Souvenir

Disclaimer: Just own the words, not the folks.

The Play - Reprise

I’m startled from a light slumber by the phone ringing. The
clock on the bed table flashes 4:53 am at me and I groan. Rolling over slowly,
I drag the receiver to my ear.

“We
just got to our new hotel,” Yami gushes to my sleep
fogged brain. “We’re at the Hotel Le Medecis in Blois.”

It’s
a little hard to understand him, which I attribute to my less than 3 hours of
sleep.

“Mmm,” I nod, belatedly realizing
that he can’t see me.

Yami has called me every day since
they left to tell me about what he and Raphael have been doing on their trip.

Usually at a more reasonable hour, though. He’ll probably
have to work overtime to pay the phone bill this month.

“I
had the most exquisite escargot for lunch at La Cave Moines. It’s an underground mushroom and escargot farm in Chenehutte,”
he continues in an excited slur.

The realization that he’s actually slurring his words shocks
me awake.

“Yami, are you drunk?” I gape into
the phone.

“Maybe
a little,” he laughs. “But it’s not my fault! After breakfast we went to St. Hilaire-St. Florent for a visit and tasting of Vouvray
at Bouvet-Ladubay. Not that you would know this, but Vouvray is the largest white wine appellation of the region
where we’re staying. And it’s made exclusively from the Chenin
Blanc!  And since the 4th century it’s been
grown only in this region! I had to sample it a bit.

“A bit!” I hear Raphael laugh in the
background. “It’s supposed to be a wine ‘tasting’, Yami.
Not a wine guzzling!”

“I wasn’t guzzling!” Yami responds to him with an even more pronounced slur.

“Right!” Raphael laughs. “Tell Seto how much you ‘tasted’ Yami!”

“Whatever,” Yami grumbles.

“As long as you had fun, Yami,” I offer, amused by the picture that his inebriated
state brings to my mind.

Not that we haven’t indulged a few
times, occasionally with Raphael and Rebecca, but I’ve never actually seen Yami anything past a little buzzed.

“It was a lot of fun!” he gushes again.
“And then after that fabulous lunch we went to the Chateau of Blois, where the
King of France stayed a lot.  And Joan of
Arc went there once to have her banner blessed!”

“Tell him about dinner, Yami!” Raphael yells in the background.

“I’m getting to that!” Yami yells back, obviously forgetting, in his less than
sober state, that he’s holding the phone right at his mouth.

I hold the phone away from my face and
then lay it on the pillow beside me as he goes on to yammer excitedly about ‘Le
Medecis’ and that it was ‘the best meal he’s ever had
in his life’ and the ‘locally exclusive wines served with each course.’

“Raph and I
probably finished off a bottle each, but it was so worth it!” he reveals.

“Is that why you’re feeling no pain, Yami?” I tease.

“Well, I may have had a few drinks at
lunch as well,” he confesses.

“Stop lying to him, Yami,”
Raphael admonishes.

Now that he’s closer to the phone, I
can hear that he’s just as drunk as Yami. I wonder if
Raphael’s phone bill will be just as high. If not, maybe Yami
will have him help with ours.

“What would you know?” Yami challenges.

I hear a brief scuffle and then Raphael
is on the phone telling me about the three out of four bottles of wine Yami finished off at the tasting, the three bottles they
shared at lunch and the two and a half bottles they knocked off at dinner.

“Stop telling him that!” Yami screams drunkenly. There’s a loud crash and the line
goes dead.

I resist the
urge to laugh out loud, opting instead to hang up the phone and try to get a
little more sleep before class.

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“I promise we’ll go
together next time,” Yami had moaned into my ear,
before coming against my stomach with a loud gasp. It wasn’t long before I’d
followed him into bliss, the contracting walls of his tight passage pulling me
along. We’d collapsed together in shared satisfaction.

The next day he and Raphael headed to Lyon, France
for the World Pastry Cup and Post-Tour. Rebecca had driven the lot of us to the
airport and then dropped me off at work. Yami had wanted
me to stay in the suite at the Wyndam while they were
gone, but I’d promised him that I’d be fine at home alone.

I’ve spent most of my life alone.

After my dad died and before my mom married Gozaboro, she worked a lot to take care of us, so I was home
alone more often than not. And then when my mom and I lived with Gozaboro, I was alone a lot as well. After Mokuba and I ran away and he’d been adopted, I’d found
myself alone again.

Even while I stayed with Mr. Mouto…He’d
been kind to me; he’d listened to my story, but I still could only allow him to
get but so close…

And then those years I lived on the streets…

I shiver in remembrance as I sip my tea, the sound seeming
to echo in the empty kitchen.

Yami’s only going to be gone for
16 days, barely two weeks. It’s not so long that I shouldn’t be able to stay
here in this house by myself until he gets home.

But still…

I look around the quiet space, trying to find calm in the
pervasive silence.

Downing the rest of my lukewarm tea in one gulp, I escape to
the living room. I turn on the TV to add some sound to the suddenly
oppressively quiet house. Wrapping the blanket from the back of the couch
around me, I settle in to watch the end of one of Yami’s
Wednesday night dramas. I barely pay the story any attention, but allow the
familiar cantor of voices to lull me to sleep.

My hope that the comfortable setting would allow me to
actually sleep tonight is dashed quicker than I’d expected. The news which
follows the drama has barely started when I awake gasping for air and clutching
the blanket around me.

I’ve talked to him nearly everyday,
and most of the 6 nights that he’s been gone, but it’s not the same as having
him here. I didn’t realize until now how much I depended on Yami’s
presence beside me to sleep.

Every time I close my eyes, Gozaboro
is there. Death removed him from my world, but hasn’t driven him from my
memories; my dreams. Sleeping beside Yami kept him
away.

The phone ringing startles me, but I reach for it eagerly
since I’m certain that it’s Yami.

“Missed me so much you had to call again?” I taunt when I
pick up the handset, only to be met with silence.

“Yami?’ I
press.

“Um, no,” a familiar, yet strangely
sedate, voice replies.

“Rebecca?”

“It’s not like I’m lonely or scared or anything,” she seems
to trip over herself explaining. “It’s just so boring with Raph
gone. And I thought that you might be bored too with Yami
gone, so I figured that we could be bored together!”

I don’t claim to know Rebecca well at all, but what I do know
of her suggests that her being lonely or bored without Raphael is highly
unlikely.

All at once, I remember part of my conversation with Yami earlier.

“You sound tired. Are
you getting enough sleep?” he’d asked.

I smile to myself; trust Yami to
recruit Rebecca to check up on me.

“That’s fine,” I agree to her assertion.

We start off talking about the news, move past her plans for
a third doctorate, into a serious discussion of ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’ and
onto the latest computer technology. Dawn catches us debating which of Yami’s pastries tastes the best.

“Crap, is that the sun?” Rebecca yawns loudly into the
phone.

“It is,’ I affirm with a quieter yawn.

“I have a class in two hours,” she groans.

“And my class starts in three,” I note. “So we should
probably get off the phone.”

“Yeah. Later, Seto!”

“Good-bye, Rebecca. And thank you.” I want her to know that
I appreciate her kindness.

“I don’t know what you mean, Seto,”
she yawns. “I was just keeping myself from being bored. Bye!”

I shake my head at the hasty dial tone. Dropping the blanket
back onto the couch, I head up to our room. Hopefully a hot shower will wake me
up enough so that I won’t sleep through my morning classes.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I’m grateful for the distraction of my prep classes; they
give my mind something else to focus on other than the temporary emptiness of
that house.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I work from 9:30 am to
1:30 pm and then go to class from 2:30 pm to 6:30 pm. I’ll eat something light
when I get home, do my homework and usually fall into a fitful sleep on the
couch around 11:30 pm.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to class from 9:00 am to 3:30
pm and then work from 4:30 pm to closing, which usually means I get home about
12:30 am. I’ll then do homework from about 1:00 am to 3:00 am. If I don’t fall
asleep at my desk, I’ll crawl into Yami’s bed, our bed, and get about three hours of
restless sleep.

I have Saturdays free to catch up on any homework or reading
I didn’t do during the week. Sundays I work from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm.

Yami had wanted me to cut back on
my working hours because he thought that I wouldn’t get enough sleep, but I reassured
him that I would be fine. And before he left on his trip, I truly believed
that.

But facing that empty bed every night is so much harder than
I’d expected. I often find myself counting the days until his return.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Koizomi!”

I snap awake at the sound of my boss’s voice, the item I was
scanning on the floor at my feet and the store patron in front of me frowning
disapprovingly.

“I apologize for my employee’s rudeness,” he bows to the
matronly woman. “I assure you that this will not happen again. Please accept
another of your chosen item free of charge.”

The woman huffs in disdain, grabs another of the item she
was purchasing from the shelf and briskly exits the store.

“I apologize for neglecting my duties,” I incline my head
politely.

“I depend on you, Koizomi,” my
boss frowns. “You know that I like you, but if you are unable to work the hours
you accepted while you go to school, then I’ll have to make other
arrangements.”

“I won’t betray your trust again,” I vow.

“It’s fine,” he pats me kindly on
the shoulder. “But maybe you should get more sleep.”

I nod dumbly at his light admonition.

 

Two more days and Yami will be
home. I just need to last until then.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Seto!” Yami exclaims in shock as I crush him in my arms when he
exits the plane. The disapproving murmurs around us fade into the background as
I savor the close contact.

It’s been too long. 16 days was too long to be apart from
him. I know I’m appearing desperate, but I don’t care. I haven’t slept since I
passed out at the register on Thursday evening; haven’t eaten since Friday
morning.

I didn’t mean to become this dependant on him; didn’t mean
to need him this much.

“Seto?” he questions in concern as
I bury my face against his neck and cling to him.

How weak must I appear in his eyes at this moment? I’d
assured him that I’d be fine; bragged that I am perfectly capable of living
without him for ‘such a short period of time.’

I couldn’t make one night.

I’m not sure how it happened, but I find myself in a
secluded place seated beside Yami; my head in his lap
and those desperately-missed fingers stroking through my hair.

I close my eyes.