

“This fight,” Yuugi said slowly, “has nothing to do with him.” He set his empty coffee mug on the floor beside him and folded his knees in preparation to stand. “It has everything to do with you.”

Honda watched Yuugi, dumbstruck, before reacting to the nonverbal challenge. “We were fine until he came along,” he said sternly.

Yuugi took advantage of the following silence to stand fully, and he went out to the kitchen to retrieve a garbage bag, returning to the living room and beginning to collect the empty bottles that littered the floor and table. He kept his attention diverted on his task so he wouldn’t be tempted to glare at Honda for the duration of his speech, which ended up being punctuated with him slamming bottles together occasionally in the bag.

“You were always territorial, Honda. The first day I brought you home you tried to claim the living room as your own, being downright rude and aggressive to my family until I had to knock you off your high horse and get you to realize that you weren’t the one in charge anymore. You even tried to demand I sleep on the floor of my room and give you the bed because you were a guest, remember?”

Honda had the decency to look embarrassed by the mention of his poor behavior, though he remained indignant and unconvinced of what, if any, point this had.

“It transfers to your friends, too,” Yuugi continued, satisfied with Honda’s silence as a sign that he was listening. “I know you’ve had a hard past, and I’ve never asked you to explain it to me, but you can only use that as an excuse for your behavior for so long before it stops being valid.”

“But-!” Honda began, but stopped when Anzu slapped his arm to make him be quiet.

“You feel threatened by him, but it’s not because of anything he’s done. This is all you. He’s never tried to separate me from you guys, even in instances where I feel he should have. I think Jou would agree with me on that.”

Honda and Anzu looked to Jou, who nodded sheepishly in agreement. “He certainly had the opportunity, especially when I was being a real ass, but he actually tried to cover up for me.” He laughed nervously, but with a bit of admiration coloring the sound. “I never expected that from him.”

“But that was just part of his plan,” Honda said quickly before Anzu could silence him again. He looked pleadingly between Anzu and Jou, begging them to agree with him. When Jou looked away and Anzu shook her head, Honda’s mouth dropped open in resentment. “Oh come on! Don’t tell me he fooled you guys too!”

“You don’t react well to change,” Yuugi went on as though he hadn’t been interrupted, twisting the top of the bag so he could tie it close now that he’d collected all the bottles. “And his being here was a big change.”

“The others didn’t bother me,” Honda growled, angry at Yuugi’s implication. “There have been lots of changes since we met and I’ve handled them just fine. He’s the only one I’ve had a problem with!”

Yuugi nodded his head reverentially, the teacher in him rewarding a student for new insight. “All the others were temporary changes, and we all knew that from the start.” He took the bag into the kitchen and set it down next to trash can before returning to the living room, standing behind the couch with his arms crossed and his face stern with resolution. “But Atemu is a permanent change, and that scares the hell out of you.”

“Permanent?” Honda repeated. “How can he be permanent when he isn’t even here?!”

“Because he is the love of my life.”

No one in the room knew how to react to that statement, so Yuugi waited patiently as each of his friends decided how they were going to respond. It was the first time he’d admitted to them the seriousness of his devotion to Atemu. He’d hinted and admitted that he’d fallen for the man, but this proclamation alerted his friends that if they were going to be a part of his life, then Atemu was going to be as well, because as far as Yuugi saw it he was always going to be by Atemu’s side. It didn’t matter that the man wasn’t standing in the room with him now, or that he didn’t know exactly where he was. The love he held in his heart was enough to keep the Egyptian close, and the fact that Atemu had confessed that his own heart laid with Yuugi only made his devotion that much stronger. To hell with only waiting one year for Atemu to return. He was going to wait as long as it took for the two of them to find each other again. It was time his friends understood this.

Jou was the first to recover, nodding his head and picking himself off the floor in search of his keys. “Ol’ Yug settling down,” he said mockingly, flashing a grin to his friend. “Someone’s tamed the wild heart.”

Yuugi laughed good-naturedly, smiling at Anzu when she said, “It’s about time you told us. It was driving me nuts waiting for you to admit it!”

Honda gaped at the three of them while they all partook in the search for Jou’s elusive keys, unwilling to believe what he’d just heard.

“You’re afraid that my feelings for Atemu will affect our relationship,” Yuugi said quietly, having abandoned the search to come and talk to Honda privately. “The only thing it will affect is how much time we spend together. I still consider you a friend, but where we go from here depends entirely on you.”

Honda’s stomach churned like sour milk. “If… if I asked you which was more impo-”

“You don’t want to ask me that,” Yuugi interrupted, though not unkindly. “I’m offering you my friendship, Honda, on the condition that you accept him whether he’s here or not. I know it’s a lot to ask, but it’s the only way you and I will work.”

“I see.” Honda was quiet for several moments, too tired and too hurt to think clearly. “I’m going home,” he said eventually, standing and gathering his coat from the closet. “I’ll…” he hesitated, casting an uncertain glance at Yuugi. When he saw that Yuugi wasn’t going to change his stance he said, “I’ll have to think about it.” He only felt free to leave the apartment once Yuugi nodded his consent, forgetting to say his farewells to Honda and Anzu.

“Should I go after him?” Jou asked the air, immediately deciding against it. “No, he needs to finally decide on this.”

“Are you alright Yuugi?” Anzu asked, coming up to him and placing a hand on his shoulder.

Yuugi looked at her and smiled easily. “I’m fine, Anzu. And I’m hungry. Let’s find Jou’s keys so we can get out of here and get some food.”

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Four days later Yuugi met Honda at a local diner, where the two came to the mutual agreement of putting their friendship on hiatus. If the other were ever in an emergency the lines of communication would be open, but other than that they were no longer going to be active participants in each other’s lives. And though the split brought sadness with it, each man felt as though they had maintained their integrity and viewed the other warmly.

For Honda, it was a moment that would remain with him for the rest of his life as he continuously missed the enlightened friendship Yuugi offered.

For Yuugi, it was the beginning of his ability to love Atemu freely, no longer bound by the opinion of others. It was the start of a new life.

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to be concluded…